ISLANDS OF THE GULF, VOLUME ONE
by
Audrey Driscoll
Book 2, Volume 1 of the Herbert West Trilogy
Published by Audrey Driscoll at Smashwords
Copyright 2012 by Audrey Driscoll
ISBN 978-0-9866369-1-2 (EPUB version)
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
*******
Discover Book One of The Herbert West Trilogy
Islands of the Gulf, Volume One
Part One
Andre Boudreau
If you don’t know where
you’re going, any road will take you there.
Lewis Carroll
Chapter 1
I’m not the kind of guy who sits down and writes his life story. Other people do it, and good luck to them. The Doctor, now, he’s got a story to tell, and I am happy to talk with him about old times if it helps him to remember things for his book. But me, Andre Boudreau, why should I do that? I’m the one who polishes his boots and sews on his buttons, and makes sure the coal is delivered on time. Someone has to do all that, and he’s lucky it’s me, because I am a man who can do what needs to be done.
A couple of weeks ago he comes to me and says, “Andre, I want you to write down all about your life, everything you can remember.”
I see a way to wiggle out of that, so I say, “But Doctor, you know I can’t remember much from before – "
“Yes, but you can remember what happened after that. I know, because I hear you yarning with the tradespeople. So just remember it all in order, and write it down.”
“Yarning’s different,” I say. “You don’t have to tell things in order. And you don’t have to tell the truth.”
He laughed at that. Oh, I know for sure he doesn’t always tell the truth. I had him there, all right. But he wasn’t about to give up on the idea.
“Well, at least start remembering. As for the writing down, it will have to be a collaborative effort. I can think of someone who could help you with that part. But you have to do your own remembering.”
“All right, Doctor. But don’t expect too much.”
He was right, there’s a hell of a lot stuffed into my brain. It’s like a trunk that’s been packed in a hurry by someone who doesn’t care. You pull on one thing and six others come flopping out.
I guess I’ve been thinking about trunks and packing because I just did a lot of that. A few weeks ago, the Doctor and I moved into this house, on College Hill, Providence, Rhode Island. There aren’t a lot of miles between here and Arkham, but there were for the Doctor and me, since we left there fourteen years ago, in 1923. A whole world of miles.
You could say we’ve both been to Hell and back. I didn’t see the Devil, but I think he did.
I don’t have memories of my childhood. My first memories are of blackness. I came out of blackness. I was a very small thing, a little spark in the blackness. That was all, for a long time.
Then I began to see. Only for short moments, like when there’s lightning at night. Except it was slow lightning. I’d open my eyes and see things, but I didn’t know what they were. Now I think they were the roof of a tent, the inside of a train, the ceiling of some building. A face. Another face. Faces coming and going. Sometimes I heard groans, screams, someone praying in words I couldn’t understand. Maybe it was me. I couldn’t feel anything, though. There was no pain. I wasn’t even cold. Then the darkness again, for I don’t know how long. It wasn’t really me who saw and heard these things, just a little part of me acting like a scout for the rest, which was back in the blackness, waiting for the scout to report so it could decide what to do next.
There was one picture clearer than the rest – I saw the angel of death standing before me. He was beautiful and terrible – all white and silver, with eyes like ice. He looked at me for a long time and said, “No. Not this one. He’s already dead.” So I thought, “There’s no need to hold on anymore,” and let myself slide back into the blackness. As I went I said goodbye to everything – my childhood, family, comrades, my newly hatched young man’s ambitions and lusts. I wasn’t going to go back to New Brunswick after the war to show them how things worked in the big world. Goodbye, everyone. Goodbye Maman, Papa, Nicholas, Michel, Roger, Paulette, Marguerite, sweet little Louise. Goodbye, Grassadoo, goodbye Andre. Short but sweet, it was. Now it’s all gone.
I don’t know how long it lasted. I don't think I'll ever know. But it was nothing. There was no “I” any more. It’s like trying to think of what there was, before there was anything. Before God made the world there was nothing, they say. But there was – No, nothing. My mind can’t think this thing. So I say only: there was nothing.
Then, my first new memory. It was only a feeling. Hot, like fire. Fire was running all through me. I was a man made of fire and heat, my shape burning a hole in the nothing. A red mist swirled through my head and I could feel my heart pumping. No, being pumped, by something outside me. It was like a machine had taken over and was running me, running too hard and hot and jerky. It felt dangerous. It felt wrong. It was worse than dying. I was terribly afraid. Maybe I was in Hell and this would go on forever.
Then I opened my eyes. No, that wasn’t it. My eyes were opened, like somebody pulled a string. Light stabbed into my head, and the pain it made joined the heat in my body. I saw the angel again and thought, “I must be in Heaven. But why does everything hurt, and why am I so afraid?”
He was different now, not like the death angel I saw before. He was white and golden now. There was a brightness behind his head, and his strange bright eyes seemed to look right into my soul. I was still afraid, but I could feel his hands touching me, cooling the heat in my body. Then I was in a river, moving faster and faster. Was I going to drown? I didn’t care any more. It was too much trouble to care. I closed my eyes and gave up. If the angel wanted to, he would save me. If not, it didn’t matter.
There is a carved wooden angel in the church at Grassadoo, New Brunswick, where I was born. When I went back there in ’23, it was still there. I almost remembered it. When I saw it, I felt my breath go in sharp and I thought, “It’s Raphael!” That was my name for him. And my second thought was, “Yes, that’s why. That’s who he reminded me of.”
