Wedded to War (50 page)

“You don’t have a family, do you?” Hammond prodded bluntly.

Charlotte felt her cheeks grow warm as she shook her head. “I am unattached.”

“Are you attached so firmly to Washington City that you would not leave it?” She cast a glance toward Caleb, who was now making his rounds with amputee patients.

“We need you in Rhode Island, Miss Waverly. Do you accept?”

In the span of just a moment, she calculated the factors. Washington City was now crawling with nurses, some approved by Miss Dix, but many just volunteering and learning on the job. She could be replaced, easily. She already had been, in fact. The training in New York City had prepared her to be a matron, an administrative head. She was not putting that to use here. And Caleb—well, she had already decided he was doing exactly what he should. She was better off not interfering.

“I accept your offer, sir,” Charlotte said, the promise of a new opportunity, a fresh start, buoying her spirit.

As soon as Hammond pumped her arm once more and told her details would be forthcoming, she hurried over to Caleb and waited while he finished examining a patient.

“Hello, Nathan, I’d like to take a look at how you’re healing up, if that’s all right,” he was saying.

The sullen patient said nothing, his arms folded tightly across his chest. He watched both Caleb and Charlotte with a sharp eye.

Charlotte edged in a little closer to watch as Caleb carefully snipped the gauze bandage and unwrapped the stump, layer by layer. A subtle movement in the corner of her vision drew her attention away from the hypnotic unwinding. She glanced at Nathan. He was sweating.
Poor boy
, she thought.
He must be in pain.

“It looks good, Nathan,” Caleb said, smiling. “You’re doing very well.” He glanced at Charlotte. “See that cherry red color of the skin on the edges of the stitching? And that. Laudable pus. Signs of healing. Right on schedule.” He handed her a bandage roll and asked her to redress the wound while he unwrapped the second stump.

Edward Goodrich couldn’t believe his eyes.

When he had been sent back to Washington after the Army of the Potomac left the Peninsula, the last people he expected to see were Charlotte Waverly and Caleb Lansing. Hadn’t they both gone home? But here they were, right in front of him. Together.

His heart gave a faint throb at the sight, but at least he was absolved of the guilt of waiting for so long to mail Caleb’s letter. She had gotten it, obviously, and all was well between them.

A glimmer of light caught his eye as the patient they had just been working on pulled a revolver from nowhere. Raised it, cocked it, steadied it.

“Look out!” Edward shouted. Though his legs felt mired in Virginia swamp mud, he lunged in front of Charlotte and Caleb, hurtling himself at the patient to knock away the gun. And heard the crack of gunfire, the thud of his own body staggering against the cot, falling to the floor. Blazing pain seeped out of his shoulder, dark red and slick.
So this is what it feels like …
Charlotte’s scream bounced off the walls as she crumpled over him on the floor.

The boy cocked the gun a second time. The shot rang out, and Dr. Caleb Lansing buckled and fell beside Edward, with Charlotte bent, weeping, over them both.

Edward fought to retain consciousness.
God, save us
, he prayed. Almost as if on cue, the sickening sound of a muffled gunshot sounded. Charlotte’s crying vaguely registered in his ears as he struggled up to his good knee to see. Through the haze of gun smoke he saw the boy had hit his final target. The gun clattered to the floor from the lifeless hand that had fired it.

Charlotte’s voice floated toward him as if she were speaking underwater, and he struggled to open his eyes.

She was there at his side, saying something to him. He didn’t know what, and he suspected it didn’t matter. Her presence alone was enough to comfort. When the cool of her hand connected with his forehead, he jerked back to full consciousness, his eyes popping open.

“Edward,” she said, her voice smooth as silk. “You were very brave. How are you feeling?”

Fire seared through his right shoulder, tracing the path of the bullet. “Fine,” he told her.

“Thank God it went straight through.” She laid a hand gently on his bare shoulder near the bandage and a shock of electricity surged through him. “I’m going to change the dressing now.”

He caught her wrist with his left hand. “Please don’t.” His voice was raspy. “Can’t I have another nurse?”

“Edward, I assure you I’m fully capable of this.” Her tone was tinged with hurt.

“I know you are. But you’re making it very hard on me, you see, not to … wish for more … of your time,” he finished lamely. What good
would a confession of love do now? “How is Dr. Lansing faring?”

Charlotte’s face relaxed with relief. “He will do well. Another surgeon was able to pull the ball from his back, still intact. Thank goodness they were not minié balls!”

“I’m glad,” he said. It was the truth.

“I just don’t understand how Nathan had a gun in the first place. All patients’ personal things are collected when they are admitted. Where did the revolver come from?”

“One of the patients saw a tall, dark-haired man slip him a gun on Saturday.”

“Why didn’t he say something sooner?”

