CHAPTER 14

For a wonder, the surgeon was sober.

Better still, from Driscol’s viewpoint, he was a young man. The sergeant’s experience had been that the practice of medicine affected men like alcohol affected those with the curse of drunkenness. The more they studied, the worse they got. Middle-aged doctors were as dangerous as vipers; elderly ones, deadly as the Grim Reaper himself.

“The arm’ll have to come off, Sergeant,” the young surgeon said firmly, leaning over Driscol where he lay on a pallet in the surgeon’s tent. “You’ll almost certainly get gangrene, with that bad a wound. Your elbow’s pretty well gone, anyway. Even if we left your arm and you didn’t get gangrene, you’d never be able to use it again.”

He moved off, heading toward one of the tables onto which his assistants were hoisting a wounded soldier. After he was gone, Driscol rolled his head and gave young McParland a cheerful grin. He hoped it was cheerful, anyway.

“D’you ever hear such nonsense, lad? Even with a ruined elbow, I could still use my fingers to count money.”

McParland even managed to return the grin with one of his own. Well, a sickly smile—but Driscol suspected his own grin was on the sickly side itself.

“What they pay us, Sergeant, I think you’ll only need the fingers of one hand for that. And you’re right-handed anyway.”

Driscol pursed his lips, as if giving the matter careful consideration. “True enough. I’ll take your advice, then.” He raised his uninjured right arm, extending a warning finger. “Mind you, youngster, if we ever take Montreal and I don’t get my fair share of the loot on account of my missing arm, I’m taking it out of your pickings.”

McParland nodded nervously. The sergeant was sure the nervousness was due entirely to the horrid surroundings of the surgeon’s tent, not his jocular threat. For all the boasts of American politicians and generals, the chances that the U.S. Army would ever take Montreal were about as good as Driscol’s chances to survive gangrene if he tried to keep his arm.

Driscol didn’t fault the youngster for being twitchy. Hardened veteran that he was, the sergeant found the surgeon’s tent unsettling—and would have, even if he hadn’t been one of the wounded men waiting his turn.

The sawdust in the boxes under the two cutting tables was soaked through with blood from the operations, and the blood was seeping onto the dirt floor. That was probably just as well, since it provided the flies swarming in the tent with a ready feasting ground, and distracted them from feeding directly off the wounds. Still, between the festering blood and the gore from intestinal injuries, the stench in the tent was incredible.

No such side benefit could be found from the noises that also saturated the tent, unfortunately. The screams and groans and moans and muffled prayers blended into each like a cacophony straight from hell. The surgeon almost had to shout, in order to be heard at all.

Driscol watched as the doctor and his assistants amputated a soldier’s mangled foot on the table nearest him. For all the grisliness of the work, it was done swiftly and expertly. Two of the assistants kept the man’s shoulders pinned and two others restrained the legs. Once the patient was securely immobilized and a tourniquet tightened around his leg, the surgeon cut the flesh all around the ankle, right down to the bone; then, peeled the flesh back so as to expose the bone farther up from the incision itself. He’d sever the bone as far up the leg as he could. That way, the resulting stump would have some padding over the bone’s end, once it healed.

That was assuming, of course, that the patient didn’t die before then, from one of several common diseases brought on by amputation. Which, he very well might. Almost a fourth of all men who had amputations done after a battle died later from infection.

No, Driscol reminded himself, never being one to shy away from the cold facts. That “one-fourth” applied to men who had their lower limbs amputated. The death rate was much higher for men who, like Driscol, had the cut made above the knee or elbow.

So be it. Driscol distracted himself, as best he could, by continuing to watch the surgeon at his work.

The blade the man used to slice flesh was no delicate instrument. It reminded Driscol, more than anything else, of a smaller version of the flensing blades used by whalers. It’d make a decent weapon in a tavern brawl, in fact, even if it wasn’t quite long enough to be suitable on a battlefield.

