Crossing the Deadline (20 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

April 27, 1865, 10:20 a.m.

I hear voices around me long before my eyes open. Commands are being issued by many people. The words make sense, but I can't respond. My lips won't move, and my eyes won't open.

“Keep rubbing him, he's almost awake,” a female voice says. My body rolls one way on a hard surface and then the other, like a pin rolling pie dough. Hands and fingers rub my legs, arms, neck, and shoulders.

“Be careful of his left thigh,” a woman says. “He has a nasty wound there.”

Finally, my right eye pops open a little. A woman stands near my head.

Black fabric flows from the top of her head over her shoulders. Her entire body is covered in black except for
white linen hiding her forehead, ears, and neck. A wide collar rests on her chest. I glimpse a chain of wooden beads hanging from her waist with a cross attached to the end.

She sees my eye open and smiles. “Try to drink this,” she says softly. She cups the back of my head with one hand and lifts. In her other hand, she holds a tin cup.

I choke on the substance and try to spit it out. “What is it?”

“Well, it's not springwater, I can assure you that,” she laughs in a quiet voice. “It's whisky, young man. Now, to be perfectly honest, I normally wouldn't provide whisky to anybody, especially somebody of your age. But, if the Saints allow, under these circumstances, I think it will do you best.”

“Who are you?”

“We,” she says acknowledging others around us, “are Sisters of Mercy.”

A stinging on my leg makes me wince. “Sister Angelina is washing the wound on your thigh. You have a nasty gash there,” she says. Her voice is calm.

“We rolled and rubbed you for ten minutes to get your blood circulating and get you awake.”

My other eye finally opens on its own. “Where are we?”

“Cabin room on the
Bostonia,
” she answers. “There are
five hospitals in Memphis. We'll have you in one of them in just a little while. Here, a drink will do you good.”

A gruff voice barks from somewhere outside the cabin, “Bring that skiff in right here.”

“More survivors coming in,” she whispers to me with a brief smile. She sounds as calm as if we're playing cards around a campfire. “The
Belle of Memphis
passed us with over one hundred men earlier this morning,” she adds. “Every rescue is a blessing.”

“Earlier?” I ask.

“Yes, sometime around nine a.m., I'd say. They were headed to Memphis to unload.”

“What time is it now?”

“Nearing ten thirty. Take another drink,” she insists.

“My neck is stinging.”

“They told us you were plucked from a tree like an apple. Your neck, face, and arms are covered in welts from buffalo gnats and mosquitoes. Insects are so thick this time of spring, you're lucky they didn't fly off with you.”

I raise my right arm and see it's covered in bumps. The welts on my neck and face tingle.

The same gruff voice from outside yells, “We counted twenty-three on top of that stable across the river. It'll take
several trips to bring 'em all in. Except for bugbites, they look like they're in good shape.”

Another voice answers, “Most all the cabins are full. Bring the live ones portside. If you pick up any bodies along the way, store them in the hold.”

The sister places the cup of whisky on my lips. “Take the last little bit,” she tells me.

The strong smell reminds me of Big Tennessee staggering onto the
Sultana
last night. “Where's Big Tennessee?” I ask the sister.

“Yes, you're in Tennessee,” she says. “Memphis, Tennessee.”

“No, there's a tall guy who goes by the name of Big Tennessee,” I explain. “Where is he?”

“Haven't got a clue, but he's not here. Don't worry about him for now. You need only to worry about yourself,” she says. “We'll get you into town soon. They'll have a better look at your leg there. If it's infected, they'll treat it, and you'll be up and about in no time.”

Most of the whisky is gone before I feel any of its effects.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

April 27, 1865, 10:35 a.m.

The
Bostonia
jolts as it docks in Memphis. I shift to my elbows and try to stand. I can't. I'm groggy and have no energy. “It's okay,” a Sister of Mercy says, patting my shoulder. “Don't move. Let us do all the work.”

The cabin door opens, and a man sticks his head into the room. “Keep these men in here. It will be a while before we get to them. We have to get the severely injured off first.”

Sister Angelina smiles and says the wound doesn't look too bad to her. “I washed it out and put a bit of whisky on it. It's wrapped up now, and the doctors will have a closer look later.”

A half hour passes, and two Negro men in Union blues bring a stretcher into the room and place it on the floor next to me. One man stands at my head and the other at my feet.

“Careful,” a sister says. “Grab the edges of the sheet he's on, not his hands and feet,” she commands.

One of the men counts down, “Three . . . two. . . one . . .” They lift in unison and hoist me from the floor onto the stretcher.

As we leave, I grab the doorframe. “Wait.” I look back toward the lady who helped me the most. “I almost forgot to say thank you, sister. If it's not being too forward, what is your name?”

“Mary,” she says quietly.

“Mary? That's my mother's name. Thank you, sister.”

“You're very welcome, young man.”

Ambulances take survivors two by two along a cobblestone road. The man with me is bloated to the point that his cheeks almost touch his eyebrows. He peers through thin slits. The ambulance driver says that the Gayoso House on Front Street, with its close proximity to the river, received injuries first. Minutes later, a metal sign tells me we've arrived at our destination. Six tall marble columns support a portico bustling with people rushing in and out of a four-story building.

Doctors are deciding which hospital will care for each patient. The grounds in the front of the Gayoso are nearly concealed with stretchers.

“It's a grand hotel,” one of the men carrying me says. “Two hundred fifty rooms. Union generals been stayin' here since the capture of Memphis back in ‘62. Forrest rode his horse plum through the lobby one day searching for General Hurlburt. Can you imagine a horse in a hotel lobby?” He laughs.

“I met General Forrest in Alabama,” I say.