The carving was very old. It was made from a piece of wood from the beach, and its shape was made by the shape of the wood. So he had short hair, this angel, painted yellow, and a halo that the carver had made from a different piece of wood and stuck on with pegs. His wings were kind of small, but that didn’t matter, because they were the right shape, and he wasn’t going to fly anywhere. He had bright blue eyes, but the look in them wasn’t very angelic. Something about the way the carver had painted them made it look like the angel wanted to fight instead of praying and singing hymns.
One of my younger brothers told me that I used to tell him stories about that angel when we were boys. “You called him Raphael,” Michel told me. “And you said you used to argue with him in church.”
Well, I couldn’t argue with Michel about that. Who knows, maybe I did tell him those things. Michel said I told him I could hear the angel’s voice in my head. I would complain to him about things that made me mad, and he would help me.
“How did I say he helped me?” I asked.
“He would tell you the reasons for things. Like when Papa had to shoot your dog. Or when Maurice and Peter drowned in the big storm. You said that Raphael would say to you, ‘Are you going to lie down and die because of this, Andre? Because if you do I won’t be your friend anymore.’”
So what am I saying here? Yes, there is a wooden angel in the church at Grassadoo. Yes, I’m pretty sure I called him Raphael when I was a boy. And when I woke up again, in 1917, when I came out of the blackness, I thought I recognized him. I just kept looking at him, because that was all I could do. I didn’t know who I was, where I was, or why I was there. There was only him.
The strange heat was gone. I almost missed it, because now I could feel pain – four or five different kinds, if I thought about it, or I could just let them mix together into one big pain. I was afraid to move, because some of the pains felt dangerous, like they would get much worse if I gave them a reason to. I could feel liquids oozing out of me in places, soaking into the bedding and making cold spots. Was I still in the river? Maybe I was lying in mud on the shore. But no, there was a ceiling over me, so that couldn’t be it.
I looked at that ceiling for a long time. I got to know it really well, the colours, stripes, streaks and knots. It was made of corrugated iron laid on wooden beams. A bright shiny streak in the metal drew my eye. Nearby was a patch of rust that looked like a face with a beard, and a bunch of dark spots, like little black stars. One of the beams was light and plain, another had dark and light stripes, and a third one was all dark, with a couple of knots in it. I counted seven spider webs in the angles between the metal and the beams.
I looked at that ceiling until my eyes got tired and closed. I had a dream about sailing a little silver boat in the sky, with a man who had a bushy red beard.
When I woke up, it was dark. I started to get scared. And mad. Why was I all alone? I knew there was something wrong with me, even if I didn’t know what. I was thirsty and I had to piss. "Screw the pain," I thought, and turned my head so I could see more of the place. When I tried to get up I found out that my arms and ankles were held down with clamps. I couldn’t get loose, no matter how much I struggled. I felt my bladder let go and that’s when I started to yell, like a baby in his crib. I don’t know how long I yelled, but nobody came.
When I woke up again, someone was with me. There was still pain, but I could feel heat in the places that hurt –not the dangerous heat like before, but a good heat, as though something was working hard to fix my body. I wasn’t thirsty and the sheets were dry. “Someone is helping me,” I thought. “Maybe it’s the angel.”
He was still there, tucking the blankets around me, pulling them up to my chin. That was what woke me up.
I could see him better now, and I wondered – was this really the angel? I didn’t think angels wore clothes with buttons. And I didn’t think they ever got tired. This man was tired. I could see it in his eyes. That was another thing – his eyes weren’t blue, like Raphael’s, but grey, the colour of river ice before it melts in spring.
He must have seen me looking at him, and he spoke to me for the first time.
“You’re going to live, I think. I wasn’t sure at first, but it’s been twelve hours now. The hemorrhaging has stopped and you’re a little stronger. Tomorrow I’ll move you to a place where you can be looked after properly. Can you speak? What’s your name? Can you tell me that?”
I couldn’t say a thing. I had forgotten how to talk. I could understand his words, but I didn’t know how to make any myself. And my name? I didn’t know that either, and that scared me all over again. He must have seen that, because he touched my shoulder and said,
“Never mind. It’s too early for that. Enough that you’re alive. Don’t worry, I’ll look after you. I want you to live. You’ll be the tenth – one of a select company. Go to sleep now. I’ll be back later.”
I didn’t want to sleep. I wanted to think about all this. I would be the tenth what? What was wrong with me? Who was he? And who was I? But I felt a little bee sting in my arm, and then I was sliding asleep.
This time I dreamt that I was on a train, going up a mountain. Part of me was trying to enjoy the trip, but another part kept wondering what would happen when I got to the top. Would the train go roaring down the other side? It went slower and slower. Then there was a jolt and a shake, and I was flying. I woke up, and it was morning, and all the birds were singing.
*******
Notes from the Case-Book of Herbert West.
August 16, 1917, 2:20 a.m.
Subject #17.8.5R (non-experimental)
Subject was dead approx. 6 hours. Time between administration of fluid and revivification: 95 minutes. Time elapsed since revivification: 12 hours.
Vital signs: respiration normal; heart rate, 70; blood pressure, 120/60.
General appearance: good.
Injuries: trauma of lower left abdomen, right thigh and left arm. No broken bones. No foreign matter left in wounds. Instilled regenerating substance. Installed drains. Subject stabilized. No further loss of fluids.
Prognosis: excellent.
Cognitive abilities: unknown as yet; subject unable to speak.
