Love and War: The Coltrane Saga, Book 1 (67 page)

The boy was unconscious and did not hear the grim diagnosis. As he was carried away, the doctor yelled, “Bring me another one.”

All around were the sounds of anguish and dying. Shells exploded in the distance. Guns barked. The Rebel Yell echoed in the hills. The war was on. Kitty melded into it, helping the doctor, helping others, ministering to the wounded with precision, moving as though she were another entity, with no thought of her own except to help the victims of the cruel war.

Gradually, the doctor in charge of the tent realized that Kitty had a good medical knowledge and he began to turn minor cases over to her to handle alone. A table was set up strictly for her work. “Do the best you can,” she was told. “The casualties are mounting and the wounded are piling up outside like flies on a dead mule’s carcass.”

But then the ambulance wagons brought in a fresh load of wounded men and there was no time to sort out the minor wounds for Kitty’s table and she was now finding herself faced with the most serious of wounds. Whenever she turned helplessly to the doctor, who was up to his elbows in blood, he would yell, ‘‘Do the best you can, woman. Try to stop the bleeding and move ‘em on out. Can you amputate? Do that if it means saving a life. We have no time to worry about professional experience here. Just try to save lives and ease suffering.”

Day turned to night and dawn came without anyone noticing. The air was thick, hot, humid. Kitty’s clothes were soaked with blood and perspiration. Long ago her hair had tumbled down around her face, which had become splotched with blood as she constantly pushed the limp hair back out of her way. In a rare moment of respite between patients, a soldier helping her gave her a small ribbon. “You can tie your hair back with this, rna’am,” he said respectfully. “I seen how it’s gettin’ in your way.”

She gave him a weary smile, as she reached for the pink ribbon. “What are you doing out here in the middle of battle with a pink ribbon, soldier?”

He bit his lip. He couldn’t have been much over fifteen or sixteen years of age and he reminded her so much of Andy, with the light sprinkling of freckles across his nose and cheeks.

“My sweetheart,” he said quietly, “she sent it to me. I reckon you need it more’n I do.”

“I’ll be sure to give it back,” Kitty said gratefully as she tied back her long, blood-matted hair. “She might not like you giving it to another woman.” She winked teasingly, trying to brighten up the dreary, grim world, if only for a moment.

He shrugged and she saw the glimmer of tears in his young eyes. “I reckon she won’t know about it. She’s dead. Yankees killed her when they raided her folks’ place in north Georgia.”

“I’m so sorry…” Kitty’s words were drowned out by the sounds of another soldier screaming as he was brought in that he would rather die than have his left cut off. Kitty took one look at the exploded leg and reached for a scalpel and saw, tears stinging her eyes.

Kitty would work in the hospital tent as long as her legs could hold her up, then, overcome with weariness, she was forced to go to the rest tent set up nearby for the worn-out medical staff. The night one of the soldiers came to awaken her, she had lost all conception of time.

“Everybody is ordered to report to the hospital tent,” the soldier told her in a frenzy. “There’s a bunch of wagons coming in with hundreds of wounded.”

Wondering if she could will her aching legs to move from the cot and stand up, Kitty struggled to sit up. Every time her eyes closed, she saw torn, ragged limbs, gouged wounds, crumpled, broken bodies, the dead covered in flies and maggots. The hot, humid July skies blended as blood red as the clay beneath her feet. All around were devastation, confusion, bloodshed. When would the nightmare ever end?

One knee buckled. She straightened. The soldier saw and timidly held out a bottle partially filled with an amber liquid. “I know ladies don’t drink, Miss Kitty, but this might give you a little push.”

“It probably would.” She managed a weary smile in the glow of the lantern he was holding to dispel the inky blackness of the tent. “But save it for the wounded. I hear the chloroform is getting low.”

“We got some hot coffee made from parched peanuts. It ain’t the best in the world, but it might help.”

They made their way through the piles of moaning, wounded soldiers, their screams of pain giving the night an eery echo. As they entered the hospital with oil lamps flickering as they swung from tent posts and the surgeons casting hulking, ominous shadows against the walls as they worked, Kitty winced, stomach heaving with nausea as she saw a stack of amputated arms and legs lying in one corner. They were being removed quicker than the soldiers assigned to dig a hole for them could take care of the grisly task.

