Glory (33 page)

No hope.

His intestines were slipping from his stomach, he’d been hit so many times at close range.

“Let’s just give you something for the pain—”

But the lieutenant grabbed his hand, smiling. A little trickle of blood came from his lips. “Sir, I’m no fool. You’re a mighty fine surgeon, but you ever hear that kid’s poem? All the kings horses and all the kings men couldn’t put me back together again. I don’t know what I’m doing on this table. Wasting time for some fellow with a chance. Can’t believe I can even talk, ’cause I can feel it going, sir, you know, I can feel it! Life slipped away, like a coldness coming. I ain’t afraid, sir. Weren’t no saint, but I always did what I knew to be right. It’s just a shame. I just heard my cousin Joe was fighting right where I went in, fighting with Hancock’s boys. They’re the ones that caught us when we came in ... yessir, we went charging right for the line in the middle of Hancock’s men. If you see him, sir, Joe O’Riley, Captain Joe O’Riley, you tell him that his cousin Adam says good-bye. Will you do that for me, sir?”

“Of course, Lieutenant, but—”

“Don’t bullshit me—whoa, sorry, sir!”

“It’s all right. No bullshit.”

“It’s cold as hell. Hold my hand.”

He curled his hand around O’Riley’s. Like O’Riley had said, you could feel death coming. A cold, cold stiffening ...

He inhaled on a deep breath. Unwound his fingers from the dead soldier’s. He hadn’t cried in a long, long time. He felt like sobbing.

“That one dead, Dr. Reb?” Robert Roser asked, then saw his face. “Sorry, sir, but there’s more men out here ... hundreds of them.” Julian stared at him blankly. “There was a charge against the Union line. One of those damned fool valiant charges ... but it went bad for the Rebs. They were just ...” He broke off.

“Go on,” Julian said.

“It was a slaughter, sir.”

Julian closed his eyes.

“Maybe you need some rest, sir. Even Dr. McManus has taken a break.”

“No, no, I’m fine. Bring them on in.”

News from the battle came with the injured men. As Roser had said, it had been a slaughter. Pickett’s men had sought the honor of charging against the Union line. Time and time again, pure Rebel bravado had taken the South to victory over far superior forces. The swell of a Rebel yell on a battlefield could be bone-chilling, and it was true that raw courage and gall had given the Confederates many an advantage.

But today Pickett’s men had charged the line. Cannon fire had spewed at them again and again. Men had dropped step by step.

They had kept coming.

Coming and coming ...

They had reached the line. The few who had made it through the hail of cannon fire and bullets. But at the Union line they had been stopped. Those who had not fallen were met by the waiting Yanks with their bayonets and close-range gun fire.

The Yanks were jubilant, with just cause. They had stopped the Rebs. Southern daring had failed.

Yet as night fell, there were few could feel the victory without a sense of pain. The dead lay everywhere. Both sides attempted to retrieve their wounded. Rain began to fall.

Somewhere around midnight, Julian began to waver. He could no longer work without endangering the wounded by his own exhaustion. As one man was moved, he leaned his head upon his arms. He closed his eyes and saw no more.

Bathed in blood, he slept where he stood.

By morning the Confederates had begun a slow, steady retreat south.

Julian was surprised that General Meade, who had stood firm against the Rebs and claimed the field here at Gettysburg, did not attempt to pursue. Not only had Pickett’s charge been stopped, but Julian had been hearing more and more about the events to follow. Lee, the great commander hailed by North and South alike, had openly wept. He had claimed to everyone that it had been “All my fault, all my fault.” For once the army had been utterly demoralized.

It was a great day of triumph for the Federals. They had won the field at Gettysburg. And word had come that Vicksburg, besieged by Grant for months, had finally fallen as well. It had come to a matter of surrender, or total starvation for those in the city—the last rat, one man said, had been eaten. Not a pigeon dared fly in the sky.

And it was the Fourth of July. Independence Day.

If only ...

There weren’t the problem of the dead and wounded.

Retreating, the Southerners hadn’t been able to find all their wounded among the dead; as it was, Lee was lucky that Meade, like so many of his predecessors, had neglected to come after him. His ambulance vehicles would slow him down; hundreds, perhaps thousands would die along the way, and be buried in unmarked graves. At least, since the Union army stalled, he would have a chance for some of his wounded.