*******
When I opened my eyes again, I knew I was somewhere else. The light was different – daylight, not lamplight like before. I was in a big bright room with windows. And other people. I could see the end of a metal bed, past where my feet were. In the distance, another bed. Grey blankets. I turned my head one way and the other. More metal beds and grey blankets, and in each bed, a man. “Hospital,” I thought. Then, “What’s a hospital? Why did I think that? Who are all these men? Who am I?”
There were people moving around the room. Women, dressed in blue and white. “Mothers,” I thought. But where was he? “I’ll be back.” That was what he’d said. But now I was somewhere else. Would he be able to find me? That was very important. So when one of the mothers came close to me I raised my hand and tried to grab her sleeve.
“Ou est Monsieur L’Ange?” I asked. My voice felt rusty, and she didn’t seem to have heard me, so I said it again, trying hard to talk louder. She turned and bent over me.
“She isn’t a mother at all,” I thought. “She’s too young.” I could see smooth brown hair under the veil she wore. “So she’s a nun,” I thought. Then, “What’s a nun?” Her eyes were light brown, with little green flecks.
“Oh, you can speak now,” she said. “That’s good. I’ll tell Major West. He specially asked us to tell him when you started to talk.”
Of course she spoke in English, and even though I could understand her, I couldn’t answer in English, only in French. “Qui est Major West?” I asked. But she was gone.
When he came, he spoke French to me. At first I couldn’t understand him, because of his strange accent. Plus I had just woken up from a long sleep, so I was feeling stupid. I asked him the first thing that popped into my fuzzy head.
“Is your name Raphael?”
He smiled. “No. My name is Herbert West. I’m your doctor. And you, it seems, are Andre Boudreau, from Grassadoo, New Brunswick.”
He tripped over “Grassadoo,” just enough to make me smile too and nearly forget that the name Andre Boudreau didn’t mean a thing to me. He might have been introducing a stranger.
“If you say so,” I said. “I don’t know who I am. Or where I am. Or anything.”
“It’s all right, Andre,” he said. “You’re perfectly safe with me. I’ll help you get better. So don’t worry.” He touched my shoulder and smiled. And I stopped being scared and went back to sleep.
That was the first time I had this dream: a rutted country road, curving around the side of a hill, and a girl running along it, crying. The girl is my sister, Marguerite, carrying a bundle of food from our mother. “Maman said that no child of hers would ever leave her house hungry.” So sad, her little face was, so sad.
*******
Notes from the Case Book
August 28, 1917
Subject #17.8.5R (Andre Boudreau)
Subject appears to be a complete amnesiac. Cognitive abilities may be normal. Speaks English and French (New Brunswick dialect? Odd pronunciation). Short term memory good. Retains knowledge of concepts – hospital, war, army, etc. – but no specifics about himself.
Physical condition improving rapidly. All wounds nearly healed.
Must find reason to keep him here. Amnesia might preclude return to action – verify. Is he a tabula rasa? Experiments with his mental development might prove interesting.
*******
For six weeks, my home was Ward 11 in the No. 1 Canadian General, in Etaples, France. Six weeks was much longer than most fellows stayed there. It was a surgical ward, and the usual thing was for a guy to be there only until he was a little bit better or dead.
“I suppose you’ll be leaving us soon, Andre,” said the young nurse who had spoken to me on my first day. “You’re doing so well.” Marie, her name was. I liked her. By this time I knew most of the nurses. Some I knew just by their last name: Sister Pringle, Sister Wright, Sister Bowker, Matron Merriweather. But some of them told me their first names – Kate, Jean, Sally. And Marie. By now I knew they weren’t nuns. “Sister” is what nurses are called, for some reason. And since we were in the army, they were all Lieutenants and the Matron was a Captain. It took me a long time to get all that straight.
By that time I’d memorized my own name and rank: Corporal Andre Boudreau, 236th New Brunswickers. I could come out with that pretty as you please, when I had to. But I might as well have been singing Frere Jacques or some other song, for all it meant anything to me.
“Well, I don’t know, Marie,” I said. “Maybe, but I hope not. I am just used to all you Lieutenants bossing me around. It would be too hard for me to get along with a bunch of new ones.” I tried to make a joke of it, but I was worried. I knew there was something different about me. Everyone else had other people somewhere, that they talked about all the time – mothers, sisters, brothers, wives. Everyone knew where they belonged. But I didn’t. All I had was his words: You are perfectly safe with me.
One day he came over to me and said, “Andre, when I come to see you later, along with some other men, I want you to keep absolutely silent. Do you understand? Not a word. You’d better pretend to be asleep, but whatever you do, don’t look at them like you’re looking at me right now, for God’s sake. Try to look stupid.”
Before I could say a word, he went over to one of the other beds, saying, “Good morning, Matthews. You look much better today.”
By now we talked mostly English. It came back to me pretty quick once I started. The thing that got me going was the Doctor’s way of speaking French. It sounded so funny – not just a little bit funny, like a fellow from Quebec I met in the ward, but really funny. I guess it was his American accent. I never heard a Yankee trying to talk French before, and my God it gave me a good reason to remember my English.
Later that day he came back, along with two other men, officers. They all wore uniforms, not white doctor coats. Remembering what he said, I made a point to look sleepy and stupid. I didn’t say anything, not even when one of them asked me how I was feeling.
The Doctor did most of the talking, explaining to them what was wrong with me and how he had fixed it. A lot of it I couldn’t understand then, about drainage and debridement and secondary infections and stuff like that. Then he said,
“And of course he’ll never be suitable for active service again, you understand.”
