When I became conscious, I was lying under blankets upon a trundle-bed, within the four walls of a very small room.
I wore a night-shift which was not mine, being finer and oddly ruffled; and under it my naked body was as stiff as a pike pole, and bound up like a mummy. My right thigh, too, was stiffly swathed and trussed, and I thought I should stifle from the heat of the blankets.
My mind was clear; I was aware of no sharp pain, no fever; but felt very weak, and could have slept again, only that perspiration drenched me and made me restless even as I dozed.
Sometime afterward—the same day, I think—I awoke in some pain, and realized that I was lying on my right side and that the wound in my thigh was being dressed.
The place smelled rank, like a pharmacy, and slightly sickened me.
There were several people in the little room. I saw Nick kneeling beside the bed, holding a pewter basin full of steaming water, and a Continental officer with his wrist-bands tucked up, choosing forceps from a battered leather case.
I could not move my body; my head seemed too heavy to lift; but I was aware of a woman standing close to where my head rested. I could see her two feet in their buckled shoes, and her petticoat of cotton stuff printed in flowers.
When the surgeon had done a-packing my wound with lint, pain had left me weak and indifferent, and I lay heavily, with lids closed.
Also, I had seen and heard enough to satisfy what languid curiosity I might have possessed. For I was in the gun-room at Summer House, whither, it appeared, they had taken me, despite my command to the contrary.
But now I was too weary to resent it; too listless to worry; too incurious to wonder who it might be that was at any pains to care for my broken body at Summer House Point.