“He’s pretty sick,” Clay said gently. “That’s a bad wound. Bullet ought to come out, but no way to do it here.” Then he said, “Get some grub inside you. We’ve got a ways to go.”
He led Pat to the edge of the fire and got two plates, and then they sat down. Pat ate like a starved wolf and was sleepy as soon as he’d finished. His wound had sapped his strength more than he’d realized. “Can’t stay awake,” he mumbled. A thought came to him, and he stared at the figure of his captor. “I guess I can’t do much but thank you, sir. Are all Rebels as thoughtful as you?”
Clay chuckled. “I guess we’re just like you Bluebellies. Some good, some bad.” Then he saw the boy’s eyelids drooping. He got up and pulled a blanket out of one of the wagons, then came back to hand it to Pat. “Get all the rest you can.”
“I should stay with Noel,” Pat protested.
“I’ll sit with the boy,” Clay assured him. “Not much I can do for him except pray, and I’ll be doing that. Now go to sleep.”
Pat slept like a dead man and felt better the next morning. His arm was painful, but he made the day’s march in better condition. They moved slowly once again, taking many rests. Pat knew that most of the enemy would not have been so careful of their “cargo” and would have driven straight on. That night he sat with Noel after supper but again grew sleepy.
Noel was awake, though, so Pat forced himself to stay awake, too. It was well after dark when Clay came over to the two, carrying two cups of coffee. “See if you can get some of this down,” he said gently, helping Noel sit up and watching as the wounded boy took the cup with trembling hands. Pat took a cup and drank slowly, leaning back against a small tree. The keening of crickets made him sleepy, and he dozed off.
The stars were out in force, a sparkling canopy spread across the velvet blackness, and Clay admired them for a while in silence. “We may be in Richmond in a couple of days,” he finally said quietly to the wounded man. “They’ll take care of you boys there. What’s your name?”
“Noel Kojak.”
“I’m Clay Rocklin.”
Noel blinked and said, “I worked for a man named Rocklin. At the foundry in Washington.”
Clay stared at him, then smiled. “That’s my kin, Noel. My father’s brother.” He studied the wan face of the boy, then said, “That’s a strange one. Small world, isn’t it?”
Noel nodded; then a thought came to him. He looked at Pat, trying to remember something, then licked his lips and said, “I guess Pat’s some kin of yours, too. Pat—wake up!”
Clay stared at the boy as he roused, then said, “My name’s Rocklin. Noel thinks we might be related. What’s your name?”
“Why, I’m Pat Steele.” He was confused, then said, “But my mother was a Rocklin.”
Clay demanded, “Do you have a sister named Deborah?” When Pat said that he did, Clay said slowly, “It’s a smaller world than I thought. I know your sister, Pat. She was at my plantation earlier in the summer. As a matter of fact, my son was quite taken with her.”
Pat stared at him. This was the father of Dent Rocklin, the man Deborah had fallen for in Virginia. “She’s spoken of you,” Pat said, then asked, “Do you know my uncle, Major Gideon Rocklin?”
Clay sat there, stunned by the chance that had brought the three of them together. Images of Gideon and Melanie—and of all the three of them had been through—raced through his mind, but he said only, “Yes, I know him. He’s my cousin, Pat.”
Pat Steele suddenly remembered the fragments of family history and said, “Oh, I know you now! You’re the one who—!” He broke off in confusion and stared across at Clay with embarrassment.
Clay smiled at him. “You’ve heard about me, I see. The wolf with the long ears and the sharp white teeth? Well, it’s all true, I guess—or it was.” He sat there idly, thinking of the past, then said, “I’m sorry you boys had to get shot, but I’m glad to be around to give you a hand. All in the family, isn’t it?” Then he got to his feet, saying, “Better rest, boys. Long road to Richmond.”
It was not, in fact, all that far to Richmond, but by the time the wagon train pulled into the city, Noel was unconscious and Pat was exhausted. Clay found the hospital, helped get the prisoners inside, and said before he left, “Pat, I’ll send a wire to your people telling them you’re all right.”
