by Kathy Otten
“They brought a soldier in from the field, found insensible near an exploded shell. Major Deavers wanted to bleed and blister the man to restore his humors.”
Gracie smiled to herself with a pretty good idea of what would come next. She trailed her hand up and down Doctor Ellard’s warm back.
“Your captain said the blisters on his shoulder did nothing to restore his humor and that the doctors of Major Deavers generation were an antiquated group of Rush disciples, with no thought to question the logic behind taking the blood of men who had lost buckets of it already.”
Gracie smiled. “He fights hard for the men. In that way we are alike.”
Breen chuckled to himself. A few minutes later, his hand slipped from beneath his head. He jerked and rolled onto his back. Soft snores rumbled in the back of his throat.
Gracie leaned over and blew out their lamp then lowered the wick on her own. Darkness swallowed most of the lingering light.
“Gracie?” Doctor Ellard murmured beside her.
“Are ye hungry? I brought ye some food.”
“You touched me.” His scratchy voice was slurred and muffled against the canvas of his haversack.
“And who were ye thinking ’twas? Captain Breen?”
“Don’t go.”
Ironic, because since the moment she met him, he’d been telling her to go. Against her better judgment, she shifted closer. Her hip pressed against his.
“Dream of touching you,” he mumbled. “Running my hands over your skin.”
Heat singed her cheeks. She could almost feel the weight of his hands, his long fingers, roaming over her body. Gooseflesh rippled up her arms and across her shoulders.
“Touch me, Gracie.” His softly spoken words slurred against the canvas. “No one’s ever touched me like that.”
Sweet Mary Jesus, how drunk was he?
She ran her hand up and down the smooth skin of his back, traced the shape of his shoulder, the dip of his spine, and sifted her fingers through his hair. Tenderness swelled inside her, so much deeper than the heat of erotic pleasure she usually felt when he kissed her. Content to sit beside him, pleased she could be the one to give him this.
He sighed.
“I must be going, Doctor.”
“Say my name.”
“Charles.”
“Uh uh. My name’s Jason. Charles is dead.”
Her hand stilled. Her breath caught for just an instant. “Is that who ye are? Jason?”
“Dun know. ’Member lilacs…an’ reading.”
The man was definitely drunk.
“Say my name.”
Her heartbeat quickened. “Jason,” she whispered.
“Ummm. You say it like she…does.”
“Who?”
“Voice…in my head. Timbre…lilt same.”
She had to leave now, while she still could, before she lay down beside him and gathered him close. Maybe this urge to nurture came from not having children. “I best be going.”
“No, juss found you.”
Was he talking to her or the voice in his head? Was that voice his mother’s? “I cannot be spending the night lying between two unmarried men. ’Tis far beyond proper, to be sure.”
“Then marry me, Gracie.”
She stilled. Her breath caught, and she pressed her finger tips to her lips. No. He was drunk. His eyes weren’t even open. None of this was real. For a moment though, she could almost imagine it. A lifetime together, helping people, working side by side as she had with William.
“Marry me, Gracie.”
Hope flickered for a moment, that one day this could be real. She’d had a marriage like that once, but she dared not believe it could happen again.
“If I promise to marry ye, doctor, will ye go to sleep and let me off to me bed?”
“Uh uh. Not the doctor. Marry me. Jason.”
“Fine. I promise to marry ye.”
“Jason.”
She leaned over him. “Good night, Jason.” She brushed his hair off his forehead and pressed a kiss to his temple.
Rising, she turned away. Holding the lantern in front of her, she stepped forward into the night.
At least in the dark no one could see her tears.
Chapter Seventeen
Rain. Under normal circumstances Gracie would have welcomed a spring shower, savored the fresh scent, and with a light heart enjoyed a walk outside.
Today the soft pelting against canvas tents grew monotonous. The damp air sharpened the pungent miasma of wet horses, earth, blood, and urine. Though she wore a floppy brimmed hat and black poncho, the wet eventually soaked the hem of her skirt and seeped through the leather of her shoes as she moved from tent to tent offering farina and tea to those wounded able to eat.
