Outlander by Diana Gabaldon Page B

pain.
    Dougal gently pushed the clutching hand away. One of the men pulled back the young man’s plaid, revealing a dirt-smeared linen shirt blotched with blood. A small man with a thick mustache came up behind the lad with a single-bladed knife, and holding the shirt at the collar, slit it across the breast and down the sleeve, so that it fell away from the shoulder.
    I gasped, as did several of the men. The shoulder had been wounded; there was a deep ragged furrow across the top, and blood was running freely down the young man’s breast. But more shocking was the shoulder joint itself. A dreadful hump rose on that side, and the arm hung at an impossible angle.
    Dougal grunted. “Mmph. Out o’ joint, poor bugger.” The young man looked up for the first time. Though drawn with pain and stubbled with red beard, it was a strong, good-humored face.
    “Fell wi’ my hand out, when the musket ball knocked me off my saddle. I landed with all my weight on the hand, and
crunch!,
there it went.”
    “Crunch is right.” The mustached man, a Scot, and educated, to judge by his accent, was probing the shoulder, making the lad grimace in pain. “The wound’s no trouble. The ball went right through, and it’s clean—the blood’s runnin’ free enough.” The man picked up a wad of grimy cloth from the table and used it to blot the blood. “I don’t know quite what to do about the disjointure, though. We’d need a chirurgeon to put it back in place properly. You canna ride with it that way, can you, Jamie lad?”
    Musket ball?
I thought blankly.
Chirurgeon?
    The young man shook his head, white-faced. “Hurts bad enough sitting still. I couldna manage a horse.” He squeezed his eyes shut and set his teeth hard in his lower lip.
    Murtagh spoke impatiently. “Well, we canna leave him behind noo, can we? The lobsterbacks are no great shakes trackin’ in the dark, but they’ll find this place sooner or later, shutters or no. And Jamie can hardly pass for an innocent cottar, wi’ yon great hole in ’im.”
    “Dinna worrit yourself,” Dougal said shortly. “I don’t mean to be leaving him behind.”
    The mustached man sighed. “No help for it, then. We’ll have to try and force the joint back. Murtagh, you and Rupert hold him; I’ll give it a try.”
    I watched in sympathy as he picked up the young man’s arm by wrist and elbow and began forcing it upward. The angle was quite wrong; it must be causing agonizing pain. Sweat poured down the young man’s face, but he made no sound beyond a soft groan. Suddenly he slumped forward, kept from falling on the floor only by the grip of the men holding him.
    One unstoppered a leather flask and pressed it to his lips. The reek of the raw spirit reached me where I stood. The young man coughed and gagged, but swallowed nonetheless, dribbling the amber liquid onto the remains of his shirt.
    “All right for another go, lad?” the bald man asked. “Or maybe Rupert should have a try,” he suggested, turning to the squat, black-bearded ruffian.
    Rupert, so invited, flexed his hands as though about to toss a caber, and picked up the young man’s wrist, plainly intending to put the joint back by main force; an operation, it was clear, which was likely to snap the arm like a broomstick.
    “Don’t you dare to do that!” All thought of escape submerged in professional outrage, I started forward, oblivious to the startled looks of the men around me.
    “What do you mean?” snapped the bald man, clearly irritated by my intrusion.
    “I mean that you’ll break his arm if you do it like that,” I snapped back. “Stand out of the way, please.” I elbowed Rupert back and took hold of the patient’s wrist myself. The patient looked as surprised as the rest, but didn’t resist. His skin was very warm, but not feverish, I judged.
    “You have to get the bone of the upper arm at the proper angle before it will slip back into its joint,” I said, grunting as I pulled the wrist up and