The Plains of Pluto - Chapter 14

Port Caralos

The sickly-sweet stench of sweat disease permeated the makeshift hospital wing. It was overwhelming. He made this trip every day, even with the quarantine in place, because he had it.

It was no different than standing on the main deck in the heat of combat, with shells smashing all around him, directing the battle. Danger took a second place to duty.

The ward, a hastily erected structure of wood and canvas, was crammed with cots. Row after row of them. Men lay under thin blankets, their faces soaked in sweat, their breathing labored. He paused at the first row. A young sailor, eyes half-closed, twitched as he fought off a cough that threatened to overpower him. The sailor clutched a tattered scrap of cloth against his mouth. His neighbor on the adjacent cot fared little better, moaning through a fever that had left him delirious.

An orderly hurried forward with a bucket of water and set it on the plank flooring, refilling a small clay cup for him.

He recognized one of the older sailors, a man who served on the Bellona since the last war. He remembered the man’s booming laugh and jovial manner. Now the skin on his face sagged and he lay curled on his side, his breathing shallow and ragged.

“Admiral,” he said in a weak voice, trying to push himself up.

Valdar put his hand on the man’s shoulder and gently pushed him back down. “No, don’t strain yourself. You need to get better. We’re going to need you soon.”

“I’ll be ready, Admiral. At your order.”

In spite of himself, the man’s eyes closed and he shuddered slightly as he lapsed back into unconsciousness. Valdar patted his shoulder and then stepped back, looking around before heading to the tent entrance, where Doctor Phelan had just entered.

“Just the man I was looking to see. It looks worse,” Valdar said, indicating the increase in the number of pads and cots from yesterday.

“It is. It’s still spreading faster than we can contain it. I believe almost fifteen percent of the port’s workforce is showing some level of symptoms now. That’s double what it was two weeks ago.”

“Are they all still sick? Is no one recovering?”

“Some pull through. Others do not. We’re losing about three in ten, but half of those who contract it are no longer fit to work even when the worst of the symptoms abate. Long-term difficulty breathing, lingering weakness, swollen bellies and faces, dropsy, even some levels of madness. The range of long-term effects has been as wide as the people it affects, but many of them have been in some form debilitating.”

“And nothing’s working to slow that? Losing half of my workforce is not something we can recover from.”

“Most of what we’ve tried has little effect, and we’re left with just trying to keep them comfortable, controlling the worst of the fever with constant bathing, and easing the coughing where we can. The only thing that looks to have any effect is the tree bark the Mpongo healers recommended to us, but even that seems to work only a fraction of the time.”

“But it is working?”

“Yes, to be clear, it isn’t a cure, but it does seem to help with the symptoms when we can get it.”

“If it works, then I will get you more. I’ll...” Valdar started to say when a young man came running into the tent, out of breath. “Easy, sailor.”

“Ad... admiral,” he said, trying to get enough air to talk. “An urgent dispatch from the capital.”

Valdar took the folded note and opened it. The words hit him like a physical punch in the gut.

Admiral Valdar,

Ptolemaic forces have seized Maleth and several other ports along the Middle Sea. Their ships now raid our merchant vessels with impunity. You are required to return north immediately and make sail for the Middle Sea to end their piracy and retake the occupied ports.

-Her Imperial Majesty, Flavia Lucilla Germanicus, Empress of the Britannic Empire, Supreme Governor of Rome, Protector of the Realm

“You,” he said, pointing at one of the guards. “Find the port commander and any captains you can, and have them meet at the commander’s office. Send messages to any ships in the harbor, but they need to hurry. I want everyone there in twenty minutes.”

As the man ran off, Valdar finished his assessment of the men in the hospital tent, but his mind was no longer on it. He couldn’t believe the Egyptians would turncoat and support the easterners, after everything the empire had done to free them from the Carthaginians.

Maybe something had happened to push them that way, Valdar didn’t know. His focus had been here, expanding the reach of the empire south to protect it from incursion before they ever got to Britannia’s home water, and he was out of touch with things in the Middle Sea.

Not that any scenario Valdar could think of explained their treachery.

But, he couldn’t just go now to get things moving, even though he wanted to. Getting all of the men he’d need to talk to would take some time. Besides, he owed it to the injured men to finish his tour.

