1821 - The Battle for Palembang

20: A Dead Man

Dutch Field Hospital, Muntinghe's Town, 1821

James Simpson was dead. A musket-ball lodged deep in his shoulder should have done it, and if it hadn't, blood loss would. The wound was a large hole that broke his shoulder and impaired some joints, marred by the shards of broken bones that were caused by the sheer force of the ball.

But somehow, somehow... His eyes had opened with nothing less than a blur, and the first thing he saw was a ceiling of wood that shaped that of a roof. He could see the brown of the wood, highlighted by low seams of light from oil lamps. From that, he could tell, the time of the day was night, and late of it.

He tried to move his arms and, although he could feel both, meaning he had lost neither, his left arm was stiff and upon looking down, had turned out to be terribly bandaged. He applied the same treatment to his feet and thankfully, they too remained whole.

His back and his shoulders, however, felt weak, and his body extremely cold, despite the relative warmth of the interior of the building he was interred in. And no matter how much he tried, his bones and muscles, could not manage to shift his bed-ridden position, and upon attempt of such, caused severe pain to his left shoulder and arm.

A man moaned not too away from him, in pain. When he looked to his left, he saw a man, his epauletted jacket hanging from a chair near his bed, heavily bandaged. His two legs–whatever was left of it–were stumps covered deep in bloody bandage. So was his head, all of it covered save his right eye. Simpson's body jerked in surprise. The price of war, thought he. And though he did not recognise the man, he could see from his uniform that he was a captain as his double-epaulettes and facing showed his rank. There, too, was a number, though faded with dirt, or dried blood: '24'; a captain of the 24th Regiment of Foot.

He must've been taken down during the battle at Muntinghe's Town, and seeing the severity of his wounds, and the stature of his rank, he could conclude that the battle had been won through difficult, tough fighting, or had been a through-and-through defeat. From his limited position of severely impaired capabilities, he could see that more than a dozen officers shared the room, all wounded in a way: lost legs, bandaged heads, stumps for arms.

Amongst them, however, one man he saw, and he was dressed in the wonderful light blue cut-jackets of the hussars. Thankfully, too, he recognised his face through his blonde moustache and hair. It was Lieutenant van den Bergh, the man who had saved him, and he too, it seems, had been wounded, though not in any way maimed. He was awake, however; and he was looking at him, noticing that he too, had awoken.

The hussar officer raised a finger to his lips, telling Simpson to stay silent. He then gestured to a white sheet exactly to Simpson's right. Then, van den Bergh gestured for Simpson to listen. Simpson didn't get the gesture at first, then he said with silent lips: Listen. Simpson nodded.

There were three silhouettes beyond the white veil. One, a woman, seeing from her longer hair, sat down; the two others were undoubtedly men. One, standing, was in civilian clothing; the other in military attire (judging from his epaulettes), upon a chair, slightly overweight. They seemed very inquisitive and interrogative in stance. Right over the white veil, Simpson could hear them quite clearly.

"Your efforts would be in vain, my lord. All our spies were taken, and I am of reasonable conviction that they are all dead by now. I barely escaped with my life..."

"Then all this, for nothing?" asked the 'Lord.'

The woman continued. "Gombora will take at least a month to take with the current defences. They've reinforced and upgraded everything; redoubts, abatis, cannon, walls... They're betting everything on that, even moving cannon away from the Keraton to Gombora so they can stop us here."