The sound of a faraway conversation gradually formed into words.
“Did you get any water in him?”
“A mite, sir. A trickle or two.”
“That’s not going to be sufficient, Private LeBlanc. He’s been out for two days. You better get some water into this boy or he is going to die. He’ll probably die anyway, bad off as he is.”
“His feet ain’t pussing the way they were.”
“Hmmm. Yes, well, the carbolic acid stopped the putrefaction some. Yours is a hearty race, LeBlanc. You don’t feel pain the same way a white man does. Your people can endure unimaginable hardships. Nonetheless, this boy is on the brink.” The doctor heaved an exasperated sigh and added, “Well, if he is going to die, you might as well get him undressed before rigor mortis sets in. Remove his uniform.”
“Sir, listen, sir. He’s moaning.”
“Ah, yes, poor wretch. Death rales. Carry on.”
Though I ordered every bit of my being to fight, my eyes refused to open nor my arms lift, and my jacket—my armor, my shield for the past two years—was unbuttoned and stripped off me.
“Uh, sir, you might want to have a look at this.”
The smell of quinine and whiskey engulfed me as the surgeon moved close to gape at what had been uncovered. “What the blazes? This man has been wounded. His entire chest is wrapped. I don’t recall any injury being mentioned? Oh, well, cut those bandages off him. Let’s have a look at what killed him.”
Snick.
The cool blade of the scissors rested against my breastbone and took their first slice.
Wager.
Wager was waiting for me on the other side. I had to stop them. I forced life into my hand and pushed the blade away.
“Well, look at that, LeBlanc, a sign of life.”
The blade continued slicing downward through the bindings that had protected my secret. I ordered myself to wake up. The cool steel of the scissors’ bottom blade slid downward until it rested between my breasts.
“No.” My protest was a gargled groan, lost in the final snick of the scissors. Brushed by the rare touch of air, I felt my nipples pebble.
“What the deuce?” the surgeon asked.
With hard effort, I pried my eyes open and beheld the whiskery face of the sawbones, his nose and cheeks spotted with crimson rum blossoms, his pendulous lower lip drooping down, mouth open in amazement. His orderly, LeBlanc, a dapper, light-skinned fellow who oiled his hair until the tight curls were plastered down like they’d been scrolled into his skull, was gaping for all he was worth. The fools acted like the circus had come to town.
“What?” I croaked, anger lubricating my throat enough for me to speak. “They’re titties. Ain’t neither of you never seen titties before?”
The way those two were blinking and gasping, it seemed that the answer was “no.”
The rumpot surgeon was the first to collect himself and announce, “Colonel Drewbott must be informed. Immediately,” and bustled off, so discombobulated that he left his medical bag sitting on the bed beside me. The orderly, unable to peel his eyes from my chest, stayed behind. His trousers were tented out so far in front that I could read his intentions a mile off. When he moved on me, I grabbed up the longest, wickedest scalpel from the medical bag, pointed it right where he was bulging, and said, “One more step forward and you’ll back off a gelding.”
He jumped away, saying, “Wait until Vikers hears about this. Just wait.”
No, I didn’t think I’d wait for that seven-sided son of a bitch, and whatever mob he’d whip up, to pay me a call. Though I was weak as a washed kitten, I stuffed the scalpel into my pocket and tried to stand, but tumped over screaming when my feet touched the floor. I made it onto all fours, crawled to the window, hauled myself up until I could see the yard and found what I feared. LeBlanc stood at the center of a thunderstruck crowd, shouting, “A woman, I’m telling you! Cathay’s a woman! I saw her titties with my own eyes!”
So they knew. Now they would come for me. I threw the bolt lock on the door to the ward and wrapped my fingers around the scalpel.
Boot heels struck loud and hard on the wooden stairs of the infirmary porch. Heavy steps pounded down the hall. Shoulders slammed against the door. Fear was bigger than pain, and I managed to stand on my massacred feet.
Brawny shoulders thudded against the door. It opened a crack. A slice of Vikers’s face appeared on the other side. “One! Two Three!” he ordered. The men grunted as they bore down and crashed the thick door open. Vikers pushed through first. The rest of the mob, a dozen men, maybe more, forced their way in behind then stopped, staring at me google-eyed.
Someone in the back whispered, “Lordy God, it’s true.”
Another man added, “Tits.”
“I told you,” Vikers shouted. “Told you from the get something wasn’t right. Greene, what’d I say from day one?”
“Said something wasn’t right with Cathay. Said it from the git. You called it, Sergeant.”
