Chapter 9
nine
I am satisfied that one active campaign, . . . burning two or three of their towns, will set everything to rights.
John Pitcairn, British major
The dreaded hour had come. Mae approached the apothecary shop with lead in her steps, Coralie following.
It didn’t help that Aaron was to give the inoculation, though he would administer it with the same skill and wisdom with which he did everything else.
None knew the ultimate outcome, and the risky procedure was still shunned by many.
Coralie had spent the morning crying and penning another letter. From the look on her wan face, she might have been finalizing her will instead. Mae prayed privately, asking the Lord to spare them both.
“I’m sorry we waited this long,” Mae told her as they entered the apothecary through the side door. “We might have caught the pox by now with so many soldiers sick right here in Chatham.”
“I pray we’re not horribly ill from the inoculation alone.”
Hanna greeted them, concern in her eyes as she helped prepare them. “Aaron will be with us shortly as he’s seeing an infected patient ahead of your procedure. For now, remove your sleeve ruffles.”
Doing so, Mae overheard Aaron return and tell his apprentice to man the shop while he tended to them. His steady smile was reassuring as he opened his surgery kit. “Well, sisters, are you ready?”
Coralie’s distress mounted. “I prefer not to hear about it nor watch you whilst it’s done.”
“I shall go first.” Mae watched unwillingly, trying to maintain her composure and not snatch her arm away when her skin was cut with a small razor blade and a smallpox pustule from the infected patient applied.
Aaron’s calm competence made little of the matter. “As far as this variolation, I’ve now performed it on hundreds of soldiers and civilians, mayhap a few thousand. Hopefully your lesions will be few.”
“Few?” Coralie turned her face away. “We might die.”
“Your chances are better than if you contract the disease,” he replied patiently.
Mae watched him dab the blood from her forearm and bind it with a linen strip. “Is it true variolation is outlawed in Virginia?”
“Aye, the irony. General Washington’s very colony—state, rather. Yet he has saved the lives of thousands with so bold an inoculation order.”
Mae vacated her chair for Coralie, who seemed more upset by the minute. “I fear I’ll cast up accounts undergoing this. ’Tis that revolting.”
Hanna brought a bucket just in case as Aaron took hold of Coralie’s arm.
“Summon to mind a hymn or Scripture,” he said without slowing his work. “Think on what is true, honorable, of good report, and so forth.”
“How like Father you sound.” Coralie sighed. “Perhaps you missed your true calling.”
“Nay, preacher I am not. Nor soldier. I’m quite content as an apothecary treating any who come my way.”
“Even rebel soldiers.” Coralie’s tone held a bitter taint that made Mae squirm, but their brother seemed to take no notice—or no offense if he did.
Aaron closed his surgery kit. “You should expect to feel no different at first. A fortnight might bring a fever or rash. Hopefully any symptoms will be mild. I’ve already told Mrs. Hurst to send for me immediately if either of you worsen.”
“Thank heavens Mrs. Hurst has survived the pox twice herself,” Hanna said. “Though ’tis rare anyone suffers a second time.”
“Washington calls smallpox more destructive than the sword. He’s inoculating most of his men in secret. If word leaks to the British that most of his men are in quarantine and recovering, the British might well strike.”
“Strike here in Chatham and Morristown?” Coralie looked at him. “Just like Jon warned might happen.”
Mae’s bare arms turned to gooseflesh as he continued.
“You’ll both need to quarantine for three weeks. Of course the officers billeting with you have either had the disease or the inoculation, so they can come and go freely.”
Mae moved to a window, her back to them all. Three weeks. She could make a great many garments and such as she’d already laid up supplies with that in mind.
“I pray there’s no scarring.” Coralie touched her cheek. “I wouldn’t be able to face anyone if the pockmarks are as hideous as some I’ve seen. Heaven forbid I be blinded.”
“Whatsoever things are true, honest, just . . .” Mae said over her shoulder, fingering the mother-of-pearl heart hidden in her pocket.
“All finished. I commend you both.” Aaron began washing his hands in a basin. “Now go home. Have plenty of tea and molasses bread, read and rest, and think no more about what we’ve just done.”
Bundled up again, they left the apothecary and made none of the usual stops to the booksellers or dressmaker or butcher. In early morn, few of Chatham’s citizens were out, just an abundance of soldiers.
“I wonder why there are so many Continentals about.” Coralie voiced Mae’s concern aloud.
“Perhaps the lobsterbacks are near.” She ignored the vexed look Coralie sent her. “Look, they’ve doubled the sentries on the bridge and atop the hill.”
