Late Afternoon September 26, 1863
Chattanooga
The hospital was the town hall and Eli found it overflowing with wounded. Before he located a surgeon he passed several corpses the overwhelmed staff had yet to remove. The place had the sharp metallic odor of blood and the stomach turning reek of death.
When he found him, the surgeon’s appearance reminded Eli of a man behind the counter of a butcher shop wearing a dirty white apron thoroughly stained with blood. He was an older man, bald with a snow white moustache. Bent over a patient, he looked up at Eli over his horn-rimmed glasses.
“What can I do for you, son? That’s a nasty bruise on your forehead,” he said.
“I’m fine,” replied Eli. “I’m looking for a man from our company named Joe McCarthy.”
“What’s his unit?” asked the doctor looking back down at the man lying comatose on the cot in front of him.
“125th Ohio.”
“Big fella?”
“Yes.”
“Second floor, first room on your left. Might already be dead, though.” The surgeon went back to his work.
Eli pushed his way up the stairs past scores of wounded men and found the room, his eye immediately drawn to the enormous form of Big Joe in a corner. Apparently too large for any of the cots they had simply left him on a thin layer of blankets on the bare wooden floor. He was not moving.
Eli stepped carefully between the tightly packed beds to Joe’s side. His face a peculiar yellowish gray, his eyes sunken and dark, he looked like day old death.
Suddenly Joe’s eyes flickered and he managed a feeble smile. “That you, Eli?” he whispered.
Eli stooped down next to him, and then almost backed away. Joe stank powerfully of sweat and excrement. Eli was stunned. Not two days ago this man was at the peak of health and looked like nothing could knock him down. Now he was a ruin.
“So thirsty,” whispered Joe, his eyes slowly closing and opening.
Eli nodded and went off to find water. He returned a few minutes later carrying a tin cup filled to the brim. Holding his breath to avoid the stench, he stooped down next to Joe and lifted his head, placing the cup to his lips. Joe quickly gulped it down minus what dribbled down both sides of his cheeks.
Eli felt his forehead. It was burning with fever.
Joe immediately began retching, bringing back up the water along with a thin yellow bile that was all he had left in his gut. It smelled bad and covered his neck since he didn’t have the strength to turn his head properly or roll on his side.
Eli thought Joe so weak the violence of vomiting might finish him off. He had to admit he half hoped it so they both could be done with this, but it didn’t kill him.
“Sorry,” whispered Joe. “Can’t keep noth’en down.”
“Don’t talk,” said Eli. “Save your strength.”
Hell and damnation, Eli sighed inwardly, cursing Al for talking him into coming. The last thing he wanted was to play nurse to this oversized white gorilla. But here he was, the man saved his life and he could not just walk away. He dearly wanted to, but he could not.
Eli looked around. There were too many men and too few doctors and nurses to care for them. In fact, this was probably the worst place for him to be right now, but Eli thought moving him would certainly kill him. Besides, it would take at least four men to carry him out.
Eli decided the first thing needed was to settle Joe’s stomach so he could hold water down. If he did not drink soon he would die of the lack of it, and from the look of him there was little time left.
“Look,” said Eli, “try to rest. I’ve got to go get some things. I’ll be back.”
All Joe could manage in response was a half smile.
Two hours later Eli was back with Al in tow. He also had with him blankets, a bucket of water, rags, soap and a medicinal soup he learned to brew from his mother. It was a bone soup made with vinegar, salt and several herbs he was able to collect. There were other things that should have gone into it, but he had to work with what he could get. Eli was glad to at least have the vinegar. The soup should also have been boiled much longer, but he filled an empty whiskey bottle and left the rest on the fire to be watched over by Mark Larsen.
On his return Eli half expected to find Joe dead, but he was not. The man had to have a heart as strong as an ox, thought Eli. Anyone else would surely have succumbed by now.
Joe’s glazed eyes did not recognize them. His forehead was beaded with sweat.
“Ok, Al, hold up his head,” ordered Eli.
Al stooped down and then reeled back in disgust. “Sweet Jesus,” he said, “he smells worse’n ten skunks.”
“Hold up his head, Al,” Eli repeated impatiently. “Or else we can just leave him to die. Your choice.” Al sighed and stooped to lift Joe’s head.
Eli pulled a large spoon from his pocket and filled it with warm soup from the bottle. “Joe,” he said, “we’ve got to settle your stomach so you can hold down water. I’m going to give you just two spoonfuls of this to start with so you can keep it down. You hear me?”
Joe gazed at him blankly.
“I don’t reckon he hears you,” said Al.
“Well, we’ll give it a try anyway,” said Eli. He put the spoon to Joe’s lips and slowly tipped the liquid into his mouth. Joe responded by drinking it. Eli gave him a second and he drank that, too.
“We’ll stop there,” said Eli. “Let that get down to his stomach and see if it stays.”
Eli sat back on his heels and thought a moment. He did not want to do what he knew they had to. God damn it, he thought.
“Al,” he said, “we’ve got to get those clothes off him. He’s covered in his own filth and it’s soaked into the blankets under him. We’ll have to remove his clothes, wash him, and then cover him with the blankets I brought. There’s no use putting any under him because he’ll just soil them again. Without them it’ll also be easier to clean the floor and his backside when he fouls himself.”
“I don’t know, Eli,” complained Al, “he smells powerful bad. It’s more’n a man can stand, for God’s sake.”
Eli rolled his eyes. Why me, oh Lord, he thought?
“Just lift his shoulders up and I’ll take off his shirt and wash his chest,” said Eli.
When they got down to his pants Eli very much wanted to tell Al to pull them off and wash Joe, but he sucked in his breath, clenched his jaw and pulled them off with difficulty. They were soaked through and smelled worse than any outhouse. He tossed them to the corner where they landed with a sickening damp scrunch.
“Al,” said Eli.
“What?”
“If Joe survives and I get shot again and my life depends on him carrying me somewhere.”
“Yeah?”
“Tell Joe to leave me because I’ll be damned if I’ll ever do this again.”