An Echo in the Bone (116 page)

“Are you all right? What on earth is the matter?” I sat beside him and put a hand on his back, beginning to be worried.

“I dinna ken whether to laugh or to weep, Sassenach,” he said. He took his hand away from his face, and I saw that, in fact, he appeared to be doing both. His lashes were wet, but the corners of his mouth were twitching.

“I’ve lost a kinsman and found one, all in the same moment—and a moment later realize that for the second time in his life, I’ve come within an inch of shooting my son.” He looked at me and shook his head, quite helpless between laughter and dismay.

“I shouldna have done it, I ken that. It’s only—I thought all at once,
What if I dinna miss, a third
time? And
—and I thought I must just… speak to him. As a man. In case it should be the only time, aye?”

COLONEL GRANT cast a curious look at the trailhead, where a trembling branch marked the passage of the rebel and his wife, then turned his gaze on the hat in William’s hands.

“What the devil was that about?”

William cleared his throat. “Evidently, Colonel Fraser was the, um, rebel whoreson who deprived me of my hat during the battle yesterday,” he said, hoping for a tone of dry detachment.

“He has … recompensed me.”

A hint of humor came into Grant’s strained face.

“Really? Decent of him.” He peered dubiously at the object in question. “Has it got lice, do you think?”

In another man, at another time, this might have been interpreted as calumny. But Grant, while more than ready to denigrate the Colonials’ courage, abilities, and dispositions, clearly intended the question only as a practical discovery of fact; most of the English and Hessian troops were crawling with lice, and so were the officers.

William tilted the hat, scrutinizing it as well as the dim light allowed. The thing was warm in his hands, but nothing moved along the seams.

“Don’t think so.”

“Well, put it on, then, Captain Ransom. We must show a good example to the men, you know.”

William had in fact assumed the object, feeling slightly queer at the warmth of it on his head, before properly hearing what Grant had said.

“Captain… ?” he said faintly.

“Congratulations,” Grant said, the ghost of a smile lightening the exhaustion on his face. “The brigadier…” He glanced back at the reeking, silent cabin, and the smile faded. “He wanted you made captain after Ticonderoga—should have been done then, but… well.” His lips thinned, but then relaxed. “General Burgoyne signed the order last night, after hearing several accounts of the battle. I gather that you distinguished yourself.”

William ducked his head awkwardly. His throat was thick and his eyes burned. He couldn’t remember what he’d done—only that he’d failed to save the brigadier.

“Thank you,” he managed, and could not keep from glancing back himself. They had left the door open. “Do you know—did he—no, it doesn’t matter.”

“Did he know?” Grant said gently. “I told him. I brought the order.”

Unable to speak, William bobbed his head. The hat, for a wonder, fit him, and stayed in place.

“God, it’s cold,” Grant said softly. He tugged his coat closer, glancing round at the dripping trees and the fog that lay thick among them. The others had gone back to their duties, leaving them alone. “What a desolate place. Terrible time of day, too.”

“Yes.” William felt a momentary relief at being able to admit his own sense of desolation—though the hour and the place had little to do with it. He swallowed, glancing back at the cabin.

The open door bothered him; while the fog lay heavy as a feather bed on the forest, the mist near the cabin was rising, drifting around the windows, and he had the uneasy fancy that it was somehow
… coming
for the brigadier.

“I’ll just… close that door, shall I?” He’d started for the cabin, but was arrested by Grant’s gesture.

“No, don’t.”

William glanced at him in surprise, and the captain shrugged, trying to make light of it.

“The donor of your hat said we must leave it open. Some Highland fancy—something about the, um, soul requiring an exit,” he said delicately. “And at least it’s too bloody cold for the flies,” he added, with no delicacy at all.

William’s shriveled stomach clenched, and he swallowed the bitterness that rose in the back of his throat at the vision of swarming maggots.

“But surely we can’t… How long?” he demanded.

“Not long,” Grant assured him. “We’re only waiting for a burial detail.”

William stifled the protest that rose to his lips. Of course. What else could be done? And yet the memory of the trenches they had dug by the Heights, the dirt freckling his corporal’s cold round cheeks… After the last ten days, he would have thought himself beyond sensitivity to such things. But the sounds of the wolves that came to eat the dying and the dead echoed suddenly in the hollow pit of his stomach.

