Another little note from the author: There is a conversation in this chapter between two Hessian soldiers. The translation can be found in the end-note. Thank you all for reading.
Arrival
It was a fresh, warm morning in early August 1776 when tall masts topped with English flags were spotted by a pair of watchmen stationed high in their lofty tower on the eastern seaboard. Gulls screamed, the ocean lapped the shore and the wind whipped an English Corporal's cap clean off his head as he scarpered down the rotten hair thin steps of the ladder and made for his horse. The ride from seafront to base camp needed to be made with haste. It looked like the reinforcements had arrived.
An entire day would pass before all four Frigates were free of their walking cargo. The process of unloading was deathly slow and care strewn; one ship at a time letting down its guard for long enough to jettison its longboats while its sister ships kept a constant watch to the north, east, and south. Once the boats hit the shore their occupants made haste up the beach, making for the watch tower from which they had first been spotted hours earlier. This was allied land, at least for the moment, and while that fact made it safe enough to land here, the soldiers who came to meet them and pointed the way towards their base did not, even in the dusk's low light, carry lanterns. Any unaccounted-for pinprick of light on the shore could alert passing enemy ships to their presence. This eventuality could not be chanced.
When finally they made it ashore, Sally, Rose and the ten other nurses they had been travelling with were ferried up the beach amid one of the fifty or so groups of soldiers with whom they had disembarked an hour previous. They were soaked, cold, covered in sand and half petrified with nerves, but they had made it in one piece and for this they were grateful.
Urged on by the squadron that seemed to have adopted them, they made their way from the crest of the sandy hillock upon which the guard tower sat, down the opposite side and onto what looked to have once been a cart track. The ground was wet and muddy from a day's worth of passing soldiers, and more than a couple of slips were had as the darkness closed in and the night's chill made already clumsy feet numb.
Once their group and two others had made it safely from craggy hill to pockmarked track, they were greeted by a waiting soldier. Though he was covered from throat to ankles in a travelling cloak, the red collar and cuffs of his uniform were allowed to peek through when he squared his shoulders and stood in the centre of the track to address the congregation.
"I'll keep this necessarily brief. Your destination is two miles west of here. You will follow this track." He gestured crisply to the path behind him. "Until you are met by a cavalryman. He will act as your escort for the remainder of your journey. He will not be in uniform, so look for a brown horse with a braided tail. Follow on behind him at a distance of ten or so paces. This area is relatively peaceful, but we've been fooled before and are taking no chances."
As he spoke, the soldier's gaze swept across the people before him, seeking the eyes of some but not all of those he addressed. When he found the gaggle of nurses amid the uniforms of his fellows he stepped closer, the ranks parting like the sea to Moses to let him through.
"Ladies" he said by way of greeting, eyeing them critically and being eyed by some in return. "Thank you for your sacrifice in coming here. Leaving your homes behind could not have been easy. Forgive me if my words alarm you, but should poor luck strike and a battle join on your journey, I urge you to take leave of your group, scatter, and run for the coast. Leave the track swiftly. You will be harder to follow through the trees than you would be on open ground."
The dread his words brought was palpable, though if he noticed, he did not react. Instead he finished his address with a sombre nod and moved aside, extending his arm to indicate the path and waving the groups past him. "Look for the rider whose mount has a braided tail" he repeated as they began moving off, eyes front, along the muddied high-verged path. A muttered "God speed" was the last they heard from him, and as they moved further along the track, the silhouettes of lightly swaying trees arching up on either side of them, the silence that had fallen when the soldier had first approached was broken by whispered words from Sally to Rose.
"Scatter if battle is drawn, he says...Thank you for your sacrifice, he says...He sounds as if he expects us all to be slaughtered."
"I know" Rose huffed, looking around furtively. They were surrounded on all sides by walls of men at least four deep, but despite this they felt their vulnerability keenly. "It does sound terrible, but don't worry."
Sally snorted softly. "How can I not?"
"I have a plan ready just in case we end up in over our heads."
"Oh?"
