Slaves of Obsession (20 page)

“I’m going to find that bastard!” Trace shouted over the din. “I don’t give a damn what the outcome of this battle is, he’s not getting away with it.…” He gave a bitter shrug. “Unless he’s dead! Then the devil will have beaten me to him. But if God’s on my side, I’ll get to him first.” He shaded his eyes and stared from where he knelt across Young’s Branch and over to Henry Hill. Union lines stretched as far as Chinn Ridge to the right, and all the way to Henry Hill to the left.

The wind changed a little, sending the smoke across the fighting. A cannonball screamed past them and scythed through the trees, shearing away some branches and leaving them hanging.

Monk wondered briefly why Trace did not join the battle himself. Why was he so determined, above all else, to pursue Breeland? He seemed obsessive about it, out of balance. Monk did not fight. It was not his war. He had no feeling for either side over the other. The issue of slavery did not give him a moment’s thought. He was irrevocably against it, but he could appreciate the Confederacy view that the economic oppression of the North was in actuality no better for the poor. One changed deeply rooted institutions slowly, but violence was not the answer.

Neither did he understand the passion for union above all else. These things were intellectual arguments to him. What he felt was the reality of men maimed, crippled, bleeding to death here on these dusty hillsides. He saw no difference between Union and Confederate; they were all equally flesh and blood, passion, dreams and fears. For the first time he understood something of what Hester must feel as she worked with friend and foe without difference, seeing only the person.

He hardly dared think of Hester. He looked at the wounded and the dying all around him, and had no idea how to help them. Horror made him feel sick. His hands shook; his legs almost failed to support him. He was dizzy with revulsion as his mind drowned in the abomination of it. How did she keep
her head, bear all the pain, the dreadful mutilation of bodies? She had a strength beyond his power to imagine.

Philo Trace was scanning the hill ahead, perhaps trying to recognize a uniform, or battle colors, to know where Breeland might be.

“Would you go into that to look for him?” Monk shouted.

“Yes,” Trace answered without turning, his eyes wrinkled up against the sun. “Any Southerner can fight for the Confederacy and our right to decide our own fate. I’m the only one who can take Breeland back to England and show everyone what he is … what a Union gun buyer will do to get arms.”

Monk said nothing. He could understand, and it frightened him. He had seen crime and poverty before, individual hatred and injustice. This was on a scale of enormity, a national madness from which there was no escape, no rational core where one could find healing, or even respite.

Over on Henry Hill men were killing and dying, and neither side appeared to gain.

Trace set off down the slope towards Chinn Ridge. Monk turned back.

There were wounded men on the ground, covered in blood and dust, limbs crooked, lying side by side with the dead. Carts were overturned, wood splintered, gun barrels cracked and pointing to the sky. Wheels were tilted at crazy angles.

Monk did what he could to help, but he had no knowledge, no skills to call on. He did not know how to set a bone, how to stop bleeding, who could be moved and who would be harmed if he were moved. The heat burned the skin and clogged the throat, sweat stinging the eyes, and wet fabric rubbed the skin raw over his bullet-grazed arm. The glare of the sun was merciless. Flies were everywhere.

Time and again he scrambled down the bank to the stream and filled canteens, carrying them back amid a rain of gunfire, to hold them up for the wounded.

He carried men where he knew they should be taken, to
the field hospitals, doing what they could to stanch bleeding, pad wounds, splint bones, there on the grass of the hillside.

He saw Merrit at about half-past four, also carrying water, stopping where the wounded were capable of drinking.

Her skirts were torn and she looked exhausted, almost sleepwalking. Her face was ashen, her eyes filled with horror. He was not certain if she even recognized him.

Together they helped into a cart a man with a badly broken leg, and another man with a crushed hand, two more with heavily bleeding chest wounds, and Monk pulled the cart over the rough ground, straining his shoulders, feeling his muscles ache. The bullet graze on his arm seemed to have stopped bleeding.

