Читать книгу President Lincoln's Secret - Steven Wilson - Страница 7

Darkness followed the red mist.

Light returned gradually, accompanied by the heavy drumming of cannons and the flat crack of muskets. Fitz Dunaway heard his name being called, the words an indistinct drone. His eyes fluttered open in response. Above him was a bright sky with mare’s tails for clouds, and dirty black smoke that rose in columns only to be torn apart by the wind.

His mind was clumsy, thoughts unfocused, and as he tried to turn his head to find out where he was he found that his body refused its orders. He searched for an answer to his predicament, but there was no solution. Sky blue trousers and scuffed brogans were all that remained of his world. He was on his back.

A bearded face fiercely streaked with dust and sweat hovered over him. “Colonel? Can you hear me? Are you all right?”

The man’s words echoed and then, with a rush of water, became clear.

“Ripslinger?” Fitz managed.

“You just lay quiet, Colonel,” the soldier said, comforting Fitz with a rough pat on the shoulder. “We’ll get you back to the surgeon.” Ripslinger disappeared, the horrible word lingering after him.

Surgeon, Fitz thought. He turned cold with fear. His eyelids closed involuntarily, and in that fraction of an instant, Fitz lost consciousness.

He awoke again, swaying back and forth, floating above the ground, suspended between four soldiers. Fitz’s head hung limply. Everything was upside down—a battery of cannons thundered by, wheels a blur in the boiling dust. Infantry double-timed toward the front, officers mounted, shouting orders, trying to make sense of the madness that swirled around them. And dust. Dust hanging in the air; dust covering the dark blue sack coats of the soldiers; dust, and a dun-colored film, spurting from the soldiers’ feet.

“Get his head,” someone ordered.

Fitz felt a strong hand cradle his neck and hold his head up. The muscles ached from the strain of the unnatural position. He tried to say thank you but even that was too much.

He remembered what happened—or at least some of it.

Men were running, shouting—it was a rout. The Union line had broken, and Fitz was trying to rally his men when everything had turned black. Stop, he had wanted to say, turn and fight them—don’t run away—hold your ground. He was floating now.

Darkness again, and this time Fitz welcomed it. He was tired and thirsty, and he thought that someone had set fire to his left arm and the blaze was just now feeding his flesh. He wondered why someone would do that.

“Colonel?” A surgeon stood over him, the man’s coat caked with blood. Above the man’s head was a tent, and Fitz knew he was at the surgeon’s station. He heard men groaning, and the air was pierced by a sharp scream that ended quickly. Flies buzzed industriously around the tent, feasting on the residue on the surgeon’s scalpel. “Colonel,” the surgeon said again, his hand clamping on Fitz’s chin. He shook Fitz’s head until he was sure that his patient was awake. “I’m giving you chloroform.” He interrupted his explanation to demand the drug. His eyes, ringed red with fatigue, found Fitz’s. “Your arm is badly mangled and I must repair it. Do you understand?”

Fitz blinked once, a signal for yes, and then realized it made no difference if he understood or not—the surgeon would do as he thought best. Then he knew.

“No,” he croaked. “No!” For God’s sake don’t do it. “Don’t take my arm.”

The surgeon, senses dulled from hacking arms and legs from perfectly good bodies, tried to focus his attention on Fitz.

“Please don’t take my arm,” Fitz cried out, but some imp snatched his voice away and replaced it with nothing more than a husky whisper. He licked his lips, hoping that would return power to his words, but his mouth was as dry as a vault. His tongue swept cracked lips in vain, and the surgeon, tired of this silly game, returned to his preparation.

“Water,” Fitz thought to say. He could wet his mouth and speak so that this butcher would understand him.

A steward appeared alongside the operating table, holding a cotton cloth and a tin can. No. Not water. Chloroform.

Fitz shook his head in desperation as the man soaked the cloth. The cotton threads grew, and the heavy stench of the medicine drifted over Fitz.

“Water!” Fitz cried, loud enough to stop the surgeon and steward.

“Later,” the surgeon said, irritated at the interruption.

“Now!” Fitz ordered. The surgeon responded with a flick of his chin at the steward.

It was a different cloth that descended on Fitz. It was heavy with hot water. The steward forced it between his lips and squeezed. It tasted sour but washed the dust from his mouth and replenished his strength. When it was pulled away, Fitz locked eyes with the surgeon. “Don’t take my arm.”

The surgeon’s impatience was compounded by weariness, and he replied in a curt tone, “I may have to. To save your life.”

Fitz propped himself up on his right arm, ignoring the searing pain from his wound. He was angry now and fed up with discussing the issue. “Surgeon. Bandage it. Drain it. Bleed it. But leave it attached to the rest of me. It’s been at my side for thirty-four years. I’ve given you an order and by God, you’d better obey.”

