"FIND THAT BLOODY RAT, I WANT TO KILL HIM MYSELF!" the captain screams, fingers clenched around fistfuls of Leslie's bushy beard. "FIND HIM! FIND HIM!"
"Ay'll take cahrre of it, Cap'n," says Increas, looking aghast to the man's red-slicked tibia. He draws out his blade and stalks towards the stairs below decks. Simon dashes past him, holding his spectacles to his bright red nose and disappearing beneath the deck.
As he goes, Lydia opens the door to the captain's quarters and urgently beckons to Leslie. I can't feel my heart beating. My chest is all but frozen stiff, clenched and unmoving—the same as my eyes. I feel sick. I feel so sick. The hairs on my arms and up my nape stand on end, and the chill of an imaginary draft shakes me.
I half-expect to see the captain turned at the sound of a wild, blood-curdling howl, but, disappearing into his cabin, I see that he remains very much human. Just... human with a very mangled, very, very mangled hairy right leg.
"Walter," I hear. It seems so distant, I barely hear. "Walter!"
I sharply turn my gaze to Simon, ogling me from the stairs below decks with three medical bags in hand.
"What are you doing? Mr. Cobbe said that he'd given the rocks to the wolves," the professor hisses, coming up, coming towards me. I can't move. I listen, but he sounds so surreally far away. Even right in my face, it's as though he's speaking from underwater. "Pick a body, search it, find a rock, give it to the doctor. We need him now. Do you understand?" He snaps his fingers in front of my face. "Walter!" It is almost deafening, upon a sudden, but it's a little more than harsh whisper. "The longer you stand around—"
"I've got it!" I say hurriedly. I shudder, my breath returning to me with a long and shaky exhale. "I've got it." Now the incessant drone of siren static fills my ears again and all I see is the red of the water. I look over and it is blue, but it remains red to me.
"Good!" says Simon, but my feet aren't moving. He grabs my face in one hand and forces me to look at him. His focused, urgent eyes become suddenly more urgent, and his brows lower. He gives me a shove. "Go! Now."
I nod and stumble around him, suddenly recovering some sort of dizzy purpose. I almost fall over as I scramble, pedaling my feet, then my hands across the deck, then just feet again. The nearest fallen werewolf lies with his back across the scuppers and I slide to my knees before him, feeling them bruise with the impact.
I gag at the smell. As though all the fish in the sea had died in his cologne. I bite my hand to try and focus. Blinking the tears out of my eyes, I lift my sleeve to cover my mouth and nose, then reach over the deformed bulk of Pete to find a pocket—somewhere, anywhere. His trousers are little more than scraps of corduroy, tearing at their seams. There isn't much left of his clothes at all and—and I really don't know what to do or where to look or... A hand touches my back and I screech.
Harvey Cobbe, with his charred white hair standing right on end, crouches beside me. "What are yeu looking for?"
"The rocks," I answer, desperately. "The white rocks."
"They swallowed them, I think," says Cobbe, cringing with the shame of knowing that he had given the rocks to the beasts in the first place. "Increas said that the captain—"
"He's dying and we need the doctor!" I cry, but I don't really know if he's dying. He might be, and my mind is racing and my heart is pounding and my head is throbbing, and the captain might be dying, and I might be crying. I might be crying. My hands are wet when the come away from my face.
Cobbe licks his lips and looks to the swooning doctor at the mast. "All right, listen. Tie me to the mast and yeu can take my rock."
"What?"
He starts towards the mast. "Cahm on. Hurry up, then."
I push myself up and follow him, and Elian appears at my side with a coil of rope. We tie the goblin to the mast together and the gunner, hands stuck at his wrists, says to take it from the twine around his neck. The second that I do, his pupils dilate and he demands to be let go.
Ignoring him, I find the doctor among the moans and loop the twine around his neck instead. He slumps instantly.
"How are we going to get him out without releasing everybody else with him?" Elian asks.
I shrug miserably. The grating, all-encompassing noise of the sirens pounds in my head and I can't think. I can't think.
Leslie appears from the stern, hailing us. "What's the matter? The captain needs—"
"Help us get him out!"
Leslie barrels over to us and pulls the ropes hard away from the doctor. He slips the man out with surprising ease, then calls to Elian to find the knot and pull the rope tight again. I leave them to it, grabbing the half-conscious old man by his arm. I throw him around my shoulder and carry him as swiftly as I can—not very—to the captain's quarters. He mumbles incomprehensibly and lifts a shaky two fingers to his brow.
