by Kathy Otten
Hoping for the best, he grabbed a fistful of the man’s wool coat and crawled, dragging the unconscious man along like small dog dragging home a rabbit.
Blindly reaching out, he swung his arm in an arc, struggling to breathe through the painful hacking which tore from the bottom of his lungs. Finding no obstacles, he crawled forward a few more feet, reached out and crawled again. His throat burned raw. The pressure in his chest squeezed tighter with every second.
He should have felt fresh air by now. Had he miscalculated and crawled farther into the house?
A few moments of smoke-filled breaths, and his hand brushed the wall. Doubt swirled through his mind. No. He had to trust his own judgment. If he’d crawled toward the back he would have encountered the staircase or a doorway into another room. He reminded himself that he had anticipated this. Smoke filled his lungs, suffocating him. Sparkles danced behind his closed eye lids like stars on a moonless night.
From above came a loud cracking. With a splintering crash, something heavy slammed against his shoulder, knocking him flat, pinning him to the floor. Debris pelted down around him. Pain shot across his back, as though a hot knife seared through skin and muscle to his scapula.
Heaving against the weight of what felt like a burning floor joist, he pushed to his hands and knees. From there he was able to lever the burning timber off his back. Moving onward, he groped through the rubble until he located Brooks. Blindly he resumed his search for the exit.
Air.
A wisp of air brushed across the back of his hand.
Clean, fresh air.
He drew a desperate breath. Coughing wracked his body. The pain in his left shoulder tore at his muscles, but he didn’t care. He fumbled along the floor and found the low bump of the door sill.
Relief nearly caused him to collapse right there, but he had just a little farther to go. He grabbed the unconscious man and crawled forward. The planks of the veranda felt wider and rougher than the smooth boards of the floors inside the house. He opened his eyes. Even through smoke, the brilliance of daylight caused him to squeeze them closed again. Tears leaked from the corners and ran down his cheeks.
His fingers curved over the edge of the veranda. He squinted, searching for the front steps.
“Captain!”
He raised his head, ignoring the pain tearing through his shoulder. Someone ran toward him, the blurry form growing more familiar as he blinked back the tears.
“Richards!” he called, his voice so raspy it was barely audible to his ears. Fresh air warred with smoke for space inside his body. A hacking cough tore from the bottom of lungs. Ribs aching, he hung his head like a winded horse, his hair falling forward to brush the floorboards of the porch.
“I have your mount, sir. We have to go. Now!”
Charles pushed to his knees. “Help me with this man.”
Richards ran toward him then halted at the bottom of the steps. “Are you all right, sir?”
“I’m fine. I merely need to…” The edge of the veranda tilted. He tried to reach out his hand for balance—
****
The pungent bitterness of smoke filled his nose and coated his tongue. Indistinct voices floated around him. Moaning. Groans and whimpers for water. The soft cries of suffering. Men needed help.
His eyes opened, focusing for a moment on the leafy tangle of branches overhead. From the distance, the synchronized cadence of marching. The jangle of harness. Horses snorted and clip-clopped past. The sharp cracking of rifle fire and the distant thunder of artillery.
The last thing he remembered was pulling Brooks from the burning house.
His left shoulder just plain hurt. He glanced down. His uniform coat and waistcoat were gone. A triangular Esmarch bandage immobilized his arm in a sling. Beneath his ruined shirt he felt the weight of a second bandage wrapped over his shoulder and around his chest.
Using his good hand, he levered himself up and leaned the healthy part of his back against the tree. Pain tore through the burn.
Men, dirty and bloody, unconscious and awake, lay around him. Others sat quietly in small groups. Thick trees and brush surrounded them. On a rise to his right ambulances and soldiers marched past.
Drawing up his knees, he dug his boot heels into the soft peat and pushed, sliding up along the height of the trunk, careful to keep the area of raw burning from rubbing against the bark.
He drew a breath and began coughing. He pulled a handkerchief from his trouser pocket. Pressing the smoke-scented cloth over his mouth, he continued hacking even as he leaned over and braced his hand on his knee to draw breath.
