An Echo in the Bone (110 page)

“Say what? Hey, Harry!” he yelled to his friend. “I been promoted. Tell your mama next time you write, Lester done amounted to something, after all!” He swaggered after me, still grinning.

The grin rapidly faded into a look of frowning absorption as I led him quickly among the wounded, pointing out degrees of severity.

“Men pouring blood are the first priority,” I told him. I thrust an armful of linen bandages and a sack of lint into his hands. “Give them these—tell their friends to press the lint hard on the wounds or put a tourniquet round the limb above the wound. You know what a tourniquet is?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am,” he assured me. “Put one on, too, when a panther clawed up my cousin Jess, down to Caroline County.”

“Good. Don’t spend time doing it yourself here unless you have to, though—let their friends do it. Now, broken bones can wait a bit—put them over there under that big beech tree. Head injuries and internal injuries that aren’t bleeding, back there, by the chestnut tree, if they can be moved. If not, I’ll go to them.” I pointed behind me, then turned in a half circle, surveying the ground.

“If you see a couple of whole men, send them up to put up the hospital tent; it’s to go in that flattish spot, there. And then a couple more, to dig a latrine trench … over there, I think.”

“Yes, sir! Ma’am, I mean!” Lester bobbed his head and took a firm grip on his sack of lint. “I be right after it, ma’am. Though I wouldn’t worry none about the latrines for a while,” he added.

“Most of these boys already done had the shit scairt out of ’em.” He grinned and bobbed once more, then set out on his rounds.

He was right; the faint stink of feces hung in the air as it always did on battlefields, a low note amid the pungencies of blood and smoke.

With Lester sorting the wounded, I settled down to the work of repair, with my medicine box, suture bag, and bowl of alcohol set on the wagon’s tailboard and a keg of alcohol for the patients to sit on—provided they could sit.

The worst of the casualties were bayonet wounds; luckily there had been no grapeshot, and the men hit by cannonballs were long past the point where I could help them. As I worked, I listened with half an ear to the conversation of the men awaiting attention.

“Wasn’t that the damnedest thing ye ever saw? How many o’ the buggers were there?” one man was asking his neighbor.

“Damned if I know,” his friend replied, shaking his head. “For a space there, ever’thing I saw was red, and nothin’ but. Then a cannon went off right close, and I didn’t see nothin’ but smoke for a good long time.” He rubbed at his face; tears from watering eyes had made long streaks in the black soot that covered him from chest to forehead.

I glanced back at the wagon but couldn’t see under it. I hoped shock and fatigue had enabled Jamie to sleep, in spite of his hand, but I doubted it.

Despite the fact that nearly everyone near me was wounded in some fashion, their spirits were high and the general mood was one of exuberant relief and exultation. Farther down the hill, in the mists near the river, I could hear whoops and shouts of victory and the undisciplined racket of fifes and drums, rattling and screeching in random exhilaration.

Among the noise, a nearer voice called out: a uniformed officer, on a bay horse.

“Anybody seen that big redheaded bastard who broke the charge?”

There was a murmur and a general looking around, but no one answered. The horseman dismounted and, wrapping his reins over a branch, made his way through the throng of wounded toward me.

“Whoever he is, I tell you, he’s got balls the size of ten-pound shot,” remarked the man whose cheek I was stitching.

“And a head of the same consistency,” I murmured.

“Eh?” He glanced sideways at me in bewilderment.

“Nothing,” I said. “Hold still just a moment longer; I’m nearly done.”

IT WAS A HELLISH night. Some of the wounded still lay in the ravines and hollows, as did all the dead. The wolves that came silently out of the wood did not distinguish between them, judging from the distant screams.

It was nearly dawn before I came back to the tent where Jamie lay. I lifted the flap quietly, so as not to disturb him, but he was already awake, lying curled on his side facing the flap, head resting on a folded blanket.

He smiled faintly when he saw me.

“A hard night, Sassenach?” he asked, his voice slightly hoarse from cold air and disuse. Mist seeped under the edge of the flap, tinted yellow by the lantern light.

“I’ve had worse.” I smoothed the hair off his face, looking him over carefully. He was pale but not clammy. His face was drawn with pain, but his skin was cool to the touch—no trace of fever.

“You haven’t slept, have you? How do you feel?”

