Fire by Night (53 page)
“You can do us all a favor and douse him for ‘graybacks,”’ the captain in the next bed said. “He’s lousy with them.”
“Won’t do any good,” the man replied. “They’ll be crawling all over me again as soon as I go back. You know what they say, ma’am—we got ‘graycoats’ in front of us and ‘graybacks’ on our rear.”
Julia couldn’t help laughing. Her next patient was smiling, too, even though he looked quite ill. She knew right away from his swollen legs, discolored skin, and puffy mouth that he suffered from a severe case of scurvy. “I just arrived with the Sanitary Commission a few days ago,” she told him. “We brought some fresh supplies. What would taste good to you?”
“Anything except those awful desecrated vegetables the army gives us.”
Julia smiled. “I think you mean ‘desiccated’ vegetables.”
“No, ma’am, by the time the army’s through with them they’re desecrated. The doctor’s been feeding me potatoes in vinegar, pickles in vinegar, and kraut in vinegar, but I can’t say as I care for all that vinegar.”
“Let me go see what else I can find,” Julia said. “I’ll be back shortly.”
She left them and started across the hospital grounds, weaving among the rows. Suddenly a familiar figure emerged from a nearby tent. There was no mistaking a woman that tall with hair that yellow. She wore the same dark blue calico dress that Julia had bought for her in Washington.
“Phoebe Bigelow!” Julia said in surprise. She rushed forward to embrace her friend. “What on earth are you doing here? I thought you went home a year ago.”
“I never did make it home,” Phoebe replied a bit sheepishly. “I was still hanging around Washington City when Dr. McGrath asked me to work with him as a nurse.”
“He
asked
you?”
“Yeah. He was going back to Fredericksburg as a field surgeon, and he asked me to come with him.”
“He told me women didn’t belong on the battlefield.”
“They don’t. But he knew I already been to the battlefield as a soldier. Tell you the truth, I reckon he was afraid I’d enlist again, so he figured he might as well take me along so he wouldn’t have to carve any more shrapnel out of me.”
“Would you have enlisted again?” Julia asked.
Phoebe shrugged. “I didn’t know what else to do with myself, to tell you the truth. But I like being a nurse real fine.”
Julia was almost afraid to ask the next question. “Is Dr. McGrath here at Depot Hospital?”
“Yeah. I can take you to see him if—”
“No, no. I really don’t care to see him at all. In fact, I’d just as soon avoid him if I can. Good thing it’s a big hospital.”
Phoebe studied her curiously for a long moment then said, “I heard you was in Fredericksburg.”
“How did you hear that?”
“Your friend Reverend Greene told me. He explained all about your engagement and said that you broke it off.”
“Oh, no. Don’t tell me Nathaniel is here, too?” Julia glanced around in dread as if he might suddenly appear out of nowhere, as Phoebe had.
“I’m not sure where he’s at. I ain’t seen him since Cold Harbor. I told him he should go up to Fredericksburg and patch things up with you, but I reckon he’s pretty stubborn.”
“Nathaniel never answered my last letter. I wasn’t even sure he got it. But if he told you our engagement is cancelled…” Tears came to Julia’s eyes, and she couldn’t finish. Phoebe rested her hand on Julia’s arm.
“He got mad when he told me about it. He said it was because he didn’t want you to be a nurse no more and you wanted to be one. I’m real sorry, Julia. I know how hard it is to lose someone you love.”
She could only nod. She was still standing beside Phoebe, trying to pull herself together so she could return to her work, when she heard someone calling her name. She looked up—and was dismayed to see Otis Whitney striding toward her, carrying a small wooden crate.
“Oh no,” she moaned.
“Howdy, Julia. I brought you another present.”
He held out the box to her. It contained a dozen lemons. Otis looked as though he had recently washed his hair, but it hadn’t improved his sinister appearance.
“I’ll bet your patients could use these, huh?”
“Yes, they could. Thank you, Mr. Whitney.”
He grinned. His eyeteeth were pointed, like a wolf ’s. “Didn’t I ask you to call me Otis?”
