Fire Along the Sky
Page 129
Here is what we know thus far of the conditions in the stockade after Hannah's first brief visit there today:
There are some fifty prisoners in a room designed for thirty, at the most. A month ago there were still more of them, but illness has reduced their number by a full third. Many have dysentery. Others have wounds that are poorly healed and require surgery, and perhaps amputation. They exist on a diet of poor gruel and bread. The food we brought with us, which seemed so much, is already gone. Hannah's medicines will last a little longer.
Blue-Jay has lost two toes to frostbite and may lose more. He took a bullet to his right leg, which was dug out for him by one of his compatriots. What infection resulted is mostly healed. Like many of the prisoners he has had typhoid, but unlike the majority of those unfortunates, he has survived and is recovering. He is thin, but in relative good health.
News of Daniel is more complex. His injuries are as follows: he took a bullet in his left side. Hannah bids me tell you that if the bullet had done irreparable harm, he would not have survived this long. Whether or not she will have to remove it surgically remains to be seen.
All the other injuries follow from the fact that he was in a tree when he was shot, and fell from a considerable height. He suffered a blow to his left shoulder and arm, and a number of ribs were cracked or broken.
Somehow he was spared typhoid, which would most certainly have killed him in his diminished condition.
Hannah had only a few minutes with him today, but she bids me assure you (and by extension, your parents) that with proper care, medicines, and food, he will recover. We are here to see that he gets all those things, and more.
The best indication of Daniel's condition I can send you is this: when Hannah came to him he was asleep, but woke and seeing her asked if she had brought any maple sugar from the first tapping. His second question was about his sister Lily, and his third, about his mother. Then he fell asleep again with maple sugar on his tongue.
You may not believe me, but I did not plan this turn of events. I truly meant to come straight to you, and to stay as long as you would allow me. But given the conditions here, what choice is there left? I could not, I simply could not leave Hannah here alone while I went on to feather beds and hot baths and amusements in Montreal.
You will argue, I can hear you across the miles, that she is not alone. But while these good men look out for our safety, they cannot go into the stockade to care for those whose need is far greater.
For what assurance it might provide, let me tell you of our lodgings in the followers' camp. We have paid for the privilege of putting down our pallets in a hut that belongs to an Abenaki woman who does laundry for some of the officers. In exchange for tobacco and coin she has given us much information and advice and a place at her smoky fire. It is of course the coarsest of housing, but we are only there while Sawatis builds a shack for our use, and in any case, we are there only to sleep.
You will want to come here, to take me away. I ask you to reconsider. If you must come, bring food and warm blankets and money to bribe the soldiers who guard the stockade, on whose goodwill and whim we must depend. Bring your support, your understanding, your patience. If you cannot, please stay away, but send us Simon with the things we need, and I will write to you as often as time permits.
Of course we must count on you to relay this information to your father and stepmother. It is your decision whether or not you will pass on all the details. And yet I must remind you that your stepmother is a strong woman and will not thank you for keeping the whole truth from her.
Finally, you should know that neither of us have ever used your name, nor shall we. The commander does not know of our connection to you, to Carryck, to Daniel, or to any family in New-York State. Here I am known as the Widow Huntar.
I will come to you, I promise, as soon as I can do so in good conscience.
Your loving bride,
Jennet
6th day of March, 1813
Chapter 26
When they had been on the island for not quite a fortnight, the thaw came upon them and forced a concession from Jennet, who had only scoffed at the stories: Canadian mud was not just water and earth, but a force unto itself, and a bloody-minded one, at that.
It all happened very suddenly. One night it snowed, the next day snow turned to rain, and within hours the island, overpopulated with pigs and dogs, mules and horses and men, had been churned into a great sticky pudding that sucked boots from feet and brought sleighs to a standstill. There were still frosts at night, and deep ones, but every day the weather was a little warmer, and the mud deeper.
“Sugaring days come around late this year,” one of the prisoners told her in the same wistful tone he spoke about his wife and children. “But the sap's running now, I can smell it in the air.”
So many of the prisoners were farmers and backwoodsmen; they talked very little about the war, but never tired of talking of the weather. Most of all they seemed to get pleasure in arguing: about the best way to tap a sugar maple or neuter new lambs or set a trap for a raccoon that wouldn't stay out of the corn. The muddy floor of the stockade was easier to forget, Jennet realized, when they set their minds on blackfly in July or harvesting flax.
At night when she and Hannah went back to their little shack, they found dried mud in their belly buttons and the creases behind their knees and under their arms. The hems of their dresses and stockings were caked with it; there was mud in their hair and eyebrows and in the baskets they used to carry supplies into the stockade. The only respite from the mud was the ice-clogged, swollen river, crowded with every vessel the British navy could commandeer.
