by Kathy Otten
“Mrs. Anderson says ye be taking a load of supplies to the field hospitals.”
“That’s right. We’re taking a wagon for each division. Most times we can get supplies to the field hospitals before the army.” He crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
She squared her shoulders and raised her chin. “Good. Then I’ll be coming with ye.”
He stared at her for several long seconds. “Mrs. Anderson tell you I’m assigned to the first division of the second corps?”
She met his hard glare without flinching. “That she did.”
She refused to look away first, nor did he seem inclined to give quarter.
“You do know this is a battlefield. Don’t you think you should leave it to the men, and you stay here where you can be more useful?”
“I be a nurse, Mr. Bridgerton. The battlefield ’tis where I can be more useful.”
Finally he gave her a long slow nod. “Can you ride a horse?”
“Aye.” Though she hadn’t ridden since she was a girl in Ireland, as long as she didn’t have to ride sidesaddle she’d be fine.
“We pack the wagons on Sunday afternoon and leave at seven a.m. on Monday. Don’t be late.”
She turned and marched back down the aisle, her shoes clicked solid and hollow against the plank floor.
She picked up her notebook and pen, staring at the page of blurred numbers and letters. Sweet Mary, Jesus, and Joseph, what was she getting into? Gunfire, shelling, and wounded by the hundreds. She pressed her palms against her churning stomach.
Begorra, if Doctor Ellard had a problem with women working at Armory Square Hospital in Washington, what would he say on Monday?
A grin tugged at the corners of her mouth. She gave her head a shake and pointed her pencil at the first case of wine. One, two, three…
Chapter Fourteen
A shell exploded. Then another. The thunderous pounding reverberated through the thick woods around the frame house. Although the dense morning fog had burned off, it had been replaced by thick white smoke which drifted like steam through the impenetrable tangle of trees, obscuring the blue sky and fleecy clouds overhead. The faint taste of sulphur mixed with the coppery scent of warm blood.
The Sixty-first New York, as part of Major-General Hancock’s first division, had started the morning by marching east about two miles on the Orange Turnpike.
Charles set to work with the surgeons, assistants, and orderlies to quickly organize a field hospital less than a quarter mile behind Hancock’s main battle line.
A never-ending flow of wounded drifted in throughout the day. Some walked, others were carried. From the southeast, shelling pounded incessantly.
“Captain Ellard!” Breen’s panicked voice carried across the lawn of the small house. It hadn’t taken long for the young man’s humorous outlook to wan, and Charles tallied its loss among the other wounds of war.
He stepped back from the makeshift surgical table. “Finish stitching this closed.”
Charles’ assistant, Doctor Brooks, nodded and removed a needle and thread from his surgical kit.
The patient would be lucky to survive the next forty-eight hours. The entire head of a three-inch shell had torn through the abdominal wall and impacted into the lumbar vertebrae.
With so many wounded he could save, he wasn’t even sure what compelled him to try. But the private was barely mature enough to grow a facial hair and his only complaint when Charles checked his wound was that the shell was heavy and gave him colic.
The image of a dying drummer boy had flashed through his mind along with Gracie’s naïve declaration that there was always hope.
And rather than having the soldier laid aside with the other mortal wounds, he’d foolishly disregarded his credo to focus only on the injuries. Instead he found himself giving the private’s shoulder a squeeze and saying, “You’re a brave young man. Your mother must be proud.”
He stepped back to allow his assistant surgeon room, wiping his hands on the cleanest corner of his blood-splattered apron. He studied the clumsy technique of his assistant surgeon, tempted to push him aside and stitch the wound himself.
“Captain Ellard,” Breen called out again. “I could use your help over here.”
In the end, neatness didn’t matter, and Brooks needed the practice. At least the private would be comfortable at the last.
Charles strode across the yard to the shade of a large oak tree where Breen had contrived his own makeshift surgery table.
“Captain, I don’t know what to do.” Breen stepped aside as Charles approached the patient who lay on a door which had been stripped from the house and placed across an end table and sideboard. “I never saw anything like this.”
Charles leaned close to the soldier who drifted in and out of consciousness. His face so blackened from powder and smoke, he looked like every other wounded man who lay sprawled over this once pretty lawn.
A shell had taken the soldier’s right arm off just below the shoulder, leaving three inches of brachial artery hanging out of the body. Someone had fashioned a tourniquet from a handkerchief and stick, around what remained of the arm.
“Where is Major Andrews?”
Andrews was one of the three surgeons, along with Charles, chosen from the regiments to perform surgery for the division. Breen had been assigned as Andrews’ assistant.
“I don’t know.”
He could have been caught up with a surgical case, found elsewhere, or taken himself back to the brick house at the crossroad.
Dismissing Andrews from further thought, Charles concentrated on the remains of the severed limb.
“Blood loss is substantial. I can ligate this artery and form some sort of flap from the edges of the skin that are left, but these measures are likely too late.”
Limbs amputated this close to the body generally had a low survival rate, although amputations done in the field had a higher chance than those performed days later.
Charles set to work as orderlies and assistants moved and talked around them.
