by James McGee
“Is that right?”
“A revolution is coming, Sawney; in medicine, in science, in so many things. It began with Harvey and Cheselden and John Hunter; men who weren’t afraid to turn away from the old traditions and step towards the light; brave men who were prepared to risk their reputations to explore beyond the existing boundaries of knowledge. The only thing that limits us, Sawney, is the breadth of our imagination. There’s a new way of thinking we call natural philosophy, and it’s going to change the world.”
“An’ you openin’ this new school ’as to do with it?”
“School?” The question was accompanied by a frown.
“This place,” Sawney said, indicating the room and, by inference, the house.
“Ah, yes, I see. Indeed it has. More than you will know.”
“So you’ll be wanting us to bring you another one, then?”
“Correct.”
Sawney considered the answer, and nodded. “All right, I can do that.”
Just so long as I don’t have to salute you, Sawney thought.
“There is one thing, however,” Hyde said. He moved to the table and sat down. “While the last specimen you supplied far exceeded the quality of the first two, I do have a more … specific … requirement.”
“There was something wrong with it?” Sawney frowned.
“Wrong? No. Butler’s faith in you is well founded. As I said, the previous specimen was most satisfactory. I’ve made excellent use of it.” Hyde leaned across the table. “No, my only concern is that it was – how shall I put it? – still not as fresh as I would have liked.”
Sawney’s brow creased. “Fresh? You ain’t going to get them any fresher. Jesus, any fresher, and they’d be walkin’ and talkin’. Christ, they’d be knockin’ on your bleedin’ door, askin’ to be let in.” Sawney grinned, shook his head in amusement and let go a coarse chuckle. Then he saw that Hyde wasn’t sharing the joke. In fact, there was no humour whatsoever in the doctor’s gaze. What there was looked more like … expectancy. A little bird began to trill and flutter its wings deep inside Sawney’s chest.
Hyde remained silent. His gaze was unwavering, and unnerving. Time seemed to slow down.
Then, suddenly, Sawney understood. He sat up. “You serious?”
At first, Hyde said nothing. He was as still as a statue. Then he said, “Can you do it?”
“Well, it ain’t like pullin’ a rabbit out of a bleedin’ hat,” Sawney said. “It’ll cost you extra, and it won’t be pennies.”
Hyde nodded. “I understand. I’ll pay you twenty-five guineas, and no questions will be asked. It will be at your discretion.”
Twenty-five guineas. Three months’ earnings for the average working man; the equivalent of six or seven retrievals – not counting pregnant women, children, and cripples, of course.
Sawney stared at the doctor, at the sharp widow’s peak and the dark, raptor’s eyes. The seconds ticked away; one, two, three …
“Thirty,” Sawney said, and waited.
Hyde reached into his apron strings and took out the cloth. He began to wipe his hands as he had done before. “Half the payment now, half on delivery.”
Sawney let out a slow breath, and nodded.
“I’m relying on you, Sawney. It’s important that I complete my work. An early delivery would be appreciated.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Sawney said, thinking that maybe he should have asked for more. He noticed the doctor’s hands were turning raw from the chafing of the rag. “What about the last one? You goin’ to ’ang on to the remains, or do you want ’em taken away?”
“My space is limited. I’d like it removed.”
Knew I shouldn’t have asked, Sawney thought, and wondered why he had.
“I’ll send someone round.”
“There is one other thing,” Hyde said.
“What’s that?”
“I mentioned before that there are those who would view seekers of the truth, such as myself, as dabblers in necromancy. It’s come to my attention that they may have enlisted the services of a base member of the constabulary. While I’m sure a man in your line of work is adept at avoiding the attention of the authorities, I would urge you to be extra vigilant, especially given the terms of our intended transaction. Though, as someone who managed to evade the clutches of the army provosts for so long, I’m sure you’ll have no difficulty maintaining your anonymity.”
Sawney had no idea what necromancy was – probably another word for trading in the dead, he guessed – so he just nodded. “Don’t you worry, I won’t have no problems giving the Charleys the slip. They couldn’t find their own arses in the dark if they used both hands. Do you know the bugger’s name?”
