Dragonfly in Amber
Page 70

The tiny suture needle looked ridiculous, pinched between Jamie's large thumb and index finger. The illusion of medical competence was not furthered by Jamie's cross-eyed attempts to thread the needle.
"Either I'll do it myself," he said, tongue-tip protruding slightly in his concentration, "or—" He broke off as he dropped the needle and fumbled about in the folds of MacBeth's plaid for it. "Or," he resumed, holding it up triumphantly before his patient's apprehensive eyes, "my wife can do it for ye." A slight jerk of the head summoned me into view. I did my best to look as matter-of-fact as possible, taking the needle from Jamie's incompetent grasp and threading it neatly with one thrust.
MacBeth's large brown eyes traveled slowly between Jamie's big paws, which he contrived to make look as clumsy as possible by setting the crooked right hand atop the left, and my own small, swift hands. At last he lay back with a dismal sigh, and mumbled his consent to let a "wumman" lay hands on his private parts.
"Dinna worry yourself, man," Jamie said, patting him companionably on the shoulder. "After all, she's had the handling of my own for some time now, and she's not unmanned me yet." Amid the laughter of the aides and nearby patients, he started to rise, but I stopped him by thrusting a small flask into his hands.
"What's this?" he asked.
"Alcohol and water," I said. "Disinfectant solution. If he's not to have fever or pustulence or something worse, the wound will have to be washed out." MacBeth had plainly walked some way from where the injury had occurred, and there were smears of dirt as well as blood near the wound. Grain alcohol was a harsh disinfectant, even cut 50/50 with distilled sterile water as I used it. Still, it was the single most effective tool I had against infection, and I was adamant about its usage, in spite of complaints from the aides and screams of anguish from the patients who were subjected to it.
Jamie glanced from the alcohol flask to the gaping wound and shuddered slightly. He'd had his own dose when I stitched his side, earlier in the evening.
"Weel, MacBeth, better you than me," he said, and, placing his knee firmly in the man's midriff, sloshed the contents of the flask over the exposed tissues.
A dreadful roar shook the walls, and MacBeth writhed like a cut snake. When the noise at last subsided, his face had gone a mottled greenish color, and he made no objection at all as I began the routine, if painful, job of stitching up the scrotum. Most of the patients, even those horribly wounded, were stoic about the primitive treatment to which we subjected them, and MacBeth was no exception. He lay unmoving in hideous embarrassment, eyes fixed on the lantern flame, and didn't move a muscle as I made my repairs. Only the changing colors of his face, from green to white to red and back again, betrayed his emotions.
At the last, however, he went purple. As I finished the stitching, the limp penis began to stiffen slightly, brushed in passing by my hand. Thoroughly rattled by this justification of his faith in Jamie's word, MacBeth snatched down his kilts the instant I was finished, lurched to his feet, and staggered away into the darkness, leaving me giggling over my kit.
I found a corner where a chest of medical supplies made a seat, and leaned against the wall. A surge of pain shot up my calves; the sudden release of tension, and the nerves' reaction to it. I slipped off my shoes and leaned back against the wall, reveling in the smaller spasms that shot up backbone and neck as the strain of standing was relieved.
Every square inch of skin seems newly sensitive in such a state of fatigue; when the necessity of forcing the body to perform is suddenly suspended, the lingering impetus seems to force the blood to the perimeter of the body, as though the nervous system is reluctant to believe what the muscles have already gratefully accepted; you need not move, just now.
The air in the cottage was warm and noisy with breathing; not the healthy racket of snoring men, but the shallow gasps of men for whom breathing hurts, and the moans of those who have found a temporary oblivion that frees them from the manly obligation of suffering in silence.
The men in this cottage were those badly wounded, but in no immediate danger. I knew, though, that death walks at night in the aisles of a sick ward, searching for those whose defenses are lowered, who may stray unwittingly into its path through loneliness and fear. Some of the wounded had wives who slept next to them, to comfort them in the dark, but none in this cottage.
They had me. If I could do little to heal them or stop their pain, I could at least let them know that they didn't lie alone; that someone stood here, between them and the shadow. Beyond anything I could do, it was my job only to be there.
