Surrender the Wind (26 page)

Catherine seethed her words. “What are you going to do about the deplorable conditions of this hospital and the patients? These men need to be washed and their bandages changed. Everything in this hospital must be boiled, rinsed, dried, sterilized and fumigated. Now. Including you, doctor.”

The doctor got up, weaved, and then leered at her. “Who’s going to make me?” He had the audacity to look her up and down, while scratching a louse beneath his shirt.

“I am.” Her nostrils flared. “These men will die if these despicable conditions are not changed.”

“Then do it yourself.” The doctor obliged, mocking her with a sweep of the hand toward his hospital.

“You call yourself a doctor. You are nothing but vermin. Get out of here before I report you to the general.”

“Suit yourself, Miss high and mighty, but the general always listens to me.” He slapped her on the derriere as he passed.

Lieutenant Johnson drew his revolver on the surgeon. Catherine pulled on his arm. “Let him go. He’s not worth the trouble. We’ll have to make do on our own. Go get a few men who you know are fastidious in cleanliness. We will need all available hands to bail us out of this God forsaken mess.”

“I know you’re a Yank, but I like the way you took command and put that worthless doctor in his place. Too many men have died from his incompetence. I’ll get men right away.” The lieutenant saluted, and to his consternation, dropped his hand.

Catherine bit her lip. She was not an officer of the Confederacy.

* * *

Catherine, several soldiers and Lieutenant Johnson spent hours doing backbreaking work, getting the hospital in order. She ordered everything boiled and sterilized, including tools, bandages, and bedding. The patients were bathed and their wounds redressed. Particularly helpful was Danny Boy, who seemed to guess her every requirement before she even thought about it.

Danny Boy assisted her in removing a ball out of a soldier’s leg that the bungling doctor could not seem to do. At first Catherine thought it was lodged in the bone but upon further reflection, considered it just like her husband’s wound. With the proper sterilized instrument, she successfully removed it, saving the soldier from infection and losing his leg.

Samuel, the Paul Bunyan-sized man, was wonderful in lifting the patients so they could clean the beds and also take the soldiers out for fresh air. For several hours, she worked, pleased with the overhaul of the hospital and infirmary. She washed her hands and asked Lieutenant Johnson to escort her to the camp kitchens.

Her gaze followed the silent ghosts of cornstalks that peppered the hills. Could she make it to the tree line at the top and melt into the wilderness? Would she be shot by pickets?

With certainty, Brigid would be awake by now. “Where is the adjutant’s tent?”

Lieutenant Johnson pointed to a tent beneath the shade of a sycamore, but when her eyes beheld the commissary, she was thunderstruck. If the hospital was in appalling condition, then the camp kitchen was unforgiveable.

“What is it you are cooking in that kettle?” she asked in all manner of sweetness, wrinkling her nose from the horrid smell.

The cook obliged her by opening the pot, his grubby, greasy arms exposed from where his shirtsleeves were rolled up. She leaned over the bubbling brew, the odor like long forgotten, moldy socks.

“It’s called Knock ’em Stiff.” He thrust his chest out, ladled some of the liquid, took a sip, and exhaled with heavenly euphoria. The cook’s long beard was decorated with food items from the past week. He spat near her shoe, not out of insolence, but out of habit.

Catherine grimaced. “Pardon me?”

The cook looked at her as if as she didn’t have a brain. “You know, Make ’em Joyful.”

She started pacing, stopped, and then pointed at the offending substance. “That stew is not fit for human consumption, dump it out and start over with adequate substance for proper nourishment.”

“Pretty lady, you make me dizzy with all that pacing, but you must have taken leave of your senses. I’ll not do it. This is the best corn liquor this side of the Mississippi.”

“Liquor? You can’t be serious. What would the general think? Throw it out.” She began pacing again. “Why are you not cooking meals? Why are you pursuing this dim-witted activity?”

“First of all, the general ain’t here, so what he don’t know, won’t hurt him. Stews over there, left over from yesterday.” He pointed to a pot in the corner, rancid and fully covered with flies. In fact, everything about the cooking area, like the cook, was filthy, greasy, and a banquet for flies. No wonder the stew was left over. No one in his sane mind would eat it.

“Lieutenant Johnson, have Danny Boy sterilize these bottles and fill them with the alcohol, we can use it for sterilizing instruments and wounds.”