“Thank you, sir,” Pat said, then asked, “Could you send word about Noel? To my sister, Deborah. She’ll want to know about him.”
“Sure, I’ll do that.” Clay left, then looked up the section of the hospital reserved for Confederate officers. He found Dent asleep and decided to come back later. On his way out, Clay spoke to the doctor, a thin, hard-faced man of fifty.
“The face is healing, but he’s going to have a terrible scar,” Dr. Amos Medlin said. He added at once, “The arm should be taken off. It’s never going to be any good to him, and I’m afraid of gangrene. He fights it, though. Try to talk him into it. Better to go through life with one arm than to die with two.”
Clay said, “I’ll talk to him as soon as I can, Doctor.” Then he asked, “You treat the Yankee prisoners, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I wish you’d go see one of them I’ve just brought in. Noel Kojak is his name. Got a bullet that should come out.”
“What’s your interest in him?”
“He works for my uncle,” Clay said. “A good boy.”
“All right,” Medlin said with a shrug. “Talk to your son. That arm’s got to come off.”
Clay nodded, then left the hospital, going at once to the telegraph office. He sent a wire to Gideon and included the news of Noel Kojak, asking Gid to pass the word to Deborah. He left the telegraph office, then obtained lodging for his men. Finally he got into one of the wagons and started for Gracefield, grateful for the short leave he’d been granted upon his arrival in Richmond.
The telegram reached Gideon the next day, and at once he went to the Steeles. “Just heard from Clay,” he said. “Pat’s all right. He’ll be a prisoner, but I think we can get him exchanged.”
“Thank God!” Laura Steele cried, embracing her husband.
Gideon turned to Deborah, saying, “Bad news about Noel, I’m afraid.”
“Is he dead?”
“No, but he’s badly wounded. Clay doesn’t think he’ll live.”
He gave the details, and as soon as he finished, Deborah grew still, then said, “I’m going to Richmond.”
The others stared at her, and her father exclaimed, “You can’t do that, Deborah!”
But argument did nothing to shake her resolve. Deborah listened to them all, then said calmly, “I can see that Pat has what he needs. And I won’t have Noel alone in that place.”
The next morning as the train pulled out of the Washington station, Deborah was aboard. Her face was set in an expression of iron determination, and as the train raced across the countryside headed for the South, she gave no thought to the difficulties that lay ahead. She only knew one thing: She was determined to see her brother safe and out of prison—and to see Noel Kojak live.
All else seemed to fade in importance.
PART FOUR
Chimborazo
CHAPTER 18
A STRANGE VOLUNTEER
The battle of Manassas was won by the Confederates, but by a perverse development, it was the North who profited most from the battle—simply by seeing the results of it.
Washington saw the worst: the sorry picnic crowd that came back bedraggled and frightened; the broken troops who came shambling in, streaked with dirt and almost out of their heads with weariness …. These sights quenched the “On to Richmond” fever that had forced Lincoln to send the raw troops into battle. Some of the most rabid of the warmongers made a full circle, such as Horace Greeley, who wrote Lincoln a letter full of incoherent woe.
“On every brow,” he wrote despondently, “sits sullen, scorching, black despair …. It is best for the country and for mankind that we make peace with t
he Rebels at once and on their own terms!”
Abraham Lincoln, however, had steeled himself for war. “The fat’s in the fire now,” he wrote to his wife two days after the defeat, “and we shall have to crow small until we can retrieve the disgrace somehow. The preparations for the war will be continued with increasing vigor by the Government.”
Somehow he managed to communicate some of his iron will to the people of the North, and they bowed their heads and went to work. The beaten army was placed in the hands of General George McClellan, who began to put it back together—a task McClellan would do better than any other general during the entire war. The factories began to pour forth a stream of guns, cannons, small arms, uniforms, and the thousand other items required by a huge army.
