Fire by Night (54 page)
“No …Oh, please, God…” she begged as she sank to the ground beside him. “Not Ted. … Please …not him.” This was just a terrible dream, and she would soon wake up. Better never to see Ted’s face again than to see him like this. But she wasn’t dreaming.
Ted was groggy and only half conscious, moaning with pain. Shock had turned his face ash gray. Phoebe ripped his torn pant leg and saw that a shell had shattered his right leg, severing it nearly in half. She could barely see through her tears as she tightened the tourniquet on his thigh and poured powdered morphine onto the raw wound.
“Come on, Ted. Hang in there,” she begged as she bathed his face with cool water. “Stay with me …stay awake. Come on, you ain’t gonna die on me now.” His eyes fluttered open and she saw him struggling to stay conscious, to focus on her. He was studying her. “You ain’t seeing things, Ted. It’s me.”
“Ike?What are you…? I thought you…”
She took his hand, squeezing it. “No, I’m alive. I’m a nurse now. I’m gonna get you all fixed up. There’s this doctor I know, the one who saved my life. I’m gonna get him to help you, Ted. You’re gonna make it.”
“I know it’s bad. I saw my leg. … ” His entire body started to tremble even though sweat poured off him. His tawny brown skin was as pale as a corpse’s.
“You’re gonna live!” she shouted. “Hang it all, Ted, listen to me!”
“Hey, don’t cry.”
“I’m a
girl
!” she sobbed. “And girls can cry all they want to!” She released his hand and leaped up, running blindly toward the surgical tent to find Dr. McGrath. Her body shook nearly as badly as Ted’s, making her movements clumsy and awkward.
The surgeons were operating outside on trestle tables. Phoebe didn’t care how gory the scene was or whether she was interrupting the doctor or not as she called out to him.
“Dr. McGrath! Please, you gotta come help my friend Ted. He needs help right away, and I want
you
to operate.
Please!
” He glanced up at her and nodded, then bent over his patient again, tying a suture. “You can finish with this,” James told the other doctor. “I’ll be right back.”
“What? Wait!” the man sputtered. “James, you can’t leave! Come back!”
James ignored him. “Show me where he is, Phoebe.” He hurried to keep up with her as they jogged back to where she’d left Ted.
“Don’t let him die,” she begged when they reached his side. “I know you couldn’t help my brother Willard, but you got to save Ted! You got to!” She started to kneel beside Ted again, but Dr. McGrath stopped her.
“Is this the man you’re in love with?” he asked softly. She nodded. The doctor looked away for a long moment, his eyes closed. “Dear God,” he sighed. Then he crouched beside Ted to look at his leg. He gently removed Ted’s shoe to feel his toes and checked a spot near his ankle for a pulse. “How are you doing, son?” he asked as he worked.
“Not so good. … ” Ted shuddered. “You can’t save my leg, can you.”
The doctor met Ted’s gaze. “No. I’m sorry.”
“Then don’t waste your time on me. Go help someone else. I don’t want to go home without a leg.”
“Ted, no!” Phoebe cried.
“I’d rather die than be crippled. I don’t want everyone’s pity.”
“That’s a very stupid choice,” Dr. McGrath said quietly. “And a very selfish one. What about all the people who love you? They don’t care how many legs you have. You should think about them, not yourself.”
“Just tell me the truth,” Ted said. “Am I gonna die even if you take my leg off?”
The doctor hesitated. “If you let me amputate there’s a chance you will recover.”
“A
chance
?”
“Yes. But if you don’t give me permission, you will die.”
“Please listen to him, Ted,” Phoebe begged. “He’s the best doctor there is.”
Doctor McGrath reached out to feel Ted’s forehead, his hand resting there for a moment. “Someone reminded me just this morning that life is a gift from God,” James said. “You’ve lived it well so far, fighting for what you believe in. Don’t throw it away now. Don’t commit suicide.”
Ted closed his eyes. He was shivering uncontrollably. “All right. Just get it over with.”
James stood and signaled to the orderlies. “This man is next.”
Phoebe followed Dr. McGrath as he strode back toward the outdoor operating area, struggling to control her fear. “I want to help you work on him,” she said. “I want to make sure everything goes okay.”
