The boy returns with a jug of water. Sumner drinks half of it and uses the remainder to rinse off his wound. Just above the ankle, the shinbone slants backwards at an angle. The foot lolls uselessly below. Compared to the abominations of the field hospital his case is mild, but the sight fills him with fear nonetheless. He shuffles across to the stove and selects two long sticks of firewood from the pile next to it. He takes his jackknife from his tunic pocket, unlocks the blade, and begins to trim and smooth the wood. The boy watches him impassively. Sumner places one piece of firewood on either side of his leg, then gestures for the blanket that the boy was sleeping on. The boy brings it over to him and he tears it into strips. The boy doesn’t move or speak. Sumner leans forwards and starts binding the splints with the pieces of dirty blanket. Just tight enough, he tells himself, but not too tight.
Soon he is drenched with sweat and panting. He can feel the sour taste of vomit rising up his throat. The sweat is stinging his eyes, and his fingers are trembling. He prods the second strip of blanket underneath his leg and then draws the ends together on top. He tries to tie them in a knot, but the pain is too severe. He gives up, pauses a moment, then tries and fails again. He opens his mouth in a silent scream, then grunts and falls backwards onto the floor. He closes his eyes and waits for his breath to return. His heartbeat is like a heavy door somewhere off in the distance being slammed hard again and again. He waits, and eventually the shrill pain resolves into a nauseating ache. He rolls over and looks across at the boy.
“You must help me,” he says.
The boy doesn’t respond. Small black flies agitate across his lips and eyebrows, but he makes no effort to brush them away. Sumner points down at his leg.
“Tie it for me,” he instructs. “Tight but not too tight.”
The boy stands up, looks at the wound, and says something in Hindustani.
“Tight but not too tight,” Sumner says again.
The boy kneels down, takes hold of the bandage, and begins to tie the knot. The bone ends grind together. Sumner cries out. The boy stops, but Sumner impatiently gestures for him to carry on. He finishes the knot and ties the next one and the next one. When the splinting is finished, the boy goes out to the well behind the house, refills the water jug, and brings it back. Sumner drinks the water, then falls asleep. When he wakes up the boy is lying next to him. He smells of wet sawdust and is no larger than a dog; his breaths are slow and shallow. In the nearly lightless room, his sprawled body seems like no more than a thickening of the general darkness. Without moving his damaged leg, Sumner reaches out and touches the child as gently as he can manage. He is not sure which part of his body he is touching. The shoulder blade, is it? The thigh? The boy doesn’t stir or wake.
“You’re a good little fellow,” Sumner whispers to him. “A good little fellow, that’s what you are.”
At first light, the barrage recommences. The explosions are distant to begin with, but then, as the gunners find their range and the British troops gradually advance through the city, street by street, they become closer and louder. The room shakes and a fresh crack jags across the ceiling. They hear the fierce buzz of cannonballs passing overhead, then the dull basso crumble of collapsing walls.
“We sit tight,” Sumner tells the boy. “We sit tight here and wait.”
The boy nods and scratches himself. He has found a piece of bark to chew on and what looks like the leaves of a turnip. Sumner lights his pipe and silently prays that Tommy Atkins arrives before the house is hit by an artillery shell or overrun by fleeing Pandys. After a while they hear the rattle of musketry, then voices. Someone outside is cursing and yelling commands. There are footsteps overhead and the sound of slamming doors. Sumner feels a sudden and terrifying sense of encroachment and exposure; he feels the urge to crouch down and hide. The boy looks at him expectantly. Sumner grabs onto the stove and pulls himself upright. The pain in his leg is sickening but tolerable. He leans against the boy and together they stumble over to the doorway. There is a boom of cannon fire and then screams. The boy presses himself against Sumner’s side. Sumner cracks open the door and peers out. He sees a dead Pandy propped against a wall and, from the gap at the end of the alleyway, the flash of a British uniform. The air is sharp with gun smoke, full of yellow dust, and loud with the panic and wildness of battle.
