Die Once Live Twice (8 page)

Stonewall Jackson had little chance of survival. He had lost so much blood from his artery that he would have died on the field if his junior officer had not acted quickly. Without the oxygen carried by that lost blood, his lungs were laboring hard and fast, while his heart pumped furiously to deliver what blood he had left to his tissues. His breathing was raspy and his weakened chest muscles could not expand his lungs.

Jackson lived one week after the operation, long enough for his wife and daughter to travel from their Virginia home to be with him. He was moved to the Fairfield plantation at Guinea Station, a safe distance from the battle, and housed in an office building of the plantation owner. His troops gathered on the lawn to keep vigil and conduct prayer sessions for their beloved general.

Pus built up in Jackson’s lungs and blocked the lung cells from delivering oxygen to the blood. His fever escalated, further dehydrating him, and he began talking nonsense to his wife, who sat with him daily. His delirium cleared for brief moments, and in one of these he recognized his daughter. “My sweet girl,” he said and then fell back on the bed.

His last words were haunting, as if he knew he was leaving this world: “Let us cross over the river,” he said, “and rest under the shade of the trees.” At 3:15 p.m. on Sunday, May 10, 1863, Stonewall Jackson was dead from pneumonia, often known as “Captain of Men’s Death.” It was a foe neither the doctors nor Jackson, the best general in the Confederate Army, could resist.

Chapter Seven

P
atrick awoke the seventh day after his injury thinking of Katherine.
I wonder if Katherine knows where I am. If she knows what happened to me.

He reached down and felt his left leg to be sure it was there.
This first week
, Patrick thought,
must be what medieval torture was like
. Every time he moved his leg he felt his broken bones grind against each other and a shooting, searing pain ran through him like a sword. He lay as still as possible. Freedom from pain was his only pleasure. His brain was consumed by survival.

Doctor Franklin came by and inspected his wound. Patrick screamed in pain, but the doctor nodded, a satisfied look on his face. “Looks like sterile pus. I guess the chlorine works on men as well as kids and animals,” he grinned at Nurse O’Reilly. “You’re faring better than the man you shot, Sullivan. Stonewall Jackson died.”

“I didn’t shoot him. His own men did.”

“Well, whatever. You’re the hero for causing it. Wasn’t the musket balls that killed him, anyway. Their doctor amputated his arm, but he died of pneumonia after a week. Even Stonewall Jackson can’t defeat an infection. That’s why we doctors call pneumonia the Captain of Men’s Death.”

“How’s pneumonia kill anybody?”

“Don’t know. Some say it’s small critters—too small to be seen—but no matter. Infection builds up in the lungs and you can’t breathe. We got no treatment.”

“Could that happen to me? Could I get pneumonia like Jackson?”

“No, you’ve beat the Captain this time, Sullivan. A week out and you are healing—means your body is too strong for it.”

“Damn glad to hear it.” The doctor touched Patrick’s knee and he grimaced again. “Rebel or not, I got to feel sorry for anyone who has to suffer like this,” Patrick said.

Franklin sniffed. “Doubt he felt your pain. They say he was hallucinating from the fevers. Nurse O’Reilly, finish up dressing the wound.” Franklin turned and moved to the next bed.

Patrick looked at the red-haired nurse who was smiling at him. “We’ve won the war, then. Lee has lost his right-hand man and the South the soul of their cause.”

“Then you are a hero twice over, Captain.”

Patrick grunted, couldn’t help noticing the nurse’s luminous reddish-brown eyes. Her face was pleasant, though not beautiful like Katherine’s. As she leaned over, he also couldn’t help noticing the generous curve of her bosom. “Your name is Nurse O’Reilly?”

“Please call me Patricia.” She touched his hand and it was the first tenderness he had experienced in six months.

“Patricia, do you know if anyone has notified my fiancée, Katherine Lovington, of my condition?”

“Yes,” she said with a mischievous smile. “You did. You dictated a letter to me and I posted it by courier.”

Patrick frowned. “I don’t remember doing any such thing.”

She hesitated, embarrassed that he couldn’t remember what he had said.

“Yes, the fever will do that. You were very concerned about her and that she should know you will come back a whole man.” The nurse described the letter a bit more as she finished bandaging Patrick. “Of course, I had to help you with some phrases when the pain was too strong for you.”

Patrick looked away, concerned that this woman had seen him in a moment of such weakness. “Then I am in your debt, Nurse O’Reilly.”

“Not a bit of it.” The nurse laughed and to Patrick this sound seemed to come from a world he had lost. “I was happy to do it. I will be here for you, Captain, whenever you need me.”

Over the next week, his pain changed. The shooting pain became intermittent, but was replaced by a deep and constant ache. Boredom was the master of the day. News of a battle stirred conversation for days, and when the Rebs won anxiety gripped the room. Patrick got to know the other invalids on the ward, particularly a lieutenant named Abel Johnson. “Still Abel, even if I’m not able,” he joked. Abel was from Western Massachusetts and had worked in the mills there since he was nine years old, nearly a decade ago. His right arm had been blown off in the Wilderness, which meant that he was incapable of millwork anymore. What he would do in place of it was still a mystery to him, but he was as cheerful a person as Patrick had met.

Even Abel’s good humor could not forestall the enervating boredom. Patrick’s whiskey intake increased weekly to dull his pain and combat his lifeless days. Whiskey was more plentiful than opiate drugs so patients drank freely and often. Patricia was there daily to minister to his needs, and the other men remarked on how she would always spend more time with Patrick than with anyone else. “Show her what you’ve got, and she’ll lift her skirts for you,” Abel laughed.

