Lorenzo and the Turncoat (12 page)

“Stop that dog!” someone yelled.

Barreling out of the fort and directly toward them was a yellowish-brown terrier, ears flapping, leash dangling. A red-coated private was in hot pursuit.

Hawthorne took off his jacket and threw it on top of the dog.

There was a yelp of surprise as dog and jacket went tumbling. Hawthorne scooped both up and clamped his hand over the beast's muzzle.

The private ran up to Hawthorne. “Thank you! You saved my life. Colonel Dickson would tan my hide if I lost his dog.”

Hawthorne handed it to him. “I had a terrier once that bolted every chance he got. They're stubborn dogs.”

“Aye, sir, that they are.” He tipped his hat in Madame's direction. “Davy Morgan, at your service, ma'am.”

“My wife is French,” Hawthorne explained to the boy, who stood 5'3” and looked thirteen years old. “Her English is limited.”

“Is she from New Orleans?” Private Morgan asked in a confidential tone.

“No,” Hawthorne lied, surprised by the question.

“Good. I'd hate to be the bearer of bad news.”

“What do you mean?”

“New Orleans was hit by a hurricane a couple days ago. We just heard about it.”

“Was anyone hurt?”

“Lots of people. Some killed too.”

“Do you know any of the victims' names?”

“No, sir. All I know is the hurricane flattened New Orleans like a pancake.”

Madame tugged on Hawthorne's sleeve. “What did he say about a hurricane in New Orleans?” she asked in French.

He explained it as gently as possible.

White-faced, she began to cry.

He took her face in his hands and wiped away tears with his thumbs. “Please don't cry. The commander will have the latest news about the hurricane. Let's go see him.” Hawthorne needed to tell Dickson about war preparations he observed in New Orleans. Before the hurricane, Gálvez was posed to strike. Of that, he was sure. Had it stopped him? Or had it only slowed him down a bit?

Madame took halting steps. “Robbie,” she said. “I don't feel very …” She fainted.

Don Bernardo De Gálvez strode toward the Plaza de Armas in the company of Don Oliver Pollock and Captain Héctor Calderón. Both men struggled to keep up with him. Gálvez felt like he was wound tighter than a pocket watch. There was so much left undone. He had originally planned to set out for Baton Rouge on August 22, but he hadn't counted on a hurricane sweeping through New Orleans and sending ships, cannons, and supplies to a watery grave. Reenforcements were overdue from Cuba. Had they perished in the hurricane?

“How many cannons have been salvaged?” Gálvez asked.

“Ten,” Don Oliver said.

“Size?”

“Five 18 pounders, four 4 pounders, and one 24 pounder.”

“Ships?”

“Four. A schooner and three gunboats.”

“Don Oliver has miscounted,” Héctor Calderón said, grinning.

“The devil you say! We were only able to raise four.”

“You didn't count the one my men found in the forest.”

Gálvez ground to a halt and smiled wryly. “You found a ship in the forest?”

“Yes, Your Excellency,” Calderón said. “North of town, sitting in the midst of flattened oaks. It would appear the hurricane plucked it from the harbor and
marooned it there. It's woods-worthy, but I sincerely doubt it's seaworthy.”

Gálvez laughed. He could depend on Calderón and his bizarre sense of humor to lighten the mood.

“How many artillerymen do we have to man the cannons?”

“Thirteen,” Calderón said.

The number took Gálvez by surprise. He needed forty. At a minimum, a gun crew consisted of a loader, spongeman, ventsman, and firer.

“Have some broadsides printed up. Post them around town. See if you can find some artillery gunners.”

Firing cannons was a precise science. Men lost body parts, if not their lives, when strict standards were not followed.

Gálvez set out again.

Don Oliver huffed along beside him on the right. Captain Calderón kept pace with him on the left.

“How many carabineers are ready to march at this moment?” Gálvez asked.

“Twenty,” Don Oliver panted out.

Gálvez had organized the New Orleans Carabineers, a militia unit composed of “upper class” creoles who wanted to serve the cause. However, they didn't want to serve with their barbers and shoemakers. Gálvez was concerned about how they would react when they found themselves fighting next to free blacks. A year earlier, he had created a militia unit, the Company of Free Mulattoes, composed of sixty former slaves.

Gálvez needed men and was in no position to turn anyone down. Upon enlisting, recruits got a musket, powder horn, cartridge box, tinderbox with flint, wooden water barrel, and knapsack with a change of clothes. Gálvez had decided that an elite corps of creoles that
wanted to serve on its own terms could provide its own accoutrements.

“What is the response from the American settlers?” Gálvez asked.

“I have a firm commitment from seven of them. They will join us once we take to the field.”

“What news have you of the Choctaw?” Gálvez directed the question to Calderón.

“Their chief has promised 150 braves. They will join us on the march.”

Gálvez added the figures in his head. He could count on leaving New Orleans with 170 regular soldiers in the Louisiana Infantry Regiment and 330 recruits from the Canary Islands and Mexico. That made 500. Add twenty carabineers and eighty free blacks, and he had a force of 600.

How many soldiers did the British have? According to reports from his spies, they had reenforced Baton Rouge with additional troops from Pensacola.

“How many militiamen will join us?”

“Good question, Your Excellency,” Calderón said. “It's harvesting season. How many will be willing to leave their farms?”

“You can count on the Acadians,” Don Oliver put in. “They hate the British.”

He was right about that. They had all been uprooted from their Canadian homes by the British and would see this as a way to settle old scores.

“What about the Germans?”

“After the hurricane,” Calderón said, “my soldiers and I checked the outlying villages as far as the German Coast. There is nothing but desolation and destruction for miles and miles. Their crops have been ruined. They will go a-soldiering because they need the money.”

