‘Men need guns, not basins and beds!’ Dr Sawyer answered his matron bluntly.
‘It is ridiculous!’ Louisa stormed. ‘Two basins for dressing the wounds of three hundred men … the better of which has a hole in the bottom stuffed with rags! We are reduced to using the tin cups from which we eat and drink for bandage wetting. It won’t do! It just won’t do, Doctor!’
‘Sister! The Quartermaster-General will not divert funds from buck and ball to wash-hand basins!’ Dr Sawyer replied, explaining how ‘My nights, when not in here, are futilely spent in writing letters of request to General Headquarters for more supplies for the wounded. I fear my words are falling on deaf ears,’ he said, with an air of resignation. ‘Very deaf ears.’
‘Then I myself will go to General Headquarters,’ Louisa declared.
Dr Sawyer smiled. He relished the idea of the sparks that would fly between the General, any General, of whatever reputation, and the young Irish nun bristling before him.
‘Of course … if you must, Sister,’ he said, disguising his delight. ‘I’ll send a guard to accompany you.’
‘I must … but I have no need of protection,’ Louisa replied firmly. ‘The Archangel of God will be my guide and protector.’
‘Well, Madame?’ General Bickerdyke, in truculent humour, barely raised his head to acknowledge Louisa’s presence.
She didn’t speak. Waited till he looked up at her.
‘Well?’ he demanded, angered by her silence. ‘Devil got your tongue?’
He had a war to run and who did they deem themselves to be. These fanatics in strange garb who were swarming the hospitals, baptising on every side?
Louisa didn’t flinch, stood there, hands clasped in front of her.
‘We have a growing army of sick and wounded and …’
‘Rebels, mostly, I’ll warrant!’ the general unceremoniously interrupted.
‘Rebels or Federals, Catholic or Protestant, drummer boy or general, I do not ask. They are not soldiers when they come to us – simply suffering fellow creatures. Our work begins when yours is done. Yours the carnage, ours the binding up of wounds!’
General Bickerdyke sat back, set down his nib and studied her. He had heard much of the ‘Sisters’, mostly Irish and with no husbands. Who, when they took charge of them, ran the hospitals with sabre-like precision.
‘What do you do with all your beggings, Sister?’ he asked in an accusatory manner.
‘Some day you may know, General!’ Louisa answered and turned to go.
‘Stay!’ he ordered. ‘You’re Irish?’
‘I’m human!’ she answered, ‘and so too, could you be … General!’
He flushed slightly but she did not break stare with him. Brusquely then, he pulled out a piece of vellum and scratched the date at its head.
‘Well, go on then, Madame … spell out your needs but don’t come bothering me further!’
So she listed her demands while the general scribbled furiously. He kept his eyes down as he struggled to keep pace with her and so, did not catch the smile that lighted hers.
‘Flour … Ice … Coffee … Cups … Basins …’ She paused, thinking what would Dr Sawyer say now?
The general, thinking she had finished, made to flourish his name and rank at the bottom of Louisa’s list of ‘beggings’.
‘… And beef! All at the usual commissary prices,’ she added, almost beneath his hearing.
He snorted in disbelief. By all that was holy, she had temerity, this Lucifer bonnet!
‘… And beef!’ he exhaled, ‘all at commissary prices? By jove! There … !’
He held out the paper to her. ‘Good for three months at army terms – a reduction of one-third on market prices,’ he said with the smirk of a smile, and added, ‘But you already know that, Madame!’
‘Indeed I do … sir!’ Louisa answered and took the paper from him. She studied it, a frown coming on her face.
‘What now?’ he exploded.
‘Oh!’ she said, smiling at him. ‘Thank you kindly, General, but I almost forgot … to ease the pain of the wounded … a couple of jiggers of whiskey … sir.’
A month later he was wheeled in, delirious with pain, his right shoulder shell-torn, wanting only to die. She assisted at the amputation, and then nursed him for weeks through a tortuous recovery, which often pendulumed between life and death.
When he first regained consciousness, she was leant over him, dabbing his temple with ice-cold water.
‘It’s you!’ he said, as if still haunted by delirium.
‘Yes, General,’ she answered, laughing.
‘… And is this the begging ice?’ he asked.
A month on, after he was released, Louisa received an envelope. In it a cheque for two thousand dollars.
‘For the beggings,’ was all the accompanying note said.