Echoes of Dark and Light (15 page)

She acknowledged my apology with a quick nod of her head and stopped at the side of the road to wait for two men approaching from the direction of the battle. They appeared to be loaded down with a heavy sack of some kind, but my attentions shifted to the echoing blasts of gunfire that reached my ears even from this far away. Smoke reeking of gunpowder rose over the treetops and drifted down on the breeze.

“Here they come,” she whispered.

The gravity in her voice pulled a huge lump into my throat and a sliver of fear scurried up my spine. I slowly turned to meet her haunted eyes. Suddenly, I knew with total certainty that I wasn’t ready for this, and I felt like digging in my heels with all of my might to halt time.

“You want to help?” she asked. “Here’s your chance. Grab that stretcher and run out to unload the wounded…”

Stop!

“…bring them into the large tented area and line them up…”

Stop!

“…try to control any bleeding…”

Stop!

“…and try to make them comfortable until a surgeon can get to them. For example, offer a sip of water, only a sip. Cover them with a blanket. Hold their hand. Do you understand?”

Time refused to stop, so I had no choice but to follow her specific orders. The approaching men had gotten close enough for me to make out their soot-coated faces, smoke-reddened eyes, the desolately stooped shoulders. And what I had at first thought a heavy sack emerged into the limp form of an unconscious soldier with a blood-soaked uniform. Forcing myself to move, I grabbed a stretcher from the pile and hurried out to meet the men.

I read gratitude in the eyes of the man on the right as I helped him ease the injured soldier down from his shoulder. The other man’s eyes stared blankly, glazed over with fear and despair. Once relieved of his load, he sunk to the ground, staring into nothing. I couldn’t tell if anything physically plagued him; he didn’t appear to be bleeding. So I left him for the moment, grabbing one end of the stretcher with the other fellow taking the foot end. Together we carried the pale-faced man into the hospital tent. Orderlies swarmed us as soon as we entered, ready and waiting to treat the wounded. They took the stretcher from our hands, placing it down on one of the tables. Dr. Davis went to work immediately, removing the blood soaked shirt to examine the damage. So much blood, it pooled on the table, dripping to the floor in a steady rhythm, like a heart beat: drip, drip, drip…

Nurse Davis broke my horrified trance by stepping through my locked gaze. She brushed by me to check on the soldier who had helped carry the stretcher. She placed a gentle hand on his wrist, calmly steering him to a nearby chair while subtly checking his pulse. I suddenly remembered the soldier slumped down by the road. I hurried back out into the weak, gray light, searching for the other soldier. He’d been right there, next to the rutted, muddy road. Maybe he returned to battle, though I doubted it. He couldn’t even stand upright. Maybe he had been hurt and crawled off into the brush and died! Movement up the road caught my eye, and I turned expectantly, but instead of the missing fellow, I noticed more wounded soldiers limping in from the battle, along with some two-wheeled ambulances pulled by wide-eyed horses. Should I take the time to go look for the missing man, or hurry to meet the newcomers?

Piss! What to do? Over there!
He lay in the middle of the road about fifty yards away, half-crawling, half-dragging himself. I ran over, hearing him mumbling under his breath. I managed to pick out one or two words, like home and escape. Realization seeped slowly into my crowded brain. The soldier aimed to run away, run back home, away from this nightmare I’d stumbled into.

I glanced back at the approaching wounded and decided I had a minute or two, so I hurried over to the lost-looking soldier. As the sound of my footfalls reached him, he jerked to awareness, his bloodied fingers gripping the sheath of a knife. Cautiously, I slowed, not wanting to startle him.

“Soldier,” I called out, “are you okay?”

He shrieked in terror, cringing into a tight ball, his knifed hand slicing blindly in the air.

I froze, partially in surprise, partially to keep from frightening the man further. What kind of horrors had he witnessed to affect him so? I stared at his wild, unseeing eyes, peering out from under his protective arm. I eased closer, moving quietly. At five feet away, I squatted down and aimed my voice as if speaking to an injured bird or fox.

“Soldier? Soldier, can you hear me?”