I rose and made my way slowly once again through the pallets on the floor, stooping at each one, murmuring and touching, straightening a blanket, smoothing tangled hair, rubbing the knots that form in cramped limbs. A sip of water here, a change of dressing there, the reading of an attitude of tense embarrassment that meant a urinal was needed, and the matter-of-fact presentation that allowed the man to ease himself, the stone bottle growing warm and heavy in my hand.
I stepped outdoors to empty one of these, and paused for a moment, gathering the cool, rainy night to myself, letting the soft moisture wipe away the touch of coarse, hairy skin and the smell of sweating men.
"Ye dinna sleep much, Sassenach." The soft Scottish voice came from the direction of the road. The other hospital cottages lay in that direction; the officers' quarters, the other way, in the village manse.
"You dinna sleep much, either," I responded dryly. How long had he gone without sleep? I wondered.
"I slept in the field last night, with the men."
"Oh, yes? Very restful," I said, with an edge that made him laugh. Six hours' sleep in a wet field, followed by a battle in which he'd been stepped on by a horse, wounded by a sword, and done God knows what else. Then he had gathered his men, collected the wounded, tended the hurt, mourned his dead, and served his Prince. And through none of it had I seen him pause for food, drink, or rest.
I didn't bother scolding. It wasn't even worth mentioning that he ought to have been among the patients on the floor. It was his job to be here, as well.
"There are other women, Sassenach," he said gently. "Shall I have Archie Cameron send someone down?"
It was a temptation, but one I pushed away before I could think about it too long, for fear that if I acknowledged my fatigue, I would never move again.
I stretched, hands against the small of my back.
"No," I said. "I'll manage 'til the dawn. Then someone else can take over for a time." Somehow I felt that I must get them through the night; at dawn they would be safe.
He didn't scold, either; just laid a hand on my shoulder and drew me to lean against him for a moment. We shared what strength we had, unspeaking.
"I'll stay with ye, then," he said, drawing away at last. "I canna sleep before light, myself."
"The other men from Lallybroch?"
He moved his head toward the fields near the town where the army was camped.
"Murtagh's in charge."
"Oh, well, then. Nothing to worry about," I said, and saw him smile in the light from the window. There was a bench outside the cottage, where the goodwife would sit on sunny days to clean fish or mend clothes. I drew him down to sit beside me, and he sagged back against the wall of the house with a sigh. His patent exhaustion reminded me of Fergus, and the boy's expression of confused bewilderment after the battle.
I reached to caress the back of Jamie's neck, and he turned his head blindly toward me, resting his brow against my own.
"How was it, Jamie?" I asked softly, fingers rubbing hard and slow over the tight-ridged muscles of his neck and shoulders. "What was it like? Tell me."
There was a short silence, then he sighed, and began to talk, haltingly at first, and then faster, as if wanting to get it out.
"We had no fire, for Lord George thought we must move off the ridge before daylight, and wanted no hint of movement to be seen below. We sat in the dark for a time. Couldna even talk, for the sound would carry to the plain. So we sat.
"Then I felt something grab my thigh in the dark, and near jumped out of my skin." He inserted a finger in his mouth and rubbed gingerly. "Nearly bit my tongue off." I felt the shift of his muscles as he smiled, though his face was hidden.
"Fergus?"
The ghost of a laugh floated through the dark.
"Aye, Fergus. Crawled through the grass on his belly, the little bastard, and I thought he was a snake, at that. He whispered to me about Anderson, and I crawled off after him and took Anderson to see Lord George."
His voice was slow and dreamy, talking under the spell of my touch.
"And then the order came that we'd move, following Anderson's trail. And the whole of the army got to its feet, and set off in the dark."
The night was clear black and moonless, without the usual cover of cloud that trapped starlight and diffused it toward the earth. As the Highland army made its way in silence down the narrow path behind Richard Anderson, each man could see no farther than the shuffling heels of the man before him, each step widening the trodden path through wet grass.
The army moved almost without noise. Orders were relayed in murmurs from man to man, not shouted. Broadswords and axes were muffled in the folds of their plaids, powder flasks tucked inside shirts against fast-beating hearts.
Once on sound footing, still in total silence, the Highlanders sat down, made themselves as comfortable as was possible without fire, ate what cold rations there were, and composed themselves to rest, wrapped in their plaids, in sight of the enemy's campfires.