When the time was up, however, he practically sprinted to the commander’s office, which was in fact a tent, one of many temporary structures still being used. With so much of the labor force ill and the forts still their main focus, the rest of the port would just have to wait to be finished.

Most of his captains were here, minus the dozen that were out on patrol and Captain Einar, who was on his second trip back to Port Vikhavn for more supplies.

Valdar didn’t wait for any of the men in port but not yet there to join them.

“The Ptolemaic Empire has betrayed us,” Valdar said as soon as he was inside the tent, holding up the dispatch. “They’ve seized Maleth and other ports along the Middle Sea. Her Imperial Majesty commands us north immediately to address this threat.”

The room erupted in exclamations of shock and anger.

“Those treacherous bastards,” Bituitus spat. “While we fought the Easterners, they plotted against us.”

“We should burn their harbors and ports,” another said.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Valdar said. “And the Empress has ordered us to do just that. Well, to retake control of the Middle Sea from them, at least. But, we have a lot of things up in the air here, and we need to put this house in order before I sail off with the bulk of our fleet. This illness continues to spread through Port Caolros, Construction remains incomplete on critical fortifications and dock facilities, and I doubt the fleet we sank will be the last we will face. The Easterners certainly haven’t given up trying to come at us from this direction.”

He let out a sigh and grabbed a stool, pulling it over to the head of the table where the men sat. Some of his vitriol from reading the news had abated now that he started talking. For an old sea hound like him, logistics was life and it had a way of settling him.

“I am going to take two-thirds of the fleet with me, and leave the remaining third here at Port Caolros, although you will also have the duty to cover Port Vikhavn as well. Since I am leaving this section of the fleet, Captain Einar will have overall command while I am gone. I will have written orders for him when he returns explaining everything I’m going to say here. We are going to split the ships remaining here into two squadrons. One will be responsible for providing direct support and protection of the two ports, but especially this one. Port Vikhavn can mostly protect itself with its fort, at least until we respond, but Port Caolros remains vulnerable until its fortifications are completed.”

Because even signal flags had their limitations for a large enough fleet, taking time to travel the length of a battle line, his fleet was divided into three sections, one commanded by him directly and the other two commanded by his most senior captains. Which made it the natural dividing line when deciding what ships to leave behind.

“The other squadron will be responsible for patrolling the sea lanes out as far as reasonable to catch any eastern ships trying to sail north.”

“Admiral, with respect, if the Easterners strike with anything like the size of force they’ve used in the past, there’s little either squadron can do to stop them,” Captain Cruidne said.

“You’re right, the risk is real,” Valdar acknowledged. “But orders are orders. Also, consider the alternative. If Egypt controls the Middle Sea, they’ll weaken the supply lines and ability to reinforce our armies in Greece, to say nothing of what it does to the economy of not just the empire, but all of the western alliance countries. It also puts us in a very precarious position.”

“What of the sick?” Captain Dag asked. “A lot of us have crews down with the illness. I’m not sure any ship in the fleet can maintain a full crew.”

“We’ll consolidate healthy crews onto the ships remaining here. The ships sailing north will be very shorthanded, but we can bring on new men in Kalb before sailing into battle. It’ll lower our efficiency, but I don’t want to both put you against possibly terrible odds and leave you shorthanded at the same time.”

All of the captains remaining behind looked visibly relieved at this news.

“Do your best to protect the port and what we are building here, but do not let yourselves be caught. I hate to say the men here in the port would have to be on their own, but we need to maintain a mobile presence in the region, and I don’t want the ships remaining behind to throw their lives away in an all or nothing defense. If you look to be overwhelmed, load up everyone you can and sail for Vikhavn. Harass the enemy fleet and keep eyes on it, but the survival of the fleets here is the paramount concern. We can rebuild the port, if need be. Any questions?”

Although there were sure to be a few before he sailed, he’d given the captains a lot to think about, and they all still looked stunned by the news he’d dropped on them.

He straightened, meeting each captain’s eyes in turn. “Good. I know this is difficult, and we’re going to have to face some difficult choices in the next few days, but we serve the Empire, and our duty is clear. Dismissed.”

