Prologue
January, 1770
Paris, France
Hôpital de la Charité
Robert Clive laid flat on an inclined wooden table as medical students walked about him. By his side sat his attending surgeon, Henri François Le Dran, inspecting his bare abdomen. Clive looked down as Le Dran lowered his head to the glass tube jutting out of Clive’s side, and smelled what aromas came from it.
“Things do seem to be as good as could be expected” said the surgeon, in English words so thick with his French accent that it was almost comical to Clive. Le Dran waived to one of his attendees, pointed at a bottle settled upon a nearby counter, and began conversing with Clive again. “You have had no more pain than what you have described so far?”
Pain of the physical form was not the only thing that weighted upon Robert Clive’s mind. There was also the pain caused by the shame he felt for the weakness of his own body, and the shame he felt for now seeking help from a man belonging to a country he had worked so hard to subdue.
In frustration Clive avoided Le Dran’s gaze, but still said “The only other pain I’ve felt is that on my finances.”
The aging French surgeon’s face wrinkled with displeasure before replying “
Monsieur . . . excusez-moi . . .
General . . . I say to you again that we have charged you not at all unfairly, and know that all funds will go to further our research to help others as we have now helped you.”
“I’m sure you have good reason to help yourselves from a man such as myself.”
Le Dran paused, and looked deeply into Clive’s eyes before saying “If you think I hold some malice towards you as an Englishman who fought against my country think of such no more. I treat and aid the sick. To me a patient will be a patient, regardless of origin. Though I do understand what chagrine you may earn from collegues if they know who you where spending this
winter vacation.”
Le Dran took a bottle brought to him by an attendee, poured the contents onto his hands, and began rubbing it onto the sore and reddened flesh around the tube leading into Clive's abdomen. The pain caused by this lead Clive to mutter in frustration.
“Dear Jesus, I have a new ass on my chest.”
Le Dran replied to Clive with a smile “Well general, you would not be the first Englishman to become more like an ass with age.”
Clive’s eyes fixed on Le Dran with a glare of anger, but Le Dran said with an air of humor “Careful general, you are on my table now. I’m afraid you’ll just have to take whatever pain I inflict on you as for your own good.”
Clive took a deep calming breath, ignoring the soreness felt through his body, and politely began speaking to Le Dran all anew “So how do I manage things myself from now on.”
Le Dran replied “You may be able to drain the contents of your gallbladder yourself, but If calculi form that are too large to fit through the stoma we've created, my best suggestion is to return here to France for further surgery.”
“But that may be unnecessary. Your cholecystos . . . cholecystostomy should be good enough as it is, yes?” Clive’s face betrayed some fear.
“I have confidence in the I, and mon ami Jean Louis, have done. Yet I still suggest caution in all things. There is so much that is still outside our control.”
The ageing surgeon then picked himself up from his chair and walked to an adjacent counter to inspect more bottles of ointment.
“Tell me about India” Le Dran said to him.
Clive paused as he no longer desired to engage in conversation, but he realized that perhaps the good surgeon meant only do distract him from his own pain through conversation. So Clive obliged his question.
“It’s . . . wonderful. I don’t know how to fully describe it.”
“I understand there are many great and beautiful things there. Elephants! Oh tell me about the elephants!” Le Dran sat back beside Clive, showing boyish excitement on his face.
“Fantastic beasts” Clive said with an expression of aw “With the strength of ten horses, and the apatite of as many too.” He chuckled, but stopped short for the sharp stinging sensation he felt in his side. “Yet so quit, that you may hardly know one walked near if you did not see it. Oh thing things those Mughals showed they could do during the war!”
Le Dran paused for a moment “I’d imagine it a hard place to leave if I went there” He smiled, spread his arms and said “If I wear young and fit enough to leave to and from anywhere that is!”
They both chuckled at this self deprecation, each showing the respect and fear they felt towards the power that aging had over them.
“Yes” Clive said dreamily “I’ve often wished I could take more of that place back with me.”
Le Dran "Well, perhaps after regaining your strength, you'll get the chance."
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POD: In OTL the French surgeon Jean Louis Petit experimented with gallbladder surgery. In this TL he and Henri François Le Dran develop and improve on the cholecystostomy. Then Robert Clive, still suffering from gallstones as in OTL, undergoes the surgery to relieve his symptoms.