As she trudged to the blockhouse, Charlotte wondered how soon they would know whether Papa’s feet could be saved. Men lost fingers and toes from frostbite when frozen flesh thawed and could not heal. She had seen crippled men hobbling on crutches, no longer able to lift rocks, dig stumps or follow a plough. If that happened to Papa, he would never farm again. How would they manage then to keep body and soul together?
Chapter twelve
“Yesterday a man came looking for you. A courier.” Sergeant Major Clark was weighing out flour as he spoke.
“For me? I don’t know any couriers.”
“He didn’t say he knew you. He simply asked whether a girl named Charlotte Hooper lived in the Loyalist camp. A friend of his wants to find you.” The Sergeant Major forked a chunk of salt pork from a barrel and slapped it onto a sheet of brown paper on the counter.
She caught her breath. “What’s his friend’s name?”
“He didn’t say. I told him where to find your tent. Then someone said you and your father had gone over to Cataraqui and wouldn’t be back all day.” Clark wrapped the meat and pushed the package towards her.
“Has he left yet — the courier? Is he still here?”
“He’s still here. He spent the night in the barracks, but he’ll be off to Fort Niagara this morning.”
Charlotte was halfway to the door when Clark called out, “You forgot your rations.”
“Oh! I don’t know what I was thinking.” She glanced at the rations sitting on the commissary counter. “I’ll come back for them.”
He leaned across the counter. “Miss Charlotte, why don’t you wait here? I’ll send a soldier to the barracks to fetch him.”
“Thank you.” Her knees felt weak. She was glad to sit down.
The courier’s friend must be Nick. Of course it was Nick. Who else could it be? She felt … Well, how did she feel? Frightened? Not exactly. But certainly taken by surprise. If only she had been warned! Yet even if she had been, there was little she could have done to make herself presentable. Charlotte looked down at her worn cloak. She was going to make a terrible impression. For a moment, she wanted to hide.
The blockhouse door opened, and the courier entered. He was a man of middle height. He wore high moccasins up to the thigh, a dark blue coat of some heavy material and a fur hat, which he took off and shook to get rid of the snow. His hair was brown with grey at the temples.
“Good day.” She rose to speak to him. “I’m Charlotte Hooper.”
He bowed. “Daniel Taylor at your service.”
“I believe you are Nick Schyler’s friend?”
“Friend and comrade. We both run dispatches.”
So Nick had become a courier. That’s what happened after he rode away on the recruiter’s horse.
“How is he?”
“Very well last time I saw him, but desperate for news of you. He’s had friends asking about you at every fort between Montreal and Detroit. He searched for you all over New York.”
“Is Nick in New York?”
“He was there in December.”
“Where is he now?”
“Sorry. I don’t know. I haven’t seen him for a month.”
“When will you see him again?”
“Hard to say. I’m on my way to Fort Niagara. By next week I could be anywhere. When we meet again depends on where I’m sent and where he’s sent. It’s outside our control.”
“If I write a letter, will you give it to him?”
He shrugged. “It may be a long time before he gets it. If I’m captured, he never will.”
“Then you mean, no?”
“Oh, I’ll carry your letter. But write it quickly, and don’t mention anything that might be useful to the enemy.”
“What sort of thing?”
“Nothing about that warship the British are building here. Or how many men are in the garrison. Better not mention Fort Haldimand at all. And don’t use Nick’s name. Start your letter, ‘My dear one,’ or something like that. Bring it to the barracks as soon as it’s written. I’ll be waiting.”
He went back out into the snow.
Sergeant Major Clark coughed discreetly. “I believe you want to write a letter.” Of course he had overheard every word.
“Yes.” Her cheeks felt hot. Why did she blush so easily?
“Then you need writing materials. I’ll bring them to you.”
“Thank you.”
While she waited, Charlotte thought about what to write. She hadn’t seen Nick for eight months. Their last meeting had been awkward and painful. She needed time to think, but there was none.
