by Kathy Otten
Her nostrils flared at the sharp odors of blood and urine. She pressed the back of her wrist against her nose and lifted his shirt, the white cloth, soaked crimson. A crumpled piece of cloth, soaked with blood, had been compressed against his stomach just above his waist. She tossed it aside. A small hole, to the left of his navel, continued to ooze blood.
From what she could determine, patients whose wounds were mortal were set aside near the woods. Of those remaining, the worst cases were placed in a quiet area near the surgical tent, and so on, down to the minor injuries, which were treated last. But with the steady influx of wounded from the battlefield, the area with the worst cases never seemed to diminish, and the poor man before her would apparently not be seen for some time.
Rising she searched for the men shifting the wounded to and from the surgery area. Spotting a couple of men leaving the surgery area with a litter, she hurried to intercept them before they could pick up the next patient on their list.
“Excuse me.” She waved then stepped around the feet of a wounded soldier.
The two men lay their charge in the area with the other recovering patients, then folded the stretcher and met her half way.
“There is a private over there.” She gestured toward the man she’d just left. “I fear he’s waited so long for tending, that he cannot endure much longer. Can ye not take him next?” She smiled hopefully.
“We ain’t s’posed to.” The older man gave his beard a thoughtful stroke.
“What’s it hurt?” his partner said.
“Thank you.” She led them to the unconscious soldier and gave the man’s bloody hand a squeeze as they placed him on the stretcher.
She watched them for a moment then knelt beside the man who lay next to him.
His eyes opened.
“Water?” she asked.
He nodded.
She wiped her hands on her apron and scooted around to lift his head and tip the dipper to his mouth.
When he finished, she smoothed out a gum blanket for him to lie on until she had time later to stuff some pine branches and leaves under it.
“That was a nice thing ya done fer that feller.”
“Is he a friend?” She helped him slide over, off the damp ground.
“Don’t know him, but he ain’t made a peep in a while. I figgered he kicked off. Glad you took up fer him.”
She shook out a wool blanket and lay it across him. “I’m a nurse. ’Tis what I do.”
****
Gracie raised a hand in front of her face and shooed at the swarm of flies buzzing around a pile of bloody bandages and soiled rags outside the back corner of the surgery tent.
With a long stick, she scooped the dirty mess into a barrel. Ignoring the flies, she pushed her forearm against her nose and mouth, doing her best not to gag from the fermenting stench of blood and pus.
Once the dirty rags and bandages had been transferred, she grasped the edge of the barrel with both hands, tipped it on its edge, and began dragging it backward toward the area away from the trees where one of the men was starting a fire.
Her heel came down on what felt like a soft rock as her hind end bumped against something solid. She set the barrel upright and turned.
“By the saints, can ye not look where ye’re going?” Her gaze collided with the center of a masculine chest covered by an apron smeared with blood. She looked up, past the spatter, to the achingly familiar face of the man she’d come so far to find.
His posture stiffened. He stared. His Adam’s apple worked beneath the thick stubble coating the long column of his throat.
From his stunned expression, she guessed he hadn’t known she was here.
She smiled.
The gleam of the setting sun warmed the blue of his eyes with a bit of gold.
“Good evening, Doctor Ellard.”
He reached his arm toward her, then dropped it to his side.
For that moment she thought he would pull her close and kiss her in that arrogant way he had about him.
“What are you doing here?” Each word grated deep and raspy, as if sand paper lined his throat.
“Helping.” He sounded terrible. She frowned, searching his face. Beneath the grime and thick growth of stubble, his skin was pale. Tight lines bracketed his mouth.
Usually, he assimilated information much more quickly. “I’ve come with Mr. Bridgerton. We’ve brought supplies from the Sanitary Commission.”
“You don’t belong here. Leave your supplies and return to Washington.”
“But Doctor, I cannot just go back to Washington. And there be so many wounded. Ye know I can help.”
