Fire Along the Sky
Page 132
“Jennet will be here soon,” Hannah said. She spoke Kahnyen'kehàka, because it drew a wall around them in this place without privacy. “And there was a package from Montreal yesterday. I have the medicines I need.”
He might have had questions, but the queue was moving forward and the guards were quick to strike out at laggards. Hannah waited until the doors had closed and then began to pick her way across the room, crowded even now with half the men gone. From outside came a short scream and an explosion of laughter. Sergeant Jones, doing what he did best.
Hannah swallowed down her frustration and stopped to look at a man who had lost the sight in one eye. Every day he asked her when he would be healed.
The truth could not come as a surprise to him, but Hannah saw no need to rob him of hope, just yet. Instead she went to her little sick ward where her brother lay in this, his newest fever.
The prisoners were an odd mix of militiamen, army regulars, rangers, scouts. They were white and red, young and old, backwoodsmen, fishermen, and farmers from Vermont and New-York State and from as far away as Maine. The newest of them had been brought to the stockade just a week ago after a week's march. Of those fifteen men, six had already died, three were here among the hopeless, and the rest had been sent out to work.
She started, as she always did, with the worst wounded, the ones no one could help. John Trotter, once a butcher, was in the last stages of the smallpox; an Abenaki who called himself St. John had suffered a blow to the back that had rendered his kidneys incapable of their work; Olivier Theriot, a pig farmer from the Vermont–Canada border, had pneumonia in both lungs and a rage against the Tories that kept him alive far longer than Hannah would have predicted.
And there was the boy. They did not know his name and never would, for the bullet that had destroyed his jaw and burrowed into his head had plunged him into a coma so deep that no pain could rouse him. He lived only because the other prisoners had carried him here, dribbling water and gruel into his mouth. Out of respect for his bravery, they told her, but Hannah knew that it went far deeper: they nursed him for his youth and his beauty and for other reasons none of them could put to words.
The boy was no more than fifteen, slender and sleek, with a perfect face as blank as a doll's. Every day his eyes sank a little deeper in his skull, and soon he would slip beyond their reach and be buried in a pit under a blanket of quicklime.
Hannah spent a few minutes with each of these men, wiping sweaty faces and giving them teas she had brewed not to cure them, but to give them relief from pain, and rest.
While she was busy with them Mr. Whistler brought two more buckets of snow and set them to warm near the oven. He was one of the older prisoners, his freckled skull fringed with hair as stiff and straight as straw. Because he had been an apothecary's assistant in Boston, Mr. Whistler had appointed himself Hannah's majordomo, and had quickly got into the habit of reading her mind, or trying to. Most of the time he was close to right.
He was a strange little man but willing to do the most disagreeable jobs, and cheerfully; he didn't care that Hannah was Indian, or that she wasn't a man. He cared only that she had proper doctor's instruments and a surgeon's kit and medicines, and most of all, that she could name all the bones of the body with their Latin designation.
“A doctor without Latin ain't no doctor at all,” he explained to the men who needed her help, to make sure they understood their good fortune.
“The food's come,” he said to her, first thing.
Under direction from the guards two of the men were carrying in the great cook pot, its contents sloshing.
“Then take this,” Hannah said, pushing one of her baskets toward him and pulling back a rag to show him the day's treasure.
“Eggs!” he said, his eyes flashing surprise and delight. “There must be three dozen of them!” He picked up one of the bigger ones, no bigger around than a silver dollar, but far more precious.
“It's hardly worth the work of cracking them,” Hannah said. “They are so small. But I thought you could stir them into the gruel.”
“Crack them?” Mr. Whistler echoed, looking at the egg in his palm. “Why, we'll swallow 'em whole. Where'd you get eggs?”
“A delivery came from Montreal late yesterday,” she said. “From our good friend.”
She never mentioned Luke's name, and neither did Mr. Whistler ask. But he was looking at her down the curved slope of his long nose.
“Did he send the medicine you wanted?”
“Some of it,” Hannah said. “Enough.”
“You'll do the operation, then?”
Hannah glanced at her brother. “Yes,” she said. “As soon as Mrs. Huntar comes.”
With a grunt of satisfaction Mr. Whistler gathered up the bundle of eggs and trotted over to the men who were gathered around the gruel.
Hannah went to her brother and crouched beside his pallet. He was asleep, a rare thing given the pain he must deal with, day and night. Later he would need all the strength he could muster, and so she did not wake him. Instead she did as she had been trained to do: she observed him.
At twelve Daniel had already been taller than every female in the family, and now his lower legs extended well beyond the end of the bunk. All the bones in his face shone through his skin. Even a full month's beard, dark brown and curly, could not disguise the way his mouth was bracketed with pain lines. His lips were cracked and bloody with fever.
