Death & Mercy

By Lance Mason

Lance Mason is this month’s winner of $592.50 for a story on war.

Bio: Lance Mason is a California native, educated through decades of work and travel overseas. His writing reflects this, and has appeared in 50+ literary, topical, and professional publications. Examples are:
https://travelerstales.com/the-lessons-of-drnc/
https://kalaharireview.com/the-train-to-harare-13ae3d1b4f94
https://www.dreamerswriting.com/lance-mason/
https://www.close2thebone.co.uk/wp/author/lance-mason/

Without further ado, “Death & Mercy” by Lance Mason.

After the miasmic chaos they'd seen in the Crimean War, its broken men, and a clumsy peace, Jehangir Arjani and his comrades found that a few narcotic days across the Egyptian desert, plus the human comedy of Suez, filled them with the balm of resignation. They could do nothing to unravel the tangled, hectic strands of life in this Arab port functioning since antiquity, and were happy not to try. For four days, they explored the docks, the souk, the city, and the smells—nutmeg, sandalwood, and sewage—bought a few nothings as tokens of their passing through, and boarded their P & O vessel bound for Bombay.

Six days later, in Aden, Major Stirling got the news that war was imminent in Persia. Ships had been sent west from Kurrachee, Bombay, and Calcutta to intercept these returning Crimean War veterans and matériel, and then transport them to the south coast of Persia.

Standing out of the sun on the veranda of the Army's Aden garrison, Stirling addressed his fellow officers. "Companies will form up in Muscat, our next port of call. Troops will muster there for assignment and orders.” His chestnut hair flicked in the fickle breeze drifting in from the sea. “No sense yet on strategy or intended tactics, but heavy cavalry and horse artillery are in transit from India. Overall command for the effort will be with General Outram, with Havelock and Jacob to back him up."

Maj. Gabriel West was calm but curious. "What of India itself? What's the tone of morale back there? Any readiness for a fight?"

"We're missed, Gabe, old son. Seems the sepoy regiments have been kicking up a bit since their favourite officers, those of us with time in India, have been away. The new lads are out of their depth in dealing with sardar and havildar, and good order is suffering.” Stirling’s, glass-green eyes were narrow but steady “There's a justified uproar since Canning signed this Enlistment Act binding new recruits to overseas assignment."

This news agitated others, but not Dominic Cartwright, the iron-muscled Irish Dragoon. "They’re unhappy catching on in a foreign country, like he action we saw out of Balaclava? That’s what I’ve come for. This ain’t the way in India?"

West, whip-thin and fair-haired, replied. "No, not normally, Sergeant. Loyalty, discipline, and morale are as good as gold among the sepoy. Yes, there is the odd tiff between officer and noncom, or between a Rajput and a Mohammedan over mess protocols, but this is another matter. You agree, Angus?"

"Dead on," Stirling said. "Show respect for them and their beliefs, their harum-scarum rituals, and there is no better warrior alive than a Bengali or Punjabi. But disregard their ways or violate their traditions, then you are enlisting the Devil."

West went on. “The main thing is, some castes of Hindu, and a few of the others, can't travel by water to another country. It’s called kalapani, a violation of their faith. For them, not part of the landscape, I’m afraid.”

Quiet followed, with Cartwright contemplating the conduct of an army in a region unknown to him. Arjani, ever the hawk-eyed observer, and Stirling and West reflected on how time away, and war in a different land, were coming to color, to season, their outlooks. No sooner had each man digested his own version of this than a lance corporal of The King's Own appeared on the veranda.

"Majors West and Stirling?" The man's accent was minted Yorkshire. "Col. Robertson requests your presence downstairs in the strategy room."

Arjani and Cartwright watched as the other three descended the stairs. Arjani said, "You must feel alienated by these events, Dominic." Both men had been prisoners of the Russians in Crimea, and escaped together due to Cartwright’s marksman’s eye and horseman’s skills.

"Such things are the meat of a soldier's life, Jehan. We go as and where we’re told. A venture to India is what I asked for, and I'll take it as it comes."

It occurred to Arjani, a springy, olive-skinned man of average height but steely presence, that this was the attitude commanders sought in their men.

In Colonel Robertson's command room, Stirling and West were among three other majors, one each of foot, horse, and artillery, with odors to match, and a handful of captains of varying assignment.