“The battlefield is no place for a woman, even one so valiant as you. Who was your escort?” He cleared his throat with a cough and glanced around. “No doubt another young pup smitten by your smile.”
While his backhanded compliments brought a rush of warmth to her cheeks, she would not be put off by his highhanded manner. Planting her hands on her hips, she lifted her chin to meet his gaze. “Here is where I be needed, and here is where I will stay.”
“Then return to Falmouth. This is a war, Mrs. McBride. Do you not hear the gunfire? I’m sure you will be just as needed at the division hospital.” He drew a breath as though about to say more. Exhaled with another cough then said. “You have introduced enough chaos to my life.”
Chaos? Guilt pricked at her conscience. She glanced down and brought her hands together at her waist, pressing her thumb into her palm. “I did not intend to hurt ye.”
He heaved a sigh and cleared his throat. “I realize that. However, because of your insatiable need to make everything better, you took my comment about family and turned my life upside down. If the only reason you’ve come now is to raise more doubts about my identity then take your nursing skills and leave this place. I don’t need you.”
Though the volume of his words tapered off into little more than a harsh whisper, if he’d punched her in the stomach they couldn’t have hurt worse. The back of her throat closed off, and tears stung her eyes.
He sighed and coughed. His features softened.
“I apologize, Mrs. McBride. I fear fatigue and pain have uncensored my tongue. But your tears only serve to prove my point. Women have no place in war. They are too sensitive. They take too much to heart.”
Gracie swiped angrily at the wet on her cheeks. “’Tis who I am. I’ll not change for you, nor Major Andrews, nor Doctor Colfax, nor—Did ye say pain? Are ye hurt?”
A sheen of sweat glistened on his furrowed brow. The normal tone of his deep voice had grown raspier.
“Colfax? What has that idiot said to you?”
She frowned. Why had he diverted the conversation? “Doctor Colfax said nothing. But he will neither let me change a dressing nor bathe a patient. And no matter how well I do me job, the man makes report of it to Doctor Bliss. ’Tis why he sent me away.”
“Sent you all the way to a battlefield in Confederate territory? Come now, Mrs. McBride, are you following me?”
Afraid his astute gaze would see the truth in her eyes, she studied the grass at her feet, the long shiny green blades flattened now by the footsteps of hundreds of soldiers. “At first ’twould appear that way.”
“At first? It does appear that way.”
“But in Washington, at Falmouth…I be not able to use all William taught me…I need ye.”
“You need me?” Skepticism raised his brow.
She lifted her gaze to meet his. The earlier warmth in his eyes had cooled. Uncertain of his mood, she whispered, “I cannot be me without ye.”
Vertical creases appeared at the bridge of his nose as his brows pulled toward each other. “Of course you can.” He pressed his fist to his mouth and coughed. “My presence is not contingent for your existence.”
A laugh burst from her throat, though it may have been a sob.
His scowl deepened. “Come now, Mrs. McBride; you don’t need me. Any physician will do.” His lips pressed together for
a moment, forming a tight line. “Your William, Major Bliss, Major Andrews, even Doctor Colfax, as long as they allow you to utilize your nursing skills the way you believe they ought be utilized.” He cleared his throat. “You only think you need me because I currently give you the validation you crave.”
Gracie gasped. Her eyes stung. Why was he being so cruel? She swiped the moisture from her lashes. Maybe she had been wrong about his identity. For at this moment he acted more like a younger version of the old man with the cane. Was it not better to learn of him now, before she allowed her fantasy of a life working with him side by side, to completely erase William’s memory?
Squaring her shoulders, she reached out with one hand and grasped the edge of the barrel. “Ye are correct. I do not need ye. William was enough o’ a man for a lifetime.”
He stiffened. His eyes narrowed, but not before she caught the flash of heat in the icy blue. Had he moved closer, or had she?
His gaze locked on her face.
She lifted her chin and searched his features waiting.
