A Call to Arms
Page 18
Emma rode as fast as she could stand to, not as fast as she would have liked. Still she managed to reach the front before the battle had begun, and, gritting her teeth against the pain, delivered her messages and mail. Duty served, she turned her mule toward the rear again and rode in a daze of exhaustion for the field hospital.
She did not dare to report the injury. Instead she rode up to the tent, and remaining in the saddle, called out to the nearest surgeon.
“Dr. Vickery! Will you do me a favor?”
He came forward, a look of inquiry on his face. “Has the battle begun?”
“Not yet.” The mule jibbed, and Emma winced. “I have hurt my leg. Could you give me something for the pain?”
“Come down and let me look at it.”
Emma shook her head. “No time. I am on courier duty.”
The surgeon frowned, then shrugged and went into a tent. He returned a moment later with a small bottle. Emma almost cried with relief as she accepted it.
“A spoonful in a cup of water,” he said. “And come back and have it looked at when you have time.”
“Thank you.” Emma slid the bottle into her pocket, managed a smile and a wave of farewell, and started her mule toward headquarters.
She did not stop there, but went on to the Second’s camp, now abandoned with the regiment away on the battlefield, a ghost town of white tents. Emma rode her mule up to her own, slid from the saddle, and stumbled inside.
With shaking hands she poured water from her canteen into her tin cup, then put a splash of the medicine into it. She gulped it down and sat gasping, fighting nausea. After a moment she lay down on her bedroll.
She shared the tent with three other men: Halsted, Houlton, and Bostwick. They would be on the field now, muskets in hand, ready to face the enemy. As she lay awaiting the release of sleep, she sent up a silent prayer for them.
As if in answer, a single boom of cannon sounded in the distance, followed by the rolling rumble of many more. The sharp crackle of musketry overlay the deeper echoes. The battle had begun.
For two days Emma lay alone in her tent, listening to the sound of warfare. Occasionally she would sit up to take more of the medicine, and once she ate part of a cracker, but mostly she lay drifting in and out of sleep, praying for the pain to fade.
The sounds of battle ceased at the end of the first day, and the sounds of night closed about her—crickets and cicadas, the occasional hoofbeats of a horse passing in the distance. Her mule must by now have wandered off in search of food. She regretted she was unable to care for it, but she could not really even care for herself.
Cannon and musketry woke her on the second morning. As she lay listening, she wondered about the fate of her friends. How many would the Second lose in this battle? How many would be sent home to Michigan to recuperate, and how many to be buried by their grieving families?
Darkness came again, bringing silence once more. Emma lay waiting. It hurt to breathe; she knew she had broken a rib, and now suspected it had punctured a lung, for she coughed now and then which hurt even more.
She could not possibly submit to an examination of her lungs. The immediate result would be her discovery. She frowned and squeezed her eyes shut at the thought of being escorted under guard away from her beloved regiment, a criminal, dishonored. She would bear any pain rather than submit to that.
A murmuring roused her. At first she thought it some fantasy of her delirium, but gradually she realized it was the sound of voices and shuffling feet. The Second Michigan were returning to camp.
Moments later the door of her tent was pulled aside, and a dark shape came in, speaking in Bostwick’s voice. “Hey, here’s Frank! We thought you’d been killed when we didn’t see you any more.”
Her other tentmates crowded in behind him, joking wearily, teasing Emma about missing the battle. One of them lit a candle and stuck it in his bayonet, stabbed into the ground. Emma smiled feebly up at them but made no reply.
Halsted’s bedroll lay next to hers, and he sat on it now, his dirt-smeared face showing concern. “Say, you look pale, Frank. Are you sick?”
Emma shook her head slightly, and tried to clear her throat. She had drunk the last of her water in the afternoon, and been unable to drag herself up and look for more.
“Took a fall from my mule,” she said in a cracked voice. “Hurt my leg.”
“You should be in the hospital, then,” said Houlton. “You of all people should know that!”
“Can’t,” Emma said, then paused as a stab of pain struck her. She wanted to cough, and resisted.
“Well, we can carry you,” Halsted offered, frowning as he leaned over her. “You look like hell, Frank.”
The cough came, and she winced, squeezing her eyes shut in agony. After a moment she opened them again. They were all gathered around her now, her tentmates, peering down at her.
“Water?” she croaked.
Bostwick pushed a canteen into her hands. She gulped a few swallows, then lay back, exhausted.
“Thank you. I’ll be all right. Just need to rest.”
“You should have the surgeon look at that leg,” Halsted said. “Boys, go fetch a stretcher.”
“No! No, it’s just a sprain!”
Bostwick and Houlton were already out of the tent. Terror swept through Emma, more nauseating than the pain. Halsted leaned over her and gently brushed her hair out of her eyes.
“You’ll feel better up at the hospital. Have someone waiting on you hand and foot for a change.”
Emma stared at him, desperate. “Please, Richard, no.”
He smiled. “You always were a stubborn one.”
She caught his wrist. “I can’t!”
He looked at her hand gripping his arm, then gazed back at her in confusion. “Why not?”
