by Gina Danna
A roar from behind and the rustling of leaves as Yankees came closer drove him to jump.
He plunged into a river, not realizing its depth and he sank to be covered by an icy temperature that felt like a hundred knives stabbing his entire being. Disoriented, he quickly sought to get out when the water around him pinged, as if rocks were being thrown in. Bullets. Those Yanks were firing at them in the river!
He fought his way to the surface and found Morris was still pushing ahead. Fighting against the cold, Francois drudged through the water, dodging bullets, praying to the Lord above to make it, when he bumped into a log just under the water. His knee stirred it to surface and he swallowed hard. It wasn’t a log but a body of another Confederate—one the Yankee shots had found. Still keeping his rifle as best he could out of the water, he worked his way around it but was slow, fighting the water and the revulsion.
“You comin’ or you plannin’ on joinin’ him?” Morris yelled.
Francois looked up and found his friend on the bank. He grimaced and took another step when the icy water pain was replaced by a shear of red-hot pain ripped his upper left arm. Those bastards shot him! Instantly, he dropped the flaming shoulder into the water, begging the cold water to deaden the agony. Somehow he kept the rifle from falling into the water. Anger raced through him and he wanted to turn and fire but the pain ripped through him, almost made him drop the rifle. Thankfully, his grip was still tight and Morris’s urging him kept him going.
The whiz of bullets echoed in his ears and the sound of a cannon in the distance roared but he made the bank and Morris, with two other soldiers, pulled him up. It was great to be out of the ice but now, in the evening air, he shivered. Still furious over his wound, he spun.
“Those damn bluebellies shot me!” He glared at Morris as he pulled the rifle into position, aiming at the Union soldiers facing them on the other bank. His shoulder pinched with the move but his furious mind ignored it until Morris nudged the barrel down.
“Yes, I see that. They done us some damage tonight that’s for sure. All them still over there be prisoners and you saw those already meetin’ Jesus. Can’t lose you as well. Come on!”
Inhaling sharply, trying to control his temper, Francois snarled as he turned to follow Morris. Granted, the Yanks won their spot along the other side of the river but he’d refused to let them win again. With each step, his arm throbbed and the pain riveted down his spine to his legs, making his steps slow. The torn shirt was dirty and soaked with blood. As it dripped onto his pants, he looked as if he’d been run over by a battle. The days of riding across lush fields and playing were long over, to be replaced by pain, fury and the drive for vengeance— for an issue he had no one to blame but himself…
It had been a long day. Ada rubbed her brow and inhaled deeply, trying to ignore the horrific stench of sweaty, dirty and wounded men. Steeling her shoulders and backbone, she lifted her chin as she stepped toward the bed, the re-filled water basin in her grasp.
“They’re coming so fast,” Maybelle whispered.
Placing the bowl on the table and wringing out the washcloth, Ada didn’t have to look at her fellow nurse to know Maybelle was white as a sheet and shaking. The freshly arrived wounded usually looked grotesque, their battlefield wounds ragged and sharp with blood and vomit competing for attention.
“Maybelle, why don’t you make sure the buckets are filled and the soap and washcloths are ready.” She turned toward the newly arrived soldier and bit her own tongue to keep from gasping when she saw the raw flesh, red and oozing, dangling a foot by a mere strand of muscle.
Maybelle nodded but stuttered, “How can you act as if none of this affects you?”
How did she explain it? “Oh, back home, where there wasn’t much around, I was the best practitioner anyone could find.” She ripped the fabric at his trouser leg and grimaced. “After my daddy died, while being the only doc around, I picked up the slack. Mostly ladies and children,” she added. She wanted to scoff. That’s all they’d found ‘suitable’ for her to attend. “But I’ve seen my share of awful. It does affect me, but all I want do is help, so I do. You, my dear, look like you’ve seen a ghost, so helping us on the wash water would be most grand.”
Maybelle nodded and excused herself so fast, she nearly ran into the bed behind her. Ada shook her head and returned to the boy on the bed.
