An echo in the bone - Gabaldon Diana. Страница 205

“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.