Stephen Gallagher - The Bedlam Detective

He narrowed his eyes and looked at me. With the manner of a man who is judging what he’s looking at, and thinking little of what he sees.

He said, “Don’t make me regret bringing you along, Doctor Somerville. You can be such an old woman sometimes.”

The two camaradas did not return. I have no idea why, and nor did anyone else. I don’t believe that they ran away. It made no sense for them to leave the boats. Without the river there was little chance of crossing this jungle and surviving the journey.

Sir Owain talked about going after them, not for the sake of the men but for the beast they’d followed. If he could not bag it alive, he’d have a trophy. I could see that he’d begun to look for some outcome, any outcome, that might save his face and justify his losses on our return to civilization. He was probably writing the Royal Society speech in his head. My dear lost colleagues and loyal servants, I mourn them all; and I dedicate this triumph to their memory .

Meanwhile, his son had begun to suffer painful eruptions on his bare legs. Though he’d dubbed me the party’s physician, Sir Owain had now started to behave to me as he behaved to all critics, by sending the odd sarcastic shot in my direction (“We might have some tea, if Doctor Somerville doesn’t think it too dangerous,”) but otherwise choosing largely to ignore my existence. He said to his son, “It’s just bug bites, boy. Get some lotion on them and stop your complaining,” and so the boy came to me on his own.

He stood by me and said, “Excuse me, sir,” and I hadn’t the heart to let the rocking horse incident color my response.

I’d heard the conversation with his father and so I said, “Hello, Simon. Need something for those bites?”

“Father’s told me to get some lotion.”

I looked at his legs. I saw no bug bites. Just infected scratches. In these conditions he should have been in long trousers from the beginning, regardless of youth and social convention.

“Let’s see what there is for you,” I said.

There was nothing. Someone had been at my kit, and anything that might have been useful was gone. The boy was watching me now, and I didn’t want to turn him away without at least making some effort to help him.

Then I had an inspiration and took out my hip flask. I soaked a pad in neat navy rum, and said, “Some of those wounds are quite raw, so I can tell you this will sting. But in a good way. Have you been scratching them?”

“A little,” he admitted.

“I know,” I said, “it’s hard not to. We’ll bind them up to stop them itching and give them a chance to heal.”

I swabbed his wounds with the rum, which I know must have hurt, but he remained stoical and barely made a sound. Then I tore up some linen and bound his legs in makeshift puttees. They probably wouldn’t help with the itching, but they would protect his legs and prevent him from making the scratches worse.

For the rest of the day he followed me around, offering to help with whatever job I was doing.

Disaster struck again the next morning, within an hour of continuing our journey. Our river merged with a second, faster torrent, and our pilot boat was capsized in the crosscurrent. Sir Owain, his wife, his son, the Indian, the astronomer, and two of our surveyors were dumped into the foam, along with the paddle crew. The boat was lost, but all swam to safety, or were rescued.

Which in itself would have been a comparatively happy outcome, had the boy not been dragged from the shallows unconscious. A first examination found no visible harm. But when his shirt was opened, a spreading contusion under the skin below his ribs signaled some profound hidden injury.

We were crouched on the riverbank beside the child. Sir Owain had his arms around his wife, who was holding the boy’s hand.

Sir Owain said, “What treatment can you recommend?”

I do not think that I have ever felt so helpless as I did in that moment. I said, “None that wouldn’t risk doing a lot more harm.”

“Nothing is impossible for a resourceful man,” Sir Owain said.

At which point I lost all restraint.

“You call on your resources and conjure me a hospital, then,” I said, “and I’ll give you any treatment you’re looking for. What do you imagine you’ve done, here, Owain? You’ve cut us off from all that’s civilized.”

“Please, Somerville.”

“There’s bleeding inside. All I can hope to do is drain it and hope that he bleeds no more.”

He said, “I’ve every confidence in you.”

“Then it’s misplaced!” I shouted. “I’ll do my best, but I’m no surgeon. No more of your sunny reassurances, Owain. We’re up against it now.”

We set up one of our two remaining tents and draped our last net to keep the insects out. I went around all the camaradas to see who had the sharpest knife. I sent some of the Indians out to search for leaves and bark with reputed healing properties. Everyone was looking at me as if I had some idea of what I was doing. I did not. I had these few materials and the hope, with no belief, that I might do some small measure of good with them.

My ignorance was medieval. All I could offer were the rituals of medical attention, with no significant expertise at the heart of it. I turned the unconscious child onto his side and made a cut to let out the blood, which came out thick and dark, and very slowly. When that stopped I placed him on his back and applied the healing poultice to the wound.

I feared to see him moved. But I could foresee no good outcome if we did not get him into the hands of someone more skilled.

I left him with his parents and went and sat by the river. I felt despair. After a while Sir Owain emerged from the tent and came over to me.

“He opened his eyes and spoke my name,” he said. “I do believe he’s stronger already. Well done, man.” And he clapped me on the shoulder.

Through all our trials, he seemed to have learned nothing. If we can assume that Owain did not imagine them, those few words were the last his son would ever speak.

It hardly mattered whether my crude surgery had been in any way effective, because an infection quickly set in around the wound that I’d made. At the same time, Sir Owain drew my attention to the fact that the boy’s mother was ailing as well.

“My dear Bernard,” he said to me. “Could you take a look at Mrs. Lancaster? I’m not sure I like her color.”

Somerville paused. Sebastian was aware of the superintendent’s deputy taking out his pocket watch and checking the time.

The botanist said, “Would it endanger my privileges if we were to continue my story tomorrow? You must agree that I have been a willing witness.”

“Is there much more to tell?” Sebastian said.

“No, but what remains is the most important part,” Somerville said, “and I am beginning to tire. I do not mean to be uncooperative. I only wish to do the story justice.”

Sebastian looked at Evangeline. She offered no argument. All but the botanist rose to their feet. The deputy superintendent’s relief was palpable. Sebastian said, “Can it be arranged?” and the deputy agreed that it could.

Evangeline said to the botanist, “Do you know why you’re here?”

“I know what they’ve told me.”

“Which is?”

“That I flew at my sister in a moment of madness. But I love my sister dearly. It’s inconceivable that I would ever want to do her harm.”

“And yet you did.”

“I cannot explain it. Trying to makes it worse. So all in all,” he said, indicating the small room into which they were all crowded, “I would rather she was safe from me, and I was here.”

Sebastian said, “In that moment between sleep and waking. What did you take her for?”