Her kettles empty, she thought to head back to the cook tent. Instead, compelled by an overwhelming desire to catch even a glimpse of Doctor Ellard, her feet drew her the long way past the surgery tent. The front flaps had been tied back like theater curtains, showcasing the tableau of assistants, doctors, and patients.
She spotted him immediately at the back of the tent.
He leaned over a portable hospital table, focused on the unconscious patient before him. As though he felt her presence, he glanced up and met her gaze for a moment before returning to his work.
She continued on. Did he remember anything of the words spoken between them last night? To be sure, his midnight confessions had been naught but ramblings spoken by a whiskey loosed tongue. ’Twas foolishness to think he meant it when he’d asked her to marry him.
If he had meant it, could she marry him? No matter how strong the physical attraction was between them, would he treat her as William had, fully respecting her as a nurse and as a woman? Right now, in the midst of war, Doctor Ell—Jason, accepted her skills, but if they were to marry would he relegate her to managing a household, with half a dozen children clinging to her apron strings?
She liked the woman she’d become. She felt good about herself. Her life had purpose beyond the norms society dictated for a woman. At least this war had granted her the opportunity to fulfill her destiny. She could never go back to the girl she was before William, or the housemaid she was forced to become after he passed away.
And if Doctor Ellard, if Jason, could not embrace that part of her, they could never wed.
Since she was so near the Sanitary Commission wagons, she decided to grab some extra bandages and lint for her pockets. She set the empty pots in the grass, hiked up her skirts, and climbed inside. Already the barrels of crackers and bandages were almost empty. Crates of shirts and drawers, boxes of chloroform and surgical silk, were all nearly gone. She wiggled sideways between the piles and flipped back the lid of a barrel near the front. She pulled out some bandages and stuffed them into the large pockets of her skirt.
“Ma’am?”
Gracie glanced over her shoulder. A soldier stood outside. Though the rain had tapered to a light drizzle, he shivered in a rain-soaked uniform. His hair lay flattened to his head, and his dirty face streaked with a pink mixture of rain and blood which trailed into a beard of several day’s growth.
“You got any food, ma’am?”
“Ye’d best stop by the cook tent.” She closed the lid and made her way through the supplies.
“I did, but he told me I had to wait like everyone else.”
She stopped and thought, looking around. “I do not have anything that does not need cooked, except some crackers and applesauce.”
“Ma’am, I ain’t had nothing to eat in days. I’d eat my shoe leather if I still had my shoes, so whatever you can spare, I’d be obliged.”
Shifting a few things around, she uncovered a crate of applesauce and lifted out a jar. From another crate she pulled out a tin of crackers. As she stepped toward the opening, she grabbed a charcoal gray blanket.
He reached out to help her down, and she landed in the mud beside him.
“On me sainted mother, what has happened to yer shoes
? I thought ye be jesting about losing them.” She shook out the blanket and passed it over.
“Thank you, ma’am.” He whipped it around his shoulders like a cape and pulled the wool close beneath his chin. “When I woke up after I got hit, my regiment had pulled back and left me for dead. The Johnny Rebs must have thought I was too, and one of them took my shoes.”
Gracie unscrewed the zinc band and wedged a spoon under the edge of the lid.
His gaze fixed on the jar, his tongue whisked away the rain dotting his lips.
Giving the spoon a little twist, the seal broke with a pop. She lifted off the lid, jabbed the spoon into the jar, and passed it to the soldier. “Have ye had one o’ the doctors look at yer wound?”
“No, ma’am.” He scooped a mouthful and swallowed. “They’re all busy. Some ambulances just came in with men who are real bad off, and that’s not me.”
Gracie pried the lid off the tin of crackers and passed it over. “Ye best go easy now if ye’ve not eaten.”
He grabbed a handful and passed back the tin. “Thank you, ma’am. I feel lots better.”