Several long moments later his lungs calmed. He blew his nose. Black smeared the white cloth. He shoved the handkerchief into his pocket and leaned against the trunk, resting the back of his head against the tree.
From the other side of the small clearing, Breen approached, moving carefully around the wounded. He offered Charles a brief smile. “How are you feeling?”
“What”—another spell of hacking overtook him for several seconds—“happened?”
“Richards said you pulled a wounded soldier out of the burning house and collapsed. He put you on your horse and brought you here. You have a pretty deep burn on the back of your shoulder. Took me a while to pick out the pieces of charred wood and bits of cloth. I couldn’t find any white paint to cover it so I just wrapped it.”
Charles nodded. “How’s Brooks?”
Breen gave his head a slight shake. “Haven’t seen him.”
“Thought I pulled”—he coughed—“him out.”
“No, the fellow you saved was a corporal shot in the leg.”
“Where’s Brooks?”
Breen shrugged. “It puts us down another surgeon. Major Triscut and his assistant, Captain Deaver or is it Weaver, they’re leaving with some of the wounded when our division heads to the pontoon bridges. Major Triscut wants to know if you can work.” His gaze lingered on Charles’ shoulder for a moment.
Charles pushed away from the tree and nodded. “I’m fine. Hardly hurts at all.”
“’Cause the major said you can go back with him, and he’ll leave Captain Deaver here.”
“Deaver is slow and indecisive. When the ambulances start bringing in wounded from the battlefields, he’ll stand there wringing his hands until someone tells him what to do.”
“They’ve started sending over the ambulances and medical wagons.”
Charles nodded. “I’ll need a new assistant.”
Breen gestured toward a younger man with a dark beard who stood beside Major Andrews outside the surgery tent. “Captain Morton is still here.”
“Good.” Charles straightened away from the tree and stumbled along behind Breen, moving around the sea of wounded to the surgery area.
Andrews glanced up from the private lying on the table. “Glad to see you back with us.” He cut open the man’s bloody coat sleeve and examined the wound, muttering under his breath.
“Damn chaos, moving the wounded in the middle of a retreating army. Back then back and back again.”
He wiped away the blood with a piece of cloth. “Bone is fine.” He folded a cloth pad over an in-and-out bullet wound and began wrapping an eight-yard bandage around the arm. “Never heard of such a thing. And with only two ambulances. Damn generals.”
“Captain Ellard!”
Charles turned. A surgeon from another regiment, notebook in hand, waved for Charles to join him in the area where the names and ranks of the wounded were being processed.
“There’s three men over there.” The doctor nodded toward a gnarled hickory tree. Two soldiers leaned against the trunk and one man lay between them. “Just walked in from the fighting. The fellow in the middle’s got a pretty bad abdominal wound.”
Charles nodded and started toward the men. Breen followed alongside, no doubt worried Charles would pass out again. Steadier, but still shaky, he pulled off his sling and passed it to Breen.
“Give this to someone else. Find Richards. Get my f
ield pack and my bedroll. I have a clean shirt rolled inside.”
Breen veered off as Charles continued and knelt beside the injured soldier.
He checked the wound but kept his left arm pressed immobile against his abdomen as much as possible. While the actual burn didn’t hurt much, the skin around it felt as if were on fire, and moving his rotator cuff muscles was excruciating. Trying to breathe through the pain, he focused on his work.
Gunfire continued through late afternoon. Charles moved from patient to patient by rote, as he and Captain Morton stitched wounds, removed bullets, and bandaged cuts. Major Andrews handled the amputations, with Breen as his assistant.
He’d worked through the pain all afternoon and evening. The burning in his shoulder was just there, intense and constant.
Now he lay on his right side, his head pillowed on his arm, and tried to sleep. Breen and Major Andrews snored soundly beside him. Exhaustion should have claimed him as easily.
A breeze carried the scent of smoke from the scattered fires which burned in the dense woods and scrub brush. He wondered if he’d ever savor the fresh scent of clean air again.
