by David Hunter
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Male Voices:
"Nothing was found on his pahson to identify him?"
"No Major, nothing."
"He was caught in the bahding house with known collabahratahs of Yankee spies and damned emancipators. Pahaps we may find somethin' in his belongins' there."
"Sir, there are a few things that I can't explain but should to point out to you, if you have a moment."
"So yah say? Such as?"
"Look at this scar. No surrounding evidence of a musket injury, or of any other type of wound. Yet this scar is unlike any that I’ve ever seen. Based on the fade of the scar, I’d say the surgery was executed at least twenty years ago. Before the war I perfected my surgical skills at Boston Hospital with some of the most eminent surgeons in the country. As you are no doubt aware I’ve patched up countless of our boys in these fields of war. I’ve never seen this kind of scar, or the work of such tight stitching in my life. So I'm left to believe that your prisoner must be from some place in Europe where they conduct medical surgery differently."
"You may be on to sumthin'. I wondah if he’s one of those French fairies. They refuse to take sides in the War Between the States, but have considerable economic dealin' with the Confederacy. Keep me informed doctah."
"Just one more thing before you go, Major."
"What would that be doctah?"
"His teeth."
"They look fine to me, what’s the problem?"
"That is the problem sir. They are too fine. Too white. At his age, which I reckon to be in his thirties he should be missing some, if not many, of his teeth. At the very least they can't be this white, without any of chips or wear. Yet they appear to all be there, in pristine condition – which is impossible. Finally, as I tried to get water down him a tooth fell out, but it wasn’t a tooth. It looks real, sure enough, but it is attached to something – some kind of material I have never seen before. When inserted in his mouth it fits perfectly, the tooth goes back into place as if natural. Now look at these patches of something inside the teeth; the color matches just fine. I almost missed them at first. The material is more like that used in a china bowl. No accounting for that at all – who would put that in their teeth? It isn’t natural sir."
"What ah ya’ sayin’, doctah. Some kind of witchcraft?"
"As a man of science I can't subscribe to such a conclusion. Danged if I have any idea what my conclusion should be. There is nothing, and I do mean nothing, in any medical text that I have ever read to account for this. Old Commander Huckabee has the best, most modern, wooden dentures available. Not that he wears them much, mind you. Nothing I know of in the world can account for this man’s false tooth. It looks and feels too much like a real tooth for me to explain. I’ll be danged if I know what that material is that it’s attached to, or how to explain the patches of the strange material in other teeth. Between the false tooth with the strange material, the unusual patches in other teeth, and their overall pristine condition, my medical opinion is that this man can't really exist – yet here he is."
"Don’t get too anxious now, doctah. Jus do yur job and fix him up. Soon as we can question him, we’ll have owah ansahs."
"One final matter Major, it appears that I'll have to amputate his leg. The infection is spreading and will most likely kill him before morning light if I don’t."
"Do what you must, just don’t let him die, doctah. I want the hangman’s noose to do that job."