The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [183]
I knew that thousands died of wounds and killing on the battlefields of two World Wars; I knew that hundreds upon hundreds of thousands died there of infection and disease. It would be no different now—nor in four years.
And that scared me very much indeed.
THE NEXT NIGHT, we made camp in the woods on Balsam Mountain, a mile or so above the settlement of Lucklow. Several of the men wanted to push on, to reach the hamlet of Brownsville. Brownsville was the outer point of our journey, before turning back toward Salisbury, and it held the possibility of a pothouse—or at least a hospitable shed to sleep in—but Jamie thought better to wait.
“I dinna want to scare the folk there,” he had explained to Roger, “riding in with a troop of armed men after dark. Better to announce our business by daylight, then give the men a day—and a night—to make ready to leave.” He had stopped then, and coughed heavily, shoulders racked with the spasm.
I didn’t like either the looks of Jamie or the sound of him. He had the patchy look of a mildewed quilt, and when he came to the fire to fill his dinner bowl, I could hear a faint wheezing sigh in every breath. Most of the men were in similar condition; red noses and coughing were endemic, and the fire popped and sizzled every few moments, as someone hawked and spat into it.
I should have liked to tuck Jamie up in bed with a hot stone to his feet, a mustard plaster on his chest, and a hot tisane of aromatic peppermint and ephedra leaves to drink. Since it would have taken a brace of cannon, leg irons, and several armed men to get him there, I contented myself with fishing up a particularly meaty ladle of stew and plopping it into his bowl.
“Ewald,” Jamie called hoarsely to one of the Muellers. He stopped and cleared his throat, with a sound like tearing flannel. “Ewald—d’ye take Paul and fetch along more wood for the fire. It’ll be a cold night.”
It already was. Men were standing so close to the fire that the fringes of their shawls and coats were singed, and the toes of their boots—those who had boots—stank of hot leather. My own knees and thighs were close to blistering, as I stood perforce near the blaze in order to serve out the stew. My backside was like ice, though, in spite of the old pair of breeks I wore under shift and petticoat—both for insulation and for the avoidance of excessive friction while on horseback. The Carolina backwoods were no place for a sidesaddle.
The last bowl served, I turned round to eat my own stew, with the fire at my back, a grateful bloom of warmth embracing my frozen bottom.
“All right, is it, ma’am?” Jimmy Robertson, who had made the stew, peered over my shoulder in search of compliment.
“Lovely,” I assured him. “Delicious!” In fact, it was hot and I was hungry. That, plus the fact that I hadn’t had to cook it myself, lent a sufficient tone of sincerity to my words that he retired, satisfied.
I ate slowly, enjoying the heat of the wooden bowl in my chilly hands, as well as the soothing warmth of food in my stomach. The cacophony of sneezing and hacking behind me did nothing to impair the momentary sense of well-being engendered by food and the prospect of rest after a long day in the saddle. Even the sight of the woods around us, bone-cold and black under growing starlight, failed to disturb me.
My own nose had begun to run rather freely, but I hoped it was merely the result of eating hot food. I swallowed experimentally, but there was no sign of sore throat, nor rattling of congestion in my chest. Jamie rattled; he had finished eating and come to stand beside me, warming his backside at the blaze.
“All right, Sassenach?” he asked hoarsely.
“Just vasomotor rhinitis,” I replied, dabbing at my nose with a handkerchief.
“Where?” He cast a suspicious look at the forest. “Here? I thought ye said they lived in Africa.”
“What—oh,