“Over my dead body,” shouted the cook, using his body to shield his precious brew.

Catherine grabbed a Fitzgerald repeater rifle lying against a stump and eyed him down the barrel. She had enough from the surgeon’s lack of respect and would not allow this brute to put her down.

The cook laughed as he sidled up to her, emboldened by his homemade brew. “Now, we know you can’t handle a gun, Missy, so give away—”

The rifle exploded, splicing a hole through the center of his hat.

The cook fell back, splayed across a pile of firewood and stared tongue-tied. She pointed the rifle at the center of his skull. Several Rebels looked up from their current tasks, wondering why a rifle shot went off inside the camp. They gaped at the general’s wife, wielding a gun at the frightened cook.

Through the roaring din, she breathed her anger, “I can handle this gun because I was born with it in my hands. I could put every piece of it together in the dark. So don’t tempt me again because I’ll use it on you if I have to. Now get up and start cleaning this kitchen or else.”

“To tell you the truth, ma’am,” the cook was more respectful, “I don’t like cooking for those boys from Alabama and Kentucky.”

“What does that have to do with cleanliness?” Catherine shrieked and brushed away a cloud of flies. Her rifle slipped a notch and pointed at his heart.

The cook threw up his hands, as if warding off an evil spirit. “They make fun of my cooking.”

“You call that cooking? I call it a tragedy.”

“You see, ma’am, I can’t cook at all.”

Catherine snorted the obvious. “Then why are you cooking?”

“The old cook died at Cold Harbor. I was appointed his replacement. I didn’t want no part of the job, but I take it upon my shoulders as a matter of voluntary suffering, ma’am,” The cook said, his face a manner of pure contriteness, absolving him from any sin or wrongdoing.

Catherine rolled her eyes with his righteousness.

“I treat it as my repentance to gain me entry into the pearly gates.”

“Or to house with the devil. I’ll get this camp a real cook. Now start scrubbing those pots and utensils and have it done before I get back.”

Lieutenant Johnson started laughing, and so did the others crowding around the cook tent.

“What are you laughing about?” Catherine glared. Did the lieutenant salute her again? In a terrible state of irritation, and before Lieutenant Johnson could ward her off, Catherine marched into the Adjutant’s tent.

“Brigid? Ian!” She could feel her face turn fifty shades of red. Her maid in bed with Ian, unclothed and in a very affectionate embrace? “I can’t believe my eyes—”

“Out!” ordered Ian.

Catherine needed no such orders.

“Miss Catherine,” Brigid called. “There’s an explanation. Hurry,” Brigid said to Ian. “Get dressed.”

Catherine waited outside, her mortification complete as the tall adjutant came out, not particularly happy with being disturbed. In fact, the enormous Scot looked like he’d like to murder her. He jerked his head toward Brigid in the tent. Catherine understood her cue and without preamble, entered the tent.

She took a deep breath. “Brigid, I have known you for a long time, and I’m sure there is a plausible explanation—” Catherine’s jaw dropped. A black and blue mark was on Brigid’s chin. “Did that brute do that to you? I’ll have his hide horsewhipped for beating and taking advantage of a defenseless woman, even if I have to go to the President of the Confederacy.”

“Oh that. Don’t worry on that little account. Ian has apologized to me countless times. You see, I was making too much noise, and he had to knock me out before going through the lines so we wouldn’t get shot.”

“He told me you fainted.”

“I would have after he told me how horrible things were. He’s been nothing but sweetness to make up for it.”

“I see.” Catherine raised her brow. “And what else has he promised you?”

“He has a large farm in northern Virginia and wants me to come and live with him.”

“Live with him? I would hope he would tender a proposal first.”

“I almost forgot. We’re married.”

“Married? How could you forget a thing like that? What’s more, he’s a Scot.” In forty-eight hours, her maid was kidnapped and married?

“Ian’s a gentleman,” Brigid cooed. “He insisted we be wed right away. He’s very principled. Besides what do you have against the Scots?”

“I have nothing against the Scots. It was just you had such a problem—” Catherine rubbed the back of her neck. She couldn’t think.

“Anyway, we stopped at a church and Ian commanded the priest to marry us—immediately. At first Ian offered him gold dollars.”