Fortunately for everyone concerned, the soldier being operated on had fainted from the agony at that point. So he missed entirely the heart of the operation, which came when the surgeon took up a saw and hacked through the bone. Driscol was impressed by the surgeon’s speed. No master carpenter could have done better, he thought.

The sergeant could only hope the man would cut off his arm as smoothly and efficiently.

That done, the severed foot was tossed onto a nearby pile of such horrid objects. The flies over there were a seething little mountain of insects. The surgeon sewed up the severed arteries; then, still working as quickly as ever, folded the flaps of flesh and skin over the end of the bone and sewed everything up.

A bandage was then placed on the bleeding stump, and it was done. The assistants heaved the unconscious soldier off the table and carried him out of the tent. He’d recuperate—and, hopefully, survive—in a different tent set aside for the purpose.

While the surgeon waited for his helpers to return, he washed his hands in a bowl of water. Then cleaned the blade and the saw using a sponge soaked in the same bowl.

Driscol couldn’t really see the point of that. By now, the water in the bowl wasn’t much thinner than blood itself, as often as it had been reused for the purpose.

The surgeon’s eyes ranged around the tent, quickly examining the dozen or so wounded soldiers who lay in it. Experienced eyes, obviously, despite the surgeon’s youth. Driscol could see him quickly dismissing about half the cases as either hopeless or so chancy that he wouldn’t spend time on them while men who might survive were kept waiting.

That meant he dismissed almost any kind of major abdominal, chest, or head wound as beyond his treatment. About the only exception to that rule was that battlefield surgeons would usually attempt to extract a bullet that hadn’t penetrated any deeper than a finger’s length. If it had . . .

Well, they’d just leave it alone. If the man survived, the bullet would sometimes work its way closer to the surface, where they could eventually get to it. Driscol had known a soldier in the French army who’d survived such a bullet wound—and then, eight years later, finally had the thing extracted. By then, it lay just under the skin.

For all practical purposes, the job of an army surgeon was to cut off hands, feet, arms, and legs. Nothing else, really.

Fair enough, Driscol thought. Two-thirds to three-fourths of all battlefield wounds were suffered in the extremities, to begin with—and those same wounds accounted for almost all the survivors. Men shot or stabbed in the torso or the head almost invariably died, unless the wound was a superficial one.

The surgeon’s gaze fell on Driscol. On his mangled arm, rather. The sergeant didn’t think the surgeon had even looked at his face—and he was quite sure he wouldn’t remember Driscol if they ever met again.

“You’re next,” he said.

Driscol saw the assistants coming back into the tent.

There was no point in dallying. “Do it, then.”

“I’ve got some antifogmatic I can give you,” said the surgeon.

“Whiskey or rum?”

“Rum.”

Driscol sneered. “And it’ll be raw, too. Not that I’d touch any kind of rum. It’ll be whiskey, or no drink at all.”

“Sergeant, this is going to hurt. A lot.”

Driscol’s sneer remained firm and unwavering. “Is it, now? Sawing through my flesh and bone is going to hurt. I’m shocked to hear it.”

Driscol decided he’d teased the surgeon long enough to maintain discipline among the troops, when word got back. “Never mind. I’ve got something better in my kit. Private, my tent’s not far off. Rummage around in my pack and you’ll find a bottle of laudanum. I keep it for just such a mishap. Bring it here, would you?”

McParland was gone in a flash.

Driscol closed his eyes. The pain had become constant and savage, but the sergeant was no stranger to suffering. The more so when he still had his duty to perform. Driscol had known for years that attention to duty was a better distraction from pain than anything else.

By the time McParland got back, the sergeant’s reputation would have climbed still higher among the troops—or sunk lower, depending on how you looked at it. Word would spread like wildfire that the troll was delaying his amputation because he’d gotten into an argument with the surgeon over the respective merits of rum versus whiskey.

