‘You are right. Though I am not sure he will care to be roused in the middle of the night.’ Dr Stephens turned to me. ‘Can we wait until tomorrow?’

‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘It must be done at once.’

‘Very well.’ Dr Stephens got stiffly to his feet, grunting a little. He had broken his leg badly the previous year and it still gave him trouble when he was tired. ‘I’ll send one of the servants for him.’ He hobbled away.

‘We’ll prepare the patient,’ I called after him. I looked at my father. ‘I think we should move him out of the ward. The rest of the men are in a poor state already. No need to distress them more.’

‘You are right, but where can we put him? Every corner of the hospital is full.’

‘The governors’ meeting room?’ I said.

He made a face. ‘I don’t think the governors would care for that.’

‘Need they know? Even the assistant superintendant is not here tonight. We can move him back after the surgery.’

He nodded. ‘Very well. We can only be dismissed, after all!’

My father went to arrange the room while I returned to the ward. Peter was talking quietly to the fair haired young man, so I quickly treated the last two patients in the row of pallets, who had only minor injuries, then Peter fetched three of the men servants to help him carry the patient to the governors’ meeting room. Between them they lifted him, pallet and all, and carried it out of the ward.

I walked alongside and took the soldier’s hand. ‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

‘It’s William, doctor,’ he said in a resigned voice. ‘William Baker.’

‘Do you have family in London?’ I had realised that he would need someone to care for him when he left the hospital. If he left it alive. On the other hand, if he did not survive the surgery – and there was every chance that he might not – we would tell his family.

‘I have a sister living in Eastcheap,’ he said. ‘Bess Winterly. Her man is a saddler and leatherworker.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘I will go to see her tomorrow. Now, the surgery will be painful, I’ll not lie to you, but we are fetching the best surgeon in London. And we will dose you well with poppy extract to help the pain.’

He gave a slight nod, but I could read his terror in his eyes. I felt sick myself with apprehension, although I knew I had made the right decision. If the leg was not amputated, he would be dead in days. This way, at least he had some chance of life.

Once I had seen William Baker installed on the table in the governors’ room, I went back to the ward. I had given him as much poppy juice as I dared, but I did not wait to watch the butchery when the surgeon arrived. Not for nothing do soldiers call them ‘saw-bones’. Peter stayed to fetch or prepare any medicines the surgeon might need. I supposed my father and Dr Stephens had also stayed. Four of the male servants would hold William down while Surgeon Hawkins sawed off the leg.

The ward was quieter now. After the pain of having their wounds dressed, and the comfort of food, most of the soldiers had fallen into the deep sleep of absolute exhaustion. During the siege, as well as suffering from starvation and thirst, they would barely have been able to sleep for weeks on end. The besiegers would have kept up a constant barrage of cannon fire, rotating their gun crews by day and by night, the purpose as much to undermine the strength and will of the defenders as to demolish the town ramparts. Well, Parma had succeeded in that. He was famed as the most skilled military commander alive, perhaps as great as Caesar or Alexander. That, I could not judge, but certainly we had no one who could match him. I knew that Walsingham thought well of Sir John Norreys, but even he could not compare to the Duke of Parma. Just because Leicester was the Queen’s favourite courtier, it did not make him even a barely competent commander. Throughout the whole campaign in the Low Countries, he had displayed weakness, indecision and cowardice. In the present case, cowardice above all. Even his last minute deployment of fireships had proved a ridiculous failure, when Parma had turned them back against the English fleet.

I made my way quietly along the rows of sleeping men, stopping now and then to comfort and reassure any who were awake and in pain. Andrew was sleeping and I paused for a moment at the foot of his pallet. Asleep, he looked younger than I remembered from last year, when we had gone spying into the fishing village on the Sussex coast. Then he had seemed altogether the confident young trooper, cheerfully enjoying our escapade away from the senior men who commanded us. Now he looked no more than a sick boy, his face pale below the bandages, one hand under his head, the other curled loosely on his chest like a child’s. If no infection entered the head wound, I was fairly certain he would make a good recovery. Whether he would ever regain that same carefree enjoyment of life, I was less sure.

After I had checked all the patients, including our regular patients who had already been in the hospital when the soldiers arrived, I sat down on a bench near the door of the ward. There was barely room for my feet, without kicking the patient lying nearest to me on the floor, so I tucked them under the bench and leaned my head back against the wall. I did not mean to close my eyes, but my lids felt as though some irresistible force were dragging them down. There was nothing more I could do for the moment and we were now at that graveyard watch of the night, that time when most souls flee from the body. Yet, curiously, also that time when babies fight their way into the world, as if God were holding up some celestial balance – so many souls out, so many souls in. I half smiled, feeling myself tremble on that border between waking and sleep. Had I discovered some new theological or physical truth? So many souls out, so many souls in.

I woke with a jerk and a shooting pain in my neck, as the door beside me was pushed open and four of the hospital servants carried in William Baker on his pallet, one to each corner. In the flickering light from the sconce on the wall above me, I could see that the leg was gone. William was in a dead swoon and the pallet was soaking with blood. I turned to Peter, who had followed them in. He was looking very green and his hands were shaking.

‘Peter, he must have fresh bedding. He cannot lie on that. Are there any more pallets to be had?’

‘I’ll see what I can find.’ He turned away, clearly glad of an excuse to escape.

‘And blankets,’ I said. ‘He will be cold from the shock. The mistress of the nurses should have some.’ Suddenly aware that it was not yet dawn, I added, ‘If she is still awake.’

‘I think I know where they are kept,’ he said. ‘If not, I will wake her.’

‘Brave man,’ I said, and he gave me a shaky smile.

‘I could dare anything, after that.’

‘Was it as bad as I suppose?’

‘Worse. I thought the poor bugger was going to die of the pain under our eyes.’

‘I gave him as much poppy as I dared.’

‘I know. I don’t think a barrelful would have helped. It was terrible, Kit.’

I nodded. ‘Once you have found some bedding and helped me make him comfortable, you should go to bed.’

‘Little point now,’ he said, gesturing towards the window, which had changed from black to the first lighter tinge of grey while we had been speaking.

The servants had deposited William in the empty space where he had lain before. There was nowhere else to put him. As soon as it was light I was determined to turn Goodman Watkins out of his bed and send him home, so William could have his bed. It would be too cruel to keep an amputee lying on the floor. I stood looking down at him. Unlike Andrew, he looked older, his face ashen with pain, the skin drawn tight over his cheekbones as though it had somehow shrunk. He had bitten his lips till they bled, so while I waited for Peter, I bathed his face and spread a little honey on his ravaged mouth. He did not even stir. It was the best thing for him. While the mind is deep asleep, the body can take its chance to mend itself.