The people of the North were humiliated by the loss at Bull Run, but they did not quit. The defeat merely hardened their purpose and, in effect, forced them to become an industrial nation.
In the South, the victory at Manassas was signaled by cheering crowds, clanging church bells, and thunderous salutes of cannon fire. Stonewall Jackson, though, was not celebrating. He was one of those who saw the dangers of the victory. “It would have been better if we had lost,” he said to one of his aides, “for now the people will be overconfident, thinking the worst is over.” He knew that was far from the case, as did other men with a clear vision.
Manassas was but the opening note of a symphony of suffering and death that would be played by both North and South—a symphony that would crescendo for the next four years.
When Deborah Steele stepped off the train at Richmond, she took a deep breath, then asked the station agent, her voice strong and determined, “How do I get to the military hospital?”
He directed her willingly enough, but she got no farther than the front gate of the hospital, where Noel Kojak lay on a bed of pain. She tried at once to see him but was stopped by a hard-eyed Confederate lieutenant named Josh Hanson. He met her with open suspicion and, upon finding out that she was from Washington, said at once, “I can’t admit you to this hospital without a pass, lady.”
“Where can I get a pass?”
“From the commanding officer, Colonel Prince.”
But Colonel Prince was even more suspicious than Hanson. It took Deborah two days to get an audience with him, and when she stated her errand, he stared at her angrily, stating flatly, “You’re in the wrong city, Miss Steele. I can’t let one of the enemy have access to a Union prisoner.” Donald Prince was not ordinarily a hard man, but his youngest son lay dead, shot down by a Union soldier at Bull Run. He had kept his bitterness and grief under control, but the sight of the Yankee woman caused it to spill over. “I’m giving an order that you be forbidden to enter any Confederate institution. Go back to your Yankee friends in Washington,” he said bitterly and turned her out of his office harshly.
Deborah left the colonel’s office and walked blindly down the street. A fine rain was falling, and she was soaked by the time she got back to her small hotel room. Stripping off her wet clothes, she dried off with the small towel provided, then wrapped up in a blanket while her dress dried. She had brought only one other dress and decided that she must save it. Going to the window, she looked down on the street below, watching it slowly turn to mud as the rain fell harder and harder. Her mind was busy, trying and rejecting plans, and finally she sat down on the bed, totally dejected.
She considered going to the Rocklins for help but rejected that idea at once. With the anti-Yankee atmosphere that was almost palpable in Richmond, she knew it would be dangerous for them to ask a favor on her behalf. Finally her mind was exhausted, and she sat there with tears running down her face. As they flowed, she began to pray. She firmly believed in prayer, but it had always been a thing of logic to her. God had made certain promises in the Bible concerning prayer, so all one had to do was memorize the promises, move forward boldly, and the thing would be done.
Well, that wasn’t working. She had been praying from the time she had left Washington, yet the door was barred, and no human effort seemed likely to open it. As fatigue and frustration built up in her, Deborah did something she’d never done in her life, something that would have horrified and disgusted her if she’d seen someone else doing the same thing.
“God!” she cried aloud, coming off the bed and shaking her fists in a gesture of protest. “Don’t You even care?” She was trembling, trying to hold back the tears, shocked at her own actions yet so angry that she began to walk the floor. Gripping her hands into fists, she cried out, “Where are You? I’ve done everything, and You haven’t done a thing!”
Her angry speech grew shriller, and she suddenly dropped to the floor, pressing her face into the carpet, lying there as a paroxysm of grief shook her. She had seldom wept as a girl and never as a grown woman. Now, though, the tears flowed freely, and great tearing sobs racked her body until her chest hurt. She began gasping, “Oh God! Oh God!” and could say no more. The words had been said. Now all that was left was a terrible emptiness that frightened her more than anything she had ever known. She was like a very small child who was lost in a frightful place and who sensed terrible things lurking close, watching her.
