Chapter Twenty-Five

C onsciousness returned slowly, accompanied by the raucous sound of gulls calling, their intrusive cries gouging uninvited into Nat’s pounding head. The vibrant heat of sunshine on his face followed, with an awareness of brightness lurking beyond the inadequate shelter of his eyelids. Then a disconcerting sense that he was lying with his head lower than his legs on what had to be rocky ground seeped over him. And pain. Not just the throbbing in his head, but a sharp, nagging pain like the worst toothache imaginable, encompassing the entire right side of his body.

Nat groaned.

After he’d groaned a bit more and cursed himself for falling off his horse, he ventured to open his eyes. He was right about the sun. It appeared to be directly overhead and trying to blind him out of a cloudless blue sky that otherwise he would have enjoyed. He tried turning his head to the right but found his cheek up against a sizeable rock, so he closed his eyes, heaved in a breath and held it, and turned his head to the left instead.

When the rocking dizziness had subsided, he forced his eyes open again. Purple heather met his gaze, both close up and far off, stretching uphill to a not-too-distant, blurry horizon.

He lay for a minute or two trying to organize his jumbled thoughts. That he must have fallen off was obvious, but apart from that, he had no idea how that could have happened to a cavalry officer who’d almost lived in the saddle for a good number of years. Nor could he recall why he’d been out on a horse, nor where he was.

Gradually, though, shards of memory fought their way to the surface, and he waited while they slotted back together. He’d been riding over to Wheal True to see what conditions were like there for the miners. On Duchess, who’d been particularly lively that morning and probably in season. Yes, she’d shied at a good few things along the way, but hadn’t a large bird of prey startled her? He saw again the dappled browns of the hen harrier’s large flapping wings and felt Duchess leap to the left, but what had happened after that remained hidden. Surely, he hadn’t fallen off when a horse did a simple sideways shy? What kind of a greenhorn rider did that make him?

His brain couldn’t seem to work its way around any of that, so he closed his eyes for a minute or two, hoping things would improve. They didn’t, much.

Common sense prevailed, though. He needed to make an assessment of what damage had befallen him. His head hurt with a vengeance with every move he made, but what else had he done? The pain down his right side had localized to his upper body, which felt tender from the shoulder down, and he didn’t fancy trying to move. However, he couldn’t stay here in what appeared to be the bowl of a rocky gully. He had to get up into the open, where perhaps he might spot a cottage somewhere, or even someone on an errand who could help him. Instinct told him he very much needed help.

He tried moving his legs first, one at a time. They seemed inclined to mobility which was a relief. Arms next. His left arm and hand were fine, but not so his right. Any movement of that arm resulted in a wave of pain that threatened nausea. He grit his teeth; he would not lie here and puke on himself. He had to get up.

Perhaps he could pull himself up into a sitting position against the rock to his right.

It took some time and frequent pauses to grit his teeth and wait for the pain to subside, but he managed it. Panting for breath, he leant against the boulder and surveyed his situation. His right arm hung useless, pain pulsating out from the shoulder, and his ribs hurt as though he might have cracked at least one. But apart from that, and whatever head injury he’d sustained, he seemed to be in one piece.

Overhead, the wheeling gulls kept up their cries, but they were no indicator of how close he was to the cliffs. Did he just have to hope someone would eventually come looking for him? How far did the moorland stretch? Too far. With lots of little gullies like the one he’d so unfortunately fallen into. He peered up at it again. It wasn’t steep sided, just dotted with lumps of granite amongst the heather, and if he could get to his feet, he could perhaps use those rocks to lean on as he fought his way back to the higher ground.

In a few minutes. He just needed to close his eyes and rest.

When he opened them again, the sun had shifted in the sky and the rock behind him was throwing a giant shadow across his body. He tried to muster some spit to lubricate his mouth, without success. He’d lain here too long. The day was moving on, and even though it was only just past midsummer, he didn’t want to spend the night in the open. For all he knew, he hadn’t yet been missed, and no one was out searching for him. He had to do something for himself.

It took far more effort to stand than it had to pull himself into a sitting position, but through sheer determination, he did it. Leaning heavily against the boulder, he surveyed the easiest way out of the gully. Every part of him ached as though he’d been trampled by a herd of wild horses, and his whole being focused on the pain in his right shoulder, which managed to overshadow his aching head with no trouble.

Touching wary fingers to his scalp, he found sticky blood matting his hair and explored no further. If a head wound like that had been going to kill him, then he’d be dead or dying by now, and his shoulder pain told him he was anything but.

Moving slowly, from boulder to boulder, rock to granite rock, he began what had looked at first to be the gentlest of ascents but rapidly turned into major mountaineering. But eventually, he made it to the brow of the gully and stood, swaying slightly, surveying the view. His saddle lay in the heather a few feet away, testament to how he’d managed to fall off. Damn it. He’d saddled Duchess himself. Had he done something stupid? Surely not. He’d been riding since he was younger than Yves. Only a fool would have failed to do a girth up properly, and anyway, a loose girth wouldn’t have made the saddle come right off.

He couldn’t bend over to pick the saddle up now, not one-handed, so he left it lying in the heather.

To his right, at a distance of perhaps only five hundred yards, rose the buildings of Wheal Jenny, the pump house engine busy working to empty the lower parts of the mine of water. He hadn’t even made it past there.

Deciding they were the best place to head for, as it was much further to try to walk back to Roskilly, Nat took a first, shuffling step, anxious not to jar his shoulder too much. He failed on that. Pain lanced through his body leaving him gasping for breath.

It was no use letting it get the better of him. He had to keep moving.