She eyed his dirty face and the open gash across his cheek. “Would ye mind me tending to yer wound? I can clean it up proper, and if it needs a stitch or two, I be a fair hand with a needle.”
He shoveled several more spoonfuls into his mouth.
“Ye needn’t worry, me husband was a fine doctor, and he had me stitch many a wound in his stead.”
He shrugged as he scrapped the bottom of the jar.
Gracie smiled. Though it was empty, he seemed to be hoping to find just a bit more. She took the jar and set it on the end gate of the wagon. “Can ye wait for me now in that first tent there?”
She pointed and he nodded.
“I have surgical silk, but I need to fetch some water and borrow a needle.”
Hopefully, Doctor Ellard would not be opposed to loaning her one. The soldier headed for the indicated tent, and Gracie walked back to the surgery.
The raised voices could be heard several yards away.
“This is my patient!” declared the nasally whine of an older man.
“You make that cut,” Doctor Ellard’s raspy baritone carried through the canvas walls. “The flaps won’t be long enough. When the leg swells the stitches will rip out. If he doesn’t bleed to death, someone will have to go back and remove the bone higher on the leg just to gain the extra length of skin.”
Gracie entered the tent and sidled along the outer wall behind some attendants. Now was probably not a good time to interrupt him for a needle. She should leave, but whether it was the need to be near him, or to be near the surgery, something held her in place.
The older surgeon tossed his bone saw into his amputation case. “You’re injured, Captain. The major ordered you to handle minor wounds, not amputations.” He scooped up his knives, artery forceps, and sponges and threw them haphazardly into the wooden box. He slammed the lid and gathered the box close. “I shall speak to Major Andrews immediately.”
“Do as you will. Just take your saw and your ignorance away from this patient.” He looked up. As before, some sixth sense appeared to direct his gaze across the crowd of attendants and assistant surgeon’s to lock on Gracie’s face.
“Mrs. McBride, lend a hand.”
Why he asked for her when he was surrounded by medical professionals she didn’t understand. Had he finally come to appreciate the nursing part of her? Except, as she drew closer she saw in his gaze a desperation. A silent plea for an ally amidst the cold condemnation of his peers. And because she needed him to need her, she twisted her way through the crowd to the table.
The soldier lay with his head on a pillow. Most of his face was masked beneath the cloth held by an assistant surgeon to absorb the drops of chloroform. The patient’s clothing had been loosened around his neck, chest, and abdomen.
The poor man’s lower left leg was a bloody mess. Most of the calf muscle was gone. What remained was a mangle of flesh and bone with bits of tattered uniform, red clay, and blood.
“Canister shot,” said the young assistant surgeon from the other side of the table.
Gracie nodded, gulped, and squeezed her fingers together.
The patient’s shoe and sock had been removed and his pant leg cut off near his hip. His thigh had already been shaved and the muslin retractor ready in preparation for the surgeon.
She stepped closer, standing beside Doctor Ellard who placed each of his instruments on a small table between them.
Amputating knives, saws, artery forceps, tena cuta, bone forceps. Sponges, threaded curved needles.
He passed her a tourniquet without a word, as though he expected her to know what to do with it.
It had been a long time, but she took a deep breath and drew on the lessons William had taught her.
She positioned the boxy frame behind the retractor, near the groin, so the pad would compress the main artery against the bone. Quickly she slipped the wide band under the thigh, pulled it snug, then buckled it tight. Grasping the top of the screw she twisted and twisted, the pad slowly clamping down on the artery until she could no longer turn the knob.
The amputation knife in his hand, Doctor Ellard grasped a handful of the thigh just above the top of the knee. Next, he pushed his knife into the leg just below his thumb. He slid the blade through the skin until the tip stabbed through below his fingers on the opposite side. He angled the blade upward and around as if he filleted a fish, creating the flap.
He reinserted the knife at the same point but angled below the bone and repeated the procedure so his second skin flap matched the first.
The assistant surgeon, grabbed the ends of the cloth retractor and pulled back, clenching his jaw with the effort to lift the flaps up and hold them back, away from the knife.