“I can’t allow it, Phoebe. You’re too closely involved. Besides, you’re shaking like a leaf.” He glanced around the crowded rail yard and spotted Julia. “Mrs. Hoffman, come here, please,” he called. When Julia hurried over he said, “Stay with Phoebe while I operate on her friend. Keep her away from here.”
Phoebe heard Ted cry out, “Oh, God! Oh, God!” as they moved him onto the operating table, his injured leg dangling. She broke down completely in Julia’s arms, sobbing.
“He’s in good hands,” Julia soothed. “James is an excellent surgeon. Come on. You don’t want to watch.”
But Phoebe couldn’t help looking over her shoulder at Ted one last time as Julia led her away. One of the doctors held the ether cone over Ted’s face. Dr. McGrath reached into his case of surgical instruments and pulled out a saw. Then the earth tilted, and Phoebe knew she was going to faint.
“Don’t look!” Julia said. She pushed Phoebe inside the nearest tent and sat her down on an upturned barrel. She forced Phoebe’s head between her knees. “Keep it down until the dizziness passes,” she ordered.
Gradually, the blood returned to Phoebe’s head and she could lift it. But she couldn’t stop her tears from falling or loosen the fear that gripped her heart like a fist.
“Is that soldier someone special to you?” Julia asked as she gently rubbed Phoebe’s shoulders.
“Yes. It’s Ted,” she said. “I …I love him.”
Julia had tears in her eyes as she knelt in front of Phoebe and wrapped her in her arms. “It’s okay,” she murmured. “It’s okay. I understand.”
Phoebe watched as Dr. McGrath examined Ted’s leg. More than a week had passed since Ted had been wounded, and he was gravely ill, lapsing in and out of delirium. When the doctor finished, he gently covered his leg with a sheet, then drew Phoebe aside.
“He has a long way to go, as you well know,” he told her. “Right now he’s too ill to be evacuated. The movement would kill him. We’ll do what we can here to keep his fever down and fight the blood poisoning.”
“I’ll take real good care of him,” she said.
“I know you will.”
As soon as the doctor left, Phoebe returned to Ted’s bedside. She dipped a sponge in water and began bathing his face to cool his fever. His eyes flickered open.
“Hey, Ike, I’m starting to get used to you being a girl …wearing a dress …long hair.”
“I hate fussing with it every day. I wish it was still short.”
He shook his head. “It’s nice. It looks like the tassles from an ear of corn.”
She tried to smile but tears filled her eyes. “That’s what all the fellas tell me.”
He reached for her hand as she bathed his chest, covering it with his own. “Phoebe …you’re the best friend I ever had. Will you promise me something?”
She nodded.
“If anything happens to me, I want you to go see my ma. Take my things to her.”
“You’re gonna make it, Ted. You’re a fighter, I know you are, and you’re gonna lick this fever just like you licked the Bailey brothers. Remember?”
“You did most of the work.” He smiled and Phoebe’s heart squeezed painfully. How she’d missed that grin.
“We licked them together, Ted. And we can fight this fever together, too.”
“Take her my things. Swear?”
Phoebe didn’t want to think about him dying, didn’t want to imagine doing what he was asking her to do. She quickly pictured a different scene instead. “When you’re all better and this war’s over, we’re gonna go to that plantation and find your grandmother, right? She’s a free woman now. You fought to win her freedom.”
“It was worth losing a leg for that,” he said quietly. “Or even a life—if it comes to that.”
“Please don’t talk that way.”
“They have Negro regiments now,” Ted said. “Have you heard? They fought right alongside me the other day—and for the first time in my life I felt real proud of who I am and where I came from. I’m not going to hide it anymore. I don’t know if you heard, but after the battle at Antietam, where you were wounded, President Lincoln announced that when we win this war, my grandmother and all the other slaves would be set free. I know I joined up for all the wrong reasons, thinking it would be a great adventure and I’d come home a big hero. But the Lord had a much greater purpose for my life than that.”
“I know,” Phoebe said. “I joined up because I was running away from home. But it seems like I’m doing something good now that I’m here.”
