The Wings of Mercury - Chapter 22

Temporary Legion Hospital, Eastern Germania

Ky stepped off the small military train and was immediately stopped by multiple soldiers who wanted to reach out and touch him or wish him well or just get his blessing.

Their level of adulation still made him uncomfortable, but he understood that in some ways, they needed it, so he did his best to give them what they wanted, offering them as hopeful of words as he could, to soothe their worries as best he could.

The only thing that made this time different was that every one of the soldiers greeting him was injured in one way or another. Ky hadn’t been to the far rear, to their medical camp in more than a month, something that bothered him greatly. During less critical moments of the campaign, he liked to come back and see the injured men, see how they were faring, and try to buoy their spirits a bit. The last month, however, he’d had even more reasons for wanting to come back, as the men the physician Hywel had trained on the new procedures and a large shipment of supplies and equipment to perform them had arrived at the rear hospital that served as the recuperation and recovery center.

Some of these techniques would move to the front-line medical stations, of course, since often amputations couldn’t wait for an ambulance carriage and then a short train ride to the temporary rear hospital. That would take time, however, as those physicians had to cycle through the rear facilities to train in the techniques when not actively under fire or being deluged with wounded that all needed immediate treatment.

Unfortunately, he’d been unable to until now. After the last defeat, the enemy had begun pulling back from them. Not full retreating, but every time they went for contact, the enemy would pull their line back. If his forces slowed their pursuit, they would start ending up again. It was clear they were waiting for something, and that something had to be reinforcements. Ky had received another legion and replacements for lost men from the training camp in Germania while the enemy had been bled badly in their handful of engagements.

It was only a matter of time until they got more men, and Ky had been focused on getting them to grips before then, in order to cause as much pain as he could before the odds unbalanced again. Unfortunately, having knowledge and abilities that gave his side an edge did not mean the enemy was incompetent. The drone gave them an edge in scouting, but the distances in this area of the world were long and the army did excellent scouting with what they had available, reacting quickly any time their scouts or skirmishers came in contact, quickly withdrawing.

For a month, he’d chased them over mountainous regions that would, in another future that would never happen, be the countries of Ukraine and Belarus. The entire time, they’d stayed a step ahead of him, always just out of reach.

Finally, he’d decided to change tactics and let the enemy wait for their reinforcements. His legates had been unsure about the decision, since wisdom dictated that if they were to fight, they should fight where the enemy was the weakest and they were the strongest. Ky, however, was not sure this style of warfare was the one they should be fighting at all. He knew the lessons of what happened with Rifled firearms made their appearance, and the tactics stayed in the Victorian model. He’d known it, but still gone into battle with those tactics, and seen his men mauled even in victory.

It was time for a change, and the breather the enemy asked for to reinforce would suffice for him as well. They may come back rearmed and reinforced, but they would meet a surprise when they did.

He’d gotten a skeptical Bomilcar to work on what needed to be done, and then set off for the rear, to make a stop in to see the new techniques in person before things heated up again.

Ky made his way to the largest of the sprawling tents with the caduceus symbol marking it as a primary center of healing, one of the few symbols that transcended the ancient world and stood for the same thing thousands of years later in his time.

Inside the main front area was huge and filled with row after row of cots. There was a sickly smell in the air, but it was not as bad as some of the field hospitals Ky had been in when he first arrived, where men were left to fester in their own fluids and disease ran rampant. Now dressings and beddings were changed regularly and there was a slight tinge in the air from the antiseptics used to wash down every surface.

He was glad to see they were being so diligent at it.

A man in a clean, full-body tunic that clasped in the back and a thick leather apron approached Ky. It was similar to what most of the men and handful of women walking between the cots were wearing and was the more or less de facto uniform of physicians in the empire. It wasn’t perfect, but the over tunic allowed them to quickly change as they got damaged so they could be boiled and sprayed down with antiseptics while the leather apron would stand up to higher levels of antiseptics and harder sterilization.