“It wasn't the general who rode the horse here. It was Captain William Forrest, the general's brother.” He points to the middle of three arched doorways. “He rode his horse right through that middle door right there.”

“Did he get General Hurlburt?”

“Nah, Hurlburt left just hours before.”

* * *

Three doctors walk down the line of stretchers, assessing the hurt. One of them points to the bloated man beside me. “Put this one on the first floor, here in the Gayoso,” he orders. He then comes over to me, raises the sheet to look at my thigh. “This one has a thigh wound. He goes to the tents out back. He's not that bad.”

A young boy with long blond locks trailing his head like
a flag in the wind runs up to the doctor. He pauses and plants a hand on each knee while he catches his breath. “Sir, Washington Hospital is nearly full. They have a hundred thirty patients and can't take any more.”

“Well, we're expecting more!” the doctor shouts at the messenger. “The ships are still bringing 'em in, and they have to go somewhere.”

The boy takes two long breaths. “Washington sent me to tell you not to send any more patients their way. Adams and Overton have a few rooms left.”

The doctor dismisses the boy with a wave of his hand as if to say, “I don't have time for this nonsense, and I'll send them where I see fit.”

I'm taken behind the Gayoso and placed in a well-manicured courtyard with other survivors. A Union nurse arrives shortly and says the bandage looks better than what he could do himself. He reassigns me to Overton Hospital and places me on a ward with a long row of beds lining each wall. There are too many patients to count them all. Nurses, Sisters of Mercy, and orderlies race down the center of the room, carrying bandages, pails of steaming water, and scissors.

A tall man standing straight as a ramrod introduces
himself as the chief surgeon. “Let's take a look at your wound,” he says, bending at the waist. He gingerly unwraps the bandages from around my leg.

“You're not going to amputate,” I plead.

“Doubt it. There's not much blood on the bandages, so that's a good sign.” After the bandage is removed, he nods repeatedly. “This one's fine,” he says to a nurse standing behind him. “We'll rewrap his leg this evening.”

All around, patients call for help to deal with their pain. Nurses rush to their sides to see how bad of a shape they're in. If needed, they leave and return a short time later with aid. Some men are able to move, sit up, or talk. The man next to me doesn't move at all.

“He's in a coma,” one nurse tells another. “I don't know if it's from exhaustion, being in the cold water too long, or a combination.”

I'm glad to be left alone for most of the night. Occasionally a visitor stops to see if there's anything they can do to aid my comfort. After a breakfast of boiled eggs, corn bread, and stew, soldiers come around and hand out clean new uniforms. Few of us are well enough to get dressed. “Can we leave them for you so you'll have them when you're feeling better?” the soldiers ask.

I touch the fabric and rub it between my fingers and thumb. I pull a jacket sleeve to my nose, inhale deeply, and cry soft enough so nobody will hear. This is the uniform Robert and I fought in to save our Union. It smells clean, fresh, and new and makes me feel reborn.

Hours later, a chill wakes me from a deep slumber. My bed's soaked with sweat and my body aches, so I call for a doctor.

“It's a fever from your leg wound,” a doctor says, nodding. He seems to have been expecting my complaint to come sooner or later.

“My leg is throbbing.”

“Let's take those bandages off. We'll leave the thigh exposed so the air can carry the infection away. We'll see if that helps.” The directive is given, and a nurse removes the bandages.

* * *

Sister Mary and Sister Angelina come by to check on my progress early the next morning. “Hello, young man,” they say in unison. “We're making our rounds. We heard you'd taken a slight turn for the worse,” Sister Mary says. “Did you sleep at all last night?”

“Every time I tried to move, the pain wouldn't allow it.”

Sister Angelina fetches a wash basin and wipes my head, face, and neck. “This should make you feel a bit better.”

A slight moan rises from the silent fellow in the bed next to me. Sister Angelina scurries to his bedside chair. She reaches down and cradles his left hand in hers. “Yes, dear,” she says. “Are you okay?”

“He hasn't said anything since I've been here,” I say. “Somebody said he's in a coma.”

The man moans again. “What is it, dear?” Sister Angelina asks. “He's coming to, I think.”

The man lifts himself with one arm but faces away from me. “Where are we?” he asks in a voice barely above a whisper. I hear his voice only because it's early, before the bustle of morning activities.

“You're at the Overton Hospital,” Sister Angelina whispers, “in Memphis.”

“Why?”

“An accident,” she explains.

“Accident?”

“On the river.”

He pulls his hand out from hers and points to the row of cots stretching to the far end of the room. “Who are they?”

“Injured from the
Sultana
,” she says. “Do you remember?”

He falls back on the bed. “When it exploded,” he says.

“That's right,” Sister Angelina says. “Shhhhhh.” She motions for Sister Mary to get a doctor.

“I remember the cold water,” he says.

“Just rest. A doctor will be here soon.”

“I sat in freezing water for a week.”

Sister Angelina laughs politely. “It may have seemed like a week, but thank heavens you were in the river for a couple hours,” she tells him. “If you were in the water that long, you'd be dead.”

“In prison,” he insists. “I begged the guards to let us leave. We sat in freezing water for a week.”

Sister Angelina turns to me. “He's delirious.”

“No, he's not,” I say. “Caleb?”

He turn his head to face me. “Yeah,” he says.

“It's Gaston here, Stephen Gaston. You made it out of the Mississippi River, pard.”

“That shutter saved my life.” Caleb lowers his head back on this pillow for a couple seconds. “Guess what, Gaston.”

“What?” I answer.

“After a week in the Alabama and Mississippi Rivers, I still can't swim.”

And I know that Caleb's going to be just fine.