[GOD08] The Lost Gentleman

by Margaret McPhee

He did not look at her, just kept his gaze fixed on the closing ship, gauging distances and direction with finesse, knowing that although Raven had the advantage of being on the windward side, with less hull exposed and more manoeuvrability, this was still a very dangerous situation.

  ‘You should brace yourself, Kate.’ Lafitte would fire; Kit was convinced of it.

  ‘Have you no honour?’ she demanded.

  He froze at the words that stabbed with stiletto precision into his weakness, his darkness, his Achilles heel. He turned to her, meeting her eyes directly, forgetting in that tiny sliver of a moment about Raven and La Diligent, about where they were, or how much he was revealing of himself.

  ‘No,’ he said in a cool quiet voice. ‘My honour is lost and cannot be redeemed.’

  She looked at him with disbelief and disgust and contempt and he took it, accepting that judgement unflinchingly because it was completely warranted.

  ‘God have mercy on your soul, Kit North.’

  ‘I sold my soul a long time ago. For me there can be no mercy, Kate.’

  Their eyes locked in the moment of painful truth and revelation before with a measure of disgust and disbelief she turned and walked away from him. He watched her go, knowing that whatever she might have felt for him was no more. And rightly so. He returned his focus to La Diligent, now much closer.

  Something glinted in her rigging, tiny and brief, and Kit realised that he had misjudged Lafitte’s plan by one small important point. The sudden truth of it became clear as he identified the glint as a sharpshooter, the long-barrelled rifle in the man’s hands, so carefully taking aim.

  ‘Get down, Kate! Now!’ he yelled, but it would be too late, he knew that even as he sprinted the distance to reach her. The shot rang out, like the clear snap of a branch in a silent wood.

  She was turning towards him, her face looking to his.

  With all the force he could muster he threw himself forward, shielding her, taking her down, twisting as he clutched her to him and they fell together. He landed heavily, the pain like a hard heavy punch to his shoulder pinning him there when he would have got up.

  She lay on top of him, like they were making love. Her face inches from his own, her eyes wide and staring with shock.

  ‘Kit...?’ she whispered, her breath warm against his cheek. ‘Kit...!’ as the realisation began to hit her.

  He tightened his arm around her. She was safe.

  ‘Three hundred yards,’ he heard Briggs’s voice shout from somewhere far in the distance.

  ‘Fire the guns!’ he instructed. The echo of his command ran down the line. Raven roared as her guns let loose on La Diligent.

  The dizziness and darkness roiled in his head. He fought to clear it.

  * * *

  The guns were sounding and the stench of smoke and saltpetre had drifted up from the gun ports to sting her eyes and fill her nose, but Kate barely noticed. She stared with horror at the pool of blood spreading out so dark and wet on the pale scrubbed wood where Kit lay.

  ‘Lafitte’s fleeing, heading back from where he came.’ The voice seemed so faint she barely registered it.

  She could not take her eyes off Kit as she trembled from shock and horror and the need to help him, to save him. She did not remember getting to her knees by his side or bunching her shawl to form a pad. The fine cotton of his black shirt was sodden where she pressed the pad firm against the white-and-red flesh that gaped at his shoulder.

  His face was pale, his eyes dark as jet as they looked into hers. ‘I am fine,’ he said. ‘I just need a little assistance to reach my cabin.’

  * * *

  By the time Gunner arrived Kit’s men had laid him out on the cot within his night cabin. They stood in the background, caps in hands, afraid to leave, their faces, usually so strong and merciless, haunted with the same gut-wrenching, blood-chilling fear that was trembling through her own body.

  ‘Maybe we should we move you below to the surgical room,’ she said quietly, seeing the never-ending leak of blood that was spreading over the sheets.

  ‘No.’ His tone was adamant.

  ‘It is just a flesh wound that needs to be cleaned and bound,’ said Gunner as he stood by Kit’s side. Then, to the men, ‘We need basins of water—cold and fresh boiled—and the packets of linens from the cabinet in my medical room.’