“So we’re to be raided by the British or endure twenty-one days of isolation instead,” Coralie grumbled. “I do wonder what’s in store for us.”
Mae settled in, finding life not much different after inoculation.
Winters always kept them close to the hearth, and this was no different except they couldn’t venture beyond the front or back door.
Sewing and knitting became her mainstay.
She fancied she was becoming better at it as the stacks of shirts and tangle of stockings grew.
Coralie returned to writing letters. Since Mae had snuck a look at her letter to Eben, she couldn’t help but feel their sisterly relationship had severed.
Forever changed. Coralie had vowed to report to him all that she observed.
Her possible perfidy taunted Mae, and Eben Gibbs became the worst of blackguards in her mind.
Would Coralie inform him of what General Washington hoped to keep secret—the weakened condition of Continental troops?
As she stitched till her fingers grew sore, Mae prayed and tried to ignore the thickening ill feeling betwixt them.
It didn’t help that there’d been no sign of James or the officers.
What was happening in Lowantica Valley and Morristown?
Teetering between suspicion, hurt, and fear made her especially low-spirited, but she forced herself to remain amiable.
Almost two weeks passed and they seemed to have weathered the inoculation well, and then . . .
“There’s a faint mark on my chin. A pimple, I hope, nothing more.” Coralie held a hand mirror, examining her face for any marks, then looked back at Mae. “You’re rather flushed.”
Mae continued to sew. “Only a headache.”
“Let’s have a last cup of hot chocolate since you favor that.” Coralie set down the mirror. “We’ve just enough for another serving for us both. I overheard Aaron say that there’ll likely be no more cocoa unless it’s smuggled or the war ends.”
Hot chocolate sounded nauseating, but Mae was too weary to naysay her sister.
When she disappeared to the kitchen, Mae felt stark relief.
She was weary of Coralie’s company. Weary of her sore arm and this chair and her benumbed backside, all the while wondering about the general, whom she hadn’t seen for days.
So many days that it seemed callous—uncaring—if not outright rejection.
Or was he simply so busy with military matters he hadn’t time for anything else?
Putting her sewing away, she shut her eyes to ease the strain.
Coralie brought a tray, not the usual tall porcelain chocolate pot but two cups. “Are you all right?”
“Well enough. I simply need to read or do something else.”
She passed Mae a cup. “You’re certainly not your usually cheery self.”
“I’m a bit melancholy as I’m missing Mother and Father. Mother, especially, when I’m less than well.”
“A headache, is it?”
Taking a sip of the unappetizing drink, Mae burned her tongue. The chocolate tasted especially bitter. Were they low on sugar? What she craved was cold well water—and a reprieve from Coralie’s sudden scrutiny.
Coralie reached out and felt Mae’s forehead with her palm. “Sister, you’re on fire!”
Was she? Mae closed her eyes as if to stop the blinding pain at her brow.
Coralie continued to talk, her voice indistinct.
Mae fought a tide of nausea as the parlor walls closed in and grew shadowed.
Panic scattered her thoughts as she lost her hold on the cup.
It slipped from her hands and spattered her quilted petticoat before it rolled to the rug.
“Mae!”
Suddenly so ill she couldn’t stay upright, Mae slumped sideways and slid from the sofa.
“Here’s the latest tally, sir.”
Rhys looked up from his makeshift desk by a window on Arnold Tavern’s second floor as Bohannon handed him the muster rolls.
“They’re the first taken since Fort Washington, sir.”
“The debacle at Fort Washington,” Rhys said beneath his breath. The battle that had ended their disastrous New York campaign. It seemed an eternity ago, not mere months.
“I’ve dated it today’s date. Both units comprise no more than one hundred ten officers and enlisted men on active duty currently, taking into account the men lost last winter to desertion and death.”
“How many to desertion?” he asked, though he well knew the number. Confirmation was what he sought.
“Four, sir.”
“Death?”
“Thirteen succumbed, being gravely wounded or ill, sir. Their names are listed in separate columns.”
“I tallied fifteen wounded or ill. You forgot Sullivan and McTavish.”
“My apologies for the oversight, sir.”
Rhys took the list, giving it a cursory glance. Some losses grieved him, but others, like deserters, he was glad to be rid of. “I don’t see prisoners of war.”
A sudden lull ensued, long enough that Rhys looked from the list to his adjutant. Bohannon didn’t look forgetful or flummoxed. He looked distressed.
“My apologies, sir,” he repeated.