Outlander Book Club: Written in My Own Heart’s Blood Chapter 77 breakdown

Just the Outlander chapter

The chapter starts with Jamie coming up on John and the Craddock boys. He knows that John has the experience in battle, so he needs to step in before something happens to the boys. However, he can’t have people thinking he is working with John, so he avoids speaking German to John when John starts.

Jamie is rattled when he hears John say that he needs to save his son. That means William, and naturally, Jamie is going to be worried about William. Despite everything, Jamie loves his son. However, Jamie can’t show that worry, and he has to pretend like he doesn’t care. He does show a sign of being rattled when John mentions Claire again.

Jamie needs to handle the situation as fast as he can. He orders John to be arrested and revokes his parole. Now Jamie can go back to deal with the Redcoats.

With Claire, we see the horrors of the battle. There aren’t too many major injuries that she’s treating at first. There are a few people with heat stroke, and one of them looks like a Redcoat. Well, it turns out he was, but his sister, Sally, is a Patriot.

Sally’s arm has been injured by a grenade and it needs to be amputated. Denny has Claire’s saws in the church, and Claire doesn’t want Sally to face that. So, she gets Dottie to get the saws and she will work outside. Sally’s friend proposes as he fears Sally won’t be able to work with only one hand.

This brings up a remark about a woman Claire knows should be at the Battle of Monmouth. During this chapter, she thought of a coloring page from one of Bree’s books as a child. It is about Molly Pitcher, a woman who took over a cannon after her husband was killed. (Mary Hayes is thought to be the inspiration for Molly Pitcher.) Claire notes that Molly got a pension, so Sally should to.

I love that Claire only has a brief bit of knowledge for this part of history. And that makes sense. She didn’t expect to go back to the Colonies considering Jamie’s seasickness. She didn’t expect to be part of the Revolutionary War. Here she is, though, and she’s working with the knowledge that she does have. It took 40 years or so for Mary to start getting her pension. Sally is going to be waiting some time.