"This soldier here" she said, gesturing to the gentleman on her immediate left with a gloved hand. He looked down at her, vaguely amused about being the subject of a sotto voce conversation. Pleased at having his attention, Rose carried on.
"We'll grab him by the elbows and drag him back with us! He'll keep us safe, won't you sir?" she asked, looking up at him and projecting her best 'I'm small and feminine, protect me' air.
Amused though tempered by his need to maintain discipline while on duty, the soldier gave her a little nod and mustered a gruff, "I'll endeavour to try ma'm."
Rose beamed at him, turning back to Sally to say, "You see? We'll be fine."
Her friend didn't seem particularly convinced, but she accepted the platitude regardless. "At least he has a gun" she said, clutching Rose's arm with both hands as they walked. Whether this was a protective move to keep from losing her in the crowd or one based on the need to avert another fall - Rose having been unlucky twice on the hill between watchtower and track - she wouldn't say. She did however rush to opine, "I'm relieved we're in this together, you and I" and was glad to feel Rose's answering squeeze of fingers to wrist as they picked their way along the track with nought but the direction the soldiers were going in and the risen moon to guide their path. The light cast by the latter illuminated esoteric things; the glint of a gold button on a uniform; the wetness on the pockmarked and unkempt cobbling on the track; the barrel of one of the soldier's rifles, carried neatly across his chest; and, when finally they came upon him, the spurs and tack of a cavalryman who sat proud in the saddle of a chocolate-brown stallion with a braided tail.
Though he was greeted warmly by the forward rank of their party, the rider remained silent as he gathered himself and spurred his horse, guiding it into a slow walk along the path ahead of them. It would be three quarters of an hour before they reached their destination, provided that no one dawdled and no trouble was run across on the way.
The allied encampment sat on the top of a steeply sloping hill, overlooking a half-mile of wheat fields which rolled with the topography down in a lazy curve towards the northeast. The buildings at its heart were once the property of a prominent family of settlers who, having sworn this portion of their land and any provisions they could spare to the war effort in exchange for peace and protection, now resided in their more than slightly stately farmhold a quarter mile or so up the road to the west.
The donated buildings had once been devoted to housing a number of paid hands, storing the wheat crop when it was harvested and raising the family's work horses. There were five in all. At the bottom edge of the camp, backing onto the endless wheat fields, was a stable with room enough to house seven horses at a stretch. Facing into the camp's heart, the stable was fronted at some fifteen paces distance by a large well that formed the centrepiece of a turning circle in the cobble and dirt path running like a spine through the camp towards its front gates. If one stood by that well, leant a hip against its stone wall and gazed along the path, the storehouse and two of the settlement's three bunkhouses would be found on one's right, and the third and largest bunkhouse and the outsized yard it backed onto - part exercise yard, part tent village to house the over-spill from the barracks - would dominate one's view to the left. A newly built guard tower neighboured this building, standing close to the main road and the camp's front gate. It was tall and proud and had an alarm bell at its top; a soldier with a spyglass always watchful.
Of all the buildings given over to the allies, the smallest of the bunkhouses alone found an entirely new purpose when the soldiers came. Sat at the fore of the camp on the right side of the path, it served now as the area's largest triage. A squat, L-shaped structure, it lived next to and across from its sister-bunkhouses; both now turned over to the army as barracks for the transient forces shipped in from home afar.
Lit up from within by countless lanterns and candles and protected from prying eyes by dense woodland to the north, south and east, the encampment looked, from a distance, to be the very embodiment of welcome and safety. Such was the impression received by those who had walked in the hoof prints of their cavalryman-guide as they finally, cold and weary, breached the western border and set off along a gently sloping path towards the secluded oily wash of orange light that was the camp.
They were joined briefly by a second cavalryman. He rode past them briskly on his way to speak to their guide, and in doing so dispelled the group's universal wonderment at his protracted silence. "Sind diese das Verstärkungen?" the newly arrived man asked, querying the nature of his counterpart's followers. He knew from word-of-mouth and gossip that reinforcements, Verstärkungen to him, were due and was curious as to whether this raggedy band were them.