“Hawkwood.”
Sawney didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. He knew the shock was written across his face.
Hyde’s fingers stilled. “You know him?”
Deny everything, was Sawney’s immediate instinct, but it was too late for that. “Yeah, I know ’im, sort of. But he ain’t no Charley. He’s a Runner.”
“Indeed.” Hyde’s eyes darkened. “You’ve had dealings with him?”
“Indirectly,” Sawney said cautiously. “He crossed paths with some business associates.”
“Recently?”
“Recent enough.” Better not to mention Tate or Murphy, Sawney thought.
“How much of a nuisance is he likely to be?”
Sawney hesitated and then said, “Word is he’s former military, and a bastard.”
“Really?” Hyde fell silent. His expression was noncommittal.
“How come you know about him?” Sawney said.
“What?” Hyde snapped out of his reverie. “Oh, just some information that happened to come my way.” Hyde tucked the cloth back into his apron and rose to his feet. “Wait here.” He left the room.
Sawney got up and moved quickly to Hyde’s black bag, opened it and peered inside. Three seconds later the phial containing the clove oil was in his pocket. He closed the bag and sat down.
Hyde returned carrying a small cloth pouch. There was a dull chink as he placed it in Sawney’s palm.
“I assumed you’d prefer coin of the realm.”
“That’ll do nicely,” Sawney said, getting to his feet. He opened the bag’s drawstring and tipped the money into his palm. It was a fair weight, and immensely reassuring. Coinage was always best. Easier to divide up, easier to spend. Notes could be a bugger. Besides, you started flashing paper money around and you were asking for trouble. Especially given Sawney’s haunts.
Sawney poured the money back into the bag. “So how come you picked the name Dodd?”
“Why not?” Hyde said, unsmilingly. “It’s as useful a name as any.”
Sawney absorbed the reply. “S’pose so.” There didn’t seem anything else to add. He slipped the bag of coin into his pocket. There was an awkward silence. “Right then. Time to go to work.”
Sawney paused when the doctor laid a hand on his arm. A fresh light shone in Hyde’s eyes.
“No need to leave just yet. This Hawkwood fellow – tell me what you know about him. He sounds most intriguing.”
14
It was early morning when Hawkwood climbed the front steps of number 4 Bow Street and made his way up to the Chief Magistrate’s office on the first floor.
Twigg was at his desk in the ante-room, head bowed and scribbling, when Hawkwood entered. He looked up, peered through his spectacles, and frowned in mild annoyance. “Could’ve wiped your feet.”
Hawkwood glanced down at his boots. They were wet with slush from the melted snow that had fallen during the night. Looking behind him, he saw the tracks he’d left across the wooden floor.
“You’d have made someone a grand wife, Ezra,” Hawkwood said. He grinned at the clerk’s pained expression. “How about if next time I take them off and carry them upstairs with me?”
The corners of Twigg’s mouth drooped. “Oh, very droll, Mr Hawkwood. You
ought to be on the stage.”
Hawkwood started to remove his coat, but Twigg shook his head. “He’s not here.”
Hawkwood raised his eyebrows in enquiry.
Twigg sighed and passed Hawkwood the note. “He left a message. You’re to attend him directly. Caleb’s waiting with his carriage downstairs.”
Hawkwood pulled his coat back on and the clerk muttered under his breath as yet more meltwater dribbled from the coat’s hem on to the floor beneath.
“Sorry, Ezra – I didn’t catch that.”
Twigg nodded towards Hawkwood’s feet. “If I were you, I’d clean my boots. Where you’re going, they won’t take kindly to mud on their carpet.”
Twigg wasn’t wrong, thought Hawkwood, as he was shown into the grand, high-ceilinged room. The expression on the face of at least one of the men facing him hinted that his presence was an imposition. Nothing new there, then, he thought, not without an element of satisfaction.
“Ah, Hawkwood.” James Read stepped forward. There was no welcoming smile, just the vocal acknowledgement of his arrival.
