Rebels and Traitors (96 page)

‘Can I buy this already?’

‘Not supposed to,’ answered the young man. He finally turned to talk to her. ‘You can have it if you hide it.’

‘How do you obtain them so early?’

‘Our printer writes articles sometimes.’

This dismayed Juliana, who feared such a public man would not want her domestic commission. The youth assured her they undertook all work that was not obscene or seditious — though when Juliana began describing embroidery patterns, he looked affrighted. With her speech all prepared, she continued talking about her project until his eyes glazed. Stitchery patterns were something they had never attempted here; accepting strange jobs (which might have no profit) went beyond his authority … ‘You should speak to my master.’

Juliana lost faith in her pitch and faltered. ‘Maybe another day, when he is not too busy.’

‘Suit yourself The young man turned back to the press, which was rude. Juliana had not quite finished speaking and she was aware from the bell behind her that another customer must have come into the shop. ‘Of course,’ added Miles, grinning oddly over his work, ‘the correct way to commission a printer is to summon him to a tavern and ply him hard with drink — but my master is clean-living, so you may simply ask him …’

Annoyed now, Juliana crisply picked up her drawings and turned around, ready to share a disapproving frown with whoever stood behind her.

It was the printer himself. He was listening, quiet and serious, just inside the door. His tall height blocked part of the light through the glazing. She felt a shock: how blue his eyes were. He had been waiting a little wryly for her to notice him. Now that she had, he flushed faintly.

He stepped forward, offering his hand in conventional good manners. Juliana responded. As they clasped hands, he pulled hers in closer to him — an instinctive, momentary gesture. He may not have realised he did it.

The day was fine and he wore his coat fully unbuttoned. So although Gideon Jukes let go of her hand politely and her fingers slipped away through his in the same movement, Juliana had felt through his linen shirt the man’s warmth and the strong beat of his heart.

‘We are in the hands of God.’

So pronounced a surgeon after the battle of Dunbar. He assumed this would spread well-being among his patients, those who had fought for the New Model Army and who had just been vouchsafed yet another glorious indication that God favoured them as His own. It carried extra force in Scotland, where the Covenanters were equally certain that God was all theirs. To worship the same God as your enemy, and to worship Him with exactly the same rigour, expecting the same signs of favour, might be unsettling. Thoughtful worshippers could be uneasy about placing God in a dilemma. But since Dunbar, the Kirkmen must know what God thought. Knowing it too, the New Model Army was once more cocksure and chipper.

Nevertheless, patients extracted from a battlefield view everything through the prism of pain. Disfigurement had already claimed casualties. Disease lay in wait. Death was smiling at the surgeon’s shoulder, with his tally-stick ready to be notched. To a man lying on a blood-soaked pallet with his energy ebbing out of him, the words ‘We are in the hands of God’ spoken by a surgeon meant only one thing: there was no hope. To a surgeon, it was inconceivable that anyone else could be given credit for saving a patient, even God. God fought the battles, surgeons patched up the wreckage afterwards.

His name was Mr Nichols. He was short, stout and unspeakably abrupt. He was compassionate about his patients when addressing an audience, yet saw them as living experiments and rarely spoke directly
to
them. He thought explanations were wasted on woozy soldiers, who might not understand what he said, rarely answered his questions accurately, would not follow his orders and might die on him.

The blow to Gideon Jukes’s cranium had only banged him unconscious temporarily. Time on the battlefield seemed to stretch out, increased by his terror. Among the carnage, he was found early. He was stretchered off rapidly. He reached the surgeon quicker than might have happened after a less tremendous victory. If there truly were only forty wounded on the English side, his turn for diagnosis and treatment would come fast. Even though surgeons were instructed to attend the victims from both sides, regimental commanders would insist that their own were looked after first.

Gideon woke up, pleased to find himself able to think disparaging thoughts. He heard Mr Nichols inform admiring bystanders that the patient’s wakening was a blessing, because those who went into deep comas from their wounds, or the medical procedures that resulted, rarely woke up again. Gideon Jukes eyed the man balefully He could see. He could scowl. It was a start. But he was a soldier and he knew when death was continuing to eye him up.

Gideon’s mentality remained tough enough. He wanted to live. His body fought for it automatically, however weak he felt and however terrible the pain. When he first came round, the pain was worse than he thought anyone could stand. He imagined this would not soon improve.

Once Gideon Jukes caught the surgeon’s eye, he warranted a lot of attention. He had so many wounds that were interesting — which he realised meant dangerous. He lay listening to a lecture on which of these wounds must be dealt with most urgently. Removal of the bullet in his body took priority, for leaving it in was likely to kill him. Removing it was just as likely to do that.

The surgeon enjoyed probing. He tried to find the bullet by asking where the pain felt worst and then fiddling just there; he was adept at causing more agony as a way to test if he was getting warm. When initial searches failed, he instructed that Gideon must be levered up into the exact position he had been in when he was shot — or as close as could be managed, given his frailty. Impressed onlookers murmured, while medical assistants sat Gideon up like a rider on a horse, for more probe-work.

Mr Nichols decided an incision would be made to his back — as if he was not already punctured enough. ‘If the slug has pierced his lung, there is nothing to be done; such patients die …’

Gideon did not feel the cut too much. The bullet popped out rapidly and neatly, he gathered. There was mild applause. Too soon to relax -there had to be a further search down the track of the bullet to find all rags, dirt or bone splinters, otherwise infection would set in.

