Subclavian, or aorta itself

In the post in which I quoted a passage about Patrick O’Brian’s Stephen Maturin performing a surgery on himself, a couple things should have caught your attention: 1) Dr. Maturin inquired whether the woman whom he asked Jack Aubrey to visit was wearing black, and 2) when he declined the offer of another doctor, he said: “No, sir. I do this with my own hand. If it could undertake the one task, it must undertake the other: that is but justice.”

Putting the two things together, one realizes where Maturin got his wound — at a duel over a woman! (And he was wondering whether she was mourning over the other fellow by wearing black — which she wasn’t.) As any red-blooded male, I like to read about duels (although I prefer swords to pistols), so here it is:

From this sleep — but a sleep troubled by hurrying, disjointed dreams — Jack woke him at two bells in the morning watch; and as they dressed they heard young Babbington on deck singing Lovely Peggy in a sweet undertone, as cheerful as the rising day.

They came out of the cabin, into the deathly reek lying over the Hooghly and the interminable mud-flats, and at the gangway they found Etherege, M’Alister and Bonden.

Under the peepul-trees on the deserted Maidan a silent group was waiting for them: Canning, two friends, a surgeon, and some men to keep the ground: two closed carriages at a distance. Burke came forward. ‘Good morning, Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘There is no accommodating the affair. Etherege, if you are happy that there is light enough, I think we should place our men; unless, of course, your principal chooses to withdraw.’

Canning was wearing a black coat, and he buttoned it high over his neckcloth. There was light enough now — a fine clear grey — to see him perfectly: perfectly composed, grave and withdrawn; but his face was lined and old, colourless.

Stephen took off his coat and then his shirt, folding it carefully. ‘What are you doing?’ whispered Jack.
‘I always fight in my breeches: cloth carried into a wound makes sad work, my dear.’

The seconds paced out the ground, examined the pistols, and placed their men. A third closed carriage drew up.

With the familiar butt and the balanced weight in his hand, Stephen’s expression changed to one of extreme coldness: his pale eyes fixed with impersonal lethal intensity upon Canning, who had taken up his stance, right foot forward, his whole body in profile. All the men there stood motionless, silent, concentrated as though upon an execution of a sacrament.

‘Gentlemen,’ said Burke, ‘you may fire upon the signal.’ Canning’s arm came up, and along the glint of his own barrel Stephen saw the flash and instantly loosened his finger from the trigger.

The enormous impact on his side and across his breast came at the same moment as the report. He staggered, shifted his unfired pistol to his left hand and changed his stance: the smoke drifted away on the heavy air and he saw Canning plain, his head high, thrown back with that Roman emperor air. The barrel came true, wavered a trifle, and then steadied: his mouth tightened, and he fired. Canning went straight down, rose to his hands and knees calling for his second pistol, and fell again. His friends ran to him, and Stephen turned away.

‘Are you all right, Stephen?’ He nodded, still as hard and cold as ever, and said to M’Alister, ‘Give me that lint.’ He mopped the wound, and while M’Alister probed it, murmuring, ‘Struck the third rib; cracked it — deviated across the sternum — the ball is awkwardly lodged — meant to kill you, the dog — I’ll clap a cingulum about it,’ he watched the far group. And his heart sank; the wicked, reptilian look faded, giving way to one of hopeless sadness. That dark flow of blood under the feet of the men gathered round Canning could mean only one thing: he had missed his aim.

M’Alister, holding the end of the bandage in his mouth, followed his glance and nodded. ‘Subclavian, or aorta itself,’ he muttered through the cloth. ‘I will just pin this end and step over for a word with our colleague.’

He came back, and nodded gravely. ‘Dead?’ said Etherege, and looked hesitantly at Stephen, wondering whether to congratulate him: the look of utter dejection kept him silent. While Bonden drew the charge from the second pistol and ranged them both in their cases, Etherege walked over to Burke: they exchanged a few words, saluted formally, and parted.

People were already moving about the Maidan; the eastern sky showed red; Jack said, ‘We must get him aboard at once. Bonden, hail the carriage.’