He grinned at the thought. Every corporal and private in the Twenty-second Regiment who heard the tale—which would be all of them, eventually—would see it as proof that the master sergeant was indeed an inhuman creature, and an insane one at that.

But Driscol was quite sure that, forever after, whiskey would be the spirit of choice of the regiment. Within a day, any new recruit unfortunate enough to have smuggled in some rum would be forced to get rid of it. The ridicule would be unbearable.

Henceforth, for the Twenty-second Regiment, rum would be a drink for sissies.

Laudanum took a bit longer to take effect than raw spirits would have. But it hardly mattered, since it wasn’t as if the surgeon had been kept waiting. Few lumberjacks in the world used a saw more vigorously and more continuously than an army surgeon after a major battle.

“And now we’re back to you, Sergeant,” the surgeon said finally. Through blurred vision, Driscol saw the young doctor leaning over him again. The man’s cheap frock coat was a bloody mess.

Driscol was in a haze, now, but he had enough consciousness left to peer up at McParland. The private’s face was a blob, but he could still recognize the anxiety, if not quite the features on which that anxiety was displayed.

“Help the surgeon and his boys get me onto the table, McParland. And then help them hold the arm while he saws it off. I may twitch just a bit.”

The effort of moving to the table almost drained him of consciousness. He had just enough of his wits left to whisper one last request.

“Do me the favor, youngster. If I scream anything untoward, keep it to yourself, would you?”

Even with the laudanum, the brief time that followed was agonizing beyond belief.

But McParland assured the sergeant afterward that the only thing he had screamed during the operation was Fuck the Sassenach!

“You hollered that mebbe a hunnerd times.”

Driscol thought McParland might be fudging the truth. He’d never know, since his own memory was thankfully nothing but a blur. It didn’t matter, really, so long as McParland passed the same story along to the troops.

The surgeon, as usual, just tossed the severed arm onto the pile of limbs, but McParland dug it back out. He was determined to give the troll’s limb a proper burial.

On the battlefield itself—with a squad to fire a proper salute. McParland would fire one of the muskets himself.

Winfield Scott came to visit Driscol the next day. The brigadier’s first words were typical of the man—direct and to the point.

“Will you consider that commission now, Patrick? With only one arm, your days as an active-duty sergeant are over. The best you could hope for would be a position in the quartermaster corps. And you’re not a good enough thief for that job. You’d wind up in the poorhouse.”

Driscol squinted at him. “And is this your idea of cheering up the troops, sir? Offering them a choice between becoming a bloody officer, or a life of squalor?”

Scott looked surprised. “Well. Yes.”

Driscol chuckled, though it came out rasping. “Napoleon would have handed me a miniature marshal’s baton—just a promissory note, as it were, not the real thing—and given me a pension that’d vanish within eight months when he needed the money for another campaign. The assurances of the mighty. Water poured on sand.”

Coming from someone else, those words might have angered Scott. As it was, the brigadier simply smiled.

“Well, to be honest, once the war is over a U.S. Army commission is likely to be about as valuable as one of Napoleon’s little sticks. I’ll try for captain, Patrick, but we’ll probably have to settle for first lieutenant. Still, it’ll be better than nothing.”

Driscol had now been given several hours to ponder bleakly on his future, and had come to the same conclusion himself. “Aye, sir, I’ll take it. And thank you.”

“The thanks are entirely due the other way, Sergeant.” The words were said forcefully, as well they might be. The brigadier’s glorious victory at the Chippewa had ensured his career, and enriched his own future prospects—assuming he survived the war, of course. And while that victory was due in part to Scott’s own skill and courage, a great deal of it was due to men like Patrick Driscol.

The brigadier cleared his throat.

“I must be off, I’m afraid. Riall’s retreating to Fort George, and General Brown wants to press the campaign. Rightly so, of course. Now’s not the time to give the enemy any breathing space.”

He cleared his throat again. “Patrick, the worst place for you to stay is here in this tent.”

