Moulder spread the piece of canvas wide. There was little left of the face of George III. The eyes were gone, the mouth was nothing more than a gaping hole, and the monarch’s powdered hair was peppered with shot.
“Well, at least one thing you’ve told me is true,” Moulder admitted. “The boy is a good shot.”
“Doc saved my life at Princeton,” Swift said. “Put a ball right through the eye of a British soldier. And he doctored the lieutenant’s hand when he burned it. Useful boy to have around, sir.”
“And these?” Moulder picked up two brass semicircles, finely engraved, that had been found in Marcus’s haversack when the captain searched it for other spoils of battle. “Don’t tell me they’re medical instruments.”
“Quadrants,” Swift replied. “Or they will be when we’re through with them.”
In addition to the head of George III, Marcus had taken the two pieces from the orrery that stood outside the room where he’d found the king’s portrait. Other soldiers had smashed the glass and part of the fine mechanism that marked the passage of the planets across the sky. He had pocketed what remained because it reminded him of his mother, and home.
“General Washington is bound to hear about this target practice of yours.” Moulder sighed. “What do you propose I tell him, Swift?”
“I’d let him think Captain Hamilton did it,” Swift replied. “That popinjay likes to take credit for everything, whether he’s responsible or not.”
There was no denying it, and Captain Moulder didn’t even try.
“Get out of my sight, all of you,” Moulder said wearily. “I will tell the general that Lieutenant Cuthbert has already disciplined you. And I’m docking your pay.”
“Pay?” Swift guffawed. “What pay?”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll see to it that nothing like this happens again.” Cuthbert took Swift by the scruff of the neck. “Enjoy your lunch, sir.”
Outside the tent, Vanderslice, Swift, and Marcus were greeted by silence. Then the pats on the back started, the offers of swallows of rum and gin, the proud smiles.
“Thanks, Doc,” Vanderslice said, relieved that he was not going to be beaten.
“You lie like an Irishman, Doc,” Adam Swift said, clapping his hat on his head. “I knew I liked you.”
“The Associators take care of their own,” Cuthbert murmured in Marcus’s ear. “You’re one of us now.”
For the first time since leaving Joshua and Zeb in Hadley, Marcus felt that he belonged.
* * *
—
SEVERAL DAYS AFTER being hauled before Moulder, Marcus and Vanderslice were sharing what qualified as a fire in Washington’s winter encampment: a pile of damp logs that smoked and gave off very little heat. He had no feeling in his fingers or toes, and the air was so cold that it seared the skin before burning a pathway into his lungs.
The frigid temperatures made conversation difficult, but Vanderslice was undeterred. The only topic that the boy refused to discuss was his life before he became part of the Philadelphia artillery company. This was the root of the friendship that had sprung up between Marcus and Vanderslice. While most of the soldiers talked about nothing but their mothers, the girls they’d left behind, and male relatives who were fighting for Washington in other regiments, it was as though Marcus and Vanderslice had been born in November and only remembered life with the Associators: their retreat from Manhattan following the loss of Ft. Washington, the battle at Trenton at Christmas, and the most recent battle near the college at Princeton.
“‘Two angels came down from the north; one named Fire, the other Frost; Frost said to Fire go away, go away; / in the name of Jesus go away,’” Vanderslice said, blowing on his cold-reddened fingers. He had only one glove, and kept swapping it back and forth between his hands.
“Wonder if we could expel the cold if we said it backward.” Marcus burrowed into the woolen muffler he’d taken off a dead soldier after the battle at Princeton.
“Probably. Prayers have power,” Vanderslice replied. “Do you know any others?”
“Frostbite in January, amputate in July.” It was more of a prophecy than a prayer, but Marcus shared it anyway.
“You can’t fool me, Yankee. You didn’t learn that in church.” Vanderslice reached into his pocket and pulled out a small flask. “Want a nip of rum? It’s got gunpowder in it, to give you courage.”
Marcus took a precautionary sniff.