A thousand more steps, almost exactly, as he was counting them to take his mind off the pain, brought him to the walls of the count house. The afternoon’s shift change must have already happened, because the sun was now even lower in the sky, and the count house looked quiet and deserted. With his good arm, he banged on the door, then leaned against it, forehead resting on the flaking paintwork.

Nothing. No one was there.

He let his body sag and nearly collapsed to the ground, only willpower holding him up. All the pain he’d been holding at bay on the walk from the gully threatened to overwhelm him and the world spun out of control. Nausea welled.

“Nat!”

A voice he knew broke through the wall of pain.

In a moment strong arms were supporting him and he was being helped inside the count house. “Mind my arm,” he managed to mutter. “I think it’s broken.”

Gryff Casworan, for it was he, helped Nat into the high-backed chair in front of his desk, and Nat leaned back with a deep sigh that transmuted into a groan, partly of relief but mostly from pain. He closed his eyes and tried to relax, but his whole body felt tense, as though he were holding it taut in an effort to lessen the pain.

“What happened to you?” Casworan’s deep voice asked. “We heard you was missing, and I spared some men from the mine to join in the search, but Mr. Trefusis wouldn’t let them all go. Said as how the mine had to keep working, come what may.”

Bloody Trefusis. Probably he’d been rubbing his hands and hoping Nat had met with a fatal accident. Well, he nearly had done.

“Fell off my horse,” Nat managed through gritted teeth.

Casworan huffed a sharp breath. “What? You fell off a horse? How’d’you do that then? The boy that used to gallop bareback along the beach when we was lads?”

“Saddle slipped. I think the girth must have broken. She was in the mood for shying. A bird startled her, something must have broken, and the saddle came right off with me. I couldn’t save myself. I rolled into a bloody gully about five hundred yards from here.”

“Thassa long way to’ve walked in the state you’re in. Here, let me get your coat off and take a look at your arm. I’ll do your left sleeve first, to make it easier on you.”

Nat gritted his teeth yet again as Casworan helped him extricate his left arm from his snug-fitting coat. It made getting his injured right arm out a lot easier, as his friend had said, but nevertheless, it had him swearing, and not under his breath. A relief not to have to watch his language.

Casworan chuckled. “Where’d’you learn to swear like that then?”

Nat managed a weak grin. “You’d think my troopers, wouldn’t you? But no, I learnt most of that at Harrow.”

Casworan’s strong hands gently lifted Nat’s right arm, feeling along it no doubt in search of broken bones. Nat screwed his eyes shut and stayed silent as fiery pain shot through his shoulder, although his breathing came fast and furious.

“Nothing’s broken, I don’t think,” Casworan said, his hands still on Nat’s arm. “My guess is what you’ve got here is a dislocated shoulder. I’ve seen a lot of them in this line of work. That’s what’s paining you so much.” He paused. “He needs putting back in, an’ that’ll take most of the pain away.”

Nat opened his eyes. “It will? Can you do it?”

Casworan shifted as though uncomfortable. “Like I said, I’ve done it a fair few times for miners what’ve been injured. But to do it for you, for Sir Hugh’s grandson…” He shook his head. “I don’t know. It do hurt something bad while it’s bein’ done.”

“I don’t care. Do it. Who else is going to? Doctor Rescorla is miles away in Penzance and will have to be sent for. I have to get back to Roskilly somehow. I won’t do that with my shoulder the way it is. You do it, Gryff.”

Casworan released his gentle hold on Nat’s arm and went over to a wall cupboard behind the desk. Opening it, he took out a bottle of brandy. “You’ll need some of this first, then.”

He poured a generous glass and brought it back to Nat, then took a swig himself from out of the bottle. “Gotta boost my confidence for treating the gentry.”

Nat knocked back the brandy in one long gulp, feeling it leave a pleasant trail of fire down his throat. He held out the glass. “Another.”

When he’d done the same with the second glass, and Casworan had also taken another fortifying slug from the bottle, he nodded to his friend. “Best get it over with. Ignore me if I shout stop. I won’t mean it.”

Casworan came around to Nat’s right side and picked up his arm. “I’m going to just turn him gently so he should slide back into his socket. Try and relax your muscles as that makes it easier to slide him back in. Breathe deeply, look at that clock over there and tell me what time it be. I gotta get back to dinner tonight or my wife’s goin’ to be right cross with me. She don’t like it if the dinner gets spoiled.”

Nat looked at the clock, Casworan turned his arm, the bones shifted, pain shot through Nat, and the joint clicked back into place. For a moment all he could do was concentrate on breathing, aware of the pounding of his heart and the throbbing in his head. Then the pain began to subside, down well below the level it had been at before. It still hurt, but the worst of it had gone.

He looked up at Casworan. “You missed your calling. You should’ve been a surgeon.”

Casworan grinned and shook his head. “Not for the likes of us miners’ boys. I only got the job here because you taught me to read’n’write’n’reckon.”

Nat managed a grin in return. “I’m very glad you have this job, or where would I be now? Leaning against the door while some lazy appointee of Trefusis was at home pleasing his wife by not being late for dinner. You can tell your wife it was my fault, and that I’ll be sending over a big joint of beef she can cook for you and your family come Sunday. I owe you and her my heartfelt thanks.”

“You don’t need to do that, Nat. You don’t owe me nothing. Like I said, I wouldn’t be here were it not for you. I’d be stuck down that mine with my back all bent and twisted on account of me bein’ so gurt big.” He chuckled.

Nat leaned back in his chair while Casworan busied himself making a sling out of a scarf he found hanging on the coat stand. “Gotta keep it supported. Once you done this to your shoulder, it can happen again, easy as sneeze.” He tied the scarf in a knot at the back of Nat’s neck. “Now, we’d best locate that useless search party and let ’em know you’re found safe, if not quite sound.”