Lost at Sea Bk. 02 Ch. 24

"Yes, well, I changed my mind," Janie said, trying not to sound defensive.

"I changed your mind," Tonya corrected her.

"How the hell did you manage that?" Caine asked, mockingly impressed.

"I told her she'd soak her only good corset in blood," Tonya smirked.

Janie blushed. "Can you hear everything that happens upstairs?" she asked Caine.

"If it's quiet. The place ain't that big," he said with a shrug. Then he did a double take back to Tonya and tried not to laugh into his mug. "Wait, you grew up on the streets, but all you own are fancy clothes?"

Tonya lay there with her cheek smashed against the desk. "When I started earning my own money, I burned my old rags and bought dresses, and perfume, and soap, and fancy shit. I kept meaning to buy some simple stuff, but I never got around to it. I just kept saving for more expensive ones."

"Oh no," Janie said, hiding her smile behind her hand.

Caine snorted. "A street rat with expensive taste. Who'da thunk."

"I ain't a street rat no more," Tonya said fiercely. "I'm a fuckin' lady."

Janie pursed her lips tightly and cleared her throat to keep herself from laughing. "Yes, clearly,"

"I'm pretty sure there's more to it than clothes," Caine deadpanned.

"Damn right, like servants!" Tonya complained. "Ladies don't sweat their taint raw hauling dusty old crap off a thousand shelves."

"They also don't strip because they're hot," Caine shrugged.

Tonya raised a single finger in his direction.

"Very ladylike," Caine smirked.

"What is a... taint?" Janie asked.

Tonya rolled her head and looked at her, then burst out laughing.

Janie looked at Caine, bewildered, and starting to feel like she'd made a mistake in asking.

Caine looked at her for a moment with his stein tilted halfway to his lips. Then he shook his head firmly. "Nope. Not my job." He turned and walked up the stairs.

Tonya was still giggling. "Most of the time you seem like you know everything, and then you say shit like that. Ain't often I get to be the teacher."

Janie's expression turned apprehensive. "Now I'm not sure I want to know."

"Too late!" Tonya said, sitting up and hopping off the desk. "Untie me."

Janie sighed and reached for the laces running up Tonya's back.

"So, you know that bit of skin between your snatch and your asshole?" Tonya asked.

"I should have left with Caine," Janie said with a pained expression.

"That's your taint!" Tonya said happily. "Also called the gootch, grundle, or perennial!"

"I am absolutely certain it is not the perennial," Janie said flatly as she tried to undo Tonya's laces as quickly as possible.

"If you're with a guy, and he's a quick shot, you can press on that while squeezing the base of his cock to keep him from going off early."

"How useful," Janie deadpanned.

"It's a good spot to tickle or rub while you're sucking someone off. Some guys really like it," Tonya said happily. "You can kinda hold the balls like this," she said, making a circle with her thumb and index finger, "and stick out your middle finger like this," she said, extending her second finger straight. "Then you just kinda curl your middle finger back and forth to tickle him while you're jerking with your other hand and sucking. It's a lot to do all at once, but it's easy after a bit of practice."

"Yes, Lovely. Thank you," Janie muttered, wishing she were anywhere else.

"My pleasure," Tonya grinned.

Janie could only sigh in resignation. "Clearly."

The laces of Tonya's dress finally released and she shimmied out of her corset and yanked her dress to the floor all in one motion. She stepped out of the pile of clothing happily nude save for her stockings and shoes. "Oh fuck me, that's nice. I hate getting sweaty. I'd lick Old Man Teach's taint for a good bath right now."

Janie put her fingers to her head like she was fighting off a headache. "There is a wash tub upstairs."

Tonya whirled, surprised and thrilled. "Where?"

Janie pointed up. "The only other door in the bedroom."

Tonya gave Janie a sweaty, naked hug and streaked up the stairs.

Janie smiled in spite of herself, feeling like she'd just weathered a small storm. She slowly made a circle with her finger and thumb and wiggled her middle finger, then rolled her eyes and laughed at herself. With Tonya around, things were never dull. She started to lean back into Will's chair, and her back reminded her again why that was a bad idea. She let out a small noise of frustration and leaned forward against the desk.

So many times she'd sat attentively on the other side, but she'd never sat in this chair. The windows behind her let in a nice breeze off the bay, and a surprising amount of light. She could see the edge of the stairs, and straight through the front room to the door. The curved walls on either side of her were covered with shelves full of keepsakes that she knew little about, but were clearly important to Will.

