The Last, Long Night (#5 in the Bregdan Chronicles Historical Fiction Romance Series) (46 page)

“You’re in the hospital,” Carrie said gently.  “You will be taken care of.”

“Too late,” he muttered as he closed his eyes and sank into unconsciousness.

Dr. Wild appeared at her side and motioned for her to pull the blankets away from her patient’s feet.  Carrie barely bit back her cry of dismay as she stared down at his solidly frozen feet.  They looked like wood that had taken on a bluish-gray discoloration.  She looked up in horror at Dr. Wild and then looked down the row of twenty-five soldiers who had been deposited in their ward.  She knew at least two hundred men had been in the wagons.  “All of them?” she whispered, her voice shaking.

Dr. Wild gazed back at her grimly.  “All of them.”  He kept his voice low so that no one else could hear.  “I told them last week that these men needed to be in the hospital.  If the army had listened to me when these men had superficial frostbite, we might have saved some limbs.  Instead, they waited until the soldiers were incapable of walking.”

“We can’t save his feet?” Carrie thought she would be sick. She suddenly understood Dr. Wild’s anger since he had returned.

“No.  In cases of deep frostbite, it’s not just the skin and subcutaneous tissue that are frozen.  Nerves, large blood vessels, tendons, and bones are also frozen solid.  There is nothing we can do to save them.  If we do nothing, his feet will turn black with gangrene, infect his entire body, and kill him.”

“But
both
his feet,” Carrie asked breathlessly.  “What kind of life will he have?”

“That is always the question in situations like this,” Dr. Wild admitted heavily.  “Our only other choice is to let him die.”  He brushed a hand over his eyes.  “It might be the kindest thing, but it’s not our decision to make.  The odds are,” he added gruffly, “that he won’t make it anyway, but we have to try.”

Carrie gazed down the row of soldiers and straightened her shoulders.  “Let’s get started.”  She had learned that endless activity was preferable to imagining the lives these soldiers would live –
if
they lived.

The day passed in a haze of endless surgeries.  Carrie let her mind drift into numbness as the pile of amputated feet, toes, hands, and lower arms grew outside the tent.  She tried to be thankful the cold and ice would keep them from attracting  swarms of flies, but she could feel nothing except befuddled disbelief.

The first man had indeed lost both his feet as well as the fingers on his left hand.  Everyone who had been brought in lost at least one foot, with a few amputations up to the knee.  If these patients lived, they would probably lose more limbs to infection and gangrene, but doctors and staff would at least try to save some of them by doing a slow defrost.  Orderlies moved up and down the rows with buckets of cool water in an effort to bring frozen limbs back to life.

Carrie was shaking with fatigue and anger by the end of the day.  She stepped outside after they finished with the last patient, grateful for the harsh, roaring wind that swept air into her depleted lungs and mind.  She stood silently, trying to close out the horrific memories.  Dr. Wild was right; this was worse.

Her anger burned hotter as she thought of the thousands of men likely to experience the same fate as the men now lying in the ward; only because they had no shoes and warm socks to wear while they huddled in those frozen trenches hour after hour, day after day.

“Mrs. Borden!”

Carrie spun around and ducked back inside the barracks when she heard an orderly call her name.  “I’m here.”

“The patient down in bed four is asking for you,” the orderly said gravely.

Carrie nodded and made her way down the aisle, grateful most of the men were still unconscious.  The patient in bed number four was barely out of his teens. Filthy blond hair was plastered to his dirty scalp.  His starved body looked very much like a skeleton.  “Hello, soldier,” she said gently, pushing back her anger in order to give him all her compassion.

“Howdy, ma’am,” he gasped.  He reached out and grabbed her hand.  “How bad is it?”

Carrie stroked his hair back and motioned for the orderly to bring her some warm water so she could clean his face.  “You focus on getting better,” she urged.  She held a cup of water to his lips.  “Here, drink this.”

The soldier drank thirstily but didn’t take his burning eyes off her.  “Please.  I need to know.  How bad is it?”

Carrie frowned, searching for words.

“I can take it,” he insisted.  “I need to know.”

“We had to take off your right foot, all the toes but your little one on the left foot, and three of the fingers on your left hand,” she finally said softly, stunned when she saw a look of relief flood into his eyes.

He closed his eyes for a long moment and then opened them again to stare at her.  “Is it crazy that I’m glad?” he whispered hoarsely.

Understanding flooded her mind, and Carrie stared back at him.  “It must be horrible out there,” she finally murmured, her stomach twisting.

“Yes, ma’am, I reckon it is,” he said as a shudder convulsed his body.  “If I had to lose a foot, some toes, and fingers to get out of there, I guess I see it as an even trade.”  Suddenly his eyes sharpened.  “You ain’t gonna send me back out there, are you?”

“Absolutely not,” Carrie said firmly.  “What’s your name, soldier?”

“Jasper.  Jasper Appleton.”

Carrie looked at him more closely.  Even through his starvation and filth, she could see a resemblance.  “Appleton?  Do you know Perry Appleton?”

A smile flitted across his face.  “Perry is my big brother.  I ain’t seen him for the last year.  I heard he lost a leg and got to go home,” he said enviously.

Carrie was amazed anyone could be envious of someone’s losing a leg, but suddenly she understood in a way she never had before just how horrible this war was for these men. 

“Perry was my patient,” she told him.  “He’s married now to my friend, Louisa.  I was matron of honor at their wedding, right here in this hospital ward.”