Driscol’s chuckle was even harsher, now. “Do tell. A man’s got a better chance of surviving a battle in the first rank than he does surviving a stay in a camp surgery.”

Scott nodded. “So I propose to transfer you to Washington. I’ll send along orders to have you placed in military quarters there. And”—here the brigadier’s face brightened—“I happen to know a splendid doctor there. A very fine gentleman by the name of Jeremy Boulder. He has real medical degrees and everything. Studied under Benjamin Rush himself! I’ll also send a letter asking him to take you under his care.”

That news did not cheer up Driscol. A real doctor, with real degrees—a fine gentleman, no less—who’d studied under the most famous medical practitioner in the United States . . .

He might as well just shoot himself in the head.

But he saw no point in arguing the matter with someone from Scott’s class. There’d be time enough and opportunity to evade a “real doctor” once he got to Washington.

Assuming he got there in the first place. Driscol looked down at the stump that protruded below his left shoulder. It was all that remained of his arm. The bandages covering the stump were crusted with dried blood, and the thing ached constantly. It would do worse than ache, too, once the last of the laudanum was gone. There was no way that Driscol, even as tough as he was, could survive a journey to Washington unless he gave himself several weeks to heal first.

Alas, surviving several weeks in an army surgical camp was a chancy prospect.

From the look on his face, which was no longer cheery at all, it was obvious that Scott understood as much himself. The brigadier grimaced. “Very well. I’ll leave instructions to have inquiries made with the local residents. There might be a farmer nearby who’d be willing to take you in.”

Driscol barely managed to keep from laughing aloud. The chance was just about nil that any local resident, such as were left, would be willing to take in a wounded soldier. That was just as true of American citizens living across the river as Canadian ones on this side. The war had ravaged the area for two years—and, to make things worse, the American army had conspicuously failed to make good on its promises to carry the war past the border territories. For the citizens of upper New York, the slogan On to Montreal! garnered as much respect as continental money, bungtown coppers, and wildcat banknotes.

The assurances of the mighty.

Water poured on sand.

Driscol caught a sudden little motion out of the corner of his eye. McParland had more or less informally attached himself to the sergeant since the battle. As was usually the case, he was perched on a stool nearby in the tent.

He turned his head. “You wanted to say something, Private?”

McParland looked simultaneously eager and . . . worried. He cleared his throat. Cleared it again.

“Oh, just speak up, lad!” Driscol growled “I promise I won’t have you shot. Neither will the brigadier.”

“Well. It’s just. Well . . . My family’s not far away from here, Sergeant. We live on a farm just a few miles north of Dansville.” The young soldier flushed a little. “That’s why, uh, I tried to run away. My home being so close and all. It’s less’n seventy-five miles away.”

Eagerness pushed aside anxiety: “And my mother’s a right slick healer.” He gave Scott an apologetic glance. “Of course, she bean’t a real doctor. Don’t have any degrees or such.”

Scott sniffed, as well he might. McParland’s family was no doubt dirt poor. And while his mother might have some medical skills in the way of farmwives the world over, she’d be riddled with herbalist nonsense and have no proper sense at all of modern medical theories.

Driscol seized the offer like a drowning man seizes a lifeline.

“Done, then! I can survive seventy-five miles.” He cocked an eye at the brigadier. “You’d need to place Private McParland on detached duty, sir, as my escort. I couldn’t manage the trip on my own—and I’ll need him for the introductions anyway.”

To his credit, Scott didn’t hesitate. Whatever his own opinion of a farmwife’s medical care, he wasn’t blind to the fact that anything was better than leaving Driscol to rot in an army camp.

“Very well. I’ll write up orders sending both of you to the private’s home. But I’ll expect you”—here he shot McParland a stern look—“both of you, mind, to show up in Washington as soon as possible. Leaving aside the fact that you do need proper medical treatment as soon as possible, Sergeant Driscol, there’s the little matter of your commission.”

“Aye, sir. We’ll be along to the capital as soon as I can manage the trip.”