"We could hear them talking," Jamie said. His eyes were closed, hands clasped behind his head, as he leaned against the cottage wall. "Odd, to hear men laughing over a jest, or asking for a pinch of salt or a turn at the wineskin—and know that in a few hours, ye may kill them—or them you. Ye can't help wondering, ye ken; what does the face behind that voice look like? Will you know the fellow if ye meet him in the morning?"
Still, the tremors of anticipated battle were no match for sheer fatigue, and the "Black Frasers"—so called for the traces of charcoal that still adorned their features—and their chief had been awake for more than thirty-six hours by then. He had picked a sheaf of marrow-grass for a pillow, tucked the plaid around his shoulders, and lain down in the waving grass beside his men.
During his time with the French army, years before, one of the sergeants had explained to the younger mercenaries the trick of falling asleep the night before a battle.
"Make yourself comfortable, examine your conscience, and make a good Act of Contrition. Father Hugo says that in time of war, even if there is no priest to shrive you, your sins can be forgiven this way. Since you cannot commit sins while asleep—not even you, Simenon!—you will awake in a state of grace, ready to fall on the bastards. And with nothing to look forward to but victory or heaven—how can you be afraid?"
While privately noting a few flaws in this argument, Jamie had found it still good advice; freeing the conscience eased the soul, and the comforting repetition of prayer distracted the mind from fearful imaginings and lulled it toward sleep.
He gazed upward into the black vault of the sky, and willed the tightness of neck and shoulders to relax into the ground's hard embrace. The stars were faint and hazy tonight, no match for the nearby glow of the English fires.
His mind reached out to the men around him, resting briefly on each, one by one. The stain of sin was small weight on his conscience, compared with these. Ross, McMurdo, Kincaid, Kent, McClure…he paused to give brief thanks that his wife and the boy Fergus at least were safe. His mind lingered on his wife, wanting to bask in the memory of her reassuring smile, the solid, wonderful warmth of her in his arms, pressed tight against him as he had kissed her goodbye that afternoon. Despite his own weariness and the waiting presence of Lord George outside, he had wanted to tumble her onto the waiting mattress right then and take her quickly, at once, without undressing. Strange how the imminence of fighting made him so ready, always. Even now…
But he hadn't yet finished his mental roster, and he felt his eyelids closing already, as tiredness sought to pull him under. He dismissed the faint tightening of his testicles that came at thought of her, and resumed his roll call, a shepherd treacherously lulled to sleep by counting the sheep he was leading to slaughter.
But it wouldn't be a slaughter, he tried to reassure himself. Light casualties for the Jacobite side. Thirty men killed. Out of two thousand, only a slim chance that some of the Lallybroch men would be among that number, surely? If she was right.
He shuddered faintly under the plaid, and fought down the momentary doubt that wrenched his bowels. If. God, if. Still he had trouble believing it, though he had seen her by that cursed rock, face dissolving in terror around the panic-wide gold eyes, the very outlines of her body blurring as he, panicked also, had clutched at her, pulling her back, feeling little more than the frail double bone of her forearm under his hand. Perhaps he should have let her go, back to her own place. No, no perhaps. He knew that he should. But he had pulled her back. Given her the choice, but kept her with him by the sheer force of his wanting her. And so she had stayed. And given him the choice—to believe her, or not. To act, or to run. And the choice was made now, and no power on earth could stop the dawn from coming.
His heart beat heavily, pulse echoing in wrists and groin and the pit of his stomach. He sought to calm it, resuming his count, one name to each heartbeat. Willie McNab, Bobby McNab, Geordie McNab…thank God, young Rabbie McNab was safe, left at home…Will Fraser, Ewan Fraser, Geoffrey McClure…McClure…had he touched on both George and Sorley? Shifted slightly, smiling faintly, feeling for the soreness left along his ribs. Murtagh. Aye, Murtagh, tough old boot…my mind is no troubled on your account, at least. William Murray, Rufus Murray, Geordie, Wallace, Simon…
And at last, had closed his eyes, commended all of them to the care of the black sky above, and lost himself in the murmured words that came to him still most naturally in French—"Mon Dieu, je regrette…"
I made my rounds inside the cottage, changing a blood-soaked dressing on one man's leg. The bleeding should have stopped by now, but it hadn't. Poor nutrition and brittle bones. If the bleeding hadn't stopped before cockcrow, I would have to fetch Archie Cameron or one of the farrier-surgeons to amputate the leg, and cauterize the stump.
