A note from the author: Darlings! Hello! Happy September!
Welcome to the next chapter. Intrigue, this time!
The next is almost done and should be up within the week. Please do enjoy :)

A conspiracy? Here?

With dawn's arrival, milky light spilled over the camp on the hill; the natural haze of so early an hour exacerbated by the ash in the air. Clouds of the stuff boiled up in the charred remains of the wheat field, disturbed by and coating a passing pair of hunters - Gänger and his master who, for an hour now, had crisscrossed their ruined surrounds in search of the last of the scourge that had put flame to their preferred bastion. A rag tied about his face below the eyes, the Horseman held a longsword aloft and angled downwards across his body like a fisherman might a spear, ready to lunge down and skewer any felled but living Feinde he came across. He'd taken five that way so far, and the heads of two others – men of rank, both, if the cockades they'd worn on their hats had been anything to go by – variously filled his saddlebag and were tied into its strings. For that pair, and any more of their kind he found, he had a grander purpose. For their former comrades though –

Movement amidst the dunning ash drew the eye of both horse and master, Gänger's dancing steps half uncovering a wilted but breathing form. He looked for a moment to be attempting to stand, but a leg and an arm gave out and tipped him onto his back – a position that afforded him enough sight of his executioner for what would've been a scream to belch forth had his lungs not been so clogged and damaged by muck and smoke. The full body spasm that ejected this cough-gurgle-wheeze of horror died off as Hessian steel split him at the neck – his head left where it lay when a glance over his clothing marked him as a lowly drone at the disposal of higher masters.

Had the Horseman more empathy about him he might've paused on the relative youth in fallen one's face; might've seen in him a reflection of people closer to him; more known to and connected to him. As it was, he pulled his sword free and continued his hunt.

Sentiment had no place in war.

Across the camp and heedless of the horrors being visited in the field, the denizens of the triage found themselves possessed of extra hands. The camp's English Captain – one Arnold Phillips – had sent word of the attack to the forward encampments the moment he'd had a man to spare, and from them he had been gifted two nurses and a contingent of soldiers. Much as it was only a short-term kindness – for those spare souls were needed back at their home camps before long – it lifted many a spirit among those for whom the triage was home, and allowed Sally and Rose a small reprieve from their all-night-and-early-morning-long duties.

While they had returned to their quarters with little urging though, Sally couldn't keep from her mind how her ward-sister had lingered by dear fallen Thomas worriedly, and how she'd stroked a lock of tousled hair off his brow when Dr Hall had turned his back. The moment took her back to their months ago jollies aboard the Frigate that had delivered them to these shores; to her quip about Rose wanting to find herself a strapping Hessian husband, and to her friend's blushing laughter at the thought. She hadn't been at all serious then, and wondered if it was just tiredness now that made what could've easily been a friendly gesture seem somehow…intimate.

"Sally?"

Jolted from her thoughts by Rose's voice, Sally twitched into life as her friend approached and managed a vaguely bewildered but honest smile. "Sorry" she said, a hand coming up to touch her brow. "I'm…not sure where I went just then."

Rose's regard was knowing and fond. "You've been awake too long" she said, giving Sally a gentle push towards her catastrophically rumpled bed. The fine dusting of ash that'd accumulated before their rush to the ward was all but dispersed now, not a wisp of it coiling up into the air when the exhausted Schwester plopped down upon her blankets. Blearily she knuckled at her eyes, a huff of muted laughter escaping at Rose's, "Take your boots off, Sally."

Defiant Sally though was having none of that. She limpened entirely in protest and collapsed into her bedding, Rose's faux exasperation at her antics countered with a correction. "We have been awake too long…" she said, stretching out a foot towards her sister-nurse in jest. "And really Rose I-"

"I can see your petticoat" Rose interrupted, giggling as she pointed at the slip of flowery cotton peaking out from beneath the other woman's dress.

Sally gasped, her train of thought derailed. "The scandal!" she hushed, rolling onto her side so she could prop herself up on her elbow and see the offending thing properly. Her nose wrinkled slightly as she glared at it, an attempt to give it what-for coming through stifled laughter. "Pretender" she scolded. "You are not outerwear. Begone!" A practiced fluff saw the patterned garment eaten up by her much more reserved work attire - muted blues banishing the riot of soft whites, creams, pinks and greens. Her victory complete, Sally grinned at Rose. "Perfect" she said.

"Quite so!" Rose smiled. "Except-" A point indicated her friend's feet. "You've got your boots on your bed now, darling."

An indignant squawk and a flurry of movement later, Sally was attacking her laces with all the coordination left in her tired fingers. Rose settled upon her cot across from her, watching her ructions with great amusement. She wondered if the dear woman would notice that she'd talked her into removing her boots before bed, or if want of sleep would steal away that notion.