He meant it, too, although he had no intention of looking up Scott’s precious real doctor, the fine gentleman Jeremy Boulder.

Driscol came from a poor family himself—albeit his father had been a village blacksmith rather than a farmer—and he had no illusions as to the joys of country living. A poor family like McParland’s would be hard-pressed to provide for themselves, let alone another adult, especially one who was unable to work. To be sure, they’d eventually be recompensed by the government for the expense. They might even be lucky enough to get payment in some real currency, such as the Spanish reale, which was the most favored coinage in the United States. But they were just as likely to be paid in shaky state banknotes. And, no matter how they got paid, the money would take its sweet merry time getting to them.

Still, anything was better than an army surgery.

“It’s settled then,” Scott said firmly. “I’ll look forward to seeing you again, the next time I’m in Washington. The Lord Almighty knows when that’ll be, though.”

Driscol spent most of the trip to Dansville in agony, and the exhaustion that came from it. Only long experience as a horseman and his own innate resilience kept him from falling off the saddle. By the time they arrived at McParland’s home, the sergeant was hanging on to life by a thread.

It was as poor a farm as he’d expected, just a one-room log cabin with a puncheon floor. And his bed was nothing but a straw mattress and some cheap blankets, which he’d have to share with McParland and one of his brothers.

“So, Anthony,” said Mr. McParland, after Driscol was tucked into his straw bed. The sergeant was still just conscious enough to hear the conversation across the cabin. “Is this sergeant a friend of yours?”

“Uh, he bean’t exactly a friend, Pa. Uh.” Smiling slightly, and with his eyes closed, Driscol waited to hear what lies the boy would tell. They’d just be small ones yet, he thought.

“That is, actually . . . Well, the sergeant was in charge of my firing squad.”

“Your what?”

Driscol heard young McParland clear his throat. “My firing squad, Pa. I got charged with desertion. Which, uh, well, I did. Desert, I mean. Well, I tried, anyway. They caught me.”

Another clearing of the throat. “Truth is, I didn’t get five miles. Brigadier Scott’s cavalry were a lot better than we thought they’d be.”

Without opening his eyes—he didn’t think he could have, anyway, the lids felt so heavy—Driscol managed a harsh little chuckle.

“Don’t you be blaming the cavalry, youngster. We caught you because I was in charge. You think you lot were the first deserters I’ve ever been sent after? Ha. Sorry bastards tried to leave the emperor’s service all the time. I know all the stupid little tricks.”

There was silence in the cabin.

Then, Driscol heard the voice of one of the younger brothers. He wasn’t sure which one, even though he’d been introduced to all of them when he arrived. Thomas, he thought, who was about fourteen years old.

“Well, if that don’t beat all creation! What happened then? How come you’re still alive?”

“The brigadier thought I was too young to get shot. So the muskets of my firing squad bean’t loaded with real bullets. Just blanks.”

Silence. Then, again, young Thomas: “Were you scared?”

Here comes the first lie, Driscol thought. But McParland surprised him.

“Scared as you can imagine. I pissed my pants. Even before the guns went off.”

That was as far as honesty would take him, it seemed. But Driscol, even hovering on the edge of the grave, wasn’t about to let him get away with it.

“And then you shat your trousers when the guns did go off. I could smell it five feet off.”

Silence, for a few seconds.

“Well, yeah. I did.”

Silence, again. Driscol was tempted to open his eyes to see if McParland’s father was reaching for an ax, or if his mother was busy rummaging in the bins to find something suitably poisonous. But it was too much effort, and he hurt too much really to care anyway.

Besides, he’d grown up in a poor Scots-Irish family like this one. He was pretty sure he was safe.

McParland, on the other hand, wasn’t nearly as secure.

“Well!” exclaimed Mrs. McParland. “If that don’t make me crawl all over to think of it. But I’m glad somebody finally gave you the whupping you deserve! You little wretch! Trying to desert—when you’d given your word.”