One of the others, a man with a face that reminded me of a cod fish, it was so cold and grey, said, “I don’t follow you, West. Once the wounds have finished healing he should be right as a trivet, from what you’ve told us.”
“Exactly,” said the Doctor. “He’ll have about as much intelligence as a trivet too. Do you really want a fellow like that fighting the war? He’ll be a burden to his comrades and probably cause some unnecessary deaths.”
“Well then,” said another man, a young, hairy one who looked like a fox, “why not send him to Ramsgate, with the other shell-shock cases? If they have room, that is. Sometimes I think every other Canadian develops this condition.”
“Did I say anything about shell-shock?” asked the Doctor. “This man is cognitively impaired, to the extent that he should not be returned to the field. I suspect permanent brain damage, so shipping him off to Ramsgate won’t do him any good. By far the most efficient course of action would be to leave him here in my care until his wounds heal. Then I’ll make a final assessment of his mental capabilities, and recommend a course of action.”
The cod fish spoke again. “That’s not your job, West. Your job is to patch ‘em up and move ‘em out. Once they’re out of immediate danger, they don’t belong here. We can’t have you running your own convalescent ward, you know. And you’re a surgeon, not a psychiatrist, so your assessment of someone’s mental abilities is of no more use than any civilian’s.”
I opened my eyes a crack and yawned, as if I was just waking up. The Doctor turned and faced the man who looked like a cod fish. Even then, I knew what it felt like when he looked at you hard like that, and I felt a bit sorry for Monsieur La Morue.
“Sir,” the Doctor said, “I don’t believe I’ve made myself clear. This man is mid-way through a course of treatment that will make the difference between a productive life as a civilian or the life of a permanent invalid, a drain on the state and his family. He must remain here. If you require another opinion besides mine, I would refer you to General Clapham-Lee.”
That seemed to do it for the cod fish – what the Doctor said, or maybe just the name at the end. Soon after, they all went away. I lay there and wondered what was going on.
Whether General Clapham-Lee (whoever he was) pulled a string, or because of something else, I wasn’t inspected again. In fact, it seemed to be all right that Ward 11 became my home for a while.
When I was better, I helped out around the place. There were lots of times when they needed extra help. Mostly I carried things from one place to the next, but when everyone else was busy with a new bunch of wounded men, I did other things too, like feed guys who couldn’t do it themselves, or even help the nurses with dressings. I don’t know if this was the Doctor’s idea or if it just happened. I guess maybe once the nurses saw I was better, they figured I might as well do something useful. Well, I was happy to do it. It kept me from thinking too much about the big black hole where my memories should have been. As for the Doctor, he was pleased as the punch.
“Excellent,” he would say, when he heard about my latest trick. “It’s the best thing for him at this stage.”
I still didn’t know who I was. Oh yes, the Doctor and others kept calling me Andre Boudreau, and I learned pretty fast to answer to that name, and to give it when asked. But there was nothing behind it. I might as well have been a parrot. The same when someone would ask me, “And where are you from?” I’d come up with, “Grassadoo, New Brunswick, Canada,” smart as you please, but if they’d asked me how the air smelled there in spring, or what kinds of birds there were, or flowers, or what my father did for a living, I wouldn’t have a thing to say. Talking to people was like walking on a tightrope in the dark, so sometimes I just wouldn’t talk. I’d pretend I couldn’t speak English, or had become a deaf-dumb. I got good at listening, though.
There was a corner outside the back door of the ward that was out of the wind. Someone had put a couple of chairs out there. The day was a little cold, but not raining, so that’s where we were one day in September.
“What’s wrong with me, Doctor?” I asked. “My body is almost healed now. You know that. But I can’t remember anything from before.”
“You were wounded on the fifteenth of August,” he said, “in the battle for Hill 70.” He smiled. “More like a pimple on someone’s backside than a real hill, I understand, but it was important, so you men were sent to take it. The stetcher-bearers picked you up by Cite St. Emile, near the ruins of Lens. You were nearly dead.”
“But I’m not now,” I said.
“No.” Another smile, like he had a joke with himself.
“But I can’t remember anything about what you told me just now! Not that hill, or a battle or anything else.”
“You’re an amnesiac, Andre,” he said. “The injury you sustained damaged your brain. That’s why you can’t remember your past. Not much is known about these things. Some amnesiacs regain their memories, or part of them. Sometimes they never do. It’s too soon to tell with you, but it’s clear that you can learn things and remember what has happened to you since your – since you were wounded.”
That was true, all right. Nearly every day he asked me questions, fast, like gunshots – what was his name, how old was I, what ward was I in, what were the nurses’ names, which doctor had red hair, when were meals served? He was happy when I got the right answers, and wrote about it in his notebook. He also wrote down other things about me, after he listened to my heart and breathing, looked into my eyes, and all that.
But that wasn’t what was really bothering me. “Doctor,” I said, “I don’t understand what made me forget everything. I never got shot in the head. It was my leg and my side and other places that were hurt. Not my head. So how did my brain get damaged? Does this mean I’m a… nerve case?” Nerve cases were bad news. No one seemed to think that anything good could happen to a guy who was a nerve case. Fellows who had lost arms or legs were sent home to their families. (But of course, I didn’t have a family, did I? Not one I knew about, anyway.) But nerve cases went somewhere else. “Oh, he’ll be sent to Ramsgate,” the nurses would say about some poor sap who didn’t talk, just sat there staring into space, drooling. And I always thought, the way they said it, that I sure didn't want to go there.