The Sergeant Major brought her an ironstone jar of ink, a quill pen, a sand shaker, and a sheet of paper. She carried them to the far end of the counter, spread out the paper, opened the ink jar, and dipped her quill. My dear one, she began.
With those words, her pen stuttered and a splatter of black droplets fell across the page. Charlotte examined her pen; it was well trimmed. The awkwardness was hers. Again she dipped it into the writing fluid. How light the feather felt in her fingers! Half a year had gone by since she last held a pen.
I have heard such news about you, and I rejoice that the obstacles that once separated us have disappeared. Now it is only distance that keeps us apart. Every day I think about you and wonder where you are. For a long time I wondered whether you ever thought of me, but now I know you do, and that makes me so happy. I wear the locket you gave me next to my heart.
She paused. She wanted to tell Nick where she was, but that wasn’t possible without mentioning Fort Haldimand. So Daniel Taylor would have to tell Nick where to find her.
Charlotte dipped her pen again: Someday we shall find another sycamore tree and another green valley. God grant that it be so.
She signed her name, and then drew a heart, shaping it like the one Nick had carved on the sycamore tree back home, but without the intertwined N.S and C.H. Maybe Nick will fill in our initials, she thought, when he reads my letter. Charlotte sprinkled the writing fluid with sand, and when it was dry, shook it off and folded the letter.
“Please don’t tell anyone about this,” she said to Sergeant Major Clark when she returned the sand shaker and writing fluid.
“I give you my word.” He raised his mournful eyes to hers. “I know what it’s like. I haven’t seen my wife for two years.”
“I didn’t know you were married.”
“Fidelia and I were married in Plymouth the day before my ship sailed. I don’t know when we’ll be together again.” He smiled sadly. “But you must take your letter to the courier. He’s anxious to be off.”
Taylor was waiting inside the barrack door. As he placed the letter in his pack, he said, “No promises. But I’ll do my best.”
Charlotte returned to the blockhouse to pick up the rations. When she stepped outside again, she saw Daniel Taylor leaving through the stockade gate. “God speed,” she murmured as she turned toward the Loyalist camp.
“Where were you all this time?” Mama asked as soon as Charlotte stepped into the tent.
“At the blockhouse.”
“It doesn’t take that long to walk two hundred yards and back.”
“Martha,” said Papa, “I told you not to worry.” He lay on his mattress with his bandaged feet in front of him. The two furrows between his eyebrows had deepened. He must be in pain, Charlotte thought.
“But I do worry,” said Mama. “I can’t help it.” Now she looked at the rations. “Is this all? No dried peas?” She set down the sack of flour and the package of salt pork. “Tell me how I’m to make pea soup without any peas?”
Charlotte’s wanted to explain about the courier and Nick and the letter, but this was altogether the wrong time. “I’ll gather some firewood,” she said. “We’ll need it before night.”
Every day Mama changed the dressings on Papa’s feet. As the left foot healed, the dead skin peeled off. “We can stop bandaging that foot,” Mama said. “But the other …”
“… is not healing.” Papa finished the sentence for her. “In fact, three toes have turned black, and they stink. If something isn’t done, I’ll lose the whole foot.”
“Do you think you can walk as far as the surgery?” Charlotte asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“Then the doctor must come here.”
As Charlotte left to summon the doctor, Mama’s eyes darkened with fear.
The doctor knew what had to be done. As soon as Charlotte described the colour of the toes and the sweet, putrid smell, he assembled everything necessary — his black bag, a special leather case, and a wooden plank about four feet long. He gave Charlotte the plank to carry. Not a word was said as they walked side by side from the surgery to the Loyalist encampment, their feet crunching the snow.
Mama unwrapped the bandages. The doctor frowned while he examined Papa’s right foot.
“That’s a nasty business,” he said. “Those toes should have come off days ago.” He took a flask from his bag. “Young lady, do you have a cup I can use?”
