“Oh, aye,” Jamie said, resigned, and swung down from the saddle, groping for his soggy handkerchief. “Let me bind his leg first. I dinna want blood all over my breeks, and the horse willna like it, either.”
Greene cleared his throat.
“As you mention reporting, Mr.… Murray?” he asked, with a sideways glance at Jamie, who nodded. “Perhaps you’d be so good as to give me, as well as Captain Mercer, the benefit of your report?”
“Aye, sir,” Ian said agreeably. “The army’s divided into three bodies now, wi’ a great long line o’ baggage wagons in between. Sae far as I could tell—I exchanged words wi’ another scout who’d gone all the way up the column—they’re headed toward a place called Freehold. The ground’s no verra good for attack—folded up like a used napkin, all cut up wi’ ravines and bitty creeks—though the other scout told me there’s meadows beyond that might do for a fight, and ye could lure them or drive them out there.”
Greene asked sharp questions, some of which Ian could answer and some he couldn’t, while Jamie tended to the ginger business of binding up the dog’s leg—there was a nasty stake wound, though not too deep; he hoped the stake hadn’t been poisoned. Indians would do that sometimes, in case a wounded deer or wolverine might spring out of the trap.
Jamie’s horse was not enthused at the prospect of carrying a wolf on his back but eventually was persuaded, and with no more than a nervous eye roll backward now and then, they were mounted.
“Fuirich, a choin,” Ian said, leaning over and scratching Rollo behind the ears. “I’ll be back, aye? Taing, Uncle!” And with a brief nod to Greene, he was away, his own horse clearly wanting to put as much distance between himself and Rollo as possible.
“Dear Lord,” Greene said, wrinkling his nose at the dog’s reek.
“Aye, well,” Jamie said, resigned. “My wife says ye get used to any sort of smell after a bit of smelling it. And I suppose she’d know.”
“Why, is she a cook?”
“Och, no. A physician. Gangrene, ken, festering bowels and the like.”
Greene blinked.
“I see. You have a most interesting family, Mr. Fraser.” He coughed and looked after Ian, rapidly vanishing in the distance. “You might be wrong about him never becoming a Quaker. At least he doesn’t bow his head to a title.”
A VISCOUS THREE-WAY
JAMIE CAME BACK from his ride with General Greene looking damp, wrinkled, and completely disheveled but otherwise refreshed—and with Rollo, bloody and disgruntled but not badly hurt.
“He’ll be fine,” I said, scratching Rollo gently behind the ears. The gash had bled a lot, but wasn’t deep. “I don’t think I’ll stitch it.”
“Dinna blame ye a bit, Sassenach,” Jamie said, glancing at the dog, who had suffered my cleaning, salving, and bandaging his leg but didn’t look at all inclined to stand for more fiddling. “Where are my good stockings?”
“In the portmanteau with your other linen,” I replied patiently. “Where they are every morning. Surely you know that?”
“I do,” he admitted. “I just like ye to tend to me.”
“All right,” I said, obligingly pulling them out. “D’you want me to put them on for you?”
“Nay, I can manage that,” he said, taking them. “Could ye find my shirt, though?”
“I think I can do that, yes,” I replied, taking the shirt out of the same portmanteau and shaking it out. “How was General Greene this morning?”
“Good. I asked him about the Quaker way of marriage,” he said, pulling a fresh white shirt—his only fresh white shirt, as I pointed out—over his head.
“Evidently the difficulty is with Denzell and Rachel not havin’ a home meeting, as it’s called. It’s no that they canna marry, but to do it in the proper way, it would involve the whole meeting. There’s a thing called a Clearness Committee, which meets wi’ the bride and groom to counsel them and make sure they’re suited and that they’ve some notion what they’re in for.” He shrugged into the sleeves and grinned at me. “I couldna help thinking, while he was tellin’ me, what a committee like that would have had to say about us when we wed.”
“Well, they wouldn’t have had any more notion what we were in for than we did,” I said, amused. “Do you think they would have thought us well suited?”
“If they’d seen the way I looked at ye, Sassenach, when ye didna see me lookin’—then, aye, they would.” He kissed me briefly and looked round for the hairbrush. “Can ye club up my hair for me? I canna be reviewing my troops like this.” His hair was tied back carelessly with a leather thong, damp stray wisps sticking to his face.