The endless parade began. Kitty did what she could: stopped the bleeding, cleansed the wounds, set broken bones in splints, and amputated when absolutely necessary. By sunrise, she was so weary she could no longer muster the strength to wield the saw back and forth across the bone to be severed. She would make the necessary incisions through skin, tissue, and muscle, then step back while an assistant came forward to do the actual bone-cuffing. The agonizing screams of the soldier held down upon the blood-slicked board pierced the air. There was no time to try to stitch the skin flaps in place. Nearby, a cauldron of tar bubbled, the smell mingling sickeningly with the odor of blood. Once the limb was severed, Kitty would swab the stump with tar to seal and stop the hemorrhage. Usually at this point, the victim would faint and be spared the agony of the hot-tar application.

“Lady, God, please, don’t take my legs off,” a soldier screamed, clutching at Kitty’s bodice as he was placed on the board. “Please, I’d rather die…”

An assistant ripped his hands loose, pulling them to the side where a nail protruded. Quickly, he wound a rope around it so that the soldier could not move his arms. Kitty closed her ears to his pleas. She knew if she let herself hear them, she would not be able to function in a proper manner. Later, if there was to be a later, in peace, if there was ever to be a peace, she would remember the agony, the screams. But now, there was a job to be done, with no time for pity if that pity stood in the way of duty.

She picked through the torn flesh of what was left of the soldier’s legs. The bones were badly smashed, the muscles hung in shreds. There was nothing to do but amputate. It would not take long. A few slices of the knife’s blade to finish severing the muscles, a few quick chops with a hatchet, then a swab of hot tar, and the war would be over for this young boy. He would be sent to rest in the fields outside, then transported home—wherever that was—to live out what was left of his life.

Motioning to the assistant, Kitty started working. The boy on the table lifted his head, saw what she was doing, then fainted. When it was over, she stepped back, heard the sound of gasping and retching, and looked at the wounded soldier. But he was lying quietly. The sound was right at her ear. Spinning about, she fought for consciousness as a dizzy wave washed over her weary body.

The retching was coming from Nathan, who stood behind her, covering his face with a handkerchief.

Her lips moved, trying to utter his name.

“Katherine, my God, get out of here.” He was grabbing her arm, yanking her outside.

“Hey, we got another coming in,” a voice yelled from inside the tent, “Miss Kitty, we need you…”

“She’s going with me, goddamn it!” Nathan screamed. Numb, Kitty let him lead her away into the night and they stumbled along until they reached a place where miraculously, no bodies lay.

His arms went around her, crushing her against him. She had briefly noted inside the tent that he had not changed. His uniform was hardly dirty, certainly not torn and ragged. He was still the portrait of a dignified officer and gentleman.

“I’ve been trying to find you for days, Katherine,” he murmured, lips nuzzling her bloodstained cheek. “Dear Lord, how did you get here? What are you doing here?”

She told him. She had not wanted to go home and she had not wanted to remain with the Yankees. “I wanted to come where you are, Nathan. There was no place else to go.” She said it quite simply, as if there it was, the only decision to make.

“Thank God, you’re safe.” He kissed her briefly. “But you aren’t staying. I’ve asked General Johnston personally for permission to escort you back home and there is where you will stay.”

“Nathan, no,” she protested. “I’m needed here.”

“Damnit, I know you are,” he cursed in exasperation, “but the battleground is no place for a woman, Katherine. You’re in danger, don’t you see that? I want you at home where you have some chance of being safe.”

Shaking her head from side to side and blinking back the tears, she whispered, “Oh, Nathan, don’t you see? I’ve got to do something for the Confederacy. Sitting at home with the women is not for me.”

He gave her a gentle shake. “Tell me. Do you love me?”

“I…I don’t know.” She knew she
wanted
to love him, wanted with all her heart to forget the past and Travis Coltrane and go back to the hopes and dreams she and Nathan had once shared. Could it be? She did not know. She could only hope.