If he had learned only one thing in his brief time as a soldier, it was the meaning of pain. On top of that he was wound up tight in a heavy wool blanket.
He might have had questions, but the queue was moving forward and the guards were quick to strike out at laggards. Hannah waited until the doors had closed and then began to pick her way across the room, crowded even now with half the men gone. From outside came a short scream and an explosion of laughter. Sergeant Jones, doing what he did best.
Hannah swallowed down her frustration and stopped to look at a man who had lost the sight in one eye. Every day he asked her when he would be healed.
The truth could not come as a surprise to him, but Hannah saw no need to rob him of hope, just yet. Instead she went to her little sick ward where her brother lay in this, his newest fever.
The prisoners were an odd mix of militiamen, army regulars, rangers, scouts. They were white and red, young and old, backwoodsmen, fishermen, and farmers from Vermont and New-York State and from as far away as Maine. The newest of them had been brought to the stockade just a week ago after a week's march. Of those fifteen men, six had already died, three were here among the hopeless, and the rest had been sent out to work.
She started, as she always did, with the worst wounded, the ones no one could help. John Trotter, once a butcher, was in the last stages of the smallpox; an Abenaki who called himself St. John had suffered a blow to the back that had rendered his kidneys incapable of their work; Olivier Theriot, a pig farmer from the Vermont–Canada border, had pneumonia in both lungs and a rage against the Tories that kept him alive far longer than Hannah would have predicted.
And there was the boy. They did not know his name and never would, for the bullet that had destroyed his jaw and burrowed into his head had plunged him into a coma so deep that no pain could rouse him. He lived only because the other prisoners had carried him here, dribbling water and gruel into his mouth. Out of respect for his bravery, they told her, but Hannah knew that it went far deeper: they nursed him for his youth and his beauty and for other reasons none of them could put to words.
The boy was no more than fifteen, slender and sleek, with a perfect face as blank as a doll's. Every day his eyes sank a little deeper in his skull, and soon he would slip beyond their reach and be buried in a pit under a blanket of quicklime.
Hannah spent a few minutes with each of these men, wiping sweaty faces and giving them teas she had brewed not to cure them, but to give them relief from pain, and rest.
While she was busy with them Mr. Whistler brought two more buckets of snow and set them to warm near the oven. He was one of the older prisoners, his freckled skull fringed with hair as stiff and straight as straw. Because he had been an apothecary's assistant in Boston, Mr. Whistler had appointed himself Hannah's majordomo, and had quickly got into the habit of reading her mind, or trying to. Most of the time he was close to right.
He was a strange little man but willing to do the most disagreeable jobs, and cheerfully; he didn't care that Hannah was Indian, or that she wasn't a man. He cared only that she had proper doctor's instruments and a surgeon's kit and medicines, and most of all, that she could name all the bones of the body with their Latin designation.
“A doctor without Latin ain't no doctor at all,” he explained to the men who needed her help, to make sure they understood their good fortune.
“The food's come,” he said to her, first thing.
Under direction from the guards two of the men were carrying in the great cook pot, its contents sloshing.
“Then take this,” Hannah said, pushing one of her baskets toward him and pulling back a rag to show him the day's treasure.
“Eggs!” he said, his eyes flashing surprise and delight. “There must be three dozen of them!” He picked up one of the bigger ones, no bigger around than a silver dollar, but far more precious.
“It's hardly worth the work of cracking them,” Hannah said. “They are so small. But I thought you could stir them into the gruel.”
“Crack them?” Mr. Whistler echoed, looking at the egg in his palm. “Why, we'll swallow 'em whole. Where'd you get eggs?”
“A delivery came from Montreal late yesterday,” she said. “From our good friend.”
She never mentioned Luke's name, and neither did Mr. Whistler ask. But he was looking at her down the curved slope of his long nose.
“Did he send the medicine you wanted?”
“Some of it,” Hannah said. “Enough.”
“You'll do the operation, then?”
Hannah glanced at her brother. “Yes,” she said. “As soon as Mrs. Huntar comes.”
With a grunt of satisfaction Mr. Whistler gathered up the bundle of eggs and trotted over to the men who were gathered around the gruel.
Hannah went to her brother and crouched beside his pallet. He was asleep, a rare thing given the pain he must deal with, day and night. Later he would need all the strength he could muster, and so she did not wake him. Instead she did as she had been trained to do: she observed him.
At twelve Daniel had already been taller than every female in the family, and now his lower legs extended well beyond the end of the bunk. All the bones in his face shone through his skin. Even a full month's beard, dark brown and curly, could not disguise the way his mouth was bracketed with pain lines. His lips were cracked and bloody with fever.
If he had learned only one thing in his brief time as a soldier, it was the meaning of pain. On top of that he was wound up tight in a heavy wool blanket.
