Slaves of Obsession - Anne Perry [63]
The gunfire in the distance was growing heavier. She was aware of people passing her, of voices and cries and the bump of a cart over the dry ruts of the ground.
She looked up at the man’s face, sick with dread that he might already be dead and that she had been laboring blindly, refusing to see the truth. The sweat was cold on her skin for an instant, then hot. He was staring back at her. His eyes were sunken in his head with shock and the sweat was dry on his cheeks, but he was definitely alive.
She smiled at him, placing a clean cloth over the awful wound. She had nothing with her with which to stitch it. She picked up the canteen she had been using and moistened a new cloth and held it to his lips. After a moment she gently washed his face. It served no real purpose, except to comfort, and perhaps to give some kind of dignity, a shred of hope, an acknowledgment that he was still there, and his feelings mattered, urgent and individual.
“Now we need someone to move you,” she told him. “You’ll be all right. A surgeon will sew and bandage it. It’ll take a while to heal, but it will. Just keep it clean … all the time.”
“Yes, ma’am …” His voice was faint, his mouth dry. “Thank you …” He trailed off, but his meaning was in his eyes, not that she needed it. The reward was in the doing, and in the hope. There was a little less horror and, if he was lucky, another life not destroyed.
She stood up awkwardly, her muscles locked for a moment, a trifle dizzy in the heat. Then she looked around for someone to help them. There was a soldier with a broken arm, another with blood splattered down his chest but apparently still able to walk. After a moment she saw Merrit on her way back from Sudley Church, dirty, bloodstained, staggering along under a weight of water canteens. She stooped every now and then to help the wounded or to look at someone and see whether he was already dead and beyond her power to aid.
Hester told the man not to move, under any circumstance, and picking up her skirts she ran and stumbled across the rough turf to Merrit, calling out as she went.
Merrit turned, her face twisted with fear and exhaustion, then she recognized Hester and came to her at a run, jumping over the rough tussocks of grass.
Briefly Hester told her about the man with the abdominal injury, and the necessity of finding some kind of transport to take him and any other wounded they could carry to the church.
“Yes,” Merrit said with a gulp. “Yes … I’ll …” She stopped. There was panic barely concealed in her eyes. All the brave words were absurd now, irrelevances from another life. Nothing could have prepared her for the reality. Hester could see that she wanted to say so, to deny the things she had said before. She needed Hester to know what she felt, to acknowledge the difference of everything.
Hester smiled at her, a tiny rueful gesture. There was no time to waste in explanations of how they felt. The wounded came first, and there was going to be no second or third.
“Go and get help,” Hester repeated.
Merrit dropped most of the canteens, squared her shoulders and turned to obey, tripping on the rough ground, straightening up again, then moving a little faster.
Hester picked up the canteens and walked towards the battle, tending others who were wounded, seeing more and more of the dead. Beyond the Bull Run the firing never stopped and the air was thick with dust and gun smoke. The heat was searing, parching the mouth, burning the skin.
Finally she headed back towards the church. It was a small building surrounded by farmhouses about half a mile from Bull Run and had become the principal depot for the Union wounded.
The seats from the body of the church had been removed and placed outside. Many men were propped up awkwardly, lying under trees and makeshift shelters. Others were in the open in the full glare of the sun. Some had no wounds but were suffering from the heat and dehydration.
All around men were groaning and crying out for help. Some less hurt tried to assist the two or three orderlies struggling to make order