Stone That the Builder Refused

James Howarth, captain of the Merry Bell, rolled sideways to the edge of his hospital cot and heaved black bile into the gourd coui which Zabeth held trembling beneath his wide-strained jaws. Doctor Hebert leaned forward to steady her, a hand on her spine. When Captain Howarth had done vomiting and collapsed onto the cot, the doctor took the stinking gourd from his unsteady hands. "Give him the tea," he told her, leaning to wipe a thread of the bloody vomit from the patient's chin. Zabeth rose, her head lowered, and walked out into the hospital courtyard, where the infusion simmered over a charcoal brazier. The doctor watched her with a mild dissatisfaction. Her legs moved jerkily, stiff from fear. Zabeth was an excellent nurse for almost any illness, but not for mal de Siam, the yellow fever. He carried the gourd out of the hospital enclosure and emptied it into the ravine behind the wall. Used for the dumping of various ordures, the ravine was slightly fetid, especially in this season, when rainfall was thin. Bad air. It was a fault in the location of the hospital, though otherwise the place was good, high on a generally windswept slope at the upper edge of the town of Cap Francais. In this still weather, though, the ravine bred mosquitoes. Irritably the doctor pinched one from the hollow of his throat, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together till the blood splotch came away in brownish crumbs. When he returned to the hospital gate, he saw with relief that Guiaou was just coming in, accompanied by the three women he'd brought to help him through the night. Guiaou had lately been promoted corporal in the honor guard of Governor-General Toussaint Louverture, but he was willing to spend many of his off-duty hours tending the hospital in order to earn something extra for his family. Doctor Hebert had trained him as an assistant on various battlefields of the recent wars and had a perfect confidence in him. There was no disease that gave him pause; Guiaou feared nothing except water. The doctor glanced once more into the dormitory. Captain Howarth lay quiescent, flanked by three of his crewmen and the second officer of the Merry Bell. They'd all fallen ill the day after the trading packet moored in the Le Cap harbor, following a zigzag voyage up the Windward Islands from the South American continent and the Orinoco River. Two of the crew were barely breathing; the doctor doubted they would last the night. He beckoned to Zabeth and led her from the hospital. Guiaou appeared to bolt the gate behind them. The doctor reached through the bars and touched the back of Guiaou's hand; the two of them exchanged a glance and a nod. It was not the first death watch he'd shared with Guiaou, but somehow he was particularly grateful to be relieved of this one. He walked down the sloping street from the hospital, stealing the odd glance at Zabeth, who came a pace or two behind. Don't be afraid, he wanted to tell her. He had already told her that. About ten years earlier, when still in her teens, Zabeth had survived a bout of yellow fever, the same that had killed among others the doctor's brother-in-law Martin Thibodet. Zabeth had nearly died herselfas had the doctor when his turn to take the fever came a couple of years later. But those few who lived would not fall prey to the same disease again; it was not like malaria, which revisited its sufferers often enough. The doctor was sure of that and that alone. It was almost all he understood of la fievre jaune, but his own experience proved it well enough. He had announced the point to Zabeth several times and explained that her survival and immunity was the exact reason he had chosen her to nurse these men. The explanation had not reassured her. However, the further they got from the hospital, the more her hipsBell, Madison Smartt is the author of 'Stone That the Builder Refused ', published 2006 under ISBN 9781400076185 and ISBN 1400076188.