Lost Cause

by J. R. Ayers

  They pulled up to the front of the hospital and an orderly came out and helped Nurse Lisette step down from the ambulance. He was a dark man with gray sideburns and strong arms and a calming smile. “I’ll get a stretcher for the leg wound,” he said referring to Baker who was missing a kneecap.

  He retuned with a companion and a stretcher and lifted Baker from the ambulance and placed him on the stretcher and Baker yelled, “easy!” and the orderly smiled his calming smile and they took the grumbling soldier inside.

  A tall officer with mutton chop whisker came out and he and Jenks shook hands. Jenks handed the man the forms he’d filled out and introduced Nurse Lisette. “Lisette Babeneaux,” he said. “She’ll be staying on to augment your staff.”

  “Splendid,” the man said. He was Major Henry Ballard, hospital administrator. “The rest of you please come in and we’ll get you registered.

  An elderly woman with loose red hair fashioned in a bun parted in the middle met them at a counter painted white and stenciled with black letters that read, REGISTRATION. Major Ballard handed them off to the woman and he and Jenks departed down a long hallway presumably to his office.

  “Help you?” the red headed woman asked.

  “The major said we need to register,” Campbell said answering for the group. The woman looked confused and opened and closed her mouth a couple of times.

  “I can’t understand you,” she said. “I didn’t get that.”

  “He said we need to register,” Jack said. “He was wounded in the jaw a few days ago defending our glorious State on the field of battle.” Campbell rolled his eyes and Nurse Lisette said,

  “These men are from Brownsville. I’m the nurse responsible for their care. Can we please register and find them rooms?” The woman shook her head.

  “None of the rooms are ready. We aren’t expecting any new patients. No one told me.”

  “What about the man they just brought in? The one with the injured leg?”

  “They took him upstairs to surgery. He got the last operating room.” Lisette looked around the lobby her eyes narrowed in thought.

  “Any space will do,” she said. “These men are tired and injured, we need to get them off their feet.”

  “Just a moment.”

  The woman opened a door to a room behind the counter and went inside. She returned a moment later with a black man dressed in a brown shirt and white pants and told him to take the group up to the fourth floor to an open air ward. “Foll’er me, he said.

  They walked down a long hallway and up a wide set of steps and entered a large room with a row of shuttered windows. The ward was unoccupied and smelled strongly of chloroform and wet cotton. A faint trace of urine hung in the cloistered air making it uncomfortable to breathe. There were eight empty beds lined up in a row against the south wall and six more on the north wall. The center lane was clear of obstructions but tables containing water pitchers and basins and chamber pots with porcelain lids stood between each set of beds.

  “I kin open da windas’,” the black man said. “And I kin git somebody to put sheets on some of dem bed mattresses fer you.”

  Nurse Lisette said that was a fine idea and the man went to the windows and opened the shutters and threw open the sashes and warm, fresh air flooded the room bringing with it the smell of honeysuckles and roasting pork.

  The man left the room and presently the red headed women appeared with an arm load of bed clothing and towels. She placed them on a long table by the door and when a young black girl entered the room directed her to make up the beds on the north wall. “Will these quarters be adequate?” the red haired woman asked Nurse Lisette.

  “For now. Where’s the rest of your staff?”

  “On the third floor. It’s meal time, ma’am. Some of the wounded can not feed themselves.”

  “You’re German, aren’t you?”

  “And you are French.”

  “Ah, but we’re both Americans now.”

  “Are we? There’s a rebellion going on. We do not know what we will be when this conflict ends.”

  “If it ever does end,” Jack interjected. “You think we can sit down somewhere until that girl gets done making the beds?”

  The German woman left to find a staff nurse and the girl went about making the beds. She had a nice face, dark and shiny, and she moved with a graceful swiftness that reminded Jack of a young hart frolicking in the fields above his cabin back home. She soon had fresh bedding on all the beds and then placed towels and cotton shirts on each pillow. As she was leaving the room with the soiled laundry Jack slipped a nickel into her hand and she smiled broadly displaying impeccably white teeth and Jack thought she was an absolutely beautiful young woman.

