The Saintly Buccaneer (2 page)

“He’s... he’s not going to die?”

Winslow put a hand on her shoulder, his eyes filled with compassion. “He’s bad, miss—but God is able!”

God had played little part in Charity’s life, and what she heard the Virginian saying was,
Only God can save your brother.
Fear shot through her at the thought. Winslow soon turned down an alley of sorts, a winding path between two rows of huts, and stopped before one of them. “I’ll tell my wife about you—and we can leave the horse with a friend of mine.”

He tied the horse to a slender stump, led her to the door, and called out, “Julie—we’ve got company!”

The room Charity entered was very dark, for there were no windows and only one small candle flickered, casting deep shadows over the interior. She had time to see a crude table, a small bed, and various objects hanging from pegs along the rough boards that made up the walls. There was an odor of bodies, cooking, and raw earth; it was much like a cave, she thought.

“This is Charity Alden, Julie—you’ve met her brother at the hospital. And this is my wife—and my son.”

Charity’s eyes rested on a young woman with black hair and eyes dark as pools. She was moving carefully, for she was very close to the time of giving birth. When she spoke her voice was very husky, and there was a gentle smile on her broad lips. “Welcome to Valley Forge, Miss Alden,” she said. “Your brother is such a fine young man. I only wish we could have done more for him—but it’s so crowded—and there’s so little to do
with.
”

“I’m going to take her there now,” Winslow told her. “Tell Jed to watch the horse, will you?”

“Yes, Nathan.” There was a calmness in the young woman that Charity envied, a stillness and a patience some women
seemed to have. “Do you have any place to stay? No? Then you’d better come back here.”

“Oh, I don’t want to be a bother!”

Julie did not do more than smile, but turned and got a covered pot and handed it to her. “See if you can get your brother to eat something. I’ll be praying for you.”

The kindness of Julie Winslow caught at Charity, and she could only nod. Following Nathan outside, she commented as they walked along, “Your wife—she’s so kind!”

“She’s that.”

Curiosity nibbled at Charity, and she asked tentatively, “Isn’t she... nervous? About having a baby under such ... conditions?”

“I tried to get her to go home, but she wants me to be with her when the boy comes.”

“You seem sure about it—that it’ll be a boy.”

“Well, Julie says that’s what God’s told her—and I don’t recall that she’s ever missed when she says something like that.”

Charity was flustered, for when people said “God told me to do this,” it always made her slightly angry somehow. She didn’t understand such things and felt they were attempting to be
spiritual
in some unfair way. But she could not feel resentment toward the kind young woman who had taken care of her brother.

“There’s the hospital.”

A long, low building was perched on top of a knoll, the wind tearing the spark-studded smoke that rose from the chimney, dissipating it into the darkness. She followed Winslow to the door, and a sentry in rags blocked their way. “No more room,” he mumbled through blue lips.

“Want to visit, Soldier,” Winslow answered shortly, his breath labored from the steep climb.

The sentry shrugged and stepped aside just as the door opened. A short man with a long gray apron splattered with blood came to stand inside the frame. He peered at the two
of them through small spectacles. He had a long face, a thin nose and very red lips. “What’s this?”

“This is Miss Alden, Doctor,” Winslow said quickly. “She’s come to see her brother.”

The doctor peered at her and asked incredulously, “How in the holy hades did you
get
here?” Then he caught himself, saying abruptly, “Oh, never mind.”

“How is he, Doctor?”

“Your brother?” The question seemed to disturb him, and finally after a short pause, he shrugged. “Not well.” Then an angry light leaped into his eyes, and he snapped bitterly, “How could he be doing
well
in a hellish place like this? No medicine—no bandages—nothing!”

“Maybe it’ll help to have his sister here,” Nathan offered hopefully.

The doctor stared at him, and finally said, “I trust it will help.” The futility in his tone sent fear through Charity, and she stared at him as he stalked away to a path that led down the hill.

“Come along, Miss Alden.”

Nathan stepped aside to let her enter. It was a simple log cabin thirty feet long at most, but there must have been more than a hundred men inside. They lay close together on beds built the length of the hut. Some of them were asleep, but most of them moved restlessly in the bitter cold. There was a continual groaning, and the stench was overwhelming.

