Shoulder the Sky_ A Novel - Anne Perry [122]
Joseph felt a lurch of horror so intense for an instant he was unable to move.
“Y’all right, sport?” Blue said hoarsely. “Look like you seen a ghost! Here.” He half hauled a blood-soaked body forward. One arm was shattered, the hand gone altogether, and its left foot was blown away. “See what you can do for him, will you? He . . . he was a good bloke.” His eyes pleaded to be told something better than the truth he already knew.
“Of course,” Joseph gulped, dizzy with a surge of relief that it was not Blue, although it was senseless. Blue was going straight back up into the fire, and it could be him next time, or the time after. Only a fool would imagine any of them had much of a chance of coming out of this without some fearful wound. Perhaps those who died quickly were among the fortunate. Their families would grieve, but that was secondary to the hell that was going on here, now.
He took the dying man from Blue and told him to go back. There was no need for him to remain and watch.
Blue waved his hand and, ducking low, started back up again, rifle slung over his shoulder, feet scrabbling on the stones.
Joseph bent to the man on the ground. He was gray-faced, but still breathing. There was no way of knowing if he was conscious enough to feel the pain, or understand what had happened to him, but Joseph spoke to him as if he did.
“Hang on there,” he said calmly. “You’re in the first-aid station now. We’ll patch you up. Give you something for the pain, as soon as we get a bit further down.”
The man’s eyelids fluttered. It might have been because he heard, or just a response to the agony in his body.
Joseph took a wet rag and cleaned the man’s face gently. It was a totally pointless gesture in every practical sense, but it showed someone cared. If he was even half conscious he would at least know he was not alone.
Ten minutes later he died, and Joseph moved to the next batch of wounded brought down. He helped medical orderlies, most of whom had little training. One was a veterinary surgeon from somewhere in New Zealand. He was skilled and worked with frantic dedication and an air of confidence. It was very reassuring to those who did not see his moments of panic as he reached for medicines and equipment he did not have, and fumbled now and then in human anatomy.
“Thanks, Padre,” he said as Joseph handed him a bandage, then held the injured man’s white-knuckled hand while the wound was bound up. “Where’d you come from?” he went on conversationally. “You speak like a Pommie.” He finished his bandaging and eased the man up.
Joseph leaned forward quickly to help, taking the man’s weight. “That’s right,” he agreed. “Cambridgeshire.”
“You mean where they have the boat race?” His face lit up. “I’d like to see that.” He washed the bench down with creosol.
“Actually they have it on the Thames, near London, but we row against Oxford, every year.”
The vet grinned. “Don’t always win, though, do you!”
“Not always,” Joseph conceded. He held the next man while the vet straightened a dislocated limb, but there was no time to wait for the waves of agony to pass before moving the man and starting on the next.
“Train a lot of horses in Newmarket, don’t you?” the vet asked, jerking his head to indicate that he needed Joseph’s help lifting a dead man so he could reach the living. “Love horses. God, I hate to see them hurt!”
Later Joseph helped carry the injured down to the beach and onto tenders to take them out to the hospital ships. It was there that he met Mason again, who was also exhausted and covered with blood. He had lost his hat, and his black hair was falling over his face. There was a gentleness in his hands as he lifted the wounded and eased them into half-decent positions of comfort that momentarily masked the savage rage inside him.
It showed again later when close to exhaustion he stopped for an hour. He and Joseph sat together drinking scalding tea with rum in it, their backs against a pile of ammunition crates. Joseph was so tired every muscle in his body ached