“I don’t know, but the gun was inscribed with some initials, so maybe that will give the police a clue about where it came from.” He shook his head. “Such a shame. Such a shame. I need to write to Nathan’s mother.”
What an awful task that will be.

“I’m so glad Caleb wasn’t hurt more severely,” Edward continued. “If Nathan had been a better shot—” he broke off. “You two make a perfect match, you know.”

Charlotte blushed. “I don’t know about that.” The uncertainty in her voice stopped him.
Doesn’t she?

“You got his letter, didn’t you? The one I wrote for him while he was sick with fever at Fortress Monroe?”

Her head jerked up, and the color drained from her face. “He was sick?” she whispered.

“You didn’t get it? You didn’t get it?”
Lord, I sent it! This is not my fault!

“When did you send it?”

He told her.

“A week’s worth of mail was lost when we moved from White House Landing to Harrison’s Point!” Hope filled her eyes. “What did he say? Tell me!” She clasped his hands in her own, and he closed his eyes to savor her touch.

“Have him tell you himself. And Charlotte, please. I need a different nurse.” Warmth flooded his face. “Trust me.”

Finally, understanding registered in her eyes, and her cheeks pinked.

“Thank you, Edward,” she whispered, giving his hand one more squeeze. “You are a good man. And a
wonderful
chaplain.” Smiling, she slipped away.

Edward sagged back into his pillow.
A wonderful chaplain? But Lord, I still don’t have all the answers!

The Word of God resounded in his mind. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

Edward sighed.
Yes Lord
, he continued praying.
I fear You. But I don’t understand.

“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not on your own understanding. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.”

God, I fear I’m stumbling along in the dark as I try to be a good chaplain. I’m afraid of falling, of failing You, and those You’ve called me to serve.

“Though a good man may fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord upholdeth him with his right hand. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.”

Edward scanned the rest of the ward now, his gaze resting on each bed’s soldier in turn. Like a veil being lifted, he saw that having all the answers didn’t matter to these men. What mattered to them was that he was there, reading the Scriptures to them, praying with them, and walking through the struggle of life and death together.

Yes, Edward still had questions. But he trusted that God had the answers.

The wool uniform Phineas Hastings still wore chafed against his skin and his better judgment as he marched north on Second Avenue,
away from Armory Square Hospital.
I shouldn’t have stayed so long
, he chided himself. But he couldn’t resist staying long enough to hear the shots fired from inside the seventh pavilion. Charlotte’s screams had been music to his ears. But they’d also drawn attention—something Phineas wanted to avoid, for once. He hadn’t taken the time to go back for his own clothes, but at least he had had the presence of mind to keep his watch and money with him at all times.

“Halt!” The voice rang out, but Phineas pressed on, covering his nose as he crossed the rickety wooden bridge over the sewage called Tiber Creek. His face darkened as he quickened his pace toward the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Station.
If only there had been a way …
But it was impossible to get the gun back. He reached into his pocket and rubbed his thumb over the engraved initials on the back of his gold watch. Sweat beaded on his forehead.
The initials.
His heart raced. They were the same as those on the gun.
They’ll never find it
, he told himself. In less than thirty minutes, he’d be on the train and chugging back to New York.

“I said stop right there!” A force out of nowhere knocked Phineas to the ground from behind. The heel of a boot dug into his spine as he writhed in the dirt on the unpaved road. Two large men in uniform stood over him, scowls slashed onto their faces.

Finally, breath returned to Phineas’s lungs. “What the blazes do you think you’re doing?” he shouted, and passersby paused to stare.

“We should be asking you that, you dirty scoundrel.” A sharp kick in Phineas’s side sent flaming darts across his back.

The gun? How did they know? How could they have found me so soon?

“Do you know what the penalty for desertion is, soldier?”

Phineas stared up at them, uncomprehending. “I have no idea
what
you are talking about!” Rage seethed between his words.

Sneering, they yanked him up by the armpits. “Sure you don’t. Pretty bold move, seeing as we’ve had so many deserters, and seeing as we caught you in a uniform on your way to a train station. Oh, I can see why you’d run off. A little too dandy for the hard life of a soldier, ain’t you?”

Phineas looked at his accusers and his mouth went dry. For the first time in his life, he had no words to speak. What could he say?

If he let them believe he was a soldier, they’d surely arrest him. If he told them he wasn’t a soldier, they’d take him in anyway for questioning. Either way, they’d search him.
Hanged if I tell the truth, hanged if I don’t.
The gold watch burned in his pocket, those condemning initails branding his thigh.

“Well? What do you have to say for yourself?” The soldiers stared at him, eyes slintings, as if daring Phineas to oppose them. “How about your name, to start with?”

Like a cornered animal, Phineas’s gaze skittered from one bulky soldier to the other, gauging his chances of escape. They weren’t good.