Page 44 of These Immortal Truths
Tensions have been rising for years now, but she had tried to hold on to hope that things could be resolved peacefully. The last of those hopes sunk with the forty-some tons of tea at the bottom of Boston Harbor. She knew then it would lead to this: another war on already blood-soaked land.
It’s been centuries since she offered medical care to passing soldiers in France. After her home was burned to the ground, she never dared offering anything other than midwifery. It was too gut wrenching, watching years of work be swept away in an instant. Too nerve racking, knowing all it would take is just one voice to accuse her of witchcraft to draw suspicion, and just one look at the patterns on her skin to condemn her.
This war is different.
If necessity is the mother of invention, Anna thinks desperation might be the father of change. The Continental Congress doesn’t have the same resources as the crown and they certainly don’t have extra men to spare. It is General Washington that requests funds to hire women to keep the camps running—laundry, food, nursing. So, for the first time in centuries, Anna finds herself treating war wounds instead of delivering babes.
It is infinitely harder than what she experienced in France.
The conditions in the camps are terrible, and the lack of medical knowledge is painful. Anna quickly discovers that she knows far more about remedies than even the doctors. Most of her fellow nurses have no more medical knowledge than any other housewife—hired only because they were desperate for additional hands. Many aren’t prepared for the blood and the gore thatcomes with the position, but they stay anyway. Things are so destitute, so many families are forced to take whatever job they can to survive.
In a camp full of mothers and wives who have never seen war up close, Anna stands out like a goose among chickens. In the first three days, they make her matron. Anna wishes the title came with some respect from the physicians she works with, but she seems to make more enemies than friends. Of the four surgeons working in their camp, only one actually considers her suggestions. He shoots most of them down, of course, but he at least allows her the dignity of being heard.
At twenty-six, Frederick Thompson is the youngest surgeon in camp. He is bright-eyed and bold, with a passion for medicine that the war has yet to dampen. Anna knows it’s only a matter of time before his enthusiasm burns out and he’s left feeling as hopeless and hollow-hearted as the rest of them. There’s only so much suffering one can witness before the screams and the faces blur together. Only so much the heart can take, before it shuts down.
“Eliza!”
Anna looks up from her meal, the bowl of gruel already congealing, in time to see Dr. Thompson storming across camp—his eyes pinned directly on her. Her lips purse, suspecting she knows exactly what he wishes to speak about. Of all the surgeons, Thompson is the least quick to temper, but Anna supposes she may have found the line he won’t have her cross:
His pride.
“Perhaps you can explain to me why you told Lillian to leavemaggotsin my patient’s hand?” he snarls, the volume of his voice drawing curious eyes from around the camp.
Anna sighs, abandoning her meager rations and standing. “Mr. Smith has already lost two of his fingers. I thought the least we can do is save the rest of him.”
“How dare—”
She cuts off his tirade before he can start. “The amputation of his fingers is horribly infected. You refuse to let me treat with the herbal methods to combat it,” she snaps. “The maggots eat the dead fleshand leave the healthy behind. Unless you want to carve more of him away, you’ll leave them.”
His eyes, a deep brown, darken. “You are playing with this man’s life,” he hisses, pointing an accusatory finger between them. “These so-called cures you believe you know, are nothing but wives-tales and whimsy. There is no medical evidence—”
Anna’s spine straightens, her shoulders squared. “That you know of.”
For months, she’s been unable to give the wounded the kind of treatment they desperately need. For months, she’s been belittled and treated without the respect she’s earned. Quietly obeying orders has brought her nothing but guilt and nightmares, and she isdone.
He leans away, mouth parted in disbelief. “Do you mean for me to believe that you, a mere woman, know more than asurgeon?”
Her voice remains steady. Confident. “Don’t remove the maggots, and I’ll leave that for you to decide.”
Thompson’s fair complexion reddens, his fury palpable. “You aredismissed.”
Anna steps toward him, into his space. “Lovely. In that case, I see no reason not to inform you that you are an arrogant fool and that your stubborn pride will continue to be the death of many more to come.” She scoffs, shaking her head. “I’m glad I won’t be here to see it.”
She turns on her heel, her heart beat drumming wildly in her ears and her anger running hot in her veins. A few of the nurses, the ones she has mentored the last month, call after her. Anna doesn’t stop.
They are calling for Eliza, the woman made camp matron, and she has already shed that skin, ready to step into the next as easily as anyone else casts aside ragged clothing for clean ones.
She supposes she has Khiran’s influence to thank for that.
It’s been a week since she was dismissed from her duties as matron. A week of foraging the surrounding woods and making do with what she has. She kept very little with her at the camp, but she at least had a few basics left from when she journeyed there. It’s enough to ease the burden of being on her own.
She’s not sure where she wants to go.
There’s no doubt she could get hired on as a nurse for the opposing side, but she hardly thinks she’ll be treated any better. The pay would be substantially higher, but their respect would be just as lacking. Still, it would mean lives saved.
And more preventable lives lost.
Perhaps she will go back to midwifery—at least then she wouldn’t be under the thumb of a man who believes he knows better.