“I ain’t gonna die, am I?”
Her patient’s question surprised her, because she’d thought he was unconscious. There was a glazed look there, like the steward had already poured spirits down him in an attempt to subdue him before surgery. “No, I don’t think so.” Her voice nearly graveled when she added, “You hold your own, son. The doctor will be coming shortly.”
He tried to grasp her hand. The pressure was weak so she met his grip partway but her eyes started to blur. So many emotions swirled inside her. Despair, because his chance of survival was grim from the looks of the wound. Amputation would be the call and rightly so, for the leg had a tourniquet on to stop the blood from pouring out and killing him, but even she could tell the signs it had been on for too long. Anger for this boy losing a foot and more for a rebellion that should’ve been stopped before it happened filled her. Anger for tears bottling up, as she was forced to do, to take care of these patients and the frustration because she could do nothing, unless it was only Will. And a constant wonder as to why she was here…
“Nurse Lorrance, if you will, please.”
The bustle behind her crowded her and she released the boy’s hand to step aside. The surgeon’s team was here to collect him.
“They’ll help you, son,” she stated boldly, and hoped she sounded sincere.
He gave her a weak smile that slid from his face after a moment, when they hauled him up to carry him to surgery. She bit her bottom lip in a way to stop from blurting out what needed to be done, though the surgeons would know. Clenching her fists, she shuddered as the tightness inside her struggled to say nothing.
“Nurse Ada.”
She looked up to find Maybelle giving her an odd stare. Absently she wiped the tear that wanted to run down her cheek and pushed the memory of the boy from her mind. Swallowing deep, she straightened herself.
“Yes, Nurse Maybelle?”
The young woman pointed her nose a little higher, trying to be subtle but Ada noticed. The New Englander seemed a bit too high strung, she decided. She and most of the nurses, schooled with her in a large walled tent for sleep, were hardly warm, Ada recalled, and most blamed that on their cold climate and Puritan upbringing. Though studious and helpful, Miss Maybelle never approached her except formally.
“Well, I do not wish to be quite so frank, but,” she paused. “You and Dr. Will seem to be overly close. Now, I know it ain’t my business, so to speak, but the other nurses are talking.”
Ada bit back a laugh. Nosy little girl, she thought. She rolled back on her heels. “Miss Maybelle, I assure you, Dr. Will and I do know each other. We grew up in the same street, as it were.” A thought raced through her mind and she wondered. “You don’t, perhaps, wish to set your cap for him?” The idea made her want to chuckle.
The girl blushed but she managed not to change her expression. “I’m sorry if I said something out of line. I just wished to bring it to your attention that tongues are wagging. As to my preferences, I believe I’ll keep them to myself. Now, my deed is done. If you’ll excuse me.” She spun on her heel to leave.
Ada bit her bottom lip, shocked at the nurse’s behavior. The air was thick, Ada believed, mostly coming from that nurse’s rudeness.
“Pardon me, Nurse Maybelle, but we do need to see that all the rags and bandages are cleaned, the bowls ready and the sponges close by for the surgeons. Please see to that after you’ve bathed the patients in the front parlor.
Maybelle didn’t turn but stopped and now, nodded her head. “Of course, ma’am.”
As Ada heard her walk away, she clutched her strand of buttons in her pocket, her f
ingers rubbing the large Union eagle one. Part of her wanted to laugh, for the nurses figured she and Will were flirting and perhaps, Will was, though she doubted it. He knew her heart was hurting for the man whose button she held tightly, in remembrance of him and prayed he’d return to her…
The firing of a cannon in the distance answered her wayward thoughts. He wouldn’t be as long as the North and South tried to kill each other. Inhaling sharply, trying to stop the blur from taking her vision, she stood and grabbed the basin. It was her hope that none of her patients died on her tonight.
Chapter 5
“There are but two parties now; traitors and patriots.”
—Ulysses S. Grant, prior to the Civil War
“There you go, sur, right as rain.”
