Undercover - Steam Power - Book 5

Part 14 - A profuse sanguinary discharge

It was late in the morning by the time we tossed our bundles of dirty clothing into Dr Zhang's carriage and set off for Plymouth. At first the road was dry and fairly flat so we made good time. On the way I retold Dr Zhang about Murga's several attempts to kidnap me and we discussed whether he had taken control of Oppy and the time phase transfer equipment. 

 'Yonnie and Treeka wanted to talk to Oppy,' Licia exclaimed suddenly. 'I'll bet Murga happened to be in the wrong place.' 

 'Are you sure?' Denny asked. 'You think those irresponsible teenage blighters had the skill to hack into Oppy.' 

 'What if they are not hackers?' Licia suggested. 'What if they are computer programs? I think they adopted the teenage personae from watching too many television shows.' 

 Dr Zhang was puzzled. 'They must be capable of incredible feats of hacking if they can turn Oppy on and then send us off to England.'

Our coachman recommended we spend the night at a tavern in Liskeard. It was late in the day and the place was already busy with travellers and locals but our new clothes made us less conspicuous and few people paid much attention to us. The landlord could only offer one small room which Dr Zhang decided to share with Licia, who was pretending to be his daughter, while Denny, Miguel and I had to share the stable with the horses and our coachman for tuppence a night. 

 After Dr Zhang had inspected his room, we sat down to a meal of what the landlady called pork chine and green peas. The pork was tasty even if it was mostly boney vertebrae and we ate it sitting on benches at a bare wooden table. The small room gradually filled with locals who sat around drinking beer and chatting about the weather, the state of the harvest and the high price of cabbages last year. 

 We had barely finished eating when there was a thundering at the door and the room was immediately full of men in mud spattered red coats and top hats. 

 'Lobsters!' Miguel exclaimed using the sailors' derogatory name for the red coated marines, 'I thought they only existed on ships.' 

 A young lieutenant escorted two soldiers carrying an officer between them. ''Tis our captain,' one of them said. ''E 'as fallen orf his 'orse.' 

 They persuaded a well dressed, elderly man, wearing a ornate white wig, to vacate a comfortable chair and they laid the captain down as the landlord's wife sent a servant to fetch the local surgeon. 

 The surgeon had a very long, red face and wore a white wig with a roll of curls across the top like a weird sideways crest. He grabbed the unconscious captain's wrist to take a pulse, said, 'Hmm,' in a disinterested manner and insisted on receiving his fee before he would say anything else. ''av' 'ee a florin?'

'I hope, sir,' the lieutenant said as he handed over the coin, 'the skull is not fractured.'

'Fractures are not always the most dangerous symptoms,' the surgeon replied as he gave the florin to the landlady and ordered a bottle of wine. 'Contusions and lacerations are often attended with more fatal consequences. People, who know nothing of the matter, conclude, if the skull is not fractured, all is well. Whereas, I had rather see a man's skull broke all to pieces, than some contusions I have met with.' 

 'I hope there are no such symptoms,' the lieutenant said.

 'Symptoms,' answered the surgeon, 'are not always regular. I was once called to a patient who had received a violent contusion in his tibia, by which the exterior cutis was lacerated, so that there was a profuse sanguinary discharge.' 

 Denny choked on his beer. 'That means the cut was bleeding a lot,' he translated.