"Ja sie sind" the man astride the brown stallion replied, suddenly alight and cheeky in a way the group following him found jarring in contrast to his stoic hush throughout their trip. "Sie sind schwach und Englisch" he said, flapping a hand dismissively as his counterpart looked over his shoulder at those they spoke of. Seventy pairs of wide confused eyes met his gaze and he snorted, turning back to his comrade and snickering, "Wir sind verloren! Die Engländer kommen!" before spurring his horse and tearing up the path, intent on bringing news of the new arrivals to his superiors. They had been expected for some time.
As their guide's laughter at his gregarious comrade's antics echoed, along with said comrade's repetitions of 'Die Engländer kommen!', across the vast openness surrounding them, the ragtag group of soldiers and the nurses they had formed protective ranks around trudged on in varying levels of obliviousness over the content of the conversation they'd just witnessed. One particularly erudite infantryman translated the jestful rider's parting remark for his fellows.
"He's saying, 'The English are coming!'...At least they've got a sense of humour about them."
Rumbles of agreement were heard from various spots within the group but, sequestered away within the protective bubble created by the soldiers around them, Sally and Rose felt only disquiet. "How much of their conversation did you catch?" Sally asked, looking up at her friend briefly and meeting her equally unsure gaze.
"I heard a question" Rose said, "but I only know that because of his tone of voice. I also caught 'English', the word 'and', and what sounded like 'coming'...but otherwise, nothing. You?"
"I got 'English', 'we', and 'coming' as well. 'Kommen' yes?" Sally asked, trying to sound more confident than she was.
"Yes, that's the one."
The friends shared a quick nod, assuring each other that their confidence was unharmed despite their limited progress. This show was just that however.
Facade.
Front.
Not three steps later Rose drew in a deep breath, collapsed against Sally's left side and clung to her with dramatic abandon. "We're DOOMED!" she wailed, drawing odd looks and chuckles from those around them as the victim of her theatrical bent squawked indignantly and fought to keep them both from toppling over. Yet for all the moment's comic appeal, and for all the rushed assurances she managed to speak between bouts of exasperated scolding, Sally couldn't help agreeing with her friend's assessment.
After they had discovered the need for a proficiency in German midway through their voyage, they had devoted themselves to learning all they could in the time between their realisation and landfall. They had made it through all of the notes provided by Dr Hall and as a result could make limited conversation between themselves, but outside of this they had no practical experience with the language. Indeed their first real encounter with it had been hearing it spoken by the horsemen at the head of their brigade not two minutes previous.
Still trying to wrest Rose to her feet and outwardly laughing, albeit a little hysterically, along with her at her clownishness, Sally allowed herself to acknowledge the mortification she felt at their first abortive attempt at comprehending the language they had tried so hard to come to some kind of accord with in the frantic weeks prior to their arrival in the Colonies. Whatever it was they had thought German would sound like based on the notes and phonetic instructions they had studied, it seemed that neither she nor Rose could make heads or tails of it when it was imbued with the richness of enunciation and tone native speakers always give their mother tongue.
So caught was she in her contemplations on their predicament that she didn't realise they had reached their destination and been called to a disciplined halt until she walked into the back of the soldier immediately in front of her. After offering him hushed though heartfelt apologies and swatting Rose on the shoulder for snickering at her misstep, Sally took stock of their surroundings.
The path they had taken through the wide and open darkness left them standing on the main thoroughfare within the allied camp. To their back, the road continued on its way to places unknown, and before them, behind the slowly gathering group of people who seemed to be coming to greet them, their Hessian guide and his larking counterpart rejoined each other's company and trotted off into the long-gathered dark. Night had entirely drawn in around them on their journey from the coast, and regardless of the mid-summer's month, the air carried a faint chill and the lantern light which afforded Sally her view was blurred by the moisture in the air.