“If you love me, you’ll do as I say, Katherine. I’m going to leave with you at once and get you out of this. I’ll take a small patrol of my men with me. We should make it in three days easy. You can stay with my mother. She writes that she is gathering up all the womenfolk from out in the country to make bandages and get together supplies. You can work with them, help them. If you refuse, then as much as I love you, I’m going to turn and walk away from you here and now.”

She knew by the tone of his voice that he meant what he was saying. If she refused, and he did walk away, then she would be truly alone, with no one to cling to. And though she hated to admit it, being alone meant clinging to memories of Travis. She could not let her heart drift free. No, she would have to give her devotion to Nathan to ever know any peace. “All right,” the words came quietly, obediently, “I’ll do whatever you want.”

Raining kisses all over her face, Nathan was jubilant. “I knew you’d see it my way, darling. If you had only obeyed me before and not gone near that hospital in Goldsboro, you would not have been abducted again. Oh, if I could only erase the misery and suffering you’ve endured.”

“It’s in the past, Nathan. We’ve got to stop looking at the past if we’re to have any kind of future. That’s what ruined things for us in Richmond, your not being able to overlook what happened to me in the past.”

“That’s partially right, Katherine, but the final blow came when you called out the name of Travis Coltrane when it was me making love to you. I don’t think I have ever been so hurt.”

Kitty felt a wave of anger. “You were drunk, Nathan, and you slipped into my room and started…raping me while I slept!”

She started to pull away from him, but his arms held her tight. “Katherine, my darling, I’m sorry. We can’t think about anything beyond right here and right now. Let’s think only about the good things between us and from there I feel only love can grow between us, the love we once had and lost.”

A scream of agony split the silence around them. War. It all came flooding back. “Nathan, things don’t look good for us, do they? Soldiers die by the thousands and they get wounded and blown to bits. It’s the same over and over. Will it ever end?”

“It will end one day, Katherine, and then life, real life, will just begin for you and me. Things aren’t as bad as they seem, President Davis has relieved General Johnston of his command and replaced him with General John Bell Hood. I found this out when I went to Johnston personally to ask for leave to take you home.”

“General Hood? But he lost a leg at Chickamauga I heard.”

“That’s true. He rides strapped to his saddle but he still has courage and valor. He was even wounded at Gettysburg in his arm but he doesn’t give up. He’s been a Corps Commander under Johnston and the two didn’t get along. Anyway, Hood’s been quite critical of Johnston’s retreats and he wants to fight. We just heard that Sherman is crossing the Chattahoochee River and heading for Atlanta, and Hood is going to move out and attack.”

“General Hood is planning an attack?” She pulled back to try to meet his gaze in the dim light from the fires burning in the distance. “Then how is it you can take me home, Nathan? You will be needed here and so will I. Later, when Sherman is beaten…”

“No!” His voice had a sharp edge to it and she could make out the anger on his face. “No! We leave in the morning. I already have a patrol of men…”

“Nathan, I can take the train. I hear it runs from Atlanta into Augusta and up through South Carolina and into Wilmington. You are an officer. Your men will need you.”

“I told you General Johnston gave me permission to see you home safely and I intend to do so. I will personally escort you right to my mother’s front door and have your promise that you will not leave her house until you leave with me one day! Is that understood?”

Kitty did not understand. Why did Nathan insist on taking soldiers and riding her all the way to North Carolina when she could take a train? Why was he able to leave now when General Hood planned to ride out and attack Sherman’s advancing army? It made no sense.

His arms were tightening about her again and she could feel his breath, warm on her face as his lips moved closer to brush against hers. She closed her eyes, yielded—but the image of a crooked smile and laughing gray eyes blotted out the sweetness of the moment. Would it always be this way? Even if she did not marry Nathan but one day wed another, would the image of Travis forever be there, burned into her mind for all eternity?

Damn him! Why did he have to command such power over her? A curse, that’s what it was. He had used her the way he chose, then trampled upon her. Nathan offered love, devotion, all in exchange for her giving up what he considered “fool” notions. He wanted a wife…at home…in her place. She had tried to be independent, to think for herself in a world dominated by men and their ideas of how a woman should live her life.

And she had failed. It would be foolish not to accept what Nathan was offering. He would be good and kind, and once the war was over, they would have a future together.