With this Pledge

by Tamera Alexander

  “Susan,” he whispered. “My love . . . Are you there? Are you and Lena—”

  “Captain Jones,” came the reply. “Can you hear me?”

  Disappointment knifed deep, severing the echo of Weet’s precious voice. Roland slowly opened his eyes to a murky wash of darkness haloed by golden light. He blinked, trying to clear his blurred vision and half wondering if he were slipping through the shroud of this life and into the next. Then shadows draping strangely familiar ceilings and walls took on gradual clarity, and he remembered where he was. Carnton . . .

  He’d been here before. A year or so back, maybe. Had delivered supplies to the kitchen with a fellow captain and sharpshooter. Slowly, as his thoughts cleared, his surroundings began to register with him. As did the pain.

  The piteous moans of soldiers around him encouraged the groans harnessed deep inside his chest to strong-arm their way out. But he pressed his lips tighter and clenched his teeth until he feared his jaw might break from the effort. He couldn’t do that to his men. They looked to him for courage and strength. He couldn’t fail them now. Only, how many of his men were left? How many had—

  “Captain Jones,” the soft voice said again, closer this time.

  Then he saw her, the woman from earlier, holding up an oil lamp.

  “Can you hear me, sir?”

  “Yes,” he ground out, his composure slipping. He tried to swallow, but his parched throat denied the effort.

  “Here—” She held a cup to his lips and he drank.

  The cool wetness slid down his throat, reviving his voice while also awakening his senses to the crushing pain in his legs and right hand.

  “Dr. Phillips will be back in about ten minutes, Captain Jones. You’re next in line for surgery.”

  Then he heard it—the rumble of artillery. He took a steadying breath. “They’re still fighting.”

  “Yes,” she whispered, her simple response weighed down with meaning.

  “What . . . time is it?”

  She looked across the hallway. “A quarter till eight.”

  Roland closed his eyes, and emotion escaped their corners and edged down his temples. The battlefield—a mile and a half of wide open plain, a longer distance than George Pickett’s famed charge at the height of Gettysburg—had been a slaughter pen of smoke and fire. In full view of the enemy. And with no way to penetrate the Federal earthworks, or so it had seemed. Yet somehow at least one division had. He’d witnessed it through the smoke and haze after he’d been shot. What had first been an advancement through a hail of bullets and cannon fire had turned into a savage brawl. A ferocious melee of men bludgeoning, gouging, and bayonetting each other to death around what had appeared to be a cotton gin. But as more Federals had joined the fight, the tide had turned, leaving his Confederate brothers nowhere to retreat. Roland gritted his teeth.

  As the reddish sun had dipped beyond the hills in a sea of molten bronze, men had been mown down, wave after wave of infantry advancing gallantly only to wither beneath the onslaught of long-range artillery fire. The three-inch ordnance rifles and twelve-pound Napoleons had torn gaping holes in Loring’s Division until body upon body was piled up in the trenches. So many of them men he’d fought with for the past three years. All gone now. As was the dream of the Confederacy.

  Heaviness filled his chest. He’d seen the battlefield, what they were up against. And to believe that the South still stood a chance was a fool’s errand, or worse. In his gut he knew the truth—no matter how much he didn’t want to accept it.

  “I need you to do something for me, Miss—”

  “Clouston, Captain. Miss Elizabeth Clouston.”

  “Miss Clouston,” he repeated, pushing through the drug-induced fog hazing his mind, searching for a way to phrase his question in a manner that would compel her to say yes. Because even from what little he’d observed of her behavior thus far, instinct told him she would keep her word. “Do you . . . believe in signs, ma’am?”

  Her brow knit. “In signs?”

  He held her gaze, keen to its slightest alteration. “You remember what I told the doc earlier, about how I don’t intend to die. Leastwise, not tonight.”

  She nodded. “I remember, Captain.”

  “Earlier, after I’d been shot. I was lying facedown in the dirt. Felt like my whole body was on fire, and ten thousand flying bullets plowing the ground around me. But then, when I turned and looked up . . . I saw the autumn moon, Miss Clouston. Full and clear. Over my right shoulder.”

