Harry: Chapter Two

Fresh Wounds

by Liederlady

Notes

The frantic quaver in the boy's hoarse voice was heart-wrenching.

I silently and efficiently conducted the procedure. The evacuation yielded more than blood and feces. I bit back the expression of sympathy I suspected would do more harm than good.

At least the bleeding diminished after the warm water lavage. Once I felt he was sufficiently cleansed internally, I moved him to the bathing tub, after filling it with a safe mixture of boiling and cold water.

I was mistaken in my belief that he would be less traumatized if I attended him rather than one of the nurses. He never stopped trembling.

However, the youth did not struggle. In fact, he cooperated completely. But it was clear that my professional ministrations only compounded his mental anguish. I tried to draw him out … to distract him from the unpleasant but necessary tasks I was performing.

“My name is John Watson. Will you tell me yours?”

The boy made no response … only lifted his arm obligingly as I gingerly sponged the skin of his bruised and scraped left side. Once he was clean, I could see more claw marks. And there were other marks—left by human hands.

From the livid, quickly purpling finger marks on his skin, the young man’s shoulders, arms, hips and legs had been restrained. His wrists and ankles bore abrasions and contusions from shackles. Ugly finger and nail marks covered his neck, mouth and cheeks. His neck also bore a superficial gash from a knife blade.

When I washed away the filth from his chest, I could see scores of human bite marks marring the boy’s brandy-coloured nipples and trailing down his abdomen. I shook my head and used extra care cleaning the bite marks. The boy whined and his hips jerked each time I swabbed the sponge over his nipples.

“Please, do not … don’t do that,” he choked out.

“I’m sorry. I do not wish to hurt you, but these wounds must be cleaned. I shall try to be gentler,” I said.

As sensitive as his wounded nipples were, he gasped in agony as I bathed his groin. Bite marks covered his bruised penis, scrotum and thighs.

It was at times like this that my naïveté and lack of medical experience failed me. I strove to maintain a clinical demeanor, but the brutal marks on the boy’s body enraged me.

“Good Lord, what devils did this to you?” I gasped.

He looked away and a wracking shudder coursed through him. Desperate to offer him some manner of comfort, my words came out in a rush.

“Will you tell me your name? Perhaps there is someone I may summon for you? Do you have family? Surely they will be worried about you and you will want them to be here.”

The boy fell silent.

“Please, let me help you,” I said finally.

The boy looked up to regard me with his visible eye.

“If you were me, would you desire your family to know of this, Doctor?” he asked hoarsely. Despite his trembling, there was no mistaking his defiant manner.

I suddenly realized how foolish my questions had been. I also realized this “boy” was quite remarkable to be willing to endure this alone.

“No,” I answered, “but … tell me how I may help you.”

“There is nothing to be done, nothing left for me,” he said morosely.

“I cannot accept that,” I said, disturbed but not surprised by his apathy.

“Allow me to leave here then,” he said. There was a desperate quaver in the hoarse voice.

“You’ve been seriously hurt. But we can help. You will be all right,” I promised.

“No,” he countered, “I must leave.”

“You cannot … you may begin bleeding again, you have been terribly ... beaten. You risk infection. We cannot release you,” I reasoned.

“You have no desire to help me,” he said angrily, jerking his face away from the sponge I was gently wielding.

“You are wrong. I do wish to help,” I argued. We both fell into silence as I quickly finished bathing him and shampooing his matted hair. Despite my light pressure while drying his body, the towel came away bloodstained from his rump.

He looked away sharply as I fetched and gently pressed a mound of cotton wool between his buttocks.

I helped him don a clean nightshirt and a thin hospital robe. His hands nervously swiped over his damp, dark hair, slicking it back. I noticed they were still trembling.

When he rose to walk back to the examining room, he swayed unsteadily. I caught him before he fell, pulling his body close to support him. He attempted to jerk away as though I had struck him ... or worse.

“I will not harm you,” I said softly, leaving my supporting arm encircling his slim waist.

“I have no need of your help,” he croaked, “release me!”

Despite his hoarseness, there was an authoritative quality to his voice that nearly cowed me to compliance. But I was convinced he would drop to the floor if I loosened my hold. No doubt he would have preferred that to my proximity … to anyone’s.

“What harm is there in trusting someone trying to help you?” I asked.

I felt him start then he turned his open eye to me. I nearly flinched at the intensity of its disdain.

“What do you know of harm, you fool?”

He spat the words like acid.