  “You just wasted your money,” Campbell said when she’d gone. “Whoever her master or overseer is will just take it from her.” As of late Jack was getting better at understanding Campbell’s garbled speech.

  “Maybe not,” he said. “Maybe she’ll hide it somewhere.”

  “Even if she did, she could never spend it. When’s the last time you saw a slave buying something on their own?”

  “Guess you’re right. Damn, now I want my nickel back.”

  The red headed woman whose name turned out to be Ana Steckel returned a few minutes later and Nurse Lisette went with her to meet the head nurse and to arrange for some food for the men.

  Jack made himself comfortable on the bed he’d selected and kicked off his boots. The mattress was firm and quite comfortable, a fact he deeply appreciated. He lay very still barely breathing, savoring the scented breeze wafting through the open windows happy to be in less pain now that he was off his feet. After a while he was thirsty and he sat up and helped himself to the water pitcher beside his bed. Campbell stirred on the bed next to him. “Pour me one will you.”

  “Can you drink it, or will you drown yourself trying?”

  “Your humor kills me, Saylor. Just pour the water.”

  Jack poured and Campbell drank and as Jack had predicted, he spilled most of it down his fresh cotton shirt.”

  “They’re going to have to get you a straw,” Jack said. Campbell threw the tin cup across the floor and jumped to his feet.

  “Can some one please come in here and change this bloody damn bandage!” he shouted. Startled, Jack put a hand on Campbell’s shoulder but the man pushed it away and went to the door leading out to the hallway. “Nurse! Someone! Anyone!” he shouted.

  Jack saw a woman in a nurse’s uniform walk into the room completely ignoring Campbell and walked over to Jack’s bed. The woman was young and pretty. Her eyes were so blue they appeared black in the natural light of the spacious room. She carried a large leather bag with zippered pockets on the sides.

  “Hello,” Jack said.

  “Hello,” the nurse said. “A doctor will be in directly. In the mean time, I’m to clean your wounds and check your bandages. What happened to you anyway?”

  “I was shot. I’m a soldier. I went into battle and someone shot me.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Jack. Jack Saylor.”

  “Oh, you sail do you?”

  “No.”

  “You said you were a sailor.”

  “No. That’s Saylor with a Y.”

  “I see. Well, let’s get you fixed up Corporal Saylor. By the way, my name’s Laura Brewster. You can call me Nurse Brewster.”

  “Are you a real nurse?” Jack asked.

  “As opposed to what, a fake one?”

  “I mean are you a nurse or a nurse’s aide?”

  “Mister I spent two long years in school to earn my papers. A little respect please.”

  “Didn’t mean to offend. You’re very pretty you know.”

  “So I’ve been told. You like pretty girls do you?”

  “I like them better than ugly girls.”

  “You’re an impertinent rascal aren’t you?”

  “I told a girl once, a pretty girl much like you as a matter of fac
t, that I didn’t have time for formalities and get to know you chit chat. You see this hole in my shoulder? A few more inches to the right and I’d be in a grave in some peasant’s garden somewhere. So yes Miss Brewster, I suppose I am a touch on the impertinent side.” She smiled as if she hadn’t heard a word he said.

  “I’ll wash you up, but I won’t change the dressings until the doctor has a look.”

  “Do you know a nurse named Marie Hayes?”

  “No. There’s no one working here by that name.”

  “Not here. I mean have you ever met anyone by that name?”

  “There was a Marie in one of my classes, but I don’t believe her last name was Hayes. Why do you ask?”

  “Never mind, it’s not important.”

  She shrugged and went to work cleaning the bullet wound. The tissue where the bullet had entered was red and puffy and a yellowish liquid seeped from the ragged hole.

