Words Heard in Silence (99 page)

"I will take you to him, but before you go in, Dr. Walker says you need to get cleaned up."

"All right. Anything."

Jocko lead her to the officers’ mess, where he had partitioned off an area and had warm, boiled water and soap waiting for her. "Get washed, and put on one of the aprons I have here for you. Then I will take you to his tent. We set up a separate tent for him, rather than the usual surgery. It is clean and private. I have had a cot put in it for you, as well."

"Thank you Jocko. I will only be a moment."

As she washed up, Jocko called to her, "Sergeant Jamison wants to know if you want something to eat? Or some tea before you go over?"

"Could you have it taken to his tent? I really just want to be with Charlie. Everything else can wait."

"Yes, certainly. I will tell him to have a tray sent over."

"Thank you." Rebecca quickly scrubbed her arms and face, using the damp cloth to remove or dampen down any dirt that might be clinging to her clothing and then she slipped the apron over her head, tying it off before returning to Jocko. "Shall we?"

"If you wish. Are you sure you are ready?"

"I am more than ready, Jocko, and if I am not taken to my husband soon, I will tear this camp apart tent by tent until I find him."

"Yes, ma’am." Jocko offered her his arm and escorted her to the large tent set off from the rest of the camp, shaded by old oak trees, and currently guarded by Duncan, even though his arm was neatly bandaged and in a sling.

Rebecca stopped and touched the young man. "Duncan, are you hurt very badly?"

"Mi..Mi..Miss Rebecca. Umm. No, ma’am. Just a scr..scr..scratch. Ma’am? I am sorry. I tried."

"Tried?"

Duncan bowed his head. "Yes, ma’am. I tried, but there was so much blood. And I could not……"

"Duncan," She ran her hand over his good arm. "I am sure you did everything correctly and that I have you to thank for the fact that my husband is alive."

He hung his head even lower. "No, ma’am. It was Jocko and Jack, not me."

"I do not believe that and I do not want you to believe that either. I am sure when he is able, the General with thank you himself."

"He called your name, you know."

"No, I did not know. Thank you for telling me. Thank you for being there to hear it."

"It was the last thing I heard him say." Duncan looked up at her, tears running down his cheeks. "I wish it had been me."

Rebecca moved forward and wrapped her arm around him. "You should not speak like that, Duncan. I do not like it and the General certainly would not like it. You did what you had to do and I am convinced you saved my husband's life. For that I am grateful to you, always. Now stop saying these things and be glad you are both alive." She gave him a hug and pulled back with a smile. "That is an order by proxy. When the General is capable, I will have him reaffirm it."

Duncan smiled a rather watery smile and pulled himself to attention. With a left handed salute, he responded, "Yes, ma’am, Mrs. General, ma’am."

Rebecca patted his cheek. "Good boy, Duncan." She turned and opened the tent flap as she stepped inside she got her first good look at Charlie. Without taking another step she turned to the side of the tent and promptly vomited.

E
lizabeth looked up and glared at Rebecca. She was working on a particularly nasty and sensitive part of Charlie’s wound, trying to save a vital tendon from being destroyed by the invasive infection. "If you must do that, at least take it outside."

Rebecca gasped and gratefully took a cup of water Jocko thrust into her hand. She rinsed her mouth, spitting into a bucket near the door. "I am sorry." She took a tentative step toward Charlie. "How is he?" She wanted to cry but she knew now was not the time, now was the time to be strong.

Elizabeth continued to focus on the wound she was cleaning. "To be honest, I am not sure why he is still alive, but he is, and as long as he continues to fight, we have a chance to save him. I just have not yet found the source of the continued infection. So I keep looking." She glanced up for a moment, and then barked an order. "Jocko, get someone to clean that mess up, please."

Rebecca took another step forward. Elizabeth's appearance frightened her almost as much as Charlie's. Charlie's wounds and injuries were physical; Elizabeth's were clearly emotional. "Can...can...I hold his hand?"

