“Hmm?”
“The juice of the opium poppy, distilled if you will, into the drug laudanum, Captain, is quite addictive,” Mr. Mainwaring stuck in, “and, taken beyond moderation, so depresses the rate and depth of respiration and the beat of the heart that death will eventually result in those unfortunates who abuse it.”
“I’ve been administered small doses of laudanum to ease pain, after being wounded,” Lewrie slowly said, still without a clue as to where the men were going. “It tastes vile, even when mixed into brandy with sugar, or a dram of honey. You’d force laudanum down his throat with a clyster?”
“Ehm … not his throat, sir,” Durbin said in a small voice. “Up his anus, rather. That’s where the brothels come in, Captain, sir. While on the premises to inspect for, and treat, venereal Pox, the man I worked with would, ehm … help the ladies, and rather a great many of their clients, get drunk and woozy all the faster, with a mixture of laudanum and ardent spirits … gin, mostly … up their anuses and into the lower intestines, where the bulk of digestion takes place—”
“And, where the nutritional benefits of digestion reach the body and the blood stream more readily, sir,” Mainwaring supplied, to bring their discussion back to a less sordid tone. “To imbibe gin and laudanum the normal way by liquid ingestion, the effect desired might not become apparent for some time, but … injected into the lower intestines, the alcoholic spirits and laudanum take effect within minutes.”
“I’ve seen one … courtesan at one of the better houses in Panton Street, who weighed ten or eleven stone, take two drams of gin and a dram of laudanum, together, and become half-seas-over within five minutes, Captain,” Durbin promised. “With small glasses of brandy and champagne throughout the night, she could take on any number of clients. And, when she wished to sleep the night’s work off, my old patron would increase the laudanum a bit more, and she’d sleep ’til noon of the next day. A lot of the girls would do that … to get started and tolerate the work, and to sleep soundly after.
“After a time, I was allowed to service one house whilst my old patron would handle another, for more fees,” Durbin went on. “We’d make the rounds each night…’til he got too fond of the drug and took too large a dose and died.”
“So, the dose necessary to addle a woman of considerable weight would surely put your cat to sleep, painlessly and humanely, Captain,” Mainwaring assured him. “A moment or two of surprise, as the clyster is inserted, and then perhaps a state of inebriation which may be pleasureable to even a cat, followed by a … fatal lethargy.”
“But, you’re not sure,” Lewrie sceptically asked. “No one ever tried this. The brandy or gin might turn him rabid, ravin’ mad before the laudanum takes effect. I don’t know.…” Lewrie looked down as he stroked Toulon, who was looking up at him with wide eyes, as if he was aware that his demise was being plotted. Toulon was not struggling to escape, though. But, he had stopped purring, and the tip of his tail no longer slowly flicked. Lewrie felt a lump of grief in his chest.
“Well, sir … perhaps the laudanum only,” Mainwaring allowed. “If I may examine it, Captain?”
“Him,” Lewrie corrected. “Toulon.”
“Of course, Captain,” Mainwaring replied, pausing for a moment to be chided, then fell upon his best bedside manner. He checked the dullness of the cat’s eyes, listened to the heart and respiration with a long horn, felt the temperature of Toulon’s nose, then sat back down in his chair and took a sip of cool tea. “I fear that … he … does not display any sign of improvement, Captain. He has been sleeping most of the day and night? Apart from everyone? A bad sign. Do you wish to wait ’til he is even more lethargic, we may, though I do not know if his fatal condition pains him now, and may get worse the longer we delay. As I said, no one I am aware of knows the first thing about the physiology of cats and dogs.”
No longer being pawed at by Mainwaring’s large hands, Toulon stopped fretting and snuggled down, eyes shut and his head nodding as if he would fall asleep right there in Lewrie’s arms. His breath was faint.
“Perhaps … perhaps, it would be best did we proceed, Mister Mainwaring,” Lewrie sadly, slowly agreed.
“A towel, sir,” Durbin softly suggested, getting to his feet. “Something to swaddle him during the procedure?”
“A restraining towel, yes,” Mainwaring agreed, finishing his cool tea before rising, himself. “Perhaps at your dining table, sir?”
“Dram and a half, sir?” Durbin asked his superior.
“Hmm, best make it a full two,” Mainwaring proposed. “Prepare the clyster.”
Pettus fetched a used towel and laid it on the dining table. Lewrie carried Toulon to the table and gently sat him down on it, then folded the towel round him, petting and softly cooing affection to keep the cat calm. Pettus and Jessop came close to witness, with Jessop holding Chalky in his arms to keep him from interfering.
Surgeon’s Mate Durbin produced the clyster, a metal cylinder about six inches long with a plunger at one end, and a long, narrow, and hollow metal tube, no wider than a goose quill, at the other. He withdrew the plunger and laid it aside, put a finger over the end of the tube, and presented it to Surgeon Mainwaring, who carefully measured out 120 minims, or two fluid drams, into a graduated glass tube, then poured the laudanum into the clyster. Durbin re-inserted the plunger for him, still holding a finger over the needle’s opening to prevent spillage.
“I will take it now, Durbin,” Mainwaring said, placing his own finger over the needle’s aperture, allowing a drop or two to dribble out. “Even the tiniest bolus of air would impede the efficacious administering of the dose, do you see, Captain.”
“Umhum,” Lewrie replied, his heart in his throat.
“If you will hold him firmly, now, Captain, I will begin,” the Surgeon said, leaning down over the end of the table.
Toulon emitted a loud, outraged yeowl as the needle went up his anus and its contents were injected with a push of the plunger, and it was all Lewrie could do to hold him still in the folds of the towel.
“You tell him, Toulon,” Lewrie cooed, his eyes turning hot and moist as he tried to calm his cat. “I’d be at his throat with claws out if someone did that t’me, too! Hush, now. Hush, little man, it’s done. If God’s just, there’s a Fiddler’s Green for you, too, with all the mice and birds ye wish t’chase, milk pools, and all the fish and sausages ye’d ever want. Other cats t’play with … perhaps even old Pitt. Ye might get on with him. Hush, now. Go t’sleep, and dream a happy cat’s dreams. I always loved ye, d’ye know that, Toulon?”
“’Is fav’rite people, too, sir,” Jessop said in an awed whisper, “an’ ’im be there a’waitin’ on yer when ye goes t’Heaven yerself.”
“I pray so, Jessop,” Lewrie managed to choke out, “I surely do pray so.”
Toulon did calm down, muttering a bit and going limp after a minute or so. His front paws twitched as if he was having a chase dream, and his jaws chittered silently as he did when seeing a bird.
They all waited for a full five minutes, in silence. Toulon seemed completely asleep, with no response when Lewrie folded back the towel and gently stroked and caressed his fur. Chalky was having no part of it, mrring and wriggling out of Jessop’s grasp to run aft and fuss and groom.
“If I may, Captain,” Mainwaring said, at last. He bent down to press an ear to Toulon, gently rolling him onto one side. He used his amplifying horn device, a stethoscope he termed it, to listen even more carefully for a full minute more before leaning back and digging into his bag for a small mirror and a lancet.
“There is no sign of respiration, Captain,” Mainwaring said as he looked at the mirror. “I can no longer discern a heart beat, nor a bit of fog on the mirror.”
Lewrie thought it rather gruesome, but Mainwaring lifted a paw to expose the sensitive pads and made a first light jab with the lancet, then a stronger second. Lastly, he pricked Toulon on his nose, with no response.