“A woman,” Vikers crowed. “Only two reasons a woman’d go for soldier. One, to be with her man. Two, to get her some tail. Cathay doesn’t have a man. So…”
“So,” Greene yelled, “let’s give her the tail she come for!”
They made to move, but Tea Cake elbowed his way in, threw my cut-up jacket around my shoulders, and said, “Now, hold on a minute, y’all. What’s Cathay ever done to y’all? He served. Weren’t no shirker. Never beat on a duty. He done his hitch good as any of the rest of you. Where’s the fault there?”
“How slow are you?” Caldwell asked. “‘He’ ain’t done nothin’. ‘He’s’ a ‘she.’”
“So?” Tea Cake asked. “Seen plenty of women in my time could outwork, outfight, outbrave any two men.”
“She lied to us,” Vikers squawked. “Lied to every man here. Lied with every breath she took passing among us as a man. As one of us. You think she hasn’t been laughing her ass off at us this whole time? Playing us for chumps. Holding out on us.”
“Yeah,” Caldwell added, a new ugliness curdling his tone. “She’s here putting on she’s a real man. Woman needs to be schooled in what it takes to be a real man!”
Caldwell stepped close enough that I could smell he had a bad tooth. But I stood my ground. I wasn’t going to run. If they were going to take me, they’d take me standing. Like dogs puzzled when the rabbit doesn’t move, they froze.
“Are all y’all hiding pussies, too?” Vikers clamped a hand on my wrist. I didn’t fight him. “I’m going to get some tail off this bitch.”
With his free hand, Vikers fumbled with his fly. I pulled the scalpel from my pocket and tried to stab it into Vikers’s eye. I hit the bone of the socket instead, but that was good enough. He shrieked and blood sheeted his face.
I held the scalpel like a spear and asked, “Who’s next? Let’s get this over with. The Sergeant is down south waiting for me on the free side of the border and I need to get to him.”
I figured that Drewbott must of told them that he’d killed Wager, since the news caused a stir among the men. They looked at each other and exchanged whispered comments. Though I couldn’t make out what they were saying, they shrank back an inch or two.
“’Less you kill me,” I went on, “I’m riding to him tonight. First thing out of my mouth when me and the Sergeant are together again’s gonna be your names and how you done me here today. So, come on, let’s get this over with.”
Not a one of them moved or would meet my eye. Shame rose off those curs strong as the stink of rotten meat. None more so than Greene and Caldwell who, for all their licking of Vikers’s ass, thought as high of Wager as any of them.
Blood running between his fingers from where he held his hand to his eye, Vikers squawked, “Caldwell, you a bitch, too? I told you, take her. Give her what she came to the army to get. Put the bitch in her place,” he ordered.
Caldwell’s eyes narrowed, and he didn’t move.
“Caldwell, are you deaf along with being dumb as a stump? I just gave you a direct order.”
Blinking as he reeled from the insult, Caldwell glanced from side to side, but he still didn’t move. Still didn’t obey Vikers’s order.
“That’s it, Caldwell, you’re finished. You’re ruined. Greene, you’re my first in command now. Take the bitch!”
Greene wheeled on Vikers and barked out, “Why don’t you put your own damn pecker in that”—he waved at me—“that half-man hank of jerky?”
“Yeah?” Caldwell demanded. “Why you always giving us orders? Who you think you are? My massuh? Just cuz you read off a few pieces of paper, gave me scraps of all you stole off every one of us here, don’t make you my massuh.”
Vikers had skinned near every man in the mob. Of a sudden, the ones still paying him off saw a way to make their debts disappear. The instant that doing the right thing became a financial advantage, that mob of curs turned righteous about raping me and Caldwell commenced to leading them out of the infirmary.
“Goddammit, Greene, Caldwell!” Vikers screeched. “Get your black asses back here!”
The man did not know when he was holding a losing hand and, in the face of a mutiny about to turn ugly, he went on screaming out orders. “Goddammit, Caldwell, I’m cutting you off unless you grab this bitch cuckolded all of us. Now get to it! Tumble out! Tumble out!”
That was the fatal mistake: Vikers had barked at them like an overseer.
Without a word, Caldwell came back and smashed his anvil of a fist into Vikers’s face. Vikers dropped on his ass. Blood poured from his nose. Shards of the shattered lenses of his mangled spectacles glistened in the blood.
Greene stepped up and pronounced sentence. “That’s the last order you ever give, and you raise up to me now, they will also be the last words you ever speak on this earth.” As the mob left, Greene added with enough contempt to blacken a barn, “Little Man.”