"Gentlemen," the colonel began, "everything I say today, until further orders, must not leave this room. I have protected word from High Command India that we will be mounting coordinated sieges in Persia, at Bushehr and Ahvaz. All of the regiments to be committed are not yet known, but this will be a full effort. Prepare your men to disembark at Muscat, from where they will immediately march to assembly points as directed. Yes, Major West?"

"Sir, many of the men on our ship and in this convoy—if it can be called a convoy—were evacuated from Balaklava in haste, as it were, and may be detached from their regiment command staff."

"Yes, Major, so I've been told. Between here and Muscat, you field officers are to organize all men on board your ships to fall under your command until they are either reunited with their regiment, or, if not, joined to your men until further notice. Is that clear?"

This was somewhat irregular in the British Army. A man, once assigned and trained in the Grenadier Guards, remained in the Guards for the duration of his service. Exceptions like Cartwright’s, when petitions for transfer were granted, were uncommon.

Stirling spoke. "Sir, all men aboard ship will be commanded by the most immediately available officers?"

"Correct, Major. You're returning from Crimea?”

"Yes, sir. Angus Stirling, 3rd Bombay Light Cavalry."

"Stirling, is it? You fought with Hodson at Gujrat. Yes, back in—was it '48? Good show there, Major."

The rest of the briefing consisted of a few hard details and some conjecture. Six days later, the ships entered the harbour at Muscat, a British ally across the Persian Gulf from what was now the enemy coast.

Gabriel West and Jehan Arjani had been assigned to Angus Stirling’s regiment in Crimea. Disembarking at Muscat, they reported to the British garrison, encountering units of their own Poona Horse just arrived from India. As with many regiments, they had remained at home to avoid breaking the sepoys' caste by sending them across the sea to Crimea. And here with them were Jock Gough-Martin and Kit Hale! A part of Arjani felt strongly drawn to these two strapping, soldierly men who had played such a role in his younger life. Still, that was a different Jehangir Arjani, callow and unspoiled by war. He knew this, and so did they, which graced their reunion with added respect.

#

In January, as Angus Stirling predicted, General Sir James Outram arrived in Persia with reinforcements from India, taking overall command and multiplying troop strength several times. No soldier questioned either his role or his orders, and soon they were marching northwest, bound for Mesopotamia.

Jehan Arjani had found what the great surgeon Nikolai Pirogov had found in Crimea, that to manage wounded soldiers in a calm, clean infirmary was wonderful, but to do so in the overheated tumult of a tent close by the battlefield was another matter. He found it a great strain, fighting the clock of death in his highly developed instinct for saving lives and limbs. His passions would rise up against the practical decisions of sorting the hopeless from the treatable, the very meaning of triage.

In Crimea, after captivity, he had enlisted one or more of Florence Nightingale's female nurses, though never met the great lady herself. These women had helped maintain a calm urgency while feeding him a concise report on how critical each new arrival was. In a quick, incisive discussion, he either learned he was required immediately on the case himself, or he gave the nurse her instructions to initiate care. Thus triage had become as rhythmic to him as melody to the musician. "The purpose of it," he would say, "is swift treatment in the correct direction."

Now, on the plains of southern Persia, Arjani worked with male nurses to confidently shape, if not perfect, this skill: to quickly differentiate between lives he could save and those he couldn't, in order to increase the first while accepting the second.

#

The man, 22 years old, lay atop two wide boards forming a table covered with a thin straw mattress. Supported by trestles, this raised bed put the man waist-high to Arjani, a more comfortable position from which to operate than stooping over.

Most of the bleeding had stopped, though, frankly, Arjani didn't know if this was from his efforts or because the soldier was dying. A third of his lower jaw had gone missing when he’d been hit side-on at close range with a .70 cal. musket ball. It had entered from the right side, below the right ear, removing a thumb-sized portion of the right cheek and most of the back teeth on that side. These teeth then acted as additional projectiles that, along with the musket ball, had exited the left side of the young man's face, carrying away five more teeth, the lower half of that cheek, and a large segment of his lower left jawbone. ¹

The sable-haired man, thick as a tree trunk, had arrived semi-conscious and trying to talk without success, probably delirious, certainly in shock. Arjani could not judge how much blood he'd lost, but administered 10 mg of morphine by injection, and ether by inhalation. Arjani's assistant covered the facial holes with his hands so the ether fumes did not simply drift away or put Arjani himself to sleep.