***

Devnum

Hywel was frustrated.

It wasn’t an unusual state for him, and he knew many of his juniors found him difficult to work with, but this time it felt different. Normally he was frustrated because people wouldn’t listen or were taking too long.

He wasn’t, however, normally frustrated by a lack in his own ability. Even before meeting the Consul and gaining access to all the knowledge he had to share, Hywel had been supremely confident in his own ability.

Yes, he knew many of his ‘revelations’ in the past were incorrect, made by a misunderstanding of how sickness worked. But he’d been so good at what he did, and got his position now, because of his ability to change to meet the needs at the moment and his confidence in his abilities.

Rarely did he find himself stumped, without even a guess as to what the problem was. Except that was exactly where he found himself now.

After receiving word of the illness plaguing the Valdar’s fleet, he’d ordered some of the sick sent here for observation and care, hoping the experience they’d had over the last few years with major outbreaks of disease and the consul’s guidance would help identify the cause of the illness.

The physician who’d gone with the fleet, a man named Phelan that Hywel remembered training here but didn’t have much connection to, had at first been resistant to sending the sick, fearing a new outbreak, even after Hywel’s insistence that they had become quite good at containing the spread of diseases in the hospital.

Now that they were here, however, he was second-guessing his decision. Not because it had caused some kind of new outbreak, but because he had been stymied by this disease in ways he hadn’t had trouble before.

He had just started to make his rounds of the quarantined section set aside from the men, and they were much the same as they had been since his last visit the day before, minus a few empty cots from sailors who had not survived the night.

He paused at the bedside of a particularly ill sailor, noting the man’s jaundiced skin and labored breathing.

“How long has he been like this?” Hywel asked the attending nurse.

“Since yesterday evening, Doctor. His fever spiked during the night, and the chills started shortly after.”

Hywel nodded, picking up the clipboard attached to the bed. An interesting invention from the Consul. Not as direct in its applications as some of the other technology he had introduced, it did make keeping the pages of paperwork that had become part of the medical profession easier to keep track of.

Hywel had been resistant at first, but there was something to being able to quickly see a history of a given patient, what had been tried on them, and all the variables of their case without having to remember anything.

This man’s notes were not good. Nor was the next, a man who’d been suffering from severe chills and profuse sweating for the better part of a day but had been otherwise only slightly ill when he’d arrived.

The progression of the disease was concerning. Worse was how varied the symptoms were. High fevers, respiratory distress, skin discoloration all came with the disease, but not in any recognizable pattern. Some patients exhibited all of these, while others showed only a few. It was a puzzle.

The junior physician, who’d been standing at his elbow while he looked over the records, asked, “Doctor Hywel, have you found any treatments that seem to be working?”

“Unfortunately, no. The best we can still do is try and manage their symptoms and hope they pull through. We have tried several of the Consul’s cures, but nothing seems to alter the course of the disease itself.”

The man’s face fell, although Hywel was fairly certain the man had known what he was going to say. Even in men who were more learned, sometimes hope overrode their better judgment.

Something had been bothering him for the last few days, however. Seeing the head nurse of this section enter the ward, Hywel waved her over.

“I need a detailed log of all staff illnesses for any who’ve worked in this section or been in contact with those who’ve worked in here in the past few months. Not just since the sailors arrived. And gather any reports from visiting physicians or apothecaries who may have treated staff.”

The nurse looked puzzled. “All staff illnesses, sir? Even before the sailors came?”

“Yes. I want to rule out any possibility of a milder form of the same disease circulating among the staff. We need to be thorough.”

This was where the Consul’s insistence on constant note-taking would come to some use. As the nurse hurried off to retrieve the records, Hywel couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d seen something like this before. Not exactly the same, but similar enough to niggle at his memory.

They’d had an outbreak six months ago that had given them a lot of trouble in spite of the Consul’s emphasis on hygiene, and a year ago that had managed to escape their quarantine ward even when staff that worked on it was also quarantined.

He remembered the panicked notes from his staff and the difficulty in getting enough people in to properly work with the sick. They’d had to send out to Londinium to borrow some of the people sent there to help combat it.

He hadn’t had any calls like that this time, and it bothered him, considering how rampant the disease was at Port Caolros.

