page41 (2/2)
o;What are you waiting for, Herr Doc?” Dr Otto de your blanket All of mine are on the sick soldiers”
After Hadley, Marcus’s life path had been as twisted and dark as a forest trail It had led hies of battle while constantly afraid of being captured as a deserter or a spy or a murderer Then the Associators had let him join their ranks, and Marcus had been able to see a few miles ahead into December and now January
But the Associators were all returning to the coe turn, thanks to this odd little Ger him out of the crowded, smoky conditions of the camp only to thrust him into the bloody world of what passed for hospitals in Washington’s army For Marcus, it was a chance to escape even further from what had happened in his past He remembered what Sarah Bishop had told hi to need healers hters
Still, Marcus hesitated, standing at this unexpected fork in the road
“Go on,” Swift said, tossing Marcus’s heavy haversack to him “Besides, if you don’t like it, you can find us at German Gerty’s tavern most days It’s down on the Philadelphia docks Anyone can point the way”
—
WHEN HE LEFT the Associators’ fire, Marcus finally saw Washington’s ar squalor Until today, he had not explored the rest of caht see soiven the fact that it had a population to rival so Dr Otto seemed to know every alley and byway, however, andfires, and the torn and stained flags that proudly flew at the center of each coed to Connecticut and which to Virginia
“Fools,” Otto i in the cold wind
“Excuseto keep up with the old man’s pace
“So busy fighting each other, it is no wonder the British have been winning” Otto noticed a soldier sitting on a fallen log, his leg blackened and oozing “You there Have that leg seen to by your surgeon or you will lose it, ja?”
Marcus shot a quick glance at the suppurating leg He’d never seen anything so gruesome What had the man done to cause such an injury?
“Burned with powder, then h the cold on poor rations And no shoes!” Otto continued through the ca thicker with each step “Idiocy SheerMan will have no army left”
Marcus assueneral three ti the Hudson River as Ft Washington fell to the Hessian troops, again at Trenton when he climbed into a boat to cross the Delaware, and a third titon had nearly been shot by one of his own cannon Washington towered over the rest of his men on foot, but on a horse, he was like one of the heroes of old
“One army One camp One medical service This is the way to win a war,” Otto muttered “Connecticut has medicine chests, but no inia has bandages, but no chests to store theo Madness”
Dr Otto stopped abruptly and Marcus ran into hi the doctor off his feet
“I ask you, how are we supposed to heal thesetipped to one side as if it, too, were considering the question
Marcus shrugged Otto sighed
“Exactly,” he said “We must do e can, in spite of the lunatics”
“That’s beento soothe the irascible German
Otto looked sour, but they had at last reached their destination: a large tent on the outskirts of the encampment Beyond it was Morristown Marcus had noted the town’s prosperity and the hum of business that surrounded it, even in the depths of war and winter
Around the tent, ons and unloadedin fro an enors into wood for the fires Wo water filled with sodden blankets
A tired-lookingon an overturned bucket, s a pipe
“This is eon’s alen MacChauncey Doc It sounds Scottish, ja?”
“Scottish? No, I don’t think so, Bodo,” Dr Cochran said with a thick burr that rerandfather MacNeil “Where are you from, boy?”
“Mas—Philadelphia” Marcus caught himself just in time A slip like that could cost him his life, if someone with an active curiosity were to hear it
“He sounds foreign to me,” Otto said in his thick accent “Some boys from Philadelphia said he was a Yankee, but I do not knohether to believe them”
“He ht well be” Cochran studied Marcus closely “Yankees do have very strange names I’ve heard some called Submit and Endeavour and Fortitude Does he have any experience? He looks too young to know much, Bodo”
Marcus bristled
“He is familiar with the methods of Dr Rush,” Otto said, “and how to empty a man’s bowels most forcefully”
“H on his pipe “We don’t need any help with that Not in this army”
“The boy has heard of Dr Sutton, too” Dr Otto blinked like one of the owls that roosted in their barn in Hadley
“Is that so?” Cochran’s tone was speculative “Well, then Let’s see if he knows so more useful than one of Dr Rush’s extre of rheumatism and pain in the joints, hoould you induce a sweat, boy?”
More questions Marcus would rather be back arilled and scolded like a schoolboy by the areons
“I’d have him examined by a committee of medical officers, Dr Cochran,” Marcus retorted “And the name is Mr Chauncey, if you please”
Cochran belloith laughter
“What do you think, Dr Cochran? Did I not find us a suitable replace man who ran off at Princeton?” Otto asked
“Aye He’ll do” Cochran tamped down on the tobacco in his pipe and slipped it into his pocket “Welcome to the army’s medical corps, Doc—or whatever your name is”
For the second time in his short life, Marcus shed one identity and adopted another
—
TIME PASSED DIFFERENTLY in theseeitive (where every day was different), or the brief period a the Associators (when time passed so quickly that you didn’t have the opportunity to think) In the army’s te strea tables and cots, crates of bandages, and boxes of medicines No sooner did a new patient arrive than a forraveyard dug on the outskirts of town The more fortunate were sent hounshot wounds or cases of dysentery Others languished on the wards, poorly fed and poorly housed, unable to die, yet equally unable to heal
As the newest recruit, Marcus had first been posted to the part of the hospital reserved for men with minor injuries and ail no e whatsoever His duties did provide a way for him to learn the rhythms of this new environ how to diagnose patients by carefully watching their restless li as they dreamed, and the spots of color that often appeared in theroot in the body