The Rough Rider (29 page)

She broke off when a cry of pain reached her. Putting her journal down, she hastily made her way to a young soldier who was thrashing around on his bunk. “Tommy—you must be still!” Deborah whispered, catching his wrists. “You’ll hurt your leg!”

The soldier, a young man no older than eighteen, stared up at her, his eyes filled with fear. He had taken terrible wounds, the Mauser slugs breaking the bones in his upper and lower right leg. His lips were taut with pain as he formed the words, “Please—don’t let them cut my leg off, miss—!” Earlier in the day, he had clung to her hand as the ether had taken effect, begging Burns not to amputate his leg. The operation had been successful, though Burns had told her he’d keep the leg, but that it would be stiff the rest of his life.

Deborah placed her hand on his head, soothing his fine blond hair. “Your leg is fine, Tommy. You won’t lose it. Doctor Burns was able to save it.”

The young man clung to her hand, his feverish eyes searching hers for a lie. “Honest?”

“Honest. Now, you go to sleep. You’ll be home soon.”

“But it hurts so bad!” moaned the young man.

“I’ll give you something for the pain,” said Deborah.

Deborah gave him a liberal dose of laudanum, part of the supplies that Clara Barton had generously shared with them. When the soldier swallowed it, she said, “Now, you’ll go to sleep.”

“My girl likes to dance.” Tommy tried to smile, adding, “I’m the best dancer in town. Couldn’t dance with one leg, could I, now?”

“You’ll take your girl to many a dance, Tommy—now, just lie still.” Moving back to her station beside Lewis, Deborah thought of the five cases of yellow fever that had already stricken some patients.
If Tommy gets that, it could kill him as quickly as a bullet in the brain!
Sitting down beside Lewis, she picked up her journal and continued her writing, using a fine script as legible as print:

For a moment she hesitated, as if reluctant to put down the thought that had come to her—but she’d decided to spare herself nothing in the journal. Pressing her lips firmly together, she wrote steadily as the yellow light of the lamp threw flickering shadows over the page:

“How is he, Deborah?”

“Oh—Gail! You startled me!” Deborah quickly closed the journal, placed it on the table, then turned to face the young woman standing by her. “He’s still got a high fever.”

Gail came to stand over Lewis, looking down fondly on his wan face. Lifting the mosquito netting, she felt his forehead, then nodded. “It’s down some. That’s a good sign.” She lowered the netting, then leaned back against the wall. Her eyes were undershadowed with dark smudges, and lines of fatigue creased her forehead. “I wish we had netting for all the men. Most of them are covered with mosquito bites.”

“You can’t keep the awful things out,” Deborah nodded. They had tried covering the windows, but the shell of a house
had thousands of tiny gaps to let in the black swarms of mosquitoes and flies. She slumped in the chair, closing her eyes and throwing her shoulders back to relieve the strain. “Why aren’t you sleeping?” she asked.

“I got some rest—but I got to thinking about Aaron.” A troubled light appeared in Gail’s eyes, and for a time she spoke of the fears she’d harbored about Aaron’s rebellion against God. As she spoke quietly, some of the tension that had built up in her seemed to leave. Finally she considered Deborah, and then let her gaze fall on Lewis’s face. She had never inquired into Deborah’s private life, but the strain of taking care of shattered and dying men had somehow broken down the barriers. “You’re fond of Lewis, aren’t you, Deborah?”

“Y-yes, I am.” Deborah hesitated slightly. She’d grown very close to Gail, and now said what she never would have mentioned before arriving in Cuba. “I have been for some time.” She lifted her eyes, which caught the reflection of the amber light shed by the lamp. “I never thought I could feel this way about a man again.”

Quickly Gail picked up on the final word. “You were married?”

“No, not married.” For a moment it seemed that Deborah would lapse into her guarded manner, but she glanced at the face of the sleeping man, and somehow seemed to find it easy to speak of the past. “I was engaged once.”