  “Boy is that septic,” Nurse Brewster said wrinkling her nose. She rummaged around in the leather bag and produced a bottle of potassium iodine and a cotton cloth which she used to clean the dried blood from the wound area. The washing felt good and Jack relaxed and let her have at it. There was a bandage around his head but she left it in place and instead concentrated on the shoulder.

  “Where were you wounded?” she asked.

  “Brownsville.”

  “They don’t have surgeons in Brownsville?”

  “Two. But they were under the impression your docs are more qualified.”

  “We do have excellent surgeons.”

  “And pretty nurses.”

  “Some of us are. How’s that feel?”

  “It hurts. So, how long have you been a nurse?”

  “Two years.”

  “You’re from here are you?”

  “You ask a lot of questions for a sick man.”

  “I’m not sick,” Jack said, “I’m wounded.”

  She finished cleaning Jack’s shoulder and helped him slip on a cotton bed shirt. “When do I get to see the doctor?” he asked.

  “Soon, after you’ve had something to eat.”

  “You’re awfully nice to me.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself, it’s my job.”

  “Are you going to tend to my friend Corporal Campbell there?”

  “Yes, just as soon as I’m finished here.”

  “Go easy on him, he’s rather delicate. He may cry if you react negatively to his wound.”

  “Please, I’m a professional, I’ve seen worse than that.” Campbell was listening intently to the banter and he said,

  “Don’t pay attention to anything Jack says. That head wound has him somewhat confused. He’s thinks he’s some type of great lover.” Nurse Brewster raised an eyebrow and cocked her head.

  “He can’t talk too plain,” Jack explained “It’s the wound. I’ll translate for him. He said I am an exceptional individual worthy of any attractive woman’s attention.” Campbell made a snuffling noise and Nurse Brewster smiled behind her hand.

  With the shutters open, bright sunlight flooded the ward and Jack looked out with satisfaction at the vista of building tops with red shingled roofs and the white cumulus clouds and the curve of the blue sky beyond. Though his shoulder ached and his head throbbed, he actually felt good for the first time in days. He watched Nurse Brewster bend over to inspect Campbell’s wound and saw her flowing skirts with a hint of petticoat at the hem and thought of Marie Hayes.

  “How many nurses are employed here?” he asked.

  “Five, including me. But there are more coming to help out.”

  “Do you know when they will get here or where they’re coming from?”

  “Why? Have I not taken good care of you?”

  “You’ve done well. Couldn’t ask for more. Except. . .”

  “Except what?”

  “You could have mentioned how very handsome I am.”

  After Nurse Brewster had gone, Jack lay on the bed and looked out the open bay door wondering when the doctor would come. An orderly bought a fresh pitcher of water and Jack asked about a surgeon but the man said he wasn’t privy to the staff schedule. While Campbell slept Jack drank two cups of water and looked out the window at the sky until his eyes grew heavy and he went to sleep.

  An hour later Campbell and he were awakened by an orderly bearing a food tray. He was accompanied by a small severe woman with white hair and piercing green eyes. She said her name was Mrs. Martha Styles, Superintendent of nurses. It was clear from the outset she didn’t like Jack and he decided almost immediately he didn’t much like her either. She asked too many questions and scolded Jack for being so forward with Nurse Brewster. “She’s to be treated with the utmost respect. Please keep your amorous proclivities to yourself, Corporal Saylor.”

  “She told you I was being amorous?” asked Jack.

  “She mentioned you were a bit. . .shall we say aggressive.”

  “I’m a sick man, Mrs. Styles. I have a head injury. In my compromised condition, I may have said some things that were out of line. Please accept my humblest apology.”

  Mrs. Styles wasn’t sure if Jack was being serious or mocking her. She stared down her nose at him and said, “One of our physicians will be by to see you gentlemen as soon as you’ve eaten. Is there anything else we can do for you in the mean time?”

  “You can move that chamber pot a little closer. It’s the water. Very tasty water you have here in Corpus Christi.”

  Mrs. Styles instructed the orderly to leave the food and fetch fresh chamber pots. Then she turned and walked away without another word. After she’d left Nurse Brewster came in.

