Sawbones Read Online Free Page B

ask…”
    “Is this about your people? We all want to know our provenance, lad. I wish to God that I could tell you more.” Mr McAdam shook his head. “I doubt whether your mother would be alive. Those plantations work a man – and woman – to the ground.” He sighed. “Why society believes it allowable to treat the living as disposable but thinks our quest for vital knowledge akin to devilry is beyond—”
    “I know, sir,” Ezra cut in. “I know I had a lucky escape. It could have been worse for me in very many ways.” He thought of his scar and the tumour on the shelf in the master’s museum. “It is something else.”
    “Out with it, then, lad!”
    “You have done so much for me, sir. But I think it is time I was independent. I have no means…”
    “Ezra, lad, your skills will be your means. Don’t you see that? Once you are fully trained—”
    “But sir, you said I was better than most trained surgeons already!”
    “Perhaps your head has swollen, Ezra, and I am to blame for it with too much praise.” The master started towards the door that led back to the house. “Enough of this talk.”
    Ezra followed. “But sir! I am an adult! I need my own…”
    “You will have in time, lad. Your impatience does you no favours!”
    Ezra scowled at the master’s back. He called after him, “I swear I have more than enough skill to work for the navy.”
    He should not have said it. The master turned round, furious, and strode back towards the table.
    “The navy? I did not train you for butchery!” McAdam thumped the table and the body on it almost jumped. Ezra had heard him run down drunken navy surgeons over many dinners. It was the one thing guaranteed to draw a reaction. Now he wished he hadn’t.
    “No, sir.” Ezra didn’t look at him.
    “Those navy sawbones! How many times have we seen how their work ends? Gangrene, stumps splintered and filthy. You are better than that! In a few years you will be a surgeon – I grant the mood these days means a mulatto surgeon may not raise the same fees as a white one, but, with my name, lad, you will be your own man.”
    “But I need to earn now!” Ezra burst out.
    “You are more than an apprentice to me, lad.” McAdam frowned. “The navy! Do not provoke me!”
    Ezra turned away.
    Mr McAdam put a hand on Ezra’s shoulder and gently turned him about to face him. “I need you, Ezra. There is none your equal, none in the whole of London who knows how I like things done.” He looked full into Ezra’s eyes. “You are of age. And you are free. I would never wish to constrain you, but I wish you would think on it.” McAdam looked away. “You know you are the son I never had. I beg you, think. Wait.”
    Ezra went to speak. He wanted to say how he knew McAdam was a fine master but how he wanted other things too; he wanted Anna, and he wanted to be his own man.
    “The navy will be a harder life than you have known. I cannot stop you, but you would not have my blessing. A sensible lad such as yourself would not be so stupid.”
    “No, sir.” Ezra felt trapped. He did not want to go to sea. He tried to think of some crystalline clear argument to advance his case for a wage.
    “Mr Lashley offered me a paid position only yesterday.”
    “That fool? My boy, you are a better practitioner than him already. And he goes through apprentices the way the flux goes through a neighbourhood. You are too clever to work for him. Even if he paid you in Spanish gold!” Mr McAdam turned once again to leave. “I will have no more of this. Not a word. You have work to do and you will do it. And you can take a message to your Mr Lashley at Bart’s. I must have words with him – he thinks to charge the poor for the Monday surgeries. But before that I would have you boil down and clean off the tibia belonging to the child – the left is the more bent, I think.”
    “Yes, sir.” Ezra sighed. For the first time in his life he felt a deep irritation with his master. He was