“A bit scairt,” he said. “And a bit sick. But better now you’re here.” He gave me a one-sided grimace that was almost a smile.

I put a hand under his jaw, fingers pressed against the pulse in his neck. His heart bumped steadily under my fingertips, and I shivered briefly, remembering the woman in the field.

“You’re chilled, Sassenach,” he said, feeling it. “And tired, too. Go and sleep, aye? I’ll do a bit longer.”

I
was
tired. The adrenaline of the battle and the night’s work was fading fast; fatigue was creeping down my spine and loosening my joints. But I had a good idea of what the hours of waiting had cost him already.

“It won’t take long,” I reassured him. “And it will be better to have it over. Then you can sleep easy.”

He nodded, though he didn’t look noticeably reassured. I unfolded the small worktable I had carried in from the operating tent and set it up in easy reach. Then I took out the precious bottle of laudanum and poured an inch of the dark, odorous liquid into a cup.

“Sip it slowly,” I said, putting it into his left hand. I began to lay out the instruments I would need, making sure that everything lay orderly and to hand. I had thought of asking Lester to come and assist me, but he had been asleep on his feet, swaying drunkenly under the dim lanterns in the operating tent, and I had sent him off to find a blanket and a spot by the fire.

A small scalpel, freshly sharpened. The jar of alcohol, with the wet ligatures coiled inside like a nest of tiny vipers, each toothed with a small, curved needle. Another with the waxed dry ligatures for arterial compression. A bouquet of probes, their ends soaking in alcohol. Forceps.

Long-handled retractors. The hooked tenaculum, for catching the ends of severed arteries.

The surgical scissors with their short, curved blades and the handles shaped to fit my grasp, made to my order by the silversmith Stephen Moray. Or almost to my order. I had insisted that the scissors be as plain as possible, to make them easy to clean and disinfect. Stephen had obliged with a chaste and elegant design, but had not been able to resist one small flourish—one handle boasted a hooklike extension against which I could brace my little finger in order to exert more force, and this extrusion formed a smooth, lithe curve, flowering at the tip into a slender rosebud against a spray of leaves. The contrast between the heavy, vicious blades at one end and this delicate conceit at the other always made me smile when I lifted the scissors from their case.

Strips of cotton gauze and heavy linen, pads of lint, adhesive plasters stained red with the dragon’s-blood juice that made them sticky. An open bowl of alcohol for disinfection as I worked, and the jars of cinchona bark, mashed garlic paste, and yarrow for dressing.

“There we are,” I said with satisfaction, checking the array one last time. Everything must be ready, since I was working by myself; if I forgot something, no one would be at hand to fetch it for me.

“It seems a great deal o’ preparation, for one measly finger,” Jamie observed behind me.

I swung around to find him leaning on one elbow, watching, the cup of laudanum undrunk in his hand.

“Could ye not just whack it off wi’ a wee knife and seal the wound with hot iron, like the regimental surgeons do?”

“I could, yes,” I said dryly. “But fortunately I don’t have to; we have enough time to do the job properly. That’s why I made you wait.”

“Mmphm.” He surveyed the row of gleaming instruments without enthusiasm, and it was clear that he would much rather have had the business over and done with as quickly as possible. I realized that to him this looked like slow and ritualized torture, rather than sophisticated surgery.

“I mean to leave you with a working hand,” I told him firmly. “No infection, no suppurating stump, no clumsy mutilation, and—God willing—no pain, once it heals.”

His eyebrows went up at that. He had never mentioned it, but I was well aware that his right hand and its troublesome fourth finger had caused him intermittent pain for years, ever since it had been crushed at Wentworth Prison, when he was held prisoner there in the days before the Stuart Rising.

“A bargain’s a bargain,” I said, with a nod at the cup in his hand. “Drink it.”

He lifted the cup and poked a long nose reluctantly over the rim, nostrils twitching at the sickly-sweet scent. He let the dark liquid touch the end of his tongue and made a face.

“It will make me sick.”

“It will make you sleep.”

“It gives me terrible dreams.”

“As long as you don’t chase rabbits in your sleep, it won’t matter,” I assured him. He laughed despite himself, but had one final try.

“It tastes like the stuff ye scrape out of horses’ hooves.”

“And when was the last time you licked a horse’s hoof?” I demanded, hands on my hips. I gave him a medium-intensity glare, suitable for the intimidation of petty bureaucrats and low-level army officials.

