As always, The Patriot and all characters in it belong to Columbia Pictures and any other respective holder of said intellectual property. I am not profiting from writing this material based off of their property.

Italics indicate thought or writing.

* Indicates a footnote at the end of the chapter for historical goodies or an author note on the subject.

Chapter 2 – Blow, Ye Winds, Blow

January 17th, 1781

The most difficult case she'd seen in the long afternoon had to be this mess laid out on the canvas square before her, Vivian concluded. For a battle that only lasted the sum of an hour, give or take a few minutes, it produced enough wounded and dead equal to a fully fledged blood bath waged from sun up to sun down. What resulted was this, a sorry sight of a man cut down in his prime.

A quick yank had brought a discolored lump of lead out from his left bicep and into her pockets, but that gaping hole was easily patched and bound in comparison to the other wounds on the dragoon.

Precise hits, she mused to herself as she eased the slender length of a bayonet from the guts and viscera of her current patient before staunching the flow of blood with a fresh pad of folded cloth. The stab wound was a considerable, piercing through a few layers of abdominal muscle and intestines before exiting out along another wall of muscle and skin from behind. Whoever had pulled him off the field had had the foresight to leave the bayonet in, only removing the musket attached for the sake of safety. No spinal damage, from what she could see. The blade glanced in at an angle by some act of providence.

Bent over her work, the scene under the sprawling limbs of the elm tree seemed to gradually blur and evaporate. Soon, it was only her and the solider in her world of focus. She was left only boiled linen fibers from her fast dwindling stores for sutures, hard pressed for proper supplies to mend this latecomer. Vivian would rather have had the catgut to sew in, but with wounds that took weeks to even knit held with easily absorbable fibers which would simply dissolve in half the time, she'd risk the sterility of the wound for sturdy stitches of cloth rather than organic material. It would be more of a nightmare to have to reopen the wound and suture it again in a few weeks time, if this poor mess of a man even made it to that point.

A splash from the keg of her precious brew of raw alcohol sent him reeling off the canvas sheet, but his throat could only work out a strangled gurgle full of blood and detritus. Vivian winced, praying to whatever higher power that the slashed abdominal muscles wouldn't have to contract to bring anymore bile up. One of the colonel's subordinates had assured her that their fearless leader never 'broke his fast' before combat.

Wilkins, was it?

Ah, yes, the man himself was only a few paces away fretting, concern marking his surprisingly youthful face as Vivian worked to repair the broken body beneath her hands.

What I wouldn't give for hypodermic needles and a good set of surgical staples, she groused mentally as another tedious few minutes ticked by with her delicate stitching. She had mended the cuts to his intestinal tract with more linen sutures after addressing his punctured trachea, giving the skewered areas a quick swab of alcohol applied on a bit of boiled cotton with her crude clamps. Another precious minute saw him well sealed up against further blood loss on all three entry and exit wounds with more sutures and squares of linen glued down with sticky honey, a surprisingly clean and effective adhesive given her lack of options. After a few quick assessments of the colonel's thundering pulse and a glance at the sweat popping out over his brow, she rose to her feet to address Wilkins.

"That's the best I can do without losing anymore blood. The fever's already set in. If he can avoid rot and thirst 'til the fever breaks, he's in the clear. Not counting the months it'll take to recover or if any nourishment can even pass through that mess after working through his belly."

It was as if she had taken the weight of the world off Wilkins' shoulders with her slightly hopeful prognosis.

"Bless you, ma'am!" he sighed out, head ducking in a courteous nod to her.

"No trouble."

A groan drew both their gazes back to the colonel, his fever gradually burning through the laudanum she'd forced down his throat as soon as it was stitched.

"Sleeping Beauty awakens. That last bit of work on his gut would've done in the average man, I think."

That earned her only a surprisingly lucid glare from her charge, causing her eyebrows to shoot up in her delight. "Probably want to give him a few more tots from the blue bottle tonight, Mr. Wilkins. No solid food for a month. If he's got room to be offended, I'm sure he'll pull through."

"Laceration to your trachea, sir. The cut to your stomach is the one I'm more concerned with." She elaborated her point to the colonel, motioning to the wraps of snowy muslin binding his stomach.

"It's a miracle it hit nothing vital. You'll live to scar another day." The small tease brought a weak, reassuring smile for the handsome officer to her face. He only stared blankly in reply. Wilkins stumbled into the colonel's view, hunching over to impart whatever report or reassurance to his superior. The able bodied soldiers would help carry him off to the tents, leaving Vivian blissfully free from responsibility for the foreseeable future. She mumbled directions to the pair, warning the colonel of twisting his stitches out in the process of any sort of straining movement. An understanding nod from Wilkins and more silence from the wounded colonel sent her on her way towards the other side of camp, lugging her prized keg and medicine chest along.

Her tidy tent space was a welcome sight, but it quickly took second prize in her heart when she submerged her blood caked hands into the cracked basin of wash water.

Thoroughly sterilized with foul smelling lye soap after her hand soak, she toddled towards her boiling kettle set over her low burning fire situated in the ring of other tents with her heavy work chest. A quick glance inside assured her that this one was indeed empty of vegetable matter, unlike last time, before upending a drawer over the kettle. Out spilled all manner of instruments into the cleansing boil, hitting the iron bottom with solid clinks. Satisfied, she retreated back out of the nipping wind to her tent, mentally ticking off the time it would take to boil out the deadly bacteria thriving on the contaminated surface of her instruments.

A few quick tugs had the pins holding the bed gown draped over her jumps and petticoat falling onto her cot. Jumps were leagues better than the horrible stays she was bundled into in England. Thought to be more suitable to the common women by the colonial ladies, jumps worked for her just fine. She patted at the plump swells of her breasts cinched comfortably in the sleeved contraption of stiff linen and laces, hopping experimentally.

"Fine engineering for the assets. I can kiss that ratty old bra goodbye."

"Madam! A minute of your time?" called a voice from outside her small sanctuary, startling her from her private observations. A good look at the polished Hessians visible from the open tent flaps had her well convinced that an officer was asking for her. She stuck her head out for a word, brows sweeping up at the sight of a harried looking Charles O'Hara.

"Thought you were already advancing north with milord Cornwallis, General O'Hara."

The decorated young tactician blinked owlishly at her dressed down state of attire in the January air, eyes lingering on the exposed state of her breasts before she brought back his attention with a small clearing of the throat. O'Hara raised a sealed envelope bearing the waxed mark of his commander on it, and she accepted it mutely.

"We never thought to leave a lady in our haste, madam. Lord Cornwallis instructed me to have you in a wagon or on a horse heading for the coast. Things have taken a decidedly foul turn for our campaign. A rear camp full of wounded men is no place for a lady, no matter the circumstances," his lips turned down at the mere idea of it, "while Continentals could be advancing to take this flank of the army at any hour."

"I'll stay in the interest of lending a hand to the wounded, sir. It's the least I can do. I don't rightly think the colonials will go to the extremes of harming a woman, no matter how backwater their conduct may be. And by the by, if Lord Cornwallis wants to be the one who designates what I do and where I go from here on, he should've collected me as he was high tailing it from the field. Off with you, sir." She waved a casual hand to him.

"Mistress Vivian, I do insist-" was all that he managed to get out before she flung back the flaps of her tent, dismissing the insistent O'Hara without a word. She set the letter aside, deciding that whatever Cornwallis had to say to such an unworthy sort like her was best saved as an entertaining bedtime read.

A quick look in on Colonel Sourpuss wouldn't hurt, she realized. After I make a round through the field surgeon's tent and prevent another useless bleeding. Ghastly medieval medicine.