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She found the shot and drew it out; it came followed by a gush of blood. For an instant she froze. She could not bear to watch one more person die! This was not her war. It was all monumentally stupid, a terrible madness risen from the darkness of hell. It must be stopped. She should rush outside, now, and scream at them until they put away the guns and saw the humanity in all their faces, every one, the sameness, not the difference, saw their own reflections in the enemy’s eyes and knew themselves in it all!
But as her mind was racing, her fingers were stitching the wound, reaching for bandages, pads, binding it up, testing that the dressing was not too tight, calling for a little wine to mix with the water. She heard herself comforting the man, telling him what to do now, how to look after the wound, and to get it dresse
d again when he reached Alexandria, or wherever he would be shipped.
She heard his voice replying, steadier than before, stronger. She watched him climb to his feet and stagger away, supported by an orderly, turning to smile before he left the tent.
More wounded were brought in. She helped fetch, roll bandages, hold instruments and bottles, carry things, lift people, speak to them, ease their fear or their pain.
News came in of the battle. Much of it meant little to Hester or to Merrit, neither of whom knew the area, but whether it was good or ill was easily read on the faces of those who did.
Some time after eleven the surgeon came in, white-faced, his uniform blouse covered with blood. He stopped abruptly when he saw Hester.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded, his voice sliding up close to hysteria.
She stood up from the man whose wound she had just finished binding. She turned towards the surgeon and saw the fear in his eyes. He was not more than thirty and she knew that nothing in his life had prepared him for this.
“I’m a nurse,” she said steadily. “I’ve seen war before.”
“Gunshot … wounds?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“More Rebel troops have arrived on Matthews Hill,” he said, watching her. “There are a lot more wounded coming in. We’ve got to get them out of here.”
She nodded.
He did not know what to say. He was foundering in circumstances beyond his skill or imagination. He was grateful for any help at all, even from a woman. He did not question it.
An hour later a man with a badly shattered arm told them with a smile through his agony that Sherman had crossed the Bull Run River and the Rebels were pulling back to Henry Hill. There was a cheer, mostly through gritted teeth, from the other wounded men.
Hester glanced across at Merrit, the front of her dress wrinkled and smeared with blood, and saw her smile. The girl’s eyes brightened for a moment, and then she turned back to pass more bandages to the surgeon, who had barely taken time to look up at the news.
During the next hour the wounded grew fewer. The surgeon relaxed a trifle and sat down for a few moments, taking time for a drink of water and wiping his hand across his brow. He smiled ruefully at Merrit, who had been working most closely with him.
“Looks like we’re doing well,” he said with a lift in his voice. “We’ll drive them back. They’ll know they’ve had a battle. Maybe they’ll think better of it, eh?”
Merrit pushed her hair off her brow and repositioned a few of her pins.
“It’s a hard price to pay though, isn’t it!”
Hester could still hear the gunfire, cannon and rifles in the distance. She felt a sickness creeping through her. She wanted to escape, to find some way of refusing to believe, to feel anymore, to be involved in it at all. She understood very clearly why people go mad. Sometimes it is the only way to survive the unbearable when all other flight has been cut off. When the body cannot remove itself, and emotions cannot be deadened, then the mind simply refuses to accept reality.
She walked away a moment before speaking. If she waited too long she might not do it at all.
“What?” The surgeon turned to her, his voice incredulous.
She heard her answer hollowly, as if it were someone else speaking, disembodied. “They are still fighting. Can’t you hear the gunfire?”
“Yes … it seems farther away … I think,” he replied. “Our boys are doing well … hardly any wounded, and those are slight.”
“It means the wounded haven’t been brought,” she corrected him. “Or there are too many dead. The fighting is too heavy for anyone to leave and care for them.” She saw the denial in his face. “We must go and do what we can.”
It was definitely fear she saw in his eyes, perhaps not of injury or death to himself, more probably of other people’s pain and of his own inability to help. She knew exactly what it was like; it churned in her own stomach and made her feel sick and weak. The only thing that would be worse was the hell of living with failure afterwards. She had seen it in men who believed themselves cowards, truly or falsely.
She turned towards the door. “We need to take water, bandages, instruments, all we can carry.” She did not try to persuade him. It was not a time for many words. She was going. He could follow or not.
Outside she met a soldier who was climbing into a blood-spattered ambulance.