“Quick,” he says to the boy, “quick before they leave us behind.”
They hobble down the alleyway in the direction of the shouting and gunfire, but already the noises are becoming fainter. The battle is moving on. When they reach the thoroughfare, all they see are piles of smashed masonry and scattered, blood-smirched corpses. A British soldier appears from a doorway, carrying a pistol in one hand and a sack of loot in the other. Sumner calls out to him for help. The soldier turns sharply back to look at them. His eyes are wild, and his oncered uniform is befouled with sweat and dirt. Noticing the boy, the soldier stiffens momentarily, then raises his pistol and shoots. The ball hits the boy full in the chest and knocks him backwards. Sumner lowers himself and presses his hands hard against the pulsing wound. The pistol ball has shattered the sternum and passed directly through the heart. Bubbles of blood rise and break on the boy’s gray lips, his dark eyes roll back into his head, and in a minute he is dead.
The soldier spits, twitches, and begins to reload his pistol. He looks over at Sumner and smiles.
“I have a fucking good eye for the shooting,” he says. “I always have.”
“You are a fucking imbecile,” Sumner answers.
The soldier laughs and shakes his head.
“I am the one who saved your precious life,” he says. “Think on that.”
A dooly arrives, and Sumner is lifted onto it. They carry him back through the broken city to the field hospital behind the racquet court. He is not recognized at first amongst the hordes of wounded, but when Corbyn sees him, he is quickly moved upstairs and placed in a side room by himself.
He is given food, water, and a dose of laudanum, and an adjunct is sent to re-splint and dress his leg. He slips in and out of slumber. He can hear the constant noise of cannon and the intermittent howls of the wounded from the floor below. It is dark before Corbyn comes up to see him. He carries an oil lamp and smokes a cheroot. They shake hands and Corbyn stares down at him for a moment with an expression of sad puzzlement, as though Sumner is a carefully planned experiment that has unexpectedly misfired.
“So the others are all dead?” he asks.
Sumner nods.
“We were caught unawares,” he says.
“You were lucky to survive then.” He lifts the blanket and glances at Sumner’s leg.
“The wound is clean and the break isn’t so bad. I may need to use a cane for a while, but that’s all.”
Corbyn nods and smiles. Sumner watches him expectantly. Soon, he thinks, he will make me an offer, suggest an appropriate reward for my sufferings.
“You must have imagined I was dead also,” Sumner says, “when no one came back.”
“Indeed,” Corbyn says, “that was the general assumption.” Then he adds after a pause: “I am glad of course that we were wrong.”
“The treasure was real enough, but there were Pandys hiding in the house.”
“You walked into a trap then. You made a bad mistake.”
“Not a trap,” Sumner says, “an accident. No one could have guessed they were in there.”
“For a surgeon to leave his post is a serious thing.”
Corbyn’s gaze hardens and he watches Sumner carefully. Sumner opens his mouth to speak, then stops himself.
“I trust you understand my meaning,” Corbyn says. “I am glad you’re safe, of course, but nonetheless your present situation is not a happy one. There is likely to be a charge.”
“A charge?” Sumner wonders for a confusing moment if this could be part of some larger plan that Corbyn has cooked up in his absence. Some grander strategy for their mutual benefit.
“The circumstances make it unavoidable,” Corbyn goes on. “The assault was at a crucial stage. To lose three surgeons at such a time…” He raises his eyebrows and lazily exhales a tube of gray-brown smoke into the inky darkness.
Sumner feels a sharp tightening across his chest, and the beginnings of disorientation, as if the room has started unexpectedly, impossibly, to tilt around him.
“If there is to be any charge,” he says, “I trust I can rely on your assistance, Mr. Corbyn.”
Corbyn frowns and shakes his head dismissively.
“I don’t see what assistance I could possibly offer you,” he says lightly. “The facts of the matter are clear.”