The surgeon spent twenty minutes examining Vague Henri and dictating to a secretary.
‘The arrowhead has entered the patient’s face just under the eye.’ He felt along the side of Vague Henri’s neck. A groan. ‘Fortunately it is, I think, a narrow bodkin type, head – five or six inches perhaps. Um ... no question of pushing it through the wound – we’d take half his brain with it.’ He sniffed and grimaced. ‘Close to the jugular. Tricky.’ For a further three or four minutes he touched and squeezed, apparently indifferent to the continuing smothered cries of poor Vague Henri. He dictated a few more notes and then turned to IdrisPukke.
‘What did Painter tell you?’
‘I’m sorry?’ evaded IdrisPukke.
‘I know you consulted him. Besides, you needn’t tell me, I already know. He said the wound should be left for up to fourteen days until it becomes loosened by pus. No?’
IdrisPukke shrugged.
‘That’ll work – once the wound has filled with rot the arrow will be easy enough to remove. Mind you, he’ll die – slowly of blood poisoning or pretty quickly as the withdrawal bursts his putrefied jugular vein on the way out.’ Bradmore sighed. ‘It’s very difficult, you see. The head of the arrow is jammed in against the bone. It’s a question of getting a grip on the head but it’s in too deep and stuck so far. That’s why Painter wants to let it decay its way out.’
‘What do you suggest?’
‘Not that anyway. The wound must be cleansed and deeply – an infection has started already. It must be stopped while I work out some way to grip the arrowhead.’
There was a short silence broken by Hooke, who had crept in unnoticed and hidden himself at the back of the room.
‘I think I can help.’
There was another muffled groan from Vague Henri. It was not a cry of pain but of protest. Unfortunately the wound and the opium meant that no one could understand a word he said.
27
While Vague Henri was unwillingly having his life put in the hands of a man in whom he had absolutely no confidence, Kleist was also fighting to stay alive in the mountains along with fewer than a hundred Klephts.
The Redeemers who had murdered the old, the women and the children in the escaping Klepht train had returned to the mountains and attacked the men in Lydon Gorge from the rear. Unable to go forward or back they began to take casualties in far greater numbers. The Redeemers were now in no hurry, picking off the Klephts with bolts or arrows and by heavily armoured forays that lasted only a few minutes but inflicted heavy casualties. In two more days they would have finished the job with barely any harm to their own number, but the Redeemers from the massacre made the mistake of shouting out at night what they had done to the Klepht women and children only three days before. To bring a man to despair is a very desirable thing if hope, or freedom, safety, a return to a loving family, is what keeps him fighting. It was in their attitude to sacrifice, or, to be more precise, self-sacrifice, that the Klephts differed so greatly from almost all other men. Now in the terrible jeers of the Redeemers the priests unwittingly released the Klephts of that high hope that came above everything. Despair robbed them of their greatest weakness as soldiers: a willingness to kill but not to die in the process.
Kleist was in a dreadful moil himself, but knowing the Redeemers and their willingness to use lies against an enemy, he was still tormented by the hope that his wife and unborn were still alive. Now was not the time to give the Klephts hope. Only their belief that there was nothing left living for would do. He stopped them from rushing the Redeemers and persuaded them to wait till dawn and attack at his direction in such a way that they would exact the heaviest price. Meanwhile the taunts and gibes from the surrounding Redeemers in the dark were like a noble speech to honourable men as far as making the Klephts determined to die bringing as much mayhem with them as possible. Kleist knew the Klephts were lost but he had done his best and did not intend to lose himself along with them. He had done what he could but he had every intention of using the attack to push through on his own and find out whether or not his wife was indeed dead. It would not end for him here on this mountain in the back of beyond.
Kleist gathered the ninety or so survivors and drew a map in the gravelly dust. Their situation was simple enough: they were trapped in a pass about a hundred yards wide with sheer sides and with the remaining Redeemers split equally between their front and rear.
‘We attack the Redeemers who’ve come up from the plain. Those are the ones we want, yes?’
There were nods all round.
‘In my view we attack the line here in two wedges either side then try to break through and join up behind them. We’ll almost certainly fail to do even that but it will surprise them and you’ll kill more of them. If we can join up then we’ll have all the Redeemers in front of us. It’ll be a bloody sight harder for them if we can do that.’ His plan was probably hopeless – it certainly sounded pretty thin when he said it aloud – but with speed and surprise and the new desperation of the Klephts he might make the space to get away. He owed these people something but not his life – and they would have taken the same view about him. They wouldn’t have agonized about it either.
‘This is the best I can do,’ he thought. ‘Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. I can’t save them but I can save myself. That’s all there is.’
He nearly broke as he went through the plan again but not quite – the still, small voice of survival screaming in his soul got him through.
When he finished he divided the group into two with a few swaps for family reasons and placed himself on the right wing because he judged that group to have the better fighters.
He did not want any shouting or noise of any kind to signal the attack and undermine the surprise so they led out a line of pack twine between the two groups. Kleist would give it a hefty pull when he thought it was just light enough for an attack. Kleist’s one concession to the finger-wag of his nobility was to tell them to head to a flagpost he’d place behind the Redeemers to show them where to regroup. He regretted making this promise as soon as he’d spoken but it meant he had a good reason to outstrip the others. Once he’d planted it they were on their own.
It would have been too much to have expected the Redeemers to be unprepared but the circumstances were ideal for the Klephts given that revenge had made them careless of their own lives for once. They were quick and this was their ground. It was hard to judge what you could see and not see in the early light and the Klephts were nearly on top of the Redeemer lookouts before the shout of warning went up – each took a Klepht or two with them but the rest of the attackers did as they were told and silently rushed on to the camp itself already stirring but still surprised. Kleist, bamboo pole in hand, was already ahead and running into and through the camp and shouting ‘Retreat! Retreat!’ as if he were one of the Redeemers running away in panic. ‘Shut your mouth!’ shouted one centenar and pulled at his arm as he went past – but it never occurred to him that Kleist was anything but a scared young Redeemer. He pulled away and ran like hell. Just as he was about to clear the compound another Redeemer stepped in his way and knocked him over.