“And facing the Sassenach,” growled the boy’s father. “I oughta shoot you for real myself.”

Enough was enough. “Leave the boy be,” Driscol rasped. “He was just homesick, is all. ’Twas nae cowardice. He stood against the bastards at the Chippewa, just the few days later. I know, I was right by him. Never flinched the once, and fired every shot on command.”

By now, word of the great American victory had spread throughout the area. Driscol knew it would be racing like wildfire across the entire nation.

Even with his eyes closed, he could sense the calm—no, satisfaction—easing into the silence of the cabin.

“Well,” said Mrs. McParland. “That’s true.”

“Can’t nobody dubiate that,” agreed the father. “So I guess I won’t take down the musket after all. Not even the belt.”

In the days that followed, young McParland’s honesty slipped a bit. Small crowds of people—young men and boys, especially—gathered about the farmhouse to hear Anthony’s tales of the glorious deed at the Chippewa. The story of his execution was a favorite bit—there was no way for him to avoid it, of course—but there was never any further mention of his trousers being soiled.

Nor was Driscol inclined to make good the lack. Moderation in all things, he decided—including honesty. The boy had learned his lesson, and even managed to be truthful enough with his family. Anything more would be an exercise in cruel ridicule.

If the sergeant from County Antrim was as harsh as Irish poverty, he wasn’t cruel. Cruelty was a vice of the wealthy, especially the Sassenach. Such, at least, was his firm conviction.

It hardly mattered, anyway. The glory of the Chippewa was enough to wash away all sins, and cover all blemishes. Within the week, young Anthony McParland—for the first time in his life—was a hero to his neighbors. And Driscol, a veritable legend.

Soon, Driscol was strong enough to move about and sit at the table for his meals. Thereafter, given his own iron constitution and the fare provided by Mrs. McParland, his recuperation sped up still further.

“It bean’t much,” she said apologetically, the first time Driscol sat down to dinner.

He examined the food. Looked at from one angle, “bean’t much” was certainly accurate. Salt pork and potatoes sauced with hog’s lard—the staple in the diet of poor Americans. There’d be pudding for dessert, maybe.

For breakfast, as he’d had every morning since he’d arrived, there’d been porridge. Porridge every day—and that would be true if he stayed here for ten years.

For lunch, nothing more than bread smeared with apple butter.

But . . .

There was plenty of it. And if the fare itself got tedious, Driscol could always cheer himself up with philosophical ruminations.

As, indeed, he proceeded to do right then and there. “It suits me just fine, Mrs. McParland. The Sassenach sneer at us, you know, for being a nation of drunkards, tobacco spitters, and fat eaters.”

“Do they really?”

“Oh, yes. I’ve read some of the newspaper accounts.” He ladled some salt pork and potatoes onto his plate. “But I recall that they used to sneer at us for exactly the same thing in Ireland—and added, to the bargain, the sneer that we were too poor to afford much in the way of whiskey or tobacco or fat.”

He ladled more salt pork and potatoes onto the plate.

“Here in America, on the other hand, we can afford plenty of it. So . . .” He ladled still more onto his plate. “This suits me just fine.”

Mr. McParland grunted his agreement. He grunted instead of speaking, because his mouth was full. After he finished swallowing that first great bite, he added his own philosophical observations.

“And we bean’t forced to listen to Church of England sermons about our sinful ways, neither.”

Young Thomas spoke up. “There’s Church of England people here, too, Pa.”

His father sneered. “So? They don’t swagger about giving orders, do they?”

“And they’ve even got a sense of shame,” Driscol pointed out. “At least here they label their cowardly Anglican superstitions by the name of ‘Episcopalianism.’ Might I have some more tea, Mrs. McParland?”

“Why, of course, Sergeant.” She refilled his cup from a kettle she brought over from the stove.