Patrick dismissed this. “Why would I have a broodmare when I already have the finest thoroughbred in my stable?” Still, Patricia seemed prettier every day, and if a man’s need became too strong, it was only healthy to ease it.
Katherine will never know,
he rationalized. His conversations with Patricia became longer and more personal.

One day she paused a moment while straightening his bed and took off the bonnet that covered her hair. As she talked, she swiped a stray strand of hair back into place and Patrick almost gasped. He hesitated and then said, “Your hair looks pretty today.” She had pulled her red hair into a soft bun, leaving a few strands hanging free on each side.

“Why, Patrick, thank you.” She blushed, and then smiled as she put her bonnet back on.

“Nurse O’Reilly!” A doctor yelled out from across the room.

Patricia nodded to him and looked back at Patrick. “Is there anything more I can get for you?” Patrick was truly the most handsome man she had ever seen and her body roared with desire each time she placed her hand on him.

“More of your time,” he said quietly. She smiled enigmatically and nodded to him as she walked away.

The next day Patrick tore open an envelope from Katherine. The mail was not reliable, no matter that she wrote daily. He called out loudly to his roommates, “Thank God for the mail. If the Rebs blow up our rails, I will die of loneliness.”

“No, you won’t,” Abel hollered back at him. “You will always have that Nurse O’Reilly!” Patrick ignored him as he read the letter from Katherine.

Dearest Patrick,

I hope your days are better. I go to Mass every morning to pray for you. I know God will heal you. When I volunteer my hours at Pennsylvania Hospital I see you in every soldier in traction. It must be so hard. You love adventure so much that spending day after day in bed must be awful. I will have you transported back to Philadelphia as soon as your doctor says you can come home. Meantime, I plan to visit you as soon as the Army says I can safely travel to you. I go to bed every night with memories of our bodies together.

The business is doing well...

Patrick laid the letter from Katherine on his chest. He really didn’t care about the business.
I treasure the words “Love, Katherine,” the most.
Pangs of guilt rippled through him. How could he think of betraying Katherine’s love?

As the days passed slowly, Patrick’s only pleasure was when Patricia visited. During the day, while she was working, he would have a couple of whiskeys and nap. Whiskey was his best friend.

“I’ve come for your evening bath.” Her voiced wakened him from his whiskey haze and immediately lifted his spirit.

“I’ve been waiting for you. Even though it’s evening, you are my sunshine.”

“Ah, a poet.” She dallied with him for a half hour while she bathed him and they talked. He could not hide how much he desired her.

The next week, when a letter from Katherine arrived, he cheered loudly and waved it at his roommates. “What you goin’ to do with Nurse O’Reilly when she comes? That young filly wants to feel your seed. Any fool can see that,” Abel called out.

“Animals. You’re all wolves in soldiers’ clothes.”

“Many a fine lad has broken his wife’s heart back home when a young nurse takes him to the meadow across the way and ends up with child.”

Patrick quit listening while he read his letter from Katherine.

Dearest Patrick,

I have been notified by the Department of the Army that I will be allowed to travel to you on an Army train, which will be well guarded. So soon we will be together. I can’t believe it is six months since we last embraced. I must tell you I ache for you. I can’t wait to be Mrs. Patrick Sullivan.

Love, Katherine

Patricia did not come around until evening. The moon was covered by clouds so the room was dark but for a few candles. She knew he had received mail that day and that he had been more proper with her recently. She wanted this man and now her passion and competitive spirit consumed her. She would make his desire rise for her.

“I’m sorry I’m late tonight, Captain. Do you still want your bath?” She opened his mouth and put opium tincture on his tongue.

“Yes Patricia, yes, I do.” Patricia chatted away for ten minutes, then began to wash him. She leaned down to scrub his arm so her perfumed hair, which she had let down tonight, crossed his face. She felt his chest heave as he inhaled her.

His resolve was awash in opium.

“Patricia,” he said quietly, gazing into her eyes, “I expect to accomplish great things.”

She rubbed her soapy hand lower on his abdomen. “In business?”

“Fie, business.” The opium was in full effect. “Pushing paper. Counting coins. Not yet.” She rubbed his nipples with her right hand while her left crossed down to his inner thigh. “In...war.” He was breathing more heavily.

“I can feel the power in you. I’m sure you will be famous. You just need someone at your side, someone whose hand is always there—” and she moved her hand onto his penis, which instantly stiffened—“You are like a giant,” she whispered wetly into his ear.

“A giant. Yes, that’s me.” He was trying to conceal his excitement from his roommates. He slid his hand under her apron and felt her breast through her bodice. Her touch was like a drug, better than the finest whiskey. Patricia stroked him faster and faster. Patrick pictured her without clothes and between his legs, but uttered not a sound to betray her. It was over quickly. “Thank you so much,” he whispered hoarsely afterward. “I haven’t had a woman touch me since I left home.”

“Soon we’ll figure out how to have the full measure,” she whispered in his ear as she pushed the basin under the bed and walked away. In the dark, one of the other men gasped twice.

“Ah, Miller,” Abel said, “I see you’ve become engaged to Mistress Hand.” He sniggered a bit and then said, “Captain! Who you think has softer hands—Miller over there or Nurse O’Reilly?”

“I wouldn’t know, Abel,” Patrick murmured. “I just couldn’t say.”