“We’re falling back to the brick house.” Major Triscut peered at the flap Charles was stitching closed. “We were supposed to hold the line till five, but the Johnny Rebs are pushing our flank. Hancock wanted reinforcements, but Hooker is ordering us back. We’ll have to move fast so we don’t get overrun. I’ll see how many can walk and start them moving. You remain and stabilize as many as you can while I try to find stretcher bearers for the rest.”
Charles gave him a quick nod and tied off another stitch.
The other doctors and orderlies moved behind him packing the panniers onto the mules and preparing to first move those men who stood a chance of surviving. Charles waited until every patient had gone before he grabbed his field pack, mounted his horse, and headed down the crowded turnpike to the crossroads where the large two-story brick house stood.
Reserve infantry units filled the wide clearing between the house and the road. A crowd of teamsters and stragglers milled around outside. Officers, staff, and couriers buzzed in and out the front door like bees at a hive. Wounded lay on the lawn and lower veranda.
As Charles dismounted, Richards ran up to take the reins of his horse.
“Why are all these men outside?” Charles snapped as he yanked free his saddlebag field pack. Without waiting for an answer, he strode across the lawn and up the front steps. Crossing the threshold, he found more dirty, bleeding wounded either sitting or lying prone in every available space of the front entry and halls. Carefully, he picked his way through the men toward a room he assumed would be a dining room or parlor. He tugged at one of the pocket handles but the door wouldn’t slide.
Cursing under his breath, he stepped back and slammed the bottom of his heel against the lock where the two doors came together.
With a splintering crash the lock broke. He shoved each panel into its corresponding wall pocket and stared. Chairs, tables, armoires, beds, and sofas filled the room.
<
br /> “Richards!” he bellowed. He swung around and grabbed the first healthy looking man he saw not wearing a surgeon insignia.
“Find some more men and get this furniture out. Empty any room that doesn’t have a general in it and move the wounded inside.”
“Yes, sir.” He fired off a quick salute and dashed for the front door.
Charles stepped over and around the wounded as he made his way to the kitchen at the back of the house. He found Breen kneeling beside a soldier, cutting away his trouser leg.
Charles bent to peer at the bloody knee. “Minié ball?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“The locked rooms are being cleaned out. Find some orderlies and get these men out of here. Where is Captain Brooks?”
“He’s with Major Triscut in the sitting room. That’s the new surgery.”
Charles nodded. “Where is the cook?”
Breen scanned the room. “I believe he said something about fetching water.”
“Good. Have him begin preparing soup for these men.”
Breen nodded, and Charles turned back into the main portion of the house.
He found the major in the sitting room organizing supplies from the pack mules. Andrews leaned over a patient who lay on a table while orderlies carried in the more severely wounded.
Triscut turned as Charles approached. “Good. You’re here. I want you take the worst cases. You’re tall, and the piano is a good height for you. That’s our amputation table. It’s near the window, and the limbs can easily be tossed out of sight for pickup later tonight.”
Charles nodded. “I ordered men to clean out the furniture in any of the locked rooms to make room for the patients. Is the family still here?”
“They’re in one of the rooms at the back of the house. Some of the neighbors too, trying to escape the shelling. General Hooker and his staff are upstairs.”
Charles exchanged his uniform coat for an apron, rolled up his sleeves, and set to work. Without acknowledging any faces, he ignored the pain-filled cries and groans and focused on the wounds.
He tried not to think about the blood that now covered this once beautiful instrument. Its purity as desecrated by this war as these men whose limbs had been destroyed by mortar and shot.
He shoved it all to the back of his mind, wiped his hands, and kept moving.
As the shadows of dusk crept across the room, silvery moonlight lit the clearing beyond the window glass. Grateful for the functionality of the full moon, rather than its beauty, he performed surgery well into the night. He worked until Major Triscut ordered him to take a break.
He wandered outside and spotted Breen and another surgeon by the picket fence. If he hadn’t been so exhausted, he might have the energy to pause for a moment and enjoy the night sky.
Instead all he could manage was to sink to the ground and lean against the wooden slats. Resting the back of his head in the space between the pickets, he closed his eyes.
Inside his boots, his socks were wet. Moisture from the morning’s heavy dew had seeped through the leather of his boots, chilling his toes. Throughout the day, his sweat added to the dampness soaking the wool. Now his feet were so swollen from standing for nearly twenty hours, he doubted he could even get his boots off to change into dry socks.
His stomach rumbled loud enough for Breen to rouse.
“Was that your stomach?”
Charles grunted.
“Sounds empty.”
“I’m not certain. I consumed two hard crackers and a piece of bread at half past three, but since I don’t know the rate of my digestion, my stomach contents as yet, may not have been completely absorbed.”
Breen chuckled. “You’re funny. After all we’ve seen today and as tired and hungry as you are, you still find a way to make light of our situation.”
Charles turned his head. The moon cast a pewter glow across Breen’s cheek bones while hiding his eyes in the shadow of his brow. Which made it difficult to discern whether Breen was being facetious. Not that Charles found it easy to read facial expressions, even in broad daylight.
