Ashes in the Wind (7 page)

I
T
was not difficult for Alaina to avoid the busy doctor, yet far too often for total peace of mind, she found herself forced into his companionship. A certain animosity flourished between the boy, Al, and the man, Cole, and more than once Alaina felt the bite of the captain’s reproof. Though it gave her some assurance that he had not yet guessed her secret, she wondered if all he saw was the soot on her face, for it was there his criticism thrived. He could not know, of course, of the effort she took to smudge her face every morning or of the treatment her short mane received. The dirt and grease had proven an excellent replacement for the old battered hat that he had forbidden her to wear in the hospital, but it only aggravated his ambition to see the urchin clean.

“One of these days,” he threatened, “I’m going to teach you how to properly wash yourself. Look at your hair! It’s so stiff you could pound a strand through a fence post.”

“Betcha you was born with a chunk of soap in your mouth,” Alaina retorted with a fervor to match the doctor’s. “I ain’t never seen a body so attached to washing as you.”

“That raises the question of what you were born with,” Cole returned with sarcasm before striding
away beneath her glare.

The night the captain came to call on Roberta, Alaina took herself far from the house. She had no intention of joining the group for dinner. Dressed as a filthy boy, she would simply be subjected to the Yankee’s disapproval if it didn’t arouse his curiosity as to why Angus would allow the child to appear in such an untidy state at their table.

If Alaina managed to escape that evening’s festivities, she was not able to avoid hearing all about them from Roberta. The older cousin sought her out as soon as possible, not caring that Alaina was just dozing off to sleep when she burst into her room.

“Oh, Lainie, it was the most exciting evening ever! And do you know, Cole’s father is also a doctor and has been a widower since shortly after Cole was born. I’m sure they’re rich, too.”

“Did you ask him?” Alaina yawned sleepily as she snuggled deeper into the soft bed.

“Of course not, you silly child. That would be rude. But I know they are,” Roberta smiled slyly. “Cole has traveled abroad and was educated in the East where he and his father have properties, besides their home in Minnesota. I imagine when the old man dies, Cole will inherit all of his fortune. Why, he already owns properties of his very own. Now tell me, what man without money can boast of that?”

Alaina peered up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “He boasts?”

“Oh, Lainie, you’re exasperating!” Roberta snapped. “Of course not. But I know how to ask subtle questions to find out things.”

“I think I’ll ask him if he’s rich,” Alaina mused
aloud. “That’s what you really want to know, isn’t it?”

“And why not?” Roberta questioned defensively. “A girl must look out for her own best interests these days. And I’m tired of wearing these rags the war has left me. I’m going to find me a rich man who can afford to buy me all the things I want.”

Alaina stifled another yawn. “It’s late, Roberta, and I’m tired. I nearly fell asleep by the bayou waiting for that critter to leave. Can we talk about this some other time? I have to get up with the sun.”

Roberta sighed as if in sympathy with her cousin. “Poor Al, you do have your hardships. But then—”

“I know! It’s nothing more than what I deserve!” Irritably the girl fluffed her pillow and punched a small fist into it. “And Captain Latimer seems to have been sent here for the special purpose of destroying my sleep!”

By now Al made the rounds of her wards in two days, cleaning and scouring and scrubbing as if only to show one Captain Latimer that she was worth every cent of her wage despite her own untidy appearance. The wounded soidiers began to welcome the break in the otherwise endless monotony. Al began to exchange quips with them, sometimes biting remarks returned in anger, but as the soldiers became known as individuals instead of faceless enemies, the tones softened.

Questions of home and family were asked, of origins and leanings, political and otherwise. Some soldiers struggled to retain some humor in this dismal place. With these Al exchanged light banter.
Others were dismayed at their wounds and disappointed with the pain and effort of life. To these Alaina gave a challenge, a dare to live. To those who were deeply injured, she grudgingly gave pity and sympathy and an odd sort of bittersweet tenderness. She ran errands for those who couldn’t go for themselves, sometimes purchasing a comb, a shaving brush, or a bottle of lilac water for a girl back home. The packet of letters she carried to the post became a daily thing, and the appearance of the youthful lad with his bucket, brooms, and mops was awaited with eagerness by those who were trapped in the wards. It gave the day a brightness, a spark so small yet brightly seen and cherished. The dull gray silence of the wards had yielded to a youthful and oftentimes rebellious grin. The musty, cloying odor of molding debris
became the pungent scent of lye soap and pine oil. The moans of pain were now more often hidden beneath a muffled chuckle of laughter or the low-voiced murmur of shared experiences.