  They nodded and hurried away, easier in activity than idleness. The door clicked shut behind them.

  ‘If you would be so kind as to assist me in stripping off his coat and shirt,’ said Gunner.

  ‘Your strength is not yet fully recovered. I will call one of the men back to help me.’ She moved towards the door, but Kit’s quiet voice stopped her.

  ‘No, Kate.’

  He exchanged a glance with Gunner before Gunner said, ‘We cannot let them see how bad it is.’

  Her stomach dropped, her blood froze. She stared at the priest. ‘You said it was just a flesh wound.’ But she understood even before he answered the unspoken question.

  ‘I am afraid I lied,’ Gunner said softly.

  ‘They are men with pasts, Kate,’ said Kit. ‘They need a strong leader. Without it, Raven would be a very different place for you and Gunner.’

  A ship of leaderless ex-pirates in the middle of the Atlantic would be no place for a priest who had not yet regained his strength, or a woman. ‘How bad is it really?’ she asked.

  He glanced at Gunner for the answer.

  ‘We will not know until I get a proper look at him.’

  She nodded.

  Between the three of them they prised the thick leather coat from him, cut the shirt from his blood-smeared body and pulled off his boots and stockings, covering him with a blanket so that when the men returned they would see nothing. But even that exertion brought an ashen sheen of perspiration to Gunner’s face and left him breathless.

  Once the water and the linens had arrived and the door was safely shut once more, Gunner closed his eyes and leaned against the bed, catching his breath. When he opened them again he met her gaze, holding out his hands before him, revealing openly for the first time the extent of the tremor that beset them.

  ‘It is a delicate operation to probe the wound and one that requires precision if it is to be successful.’

  ‘I will do it myself,’ said Kit.

  ‘You will do no such thing,’ she said firmly and stepped forward. ‘I will be your hands, Reverend Dr Gunner.’ Although she spoke to Gunner her eyes never left Kit’s, holding them with determination until, at last, he gave a tiny nod of assent.

  Gunner’s pale-blue eyes looked into hers. They both knew Kit’s life hung in the balance.

  ‘Tell me what to do,’ she said.

  And he did.

  As she washed the red smear of blood from Kit’s chest and shoulder, she saw for the first time what her fingers had felt the night they made love—his body was a lattice of raised and ragged scars. And she understood at last that solitary confinement had not been the only way the prison guards had punished Kit North.

  The sight made her throat feel thick and tight with emotion, almost broke her heart, but she hid it from him, refusing to meet those dark eyes lest they saw the truth in her own. She swallowed down the rock in her throat, stowed away the deluge of tears that would have fallen, silenced the sobs that crammed tight in her chest for release, for none of those would help him. But strength, practicality and caring hands—they would. Summoning up all of her strength and self-control, she got on with the task, doing what must be done.

  He lay there not saying a word, not flinching from either the pain or the past revealed so clearly all over his body. The blood welled and leaked from the wound constantly. She cleansed it as best she could, moving the basin and cloth aside when she was done, before standing ready before him.
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  ‘Now for the real fun,’ said Kit, cool and calm as ever. As if his life blood were not dripping all over the floor. As if a bullet had not torn its way through half his shoulder.

  ‘Are you sure you want to do this, Kate Medhurst?’ he asked and there was an undertone there that made her understand something she did not want to.

  ‘Are you sure you want to let me, Kit North?’ she replied, never shifting her gaze from his.

  He laughed, but the laugh became a cough, laboured and painful so that she felt the cold fear for him spasm again and caught hold of his hand in her own, squeezing it tight as if she could give him something of her strength.

  When the coughing stopped he laid his head back on the pillow, his eyes holding hers. ‘Do it,’ he said, then glanced across at Gunner with a nod of his head.

  Gunner passed her one of the horrible hooked metal devices she had seen in the glass cupboards down in his surgical room. Such an instrument of torture that she quailed within at the thought of what she was going to have to do with it.