She followed the tall Virginian to a tiny corner partitioned off in the back, and gave a gasp when she looked down at her brother’s pale face, the hollows of his cheeks made deeper by the yellow glare of the lantern hanging from the ceiling.

“Curtis!” she cried, tears filling her eyes as she fell beside him. His thin hand was like ice, and for one brief instant terror filled her as she thought,
He’s dead!
But then he stirred, and as she dashed the tears out of her eyes she saw that he had moved his head to face her. He was her baby brother, only sixteen, but he had been wild to become a soldier. Nothing
she nor their father could say would keep him back—and now he lay dying in a miserable hut!

“Charity?” he asked in a thin, reedy voice—and when she leaned over and kissed him, he stared at her, his eyes enormous in his thin face. “How—did you get here?”

“Oh, Curtis!” She forced herself to smile. “Why, I heard you’d been wounded, so I just up and came to nurse you. I’ll have you out of this place in no time!”

His eyes seemed to be all there was to him—all eyes and skin and bones. But then he smiled, and it broke her heart to see, for it made him look younger, childlike—and she could not speak for the tightness that gripped her throat.

“Sister—I’m—glad you came.” His voice fell, and his eyelids dropped. “I—didn’t want to—go out—by myself ...”

He closed his eyes and his head lolled. Charity shot a look of fear at Nathan, but he shook his head. “Just fell asleep. He does that a lot. Maybe he’ll eat a few bites when he wakes up again.” He added, “I’ll go give some of this to my friend over there while you sit with him.”

Charity sat in the dim hut beside her brother for a long time. Nathan came back after a time, looked down, then left, leaving the soup with her. “Stay as long as you like; I’ll take you home whenever you want.”

As she continued the vigil, holding the thin hand, memories swept through her—mostly about the days when Curtis was a small boy. They had been very close, and now she was afraid. If she had been a woman of prayer, she would have prayed, but that part of her life had been perfunctory—a few memorized forms that meant nothing in this place of pain and darkness and death. Fear was not something lurking outside—it was a sharp blade slicing away at her deep down inside.

Her thoughts flew back and forth as she tried to think—but the fear that had paralyzed her since she had walked into the hospital seemed to have destroyed her power to think. She longed for her father or for her grandmother to be there.
Always she had depended on them, and now they were far away. She was the only one who could help Curtis.

Finally she felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up with a start to see Winslow standing over her. He spoke quietly. “Charity—would you like to get Curtis out of this place?”

A sudden hope seized her, and she exclaimed with a wild urgency, “Oh, yes!”

“I’ve been praying on it,” he replied slowly, his face still in the flickering lamplight. “And I think the Lord has told me that we better take Curtis home. I’ll go get your buggy and tell Julie to fix up a place for him.”

“Thank you!” was all she could say, and when he left, she let her hot tears fall on Curtis’s thin hand. She moved her lips in a whisper. “Oh, God! Don’t let him die!”

CHAPTER TWO

DEATH AT VALLEY FORGE

Snowflakes large as shillings fell out of the sky—not drifting down gently but plummeting to the frozen earth. Charity had to stop frequently and clear her lashes, because the heavy flakes froze instantly as they touched her face. For the last week, since she had arrived at Valley Forge, she had made a daily journey from the Winslow hut to the hospital, taking food to several of Nathan’s friends. He had been sent on some sort of military mission, and when Julie had started to put on her thin coat to make the trip, Charity had quickly insisted on taking her place.

“I hate to have you out in this weather, Charity,” Julie had protested.

“Me? Why, I’m used to it, Julie,” Charity had laughed as she slipped into her fur coat. “The last trip we made on
The Gallant Lady,
a snowstorm caught us. Father stayed at the wheel so long he froze his feet, and I almost did the same. I’m an old salt—and tough as boot leather!”

“But it’s—”

“Julie, I want you to lie down and rest until I get back. Come on, now—let me cover you up.” She practically forced her onto the low bed strung with rawhide, pulled a heap of ragged quilts over her, then impulsively leaned over and kissed her. “You’ve done so much for Curtis—and for me. Don’t refuse me this one little thing!” Then she had darted over to pull the covers up on Curtis before leaving the hut.

