Thank God

The whole Scene

The cot­tage had filled up with twen­ty or thir­ty men by midafter­noon, and my two-woman staff was hop­ping. The house nor­mal­ly held a fam­i­ly of five or six, and the men able to stand were stand­ing on the plaids of those lying down. In the dis­tance across the small flat, I could see offi­cers com­ing and going to the manse, the minister’s res­i­dence com­man­deered by the High Com­mand. I kept an eye on the bat­tered door, which hung con­stant­ly ajar, but didn’t see Jamie among those arriv­ing to report casu­al­ties and receive congratulations.I bat­ted away the recur­rent small gnat of wor­ry, telling myself that I didn’t see him among the wound­ed, either. I had not had time since ear­ly on to vis­it the small tent up the slope, where the dead of the bat­tle were being laid out in order­ly rows, as though await­ing a last inspec­tion. But sure­ly he could not be there.Surely not, I told myself.The door swung open and Jamie walked in.I felt my knees give slight­ly at sight of him, and put out a hand to steady myself on the cottage’s wood­en chim­ney. He had been look­ing for me; his eyes dart­ed around the room before they light­ed on me, and a heart-stop­ping smile lit his face.He was filthy, grimed with black-pow­der smoke, splat­tered with blood, and bare­foot, legs and feet caked with mud. But he was whole, and stand­ing. I wasn’t inclined to quib­ble with the details.Cries of greet­ing from some of the wound­ed men on the floor dragged his gaze away from me. He glanced down, smiled at George McClure, grin­ning up at his com­man­der despite an ear that hung from his head by a sliv­er of flesh, then looked quick­ly back at me.Thank God, his dark-blue eyes said, and Thank God, my own echoed back.There was no time for more; wound­ed men were still com­ing in, and every able-bod­ied non­mil­i­tary per­son in the vil­lage had been pressed into ser­vice to care for them. Archie Cameron, Lochiel’s doc­tor broth­er, bus­tled back and forth among the cot­tages, nom­i­nal­ly in charge, and actu­al­ly doing some good here and there.

All rights for the Pic­ture go to the right­ful owner Starz
Quo­te and Excerpt by Diana Gabaldon from “DiA”
I own not­hing but the editing