The Better Angels of Our Nature (29 page)

Fitzjohn entered in Captain Jackson’s wake, the chief pallbearer at the funeral.

“Dr. Fitzjohn, you leave us tomorrow. You’ve done good work here, sir,” Sherman said.

“Thank you, sir. I have something rather delicate to report to you, though it affords me no pleasure.”

“Sir, may I excuse myself for just a moment?” Hammond rose to his feet clutching his stomach.

“Yes, go on, go on, we’ll finish the report later.” Sherman had little time for his own ailments, and none at all for other people’s. He sat down, leaned back, and crossed his legs on top of the hardtack box, hooking his thumbs over his vest pockets, the cigar firmly entrenched in the left-hand corner of his mouth, adopting his favorite pose. He was still very much in high spirits, despite the discomfort of the wound.

Hammond left and Van Allen came into the tent as Fitzjohn said, “It’s the boy, sir. Private Davis.”

“Jesse?” Sherman displayed the first spark of interest. “Have you seen him, Fitzjohn? I want my dressing changed. I can hardly lift a damn pen or hold the reins with this thing wound around my hand. Send him to me immediately before I have him horse-whipped.”

“You yourself asked for volunteers to help the Rebel wounded in the hospital camps of Surgeon Lyles. Corporal Davis was one of those who volunteered. He was shot this morning by a wounded Rebel soldier whom he was trying to help.”

“Oh God no—” Marcus whispered.

“Damn—” Andy exploded.
“—God damn those Rebs!”

Sherman removed the smoldering cigar from between his clenched teeth. He even took his legs down from the box and sat forward to ask, “How bad is it?”

“He was shot in the head, not seriously—”

“Not seriously injured, you say, Fitzjohn,” Sherman interrupted, glancing at his two aides, all three men sharing a moment of relief. “Then we must be grateful. Let me know if he needs anything. If he’s conscious tell him his commander will visit with him this evening and fetch along something to cheer a young invalid.”

As far as Sherman was concerned that was the end of the matter. Fitzjohn didn’t budge.

“Whilst examining the boy I made a quite extraordinary discovery.” He raised both dark eyebrows. “
The boy
is not a boy—”

Now he had Sherman’s attention again. “What are you talking about?” he demanded very quietly, staring.

Marcus laughed and Andy smiled somewhat stupidly. There was silence inside the tent.

“There must be some mistake.” Marcus was the first one to find his voice.

“I have been a surgeon for over twenty years, Captain. I believe I can tell the difference between the anatomy of a male and a female. The patient called Jesse Davis, whom I examined not more than an hour ago, is not a boy, sir”—he coughed to denote that something delicate was coming—“in the most anatomically important respect.”

Fitzjohn looked from Marcus to Andy, whose face was distorted by an inappropriate smile, half-shocked, half-quizzical, then to Sherman’s rapidly reddening face. His left hand, the good one, balled into a fist, the knuckles turning bone-white.

As Marcus released the tent flap behind him, all three men heard the thunderous shout of rage that broke from within, as something hard and heavy was thrown at the canvas wall. Marcus looked at Dr. Fitzjohn. “Is the boy going to be all right?”

“The girl—is comfortable and will receive the best of care from Dr. Cartwright. I will of course keep the matter confidential. Now if you will excuse me, I have to finish my packing.”

Around midnight Sherman rode alone to the hospital area. An orderly pointed him to the rear of the tent.

There she lay, a child wounded in battle, trying to tend a fallen enemy, a bloodied bandage around her head, a soiled army blanket pulled up to her clefted chin, her small naked feet poking out, touchingly exposed. Sherman put the tips of his fingers to the soles. They were cold. He cursed. He covered her feet with the blanket as best he could. He stared grim-faced at her, feelings of anger and compassion, resentment and betrayal, passing in succession over his sharp features. He straightened suddenly and narrowed his eyes. To hell with any feelings of sympathy. She had no business being there—
in battle.
War was war and no Sunday-school picnic. If she
was
a Rebel spy, she had gotten what she deserved. The Yankees would bury her here in an unmarked grave, and her family would never learn of her ignoble end. Thus was the fate of all spies and Rebels. But of course he knew she was no Rebel spy. Then what in God’s name was she?