He sighed.

“Ye mean it, aye?”

“I do.”

“All right, then.” With a reproachful look of long-suffering resignation, he threw back his head and tossed the contents of the cup down in one gulp.

A convulsive shudder racked him, and he made small choking noises.

“I did say to sip it,” I observed mildly. “Vomit, and I’ll make you lick it up off the floor.”

Given the scuffled dirt and trampled grass underfoot, this was plainly an idle threat, but he pressed his lips and eyes tight shut and lay back on the pillow, breathing heavily and swallowing convulsively every few seconds. I brought up a low stool and sat down by the camp bed to wait.

“How do you feel?” I asked, a few minutes later.

“Dizzy,” he replied. He cracked one eye open and viewed me through the narrow blue slit, then groaned and closed it. “As if I’m falling off a cliff. It’s a verra unpleasant sensation, Sassenach.”

“Try to think of something else for a minute,” I suggested. “Something pleasant, to take your mind off it.”

His brow furrowed for a moment, then relaxed.

“Stand up a moment, will ye?” he said. I obligingly stood, wondering what he wanted. He opened his eyes, reached out with his good hand, and took a firm grip of my buttock.

“There,” he said. “That’s the best thing I can think of. Having a good hold on your arse always makes me feel steady.”

I laughed and moved a few inches closer to him, so his forehead pressed against my thighs.

“Well, it’s a portable remedy, at least.”

He closed his eyes then and held on tight, breathing slowly and deeply. The harsh lines of pain and exhaustion in his face began to soften as the drug took effect.

“Jamie,” I said softly, after a minute. “I’m sorry about it.”

He opened his eyes, looked upward, and smiled, giving me a slight squeeze.

“Aye, well,” he said. His pupils had begun to shrink; his eyes were sea-deep and fathomless, as though he looked into a great distance.

“Tell me, Sassenach,” he said, a moment later. “If someone stood a man before ye and told ye that if ye were to cut off your finger, the man would live, and if ye did not, he would die—would ye do it?”

“I don’t know,” I said, slightly startled. “If that was the choice, and no doubt about it, and he was a good man … yes, I suppose I would. I wouldn’t like it a bit, though,” I added practically, and his mouth curved in a smile.

“No,” he said. His expression was growing soft and dreamy. “Did ye know,” he said after a moment, “a colonel came to see me, whilst ye were at work wi’ the wounded? Colonel Johnson; Micah Johnson, his name was.”

“No; what did he say?”

His grip on my bottom was beginning to slacken; I put my own hand over his, to hold it in place.

“It was his company—in the fight. Part of Morgan’s, and the rest of the regiment just over the hill, in the path of the British. If the charge had gone through, they’d ha’ lost the company surely, he said, and God knows what might have become o’ the rest.” His soft Highland burr was growing broader, his eyes fixed on my skirt.

“So you saved them,” I said gently. “How many men are there in a company?”

“Fifty,” he said. “Though they wouldna all have been killed, I dinna suppose.” His hand slipped; he caught it and took a fresh grip, chuckling slightly. I could feel his breath through my skirt, warm on my thighs.

“I was thinking it was like the Bible, aye?”

“Yes?” I pressed his hand against the curve of my hip, keeping it in place.

“That bit where Abraham is bargaining wi’ the Lord for the Cities of the Plain. ‘Wilt thou not destroy the city,’ ” he quoted, “ ‘for the sake of fifty just men?’ And then Abraham does Him down, a bit at a time, from fifty to forty, and then to thirty, and twenty and ten.”

His eyes were half closed, and his voice peaceful and unconcerned.

“I didna have time to inquire into the moral state of any o’ the men in that company. But ye’d think there might be ten just men among them—good men?”

“I’m sure there are.” His hand was heavy, his arm gone nearly limp.

“Or five. Or even one. One would be enough.”

“I’m sure there’s one.”

“The apple-faced laddie that helped ye wi’ the wounded—he’s one?”

“Yes, he’s one.”

He sighed deeply, his eyes nearly shut.

“Tell him I dinna grudge him the finger, then,” he said.

I held his good hand tightly for a minute. He was breathing slowly and deeply, his mouth gone slack in utter relaxation. I rolled him gently onto his back and laid the hand across his chest.