I felt color rise to my cheeks and a sneer curl my lip, but allowed my anger to dissipate. He was a battered boy, angry at the world. Considering his condition … his mistreatment, he had good reason to be.

“I no doubt deserved that,” I finally said.

He was right. I was a fool to expect him to trust a complete stranger, physician or no. But his fury told the physician in me that his fine spirit was not hopelessly broken—that heartened me. Nevertheless, I kept my arm firmly around his slim waist.

His rigidity ebbed—slowly, reluctantly. His glare receded somewhat as well.

“Come, Doctor Brett is waiting,” I said.

“For what?” he asked suspiciously.

“You require … sutures,” I said, squarely looking him in the eye.

He tried to purse his swollen, broken lips and hissed when they would not obey. His action only reopened their wounds, drawing blood. I instinctively reached for my kerchief and dabbed at them. He twisted his head away, gazing at me incredulously.

“We cannot completely sedate you because of the shock. We will give you laudanum, but-- I will not deceive you, there will be considerable pain until it takes effect. But we will stop the bleeding,” I told him, hearing an uncharacteristic tremor in my voice.

The young man simply stared at me.

We made our way back to the examining room where Doctor Brett had prepared the table with a clean sheet. He handed a small medicine glass to my companion.

“Drink it down fast. It will make you drowsy, but I’m sure Doctor Watson has warned you there will still be pain,” Doctor Brett said.

The young man nodded, then threw back the laudanum like a draught of whiskey.

“If you’ll climb on the table, young man, kneeling and facing toward Doctor Watson,” Brett said.

I was concerned about his reaction to the laudanum so my arm still curved close to the boy’s waist. I felt him stiffen slightly at Brett’s request then he gave a strange shrug and tried to hoist himself on the table. I saw his wince, heard the half-stifled gasp of pain.

Without thinking, I bent and slid one arm beneath his long legs, the other supporting his back; his left arm instinctively slipped round my neck. In a single movement, I smoothly deposited him onto his side on the table.

This time he could not stifle his gasp, surprised as he was by my sudden show of strength. He grimaced as he voluntarily rolled onto his bruised and torn knees.

He suddenly looked desperately young and vulnerable, perched in that awkward position at the edge of the table.

I, straightaway, wanted to know his name, to know what had happened, who had harmed him. I wanted to assure him I would find the blackguards and thrash the hide from them while he watched.

I wanted to know all there was about him and all there ever would be.

“Doctor Watson, if you will assist with the garments,” Brett said quietly, breaking in on my reverie. I reached around the young man’s torso and raised the hems of both robe and night shirt above his angular hips, exposing his rear. Brett caught my eye and nodded as he prepared the surgical speculum, styptic, catgut and suturing needle. Then he handed me the short leather strap.

I pulled back my head and looked in the boy’s visible, bloodshot eye.

“Bite down on this,” I told him, raising the strap to his broken lips.

He blew out an impatient breath, but opened his mouth compliantly. I placed the strap between his teeth and he bit down.

Then I leaned forward, reaching around him again. I firmly placed my hands on his buttocks, spreading them. He tensed against the contact like a racehorse anticipating the starting shot.

“Lean against me when you need to,” I whispered to him and nodded for Doctor Brett to begin inserting the speculum.

It only took Brett about five minutes to suture and staunch the worst of the lacerations. Aside from his ragged breathing, the boy never made a sound. His body trembled with the intense pain, but only once did he sag against me. His face buried momentarily against my neck, while a minute trace of moisture slipped inside my collar.

When Brett finally removed the speculum I lowered the boy’s garments, moved my hands up to his sharp shoulders and gently pressed them away from me.

His good eye was tightly clenched and it opened slowly; mute pain swam within it.

“It’s done. Are you all right?” I asked, taking the strap from his mouth. His lower lip quivered uncontrollably.

The young man’s sigh spoke of exhaustion and he shook his head, revealing that even his tenacity had limits.

“You will be,” I whispered, “you are strong. You are remarkable.”

He looked up. I suspected the laudanum was working its magic as his unswollen eye blearily regarded me.

“Nothing matters. There is nothing left for me, no one,” he said with a weary slur.

Then his singular energy deserted him and he slumped in my arms.

Notes

cotton wool: absorbent cotton

surgical speculum: There would have been such an instrument available during Victorian times thanks to the invention of a modern speculum by J. Marion Sims, 1813-1885, an American physician often referred to as the “father of gynecology.”

Chapter Three: Responsibilities