That was enough to evoke a real smile, however weak.  “Right here?  Me and Perry ended up in the same place?”  Jasper gazed around the ward.  “Did Perry go back home?”

“I know that was the plan,” Carrie said.  “I’m afraid the lack of communication has kept me from getting any news.” 

“Perry had himself a right nice little farm down in Georgia.  He bought the land close to our parents’ right before our mama and daddy died, a couple years before the war started.  He had some big plans for that place.”

“And how about you, Jasper?” 

“I always figured I would be a farmer,” he admitted and locked his eyes on her face.  “I aimed on going back home and taking over my parent’s place.  You reckon I can do that now?”

Carrie stared into his eyes and spoke with all the confidence she could muster.  “I think people can do almost anything they put their minds to.  It won’t be easy, but you’ll learn how to compensate for what you’ve lost and figure out how to do things a different way.”

Obviously trying to draw strength from her confidence, Jasper stared back into her eyes.  Finally he nodded.  “I reckon that’s the truth,” he said, tiredness weakening his voice and causing his eyes to flutter.  “I aim to be a farmer when I get back home.”  He managed a weak grin before he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Carrie stayed where she was, bathing his face and washing his hair.  When he woke, he would be clean and warm probably for the first time in months.  As she cleaned him, she prayed Jasper would find courage and determination to create a new life. 

Already dark before Carrie finished with her last patient, she prepared to go home.  Dr. Wild had promised to wait for her and walk her down the hill to her father’s house.  She had reached for her coat and scarf when she heard someone call her name.  She looked up wearily, ready to pass off whatever it was to an orderly.

One of the ward assistants moved quickly down the row of patients.  “It’s Jasper Appleton,” she said.  “I know you took a special interest in him.”

“What’s wrong?” Carrie asked sharply, already moving in that direction.

“He started running a fever about an hour ago.  Now it’s spiked really high, and we can’t get it down.”

“We’ll check him together,” Dr. Wild said as he reached her side.

Carrie smiled at him gratefully but then groaned when she saw Jasper’s flushed face and heard his rapid, shallow breathing.  She reached down, gently unwrapped the bandages from his amputated foot, and bit back a groan as she stared at the angry red lines shooting up from the badly swollen stump.

Dr. Wild removed the other bandage, revealing the same angry infection spreading out from the amputated toes. 

Carrie took a deep breath and then moved quickly to take her coat off.  “Bring me some goldenseal salve,” she said crisply, willing energy to replace her fatigue.

“Do you know this one?” Dr. Wild asked.

“Remember Perry Appleton from last year?”

“The one who married your friend Louisa?”

“Yes.  Jasper is Perry’s brother.  He’s actually happy we amputated everything because now he won’t have to go back to the trenches.  He wants to be a farmer,” Carrie finished heavily, fighting back tears of sorrow and fatigue.

Dr. Wild nodded grimly.  “Let’s see if we can send him home to do that.”

Long past midnight, Carrie arrived home from the hospital and said good night to Dr. Wild, who hurried on to his lodging for a few hours of sleep.  She was dismayed to find Thomas and Jeremy waiting up for her.  In no mood for conversation, she managed a weak smile as she turned for the stairs.

“Carrie, wait,” her father said.

Carrie took a deep breath and turned.  “I’m exhausted, Father.  Can we talk in the morning?”

“Yes, of course, but why are you home so late?”

Carrie bit back the burning words that yearned to spew out of her mouth and said, “We had many patients today.”  She didn’t trust herself to say more.

“But there were no battles today,” Thomas protested.

“No, there weren’t,” Carrie said evenly, refusing to look at Jeremy because she knew he would see past her control.  The fact that her father didn’t told her he had also had an upsetting day, but she couldn’t take anything else tonight.

“There wouldn’t be any more battles if Lincoln wasn’t such a hard-headed and unreasonable man,” Thomas said bitterly.

Carrie sighed.  What had made her think she could slip up to her room and fall across her bed?  She waited for her father to expound on whatever had happened in the Capitol.

Thomas took her silence as a desire to listen.  “President Davis had a visit from Montgomery Blair.  He came with a pass from President Lincoln, so our own president, of course, assumed it meant Lincoln had some desire to talk peace.”

He paused, waiting for Carrie to say something.  When she just looked at him, he continued.  “President Davis named Vice-President Stephens, Assistant Secretary of War Campbell, and Senator Hunter as the three men who would confer with Lincoln and sent them over the lines to Grant’s headquarters two days ago.”

Carrie knew better than to think the story could end well when her father was so upset, but the word
peace
had her hoping for the impossible.  “And…?”

“Grant sent a telegram to Washington urging the president to meet with them.  They met yesterday at Fort Monroe.”

Carrie was too tired for details.  “What happened, Father?  Is there going to be peace?”

Thomas snorted.  “Lincoln made it very clear to them there would be no peace without complete reunion and the abolition of slavery.   When Vice-President Stephens proposed some kind of armistice that would allow us to exist as separate countries, Lincoln told him
‘the only basis on which he would entertain a proposition for a settlement was the recognition and re-establishment of the national authority through the land.’
”  He stopped and waited for Carrie’s reaction.

She merely looked at him, the fatigue from the long day suddenly swamping through her like a tidal wave.  Her eyes blurred as she thought longingly of turning, walking upstairs, and falling into bed.

“Don’t you find that appalling?” Thomas demanded.