Some Union soldiers grumbled. They could finish it! They could go after Lee, attack while his army was so crippled. They could end it, perhaps, oh, God, end it!

But Meade didn’t choose to follow.

Julian thought that he might have been glad himself if Meade had done so. It was a traitorous feeling but he had never felt such a sense of loss. Men had been dying for two full years. Too many lay dead.

Standing on the soaked earth, looking across the fields where bodies already began to rot, where carrion birds began to fly, where it was almost impossible to tell the quick from the dead.

July the Fourth ...

It was a strange day. High excitement, a sense of triumph that went beyond the battles won, but came with the fact that Lee’s troops could be bested, beaten, worn down, stopped. It combined with the date—surely an omen. And yet, as the gunshots fired represented celebration, death still surrounded them in a serious manner. The injured had to be found quickly. The dead had to be interred. The number of bodies could well cause a quick influx of deadly diseases.

Julian ignored the celebrations going on around him and concentrated on the injured that were still coming before him, one after another, almost as quickly as they had come during battle. There was a difference today; most of the men who had come before could be saved. Those with mortal wounds had perished on the fields. He wondered how many had died who might have been saved if only they’d been found and brought from the scene of battle quickly enough.

That afternoon, while he paused between the wounded, McManus offered him coffee. He accepted it gladly. “Have you heard anything about General Magee’s troops?” he asked.

“Magee came through fine.”

“My brother?”

“He was circling around after Jeb Stuart’s troops through the first part of the battle. He’s been sent on to Washington.” McManus paused for a moment. “He was never told that you had been taken prisoner.”

Julian nodded, relieved. In the back of his mind, he’d been afraid that Ian had been killed or wounded. If not, his brother would have been to see him.

“You’re sure he’s alive and well?”

“Yes, he left early with dispatches.”

“My wife?” Julian asked.

McManus frowned. “Wife?”

Julian smiled dryly. “Yes. It was a shotgun wedding, sir, in a strange sense. Rhiannon Tremaine is a nurse. I understand that she is a godsend to the Union troops.”

“None of our nurses was injured, Dr. McKenzie, as far as I’ve heard.” He paused, studying Julian curiously. “She is a godsend to the troops. I asked to have her assigned to me, but I’m not on General Magee’s staff, and so she works with his surgeons.”

“Can you find out for me if she is really well? I’d be grateful, sir.”

McManus, watching him, nodded. “I am the one grateful, sir. You’ve proven yourself a true man of your oath. I’ll make sure that the lady is well. Did you wish to see her?”

Did he want to see her? No. He was unshaven, sweaty, wearing the grime of the muddied battlefield. “No, sir. I just want to make sure that she is well.”

McManus nodded. “It will be done. Is there anything else? It seems that you’re to be in my keeping for the next few days.”

“If we’ve got a river or a stream anywhere, I’d take most kindly to a bath.”

“I think we can arrange that as well.”

An hour later, McManus came by to tell him that a messenger had gone between the field hospitals, and Rhiannon was well. She had been kept far to the southeast of the action, bandaging men as they came from surgery to be sent back to the hospitals in Washington.

It was almost dusk, and they were also preparing wounded soldiers for the long, rough ride back to D.C. when a man on horseback arrived, anxious for a word with McManus. There had been riders coming and going all day. Julian ignored the man, since he knew he would hear whatever information had come eventually.

But McManus came to him and addressed him with the rider at his heels. “Captain McKenzie, you’re needed at Magee’s surgery. Seems there’s a patient there with a wound in the shoulder that could prove quite treacherous.”

“And he wants a Rebel surgeon?” Julian asked skeptically.

“Apparently, he’s a relative.”

Julian eyebrows shot up. “You told me my brother—”

“It’s not your brother. It’s a fellow named Jesse Halston. Captain Jesse Halston, U.S. Cavalry.”

“I don’t have a relative named Halston—”

“Yes, apparently you do. Your wife wrote his request. She knows the fellow, if you don’t. Says he recently married a cousin of yours, Sydney.”

“Sydney married a Union cavalry officer?” Julian said incredulously.