Beyond the frivolities unfolding in the nurses' quarters, the triage bustled busily. Along with the pair of new faces brought in from neighbouring camps, the staff also took receipt of a shipment of supplies from the Navy Board back home that, thanks to the near constant stream of new patients over the past couple of days, was sorely needed. What was not brought though was any word on the whereabouts of the triage's ostensible benefactor - Mr Barmouth. Neither hide nor hair of the man had been seen, Robin and Ms Taymar calculated, for a day's worth of hours now; a fact that elicited in equal parts suspicion and concern. Could he have trekked out to the village prior to the battle, they wondered? Got caught up on the way? Had he been captured and were they, those who ran the triage in his stead, to be subject to ransom demands for his return?

"It's the not knowing that's killing me" Ms Taymar mused quietly as she assisted Dr Hall with cataloguing their new wares. They were sequestered by the cupboards that lined the wall beside the Oberschwester's writing desk and her bed, and could spare a little gossip between them now that the ward was in their newest arrivals' capable hands. "What will become of us here if the silly goat's been taken?"

"We will suffer many less headaches I'd wager" Robin quipped mirthlessly as he worked on restocking his tincture shelf. The open packet at his side, one of three, was sparse enough that, had he not known better, he would've harboured concerns that much of the delivery had been lost on its way to them. A frown crinkled his brow as he turned to look at Ms Taymar. "I've half a mind to go through Henry's ledger and look up our requisitions lists. The Board has questions to answer if this is all we're being sent."

"Oh Robin" the matron chuffed, long used by now to Hall's grumbling about how Barmouth, and by extension the Navy Board, ran the triage. "It can't be that bad, surely."

"I mean it Anne." Hall gestured to the packet at his knee, pulling its edges apart so his counterpart could see it in its threadbare entirety. "We're not so far into the conflict that we're stretching the home stock thin. This is suffering beyond suffering. Where is it all going?"

Considering her friend's words, Ms Taymar scooped her skirt neatly about her knees as she knelt beside him and looked through the packet with a discerning eye. "Goodness" she murmured, rifling through its contents carefully. "No new bandages. No splints. One, two, three…Is that four crooked needles?"

"Yes" Robin said. "Four crooked and one small pack of straight, stitching needles."

"Nothing for Dysentery. Nothing for Mortification-"

"There are" Hall put in, counting off certain of the vials he had already placed within the cupboard. "Two vials of Camphor to add to the three we had in stock already."

Ms Taymar was not soothed. "We can at least ease pain then" she said, her inventory continuing. She had known as well as Robin how short their stocks were getting, but this? This being the sum of the medical replenishments for their large and busy camp brought the beginnings of real dread in her belly. "Four spools of thread, and…that's all." Shaking her head, the matron looked around. "Where are the other- Ah!" A moment saw her rescue the two remaining packets from where they'd been sat in haste atop her desk. Each was opened with care, its contents studied with increasing disbelief. Robin, for his part, simply looked at her; waiting for her assessment.

It wasn't long in coming.

"How short this is…" Anne exclaimed. "How short! Where is the Lactuca? The Opium? The Jalap? These common things- How can we be short of such common things?" Indignation quickening her, she cast a concerned look across the ward. While settled now, it took near nothing for an infection to develop or a stomach to turn. With so many men in so small a space and with so little by way of supplies, it would only be a matter of time before something horrendous cropped up.

Fretting, she turned to Robin. "That note you thought to send to the Navy Board…I'll sign it, when it goes."

"For what little good it might do us" the doctor replied kindly. "Thank you." He stood from his labours by the cupboard and joined Ms Taymar in looking through the remaining supply boxes; taking a little time to piece together what they did contain. They counted bandages, a tourniquet, further spools of thread, further needles – crooked and straight. Also counted were a pair of bullet forceps and a number of pins, but for much else they were left wanting.

"There are no tinctures in here" Anne grieved. "And no salves. Little of-" A notion struck mid-sentence and stopped her cold. She blinked, then met concerned Robin's eyes. "Little of saleable value. Little that would bring a monetary return. Healthful benefits, yes, but needles and bandages are ten a penny; easy to make if necessary – Heaven forbid. But tinctures? Opium? Liquid Laudanum even? It's our stock of those that's depleted. You don't suppose-"

The gravity of what she thought to suggest caught Ms Taymar's words before she could speak them. It could be a dangerous thing for a woman, even one of her relatively elevated stature, to query the status quo; to start asking questions, especially where proof of anything that needed questioning at all was at a premium. Such was a preoccupation usually left to menfolk. Robin though, kindly, forward-thinking Robin who understood what she'd not said, took that concern from her shoulders.

"You don't suppose" he asked, suspicion darkening his mien. "That someone might be spiriting it away to sell?"