  ‘Having second thoughts?’ Kit’s voice taunted.

  ‘Are you?’ She parried his too perceptive question with one of her own.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not over you. Not any more.’

  Their eyes clung together. She wanted to weep, she wanted to tremble, she wanted both to hold him to her and to flee this room, this situation and him. She did neither of them.

  Instead, she took a deep breath and glanced over at Gunner. ‘I am ready.’

  Gunner moved to insert a piece of wood between Kit’s teeth so that he might bite down on it and not his own tongue when the pain got too bad. But Kit refused it with a shake of his head.

  So Gunner stood behind her and spoke the instructions in a slow, clear, calm voice.

  Taking a deep breath, she moved the metal probe to the wound and then closed off a part of herself to follow Gunner’s every command.

  She probed the raw pulp inside Kit’s body, with one instrument and then another, and he made not one sound. Deeper, further, harder, she probed and probed, until, at last, after what seemed an intolerable lifetime, she saw the dark, misshapen lead ball.

  ‘I found it,’ she said.

  Gunner passed her a pair of small pointed tongs. ‘Prise it out.’

  Her eyes flicked up to meet Kit’s. ‘How are you managing there?’ she asked softly.

  ‘Have you started yet?’ He smiled, but his face was devoid of colour, leaving him powder white, as if the wound had indeed bled every last drop of blood from him, and the sheen of sweat upon his skin glistened in the daylight that flooded through the porthole.

  She returned her focus to the wound, blanking out everything, save Gunner’s voice, and listened carefully to what he was telling her to do.

  With steady hands she dug out the bullet that Jean Lafitte’s sharpshooter had put in him, dropping it with a clatter into the waiting metal dish. Then with the merciless care and the relentless tenacity that Gunner demanded, and Kit deserved, she began examining the wound, removing every tiny fibre of cotton and leather that she could find.

  Every time she thought she was done, Gunner had her go back in with that sharp metal probe, poking and prodding in that bloodied, raw, gaping hole of flesh until it looked like a piece of butcher meat. And she did it. Like the men in Johor who had tortured him, she tortured both him and herself in doing so. And she did it willingly because she would have done anything to save his life.

  The pain must have been unbearable, but not once did he flinch. Not once did he cry out, or groan or even murmur. She could see the knotted muscles and strained tendons tight beneath the skin of that shoulder and could feel the strain that gripped his whole body and the sweat that trickled in rivulets. She prayed that he would know the mercy of passing out, but he did not take what mercy offered. With what must have been utter relentless determination, he stayed right there, aware and awake the whole time.

  It was the longest wait. An agony of suffering that was like nothing she had ever known. Not like birthing her two children. Not like hearing the news that Wendell had been killed. Because here with this was the terrible weighty burden of guilt. For she knew that Kit North had taken that bullet for her.

  At last Gunner pronounced the probing finished. At last she placed the probe down into the dish and he passed her the black-threaded needle, and she sewed him up as if she were sat back in the homestead in Tallaholm, stitching curtains for the windows.

  ‘No.’ Gunner touched a hand to her arm, stopping her when she would have fetched a dressing for the wound. ‘No dressing. The air will heal it better than anything. Keep the bedcovers clear.

  ‘There is nothing more we can do,’ Gunner said. ‘Except pray.’ Practically the same words she had said to Kit when they sat by Gunner’s side that night.

  ‘You know that would be wasted on me, Doc,’ murmured Kit. He managed a smile. His face was grey. Sweat was beaded on his forehead and upper lip. His voice was weak, but the look in his eyes was strong and dark and determined as ever.

  ‘One of these days, my friend,’ teased Gunner, but she could see the toll just being on his feet all that time, watching carefully over her shoulder, had taken on the priest–physician. He was almost as pale as Kit.

  ‘Go, get some rest, Reverend Dr Gunner. I will look after our captain.’

  Gunner gave no argument, only staggered through to the day cabin to collapse on to his own cot.

