The Saintly Buccaneer Read Free

asleep. He does that a lot. Maybe he’ll eat a few bites when he wakes up again.” He added, “I’ll go give some of this to my friend over there while you sit with him.”
    Charity sat in the dim hut beside her brother for a long time. Nathan came back after a time, looked down, then left, leaving the soup with her. “Stay as long as you like; I’ll take you home whenever you want.”
    As she continued the vigil, holding the thin hand, memories swept through her—mostly about the days when Curtis was a small boy. They had been very close, and now she was afraid. If she had been a woman of prayer, she would have prayed, but that part of her life had been perfunctory—a few memorized forms that meant nothing in this place of pain and darkness and death. Fear was not something lurking outside—it was a sharp blade slicing away at her deep down inside.
    Her thoughts flew back and forth as she tried to think—but the fear that had paralyzed her since she had walked into the hospital seemed to have destroyed her power to think. She longed for her father or for her grandmother to be there.Always she had depended on them, and now they were far away. She was the only one who could help Curtis.
    Finally she felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up with a start to see Winslow standing over her. He spoke quietly. “Charity—would you like to get Curtis out of this place?”
    A sudden hope seized her, and she exclaimed with a wild urgency, “Oh, yes!”
    “I’ve been praying on it,” he replied slowly, his face still in the flickering lamplight. “And I think the Lord has told me that we better take Curtis home. I’ll go get your buggy and tell Julie to fix up a place for him.”
    “Thank you!” was all she could say, and when he left, she let her hot tears fall on Curtis’s thin hand. She moved her lips in a whisper. “Oh, God! Don’t let him die!”

CHAPTER TWO
    DEATH AT VALLEY FORGE
    Snowflakes large as shillings fell out of the sky—not drifting down gently but plummeting to the frozen earth. Charity had to stop frequently and clear her lashes, because the heavy flakes froze instantly as they touched her face. For the last week, since she had arrived at Valley Forge, she had made a daily journey from the Winslow hut to the hospital, taking food to several of Nathan’s friends. He had been sent on some sort of military mission, and when Julie had started to put on her thin coat to make the trip, Charity had quickly insisted on taking her place.
    “I hate to have you out in this weather, Charity,” Julie had protested.
    “Me? Why, I’m used to it, Julie,” Charity had laughed as she slipped into her fur coat. “The last trip we made on The Gallant Lady, a snowstorm caught us. Father stayed at the wheel so long he froze his feet, and I almost did the same. I’m an old salt—and tough as boot leather!”
    “But it’s—”
    “Julie, I want you to lie down and rest until I get back. Come on, now—let me cover you up.” She practically forced her onto the low bed strung with rawhide, pulled a heap of ragged quilts over her, then impulsively leaned over and kissed her. “You’ve done so much for Curtis—and for me. Don’t refuse me this one little thing!” Then she had darted over to pull the covers up on Curtis before leaving the hut.
    The visits to the hospital had been difficult, for she hatedthe stench and squalor of the place. She had to carry the food past those who were starving, and the hollow eyes that followed her made her ache. They were dying, most of them, she realized, and they cried out silently for her to stop and talk. Some were young, not over fourteen, and they cried out for their mothers in their delirium. Charity forced herself to smile, spending most of the time that Curtis lay unconscious trying to bring some hope to the sick and wounded.
    She made her way through the curtain of falling snow, muttering through stiff lips, “Worse than a fog off the Banks!” Finally she