  “Why were you so flippant with Mrs. Styles?” she asked. “She only wants to see that you men receive the best care possible.”

  “I wasn’t trying to be. But she was such a snob.”

  “She said you were very rude.”

  “I don’t think I was. By the way, where’s that doctor? Ya’ll do have doctors on staff don’t you?”

  “After you’ve eaten. I’ll leave you to it.”

  “You know, my shoulder hurts a great deal. Do you think you can help me out?” Maybe feed me some of that gruel? I don’t think I can hold a spoon.”

  “You’re incorrigible, Corporal Saylor,” she said. Then she hurried out of the room before he could say more.

  Jack and Campbell ate the simple meal slowly, Campbell favoring his shattered jaw and Jack put off by the texture and flavor of the unseasoned bacon and grits. Afterward they sat on the bed and took turns wondering when they were to see a surgeon. “Good thing we’re not bleeding to death,” Jack said.

  “Guess they have more severely wounded folks here,” Campbell offered. Most of the grits he’d put in his mouth earlier were now deposited on his chin and the front of his bed shirt.

  The orderly came in for the tray and Jack suggested he fetch another shirt for Campbell. “The flies will throw a party on him tonight if we don’t get him cleaned him up,” Jack pontificated.

  The orderly went for the clothes and Jack wandered around the ward until he found an old copy of the Corpus Christi Caller Times and returned to his bed to read. News of the war dominated the headlines, none of it good for the Confederacy. There was a list of the dead from Nueces County and an article on the front page outlining Sherman’s march toward Atlanta. The editor who had written the article had used some rather disparaging language calling Sherman every descriptive adjective he knew except Christian.

  Jack sat by the window and watched it get dark outside and read and reread the paper until he couldn’t see the small type any longer. Corporal Campbell remained in his bed sleeping on and off. The grits and greasy pork had made him sick and he was making frequent use of one of the chamber pots by his bed.

  As the sun settled below the house tops, night-hawks and ravens circled over the shops in the center of town hoping to snatch a chicken or a scrap of meat left behind by one of the butchers. Nurse Brewster came in with her medical bag a
nd announced that the men would not being seeing a doctor until the next morning. “Doctor Pierce is exhausted,” she said. “and the other doctors are either performing surgery or treating the gravely ill.”

  “So I’m supposed to lay here and rot?” Jack asked a bit more sharply than he’d intended.

  “No, I’m going to lance the wound and flush it with carbolic acid,” she said calmly.

  “Sounds painful.”

  “It is. But I’m going to give you some laudanum first. It will dull the pain.”

  Campbell woke from his nap and sat up in bed to watch the procedure. After Jack had downed a tablespoon of laudanum, Nurse Brewster placed a wash basin and several pieces of cotton cloth on the bed beside his shoulder. Then she filled the pan with water and several ounces of carbolic acid. “Now comes the painful part,” she said.

  Jack lay back on the towel she’d placed on the bed and she removed a large hollow needle from her bag and swirled it in the water a couple of times and commenced to probe Jack’s bullet wound with the tip of the three inch long instrument. He groaned a couple of times and she paused briefly then pushed the needle a full inch into his flesh. “You can cry out if you want,” she said her eyes fixed in concentration. Pinkish blood seeped from the wound and she soaked it up with a wad of cotton cloth. She allowed the wound to bleed for a few moments then poured more carbolic acid into the hole. Then she pressed a folded cotton bandage over the wound and tied it in place with more strips of cloth.

  “Are you finished?” Jack asked gritting his teeth.

  “I’m not sure, but I think there’s a bullet fragment in your shoulder.”

  “I thought it went straight through.”

  “The main projectile did, but it may have fragmented. That would explain the infection.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you’ll probably need an operation.”

  “Oh no.”

  “Oh yes.”

  She removed the bloody bandage from Jack’s head, cleaned the two inch long gash above his ear with carbolic acid and wound a clean strip of cloth around his head and tied it with a small bow.