Of Wildflowers and Gunpowder

Chapter 3

     I woke up screaming, whether from a nightmare or simply the excruciating pain, I did not know.
"Good afternoon, Miss Adams," Captain Simcoe said matter-of-factly, "I hope you will be cooperative as I ask you a few questions."
     "Doctor," I breathed, barely able to form the words, "please, I need a doctor!" He ignored me and began fiddling with the pistol hanging on his belt.
     We were still in André's tent and the Major was sitting quietly at his desk, glancing up every now and then to watch Simcoe with a look of muted disgust.
"Please, Major, can't you spare a doctor for a few minutes? I'm—I'm in so much pain. I'll pay double for the treatment, please!"
     He looked up with more compassion in his eyes and was about to answer me when Simcoe swung his fist, violently throwing me back against the metal frame of the cot. I whimpered in desperate agony and fought unconsciousness.
     Blood poured down the side of my face and I couldn't stop a few silent, trembling tears.
"Captain Simcoe," André scolded, standing to his feet furiously and causing the Queen's Ranger to step back by the sheer tone of his voice, "You seem to struggle with following orders, Captain. I told you not to attack my prisoners—especially a lady. If you can no longer obey your superiors, I will simply have to replace you. Do your job or leave me to do it."
     He gave Simcoe a glare and returned to his desk, breathing a long sigh of exasperation before continuing his work. Simcoe looked ready to kill me, humiliated.
"Now, Miss Adams, what were you doing out so late at night all by yourself? Did you run out of men to entertain in the rebel camp and come to the big city to join a whorehouse?"
     I wanted to hit him but I knew better. I was too weak, he was too strong.
     "I was visiting friends in New York."
His expression never changed as he advanced towards me, grabbing me by the hair and holding my face inches from his. I could smell his sweat despite the cold weather. He was truly mad, I thought.
     "You will be hanged, Louisa Adams. There is no lighter sentence. It is merely a matter of the information you provide. Would you rather spend the days leading up to the gallows in utter misery or in our best accommodations?"
     "I am not a soldier, I am not in uniform, I have no incriminating documents. Anything I may have done to you in the past has been more than paid for by your inhumane treatment of me right now. Why am I here?"
    I could barely breathe but I spoke the words with strength, knowing that Simcoe couldn't simply execute someone without proper reason, even in the British army.
     There was no evidence that I was anything more than an innocent citizen on my way back from a day in New York City. Nobody outside the camp knew that I lived with the soldiers as a doctor and intelligence agent, and I planned to keep it that way. It was Simcoe's word against mine.
     "You are a spy!" he screamed at me, letting me go roughly and punching the straw mattress.
    "Captain, you simply can't believe that a woman could be a spy," I said, playing the most helpful defense I had, "That is ridiculous. You are paranoid, a poor excuse for a British soldier and now you have condemned an innocent young woman to death as a spy? Your superiors must be so proud."
     He lunged for me furiously, repeatedly punching me in the jaw and digging his knee into the bullet wound with excruciating force. I couldn't even cry out. Within seconds, I had blacked out.

     Soft voices loomed above me when I awoke groggily. My vision was blurred but as my eyes focused, I could make out two tall men standing on both sides of me. "What is going on?" I breathed.
     "I retrieved a doctor for you," I heard to my right. Major André was sitting at his desk once more with his legs crossed and hands folded perfectly.
   "Thank you, sir," I managed, "I-I don't know how to repay you."
He grinned gently and replied, "Don't thank me yet, Miss Adams." The doctor removed my bloodied stays and I helped him remove my outer petticoat.
     "Your underpinnings," he said, tossing the stays to the floor, "saved your life. It absorbed much of the bullet's speed so it didn't puncture any important organs."
A wry smile found its way onto my face as he prepared the surgical tools beside me.
Major Tallmadge, before I left camp, had argued that I ought to wear my partially-boned stays for comfort while riding, but I chose my more supportive fully-boned stays.
'I cannot,' I had told him, 'wear anything but the best to York City. Everyone knows that high society would never wear partially-boned stays to a meeting.'
Benjamin had laughed, pretending to bow reverently as I held my chin out haughtily. New York high society had just saved my life.
"Now," the doctor said matter-of-factly, "this will hurt like nothing you have ever felt before but once it is over, you will heal quickly. I need to get the bullet out and seal the wound."
     "Alright. If I entreat you to stop, don't listen to me." I grabbed a tight hold onto one of the thin quilts on the bed as he held the knife over a small flame.
John André watched intently, a look of focused interest in his eyes. The doctor's assistant to my left held the extra tools as the doctor slowly put the knife into the wound.
     I cried out and pulled the quilt around my torso, trying to preoccupy my hands so I didn't grab the doctor.
He began digging for the bullet and I screamed despite myself, clawing at the blanket desperately in search of relief. He held the wound open with the knife and reached for the tongs from the assistant. Blood poured from my side all over the bed as he dug deep into my flesh.
     I couldn't breathe. 
Beginning to worry about infection or losing too much blood, I felt him carefully search for the bullet.
He suddenly moved the knife too far, cutting deeper into my side. I lurched forward, begging, "Please, please wait a moment...I can help you find the wound. Wait!"
     Gasping for breath, I put my hands out for him to give me the tools. "You're fishing around for it," I panted, "but I can feel the bullet so I can help you get your knife under it."
He hesitated, and I explained, "I'm a doctor. I promise I won't hurt you, I just need to locate it before you try to take it out. Please, sir!"
     He glanced at André before cautiously handing the knife over to my shaking hands. I clenched my teeth and pushed the blade slightly underneath the blood soaked bullet, tears streaming down my face. "Here it is, here it is. Take it. Take the knife from me but don't move it at all."
When the doctor had the blade in his hands once again, I grabbed the quilt and stuffed the end of it into my mouth.
"This will hurt."
"I know," I said, my voice muffled from the quilt, "Just do it."
He held the bullet carefully with two fingers and the blade and took a deep breath before pulling it out in one swift motion.
I clenched my fists and cried out, trying to calm my trembling hands as he calmly dropped the bullet into a glass.
     Breathing hard, I nodded in relief as he prepared the needle and thread to stitch it up. "The worst is over, Miss Adams," he said as he carefully began threading it through the wound, "I must admit, you are the first lady I have ever operated on. It wasn't how I imagined at all; you are the easiest patient I have ever seen. Even for a rebel."
     I laughed tightly, "I know what it's like to try to operate on a screaming patient. There is no—" I gasped in pain as he tightened the stitches, "way I could ever thank you."
     Major André stood and came beside the doctor as he tightly bandaged my side. "And you," I said breathily, "I am convinced you are a guardian angel in the form of my antagonist. Thank you."
     He gave a sympathetic smile and said, "Get some rest, I will tell Captain Simcoe to go away if he comes looking."
     When the three men left the tent, I discarded the blood soaked blankets in exchange for the clean ones at the foot of the bed, shaking from cold and agonizing adrenaline. I just wanted to go home.