Spy or not he had taken what he thought to be a courageous, intelligent, and highly personable boy-soldier to his heart and been betrayed.
It was unthinkable—unspeakable.

The girl stirred, moaned, pushed the blanket away fitfully, and lifted her hand to the stained bandage. Sherman arrested her arm, tucked it beneath the cover again and patted her shoulder, with uncharacteristic timidity. Her vivid blue eyes opened for a brief second, stared at him without recognition and closed again.

“Yes,” he said gruffly as she settled back into unconsciousness. “You are quite safe, rest easy.”

His hand was still on the blanket when a voice behind him said angrily, “I thought I gave instructions that no one was—”

Drawing back his hand as though he had touched hot coals, Sherman said, “How quickly can she be moved?”

So startled was Cartwright to see the division commander that he could only think four words—
Damn Fitzjohn to hell
—and say one, “
She
?”

“Look at me, Dr. Cartwright, do I strike you as a stupid man?”

Cartwright stared at the firm mouth, the thin lips, the scimitar nose, the pitted skin across the hollow cheeks, the broad brow beneath the receding red hair and matching grizzled beard. He even let his gaze move up and down the long spare frame and slightly stooping shoulders. Most of all he looked at the eyes, those fierce, glowering eyes, the eyes of a predator. He unpeeled the thin wire that held his spectacles to his ears, pinched the corners of his tired eyes, and sniffed. “With head wounds it’s always difficult to say. It can be dangerous to jolt a patient in a wagon. Jesse lost a lot of blood, as you can see.” Carefully he moved the girl’s head, exposing a bloodstain on the pillow, directly beneath the wound. If this action was calculated to solicit sympathy from the Ohioan, it failed, miserably.

“There will be no jolting. Transports travel very smoothly along the water.”

“What transport? Damn it, you can’t seriously be considering sending her back North on one of those steamers?”

“I am not seriously considering it, Doctor, I have
decided.
Make her ready to leave in the morning.”

“I can’t allow that—” Cartwright blurted, laying a hand on the girl’s shoulder as though protecting her from the ogre’s clutches. “—I…I strongly protest. I won’t allow her to be placed on one of those ships, exposed to typhoid, pneumonia—she’ll be dead long before she ever reaches land. Do you want her death on your conscience? At least let me take care of her until she’s fit to go home.”

“And when, Doctor, do you suppose that will be?”

“Hard to say.” Cartwright’s tone and eyes grew shifty.

“I strongly advise you make an effort, sir.”

“A week. Maybe ten days.” Involuntarily Cartwright found his gaze moving to the girl’s face, his expression softening behind the spectacle lenses. She had never looked as vulnerable as she did now, with the bloodied bandage and her full lips slightly open as she slept. For a moment, he had let his guard down and Sherman had seen it.

The division commander would make no such mistake. Suddenly realization flooded those perceptive eyes. “You
knew,
didn’t you? You’ve known all along.”

Cartwright stroked the red-gold curls off the pale brow. “No, not all along.” He raised his eyes to Sherman’s face and allowed his twisted smile to twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Whereas you had no idea.”

Sherman ignored this observation. Instead, he asked, “Don’t you have any clean blankets?” Sherman indicated the bloodstains and other soiled areas on the covering.

“They’re all dirty. You take it off the dead and you give it to the living.” As Sherman left the tent Cartwright’s voice pursued him into the night, “She got to you as well—you can’t deny it. She got under your damn skin!”

Half an hour later an orderly delivered two clean blankets, a pillowcase, a pair of thick woolen socks, and a calico shirt, directly into the surgeon’s hands. “For the boy” was written on a piece of paper in Sherman’s own hand.

The weak rosy glow of dawn was just visible above the horizon. Sherman sat in his small tent and struggled to write a letter with his injured hand by the flickering light of the single candle. He put down his pen and squeezed the corners of his smarting eyes. His shoulder ached. His hand ached. The Ohioan looked like a man who could commit a murder. He glanced up just as Cartwright’s head came around the tent flap and demanded, “What do you want, as if I couldn’t guess?” He released his breath in a long-suffering sigh.

“Captain Van Allen said it was okay to speak with you.”

“Did he indeed—”

Cartwright came inside and hovered. He looked at the bottle of whiskey and tin cup remaining there from the previous night and moistened his lips ostentatiously.

“At least have the decency to wait until the sun is over the yardarm, Doctor.”