For Alaina, it had begun as a simple chore—a job, a task, a way to earn money. It soon became for her a time of conflict. Her sympathies were firmly with the struggling Confederacy, yet against her will she found herself liking some of these men, many within a year or two of her own age, and several much younger. Bold and brazenly righteous, they had marched off to do battle, much like her own father and brothers, thence to lie on narrow beds of pain and helplessly wait either healing and its rewards—or death.

There had been times at Briar Hill when death seemed what every Yankee deserved. Now she
found it an agonizing experience to watch one of those same struggle through their last moments of life. She knew them! They were human! They ached! They suffered! They died! More than once she was forced to seek privacy where she stood with trembling hands clasped desperately across her mouth in an effort to hold back the sobs, while tears flowed unchecked down her cheeks. Her attempts to harden her emotions failed. Instead, she seemed to become more vulnerable to the hurt and agony of watching death have its way.

On this morning in early November, Alaina vowed to keep her distance from any who were close to that dark door. She carefully reasoned it through and came to the decision that the only way to avoid such disturbing grief was not to get close to it.

It was a mild, pleasant day as she hopped onto the mule-drawn streetcar to continue her journey to the hospital. Roberta had begged her father for the use of the gelding and carriage, leaving Angus no alternative but to hitch Ol’ Tar to the rickety buckboard and take himself to work and Alaina as far as the store. From there she walked to St. Augustine’s Church where she caught the streetcar and finally swaggered past the orderly at the hospital door.

“You’re late,” Cole commented offhandedly as he brushed past her in the hall.

“Yeah, well, it ain’t easy to pay for a ride on the money you Yankees pinch out,” she called to his back as he strode briskly down the hall. She opened her mouth to throw another retort but quickly snapped it closed when Doctor Mitchell, the surgeon general, stepped abruptly from one of the
wards. He looked at the suddenly red-faced youth, then frowned down the hall toward the tall, ignoring back of the captain.

“Do you have a complaint, son?” the gray-haired officer asked kindly.

Alaina tried to swallow her discomfort. “No, suh.”

“Then I suggest you get about your duties. Several ambulances arrived during the night, and there’s some tidying up to be done. Captain Latimer is far too busy now to discuss your wages.”

“Yes, suh,” Alaina mumbled. General Clay Mitchell was the only Yankee yet she had not dared to stand her ground with. He was a tall, barrel-chested Irishman, and though he demanded the respect of every man in the hospital, there was something kindly about the man. It just wasn’t in her to be rude to such a gentleman, even if he was a Yankee.

Closer to the surgery rooms, cots had been set up to accommodate the new arrivals, some of which writhed and moaned with pain while others wept softly. One lay apart from the rest; he was so still Alaina could have taken him for the dead. A bandage covered his eyes, and a thin trickle of dried blood trailed from the corner of his mouth. His belly was covered with a sheet to keep the flies away from the wound that slowly turned the whiteness of the cloth to a dark, forboding red. Here was one who was so far gone the doctors had chosen to delay treating him until those soldiers with a better hope for life could be tended and perhaps saved.

The sight made Alaina back slowly away.
No more
, she thought.
I’ve seen enough!
She fled to where she kept the cleaning equipment, determined
to keep her resolve, and busied herself with scrubbing the wood floor at the end of a ward where she was sure no soldier teetered near the brink of death.

Her promise to herself, however, was not to be kept. Even in the safe haven she had found, she began to hear the faint call of a desperate plea. She tried for some time to ignore it. Surely someone else would fulfill the man’s need. A simple task to fetch the soldier water. But not her task! Never again!

Yet it seemed she could hear nothing else, and no one gave him water. Rallying her determination, she dipped her coarse brush into the murky liquid and began to scrub harder. But nothing could drown out the thin, weak call.

“Blast it all!” she swore beneath her breath and jumped to her feet. She hurried down the hall to where the soldier lay, still so motionless that it frightened her. Then she saw his tongue flick weakly across parched, cracked lips.

“Wait.” She bent beside his ear, afraid he was too deep in pain to hear her. “I’ll get you water.”

She touched his thin hand reassuringly, then rushed off to the mess hall to find a glass. When she returned, she carefully slipped an arm beneath his head and raised him enough that he might sip the water. But suddenly she found her wrist seized.