It had been so long since he’d eaten, his stomach had ceased its rumbling complaints. He closed his eyes and tried to think of something else.
A long rope of red hair, tracing the spine of a smooth white back, dusted with copper-colored freckles. A narrow waist he could grasp in his hands. And hips, hips which spanned the width of a perfect ass. Two firm smooth globes beneath his fingers, soft and pliable as he massaged each muscle. He could almost feel the warmth of her, hear her sigh with pleasure as he traced the cleft between her cheeks to the apex of her thighs, to that warm, moist core—
Damn! His mind was willing, but his body couldn’t seem to conjure even a spark of arousal. What was wrong with him?
He rolled onto his stomach, resting his cheek on the back of his right hand. Blades of grass poked at his nose and the corner of his eye, but he couldn’t summon enough energy to push them aside.
He sighed.
****
“You have such an active mind.”
The voice drifted through his thoughts along with the sensation of being rocked. He’d been sitting on her lap. She wore a purple dress.
“It’s not purple, sweetie. It’s lavender, like the lilacs outside the door.”
****
He opened his eyes to blackness. Why couldn’t he remember?
Was this the same voice that had called him Jason? Had he been the boy who’d written the note? Who was Charles? And damn it, who the hell was he?
Chaos. His entire being was in chaos and it was all the fault of Gracie McBride.
Since sleep eluded him, he might as well check on the wounded. He rolled painfully to his feet.
Chapter Sixteen
“Battlefields ain’t no place for a lady.” Mr. Bridgerton flicked the reins against the rumps of the bony horses, urging the four-horse team to step up their plodding pace. “You sure you want to do this, Mrs. McBride?”
Despite her forward thinking opinions about a woman’s place in this war, Gracie appreciated Mr. Bridgerton’s innate sense of chivalry in allowing her to ride his horse alongside the wagon.
She flashed him her most confident smile. “I do.”
The wagon wheels on one side, dropped into another rut. Mr. Bridgerton braced his feet on the tool box attached to the front of the wagon and leaned toward the uphill side to keep from tumbling off the narrow seat.
At the pontoon bridges, their long line of canvas-covered wagons was forced to wait for the ambulances and medical wagons to roll across the river.
On the other side, their arduous journey continued as wagons, animals, and soldiers clogged the roadway. The advancing line of ambulances, Army medical wagons, and Sanitary Commission wagons were nearly stalled by the retreating army as it moved around them.
An endless stream of men in blue tromped around the wagons with no more interest than the river gives a rock as it flows around it. Exhaustion dragged their feet. Some limped, others had their arms supported with slings. The grime of sweat, dirt, and gunpowder coated their faces and beards so that they melded into one body of sameness.
Sighting the flag for the first division hospital, Mr. Bridgerton moved their wagon off the road, down the slope into a little hollow surrounded by a forest of dwarf pine, hickory, and scrub oak. Beyond the tree line, daylight had been obscured by dense undergrowth of bramble.
In the clearing, men lay on the ground or sat in scattered clusters beneath the shade of branches green with spring leaves. A small number of soldiers lifted their heads to gaze at the approaching wagon, but most seemed oblivious or too apathetic to care.
“Sweet Mary.” Gracie nudged her horse closer to the front of the wagon. “How long have these men been lying on this damp ground?”
“Reckon it depends when they come in from the battlefields.” Mister Bridgerton carefully maneuvered the horses around the edge of the clearing and toward the north end where the surgical area had been set up. Two more wagons followed.
“Whoa, boys.” He pulled the team to a halt, set the brake, and jumped down.
Gracie slipped her feet from the stirrups, swung her leg over the horse, and slid to the ground. She clutched at the saddle with one hand while hastily shaking out her skirts with the other.
“I’ll see if I can find some able bodies to help unload.” He took a moment to arch his lower back then, rubbing the area with both hands, he headed toward the hub of doctors, stewards, and orderlies.
