Fire by Night (28 page)

“I’ll show you.” She gently lowered the wounded man’s head. Julia started to rise but her legs, weak with fatigue, suddenly gave out, and she fell sideways against the injured man. He screamed in pain and lashed out, his flailing arms striking Julia in the face and knocking her to the deck. Nathaniel scrambled to help her.

“Julia! Are you all right?”

She felt stunned. Her cheek throbbed where she’d been struck. But she was more concerned for the soldier she’d harmed. “I’m sorry! Oh, dear God. We have to help him, Nathaniel. The poor man. He needs something for the pain.”

“What should I do?”

“Hold him still for me.” Julia had never administered chloroform before, but she’d watched the other nurses do it dozens of times over the past two days. She hurried over to the crate of medical supplies and found a bottle of the drug. While Nathaniel held the moaning man down, Julia poured a small amount of chloroform onto a cloth and held it to the soldier’s face. By the time he slipped into unconsciousness, Julia felt limp herself.

Nathaniel released the man, then gently laid his hand on Julia’s shoulder. “Are you all right? You should have your eye looked after. I’m afraid it’s going to swell where he hit you.”

She managed a weary smile as she rubbed her cheekbone. “There are much bigger medical needs around here than mine. I’ll be all right.” She watched the soldier’s chest rise and fall in sleep, silently praying that he would be all right.

“Julia…”

When Nathaniel didn’t say more she looked up at him. The minister was staring at her, speechless. When he finally could talk, he stammered. “Y-you’re amazing. That was …you were so caring …and …and competent.”

Julia knew she should feel triumphant. She had accomplished what she’d set out to do nearly a year ago, winning the minister’s respect and admiration at last. He was looking at her the way she’d long dreamed that he would. But his words of praise didn’t give her the satisfaction she thought they would. She had run away from suffering men a second time yesterday, and she knew all too well that the caring, competent nurse he saw was a fraud.

“You’re wrong about me,” she said. “I could never do this on my own. I’ve had to pray for strength since the moment I arrived.”

Her words seemed to make him even more attracted to her. “And I can see that He has answered those prayers. We serve a marvelous God, don’t we, Julia?”

She realized then that it was God’s approval she wanted, not Nathaniel’s. The thought so astounded her that she didn’t answer him—and barely heard his next question.

“When are you going back to Washington?”

“What…? Oh …I think the ship is leaving early tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll be in Washington myself in a few weeks. I’d like to call on you, if I may.”

His words stunned her nearly as much as the blow to her face had. “Of course.”

“Where can I find you?” he asked. “What’s the name of your hospital?”

The minister’s sudden interest in her flustered Julia, but she had the presence of mind to give him directions to the boardinghouse instead of the hospital. The last thing she wanted was for Nathaniel Greene to discover that she had lied in order to become a nurse.

“It would be wonderful to see you when you come toWashington,” she said, as if in a dream. “I don’t know very many people there besides Congressman Rhodes.”

While they talked, she steered the minister through the maze of injured men and showed him where to find food for their patients. Then all thoughts of Nathaniel retreated from her mind as she plunged into her job once again. They worked beside each other for a short time, until Nathaniel was called away to pray with a dying man. She didn’t see him again after that.

Long after dark, Sister Irene came to where Julia knelt beside a patient and took her arm, helping her to her feet. “Come, dear. You’ve done enough. It’s time you slept for a little while.”

“I no longer have a bed, Sister. They needed the space, so I let them put wounded men in my quarters.”

“I think there’s an empty corner in our room.”

Julia’s knees felt so watery she could barely walk. She and Sister Irene held on to each other as they staggered belowdeck to the nuns’ tiny stateroom. The other three sisters were already there, sound asleep on the floor after having donated their mattresses. Julia took the blanket the sister offered her and curled up beside her on the floor. Sister Irene looked much less formidable—and surprisingly young—without her headpiece.

Exhausted beyond words, Julia thought that the gentle swaying of the boat and the lapping murmur of the waves would quickly lull her to sleep. But she found herself wide awake, staring at the paneled ceiling, every muscle and bone and joint in her body aching.

“Why are you here, Julia?”