“You find my statement humorous?”
Breen’s teeth flashed white as he smiled. “Yeah, you say funny things.”
“How is it you perceive my observation of fact to be humorous when no one else would?”
He shrugged. “My mum is English, and she has that same understated sense of humor. I suppose I’m used to it.”
Should he tell Breen humor had not been his intent? A low growl rolled through his stomach.
Breen pushed to his feet. “I’ll go find you something to eat. It might not be much though, so I hope your rate of digestion remains slow.”
He grinned and wove his way between soldiers sleeping across the lawn.
Charles let his eyes drift closed.
“Captain?”
Someone was shaking his shoulder.
“Captain?”
Charles drew a deep breath and blinked. Breen.
“Sorry to wake you, but Major Triscut needs you.”
How long had he been asleep? It felt like only minutes. He groaned and pushed to his feet, bracing his hip against the fence for a few moments, giving the muscles in his back time to ease their painful spasms.
Breen passed him a piece of bread and an apple and flashed a quick grin. “Richards swiped ’em from a table for one of the generals.”
Saliva pooled in Charles mouth, and he crunched through the apple, snapping off nearly one third of it in that single bite. It was a little dry and pulpy, but he didn’t care. He devoured it core and all.
“There’s a sergeant with a bullet wound,” Breen explained.
Charles folded his slice of bread in half and pushed away from the fence.
“That went in below his left eye and through his mouth.”
They hastened toward the house, Breen quick stepping to keep pace with Charles long stride. “Major Triscut says the bullet is lodged at the back of the jaw on the right side. He wants you to extract the ball, because it’s lodged against the carotid artery.”
The major and two orderlies had laid the patient on the piano. Dried mud splattered his uniform, and powder had blackened his face. Near the man’s head sat a block of wood with five augered holes in which five candles stood, casting a flickering light across the bloody distorted face.
Charles bent close. The ball had entered through the side of the cheek, torn through the sinus cavity, taking out several teeth on its way through the roof of the mouth, grazing the tongue and after tearing through several more teeth, had lodged in the bone at the back of the jaw.
He felt the bump of the ball in front of the artery, through which blood appeared to be pumping normally.
The soldier must have lain on the battlefield for a good part of the day, for the blood had clotted and dried.
The man opened his eyes for a moment, met Charles’ gaze, and drifted off again.
Charles straightened and stepped back. He ran his hand across his tired eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Suture wire, ligature silk, needles, probe, extractor. He checked his surgical kit and glanced up.
Brooks stepped to the head of the patient to administer the anesthesia. He placed the cone over the patient’s nose and mouth then pulled the stopper from the bottle of—Ether!
“No!” Charles lunged for the table.
The cone ignited over the patient’s face as Charles knocked it to the floor with a swipe of his arm that took the bottle from Brooks’ hand.
Charles snatched the bottle off the floor and jammed in the stopper, grateful the bottle hadn’t broken and created an additional fire. With his free hand he grabbed Captain Brooks by the front of his uniform. “Get away from here.” He released the assistant surgeon with a slight shove.
The man stumbled back two steps. “I…I-I’m sorry, sir. I’m so damn tired I forgot it was flammable.”
“Your incompetence will go in my report.” Charles turned away. “Breen! Cloroform!”
/>
****
“Here you go, Captain.” Breen held out a steaming cup of coffee.
Grateful, Charles wrapped his numb fingers around the hot mug. From between his chattering teeth, he managed a brief, “Thank you.”
He hunched over the cup for a moment, allowing the fragrant steam to thaw his icy nose.
Breen dropped beside Charles on the back steps of the house, nursing his own cup of coffee. “Damn, it’s cold this morning.”
Charles sipped the hot liquid, savoring the heat which slid down his throat and eased the trembling in the walls of his stomach.
“What I really miss,” Breen said, “is fresh eggs for breakfast. Fried, with a nice thick ham steak. And biscuits.” He sniffed and rubbed his nose on his sleeve.
Charles swallowed another mouthful of coffee. Scrambled would be nice, piled between two slices of fresh bread.
Breen tipped back the last of his coffee then peered into the empty cup as though more of the beverage might magically appear. “What happens now?”
Uncertain whether Breen referred to the empty mug or the upcoming surgeries, Charles shrugged. He swallowed the rest of his coffee before it grew too cold to warm him.
“Sure would be great,” Breen said, “if we win this one and it puts a stop to the rebellion.”
Charles pushed to his feet. He gazed across the mist-shrouded lawn and the rows of canvas covered bodies nearly hidden behind its ghostly veil.
Breen rose beside him. “Yeah,” he repeated. “It sure would be great.”
****
By midmorning, the sun emerged and chased away the cold, promising a day as pretty as the one before.
Artillery began their battle to the southeast. The bombardment of shelling so constant, Charles no longer heard the resounding booms unless he took a moment to listen.
Wounded drifted in throughout the morning and into the afternoon as the fighting continued.
Charles stepped back as the orderlies grasped the ends of the stretcher and lifted the patient, whose arm he’d just amputated, off the piano and took him to recover in another part of the house.