The sick bay

"Aye, aye, sir," Thompson said and hopped back outside. "I was goin' to change me trousers just as soon as, only de Guarde insisted I come an' see you in case I'd made me ankle worse'n it was, sir."

"Beggin' yer pardon, yer honor," Bridgens said, interrupting again. "But there ain't no cot in the dispensary. I mean in Doctor Crozier's cabin. I mean Mister Crozier's cabin. I mean, that he been sleepin' in the dispensary only they took down the cot to change the hooks around."

Thompson looked sideways at de Guarde. "He meant you, Mathew, lad. You c'n lend him my clean trousers if he wants them - run along to our messdeck an' ask someone to show you my seachest. My trousers'll be folded up neat-like under me hat."

"I believe I have been using Mister Crozier's cabin - we shall move him in there," he said to Bridgens. "It cannot be a great deal worse, Thompson - you can walk on it, a little, and I doubt that I shall have to cut it off for a sprain." He looked up, and was surprised and annoyed to see the horse-boy - De Guarde - still there. "Now, boy. Thompson will need his own clean trousers, and they will probably be too large for me in any case, so I leave the task to your own resourcefulness. Go."

Billy had been hovering outside the sickbay for a while, watching the officers going in and out, and now the visiting doctor himself had come out, quite smeared with blood.

"Is he dead?" he asked in alarm.

Him, the nerve that he had chosen to order him to fetch him his clothes. The boy hadn't believed even as Thompson had said it , but lastly it was the doctor that repeated it again. He pursed his lips into a tight line, his hands resting at his sides perhaps, but kept in small fists.

"...Can ye check on 'is injury 'tleast, sir. Jus' to be sure." He asked then turned. Look for the slops? A pair could certainly be found at the purser's. He bit back a retort that was threatening to come.

"No, he is not dead," Stephen snapped, his head feeling as though it would split right along the coronal suture. "You may report to what is undoubtedly the entire messroom that Mister Crozier has a fractured skull, the result of an altercation with General Wellesley's horse, and everything possible is being done for him."

He turned to De Guarde, eyes narrowed in a fierce reptilian stare. "Be sure of what? If I check upon Private Thompson's sprained ankle, you need not be here. Take yourself away, find some pantaloons, and then return to your duty."

Thompson grasped the lad's shoulder firmly but gently, and shook his head a little before letting him go and looking at the doctor.

"I'm sorry to bother you, sir. I din't think it was any worser," he said. "An', well, you'm busy with Mister Crozier." He hesitated a moment, and then turned to go.

"I am indeed - if by this evening you are in a great deal of pain, Thompson, come back and I shall give you two drops of laudanum. Was the bandage soiled?"

"I'll change his bandage for him," Bridgens volunteered with the utmost meekness he could manage, startled by the doctor's savage face.

He felt Thompson's hand on his shoulder. It felt almost as if it was trying to stop him, as often the hand of friends did between those that argued.

De Guarde turned, and had to draw nails into his flesh that he didn't say something that he could later fully regret. He did mutter more silently though that :' the doctor was a guest and had no place nor right to order people around,..' more of that mutter was lost to the wind, only his lips moving as he started ahead to find the purser.

He perked at the mention of laudanum as he was a few paces away. He turned briefly to look at the doctor. So this one did give something for the pain. Interesting.

And then he realised that he'd better indeed do as asked, and so left down the companionway, to at last find that pair of pantaloons.

"I...I..." He shrugged helplessly. "Couldn't see, sir, under all the dirt from the deck. It weren't afore, I know that. It hurts a bit worse than it did earlier. I mean, I had to stand on it to pull Mister Crozier away from the horse. And then I was kneelin' down, restin' on it, which hurt, too. But it ain't, well, it ain't a great deal o' pain."

He wondered precisely what the Doctor meant by 'a great deal of pain' anyway, and he was supposed to tell.

"Thank you, Bridgens," Stephen said, momentarily mollified by the young man's obeisance. "You know how?"

He cast an analytical eye over the Marine's face - he was not pale, or grey, or sweating, so he was not in any great deal of pain. "If it is not broken, Thompson, then there is nothing I can do, except tell you to keep off it, and not go hopping around the height and length of the ship visiting the horse-boys. Go to the Marine's berth, and stay there - is that what Mister Crozier told you to do?"

