Fire by Night (34 page)

“But I’m fine. … ”

“Rest, Mrs. Hoffman. That’s an order.”

It seemed wrong to rest with so much work to be done, but Julia knew that the head nurse was right. She remembered being so tired on board the ship that she’d collapsed on top of a wounded man.

Julia walked down the dusty road past the farmhouse, staying close to the side, out of the path of the rumbling ambulances. The nurses’ tents had been pitched in a field a short distance from the house.

Julia lifted the tent flap to duck inside, then stopped. A Union soldier lay asleep on her bed. At first she thought she must have gone to the wrong tent. But no, her comb and brush were beside the bed, her carpetbag and shawl lay nearby. Had the man crept in here by mistake?

She crawled inside for a closer look. The soldier was sound asleep. She saw by the fresh dressings that he had been badly wounded and that the surgeons had already operated. She went outside again and walked up the road to where the stretcher-bearers were loading the ambulances.

“I think someone has made a mistake,” she said. “There’s a wounded soldier in my tent.”

A burly, red-faced orderly stepped forward, mopping his brow with a bandanna. “No, ma’am. One of the doctors told us to put him in there.”

“But why? Do you remember which doctor it was?”

He chewed his cheek, thinking. “One of the contract surgeons, I think. He wasn’t wearing a uniform. And he had a reddish beard.”

James McGrath.

“He told you to put him in
my
tent?”

“Yes, ma’am. I don’t know why, but I remember that he asked for you by name. He said, ‘Mrs. Hoffman needs to take care of this one,’ and he told us to put him in your tent.”

She felt her anger boiling up like a kettle of water. “Where is the doctor now?”

“Up at the farmhouse.”

“Thank you.” Julia turned and began marching up the rise to the house.

“Mrs. Hoffman, wait,” the orderly called, hurrying after her. “You don’t want to go up there. The doctors are still operating.”

“I don’t care if Dr. McGrath is operating or napping or sunbathing in his union suit. He has no right to put a wounded soldier in my tent, and I intend to tell him so. This is just like him to play a nasty little trick to get rid of me. I’m very tired of his games.” She stormed up to the farmhouse in a temper.

As she entered the yard, she noticed an open window on the side of the house and below it a reddish heap, buzzing with flies. At first it didn’t register in Julia’s mind what she was seeing, but then the grisly pile slowly slid into focus. She recognized a human hand lying on top, palm up. Then a bloody foot.

Julia whirled around and ran, unheeding, in the opposite direction. She didn’t get far before she stumbled to her knees and was sick alongside the road. She knelt, too weak to stand, trembling with shock and anger. How could Dr. McGrath do that all day? How could he saw off parts of living, breathing people so callously and toss them out the window like that?

“Are you all right, ma’am?”

She turned at the sound of the orderly’s voice. “Yes. Thank you.” He helped her to her feet, and she wiped her mouth on her handkerchief, humiliated that he had seen her. He had tried to warn her. “I-I’ll still need to speak to Dr. McGrath,” she told him. “Will you please let me know when he’s finished?”

“Sure, ma’am.”

“I’ll be in my tent.”

She walked back, knees shaking, longing more than ever to lie down and rest in her tent for an hour. But the wounded soldier was still in her bed. She went inside and knelt beside him. He’d been wounded in the torso, which wasn’t good. Damage to a patient’s lungs and other internal organs usually meant a slow, certain death. He was already having trouble breathing. He was also filthy with crusted blood and dirt and leaves, but she didn’t want to wake him. She made sure his wound wasn’t bleeding, then went outside again and sat down on the ground. She drew her knees up to her chin, wrapped her arms around them, then lowered her head and closed her eyes.

“Mrs. Hoffman?”

Julia’s head jerked up. The orderly she’d spoken to earlier stood in front of her. The sun was gone and a star shone through the haze of smoke in the east. She hadn’t meant to sleep that long.

“I’m sorry, ma’am …I didn’t know you were asleep.”

“That’s all right. Did you need me for something?”

