Time's Convert

“General Washington is bound to hear about this target practice of yours.” Moulder sighed. “What do you propose I tell him, Swift?”

“I’d let him think Captain Hamilton did it,” Swift replied. “That popinjay likes to take credit for everything, whether he’s responsible or not.”

There was no denying it, and Captain Moulder didn’t even try.

“Get out of my sight, all of you,” Moulder said wearily. “I will tell the general that Lieutenant Cuthbert has already disciplined you. And I’m docking your pay.”

“Pay?” Swift guffawed. “What pay?”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll see to it that nothing like this happens again.” Cuthbert took Swift by the scruff of the neck. “Enjoy your lunch, sir.”

Outside the tent, Vanderslice, Swift, and Marcus were greeted by silence. Then the pats on the back started, the offers of swallows of rum and gin, the proud smiles.

“Thanks, Doc,” Vanderslice said, relieved that he was not going to be beaten.

“You lie like an Irishman, Doc,” Adam Swift said, clapping his hat on his head. “I knew I liked you.”

“The Associators take care of their own,” Cuthbert murmured in Marcus’s ear. “You’re one of us now.”

For the first time since leaving Joshua and Zeb in Hadley, Marcus felt that he belonged.

* * *

—

SEVERAL DAYS AFTER being hauled before Moulder, Marcus and Vanderslice were sharing what qualified as a fire in Washington’s winter encampment: a pile of damp logs that smoked and gave off very little heat. He had no feeling in his fingers or toes, and the air was so cold that it seared the skin before burning a pathway into his lungs.

The frigid temperatures made conversation difficult, but Vanderslice was undeterred. The only topic that the boy refused to discuss was his life before he became part of the Philadelphia artillery company. This was the root of the friendship that had sprung up between Marcus and Vanderslice. While most of the soldiers talked about nothing but their mothers, the girls they’d left behind, and male relatives who were fighting for Washington in other regiments, it was as though Marcus and Vanderslice had been born in November and only remembered life with the Associators: their retreat from Manhattan following the loss of Ft. Washington, the battle at Trenton at Christmas, and the most recent battle near the college at Princeton.

“‘Two angels came down from the north; / one named Fire, the other Frost; / Frost said to Fire go away, go away; / in the name of Jesus go away,’” Vanderslice said, blowing on his cold-reddened fingers. He had only one glove, and kept swapping it back and forth between his hands.

“Wonder if we could expel the cold if we said it backward.” Marcus burrowed into the woolen muffler he’d taken off a dead soldier after the battle at Princeton.

“Probably. Prayers have power,” Vanderslice replied. “Do you know any others?”

“Frostbite in January, amputate in July.” It was more of a prophecy than a prayer, but Marcus shared it anyway.

“You can’t fool me, Yankee. You didn’t learn that in church.” Vanderslice reached into his pocket and pulled out a small flask. “Want a nip of rum? It’s got gunpowder in it, to give you courage.”

Marcus took a precautionary sniff.

“You’ll shit your brains out if you drink any more of that,” he said, returning the flask to Vanderslice. “It’s castor oil.”

Lieutenant Cuthbert strode toward the fire, attracting the attention of the other Associators who gathered around to see what was afoot.

“You’re in a hurry,” Adam Swift remarked in his decidedly Irish drawl. He had been one of the first to sign up when the Associators were established, and was Cuthbert’s de facto second-in-command.

“We’re going home.” Cuthbert quickly hushed the cries of relief. “I heard it from one of the whores, who learned it from one of Washington’s aides, who heard the general talking to the other officers.”

Conversation burst out between members of the regiment as they began making plans for what they’d do once they were back home. Marcus shivered as the cold whistled through his coat. Philadelphia was no home to him. He would have to find another regiment to join—and soon. Maybe he would have to change his name again. If Washington was breaking up their winter camp and sending everyone back home, Marcus would need somewhere to go.

“You coming with us, Doc?” Swift elbowed Marcus in the ribs.

Marcus smiled and nodded, but there was a cold knot in his stomach. He didn’t have any skills that would be useful in Philadelphia. There wouldn’t be farm work until spring.

“Of course Doc is coming. He’s going to hang a shingle outside German Gerty’s and sell his medical services,” Cuthbert said. “I’ll stand outside and testify to your skill.” He held up his thumb.

“Let me see that.” Marcus stood, his cold joints creaking at the change in position. What he wouldn’t give for some of Tom Buckland’s liniment to soothe the ache in his bones.

Obediently, Cuthbert offered his hand to Marcus. Marcus looked at it closely, pushing up Cuthbert’s sleeve to examine the arm as well. At Princeton, Cuthbert had grabbed the wrong end of a gun brush, and some of the wire had become embedded in his thumb. It was still angry and red, but not nearly as swollen as it had been.

“No red streaks. That’s good—no infection.” Marcus probed the skin around the wound. There was a bit of discharge, but not much. “You must have the constitution of an ox, Lieutenant.”

“You there!” A small, elderly man in a wig that was at least forty years out of style pointed in Marcus’s direction. “Who are you?”

“Galen Chauncey,” Marcus said as confidently as he could. Cuthbert cut him a shrewd glance.

“You are the regimental surgeon for these men?” The longer the man’s sentences, the more evident his German accent became, all the th’s turning into soft d’s.

Sensing a potential crisis, Cuthbert turned on his considerable charm. “How can I help, Mr. . . . ?”

“Dr. Otto,” the man said, planting his feet wide. “This is a Pennsylvania company, ja?”

“Yes,” Cuthbert admitted.

“I am chief surgeon for the Pennsylvania companies, and I do not know this man.” Otto sized up Marcus from head to toe. “He does not look like one of us. That shirt is very odd.”

“Doc’s not odd. He’s a Yankee, that’s all,” said Swift.

Marcus glared at him. That was not something he wanted officers to know.

“Doc?” Otto’s voice rose.

“Not exactly,” Marcus said hastily. “I learned some tricks of healing from a friend back home, that’s all.”

“Tricks?” Otto’s voice was now as high as his eyebrows.

“Skills,” Marcus corrected himself.

“If you are so skilled, then what are the healing properties of mercury?” Otto demanded.

“Treating lesions on the skin,” Marcus said, happy to remember some of what he’d learned from Tom’s medical books.

“And why would you administer calomel and jalap?”

“To purge the bowels,” Marcus replied promptly.

“You know of Dr. Rush’s methods, I see. And what do you know of Dr. Sutton?” Dr. Otto’s dark eyes fixed intently on Marcus.

“I know he charges too much for ordinary people to afford his services,” Marcus said, tired of the inquisition. He pushed up his sleeve. The puckered scar from his own inoculation was still visible on his arm, and likely would be for his whole life. “And I know his method works. Any other questions?”

“No.” Otto blinked. “You will come with me.”

“Why?” Marcus asked warily.

“Because, Herr Doc, you are going to work for me now. You should not be behind a gun, but in the hospital,” Otto said.

“But I belong to them.” Marcus looked to the men in his company for support, but Cuthbert just shook his head.

“It will be months before we’re on the battlefield again,” Cuthbert said. “You can do more for the cause of liberty with the doctor than you can drinking the winter away with Vanderslice and Swift.”