“Doctor,” I said again, “tell me what really happened to me. I know I’m different, but I don’t know why. Please tell me.”
“You are certainly coming along, Andre,” he said. “Faster than I expected. I didn’t think you would ask these questions so soon. Well, I suppose you must know the truth eventually. The injury to your brain was not the result of an external wound. It was because you were dead. For several hours. You were dead until I brought you back to life, and during that time some parts of your brain were damaged.”
“You brought me back to life?” I said, slowly.
“Yes,” he answered, smiling. “When you were brought in, all of us surgeons had our hands full, so no one could deal with you right away. But I could tell you wanted to live more than any of the others, and that you were a strong man. I said to myself – I will take him next. But by the time I was free, you were dead. I remembered how much you wanted to live, so later I found you in the morgue and brought you back to life.”
“I didn’t know that could be done,” I said. “Is it something new?”
“Something new,” he said, laughing. “Very new, and only I know how to do it. You’re a lucky man, Andre Boudreau.
“Maybe I am.” I still couldn’t believe what he had told me. “I was really dead?”
“You were really dead, Andre. For nearly six hours. And now you’re alive.”
“Can you do that to anyone? You can bring any dead person back to life? Like Jesus?” I looked at him as though it was the first time I’d seen him. In the daylight there didn’t seem to be anything that strange about him. He was still a young man, older than me, I figured, but not much. He wasn’t much taller than me, either, and I am a short fellow. Where I come from he would have been described by some as a pretty boy, with his yellow hair and nice-looking face – the kind of boy that mothers like to baby a little longer than their other sons. He usually wore eyeglasses, but when he didn’t, you could see that he had long eyelashes, almost like a girl’s. But the eyes that went with them were like nobody else’s I have ever seen. Grey eyes, like ice. I thought, "These eyes could look at anything and not blink. These eyes could look inside me, maybe, and find who I really am." But he was answering my question.
“No, Andre, I can’t bring every dead person back to life. They can’t have been dead very long, for one thing. And even when they come back to life, things aren’t always as they should be. So I’m not really like Jesus.” He smiled to himself again. “But in your case I’m very pleased with the results.”
He pulled out his watch. “I have to go now, but before I do, I want to say two things. Two important things.” He looked right in my eyes, and I felt as though I had been backed up to the wall behind me and held there by force. “First, don’t worry about anything. I will look after you. Second, don’t say anything to anyone about this. The first depends on the second, you see. If you say anything at all, to anyone, I will let you go into the world just as you are, alone. Do you understand?”
“I understand, Doctor,” I said, trying to keep my eyes on his. I almost did it, too. Next thing I knew, he was gone.
I didn’t say anything to anyone. I didn’t even want to. For one thing, I wasn’t sure I believed him. For another, I knew I had to stay with him, and I was pretty sure he was serious when he said he would cut me loose if I talked. I had to stay with him because he knew more about me than anyone. The hospital was part of the war, and the war was always changing, and would end some day. Everyone was hoping it would end soon. When it did, where would I go? Grassadoo, New Brunswick? To me, those were just sounds, with nothing behind them. But he was real. And he could do things no one else could. I thought maybe he was the only person who could help me find myself.
Chapter 2
A few weeks later, the Doctor must have thought that enough time had passed to see if I would blab or not. When I didn’t, he got on with his plan for me. By that time I was in such good shape it didn’t make sense to keep me on in a ward full of very sick men. Even though I was still a patient, for the past couple of weeks I was more like an orderly. The nurses ordered me around, all right. I scrubbed floors, emptied bed pans, lugged baskets full of laundry, anything I was told.
“If you’re going to do menial work, Andre,” said the Doctor, “you may as well do it officially, for me. From now on, you’ll be my batman. I’ve made all the arrangements. You’ll be on the record as returned to active service, but you’re not going back into combat. Private John Spillane, my current batman, will finally get a chance to cover himself with glory in the field of battle.”
I managed to talk with Marie before I left the ward. Marie Clelland, her name was. I still remember it. “I’ll miss you, Andre,” she said, “but it’s not as though you’re going away. The M.O.’s quarters aren’t that far away, and you won’t be on duty all the time. Maybe I’ll see you.”
She smiled at me, a little shy. I was wearing my new uniform and felt happy and a little funny too.
“I’d like that, Marie,” I said. And I did see her again, too. But that’s not really part of this story.
Later, I went to the mess where the M.O.’s batmen ate, along with the orderlies and other fellows who worked in the hospital. The man who was showing me around introduced me to some other guys. One of them jumped up, came over to me and pumped my hand up and down.
“Well, well, Andre Boudreau,” he said. “Glad to know you. You’re the boy who’s letting me get out of this place. Cripes, I’ll be glad to have the smell of Clorox behind me for good! I can finally be a soldier, not a scrub woman. The Huns better look out, for they’ll have John Spillane to deal with now!” He was still pumping my hand. I pulled it away before he could hurt it and said,
“John Spillane? I’ve heard that name before. From Major West. Do you know him?”
“Do I know him? Boy, I know all about him! Don’t you get it? You’re my replacement. For the past year I’ve been his batman, and now it’s going to be you, you lucky devil.”
He sat me down and poured me a cup of coffee as black as tar from an enamel jug. “Better have milk in that, boy,” he said. “Takes the edge off. You don’t want to get sick, your first day and all.”