The surgeon eased Fitz onto the table, giving him a look of disgust. “As you wish, Colonel.” He nodded at the steward to continue.

The cloth, stinking of chloroform, covered Fitz’s mouth and nose. Before he felt sleep overcome him, he wondered what had become of the army, and his regiment. The rebels—ghostly shapes who rose out of a tangle of trees and fired from fewer than one hundred yards—had flanked them. What happened to the Union regiment on his right? Thomas? Why didn’t Thomas protect his flank? Clouds drifted over his mind and the question remained, unanswered.

The Devil had the lowest bid. He and his fellow demons had contracted with the army to ship poor wounded soldiers, in condemned cars, over pitted iron rails that had been hastily laid on gravel roadbeds.

Fitz, like his fellow inmates packed in the crowded ambulance cars, rocked back and forth in agony as the train thundered on its endless journey north. Occasionally a steward would squeeze between the stacks of beds and wipe Fitz’s face of soot and sweat, or glance indifferently at his heavily bandaged left arm. Sometimes water was provided, and twice a day broth, and bread for those who could handle the rock-hard substance. When the train stopped, a surgeon would sweep through the car, tossing out rapid-fire orders, and the stewards changed bandages or cleaned wounds or, if the patients were lucky, dispensed lemon halves to each man. Fitz sucked his down greedily, chewing at the pulp and even the bitter rind. If wounded officers are treated this way, Fitz reasoned, then how horrible must conditions be for the common soldier.

Some men died. Fitz would hear a hurried conference of nervous whispers and then several stewards would carry the blanket-covered body down the narrow aisle to the end car.

The stewards talked about the defeats. This general or that general was to blame, and the talk turned against the government and Lincoln. Fitz ordered them to stop that nonsense, but then realized he had not uttered a word. Perhaps he was dreaming.

“Get me water,” an officer several beds down ordered. “My leg. Oh, it hurts so. Give me water, won’t someone?”

A man across the aisle from Fitz, an officer with yellow skin and sunken eyes, glanced in his direction. “I wish someone would drown that creature.” He lifted his head with great effort. “Your arm, eh? Well, you’ve still got it. I can’t get rid of this sickness. I’m through with this war. Through with the army, and Lincoln, too.”

Fitz was too weak to talk, but he was tired of the other officer already. He had seen despair creep through the camps, soldiers sullen and despondent because they had fought the enemy and lost. Officers such as the sick one next to him were no help. If they did not discourage the men, they did not encourage them either. The officer continued speaking—the next election would see Lincoln and the Republicans out, let the South have its way—there was no reason for Americans to fight Americans.

Fitz was awake enough to speak. “Shut up, you cowardly creature. If you can’t pitch in fully then don’t pitch in at all.”

“I have a right to an opinion,” the officer said.

“Yes, and I have a right to draw a pistol and shoot you,” Fitz returned. “If you must talk, step out the nearest door and have at it.”

The voices died down in response to Fitz’s outburst. He felt good. He was a plain-spoken man—much more so than some people liked. Hot-tempered, one officer noted.

Fitz slid in and out of consciousness, gritting his teeth each time the train rattled over a worn rail.

The pain was almost unbearable, but Fitz also struggled with the other trials of being wounded. His body defied him. His wound would not let him turn, seeking a more comfortable position. His bowels refused to function, unless the steward gave him a coarse medicine that rocked his stomach before it produced a watery mix. Lice became his constant companions, hundreds of them. Setting up housekeeping in his bed, crawling over his body, and milling about in the foul mass that covered his bedding. They invaded his bandages, hiding in the wound that protected them from his efforts to dig them out with his dirty fingernails.

The pain never left him. The stewards gave him a teaspoon of a hideous concoction they informed him would help with the pain. It did not. It made him light-headed and filled his brain with warped dreams of Asia, and dead soldiers, and lice gnawing his arm from his body.

He kept his mind focused on Asia Lossing as much as he could. Her name suited her. She was as mysterious as the Orient, he had remarked to her. Yes, she agreed, but not nearly as distant. He took a carnal inventory of her hips, arms, legs, and breasts, and reminded himself of the times that they had shared in her bed. Fitz found himself aroused as he thought of her, and glanced down sheepishly to see if the bulge in his blanket betrayed his thoughts.

I will ask her to marry me, Fitz vowed. She had spoken about marriage before, and he had halfheartedly agreed it was the thing to do. His reluctant response had hurt her, and now he felt guilty he had not asked for her hand then. You must hurry, she had warned him; at thirty I am an old maid. He had surprised himself with his chivalrous response. At any age, Fitz had said, you are beautiful. I will ask her when I arrive in Washington. If I arrive, he reminded himself.

