“No, sir,” Dr. Otto hastened to reply. “The general’s orders last winter have spared us from that. But camp fever, typhus . . .” His words drifted into silence.
The members of Congress looked at each other nervously. Ettwein’s eyes met de Clermont’s, and the two exchanged a meaningful glance.
“These common illnesses threaten the health of the entire community,” de Clermont said. “Surely the brethren and sisters must not suffer unduly. Why, Brother Ettwein’s own son is nursing the soldiers and risking his life to care for them. What greater form of patriotism can there be, than to put one’s own child at risk?”
Marcus eyed the young man standing next to him. The younger John Ettwein was far more amiable than his father but otherwise resembled him closely, with his upturned nose and wide-set eyes. Though John was indeed a skilled nurse, Marcus suspected that Ettwein’s son had been seconded to the hospital to make sure that the brethren’s house was not harmed during the army’s occupation.
“Let us adjourn to the inn,” Hancock said, “and deliberate further.”
* * *
—
“YOU KNOW HOW TO HANDLE a hoe as well as a lancet, I see,” said young John Ettwein.
Marcus looked up from the patch of herbs that they were cutting in anticipation of the tents that would soon spring up on the hillside overlooking the river. The apothecary, Brother Eckhardt, had ordered the two of them to harvest every medicinal simple they could before the soldiers destroyed the gardens.
“And you don’t sound like you’re from Philadelphia,” John continued.
Marcus resumed his task without comment. He pulled a mandrake from the earth and put it in the basket next to the snakeroot.
“So what’s your story, Brother Chauncey?” John’s eyes were bright with unanswered questions. “We all know you’re not from around here.”
Not for the first time, Marcus was glad he had been born on the frontier and not in Boston. Everybody knew he was from somewhere else, but no one could place his accent with any precision.
“You needn’t worry. Most people in Bethlehem came from elsewhere,” John remarked.
But most people hadn’t killed their fathers. Marcus had barely spoken a word around the delegates from Congress for fear someone might recognize that he was from Massachusetts and ask difficult questions.
“Cat’s still got your tongue, I see.” John wiped the sweat from his brow and peered down at the riverside road. “Mein Gott.”
“Wagons.” Marcus scrambled to his feet. As far as the eye could see, there were wagons. “They’ve come from Philadelphia.”
“There are hundreds of them,” John said, thrusting his hoe into the earth. “We must find my father. And the chevalier. At once.”
Marcus abandoned his basket of roots and leaves and followed John toward the Brethren’s House. They had not made it more than a few yards when they ran into de Clermont and Brother Ettwein. The two men were already aware of the invasion from Philadelphia.
“There are too many of them!” Brother Ettwein was saying to de Clermont, his eyes wild. “We have already unloaded seventy wagons in just two days. The Scottish prisoners are in one of our family houses. Their guards are living in the pumping house. The army’s stores have filled the lime kilns and the oil house. The single brothers are displaced. And now more locusts descend! What are we to do?”
The wagons from Philadelphia pulled to a stop in the fields on the southern bank of the river, one after another, flattening the buckwheat planted there. A troop of horse accompanied them.
“So much for our peaceable village!” Ettwein continued, his voice bitter. “When Dr. Shippen wrote, he said the army would be an inconvenience—not drive us out of hearth and home.”
Still the wagons came. Marcus had never seen so many at one time. The drivers unhitched their teams and led them to the water. The wagon train’s guards dismounted, allowing their horses to graze.
“Shall I speak to them, Johannes?” The chevalier de Clermont looked grim. “There is probably little I can do, but at least we will know their plans.”
“We settled in Bethlehem to avoid war.” Ettwein’s voice was low and intense. “We have all seen enough of it, Brother de Clermont. Religious war. War with the French. War with the Indians. Now war with the British. Do you never get tired of it?”
For a moment, the chevalier de Clermont’s composed mask slipped, and he looked as bitter as Ettwein sounded. Marcus blinked and the Frenchman’s face became as inscrutable as it was before.