“I’ve been up all night. I can’t even see the sun, let alone the yardarm.”

Sherman pushed the cup and the bottle across the table. Then he walked to the entrance, where he stood squinting up at the predawn sky, lost in contemplation. “I sometimes believe I have seen more coming of more dawns than any of God’s creatures. There were nights in California during the winter of ’55 and ’56 when my asthma was so bad—I truly believed if I once went to sleep, I would never again wake up. I even went as far as to swear out a will and power of attorney, convinced I would soon die.” He was speaking quietly, reflectively, almost as though he were alone with his thoughts. He had grown accustomed to speaking to the boy that way. Speaking his thoughts aloud.

Cartwright had already filled the cup and swallowed two large mouthfuls. Normally he wouldn’t have the slightest interest in the melancholy memories of this grim-faced old bastard, but if offering him a shoulder to cry on would help his cause, then go right ahead, he was all ears, or all shoulder, and as long as the whiskey held out, so could he.

“I suppose you tried burning niter papers to help you breathe?” the surgeon said.

“I tried everything, everything my doctor gave me. Morphine, quinine—”

“For asthma?” Trying to use restraint, Cartwright topped up his cup, no point in killing the goose that was at this moment laying a golden egg. “You sure it wasn’t malaria?”

“Save your breath, Doctor. Pretending to show interest in my health will not change my mind. As far as I am concerned, the boy I befriended that first night is dead, buried, like hundreds of other soldiers who fought at Shiloh. That is what I have written Senator Sherman. She leaves in the morning.”

Well, thought Cartwright, looking regretfully at the remaining whiskey in the bottle, that glimpse into the far reaches of the grim Sherman soul was short-lived.

“All I require from you, sir, is an address to which I can send her.”

Cartwright shrugged his shoulders. “She never told me where she comes from.”

“You expect me to believe that, Doctor? She was close to the Dutchman; she must have talked to him?”

“She did, but not about her home. Believe it or not, I’m telling you the truth. The only people I’ve come across more tight-lipped than her were dead. Maybe she doesn’t want her folks finding out where she is—she’s not easy to know.”

“People with something to hide rarely are.”

“I wouldn’t know about that, all I know is since she arrived, it’s like I’ve grown a second pair of hands.” Cartwright gave a brutal twist of his mouth and laughed. “And you must have thought she was pretty special too, or you wouldn’t have recommended her for West Point.”

That tore it. Sherman’s eyes flashed wildly. He rose to his feet, his face a dark shade of purple as he bellowed, “If you come here to my headquarters again to plead this girl’s case I’ll have you
both
sent back North where you will wash dirty linen and empty bedpans! Is that clear?”

It was clear as crystal then and it was still clear two days later as Cartwright planted his backside on the dispensary table and stared at Jesse’s face as she patiently relabeled the bottles. Most had become smudged or obliterated by blood and other bodily fluids during the madness of April 6 and 7, and its aftermath. He had given his permission for her to perform light duties in the hospital.

“Why do you think we ain’t heard anything from Sherman about you going home?” he asked, getting out his pipe and cleaning the bowl with one of the inky pens she was using. “I guess he’s too busy patting himself on the back. Good to see Jacob up and around.” Since the Dutchman’s display of uncharacteristic violence he had been lying in his tent, consumed with guilt and shame. “Too bad he’s been at the lamp oil.”

Jesse’s big plaintive eyes displayed shock, so he laughed to show it was a joke.

“Well, he’s been at something. He told me you drove him down to the Landing this morning and he saw that Rebel boy, the one he stuck with his bayonet, right as rain, going off on a steamer to a prison camp. He said the boy took off his hat and waved it at him, friendly as you please.” Cartwright scratched his bristled chin reflectively with the pipe stem and sighed. “Maybe it’s the old fool’s way of dealing with his guilt. Not that he ought to feel any guilt, mind you.”

“People see what they want to see, hear what they want to hear,” Jesse observed in a quiet voice.

“That’s true enough. ’Specially when a person’s head is filled with all those stupid Bible stories.” He turned the collar of Jesse’s sack jacket down, smoothed it, looked into her face intimately and said, “For a while there, I thought I might have to find myself a new orderly
and
a new steward. Why
do
you think we ain’t heard anything from Sherman about you going home?”