Two other men occupied the room. One was standing by the window, the other was seated in a chair by the fireplace. They turned towards him. It had been the man by the window who had cast a dour look at the marks Hawkwood’s boots had left on the rug.
During all parliamentary sittings, a Runner was required to be on duty in the lobby of the House of Commons. The task was rotated among the squad; some considered it to be light, if unexciting, work, and were content to be away from the streets, but it wasn’t a job Hawkwood enjoyed. He found the proximity of so much hot air excruciating and was more than happy to trade places. As a consequence of being so close to the chamber, however, he had become familiar with many of its occupants, including the Home Secretary, Richard Ryder, although the two of them had never been formally introduced.
“Home Secretary,” Read said. “Allow me to present Officer Hawkwood.”
Ryder nodded, his face solemn. He was a relatively young man, only a few years older than Hawkwood, with thinning hair and watchful eyes. “Officer Hawkwood. Yes, I recognize you from the House.”
Hawkwood wondered if that was true or whether Ryder was just being icily polite.
Read turned back and indicated the man by the fireplace.
“This is Surgeon-General McGrigor.”
The Surgeon-General was perhaps four or five years younger and slightly leaner in the face than the Home Secretary, though both men had the same air of authority about them. Ryder, Hawkwood knew, was from an aristocratic family. McGrigor came from merchant stock.
McGrigor stood up and held out his hand. “Grand to meet you, Hawkwood.”
“You, too, sir,” Hawkwood said. He could see the Home Secretary was puzzled by the Surgeon-General’s enthusiasm.
“We’ve not met, though I know of Captain Hawkwood from my brother-in-law’s letters,” McGrigor explained in a soft Highland lilt. “They fought together in Spain.”
Ryder looked momentarily nonplussed until McGrigor took pity on him. “Captain Colquhoun Grant.”
“Ah, yes, of course,” Ryder said. He threw Hawkwood a look, obviously as intrigued by the reference to Hawkwood’s rank as he was by his indirect relationship with the Surgeon-General.
“How is the captain?” Hawkwood asked.
McGrigor smiled. “Still giving the Frogs a good run for their money, you’ll be pleased to hear.”
Hawkwood hadn’t seen Grant for over two years, not since leaving Spain. Grant was Wellington’s chief intelligence officer, operating behind enemy lines, providing Wellington with details on the disposition of French troops and equipment. He worked closely with the Spanish guerrilleros.
It had been Grant who’d persuaded Wellington to employ Hawkwood as a liaison between the resistance fighters and British intelligence units. Hawkwood’s fluency in French and Spanish had proved invaluable. He’d fought alongside the guerrilleros, deep in the mountains, passing additional information to Grant whenever he could. When Hawkwood returned to England, it had been Grant, through his contacts in Horse Guards and Whitehall, who’d provided the rifleman with the necessary references, enabling him to take up his role as a Bow Street officer.
“So, gentlemen,” James Read said, “to the matter in hand.”
The Surgeon-General made a gesture of apology for the diversion and sat down again. Ryder remained by the window. Hawkwood was left standing, as was Read, who went and joined McGrigor by the fire. There was a guard in place, Hawkwood noted with inner amusement.
Read addressed Hawkwood. “I’ve advised Home Secretary Ryder and the Surgeon-General of our interest in Colonel Hyde’s background. That is why they have agreed to meet with us.”
Looking at the three men, Hawkwood wondered about the authority wielded by the Chief Magistrate that he could, with remarkable ease, interpose himself between a member of the cabinet and Wellington’s chief medical officer in a government office deep in the heart of Whitehall. He decided there were still aspects of James Read’s sphere of influence that would remain for ever a mystery and that it was probably unwise to broach too many questions on the subject.
Hawkwood saw that both Ryder and McGrigor were looking at him expectantly. So that was the way it was going to be, he thought. They weren’t going to volunteer information; he would have to delve for it. He’d warned Read he might have to step on some toes. Well, there was no time like the present.
“Why was Colonel Hyde held in Bethlem Asylum? It wasn’t because he was melancholic, was it?”