Charlotte brought him a tin cup. As he filled it with rum, she waited for her mother to object, but Mama did not. “I did all I could,” she said. Her eyes brimmed with tears.
Papa drank the rum in one draught. “I’m ready, doctor. Let’s get on with it.”
“We’ll give that rum a minute to take effect.” The doctor turned to Charlotte. “Find me two logs about the same size to set the plank on.”
She went out to the woodpile and chose two logs. When she re-entered the tent, the doctor had taken off his coat and opened the leather case. In it was a set of half a dozen saws in various sizes, each neatly fitted into an exactly shaped hollow. He selected the smallest saw, not much bigger than a nail file. It had fine, sharp-looking teeth. Papa looked straight at it, but Mama turned her head away and started to weep.
“Mrs. Hooper,” said the doctor, “I suggest you go for a walk.”
“No,” said Mama, “I’ll stay with my husband.”
“Martha,” said Papa. “Go for a walk.”
Mama left the tent, tears streaming down her cheeks. Charlotte was about to follow, but the doctor called her back.
“Not you, young lady. First, set up the plank on those two logs. Then I’ll need you to hold the basin.”
When the plank was in place and Papa’s right foot was resting upon it, the doctor handed Charlotte a brass bowl about the size of a soup bowl, but twice as deep. Charlotte held it in both hands and tried not to tremble.
“Ready?” the doctor asked Papa.
“I’m ready.” His chest rose as he took a deep breath.
What a sharp, fine little saw! The rasp of its teeth cutting through bone made Charlotte shudder. Papa’s smallest toe dropped into the basin, and then the toe next to it, and then the middle toe.
The basin wobbled in Charlotte’s hands. “Steady there!” said the doctor as he massaged Papa’s foot, squeezing and kneading as pus and blood flowed into the basin. “The poisons must come out.”
He finished by cauterizing the wounds with a glowing ember. That was when Papa fainted. Charlotte’s stomach lurched. Life on the farm had hardened her to many gruesome sights, but no number of stuck pigs or beheaded chickens could have prepared her to see her father’s toes in a basinful of blood.
Chapter thirteen
A month went by, and then one morning the round, yellow eyes of a great horned owl stared at Charlotte from an oak tree while she gathered wood. There was a hole in the tree trunk, and on the snow beneath were dozens of owl castings — the hair, bones and feathers of their prey. A good sign, she thought. When owls nested, spring was on its way.
In the woods snow still lay deep, but on open ground the thaw had begun. Rivulets of melt water trickled and spread. They flowed through the tents of the Loyalist camp, turning earth floors into muck.
The sun sucked the water from the ice slabs that still littered the shore, leaving their surfaces pitted. No longer gleaming like glass, the ice resembled a dirty sponge. The ring of water around Carleton Island widened to a moat.
“The river ice is rotten,” Papa said. “It will go out soon. Two more weeks and the St. Lawrence will be open all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.”
The Royal Greens were performing bayonet drill on the parade square. Passing by on her way to pick up rations, Charlotte stopped to watch. Peter Vrooman’s beefy face was redder than ever as he charged and lunged. Elijah, looking every inch the soldier in his red coat, appeared to be enjoying himself. His rifle, bayonet affixed, was steady in his hands. What a difference from the boy with the trembling pitchfork who had surprised her outside his mother’s kitchen window in Canajoharie six months ago!
Someday, she thought, these practice drills would become reality and Elijah would have to thrust his bayonet into the flesh of a man — perhaps a boy like himself, differing only in the colour of the uniform he wore. Elijah would do it if he had to, steeling himself just as she had steeled herself to help Papa slaughter pigs. Hogs died in terror. Did men in battle die like that? She turned away, banishing the thought.
Today she was later than usual when she reached the blockhouse. A long queue had formed at the commissary counter. Taking her place at the end, she regretted that she had stopped to watch the soldiers drill. The line moved slowly. Charlotte shifted her weight from leg to leg restlessly.
