Fire by Night

by Lynn Austin

  He looked away, his face cold. “Since you’ve reminded me that I’m not yet in a position to dictate to you, then I must ask if you have your father’s permission.”

  “He knows you’re a trustworthy man. And the Christian Commission’s reputation is well-known. There’s no question of impropriety.”

  “Then I guess I have no choice,” he said stiffly. “Our train to Hanover leaves in about three hours. Now please excuse me. I have a lot of work to do.” He turned to leave, but she held his arm, stopping him.

  “Are you angry with me?”

  “A little,” he said, not meeting her gaze. “But I’ll get over it.”

  Gettysburg

  July 1863

  Phoebe lifted the soldier’s head and held the tin cup of wine to his lips. “Here you go, see if you can swallow a little bit of this. I know you’re hurting, and I wish we had something stronger, but this is all we got for now.”

  “Thanks,” he whispered.

  “You want a little more? Is there anything else I can do for you?” When he shook his head, Phoebe laid him down again and moved to her next patient. “How you doing? Can you swallow a little wine? I know it ain’t much of a breakfast, but it might ease your pain a little.”

  “Breakfast? Is it morning?” he asked.

  “Sure is. Sun’s just about to peek above that hill over there. See how pretty the sky looks?” It was the third sunrise Phoebe had watched with very little sleep in between. She didn’t know how long she could keep on working like this, but with nursing help in short supply, she knew she had to try.

  “Lift me up so I can see,” the man begged.

  “You sure?” she asked. “I don’t want to hurt you none.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said, grimacing in pain. “I know I’m dying. It’s probably the last sunrise I’ll ever see.”

  “You can’t lose hope,” she said as she helped him sit. “We’re doing everything we can to see that you make it.”

  But helping him and the thousands of others just like him was an overwhelming task. Phoebe and the other nurses and doctors had arrived at the battlefield outside Gettysburg after the fighting had already begun. There had been no time to set up a proper field hospital or operating facilities, nor were there enough medical supplies to meet the enormous need. As General Meade marched his army north to chase Lee’s, he had ordered the wagon trains to carry ammunition and military equipment instead of medical supplies. The wounded soldiers had started to arrive before Phoebe and the other nurses had time to unpack what little they had. And with no tents for a field hospital, they’d been forced to care for the wounded in the open, outside the farmhouse where Dr. McGrath and the other surgeons were operating.

  Phoebe left the soldier to enjoy what might well be his last sunrise and moved to the next man. When she saw that he was a Rebel soldier, she hesitated. All the wounded men had been mixed together, both Rebels and Yankees, but they were too badly injured to fight each other. Phoebe couldn’t forget that a Rebel shell had killed her brother. Another one had wounded her. She could still feel the ache in her shoulder as she knelt and lifted the Rebel’s head.

  “You want a little sip of wine?”

  He nodded and drank a few gulps. “We lost the battle yesterday, didn’t we?” he asked as she laid him down again. “I’m a prisoner.”

  She’d been told that the Rebels had retreated across the Potomac during the night after yesterday’s battle. Three days of terrible fighting had left thousands of men on both sides wounded and slaughtered. The Confederate soldiers who were too badly injured to travel had been left behind. Many Confederate surgeons had stayed behind with them to care for their men.

  “This here is a field hospital,” she told him. “I’m a nurse, not a prison guard. And don’t ask me nothing about any battles. I’m too busy taking care of folks to keep score.”

  She moved to her next patient, also a Rebel. As she worked, she was gradually aware that one of the Confederate doctors was watching her. He was an unusually tall, gangly young fellow with a drooping mustache and several days’ stubble on his chin. She’d seen him moving among the men, working day and night like all the other doctors, never looking to see what uniform a man wore. He was sitting beneath a tree just a few yards away from her.

  She glanced up at him and their eyes met. Hers narrowed. “You checking up on me?” she asked. “Making sure I don’t poison them or something?”