Hearing the words said made Anne's breath catch. She drew closer to Hall, lowering her voice a hint in her urgency. "I pray you don't think me a gossip" she pled, comforted by how Robin shook his head at the very thought. "But the coin you could earn doing that would be-"

"Much...much more than a nurse's or a soldier's meagre wage" the doctor finished gravely. Straightening where he stood, Robin looked out over the ward with new eyes, searching the place and wracking his memory for any soldiers, hands or other persons who had come and gone more frequently than most. A thought then, and he was moving. Double quick he struck out into and returned from the operating theatre, his provisions book retrieved and opened out onto the pages where he'd catalogued last month's stock; it's comings and goings; replenishments and depletions.

"Look here" he said, indicating the lines that concerned the more valuable items within their inventory – the Opiums and Laudanums, less the needles and thread. "This should help us make sense of things. Four vials of Opium solution were delivered last month. Three of Laudanum. That previous-" The page was turned, the month prior now shown. "Five of Opium. No Laudanum. That previous-" Another page turn. "Seven and two; seven of Opium, two of Laudanum. And yet further-" Six months disappeared between flicked pages. "Twelve vials of Opium, and that." He tapped the page. "That was our last sight of a full shipment of Laudanum. Eight vials-worth."

Fixed on the lines of figures, Anne took a slow breath. "Is that theft?" she asked. "Or wobbles in the supply-chain? Problems on the roads?"

"None have been reported" Hall replied. "At least not to my knowledge. No thefts. No bandits. No caravans being sacked. I ask Captain Brandt routinely. Da sind keine he tells me, every time."

"There are none" the Ober repeated, circling the date of their last proper shipment - the last that was near-on as fulsome as they had been when first the camp was established - with her forefinger. Frowning, she met Hall's gaze. "Do you suspect anyone? Not our girls, surely. If it is theft, it began before they arrived."

Despite himself Robin gave a soft, fond huff. His colleague's protectiveness of Sally and Rose was heartening. "I don't want to suspect anyone" he said. "Least of all them. But it'd be remiss not to at least keep them in mind until we're certain."

"Certain?"

"That there is no thief."

Though Anne nodded, she was discontent. Like Robin she had no want to countenance the presence of a snake in their midst, and even less did she want to believe that her nurses could be part of anything so foul as the theft of medical wares from the very bosom of a hospital. There were a thousand more likely persons than they, but the thought of naming even one as a potential suspect left her wanting. Their thief, if there was one, was a ghost in the dark. They simply couldn't leave him unchallenged.

"Where do we start?"

Hall's dour turn eased at the question. "Henry's ledger" he said, this first step of theirs - for in asking Anne had made herself a part of this venture - already set in his mind. "If I can find the triage's requisitions list, we'll be better able to see if it's shortages or theft that's at work here."

With little more than a nod then, he was striding out the ward's door and down the hall to Barmouth's office.

The game, Ms Taymar thought, watching him, was on.

When next Sally and Rose were seen on the ward and ready for work, a solid three hours had passed. They found their superiors at Ms Taymar's desk looking both distinctly discontent and purposeful, and were rushed off out into the world with a task neither had foreseen but both appreciated. The ward being flush with staff as it was, it was the job of the resident nurses to venture down into the lower reaches of the camp to provide aid, and perhaps more importantly clean drinking water, to the men who were busily toiling in the hope of salvaging what they could of the buildings and areas that had been taken by the fire. It would be easier for them to do that, Anne reasoned, than any of their most welcome visitors because Sally and Rose knew the camp upside down and backwards. They could therefore navigate and render whatever aid was needed more quickly than their unfamiliar counterparts could, and would be recognised more easily by the weary to boot.

That the Ober sought to explain herself when she didn't truly have to passed the ward-sisters by as they collected their belt-pouches of poultices and tinctures, their cloths, bandages, water-skins, drinking steins and lidded pails of cool, clean water from the stove-room and went off on their way. They weren't to know that she and Robin - his search of Barmouth's office yielding nothing but dust - hoped to have a precautionary peek around their private quarters in their absence; just to make double, triple sure that what they worried was happening really didn't involve their nurses.

A small note about medicinal compounds from the 1770's - it should go without saying darlings but PLEASE DO NOT USE THESE EVER FOR ANY REASON WHATSOEVER WITHOUT THE DIRECTION OF A MEDICAL DOCTOR! I'M SO VERY SERIOUS! Medicine has moved on SO FAR since this formative, lovely but hellish-dangerous period in history.

Lactuca - Derived from the wild lettuce and used as a mild analgesic

Opium - A not at all mild analgesic

Jalap - Used (amongst other things) as a purgative, usually to rid a patient of intestinal/stomach problems

Laudanum - Another not at all mild analgesic

Camphor - Yet another analgesic

And a note on conditions:-

Mortification - Gangrene

And a final note for translations:-

Feinde - Enemies

Schwester - Nurse

Oberschwester (or Ober for short) - The head nurse or matron; our dear Ms Taymar herself