Sister Irene’s hushed voice came out of the darkness, her question piercing Julia’s heart as if God or one of His angels had asked it. She closed her eyes, and for a moment she was back home in her parlor, dressed in satin and lace and hoopskirts, sipping tea with afternoon callers.

“I want my life to matter,” she said quietly.

“I bake bread at the convent,” Sister Irene said after a moment. “It seemed a meaningless task at first, especially to a woman who wanted to devote her life to God’s work. Anyone can make bread, given a little instruction. And of course it gets eaten as quickly as I bake it, then I must do it all over again the next day. But I’ve learned that any task you do has meaning if it’s done unto the Lord and according to His purposes. Your life will matter in His eyes.”

“But even baking bread seems more meaningful than dressing up in fancy clothes and attending teas and parties back home.”

The nun rolled over to face Julia. “God puts each of us in a different place with a different task to do. But no matter where we find ourselves, God’s greatest commandment is that we love—our enemies as well as our neighbors. If we do that, our life will have meaning whether we’re at a tea party or on a hospital ship.”

“I came here for selfish reasons,” Julia found herself confessing. “Someone accused me of being shallow and spoiled—and he was right. I came here to prove him wrong. I wanted to prove that I could be compassionate and caring.” And today she had done that. She’d won Nathaniel’s admiration at last. So why did the victory seem so hollow? “I wanted to change, Sister Irene. But the only thing that’s different is where I am and what I’m doing. I’m still self-centered. I’m still doing all this for selfish reasons, not out of love.”

The nun was quiet for a long moment. Julia was aware once again of the pitiful cries and moans outside her cabin that never ceased. Then the sister said, “You can make up your mind and discipline yourself to do any task—kneading bread, caring for the wounded, changing bandages. But we can’t simply make up our mind to love others. The only way we can love the way God wants us to is when the Holy Spirit loves through us, when we give up control of our lives to Him. We prayed for strength these past few days, Julia, and God answered our prayer. Now we must pray for love.”

“Some people are very difficult to love,” Julia said, thinking of James McGrath. “They push everyone away and don’t seem to want even a simple friendship.”

“I know. I’ve met people like that, and you know what? They’re the ones we must pray for the most. Because they need our love the very most.”

Chapter Thirteen

Mechanicsville, Virginia
July 1862

Phoebe rolled her trousers above her knees and waded into Beaver Dam Creek. She had hoped for a few minutes alone to wash her socks and spare shirt in the sluggish water, but she heard laughter and the voices of her fellow soldiers as they came down the path through the woods, and she knew she wouldn’t have privacy much longer. As a handful of men from her company emerged into the clearing, Ted’s boyish voice carried above the others.

“Hey, everybody. Quiet a minute. Listen…”

The rustling branches and tromping feet stopped. Phoebe listened with them. Above the hot summer sounds of buzzing insects and flowing water she heard bells, gently tolling in the distance.

“Hear that?” Ted asked. “Those are Richmond’s church bells. That’s how close we are.”

“Well, what are we waiting for?” one of the men asked. “Let’s go burn the place down and hang ol’ Jeff Davis from a flagpole!” The others cheered. The joking laughter resumed.

Phoebe quickly finished rinsing her clothes and climbed the riverbank to retrieve her shoes. The men had come to bathe in the creek and were already peeling off their clothes. She didn’t want to stick around.

Phoebe envied their freedom. Her wool uniform was so hot and scratchy in the scorching July heat that she felt like she was being burned at the stake. Sweat poured down her face and soaked the armpits of her shirt, in spite of her brief wade into the river. Ted looked cooler already, stripped down to his trousers. She hoped he was having too much fun to notice that she was leaving, but no such luck.

“Hey, where’re you going? Aren’t you going to cool off?” he asked her.

“I’m done already.”

“Well, you didn’t get very clean. No offense, Ike, but you still stink. And why are you wearing all those clothes? For pete’s sake, take your blasted shirt off, for once.”

Phoebe slowly pulled her shirttails out of her pants and undid one button, stalling for time. “How come we haven’t attacked Richmond, Ted? We’re this close, we got all these men and guns …What do you suppose we’re waiting for?”