After a time, the wrenching sobs ceased to tear through her, and she lay there with her face pressed into the wet carpet. Her spirit seemed dead, beaten flat by the storm of grief that had passed over her. And then as she lay there, something began to happen. She was never able to explain it to anyone else, but somehow a strange sense of peace began to grow in her. At first she wasn’t even aware of what was happening; she only knew that she was very tired and weary. Then she suddenly realized she wasn’t weeping, and she had no desire or need to grieve.
What’s happening to me? she wondered, bewildered by the feeling that was sweeping over her. She lifted her tearstained face, seeing only the pale blue wallpaper of the wall, and then she rose to stand in the center of the room.
Suddenly, as she waited, she was filled with a verse of scripture. She had heard the verse many times, for it was a favorite of her father’s, but now it came into her mind with a force that caused her to gasp, and she sat down on the bed, her legs having grown weak.
“My peace I give unto you. “
Deborah had known about God since she had been a small child. Her life had been spent in church services, and she had godly parents who had read the Bible to her from her infancy. But for the first time, sitting on the bed in a small hotel room in Richmond, Deborah Steele met God! The sense of His presence filled the room, and she grew weak as the peace of the Almighty filled her. She sat there for a long time, her spirit open. She could never fully express to anyone what that time meant to her, but as she sat there, she finally knew what to do. And as the answer came, she lifted her hands and began to praise God.
She had sung songs of praise often, but this time it was different. There was nothing of ritual as she prayed, no set phrases or stilted speech. Instead, joy and thanksgiving seemed to flow from her lips without effort, like a spring bubbling over. She didn’t understand what had happened to her, nor did she understand the words that flowed from her lips with such ease, but when finally she rose from the bed, she knew that life for her would never be the same.
Slowly she dressed, her mind still and a smile of wonder on her face. She picked up her umbrella and left the room. She moved confidently out of the hotel, went to a store down the street, made several purchases, then returned to her room. It was growing dark—too late for her to do anything more that day—so she left her purchases, went to the dining room, ate a good supper, then sat at her table alone, thinking of the morning to come.
Finally she rose, paid her bill, and returned to her room. She undressed, put on a gown, and climbed into bed. Then as she lay there, a stab of fear came, followed by the thought, What if I’ve made all this up? What if I lose this peace?
But she rejected that thought and began to pray. It was the same as before, and as she praised the name of her God, she realized tha
t the Comforter had come—and that He would never go away!
“But we ain’t got no more beds!”
Matron Agnes Huger lifted a pair of gun-metal gray eyes to the orderly who stood in front of her desk. The matron was a woman of thirty-five and stood only five inches over five feet tall, but she held herself so erect that she seemed taller. She had come to Chimborazo Hospital with a letter from Jefferson Davis, which had said, “Mrs. Agnes Huger will be in charge of Unit B. Medical personnel will give her full cooperation.”
The physicians in charge of the overflowing hospital had resented her, and the orderlies had hated her. Since the battle, chaos had reigned in the hospital, and Mrs. Huger had done a strange thing: She had given the wounded men first priority, regardless of which uniform they wore. She started out by announcing that the distribution of all whiskey in the ward would come under her control. The surgeons and orderlies, both of whom had been imbibing freely of this commodity, raised a howl of protest. When Chief Surgeon Monroe Baskins had come raging into her office threatening to have her put out of the hospital, Mrs. Huger had listened to him rave, then asked, “Are you certain you want to offend President Davis, Dr. Baskins? Well, I’m certain he can find a place for a fine surgeon like you on the front line of battle, perhaps with General Jackson’s regiment.”
That had been the end of the revolt, and Matron Huger had ruled her ward firmly. Now she stared at Jesse Branch, the chief orderly, as he argued, “Ma’am, we jist ain’t got no more room! Whut we ort to do is move them Bluebellies outside and let our boys have their beds!”
The hospital, a converted two-story factory, housed two hundred fifty Confederate soldiers on the first floor, while on the second floor, fifty of the wounded Federal soldiers were cared for.
Three Books in One: A Covenant of Love, Gate of His Enemies, and Where Honor Dwells Page 58