“That doctor you wanted to talk to is taking a break. You said to let you know.”

“Thank you.” Julia rose stiffly to her feet. She took a moment to stretch, to wipe the sleep from her eyes, and to comb her hair back with her hands. The air had turned cool now that the sun had set. She ducked inside her tent to get a shawl and heard the wounded man’s ragged breathing. He was still unconscious. Julia pulled her wrap around her shoulders and set off up the road to the farmhouse again.

Dr. McGrath sat alone on the front step, his elbows on his thighs, his face in his hands. His white shirt and the front of his trousers were soaked with blood—most of it stiff and dried, but some still wet, making his shirt stick to his skin. He looked beaten, exhausted, every trace of his usual cockiness gone. She felt a wave of pity for him. This was the kind, dedicated physician she had spent hours working beside at Fairfield Hospital. Now he needed care. She decided she would find him some food, offer him a change of clothes and a basin of warm water to wash with.

But as she started toward him again, he lowered his hands and pulled a silver flask from his pocket. All of her compassion fled as he tilted it to his mouth and took a long drink. She hurried over, knowing she’d better speak to him now before he passed out drunk.

“Excuse me, Doctor, but there’s a wounded soldier lying in my tent. The orderly told me that
you
ordered him to be put there.”

“That’s right, Mrs. Hoffman, I did.” He spoke very slowly, as if drained of life.

“Well, if that’s your idea of a joke, I’m not laughing. I would like the man removed from my tent immediately.”

“It isn’t a man.”

“What do you mean it isn’t a man? I saw him myself, as plain as—”

“Go look again. Carefully. It’s a woman.”

“There is a
man
in a
uniform
in my tent …and he’s wounded.” The doctor was shaking his head. She noticed that his eyes looked heavy with fatigue. Blood speckled his forehead like freckles. “It’s a woman.”

“Are …are you
sure
?” she stammered.

“You ask the most ridiculous questions,” he said, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “I’m a doctor, Mrs. Hoffman. I’ve studied anatomy. Would you like a detailed explanation of exactly how I determined that the soldier was a woman?”

Julia felt herself blushing. “No, thank you. That won’t be necessary. I—I just don’t understand what she is doing …how …why is she wearing a uniform and fighting in the army if—”

“I didn’t have time to interview her. I’ve been busy.” He gestured to his bloody clothing. “Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to catch a few minutes’ rest before the carnage starts up again.” He lifted the flask and took another long drink.

“Do you think it’s wise to get drunk,” she asked coldly, “if you’re expecting more casualties?”

“Go away.”

“Our soldiers deserve the very best care we can give them, and that includes a sober doctor.”

“My sobriety is none of your business.”

“But these patients
are
my business.”

“I’m warning you, Mrs. Hoffman. Go away before I—”

“Before you what? Before you get drunk and kill somebody else?”

The moment the words were out of her mouth, Julia was sorry. James McGrath’s head jerked back as if she had struck him with her fist instead of her words. She’d seen pain often enough in a wounded man’s eyes to recognize it in his. She had hurt him deeply.

“Get out of here,” he said hoarsely.

“Dr. McGrath, I’m sorry …I didn’t mean it.”

“Yes, you did. Now get away from me.”

Julia turned and fled down the road to her tent.

She heard the soldier moaning as she approached. Julia stood outside for a long moment trying to calm herself, wishing she had held her tongue. Her hands were shaking. She told herself to focus on the soldier. He would need food. And water. She remembered that he—no,
she
—was filthy. Julia quickly gathered together what she needed and went inside.

The soldier was tall, so tall her feet hung off Julia’s pallet. Her yellow hair was short like a man’s, and though her face was smooth and beardless, there was nothing feminine about her features. She looked like a man to Julia—a very tall man. Even so, she wasn’t about to check and see. It wouldn’t surprise her one bit if this turned out to be one of the doctor’s cruel jokes, intended to embarrass her.

Julia knelt and began washing the soldier’s face. Her eyes slowly opened and focused on Julia. She tried to move, then groaned in pain.