  He laughed, and the sound was as loose and free as his longlimbed body. “No, ma’am. You don’t look like the sort of lady who’d do a thing like that. But I was watching you, I confess. And I reckon I owe you an explanation why.”

  “You don’t owe me nothing,” she said, looking away. As she started to move to the next patient, the doctor held out a tin cup.

  “Mind if I have a little drop of that? I’d prefer coffee this time of day, but I’ll take whatever I can get.”

  Phoebe walked down the row to where he sat and poured from the bottle she carried. She’d been told it was communion wine taken from a nearby church.

  “Whoa! That’s plenty. Can’t be getting drunk, now, can I? …Wait,” he said when she started to move away. “I was listening to you talk to the men. You sound just like the folks back home. I confess I was feeling a little homesick, especially for a woman’s voice, so that’s why I was watching you. Just wanted to think about home a little.”

  “I ain’t a Confederate like you,” she said coldly. But she had noticed his familiar drawl. After living amongst northerners for nearly two years, she’d grown used to the funny way they talked. This doctor’s voice reminded her of home.

  “No, ma’am. I knew you weren’t a Confederate,” he said. “Where are you from, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “I do mind.”

  He laughed again. “That’s okay, I don’t blame you. This war has us all suspicious of each other, I reckon. I’m from Berkeley County, Virginia—not all that far from here, truth be told. Just across the Pennsylvania border. You probably never heard of my little hamlet, but the closest town of any size is Martinsburg.”

  He lived in the next county over from Phoebe, not far from Bone Hollow. “Berkeley County ain’t part of Virginia no more,” she told him. “They just made a whole chunk of Virginia into a new state.”

  “That’s what I heard. But I haven’t been home since the war started.”

  “You joined the Confederacy,” she said bluntly.

  “Well, yes, ma’am, I guess I did. But it wasn’t so much a matter of me joining them as them conscripting me. I’d just finished studying medicine in Charlottesville, and I was apprenticed to a doctor there. They needed doctors when the war started, so they grabbed me. How about you? How’d you get here? Followed your husband, I suppose?”

  “I ain’t married.”

  “Now, ma’am, I have a hard time believing that. Pretty gal like you?”

  “Are you making fun of me?”

  He looked truly surprised. “No, ma’am! I’m real partial to yellow hair, and yours is about the prettiest color yellow I’ve ever seen. Reminds me of corn tassels. You’re a strong gal and a fine nurse. I’ve watched you working. These southern belles who like to faint at the drop of a hat leave me cold. … Ma’am?” he said when she started to move away again. “Won’t you please tell me your name, so I don’t have to keep calling you ma’am?”

  She hesitated. “It’s Phoebe.”

  “Mine’s Daniel …Daniel Morrison.” He stuck out his hand to shake hers. Phoebe found herself warming to him against her will.

  “You got a wife and children waiting for you, Dr. Morrison?”

  “No, the gals back home never did see much to like about me,” he said, laughing. “They said I looked like a bag of bones all strung together every which way. Got no social graces to speak of, either, because I always had my nose in a book. And a country doctor from Berkeley County can’t offer a gal much in the way of finery and things.”

  “You think you
’ll go back home when the war’s over?” she asked.

  He sighed. “Sometimes it’s hard to imagine that this war ever will be over, isn’t it? But, yeah, I’d like to go back to Berkeley County and be a doctor. That’s all I ever wanted. How about you?”

  “I haven’t had much time to think about it,” she said, shrugging. “I guess I won’t have much choice except to go home.”

  He smiled. “Well, when you get there, I’ll bet some lucky fella’s gonna snap you up for his wife right quick.”

  Phoebe stared hard at him to see if he was poking fun, but she saw only admiration in his eyes. He was looking at her the way a man looks at a woman—something she’d never experienced before. He smiled shyly as she continued to study him, then slowly rose to his feet.

  “Thanks for the wine. I sure did enjoy talking with you, Phoebe. You take care, now.”