“Of course. How many of them are you reviewing? And when?” I sat him down on the stool and set to work with the brush. “Have you been burrowing through the countryside headfirst? You have foxtails and leaves in your hair, and those winged seeds that elder trees make. Ooh! To say nothing of this.” I carefully removed a tiny green caterpillar that had become entangled in his tresses and showed it to him, perched inquisitively on my forefinger.
“Thalla le Dia,” he said to the caterpillar. Go with God. And taking it carefully onto his own finger, brought it to the tent flap and loosed it into the grass.
“All of them, Sassenach,” he said, returning and sitting down again. “My last two companies came in this morning; they’ll have been fed now and rested a bit. I meant to ask,” he added, twisting round to look up at me, “would ye come with me, Sassenach, and have a look at them? To see if any should be left back from the fighting or to tend any that might need the odd bit o’ repair.”
“Yes, of course. When?”
“Come to the parade ground in an hour, if ye would.” He passed a hand over the neatly gleaming auburn queue, doubled on itself and ribboned in a club at his nape. “Aye, that’s grand. Am I decent otherwise?”
He stood up and brushed bits of discarded leaf from his sleeve. The crown of his head brushed the tent, and he was glowing—with sun, energy, and the suppressed excitement of impending action.
“You look like bloody Mars, god of war,” I said dryly, handing him his waistcoat. “Try not to scare your men.”
His mouth quirked as he shrugged into the waistcoat, but he spoke seriously, eyes on mine.
“Och, I want them frightened of me, Sassenach. It’s the only way I’ll have a chance of bringing them out of it alive.”
WITH AN HOUR to spare, I took my kit of everyday medical supplies and went out to the big tree where the sick among the camp followers tended to gather. The army surgeons would tend camp followers as well as soldiers, if they had time—but they wouldn’t be having time today.
There was the usual assortment of minor ailments and injuries: a deeply embedded splinter (infected, requiring the application of drawing salve, followed by excavation, disinfection, and bandage); a dislocated toe (caused by the patient having kicked a fellow in play, but the work of a moment to reduce); a split lip (requiring one stitch and a little gentian ointment); a badly gashed foot (the result of inattention whilst chopping wood, requiring twenty-eight stitches and a large dressing); one child with an ear infection (an onion poultice and willow-bark tea prescribed); another with the bellyache (peppermint tea and a strong admonition against eating eggs of unknown age out of birds’ nests of unknown provenance)…
The few patients requiring medicines I put aside until I’d dealt with the injuries. Then—with a wary eye on the sun—I led them off to my tent to dispense packets of willow bark, peppermint, and hemp leaves.
The tent flap was open; surely I had left it closed? I ducked my head into the gloom of the tent and stopped abruptly. A tall figure stood before me, apparently in the act of rifling my medicine chest.
“What the devil are you doing with that?” I asked sharply, and the figure jerked, startled.
My eyes had now become accustomed to the diffuse light, and I saw that the thief—if that’s what he was—was a Continental officer, a captain.
“I beg you
r pardon, madam,” he said, giving me a perfunctory bow. “I had heard that there was a supply of medicaments here. I—”
“There is, and they’re mine.” This seemed a trifle ungracious—though I certainly thought his own attitude rather brusque—and I softened the remark a little. “What is it that you need? I imagine I can spare a little—”
“Yours?” He glanced from the chest—very clearly an expensive professional bit of furniture—to me, and his brows rose. “What are you doing with a thing like that?”
Several possible replies flitted through my head, but I’d recovered from the surprise of seeing him sufficiently as not to make any of them. I settled for a neutral “May I ask who you are, sir?”
“Oh.” Mildly flustered, he bowed to me. “I beg pardon. Captain Jared Leckie, your servant, ma’am. I am a surgeon with the Second New Jersey.”
He eyed me consideringly, clearly wondering who the devil I was. I was wearing a canvas apron with capacious pockets over my gown, these pockets presently stuffed with all manner of small instruments, dressings, bottles and jars of ointments and liquids. I’d also taken off my broad-brimmed hat when I came into the tent and, as usual, was not wearing a cap. I had bound up my hair, but it had come loose and was coiling damply round my ears. He obviously suspected me of being a laundress, come to collect soiled linen—or possibly something worse.