Returning her attention front and centre, she went up on her toes and tried to see past the wall of men that separated her from the people who milled and bustled before them. She could see no fewer than five uniformed soldiers, two men wearing fine clothes of a distinctly un-military nature and a woman dressed in nurse's whites who listened as the taller of the richly tailored men spoke close to her ear.
In short order attention was turned to the new arrivals. Each of the five soldiers introduced himself briskly, then called a pair of numbers which were soon understood to be the identification code for the different units of soldiers within the group. Each division had their distinct orders, and these were given clearly before they were dismissed to the barracks for a deserved night's rest.
Wading through the military jargon it soon became clear that all but one of the regiments were committed to outposts which fanned out from their current position, right through to the northwest edge of the State. The allied line needed strengthening, and the troops already on that line needed support and medical care. This need, the last soldier of the five explained, was where the nurses came in. After a quick rundown of their role within the war effort as a whole, he gestured for the slightly shorter of the tailored men to take his place before the intrigued if wary group of women. He excused himself with a slight bow as the other man began speaking, ferrying the last of the soldiers towards the barracks and leaving the nurses, for the first time since they set foot within the country, without any kind of formal guard between them and the wider world. Though all among their number remained resolute, they clustered together a hint more tightly for the lack.
"A fine, if late, evening to you ladies" the tailored man began cordially. "I am Doctor Robin Hall, head physician to this encampment."
As soon as his name was past his lips both Sally and Rose were riveted on him. This was the same Robin Hall who had provided them with instructional notes on German, handwritten in the backs of their housing and duties booklets. They took him in quickly, from the combed crest of sandy hair atop his head to the shinning tips of his shoes and concluded, after a moment of silent woman-to-woman communication, that he looked nothing like they had imagined he would.
"For this one night" he went on, oblivious to the scrutiny he was under, "your home will be the triage hospital, to your left. Thereafter, you will travel with the brigades you have been assigned to and will work with them to secure the peaceable resolution of the discord in these lands." As he spoke, he took a slip of paper from his pocket and unfolded it, looking between it and his audience.
"Now, if I could please request that a Miss Rose Clarke and a Miss Sally Rothering remain where they are for the moment. Everyone else.." he turned slightly gesturing for the woman in nurse's whites to come forward. At his call she broke from her whispered conversation with the other of the suited men and came forward as she was introduced.
"If you would follow Ms Taymar here, she will take you to your quarters."
In a flurry of half formed curtseys, Sally and Rose found themselves entirely deserted by their fellows and left, their near-hands entwined, under Dr Hall's watchful gaze. Once the commotion died down he approached them, his smile warming quite obviously as he stepped out of his role as public speaker and into the more worn, comfortable shoes of a mentor. With almost twenty-five years of experience behind him, he was greatly accustomed to calming the wary and receiving new hands.
"Miss Clarke, Miss Rothering, it's my pleasure to make your acquaintance" he said with companionable ease, grasping each woman's hand in turn as they introduced themselves. By sight they appeared to be nothing less than fine examples of modern women, early into their prime. If he was any judge he would guess, if only by the richness of their respective dresses, that Rose came from a wealthier family than her counterpart did. She was also taller than Sally by an appreciable margin and had auburn hair nestled beneath a daintily tied bonnet where her friend, by comparison, was fair haired and wore no hat. Inconsequential as these minutiae were, they were vital to Robin. His memory was for details and names, not faces, and he was resolved not to make a fool of himself by mistaking one of his charges for the other repeatedly.
They spoke of unimportant things as they walked towards the triage, the man who had bent the ear of Ms Taymar following them at a distance. Walking with the aid of an unnecessary ebony cane and clad in his topped and tailed coats, he exuded disdain for his surroundings and stuck out like a pig on a sheep farm. This is Henry Barmouth, head investor in every allied triage hospital in New Jersey. He is a tall man, over half a head taller than Dr Hall, and uses this to his advantage when going out of his way to intimidate those he feels require that particular kind of persuasion. Red haired, broad shouldered and with excess girth discussed by clever tailoring, he felt it to be his right, since he had paid for the supplies that allowed a triage to be placed here, to dictate the day-to-day running of the facilities. This was something he and Dr Hall clashed about regularly, but tonight he was of a mind to ingratiate, not intimidate. It would be imprudent, given the number of visitors he had under his roof, to leave them with anything but the best impression of him to take across the country when they moved on in the morning.