  The water in every basin was scarlet. The pile of stained rags on the floor was too large. Her hands were stained and wet with Kit’s blood. She stared at them. So much blood. Surely too much for a man to lose and still live? The fear squirmed in her stomach.

  ‘So, you are going to look after me, are you?’ he said.

  She forced herself to swallow the fear down before she let herself look up at him.

  He was watching her, his eyes on hers.

  ‘Shouldn’t you have passed out from the pain by now?’ she asked softly.

  ‘Sorry to disappoint, Kate. Pain is my friend.’

  ‘So it seems.’ She smiled.

  And so did he.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said.

  But she was afraid to face him. ‘When I have cleared up and washed up.’ She moved to gather up the rags.

  ‘No,’ he said, his voice quiet, but still with command.

  She stopped, leaving the rags where they were.

  Her eyes moved to his face, scanning his eyes, fearing what she might see there.

  ‘Sit down now, Kate, before you fall down.’

  ‘I’m fine, really, I am,’ she insisted, but she sat down on the little wooden chair by his bedside all the same. Her eyes scanned the cabin, moving over the pile of scarlet-soaked rags, over the blood that had run down his arm to drip from his fingertips to pool on the bare deck planks below the cot. And the marks of everywhere her bare feet had trodden. The deep dark stain of the blood pool and her own bloody footsteps would be preserved in the wood for the rest of Raven’s life, she thought as her gaze travelled over her bare toes smeared red with his blood. So much blood that she feared there could be none left in his veins. So much blood that she feared...

  ‘Are you?’ His voice was soft, but held a timbre that seemed to reach into her chest and stroke a finger against her heart. He had just endured what would have sent most men out of their minds. Pain that was beyond imagining. Blood loss to drain a body dry. And his concern was not for himself, but for her...the woman who was the cause of it all!

  She looked up into his dark, dark eyes, eyes that were intelligent and perceptive and tender. ‘You need to rest, Kit.’ Her voice was hoarse in her struggle to stop herself breaking down. He needed her strength, her care, her reassurance, nothing else, not right at this moment in time. That would all come later...if he survived.
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  ‘We both need to rest, Kate.’

  She looked at where his bloodstained hand lay loose and open, palm up on the cot’s sheet. She reached her own hand to gently close around it. Their fingers, so engrained with blood, entwined. ‘Maybe you are right,’ she admitted.

  Only then did he close his eyes and take the rest his body must have been screaming for.

  She sat there, exhausted physically, emotionally and spiritually; her eyes on his face, knowing in that moment that she was bound there by much more than their linked hands, or the stain of his blood that marked half her body.

  His face was ashen, his breathing shallow. The bullet was out, but the danger was far from over. A cliff edge stretched ahead, for them both.

  Gunner was right—all they could do was pray.

  * * *

  The shaft of cool silver moonlight behind his eyelids woke Kit in the solitary cell of the Johor prison. The press of the poker in his shoulder was white-hot, bringing a sweat to prickle and run over his skin, holding his breath hostage in his throat, clouding the thoughts from his brain, obscuring the other pain ever present and mammoth in comparison to anything they could do to him.

  He embraced it. Suffered all that they could do to his body. All their paltry efforts. All their taunts, their threats, their promises of how they would make him suffer, what they would take from him before they took his life. They were supposed to terrify him. They were supposed to make him cower and beg. They were meant to break him. But nothing of it touched him.

  Take it, he could have said to them. Take it all. It meant nothing to him. Not what they could do. Not when it went nowhere near the real torture. He did not fear death, but welcomed it and the relief it would bring from the real torment that churned in his soul.

  Regret. Remorse. Guilt. He could not forget. Not for a minute. Not even for a second. What he had done.

  It had taken those long days and nights locked alone in the tiny cramped cell for him to look into his soul and see what he really was. Only then had he finally realised the man he had been and fully appreciated that the fault was all his own and no one else’s. Enlightenment. And a vow sworn. Kit Northcote had died in Johor and Captain Kit North been born.