Old nautical equipment, maps mounted like portraits, round glass baubles in fine nets, a strange brass mask, a pair of silver handled pistols, a case full of medals she was fairly certain were from the Imperial navy. Here, she felt like she was in the lord's chair of a very small castle. She could see why Will had arranged things the way he did, and why it was where he felt most comfortable. Once they cleared out the piles of books and papers that had accumulated at the edges of the room, it would actually be a fairly nice place.

She stretched her legs and her foot caught on something for a moment. Cleaning had eventually gotten so filthy that she'd kicked off her shoes to avoid ruining them. She was still barefoot. Carefully, she ran her toes across the rug beneath Will's desk. There was definitely something beneath it. It felt circular, slightly larger than her foot.

"Caine," she called up the stairs.

A few moments later, she heard his boots on the steps.

"Just pump the handle!" Caine called over his shoulder as he reached the bottom of the steps. "Damn girl wants me to pump her bath water."

"I suspect that's not the entirety of what she wants," Janie said with a raised eyebrow.

Caine grunted out a laugh. "Yeah, probably. What do you need?"

"There's something under the desk," She patted it as she walked around to the front. "Help me move it?"

Caine shoved some of Will's stuff down a shelf with his stein to clear some room for it, then set it down. "Sure."

The desk was surprisingly heavy, but together they managed to use the rug under it to drag it towards the door.

In the floor was a metal pull ring attached to what was, unmistakably, a trap door.

____________________________

"You in, Doc?" Coleman asked, pushing aside the flap of the large tent they'd converted into a field hospital. Next to it, like a separate wing, was a slightly smaller pavilion tent they'd set up as a morgue. He was pretty sure it was empty now after all the burials yesterday, save for a couple of Grindylow bodies Doctor Kalfou had wanted to study.

"Back here, I" came a voice from behind the tent.

Coleman let the tent flap fall and walked around to the back. Behind the main medical tent were two long rows of smaller tents joined end to end. It looked like a military bivouac formation, but with the individual tents closer together. It looked like whoever had set it up turned a bunch of smaller tents into two longer ones. In front were a pair of posts with ship bells hanging from them. Ropes ran from the bells and disappeared into the line of tents.

"Doc?" he called again, a bit confused about what he was looking at.

"In here, left row," her voice came again.

He ducked into the first tent in the left row and found himself cramped between two cots where wounded sailors slept. It was too low to stand straight and lit only by the sun faintly filtering through the canvas. The back wall of the tent had been cut open to create another door. It was pulled loosely closed, but the rope from the bells ran through it, suspended on a simple pulley line hanging from the middle of the tent. He awkwardly shuffled forward and ducked through that tent into the next in the row, following the bell rope. More wounded lay on cots. One of them looked up at him through dark, swollen eyes. He reached down and gave the man's shoulder a gentle pat. "You doing alright, Harker?"

"Aye, Mister North," Harker said weakly. "The Doc's taking good care of us. She put my shoulder back into place, and set my nose so I won't end up looking like you."

"Wouldn't wish that on anyone," Coleman smiled sympathetically. "What about the leg?"

Harker gave a small shrug. "I won't need a peg, but I might need a crutch."

"We'll get you a nice cane, and you can tell us when there's a storm coming," Coleman said with half a smile. "Get some rest."

"Aye," Harker said, letting his eyes close again. "You tell Mister Sterling, we're grateful. Tell all of them. Him, Miss Webber, that green fellow. We shouldn't have made it out of that scrape. They saved all our asses."

"Rest up," Coleman said. "When you're on your feet you can tell them yourself."

He ducked through the next tent, and the next, stopping to check on the crew that were awake, until he found Doctor Kalfou. She still wore her fancy shirt from the Barcolan festival beneath a buttoned up white lab coat that was streaked with blood and other stains. The coat's buttons did not go high, so Coleman found himself face to face with a wide expanse of dark cleavage as the Doctor leaned over her patient. She glanced up at him and immediately saw where he was looking. His face flushed and he averted his eyes quickly. She glanced down at her chest and rolled her eyes in momentary exasperation, then went back to what she had been doing without a word.

She was kneeling in between two cots helping a shirtless sailor with a large bandage on his chest painfully sit back into a pile of duffel bags. Once he was propped up in his makeshift lounge chair she relaxed and tugged her lab coat a bit higher. It didn't help much. "Is that better?"

