Fire by Night (27 page)

The scene on shore was one of utter chaos, and no one seemed to be in charge. The ground near the landing was covered with blue-uniformed men, thousands and thousands of them, lying beneath the blazing June sun. She saw a line of flatcars with white awnings parked on a side rail and realized that the train bore a cargo of still more wounded men, packed together like freight. Above the squeal of gulls and the noise of the ship’s engines came the strange sound she’d heard from a distance, louder now—a heartrending chorus of moans and cries, the sound of grown men weeping, begging for help, for mercy. The sound sent shivers through her. None of the wounded men were receiving help of any kind as they waited for the hospital ships.

“Dear Lord, have mercy on them,” the sister standing at the rail beside Julia said. “The Battle of Fair Oaks was four days ago. Those poor souls have been lying here all this time, waiting for help.”

Julia was so horrified by the sheer number of wounded men that she couldn’t reply. Nor could she move. The paddlewheel had ceased to churn, and sailors had lowered the gangway into place so the passengers could disembark, but she couldn’t imagine stepping off the ship and into the nightmare on shore.

“Well, then,” the nun said with a sigh, “I guess it’s time we went to work.” She took Julia’s arm as if they were old friends and propelled her forward down the gangway, following the other nuns and nurses.

Julia stepped into the tide of wounded men as if wading into icy water. The soldiers’ cries rose to a clamor as they saw help arriving at last. Some reached out to the women, hanging on to the hems of their skirts, begging for help, crying out with pain and thirst. Dr. McGrath had been right—this was not at all like treating measles. Julia didn’t know where to begin. The other volunteer nurses looked equally overwhelmed.

Julia looked down at the soldier nearest her feet. His muddy clothes were stiff with blood from a gaping stomach wound that had never been treated. Flies buzzed all around him. His eyes stared sightlessly into the sky. She quickly turned away from the gruesome sight and saw that the soldier on the other side of her was in his death throes, his final gasping breaths rattling in his throat. All around her she saw men with pallid faces, streaked with blood and mud, men with shattered arms and legs.

Julia’s entire body began to tremble as she went into shock. She had wanted to offer comfort as she had with Ellis Miller, but this scene was beyond comprehension. How could she comfort three thousand men? She didn’t know enough words, didn’t possess enough strength to face such enormous need. She turned her back on the suffering men, just as she had at Bull Run, and ran toward the ship. Nothing had changed. She hadn’t changed.

She didn’t stop running until she was back on the steamer’s deck, gulping huge breaths of tainted air, trying desperately not to be sick. Her arms and legs felt shaky and out of control. The world seemed to be spinning dizzily.

Just when she feared she would faint, one of the Sisters of Charity grabbed Julia and forced her to sit down on a deck chair, then shoved her head down between her knees. “Keep your head down until the dizziness passes,” she commanded.

“I made a terrible mistake,” Julia said, weeping. Her skirt muffled her voice. “I never should have come here.”

“That is undoubtedly true. But listen to me. Those poor souls need help, and there’s no time to go back to Washington and find another nurse to replace you. You have no choice but to do it.”

“I can’t! It’s too horrible to look at …to listen to.” She covered her ears to try to block out the pitiful cries, but there was no remedy for the terrible smell. “I can’t do this. I can’t!”

“None of us can do this on our own. But our Heavenly Father can give us the strength and courage to face hell itself if we ask Him to—and that’s what this place is.”

“I don’t know how to …I’ve never seen such…”

“Of course you haven’t. Do you think there is anything in my life at the convent in Maryland that prepared me for this? It’s horrifying to witness such suffering. But I’ve been praying for God’s strength all the way here. And now I’m praying that those men will see compassion in my eyes, not horror. On my own, I could never cope with this for one moment. But I know that God has called me to be here. Has He called you?”

Julia remembered God’s benediction the night Ellis died, the conviction she’d had that He wanted her to serve in His name. “Yes …I once believed that He did, but I…”

“Good. Then you can do this. Like the Apostle Paul, we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.”

The nun was right. That was how Julia had gotten through the night with Ellis. She had asked God for help, and He’d given it to her. Only her foolish pride had led her to believe she could cope with this on her own. It galled her to realize that Dr. McGrath had known her better than she knew herself.

“I’m Sister Irene,” the nun said. “What’s your name?”

“Julia Hoffman.”

“Do you know Jesus Christ, Julia? Do you know how to pray?”

“Yes, Sister. I-I do.”

“Good. Now lift your head. Stand up, slowly. Start praying for strength, and don’t stop until this is over. Don’t look at how many thousands of them there are. Look at each man as a single suffering 188 soul. Help him. Then help the next one and the next. One at a time.”

“I don’t know what to say to them.”

“A good many of these men are going to die. They don’t need to hear beautiful words. They need to see Jesus Christ in you, giving them a cup of cold water in His name, offering His love and compassion.”

The nun circled her arm around Julia’s waist and led her down the gangway again and onto the shore. “Remember the words of Isaiah: ‘They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength …they shall walk, and not faint.”’

“Thank you,” Julia whispered shakily.

She looked around at the horrific scene again, wondering where to begin. One of the Sanitary Commission’s doctors had taken charge, dividing up all the work that needed to be done, issuing orders. He frowned as he looked at Julia’s face, which she knew must be deathly pale.

“Fill a bucket with water,” he told her. “There’s a pump outside the train station. These men need something to drink in this hot sun.”

The contrabands were already busy unloading crates of medical supplies, food, and empty buckets from the hospital ship’s holds. Julia took a dipper and one of the buckets and made her way through the sea of uniformed bodies to the pump. She recited the Lord’s Prayer beneath her breath as she walked, trying not to look at the mangled bodies, trying not to gag at the wretched smell of death that surrounded her. A Negro woman standing outside the depot helped her pump water.