Ted nodded. His face looked very pale. She could tell by his eyes that he was in a lot of pain. “Your leg hurting you?” she asked.
“I don’t understand why it hurts so much if it’s gone.”
“You need some more medicine?”
“Not yet. Listen, I want to tell you something. … Death comes for all of us, one way or another. In the meantime, Phoebe, you have to live knowing that each day counts. And serving God each day is what makes it count. Live for His glory—whether you understand what He’s doing or not. Be faithful to Him.”
Phoebe couldn’t speak. She looked at the man she loved through a film of tears and dreaded the thought of ever losing him again. “Please don’t die,” she whispered.
“It isn’t up to me. But what I’m trying to tell you is …it’s all right if I do. I’ll be okay …and you will be, too.”
He was making her face something she didn’t want to face. She looked away.
“Do me a favor,” Ted said after a moment. “You know that other nurse—the one who’s your friend?”
“You mean Julia?”
“Ask her to come here. I need to talk to her for a minute.”
“Okay.” Phoebe was afraid to ask why. She hurried from the tent, wanting to hide her tears from Ted, and went to find Julia.
As soon as she neared the Sanitary Commission’s headquarters, Phoebe saw Otis Whitney’s freight wagon and mule team parked outside. Her fists clenched. There was something very frightening about that man. Phoebe didn’t like him hanging around her friend all the time, scaring her. High prices or not, the Commission needed to tell him to get lost. As Phoebe walked around the rear of the wagon, she heard Julia’s panicked voice.
“Let go of me!”
“You owe me, you little flirt,” Otis yelled.
“I have never flirted with you! Let go!”
Phoebe ran behind the tent toward the sound of their voices and saw Otis gripping Julia by the arm, half dragging her away from the hospital.
“You’ve been accepting my favors and presents all these weeks,” he said, “and now you owe me. I’m gonna take what’s coming to me.”
“Let go of her!” Phoebe shouted.
Otis turned, startled, and Julia broke free. “Who are you?” he demanded as Phoebe strode right up to him. His breath smelled of alcohol.
“I’m her friend. Go home, you lousy drunk. And if you ever lay a hand on her again, Otis Whitney, it will be the last thing you ever do in this life.”
“I ain’t afraid of you,” he slurred.
“You should be.” She planted her hand in the center of his chest and pushed him as hard as she could. He staggered backward and nearly fell. Before he had time to recover, Phoebe grabbed Julia’s hand and hurried away with her, weaving between the tents until they were out of his sight.
“I was so scared,” Julia said, trying not to weep.
“Listen, we got to go report him to somebody. He can’t keep coming around like this. He’s dangerous.”
“I think he was drunk. I’m glad you came when you did.”
“Me too. I was looking for you ’cause my friend Ted wants to talk to you. I guess it can wait until another time, though.”
Julia drew a shaky breath. “No, I think I’ll get over this faster if I do something to take my mind off that horrible man.”
“You sure?”
Julia nodded.
“That’s Ted’s tent over yonder. I reckon he wants to talk to you alone.”
“All right.”
Phoebe watched as Julia ducked inside, then she looked all around to see if Otis Whitney had followed them. She needed to tell someone about what had just happened, but she didn’t know whom to tell. She finally decided on Dr. McGrath and hurried away to find him.
Julia paused just inside the tent and took another deep breath. She was trembling and badly shaken, but she hadn’t wanted to worry her friend. Phoebe was right, Otis Whitney should never be allowed near this camp again.
Julia slowly exhaled to calm herself as she walked over to Ted Wilson’s bedside. His eyes were closed. His breathing sounded labored. He looked as white as the sheet that was draped over his mutilated leg. Julia closed her eyes as she whispered a prayer for him.
“Thanks for coming so soon.”
She opened them at the sound of Ted’s voice. “How are you feeling?”
“Not so good. Listen, I know there’s a good chance I’m going to die. Would you write a letter home for me?”
“Of course. Let me get some paper.” But she wondered, as she rummaged in the supply chest for the writing materials the Commission furnished, why he hadn’t asked Phoebe to write it for him. “Okay, go ahead,” she said when she was ready.