“Thank you, Otis. I know a soldier who could use these right away. Good day.” Julia hurried away. She was grateful when Phoebe decided to follow her—and Otis didn’t.
“He’s a mighty rough-looking fella,” Phoebe said. “Who is he?”
“He owns the freight-hauling company that brings the Commission all their supplies. He’s been showing up nearly every day, bringing me presents. I don’t like him hanging around, but the nursing director begged me to be nice to him. She’s afraid to make him angry for fear he’ll raise our prices—or cut off our supplies altogether.” Julia paused when she reached the end of the row. “Otis Whitney makes me nervous, Phoebe. I’m afraid of him.”
“I don’t blame you one bit. Maybe you should tell him you’re married—like you used to tell folks in Washington.”
“It’s too late. He knows I’m single. I was tired of lying—but now I wish that I had.”
A rumbling, muffled explosion woke Julia from a sound sleep. The ground beneath her trembled like an earthquake. She had been close to the battlefield before, but this was unlike any sound she had ever heard. The sun hadn’t risen yet, so she lit a candle and quickly pulled on her clothes. By the time she was dressed, she could hear the distant
boom
of mortar fire. Several other Commission nurses emerged from their tents at the same time she did.
“What was that explosion?” one of them asked.
“I’m not sure, but now they’re firing mortars,” Julia said. “That means the casualties will start to pour in soon. I’m going over to meet the ambulance train.”
For the next hour, Julia worked in the medical supply tent with the other nurses, making sure they had plenty of tourniquets, bandages, morphine, and iodine, along with buckets of water and sponges. She heard the deep murmur of men’s voices in the surgical tents as the physicians prepared to operate, making sure all their instruments and supplies of ether and chloroform were ready. In the distance, the sounds of battle grew louder and more intense. There was little Julia could do once everything was unpacked except brace herself for what she was about to face. She stood outside near the railroad tracks, watching as the distant pall of smoke turned the dawning sun fire-red.
“Hello, Mrs. Hoffman.”
Julia recognized the sound of James McGrath’s voice before she turned to face him. He had stepped up beside her as she’d watched the sunrise. His auburn hair was sleep-tousled, and he was rolling up the sleeves of his shirt in preparation. Julia’s heart sped up as she recalled his touch. His kiss was still a vivid memory after all this time. It had been a year since she’d last seen him in Gettysburg, but the strength of her reaction to him surprised her. She quickly looked away, ashamed once again. She should not have such feelings for a married man.
“Hello, Doctor,” she said softly.
“You’re the last person in the world I ever expected to see working here.”
“I know. I’m surprised to be here myself. I kept reading in the papers how there was such a great need for nurses, and I …I couldn’t seem to stay away.” He stood close to her. Her heart continued to race.
“Look at that sky,” he said after a moment. He pointed to the horizon, where it appeared that the sun had set the clouds aflame. Julia thought of the night he had shown her the sky in Fredericksburg, and she shivered.
“Have you ever read the book of Revelation, Mrs. Hoffman? These past few months I’ve wondered if the Apocalypse has finally come—the terrible fury of the wrath of God, unleashed.” He exhaled, and when he spoke again his voice was husky with emotion. “I’ve watched General Grant sacrifice fifty thousand men since spring. Fifty thousand! That’s half as many as the entire Union army lost in the prior three years. I’m not sure I can watch it much longer.”
“I know. The newspapers are calling Grant a butcher,” Julia said.
“And they’re calling me a butcher for sending so many men home with missing arms and legs—as if I enjoyed this work.”
She was alarmed to hear how depressed and discouraged he sounded—and today’s work hadn’t even begun. She could hear the ambulance train approaching, bringing in the day’s first casualties, and she knew that James would have to begin his grueling task of amputating limbs very soon.
“How long has it been since you’ve been home?” she asked softly. “Maybe you should take a leave of absence and go be with your family for a little while.”
