Lieutenant Bracegirdle had been on the quarterdeck when he'd heard the dreadful cry from beneath his feet. He'd abandoned his post to Matthews, sliding down the steps to find Horatio, wild with grief, being forcibly restrained by the Captain. And there was little Archie, asleep in the cot. No, not asleep.
Horatio had fought against them with inhuman strength, screaming animal cries, and Bracegirdle was glad to leave him to the Captain, returning to the relative quiet of the wardroom.
He looked so at peace. At last, Bracegirdle thought. Like a young golden angel, his hair spread out on the pillow, his lips still red and warm, his skin still soft, and, as Bracegirdle discovered, his trousers still damp with his seed. At least he died happy, thought Bracegirdle, giving his heart before his heart gave up. Oh, Archie. Bracegirdle sat down gingerly on the small stool, studying Archie by the lamplight. They'd thought the worst of the fever had passed, they'd just began to breathe again, to believe that Archie would live. Why did you give up, Archie? Why? Bracegirdle could guess, but Archie had taken the secret of the depth of his sadness to the grave. He had a career., a lover, a home, a family. Yet it had not been enough. Horatio had killed Archie as much as he had saved him. Archie just couldn't compete, and had taken himself out of the race. A noble gesture, but an empty one, too.
"There was more to life, lad," Bracegirdle admonished softly.
Matthews looked as though he had lost one of his own sons when he was fetched to help Bracegirdle.
"Why, Sir?" he asked the questions Bracegirdle could not answer, and it disturbed Bracegirdle so much to see the hardened seaman so distressed that he became churlish, in spite of himself. They moved Archie onto the wardroom table, laying him out on his hammock, and slowly began the process of undressing him and washing him, before sewing him tightly into the hammock, with two balls of shot nestled at his feet.
The Captain came, both harried and distant, the strain of seeing two of his crew rendered thus, one dead, one crazed, telling upon his face. He asked the same question, why, and Bracegirdle couldn't answer.
Matthews brushed out Archie's hair , before plaiting it into a tidy queue. Bracegirdle washed down the pale flesh with gentle strokes, washing away the sweat and tears, the blood and semen. The damp cloth stroked over the deep gouge in his chest carved out by the musket ball, the bundle of lines across his wrists where he had tried to end his life before, but had never found the courage. Bracey washed the burns left by the French, no such code of conduct as parole extending to a young midshipman. He found the crooked bones where they had first broken one leg to stop Archie escaping his imprisonment, and, when that had failed, they had broken the other one as well. Along his back and buttocks were overlaid the white marks of Jack Simpson's brutal hand. The wounds he'd left had gone much deeper than mere flesh.
Bracegirdle kissed Archie's forehead softly, before Matthews swaddled him in the sail cloth and began stitching the shroud closed.
"Good night, sweet prince," he murmured, touching the cloth covered cheek, and Matthews, not understanding the quote, merely smiled sadly and continued his work.