“Recently. You McKenzies are prone to hasty marriages, so it seems, sir.”

Julian felt a strange sensation of his blood boiling. Sydney had married a Union cavalry officer. When? Why?

“Well?”

He lifted his hands, feeling a strange bitterness. The world had gone soaring completely out of control. All of their lives, they had all watched out for one another—all McKenzie males protective of the girls, Jennifer, Tia, the new baby—Sydney. And now ...

He lowered his head. There was a story that went around that General Robert E. Lee, who had sons fighting as well, had not recognized one of his boys while reviewing troops in the middle of an action. He was never able to see his own family.

He lifted his hands. “Of course.”

“I’ll accompany you. I want to see this procedure.”

The ride from field hospital to field hospital was grim. All across the hills and valleys, men were sorting through the fallen. The rain had turned much of the battlefield to filthy mush. Soldiers had handkerchiefs tied over their mouths. Between the rain and the sun and natural decomposition, the ground was beginning to smell of rot. God, how he pitied the living! In the midst of the dead, wondering if help would ever come.

Magee’s field hospital was set up far from the scenes of the worst fighting, just as McManus had told Julian. His surgery was in an old farmhouse, and Julian was glad to see it. The rain didn’t seep into the ground underfoot here, and when he was brought in, he found that his patient was in a real bed in a real bedroom.

Surgeon Reginald Flowers was in command of the hospital, and he greeted Julian politely, telling him that he’d planned to take the arm from the shoulder, since the bullet was wedged against blood vessels, but that his civilian nurse, whom he had come to trust, had insisted that Julian McKenzie could operate without taking the arm.

“It’s a risk ...” Flowers said, then hesitated. “But she’s been right about many things many times ... and she says that Captain Halston is a relative now, your cousin-in-law, and that you can do this. Frankly, if it weren’t for the fact that Captain Halston is one of our heroes ... And then there’s also the fact that Rhiannon claims she has done similar surgery with you before.”

“She has.”

“And the man is married to your cousin?”

“So I’ve been told.”

Flowers lifted his hand. “Your patient, Doctor, if you wish to examine him and tell me if you think you can save the limb. Dr. McManus, if you would join me for a moment for a look at a few other patients ...”

The two left him.

Julian approached the bed. The man who lay there was a young, handsome fellow with curling dark hair and strong features. Now he was pale, his skin grayish white. He’d lost a great deal of blood already. His eyes were open, though. They were hazel, steady on his. He even offered up a half smile that must have pained him. “So you’re the younger brother, the doctor. If they’d given me a drink, I’d think you were Ian playing at a hospital game.”

“I’m not Ian, I am Julian, and I am a doctor. Hurt much?” he asked. Halston was shirtless, but there was a bandage on his shoulder and arm that was already becoming bloodied. Julian gently removed the cotton wadding.

The bullet had smashed against bone and wedged next to a blood vessel. The arm was broken, but the break was clean. The injury was almost exactly the same as that which Jerome had received. Rhiannon did know what she was talking about. The location of the wound made amputation dangerous, just as the position of the bullet made its removal dangerous as well.

“Hurt? Hell, yes. Like a son of a gun,” Halston said, wincing.

“You married my cousin?” Julian asked as he studied the texture of the skin around the wound.

“Yes.”

“How did that come about?” Julian asked.

Halston was staring at him steadily. “Should I answer you now, or after that bullet comes out?”

Julian smiled grimly. “Now.”

Halston shrugged. “She was carrying military information. She was picked up and put in Old Capitol. She was afraid that one of you reckless McKenzies would risk life and limb to come and get her out. Maybe she was afraid of her father’s reaction, I’m not sure. But she wanted out.”

Julian was impressed by the man’s honesty. “So she married you?” he queried.

Halston inclined his head slightly. “Rhiannon came to me. She’d promised Sydney that she would help her. She couldn’t find Ian—he was already out with the army. Magee couldn’t do anything under the circumstances ... I had been with Pinkerton in the city for a while, and I admit, I was instrumental in Sydney being where she was.”

“My
wife
was involved?”

“Well, she wasn’t your wife then, was she? She came to Old Capitol to see a man with an infected foot.”