Time's Convert

                  garden

                  glory

                  gravy

                 Heinous

                  hateful

                  humane

                  husband

                 Infant

                  indeed

                  incense

                  island

                 Jacob

                  jealous

                  justice

                  julep

                 Labour

                  laden

                  lady

                  lazy

                 Many

                  mary

                  motive

                  musick

21

Father

OCTOBER 1781

The hospital outside Yorktown echoed with the quiet sounds of death. Agitated limbs fought with worn sheets and blankets, making a soft rustle. And every few minutes, sighs floated through the air as the soldiers’ ghosts flew free.

Marcus lay on the cot in the corner, his eyes locked shut against the ghosts, unable to respond to calls for help that once would have had him rising to tend and comfort the sick. Tonight, he was just another soldier far from home, dying among his brothers-in-arms.

Marcus swallowed against the dryness in his throat. It was parched and raw from fever, and it had been hours since someone came through with the bucket and dipper. So many men in Washington’s army were ill with camp fevers—too many to care for now that the war was nearly over and the able-bodied were on their way home to their former lives.

He heard low voices at the entrance to the ward. Marcus clawed weakly at the sheets, hoping to get the orderly’s attention.

“What does this French soldier look like, Matthew?”

Lantern light flickered against Marcus’s closed eyelids.

“Dieu, John. How do I know?” The voice was familiar, tugging on Marcus’s memory. “I barely knew him. It’s Gil who wants him found.”

Marcus’s sticky eyes cracked open. His throat worked to make a sound, but nothing came out but a whisper that was far too low for anyone to hear.

“Chevalier de Clermont.”

Booted heels stopped on the dirt floor.

“Someone called my name,” the chevalier de Clermont said. “Speak up, Le Brun. We’ve come to take you from here.”

The lantern swung closer, closer. Its brightness pierced the thin skin of Marcus’s eyelids, sending rivers of pain through his fevered body. Marcus moaned.

“Doc?” Cool hands touched his forehead, his neck, pulled the sheets from his clawed hands. “Christ alive, he’s on fire.”

“I can smell death on the fellow’s breath,” the other man said. His voice was familiar, too.

There was a jostle of water against wood. De Clermont pressed the chipped edge of a dipper, slick from men’s spittle, against his lips. Marcus was too weak to swallow, and most of the water ran from the corners of his mouth.

“Take his head—gently, Russell—and hold him, just so, there.”

Marcus felt himself raised up. Liquid tipped into his mouth, cool and sweet.

“Tilt his head back. Just slightly,” de Clermont instructed. “Come, Doc. Swallow.”

But the water dribbled out again. Marcus coughed, racking his body and wasting more of his pitiful strength.

“Why won’t he drink?” the other man asked.

“His body is shutting down,” de Clermont said. “It’s refusing its own salvation.”

“Don’t be so bloody Catholic, Matthew. Not here, surrounded by all these proper Puritans.” Whoever was speaking—when had Marcus heard that voice before?—was trying to lighten the atmosphere with soldiers’ humor.

Marcus opened his eyes and saw the dead rifleman from Bunker Hill named Cole—the same man he’d seen at the hospital in Trenton wearing the clothing of a Virginian.

“You’re not Russell.” Against all odds, Marcus’s throat moved to swallow, and a drop of moisture slid down the parched tissues. “You’re Cole. And you’re dead.”

“So, sir, are you—or near enough, by the smell of you,” he replied.

“You know Doc?” De Clermont’s voice registered his surprise.

“Doc? No. I knew a boy named Marcus MacNeil once, a brave lad from the frontier with a marksman’s eye and a reckless disregard for orders,” the man from Bunker Hill replied.

“Name’s Galen,” Marcus croaked. “Galen Chauncey.”

The chevalier de Clermont tipped water into his mouth again. This time, a few spoonfuls made their way down Marcus’s raw gullet and into his stomach. The effort left him gasping. As quickly as it had gone down, however, the water came back up. His body wanted no part of it.

A cool, damp cloth wiped the crust from his eyes and traveled down to remove the residue of bile and water from his mouth and chin. Someone rinsed the cloth with fresh water before it mopped at his cheeks and stroked softly across his brows.

“Ma?” No one else had ever touched him with such tenderness.

“No. It’s Matthew.” His voice, too, was tender. Surely this wasn’t the same chevalier de Clermont who had cowed Dr. Shippen and silenced John Adams?

“Am I dead?” Marcus wondered aloud. If they were all gone to hell, then tonight would make better sense. Marcus didn’t remember that any of the vivid descriptions of the netherworld Reverend Hopkins had shared from the Hadley pulpit on Sundays had included an army hospital, but the devil was nothing if not creative.

“No, Doc. You’re not dead.” De Clermont pressed the dipper to Marcus’s mouth. This time, Marcus sipped and swallowed—and the water stayed put.

“Are you the devil?” Marcus asked de Clermont.

“No, but they’re on very close terms,” Russell replied.

Marcus saw that de Clermont’s companion was no longer wearing a hunting shirt or buckskins. Now the man was dressed in the smart red uniform of a British regimental.

“You’re a spy.” Marcus pointed a trembling finger.

“Wrong man, I’m afraid. It’s Matthew who gathers the intelligence. I’m just a soldier. The name is John Russell, Seventeenth Regiment of Light Dragoons. Death and glory boys. Formerly John Cole, First New Hampshire Regiment.” Russell patted the breast of his coat, which gave off a strange crinkling sound like it was full of paper. “Come, Matthew. There’s a war to finish.”

“Go. You’ve got the terms of surrender,” de Clermont said. “I’ll sit with Doc.”