It wouldn’t stop all transmission of bacteria, just as the cloth masks they’d wear when dealing with infectious patients wouldn’t stop everything, but it was better than just wearing the clothes they wore around outside the tent or that had become soiled with fluids from multiple patients throughout the day.

When it came to keeping the areas around the patients, especially those with open wounds, incremental precautions were better than no precautions.

“Consul,” the man greeted, inclining his head respectfully. “I’m Veturius. I was sent as head of the team from Devnum to train everyone on the new procedures we’ve been working on. We’ve been hoping you’d be able to come see us.”

“I’m sorry it took so long to make it. The reports I’ve seen have been stellar, however. Did you train under Hywel?”

“Yes. I was part of the first volunteers he brought in to train and assisted in our first amputation, and several of the smaller surgeries we did since, including leading on seven procedures before I volunteered to come out here. Not a lot to your years, I’m sure, but I was primary on more procedures than anyone other than Hywel himself, so it made sense for me to be the one to come out.”

“I’m sure everyone here will be glad of that experience. I’ve seen the instructions Hywel put together for the procedures and the training you’re going to be doing, and it all looks excellent to me. I’m not here to second-guess your work, but I wanted to see what was being done in person, since I’ve only been able to rely on reports over the telegraph to this point. How are you finding it, both the things you learned and putting it into practice here?”

“Good. I was a healer before I volunteered, so I can say with some confidence that they’re making a world of difference. We’re saving limbs and lives that we would have lost before. People are surviving wounds longer and even recovering. I was notified just before you arrived that we are receiving some injured any time now. Did you want to observe the work?”

“I would. If I’m going to be near the procedures, I should probably scrub in as well,” Ky said.

As with nearly every industry that had been rapidly advanced, Ky had been forced to introduce words to describe things never considered before his arrival. Strangely, many of them traced their lineage back to Roman itself, sometimes creating confusion due to the circular etymology.

One of the strange things about time travel those who made entertainment about it never considered in their videos and stories.

“Of course, Consul. We’ll need to get you properly set up. I don’t know if you’ve ever cleaned with this antiseptic powder we’ve started using, but I should warn you, it does wear on your skin. We’ve had to start rotating those who needed to be properly sterilized to spend days just working the ward and not procedures just to give their skin time to recover.”

“Just the coverings is fine. My skin doesn’t harbor germs. It’s one of my... adaptations.”

The physician’s expression wavered between impressed and skeptical, but he didn’t argue aside from a moment’s hesitation. Saying outlandish things without being called on it was one of the few benefits of the pedestal his people put him on. One he’d give up if it meant no longer having to constantly perch on it, but if he had to, he’d at least take the good with the bad.

“Ohh. Uhh, in that case, follow me.”

Veturius led Ky through the connected tents, away from the ward filled with cots and recovering men, and into a connected one where the canvas walls had almost a glossy sheen that Ky knew was from regularly scrubbing with less diluted acids and other antiseptics. The air carried a sharp, chemical odor.

“We’ve done our best to maintain a sterile environment,” Veturius explained, gesturing around the tent. “As with our overgarments, we change the tent material frequently, having the old ones boiled and treated with antiseptics. Although it is a process, so we usually can only manage it once a day. It’s also why this section is double-lined, so that there is still a barrier as we change out the floors, walls, and even ceilings. Although reuse is severely limited. Chemicals we use eat through the canvas rather quickly. And to be frank, I’m not entirely certain how sterile we’re actually getting these portable units. A permanent structure with less porous surfaces would be ideal.”

“Your concerns are valid,” Ky acknowledged. “It’s not as sterile as we need, but it’s what we have to work with in the field. Even these measures will significantly reduce infections. And penicillin will help combat what does get through, for the most part. Sadly, we’ll still lose some men. It’s still a vast improvement over what was used before.”

“True. I think…”

Their conversation was cut short as a commotion signaled the arrival of the patients Veturius had been warned of. The physician led Ky to a side chamber of the winding, interconnected tents, where a portable metal table had been set up, one of the many pieces of equipment designed and set to the front. Several large buckets for catching limbs and blood sat ready next to it, ready for its gruesome task.

