Fuzzyheaded with exhaustion, Jana stumbled from the outbuilding into the morning’s grim light. Her eyes needed little adjustment to it since it closely mimicked the dusky room where all through the night she and Leanne had administered chloroform to tranquilize those soldiers about to have one or more of their limbs amputated. She gazed toward the back of the makeshift hospital, a brick Georgian-style house built on the bluffs overlooking the Rappahannock River and Fredericksburg beyond. She saw movement in a second-story window and hoped either Keeley or Charlie waved to her. To see them would raise her spirits, but the shadow disappeared as quickly as it had come.
She inhaled a heavy dose of fresh air to expel the harsh smells of blood, cut flesh, and sawed bone clinging to the hairs of her nostrils. Sliding her back down the wall, she dropped onto the ground. The cold crept through her wool uniform pants like a giant ice pack against her aching legs, which had sustained her for more consecutive hours than they ever had before. Closing her weary eyes, she tried to forget all of the cruelty she’d heard and seen, but against the black backdrop of her eyelids it played out: a surgeon hacked through flesh and bone to sever a shot-up arm with blood spurting everywhere. Crashing up against her eardrum like a tidal wave, Jana relived the agonizing screams from the victims of such a barbaric procedure. She threw open her eyes, which met the ghastliness of bloody trails snaking their way toward a heap of amputated limbs as high as the stable’s roof and the ghoulishness of the dead resting beneath their uniform coats in a flowerless garden.
James Lacy would be appalled if he were to come home today to find bountiful stumps in place of his trees; muddy, rutted roadways across his manicured lawns; trampled paths through his gardens; and permanent blood stains in his walls and floors everywhere, Jana thought. But, as a Confederate staff officer, he must understand the beast of destruction wrought by war with two great armies tramping all over his home and state.
Followed by Dr. Mary Walker, Leanne exited the surgical quarters in her uniform equally as spattered with blood and filth as Jana’s.
Casting Leanne a weary smile, Jana said, “Thanks for taking the last patient.”
“You looked like ya were gonna drop, and I got a second wind,” Leanne said.
Dr. Walker stretched, and her loose-fitting blouse drooped off her arms. “You fellows deserve a medal, coming through your first amputations without getting squeamish and fainting.”
In the light, Jana got a good look at Dr. Walker. She was pleasant looking with a small face, which angled sharply down from a wide forehead to a rounded chin. Though, her oversized ears, bushy eyebrows, flared nostrils, and the manner in which she dressed in men’s trousers beneath a skirt, gave her more of a masculine appearance.
Jana had never seen Leanne take to anyone as quickly as she had to Dr. Walker, probably because of their common masculine peculiarities. Dr. Walker had told them that her pa, a medically savvy farmer, had forbidden her to wear corsets or other tight-fitting women’s clothes because they squished the internal organs, especially the lungs to hamper their breathing. So, he’d allowed her to fashion her own costume, and she’d chosen to dress in men’s clothes because of their loose fit. Jana knew women who’d fainted from corsets strung too tight and she’d always worn hers loose. Especially now—she wasn’t about to give up her identity fainting from a suffocating corset.
A good three inches taller than Dr. Walker’s five feet, Leanne gazed down upon her with great admiration. “Ya should git a medal for puttin’ up with those bossy surgeons. I came close to sockin’ ’em for brushin’ ya aside and tellin’ ya to hand over their saws like ya had no trainin’.”
“But, Dr. Walker—,” Jana began before the doctor interjected.
“Please, both of you, call me Mary.”
Starting over, Jana said, “But, Mary, the other surgeons sure sucked in their pride when they got overrun with cases and needed your help.”
Leanne whistled. “The tongue-lashin’ ya gave ’em to chase ’em away from yer cases with their bad advice was sure something.”
With a rebellious flip of her dark curls, Mary said, “They’re protective of their professions and fear us women showing them up. Well, I say, they better get used to us hanging around because we’re here to stay.”
Jana noted Mary’s bloodied apron over her partial medical uniform and said, “They sure didn’t like it when you went ahead and removed bullets and shrapnel instead of amputating. We soldiers did; it renewed our faith that not all surgeons are butchers.”
“Unfortunately, army doctors follow orders to amputate everything. The government claims my kind of doctoring costs too much time and money.” Mary threw up her arms. “Why can’t they see that surgery and rehabilitation could get a limb working again? The men who benefit from those services will be independent of the government’s charity and productive to their families and society and, more importantly, have their pride restored.”
Now, Jana sat in awe of Mary, a petite woman who packed a punch. Although Jana had witnessed her cussing worse than a man to prevent the male surgeons from walking all over her, she’d also witnessed her winning bedside manner, gentle touch, and technical expertise. It was no wonder the other surgeons were jealous of her. Not to mention, they were probably intimidated by her two medical degrees from nationally-recognized medical colleges in New York, both acquired before her current age of thirty.
To deflect attention away from her, Mary pointed toward the backside of the plantation house where a matronly woman stepped down from the portico. “Now, there’s someone who also deserves a medal. Have you met her yet, boys?”
