Crozier's Operation

Becoming his usual self again, Bridgens had to grin at the marine's response. Truth to tell, he could do with a tot of rum himself.

Everett leaned his head back and opened his mouth. Then closed it, and asked, before the drug took his senses away. "You'll get the ball out back on the Terpsy, won't you, all right and tight... I don't want to wake up and find you've cut the leg off..." Or not wake up at all, which he was not going to think about.

"I will endeavor to save your leg, Private Everett, never fear," said Stephen, closing his eyes as he heard another bubbling cough from Barrow.

"Yeah, well, you do that, cully - uh, doctor, sir." Everett closed his own eyes, more aware of the dull, heated throbbing from his own thigh than the troubles of others. "'N' I'll thank you."

Stephen stood up as Everett sank into sleep, and he looked around for Yates, the boy was sitting on the end of an old Roman jetty, reeds around his dangling feet. There was yet another bubbling cough from Barrow; the man was slowly drowning in his own blood. If only there was some way... "Mister Yates!"

Peter kept watch, on his little command, and on the sea. Between them and the cape, the sea was arrowed with waves, coming into the bay and up the river. A muddy mixture of blues and browns close at hand, but clearing to a deep dark blue to the west, under the Cape, and beyond. A sea with no ships on it.

The doctor's voice made him turn his head. "Sir?" He swung his feet up and trotted along the stone wall. "Yes, Sir?"

"Bring me a reed - the widest one you can find! Hurry!"

"Yes, Sir." Now Peter returned along the bank beneath the old wall, to where the reeds grew. The widest would probably be in the centre of the stand ... He drew his dirk and cut it as close to the ground as possible, cut a second one for luck, and ran back. "Sir."

Narrow, but maybe... "Thank you, Mister Yates," he said as he strode, determined, to where Barrow was lying.

Peter followed, in case he was needed for anything else. The ship would come, or would not come - perhaps it was like watched pots, though that was demonstrably untrue... He did not like the look on Barrow's face, or the sound of his breathing, but he should stay. He was in command, after all.

The first thing to do was to remove the excess blood from the lungs - after that, he would widen the hole caused by the bullet to allow it to drain out on his own. But first... "Hold him very still." Stephen gently moved the end of the hollow reed through the wound, and into Barrow's lung.

Quinn was kneeling beside his two wounded Marines, wondering whether he could have done anything better. They were in a much better position than Barrow, who seemed to be coughing his lungs out, poor thing. If Barrow died, it was going to hit everyone aboard hard, from the Captain down to the youngest nipper.

His two men were going to make it. Hopefully they would both be able to return to duty soon, though they'd each have a new scar to show. He glanced over in the direction of Barrow. The doctor was leaning over him, and Quinn hoped he might be able to produce a miracle, somehow.

The end of the reed was in the lung now, but the blood was not flowing from it - quite understandably. "You, pinch his nose. You, cover his mouth." Two sailors around Barrow did this, and Stephen quickly bent his head, put his lips to the reed and sucked.

Billy didn't care what the doctor wanted to do, but he wished he would leave him alone now. He didn't want his last minutes to be spent with a doctor poking around, even if he couldn't feel it any more. He just wanted to sit here with his mates, with Chase and the lads, and maybe Mister Yates, good lad. "Cob," he whispered harshly, reaching out for his friend, just before they covered his mouth and nose. Hell! Where they trying to kill him faster?

It took an iron will not to vomit when Stephen turned his head and spat the blood from his mouth. It was dripping from the reed now. "Let him breathe," he said, about to retch. "Water."

Billy had been too weak to fight against his mates as they tried to smother him. He had put up only a feeble struggle and had seen nothing of the doctor's procedure. Now he sputtered and took a shallow ragged breath, closing his eyes. When he coughed immediately after, the stream of blood spurted out through the makeshift catheter along with clumps of more solid matter.

Fumbling slightly, amazed at what he'd seen, M'clure passed over the canteen, unstoppering it on it's journey. "THere yer are, sir."

No more coughing up blood, at least as far as he could tell. Not that he wasn't still loosing it, but still.

Stephen spat again and took the canteen, swilling a mouthful of water around his mouth and spitting again. The taste of blood was fainter now; he no longer felt paralysed with nausea. He watched Barrow cough and looked at the blood from the reed-catheter; there was solid matter - not a clot he thought, picking it up, but a piece of cloth.

Doctor Maturin had picked something up, a lump or some sort which had come out of the reed, though M'Clure couldn't see what it was, at all.
GIngerly he shifted and leaned over, trying to work out what it was without bothering the man with questions. He looked like he'd had enough of those for several days.

"Cloth," Stephen croaked to M'Clure; speaking made the taste come back tenfold, and he stood up quickly.

M'Clure nodded at the answer, than looked up sharply as the Doctor stood. He hadn't sounded too well just then...He stood himself, holding out the canteen, torn between tipping it all down the Doctors throat and trying to look after him that way and the self preservation which told him he'd get his head snapped off.

M'Clure stood with him; Stephen ignored him and walked briskly to a safe distance, and vomited. Once the buzzing in his head died away he felt much better, and walked back to Barrow, holding his hand out for the canteen. "Forgive me, Mister M'Clure. The cloth is gone; I will enlarge the hole, and attempt to find the bullet."

M'Clure nodded once and picked up the instruments from where they'd been left, lying them out on their cloth. "Aye, sir. Here yer are."

Quietly he shooed Young from his spot near the reed, getting him to hold down Barrows legs instead, and made a quick trip across to retreive the belt which had been used previously. The same preperations that would be made for any operation, in fact, though again it was strange to be doing them in such surroundings.

What ever next? Why wouldn't they leave him alone and let him die in peace with his friends? Billy tried to push them away, tried to grab at the stick that was protruding from his chest like a small spear. "Cob," he whispered piteously. Cob would protect him, surely!

"COme on now, Barrow...yer mustn't talk. T'Doctor wants ter try something." M'Clure gestured for Cob to say something similar, to reassure Barrow that there was more hope than he was currently beleiving there was.