Elizabeth sighed deeply. "Rebecca, if there is anything you can do to give him strength, please do. I am sorry I snapped at you. It is just that I am so tired and have tried so hard. I swear I do not know what else to do. I just cannot seem to beat this infection."

Rebecca found a crate and sat down on Charlie’s other side . She took his hand. With her other hand she gently ran her fingers through his hair. "I am here, my love." She leaned over and gently kissed his fevered brow. Then she looked at Elizabeth. "If it is not too presumptuous of me, I would like to make a suggestion."

"I will take any suggestion you have. Jocko came up with washing the wounds with boiled brine. It has helped some."

"I know it may not make much sense, but when I was growing up, my mother always used honey to draw out infections. I never knew her to use anything else."

Elizabeth frowned and looked at Charlie’s wound. Somehow she knew there still had to be something from the shell left in the wound that was causing this continued infection. But finding some small shard in that mess of chopped meat was almost impossible. Anything that would tend to draw it out would help. "Would you alternate it with the brine washes?"

"Yes, honey applied to warm soaked cloths, left just long enough to draw the infection to the top, then cleansed with the salt solution or possibly alcohol."

"Or perhaps a hot honey compress? Left on for say half an hour at a time? Then cleaned with a warm brine wash to flush out anything the honey drew? We would need heat to melt the honey, I would think."

"Yes, that is how it is done, for the most part. My mother used this cure on every living thing on our farm at one time or another."

Jocko spoke up. "Yes, damn me, me mother used honey for every scratch and scrape we had as children. Seemed to work too. I am just sorry I di’ not remember it."

Elizabeth looked directly into Rebecca’s eyes. "Do you think you could stand to help with it? Charlie is in a pretty bad way, and these are ugly wounds. The stench of the infection is nauseating. It would be very hard, and I do not want to ask you to do anything you do not feel comfortable with."

"Elizabeth, I will do whatever you or Charlie need. I did not come here to say goodbye. I came here to take him home."

"Good. Come over and sit beside me. I will show you how to clean and dress each of his wounds."

Rebecca nodded, then pushed up the sleeves of her dress as she moved next to Elizabeth. She took a deep breath, clenched her jaw and vowed not to vomit again. She also commanded herself not to cry at the sight of Charlie's wounds. Mrs. Redmond was resolute. She was going to save Charlie's life.

Elizabeth was working on Charlie’s hip and thigh. From halfway between his knee and hip up almost to his waist, his right side was raw. He was missing a chunk about the size of Rebecca’s hand of the heavy muscle in his thigh. At least the lower part of the wound was clean and showing signs of beginning to heal. A large chunk of his buttock was also gone, but this site was angry, inflamed and infected. There were several pocket of pus; the wound was oozing and stank of infection. Elizabeth carefully opened the pockets of puss with the tip of a small scalpel, drained the infection, and rinsed the area with warm brine. "When I finish, you can make a honey compress for it, if you would."

"Of course." She looked to Jocko. "Can you please go find some honey? I believe Charlie may have had some in his personal things. It will be in a black clay jar. Lizbet sent it with him, along with a few other comforts from home."

"Yes, ma’am. I know what you are speaking of. But, I think that we have some in the mess. I can save your special honey for his tea when he can have some. I will be right back with it, and with more boiling water."

"Thank you." Rebecca then set to finding clean cloths that could be used to make the warm honey poultice. She glanced back to watch Elizabeth open yet another pocket of infection which ran red and yellow with pus. She saw Elizabeth clench her jaw as she took a small cloth and dabbed out the mess that was so significant it was running freely onto the sheets.

She found a package of boiled lint in the surgical tray. Sure that she would have what she needed, she turned back to Elizabeth. "Let me finish. You look exhausted."

"Thank you. I appreciate it. You need to learn how to do this if you are to care for him."

"Just tell me what to do." She took the seat Elizabeth vacated and picked up the scalpel. "I am ready."