There were no horses around loose and unhurt themselves. There was something in him that hated seeing an animal hurt even more than a man. They had not chosen to fight. They were creatures with no part in war. But he knew better than to say so. Perhaps half the men in the battle had no will in it either, no decision not driven by fear or someone else’s idealism.

He got the cart to within twenty yards of the field hospital at Sudley Church. He could go no farther. He and Merrit helped the men out, and leaning on each other, they staggered the last little distance.

The shooting sounded closer behind them, as if the Rebels had held Henry Hill and were coming down towards them.

Inside the church he saw Hester. He recognized the set of her shoulders instantly, square, a little thin, the cotton of her dress pulling tight as she moved quickly, deftly. Her hair was scraped back, poking out of its pins, and a tiny strand fell down her back. Her skirts were filthy, and several smears and splatters of blood showed even from the back.

His heart lurched. His eyes stung with tears of pride, and so powerful an admiration welled up in him that for seconds he saw only her; the rest of the room was a dark cloud over the periphery of his vision. There need not have been other people, wounded men, a man standing still, uniform blue or gray, another woman on her knees.

Hester had a saw in her hand and was cutting through the bone of a man’s forearm, moving quickly, with no hesitation, no time for weighing or judging. She must have done all that before she set the blade to the flesh. There was light, wet blood everywhere, on pads and bandages on the floor, in pools and spatters, staining her hands scarlet, and forming a dark stain on the thighs of the man’s uniform. His face was gray, as if he were already dead.

She went on working. The useless arm, what was left of it, fell to the floor and she began stanching the wound, binding a loose flap of skin over it, holding a pad hard, so hard it compressed the vessels. All the time she did not speak. Monk watched her tense face, lips pressed together, sweat running down her brow and standing out on her lip. Once she brushed a hair out of her eyes, using the back of her wrist.

When she was finished and the bleeding had stopped, she took a piece of cloth and dipped it into wine and held it to the man’s mouth, very gently.

His eyelids fluttered.

She gave him a few drops more.

He opened his eyes, turned to focus on her face, and drifted into unconsciousness again.

Monk had no idea whether the man would live or not. He did not know whether Hester knew. He looked at her face and could not read it in her. She was beyond exhaustion not only of body but of spirit. She was hardly even aware that anyone else was there, let alone that it was he, yet he was overwhelmed with the knowledge that he had never seen another woman so beautiful. Physically she was totally familiar. He knew every part of her, had held her, touched her, but the soul of her was something apart, amazing and unexplored, a thing that filled him with awe. And it frightened him, because he knew the dark regions within himself, and felt he would never be worthy of what he saw in her. He also knew that he would never measure or touch the end of his hunger that she would love him equally, that he would be worthy of it, unclouded and whole.

Hester turned and saw him, and the moment broke. Her eyes met his long enough for understanding and a flood of relief. She spoke his name, smiling, then began to work again.

He did what he could to help, increasingly aware with every moment that he had no skill, he did not even know the names of the instruments she needed or the types of bandages, and the blood and pain horrified him. How did anyone deal with this day after day, for weeks … years … and cling to sanity?

He went out again, back to the battlefield, and found to his quickening fear that it had moved closer. It was after five in the afternoon and the Union forces had not taken Henry Hill—far from it; the Rebels were streaming down the slope and hard fighting was now backing towards where he stood. Clouds of dust obscured the details.

He went back into the church.

“The battle’s coming this way!” he said sharply. “We must get these men out.”

The surgeon was there now, ashen-faced, moving as in a dream.

“Don’t panic,” he said crossly. “It just looks closer than it is.”

“Come and see it yourself, man!” Monk retorted, hearing his own voice rise, almost out of control. “The Rebels are coming this way! The Union troops are in retreat!”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” the surgeon shouted at him. “If you can’t keep from hysterics, get out of here! That’s an order, mister! Get out of our way!”

Monk went outside again, shaking with anger and shame. Was he panicking in front of Hester, who was so calm in this inferno of horror?

He must steady himself. His legs were shaking. The sweat poured off his body. That was heat! It was like an oven.