Veturius wasn’t doing the procedure himself but rather standing over the shoulder of a man who was, giving pointers and instructions as he went. The procedure itself was well done, exactly to the specifications set down by Ky in his original instructions and adapted into practice by Hywel. The ether did its job, putting the man under, and was monitored closely throughout the whole procedure. Ky knew from reports there had been failures, men who were put down and never able to wake again. He’d known that was going to happen before he ever gave Sorantius instructions for making it, but it was still much better than being awake as a limb was sawed away, debrided, and stitched closed.

After watching the amputation, Veturius showed him several minor operations involving the removal of bullets. That was much trickier since any cutting into a patient introduced new wounds and vectors for infection. They’d settled on removing bullets and shrapnel if it wasn’t too deep or too close to organs. Unfortunately, many injuries where major organs had been perforated, all they could do was administer medicine for pain and hope the body did its own work.

They were some way away from internal stitching or repairs of organs. It would come, but it seemed unlikely to Ky they would reach that level for several years, and maybe as much as a decade beyond that to get beyond the most rudimentary levels.

Even without that, cutting away dead muscle and tissue and removing bullets would save many of these men’s lives.

Ky only stayed for a few procedures. Their focus needed to be on the patients themselves and on training the field medics who were currently learning all of these procedures so they could take that knowledge to the forward aid stations.

Ky returned to the recovery ward, stopping at beds here or there to see how the wounds responded after the procedure, which was as important as the procedures themselves, as far as infection went.

He was happy to see most of the bandages were clean and mostly free of seepage outside of the innermost bandages.

“How are you, soldier?” Ky asked as he stopped by one of the men whose right leg ended in a thick white bandage just at the knee.

“Consul! I... I’m honored, sir. The pain’s not so bad, but the fever’s been rough.”

“Do you mind if I look at your leg?”

“Of course, anything you could do, Consul. I’d like to get back to my friends.”

Ky gave the man a sad smile. The soldier in him understood the feelings that, by being wounded, you were letting your squad mates down. He knew the man would probably agree to go back to the front again, even if he couldn’t stand on his own. Ky didn’t have the heart to tell him he would be going home, never to walk again, unable to see his friends until the war’s end.

For some soldiers, death might be preferable.

Ky patted him on the shoulder before bending down to unwrap some of the bandage to look at the leg. The amputation was below the knee, which was good, since infection and postoperative complications were much less likely in lower limb amputations than full limb amputations. The wound was still red and angry, with blood and a small amount of pus seeping through the stitches.

Ky reached up to Veturius, who handed him a clean cloth that he dampened in boiled water that had been allowed to cool before handing it to him so that Ky could wipe the wound clear. The cuts looked good and already he could see some of the folds knitting together, the body taking over closing the wound for good.

Veturius waved over another physician, who respectfully replaced Ky to apply a clean bandage while Ky and Veturius stepped back for a moment.

“We did this one five days ago. A slight post-op infection but he’s responding to the penicillin well. I believe he should recover.”

“Good. You’ve done excellent work here, Veturius, and the legions will be stronger for your effort.”

“I just wish I could do more.”

“I know,” Ky said. “I know.”

Before Ky could say anything else, a commotion near the entrance of the tent caught his attention. Several attendants were blocking the way of a man in somewhat muddy clothing, who was arguing with them, agitated and clearly wanting into the tent itself.

Ky understood the attendants’ duty. They had strict rules for cleanliness of anyone coming into the ward, for health reasons, and this man had clearly just come off a horse that he’d ridden hard through some fairly rough territory. The man was dressed as one of their forward scouts, one who’d clearly been in the field until very recently. If he was here to see a patient, Ky would have thought he would have stopped to get cleaned up along the way.

Ky excused himself and joined the small gathering.

“Is there something wrong, Optio?” Ky asked the man.

“Consul. General Bomilcar sent me to come see you and report what I saw in person. I’ve been watching the main body of the enemy for over a week. They’ve brought forward a very large group of reinforcements. They didn’t look ready to move yet, but I was told if their force grew beyond a set point, to come say something.”