“Lie still,” Julia soothed. “You’ve been wounded. This is a field 236 hospital. I’m a nurse.”

“Ted…? W-where’s—”

“You’ve been wounded.”

“No …no …Ted…”

“Shh …I’m going to clean some of this mud and blood off you, all right?” The soldier trembled from head to toe, but whether it was from shock or fear Julia couldn’t tell. She offered her a sip of brandy to calm her down. “There …just lie still, okay? My name is Julia. Can you tell me your name?”

The soldier ran her tongue around her parched lips, then closed her eyes. “Ike Bigelow.”

“I—I mean your real name. The doctor said that …I mean, he found out that you—”

Ike’s face crumpled and she started to cry—silent, gasping sobs that shook through her.

Julia watched helplessly, unsure what to do. “Are you in pain? Can I do anything for you?”

“Go away and leave me alone,” she said through her tears.

“I can’t do that. This is my tent. I sleep here. They put you in with me because …well, I suppose the doctor didn’t think you should be out there with all the men.”

Ike looked up at Julia, her face blotchy with tears. “I been sleeping with them all these months, ain’t I?”

Julia was taken aback. “That …that’s really none of my business.”

Ike shook her head. “It ain’t what you think, lady. Did you get a good look at me? Who would ever want a woman who looks like me?”

“Listen …Ike …What’s your real name?” she asked gently.

She hesitated a long time before answering. “It’s Phoebe.”

“Do you think you could eat something, Phoebe? Are you hungry?”

“No.”

“Well, what can I do for you, then?”

“You can leave me alone and let me die.”

Chapter Sixteen

Sharpsburg, Maryland
September 1862

Ted watched the wagon approach, chased by a billowing cloud of dust. He kneaded his forage cap in his hands—the cap with a bullet hole through it—as the wagon drew to a halt. “Any word of Ike?” he asked before Sergeant Anderson had a chance to climb down. He got his answer when the officer shook his head.

“Sorry, son. We’ll have to list him as missing.”

“He was still alive when the stretcher took him,” Ted said, trying for the hundredth time to reason it all out. “I looked everywhere for him at the field hospital and couldn’t find him. That means he must have been evacuated before I got there.” He followed Anderson around to the back of the wagon, watching as he reached for a mailbag.

“Ike’s name wasn’t on any wounded list at any hospital,” Anderson said. “But it wasn’t on any dead list, either. We can take hope from that.” Anderson looked truly saddened. Ted knew the sergeant had a lot of respect for Ike. All the men in their company did. When the sergeant spoke again his voice was hushed. “Listen …they’re saying that the casualties aren’t just in the thousands this time …they’re in the
tens
of thousands. I can’t comprehend that, can you? More than ten thousand men, dead, wounded, or missing. That’s more people than live in my hometown.” He exhaled, then heaved the mailbag out of the wagon and set it on the ground. “Maybe he’ll write someday and let us know he’s okay. Ike knows where to find us.”

“I need to talk to him,” Ted said. “I’ve been mad at him. I need to tell him I’m sorry.”

Anderson rested his hand on Ted’s shoulder. “I talked to him the night before the battle. He said you were still his best friend.”

Ted nodded and cleared his throat. He wouldn’t cry. It had been five days since the battle, five days since he’d exhausted his tears behind the woodpile. “What about all of Ike’s stuff?” he asked hoarsely.

Ted had already gone through Ike’s knapsack, at first embarrassed by what he feared he would find. What he did find surprised him: extra socks and a shirt, the usual eating utensils and toiletries, a little money—and that was all. Everything else that Ike had been lugging around in his pack for the past year, like the frying pan and the bottles of blood tonic, had belonged to Ted. She had not only saved Ted’s life—she’d been shouldering his load.

“Do you know where we can find his family?” Sergeant Anderson asked.

“He didn’t have one. He said his folks were dead and his brothers were all off fighting.” Considering Ike’s other secret, Ted couldn’t help wondering if that was the truth.