He was a skinny guy with red hair and blue eyes that stuck out of his face and made him look like he was always excited about something, which wasn’t exactly wrong. He talked fast, with an accent I’d never heard before. So I asked him where he came from. That’s how I got to know a lot more about Private John Spillane than I ever wanted to.
“I’m from St. John’s, Newfoundland,” he began. “Born in Shoe Cove. I joined the Canadian Army right after Beaumont Hamel. I heard they didn’t always use the colonials to take the edge off the enemy, the way the Brits do. They took me, all right. I was a live one, ready to go, eh? Just like they took our Dr. Iceberg, for all he’s a Yankee.”
“Dr. Iceberg?” I asked. “You mean Major West?”
“Damn right, but he don’t insist on Major. Rank isn’t important to him, or Army rules, or who sucks up to who. That’s one of the good things about him.”
“But why do you call him Iceberg?”
“Well, there’s two ways to explain that.” He stopped talking and lit up a short black pipe before going on. “Most people say it’s because he’s cold, like ice. Well, I think that’s wrong. It’s for sure that when he doesn’t have time for you he lets you know it, but he can be a great talker, just the same. OK, he talks to you, mostly, not with you, if you get my meaning, but he does talk. I figured out the way to deal with him is hop to it and do what you’re told, but ask a few questions while you’re at it, even argue a bit. That’s if you know what you’re talking about. He has no time for stupid questions, that’s for sure. You’ll know you’ve put your foot in it, Andre my boy, if the Iceberg gives you one of those ball-freezing looks and says, ‘A moment’s thought will show you how unnecessary that question was.’”
He was good at sounding like other people, John Spillane was. His Newfoundland accent changed to Yankee, and I almost thought it was the Doctor talking. Then I started to laugh.
“Ha! I see you know what I mean.” Spillane was laughing too. “I only did it once, I can tell you. After that I checked with myself before I said anything to him, and we got along fine.”
“And the other reason?”
“Other reason? Oh, why he’s the Iceberg – well, because there’s more to him than you can see, that’s why. Have you ever seen an iceberg, Andre?”
Had I? I didn’t know. I shook my head.
“Well, where I come from we see ‘em all the time. Big buggers, too, like castles made of ice. But the thing is – the part you see is only the very top. Under the water, there’s way more – eight or nine castles all stuck together, maybe. And that’s the way it is with Dr. West. Most people think he’s just a little stuck-up Yankee bastard who happens to be really good with a knife and has no time for anyone who doesn’t need cutting up. But they’re wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I think he’s got his own reasons for things. Not the usual kinds of reasons. Like being in the Army. Figure – he’s an American, but he joins the Canadian Army. Why? Well, maybe just because the American Army was sitting on its ass while all of us were getting ours shot off, starting in ’14. But like I just told you, the usual Army stuff, like being called Sir, and getting saluted, and wearing a uniform with all those extra badges and things on it – well, he doesn’t give a damn about that. Oh, he always looks pressed and polished – that’s part of his game, all right. Don’t I know it too, seeing as I was the sap who did all the pressing and polishing. But it’s just a game to him. So he’s here for some other reason. I figure it’s ‘cause here he’s got a chance to do some really fancy surgery. Probably way more than he was doing in that place he comes from – somewhere in the Boston States. See, I think working on all these soldiers is practice for him, so he can be really good at the doctoring game when he goes home. And that’s not all.”
He leaned closer to me and spoke more quietly. “No, I figure he’s got another reason for being here, something he doesn’t want anyone to know about.”
“So how do you know about it? Did he tell you?”
“Ah, Andre my boy, I can see you don’t mean that. You’re pretty quick, for a boy who was nearly dead a couple of months ago. No, he didn’t tell me. It’s just that I figured out he wasn’t spending his free time the way most of the officers do – drinking and telling each other lies in the Officers’ Club, or going off to Paris-Plage for a bit of fun. Oh, he does that too, or something like it. You’ll hear all kinds of stories. But lots of times he’d just disappear for hours. All night, sometimes. And he’d turn up next day looking, well, not hung over – I know what that looks like, no question. No, he’d look… wrung out, somehow, like he’d been rasseling with something all night. Lucky for him he needs less sleep than most. Four hours, five at most. It’s hard to catch him napping.
“Anyway, I just got curious. I mean, what’s there to do around here? Except the obvious, and he wasn’t doing that. And whatever it was, it was close by the hospital. He’d just reappear, like, when it was time for him to go on duty. Dependable that way, he is. So one time I thought I’d follow him. I kept a sharp lookout and slipped out after him, but not too quick. He made a beeline for all those storage huts behind the hospital. You don’t know them? Well, there’s the wards, then the living quarters, then the morgue – dead quarters, you might say. Behind that there’s a whole bunch of storage huts, where supplies are kept, and stuff packed away that’s broken or no one needs, or God knows what. There’s a regular maze of alleys in between the huts, and that’s where I made my mistake. I went around a corner a little too quick and he spotted me. He turns around and comes over to me.
“‘And where might you be going, Private Spillane?’ he asks, and he don’t look friendly at all. And he usually calls me John. ‘Is there a fire somewhere?’
“‘No Sir,’ I says. ‘I was just out for a walk, you see – ’
“‘I doubt that, John Spillane,’ he says. He grabs one of my arms and starts to march me along the way we’d come from. ‘Let me give you a piece of advice. Stay away from this area. That’s an order.”