Gracie scanned the area for the tall, lanky silhouette of Doctor Ellard. Hundreds of wounded lay on the ground. Their prone bodies filled the entire area between the road and the tree line. For a moment she could only stare, trying to assimilate the image before her.
Their groans and pleas for water nearly overwhelmed her. She drew a deep breath and released it slowly. Find one thing to do and do it.
“Can I take your horse, ma’am?”
Startled, she swung around.
A young soldier stood with his hand extended.
“Thank ye.” She pasted on her brightest smile and handed over the reins. “We’ve gum blankets and tents for the men, if ye’ve someone free to unload them.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And where might I find yer cook?”
“He’s over yon—but—”
“We’ve beef stock and farina, bread and butter, vegetables and chicken, wine—”
“But ma’am ya got to talk to Major Andrews on how he wants things done.”
“And Major Andrews be…”
The young soldier gestured toward the large tent beside a boxy medicine wagon, where Mr. Bridgerton and several men were gathered.
“Thank ye.” She flashed him another quick smile and marched over to the surgical area.
Conversation stopped as she approached. Except for Mr. Bridgerton, nearly a dozen men stood staring at her slack jawed.
“Major Andrews?”
A bearded man of average height stepped forward. Minus his uniform coat, a blood-spattered apron covered his waistcoat. He studied her through dark eyes underscored by deep shadows. A scowl furrowed his brow. “Who are you? And what are you doing in the middle of a damn battlefield?”
“Me name’s Gracie McBride, a nurse at Armory Square Hospital. I’ve come with the Sanitary Commission to distribute supplies.”
She shot a quick glance toward Mr. Bridgerton, but he seemed content to watch her flounder.
“If ye have some men to be helping with the unloading of the supplies and give me yer direction as to where to put—”
He shook his head. “I don’t know how you got here, miss, but—”
“’Tis Mrs., Mrs. McBride. And I’ve come to help.”
“Help? You’re already a hindrance. I’m short surgeons. The one good man I have is wounded. Ambulances are bringing in more wounded as we speak, and you want me to assign the few orderlies I have to help you unload
some crates and barrels? Women!”
He glared at Mr. Bridgerton. “Are you the one responsible for bringing her here? I don’t need someone to soothe brows and write letters. She’ll likely swoon the first time she sees someone brought in with half his head blown off.” He ran his blood-stained fingers through his hair. He narrowed his glare on Gracie. “You want your wagon unloaded? Do it yourself.”
“I will.” She spun on her heels and started back. As she passed Mr. Bridgerton, she was certain she heard him chuckle.
At the back of the wagon, she struggled to push against the wooden end-gate to ease the pressure as she pulled the pins that held it closed. If only she were a bit taller she’d have better leverage.
Someone stepped up behind her, reaching his big hands over her shoulders as he pushed on the wood panel and easily slipped free the bolts securing either side.
Gracie glanced back.
Mr. Bridgerton grinned down at her. “I reckoned you had enough backbone for this job, or I wouldn’t have brought you.”
The tension in her spine eased. She smiled up at him.
“Now, what do you want me to haul out first?”
They pulled out bales of wool blankets and gum rubber cloths first, leaving the tents for later. While Mr. Bridgerton lowered barrels of bandages, shirts, and crackers, Gracie filled a bucket with water from the narrow stream which wound through the area. She dropped a dipper in the bucket and with her arms loaded down with ground cloths and blankets, she headed toward the nearest wounded man.
He sat against a tree, his head swathed in white.
“Thank you, ma’am.” He passed back the dipper.
“Call me Gracie.” She smoothed out the rubberized cloth for him to lie on and passed him a folded blanket before moving to the next man and the next.
Glancing back toward the large white tent, she spotted the familiar form of Doctor Ellard bending over a patient on one of the surgery tables.
Reassured, she continued her ministrations.
She wiped the forehead of an unconscious soldier. Flies crawled across the glistening wet which soaked the front of the man’s uniform coat, turning the area from blue to black. Fanning her hand over the man’s abdomen, she shooed them away. Carefully, she lifted the limp hand which lay against the wound and eased open the buttons of his coat.