Francois flinched as the hospital steward pulled the last stitch through the wound on his upper arm, the raw flesh still throbbed even with the skin sewed shut. The splash of whiskey, hardly enough to even swallow, was the only painkiller used, and it burned fiercely. A final tug and a snip ended the torture and Francois relaxed as best he could until the man had the nerve to wrap a bandage around his arm.
“It might seep a little and that’s to be expected. Good towards healing and such. Be thankful that bullet only grazed you, sur. You’d have lost your arm otherwise.” The steward schooled his supplies into the leathered box beside him and left.
Francois snarled, trying to ease his arm into the tattered shirt he had worn. The gaping hole had bloodstains on it but it was the only shirt he had and he refused to leave it, knowing his jacket, made of wool, would hardly be better to wear against bare skin. Buttoning his cuffs was trying, for even moving the fingers of the damaged arm made a thread of stinging stabs course through him. Damn the Yankee who’d shot him!
Standing up, he snagged his jacket and shoved his arms into the sleeves, ignoring the pain but he couldn’t help but glance at the sleeve of his wounded arm. The rip by the bullet held little trace of the blood…though the dirt on the jacket probably hid most of it. Another ripple of disgust washed through him. This jacket was the only uniform one he had, as retrieving uniform pieces appeared to harder from what he and Morris discovered on their journey east.
The bound arm ached and it limited his movement. He muttered a swear word, only to quickly cross himself as he got closer to the camp. Small fires pitted the site, amongst the hastily arranged shelters across the wooded land. The sounds of leaves shuffled by his bootheels grew softer as the soft tones of a violin and chimes rang with the sound of clanking wooden spoons in the Creole songs of back home. Instantly, he relaxed, the tensions of the day ebbing, though the throb of his wound didn’t as he rounded the corner into the campsite.
“Francois! Over here!”
He found Morris with a few other men, sitting on fallen timbers, holding metal plates in their hands. The smell of burnt pork fat and cornmeal wafted around him and his stomach growled. He needed food, badly enough he’d take a hard cracker if they had one. The closer he got, the sounds of the music increased and the expression on the soldiers’ faces were not so hard.
He stopped and snorted. “Nothing like hunger makin’ even burnt bad food smell appetizing.”
Morris laughed, scooping a ladle from the bottom of the stew pot and dumping the remains on a plate. “Here, then, join us in this repast.”
The hunk of black, smoldering food looked anything but appealing. “Merci. And your chef this evening?”
“Moi!” Morris bowed.
Francois raised his brows as he steadied the dish level with one hand, trying to avoid jostling the wounded one, and sat on the stump next to his friend.
“We heard Hayes was hurt worse than you,” Morris told him. “They’ll like reassign us to another commander.”
“It ain’t right,” muttered one of the other men.
“We’re Hayes’ men!” the Creole sitting on the ground added.
The one off to the left eyed Francois with a narrow gaze. It was the one Francois recalled from earlier, Wiggins.
Finishing the mess on the plate, a grueling task only a starving man could do, Francois put the tin ware down. His temper flared, no doubt added to with the sharp pain in his wound. “Is there something you want to say to me?”
“I’m just trying to figure out why a rich planter, like you, would care to throw down managing a homestead, free, apparently, from service, to ride halfway across this nation to fight Yankees?”
“Ronnie, that’s not a viable question to—” Morris started.
“That’s a fairly reasonable question,” Francois interrupted. “One, I believe I shall answer. You are correct. I could avoid the bloodshed, the shower of bullets and so forth. Under the law, my family owns over the required limit of twenty slaves that would keep me safe at home, but circumstances beyond my control, pushed me to enter the army.”
“Whatever could drive a man into this madness?” a young lad, Francois guessed no older than twenty, piped in. Peter Perlotti, he recalled, was one of the few Italian dockworkers who signed on to the military. Better pay than the docks of a now occupied New Orleans, Francois decided.