Doctor Ellard severed the muscle in the same efficient manner as the skin flaps. He dropped the muscle and tissue into the metal pail under the table.
As he did, Gracie picked up the bone saw and passed it over, accepting the knife from him at the same time.
The saw grasped in his bloody fingers, the back and forth motion rasped through the bone in seconds.
Again she traded—bone forceps for the saw. Sweat beaded his forehead and trailed down his cheek. Tight lines bracketed his pale cheeks above his beard. While he trimmed and smoothed all the irregular edges of bone, Gracie slipped her hand into her pocket and pulled out a square of linen.
Accepting the bone forceps with one hand, she reached up and quickly blotted the sweat from his face and brow.
He drew a breath. “Remove the retractor.”
The assistant surgeon slipped the blood-soaked cloth off the end of the bone and elevated the leg.
Quickly, Gracie drew a deep breath, grasped the amputated limb, and dropped it into the pail. Releasing the breath she held, she stared into the pail. Her emotions at the sight felt as detached as the limb.
Strange to think that seconds ago, the leg had been part of this man. He’d stood on that foot, scratched an itch on his knee, now it was gone. A bit like the sick and wounded patients who came through the hospital. Alive—and then not.
Now that the retractor was out of the way, the main arteries could be seen. Gracie passed Doctor Ellard the artery forceps and sponges.
With the forceps, he drew out the artery. Gracie reached close and took hold of the forceps. Quickly, he separated any nerves away from the artery then tied it off with a silk ligature, leaving a long tail of thread hanging from the knot.
The speed with which he drew out each blood vessel and tied it off was almost mesmerizing. Watching his hands, she could almost forget how much pain he was in.
“Loosen the tourniquet. Not too much.”
The assistant surgeon gave the screw a couple of turns. Blood seeped from the apex of the amputated area, though the ligated vessels held.
Doctor Ellard—Jason bent close, a frown marring his sweaty brow. He reached into the wound, trying to find t
he bleeder.
“Let me.” She leaned forward trying to see past his hand. He pulled back, allowing her access.
Warm wet trickled over her hand from a vein which had drawn up inside the remaining thigh muscle. She wiggled her fingers into the muscle and pinched the blood vessel. Then, with her left hand she reached across her body, under her extended arm, and lifted the tenaculum from the tray.
“I almost have it.” Still pinching the vein closed, she hooked the blood vessel with the tenaculum and pulled it out.
Needle and thread in hand, Doctor Ellard had it tied off in seconds.
He nodded to the assistant surgeon who loosened the tourniquet a little more. Blood leaked from the lesser arteries.
Ignoring them, he drew a new needle from the chamois cloth on the tray and threaded a new length of silk.
“And what o’ these other bleeders?”
“They’ll clot or collapse on their own.”
The assistant surgeon raised the leg, and Gracie gathered the long lengths of silk thread and divided them to allow them to hang out either side of the skin flaps.
Next she cleaned the stump as the assistant surgeon drew the remaining skin and muscle forward to join the two skin edges.
Sweat beaded over Doctor Ellard’s face again, and Gracie wiped him dry then watched as he closed the wound with sutures and adhesive plaster strips, careful to leave spaces for drainage. Gracie packed the wound with cotton to absorb the drainage, holding it in place until Doctor Ellard was able to dress the stump with a Maltese cross of lint spread with cerate. And hanging from either side of the wound were more than twenty silk ligatures.
Gracie exhaled an exhausted breath, more mental fatigue than physical, for the whole procedure had taken only minutes. Two orderlies lifted the litter from the table and carried the patient from the tent.
“Thank ye doctor, for the opportunity to assist ye,” she said as she washed her hands in a basin of cold water.
The young assistant surgeon gave her a nod, acknowledging his approval, and passed her a towel.
Doctor Ellard immersed his bone saw and other instruments into a fresh pail of water. “It’s what you’ve been wanting, is it not?” He sloshed them around then pulled them out one by one and wiped them dry on a towel.