Four days. Gideon knew the situation: if you were going to die of infected wounds, it took four days. You just had to hope all bits and splinters would be found and taken out of you, all dirt cleansed. You prayed for a good bullet that had stayed intact. You hoped none of your own bones had shattered or, if so, that all fragments would be noticed and meticulously scraped away.

At Colchester, when ammunition ran low, bullets had been moulded from old waterpipes. They were full of impurities, which may have caused the story that the enemy had used poisoned bullets, deliberately rolled in sand. At Dunbar, Gideon was offered his bullet as a memento. It looked smooth and whole. It was lead. That was good. Lead did not rust in the body, unlike iron and brass.

The sword-cut in his thigh was examined, cleaned with cloths that had been moistened with oil of turpentine; to remove suppurating matter, the surgeon inserted a drain, or tent, made of absorbent white cloth -clean, if Gideon was lucky — to which a silk thread was attached, to prevent its being lost inside the body. Part of the wound was immediately sutured, using glover’s stitch, a firm, even stitch that would not stretch out of shape in either direction. All Gideon’s penetrating wounds were dressed with pads of medicated lint, then bandaged; Mr Nichols was proud of his bandage-rolling technique. He did it with panache.

Skeletal damage was dismissed as deep bruising. Surgeons were only interested in ribs if they stuck out through flesh or if there was evidence that they had punctured an organ. Gideon’s coughing-up of blood caused mild concern, but apparently only time — or death — would cure that.

His head wound was reckoned more painful than dangerous. The blow had scraped along the scalp, without fracturing the skull or opening it up. Nichols was disappointed. He wanted the challenge of skinflaps, fractures, shattered bone and sight of brains. He liked to drill extra holes with his trepanning equipment.
Just to make sure the patient fails to thrive,
thought Gideon glumly.

Gideon had lost a lot of blood. He had lost so much, there was no question he could be further bled by the surgeon. Nichols was disappointed again.

The dislocated shoulder was to cause most trouble.

‘It is a luxation, to be sure; I can feel the round bone lying out. His elbow hangs away from his side, and compared with the other, it is backwards …’ It would not move forwards either. The man tried that. Gideon reacted badly. ‘Bear up, Captain Jukes! Let us have no girlishness. Can you bring your hand to your mouth — no, see there is great pain! — or reach out to the wall beside you? No. A luxation — this is easy to cure in children, not so easy with grown men whose bodies have become muscular …’

Mr Nichols first tried manual replacement, pulling the bone forwards and upwards, while pressing Gideon’s elbow to his side with one thigh. It failed. He tried again, using an assistant to press the elbow against Gideon’s ribs, so the surgeon himself could apply full leverage higher up. It failed. A strongman was sent for. Gideon was suspended on this hunk’s shoulder, so his own weight might correct the fault. It failed. Physical assistance was applied. A halter was made from bandage, incorporating a bolster which was fixed under Gideon’s armpit while he sat on a low seat and the surgeon hauled on the bandage with all his might. No luck. Then the surgeon tried again, with Gideon lying on the ground; the surgeon sat behind him, the assistant lay alongside … Gideon was tiring badly, but they assured him this had been successful. ‘It is knapt in, but must now be managed, to retain it.’

All this exertion had damaged his other wounds, which would have to be re-dressed. A cataplasm was prescribed; that sounded dismal, but turned out only to be a poultice based on breadcrumbs and herbs. Gideon coughed up more blood. No one took any notice. He was covered with good blankets and allowed to sleep.

Gideon remained ill for many weeks. The congestion in his lungs only very slowly reduced. His strength took even longer to recover and the penetrating wounds needed more weeks to heal. When Mr Nichols took out the drain,
that left
an ulcerated hole. Gideon became depressed. His shoulder still hurt, his arm was awkward and painful; he was convinced that the bone was imperfectly set. It was his right arm; he was right-handed.

He watched comrades die of wounds and disease. A clerk came around from time to time, to write letters home and take down wills. Gideon had a will written; at the time, he thought it wise. He left everything jointly to his brother Lambert and Robert Allibone. He declined to write home, however; why worry them? He had nobody else he could write to. It struck him that he had been fighting for years for the right to live as he wanted, yet had no household of his own, and might lose even his work if his arm never mended. He wanted a home and family, to work for them and to spend leisure time in their company. He would have to marry. A woman who could make his pulse rush with desire, while the thought of her made him laugh out loud, then quieten into deepest melancholy as he missed her … There were women like that. He had learned it. He could go back to London and look for one.

Perhaps at least his broken heart was mending.

At the turn of the year, which was a bad time for sailing, he was given a choice of being taken to Edinburgh or risking the long sea-voyage to London. He chose to go home. If he drowned on the way, it would solve everything.

He arrived safely, though he had been seasick and half starved because the food was dreadful; he had deteriorated while kept down in the half-flooded, rat-infested, permanently dark bilges. It was too cold and rough to lie on deck. Gideon was in a sorry state when he was carried to the soldiers’ hospital at the Savoy. He was taken there after claiming he had nowhere to go and no one to look after him. He did not want to impose the burden of nursing him on Lambert’s wife. Besides, the house in Bread Street would always be his parents’ house; now they were gone, Gideon had stopped feeling it was home.