  Her eyes flickered with acknowledgment, and he felt the scant hope within him begin to stir.

  “Don’t get me wrong, ma’am. I—” Stabbing pain shot down the length of his left leg then back up again, taking his breath with it, and the urge to cry out nearly overwhelmed his resolve. He pressed the back of his head hard into the carpeted floor and drew in air through clenched teeth.

  “Why don’t you rest, Captain. You can tell me all this after the doctor—”

  “No, ma’am.” His breath came heavy. “I’ve got to say my piece now. While I can.”

  She lifted the cup for him to drink again, but he shook his head.

  “I don’t hold to superstition. Be it about a new moon or any other kind.” He rushed to get the words out. “And I don’t think that just because I saw that moon over my right shoulder I’m going to live. I’ve never believed in luck, ma’am. I think things happen for a reason.” He took a breath. “And as I lay there watching good men die all around me, with those bullets raining down yet no more of them finding their way into me, I reckoned God was telling me I stood a chance. That I would make it through this.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, but he hurried to finish.

  “I’ve seen these surgeries more times than I care to remember, and I’ve got a good mind how this will go. With the doc, I mean. Dr. Phillips is a good man. One of the best. But he’s got way more men than me to deal with and not near enough time. He’s got a hefty respect for gangrene too, which I share. But I don’t want to lose my leg, ma’am. The doc’s already going to take most of my hand.”

  He slowly lifted his right hand and held it before his face. Though he’d already examined the damage, seeing it again—and with her looking on—somehow made it worse. The appendage, all torn and bloodied, fingers broken and blunted, felt almost foreign to him, like it belonged at the end of someone else’s arm. Not his.

  “But my right leg . . . I aim to keep it, ma’am. Same as my left. So I’m asking you, Miss Clouston, if you’ll be my voice in there. When the time comes and he reaches for that bone saw—which he will do—would you do that for me? I need you to promise me you’ll do that.”

  She frowned, then briefly looked away. “Captain Jones, I don’t feel as though I’m qualified to question the doctor’s decisions. If he thinks that—”

  “It’s got nothing to do with being qualified, ma’am.” He grimaced, the grapeshot lodged in his legs acting like hot pokers, branding him clear to the bone. “It’s my leg. My life. And that’s what I choose. And with everything in me, I believe the Almighty’s on my side in this one.”

  The room began to sway. And though he was flat on the floor, he was gripped with the sensation of falling. He reached out with his good hand to grab hold of something solid—and she clasped his hand between hers and held on tight.

  “It’s the morphine, Captain. Close your eyes and rest. Dr. Phillips is back now, so we’ll—”

  “Not until you promise,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. He tightened his grip. “Promise me, ma’am. Give me your word. Please.”

  He saw the stretcher bearers coming for him, heard the urgency in his own tone, and saw the conflict warring inside of her. She looked at him, biting her lower lip until it went nearly white. Then she nodded.

  “I promise, Captain Jones. I’ll be your voice. And you will keep that leg.”

  CHAPTER 4

  “You know how this goes, Captain Jones.” Dr. Phillips leaned over the operating ta
ble, his apron stained and bloodied. “I’m confident I can salvage your left leg. And I’ll do all I can to save your right.”

  Cloth and chloroform in hand, Lizzie looked down to discover the captain staring up at her, pain riddling his gaze. But in the depths of those discerning gray eyes, she saw the reflection of the promise she’d made. But why had she made it? Even as the words had slipped past her lips moments earlier, she’d doubted whether she’d have the courage to fulfill the pledge. Dr. Phillips was the one with authority here, not she. Then, in a blink, Lizzie imagined another man lying before her.

  If this were Towny, if he’d been wounded and had made this same request of someone, would she want that person to keep their word? To do their best to see that Towny’s wishes were obliged? Knowing the answer to that question, she met Captain Jones’s gaze with unflinching conviction and nodded.

  “Yep, Doc. I know how this goes.” The captain’s gaze shifted. “But remember what we talked about earlier. When Miss Clouston was with us.” He shot her a quick glance. “You recall what my wishes are, sir. Those still stand.”

