Kindred Hearts (45 page)

“Studying under Crosby, eh? Man’s a crackpot, but a good surgeon.” He drilled Tristan for a few minutes on various surgical procedures, then said, “We’ve got preparations set in a handful of general hospitals, but only one in Brussels. The general hospital here is well staffed with Belgian physicians and surgeons; they’re prepared to handle the casualties that can be sent here. The regimental medical officers will handle the bulk of the battlefield injuries whenever possible. You’ve not got the experience of a surgeon, but we may need you as an assistant here, under the locals. Working in a poor hospital like St. Joseph’s, you’ve probably got more trauma experience than some of the surgeons here, but they won’t like you stepping on their toes. Politics,” he said in disgust. “Still, we’ll have use for you.”

“I’ll be happy to help where I can.” Tristan said. “Can you even estimate how many wounded we’ll be dealing with?”

“God only knows. Whatever He sees fit to send us, I suppose. I’ll put you in touch with a couple of others who’ll be in the city,” Grant promised. “Have you lodgings in town?”

“The rue de Valois,” Tristan said. “Number 4.”

“Good,” Grant said absently. “Close. We’ll have work for you by noon, I imagine. I’ll send someone over in the morning to give you an update, let you know where you’ll be needed. Because you will be needed, Mr. Northwood. You will be needed.”

Tristan
woke late on the seventeenth from a troubled sleep, after falling into an exhausted slumber some time before dawn. Reston, bringing his breakfast, filled him in on what he’d missed: the panic engendered by a troop of artillery moving through the streets thought to be in retreat, when they were actually on their way to the battlefield, and the actual retreat of a squad of Belgian cavalry that had set the town into a frenzy. Those events had been closer to dawn; the town had been quiet for the last hour. He dressed quickly, not waiting for Reston to attend him, and went out into the street to see what was happening.

Wounded had been stumbling into the city since afternoon yesterday; Grant had filled the promise made at the Richmonds’ the night before and sent a Dr. Maartens to Tristan’s door in the morning. The doctor had introduced Tris to some of the other regimental army surgeons, but by late afternoon most of them had gone out to the battlefield near Quatre Bras to their posts. Maartens, who was not, he informed Tristan in a superior manner, an
army surgeon
, but an Important Local Physician, remained in charge. Tristan didn’t like him, but he had to admit he seemed to know what he was doing and was competent as well at organizing the rest of the Belgian doctors who’d appeared like manna from heaven. They sorted through the new arrivals as they came in, mostly on foot, weeding out the ones who required immediate care from the ones who could wait and the ones, God help them, who had walked the miles from the battlefield only to die on the cobbles of the Brussels streets.

Today was different. Here was a scene of complete and appalling chaos. Literally staggering at the sight of scores of men lying or sitting on the pavement, burnt and torn and bloody, Tristan stared in stunned disbelief.
Good God
, he thought. Perhaps it was a rout, a total loss, and Napoleon ascendant again… but then, from deeper in the city, the clatter of hooves heralded some other troop headed for the Gate. It was a cavalry regiment, in their bright red jackets and horsehair-topped helmets; heavy dragoons with their muskets and swords shining, fresh troops from Ostend or somewhere else up the line. And they were headed out the Namur road, toward the fighting, not away. If it was a rout, they would have been going the other way, wouldn’t they?

The troop slowed as they approached the wounded men, and a ragged cheer went up from the bodies on the ground. As one, the dragoons raised their swords in salute to the wounded, and they cheered again. The Gate swallowed them up, but Tristan heard the pounding of hooves as the troop broke into a canter on the more open road beyond.

It was a moment of grace in a scene of particular gracelessness. Tristan blinked and looked down at the crowds of wounded, then at the people moving among them, men, women, even some children, some in the tidy working-dress of the bourgeois, some in the shabbier garb of the serving class; nuns in their stiff black habits; even some in the silks and muslins of the aristocracy. They carried buckets with dippers of water, rags to wipe sweat or blood from skin, bundles of bandages. A few men were loading men on stretchers and carrying them to carts standing nearby. Dr. Maartens was nowhere in sight.

Tristan went to join the men loading carts. “Where are they going?”

“Some to the hospital,” one of the men said, “some to the church; they’ve set up a sort of hospital there, the nuns have, at any rate. I’ve heard the priests aren’t too happy having ‘goddamns’ in their church.” The man chuckled. “That’s what they call the British soldiers, you know. ‘Goddamns’, because of their foul language. But I don’t think the nuns even blink. They’re a tough race. Here, give us a hand.” He and Tris went to lift the wounded man onto the cart, but he screamed pathetically and a fresh gout of blood soaked Tristan’s sleeve. The other man looked at Tristan, his gaze significant; Tristan realized the wounded man didn’t have much of a chance unless he could get stitched quickly. “Here,” he said, “let me see.” He climbed into the cart and eased the man over on his side. He pulled his shirt out of his trousers and tore off a strip, folding it into a pad and placing it over the wound and tying it tightly in place. “It won’t help much,” he said, “but it might slow the bleeding until he gets more attention.” As they turned to help another man onto the cart, Tristan said, “I need my kit.” He called over a boy who was giving water to soldiers and sent him off to tell Reston to pack up and deliver the bag he kept his medical kit in.

The other man was looking at him strangely. “Are you a doctor? A surgeon?”

“Not really. I’ve been studying surgery, but I have some little experience with wounds,” Tristan said.

“That’s more than most of us have. I’m Derek Chamberlain, by the way. Solicitor to the Seymours. Came in with some papers to sign two days ago. They’re still waiting.”

“Tristan Northwood.” They shook bloody hands.

