“I’ve been obliged to issue an order,” he complained. “The place is full of curiosity seekers! You Americans would come for miles, I do believe, just to stand and stare at an Englishman! I can’t permit people coming here and disturbing my patients merely out of idle curiosity. It’s an invasion of their privacy as well as mine, and I’ll not allow it! Now then: have you an order from your headquarters, permitting you to see one of the inmates of this hospital, or have you not?”

“Doctor,” I said, “I’m not here on army business, but to see my brother.”

“Your brother, eh?” he exclaimed. “It makes no difference! You’ll have to have an order from your headquarters.”

“But that’s in Saratoga, thirty miles away, doctor!” I protested. “I started from there yesterday and walked all night to get here. Don’t make me walk another sixty miles to Saratoga and back again, just because curiosity-seekers have made nuisances of themselves. It’s not curiosity that brings me here, sir: it’s concern for my own flesh and blood: my young brother.”

“If we make an exception in your case, we’ll have to make a thousand exceptions!” he protested. “It’s impossible! Ah—what’s your brother’s name?”

“Nathaniel Merrill,” I said.

His irascibility changed suddenly to a haughty coldness. “Indeed! Mr. Merrill, your brother sees no one! Your brother, sir, was shot while attempting to desert from the British camp to the American lines at a critical moment in our army’s existence. When he has sufficiently recovered, he’ll be tried by a British court-martial on the charge of desertion, and if guilty will be fittingly punished.”

“Shot in the act of deserting!” I exclaimed. “Deserting from what? He wasn’t in the British army, was he? After you’ve bamboozled him for a year, and lied to him, and then shot him, you can’t try him for desertion on top of all that!”

Dr. Hayes’s voice was icy. “Good morning, sir. This interview is terminated!”

“Wait,” I said. “Wait! I spoke hastily. I withdraw what I said. I apologize. My brother—it’s my brother, you understand.”

Hayes just stood there, waiting for me to go.

“Look here, doctor,” I persisted, “if you won’t let me see my brother, you’ll surely let me see Ellen Phipps. I’ve got to see Ellen. I know she’s here with him. You know who Ellen is, don’t you? Where is she?”

Hayes shook his head. “I’ve already said ‘Good morning.’ Under the circumstances, I can do nothing for you unless you have an order—an order from your own headquarters.”

Joseph Phipps spoke up suddenly. “She my sister. Not need no order to see sister!”