Lost Cause (11 page)

The hospital remained busy throughout the
remainder of Jack’s stay in Corpus Christi. Some days were still
quite hot and Jack continued to soak up as much sun as possible,
whether it be on a bench outside the hospital, or on a long walk
with Marie or simply sitting by the window reading the
newspaper.

In Mississippi, Vicksburg was in serious
danger of falling to the Union Forces. Sherman was continuing his
march to the sea and the Army of Northern Virginia was bogged down
south of the Mason Dixon line hampered by a lack of supplies and
dwindling manpower. It was not looking at all good for the
Confederacy.

Marie was working the surgical ward and Jack
was bored and missing her warm smile and tender touch, so he walked
down the stairs and lingered by the door to the surgery until she
came out for a break and then spirited her off to the quiet of the
lobby for a chat. They sat in separate chairs with a table between
them and spoke softly so as not to disturb the nurse behind the
counter. There was a full moon that night but a mist hung over the
town and as they spoke a gentle rain began to wet the cobblestone
and brick surface of the street in front of the hospital.

“Listen, it’s raining outside,” Marie
said.”

“Makes you want to crawl into bed, doesn’t
it?” Jack said.

“You’re naughty, Jack. Can’t you think about
anything else?”

“I love you, I want to be with you.”

“You’re with me right now.

“You know what I mean.”

“About that. . .”

“What?”

“I’m late.”

Jack glanced at a clock in the corner and
said, “You have ten more minutes before your break is over.”

“I mean my time of the month is late.”

“Oh. How late?”

“Just a week. But I’ve always been regular.
I’m worried.”

“Maybe it’s just. . .uh, maybe. . .”

“There’s a good chance that I’m pregnant,
Jack. You need to start thinking about things. They’re sending you
back soon. I don’t know if I can go with you right away. Not unless
I quit the Nurses Corp and I signed a contract, so I might have to
stay here and honor the agreement. What am I going to do if I am
pregnant, Jack? What are we going to do? I’m so afraid.”

“What are you afraid of?”

“Of being an unwed mother. Of the shame. Of
maybe losing you to the war, or just losing you when you go back.
I’ll probably never hear from you again.”

“Don’t talk crazy.”

“I’m not!” The desk nurse looked up with a
frown and Marie lowered her voice.

“I just need to know that you’ll stand with
me,” she said.

“Of course I will. But we need to slow down.
You might not be with child after all. Don’t these things take
time?”

“Yes Jack, exactly one second. That’s how
long it takes to fertilize an egg. I do have medical training, you
know.”

“But why are you so afraid?”

“I’m afraid because sometimes I dream and I
see you dead and I see me kneeling beside your body wanting to die
too.”

“Nobody can control their dreams, Marie.
They’re just dreams. You don’t need to be afraid of them.”

“I love you, Jack,” she said her chin
trembling.

It was then that Jack realized that his life
had just taken a turn he did not see coming. And he wasn’t sure
what he was going to do about it.

Chapter 18

In an effort to coax Marie from her dark mood
Jack hired a carriage and they drove across town toward the sea
port on the Gulf of Mexico. They could look across the plain beyond
the town and see ranch houses and rich green gardens ripe with
Indian corn and squash and pumpkins and fields of winter wheat
waving like banners in the tentative breeze. There was a group of
Calvary soldiers moving along the wharf walking their horses single
file heading for a troop transport barge moored to the pier. Jack
instructed the carriage driver to stop by the water for a while and
they sat and watched the ships and boats coming and going on the
clear blue waters of the gulf.

“You’ll be on one of those soon,” Marie said
sadly.

“Not me, I going by train. When I go that is.
I’m in no hurry.”

“But you’re healed Jack There’s no reason for
you to be in the hospital any longer.”

“Sure there is.”

“And what would that be?”

“You, my dear, you.”

The carriage moved along and the sky grew
dark and Jack knew more rain was on the way, so he offered Marie
his coat and put his arm around her shoulder. They headed back to
the hospital a little melancholy and reticent, each thinking of the
impending separation they both knew was soon coming.