With the patient somewhat sedated, Arjani used surgical forceps to remove the remaining fragments of the fractured teeth on the right, then sutured that cheek closed externally and intra-orally, using silk outside and sheep-gut sutures inside. Moving to the left side, Arjani removed additional tooth fragments from the remaining parts of the broken jaw, lacerated cheek, and torn gums, and then attended to suturing the soft tissue wounds, which were more extensive than on the right.

Once the unsalvageable fragments of bone and teeth were out, the largest facial wounds sutured closed, and the bleeding stopped, Arjani said a prayer to his God for intercession by the soldier's God. ²

In the morning, Arjani went to see the man. His head and face were swathed in blood-stained muslin gauze, all covered but his nose and eyes. He was deeply asleep, unconscious, with a nurse nearby with a water flask, hoping the patient would be able to drink something. Arjani returned twice a day between his other cases. On the third day, the eyes were open, coal-gray eyes that tracked Arjani's every move, eyes that pleaded for a future, for some understanding now of how this face would look, what it would be, when the bandages came off.

"Risaldar Singh, I am Dr. Arjani. I am the man who treated your wounds, I and the soldier nurses nearby. I want to be plain with you. It was… Yours was a very bad injury. A musket ball entered your face on the right side, damaged many of your teeth and your jaw, and passed out of your cheek on the left side. We are doing our best for you, all that we can, but we ask very seriously that you try the best you can to drink all that the nurses bring you.

"The risks are still high against you, Risaldar Singh, but your sardars and troopers tell me you are among the strongest and bravest of men, and your family prizes you greatly."

At this, the eyes shone with tears.

"I will be in to see you as often as time allows, even though, as you know, we have many wounded to care for."

On the sixth day, in the afternoon, Karman Singh died from a combination of sepsis, dehydration, and perhaps, Arjani thought, despair. Arjani knew Pirogov may have accused him of pursuing the hopeless case, an expenditure of time and resources better spent on more realistic injuries. Arjani accepted that he had much more to learn in that regard. ³

He had seen dozens of casualties, minor and mid-level, return to the line. They were soldiers and this was war—well, a form of war, the Company using British and Indian men to fight other men to protect the Company's profits. It was, in many ways, the story of history.

Passing the bed of a man recovering from a saber wound to the shoulder, Arjani noticed he was sewing. Arjani could see the man was intent on the job, and stood back to watch. The man had cut a small swatch of cloth from the inner skirt of his jacket and was using it to patch a torn place on the arm. There was nothing uncommon about the task, just that Arjani felt drawn to the man's stitching, something he had done so much of himself.

#

From his work with Uncle Zubin at his clinic in Poona, his years in medical college, his short imprisonment under Pirogov, and his experience under fire, Arjani knew that one learned more from failure than from success. His attempt to save the life and body of Risaldar Singh in Persia produced one of his more haunting failures. He'd asked the man to endure radical facial surgery so that Arjani could attempt to accomplish the impossible. The soldier had initially lived against all odds despite a lethal wound that should have brought immediate death. Arjani had then made a choice against Pirogov’s principles of triage, to always employ one’s limited resources when and where they can achieve the most good, save the most limbs and lives, and dispense the most mercy.

Rather than keeping to that, rather than husbanding time, supplies, and skills in that Persian infirmary, Arjani had spent those resources performing complex and time-consuming surgery on one man who was fated to die, chasing a heroic outcome that any practical and merciful medical opinion would have rejected.

#

On his return to India, and engagement in the Sepoy Rebellion, Arjani’s assembly of doubts had lurked as a daily shadow in a corner of his mind as he patrolled the wounded in the rough facsimile of field hospitals outside Sagar, Rahatgarh, and now Jhansi Fort. Following the victory at Betwa River, the siege of Jhansi was reaching its climax. Suddenly, in that true suddenness of unrestricted battle, Arjani’s name came hurling across the open field outside the tent.

“Jehan! God, help us!” It was Jock Gough-Martin shouting, struggling, stumbling at a trot with three others humping a dhooli, a litter, on which lay a casualty—another casualty, another soldier whose day, whose life, had just been interrupted by a musket ball or shell fragment or powder blast. Except that this was not another soldier.