When the nurse returned with a stack of infirmary logs, Hywel thanked her and began to review them carefully, paying close attention to the dates of onset and the descriptions of symptoms. He cross-referenced the staff illness logs with the timeline of the sailors’ arrival and the onset of their symptoms.

He probably could have had one of his staff do this work, but he wanted to be sure before he acted on it. However, after an hour of carefully going over every record, he’d found no correlation between the staff illnesses and the sailors’ disease. Several staff members had experienced short bouts of fever and coughs, but these were scattered throughout the past months and didn’t cluster after the sailors’ arrival. More importantly, none of the staff illnesses matched the specific symptoms of the disease affecting the sailors.

Finding the nurse again, he asked, “What about other patients in the hospital? Were any admitted around the same time as the sailors? And have there been any recent visitors who reported feeling unwell?”

“No, Doctor. Other than these men, we’ve been fairly slow since winter ended and none of those who have come in have presented with similar symptoms. We’ve had a slight increase in cases of breathing problems, but nothing that is out of the ordinary with what we saw last year. There haven’t been any major outbreaks in months.”

Hywel nodded. That was what he thought, but he wanted to double check and make sure. These men had been here for almost two weeks now, which should have been enough time for secondary infections to manifest if the disease were contagious.

“So it’s not spreading person-to-person. If it were, we would have seen secondary infections by now, especially among the caregivers.”

“That’s good news, isn’t it?”

“In a way, yes,” Hywel agreed, realizing he had been talking out loud. “But it also means we’re dealing with something more complex. If it’s not contagious in the usual sense, then the illness must be linked to something specific to the region or the men who were stationed there. It could be food, water, or some environmental condition. Perhaps they were exposed to a toxin at the port. Were any provisions brought from the sailors’ ships?”

“I don’t know, Doctor.”

“Go check please. If so, I would like them brought here so we can examine them.”

As the nurse went to check on the provisions, Hywel continued to ponder the situation. The lack of person-to-person transmission ruled out many common diseases, but it also made the source of the illness more elusive.

When the nurse returned, she had brought a small sack of provisions that still remained from the voyage that had delivered the men.

One of the things Sorantius had been working on for months had been chemicals to detect some known toxins. Although originally intended for non-consumables, mostly rock and metal to help with sickness that was a problem in some Caledonian mine, where some of the smelting plants were releasing toxins into the air, they were able to be used with other things.

It wouldn’t rule out all toxins, but it could rule out some. The nurse, however, did not return back to her duties after handing it off.

Instead, she said, “Doctor, I’ve been thinking about what the sailors told us when they first arrived. They kept mentioning how humid it was at the port. Some of them talked about ‘bad air’ making them sick.”

Hywel raised an eyebrow. “Bad air?”

“Yes, they described stagnant water and a heavy, oppressive atmosphere. I know it’s an old idea, but I thought it might be worth mentioning.”

“I appreciate you trying to think wider, and while the environment may indeed play a role, I don’t think it’s as simple as ‘bad air’ causing the disease.” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “Based on the Consul’s notes, we know that disease is primarily transmitted through the small ‘germs’ he has described to us, not simply through atmospheric conditions. Better yet, everything we have been able to study has suggested the consul is right. But, you might actually have a good thought. The humid climate and stagnant water the sailors described could certainly provide an ideal breeding ground for these germs. We know they breed better in warm and moist conditions. It’s how those germs get into people’s systems that I’m more concerned with. What’s transmitting it. I would say that it was not easily transmitted from person to person, but the doctor in Port Caolros keeps highlighting how quickly the disease is spreading, which does make me think it’s something there that’s causing it.”

The nurse looked thoughtful. “Something in the environment?”

“Yes. Whether it’s in the food, the water, or carried by some local insect or animal, the source of this illness seems to be localized to that area. The challenge now is to identify what that source might be. I’ll have to send a note to the doctors there to get us more information about that, and see if we can’t isolate the cases. See if there are any local plants or animals that might carry disease or perhaps something with the water supply.”

The nurse nodded and headed back to her patients. He appreciated her thinking and willingness to express her thoughts. It’s what he wanted of all of his personnel, even if he thought they were wrong.

Now he just had to get some answers to his questions.