It was a large kettle, full of the strong and bitter tea that was more or less the recognized national drink of Americans. When they weren’t drinking whiskey, that is. Like most American farmwives, Mrs. McParland always had a kettle of it brewing.

“The Sassenach sneer at our tea, too,” Driscol commented mildly.

“They’re just jealous!” piped Thomas.

Driscol nodded. “Right you are, lad.”

By the end of that evening, Mrs. McParland apparently decided that Sergeant Driscol was one of their own. Even if he had, in a manner of speaking, executed her oldest son.

So the next morning, Driscol got a treat for breakfast. Instead of the constant porridge, Mrs. McParland fished some eggs out of a barrel of limewater, where they were kept fresh. Then, she fried them up in the hearth, in one of the three-legged skillets that people called “spiders.”

She tried to apologize again, but Driscol would have none of it.

“This will do me wonders, Mrs. McParland.” He wasn’t lying, either.

A few weeks later, word arrived. There’d been another great battle at Lundy’s Lane toward the end of July, just a few miles north of the Chippewa. The British were claiming it as a victory, because they’d been in possession of the field when the day was done. But, after hearing the details, Driscol assured the anxious visitors to the farm that the battle had really been pretty much of a draw.

A draw, and a horrible carnage, from the sound of it. Each army had lost at least eight hundred men. Not to Driscol’s surprise, an inordinate percentage of the American losses had come from Winfield Scott’s First Brigade. The brigadier had been in the forefront of the fighting, leading his men with a white plume held over his head. He’d had two horses shot out from under him.

During the fighting, which continued into the night, Scott’s shoulder had been smashed by a musket ball, and he’d been taken unconscious to the rear. General Jacob Brown had been badly wounded, also—and so had the Major Jesup who’d led the Twenty-fifth Regiment so ably at the Chippewa. Brown had been wounded twice, once by a musket ball in the thigh and then by a cannon ball that ricocheted into his rib cage. He’d had to relinquish command to General Ripley, who’d ordered the army to retire from the field.

The American army had retired in good order and there’d been no rout—no pursuit of any kind—so the British claims of a “victory” were more a formality than anything else. The British army had been so badly savaged itself at Lundy’s Lane that it was in no position to do anything further.

Most important of all, Driscol knew, was that the U.S. Army had been able to withstand such a holocaust in the first place. Battlefield victories and defeats came and went. What mattered was the quality of the army that was shaped by them. Driscol doubted if the stalemate on the northern front would ever be broken. But more than ever, it seemed likely that the British would abandon their efforts to prosecute the war in that theater. The American forces that faced them there were simply too good, too well trained—and now, too well blooded in battlefield experience.

The loss of Brown and Scott would hurt, of course. From the news accounts, Scott would be out of the war for a number of months, recuperating from his wound. But Eleazar Ripley was quite competent, if not as aggressive a general as either Scott or Brown. He was certainly no poltroon or fumbler, like so many previous American commanders had been on the Canadian front.

So. The war would be moving elsewhere; to the eastern seaboard, where coastal towns in Maryland and Delaware were being ravaged by Admiral Cockburn, and—above all—to the South.

New Orleans was the prize the British would be eyeing now. If they could seize the mouth of the Mississippi, they’d have their hands on the throat of America’s commerce.

Driscol was becoming impatient, which meant that he was recovering well. His arm still ached, and he was still much weaker than normal, but it was time he got back to the fight. As much as he could manage with only one arm, at least.

“We’ll leave tomorrow,” he announced.

The family must have been expecting it, since there was no show of surprise.

McParland didn’t try to talk him out of it. For a wonder, he didn’t even break into tears.

They were given a heroes’ send-off. Mrs. McParland went so far as to pack them a small cask full of her salt pork, which was quite a sacrifice for such a poor family. The money from the government, needless to say, hadn’t arrived yet. But Driscol assured the good farmwife that once he arrived in Washington and was able to snarl at a lazy War Department clerk, the money would be sent off right slick.

By then, she wasn’t inclined to doubt him.