Grey could feel the men behind him, soldiers and prisoners both, all eyes fixed on the platform and its central figure. Even the coughing was silenced.
And over it all like a sticky coat of varnish sealing off Grey’s feelings was a thin layer of self-disgust, as he realized that his eyes were fixed on the scene not out of duty, but from sheer inability to look away from the sheen of mingled rain and blood that gleamed on muscle, tightened in anguish to a curve of wrenching beauty.
The sergeant-farrier paused only briefly between blows. He was hurrying it slightly; everyone wanted to get it over and get out of the rain. Grissom counted each stroke in a loud voice, noting it on his sheet as he did so. The farrier checked the lash, running the strands with their hard-waxed knots between his fingers to free them of blood and bits of flesh, then raised the cat once more, swung it slowly twice round his head, and struck again. “Thirty!” said the sergeant.
Major Grey pulled out the lowest drawer of his desk, and was neatly sick, all over a stack of requisitions.
His fingers were dug hard into his palms, but the shaking wouldn’t stop. It was deep in his bones, like the winter cold.
“Put a blanket over him; I’ll tend him in a moment.”
The English surgeon’s voice seemed to come from a long way off; he felt no connection between the voice and the hands that gripped him firmly by both arms. He cried out as they shifted him, the torsion splitting the barely clotted wounds on his back. The trickle of warm blood across his ribs made the shaking worse, despite the rough blanket they laid over his shoulders.
He gripped the edges of the bench on which he lay, cheek pressed against the wood, eyes closed, struggling against the shaking. There was a stir and a shuffle somewhere in the room, but he couldn’t take notice, couldn’t take his attention from the clenching of his teeth and the tightness of his joints.
The door closed, and the room grew quiet. Had they left him alone?
No, there were footsteps near his head, and the blanket over him lifted, folded back to his waist.
“Mm. Made a mess of you, didn’t he, boy?”
He didn’t answer; no answer seemed expected, in any case. The surgeon turned away for a moment; then he felt a hand beneath his cheek, lifting his head. A towel slid beneath his face, cushioning it from the rough wood.
“I’m going to cleanse the wounds now,” the voice said. It was impersonal, but not unfriendly.
He drew in his breath through his teeth as a hand touched his back. There was an odd whimpering noise. He realized he had made it, and was ashamed.
“How old are you, boy?”
“Nineteen.” He barely got the word out, before biting down hard on a moan.
The doctor touched his back gently here and there, then stood up. He heard the sound of the bolt being shot to, then the doctor’s steps returning.
“No one will come in now,” the voice said kindly. “Go ahead and cry.”
“Hey!” the voice was saying. “Wake up, man!”
He came slowly to consciousness; the roughness of wood beneath his cheek brought dream and waking together for a moment, and he couldn’t remember where he was. A hand came out of the darkness, touching him tentatively on the cheek.