I hated the thought of it. Life was sufficiently hard for a man with all his limbs in good working order. Hoping for the best, I coated the new dressing with a light sprinkling of alum and sulfur. If it didn't help, it wouldn't hinder. Likely it would hurt, but that couldn't be helped.
"It will burn a bit," I murmured to the man, as I wrapped his leg in the layers of cloth.
"Dinna worry yourself, Mistress," he whispered. He smiled at me, in spite of the sweat that ran down his cheeks, shiny in the light of my candle. "I'll stand it."
"Good." I patted his shoulder, smoothed the hair off his brow, and gave him a drink of water. "I'll check again in an hour, if you can bear it that long."
"I'll stand it," he said again.
Outside once more, I thought Jamie had fallen asleep. His face rested on his folded forearms, crossed on his knees. But he looked up at the sound of my step, and took my hand as I sat beside him.
"I heard the cannon at dawn," I said, thinking of the man inside, leg broken by a cannonball. "I was afraid for you."
He laughed softly. "So was I, Sassenach. So were we all."
Quiet as wisps of mist, the Highlanders advanced through the sea grass, one foot at a time. There was no sense of darkness lessening, but the feel of the night had changed. The wind had changed, that was it; it blew from the sea over the cold dawning land, and the faint thunder of waves on distant sand could be heard.
Despite his impression of continued dark, the light was coming. He saw the man at his feet just in time; one more step and he would have been headlong across the man's curled body.
Heart pounding from the shock of the near-meeting, he dropped to his haunches to get a better look. A Redcoat, and sleeping, not dead or wounded. He squinted hard into the darkness around them, willing his ears to listen for the breathing of other sleeping men. Nothing but sea sounds, grass and wind sounds, the tiny swish of stealthy feet almost hidden in their muted roar.
He glanced hastily back, licking lips gone dry despite the moist air. There were men close behind him; he dared not hesitate long. The next man might not be so careful where he stepped, and they could risk no outcry.
He set hand to his dirk, but hesitated. War was war, but it went against the grain to slay a sleeping enemy. The man seemed to be alone, some distance from his companions. Not a sentinel; not even the slackest of guards would sleep, knowing the Highlanders to be camped on the ridge above. Perhaps the soldier had gotten up to relieve himself, thoughtfully come some distance from his fellows to do it, then, losing his direction in the dark, lain down to sleep where he was.
The metal of his musket was slick from his sweating palm. He rubbed his hand on his plaid, then stood, grasped the barrel of the musket, and swung the butt in a vicious arc, down and around. The shock of impact jolted him to the shoulder blades; an immobile head is solid. The man's arms had flown out with the force of the impact, but beyond an explosion of breath, he had made no noise, and now lay sprawled on his face, limp as a clout.
Palms tingling, he stooped again and groped beneath the man's jaw, looking for a pulse. He found one, and reassured, stood up. There was a muffled cry of startlement from behind, and he swung around, musket already at his shoulder, to find its barrel poking into the face of one of Keppoch's MacDonald clansmen.
"Mon Dieu!" the man whispered, crossing himself, and Jamie clenched his teeth with aggravation. It was Keppoch's bloody French priest, dressed, at O'Sullivan's suggestion, in shirt and plaid like the fighting men.
"The man insisted that it was his duty to bring the sacraments to the wounded and dying on the field," Jamie explained to me, hitching his stained plaid higher on his shoulder. The night was growing colder. "O'Sullivan's idea was that if the English caught him on the battlefield in his cassock, they'd tear him to pieces. As to that, maybe so, maybe no. But he looked a right fool in a plaid," he added censoriously.
Nor had the priest's behavior done anything to ameliorate the impression caused by his attire. Realizing belatedly that his assailant was a Scot, he had sighed in relief, and then opened his mouth. Moving quickly, Jamie had clapped a hand over it before any ill-advised questions could emerge.