"Doctor!" Lydia cries.
Simon, shaking his head and wiping the sweat from his brow, briskly strides past me to call out to the others. "Elian, please, I need hot water. I need a bowl of hot fresh water, please, as soon as you can bring it. Leslie, I need you back here, yesterday."
I drop Dr. Oswald into the captain's chair. He slumps, so I hold him up.
"Do you have water in here?" Lydia asks, looking between a very upset fox and his preoccupied captain. Dorian's paws fumble over each other and the poor, shaken fellow only manages a helpless squeak. The fur around his face is spiky with wet.
"Water?" the captain spits, taking a breath from his guzzling of rum. "Fuck water." He finishes the bottle and throws it aside, where it shatters against the floor. "Where's that no-good blighter, Mike? Where is he? I want to sink my teeth into his fucking neck."
"Walter," says Lydia, turning away from man, "please go and fetch a bucket of fresh water."
I go right away, and when I return, the doctor is already up and pulling on a surgical apron of some sort and slipping on a pair of thick gloves, but his cheeks are colorless and his eyes harrowed. The medical men and woman crowd around the injury, all prepared for surgery—the right leg of his breeches had been stripped away to reveal the pulp of his shin fully, and a leather belt is tightly fastened around the thigh to slow the bleeding. I bring the water over closer and notice the bucket of collected blood set beneath the grating of the captain's bed. He isn't lying on a mattress, but on the frame, and his red and yellow juices gush out through a grating. In the gentle rock of the ship, the thick mixture climbs the wall of one side of the bucket, falls, then rises to attempt escape over the other. I have to turn away to stop from vomiting.
Leslie and Dorian hover at the captain's head while he swallows and swallows and swallows drink from a new bottle, Adam's apple marching double-time.
The doctor digs his gloved fingers into the captain's mottled flesh and I cringe. Every vein in Avery's neck and temples pop and he stiffens out like a board, spewing his drink across himself and splintering the neck of his bottle in his fist—spilling the rest of its contents over his chest and the floor. His back arches and his skin ripples with gray. His jaw warps disconcertingly and he clenches his teeth together and growls.
"I can't help you if you change," Dr. Oswald says sternly, pulling his bloodied fingers back. "I need you to stay human. Simon, take care of his hand."
"I know that," Captain Avery hisses. His back slowly flattens against the grating and he tilts his head back. The creases in his brows and around his eyes betray his pain, but he tries to conceal it. He swats glass shards off his person like flies, damaging his hand further, but hardly seeming to notice. "Are you going to take my leg? Can it be saved?"
I think he knows the answer well enough. There really isn't much left of the leg, after all. Not much at all.
Simon starts to pick the glass out of the man's hand. Dorian scampers off to fetch a dustpan and broom from a trunk.
"You are very lucky that we can save the knee," the doctor replies. "The nerves are there. You'll be able to walk on a wooden leg, I think, when you are healed."
The captain moans. "Fine," he says, straining. "Take it. I'm ready."
The doctor grimaces. "With any luck, you'll pass out."
At the sound of the door, I look to see Elian enter with the hot water. Simon bustles to take it from him and starts to use the hot water to sponge clean the hand, then the more worrying wound. Lydia rifles in a medicine bag and draws out a block of wood.
She gives it to Leslie. "Keep this between his teeth and hold his head as still as you possibly can. Dorian, take Walter's bucket of water and get a glass for the doctor, then put the bucket somewhere out of the way for clean-up later. Mr. Arrow, we'll need you to help hold him down. You as well, Walter."
Elian takes one arm, glass crunching under his boots. I awkwardly climb over the top of the captain to take the other, as the bed is bolted to the wall so that I may not walk around it. The captain snarls at the ceiling and curses.
I look to the doctor, waiting. The poor man looks ill, forced to recover from his own slump for this mess of a situation. He pulls off one glove to take the glass of water from Dorian and takes a sip. I can see him willing it to make him feel better, to give him strength. He shakes his head, pulls on the glove, murmurs a prayer, and focuses.
"Make sure that wood stays between his teeth, now, Leslie." He nods to Simon, who hands him a large and intimidating saw.
The captain takes the wood like a champion and slips his hand from Elian to give Dorian a tousle and turn his head away. Dorian, too small to really help with holding down the man, stands helplessly to the side. "You can do it, Hank," he says, but more to himself.