The moans of the wounded, the clink and clatter of surgical instruments, faded into the stretching shadows of twilight.
He took a step toward her. With one hand, he grabbed her upper arm and pulled her so close she had to raise up on her toes. To keep her balance, she slipped her hands under his arms and pressed her palms against his shoulders.
He flinched, twisting his shoulder from beneath her hand. She settled her palm against his waist. The sharp scent of smoke permeated his clothing and hair, as though he’d spent too much time in front of a campfire. The heat of his skin radiated through the linen of his shirt, warming her palms.
He leaned down, his face inches from hers. “You yourself said William never kissed you like I do.” With that last whisper of breath, his lips crushed against hers.
If he was any other man, she would have pushed away from his assault. But finesse was as foreign to him as his ability to tell a joke or make friends.
The aggressiveness of his kisses reflected the same confidence he showed in his practice of medicine. Decision made, follow through. All others stand aside.
With a sigh she closed her eyes and savored the warmth of his mouth, the smoldering bite of smoke on his tongue. She longed for a taste of the passion which lurked, barely tethered beneath the veneer of an officer and a gentleman. His saliva pooled around her tongue. She swallowed. Her breasts peaked, sensitized to the fabric of her chemise.
Shifting her foot forward, she pressed against him. His body responded. She felt the length of him against her abdomen, through the layers of her petticoats and dress, the layers of his apron, trousers, and drawers.
Oh this man could kiss. She’d come to appreciate his uncompromising, take charge assault on her senses. They aroused a need six years of marriage and William’s gentle lovemaking never had.
She longed to finish what they’d started in his tent in Falmouth, to lie naked beneath him like the wanton in his French postcards.
Something inside her chilled. Was that how he saw her? Was that the price she paid for inserting herself in a man’s world? Would he kiss Miss Adelaide Emmerson like this, in the open, visible to anyone who should come around the tent?
Twisting away, she stepped back and pressed her finger tips to her lips. “Doctor, ye forget yerself.”
He dropped his arm to his side. “As did you.” He pressed his other forearm against his waist. “However, as a gentleman, I fear I must once again beg your pardon.” He inhaled a breath as if to say more and began to cough.
He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it over his nose and mouth.
Concern tugged at her brow. “What have ye done to yerself?”
“I have done nothing.” He mumbled into the handkerchief as the coughing eased. “Merely inhaled a bit too much smoke.”
“Smoke?”
“Mrs. McBride!”
Gracie whirled toward the voice, praying no one else had seen their kiss. She couldn’t be thought of as anything other than a respectable woman. To be perceived as less would undermine what credibility female army nurses had thus far achieved.
One of the stewards gestured toward the fires. “Your fire is ready.”
She raised her hand and waved. “I need to be about me duties.”
Holding his arm close to his body, he peered over her shoulder at the soiled bandages and rags she was about to drag away.
He straightened and glanced around. “This is not a task for a woman. Assign it to someone else. When the cook has finished, see that the men are fed. I must go. Another ambulance has arrived.”
Before she could say a word, he’d spun on his heels and strode back toward the front of the surgery tent.
****
Gracie stifled a yawn and rolled her shoulders against the tightness in her neck. The wounded were settled as best they could manage. Tents had been pitched, and the men were fed and dry.
With one hand she held up the bottom of her apron, forming a pouch. Inside she placed a cloth-wrapped bundle of chicken and soda crackers. Lifting a lantern, Gracie made her way to the surgery tent and shouldered aside the canvas flap.
One of the stewards sat between a barrel of rolled bandages and a small table on which he slid eight-yard lengths of cloth into a bandage roller and turned the crank.
“Have ye seen Doctor Ellard?”
“The captain went out back to get some sleep.”
“And where—”
“That way.” He pointed toward the rear corner of the tent. “Look for a light near the tree line.”
She offered her thanks and ducked back outside.
Moving carefully toward the soft glow of the lantern, she called softly. “Doctor Ellard?”
