fic pimpage!
Hi, everyone - newbie O'Brian fan here. *waves timidly* These are my first two attempts at fic for this fandom - two "missing scenes" from the first book. Comments and criticism (particularly historical nitpicks) are welcome.
Title: Accoucheur
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Stephen attends the birth of the master's son on board a captured French ship.
Warning: Contains somewhat graphic descriptions of childbirth.
Author's Note: "Accoucheur" is the French term (used in the 19th century) for an obstetrician or "male midwife." An amniotomy is breaking the bag of waters.
Stephen was washing, and the husband, shattered and destroyed, held the towel in his drooping hands.
"I hope. . . " said James.
"Oh, yes: yes," said Stephen deliberately, looking round at him. "A perfectly straightforward delivery: just a little long, perhaps; but nothing out of the way. Now, my friend" - to the captain - "these buckets would be best over the side; and then I recommend you to lie down for a while. Monsieur has a son," he added.
- M&C p. 169
One would think that daily traffic with illness and death would make this aspect of his work a rewarding one, but all he could think of was the foolishness, the disregard of bringing a new life into a world already groaning with the misery of so many souls. And such torment, such carrying-on, the screaming and thrashing about, so that at one point he was obliged to tell the poor woman that he would tie her to the bed if she would not mind him. It hardly seemed worth the effort.
She was afraid, of course. She was a fine-boned Frenchwoman, dark-haired and dark-eyed, no doubt pretty enough when not bathed in sweat and contorted in pain. Broad hips, but a narrow arch to the pubic bone. A tight squeeze. "Will I die?" she asked him, her breath coming in gasps. "Am I going to die?" He had heard the words many times, from men and women both, and there was no answer for her. It was in the hands of God, and he told her so. She turned her head away, blinking back tears, as her lady's maid mopped the moisture from her brow.
He held her hand during the long hours of the baby's slow descent, as the ship rocked and creaked around them, the light overhead swinging with the slow rhythm of the ocean. Time seemed to stand still in the close little cabin, the smells of women's things and bodily exudations intermingling, the endless cycle of the woman's frenzied pain alternating with exhausted stupor. She was coherent for a little while, around midnight; she spoke of her home village in Provence, her sister who had married an officer in the French army, her pet cat who had born three litters of kittens. "Cats purr as they give birth," she said. "It hurts them not at all."
"Do they, now?" He had never observed this phenomenon.
"Yes. I wish I was a cat," she said, with a faint smile, which turned to a feral grimace of pain as the next contraction began.
Like a litany, he recited to himself the seven cardinal movements of the baby through the pelvis: engagement, descent, flexion, internal rotation, extension of the head, external rotation, expulsion. A complicated contortion, like a miner working his way through a narrow shaft; no wonder so many babes and dams alike failed to survive it. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children. God's eternal punishment on womankind. It was a hard thing, to be sure.
Begging her pardon, he reached under her skirts to examine her as the lady's maid exclaimed at the impropriety. The foolish mule, what else was he supposed to do, guess at her dilation? He felt a bulging bag of waters, the hard roundness of the baby's head. An amniotomy was in order, most certainly, to speed the labor. He took out the lancet he habitually carried, and the idiot maid screamed. "Oh, what are you doing? What are you doing?" Fortunately the mother was too insensible by this time to make a similar outcry. He ignored the maid's calls and entreaties and performed the procedure. The fluid was clear, a good sign. It occurred to him, as he wiped it from his hands, that it was of much the same composition as the sea which surrounded them. Humans float in their own warm little oceans for nine months before cruel nature expels them into a harsh world of gravity, bright light and cold air.
It went fast after that, as he had hoped. She gave birth squatting like an ape, her skirts hitched up; she could not be persuaded otherwise; and the warm, slippery body of the baby fairly flew into his hands: no tearing and very little blood, as neat as anyone could hope for, though he regretted that he would have no opportunity to suture the perineum, an art he had rarely practiced. The maid screamed again when the afterbirth came, and he was hard-pressed to keep from shoving a rag in her mouth to keep her quiet.
It was over. The mother slept, the maid slept. The husband would need to be informed, but for now, for a little while, he sat by the bed resting with the baby in his arms. A boy for Napoleon's army. Perhaps the brat should be strangled now, to save trouble later. He wondered what Jack or the other sailors would think, finding him here with a babe in arms, for all the world as if he were the baby's father, or rather its mother. Indeed, the creature was rooting at his hand as if it could find milk there. He let it suck on his little finger, an ideal chance to palpate for a cleft palate (of which there was no sign, thankfully), and drowsed a little, the soft weight of the child soothing him, before he finally rose once more to go about his duties.
Title: Stephen Saved From Drowning
Rating: G
Summary: Don't wear lead-soled boots if you're planning on falling off a boat.
Author's Note: The fish that Stephen observes is the European anchovy, common in the Mediterranean.
There were two things that struck him immediately about the situation. One was that his life failed to flash before his eyes. Indeed, he gave hardly a thought to it; perhaps he had already accepted death as inevitable. The other was that he wasn't afraid. True, there was a sensation of mild alarm at the rate of his downward velocity, but his great interest at hitherto unobserved natural phenomena overtook whatever other fear he might have. He noticed the color of the water, darkening from glassy aquamarine to darker azure as he descended. He noticed the lazy upward spiraling of the silver air bubbles that emanated from his mouth and nose. He examined his hands, his clothes, drained of color in the uncertain light. Everything was in slow motion, everything seemed possessed by an unearthly grace. There was a small school of silver fish staring at him agog as if they had never seen a human before. Engraulis encrasicolus, he thought, but before he could be certain, someone grabbed the back of his coat and hauled him upwards, cutting short his observations. It was really quite vexing, and he seethed with indignation as the sailors dragged him out of the water and back into the boat.