  The first thing Julia noticed when the Christian Commission arrived in Gettysburg was the stench. The dead couldn’t be buried fast enough, and the corpses of fallen army horses lay strewn on the ground, as well, bloating in the sun. Volunteers scattered chloride of lime everywhere, but it was a feeble gesture in the heat of summer. The smell of death and decay permeated every breath of air Julia took.

  Improvised field hospitals had been set up wherever there was a need and a space—in houses, barns, and churches, even beneath covered bridges. Julia’s task was to drive around in the hired wagon with the other female volunteers and distribute food and medical supplies where they were needed. But she had prepared a satchel for herself with clean bandages and iodine and medicinal brandy, and she was prepared to leave the group and stay to help wherever extra nurses were needed.

  One of the first farms they came upon on the outskirts of Gettysburg presented a now-familiar sight. Hundreds of badly injured men spilled from every shed and farm building, lying scattered across the yard beneath the trees. As her wagon pulled to a stop, the farmer’s wife came forward to tell them that the biggest need was for food and for help feeding all the men. Julia set to work with the others, preparing to distribute the soup and bread they’d brought.

  She hadn’t worked for very long when an army doctor suddenly emerged from the farmhouse shouting, “I need a nurse! Quickly!”

  “I’m a trained nurse,” Julia said. “I’ve just arrived. How can I help?”

  “Come inside. Bring your things and some food if you have it.”

  Julia grabbed her satchel and followed him inside, her heart pounding with both readiness and fear.

  “One of our surgeons has collapsed,” he told her as they walked through an enclosed back porch leading to the kitchen. “We carried him into the parlor, and we need someone to attend him while we continue our work.”

  He pointed to an open door off the kitchen, which led to a small sitting room. But first Julia would have to walk through the kitchen, which was being used as an operating room. The orderlies had carried in an injured soldier ahead of her, and he cried out in pain as they transferred him to the makeshift operating table. Julia looked away to avoid seeing his mutilated leg. Remnants of clothing and severed limbs lay piled in a corner near the hearth. There was blood everywhere. The wooden floor was slick with it. She closed her eyes, pausing for a moment.

  “Are you all right?” the doctor asked.

  “Yes …Do you know what’s wrong with this surgeon? Why he collapsed?”

  “Exhaustion. He’s been working for three days without stopping. I don’t believe he’s eaten anything or slept in all that time. He collapsed a few moments ago, probably from fatigue and hunger.”

  Julia got as far as the parlor doorway and froze. The doctor lay on the sofa, unconscious. He had one arm slung across his eyes as if shielding them, but even with most of his face covered, she recognized him immediately—James McGrath. She wanted to back away, to run from the farmhouse.

  “Shouldn’t you just let him sleep?” she asked.

  “Of course. But you must get him to eat something first. He’s one of our best surgeons. We need to get him back on his feet soon, or countless men will die.” The doctor left Julia and returned to his work.

  She stared at James for a long moment, unable to move. There were thousands of wounded soldiers she could be helping, lying in homes and churches and barns all around Gettysburg. And there must be hundreds and hundreds of doctors and volunteer nurses, as well. What strange twist of fate had thrown her and James McGrath together again?

  Julia knew that she shouldn’t stay here alone with him. One of the married volunteers could just as easily feed him. She should go back outside and get someone else to do this. But before she could leave, there was a commotion in the kitchen as the wounded soldier began screaming. Something crashed to the floor. James moaned at the sound and tried to bury his face in the sofa. She knew about his headaches, knew how light and sound intensified his pain—and she knew she was meant to be here.

  Julia immediately closed the door to the kitchen behind her, then crossed the room to close all the curtains. When the room was as dark as she could make it, she pulled a wad of bandages from her satchel, dampened it with cold water from her canteen, then lifted James’ arm away from his face and covered his eyes with the cloth. She wet a second cloth and laid it across his forehead and used cotton lint to help plug his ears. Then she knelt beside the sofa to decide what to do next.