When they returned to the hospital the Union
sympathizer barber was there to shave the wounded men and Jack
asked if he would shave him. He said no and suggested Jack do
something repugnant with his hat that involved dropping his
trousers and bending over. Jack wished him a blessed day and after
a curt nod of goodbye to Marie Hayes went up to the ward and took a
seat by a window.

In the street below an old man was whittling
wooden dolls out of Pecan wood and hanging them on a wire rope to
dance in the portly breeze like marionettes. A pair of young girls
accompanied by their mother pointed and giggled at the dolls and
squealed with delight when their mother purchased a doll each for
them. Jack began to wonder what it would feel like to be a father
and he found he wasn’t particularly fond of the notion. He hoped
Marie was wrong about being pregnant, though he would sooner die
than tell her how he felt.

An orderly came in the ward and presented
Jack with a thick envelope with an official military heading. He
knew what it was, but he opened it anyway and held it up to the
window where he could better see the type informing him that he
would depart for Brownsville in two days time. The envelope also
contained a form from the doctor pronouncing him to be hail and
hearty and a letter from the priest back in Brownsville wishing him
good health and God’s speed on his return trip. He put the papers
in his pocket and wished he had a stout drink of rum; maybe two
stout drinks.

Having no rum and no way to acquire any, he
sat in bed reading old newspapers until it got too dark to see. The
papers were poorly written and filled with local stories and stale
articles and the war news especially was progressively depressing.
Though numerous in page, content, and editorial conjecture, the
papers were next to impossible to read with any real degree of
interest.

Marie wasn’t due to come on duty until eleven
o’clock but Jack heard her walking along the hallway an hour before
she started her shift and when she finally arrived on the ward he
asked her where she’d been.

“Working. There’s a lot to do.”

“I see. Thought there for a minute you were
avoiding me.”

“That’s silly.”

Some of the other men were looking at them
pretending not to listen. “Meet me in the closet in an hour,” Jack
whispered.

He told her about the documents and she began
to cry and he took her in his arms and she pulled away and said,
“What am I supposed to do?”

“You’ll follow me. When you can.”

“No.”

“But why?”

“I want to stay here until. . .”

“Until what?”

“Until I decide something about the
baby.”

“What do you mean decide? If you are
pregnant, then of course you’ll have the baby.” She was silent, her
eyes unreadable in the anemic light inside the closet.

“Marie?”

“Look, I asked you once before not to rush
me,” she finally said. “I need time to think, Jack.”

“How will you decide something like
that?”

“I don’t know. But I will. Life isn’t that
hard to manage when you don’t have many choices.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. I was only thinking how small
things can suddenly become so big. Life is supposed to be hard when
you do bad things. But I don’t understand why something as natural
as two people loving each other has to turn out bad. What can be so
bad about love?”

“I won’t be in the Army forever, Marie.”

“It doesn’t matter. You’ll be in there until
the war is over. Or until you’re killed. Either way I’ll be alone
with this child in my womb.”

“How can you be so sure you’re pregnant?”

“A woman knows.”

“So, what are you going to do?”

“I like the way you say, what are you going
to do?” she said sarcastically.

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“I know. But it doesn’t change anything.”

“Marie, I. . .I don’t know what to say.”

“There is nothing to say. Goodbye, Jack. I
love you.” She ran out of the closet before Jack could stop
her.

Later when Jack was struggling to sleep,
Marie approached Nurse Lisette and said she was ready to
proceed.

“Are you absolutely sure?” the nurse asked.
“Because there’s no going back once you’ve drank the treatment.”
Marie took a deep breath and nodded.

“I’m ready,” she said. “The sooner the
better.”

Chapter 19

It turned cooler over night and the next day
it was pouring rain. Up in his room the rain was coming down
outside and Jack was sitting by the window watching droplets of
rain wet the window glass much like the tears wetting his
cheeks.

He hadn’t slept well and the little breakfast
he’d picked over made him sick to his stomach and he got the
attention of the doctor who’d stopped by to check on the leg wound
across the ward.

“Sour stomach,” the doctor said. “Must have
eaten something bad.”

“Everything they serve here is bad, doc.”

“Just drink plenty of water, and stay away
from alcohol.”