“I am Mrs. Fraser,” I said, drawing myself up with what I hoped was a gracious nod. “Er … Mrs. General Fraser, that is,” I added, seeing that he appeared unimpressed.
His eyebrows shot up, and he looked me openly up and down, his eyes lingering on the top pockets of my apron, these featuring an unwieldy rolled dressing in the act of coming unrolled and trailing down my front and a jar of asafoetida, whose cork was loose, thus allowing the reek of it to waft gently above the other notable smells of the camp. It was known commonly as “devil’s dung,” and for good reason. I pulled the jar out and pushed the cork in more securely. This gesture seemed somehow to reassure him.
“Oh! The general is a physician, I perceive,” he said.
“No,” I said, beginning to see that I should have uphill work with Captain Leckie, who appeared young and not overbright. “My husband is a soldier. I am a physician.”
He stared at me as though I’d told him I was a prostitute. Then he made the mistake of assuming that I was joking and laughed heartily.
At this point, one of my patients, a young mother whose one-year-old son had an ear infection, poked her neatly capped head hesitantly into the tent. Her little boy was in her arms, howling and red-faced.
“Oh, dear,” I said. “I’m so sorry to keep you waiting, Mrs. Wilkins. Do bring him in; I’ll get the bark for him directly.”
Captain Leckie frowned at Mrs. Wilkins and beckoned her closer. She looked nervously at me, but allowed him to lean down and look at little Peter.
“He has a difficult tooth,” Leckie said, rather accusingly, after running a large, unwashed thumb through Peter’s drooling mouth. “He ought to have the gum slit, to let the tooth come through.” He began to fumble in his pocket, where he doubtless had a highly insanitary scalpel or lancet.
“He is teething,” I agreed, shaking out a quantity of crumbled willow bark into my mortar. “But he also has an ear infection, and the tooth will come through of its own accord within the next twenty-four hours.”
He rounded on me, indignant and astonished.
“Are you contradicting me?”
“Well, yes,” I said, rather mildly. “You’re wrong. You want to have a good look in his left ear. It’s—”
“I, madam, am a diplomate of the Medical College of Philadelphia!”
“I congratulate you,” I said, beginning to be provoked. “You’re still wrong.” Having thus rendered him momentarily speechless, I finished grinding the bark into powder and poured it into a square of gauze, which I folded into a neat packet and handed to Mrs. Wilkins, with instructions as to the brewing of the infusion and how to administer it, as well as how to apply an onion poultice.
She took the packet as though it might explode and, with a hasty glance at Captain Leckie, fled, little Peter’s howls receding like a siren in the distance.
I drew a deep breath.
“Now,” I said, as pleasantly as possible. “If you’re in need of simples, Dr. Leckie, I have a good supply. I can—”
He had drawn himself up like a crane eyeing a frog, beady-eyed and hostile.
“Your servant, ma’am,” he said curtly, and stalked past me.
I rolled my eyes up toward the canvas overhead. There was a small gecko-like creature clinging to the cloth, who viewed me with no particular emotion.
“How to win friends and influence people,” I remarked to it. “Take note.” Then I pushed the tent flap back and beckoned for the next patient to come in.
I HAD TO hurry in order to make my rendezvous with Jamie, who was just about to begin his review when I dashed up, twisting my hair into a mass and pinning it hastily under my broad-brimmed hat. It was a terribly hot day; being in the open sun for only a few minutes had made my nose and cheeks tingle warningly.
Jamie bowed gravely to me and began his advance along the line of men drawn up for review, greeting men, saluting officers, asking questions, giving his aide-de-camp notes of things to be done.
He had Lieutenant Schnell with him as aide-de-camp—a nice German boy from Philadelphia, perhaps nineteen—and a stout gentleman I didn’t know but assumed from his uniform to be the captain in charge of whatever companies we were inspecting. I followed them, smiling at the men as I passed, while looking them over sharpish for any overt signs of illness, injury, or disability—I was sure that Jamie could spot excessive drunkenness without my expert opinion.