Fairfax Station, Virginia, 1862
Emma stared up at Halsted’s kind, weary face, and knew she had reached a crisis. His very kindness would betray her unless she could convince him to leave her alone.
She struggled up onto her right elbow, the better to face him. “Richard, I cannot go to the hospital. If I am examined they will find me unfit for service, and discharge me.”
“Why would they...?”
He stopped, mouth hanging open, suspicion dawning on his face. Emma did not know if he had guessed aright. In truth she did not care, as long as he allowed her to stay here instead of going to the hospital.
“Please,” she whispered.
He stared at her for a long moment, then got up and left the tent. Emma closed her eyes, exhausted. She almost did not care any longer. In a sense, discovery would be a relief, for it would end her struggles. She hated the thought of it, though. Hated the shame it would mean, the loss of her friendships. Perhaps she had just lost Halsted’s; she could not tell.
Voices outside the tent, Halsted and the others. Emma could not make out the words. Pain was numbing her thoughts.
She reached for her cup and poured some water into it from the canteen, sloshing a little. Added a dollop of medicine from the little bottle. It was almost empty.
Halsted came back in the tent and sat down beside her, resting his hands on his knees as he gazed at her. “I’ve sent them back with the stretcher. Now, will you explain to me why you fear the surgeons?”
Emma thought of making some jest to the effect that she didn’t want her leg amputated, but she had heard such words in earnest too many times to speak them lightly. Instead she gazed steadily back at Halsted.
“I’d rather not.”
He looked perplexed, and annoyed, and perhaps a little worried. “Frank, we’re your friends.”
“And I prefer that you remain so. Just let me rest here a day or two longer. I’ll be better, you will see. Anyway, the surgeons must all be busy just now. Is the battle ended?”
“Yes.” Halsted’s face grew grim. “Pope was flanked by the Rebels. We’ve fallen back to Centreville, and may pull back farther.”
Emma grimaced, the
n lifted her cup with a shaking hand. Halsted steadied it for her and helped her to drink. She gulped down the water greedily, eager for the medicine’s effect.
“Thank you.” She let her hand and the empty cup drop. “There is one thing you can do for me.”
“Yes?”
“If you can, find the mule I was riding. A roan, with the empty mail bags on him. Someone may already have found him. I need the mail bags.”
“You aren’t going to ride for the mail like this!”
“Not tonight. Tomorrow I should be better.”
Halsted shook his head. “You are stubborn as a ...”
“Mule?”
Emma tried to smile, though she feared she must still look rather desperate. Halsted gazed at her a moment longer, then stood up.
“Give me your plate. I’ll bring you some supper.”
Emma found it and handed it to him, then lay back, her head swimming as the medicine began to take effect. She had no idea how she would ride the next day, but she was determined to fulfill her duty with regard to the mail.
Already it had gone two days undelivered, though since the army was engaged in battle that was not unusual. If she failed to resume her duties, though, the post would be taken away from her, and her life in the army would become much more difficult and dangerous.
The next morning, amid the protests of her tentmates, Emma bound up her leg with a scarf, and mounted the self-same mule that had thrown her, which Bostwick had found wandering in the woods and brought back to camp. Under her friends’ worried gaze she hauled herself into the saddle and rode off to collect the mail.
Her leg hurt with the mule’s every jarring step, as did her sore rib, but she endured. She stopped at a field hospital—a different one—and persuaded a nurse she knew to give her more medicine.
By the time she had brought the mail back to camp she was exhausted and aching with pain. She rode to her tent in a weary daze, thinking she could not possibly do this again another day. Halsted and Houlton came out to meet her, Halsted catching her as she slid from the saddle.
“The mail—”
“I’ll bring it,” said Houlton.
Halsted still held her. Her breaths came short, from both pain and a blossoming fear, then he pulled her arm roughly around his shoulder and helped her into the tent. Houlton brought in the mail bags and set them beside Emma’s bedroll, then went away to take care of the mule.
Emma sank onto her bed with a grateful sigh. She put a hand to her aching leg and felt the bones grind inside it as she stretched it out before her. She must bind it more tightly, perhaps find something with which to splint it. She closed her eyes until the pain faded, then reached for the mail bags.
“You’re completely mad,” said Halsted.
Emma looked up at him and grinned wearily. “I can’t deny that.”
She opened the bags and began to sort the mail by company, laying the letters in piles on her bed, with a separate stack for the headquarters staff. Halsted sat watching.
“How do you intend to deliver it? You can’t walk.”
“Then I’ll ride.”
He frowned. “Parade around the camp on your mule? That’ll be a show.”
Emma pressed her lips together. In truth she was not sure how she would manage to deliver the mail, but she had no choice. The alternative was unacceptable.
Bostwick came in, grinning as he entered the tent. “Miller wants to know if you still have watches, Frank. His was struck by a minie ball. Gave its little mechanical life to save him a wound. Can you believe it?”
Emma took a small leather box from beneath her cracker-box table. “Here they are. Would you mind taking it to him? You can keep the money.”
Bostwick and Halstead exchanged a glance. “I wouldn’t take your money, Frank,” Bostwick said, then left the tent.