The surgeon—another one, not the man who wanted to remove his arm—had told him he would have to spend some time in the hospital. “You won’t be able to use your arm for a while,” the surgeon had said. He was a major with a thick head of white hair, far too old for his position. But Fitz liked him because he was profane and blunt. They had a great deal in common. “I’ll send you up to the Armory Hospital. It’s practically within sight of the Capitol.” He examined the wound after carefully unwrapping it, and he filled the air with the curious physician’s incantations of “mmm”s before scowling at Fitz. “You’ve given some of our people a hard time, Colonel, but here’s my advice to you. Keep your damned mouth shut and do what the doctor tells you. This is a serious wound. We pulled enough lead out of it to build our own cannon. Hear me? Take your medicine and let it heal. Keep it clean. Once a day, new bandages.”

Fitz awoke with the shuddering of the car. Men groaned or screamed in pain as shattered bones bit into flesh. Open wounds twisted as the car swayed to a stop, and men cried for stewards, water, or the relief of death. They were someplace in Virginia, Fitz heard one of the stewards comment—a day’s journey from Washington. The stale air in the car stank of decay and the corruption of gangrene. Fitz turned his head toward a narrow slit in the car wall; beyond it, the full purity of summer. He saw trees fat with leaves that quaked with life in the faint breeze that teased them and carried into the car.

There was something else, an evil scent that reminded him of the dead carried on the train. He knew the smell—the thick and syrupy stink of flesh decaying, meat falling from bones, maggots swarming over vessels that had once been men.

They were carried off the train on stretchers and laid under tents as white as clouds. Surgeons and stewards moved among the long rows of wounded, replacing bandages, dispensing medicines, and giving the live-saving elixir of water. A male nurse, a gentle man with a bushy beard, slipped a soft hand under Fitz’s neck and lifted his head. Fitz felt the smooth lip of a tin cup at his mouth. Cool water ran down his throat, and Fitz begged for more. He was given nearly half a cup, but the nurse stopped.

“The surgeon will have to look you over first, Colonel,” the nurse said, guiding Fitz’s head to the canvas. “There are some ladies from the Sanitary Commission who will stop by. They will write a letter to your loved ones.”

“Washington?” Fitz asked, his mouth dry. He wanted more water. “How far?”

“Sixty miles,” the nurse said. He glanced at Fitz’s arm.

“How does it look?” Fitz asked, hoping the man would not answer.

The nurse smiled and stood. “The surgeon will be along. I’ll come later with more water.”

Fitz closed his eyes, sickened at the thought that he might yet lose his arm. He had seen the stacks of limbs near the surgeons’ tents. Shattered arms and legs, inarticulate pieces of meat, skin sagging for want of life, streaks of blood still draining from gaping wounds. Marching past the sight for the first time he had thought of hogs scalded and butchered, their parts stacked for salting.

A large woman carrying a stool appeared and, placing herself next to Fitz, pulled a sheaf of papers and a pencil from oversized pockets sewn onto her dress.

She smiled at Fitz, and for an instant he saw a pity in her eyes that said she was looking at a dead man. He calmed himself and forced a smile in return.

“I’m here to write to your loved ones,” the woman said, her voice surprisingly childlike. “What is your name?”

Fitz licked his lips. “Colonel Thomas Fitzgerald Dunaway.”

“A colonel,” she replied, impressed. “To whom shall I address the letter?”

Fitz told her and began an account of his condition. Asia must be informed of his wound and that he was in route to the Armory Hospital. He made light of his condition, hoping his description was not too shocking.

He did not reveal the truth. He was afraid he’d offend the woman scribbling dutifully. He could not bear to trouble Asia. She would know soon enough.

The pain was nearly overwhelming at times, knives piercing his flesh, scraping the muscle from his bone, but he knew if he could only get off that infernal train, he would feel better. He prayed to God that he would. It was an awkward effort; he had few conversations with the Almighty that weren’t firmly planted in a string of oaths.

The woman left, assuring Fitz that she would post the letter, and the nurse returned with more water, although not as much as Fitz wanted. The surgeon, some pale balding man with a weak chin, followed. After examining Fitz’s arm, he commented, “They’ll tend to this in Washington.”

Fitz felt hollow as the words echoed through his mind. They’ll tend to this in Washington.

He awoke, realizing that he was moving. His stretcher was being carried onto a train. He watched with a sense of longing as the cool tents that had housed him for such a short time receded.

Fitz felt the train move steadily, the swaying now reduced from a sharp pitch from side to side to a gentle oscillation, the train calmed by its impending arrival at its destination.

They entered the city in darkness; Fitz was surprised by the rush of lights visible through the louvers. He was alarmed by the city’s appearance. Lamps glowed in the darkness; wagons moved about freely, people behaving as if they had nothing to trouble them. He became unaccountably frightened by the disinterest and thought he would be pitched into a hospital and forgotten. His return to Washington plunged him into melancholy. It was no longer a city; it was strange and bewildering landscape of foreign sights.