Oh, God, help me. Please,
she prayed as she lifted the sloshing pail to begin her work.

The first man she came upon had a bloody bandage around his thigh where his leg ended. Sweat poured down his face, his lips were parched, his eyes dazed with pain. She gently lifted his head and gave him a drink of water from the dipper.

“Thank you. Oh, thank you,” he murmured. “God bless you.”

She continued on to the next man, trying to keep to a pattern so no one would be overlooked, but the men lay everywhere, scattered across the ground. Many of them were already dead, their corpses bloating beneath the hot sun. There was not enough manpower to help the living, much less remove all the dead soldiers and bury them.

She knelt again and again, returning to the pump whenever her bucket ran dry. As she toted the heavy load back and forth, she was grateful for the practice she’d had carrying water for the laundry. All the while, Julia continued her desperate plea for strength and for the courage not to faint. Her own mouth felt as dry as sand.

“I-I think I’m dying,” one boy whispered as she lifted his head. “I don’t want to die. … ”

“Don’t give up,” she urged. “Hang on. Help is here.”

Eventually Julia came upon the doctor who had taken charge. He was kneeling on the ground beside one of the untreated soldiers, but he looked up when he saw Julia. “Nurse? Do you have a minute?”

She edged toward him. He had his medical kit open, a surgical probe in his hand, and she prayed that he wouldn’t ask her to assist him in treating wounds.

“These men haven’t eaten in days,” he said, bending over the soldier. “Tell the women to mix up some cornmeal gruel. Add wine or any other stimulants you can find to it. We need to start giving food as well as water.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

Julia had never cooked gruel, or anything else, but she did that day. She and the other nurses worked without stopping until it was too dark to see. On one of Julia’s trips back to the ship for more food, Sister Irene stopped her and made her sit down and eat some bacon and a piece of hardtack. It was Julia’s first taste of the soldiers’ usual rations, and she was certain all her teeth would break off as she tried to eat the rocklike cracker. Afterward, she continued her work by candlelight until the wax burned away to a stub. Her legs were so weary from crouching beside the men all day that she could barely stand. At last she staggered back to her cabin on board the ship for a few hours of rest.

At dawn she was up with the sun, feeding the men their breakfast. The Sanitary Commission had finally rounded up a Negro work crew to serve as stretcher-bearers, and they began carrying the wounded on board the ships. With little direction and no organization, the workers haphazardly dumped their pitiful cargo wherever they could find space—in the cabins, on all the decks, in the passageways, and even on the stairs. Soldiers screamed in pain as their stretchers bumped against the walls or someone tripped over one of them on the overcrowded deck. By late afternoon, every square inch of the
Potomac Queen
was packed with suffering men, some lying on mattresses, most on beds of straw. The hospital ship was supposed to carry two hundred and fifty men, but many more than that were eventually crammed on board.

Julia now made her way among the wounded with warm water and soap, washing the accumulated mud and sweat and blood from their faces and hands. She offered a few words of kindness and hope along with food or a blanket or a sip of brandy to ease their pain. Their murmurs of gratitude brought tears to her eyes. Malaria and dysentery had already weakened many of the soldiers who’d camped in the swampy lowlands before they’d been wounded. Some were near death and knew it. To them, she offered prayers and urged faith in the promises of Christ.

Julia felt gritty with dust and sweat, the skirt of her dress muddy and bloodstained. Her hair had been pinned and repinned carelessly without the benefit of a mirror. But she kept on working, praying constantly for strength, offering whatever assistance she could for as long as her own strength held out. Volunteers from the Christian Commission were on their way, she was told. They would help with the overwhelming work that still needed to be done.

Late in the afternoon of the second day, Julia was kneeling on the deck, trying to spoon water into a feverish soldier’s mouth, when she heard someone call her name.

“Miss Hoffman? Julia Hoffman?”

She looked up, astonished to see Reverend Nathaniel Greene standing over her. His handsome freckled face looked dusty and weary; his fair hair shone golden in the sun. The sight of him brought tears to her eyes.

“It is you,” he said as he crouched beside her. “I can’t believe my eyes. I never expected to see you here.”

“It’s good to see you, too,” she managed to say.

“I heard you were in Washington City, working at an army hospital. I must say I’m rather surprised to see …How did you come to be here?”

“I read in the newspaper that the Sanitary Commission needed volunteer nurses for their evacuation ships. I wanted to help.”

He looked around at the overcrowded deck, then gestured to the hundreds of men still waiting on shore. “I’m certain this is beyond what you ever imagined you would see. It must be very hard for you to cope with such suffering. I know it is for me.” His eyes met hers again, and she saw his concern, not only for the wounded men, but also for her welfare. She couldn’t believe it.

“I acted disgracefully at Bull Run, Reverend, and I’ve been so sorry ever since—”

“You don’t need to apologize, Miss Hoffman.”

“Please, won’t you call me Julia?” She hoped that no one, including the half-conscious soldier she was tending, had noticed that Nathaniel had addressed her as “Miss.”

“You needn’t apologize for Bull Run, Julia. We were all so ill prepared that day. But now …it appears you have more than made up for it.”

His voice had grown very soft. He continued to stare at Julia as if he couldn’t tear his eyes away. She wondered, at first, if it might be because she was barely recognizable in her dirty, disheveled condition. But as he continued to stare, Julia was amazed to see that his gaze was one of admiration.

“I’ve just arrived,” he finally said. “Tell me how I can help. What can I do?”

“You can help us feed everyone. And I know that many of the men would appreciate any comfort or prayers you might offer, Reverend.” “You don’t need to call me that.” He ran his fingers around the neck of his clerical collar self-consciously. “It’s Nathaniel. And if you’ll tell me where I can find the food, I’ll gladly help.”