"Of course," he said with all the cheerfulness he could bring into his voice.
"Come on, Brown.
Lift him from the other side."
After the business was finished, with no more than a single half-stifled groan from Bush, Brown displayed more of the astonishing versatility of the British seaman.
"I'll wash you, sir, shall I?
An' you haven't had your shave to-day, have you, sir?"
Hornblower sat and watched in helpless admiration the deft movements of the burly sailor as he washed and shaved his first lieutenant.
The towels were so well arranged that no single drop of water fell on the bedding.
"Thank 'ee, Brown, thank 'ee," said Bush, sinking back on his pillow.
The door opened to admit a little bearded man in a semi-military uniform carrying a leather case.
"Good evening, gentlemen," he said, sounding all his consonants in the manner which Hornblower was yet to discover was characteristic of the Midi.
"I am the surgeon, if you please.
And this is the wounded officer?
And these are the hospital notes of my confrere at Rosas? Excellent.
Yes, exactly.
And how are you feeling, sir?"
Hornblower had to translate, limpingly, the surgeon's question to Bush, and the latter's replies.
Bush put out his tongue, and submitted to having his pulse felt, and his temperature gauged by a hand thrust into his shirt.
"So," said the surgeon. "And now let us see the stump.
Will you hold the candle for me here, if you please, sir?"
He turned back the blankets from the foot of the stretcher, revealing the little basket which guarded the stump, laid the basket on the floor and began to remove the dressings.
"Would you tell him, sir," asked Bush, "that my foot which isn't there tickles most abominably, and I don't know how to scratch it?"
The translation taxed Hornblower's French to the utmost, but the surgeon listened sympathetically.
"That is not at all unusual," he said. "And the itchings will come to a natural end in course of time.
Ah, now here is the stump.
A beautiful stump.
A lovely stump."
Hornblower, compelling himself to look, was vaguely reminded of the knuckle end of a roast leg of mutton; the irregular folds of flesh were caught in by half-healed scars, but out of the scars hung two ends of black thread.
"When Monsieur le Lieutenant begins to walk again," explained the surgeon, "he will be glad of an ample pad of flesh at the end of the stump.
The end of the bone will not chafe —"
"Yes, exactly," said Hornblower, fighting down his squeamishness.
"A very beautiful piece of work," said the surgeon.
"As long as it heals properly and gangrene does not set in.
At this stage the surgeon has to depend on his nose for his diagnosis."
Suiting the action to the word the surgeon sniffed at the dressings and at the raw stump.
"Smell, monsieur," he said, holding the dressings to Hornblower's face.
Hornblower was conscious of the faintest whiff of corruption.
"Beautiful, is it not?" said the surgeon.
"A fine healthy wound and yet every evidence that the ligatures will soon free themselves."
Hornblower realized that the two threads hanging out of the scars were attached to the ends of the two main arteries.
When corruption inside was complete the threads could be drawn out and the wounds allowed to heal; it was a race between the rotting of the arteries and the onset of gangrene.
"I will see if the ligatures are free now.
Warn your friend that I shall hurt him a little."
Hornblower looked towards Bush to convey the message, and was shocked to see that Bush's face was distorted with apprehension.
"I know," said Bush.
"I know what he's going to do — sir."
Only as an afterthought did he say that 'sir'; which was the clearest proof of his mental preoccupation.
He grasped the bedclothes in his two fists, his jaw set and his eyes shut.
"I'm ready," he said through his clenched teeth.
The surgeon drew firmly on one of the threads and Bush writhed a little.