  He was filthy from having collapsed onto the kitchen floor. She soaked another cloth, rubbed it with the bar of soap she carried, and cleaned the blood and filth off his hair and face. She found a fresh bruise where he’d bumped his head when he’d fallen, and she dabbed the cut with iodine. When his face was clean, she tied a strip of cloth around his head to hold the thick compress in place over his eyes in case he rolled over.

  His shirt had to go next. It was disgusting—stiff in some places, sticky in others, and soaked through to his skin with three days’ worth of blood. James remained asleep as she gently rolled him over and stripped off his ruined shirt. It surprised her to discover that beneath his disheveled, ill-fitting clothes he was lean and well-built, with a strong torso and muscled arms. The hair on his chest was ginger-colored like his beard.

  Julia had cleaned the blood off other wounded men countless times, but she slowly became aware of the impropriety of what she was doing as she worked on James McGrath. An unmarried woman simply shouldn’t be performing such duties. It was what everyone— her father, Dorothea Dix, Nathaniel—had been telling her all along. She hadn’t worried much about her reputation when she was in Washington pretending to be married to Robert, but she was no longer pretending. The other Commission volunteers knew she was single. If one of them were to walk into the darkened sitting room right now and see her alone with a half-naked man, Julia’s reputation would be ruined. So would her future as a minister’s wife.

  And there was something more. She was no longer able to deny the strong attraction she felt toward James McGrath, an attraction that was very wrong.

  Julia was suddenly in a hurry to finish. She quickly washed his bloodstained hands. She noticed that they were bare, but it took a moment for the truth to register—James wasn’t wearing his wedding ring. She dropped his left hand in shock.

  What did it mean? Had he removed the ring so he could operate? But Julia had assisted him with surgery in Fredericksburg and he hadn’t removed it then. She scrambled to her feet. She felt close to panic and didn’t know why. She needed to leave. But she hadn’t fed him yet, and that was what the other doctor had specifically asked her to do.

  Unwilling to go through the kitchen again, Julia found the front door to the farmhouse and hurried around to where her fellow volunteers were distributing soup. She silently took a tin bowl and spoon and was about to go back inside when one of the other ladies stopped her.

  “You look quite pale, Julia. Are you all right? Is it horribly gruesome in there?”

  She grasped the excuse like a lifeline. “Yes. They’re performing surgery. Please warn ever
yone to stay outside.”

  “What about you? Can you stand it?”

  “I’m nearly finished.”

  Julia returned through the front door and latched it from the inside. She set the bowl on a table near the sofa and then lifted James’ head, propping him up with pillows. “Dr. McGrath…” she murmured, shaking his shoulder to wake him. “Doctor, you need to eat something.”

  It took several minutes to stir him into consciousness. He moaned and groped with one hand to feel the compress covering his eyes.

  “Leave it there,” she said, pulling his hand away. “Your hands are trembling. I’ll feed you.” She breathed a sigh of relief when he didn’t argue. Neither of them spoke while she spooned soup into his mouth. “Would you like more?” she asked when it was gone.

  “No,” he said with a weary groan. “I have to go back to work. Bring me some strong coffee.”

  “All right,” she said, removing the cushions from behind his head. “I’ll be right back with some. Rest for another minute.”

  But James quickly passed out from exhaustion again, as she suspected he would. Julia removed his shoes and socks, then gently brushed his hair off his forehead.

  “If you’re seeking atonement, James McGrath, you’ve paid for it,” she murmured. “You’ve been to hell.”

  For the next two hours, Julia helped the other women distribute soup to the wounded men outside. When everyone had their fill, they loaded the wagon to move on to the next field hospital. Extra nurses were needed here, but Julia knew this was not the place where she should stay and work.

  As they drove past the farmhouse, she caught a glimpse of Dr. McGrath standing on the back porch, calling for another patient. His clean shirt was already splattered with blood.

  Phoebe stood outside the farmhouse, eating a slice of bread that the lady volunteers had left behind for the doctors and nurses. The sun was going down, and she couldn’t remember eating much all day. It tasted like a bite of heaven.