Catherine gasped. “He bribed a priest?”

“No. The priest had a northern bias and refused to marry a nice Irish girl to some worthless Rebel trash.”

“I imagine Ian took that well. And how did he convince the priest?”

“Why Ian held a gun on him. Isn’t it romantic?” Brigid breathed, all starry-eyed.

Catherine was speechless. The whole affair was like putting out a fire after the house burned down. Was the marriage legitimate? “May-may…I offer you my congratulations.”

“Oh Catherine,” Brigid swooned from the bed. “Ian has nothing but worshipful affection for me. He said my body is like a harp and his fingers are there to pluck the strings.” Brigid clapped her hands and looked heavenward, for the Irish are born upon a stage with the Lord as their audience. “He is the dearest, adoring sweetheart that any woman could ever desire, just as your General Rourke is to you.”

Catherine rolled her eyes heavenward but, unlike Brigid, her own was a silent plea for fortitude. “Enough, Brigid.” She did not want to hear the details of their married life. “I need you to oversee the cook. He needs a little help.” Catherine said, careful with the truth. “I know you are an excellent cook and want to find a circumstance where you can display your talents for Ian. Am I not correct?”

With enthusiasm, Brigid nodded.

Catherine left, knowing full well what opinions Brigid would have of the cook. She smiled, feeling sorry for the cook.

“General Rourke, Lieutenant Johnson told me to bring my complaints to you,” the cook said, thrusting his matted chest forward.

From John’s visit with General Lee and a week of hard riding, he arrived in camp, his mood intolerably thin, near breaking with exhaustion and the desire to see his wife utmost on his mind. What if she had escaped? What information had she gleaned to pass on? He needed a guard posted, not to protect her—but to protect his men.

“First of all,” complained the cook, “Some woman…” he scratched his head where it looked to John as if a bullet had parted the cook’s hair. “…a right pretty piece if I might say, with a temper as bad as any badger. She started fussing about a few flies and cleaning things and overall complaining about my cooking. Got all fired up over some refreshment I made and shot me clean through the top of my hat.”

To demonstrate, he wiggled a fat finger through the hole. “What am I supposed to do when it rains? Anyways, I never saw a woman work herself into such a painful fury. She started a pacing, and I swear she could fill a room with mist, raise the dead, and make lightning strike. She stomped the ground and snakes fled into the river and drowned. But all that was nothing compared to when she sent Ian’s wife—”

“Ian’s wife? She’s dead.” John narrowed his eyes. Had the cook brewed a batch of white lightning while he was gone?”

“Well she don’t look too dead, unless out of pure spite she’s come back to haunt me. She’s worse than that pretty woman. At least the yellow-haired gal is more tolerable. I can look at her and dream a little. That other devil of a woman had me cleanin’ and scrapin’ ’til my knuckles bled. She beat me about the head, threw a knife at me with such aim she practically turned me into a soprano. Then she boxed my ears and loosed her tongue on me, threatening to send me to where somebody named Cromwell will burn me at a stake and put my head on a pike. Do the Yanks really have someone like Cromwell?” The cook’s eyes grew as large as dinner plates.

“There is such a man.” John half-listened, observing the object of his desire exiting his tent unaware of his presence. He admired her bravery, and had to admit, his most seasoned men would have had difficulty running through the lines between Washington and his camp, and holding up under such an attack.

She moved to a group of soldiers, each one plying for her attention. One soldier bowed and offered his stool, but not before another rushed to drape a blanket across it so she wouldn’t soil her gown. The men laughed at something witty she said, and jumped for any morsel of interest she cast their way.

The cook didn’t hear, his attention drawn to picking a nit or two from the back of his head. “Those northern women are powerful mean. I can understand why those Yankee men keep a comin’ and a comin’ at us. Yes siree, they ain’t never gonna stop and to tell you the truth, I can’t blame them one bit. They just want to get away from their womenfolk.”

John groaned. What else was turned upside down? Lieutenant Johnson arrived with Ian in tow and thrust a plate of stew, and biscuits in his hands. So hungry, he shoveled it in his mouth. He squeezed his eyes shut, savoring the flavors of soft roast beef, potatoes, carrots, parsnips and gravy. He opened his eyes. He swabbed the buttery biscuit through the gravy, took a bite and groaned. “This is excellent.”