“Did the hurricane perchance hit the British as hard as it hit us?”

There was no answer.

“Find out. I wish to be on the road to Baton Rouge within the week.”

“Excuse me, Your Excellency?” Calderón said. “Within the week?”

“I misspoke. I should have said by Friday, August 27th.”

He didn't miss the look of dismay that Calderón and Don Oliver exchanged.

“Put yourselves in British boots. You learn that the hurricane has decimated your enemy. What would you do?”

“Attack while he was most vulnerable,” Calderón said.

“So would I,” Gálvez said. “For all we know, the British could be on their way here as we speak.”

In the past, Gálvez had served the king for God and country. Now, everything was different. He had a wife, stepdaughter and one-year-old daughter. His in-laws and dearest friends lived here. The people of New Orleans had embraced him as governor, even though eleven short years ago, they had revolted against the Spanish. Louisiana had been very good to him. Gálvez had never been happier. He would do anything in his power to protect the province.

Hawthorne caught Madame before she hit the ground. At first, he thought fainting was another trick on her part, but her cheeks were bright red and she was blazing hot.

“Madame
?
Madame
?
” He untied the ribbon beneath her chin, took off her bonnet, and fanned her with it. He pushed back her sweat-soaked tendrils of hair.

Her eyes fluttered open. She was ill. Truly ill.

Davy Morgan, holding the runaway terrier in his arms, rushed toward Hawthorne. “What's wrong, sir?”

“I don't know. She fainted.”

“There's a surgeon on duty inside the fort. Come with me.”

Hawthorne scooped her up in his arms and followed the boy past a number of huts to a slightly larger cabin.

Davy stopped in front of it and pushed the door open so Hawthorne could carry her inside.

A small, blond man with a neatly trimmed beard looked up from a thick book. “The devil take you, Morgan! Haven't you heard of knocking? And get that mutt out of here!”

“Sorry, sir, but a lady collapsed.”

“Put her over there,” he grumbled, indicating a small bed covered with a quilt.

Hawthorne laid her down.

The surgeon unbuttoned her dress. He stopped and glared at Morgan. “This is a woman of quality, Morgan. Show the proper respect.”

“Um … sir?”

“Get out!” the doctor roared.

Morgan obeyed.

Hawthorne could tell from the doctor's accent that he came from Edinburgh. God bless the Scottish. They produced the best doctors and the fiercest fighters.

“What's her name?” the doctor asked.

“Madame …” Hawthorne caught himself in time and covered the blunder. “Madame Marie Claire Hawthorne, my wife. She's French.” Standing at the foot of the bed with his hands dangling by his side, he watched the doctor minister to Madame. He felt useless. She looked so small, so helpless. How could he have missed that she was seriously ill?

The doctor took her temperature, then her pulse. He examined her throat and ears.

Madame opened her eyes and focused first on Hawthorne, then on the doctor.

“Morning,” the doctor said curtly. “My name is Dr. Somerset. Tell me your symptoms.”

Hawthorne translated the question for her and the answer.

Dr. Somerset moved to the far side of the room, where he unlocked a cabinet and removed several glass canisters filled with medicines.

Hawthorne joined him. He towered over the doctor, who topped out at five-foot-three and was as thin as a greyhound. Hawthorne picked up a bottle labeled belladonna.

“Put that down,” the doctor snapped.

It took every ounce of strength not to snap back, “I outrank you, you little pup.” But Hawthorne was now a civilian and it was unwise to anger the doctor and thereby compromise Madame's medical care. “What's wrong with her?” Hawthorne asked as mildly as possible.

The doctor jerked his head up and frowned, as if annoyed that Hawthorne was bothering him with a question. “Scarlatina. Some call it scarlet fever.”

Hawthorne's blood chilled. His daughter had nearly died from it. “Oh, God,” he whispered. “If she dies, it will be my fault. I forced her to come here.”

“Quite the contrary. You have brought her to the only man in town—nay, in all of West Florida—who can save her. No one knows more about scarlet fever than I. In the winter of '74, there was an epidemic in Edinburgh. As a medical student, I was in the thick of it and had the opportunity to study the disease firsthand. Since then, I have researched it extensively and developed the most up-to-date treatments. You could say I am the foremost authority in the kingdom.”

Hawthorne doubted Dr. Somerset's claim, but hoped his ability matched his boasting. “What treatment do you plan to use?”

The doctor began crushing medicine with a pestle. “For scarlet fever, the only medicines that can be depended on are cordials and antiseptics. I've seen physicians from the old school kill their patients by mistaking this for a simple inflammation. They used bleedings and purgings. I won't.”

The doctor mixed powder with wine and used a funnel to pour it into a clay jar.

“You can expect your wife to have something resembling epileptic fits. A stupor is possible. If that happens, bathe her feet and legs in warm water. In many cases, I have noted large swellings of the submaxillary glands and suppurations in one or both ears. Her skin will be covered with red spots, not unlike the measles. However, they will be larger and less uniform. Two or three days after their appearance, they will begin to fall off.”

Hawthorne listened intently, soaking up as much information as possible. It struck him that the doctor
showed not a shred of emotion, as if his patient were unimportant and only the disease interested him.

“The most important thing is to bring the fever down,” Dr. Somerset said. “To that end, I am preparing a tincture of Peruvian bark. I want you to give it to her three times a day. Keep her comfortable and make sure she takes in plenty of water. Give her poppy syrup at night.”

“How did she catch this?”

“She must have been around someone who had it.”

Oh, God, Hawthorne inwardly groaned. He recalled the night he had slept next to Madame and how flushed she seemed to be. He couldn't help smiling at the irony of it all. He had slept with so many women, he had lost count and had never caught a disease. And now he had caught one from a woman he had shared a bed with, but had not slept with.