There were three hundred men, he’d told me, and most of them were quite all right. I kept walking and nodding, but wasn’t above beginning to fantasize some dangerous circumstance in which I found Captain Leckie writhing in pain, which I would graciously allay, causing him to grovel and apologize for his objectionable attitude. I was trying to choose between the prospect of a musket ball embedded in his buttock, testicular torsion, and something temporarily but mortifyingly disfiguring, like Bell’s palsy, when my eye caught a glimpse of something odd in the lineup.
The man in front of me was standing bolt upright, musket at port arms, eyes fixed straight ahead. This was perfectly correct—but no other man in the line was doing it. Militiamen were more than capable, but they generally saw no point in military punctilio. I glanced at the rigid soldier, passed by—then glanced back.
“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ!” I exclaimed, and only sheer chance kept Jamie from hearing me, he being distracted by the sudden arrival of a messenger.
I took two hasty steps back, bent, and peered under the brim of the dusty slouch hat. The face beneath was set in fierce lines, with a darkly ominous glower—and was completely familiar to me.
“Bloody effing hell,” I whispered, seizing him by the sleeve. “What are you doing here?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he whispered back, not moving a muscle of face or body. “Do walk on, my dear.”
Such was my astonishment, I might actually have done it, had my attention not been drawn by a small figure skulking about behind the line, trying to avoid notice by crouching behind a wagon wheel.
“Germain!” I said, and Jamie whirled about, eyes wide.
Germain stiffened for an instant and then turned to flee, but too late; Lieutenant Schnell, living up to his name, sprang through the line and grabbed Germain by the arm.
“Is he yours, sir?” he asked, glancing curiously from Jamie to Germain and back.
“He is,” Jamie said, with a tone that had turned many a man’s blood to water. “What the devil—”
“I’m an orderly!” Germain said proudly, trying to detach himself from Lieutenant Schnell’s grip. “I’m supposed to be here!”
“No, you’re not,” his grandfath
er assured him. “And what do ye mean, an orderly? Whose orderly?”
Germain at once glanced in John’s direction, then, realizing his mistake, jerked his eyes back, but it was too late. Jamie reached John in a single stride and ripped the hat off his head.
The face was identifiable as that of Lord John Grey, but only by someone who knew him well. He wore a black felt patch over one eye, and the other was all but obscured by dirt and bruises. He’d cut his luxuriant blond hair to roughly an inch in length and appeared to have rubbed dirt into it.
With considerable aplomb, he scratched his head and handed Jamie his musket.
“I surrender to you, sir,” he said, in a clear voice. “To you, personally. So does my orderly,” he added, putting a hand on Germain’s shoulder. Lieutenant Schnell, quite flabbergasted, let go of Germain as though he were red-hot.
“I surrender, sir,” Germain said solemnly, and saluted.
I’d never seen Jamie at a complete loss for words, and didn’t now, but it was a near thing. He inhaled strongly through his nose, then turned to Lieutenant Schnell.
“Escort the prisoners to Captain McCorkle, Lieutenant.”
“Er …” I said apologetically. A hard blue eye swiveled in my direction, brow raised.
“He’s injured,” I said, as mildly as I could, with a brief gesture in John’s direction. Jamie’s lips compressed for an instant, but he nodded.
“Take the prisoners—and Mrs. Fraser”—I daresay it was merely sensitivity on my part that perceived a certain emphasis on “Mrs. Fraser”—“to my tent, Lieutenant.”
With scarcely a breath, he turned on John.
“I accept your surrender, Colonel,” he said, with icy politeness. “And your parole. I will attend you later.”
And, with that, he turned his back on the three of us, in what could only be described as a marked manner.
“WHAT ON EARTH happened to your eye?” I demanded, peering at it. I had John on the cot in my small medical tent, the flap open to admit as much light as possible. The eye was swollen half shut and surrounded by a sticky black ring where the felt patch had been peeled away, the underlying flesh a lurid palette of green, purple, and ghastly yellow. The eye itself was red as a flannel petticoat and, from the irritated state of the eyelids, had been watering more or less constantly for some time.
Outlander [08] Written in My Own Heart's Blood Page 54