Bruce Alexander - An Experiment in Treason

“Sounds like a grisly tale if ever I heard one. Let me hear it please.”

“Well, the frigate wherein I served, the Advance, was not in many battles, as such, but we did take part in one during the blockade of the St. Lawrence River. We were there, just north of Nova Scotia one spring, taking our turn with another frigate, the Fortune, when quite early of a spring morn a whole flotilla of the French came at us from the east. They’d just crossed the great ocean and had a fair wind in their favor, and they were determined not to allow a pair of frigates block their way. As I was told, the French had three frigates of their own in that convoy, as well as a ship of the line that mounted seventy guns, at least, and all the cargo ships were well-armed, too. They came at us out of the fog, just as the fog was burning off — and that put our gunners at a great disadvantage, for they had the early morning sun in their eyes.

“Not to make too long a story of it,” Mr. Donnelly continued, “for there’s not much glory to tell, the plain truth of it was that they were too much for us. We sank one of their frigates, set another burning so badly that it had to be abandoned, and one of the cargo ships was put out of commission. But that ship of the line, it played holy hell with us. There was little we could do against all those cannon. We were outmanned and outgunned. The Fortune went down swift and took half her crew with her. And while the Advance stayed in the fight longer, what with our decks being raked, our masts coming down, and our rudder damaged, we were forced to retire and fortunate to get away.

“Well, little of this did I see with my own eyes, for by the time the shooting started, I was do’wn in the cockpit with my surgeon’s mates, none of whom knew much, amputating legs, feet, arms, and hands, as the wounded were brought down to me. Amputation, you see, Jeremy, is the one sure treatment in battle; you may be doing too much, but at least you’re doing something for the poor, bleeding wretches. I do recall that among the last brought to me — pulled off the deck he was, with little hope for him — was one who was wounded so badly I could scarcely believe that he still breathed. I daresay you can hardly picture this, but the top of his head had been taken off as neatly as if the fellow had been trepanned — skull, skin, hair, and a good bit of his brain, as well. It was possible to reach into the top of his head, what was left of it, and touch what was left of his brain, and in fact I did so as I tried to clean out the bits of skull and what-all, which littered the bloody, pulpy mass which was inside. But the medulla oblongata, which is deepest beneath all the rest, had gone uninjured and untouched. I saw that he breathed quite regularly. I put my ear to his chest and heard a strong heartbeat. The fellow was physically well, except that he had only half a head left.”

“What could you do for him? “

“Very little. I bandaged up the great, gaping hole, and we laid him aside. It was as if he were asleep — and sleeping rather peacefully, too.”

“But what about his — how do you say it? — his cere-bellum? Could he move?”

“It seemed to me that he could not initiate movement. He could not get up and walk away, for the part of him which could decide to do that had been destroyed, even though he was probably physically capable of doing so. But when I was given a minute or two alone with him, I took it upon myself to move him a bit, one way or another, and each time he moved himself back to the position he had originally held. It was as if he were sleeping.”

“Were his eyes open?”

“Yes, but there was no light in them, no sign of consciousness.

It seemed to bother some that his eyes stared out in that unseeing way, and so eventually I closed them.”

I had never heard such a story, nothing in the least like it. Yet there was more to know, questions I had to ask.

“What happened to him? Does he live yet? “

“I went to the captain with the problem. At first he wanted to hear nothing of the wounded, for, after all, it was his responsibility to bring a badly damaged ship back to port. That occupied him completely. But when I told him how the man was wounded, he was fascinated and asked to know what would happen to him if he were kept just so. How long would he survive? Not long, I told him, for I had already considered the matter — about as long as it would take him to starve to death or die of thirst. ‘That’s all he can look forward to?’ I assured him that that was so. ‘Then dump him over the side with the rest of the dead, after the chaplain has said his prayers over them.’ Those were the captain’s exact words — ‘with the rest of the dead’ — they expressed the situation perfectly, for though the man without a cerebrum breathed well and had a strong heartbeat, he was nevertheless by all other measure a dead man. He was buried at sea.”

I thought long upon the tale I had been told. There were moral implications, as well as medical, to this strange story. To me it seemed apparent that with it, he had proven his theory of the separate functions of the separate sections of the brain. Yet when I declared as much, he shook his head almost sadly.

“Ah, if it were only so easy, Jeremy,” said he. “In truth, I have no idea how one would go about proving the theory, save for destroying, piecemeal, the brains of a number of poor fellows. If I could only get to Benjamin Franklin and talk with him at some length about it. Perhaps he would have — “

“Mr. Donnelly,” I said, interrupting, waving his invitation under his nose, “I may have the answer to that problem.”

“What then? What have you there?”

When I explained, Mr. Donnelly rejoiced. He accepted the invitation with pleasure and seemed not in the least dismayed when I told him that all depended upon Samuel Johnson’s powers of persuasion.

“I have not the slightest doubt that Mr. Johnson will be able to bring the guest of honor round to your table. Mr. Franklin likes a good meal as well as the next man — or so I hear — and since that new cook of yours cooks as well as she looks, he’ll be well fed. Oh, and by the bye, as I recall, Sir John has a very democratical table, does he not?”

“He does indeed. We all sit together, the cook along with the guests.”

“Yes, well, do what you can to get me seated next to her. I should like to have gotten to know her far better that night we met.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

A knock came upon the door in the next room.

“I must be rid of you, Jeremy. The report to Sir John is there on the cabinet. If you would let in the men from the mortician as you go, I would be greatly obliged to you.”

“Ah, then the body’s not bound for a potter’s-field grave.”

“No, Lord Hillsborough bought him a proper funeral.”

“That’s the first good I’ve heard of the man yet.”

Clarissa and I were both surprised when Sir John gave his permission that we might accept Black Jack Bilbo’s invitation to visit him and Marie-Helene that night. What surprised us was that he had given it with such alacrity. His only concerns were two: that we travel there by some safe means of conveyance; and that we not tell Lady Fielding of our visit. He was reassured when he learned that Mr. Bilbo was sending his coach for us, and he gladly took our word that we would tell neither Lady Fielding, nor Molly Sarton, nor anyone else.

“Why do you not tell them,” said he, “that I have sent you two off to the Drury Lane Theatre to see David’s production … of… what u he now doing?”

“I believe ‘tis The Merchant of Venice,” said I.

“You’ve both read it, have you not?”

Clarissa and I agreed that we had.