She felt as if she had been waiting for hours when the blockhouse door opened and a group of soldiers came in. Elijah was among them, wearing his Shako hat with the green badge and the plume that made him look six feet tall. When he saw Charlotte, he came over to speak to her.
“We’ll be leaving soon,” he said cheerfully. “The regiment is ready to go, and so is the ship. When Lake Ontario is clear of ice, we’ll be off to Fort Niagara.”
“It won’t take long,” she said. “I was down at the shore this morning. The ice is so thin you can see through it, and it’s all in pieces like a jigsaw puzzle. One good wind will break it up.”
“I can hardly wait to see some action.”
When Charlotte reached the counter, Elijah rejoined his friends. His eagerness reminded her of her brothers. They too had marched off to war with shining eyes.
That night a brisk wind from the west stirred up Lake Ontario’s currents. The ice pans that had collected at the foot of the lake were pressed eastward into the St. Lawrence River. During the night, they departed with a whispering sound. When the sun rose, all the ice was gone.
Even though her twenty-two guns had been secured in position, her sails attached to the rigging, and all supplies loaded on board, the warship Ontario still could not sail. For a week she stayed in the slips, waiting for a favourable wind from the east.
When the wind finally shifted, there was no time to be lost. Overnight it might shift again, and the Ontario lose her chance.
People streamed from the Loyalist tents and the Indian huts, all heading to the shipyard to watch the launch. Charlotte climbed atop a granite boulder to get a good view. From there she saw the captain, Commodore James Andrews, on the bridge, in his blue naval uniform with its bright brass buttons and gold braid.
A stiff breeze, funneling down the St. Lawrence, rattled the rigging lines against the masts. Then down the slope from the fort the regiment marched. Left. Right. Left. Right. The drum thumped the rhythm and the fife piped the tune. Private Elijah Cobman, in the outside column, passed within ten feet of Charlotte, his eyes straight ahead. How proud he looked, stepping along in his red coat! Who could tell that under it he wore a Mohawk medicine bag?
There was Peter Vrooman, grim faced as he marched by. Louisa, with her arms around the shoulders of her two little girls, smiled bravely.
Mrs. Cobman stood watching with Hope in her arms. The baby squealed with delight at the parade, but no smile brightened the woman’s sorrowful face.
When all was ready, the crew pulled up the gangway. The blocks holding the Ontario in the slips were removed, and with a rush she
slid into the water. As her bow came up level, cheers echoed from ship and shore.
Someone began to sing:
God save great George our King,
Long live our noble King …
And all the rest joined in:
God save the King.
Send him victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us,
God save the King.
O Lord, our God, arise,
Scatter his enemies,
And make them fall.
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks!
On him our hearts are fix’t,
O save us all.
The sails caught the wind, and the Ontario’s maiden voyage began. Charlotte tried to pick out Elijah amongst the rows of soldiers massed on the deck. But in their red uniforms, they all looked alike.
Papa’s foot healed. With a crutch fashioned from a forked branch, he got about fairly well. Despite his accident, his hopes for the future remained undaunted. “I still have seven toes,” he insisted. “Seven out of ten isn’t bad. I can still build us a house. I can still plant crops.”
When he talked like this, Mama seemed uneasy. Perhaps she did not share Papa’s optimism or his dream. But then, perhaps she never had.
For weeks Papa talked about moving to Cataraqui. Then one morning he went for a walk without telling Charlotte or Mama where he was going. Charlotte suspected that he had gone to the blockhouse.
Charlotte and Mama were sitting outside the tent, rubbing the fuzz from sumac berries to ready them for making tea, when Papa came limping toward them between the rows of Loyalist tents. When he reached them, he sat down heavily on the log outside the entrance and slammed his crutch to the ground.
“Bad news,” he said. “I’ve been talking with the officer in charge of refugees. I told him I wanted to move my family to Cataraqui, where we could build a house and plant crops. He said we were free to go, but he warned me that even if we built a house and planted crops, we would not get title to the land.”
The Way Lies North Page 12