The sailor nodded, wincing. "It's easier to breathe now. Hey Mister North,"

"Hopefully it will stay that way this time," she said, pulling a leather satchel from under the bed.

"Mesa, right? You're the new Helmsmate?" Coleman asked, settling himself into a comfortable position in the door to keep out of the way.

"Aye, sir," Mesa nodded. His smile was weak, but he was clearly glad to be recognized by an officer.

"No need for that now. Just Mister North is fine. You and I ain't sirs. We work for a living," Coleman said with a comforting smile.

Doctor Kalfou interrupted before Mesa could answer. "Mister North, be with you in a few minutes, I. Might prefer to look away, or wait outside, you."

"I'll stay. How can I help?" he asked.

She pointed up to where she'd hung a lantern at the apex of the tent. "Hold the light closer."

As he unhooked the lantern, she unrolled a case full of strange metal and glass canisters. She put them on her patient's legs and started connecting them with thin tubes.

"What are we doing?" Coleman asked.

"Removing the fluid that is filling Mister Mesa's lung," Doctor Kalfou explained. "This is a Malaharan exsanguination kit, usually used to move blood from one person to another. Going to try to use it as a drain, I"

Coleman watched, a bit confused but fascinated by the delicate apparatus. When it was finished, it looked like a hand pump connected to a glass container, with a tube sticking out the side. At the end of the tube she attached a long needle, then set the whole thing down in Mesa's lap and started pulling away the bloody bandage.

Beneath it was another layer of what looked like a greasy section of canvas. Coleman's eyes went wide as he realized what the injury was. He'd seen wounds like that before. People who had them didn't last long. He had more than one memory of watching men drown on their own blood that he'd rather forget. He winced as she pulled the second cloth back to reveal a ragged puncture that immediately started hissing and frothing bubbles of blood. Mesa started wheezing as he struggled for breath.

Coleman's heart lurched. If the Doctor could save a man from a punctured lung, she was truly a miracle worker. He didn't know if she was saving him, or just helping him die comfortably, so he just kept his mouth shut and held the lantern.

"It's alright, we talked about this. Breathe as well as you can, it won't be long," Doctor Kalfou reassured the wounded sailor. Mesa nodded weakly.

She quickly cleaned the wound, yanked the stopper from a small bottle with her teeth, and poured a pungent alcohol into the welling bubbles of blood. Mesa stiffened and strangled back a cry of pain. "Almost done," Doctor Kalfou said.

She sprinkled some kind of dark powder into the wound, then covered it with a new greasy cloth. Then she picked up the long needle, prodded the wound beneath the cloth to find the spot she was looking for, then slowly pushed the needle through the cloth, into the hole in Mesa's chest.

Mesa closed his eyes and gripped the side of his cot. Coleman put his hand over the wounded sailor's. Mesa let go and clutched at him with white knuckles.

"Breathe," Doctor Kalfou demanded. Mesa took a painful, wheezing breath.

Doctor Kalfou arrowed her eyes in annoyance, then slowly pushed the needle in a bit further. "Again," she said.

Mesa took another breath. This time, the translucent tube connected to the needle flooded with pale pink. The doctor nudged the needle a bit further, then began slowly working the hand pump until the tube was full and fluid from Mesa's lung was dripping into the glass canister attached to the pump.

When she stopped pumping the drips slowed, but continued on their own with every breath Mesa took.

Then she packed fresh bandages around the base of the needle, gently bound them in place and smiled at her patient. "All done."

"Amazing how we take breathing for granted," Mesa smiled weakly.

"Do not lay all the way down," she said firmly. "Do not twist your body. Do not stretch your arms over your head. If you need anything, or want to adjust yourself, ring the bell."

"Aye, Doc. How long do I have to keep this thing in me?" Mesa asked.

Friday picked up the canister. "Until this stops dripping for at least an hour."

Friday took the lantern from Coleman and made a shooing motion with her other hand. He turned and made his way out the long line of tents.

It felt good to stand up again once he was back outside. Doctor Kalfou followed and stretched as she straightened. "Now, what can I do for you, Mister North?" she asked.

"Is he going to make it?" Coleman asked plainly.

"Yes," Doctor Kalfous said. "Yesterday, was not so sure, I. But through the worst of it, he. As long as I can keep his lung from refilling with blood, will mend in time, he."

Coleman took a deep, relieved breath. "This whole setup is mighty impressive, Doc. I'm glad you're with us."

