Spring Will Come (77 page)

             
“I’m heading for the armory,” he called.  “I promised the girls I would come by and check on them this morning.  I’ll be back soon.”

             
Carrie waved then ducked into the building.  She was soon absorbed in her patients.  The first hint of tragedy was a dull, prolonged roar from the direction of Brown’s Island.  Carrie was used to hearing explosions from the testing of ordnance at the Tredegar Iron Works, but something about the sound troubled her.

             
“Excuse me,” she murmured to the elderly woman she was treating.  Not understanding the sudden anxiety gripping her, she stepped to the door of the hospital. 

             
A man appeared from nowhere, running down the street as fast as he could.  “It’s the armory,” he yelled.  “One of the buildings blew up!”

             
Carrie raced inside, grabbed her coat and medical bag, and took off at a run.  She knew she could make better time on foot.  She blinked back tears as she raced down the road and headed for the collection of one-story frame buildings clustered on Brown’s Island.  She pushed herself to run faster when an image of several hundred employees - most of them young girls - rose in her mind. 

             
She could see the smoke and flames long before she got to the island.  A tide of people was flowing toward the bridge.  She could hear the screams of frantic mothers searching for their children.  Carrie wove her way through the crowd and breathed a sigh of relief when she finally broke through.

             
“You can’t go over there!” a policeman barked, stepping in front of her.

             
“I’m a doctor,” Carrie said crisply, holding her bag for him to see.  A skeptical expression crossed his face, but he stepped aside.  Carrie ran on, deciding it was no time for technicalities.  Fear gripped her heart as she dashed across the bridge.  Where was Pastor Anthony?  Where were the little girls who had sung for her on Christmas Eve? 

             
Carrie headed for the crowd of people.  She groaned as she reached the site of the explosion.  The building had been reduced to a complete wreck.  The roof was missing, the walls blown out, and flames were licking toward the other buildings.  Men were dousing water on the fire as fast as they could.  No one needed to be told what would happen if the flames spread to the surrounding buildings.  Other people were picking their way into the ruins.  Carrie watched grimly.  She knew they were searching for survivors among the dead. 

             
Suddenly a figure stumbled out of the smoke with a tiny body clutched tightly in his arms.   He was within several yards from her before Carrie recognized who it was.  “Pastor Anthony!” she cried, cringing at the burns on his face and arms. 

             
“Carrie,” he gasped.  “It’s Elvira.  Please take care of her.”  Quickly he placed the charred little girl in her arms and dashed back to the ruins. 

             
Carrie groaned as she looked down at the disfigured little body.  Tears blinded her for a moment as she remembered the precocious little girl who had so delighted her on Christmas Eve.  She knew before she went to work that Elvira was too badly burned to be saved.  She had only begun the process of removing the remnants of the little girl’s clothes when Elvira gave a tiny moan and went slack.  Carrie reached for the blanket one of the rescue workers was handing her and laid it tenderly over the tiny body.  Gulping back her sobs, she moved on to the next victim.  There was nothing else she could do.

             
The next several hours passed in a thick haze of disbelief.  Carrie thought the horrors of battle could never be surpassed.  But somehow this was worse.  Over sixty children - too young to fully understand what the war was all about, while working long hours to produce much of the ammunition that kept the Confederate army fighting - were laid out in long rows.  Many were dead when they were pulled from the building.  Others, still clinging to life, were blinded from their burns, their hair burned from their heads, and their clothing hanging in burned shreds.  The wailing of children and parents became a steady chorus as medical personnel worked frantically to save the ones they could. 

             
Pastor Anthony appeared at Carrie’s side again as she bent to help another little girl.  “What can I do to help?”

             
“You can get someone to treat those burns,” Carrie said crisply, choking back tears at the tortured look on his face. 

             
“Please... I need to help,” he murmured.  Tears rolled down his face.  “I sent these little girls to work here,” he said in disbelief.  He shook his head heavily, his face twisted with agony.

             
Carrie realized activity would distract his mind.  “Help me get her clothes off,” she commanded. “We’re going to cover her body with flour and cotton then saturate it all with oil.  It’s the best we can do until they can get her to the hospital.”  Reaching into her bag, she pulled out the bottle of chloroform a passing doctor had thrust into her hand.  She administered it to the moaning little girl and heaved a sigh of relief when she felt the body relax into unconsciousness.  It was the only real relief any of them had to offer. 

             
“Elvira?” Pastor Anthony asked.

             
Carrie pressed her lips together and shook her head.  “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

             
Pastor Anthony groaned but didn’t stop his work on their current patient. 

             
In some ways the girls who had died were the lucky ones, Carrie thought grimly.  The survivors would know nothing but months of pain and agony - many would never recover.

Not until the last ambulance had trundled away did Pastor Anthony sink down to the ground wearily.