Francois sat for a moment, chewing the inside of his lip, teetering on how to put this. He could lie but the truth, for once, seemed the correct choice. “A lady.”
The men all grumbled, nodding their heads.
“She push you to enlist for the favor of her company?” one asked.
“Or she tell you, you’d have her love if you fought?” another questioned.
Francois snorted, swallowing hard. “She married my brother.”
“What?” Wiggins jumped up. “What a snake!”
“Wait,” Perlotti said. “Ain’t he Jack Fontaine? A Yankee officer that took over after Beast Butler and his like left?”
Francois warmed. General Benjamin Butler was commanding general during the beginning of the occupation of New Orleans and his presence wasn’t welcomed, particularly by the rebellious ladies of the town, who dumped their chamber pots, among many signs of protest, on his troops. When he issued the order to have anyone participating in such acts arrested as if they were a lady of the night, the citizens referred to him as Beast Butler. Francois heard that Lajoyce had been one of those ladies, which made him chuckle, since she was one of those types of damsels.
“Yes, he did, though Jack is hardly a beast.” No, he was the man Emma loved, and he felt her slipping away the moment his brother arrived. The look in her eyes tore his own heart to pieces. Fighting him barehanded would never win her back…he shook his head to make the memory vanish.
“But that land be yours and your pappy’s, the senator for the South!”
“Yes, it is, though at the moment, it sits under Jack’s control. I could not stay under such circumstances, as you might imagine.”
The group nodded.
“Ain’t right to lose a southern belle to a Yankee,” one of them muttered. “You done the right thing. Us Tigers will help Marse Robert win, then you can win her heart back.”
That statement they all agreed on and with that issue resolved, they turned back to the war in their talk. Somehow, confessing his reason with that story got him over the hurdle of being accepted. As to winning Emma back, he knew that was a lost cause.
Ada had a wave of exhaustion sweep over her with a rush that made her balance teeter. She blinked furiously as she steadied herself, grabbing the top rail of the wooden strait-back chair next to her. Suddenly, a strong male arm encircled her, the man giving her support as he slowly turned her so she could sit.
“Ada, are you all right?” Will. She should’ve known he’d be there. He always was when she needed him the most.
Swallowing the lump that lodged in her throat, one made of dust and dirt that left a sour taste in her mouth, she nodded. “I’m fine. Just a bit tired.”
“You’ve been pushing yourself too hard.” He shoved a cup of tepid water to her. “When was the last time you ate?”
She tried to think, but fou
nd her thoughts fuzzy. A blur of Will reached for the basket on the table and yanked a slice of bread out, lacing the top of it was honey from a pot he suddenly had.
“Here, eat this.”
His command surprised her. “This bread is for the wounded, too.”
“Which, at this moment, includes you. Eat.”
Scowling at him, she took a bite. The guilt at partaking of some of the food for the patients evaporated when her stomach growled and the piece she tore off tasted like heaven dripped in honey.
“I feel like a thief,” she complained right before she took another bite.
Will gave her half a snort as he shook his head. “I know they hardly pay you a pittance for what you lady nurses do. And I’m also aware you often times don’t eat, saving more for the wounded, as well as work a heavy load. Makes me wonder whatever drove Madame Dix to push to get you involved.”
Ada swallowed and savored the honey coating it left in her mouth. “She is not a madame, Will.”
He cocked his head, brow raised. “Isn’t she? I heard she requires ladies to be elderly, plain looking and dull.”
She shot him a look. He thought she was old?
He caught it. “Oh, don’t get your feathers ruffled. You are well below her elderly rate of thirty…She must be getting desperate. Or, knowing you, you pushed her.”
How could she tell him she’d tried to get on as a surgeon, or even a hospital steward, only to have the Secretary of War direct her down to Miss Dix’s room for recruiting women nurses? She knew she was eight years shy of the thirty mark, but her determination and her medical training persuaded the woman to relent and let her go. Of course, there were several younger ladies allowed to go as well. Will was correct. After close to three years of bloodshed, the need for nurses grew.