He was sick the rest of the day and when
evening came he passed on the grits and gravy they were serving for
supper.

Nurse Brewster came in around seven p.m. and
stopped by Jack’s bed. “Heard you weren’t feeling well,” she
said.

“I’ll survive, I guess.”

“I figure you to be smart enough not to fake
an illness so you don’t have to go back to your regiment.”

“What do you mean?”

“You have travel orders, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it’s not uncommon for men to not want
to go back to where the fighting is. You wouldn’t be the first to
fake an illness.”

“So, you’ve faked an illness before, Nurse
Brewster?”

“No, but I have seen plenty of other people
do it.”

“Did these people seem to enjoy being
fakes?”

“I suppose it’s better than going back into
battle.”

“Well, the way I see it, I’d pick a much
worse affliction to fake other than a stomach ache,” Jack said
calmly.

“Such as?”

“Such as a terrible headache. Or maybe a
particularly grievous hernia in my gonads. Do you think you could
examine me for a hernia, Nurse Brewster?”

Jack figured she had two choices, leave the
room and report him to Mrs. Styles, or change the subject and go
about her assigned duties. It was no secret she had disliked him
since the day nurse Marie Hayes had appeared on the scene.

“It’s just that I’ve seen men fake injuries,
that’s all,” she said hurriedly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have
other patients to tend to.”

Nurse Brewster left the ward and Nurse
Lisette came in right behind her. “What did you do to her?” she
asked.

“Not a thing. We were discussing possible
maladies a man might incur and she suddenly lost interest in the
conversation.”

“Did you say something offensive?”

“No indeed. We used appropriate medical terms
the whole time.”

“You’re foolish to get on her bad side. She’s
tight with Mrs. Styles. And the hospital administrator is fond of
her as well. Why does she dislike you so much?”

“She thinks I’m faking an illness so I won’t
have to go back to Brownsville.”

“Are you?

“Would you like to take a peek in my chamber
pot?”

She didn’t.

“Look, Corporal Saylor, I—”

“Jack.”

“Uh, yes, Jack. Look, I heard you have to
leave for Brownsville tomorrow and I just wanted to say it’s been a
pleasure being your nurse for a time.”

“Why, Nurse Lisette, you’re apt to make me
weep.”

“You’ve already been weeping. I know about
you and Nurse Hayes. She talks to me sometimes when we have night
duty. Of course I keep the details of our conversations strictly
confidential.”

“How much as she told you?”

“Everything. But as I said, her secrets are
safe with me.” She grew very quiet and looked down at her hands. It
was clear to Jack that she wanted to say more, but as the moments
passed she appeared to be finished talking. She turned and moved
toward the door stopping only briefly to wave goodbye.

Corporal Campbell stirred on the bed next to
Jack’s and rose up on an elbow. “It’s not fair you going back
before me,” he said attempting to smile. It was a grotesque effort,
more a skewed grimace than anything resembling a smile.

“You’re the lucky one,” Jack said. “You get
to stay behind with all these pretty nurses and all that delicious
food they serve us. You didn’t by chance get the trots off of that
bacon this morning did you?”

“Don’t know, I’ve had the trots since the day
I got here. You make sure you say goodbye before you leave in the
morning. You hear me?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Jack said
smiling.

Chapter 20

Jack did say goodbye to Corporal Campbell
before he left for the train yard, as well as Nurse Lisette and
Mrs. Styles. Nurse Brewster made her self scarce barely coming
within twenty feet of the ward and Marie Hayes was nowhere to be
seen anywhere in the hospital.

Jack climbed up in the carriage that was to
take him to catch his train with a heavy heart and barely contained
tears. The driver dropped him off with his haversack and a small
cloth bag containing a powder to help settle his stomach and wished
him good luck. While he waited for the train to arrive Jack looked
at the people gathered on the platform waving goodbye to someone
they knew or loved or at the very least cared something about. He
was about to lose himself in a newspaper he found on a bench
outside the rail master’s office when he saw Marie Hayes walking
toward him. She was wearing a pale blue dress and a shawl made of
red macramé. She looked very small in the crowd and the redness of
her eyes indicated that she had been crying for some time.