To enter the triage one must scale five steps. These lead to a small porch which in turn leads to the front door of the building. It, like the building's entirety, is painted white and has grown grey with age around the most well used edges. Once inside one finds on one's left a wall with three doors along its length. These are, in order, Mr Barmouth's office, Dr Hall's private quarters, and finally the quarters of the resident nurses. With one's back to this last door, one faces a long corridor which, on the left side, is dotted with windows overlooking the path through the wheat fields recently walked by the newly arrived troops. On the right side sits a storage room and next to that a room equipped with a large stove. Here is where the bandages and linens used daily are washed, and where water for bathing is heated.
Through the door at the end of this corridor is the ward itself. The room is wide and spacious, and houses twenty beds, in addition to that which the ward matron, Ms Taymar, calls her own. Originally it was planned that she would have the nurses quarters and the that nurses themselves would sleep on the ward to be at hand should they be needed, but such was her experience and affinity with the soldiers here that she insisted she be allowed to stay. She even earned herself a nickname from the Hessian forces. 'Ober' they call her, short for 'Oberschwester', which to them means matron or head nurse and to her is a source of mild irritation intercut with motherly warmth.
The first thing seen upon entering the ward is a wide pair of double doors on the far end of the long room. These lead out onto a balcony, upon which linins are hung out to dry and the day to day bustle of the camp is observed by off duty staff in quiet moments.
On the ward itself there are twenty six beds, though makeshift cots could be and have been used in the past when the number of wounded outstripped the ward's actual capacity. They ran the length of each wall and had between each of them a curtain hung for privacy.
Immediately on one's left at the entrance to the ward stands what used to be a storage room. It is no bigger than the stove-room but, unlike its counterpart, has been repurposed by Robin and Ms Taymar as a makeshift operating theatre. Though there is little more than a table and cabinets full of Robin's assorted medical equipment, the set up saves more lives than are lost to wounds or infection and for that the staff, and the patients, are immensely grateful.
Back out in the hall, Sally and Rose stand between Dr Hall and Mr Barmouth, who the former introduced as 'Henry' and the latter reiterated as 'Sir'. His good graces are for the visitors, not the people he considers his subordinates. Their papers, sodden from their trip across land and sea, are signed as required by both Messrs, but will be discarded later by Mr Barmouth as pure formality.
"See to yourselves" he said as he left their company, gesturing to their quarters before making for the ward and the visitors making themselves at home within. He felt their eyes on his back as he strode off, and mistook the weight of their combined gaze as that brought through envy. The man could not have been more wrong if he tried.
As soon as he was out of earshot Robin muttered a resentful, "Berk" and rolled his eyes, his candour bringing a carefully muffled titter from his nurses. Giving them his most affecting smile, he made a much more gentile gesture towards their quarters and spoke, "Your uniforms are laid out on your beds ladies, and your personal effects will arrive from the dock by late morning. If you wish to bathe, the stove and bathing water are in the last room on the right, down here" he gestured down the hallway which Mr Barmouth had just walked along.
"The door at the end of the hall leads onto the ward. Get a night's rest and mind the instructions Ms Taymar has left for you. In the morning, come and find me on the ward" before bidding them goodnight and following Mr Barmouth to the ward. A soft and exhausted pair of 'Goodnights' followed him, and within ten minutes of entering their quarters both women were asleep, fully dressed but for their boots and Rose's tidy bonnet, in their respective beds.
The little tête-à-tête between the soldiers reads:
"Sind diese das Verstärkungen?" Are these the reinforcements?
"Ja sie sind. Sie sind schwach und Englisch" Yes they are. They're weak and English.
"Wir sind verloren! Die Engländer kommen!" We're doomed! The English are coming!