There are some fifty prisoners in a room designed for thirty, at the most. A month ago there were still more of them, but illness has reduced their number by a full third. Many have dysentery. Others have wounds that are poorly healed and require surgery, and perhaps amputation. They exist on a diet of poor gruel and bread. The food we brought with us, which seemed so much, is already gone. Hannah's medicines will last a little longer.
Blue-Jay has lost two toes to frostbite and may lose more. He took a bullet to his right leg, which was dug out for him by one of his compatriots. What infection resulted is mostly healed. Like many of the prisoners he has had typhoid, but unlike the majority of those unfortunates, he has survived and is recovering. He is thin, but in relative good health.
News of Daniel is more complex. His injuries are as follows: he took a bullet in his left side. Hannah bids me tell you that if the bullet had done irreparable harm, he would not have survived this long. Whether or not she will have to remove it surgically remains to be seen.
All the other injuries follow from the fact that he was in a tree when he was shot, and fell from a considerable height. He suffered a blow to his left shoulder and arm, and a number of ribs were cracked or broken.
Somehow he was spared typhoid, which would most certainly have killed him in his diminished condition.
Hannah had only a few minutes with him today, but she bids me assure you (and by extension, your parents) that with proper care, medicines, and food, he will recover. We are here to see that he gets all those things, and more.
The best indication of Daniel's condition I can send you is this: when Hannah came to him he was asleep, but woke and seeing her asked if she had brought any maple sugar from the first tapping. His second question was about his sister Lily, and his third, about his mother. Then he fell asleep again with maple sugar on his tongue.
You may not believe me, but I did not plan this turn of events. I truly meant to come straight to you, and to stay as long as you would allow me. But given the conditions here, what choice is there left? I could not, I simply could not leave Hannah here alone while I went on to feather beds and hot baths and amusements in Montreal.
You will argue, I can hear you across the miles, that she is not alone. But while these good men look out for our safety, they cannot go into the stockade to care for those whose need is far greater.
For what assurance it might provide, let me tell you of our lodgings in the followers' camp. We have paid for the privilege of putting down our pallets in a hut that belongs to an Abenaki woman who does laundry for some of the officers. In exchange for tobacco and coin she has given us much information and advice and a place at her smoky fire. It is of course the coarsest of housing, but we are only there while Sawatis builds a shack for our use, and in any case, we are there only to sleep.
You will want to come here, to take me away. I ask you to reconsider. If you must come, bring food and warm blankets and money to bribe the soldiers who guard the stockade, on whose goodwill and whim we must depend. Bring your support, your understanding, your patience. If you cannot, please stay away, but send us Simon with the things we need, and I will write to you as often as time permits.
Of course we must count on you to relay this information to your father and stepmother. It is your decision whether or not you will pass on all the details. And yet I must remind you that your stepmother is a strong woman and will not thank you for keeping the whole truth from her.
Finally, you should know that neither of us have ever used your name, nor shall we. The commander does not know of our connection to you, to Carryck, to Daniel, or to any family in New-York State. Here I am known as the Widow Huntar.
I will come to you, I promise, as soon as I can do so in good conscience.
Your loving bride,
Jennet
6th day of March, 1813
Chapter 26
When they had been on the island for not quite a fortnight, the thaw came upon them and forced a concession from Jennet, who had only scoffed at the stories: Canadian mud was not just water and earth, but a force unto itself, and a bloody-minded one, at that.
It all happened very suddenly. One night it snowed, the next day snow turned to rain, and within hours the island, overpopulated with pigs and dogs, mules and horses and men, had been churned into a great sticky pudding that sucked boots from feet and brought sleighs to a standstill. There were still frosts at night, and deep ones, but every day the weather was a little warmer, and the mud deeper.
“Sugaring days come around late this year,” one of the prisoners told her in the same wistful tone he spoke about his wife and children. “But the sap's running now, I can smell it in the air.”
So many of the prisoners were farmers and backwoodsmen; they talked very little about the war, but never tired of talking of the weather. Most of all they seemed to get pleasure in arguing: about the best way to tap a sugar maple or neuter new lambs or set a trap for a raccoon that wouldn't stay out of the corn. The muddy floor of the stockade was easier to forget, Jennet realized, when they set their minds on blackfly in July or harvesting flax.
At night when she and Hannah went back to their little shack, they found dried mud in their belly buttons and the creases behind their knees and under their arms. The hems of their dresses and stockings were caked with it; there was mud in their hair and eyebrows and in the baskets they used to carry supplies into the stockade. The only respite from the mud was the ice-clogged, swollen river, crowded with every vessel the British navy could commandeer.
