There had been other faces too, unknown to him, yet somehow familiar. Serious and young, calm and sad. His voice had come and gone repeatedly, and once when Bolitho had heard himself crying out in the enclosing darkness the stranger had said quietly, “I am Angus, sir. Coquette’s surgeon.”

Bolitho tensed, feeling the sweat flooding across him as an extension of his own rising terror. The face and the stark memory of those quiet words brought back some of the reality like the shock of the wound.

He had been protesting, his reeling mind fighting against the pain and the unconsciousness to make the surgeon understand. To stop him from touching him.

With a desperate sob he tried to move his shoulder, to discover some feeling in his arm and fingers. Nothing.

He let himself go limp again, ignoring the heated pain, and conscious only of a stinging despair which was blinding him.

As if torn from his innermost soul he heard himself cry out, “Oh, Cheney! Cheney, help me! They’ve taken off my arm!”

Instantly a chair scraped across stone and feet pattered towards him. He heard someone call, “He’s coming out of the coma! Pass the word!”

A cool cloth, was laid carefully over his forehead, and as he reopened his eyes he saw Allday peering down at him, his hard hands supporting his head so that someone else could sponge away the sweat of pain and fear.

He remembered the hands now. They had held him, pressing into his head as if to shut out the first pressure of Angus’s knife.

From a great distance he heard him ask, “How is it, Captain?”

Bolitho stared up at him, so astonished at seeing tears in Allday’s eyes that he momentarily forgot his own suffering.

He replied, “Easy, Allday. Rest easy.” How hoarse his voice sounded.

More faces swayed over him and he saw Angus thrust the others aside as he removed the sheet from his chest, felt his fingers probing before the pain struck at him again, making him gasp aloud.

He managed to say, “My arm. Tell me.”

Angus glanced at him calmly. “Believe me, sir, it is still there.” He did not smile. “However, these are early days. It is well to be prepared.”

He moved out of Bolitho’s vision and said, “New dressing at once. And he must eat something. Broth maybe, and a little brandy.”

Bolitho strained his eyes up to Allday’s face. “Where am I?”

“The fortress, Captain. Hekla brought you in two days back.”

Two days. He persisted, “And before?”

“Hekla took two days to reach here, Captain. The wind went against us.” He sounded desperate. “I thought we’d never reach this damned place.”

A total of four days then. Time enough for the wound to worsen. Why should he not face the truth as Angus was doing? God knew, he had seen it happen often enough to others.

He said quietly, “Tell me, and no lies for my sake, is my arm to come off?”