#DailyLines #MOBY #WRITTENInMYOwnHEARTSBlood #Book8 #OutMARCH25th #battlefieldsurgeon

“What’s your name, dear?” I said to the young man in front of me. He couldn’t be more than seventeen, and was precious near to bleeding to death. A bullet had gone through the meat of his upper arm, which would normally be a fortuitous location for a wound. Unfortunately, in this instance the ball had passed through the underside of the arm, and nicked the brachial artery, which had been spurting blood in a slow but earnest manner until I’d taken a death-grip on his arm.

“Private Adams, ma’am,” he replied, though his lips were white and he was shaking. “William Adams. Billy, they call me,” he added politely.

“Pleased to meet you, Billy,” I said. “And you, sir…?” For he’d been brought in staggering, leaning on another boy of about his own age—and nearly as white-faced, though I thought he wasn’t hurt.

“Horatio Wilkinson, ma’am,” he said, dipping his head in an awkward bow—the best he could manage while holding his friend upright.

“Lovely, Horatio,” I said. “I’ve got him now. Would you pour him out a little water, with just a splash of brandy in it? Just there.” I nodded at the packing-case I was using for a table, on which one of my brown bottles marked “Poison” stood, along with a canteen full of water and a wooden cup. “And as soon as he’s drunk it, give him that leather strip to bite down on.”

I’d have told Horatio to have a tot, too, save that there were only two cups, and the second one was mine. I was sipping water steadily—my bodice was soaked and clung to me like the membrane inside an egg-shell and sweat ran steadily down my legs—and I didn’t want to be sharing the germs of assorted soldiers who didn’t brush their teeth regularly. Still, I might have to tell him to take a quick gulp direct from the brandy bottle; someone was going to have to apply pressure to Billy Adams’s arm while I stitched his brachial artery and Horatio Wilkinson didn’t presently look equal to the task.

“Would you—“ I began, but I was holding a scalpel in one hand and a suture needle with a dangling ligature in the other, and the sight of these overcame young Mr. Wilkinson. His eyes rolled up in his head and he dropped bonelessly into the gravel.

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