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Post by starvingartist on Nov 17, 2006 0:02:47 GMT -5
Skye scowled, picking up a bedpan in each hand and dumping them out of a porthole ((we'll assume above sealevel but below deck, mmkay? XD)) with a grimace, and replacing them. Continuing this task, she gagues the state of each man as she passes. Few of them, she suspects will survive until landfall - whenever the hell that would be. Assumably they were headed back to Britain.
"Space is what we need most," she persisted. "If you've room enough to take captives then by Eir they're must be more space for these men. They'll drop off like flies if we leave them like this!"
She replaced the last bedpan, and thrust her hands out the window, waiting for the mist off the sea to soak her hands. Wiping them on her pants was out, so she simply shook them dry, and bent to remove the dressings of one mans shoulder wound. It was barely scabbed, already showing signs of infection and she winced.
"Space and bandages. Put your mouse to weaving some if necessary."
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Post by AndrogynousMelon on Nov 17, 2006 0:06:07 GMT -5
Ed smiled slightly, glad to have some helpful company. "Conditions must be discussed with the Captain." He said plainly, wiping the numbing ointment and beginning his stitching.
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Post by Clover on Nov 17, 2006 0:06:48 GMT -5
"No, I wouldn't suppose you would be", he managed to mutter, eyes rolling upwards to the ceiling. "That would be too kind. And so, alas, it is unlikely to ever happen."
He turned on his heel to leave once she'd sequestered herself in the sick-bay. The stench in there was fetid, clammy air and the stench of illness and disease and death overpowering his nose and making him long for the fresh ocean breezes that he knew drifted so close above.
And when she stuck her head out of the door and shrieked at him, he whirled, eyes promising bloody retribution. But the look on her face had him swallowing any comment, and he simply shrugged his shoulders, impassive.
"My name is Cadiz, and you would do well to remember it. Now, what tools do you need, and I will show you where they're kept. I suppose." He huffed out a breath, and took a step closer to the stench of the sickroom. "Women. Can't do anything on their own, can they? Now", and his tone was curt, "what do you need? I have some skill at heali--ugh."
The stench as he stuck his head into the room made him want to retch. More noticible now that he was free from tossed debris, he raised an eyebrow in disgust. "What pointlessness."
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Post by starvingartist on Nov 17, 2006 0:14:37 GMT -5
She nodded brief thanks to Edwin, and looked up only briefly on her trek to the crate of bandages at Cadiz, and rolled her eyes.
"I wouldn't waste my memory on something like your name, and won't waste my breath telling you mine," she snapped, picking out several rolls of linen. She walked back to the man's bed, and waved a stiff, bloody bandage at Cadiz.
"Fresh crate for these, bowls for scrapings, buckets of fresh water and SPACE," she ordered. "All delivered, hopefully, by someone who is not you, but only if HÅ“nir is with me."
She looked up only briefly, to raise an eybrow.
"Before more men die, if you please," she sniped.
((Yeah, maybe someday they will get along. When Skye learns not to hold a grudge, or he apologizes. XD))
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Post by AndrogynousMelon on Nov 17, 2006 0:19:52 GMT -5
Ed attempted to cover a chortle at Cadizs remark. "C'est la vie." He was still paying close attention to his work. "I believe is the phrase."
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Post by Clover on Nov 17, 2006 0:40:18 GMT -5
Cadiz huffed out a breath, and debated telling her where exactly that haughty little temper would fit best. But these were crew laying on those beds, festering and rotting away and dying. These were men he drank with, who had taken him in despite everything, and now they were laying prostrate, some soon to pass away and be buried in the deep blue.
He would not let a simple squabble with some uppity chambermaid get in the way of doing what needed to be done for the men that needed his help.
Aforementioned chambermaid waved a stinking bandage in his face, and he honestly believed he would retch where he stood. But he bit back the scowl and swallowed the retort and the bile, and set about doing what she had asked. A crate he procured easily enough, snatching one from a corner. Another crate would suffice for the scrapings, he assumed, and if not...well.. hard times called for making do with what was available.
He knew there was a bucket of fresh water, but he shook his head. His voice was quiet, almost cowed, but he simply stated his knowledge, for once seeming to have no rancor whatsoever.
"Salt water closes wounds... it disinfects them. When I was younger, and would scrape myself, salt water would be used to disinfect the cut. It promotes the healing---though it burns considerably. I think it might help cut back infection."
Cadiz smiled a little at Ed, respecting the man's sense of duty, and went to assist him. First dampening his hand in the seaspray that flashed--glitter silver-- by the porthole, he ran it over fevered brow, murmuring softly in Spanish. "Calma, ya. Calma... estaras bien. Calma... shh.." His eyes raised for a second from his word, glaring at Skye as if to dare her to make a remark.
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Post by starvingartist on Nov 17, 2006 0:48:53 GMT -5
She raised an eyebrow, the unspoken response being 'so what?'.
"Thank you for reminding me. I'll need alcohol - whiskey suits best. The water is for their fevers, rags for the dampening would help."
She dropped the mucky bandages in one of the crates, and ripped one of the sleeves from her tunic. They, at least, were clean enough. Still waiting for the water, she stuck the rag out of the porthole until it was damp, and laid it across the man's brow. Skye smiled as she picked up a scalpel, preparing to remove as much debris from the wound as possible. Her smile was not malicious, but sympathetic as she leant to begin her work.