Emma went back to sorting the mail, certain now that her tentmates had discussed her situation in her absence. What they had concluded she was uncertain. She dared not raise the subject herself, for fear that they would demand what she could not do.
Instead, she pretended nothing was amiss. She would carry on as always, until either she was no longer able or was prevented by the actions of others.
“Shall I help you sort it?” Halsted said after a while.
“If you like. Thank you. There’s one for you here—I think it’s from your mother.”
Emma handed him a letter. Their gazes met as he took it, and the look on his face made her heart freeze.
“Why?” he said quietly. “Why are you here?”
Emma glanced away and swallowed. “For the same reason as everyone else, to serve my country.”
“But why would you go to such trouble, and lie about—”
“My age?”
Emma glanced toward the door of the tent and the sound of others passing in the street. They were surrounded by soldiers, any of whom could hear. She let her eyes plead for Halsted to keep silent.
“I wanted to serve the Union,” she said again. “I had to serve, my conscience would give me no choice. That is the only reason.”
Halsted frowned down at the letter in his hands, turned it over, then set it aside on his own bedroll. He reached into the mail bag for a handful of mail, and began sorting it into Emma’s stacks.
By the time they had finished, Houlton was back from tending the mule. Emma looked up at him with a grateful smile.
“Did he give you trouble?”
“No, none. He’s as gentle a beast as I’ve handled. How did you come to part company with him?”
“Tried to make him jump a ditch,” Emma said. “It was my fault. I was hurrying to deliver the mail.”
She looked at the stacks of letters on her bed. She had no idea how she was going to deliver them. Walking was out of the question, and she knew Halsted was right—riding her mule about the camp would attract just the kind of notice she did not want.
She gathered up the mail, keeping the stacks in order by company, and put them back into the mail bags. The headquarters mail she kept out, as its delivery was the most urgent. She picked it up and looked at Halsted.
“Could I ask you to take this up to headquarters for me? Tell them I’m not feeling well?”
Halsted nodded and reached for the letters. Emma put them in his hand, her throat tightening with gratitude.
Houlton gestured toward the bulging mail bags. “Shall I pass out the rest of that for you?”
Relief washed through her. “Yes, if you don’t mind.”
“I just go to each company’s street, right? Do I call them together?”
“They’ll see the mail bags and come, or hear you calling out names. If any letters are unclaimed just bring them back.”
“All right.”
Houlton hefted the mail bags onto his shoulders. Halsted stood up and joined him, starting out of the tent.
“Thank you. God bless you both,” Emma said.
Houlton smiled and Halsted gave a nod as they left. Emma reached for her canteen and cup, fixed herself a dose of medicine and drank it, and lay down.
All through September Emma’s tentmates silently helped her. She insisted on fetching the mail, but it was they who delivered it, especially at first. Gradually her pain subsided and she was able to do more herself, but there were often days when she could not set her left foot to the ground.
Bostwick sold her watches for her and brought her meals to her. Halsted looked after her mule and continued to help with the mail on days when Emma felt too poorly. Houlton brought her an endless string of remedies for her hurts, his faith in the latest of them never failing.
The Second Michigan participated in the battle at South Mountain on September 14, but Emma did not go onto the field. She had intended to volunteer for courier duty, but Halsted persuaded her to stay behind at camp, with the nearest thing to a threat that he had uttered. Emma meekly obeyed, more out of a sense of obligation to her kindhearted friends than from any true fear of betrayal.
All constraint between them seemed forgotten. Jerome wrote to her of his boredom in Camp Parole, where he was not allowed to do anything beyond tending the few sick in the hospital, a task that came nowhere near occupying all his time. Emma, kept to her bed by her injury, could sympathize.
She told him a little about her recuperation, which elicited a long response full of very flattering expressions of concern. Jerome wished he were there to take care of her himself, and railed against the fate that kept him idle at Camp Parole instead. Emma assured him she was all right, and that her tentmates gave her all the help she needed.
They exchanged long letters on the subject of the President’s proclamation of emancipation, issued shortly after the grim battle of Antietam, in which the Second Michigan did not take part. Both agreed that the step, which had roused a great deal of ire in certain quarters, was the only possible course that would save the country’s honor.
Come October Emma was back in the saddle and eager to prove herself capable once more. She was particularly anxious that Colonel Poe would see how fit she was. The colonel was temporarily in command of the entire brigade, a command it was rumored might become permanent.
Technically the Third Brigade was under General Berry’s command, but the general had been absent for some weeks, and the brigade had conducted itself well under Colonel Poe’s guidance. Emma, who liked and admired her colonel, could only hope the rumored promotion would come through.
Changes were taking place everywhere. In early November General McClellan was yet again relieved of his command, to the indignation and sorrow of the army. General Burnside was the Army of the Potomac’s new commander, one who by his own admission was not fit for the post.
Along with these changes came one of more immediate interest to Emma. The army was being reorganized, and Colonel Poe was at last to be given his own brigade, a new one, in expectation of his promotion to Brigadier General. The Second Michigan was transferred from Berry’s Brigade to Poe’s new Brigade, along with the 17th Michigan, the 20th Michigan, and the 79th New York.