The visits to the hospital had been difficult, for she hated
the stench and squalor of the place. She had to carry the food past those who were starving, and the hollow eyes that followed her made her ache. They were dying, most of them, she realized, and they cried out silently for her to stop and talk. Some were young, not over fourteen, and they cried out for their mothers in their delirium. Charity forced herself to smile, spending most of the time that Curtis lay unconscious trying to bring some hope to the sick and wounded.

She made her way through the curtain of falling snow, muttering through stiff lips, “Worse than a fog off the Banks!” Finally she stumbled up to the hospital and entered. Dr. Williams looked up from where he was bending over one of the men, and rose instantly to come to her. “Glad you came, Charity,” he nodded, his face grim. “Billy’s bad—maybe you can stay with him a little.”

“Is he... going to die, Dr. Williams?”

She had not liked the physician at first, thinking him surly and uncaring, but she had soon discovered that his gruff manner was a facade, that he hurt for the men under his care. She had discovered this on her third visit when he had drawn her to one side, saying harshly, “Wish you’d say a word to Sills—boy needs a little comfort.”

“Which one is he?”

“Over there by the window. He’s only fifteen—” She saw the look of pain surface in his face involuntarily. “Just the age of my own boy.” Then the curtain dropped, and he went on, his lips tight. “Lost a leg last month, and it’s gone to gangrene. Won’t last long—but I expect he’d like a little word from a woman.”

Billy Sills was a towheaded boy from Virginia, emaciated and bright-eyed with fever. He had been pathetically grateful when Charity had stopped and offered him a little of the thin stew, but it had been her presence rather than the food that had cheered him. She led him to talk, and soon she knew his family by name. His favorite sister was Melissa,
“Missy”—and he used that name for Charity, saying, “You look a heap like her, you do.”

Dr. Williams went on quietly. “We made a little place for him over by the corner,” motioning to where a tattered blanket was tacked up. He hesitated, shook his head, then added, “Don’t expect he’ll know you. Been in a coma since this morning.”

“I—I’ll sit with him for a while.” Charity worked her way around the room, making the food go as far as possible, speaking with a tight smile to the patients, then went to Billy with a mug of tepid water. Lifting the blanket, she sat down on the floor using her coat for a pad, and leaned closer to see the boy’s face. The feeble yellow rays of a lantern barely enabled her to make out his features. His lips were drawn back and his eyes were fluttering, revealing a glimpse of the whites as they rolled up in his skull. His chest was rising and falling erratically, and the rasping sound of his breathing struck against her nerves. Desperately she wanted to run away, but she forced herself to mop his clammy brow with a bit of cloth from her pocket.

Her touch seemed to arouse him, for he rolled his head weakly from side to side. Then his eyes slowly opened and focused on her as she bent over him. He licked his dry lips, and his voice was a croak as he whispered, “Missy—that you?”

“Yes, Billy. It’s Missy.”

“Aw—I’m glad—you got here...”

She reached down, lifted his head, and put the water to his lips. He took a few quick swallows, then pulled his head back and looked up into Charity’s eyes. “Missy—I ain’t—gonna—make it.”

“Billy...!”

“Good you came—though. Hate to die—Missy!”

Tears scalded her eyes and she set the cup down and reached out to embrace his emaciated form, holding him to her breast. “Billy—Billy!” she moaned, but could say no more, for her body was shaken by uncontrollable sobs. She held him like a
baby, rocking back and forth and calling his name for a long time; then he pulled back and a spasm racked his body—a violent shudder that shook him until his teeth rattled.

“Missy!” he cried out, pulling at her weakly. “Don’t let me die, sister! I—I’m afraid!” He gave a great wrenching cough, and when it passed, he asked, “Missy—you reckon—you could say—a prayer?” His eyes were enormous in the golden light of the lantern, and his lips trembled as he whispered, “I—I never got—religion, did I? Mother—she tried to—to talk about God—but I never did—”

Then his whole body arched and he began to kick the floor, his bare heel drumming in a horrible pattern. The blanket flew back, and Dr. Williams entered hastily, but even as he reached out, Billy took a deep breath, held it for a brief moment, and then his body went limp, the rattling cough raking against Charity’s nerves.