"This'll be the worst part, sailor," she warned, and he gazed deleriously up at her. She did not know if he could hear her, and her heart pulled. Before she started, though, she leaned over to poke Cadiz rought in the back. "Whiskey and water!" she snapped, though her voice was not as hard as it had been. "And light!"
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Post by AndrogynousMelon on Nov 17, 2006 1:00:41 GMT -5
"If you please, Cadiz." Ed mumbled, attempting to keep the peace as he finished closing the wound. He'd forgotten how troublesome other people could be, though he was still glad of the company. He wrapped a fresh bandage round his sutures and ran his hand over the mans sweaty brow. He made the sign of the cross over the man, who was still in obvious pain. "Prayer eases pain." He said as he moved to the next bed. He unwrapped the thick, sticky bandaging round the mans leg and frowned. The bone stared him squarely in the face. He did not wrap this man. He eyed the extent of the damage and his frown deepened. An infection like this would have once made him very ill. He sighed. "A saw as well..." He hated amputating limbs.
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Post by Clover on Nov 17, 2006 1:03:24 GMT -5
"Jesus Christ in Heaven, woman, what would you have me do?!"
The retort was snapped out far too quickly, and he brushed his hand once more across the brow of the sailor laying on the bed. It hurt to see them like this, casualties of a stupid mission and a stupider battle.
But it had to be done, and it needed to be this way. No sense in mourning what couldn't be helped, and so he picked himself up and darted to the door, light on his feet. The barrel lashed underneath the staircase for safekeeping was plundered as a quick swipe of the dagger had the barrel rolling free. Quite likely this was wasteful and would earn him a flogging, but he would worry about the technicalities later.
Rolling the barrel into the room carefully, he placed it upright in the corner, and darted back out, in short order procuring the candles and the whiskey. Both of which he had taken from his cabin, but she needn't know that. Dressing in the dark and doing without a dollop of liquid comfort were small prices to pay for saving someone's life.
He handed both over and immediatly shredded a small piece of muslin that might have been a dress in a past life into ribbons with his dagger. Sheathing it once more, he did the rounds, bandaging what he could, cleaning what he could stand, and whispering anything he could think of to any that would listen.
This was discouraging work, he realized, but did it continuously. "Let me know if there's anything else you need. Ed can't leave the ward, and neither can you, but Ed's Mouse and myself are at liberty to fetch and carry."
And for once in his speaking with the harpy, his tone was civil, if determined.
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Post by starvingartist on Nov 17, 2006 1:05:01 GMT -5
Skye leaned over his shoulder, ignoring him.
"Pardon my foolish female fluttering, but is that truly necessary? It's not black yet, even if it will be in a few days."
She had finished picking the debris from her man, but was concerned by his lack of response. She'd have to do a pain test before she went any further. Her own wounds pained her, but not enough to be problematic at the moment.
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Post by AndrogynousMelon on Nov 17, 2006 1:11:48 GMT -5
Ed nodded. "I would prefer to do it now." He began rifling through his bag. "Before the infection spreads and claims all of him. And" He drove the scalpal he'd procured from his bag into the lower portion of the leg. "The tissue is dead besides." The man didn't so much as flinch, he simply lay silent and shivering, staring at the ceiling.
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Post by starvingartist on Nov 17, 2006 1:16:26 GMT -5
She grimaced as blood and pus welled up from the wound. Grabbing a candle, she waited impatiently for Cadiz to return with the saw in order to heat it. The bleeding had stopped on her own patient, and he could wait a moment longer to be cut.
"Do you want me to hold him?" she asked, businesslike. "You'll have to cut above the infection, into live tissue."
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Post by Clover on Nov 17, 2006 1:24:22 GMT -5
Having slipped out minutes earlir, Cadiz had finally found the damned saw hiding under a bench in the carpenter's quarters, and he returned carrying it in hand. He entered in time to see Ed slice the knife into the man's leg, and the pus and ooze sluice up from the wound.
He gagged then, tasted the acrid tang of bile, but handed the saw to Skye. He crossed to Ed, and kept his voice low. "I'll hold his shoulders and his head lest he thrash. The leg will go, and it will have to bleed. I'll hold him, and try to keep him calm."
Cadiz felt sick, for he hated to cause pain. But to heal, it was neccessary. He raised his eyes to Skye's once more, and managed to croak out, "whomever does it, do it fast and for god's sake, clean."
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Post by AndrogynousMelon on Nov 17, 2006 1:24:46 GMT -5
Ed wasn't offended by their instructions. He knew well how to amputate a leg. "Please." Was all he said in reply. He continued to rummage through his bag, finding a strap of leather for the man to clamp down on. He hadn't much to numb the pain and for it he was sorry. Ed inspected the leg, determining where to cut. He did want this to be clean. But he also wanted it to be right. (( *cough* www.vascularweb.org/_CONTRIBUTION_PAGES/Patient_Information/NorthPoint/Amputation.html ))
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Post by starvingartist on Nov 17, 2006 1:37:34 GMT -5
((Oooh. Nice reference. )) Skye took the saw with steady hands, and grabbed another candle. Running the blade through the two flames, she waited patiently for the saw to heat, and hoped it would not warp. She hated amputations. "Where are you going to cut?" she asked Edwin, still ignoring Cadiz out of sheer stubborness.
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