With a muttered excuse, he stepped aside into the wet shrubbery and threw up, as quietly as he could. Wept a little, silent, then wiped his face with a handful of wet leaves and came back.

Grant tactfully affected to believe William had simply gone to relieve himself, and made no inquiries.

“An impressive gentleman,” he remarked casually. “The general’s kinsman, I mean. Wouldn’t think they were related to look at, would you?”

Caught up in dying hope and tearing grief, William had barely noticed Colonel Fraser before the latter had so suddenly given him the hat—and been too startled to notice much about him then.

He shook his head in agreement, though, having a vague recollection of a tall figure kneeling down by the bed, the firelight touching the crown of his head briefly with red.

“Looks more like you than like the brigadier,” Grant added offhandedly, then laughed, a painful creak. “Sure you haven’t a Scottish branch in your family?”

“No, Yorkshiremen back to the Flood on both sides, save one French great-grandmother,”

William replied, grateful for the momentary distraction of light conversation. “My stepfather’s mother is half Scotch—that count, do you think?”

Whatever Grant might have said in reply was lost, as the sound of a doomed soul came down to them through the gloom. Both men froze, listening. The brigadier’s piper was coming, with Balcarres and some of his rangers. The burial detail.

The sun had risen but was invisible, blocked by cloud and the canopy of trees. Grant’s face was the same color as the fog, pale, sheened with moisture.

The sound seemed to come from a great distance and yet from the forest itself. Then wails and ululating shrieks joined the piper’s lament—Balcarres and his Indians. Despite the chilling sounds, William was a little comforted; it would not be just a hasty field burial, undertaken without regard or respect.

“Sound like howling wolves, don’t they?” muttered Grant. He ran a hand down his face, then fastidiously wiped his wet palm on his thigh.

“Yes, they do,” said William. He took a firm stance and waited to receive the mourners, conscious all the time of the cabin at his back, its door standing silent, open to the mist.

GREASIER THAN GREASE

I HAD ALWAYS assumed that surrender was a fairly simple thing. Hand over your sword, shake hands, and march off—to parole, prison, or the next battle. I was disabused of this simpleminded assumption by Dr. Rawlings, who did indeed make his way across the lines two days later to speak to me about his brother. I’d told him everything I could, expressing my particular attachment to his brother’s casebook, through which I felt I’d known Daniel Rawlings.

The second Dr. Rawlings—his name was David, he said—was easy to talk to and lingered for a while, the conversation moving on to other subjects.

“Gracious, no,” he said, when I’d mentioned my surprise that the ceremony of surrender had not occurred at once. “The terms of surrender must be negotiated first, you know—and that’s a prickly business.”

“Negotiated?” I said. “Does General Burgoyne have a
choice
in the matter?”

He seemed to find that funny.

“Oh, indeed he does,” he assured me. “I happen to have seen the proposals which Major Kingston brought over this morning for General Gates’s perusal. They begin with the rather firm statement, that having fought Gates twice, General Burgoyne is quite prepared to do it a third time. He’s not, of course,” the doctor added, “but it saves his face by allowing him to then note that he has of course noticed the rebels’ superiority in numbers and thus feels justified in accepting surrender in order to save the lives of brave men upon honorable terms. By the way, the battle is not officially over yet,” he added, with a faint air of apology. “General Burgoyne proposes a cessation of hostilities while negotiations are under way.”

“Oh, really,” I said, amused. “I wonder if General Gates is disposed to accept this at face value.”

“No, he’s not,” said a dry Scottish voice, and Jamie ducked his head and came into the tent, followed by his cousin Hamish. “He read Burgoyne’s proposal, then reached into his pocket and whipped out his own. He demands an unconditional surrender and requires both British and German troops to ground their arms in camp and march out as prisoners. The truce will last ’til sunset, at which time Burgoyne must make his reply. I thought Major Kingston would have an apoplexy on the spot.”

“Is he bluffing, do you think?” I asked. Jamie made a small Scottish noise in his throat and cut his eyes at Dr. Rawlings, indicating that he thought this an improper thing to be discussing in front of the enemy. And given Dr. Rawlings’s evident access to the British high command, perhaps he was right.