Captain Avery spits out the wood. "I'm fine, Dorry. Go on outside, yeah? Make me a good new leg."
Dorian sniffs and stares at the man, eyes wet. "Okay, Hank."
"Go on. Go, go, go," ushers the captain. "Surprise me!"
The fox nods and turns to go, and he falls to his paws. Head bowed, he makes his way out with his ears drawn flat against his skull and his back hunched, and I can hear his sniffling—like small sneezes. He's never walked on all fours before; save for the day we first saw him.
The captain sinks back into his pillows. "Okay," he says, taking a deep inhale. He places the wood wedge back between his teeth and gives us his arms to hold. He rolls his shoulders and stretches out his neck, exhaling. Leslie presses a heavy arm down on his chest and a firm hand on his forehead.
Lydia holds down his good foot, and Simon lays out a canvas roll of surgical tools nearby. He takes off his waistcoat, rolls up his sleeves, and leans over the captain's knees.
Dr. Oswald sinks his fingers into the flesh again, feeling for the right spot. He sponges the area again, then steadies the saw about a hand's length from the knee joint. He makes a swift incision that breaks through the flesh, parting it with a sound as unassuming as slicing a cheesecake. The clang of bone rings out and the captain stiffens and digs his fingers into the nearest thing—my unsuspecting knee. I cringe and hold tighter to his wrist, trying to pry him off. The doctor drives the blade deeper, and the captain convulses with such strength that my whole body is lifted with his arm. He screams from somewhere deep in his throat and the wood twixt his teeth splinters under pressure. The saw grinds and grinds against the bone, becoming worse than the sound of the fiendish beasts in the water outside.
It lasts too long.
I squeeze my eyes shut and put all my weight down on Captain Avery, trying to focus on not turning out my gut or crying from the pain in my knee. Even Leslie struggles to hold the man. He writhes in agony, given strength I didn't before fathom that he had.
The sawing continues; a terrible noise that I dare not look to the source of. A grating like rusted hinges, but wetter. Not water wet, but like oil; squealing against the metal and sounding thick and heavy and foul. Then, there is a sudden thunk as the captain goes limp.
His expression remains fixed in pain, but his body relaxes. Dr. Oswald finishes his cut and mutters under his breath, "Thank Laod." He wipes his brow. "Hopefully, he'll stay that way."
He lifts the severed leg and drops it to the floor. It sounds so, so wet. So, so gruesomely wet.
The doctor puts aside the saw and takes the sponge again, dabbing around the wound. He sets aside his gloves and selects a spool of catgut from a box, then threads a needle, quietly humming in focus. I turn my head while he works, feeling faint. The blood bucket is nearly full.
***
It feels like an eternity before the doctor says it's over. He thanks us for our help and starts to clean up, all the while giving us instructions on what we must do for the next few days—even weeks if we must. The captain must be watched and cared for to recovery, and in this strange place, we worry that perhaps the small group of us untouched by the siren song is all that we have.
I take first watch, after the blood is cleaned up and a mattress is put under the unconscious man and the sounds of the sirens has faded into little more than a distant whisper. The thunder of Harvey's electric gun has stirred the water ten more times, at Officer Langley's hand. I drag the captain's chair closer and curl into it, pulling my knees to my chest, and stare at the stump where his leg should have been.
The others, I think, try to sleep in their own beds and hammocks. I would only have nightmares. The only consoling thought of the evening has been the capture of the last rogue werewolf. Mike, strapped to not only the less crowded mast, but to a cannon ball as well.
I wish I were home. I wish I were home in my bed in my undestroyed cottage with my undestroyed mother having a normal cup of tea and a normal evening. I can't even stop my hands from shaking. The fluttering in my stomach is as much miserable as it is afraid, because I'd rather be anywhere else.
The captain stirs and I tense.
He opens his eyes, but I get the peculiar sense that he isn't conscious. It gets stranger. The evening somehow gets stranger because his emerald irises are not emerald at all, I notice—and I am certain that they were, the same as my own. They've turned blue. Bright, twinkling blue like the lights that cover the cavern walls.
Then, they close again. He lets out a soft sigh and stills and there is peace in the room.
I don't understand it, but there it is.
Out of nowhere, an unmistakeable feeling of peace.
Calming, gentle, and welcome, it washes over me, and, like an out-of-body experience, I feel myself smile and drift off to sleep without much thought at all.