Traveller Inceptio

Kitchener supervised as Hunter was carried from the field, grimacing in agony. It was a nasty wound. “God, what a mess,” he grunted, looking up at Kitchener as his field dressing was checked. “I should’ve seen that one, Kitch, should’ve seen it coming.”

Kitchener nodded and quickly checked for other injuries. “Yeah, Hunter, we all say that, don’t we? You did well, buddy. Looks like our training actually came through in the end. You guys were amazing.”

Around them, the cavern was a bloody mess. So far, they had been lucky, for none of the Travellers had been killed, yet. A tumult of bodies, crying wounded, grieving relatives, and helping villagers made the former living quarters a vision of hell, but it was nothing Kitchener had not seen before. Only here, there wasn’t a single combat surgeon to fix things.

As he squatted, Tatae gave an anguished cry and rushed to Hunter’s side. Kitchener was unsure how to treat the lovely young woman. She was stunningly pretty, even in her blood-spattered and haggard state, and her devotion to Hunter was apparent. “Now, hon, don’t worry too much now. We’ve bound the wound and we’re pretty sure he’s stabilised and ready for further medical attention,” explained Kitchener. She bent to inspect the dressing, as if unsure, and he stopped her. “Now you just do what you’ve been doing. He’s going to be fine.”

She knelt by Hunter and kissed his blood-spattered face as he sat painfully propped against the cave wall.

Kitchener gently patted her shoulder and stood, because there was much to do. The cave was carnage. There were so many badly wounded, where to be badly wounded meant almost certain death. Most had been carried, objecting that they needed to fight even as they fainted from blood loss or screamed from a severed limb. The thegn, Godric, was being cared for only metres away. Hunter smiled with a grimace. “I’m fine for the moment, my love. See to Godric first.”

As she left to look after the big Saxon, Hunter grimaced in pain.

Kitchener squatted and gave him a shot of morphine. “There, Hunter, this will help things for a bit.” Michael nodded and looked to their thegn. Horsa cut the leg from Godric’s breeches and bathed his wound before Tatae inspected it carefully.

“I guarantee there’s some serious tendon damage there,” suggested Kitchener quietly.

“What a shitfight,” muttered Hunter, blinking to remain alert.

“Yeah.” Kitchener nodded. “Barely any modern medicine and severed limbs. What more could a medic want.”

Hunter’s eyes glazed and Kitchener moved on. He was particularly worried about two of the team. Osborne would be touch and go. He had barely prevented Horsa from cauterising his bloody stump, which was a normal practice in Saxon England as it aimed to prevent blood loss. If a man survived the terrible shock of having the bloody stump sealed with a red-hot blade, he then had to survive infection. Having wrapped the lost arm in cling wrap, carried in his pack for such a grim purpose, Kitchener prepared Osborne for emergency surgery.

As he worked, Tatae watched and seemed fascinated by the plastic into which the Australian’s arm had been wrapped. If they weren’t so pressed for time, she would no doubt have happily played with the transparent film. Kitchener liked Tatae and found her skilled, efficient, and thoroughly delightful. She and Horsa had gained his respect as having a capable working knowledge of their limited but surprisingly effective medical treatment resources. Their care was, however, rudimentary and without assistance, many would die. Their chief helpers, Edyt and Godric’s lovely but haggard wife, Hilda, were superb nurses and had the skills that mattered, being the care and empathy that modern nursing professionals would instantly recognise as their own.

Kitchener’s other main concern was Morris. The big Canadian lay semi-conscious. Kitchener would be surprised if serious internal injury had not occurred, so they had to get them all to a hospital for emergency care. Thankfully they had moved the medical area to the men’s larger cave because of the space it offered and access to clean water.

As Kitchener stitched what he could of Godric’s leg, the thegn’s wife and two older daughters stood by, terrified.

“He’ll be okay, I think,” offered Kitchener. The young girls immediately broke down into tears while their mother paled, for she had fought against despair. The younger lads of the family hovered outside, though most of the village girls helped the healers as best they could. They took great care to see that the blood washed from wounds and faces ran to the outer lip of the cave so as to not pollute their pure water supply. Others carried bandages or boiled water for Tatae and Horsa. Priests hovered to offer last rights or comfort.

