Europa Universalis 1867: Start by inheriting an armory

Guy's Hospital is located near London Bridge, next to the docks and factory area.

As Richard reached the door, the smell of coal smoke mixed with chlorinated lime hit him. The red brick building looked solid and dull in the hazy light. Several panes of glass in the high windows were broken and nailed together with wooden boards, like blind pirates on a ship.

He went into the corridor, where the smell of disinfectant became stronger, along with a lingering sweet, rotten odor—the smell of festering wounds.

The corridor was lined with large, open-plan wards, each with twenty or thirty bunk beds crammed into a single room, leaving only a narrow aisle in the middle. Some of the people on the beds were groaning, some were coughing, and some were quietly curled up in their blankets, motionless.

The light streaming through the high windows was dim, and a few gas lamps hummed overhead, their flames flickering in the cold wind seeping in through the cracks. Winter was approaching, and the ward was as cold as an icebox. The patients were covered with thin blankets, and some didn't even have blankets, just their own coats.

A nurse in her thirties, wearing a white apron, stood at the front desk on one side of the corridor. Her fingers were turning the pages of a thick registration book, and there was iodine stain on her fingertips that couldn't be washed off.

"I want to see the dean," Richard said, stepping forward.

The nurse glanced at him, her gaze lingering on his expensive coat. "The hospital director isn't here. He only comes twice a week; he spends the rest of the time at home handling affairs. You'll need to make an appointment in advance."

"When can we see him?"

"Next Tuesday, you can leave your name and reason, and I will pass it on to him."

Richard frowned. It would be too late for anything by next Tuesday.

"I'm the owner of Brian's Armory," he added. "I'd like to know about the health of the Irish workers in my factory. Many of them were injured in other factories before coming here. I hope you can make an exception."

The nurse paused in turning the page, looked Richard up and down, and then said, "Please wait a moment."

She turned and went into a door next to her. The door wasn't closed, and Richard could hear her whisper something inside, followed by a man's voice, deep and tired.

Then the door was opened, and a man in his fifties came out. He was wearing a white robe with the collar open and no tie.

His hair was gray, and he wore a pair of silver-rimmed glasses with the temples wrapped in white tape.

"I'm the vice president and attending physician here." His voice was hoarse, and his eyes blinked dryly from chronic sleep deprivation. "My surname is Carter. You want to know about the workers' health?"

“Yes,” Richard said, extending his hand. “Richard Brian.”

Dr. Carter shook his hand: "Let's talk in my office."

The office was located at the end of the corridor on the first floor. The cramped room contained only a wooden table and a few chairs. On the wall hung a diagram of the human skeleton and a yellowed medical school graduation certificate. The thick medical records on the table had covers that were worn so badly that the words were illegible.

Dr. Carter sat down in the chair, placing his hands on the table with his arms crossed. "What would you like to know?"

"I want to know about any injuries workers suffer while working in the factory." Richard placed the list that Finba had written for him on the table.

Dr. Carter glanced down at the note, quickly read the name on it, and then politely said, "Patient records are confidential to the hospital. Unless you have a court summons or an executive order from a government official, I cannot show you any of the medical records."

“I understand,” Richard didn’t press the matter. “I don’t need to see specific names. I just want to know… what types of workplace injuries have you seen? And generally, from which factories?”

Dr. Carter rubbed his temples and then sighed softly.

"Lead poisoning," he said, "is the most common. Lead powder is inhaled into the lungs and slowly erodes the nerves and bones, causing headaches, insomnia, and in severe cases, hallucinations. Most of these patients come from ammunition factories and printing plants."

"There are also burns, chemical burns, acid splashed on the skin, which can leave scars or even corrode the bone. Most of these patients come from the acid pickling workshop...you know what that is for."

Richard knew that every arsenal had a pickling workshop where strong acids were used to treat metal surfaces.

"And then there are mechanical injuries," Dr. Carter frowned, as if recalling unpleasant memories. "Getting caught in a machine, if you're lucky, you might lose a finger, get stitches, and still be able to work. If you're unlucky, you lose your whole hand."

He paused.

“A lady used to bring injured workers here often,” Dr. Carter said, looking up at Richard. “She was kind and always offered to help take care of patients, but she hasn’t been coming lately.”

"What kind of lady?" Richard asked.

“The Irishwoman,” Dr. Carter thought for a moment, “wasn’t particularly beautiful or striking, but she had a child, about four or five years old, with red hair. She never let the child into the ward, only leaving him at the nurses’ station. The nurses gave him candy, and he was very well-behaved, never crying or fussing, but he wasn’t very talkative either.”

Richard instinctively covered his mouth, because he knew who the vice-president was talking about.

Sera, and Eamon, the Irish widow and her son whom he rescued from the police.

"When was the last time she came?" Richard tried to keep his voice steady.

"About three or four weeks ago," Dr. Carter recalled, "she brought in a worker with lead poisoning. The condition was very serious, and we couldn't do anything about it. She looked very sad when she left, and she never came back."

Richard's mind raced, piecing together recent events: Sierra had worked at the factory in Greenwood, and she had been arrested by police near the factory with her child.

He assumed the two policemen were Greenwood's men, and that Sierra and her son had been placed near the factory, deliberately so that Richard or someone in the factory would see them—a poor Irish widow and a child being beaten by the police.

He was set up.

If it weren't for Sera's scheme, she probably wouldn't even know what she was doing, and Greenwood used her as bait, which Richard then took.

Richard immediately stood up, the chair legs scraping loudly on the wooden floor.

"Dr. Carter, thank you," he said. "I have to go now."

Dr. Carter didn't ask why, he just nodded: "Good luck, Mr. Brian."

Richard shook his hand, turned and walked out of the office. The stench of decay in the corridor rose again, and his stomach churned.

He hurried across the corridor, ran out the door, and said to the driver, "Workers' dormitory, hurry up."

The carriage started moving, its wheels rolling over the wet cobblestones. Richard leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and Sera's face flashed before him—those eyes that had secretly wiped away tears in the dormitory. Were they tears of gratitude or tears of guilt? Richard had to find out.