“Northwood? Isn’t that the Wares?”

“It is. My brother-in-law’s with Wellington; my wife sent me over to keep an eye on him. Not that I’d be able to find him in this mess if he did get hurt.” Tristan swallowed fear and turned to look over the sea of red and blue jackets, most of them muddied to dirt color.

“It’ll get worse before it gets better,” Chamberlain said ruefully.

“What’s the word? I worked with the medical teams yesterday, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as this.”

“They were slow moving the wounded out after the battles yesterday,” Chamberlain said as they moved to help another from a litter. “And word came late that the Germans were badly broken along their line. Most of them just came in overnight.”

“And they’ve been lying here since?” Tristan felt sick. “It wasn’t this bad in the small hours when I went home! Why did no one enlist help?”

“They have been, but a good many people left Brussels yesterday. Wellington was fit to be tied, with them clogging up the Ostend road and him trying to keep communications open.”

“I spent yesterday trying to get information, but it’s scattered. I know that the attack on Mons was only a feint, and that the bulk of the fighting was at Quatre Bras, but not much more than that.” The cart, full, rumbled off, and they picked up the litter and carried it through the wounded to where another man waved for it.

“Thanks, Chamberlain,” the man said, and Tristan and he lifted the wounded soldier onto the litter. “It’s a bad break but the surgeons are all busy. Hullo, Northwood.”

“Bellingham? Good God, what are you doing here?”

“Came in with the Conynghams but caught a catarrh and been in bed for a week.”

Tristan looked at the twisted wreck of the soldier’s arm. “I think I could set this if I had something to splint it,” he said.

“Use this,” Chamberlain said, handing him what looked like a broken piece of lance. “It’s mad what they’ll hang onto, even unconscious; there’s dreck like this everywhere.”

Tristan dug out his pocketknife and cut off the sleeve of the uniform jacket, afraid to put him through the torture of removing it. Then he cut away his shirt sleeve.

“Oh,
Christus
,” Chamberlain swore. The bone pressed against the skin of the man’s upper arm, purple and grotesquely misshapen.

Tristan worked his fingers around the injury. It looked bad, but he didn’t feel a lot of pieces of bone, and the skin wasn’t broken. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said to the men, and to the patient, who stared up at him with pain-deadened eyes, uncomprehending. “I think we can save it.” With Chamberlain’s help, and Bellingham holding the man still, Tristan drew the arm out straight, pulling on the elbow to ease the bone back into place. Then with Chamberlain still holding the arm immobile, Tristan used the man’s shirtsleeve and another strip from his own shirt hem to lash the arm to the piece of broken lance. “It didn’t break the skin, and that’s a blessing,” he said absently as he worked. “Minimizes the risk of infection. If it heals clean, he’ll use it again.”

“Where did you learn that, Northwood?” Bellingham asked curiously. “Setting up as a surgeon?”

“Following my benighted brother-in-law around a hospital,” Tristan said. “You learn fast when you’re overwhelmed like that. He’s studying to be a physician.” He tied off the last of the linen. “But I’m good at pitching in like Chamberlain here, so I got some experience.” He wasn’t about to talk about his aborted career; the pain was still too fresh. He rose from his crouching position and surveyed the scene, not seeing details, but aware of all of it. “Is anyone coordinating things here? We need to move the less seriously injured out of the way and try and get more of them under cover. The sun will be high soon; it’s early yet but it will be hot and we don’t need them baking any more than they have. Even some canvas. We’ll need water. And bandages. And we’ll need housing for them; Bellingham, you’ve got an aristocratic name—use it to get some doors open to us. It’s Brussels and it’s June, so it’s either going to be raining or hot. Chamberlain, let’s see if we can’t get some of this lot sorted out….”

When
he got Tristan’s message, Reston sent the boy back with the kit, and a little later, Will to find out what happened. The footman found his master in the midst of blood and chaos, kneeling beside a bare-chested soldier, stitching an ugly gash in the man’s side. He was saying cheerfully, “You’re a lucky man, Sergeant! It’s a clean cut, went straight in and out and never touched a thing. Better than a musket ball stuck in you, that’s for certain. Let me finish stitching the front and then we’ll flip you over and I’ll do the back and you’ll be right as rain.” But Will saw the worried look he gave the stranger kneeling at the man’s shoulder who was holding him down.

“Sir?” Will said hesitantly. He had to repeat it louder over the moans and screams around him for his master to hear him.

“A moment, Will.” Tristan finished tying off the thread and placed a pad of lint on the wound. Then he said, “Will, lend a hand here?” and the footman found himself turning the wounded man over while Tristan held the lint clamped to the stitched wound. The injury on the back was worse, but his master set to work immediately, as if it were nothing. “Will, I’m glad you’re here,” Tristan said, his eyes on his stitchery. “Go home and tell Reston to give you enough funds to buy as much in the way of bandages and brandy as you can find. And to prepare the spare bedrooms and the common rooms on the ground floor for visitors. We’ll need pallets of some kind. Have the grooms move the furniture out and into whatever space there is in the stables. There will be a dozen or so coming straightaway; they’ll need tea and tending. See that lady over there in the blue bonnet?”

Will glanced up. “Yes, sir,” he said numbly.

“That’s Mrs. Ethan. Go ask her what else will be needed, and see that she gets it. I won’t say cost is no object; there will be gouging, no doubt, but you’re a bright lad; you should be able to dicker a more reasonable price. But we need these things, quickly. Go.”

“Sir!” Will leapt into action.

Tristan glanced up and saw his footman speak earnestly with the woman in the modest bonnet, then take off at a run back toward the rue de Valois.
A good boy
, he thought absently, then turned back to his work.