Page 35 of Pride of Duty

Chapter Sixteen

With the shrillnotes of the bo’sun’s whistle floating down to the surgery, Lieutenant Dalton gave Willa a rough turn and pushed his face close to hers. “Time to find out whether your loving husband has returned. But don’t forget, I know what you’re trying to hide.”

“What? What do you mean? Have you been sneaking through my things in our cabin?”

“The locket. Doesn’t matter how I know. Don’t be coy with me. You’re in this spy affair up to your pretty neck. You and Mrs. de Santis share more than just your husband.”

When she reflexively tried to jerk away from his hot, onion laden breath, he laughed and released her. “Or maybe he decided to follow his old love back to the Continent.” And just as mysteriously as he’d appeared, he left, clattering away from the sick bay through the orlop deck and on up to the top deck.

She couldn’t decide whether to retch or run back to her sea chest to make sure the locket with the miniature of Ariadne’s aunt was still there. Unfortunately, she could do neither. She had to deal with whatever the marines had discovered on Gibraltar.

When Willa raced to the top deck and out into the late afternoon Mediterranean sun, she felt a small presence beside her. Young Charles had slid next to her for a moment and squeezed her hand before returning to his duties on the tops.

The sight of her husband on the litter the marines had rigged to bring him back to the ship made her reach for a nearby rail. She’d lost her sense of balance. She could not see Cullen’s face for the thick winding of linen strips covering his head with only slit openings for his eyes. The strips were soaked with blood.

“Down to the cockpit with the doc,” Surgeon’s Mate Parker intoned. “We need to take a look and clean him up.”

Willa seemed to have temporarily lost the power of speech. She knew she should take charge, but she couldn’t. All she could manage was to follow Mr. Parker and the marines as they carried her unresponsive husband below. Cullen was strangely silent, his huge frame seeming to shrink on the litter. For one mad moment she wondered if this was truly Cullen MacCloud, the big, blustering Scot who had bullied her into marrying him, infuriated her at every turn of their short marriage, and then made sweet love to her every night in the dark of their tiny cabin.

The tears that had threatened earlier on deck when she’d pleaded to go along with the shore party - they’d deserted her. Only cold determination remained. She could not let this man die. Everything she’d learned from her father, Dr. Andrew Morton, over the last ten years, everything she’d been through with the men of multiple ships in battle and everyday shipboard life - had brought her to this place. She knew what she had to do…and how to do it.

Once the marines had deposited Cullen on the long table in the surgery, Willa immediately began the process of unwinding the bloodied linens from his head and noting the damage as she went. She’d at first been afraid that Surgeon’s Mate Parker would insist on taking the lead in caring for her husband since it should be his place to be in charge of the surgery until Dr. MacCloud recovered sufficiently to resume his duties. She was relieved to note her racing mind had chosen “until” instead of “if.”

She paused in the unwinding process to lock gazes with Mr. Parker. The marines had left, and the two of them were alone in the open surgery area. “Thank you for letting me see to my husband.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” he asked simply. “You are a very competent physician’s assistant. You trained with the finest physician I’ve ever known, and now you work side-by-side with the second finest I’ve known.”

She stared back, her mouth dropping open in an “O” of confusion. “I don’t know what you mean.”

He simply gave her a broad smile and turned to retrieve a basin from a low cabinet beneath a bulkhead. “I’m going to go beg some boiled water from Cook in the galley.” With that, he gave her the abbreviated knuckled salute the men gave shipboard officers and disappeared into the darkness below decks outside the surgery.

She turned back to Cullen’s battered face and for the first time that day let herself weep. She wept for the man who shared her own fierce devotion to the health of the sailors of theArethusa. She also wept for the man who had taken her to wife and loved her in spite of her own stubborn resistance. She forced herself to stop weeping abruptly because she refused to weep for the life they might not have, the children they might never have.

What needed doing lay in front of her. While she unwound the bandages, she made a quick inventory: Nose probably broken; a deep gash and indent above his right brow; lips too swollen to determine damage and cuts; several teeth missing, fortunately toward the back of his lower left jaw; heavy bleeding, bruising, and swelling around the eyes. She used her fingers to gently probe around his scalp and the back of his head. Head wounds bled so profusely that she probably would not be able to know the extent of the damage until she and Mr. Parker had had a chance to clean the scalp area and measure the width of the gashes. Of course, the most troubling problem was Cullen remained unresponsive. There was virtually nothing she, or any physician, could do at this point except to keep him comfortable, tend his wounds, and wait.

When Mr. Parker returned with the basin of boiled water, they set to work wiping away the dried blood and re-wrapping dry linens to stanch the continuing flow from the multiple head injuries. Only then did they check the rest of his body. After a quick palpation of his arms and legs, it looked as if the worst damage had been done to his hands, fingers and knuckles. She cleaned and wrapped those as well before they settled him, with the help of two of the sailors from the early morning fumigation detail, into one of the wide, reinforced hammocks used in the sick bay.

Willa wondered how the other men in the obviously fierce fight on Gibraltar had fared. She would not want to have to treat their injuries, based on the state of Cullen’s fists.

Much later, she left the surgery and made her way to the marine officers’ mess to seek out Sergeant Claridge. She meant to demand every last detail of what had happened to Cullen…and where they’d found him.

Marine Sergeant Claridge raised his head at the sound of Willa walking toward the table he shared with the other officers in their mess. They’d apparently recently finished a hasty supper, their dirty plates and cups still stacked at the end of the table.

Her voice came out sounding too small in the large gunners’ part of the lower deck. The cannons were rolled back and latched down, the gun ports dark with their hinged coverings closed. The officers’ mess routinely ate off a table hinged between two guns and pulled down only for meals or card games. Absolutely everything on a Royal Navy ship was temporary so that the decks could literally be cleared for action. Even the small cabins of lower officers, including hers and Cullen’s, would have the partitions removed and stowed. Only the guns mattered during battle.

When there were lots of casualties, the whole cockpit area on the lower deck would be cleared to receive wounded men for amputations and bone-setting when possible.

Willa repeated her request, more loudly this time. “Who can tell me what happened today? Where did you find Dr. MacCloud? And does anyone know how he came to be beaten?” Finally, she sat down hard on a bench and buried her head in her hands. “Do we know who did this or why?”

“I do not have the authority to tell you without the permission of my captain and the ship’s captain.” Sergeant Claridge rose and came to her side, helped her to her feet and escorted her toward the top deck. Before they left, he motioned to one of his fellow officers to have their leader join them in Captain Still’s cabin.

Once they were clear of the lower deck and ascending toward the hatch opening, she turned to him and grasped one of his lapels. “Please, if you know, I must know before we go before the captain.”

“Mrs. MacCloud, you put me in a difficult place.” He stopped abruptly and lowered his head as if to muffle their conversation.

“I have to know. Was he…was he with Mrs. de Santis when you found him?”

The sergeant gave her an incredulous and then pitying look in the half light of the passageway. “I can assure you he was not. I can also tell you as a man who loves his wife and recognizes that same regard in another man, be content in the knowledge that you alone hold your husband’s regard.”