4
As the weeks dragged past, General Murray took ever more drastic action to eke out what stores Quebec had. He ordered a survey of the camp followers and discovered nearly five hundred and seventy wives and other women; mouths to be fed yet arms that did not carry a single musket.
Murray cut the women’s rations to two-thirds that of the men and ordered them to labour, stacking timber, filling sandbags or tending to the always-increasing number of sick. When the General and Ursuline Hospitals were unable to cope with the number of sick, General Murray created a new army hospital, with the wives as nurses.
“Me, a nurse?” Harriette gave her coarse laugh. “Dear God in heaven, I hope none of you boys come under my care. I’ve got the nursing skills of a lump of peat.”
“That’s true,” Chishol