David Rawlings tactfully changed the subject, opening the lid of the case he had brought with him.

“Is this the same as the case you had, Mrs. Fraser?”

“Yes, it is.” I had noticed it immediately but hadn’t liked to stare at it. It was somewhat more battered than my case, and had a small brass nameplate attached to it, but was otherwise just the same.

“Well, I was in no real doubt as to my brother’s fate,” he said, with a small sigh, “but that settles the matter entirely. The cases were given to us by our father, himself a physician, when we entered practice.”

I glanced at him, startled.

“You don’t mean to tell me—were you twins?”

“We were, yes.” He looked surprised that I hadn’t known that.

“Identical?”

He smiled.

“Our mother could invariably tell us apart, but few other people could.”

I stared at him, feeling an unusual warmth—almost embarrassment. I had, of course, built up a mental picture of Daniel Rawlings as I read his casebook entries. Suddenly meeting him face-to-face, as it were, gave me something of a turn.

Jamie was staring at me in bemusement, eyebrows raised. I coughed, blushing, and he shook his head slightly and, with another Scottish noise, picked up the deck of cards he’d come for and led Hamish out.

“I wonder—are you in need of anything particular in the medical line?” David Rawlings asked, blushing in turn. “I am quite short of medicinals, but I do have duplicates of some instruments—and quite a good selection of scalpels. I should be most honored if you would…”

“Oh.” That was a gallant offer, and my embarrassment was at once submerged in a tide of acquisitiveness. “Would you perhaps have an extra pair of tweezers? Small forceps, I mean?”

“Oh, yes, of course.” He pulled out the lower drawer, pushing a clutter of small instruments aside in search of the tweezers. As he did so, I caught sight of something unusual and pointed at it.

“What on earth is that?”

“It is called a jugum penis,” Dr. Rawlings explained to me, his color increasing noticeably.

“It looks like a bear trap. What is it—it can’t be a device for performing circumcision, surely?” I picked up the object, which caused Dr. Rawlings to gasp, and I eyed him curiously.

“It—er, please, dear lady…” He almost snatched the thing out of my hands, thrusting it back into his chest.

“What on earth is it for?” I asked, more amused than offended by his reaction. “Given the name, obviously—”

“It prevents nocturnal… er… tumescence.” His face by this time was a dark, unhealthy sort of red, and he wouldn’t meet my eye.

“Yes, I imagine it would do that.” The object in question consisted of two concentric circles of metal, the outer one flexible, with overlapping ends, and a sort of key mechanism that enabled it to be tightened. The inner one was sawtoothed—much like a bear trap, as I’d said. Rather obviously, it was meant to be fastened round a limp penis—which would stay in that condition, if it knew what was good for it.

I coughed. “Um
… why
, precisely, is that desirable?”

His embarrassment faded slightly into shock.

“Why… it… the… the loss of the male essence is most debilitating. It drains the vitality and exposes a man to all manner of sickness, as well as grossly impairing his mental and spiritual faculties.”

“Just as well no one’s thought of mentioning that to my husband,” I said.

Rawlings gave me a completely scandalized look, but before the discussion could assume even more improper proportions, we were fortunately interrupted by a stir outside, and he took the opportunity to shut his case and tuck it hastily back under his arm before coming to join me at the tent’s entrance.

There was a small parade crossing the camp, a hundred feet away. A British major in dress uniform, blindfolded, and so red in the face I thought he might pop. He was being led by two Continental soldiers, and a fife player was following them at a semi-discreet distance, playing

“Yankee Doodle.” Bearing in mind what Jamie had said about an apoplexy, I was in no doubt that this was the unfortunate Major Kingston who had been selected to deliver Burgoyne’s surrender proposals.

“Dear me,” murmured Dr. Rawlings, shaking his head at the sight. “I am afraid this process could take some time.”

IT DID. A week later, we were all still sitting there, as letters made their stately way once or twice a day between the two camps. There was a general air of relaxation in the American camp; I thought things were probably still a little tense across the way, but Dr. Rawlings had not come back, so general gossip was the only way of judging the progress—or lack of it—of the surrender negotiations. Evidently General Gates
had
been bluffing, and Burgoyne had been astute enough to realize it.