He looked a little puzzled at the sudden change of topic. But then he took the bait—just as she’d hoped he would. “We’re waiting for reinforcements. There are too many Rebels, and they’re dug in all around Richmond just like they were at Yorktown. We have to get our big guns in place first and bombard the stuffing out of them. Then our troops will move in.”

“Didn’t General McClellan learn his lesson the last time?” she asked as she slowly backed toward the path. Ted was unbuttoning his trousers and she wanted to run. “Them Rebels know better than to sit still and wait until we have them in our sights.”

“Why don’t you go tell that to Little Mac, Ike? He’ll be very glad for your advice.” He wore a peculiar grin, as if he might be plotting something. Phoebe didn’t want to wait around and find out what it was.

“I think I’ll do that,” she said, and she strode off into the woods as if she had every intention of marching right up to the general’s tent. She heard muffled laughter behind her and knew she should run, but she was barefooted. When Phoebe stopped to put on her shoes, the men ambushed her.

Ted led the attack, laughing and giving a bloodcurdling imitation of the Rebel yell. She tried to fight back, but there were too many of them and she really didn’t want to hurt anybody since they thought it was all in fun. They dragged her to the riverbank, pulling off her shoes and her trousers as they went. But they would have to knock her unconscious before she’d let them take off her shirt and her union suit. She clutched her shirtfront tightly with both hands.

“You’re gonna drown me,” she yelled, struggling. “I can’t swim!”

“That water isn’t even over your head.” Ted laughed and hooted as they threw her in. A moment later, they all jumped in after her.

“Hey, no hard feelings?” he asked, wading over to her.

“Naw, it feels good.” And it did. Without her wool uniform, Phoebe felt cool for the first time since falling into the flooded river last spring.

“You are the oddest fellow I ever met,” Ted said. “Imagine, wearing that hot old union suit under your clothes all the time— even in the middle of summer.”

In reply, Phoebe grabbed Ted’s shoulders and pushed him underwater.

That afternoon they were guarding the trenches they had dug behind Beaver Dam Creek when Union pickets came on the double-quick from Mechanicsville with bad news. “At least five Confederate brigades have crossed the Chickahominy River,” they reported. “The Rebels are headed this way. We’re in for a fight.”

A tense hush fell as Phoebe and the others quickly checked their ammunition supplies and made sure their weapons were properly loaded, their bayonets fixed. Then they waited, hearts pounding, watching for the first sign of the enemy. It was the first fight Phoebe had been in since Williamsburg, and she was scared.

“Told you them Rebels weren’t gonna wait around for us to get our big guns ready,” she whispered to Ted.

“Guess Little Mac didn’t take your advice, did he?” He flashed a quick, nervous grin. Phoebe saw the tension in his wiry body and in his fidgeting hands and knew he was scared, too. She nudged him playfully with her elbow.

“I never got a chance to warn him, remember? Some fool ambushed me.”

A cicada suddenly started to drone nearby, and Ted jumped. “Five brigades,” he breathed. “Holy smokes!”

The Confederate attack came like a summer storm, with clouds of smoke and a rain of gunfire. Phoebe heard the peculiar singing sound the bullets made as they whizzed above her head like bees. She forced herself to stay calm and to listen for the bugle signals as she loaded, aimed, fired, and reloaded all that long afternoon. Artillery shook the ground, and sometimes the smoke grew so thick she couldn’t even see the charging enemy until they were almost upon her. The stench of sulfur filled the air like the breath of hell.

She kept an eye on Ted, worried that he would forget the percussion caps again and overload his rifle. His face was blackened with gunpowder and his hands trembled as he fumbled in his cartridge box for more ammunition, but he fought bravely beside her without flinching.

A few yards away, Phoebe saw a soldier in her company get hit—one of the men who had thrown her into the creek that morning. His rifle fell from his hands as the force of the bullet jerked him backward, and she knew by the way he lay sprawled in a pool of his own blood that he was dead. The Rebels’ rippling cry blended with the screams of the wounded, the dying. Then the deafening roar of artillery drowned out all other sounds. Throughout the long afternoon, Phoebe defended the small patch of earth she’d been assigned, resisting the nearly overpowering instinct to flee as wave after wave of Rebels attacked.