Worse, every now and then there was a blood-curdling scream as some poor bastard’s stump was cauterised by a red-hot training sword sequestered for the grisly task.

Tatae prepared a herbal infusion to assist a grey-faced Godric’s pained heart and paused to watch as Kitchener applied a stethoscope to his chest. Horsa and Tatae watched, fascinated, and Kitchener gave them a try of the simple, but essential medical tool. He explained how the heart pumped blood around the body and how, in conjunction with the lungs, they created the circulatory system. They listened to their own hearts and then to Godric’s sick heart. Kitchener suspected Godric would most likely live. It was only a matter of a few years before his tired heart would stop, though he couldn’t give an accurate prognosis without an ECG and modern medical resources. Tatae told him of herbs that would help relieve Godric and Kitchener was intrigued. She give him mushroom and herb samples which he retained for analysis once the team returned. As tears ran down Hilda’s cheeks, for good measure he placed a glyceryl trinitrate tablet under Godric’s tongue and told him to sit still and drink Tatae’s concoction each day.

Yes, Godric would survive his injury, though a microsurgeon would be needed if he was ever to walk normally again. Kitchener shrugged. At least he could have the big man walking, even though it would be with a limp. The thegn could only nod, his face grey and exhausted. When he visibly relaxed, he was left to the care of his wife.

Parker entered the cave and Kitchener looked at his bleeding arm. “I’ll be with you in a second, Parker. You’ll just have to excuse me a moment,” and he lifted his rubber-gloved hands which were coated in blood and gore. A young lad panted as he stitched a cut that had just missed his balls and major arteries.

Parker grunted. “No problem, m’lad; I can wait. I fear infection will kill a lot of these though. God, what a fucking bloodbath.” He gave a shrug. “Thank God we came though. They wouldn’t have stood a chance.”

“No, they would’ve been massacred for sure.” Kitchener removed his gloves and threw them into a plastic bag and donned more latex, another material that had Tatae and Horsa fascinated. “We’re not out of the woods though,” he said as he grabbed a needle and catgut and made Parker sit while he cleaned his wound.

Parker had a cut that ran from his middle finger and up the back of his hand to a deep incision in the back of his forearm. Parker shrugged, “Isn’t this a beauty?”

Kitchener nodded. “Close one.”

Parker smiled. “My armguard was destroyed, but it bloody saved my arm or I’d be like our Aussie mate.” He nodded to Osborne.

Kitchener ignored his comment for a moment and cleaned the wound as best he could, but there was still mud in it. He shook his head, put down the needle and added a field dressing before he wrapped the arm in a bandage. “See, this is just an example. You need to have this wound properly cleaned. There’s mud in your cut and your arm will become infected if we don’t get you to hospital pronto.”

Parker only grunted as Kitchener looked again to the unconscious Osborne. “Osborne, poor bastard. If we don’t get him back right away, he risks not being able to have his arm surgically grafted. I’m sure Morris has internal injuries, probably a ruptured liver, spleen or pancreas, and there’s nothing I can do but provide pain relief and get him to a hospital or he’ll certainly die. Hurley needs a scan, as he’s drifting in and out of consciousness from serious concussion, though I don’t think there’s a haemorrhage. Hunter needs some pretty urgent attention as well.”

Kitchener finished the dressing and looked at his watch.

“What can we do? We can’t just leave them,” asked Parker as he gestured around the cavern.

“We can and we will,” disagreed Kitchener. “You know that. We have to look after our own before they become fatalities. I’m making the call. We have to go. There’s an hourly upload at the base station.”

Parker bowed his head and nodded. “Great job, Kitchener. You’re doing a grand job. We’ll get them moving. Just get your gear packed and we’ll be on our way.”

Kitchener shook his head. “Sorry, Parker, I’ll be staying a while. This is my call, you know that. Organise our lads and we’ll have to get our wounded medivacked ASAP.” Kitchener smiled. “There, that should do you. Hang on, how did you get cut there? What happened to your wrist guard again?”

Parker smiled sheepishly. “Gone: split like a melon.”

Kitchener shook his head. “God, Parker. Well, it could’ve been worse. Here, don’t forget to get some footage on all of this.” He handed Parker one of the camera modules so he could record the events in the cave. “I’ve set up a couple around the place, but see what you can do. I won’t be leaving for a while; there’s too much here to be done. You guys will have to head off without me.”

