CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

‘WHAT DO YOU think, Thorp? Will you be able to travel?’

The corporal had volunteered his name, but Jamie hadn’t told him who he was, nor had he mentioned that he used to call at the Woodman. He didn’t think that William Thorp remembered him at all and in fact the corporal himself had changed considerably. Back then Jamie recalled a fair-haired youth, a little younger than himself, who was rather quiet and didn’t often serve at the inn. Now he was self-assured and upright as a soldier should be, with hair that seemed darker, a reddish beard and whiskers and a weather-beaten complexion.

William pondered. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I feel fit enough until I stand up and then I don’t have a decent leg to stand on. My foot is very painful and my knee is giving me gyp, but I’d give anything to get home.’

‘I can get crutches made for you,’ Jamie said, ‘but you’ll have to bear the weight on your foot rather than your knee otherwise you’ll do untold damage.’

‘Mm.’ William considered. ‘I’ll risk it, I think. I’m mekkin’ plans and being a cripple doesn’t feature in ’em.’

‘I’ll help you,’ Jamie said. ‘I’m leaving too. We can travel together.’

‘Oh,’ William said. ‘That’s good of you, sir. I thought you’d be stopping here at ’hospital.’

‘No, that wasn’t part of my plan either. I came to seek out my colleague and maybe work with him, but now …’ He paused, and sighed. ‘Well, as he’s no longer with us, I’ll have to rethink what I’m going to do; that is, if I’ve passed my exams. I might be practising here under false pretences.’

‘What!’ William said in mock horror. ‘You’re never telling me you’re nowt but a quack!’

‘It’s possible. But unlikely,’ Jamie added modestly. ‘I was told to expect good results.’

He asked one of the carpenters to measure Thorp for a pair of crutches and to pad the tops that went under the arms. It was going to be very painful for the soldier, especially putting weight on his injured foot, and he asked one of the other doctors for the key to the medicine box and took out a quantity of laudanum and a small amount of pure opium.

‘I’ve never tekken owt like that afore,’ William said to him, watching him store it in his bag.

‘As a matter of fact, you have,’ Jamie replied. ‘I’ve given you it on two occasions to help you sleep.’

‘Have you? I didn’t realize,’ William said. ‘Was I shouting?’

‘Just a bit,’ Jamie said, ‘and keeping me awake.’ He grinned. He’d slept in a spare bed in the anteroom as there were just the two of them.

‘Thanks, doctor,’ William said. ‘I’ll try not to mek a habit of it.’

As soon as the crutches were ready and Thorp had tried them out and discovered that the red-hot pain in both leg and foot was going to be worse than he had expected, Jamie made plans to leave and arranged a lift in a waggon to the railway station.

‘Sorry you’re leaving us, Dr James,’ Sergeant Thomas said. ‘Any chance that you might come back?’

Jamie looked round the hospital ward. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘In a way I’m sorry to leave when I know how much help is required, but I have to get back to London and find out my results and sort out various things’ – one of which would be to write to Hunter’s parents. ‘I came away in a hurry,’ he told the sergeant. ‘Never even told my family where I was going. I’ll be in hot water with my father when I do get back.’

‘Very good then, sir.’ Sergeant Thomas saluted him. ‘Been a pleasure knowing you.’

‘Likewise.’ Jamie put his hand out and shook the sergeant’s. ‘I’ll write and let you know if I’m coming back.’

The railway journey to central London was agony for the corporal; Jamie could see his fatigue and pain, but he didn’t want to give him strong medication yet, otherwise he might fall asleep. He’d given him a few grains of opium to ease the pain and then realized that he’d never get him on the train heading north that day. There was only one thing to do and that was to take him back to his own lodgings, where he hoped that his landlady had kept his room; he had told her that he would be away for only a few days.

He flagged a horse cab to take them to the lodgings and the driver asked if the corporal had been out in the Crimea. William was wearing his regulation red cloth coatee with tail flaps, with a flannel shirt beneath it and dark grey trousers, one leg of which had been cut to accommodate the splint. On his head he wore a dark blue forage cap with a blue pom-pom on the top and not the peaked shako that he said the men hated, as they were so uncomfortable. He wore only one boot as he couldn’t get the other over his septic bandaged foot, but had put it and his greatcoat in his knapsack, along with his spare boots, socks and blanket. Jamie had offered to carry the pack on his back.

‘Aye,’ William told the driver. ‘And glad to be out of it.’

‘We beat ’em though, didn’t we,’ the driver said as he urged the horse on through the traffic. ‘Marching towards Sevastopol now.’

‘God go wi’ em,’ William muttered. ‘There’ll be some bloodshed afore it’s over.’