No, it was not panic! Not in him. But the Union forces were in complete disarray, running towards him, throwing weapons and cartridge belts aside, hurling away anything that cumbered their flight. Blind terror galvanized their legs.

Monk turned on his heel and charged back into the church.

“They’re in retreat!” he yelled. “They’re all making for the road to Washington. Get the wounded and get out of here! Everyone that can walk, do it!”

Hester turned to stare at him, her eyes steady, questioning. It was only an instant before she believed him.

“Out!” she ordered. “Merrit, you stay with me!” Her eyes were still on Monk’s. She had not forgotten why they had come.

There was a volley of shots close outside.

As if it were the spur he was needing, the surgeon moved at last. He pushed past her and ran to the door, the others following on his heels.

Outside, they stopped abruptly. A small detachment of Rebel cavalry was twenty yards away and approaching fast. A bullet whined past Hester and slammed into the church wall, sending splinters flying. One grazed her hand, and she gasped involuntarily, putting it to her lips to stop the blood.

The Rebels stopped and the surgeon stepped forward to speak to the officer.

“This is a field hospital,” he said, his voice shaking. “Will you give us safe conduct to evacuate our wounded?”

The officer shook his head. “Get them out the best you can, but I can’t give you any promise.” He looked him up and down. “And you’re coming with us … back to Manassas Junction.”

The surgeon pleaded, but the Rebels would brook no argument, and ten minutes later they were gone, and the surgeon with them, leaving Monk, Hester, Merrit and the two orderlies to help the wounded.

They were carrying men into the carts and about to begin the journey back towards Centreville and Washington when a Union cavalry officer rode up, his arm in a sling across his chest, his tunic dark with blood.

“You’ll have to go west!” he shouted. “You can’t go by the turnpike. The bridge over Cub Run River is blocked. There’s a cart turned over on it and there are civilians all over the
place, sightseers out from Washington to watch the battle, picnic hampers an’ all. Now they’re overrun and nothing can get through … not even ambulances.” He waved his good arm. “You’ll have to go that way.” He swung his horse around and headed off, picking up speed and disappearing into the dust and smoke.

“Has the Union really lost?” Hester said miserably.

Monk was standing close to her. He could give his reply quietly enough in the momentary lull that even Merrit could barely hear him.

“This battle, by the look of it. I don’t know what’s going to happen along the road.” He could hardly believe what the cavalryman had said. Who on God’s earth would look at this voluntarily?

But the shock he had expected to see in Hester’s face was not there. He stared, puzzled. Why did it not horrify her?

She read his thoughts.

“It happened in the Crimea as well,” she said with a sad, lopsided grimace. “I don’t know what it is … a failure of the imagination. Some people cannot think themselves into anyone else’s pain. If they don’t feel it themselves, then it isn’t real.” Then she started to move again, picking up what few belongings were most important and passing around the canteens of water to anyone who could carry them.

The firing was growing closer all the time, but it was very sporadic now.

Merrit was standing frozen with dismay. In the distance they could hear the strange, high Rebel yell on the wind.

“Where’s Trace?” Hester said urgently.

Monk made the decision in the instant, even as he spoke. “He’s gone into the battle. He’s hell-bent on finding Breeland, whatever happens. We’ll have to go south if we are to get out. Take Merrit with us. It will be hard, but I think trying to find our way through the chaos here, and get Breeland out through his own people, will be next to impossible.”

Her voice caught for a moment. “Go … that way?” She looked towards the gunfire. But even as she protested he
could see in her face that she understood the reason behind his words. “Will we be able to find Trace?”

He thought for a moment of lying. Was it his responsibility to comfort her, show strength and hope, regardless of the truth? They had never told each other what was comfortable. In fact, they had spent the first year or two of their acquaintance being as abrupt, as brutally honest, as possible. To do less now would be like a denial of what was precious between them, a terrible condescension, as if by marrying him at last she had forfeited his friendship.

“I have no idea,” he said with a smile which was a little wild, more than a little crooked.

A flash of humor—and of fear—in her eyes answered him.