In the landscape of his dreams, a village fell from a cliff and sank beneath the waves. A tombstone rose up from the ground to reveal an old man wearing a Stetson. Doors opened to reveal bodies nailed to the backs of them and a set of shears snapped towards his body guided by disembodied hands with broken fingers.
‘Mac! Can you hear me? Mac! Wake up! You’ve got to come round!’
Simone’s voice reached Macandrew through his nightmare and he opened his eyes. His head felt as if an iron band was being tightened around it. ‘Simone,’ he murmured.
‘Mac, I’ve got the medical kit. You’re in no fit state to do anything. You’ll have to tell me what to do.’
Macandrew groaned as Simone replaced the towel across his head. It was cool again. Slowly things came into focus. ‘Help me up,’ he said.
Simone propped him up on the bunk and helped him bring his foot up on his other knee so that he could see the wound site but it wasn’t ideal and his vision was blurred.
‘Is there any anaesthetic?’
‘Novocaine?’ said Simone.
‘Hypodermic?’
Simone held up a syringe in its plastic wrapper and then a needle, also encased in plastic.
‘Scalpel?’
Simone put down the syringe and held up a scalpel and a pack of sterile blades.
‘Swabs, dressings, antiseptic...’ said Macandrew sleepily as delirium threatened again.
‘Mac! I’ve got all these things. Just tell me what to do.’
‘First... the anaesthetic.’
‘Where?’ asked Simone. ‘Here? Here?’ She pointed to different spots near the wound until Macandrew nodded in favour of two sites. ‘Two injections... wait five minutes.’
‘What now?’ asked Simone after she’d waited for the local anaesthetic to take effect.
‘Cut... Cut deeply. Don’t just break the surface.’
Simone nodded. Her eyes were wide and unblinking with apprehension.
‘Get rid of as much of the crap as possible then clean up the site with disinfectant.’
Simone nodded again, her eyes like saucers. She was too anxious to say anything.
‘Soak a clean swab in disinfectant and this is most important — push it inside the wound... right inside. Understand?’
Simone eyes rebelled at the thought but she croaked her assent. ‘And leave it in there?’
‘Yes.’ Macandrew gasped as a wave of nausea swept over him.
‘Easy, Mac,’ whispered Simone. She eased his head back on the pillow and repositioned the towel on his forehead.
Simone removed the syringe from its sterile wrapper and fitted the needle. She filled the syringe with the anaesthetic and expelled residual air before gathering up her courage to push the needle through Macandrew’s skin. She heard him gasp but his foot remained immobile. Gently she applied pressure with her thumb to the plunger and saw the contents of the syringe disappear into Macandrew’s foot. She felt better but her pulse was still racing. She refilled the syringe and did the other side.
‘Was that all right?’ she asked.
Simone repeated the question but there was no reply. Macandrew had passed out. She was on her own. She looked at her watch and used the intervening time to clean up the outside of the wound with an alcohol-soaked swab. When she felt sure that she had done a thorough job and five minutes had passed, she removed one of the sterile surgical blades from its foil wrapper and slotted it into the scalpel handle. She pricked the wound site with the tip of the blade and looked for a reaction from Macandrew’s sleeping form. There was none. She tried again, harder this time. Again, nothing. It was time to begin.
She placed a wad of gauze beneath Macandrew’s foot and made the first incision. She underestimated the amount of pressure required and the cut only resulted in a thin, crescent-shaped line of blood appearing. She swallowed hard. She was starting to feel light-headed.
She made a second, deeper incision and this time a wave of foul-smelling exudate welled up from the wound. Almost immediately, the swelling in Macandrew’s foot started to subside and Simone felt the tension in her slack off in harmony. She wiped away the mess and encouraged more drainage by applying gentle pressure to the sides of the incision. She kept this up until the wound had been completely drained then set about disinfecting it thoroughly.
She thought the worst was over until she came to comply with Macandrew’s final instruction that she insert a swab inside the wound itself and leave it there. A wave of revulsion threatened her as she prised open the incision with one pair of forceps and tried to push the swab inside with another. She couldn’t make the swab lie flat inside the wound; it kept scrunching up. She suspected that it would be agonising if she left it that way. It was going to be painful enough as it was.
She fought against the frustration of successive failures until she finally succeeded in making the swab lie flat. Pausing briefly to regain her composure and wipe the sweat off her brow, she closed the incision site and secured the swab with fresh tape and bandaging. Her hands started to shake as she thought about what she’d done and then she felt herself go icy cold. She had to put her head between her knees for a moment to avoid passing out then she slumped down in a chair like a rag doll and let her arms dangle over the sides. It was over.
An hour passed and Macandrew was still out cold but Simone thought that he appeared calm and untroubled and took comfort from this. It might be a different story when he came round and the effects of the anaesthetic wore off but for the moment all seemed well. He was sleeping peacefully.
Seventeen
Simone was allowed to stay with Macandrew until he came round — another concession won in her psychological battle with Stroud. She had noticed in her dealings with him that he was distinctly uncomfortable in the presence of women — something she intended to exploit ruthlessly, suspecting now that he would give in just to see the back of her. It turned out to be a long vigiclass="underline" Macandrew was out cold for nearly five hours but the fever had gone and she could see that he was just making up for lost sleep: the rest would do him good. For her part, she passed the time reading old magazines or simply sitting by the porthole, looking out at the sea. She still felt close to mental exhaustion. Every hour that passed without incident would help.
In the last hour, the sea state had changed and the boat took on a roll as it started to ride a heavy swell. Simone started to feel uncomfortable at not having a stable horizon to concentrate on. She was about to turn away from the porthole when she thought she glimpsed land. She looked again but they were now down in a trough and, at that moment, Macandrew let out a low groan. She hurried over to him.
Macandrew blinked against the light. ‘God, what happened?’ he asked in a hoarse whisper. His throat was dry.
‘You passed out,’ said Simone, giving him a glass water. ‘You’ve been out for several hours.’
‘My foot... did you do it?’
‘Just like you told me,’ said Simone.
‘God, you are bloody wonderful,’ said Macandrew, flopping back on the pillow.
‘You seem a lot better,’ smiled Simone. ‘Your fever’s gone.’
‘God, I feel better,’ said Macandrew, ‘definitely better.’ He squeezed her hand.
‘I think the voyage is almost over. I’m sure I caught sight of land a few minutes ago.’
‘I wonder where.’
‘We’ve been heading south east ever since we left Marseilles,’ said Simone. ‘I caught a glimpse of a chart in the wheelhouse. Corsica? Sardinia maybe, I don’t think there’s been enough time for us to reach Sicily.’