The North Water(20)

“I need water,” he says. “Look. I am wounded.” He points at his oozing leg. “Here.”

He reaches into his coat pocket for a coin and realizes that he still has the ring. He doesn’t remember putting it in his pocket, but here it is. He shows it to the boy, then gestures for him to take it.

“I need water,” he says again. “Pani.”

The boy looks at the ring without moving. He is around ten or eleven years old—thin-faced, bare-chested, and shoeless, wearing a grubby dhoti and a canvas vest.

“Pani,” he echoes.

“Yes,” Sumner nods. “Pani, but tell no one I am here. Tomorrow when the British soldiers come I will help you. I will keep you safe.”

After a pause, the boy answers him in Hindustani: a long line of empty, clashing syllables like the bleating of a goat. What is a child doing sleeping in a place like this? Sumner wonders. In an empty room in a city that has become a battleground? Are his family all dead? Is there no one left to protect him? He remembers, twenty years before, lying in the dark in the abandoned cabin after his parents were removed to the typhus hospital in Castlebar. His mother had sworn to him they would come back soon, she had held his two hands tight in hers and solemnly sworn to it, but they never did. It was only William Harper the surgeon who happened to recall the missing child, who rode back the next day and found the boy still lying where they had left him. Harper was wearing his green tweed suit that day; his pigskin boots were muddy and wet from the road. He lifted the boy up off the soiled pallet and carried him outside. Sumner remembers, even now, the smells of wool and leather, the damp warmth of the surgeon’s steady breathing and his soft easeful curses, like a newfangled form of prayer.

“When the British soldiers get here I will keep you safe,” Sumner insists again. “I will protect you. Do you understand?”

The boy stares at him for a moment longer, then nods and leaves the room. Sumner returns the ring to his pocket, closes his eyes, leans his head against the wall, and waits. The flesh around his wound is hot and badly swollen. The leg is pulsing with pain, and his thirst is becoming unbearable. He wonders if the boy will betray him now, if the next person he sees will be his murderer. He would be easy enough to kill in his present condition: he has no weapon to defend himself with and little strength left for the struggle even if he had one.

The boy returns with a jug of water. Sumner drinks half of it and uses the remainder to rinse off his wound. Just above the ankle, the shinbone slants backwards at an angle. The foot lolls uselessly below. Compared to the abominations of the field hospital his case is mild, but the sight fills him with fear nonetheless. He shuffles across to the stove and selects two long sticks of firewood from the pile next to it. He takes his jackknife from his tunic pocket, unlocks the blade, and begins to trim and smooth the wood. The boy watches him impassively. Sumner places one piece of firewood on either side of his leg, then gestures for the blanket that the boy was sleeping on. The boy brings it over to him and he tears it into strips. The boy doesn’t move or speak. Sumner leans forwards and starts binding the splints with the pieces of dirty blanket. Just tight enough, he tells himself, but not too tight.

Soon he is drenched with sweat and panting. He can feel the sour taste of vomit rising up his throat. The sweat is stinging his eyes, and his fingers are trembling. He prods the second strip of blanket underneath his leg and then draws the ends together on top. He tries to tie them in a knot, but the pain is too severe. He gives up, pauses a moment, then tries and fails again. He opens his mouth in a silent scream, then grunts and falls backwards onto the floor. He closes his eyes and waits for his breath to return. His heartbeat is like a heavy door somewhere off in the distance being slammed hard again and again. He waits, and eventually the shrill pain resolves into a nauseating ache. He rolls over and looks across at the boy.

“You must help me,” he says.

The boy doesn’t respond. Small black flies agitate across his lips and eyebrows, but he makes no effort to brush them away. Sumner points down at his leg.

“Tie it for me,” he instructs. “Tight but not too tight.”

The boy stands up, looks at the wound, and says something in Hindustani.

“Tight but not too tight,” Sumner says again.

The boy kneels down, takes hold of the bandage, and begins to tie the knot. The bone ends grind together. Sumner cries out. The boy stops, but Sumner impatiently gestures for him to carry on. He finishes the knot and ties the next one and the next one. When the splinting is finished, the boy goes out to the well behind the house, refills the water jug, and brings it back. Sumner drinks the water, then falls asleep. When he wakes up the boy is lying next to him. He smells of wet sawdust and is no larger than a dog; his breaths are slow and shallow. In the nearly lightless room, his sprawled body seems like no more than a thickening of the general darkness. Without moving his damaged leg, Sumner reaches out and touches the child as gently as he can manage. He is not sure which part of his body he is touching. The shoulder blade, is it? The thigh? The boy doesn’t stir or wake.

“You’re a good little fellow,” Sumner whispers to him. “A good little fellow, that’s what you are.”

At first light, the barrage recommences. The explosions are distant to begin with, but then, as the gunners find their range and the British troops gradually advance through the city, street by street, they become closer and louder. The room shakes and a fresh crack jags across the ceiling. They hear the fierce buzz of cannonballs passing overhead, then the dull basso crumble of collapsing walls.