"It is not how I had hoped this trip would go, but glad I, that I was here to help." Doctor Kalfou glanced over her shoulder at her makeshift infirmary. "Pleasantly surprised, I, at how many tents you had on the ship."

"Tents are good. They fold flat, make good padding for other things, can be cut up for sail patches, and make shipwrecks a lot more survivable," Coleman explained. "I always try to have enough for a full crew, and a few extra. With us running below strength, I thought I had a lot more than we'd ever need. Now I wish I'd packed more. Why connect them together though?"

Friday splashed a bit of alcohol on her hands and rubbed them together. "Flies were getting into single tents. This way, they only get into the first or second in a row, where the least vulnerable patients are."

"Smart," Coleman said, clearly impressed.

Doctor Kalfou finished rinsing her hands with a canteen. "Now, what can I do for you?"

"Well, first on my list is seeing if there's anything you need," Coleman answered. "As good as you have things set up, what would make it better?"

"More bandages," Friday said. "We are boiling and drying the used ones as fast as we can, but we are still running out."

Coleman nodded and jotted a note in his small book.

"All the clear alcohol you can get from the crew," the Doctor continued.

"I think you have it all," Coleman said. "I'll ask again though."

"Honey," Friday said after a moment's thought. "Ask the cook if he has any honey."

Coleman gave her a questioning look, but nodded and added it to the list.

"Cannot think of more, I," she finished.

"How about some different clothes?" Coleman asked, gesturing up and down her frame with his stub of a pencil.

Friday looked down at herself and sighed. "Have different clothes, I. They got soaked when the hull breached. Have not had the time to wash or dry them, I. Had planned, I, on doing it last night but was... distracted by other matters."

"Last night was pretty distracting for everyone," Coleman agreed. "Your time is too valuable to spend on laundry. Tell me where your clothes are and I'll have them washed for you."

Friday gestured to the large medical tent. "I sleep where I work. My bags are inside."

"Anything else you can thing of?" Coleman asked again.

The Doctor's brow furrowed in thought. "Not that you can provide, I think. There are plenty of medicinal plants the jungle may have, but I will need to train people how to find and collect them myself."

"How many people do you need for that?" Coleman asked.

"As many as you could spare," Doctor Kalfou said pointedly. "Cannot stress enough, I. This jungle will kill everyone in those tents if their wounds do not heal quickly and clean. My medical supplies are nearly gone already, so alternatives must be found."

Coleman scratched his beard as he considered the things left to be done in camp, and decided all of it could wait. "Most of the able crew are sleeping off last night, but once they're roused and fed I'll send them your way. How does three hours sound?"

Doctor Kalfou looked up at the position of the sun, then nodded. "I will try to find some samples of what I need before then. Is there anything else you need from me?"

Coleman put his book away. "Missus North is worried we might have a sickness starting to spread around. A few of us aren't feeling so great."

"Us?" Friday asked, suddenly suspicious and concerned.

Coleman scratched his beard. "Aye. Myself, Lace, about ten others I've talked to. Just a bit of fever. Headache. Nothing too bad, but Danica ordered me to come talk to you about it."

Doctor Kalfou looked suddenly furious. "Feeling ill, you!? And came into the patient tents, you!?"

Coleman was confused. "Aye, to find you."

Doctor Kalfou threw her hands up and let out a string of expletives in her native tongue. She stalked past him into the larger hospital tent muttering the entire way.

"What's the problem?" Coleman asked, following on her heels.

"Sick patients must always be kept away from injured patients," she said fiercely. "Fout tonère! No more visits. You tell everyone."

"Aye, ma'am," Coleman said, not understanding but knowing better than to argue.

"Tell me your symptoms," she said, pointing angrily to a chair that had been brought down from the ship.

Coleman sat. "Fever. Headache. Stuffy. Feels like a bit of hangover and a clogged up head."

"Congestion," Friday said as she prodded his neck with her fingers and pulled his jaw down to peer into the back of his throat. After examining his eyes and ears, she peeled back his bandages to look at the puncture wounds in his arm. "Looks like a simple influenza."

"Is that bad?" Coleman asked. He had no idea what those words meant.

"A common cold. Not surprising, given that we all spent the night in the rain." Doctor Kalfou sighed and sat down in her own chair. "If it becomes a cough, come to me. Other than that, keep warm and dry, drink water, and bathe. With soap."