Two shadowy forms lay on either side of the light. The one on the left rose, his silhouette shorter and broader than she expected. He shrugged into his coat. “Mrs. McBride?”
She moved closer. The man she’d met last week in Doctor Ellard’s tent back in Falmouth stepped forward.
He glanced at her apron, the end held close to her waist. “Your brother is sleeping.”
Charles lay sprawled on his stomach, his shirt off. One arm was tucked under the haversack he was using as a pillow, his other lay on the ground. His fingers wrapped loosely around the neck of an empty bottle.
She held her lantern close to his sleeping form. “Begorra, what happened to his back?”
“The house we were using as a hospital was shelled and caught fire.”
She set her lantern on the ground next to several rolls of bandage and squares of white cloth. Dirty bandages lay in a heap between two field packs. She passed Breen the cloth-wrapped food.
“Smells good,” Breen murmured as he unfolded one corner of the linen cloth, raised the bundle to his nose, and inhaled.
Gracie dropped to her knees and leaned over Doctor Ellard’s back. With her finger, she lightly traced the area of whitened skin around a burn a bit larger than the spread of her hand.
Raw and red, the burn had seared through his skin, deep into the muscle. A couple dozen blisters rose like angry bubbles across the exposed tissue.
“He was trying to get the wounded out and a burning floor joist fell on him.”
“Sweet Mary Jesus.”
She picked up the empty whiskey bottle and set it aside.
“I’m afraid he’s pretty drunk, but the pain keeps him from sleeping. I recommended Dover’s Powder, but he refused. I commandeered that bottle of whiskey and waited until he drank enough to tolerate the torture of having the old stuck-on dressing pulled off. The pain must have been bad because he drank damn near the whole bottle. I think he finally passed out, so I left off bandaging it.”
“Me husband, William, swore honey to be the best treatment for a burn. I’ve a pint jar I be using for me tea. Let me fetch it. Help yerself to the soda crackers and chicken.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Lantern in hand, she rose and hurried off
to the Sanitary Commission wagon. She grabbed her bag from under the seat and pulled out her half-pint jar of honey and returned a few minutes later.
Breen jumped to his feet. His small stack of crackers fell to the ground.
She smiled. “Sit, Doctor. Ye are tired as well, and this be a far cry from a proper drawing room.”
He grinned and hunkered down to retrieve his spilled crackers from the grass. Crackers in one hand, he sat cross-legged and set the cloth bundle in the hollow. Lifting out a drumstick, he wolfed it down as though it were the finest fare.
Gracie lifted several of the cloth squares from the field pack and lowered herself to the ground close beside Charles. She folded the squares and dipped them into the honey, scooping out a generous amount. Holding it over the burn, she let the honey drizzle across the area, then lay the pad on top.
He lay so quiet and still, her fingers took the liberty of exploring the smooth skin of his bare back, the shape of his shoulders with the few scattered freckles, and the dip of his spine as it trailed beneath the waistband of his trousers. Her hand slid up toward his neck, gently easing around his wounded shoulder. Absently her fingers sifted through the thick dark waves of his hair.
“He’s not your brother, is he?”
Gracie yanked her hand to her lap and lifted her gaze to Breen. She shook her head.
She caught a brief flash of white as he smiled. “I did wonder when I met you in Falmouth. I asked him about you, but he never said a word.”
Gracie shook her head. “’Tis not his way, to talk of himself.” And likely why he hadn’t told her of his injury. At times his nature was too stoic for his own good.
Breen held out his hand, offering her some of the crackers.
“Thank ye, but I ate.”
“He’s a brilliant man, your captain. I’m surprised more of the medical staff don’t respect that.”
“’Tis both his blessing and his curse, for it separates him from the others, and he’s no notion there be a gap.”
“Then what happened this morning likely widened it.” He threw the chicken bones into the trees. Lying on his side, he propped his head on his hand.