Bridgens nodded and went back into the sickbay to prepare the dressing, just as he had done earlier that morning. He was glad enough for an excuse to get out of range of the doctor's wrath. Fiery one he was, for all he looked small and quiet when in a calm temper!

"He... he told me to stay off of it, sir. An' to try to keep it up, which I have done. Only, well, I got a bit bored, sir. I swear I ain't walked on it or nothin', sir. Mister Crozier give me a crutch, which I bin usin'. An' it was the first time I bin anywhere in two days, sir. He said... he said I was on the sick list till Monday, sir, then he'd see about whether I could do light duties when I seen him then, sir."

He'd never liked people glaring at him, and Doctor Maturin's was one of the most uncomfortable glares he'd experienced. He swallowed nervously.

"You 'got a bit bored'. I see." Stephen was shorter than Thompson, but stared up at him relentlessly. "And what day is it today, Private Thompson?"

Thompson was standing to attention as much as he could, supported by a crutch and with one foot off the deck. "Friday, sir."

He hadn't put any weight on his foot since he'd ricked it. Well, he'd had to a little, a very little, using the companionway, but that had been twice only, and a very little weight because he couldn't bear it. It had really only been for balance, but he couldn't say that because it would sound like an excuse.

"I ain't left the Marines' berthdeck since I done it, sir, 'ceptin' to use the roundhouse. Which I had permission to use, sir."

"Private Thompson," said Stephen, lowering his voice so that only the Marine could hear. "You were in the hold during the accident, and you did well. But you know exactly what I am now dealing with, more than most on this ship. I have to prepare for an operation which has a high chance of mortality, on a ship I do not know, with crew I do not know. I do not know whether the operation will take place on the land or on the sea, and I have to watch Mister Crozier closely until then. And you come to me with a sprained ankle. It is unthinking selfishness, Private Thompson, and having known you as a kind-hearted man on the Surprise I would not have expected it from you."

"Yes, sir. Never meant to bother you with it, sir." How could he get himself out of this mess, without blaming anyone else? He knew what the Doctor had to do - he'd seen him do it to one of the sailors on Surprise, after all.

"Didn't expect you to deal with it, sir. I just hoped mebbe Bridgens could... or I'll ask one of the sailors to, sir. I'm... I'm sorry, sir."

And just how many times did he need to say 'sir' anyway?!

"As it happens, I have a way for you to make amends. Should I be called away for some reason, you will sit with Mister Crozier, one hand taking his pulse and the other checking his breathing, and raise the alarm should either falter. It will do no damage to your ankle either."

Running errands like some servant boy, De Guarde felt in a rather sour mood when he had to leave his friend with that damned doctor. Carrying the pair of pantaloons he had somehow obtained folded in his hold he approached the two. He looked to Thompson first seeing the man look none the happiest. He looked to Maturin then none the kindest and held the pantaloons towards him. "..Here.."

He lifted his hand pulling at the dressing on his eye a little. It had cooled off alright, and though Dr. Crozier asked to come back to him, when it did , he was not intending to ask this doctor about it. A very unpleasant man, a landlubber for sure, atleast in something Thompson must've been wrong. Else how could he have splashed, - he grinned to himself at the memory - into the water less gracefully than even their freshest addition to the crew.

Stephen turned away from Thompson and took the offered pantaloons - too big, no doubt, but better than too small, and scrutinised the boy who was staring at him with no small amount of insubordination.

"Why are you smiling?"

".. No reason." He answered , dropping his hands to his sides. Ah the image of this man wet and and embarrassed being fished out of the water .. He felt his grin slip back onto his face, and he did not bother to remove it this time.

"Are you pleased that Mister Crozier may now die because he sought to stop harm from coming to you?" asked Stephen, his voice silky and dangerous.

".." De Guarde blinked. The doctor might've known an injury when he saw it, but this time he was way off with his guess. "No. No, it wasn't that." He sounded startled. "I hope he is well soon, doctor." His grin dropping to a smile and even that fainter.