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‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he managed. ‘Go away.’ But she was not listening to him.
‘Can you get that dead man out of here, George? And then bring my things from the gig and find some water for Max?’ A bulky shadow moved behind her.
Dead man? Hal’s confused mind wrestled with why the body was important. ‘No, strip him first. I want everything he’s got on him and his pack,’ he managed to get out before his voice failed him.
‘But…very well. George, do that if it makes Major Carlow easier in his mind. I’ll get my things.’
His eyes were closed again, but he caught a faint trace of her scent as she moved in the stuffy little room. And despite everything, he smiled as the dark took him again.
With her supplies around her feet, Julia stood and looked at Hal’s sprawled body, trying to think coherently. Whoever had brought him from the battlefield had laid him down fully clothed on a thin spread of straw. The right side of his body from shoulder to knee was soaked in blood, dark now, his uniform stiff with it and covered in flies. Through ominous gashes in the fabric, she could see flesh.
She had to get him onto something higher and softer, out of his uniform and clean. That would make him more comfortable and she could see the extent of his wounds.
She began to drag straw bundles into a rough oblong, then covered the top with a deep mattress of hay. A blanket went over that, then a sheet. She rolled another blanket into a pillow and looked up to find George, his arms full of equipment.
‘I’ve buried him under some loose earth out the back,’ he said, dumping the things in a corner and going out again. He returned leading their horse and tied it up next to Max, then watered both animals. ‘This big ’un’s got some damage, but nothing serious,’ he said. ‘I’ll wash him off and put some salve on to keep the flies off him.’
‘Can you help me get Major Carlow onto this bed I’ve made first?’ Julia asked, pushing her hair out off her damp forehead. ‘I need to get him stripped off so I can see where he is wounded.’
‘Best get his uniform off first before we move him then. You go outside, Miss, while I do it.’
‘George, one un conscious naked man is probably the least shocking thing I will see today,’ Julia said, taking hold of the left boot and starting to ease it off cautiously in case of broken bones.
‘Right you are, then.’ He took hold of the other boot and pulled too.
It took, Julia estimated, an hour to strip Hal. Below the knees, his legs were unmarked, protected by the boots. His face and left side were covered in bruises and minor cuts, but nothing serious. But a savage slash went down his right side, shallow across his chest, worse down the arm and ribs, sickeningly deep across his thigh.
‘What’s this?’ George lifted a shattered object from over Hal’s heart.
‘My notebook. The sword blow must have hit it, skidded off.’
‘Saved his life, I reckon,’ George muttered. ‘Looks like he’d just been attacked by this swords man when a shell or something landed, took him and that dead trooper off their horses—that’ll be the bruising and the smaller cuts. Just got to hope there’s no damage inside where we can’t see.’
Julia stared at Hal’s sprawled body and told herself that fainting was optional and she did not choose to faint. It was all a matter of will power. The buzzing faded away and she swallowed. ‘We had better check his back, wash it before we lift him up.’
She had dreamed about this body, she realized as George rolled Hal onto to his left side and she knelt to wipe the sweat, dirt and blood away. Fantasised about its lean strength, imagined running her hands over the elegant muscles of his back, wondered how this man’s skin would feel under her soft palms. Now, her only desire was to heal it. There were old scars, white against the lightly tanned skin and she found them reassuring. He had survived wounds before, he would again.
‘Take his legs then, Miss. I’ll keep him as flat as I can.’ George knelt down, pushed both arms under Hal’s shoulders and hips, waited until Julia took hold of his ankles and then lifted, while she swung his legs over onto the make shift bed.
‘Moving him has opened the wounds up.’ Julia worried, beginning to sponge Hal’s face and left side, leaving the worst until last.
‘That’ll need sewing,’ George said, opening his mysterious bag.
‘You can do it?’ Julia twisted round to see him pulling a thin, curved needle and some black thread out of a pouch.
‘Aye. Well, I can stitch up a horse. Can’t be much different, I reckon. But we’ll need to get it all clean. You leave bits of cloth in that and it’ll fester. They call me a fussy old devil in the stables, but I’ve seen and I take note: clean wounds, clean hands and things heal better.’ He squinted at the point of the needle. ‘Don’t know why. I use lots of brandy too, that helps.’ He produced a flask and a bottle, poured dark liquid out and dropped the needle and thread into it.
Julia began to work on the wounds with the warm water he brought her, a good handful of salt dissolved in it.
‘Salt water helps too,’ George explained, leaving her to it and going across to see to Max. ‘Don’t know why that works either, but you take a horse with sores on its legs and walk it in the sea, it’ll heal faster than one you don’t.’
It would be worse with a gunshot she realized, making herself look dispassionately at what she was doing. A shot would force fabric deep into the flesh, a slashing wound did not. She worked her way up to his chest, laying linen cloths over each clean part of his body as she finished it to keep the flies off. As she started to work on the cut and bruised contusion where the notebook had been, Hal opened his eyes, dark, almost black with pain.
‘Go away,’ he croaked. ‘Should be in Antwerp.’
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘We will make you better. Drink this.’ It was clean water from Madame’s big kettle mixed with brandy. She slid one arm under his head to raise him a little and held it to his lips, watching some faint colour come back into his face as he swallowed an entire horn beaker full.
‘Don’t want you. Go away.’