“You did the right thing.”

Bomilcar was right to send him. If they weren’t moving now, Ky imagined they would be soon.

“Go to the barracks here and get cleaned up and some rest before you head back to the army,” Ky said, patting the man on the shoulder before turning to Veturius, who’d followed him to the commotion. “I’m afraid I’ll have to cut our visit short, Veturius. Duty calls.”

“Of course, Consul,” Veturius said with a slight bow.

“Keep up the good work, and get ready. I think this might mean you’re going to be much busier very soon.”

***

Devnum

Lucilla hadn’t been to the docks since the last demonstration, after the riverboat disaster, and the test ship hadn’t even had a top on it, so she was quite surprised to find what she assumed was a completed vessel sitting dockside, with a smiling Lucan and Hortensius standing in front of it, both men looking amazingly pleased with themselves.

“Your Majesty,” Hortensius said, bowing deeply. “Thank you for coming.”

“How could I not? After the last setback, I was honestly surprised with how quickly you managed to get this project finished, and had to see it for myself. Your timing could not be better. The latest word from the front is the enemy has reinforced and is preparing to march in again, and the Consul has been asking for your monstrosity.”

Monstrosity was as good of a description for what they had made as anything else. Unlike the tall, wooden-masted ships that had carried Britannia through the war, this thing was short, low to the water, and almost like an elongated triangle with the bottom side in the water and the point at the top. Except there was a flat bottom part that flared out just above the waterline, which was big enough for dozens of people to stand on it, if they were packed closely enough together.

It was as ugly as it was long, with three smokestacks rising out of the center, although well separated and square open ports all along the side, each of which looked to have a cannon in it. There were five on each side which she thought would make it quite formidable, especially coupled with the new exploding shells, allowing it to put out quite a lot of fire.

“It’s certainly... distinctive,” she said as diplomatically as she could, getting a chuckle out of Lucan.

“There was a feeling that function should come before form,” the shipbuilder said.

Hortensius gave the man a look and it was obvious this had been something of a point of contention between the two.

“Well then, show me your creation, tell me what we can expect for it. There seem to be a good number of cannon on each side.”

“Indeed,” Hortensius said. “With five on each side, it should be able to produce a significant amount of fire. What’s more, we’ve designed them to extend further out than traditional ship-mounted guns, which allows for elevation adjustment, granting us greater range when providing support fire. In direct engagements, we can retract them for more traditional line-of-sight firing.”

“Wouldn’t they be vulnerable to fire from rifles on the shore, though, assuming they’re dealing with a land-based opponent? Those gun ports are not huge, but if I had a weapon, I would be aiming directly into it every time.”

“That is an excellent observation, and a problem we saw as well,” he said before waving at someone inside the ship through one of the gun ports.

She’d seen a chain coming down from the top corners of the opening to what looked like the flared-out flat bottom and had wondered what those were for. As she watched, the chains were pulled in, bringing up a square, flat metal plate that completely covered the opening, slamming closed with a satisfying clang.

It was rather quite clever.

“With the cover locked in place, the gunners have time to reload the weapon inside in safety. There is, of course, the danger when it opens so the gun can fire, but there is just so much that can be done to limit the danger to the men inside.”

“With the gun pulled back that far, is there room to reload the weapon? It looks much more narrow than the caravels.”

“Yes. It’s hard to see, looking at the ship head-on, but the ports on either side are not across from each other, but staggered, leaving the full width of the ship for each cannon, which sits on a cart mounted to rails on the floor, instead of a traditional gun carriage. There is plenty of room for the crew to work their weapon.”

“Again, very clever.”

“We’ve tried to think of the various ways the ship could be put in danger and build in features to allow that danger to be mitigated to some degree,” Lucan said. “Things such as the protective housing around the propeller and the spaced-out, multiple smoke stacks for the coal furnace.”

“I saw that and was wondering, since I thought the ship had just the one connected to the boiler.”