  Dr. Phillips’s eyes narrowed slightly. “When I became a doctor, I took an oath to—”

  “I know all about that oath, Dr. Phillips. And I respect your honor and your word that stands behind it. Now please, sir, I’m asking you to respect mine.”

  The thrum of noise in the room fell to a hush, and Lizzie looked over to find soldiers watching them, staring at the doctor and the captain.

  A muscle flinched in Dr. Phillips’s cheek as he poured whiskey into a glass and handed it to the captain who, like the men before him, downed it in a single swallow. Lizzie could all but taste the liquid fire at the back of her throat, and though she didn’t customarily partake of such spirits, she was beginning to wish she did.

  The captain trained his focus on a point somewhere above her head, and the surgeon’s curt nod in her direction told Lizzie what to do next.

  She tented the cloth over Captain Jones’s nose. “Take steady breaths, Captain,” she said softly. “You may feel as if you’re going to suffocate at first. But—”

  His gaze locked with hers, and she would’ve sworn she felt something pass between them.

  “—I assure you, you won’t,” she finished, sensing the surgeon’s eagerness to commence. “I’ll be here the entire time. And I’ll be here when you awaken.”

  She gave the captain an almost imperceptible nod, and he closed his eyes. A scant handful of moments later, and his body went limp.

  Dr. Phillips began cutting away the shredded remnants of the captain’s trousers with scissors, and Lizzie confined her gaze to the captain’s face. Thankfully, his once-white long-sleeved shirt, now gray, possessed length enough to maintain his decency—and to allay her momentary discomfort.

  The doctor tended the captain’s left leg first, probing for pieces of grapeshot and cleaning out the wound. Lizzie had read about grapeshot. But she’d not seen its results up close. Not like she had seen damage from a shotgun. Thanks to her brother, she’d learned how to hunt and shoot at a young age. Not that he’d had to twist her arm to learn. While she did know how to knit, quilt, and sew well enough, she’d always been less fascinated with the pastimes assigned the gentler sex and far more enamored with those of the opposite.

  At ten years of age, she routinely hunted with Johnny and their father. By thirteen, she and Johnny would strike out by themselves, and they rarely returned home empty-handed. So she’d witnessed firsthand the damage a shotgun was capable of inflicting. But grapeshot . . . The mass of small iron balls and slugs—resembling a cluster of grapes when assembled—was packed tightly into a stand before being rammed down the barrel of a cannon tube. Upon firing, the stand of grapeshot exploded, sending ammunition in all directions, increasing the likelihood of hitting the target. And when that target was a man—Lizzie tightened her jaw and reminded herself to breathe—the metal balls ripped through the flesh like a butcher knife through fine silk, making the grapeshot devastatingly effective. Especially at close range.

  She detected a shift in Captain Jones’s breathing and tented the cloth over his nose. Then slowly, very slowly—drip, drip, drip—she added more chloroform, and his head lolled to one side again.

  He had strong facial features and was a handsome man in a rough, rugged sense. All except for his gray eyes, which had revealed a kindness that brooked no argument, and that thoroughly convinced the onlooker of his honor at first glance.

  She observed Dr. Phillips as he sutured and prayed for him, for Captain Jones, and for all the men filling this house and the grounds outside. Through the open window to the backyard she could see lanterns dotting the lawn. The wounded kept coming.

  The surgery took longer than she’d anticipated, and she detected fatigue in Dr. Phillips. In the way he paused to roll his neck and shoulders and in the darkened half-moons showing beneath his eyes.