"Look for the places that look shiny and rounded. The shine is from the flesh being drawn tight from the infection underneath. Make a small incision, perhaps a finger’s width long, and let it drain. If you can, press on either side of the lump to push out any additional puss." Elizabeth looked at Rebecca, who had paled noticeably. "It does not hurt as much as you might think, and it feels much better afterwards. The pressure and heat of the infection is terribly painful."

Rebecca nodded, wondering briefly if she could actually do this. Then she remembered she had helped her father do similar things to injured horses, and if she could do it for an animal, she could certainly do it for someone she loved. She steadied her hand and made the first cut, being very careful to do exactly what Elizabeth had told her. "Like this?"

"Good, but you need to cut a little deeper –– you will actually feel your knife break through to the infection. It is considerably less dense than the muscle tissue."

"All right." She tried again, making the cut a little deeper and a little longer. When she did, the cyst broke open covering her fingers in sticky yellow fluid.

"That is exactly right. You go ahead, I will just watch to make sure you get everything."

Carefully, Rebecca dabbed at the wound, cleaning it out and applying pressure to force out more of the infection. Very soon she was so involved in her job that everything else, including the foul smell, seemed to fade from her consciousness.

Jocko returned more quickly than she expected, or perhaps time had passed more quickly than she noticed.

"I have plenty of good, fresh honey, Miss Rebecca. No sugar crystals in it at all, and it has been strained to get any comb out. And I brought a small a pot of boiled water, too, to make the compresses. My mother used to pour about a cup of honey into about two cups of hot water, then soak the lint in it to make a compress. Do you want me to prepare it?"

"Yes please." She answered without looking up from the next area that she was working on. As she made another cut, she felt the blade catch on something. "Elizabeth, I think there is something here. Can you give me more light?"

Elizabeth reached into her surgical kit and pulled out a small mirror, which she used to focus a beam of light on the small incision that Rebecca had made. Tersely, she commanded, "Expand the incision." She pulled a pair of forceps out and used them to spread the incision. There was a small sliver of something the color of the red clay mud; it was almost the color of the flesh around it. With a pair of tweezers, she carefully pulled it out of the flesh in which it was embedded. It was a long sliver of half rotten wood.

"Oh, God. How could I have missed this?"

"Elizabeth, look at it. It is the same color as everything else. I would not have seen it. I only found it because the scalpel touched it while I was cutting."

"So do you think that each one of these pockets of infection may be hiding a bit of debris?"

Rebecca chuckled. "Me? You are the doctor."

Elizabeth smiled, possibly for the first time in over a week. "Right now, I am feeling more like the fumbling fool than the doctor. Let us finish cleaning up his wounds, get him a bit more stabilized, then do some serious probing."

"All right. Whatever you think it best."

R
ebecca sat next to the bed, holding Charlie's good hand and praying. She placed a cool cloth on his forehead, hoping to help bring down the fever that still gripped his body. She, Elizabeth and Jocko had spent two and a half hours flushing the wound and taking turns pulling out small pieces of wood, that had embedded themselves deeply into his flesh.

She leaned over and kissed his cheek. "I love you, Charlie. You need to get better and come home. Your daughter misses you and there are two baby boys who want to meet their Papa. Please, Charlie."

A soft moan came from the recumbent form, and Charlie’s good hand twitched, as if reaching for something.

"I am here darling." Rebecca's voice was hopeful as she leaned closer to his cheek, giving it a kiss. "I am right here."

Charlie’s eyelids fluttered open. He looked at her, blank and unrecognizing for a moment, then murmured, "‘Becca?"

"Yes, my love." She kissed his cheek again and brushed her fingers through his hair.

"Dream of you. Always you." He smiled and relaxed some.

"And I of you. We are together now, Charlie, and I will not leave here without you."

He tossed his head and shifted in the bed, trying to get a little more comfortable. "Hurts. So much. Please make it stop."

"I know it hurts my love, we are doing everything we can. We are going to make you better. I promise."

He stirred again, clenching her hand convulsively. She almost cried when she felt how weak his grip was. "Say goodbye for me."

"No one to say goodbye to, my love. You are going to be just fine and I am going to take you home to our farm and our babies."