“It does, but if the smoke stack is damaged in combat, it could send a staggering amount of smoke into the ship itself if the exhaust pipe is blocked. While we’ve kept these as short as possible and armored them, we recognize they could still be vulnerable in combat, especially with how large and prominent of a target this ship will be on the water. We armored it, which should help some, but there is not enough armor to protect it from a direct cannon shot. At least with it still being functional. Instead, we made three branching smoke stacks, so that if one gets knocked down, the exhaust still has a point to escape. Again, not foolproof, but it does add some additional redundancy.”

“That’s good thinking, although it does give me pause. Is the rest of the ship as vulnerable to direct cannon fire as the smokestacks?”

“No, your majesty,” Hortensius said. “The ship itself is metal plating backed against a solid timber frame, making it more solid and resilient. The plates are very thick. It would take repeat and continual impacts at the same point to punch through, which would be some spectacular marksmanship we’ve never managed with our own artillery. Even if they copied our fused shells, it is unlikely the explosion would be enough to penetrate the metal. Except for lucky shots or catastrophic failure in the metal, this ship is all but invulnerable to direct fire.”

“That is not a correct assessment,” Sophus said. “It is possible to design a penetrative warhead which is specifically engineered to punch through metal plating. He is also not considering the possibility of vastly larger caliber artillery capable of firing large munitions large enough to rupture even thick metal plating. Given the weapons currently being fielded, however, his assessment is correct.”

Lucilla ignored the voice in her ear. Sophus had a habit of chiming in with information that was, while factually correct, not particularly helpful to the conversation at hand.

“Does this not make it heavy enough that it will drag on the bottom and get stuck?”

“The armor does add considerable weight, which is why we have the flared-out design, for a larger base to allow for the maximum amount of displacement,” Lucan said. “We are still finishing the paddle wheel design, but it is much less armored and more vulnerable than this version of the river ships, since its focus is on remaining shallow drafting, which is why we wanted to get this one done first. Navigating more treacherous or confined areas will require skilled pilots familiar with local geography, but we believe the trade-off in armor protection is worth it, especially given the intended use in combat situations.”

“Gentlemen, I must say I’m impressed. This seems to be everything promised and more. We need to put several of these into production right away. We received word from the front that the enemy is on the march again after pulling back from their losses, and Ky has been asking for when he would have these available. I know this was made as only a test platform, but I would like to send it forward as quickly as possible, since it seems unlikely any of the purpose-built vessels will be ready before the current offensive gets underway.”

“We thought you might say that and we have... concerns,” Lucan said.

“About the vessel’s ability in combat?”

“No, your majesty. We think it will operate fine once it’s in place on a river as intended. Our concern is getting it there. If you notice how low it is to the water, I’m fairly certain this will be a major issue crossing open seas. The gunports and other venting are not watertight and will likely lead to the ship flooding or foundering in even moderate seas.”

Can it cross the channel at all, or are you saying we’ll need to build drydocks closer to the rivers?”

“It’s possible,” Lucan admitted, though his hesitation was clear. “But it won’t be ideal. If we do try to send it across the channel, we’ll need to carefully plan the journey, and even then, there’s a significant risk.”

“But you can get it across.”

“I believe so, your majesty. If we cross the channel and then hug the coast, we should be able to get it into the Serpentine Sea, and onto one of the large north to south river systems for transition deeper into the continent. My concern is rivers beyond the channel and traditional Scandi waters, and how difficult that will be. To get a ship into places like Italia, Hispania, Greece, and especially Africa and positions further east seems all but impossible.”

“Then we will figure that part out. If we need to build drydocks in those areas, we will. For now, at least, if we can get ships up and around the coastline and into the areas needed to be engaged, that’s what we need to do. If you want to start work on a drydock closer in, on the appropriate river systems or just in the Scandi Sea, then that’s fine, but I want the other ships started now. We can’t delay to make the situation perfect.”

“Yes, of course, your majesty,” Lucan said. “We’ll take care of it.”

“Good. I know you’ll get this figured out and just tell me what you need from me to make this work. I just hope this boat can get to Ky in time to do some good.