  She’d overheard soldiers speaking earlier and learned that for the better part of the past week, the Army of Tennessee had slept little and eaten less. They’d marched the near 250 miles from Atlanta up through Georgia and into Tennessee to the town of Columbia. They’d covered ground quickly in order to catch up with the Federal Army with the hope of flanking their troops and drawing them into battle. When Hood’s forces arrived in Spring Hill, a town that lay only ten miles southeast, by yesterday evening, Hood had apparently given orders to cut off the main road so the Federals couldn’t push on toward Nashville. He wanted to fight them then and there while the Rebels had them boxed in on either side. But from what she could decipher by listening to the soldiers’ discussions, the plan to capture General Schofield’s army had apparently come unhinged. Somehow Schofield managed to move his army past them unmolested, straight up the main road during the dark of night. Two of the soldiers said they’d actually seen regiment after regiment of Federal soldiers quietly passing by them not three hundred feet away. But they were only privates, they said, and since they’d been given no orders to attack, they stayed by their fires and did nothing. Hence, General Schofield’s army had arrived first in Franklin earlier that morning—and the die had been cast. The soldiers described General Hood as being enraged when he learned about the missed opportunity.

  Not for the first time that evening, Lizzie thought of Fountain Carter and his family and hoped they were safe and far from the dangers of battle. But if they were still in the house, she prayed the Federal officers who had most likely taken quarter there were treating them well.

  She sent up prayers for her parents and siblings who lived near downtown Franklin too. They were a safer distance away and well behind the line of enemy cannons, but still . . . Knowing her parents, she knew they were worried sick about her and the McGavocks. She’d send them word at first opportunity. But first, to make it through this night.

  “I’m finished with this leg, Miss Clouston.”

  Pulled back to the moment, Lizzie nodded.

  “Now for the right leg.” The doctor gestured. “I’ll move to the other side of the table. And I’ll need you to hand me my instruments, if you would.”

  Lizzie stepped to one side to make room for him to pass, all while keeping close watch on Captain Jones.

  “If you see an attendant, Miss Clouston, we need more bandages and suture thread. We’re nearly out.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll keep watch.”

  But mostly Lizzie watched the doctor as he examined the captain’s right leg.

  “Straight forceps.” Dr. Phillips pointed, and Lizzie placed the surgical instrument in his palm.

  As the doctor extracted the grapeshot, Captain Jones’s breathing altered for a second time. Lizzie administered more chloroform, and he soon drifted off again somewhere beyond the confines of Winder’s bedroom. Maybe, as earlier, he was dreaming of home.

  He’d called out for Susan. His wife, Lizzie presumed. He’d also whispered the name Lena. Their daughter, perhaps. Or his sister. Did Mrs. Roland Jones know where her husband was
right now? Doubtful, given the soldiers’ care not to include details in their letters that might give the enemy a foothold.

  What would Captain Jones’s wife say about her husband’s decision? Would she be for it or against it? Keep the leg? Or amputate?

  Even without the benefit of knowing her, Lizzie felt secure in her speculation that the woman would want whatever stood the best chance of keeping her husband alive. Whatever would enable him to return to her. Much as she herself wanted Towny to return safely home. Only—a twinge of something tugged at her, an emotion she couldn’t quite identify—wanting your husband to return to you and wanting him to “return safely home” weren’t quite the same thing.

  Dr. Phillips’s heavy sigh drew her attention, and she looked up.

  He shook his head. “Even if I set the bone and suture the torn tissue and muscles, that leg will never be of use to him again. There’s too much damage. And choosing to leave so injured a limb intact means it will only atrophy with time. And long before that, the severity of the wound will most certainly invite gangrene.”

  She’d known the surgeon for scarcely more than four hours, yet already she’d learned to read his expressions. The deep furrows in his brow did not bode well. Sadness, even remorse, swept his countenance, and he rubbed the back of his neck as though weighing his options—and not liking any of them.

  He held out his hand. “Scalpel.”

  Lizzie didn’t move.

  “Scalpel, Miss Clouston.”

  “You . . . can’t take his leg, sir,” she said softly. “You know what he told you.”

  The doctor stared, clearly unaccustomed to being challenged. “I told the captain I would do my best. Which I have done. There’s no surgeon alive who could save this leg. It’s too far gone. Now, hand me the scalpel. And the bone saw.”

  Feeling almost as though she were outside her body, watching her own actions, she shook her head. “No . . . Dr. Phillips. I cannot.” She hurried to explain. “I gave Captain Jones my word that I wouldn’t allow you to take his—”