Parker paused and nodded. “Okay, Kitchener, but we can’t send a field hospital here, you know.”

Kitchener shrugged and pulled a face. “So sue me. I think I’ll get Poxon to stay too, until the job’s done. You might want to check with him first. Get some footage, good buddy. We have to salvage something of this. Of course, Murdoch will want to kill us all.”

***

Though they all wore the camera buttons, Parker knew most would have been damaged or lost in the battle. Parker became an official recorder for the makeshift hospital as he interviewed the team members and organised their evacuation. He watched as Kitchener bent over a villager with a bloody stab wound in his arm. The medic looked incongruous in Saxon garb and moustache with a stethoscope around his neck.

Most of the Travellers were wounded. Poxon helped, ignoring his own injury. His face was swollen from a nice bruise on the side, probably from a shield clash. A seriously black eye, broken nose, and some cuts graced McAlister’s scowling visage, while Anderson’s impressive gash on his face was stitched, his only wound despite having been involved in some of the heaviest fighting. He had fought with his wound for hours. McFee had lacerations to his hands and arms. All injuries were in the process of being disinfected, stitched and bandaged while Eadric was being ministered to by Anderson. Like Anderson, his face was swollen and he had at least a dozen stitches in his face while his ear was still being worked on. It had been cut in two and Anderson enlisted McAlister to hold the two pieces of ear together so he could sew it neatly. Eadric grimaced despite the local anaesthetic, but struggled to be stoic.

Parker commented to Anderson, “He’s like one of the lads. Bloody good soldier, this one.”

The others all nodded and gave their praise. Though spoken in badly accented Saxon, Eadric blushed in pleasure. His brothers stood and watched with young Cyneburg and Berethun in tow. Wuffa looked at the wound in amazement.

Saba said, “That must hurt.”

Eadric grimaced again and looked like he was about to be sick. “It does,” he said, swallowed, and left it at that.

As Parker filmed, Edyt came out of the cave and spotted Eadric. She was blood-spattered, having worked tirelessly with the injured, and had come to seek her men. “Eadric, where is Desmond and the boys? Are they still in the field?”

Eadric looked at her with his eyes wide. In all of the excitement of the battle and the frantic care of the wounded, none had yet told Edyt the news. She saw his look and her face became a mask of terror. “Eadric? Eadric? Where are they?” Her normally good-natured face had paled.

The soldiers all stopped. Because of their injuries and the shocking conflict they had survived, none had the foresight to tell this poor mother about her son.

Parker stood before her. “My name is Parker,” he said as he reached for her hand and she numbly let him take it. “Come with me.”

He placed a bandaged arm around her shoulders and the others forgot their pain and followed. Together they filed through the remains of the hedgehog to where they could see Desmond and Irminric as they knelt in the mud. The only others in the field were Yffi and Aeoelhun, who roamed the battlefield to look for more fallen. A hunter comrade who had been disembowelled with an axe was being carried as his intestines dragged. Yffi and Aeoelhun paused to look sorrowfully at Edyt before they hurried on. They tried to tidy up their fallen comrade’s remains before they would tell his wife, who was one of the women preparing food for the starved warriors. Such was the press of injured, hungry men, the cries of relief of the reunited, and the noise of the villagers and the visitors, that there had not yet been a full accounting of who had died on that bloody field.

As they walked where fallen limbs and weapons lay scattered amongst dead Vikings and villagers, Edyt saw Desmond and Irminric and immediately knew what it meant. With a moan like a wounded animal, she shook off Parker’s comforting arm and ran across to her husband. “Desmond, where is Hengist? Where is he?”

Desmond looked up, his filthy face distraught and smeared with tears. Irminric stood and leaned on his spear, his face also awash as he wept for his brother. As his mother called, he turned and hobbled to her, stopping her from getting any closer. “No, Ma, no; you must not.”

Edyt stopped as she saw the sprawled, bloody remains of her son hidden under a cloak that one of the strangers had given. None wanted her last look at her eldest son as he was now. Her cries of grief rang over the bloody field as Desmond and Irminric held her close.