He didn’t reply. Instead, he said, “I know why you came back. It’s because this war has changed us. We’re no longer the same people we were before it began. It’s as if we’re forever drawn toward death—trying to stop it, trying to change the outcome somehow. … Only we can’t.”
The despair in his voice alarmed her. She groped for words, desperate to say something to comfort him. “James, listen. Death is in God’s hands, not yours. It’s up to Him to decide who will die today and who will live. But life is in our hands. It’s His gift to us. He wants us to enjoy it, celebrate it, treat it as a treasured gift for as long as we have it and never ever take it for granted. You’re right, the war has changed me. It’s taught me that I must live as gratefully and as unselfishly as I can until the day I die. That’s why you should go home and live as—”
“You’re here for unselfish reasons?” he asked. “Is that why you decided to become a nurse?”
“No, not at first,” she said, remembering. “Your original opinion of me was quite accurate, I’m sorry to say. I was a spoiled rich girl trying to prove something when I first came toWashington. But I’ve learned a lot since then. At Gettysburg—”
“You were there?”
“Yes.” Julia recalled the afternoon she had taken care of him, and for a moment the memory left her shaken. James hadn’t been wearing his wedding ring. She instinctively glanced at his hands, looking for it now, but he had his arms folded across his chest, his hands hidden.
“Until Gettysburg,” she continued, “I was working for the wrong reasons. At first it was to prove myself worthy in someone’s eyes. Later it was out of guilt, trying to find atonement in God’s eyes. But atonement is free, never earned. And I’ve learned that the only person I need to please with my life is God.”
She could no longer be heard above the clamoring locomotive as it rumbled up to the hospital’s siding in a cloud of steam. As soon as it halted, the orderlies rushed forward to empty the flatcars, which were loaded with blue-uniformed bodies. Neither Julia nor James moved.
“Maybe this is the Apocalypse,” she said, and James bent slightly closer to hear her above the noise. “But as my …my minister said, we need to ask God how He wants us to live in the times He has appointed for us. If we work with Him, using the gifts and the strength He provides, then we’ll help build His kingdom, for His glory, here on earth. And that’s really the only thing that matters.”
James was quiet for a long moment. “Julia,” he finally said, “does your husband know you’re down here?”
She looked up at him. Their eyes met for the first time. “I need to tell you the truth, James,” she said, her heart racing faster. “I’m not married. I lied when I came to Washington because it was the only way anyone would ever hire me as a nurse.”
He stared speechlessly, a thousand questions in his eyes.
“Robert Hoffman is my cousin,” she said. “It was convenient to use his name. After I returned home, I became engaged to a man who I’ve known for several years, but he wanted me to give up nursing …and our engagement ended when I came back here to work.”
James gripped her shoulders with both hands as if he needed to steady himself. “You aren’t married?”
“Dr. McGrath!” someone shouted, interrupting. “Over here! Hurry!”
“No, I’m not,” Julia said. “I’m sorry that I lied to you. Please forgive me.”
She watched him carefully for his reaction, but his features showed only shock as he continued to stare at her. His grip hurt her arms.
“Dr. McGrath!” the man shouted a second time. “Please!”
Without another word, James released her and hurried away to attend his first patient.
As Phoebe talked to the steady stream of patients who poured into the hospital, she gradually learned the story of what had caused the thunderous explosion she’d heard early that morning. Union soldiers had dug a five-hundred-foot tunnel beneath Rebel lines and packed it with tons of gunpowder, trying to blast through a Confederate stronghold. When the fuse was lit, it tore a huge hole in the earth, leaving a crater more than two hundred feet long, sixty feet wide, and thirty feet deep. Union troops had rushed forward into the breach, but with no way to scale the wall on the other side they became easy targets for the Rebels. Thousands more Yankees fell as they tried to rescue their comrades.
Phoebe worked all day, meeting trainload after trainload of wounded men. Late that afternoon as the orderlies lifted one more stretcher from the flatcar and laid yet another dying soldier on the ground in front of her, Phoebe suddenly confronted the horror she had long feared. She stared down at the face she had searched thousands of faces to find. The bloody, badly injured man was Ted.