He counted three changes, yard engines moving cars about, shuttling them to spurs that led to hospitals. He heard men shouting orders as cars were unhitched from the trains, and then the bump as an engine locked into the coupling. His excitement built at each movement, and he desperately wanted to scream at the voices to hurry, for God’s sake, hurry. They took their time, however—more evidence that unfeeling dullards populated the city.

The rumble of the large loading door being thrown open frightened Fitz. He was not prepared, and he cried out in alarm, then gratitude. He was relieved, almost giddy, as two soldiers took hold of either end of his stretcher and carried him out into a night of sparkling torches. He wanted to thank them, to pay them for their compassion, but he could not trust himself to speak for fear he would begin crying. He lay still instead, squeezing his eyelids shut and thanking God.

A familiar, high-pitched voice brought him around. His eyes fluttered open. He wondered what time it was, and thought by the slant of the sun’s rays through the open windows it must be well after nine o’clock. He caught sight of a black figure standing near the head of his bed, and as he twisted his head to make out who it was, a steward brought a chair over and sat it next to him.

Lincoln sat down in the chair, settling his long legs in the narrow space between the hospital beds. “If it isn’t my old friend, Dunaway.”

Fitz tried to pull himself up on his pillow.

“No. No,” Lincoln said, patting him solidly on the shoulder. “Just lay there and rest easy.” A doctor leaned down and whispered something in Lincoln’s ear. “I understand you’re banged up a bit. You’re a young man; you’ll come out of it. I did. Got kicked in the head once when I was a boy. Folks gave me up for dead.”

“I’ll be fine, sir,” Fitz managed, hoping that he sounded better than he felt.

“I know you will, Dunaway,” Lincoln agreed. “My, you gave me a start. I just stopped in to see how some of the boys were doin’, and here you lie.”

“I’ll be well soon enough, sir,” Fitz said. No one was listening to him. All they were doing was staring at his wound. How could people be such dullards? He had to get back to his regiment.

“You need anythin’, Dunaway? Has your family been notified?”

Fitz managed a nod.

“You’ve got to rest up.” Lincoln rose, his arms and legs locking into place. He towered over Fitz. “You get well, and we’ll find somethin’ for you to do. The Union can’t afford to lose a fella like you.”

Lincoln was gone, leading a pack of officers and doctors down the broad aisle that led out the door. The ward’s customary noises returned—men moaning in pain, the clank of bedpans, the whispers of stewards dispensing medicines, the rhythmic squeal as wheelchairs rolled by. As Fitz lay in his bed, staring up at the joists of the whitewashed ceiling, he found the noises of the long ward reassuring. It was the stench of decay, the heavy odor of men’s bowels failing them, and the sweet fragrance of blood that frightened him. He knew it was the smell of death.

Asia appeared on the afternoon of his second day in the Officers’ Ward at Armory Hospital. Dropping next to his bed and calling his name, she kissed him on the forehead, mouth, and cheek. His tears came so quickly he wasn’t prepared. He sobbed, throwing his good arm around Asia, and they rocked each other, finding comfort in the other’s presence.

Asia drew back and, caressing his gaunt face, shook her head at his condition. “Oh, Fitz,” she said, the tears coming again. “What have you done?”

He laughed, surprising himself, and then a thought struck him. She had not meant it to sound accusatory, but Asia’s question had reminded Fitz of his childhood; yet the question wasn’t the same.

Fitz’s father, upon finding out that his son had no interest in farming, had fixed him with a hard disappointed glare and said, “What will become of you?”

Here it was again—what will become of you? His arm may take months to heal. Or it may never entirely heal. He knew of men whose open wounds still drained blood and pus years after the event.

He would become one of those pathetic old men who marched each Fourth of July, ignoring the taunts of vagrants and children. Or a neighborhood curiosity who droned on about his life in the army until the bored stares of those around him became too much. In short, he would live as an embarrassment.

He could go back to his regiment, if his regiment still existed. He would heal and return to the army and fight the enemy. But perhaps the war was over? Perhaps the mounting casualty lists sickened the nation and the soldiers were so disheartened they simply went home. Maybe the government was not capable of pursuing victory.

No. That couldn’t be. Fitz knew brave soldiers and capable officers, and he knew that President Lincoln would never accept defeat.

Fitz was a soldier. There was nothing else to it. Ultimately it was a simple life of simple virtues, one that suited his nature. He fought, and led men in battle, and was well suited to the endeavor. Goddamn it, Dunaway, General Yardley had said after Stones River, you’re arrogant and hot-tempered, but I’d give my right arm for a regiment like you.

The thoughts drifted out of his mind like the early morning autumn fog that rolled over the Tennessee mountains. It was time to stop thinking about anything except the woman he loved.

Fitz smiled at Asia. He would not think of it now. He was home. He was with Asia. He was alive.