In unison, Jana and Leanne answered, “No.”
“Her name’s Clara Barton. She puts herself in peril bringing abundant supplies that she’s solicited herself to our army and nursing the wounded on the battlefields with bullets zipping all around her,” Mary said, her small beady eyes radiating a high regard.
As Miss Barton came their way with some steaming rations, Jana observed a bounce in her step that hinted to her feistiness. She bent down to put her tray within Jana’s reach and, when Jana started to rise, she said, “Please stay right where you are.” She giggled. “You look comfortable on the cold ground.”
Jana judged her to be about forty years of age. She was a pretty woman. Her face was ovular with a hearty complexion and gentle lines. Her dark eyes were rimmed with red, and the skin around them was puffy from the many hours she’d probably been on her feet, nursing the wounded. She looked more exhausted than Jana felt. “Thank you, Miss Barton,” she said, taking a mug of hot coffee and a warm biscuit. “By the way, my name’s Johnnie, and my friend here is Leander.”
Looking from Jana to Leanne with a kind expression, she said, “Nice to meet you boys; please call me Clara.”
Jana bit into the yeasty biscuit, washing it down with the robust coffee. Both sent a homey feeling sifting through her and warmed her inside and out. She shivered as she felt herself beginning to thaw out.
Mary slurped her coffee and then said, “Ahh, you’re an angel, Clara. But, really, you ought to be resting instead of serving us. I bet you haven’t put your feet up in days.”
“There’s a method in my madness, Mary,” Clara said with a devilish twinkle in her eyes. “I’ve heard all about Johnnie and Leander’s diligence in the surgical quarters, and I could use their kind of help inside. I came to bribe them with food. If it works its magic, then I’ll rest a spell.” It was obvious that she hadn’t had a moment to re-style her hair with several dark strands having strayed from the braid along the crown of her head and clipped back by a barrette with the rest of her thick hair.
Leanne pointed to a bullet hole in Clara’s skirt. “How’d ya git that?”
Gesturing across the river toward Fredericksburg, Clara replied, “Crossing a pontoon bridge to get to the wounded holed up in a church.”
“I’d keep it as a reminder if I were ya,” Leanne said with an emphatic nod.
Clara frowned at the soiled hem of her skirt. “I guess I’ll have to. In my haste to get here, I didn’t pack another.”
Hoofs smacking through the mud and wagon planks groaning under the weight of more shrieking wounded reached their ears. Two mules, straining to lug a four-wheeled ambulance up the deeply rutted road bluff-side, turned the corner.
Jana shuddered to see any more suffering. Knowing that only those cases requiring more complicated surgeries were brought here, she got to her feet and brushed the snow from her britches. She might be drowning in her loathing of war, but she wouldn’t abandon the needy. To the contrary, war had given her something to love. Over the past twenty-four hours, she’d found great pleasure in making others feel better, even if only in some small way.
Tucking the emptied tray beneath her arm, Clara pressed on with a wide sway of her small hips and a loud swish of her skirt to meet the wounded.
Jana and Leanne trotted after her.
As the ambulance bumped to a stop, a steward jumped down from the back of it.
“Would you kindly hold my tray while I assess the wounded?” Clara asked him.
With a scowl, he said, “I ain’t no woman’s slave.” Then he started away.
Jana was dumbfounded by his reaction. He wore the green half-chevrons with yellow piping on his upper uniform sleeves that designated him as belonging to the medical department. Of all people, she expected him to be compassionate and to welcome any gender willing to nurse the wounded, especially under a shortage of help.
Leanne threw her mug to the ground, swallowed the sip she had swirling around in her mouth, and marched over to the steward. Not caring that he outranked her, she pinched and twisted his earlobe and said, “And when you’re bleedin’ all over the battlefield, she ain’t gonna help ya.”
He begged her to stop.
“I met Rebels who act better than ya,” she said as she shoved him away by her boot in his butt.
Under the glowers of all around him, the steward slunk a good distance away.
Clara wrapped her hand around Leanne’s in a white-knuckled squeeze. “I’ve had to use those same words more than once. For everyone like him, there’s a whole lot more like you, thank the sweet Lord.”
Returning Clara’s white-knuckled squeeze, Leanne said, “And us soldiers hope there’re lots more like ya and Mary watchin’ our backs.”
Clara smiled and then set off to begin her assessment of the wounded.
Inwardly, Jana praised Leanne’s aggression. She’d put it to good use battling prejudice against a woman who risked her life for the soldiers and gave her all to this bloody war. In the presence of Mary and Clara, who hadn’t turned their backs on their gender to fight in this war, Jana’s loose-fitting men’s clothes suddenly began to grow small around her and suffocate her like a tightly tied corset. As much as she felt conflicted between maintaining her disguise and shedding it, her uniform had done well by her. It deserved a little more time to sow the glamour and glory she'd so coveted in fighting for her country as a soldier. But how much further can I go on? Jana pondered with a huge sigh.