“Well, that was a surprise. He didn’t usually give orders. ‘Yes, Sir,’ was all I could say to that.
“By this time we’re nearly back to the hospital area, and he lets me go, with a little shove. ‘Good night, John,’ he says, and be damned if he doesn’t go back to where we’d come from, but I didn’t have the guts to follow him again. I was still curious as hell, but Mrs. Spillane’s son John wasn’t born yesterday, and I could tell he meant what he said. So I didn’t go back. But that’s what I mean when I say there’s more to the Iceberg than you can see.”
“So what do you think he’s up to?”
“No idea. But something big, and something secret. Maybe you’ll find out, eh?”
I tried to smile, to show him I didn’t take all this too seriously. How could I tell if any of it was true? But it got me thinking, and I didn’t want to talk about what I was thinking. Instead I asked, “What’s it like, working for him? You have to hop to it, you say?”
“Damn right! Do it fast and do it right. He likes his water hot and his razors extra sharp. And everything polished until you can see your face in it. He does the basic stuff for himself, though – shaving, dressing, all that. Now some of these officers, from what I hear, they’d get their poor batman to wipe their arse, just because they’ve got one. Batman, that is.” He grinned. “But he’s not like that. You don’t have to salute every time you turn around, and most of the time he’d rather you called him Dr. West and not Sir. But don’t even try to give him burnt toast. He’ll throw it back at you. Well, I guess because it was the third time that week. And no stupid questions. Remember all that and you’ll be fine. Well, it’s been a treat talking with you, Andre. Good-bye and good luck.”
“Good luck to you, John Spillane,” I said, holding out my hand and getting ready for him to use it like a pump handle. “And thank you.”
I never did find out what happened to Spillane. Maybe he made it back to Newfoundland, or maybe he died somewhere in France. I don’t know. I thought about him now and then, and told myself I should ask the Doctor if he knew anything. But I never did.
*******
Notes from the Case Book
Oct. 14, 1917
Subject #17.8.5R (A. Boudreau)
Subject completely recovered physically. Has regained strength and agility. Cognitive abilities excellent, but he has no memories. He is a tabula rasa. This is an excellent opportunity to observe a revivified subject in the long term, and to experiment with certain subtleties, e.g., does he possess what is commonly called a conscience?
*******
A short time after I began to work for the Doctor, something happened. I’d been reading the Doctor’s notebooks between jobs. I couldn’t understand everything, but some of it was so interesting I forgot all about the time going by until my stomach started rumbling. The food in our mess wasn’t that good, but I couldn’t get enough of it. It was like my body meant to build itself up, using whatever was handy.
I put the notebook away and was about to leave, when I heard someone coming into the other room. It was the Doctor, which was a surprise. He never came to his quarters in the middle of the day. There was someone with him, a taller fellow with dark hair. By now I could tell more about ranks, and this was a big one. So I decided to keep quiet.
The Doctor said, “Since you insist on having this discussion now, this is the only possible place. I can’t spare the time to go anywhere else. I can’t spare the time at all, for that matter, but – "
“Never mind that, West,” said the other one, and I could tell he was English, not Canadian. “You will spare the time when I say so.”
“You are very autocratic suddenly, Eric,” said the Doctor. His voice was a bit quieter than before, and there was something about it that made my skin go prickly.
“I’m not here to play games,” said the Englishman. “I want results and I want them now. You’ve been leading me on for too long with nothing to show for it.”
“'There is none so blind as he that will not see,'” said the Doctor. “You’ve seen many of my patients. You’ve been able to compare them with similar cases handled by others. Are these not results? What more do you want?”
“I want to know how you achieved those results. The precise amounts, the exact procedures. You know damned well what I’m talking about, West!”
“Eric, when we began this enterprise, I understood that it was to be a scientific collaboration. A collaboration involves equal contributions by both parties. Unfortunately, it seems that all the scientific contributions have been made by me. Until I see indications that you’re a true participant in this effort, there’s little incentive for me to hand over the particulars.”
I could tell that the Englishman was getting mad. His voice got louder. “You know damned well what my contributions have been, West! You wouldn’t have been able to make a move without me pulling strings for you every step of the way. You’d still be at St. Eloi, or dishonourably discharged! And anyway, you can stop pretending to be the impartial scientist. I’ve been having you watched, these last few months, and I know that science is only a pretext for you.”
“I’m not certain I understand you.” By now the Doctor’s voice was so quiet I could hardly hear him. The other fellow talked more quietly too, but in a heavy way. He was facing in my direction, while the Doctor had his back to me.
“The morgue, West. You’ve been seen there more times than is exactly healthy for a surgeon whose primary concern should be the welfare of the living. And at least once you’ve been seen transporting what appeared to be a corpse to that private laboratory of yours. Misuse and mutilation of dead bodies is a serious offence. And I can think of some even less savoury possibilities. What do you say now?”
“I say that you and your informants, whoever they are, certainly have lively imaginations. If I had more time at my disposal I would be interested to hear more of these lurid tales, but – ”
“Listen to me, West!” The English voice got louder again, and I had an idea its owner had taken a step closer to the Doctor. “May I remind you that your position is a precarious one and that to maintain it you depend upon me. If you persist in reneging on your part of our agreement, I will speak to certain persons. I know more about you than you realize. I will give them information that they will not be able to ignore, no matter how brilliant a surgeon you are. And I will not raise a finger to protect you when investigations begin into your conduct. Quite the contrary. Now, I’ve given you fair warning, and this is your last chance to cooperate.”