When they reached the lodging house and Jamie and the driver helped William out, the driver tipped his forehead, shook hands with him and refused the fare. ‘My contribution to the war effort,’ he said. ‘To all our brave lads.’ He looked at Jamie for a moment. ‘Went to fetch him home, did you, sir?’

Jamie shook his head. ‘No. I’m a doctor. Tended the wounded.’

So he too was given a firm handshake, which oddly enough, he thought, since he felt he had done little, made him feel quite proud.

The landlady greeted him exuberantly. ‘I wondered where you and Dr Hunt had got to, sir; I’ve kept your rooms though I could have let them ten times over. But I knew you’d let me know if you weren’t coming back and, besides, all your things are here. I’ve kept the rooms dusted and aired and only this morning I lit a fire. There’s lots of post for you, and Dr Hunt too; where is he, do you know?’

‘First can we get this young man to a chair or bed, Mrs Whitfield? He’s badly in need of medication. Then I’ll tell you all the news, and it’s not good I’m afraid.’

William was helped upstairs to Jamie’s room and fell on to the bed, beaten by pain and exhaustion. Jamie gave him a dose of laudanum and then went down to give his landlady the news of Hunter and to ask if the corporal could stay for a day or two.

She was very shocked to hear of Hunter’s death. ‘Such a jolly young man.’ She held a handkerchief to her eyes. ‘I can’t believe it.’

Now that Jamie was back at their shared lodgings, he too comprehended more forcibly the impact of his friend’s death. Whilst working at the hospital, it had somehow seemed illusory and unreal, but now the knowledge of it was hitting him hard and he was totally downhearted and depressed.

He explained that he was escorting Thorp back home and asked if he might stay until he was fit to travel.

‘He can have Dr Hunt’s room,’ she said. ‘I’m sure he won’t – wouldn’t have minded in the least. Oh dear!’ She turned away. ‘Such news.’ She took a deep sniffing breath. ‘I’ll get you and the soldier some food, Mr Lucan, or are you Dr Lucan now?’ she said hopefully.

‘I don’t know,’ he said quietly. ‘And somehow it doesn’t seem quite as important as it once did.’

There was a pile of post waiting for Hunter and this he put to one side to send to Hunter’s parents along with his own letter of condolence. When they had finished their soup and he’d changed Thorp’s dressing he helped him into bed in Hunter’s room and then returned to his to glance through his own letters. One, judging from the heading on the envelope and the style of address – Dr J. Lucan – he knew would be the result of his exams and although he was keen to know how well he had done he was drawn to three envelopes addressed to him in his brother’s handwriting and another from one of his sisters, Frances or Mary. There was also another in a scrawled hand which he didn’t recognize.

He decided to open the latest letter from Felix, postmarked two days ago, rather than the two earlier ones, one of which must have arrived just after he had left for Blackwall.

It began tersely and without preamble.

James,

As you haven’t bothered to reply to either of my previous letters I am writing to tell you that you are too late. Father died two days ago in his sleep.

If you have any concern at all, the contents of his Will will be read straight after his funeral next Wednesday. There will be little enough for you or our sisters but you will be expected to attend.

Your brother,

Felix Lucan.

Jamie read the letter again before it dropped from his hand. What? How? Why? What had been the matter with his father? He had had a series of chesty coughs but nothing to indicate that he was severely ill. He got up and paced about, confused, unbelieving and bereft at his father’s death, especially coming so soon after the death of his friend.

He groaned and put his head in his hands. Then, trying to get his thoughts in order, he reached for Felix’s other letters and opened them. The first advised him that his brother was going to be married to a young woman whom Jamie wouldn’t know as she was from Lincolnshire, the daughter of a man with a vast amount of land which needed managing. He then mentioned quite casually that their father had agreed to sell the estate as he didn’t feel well enough himself and there would be no one to run it if he, Felix, moved away; but he would keep two of the farms to generate income for Frances and Mary until such time as they married.

The second letter, written shortly before the final one, asked Jamie to come at all speed as their father was very ill and not expected to recover. Frances and Mary were already on their way to see him for the last time.

‘How can Felix blame me for not being there, for that is how it appears to sound,’ he muttered angrily. ‘There was nothing in his earlier letter to imply that there was any urgency, only in the second one, and by then, from the sound of things, it was already too late.’

He was outraged by his brother’s accusation and devastated by the news of his father’s death.

A sudden noise brought him to his senses. It was Thorp shouting in his sleep; nightmares, Jamie thought. Who knows what torments are driving him? He went to the door of his room and encountered Mrs Whitfield coming up the stairs.

‘What’s wrong?’ The landlady’s face was creased with anxiety. ‘Is Corporal Thorp worse? Should we send for a doctor?’

‘He’s no worse, Mrs Whitfield,’ he said. ‘But the pain disturbs his sleep.’ Then he gave a slight smile, even though he felt not in the least humorous. ‘And I am a doctor!’