you up,’ she said. She could see his collarbone. If he didn’t die of infection, it would be a miracle. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s going to have to be saltwater. It needs to be clean, or—’
‘Agatha! I don’t matter!’ he said over her, his voice breaking. ‘Please. There are men below with their legs blown off.’
‘All right,’ she said softly.
He was shuddering. Shock.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked, to try and get his mind off everything else. The shock would be a good anaesthetic for now, but once he settled, he would feel it, really feel it, and none of those boy-officers would know what to do if they had to hear their captain screaming. If she could get him drunk, it would help. She glanced at the door. The boys were clipping to and fro outside, soothed enough for now. Missouri was watching them too.
‘Edinburgh,’ he said, steady again. ‘The castle is fortified enough to hold the King.’
‘Edinburgh – why not Newcastle, or—’
‘The French are …’ He shook his head slightly. He was about to pass out. He still hadn’t made a sound about the burns.
She refilled his glass. He had drunk the first lot at least. ‘Don’t suppose you’ve seen Jem?’
‘No,’ he said, brittle now for the first time. His teeth clacked as he shut them and his shoulders flickered, and she realised, horrified, that he was trying hard not to cry.
Any normal human being would have dropped everything and hugged him, and wanted to make him feel better.
She felt repulsed. The instinct to slap him and shout at him never to do that if he wanted not to get shot, that when you let your thinking and clarity go you were dead, was mighty. But it wasn’t really crying that was repulsive. It was any overpowering feeling, any feeling that prioritised itself over thinking, and she felt just as disgusted with herself as she did with him. It felt like having a ravening cancer, only instead of a thing that ate your bones, this thing ate your heart, made you usefully cool at first, but then cold, and then cruel.
She hadn’t known it had eaten so much of hers.
‘Pull yourself together and let’s get on with this,’ was all she could say, even though she could hear it was utterly deficient, and entirely the reason why he could shoot someone in the head without noticing.
He smiled as if she’d said something kind. Sitting there by the wreckage of the windows, in the wreckage of his own flesh, he looked like one of those blasted saints from centuries ago, who would murder all Jerusalem for a chance at heaven’s gates. ‘I love you.’
She smiled too. Now was not the time to philosophise or reel off into stupid despair about the futility of everything, but again and again, she saw the way that man had collapsed, and how Missouri had just kept walking.
If he remembered, it would be all right.
‘Miz,’ she said, and felt surprised when her voice arrived sounding normal. ‘Did you shoot someone on deck just now? I saw a fight.’
‘What? I don’t think so. Are you sure?’
‘No,’ she said, because it was true; already she wasn’t sure, and by tonight, she’d have convinced herself it hadn’t happened, and it wouldn’t matter.
And obviously it didn’t matter. The familiar old just-survive-the-day voice in her head was demanding to know why she was so bloody hung up on the death of an idiot who had endangered everyone.
She had always trusted the just-survive-the-day voice. Only, after so long spent not hearing it, she could hear it differently now. It had a hiss to it.
‘Are you all right?’ Missouri asked. He was watching her, very still, which was disturbing. Nobody should have been able to sit so attentively with burns like that.
‘I’m fine. I just forgot how to do all this. I’m having moralising thoughts about the futility of philosophy and human kindness. Say something that will help.’
He smiled a little. ‘Perhaps you might squash your delicate feelings down until fewer people are bleeding to death, sailor.’
‘Excellent. Thank you.’
She hung for dear life on to the way he laughed, young and honest, even though she knew that one day soon he was likely to do something far worse than shoot an innocent man.
27
Edinburgh, 1807
As Agatha turned away from him, heading towards the human fragments that made the deck look like someone had spilled tar on it, Joe nearly caught her apron string to stop her. A deep part of him couldn’t