McGovern marks a significant change in Deborah’s understanding of military life as her expectations of adventure give way to direct experience of war. Her exhausting march to West Point introduces the physical demands of soldiering while also extending the fear of discovery established during her journey to Boston. When she faints at a tavern, her immediate concern is that someone might discover she’s a woman, although the other soldiers continue to assume that she’s a young boy. As Deborah begins participating in raids against Tories, the narrative explicitly records the change in her view of warfare. After witnessing the violence of these raids, Deborah concludes that war is “the most horrible thing in the world” (39). Her disillusionment complicates The Lasting Drive for Adventure: The experiences she once hoped to gain through military service now expose her to suffering, injury, and death, separating her desire for adventure from the realities of warfare. At the same time, military life intensifies The Burden of Concealment. This is apparent in the letter she writes home, in which she describes her military service only as having “found work in a large family” (40). The vague description allows Deborah to communicate with her mother without revealing where she is or what she is doing, showing how maintaining her secret now limits what she can disclose even to her family.

Deborah’s gunshot wounds bring the physical consequences of The Burden of Concealment into sharp focus. After being wounded during a skirmish, she fears that treatment of her leg will reveal that she’s a woman. Her plea for a fellow soldier to leave her behind, even though she believes she may die, shows how strongly the need to protect her secret now governs her decisions. At the hospital, she prevents the doctor from examining her leg and later uses a pocketknife to remove the musket ball herself. McGovern’s detailed account of her repeated attempts to extract the bullet emphasizes the severe pain that Deborah accepts in order to avoid an examination that could expose her. The injury also introduces the musket ball as a symbol of the lasting physical cost of concealment. Although Deborah succeeds in removing the bullet and preserving her secret, her leg never heals properly. The wound therefore gives a permanent physical consequence to a decision made under the pressure of secrecy, showing how maintaining the disguise that has enabled her military service now carries lasting physical consequences.

The farmhouse episode extends the narrative’s portrayal of wartime suffering beyond active combat. Still recovering from her gunshot wound, Deborah becomes responsible for Richard Snow after he collapses and is separated from the rest of the unit while caring for him. The change in setting leaves both soldiers dependent on Van Tassel, whose sympathy for the Tories makes the farmhouse an uneasy place of refuge. His refusal to provide even a straw bed as Richard grows weaker emphasizes how little assistance the soldiers can expect from him. McGovern complicates this hostile setting through the actions of Van Tassel’s daughter, who secretly brings Deborah and Richard food and water despite her father’s treatment of them and later helps Deborah bury Richard. The contrast between father and daughter shows that members of the same household respond differently to the soldiers: Although Van Tassel is openly unsympathetic, his daughter quietly provides the help he refuses. Snow’s eventual death also develops Deborah’s changing understanding of war. Having already witnessed violence and death during military action, she now experiences the loss of a fellow soldier through illness while isolated from her unit, broadening the forms of suffering associated with military life.

Throughout these chapters, McGovern shows how maintaining Deborah’s disguise becomes part of her everyday behavior within the army. Once enlisted, her concerns extend beyond the voice and mannerisms she practiced before leaving home to the possibility of discovery during ordinary interactions with other soldiers. The soldiers’ easy acceptance of her, signified by the nicknames “Bobby” and “Blooming Boy,” indicates that they interpret her youthful appearance as consistent with the young male soldier they believe her to be. Her lack of a beard is interpreted by the soldiers as a sign of youth, reinforcing their assumption that she’s a very young male recruit and helping preserve her secret. Her strategy of social withdrawal—avoiding the men’s games and wrestling contests—further demonstrates how concealment restricts her behavior even after she has successfully entered the army. She keeps apart from activities that could expose her, making isolation one of the continuing demands of concealment. The shooting intensifies a pattern already established through these everyday precautions: The secret that once required Deborah to regulate her voice, movements, and social interactions eventually affects whether she can safely receive medical treatment. McGovern thus develops concealment as an ongoing condition of Deborah’s military service, with its demands becoming increasingly difficult and consequential as the narrative progresses.

The narrative structure across these three chapters progressively brings the consequences of military service closer to Deborah personally. At first, McGovern places her within hardships shared by the other soldiers, including exhausting marches, hunger, inadequate clothing, and exposure to violence. Her gunshot wounds then create a danger specific to her circumstances: Because treatment of her leg could expose her secret, an ordinary consequence of combat becomes inseparable from the demands of concealment. The farmhouse episode places her in a different form of vulnerability. Still recovering from her injury and separated from her unit, Deborah must care for a dying soldier while depending on an unsympathetic household for shelter. Across these changes in circumstance, McGovern progressively narrows the distance between the general dangers of military service and the consequences specific to Deborah’s secret. The sequence moves from hardships she shares with other soldiers to situations in which concealment affects how she can respond to injury and dependence on others. This structural escalation prepares for the later illness that leads to the discovery of her secret.