Title: Accoucheur
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Stephen attends the birth of the master's son on board a captured French ship.
Warning: Contains somewhat graphic descriptions of childbirth.
Author's Note: "Accoucheur" is the French term (used in the 19th century) for an obstetrician or "male midwife." An amniotomy is breaking the bag of waters.
Stephen was washing, and the husband, shattered and destroyed, held the towel in his drooping hands.
"I hope. . . " said James.
"Oh, yes: yes," said Stephen deliberately, looking round at him. "A perfectly straightforward delivery: just a little long, perhaps; but nothing out of the way. Now, my friend" - to the captain - "these buckets would be best over the side; and then I recommend you to lie down for a while. Monsieur has a son," he added.
- M&C p. 169
One would think that daily traffic with illness and death would make this aspect of his work a rewarding one, but all he could think of was the foolishness, the disregard of bringing a new life into a world already groaning with the misery of so many souls. And such torment, such carrying-on, the screaming and thrashing about, so that at one point he was obliged to tell the poor woman that he would tie her to the bed if she would not mind him. It hardly seemed worth the effort.
She was afraid, of course. She was a fine-boned Frenchwoman, dark-haired and dark-eyed, no doubt pretty enough when not bathed in sweat and contorted in pain. Broad hips, but a narrow arch to the pubic bone. A tight squeeze. "Will I die?" she asked him, her breath coming in gasps. "Am I going to die?" He had heard the words many times, from men and women both, and there was no answer for her. It was in the hands of God, and he told her so. She turned her head away, blinking back tears, as her lady's maid mopped the moisture from her brow.
He held her hand during the long hours of the baby's slow descent, as the ship rocked and creaked around them, the light overhead swinging with the slow rhythm of the ocean. Time seemed to stand still in the close little cabin, the smells of women's things and bodily exudations intermingling, the endless cycle of the woman's frenzied pain alternating with exhausted stupor. She was coherent for a little while, around midnight; she spoke of her home village in Provence, her sister who had married an officer in the French army, her pet cat who had born three litters of kittens. "Cats purr as they give birth," she said. "It hurts them not at all."
"Do they, now?" He had never observed this phenomenon.
"Yes. I wish I was a cat," she said, with a faint smile, which turned to a feral grimace of pain as the next contraction began.
Like a litany, he recited to himself the seven cardinal movements of the baby through the pelvis: engagement, descent, flexion, internal rotation, extension of the head, external rotation, expulsion. A complicated contortion, like a miner working his way through a narrow shaft; no wonder so many babes and dams alike failed to survive it. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children. God's eternal punishment on womankind. It was a hard thing, to be sure.
Begging her pardon, he reached under her skirts to examine her as the lady's maid exclaimed at the impropriety. The foolish mule, what else was he supposed to do, guess at her dilation? He felt a bulging bag of waters, the hard roundness of the baby's head. An amniotomy was in order, most certainly, to speed the labor. He took out the lancet he habitually carried, and the idiot maid screamed. "Oh, what are you doing? What are you doing?" Fortunately the mother was too insensible by this time to make a similar outcry. He ignored the maid's calls and entreaties and performed the procedure. The fluid was clear, a good sign. It occurred to him, as he wiped it from his hands, that it was of much the same composition as the sea which surrounded them. Humans float in their own warm little oceans for nine months before cruel nature expels them into a harsh world of gravity, bright light and cold air.
It went fast after that, as he had hoped. She gave birth squatting like an ape, her skirts hitched up; she could not be persuaded otherwise; and the warm, slippery body of the baby fairly flew into his hands: no tearing and very little blood, as neat as anyone could hope for, though he regretted that he would have no opportunity to suture the perineum, an art he had rarely practiced. The maid screamed again when the afterbirth came, and he was hard-pressed to keep from shoving a rag in her mouth to keep her quiet.
It was over. The mother slept, the maid slept. The husband would need to be informed, but for now, for a little while, he sat by the bed resting with the baby in his arms. A boy for Napoleon's army. Perhaps the brat should be strangled now, to save trouble later. He wondered what Jack or the other sailors would think, finding him here with a babe in arms, for all the world as if he were the baby's father, or rather its mother. Indeed, the creature was rooting at his hand as if it could find milk there. He let it suck on his little finger, an ideal chance to palpate for a cleft palate (of which there was no sign, thankfully), and drowsed a little, the soft weight of the child soothing him, before he finally rose once more to go about his duties.
Title: Stephen Saved From Drowning
Rating: G
Summary: Don't wear lead-soled boots if you're planning on falling off a boat.
Author's Note: The fish that Stephen observes is the European anchovy, common in the Mediterranean.
There were two things that struck him immediately about the situation. One was that his life failed to flash before his eyes. Indeed, he gave hardly a thought to it; perhaps he had already accepted death as inevitable. The other was that he wasn't afraid. True, there was a sensation of mild alarm at the rate of his downward velocity, but his great interest at hitherto unobserved natural phenomena overtook whatever other fear he might have. He noticed the color of the water, darkening from glassy aquamarine to darker azure as he descended. He noticed the lazy upward spiraling of the silver air bubbles that emanated from his mouth and nose. He examined his hands, his clothes, drained of color in the uncertain light. Everything was in slow motion, everything seemed possessed by an unearthly grace. There was a small school of silver fish staring at him agog as if they had never seen a human before. Engraulis encrasicolus, he thought, but before he could be certain, someone grabbed the back of his coat and hauled him upwards, cutting short his observations. It was really quite vexing, and he seethed with indignation as the sailors dragged him out of the water and back into the boat.