“Don’t!” Cole commanded sharply and, taking the glass from her, set it aside. “You’ll do him more harm than good.” He saw the bewilderment in the dirty face and gentled his tone. “You never give a gut-shot man a drink. Here, I’ll show you.”

From a nearby cabinet he took a clean cloth, dipped it into the water and carefully wiped the dry
lips. He dipped the cloth again, but this time dribbled a few drops into the soldier’s mouth. Alaina watched Cole quietly as he began to speak to the man in a tone that was strong yet cajoling.

“This is Al. He’s going to stay with you for a while.” As she shook her head with her own desperate need to be gone far away, Cole frowned sharply, warning her to silence. “Rest easy. We’ll be able to tend your wounds in just a few moments. They’re clearing out the surgery room now.”

Cole straightened and took Al’s thin hand into his larger one and pressed the damp cloth into her palm. “Be here when I get back. If anyone asks, it is on my order.”

She nodded lamely.

“Make him as comfortable as possible. It won’t be long.”

Again she nodded and even as the captain turned away, she was reaching to the washstand for the basin and pitcher. Ever so gently she washed away the dried blood running along his cheek and, with long, cooling strokes, wiped his brow and cleaned around the bandage covering his eyes, shooing the flies that were forever gathering.

“Al?” The faint rasp made her lean down to him.

“Yeah, right here,” she half-whispered.

It took an effort on the soldier’s part to utter the next word. “Thanks.”

Alaina was suddenly glad she had taken a moment for mercy, and she bit her lips to still their trembling before she managed in her boyish vernacular, “Anytime, Yankee.”

Cole paused in the doorway of the officer’s
dayroom as the medical sergeant called his name. Sergeant Grissom hurried to catch him.

“There be a young lady to see you, Cap’n. She’s waiting in the vestibule for ye.”

“I haven’t time—” Cole began tersely.

“She says it’s urgent, sir. Claims it can’t wait.”

Cole frowned harshly. He was mystified by such a summons, but he had work to do. “Is she injured?”

Sergeant Grissom grinned. “I would say most definitely not, Cap’n.”

“Then is someone else injured?”

“She did not say that, sir.”

“Well, see if one of the other doctors is free to attend her.”

The sergeant raised bushy eyebrows. “She said it must be you, Cap’n. And she’s been waiting near come an hour.”

Cole sighed and pulled out his pocket watch. “I have only a moment to spare. Tell the lady I will be down directly.”

Cole hurriedly doffed his blood-stained smock. His uniform was also marred with darkish blotches, not the proper dress to meet a lady, but there was no help for it. He hadn’t time to change. Buttoning the top of his blouse, he strode quickly down the hall.

Roberta rose from a bench in the foyer and bestowed a brilliant smile upon Captain Latimer as he came across the vestibule toward her. “You seem surprised to see me, Captain.” She lowered her lashes demurely. “I suppose it does seem forward of me coming here like this.”

“Indeed not, Miss Craighugh.” Cole took her
hand solicitously. “I was just now told a lady was waiting. Had Sergeant Grissom mentioned how beautiful the lady was, I might have taken a moment more to prepare myself. But you must understand, I have been quite heavily detained.”

“You need not impress me with the cause, sir.” Roberta did not try too hard to suppress a rather pretty wrinkling of her nose as she glanced daintily away from his blood-stained blouse. She was well aware of her expressions, having spent many hours practicing them in front of a mirror. “I came here hoping I could be dreadfully presumptuous, Captain.”

“Continue, Miss Craighugh.” He smiled his consent. “Your voice is the sweetest I’ve heard all day, and I try not to question my rare moments of good fortune.”

“You are most gallant, Captain.” Roberta tilted her wide-brimmed hat slightly so the captain could admire her fine, aristocratic profile. She knew the beauty of her long, down-turned nose and high cheekbones, the red sultry curves of her lips. “I was just passing by in my carriage when it came to me just how hard you work. No time for relaxation it would seem, or even a leisurely meal. A man does have to eat, doesn’t he, Captain? And you can hardly be blamed for taking a few moments to do so. I know of a divine little place in the Vieux Carré where they serve the most delicious shrimp. Would you care to join me, Captain?” Though she was all smiles and coy looks, she held her breath awaiting his answer. She had secretly planned for this all week, and she would be crushed if he disappointed her now.