Musket ball? I thought blankly. Chirurgeon?

The young man shook his head, white-faced. “Hurts bad enough sitting still. I couldna manage a horse.” He squeezed his eyes shut and set his teeth hard in his lower lip.

Murtagh spoke impatiently. “Well, we canna leave him behind noo, can we? The lobsterbacks are no great shakes trackin’ in the dark, but they’ll find this place sooner or later, shutters or no. And Jamie can hardly pass for an innocent cottar, wi’ yon great hole in ’im.”

“Dinna worrit yourself,” Dougal said shortly. “I don’t mean to be leaving him behind.”

The mustached man sighed. “No help for it, then. We’ll have to try and force the joint back. Murtagh, you and Rupert hold him; I’ll give it a try.”

I watched in sympathy as he picked up the young man’s arm by wrist and elbow and began forcing it upward. The angle was quite wrong; it must be causing agonizing pain. Sweat poured down the young man’s face, but he made no sound beyond a soft groan. Suddenly he slumped forward, kept from falling on the floor only by the grip of the men holding him.

One unstoppered a leather flask and pressed it to his lips. The reek of the raw spirit reached me where I stood. The young man coughed and gagged, but swallowed nonetheless, dribbling the amber liquid onto the remains of his shirt.

“All right for another go, lad?” the bald man asked. “Or maybe Rupert should have a try,” he suggested, turning to the squat, black-bearded ruffian.

Rupert, so invited, flexed his hands as though about to toss a caber, and picked up the young man’s wrist, plainly intending to put the joint back by main force; an operation, it was clear, which was likely to snap the arm like a broomstick.

“Don’t you dare to do that!” All thought of escape submerged in professional outrage, I started forward, oblivious to the startled looks of the men around me.

“What do you mean?” snapped the bald man, clearly irritated by my intrusion.

“I mean that you’ll break his arm if you do it like that,” I snapped back. “Stand out of the way, please.” I elbowed Rupert back and took hold of the patient’s wrist myself. The patient looked as surprised as the rest, but didn’t resist. His skin was very warm, but not feverish, I judged.

“You have to get the bone of the upper arm at the proper angle before it will slip back into its joint,” I said, grunting as I pulled the wrist up and the elbow in. The young man was sizable; his arm was heavy as lead.

“This is the worst part,” I warned the patient. I cupped the elbow, ready to whip it upward and in.

His mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “It canna hurt much worse than it does. Get on wi’ it.” Sweat was popping out on my own face by now. Resetting a shoulder joint is hard work at the best of times. Done on a large man who had gone hours since the dislocation, his muscles now swollen and pulling on the joint, the job was taking all the strength I had. The fire was dangerously close; I hoped we wouldn’t both topple in, if the joint went back with a jerk.

Suddenly the shoulder gave a soft crunching pop! and the joint was back in place. The patient looked amazed. He put an unbelieving hand up to explore.

“It doesna hurt anymore!” A broad grin of delighted relief spread across his face, and the men broke out in exclamations and applause.

“It will.” I was sweating from the exertion, but smugly pleased with the results. “It will be tender for several days. You mustn’t extend the joint at all for two or three days; when you do use it again, go very slowly at first. Stop at once if it begins to hurt, and use warm compresses on it daily.”

I became aware, in the midst of this advice, that while the patient was listening respectfully, the other men were eyeing me with looks ranging from wonder to outright suspicion.

“I’m a nurse, you see,” I explained, feeling somehow defensive.

Dougal’s eyes, and Rupert’s as well, dropped to my bosom and fastened there with a sort of horrified fascination. They exchanged glances, then Dougal looked back at my face.

“Be that as it may,” he said, raising his brows at me. “For a wetnurse, you’d seem to have some skill at healing. Can ye stanch the lad’s wound, well enough for him to sit a horse?”

“I can dress the wound, yes,” I said with considerable asperity. “Provided you’ve anything to dress it with. But just what do you mean ‘wetnurse’? And why do you suppose I’d want to help you, anyway?”

I was ignored as Dougal turned and spoke in a tongue I dimly recognized as Gaelic to a woman who cowered in the corner. Surrounded by the mass of men, I had not noticed her before. She was dressed oddly, I thought, in a long, ragged skirt and a long-sleeved blouse half-covered by a sort of bodice or jerkin. Everything was rather on the grubby side, including her face. Glancing around, though, I could see that the cottage lacked not only electrification but also indoor plumbing; perhaps there was some excuse for the dirt.

The woman bobbed a quick curtsy, and scuttling past Rupert and Murtagh, she began digging in a painted wooden chest by the hearth, emerging finally with a pile of ratty cloths.

“No, that won’t do,” I said, fingering them gingerly. “The wound needs to be disinfected first, then bandaged with a clean cloth, if there are no sterile bandages.”

Eyebrows rose all around. “Disinfected?” said the small man, carefully.

“Yes, indeed,” I said firmly, thinking him a bit simpleminded, in spite of his educated accent. “All dirt must be removed from the wound and it must be treated with a compound to discourage germs and promote healing.”

“Such as?”

“Such as iodine,” I said. Seeing no comprehension on the faces before me, I tried again. “Merthiolate? Dilute carbolic?” I suggested. “Or perhaps even just alcohol?” Looks of relief. At last I had found a word they appeared to recognize. Murtagh thrust the leather flask into my hands. I sighed with impatience. I knew the Highlands were primitive, but this was nearly unbelievable.

“Look,” I said, as patiently as I could. “Why don’t you just take him down into the town? It can’t be far, and I’m sure there’s a doctor there who could see to him.”

The woman gawped at me. “What town?”

The big man called Dougal was ignoring this discussion, peering cautiously into the darkness around the curtain’s edge. He let it fall back into place and stepped quietly to the door. The men fell quiet as he vanished into the night.

In a moment he was back, bringing the bald man and the cold sharp scent of dark pines with him. He shook his head in answer to the men’s questioning looks.

“Nay, nothing close. We’ll go at once, while it’s safe.”

Catching sight of me, he stopped for a moment, thinking. Suddenly he nodded at me, decision made.

“She’ll come with us,” he said. He rummaged in the pile of cloths on the table and came up with a tattered rag; it looked like a neckcloth that had seen better days.

The mustached man seemed disinclined to have me along, wherever they were going.

“Why do ye no just leave her here?”

Dougal cast him an impatient glance, but left it to Murtagh to explain. “Wherever the redcoats are now, they’ll be here by dawn, which is no so far off, considering. If this woman’s an English spy, we canna risk leaving her here to tell them which way we’ve gone. And if she should not be on good terms wi’ them” – he looked dubiously at me – “we certainly canna leave a lone woman here in her shift.” He brightened a bit, fingering the fabric of my skirt. “She might be worth a bit in the way of ransom, at that; little as she has on, it’s fine stuff.”

“Besides,” Dougal added, interrupting, “she may be useful on the way; she seems to know a bit about doctoring. But we’ve no time for that now. I’m afraid ye’ll have to go without bein’ ‘disinfected,’ Jamie,” he said, clapping the younger man on the back. “Can ye ride one-handed?”