              “Let me look at your burns,” Carrie said gently.  Her whole body ached with weariness and sorrow, but she was certain the pastor was suffering greatly.

             
Pastor Anthony shook his head.  “They’re not that bad,” he said shortly.  He dropped his head in his hands, his whole body trembling.  “How could I have let those little girls work in such a place?  Five of them are dead... five more are horribly burned... only Marva and Florence escaped without serious injury.”  His voice broke.  “And it’s all my fault.”

             
“Nonsense,” Carrie said crisply.  “Lift your head up so I can see your burns.  Allowing your own wounds to become infected won’t help any of those girls.  You still have people who need you.”  Her heart ached for Pastor Anthony.  She continued to talk as she treated his burns.  “I know you’re feeling responsible, but you simply can’t blame yourself for what happened.  It was an accident.  The safety record here has been incredible since the war started.  The girls were much safer here than they would have been on the streets.  Without these jobs they might have died from starvation this winter.”  She paused when Pastor Anthony flinched away from a particularly sensitive area.  “It was an accident,” she insisted.  “I heard some of the men talking.”

             
“Yes,” Pastor Anthony whispered.  “It was an accident.  One of the girls was trying to free a primer from a board.  She had been warned against striking the boards before but,” he shrugged, “she did it anyway.”  He paused, taking a deep breath.  “I had walked out of the building to get something for Elvira.  When I came back in, I saw the girl strike the board against the table she was working at.  There was a horrendous explosion.  The girl was blown to the ceiling.”  He shuddered.  “Right before she hit the ground, she was blown up again.”  He shook his head heavily.  “Then everything started blowing up.  When I came to again, all I could hear were screams of agony, and I could feel flames.”

             
Tears poured down Carrie’s face as she listened to the account.  She wanted to plug her ears and scream that she could handle no more tragedy, but instead she reached out and touched Pastor Anthony’s unburned hand.  “If it hadn’t been for you, more of the girls would be dead.” 

             
Carrie was suddenly aware of the acrid fumes burning her nose, the clinging smoke clogging her lungs. She began to shiver as the cold seeped through her inadequate clothing.  Now that the emergency was over, reaction was setting in. Gently she helped Pastor Anthony to his feet.  She could see Spencer waiting with the carriage on the other side of the bridge.  “I’m taking you home,” she said firmly.  “I know you will want to visit the girls in the hospital later, but right now you need to get cleaned up.  I have some chickweed ointment at the hospital.  I want you to keep it in on all of your burns.”

             
Pastor Anthony nodded but said nothing all the way to his house.                              Spencer helped him inside then came back to the carriage.  “The Pastor’s gonna make it.  He’s a strong man.”

             
Carrie felt her strength crumble now that there was nothing else to do.  Tears blurred her vision.  “Please take me home,” she whispered.   For the first time, she noticed the minor burns on her own hands - caused by removing still-flaming clothes from the girls she had treated.  “I just want to go home.”  She knew the pictures of those charred bodies would stay in her mind as long as she was alive.

One week later all the dead had finally been buried.  Forty-five of the sixty-eight victims had died
, their burns and wounds too serious to recover from.  Once again funeral processions wound their way through the streets.  The city seemed to be in shock.  Losing young men to battle was one thing.  Losing so many young, innocent children was another.  Richmond continued to reel from one disaster after another.  And just when they had every reason to hope for the arrival of spring to dull some of the agony of the long winter - the day before they heralded the advent of a new season - a foot of snow was dumped on the city. 

             
Heart-sore and exhausted, Carrie trudged her way through the snow.  Several of her smallpox patients had died that day.  Pastor Anthony’s burns were healing well, but the haunted look in his eyes had not diminished.   The whole city was gripped with a deep despair and darkness.  As hard as she was battling to keep her own heart free from despair, she could feel its tendrils weaving their way through her defenses. 

             
No one was home when she arrived at the house.  Trying to chase some of the chill from her body, she held her hands out to the fire - wishing there was a remedy to chase the chill from her heart.  The clatter of boots on the front porch sent her hurrying to her room.  It might be cold, but at least she would have privacy.  As soon as she was safely inside, a force propelled her to the mantle standing guard over the cold fireplace.  Smiling slightly, she reached out to grasp the treasure she had enthroned there.  Once she had it in her hands, she moved to the window and stared through the frosted glass at the drifts of snow.

             
Carrie tore her eyes away from the cold scene and gazed down at the tiny blade of grass in her hands.  It was dry and brittle now, but it still held a tinge of green.  She allowed it to transport her back to her special place - back to the memories it caused to flood through her heart. 

             
Finally Carrie looked back through the window.  She could see people trudging up the street with their beaten faces speaking more loudly of their internal defeat than anything else ever could.