Both men, Ryder in particular, looked taken aback by the bluntness of Hawkwood’s question. It was McGrigor who recovered first. With a sideways glance towards the Home Secretary, he sat forward. “I take it you have some knowledge of the colonel’s medical background and his army career?”
“Not as much as we’d like,” Hawkwood said.
“Colonel Hyde ran field hospitals in the Peninsula. Guthrie reckons he was probably the bravest surgeon he’d ever met. Hyde was considerably older, of course, much more experienced. Guthrie said he watched Hyde treat wounds that would have made other surgeons hold up their hands in horror. The man’s knowledge of anatomy was astonishing.”
Hawkwood knew Guthrie. He’d met him once. For his age, the young Irishman was rated as one of the army’s best surgeons. He’d begun his military career as a hospital mate in Canada. He had the ear of Wellington.
The Surgeon-General’s face clouded. “You know Colonel Hyde and I served together in the West Indies?”
Hawkwood nodded.
“We met again after the troops returned from Corunna. I was Deputy Inspector of Hospitals for the southwest. It was my job to procure beds for the wounded. I saw the changes in him then. There were times when he appeared more than a little distracted. I put it down to the work. We’d talk about the war; the effect it had on men’s lives. We’d discuss medicine and surgery, of course, and how things were changing, and what the future held. It’s true to say that I found some of his views rather fanciful.”
“In what way?”
McGrigor pursed his lips. “He saw the human body as a form of machine, and believed that it could be mended by taking working parts from other machines. We’re already doing it with teeth, he’d say, why not skin or blood and bone? Why not the liver or the bladder, or even the heart?”
With a shake of his head, McGrigor went on: “When I suggested that such a thing would go against the laws of God, he said that when a wounded soldier’s lying on a hospital table, God has nothing to do with it. It’s the surgeon who’s wielding the knife.” The Surgeon-General paused. “I thought it was nothing more than random musings. But when he was in Oporto, there was some talk.”
“Talk?”
“Murmurs really, nothing more, that some of the colonel’s operating procedures were becoming a little … unconventional. There was no basis, at least as far as we could tell. Certainly, there were no reports of mistreatment from either the B
ritish or French casualties.”
No one queried the Surgeon-General’s statement. Treating wounded enemy combatants was a fact of war and not uncommon. Mostly it occurred in the wake of a withdrawal. It could take a long time to evacuate a field hospital and, in such a situation, speed was of the essence. The walking wounded were usually no bother, provided they could keep up with the retreat. The seriously injured, however, were often left at the mercy of the enemy, with a skeleton medical staff remaining behind to act as overseers. In the case of the British, that duty tended to fall to an assistant medical officer or a surgeon’s mate, who would be exchanged for their French counterparts at a later date.
Hawkwood remembered Oporto. The French commander, Soult, had left so fast that he hadn’t just left his stores, guns, bullion and his sick and wounded, he’d also left his still-warm dinner. There had been a lot of French casualties, he recalled.
“Anyway,” McGrigor continued, “it was put down to contention in the ranks. If the colonel had an obvious flaw it was that he was too intolerant of the conditions and some of the procedures carried out by less able surgeons. We were in a hospital in Portsmouth when I saw him berate one of his colleagues for continuously bleeding a man. Yelled at him that if he took any more blood the only things left on the bed would be boots and bones. The colonel was a brilliant surgeon and he knew it. But he tended towards arrogance, and the others resented him for it.”
“So there was no truth to these ‘murmurs’?” Hawkwood said.
There was a long pause. “None that we knew of … at least, not then.” McGrigor brushed a speck of dust from his knee. “But it had become plain that his attitude, his insinuations and his contemptuous manner had won him no friends among the other medical officers. On duty, they tolerated him. Off duty they excluded him. He began to spend his free time alone, and in doing so became increasingly isolated and withdrawn. It was at Talavera that we finally learned the truth.”
A nerve flickered along the Surgeon-General’s cheek. Hawkwood suspected that McGrigor expected mention of Talavera to cause him unease. He wondered if Ryder was aware of that part of his history. Nothing in the Home Secretary’s demeanour indicated that he knew. It was probably better if it remained that way.