He responded with animal-like grunts. I peered through the dirt and blood smeared across his face, not recognizing him, almost not recognizing his eyes as human. Obviously, the fellow had slipped off the edge of sanity and had locked himself up in a dark corner of his mind. I doubted that Dr. Davis could offer any help for that with his bandages and stitches, but some of the cuts and gashes looked nasty and needed attention. And maybe a dose of morphine might do something to calm his nerves. I eyed him, guessing I stood a few inches taller, but he outweighed me by fifty pounds. Of course, first I would have to do something about the knife.

I murmured soothing noises as I inched closer, my eyes never leaving the big blade. “Easy there, fellow, easy.”
Almost…

I reached out lightening quick and snagged the man’s wrist. He howled in a rage so primitive in nature, that I almost lost my hold in surprise. He jerked his wrist back with a powerful strength, dragging me down as if I weighed no more than a pocket hanky. I tumbled hard to the muddy ground with a grunt. Before I could take a breath, the soldier flopped around and pinned me, the knife at my throat!

I didn’t dare breathe as the knife pressed into my flesh. I froze in hopes of my submission calming his crazed rage. But the knife pressed harder. I felt the blade cut…

No! I refused to give into the hand of a madman, especially one wearing the same uniform! I drudged up any courage and authority I could find hiding in my bones and braced it into my voice.

“At ease, soldier!”

His eyes focused for a split second, and I grabbed at the moment, kicking up with all of my strength, flipping him off of me. I scrambled to all fours and lunged again for his knife. The soldier’s split second of focus disappeared just as fast, and we struggled for control of the knife, rolling around in the muddy street until I finally wrenched it free. The man instantly stopped resisting, falling against me with a heaving sob. I patted his shoulder awkwardly while trying to catch my breath, finding it difficult to back down from defensive mode to one of comfort. I didn’t know what to do with his knife; the offensive weapon displayed a dull, chipped blade and a rotting wood handle. No way would I stick the thing in my pocket; I could catch a splinter, or worse. Deciding, I took a quick glance around and then tossed it over my shoulder into the forest. I crawled to my feet, took a hold of the soldier and hauled him next to me. He cooperated, sort of, and slumped against me. We slowly made our way to the hospital tent. My body tensed in preparedness for another potential attack, but it didn’t come; the fight had all drained out of him. An orderly met me and I quickly explained what had happened. The orderly took the disorientated man’s arm and led him to a cot in the back. I stared after them, wondering what could have caused such a complete breakdown. Perhaps he had seen a horror up close and raw, like his own brother’s death.

Shouting from the approaching wounded pulled me away from the conundrum, and I hurried to meet them, grabbing a stretcher on the run.

The day proceeded, hour after hour crawling by as I assisted in any way I could. I began to notice a tightening in my chest, right around my heart and moving up into my throat. It seemed to worsen each time a new soldier arrived to the tent, and eased slightly after I scanned his face. I slowly came to realize that I was looking for familiar faces. Witnessing these horrific injuries disturbed me more than I’d expected, but if it happened to a friend, like Woody or Toby…had something like this happened to Robert? A cold fist clenched my stomach tight, and for a moment the water I’d just guzzled down threatened to reappear. I grabbed a hold of the tent’s corner pole for support and gulped in air, trying to calm my stomach.

“Private Rivers, are you okay?”

I jerked back to the present to find Nurse Davis peering up at me with concern.

“Um, yeah, I’m fine.” I tried to shake off the feeling of doom creeping into my bones.

Miss Davis looked unconvinced. “Can I get you a glass of water, or a bite to eat?”

I quickly shook my head. “No, I’m okay, really. Thanks.”

She nodded. “Well, if you’re sure, we have another man approaching. Could you give me a hand?”

“Of course.” I took a deep breath and pushed off the tent pole.

I grabbed a stretcher as we passed the diminishing stack and went out to meet yet another wounded soldier.
How many have passed through the tent flaps today? Fifteen? One hundred and fifteen?
Too many, and this battle was just one small scuffle in the middle of a huge war. I stumbled after Nurse Davis with growing hopelessness.

Two beat up looking soldiers supported a third. As they lowered him to the stretcher, I noticed his arm. A bloody, mangled mess, almost unrecognizable. I quickly sought out Nurse Davis’s eyes and found a quickly fading hope as she examined him. She uttered a soft dejected sigh as she shook her head.

“It’s too late to save his arm, but if we work fast, we might be able to save his life. Come on boys, let’s get him inside quickly.”

The two soldiers and I hoisted his moaning and writhing body, while Miss Davis cleared a path.

