Vermillion (The Hundred Days Series Book 1) Read Free

'.
    She stood up to toss the letter in
the courier's satchel and lie down for a little sleep, but a soldier's throat
clearing on the other side of the tent wall dashed her hopes.
    “Miss Foster, Doctor Addison has
called for you. Most urgently, miss.”
    “Directly.” She was too tired to
form full sentences. Couldn't the man deliver a baby or dab on some ointment
alone? Of course, he would not send for his assistant. She doubted Addison
could stand the man any more than she, even if he could not recall the reasons.
    She draped her cloak tightly around
her shoulders, no longer fooled into believing spring nights in Brussels were
anything like the days. Hefting up a red canvas sack from her cot, half-yawning
and half-sighing, she swore it had only been minutes since she'd tossed her kit
down. Throwing it over her shoulder, Kate slipped outside.
    The camp was blanketed by tense
silence. The men even snored more quietly than usual.
    Between the tents it was dark,
making the rows of little triangles look like jagged white teeth lit by the
moonrise. Most of the fires were banked and no late night stragglers filled the
courtyard. No one up tossing dice or passing the jug. Drunken midnight laughter
was conspicuously absent, replaced by enough quiet that her ear caught the
sound of tent canvas snapping in a light breeze. Was it the grim anticipation
of battle, or was this General Webb's influence? The changes were unsettling,
either way. Without meaning to, Kate picked up her pace a step.
    A waxing moon was just rising over
her shoulder, bathing the walls. It cast deeper shadows ahead of her and a blue
glow out to the horizon. In daylight the land was beautiful, hills swaying with
burnished grasses rolling off into a sky a shade of blue Kate didn't believe
existed anywhere else.   Spring dotted the landscape with rambling wildflowers,
adding new green foliage to ancient tree branches. It was time for the world to
come alive again, but she did not find much joy in the season.
    It wasn't the impending battle that
had concerned her for days now. The fighting was left to other hands and she
cleaned up after. Her worry was more immediate. The insistent stink of the
latrine pits as she crossed the camp had given pause for days. Wood ash
normally masked the odor, but the holes had grown too full to be disguised.
Constructed in unstable hillside soil, filling them in and digging more would
be near impossible.
    At least the latrines were near the
walls. Midden piles dumped inside the camp had grown putrid, gagging her
at times along her daily route. The waste brought flies and rats in warmer
weather, and both brought disease. Commander Braddock had discharged his duties
poorly on all counts, and camp sanitation was no exception. She caught herself
sighing, and realized it was becoming a reflex.
    Doctor Addison boasted the second
largest tent in the garrison after the officers' mess, a tall pavilion-style
arrangement where he saw patients during the day. If they required a saw and
the hospital was at capacity, a converted mess tent nearly abutting his living
quarters did the job.
    The operatory was dark now, but the
doctor's tent blazed from inside.
    She slid under the flap into a space
that, if not for the dirt floor, might have been a gentleman's study in a fine
townhouse. Books were everywhere, on shelves and tables or crenelated atop
supply trunks. The tables, filled with instruments and vials, were meticulously
arranged, and even the clothes in his footlocker were neatly folded. She knew
because, like the supplies, she was in charge of putting them away.
    Despite her best efforts there was
an off-putting sense of clutter which was new to the doctor's quarters. The
disarray had been imposed by the recent occupation of an enormous bed. With a
frame practically medieval in construction, its wood planks must have been
planed from half a grove of trees. It was strung together with enough rope to
rig a man'o'war and needed a special wrench