“Eight inches long at least,” went on Sankey. “Yet not more than two inches deep, even though, as I suspect, the scapula is notched. Four inches with the point would have been far more effective. This other cut here seems to be the only one that indicates any ambition to plumb the arterial depths. Clearly the man who wielded the knife here intended to stab. But it was a stab from above downwards, and the jagged beginning of it shows how the point was turned by the ribs down which the knife slid, severing a few fibres of latissimus dorsi but tailing off at the end into a mere superficial laceration. The effort of a tyro. Turn over, please. Remember, Mr Bush, if ever you use a knife, to give an upward inclination to the point. The human ribs lie open to welcome an upward thrust; before a downward thrust they overlap and forbid all entrance, and the descending knife, as in this case, bounds in vain from one rib to the next, knocking for admission at each in turn and being refused.”
“I’m glad of that,” said Bush. “Ouch!”
“And every cut is healing well,” said Sankey. “No sign of mortification.”
Bush suddenly realised that Sankey was moving his nose about close to his body; it was by its smell that gangrene first became apparent.
“A good clean cut,” said Sankey, “rapidly sutured and bound up in its own blood, can be expected to heal by first intention more often than not. Many times more often than not. And these are mostly clean cuts, haggled, as I said, only a little here and there. Bend this knee if you please. Your honourable scars, Mr Bush, will in the course of a few years become almost unnoticeable. Thin lines of white whose crisscross pattern will be hardly a blemish on your classic torso.”
“Good,” said Bush; he was not quite sure what his torso was, but he was not going to ask Sankey to explain all these anatomical terms.
This morning Sankey had hardly left him before he returned with a visitor.
“Captain Cogshill to inspect you,” he said. “Here he is, sir.”
Cogshill looked down at Bush upon the bed.
“Doctor Sankey gives me the good news that you are recovering rapidly,” he said.
“I think I am, sir.”
“The admiral has ordered a court of inquiry, and I am nominated a member of the court. Naturally your evidence will be required, Mr Bush, and it is my duty to ascertain how soon you will be able to give it.”
Bush felt a little wave of apprehension ripple over him. A court of inquiry was only a shade less terrifying than the court-martial to which it might lead. Even with a conscience absolutely clear Bush would rather — far rather — handle a ship on a lee shore in a gale than face questions and have to give answers, submit his motives to analysis and misconstruction, and struggle against the entanglements of legal forms. But it was medicine that had to be swallowed, and the sensible thing was to hold his nose and gulp it down, however nauseating.
“I’m ready at any time, sir.”
“Tomorrow I shall take out the sutures, sir,” interposed Sankey. “You will observe that Mr Bush is still weak. He was entirely exsanguinated by his wounds.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean he was drained of his blood. And the ordeal of taking out the sutures —”
“The stitches, do you mean?”
“The stitches, sir. The ordeal of removing them may momentarily retard Mr Bush’s recovery of his strength. But if the court will indulge him with a chair when he gives his evidence —”
“That can certainly be granted.”
“Then in three days from now he can answer any necessary questions.”
“Next Friday, then?”
“Yes, sir. That is the earliest. I could wish it would be later.”
“To assemble a court on this station,” explained Cogshill with his cold courtesy, “is not easy, when every ship is away on necessary duty so much of the time. Next Friday will be convenient.”
“Yes, sir,” said Sankey.
It was some sort of gratification to Bush, who had endured so much of Sankey’s chatter, to see him almost subdued in his manner when addressing someone as eminent as a captain.
“Very well, then,” said Cogshill. He bowed to Bush. “I wish you the quickest of recoveries.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Bush.
Even lying on his back he could not check the instinctive attempt to return the bow, but his wounds hurt him when he started to double up in the middle and prevented him from appearing ridiculous. With Cogshill gone Bush had time to worry about the future; the fear of it haunted him a little even while he ate his dinner, but the lob-lolly boy who came to take away the remains ushered in another visitor, the sight of whom drove away the black thoughts. It was Hornblower, standing at the door with a basket in his hand, and Bush’s face lit up at the sight of him.
“How are you, sir?” asked Homblower.
They shook hands, each reflecting the pleasure of the others greeting.
“All the better for seeing you,” said Bush, and meant it.
“This is my first chance of coming ashore,” said Hornblower. “You can guess that I’ve been kept busy.”
Bush could guess easily enough; it was no trouble to him to visualise all the duties that had been heaped on Hornblower, the necessity to complete Renown again with powder and shot, food and water, to clean up the ship after the prisoners had been removed, to eradicate the traces of the recent fighting, to attend to the formalities connected with the disposal of the prizes, the wounded, the sick, and the effects of the dead. And Bush was eager to hear the details, as a housewife might be when illness had removed her from the supervision of her household. He plied Hornblower with questions, and the technical discussion that ensued prevented Hornblower for some time from indicating the basket he had brought.
“Pawpaws,” he said. “Mangoes. A pineapple. That’s only the second pineapple I’ve ever seen.”
“Thank you. Very kind of you,” said Bush. But it was utterly beyond possibility that he could give the least hint of the feeling that the gift evoked in him, that after lying lonely for these days in the hospital he should find that someone cared about him — that in any case someone should give him so much as a thought. The words he spoke were limping and quite inadequate, and only a sensitive and sympathetic mind could guess at the feelings which the words concealed rather than expressed. But he was saved from further embarrassment by Hornblower abruptly introducing a new subject.
“The admiral’s taking the Gaditana into the navy,” he announced.
“Is he, by George!”
“Yes. Eighteen guns — six-pounders and nines. She’ll rate as a sloop of war.”
“So he’ll have to promote a commander for her.”
“Yes.”
“By George!” said Bush again.
Some lucky lieutenant would get that important step. It might have been Buckland — it still might be, if no weight were given to the consideration that he had been captured asleep in bed.
“Lambert’s renaming her the Retribution,” said Hornblower.
“Not a bad name, either.”
“No.”
There was silence for a moment; each of them was reliving, from his own point of view, those awful minutes while the Renown was being recaptured, while the Spaniards who tried to fight it out were slaughtered without mercy.
“You know about the court of inquiry, I suppose?” asked Bush; it was a logical step from his last train of thought.
“Yes. How did you know about it?”
“Cogshill’s just been in here to warn me that I’ll have to give evidence.”
“I see.”
There followed silence more pregnant than the last as they thought about the ordeal ahead. Hornblower deliberately broke it.
“I was going to tell you,” he said, “that I had to reeve new tiller lines in Renown. Both of them were frayed — there’s too much wear there. I think they’re led round too sharp an angle.”