The now crowded tent buzzed with barked orders, haggard breaths, murmuring voices, and subdued sobs. Overpowering odors of stale sweat and fresh blood assaulted my nose. We located an unoccupied corner, carefully setting down the stretcher with the half-conscious soldier. I turned to go back outside, but Nurse Davis stopped me with a hand on my arm.

“If you don’t object, Private Rivers, we will need your assistance with this patient.”

I nodded, though clearly her statement had been an order, not a request. She motioned that I move to the soldier’s head and I complied. Nurse Davis positioned the lesser done in of the two soldiers at his feet, and led the other away to be patched up with bandages. The moaning patient with the demolished arm appeared so deep in pain and anguish that permanent lines etched deeply into his grimy face. Feeling awkward standing there and not doing anything in the mist of constant noise and activity, I looked around for something to do. By my elbow stood a small portable table with a pile of bandages and a basin of water left over from a previous patient. I leaned over for a closer inspection, decided the water appeared clean enough, and grabbed a handful of the cotton bandages. I dipped them into the slightly soiled water, and then gently began wiping away some of the grime from his sooty eyes and blood-encrusted mouth. I glanced around to see if anyone objected to my clumsy attempts to help, but no one paid me any mind. Not even the soldier waiting at the patient’s feet. His eyes stared unfocused off into nowhere.

“Good work, Rivers.” Nurse Davis appeared at my side with a loaded tray, which she shoved it into my hands. “Here, hold this.”

I quickly dropped the rags to grab the tray while Nurse Davis cleared room on the portable table. Then she reclaimed the tray, set it down and began sorting through its contents. I stared in horror at the piles of bandages, the tourniquet, the compact knives, the larger saw, the needle and silk thread. My stomach heaved, and I desperately swallowed to keep down its meager contents.

“Are we ready, Nurse Davis?”

Thankful for the distraction, I turned to find that Dr. Davis had joined us. Somewhere in the part of my brain that hadn’t frozen in horror, I wondered why her own pa called her ‘Nurse Davis’. Again, my sarcastic brain reminded me that my own pa had practically called me a whore. Maybe the Davis family communications weren’t quite so strange after all. At least they used common curtsey.

“Almost, Doctor.” Nurse Davis picked up a bottle and a handful of clean bandages, turning to me. “Private Rivers, we need you to administer some chloroform to keep him quiet. Though sometimes we also need good, old fashioned muscle,” she directed to the soldier positioned at the patient’s feet, “which is where you come in. Keep him still at all costs.”

The soldier seemed to understand, getting a good hold on the soldier’s legs, though he still appeared lost in a fog.

Nurse Davis dribbled a few drops of chloroform onto the rag and held it over the patient’s nose and mouth. “Lift it up every now and again to give him fresh air, understand? We don’t need to be killing off any of our own boys with chloroform poisoning.”

I opened my mouth to ask how much and how often, but she had already turned back to the patient.
Great, I guess I‘m winging it
.

Nurse Davis wrapped a cord around the patient’s injured arm at the spot Dr. Davis indicated, just below the shoulder. Placing a sturdy stick against the cord, she proceeded to tightly twist the tourniquet, cutting off the blood supply to the damaged arm. I noticed the blood flowing from the wounds slowed and then stopped, as if his heart had ceased beating. The man’s face, burned and scarred, appeared lifeless. Reminded of my role, I lifted the chloroform-soaked rag from his face so that he could get some fresh air, that and double check that he still breathed.

“Scalpel.”

Nurse Davis handed the smaller knife to her father who proceeded to slice through the man’s flesh as casually as if carving a turkey dinner. It suddenly occurred to me exactly what I stood there to assist with, but time had long since passed to be running and screaming from the scene. I quickly averted my eyes, trying to focus instead on the patient’s face. His smoke-singed eyelashes fluttered, and a pain-filled moan mumbled from his throat.

“Private,” Nurse Davis reminded in a hushed voice, “more chloroform.”

Without looking back towards the procedure, I nodded and returned the damp cloth to his nose and mouth. I counted slowly to ten, forcing myself to take breaths through my mouth with each count, then removed the drug again. I counted again, shouting the numbers in my mind to drown out the slicing and cutting sounds, and then reapplied the cloth. Whether or not I did this correctly, I had no idea, but this thin barrier kept reality at bay, barely.