“Very well, Eric,” said the Doctor. “You’ve made yourself perfectly clear. But before we discuss terms and particulars, allow me to give you a demonstration of my methods, in my private laboratory. You will find them exceedingly interesting, I think. Would tonight be convenient for you? We can meet at – midnight, say? I think that would be appropriate.”
“Is this another of your diversions, West? Because if that’s all it is, I’m not interested.”
“Diversions? What an odd choice of word. No, Eric, I’m not engaged in diversions. The techniques I’m prepared to demonstrate will address some of the concerns which you seem to think are so pressing, that’s all. Results, if you will. So – you know where to find me, and when. Now I really must go.”
He must have pushed past the fellow and left. I heard the door close and the Englishman said, to himself I guess, “Damn that bastard!” The door opened and closed again, and I was alone. I missed lunch after all, but I wasn’t worried about that, because I was too busy trying to figure out all the stuff I had just heard.
I didn’t see the Doctor again until late that night, or I guess early next morning. I must have been asleep for a while when I heard him come in. It couldn’t have been a very hard sleep, because I was wide awake right away. I jumped into my clothes, flattened down my hair with my hands, and went to see if he needed anything. Sometimes, when he came in late after a heavy night, he would ask me to make him some tea. When it was ready he would tell me to have some too, and he would talk. To me, not with me, like John Spillane said, but talk he would. He’d tell about the men he’d worked on that night, the things he’d had to do to them, how many had died, how many looked like living ‘til morning. I think he forgot I didn’t know anything about surgery, but I guess he had to say these things to someone, and I figured it was part of my job to listen.
That night he didn’t ask for tea. “Andre, it’s good of you to get up. Thank you.” Then he started walking around the room. That was a bit of a trick, because it was a very small room. Suddenly he stopped and asked, “Have you ever killed anyone?”
“I guess I must have. When I was a soldier. Before. But I can’t remember.”
“Of course not.” He combed his hair with his fingers, the way I did when I got up. “How could I have forgotten that?” He began walking around again.
Then he asked, “What was it like, when you were dead?”
“It was like... nothing. It was black. Just nothing. Or maybe I don’t remember. Coming back, that was bad. I was afraid. But after, it got better. When you helped me.”
I thought I knew what was wrong, and I thought I could help. “Did one of them die, Doctor? Because you made a little mistake, maybe? But for you it must be easier, no? Because you could bring him back, like you did with me, and fix him up.”
He laughed at that. He stopped walking and looked at me, and laughed. “It’s not exactly like that. Well, in a way it is. Yes, you could say I made a mistake. Several mistakes. But I think I know how to correct them. Tell me, Andre, what’s it like, not to remember anything? Is it worse than being dead?”
I thought about this for a while. I wasn’t used to talking about these things, and it took me a while to get it all sorted out. I thought about my life and the little things that made me happy – fellows laughing and talking in the mess hall, the taste of hot food and hot tea, how good it was to go to sleep, the sounds of birds singing, watching a pretty sunset, talking to Marie… “I am afraid, when I think about how I am so alone. Memories, that seems to be what holds a person to other people, and I don’t have a lot of those. But… I think it’s better to be alive.”
“Why?” He was looking at me hard.
“Because every day there are good things. I can think about them before I go to sleep. And someday I’ll have a lot of memories, because I can remember all the good things that happened since you brought me back.”
“But if you couldn’t remember, from one day to the next? If every day was like the first one? What about that?”
“I don’t know, Doctor. I can’t think how that would be. Maybe not so good. Maybe dead would be better than that.”
He sent me to get some hot water and began to get ready for bed. When I was going out I heard him say to himself, “Better than dead would be too good for him. Cutting all connections, that’s the ticket. Can it be done so precisely, though? But of course the essential one is that of recognition.”
The next day, the Doctor told me he had a new memory exercise for me. He took some things out of a case and put them on the table. “I want to see if you can learn to recognize these objects and their names, Andre,” he said. “The test will be whether you can hand me the correct one when I ask for it. And I want to see how quickly you can learn, so we will do the test tomorrow night.”
For half an hour he told me the names and made me say them after him: scalpel, small forceps, large forceps, retractor, cannula, clamp, dermatome, hemostat, snipper, snarple, quiddger. Names like that. Even after all these years, I can remember them (well, most of them) and the things they stood for. Steel instruments with sharp points and edges. Tools for slicing and peeling, taking apart and putting back together, but not for vegetables or wood or machines, but bodies. When I think about them, it brings back memories of the things I saw him do. He was like a magician in those days.
The rest of that day, and all of the next, I studied the things every chance I got. The Doctor gave me a folded paper that had the names written out on one side, and pictures of the things on the folded-over side, so I could check how I was doing. By the end of the second day I had it perfect. I could tell all the names without a mistake. I was pretty happy with myself and hoped he would come soon and do the test, before I forgot anything.
But he didn’t come. Supper was over in all the messes, and fellows were sitting around talking, like they always did.
“I guess the M.O.s are all run off their feet tonight,” said one. “Lots of convoys coming in and all the operating rooms busy. They’re at it again out there – another big push by bloody Ypres. Some place called Passchendaele. Sounds like it’s a real slaughter.”
So that’s where he is, I thought. Well, the test would wait. I thought about the men who were getting killed and hurt out there. Men like I was once.
Someone else piped up. “What’s all this about one of the bigwigs going missing? Clapham-Lee – no one’s seen him for days, I heard.”