“You never mentioned it.”

“No, it’s not something I like to think about.” A mosquito whined in her ear, and she brushed it away with an absent motion, adding, “It seems like something that happened a long time ago.”

“Do you want to tell me about it, Deborah?”

“I . . . think so.” Deborah clasped her hands together and looked down at them as she began to speak. “It’s not really a great tragedy, I suppose. Lots of women have had bad experiences with men. Most of them go on with their lives—but it was my first love. . . .”

Gail listened silently as Deborah related her story. “There was a young man named Howard. We met and fell in love almost instantly. I thought there never had been a love like ours,” Deborah said quietly, the old pain rising to form a shadow in her fine eyes. “He wanted me—in every way—and I wanted to wait until we were married. And . . . I gave in to him. . . .”

The simple admission was spoken, but Gail could see how the thing still tormented a sensitive young woman such as Deborah. She felt a warm rush of compassion, and asked, “What happened?”

“He met somebody else.”

Something in the blunt statement was like a door closing, and Gail, who saw the need for Deborah to speak of her pain, asked, “Was he poor? Couldn’t he afford to marry you?”

Deborah shook her head. “My family has money—and so does his.” Gail had known from things Deborah had said that she came from a well-to-do family. Her speech was better than most, and at times Gail had noticed that Deborah had a carelessness about money that people who grew up in the tenements of the lower East Side did not develop.

“I’m sorry, Deborah,” Gail said quietly. She moved over and put her hands on the shoulders of the young woman. “It must have been very hard for you.”

“It’s always hard when a woman is rejected by a man,” Deborah answered. Her shoulders shook under Gail’s hands, and she caught herself. Reaching up, she put her hand on Gail’s. “I’ve never spoken to anyone about this. Maybe I should have.”

“Do you still love him?”

“Oh no!” The idea seemed to shock Deborah, and she rose instantly, turning to face Gail. “It was
never
love, Gail. I was in love with love, I think. But it left a horrible scar on me. I have never been able to trust men after it happened. Even after I gave my heart to the Lord, I was unable to allow a man—any man—to get close to me. She suddenly glanced
at Lewis, then whispered, “I . . . I didn’t think I’d ever be able to love again!”

Gail put her arms around Deborah, and the two young women clung to each other in the semidarkness of the room filled with wounded men. Deborah began to weep, quietly at first—then terribly. Her whole body shook from the sobs as she let out the pain and rejection she had felt for so long inside. The grief she’d refused to express burst like water over a broken dam, and for a long time she was shaken by a torrent that racked her tired body.

Gail held her tightly, smoothing her hair and whispering gentle words of comfort. Finally, Deborah took a deep breath and stepped back. She found a handkerchief and wiped her face, saying shakily, “I’ve never broken down like that—”

“I guess it was time for it to come out,” Gail smiled. “Do you feel better?”

Surprise touched Deborah’s features. “You know, I really do!”

“Sometimes it’s good to cry. Now, you go lie down. I’ll sit by Lewis.”

“Thank you, Gail. I think I will.” But she said one more thing before she turned to go. “He’s in love with Alice Cates.” She struggled with something, then said flatly, “The girl Howard left me for was like her—selfish to the bone.”

“Lewis will see what she is really like,” Gail said quickly.

“Howard didn’t see it. Men can’t see what women are sometimes.” She turned and left the ward. When she reached her room and lay down, she was shocked at the flood of emotion that had shaken her so deeply. It had been like a violent storm sweeping through her, stirring old and painful memories—but now the storm was over, and she marveled at the peace that had come to her. She closed her eyes and sank into a deep sleep almost immediately.

Gail remained beside Lewis, thinking of Deborah. She had been very fond of the girl for some time, but now that she knew the tragedy that had touched her life, Gail felt a
protective urge. She put her hand on Lewis’s arm and leaned forward to whisper, “Don’t you be a fool, Lewis Winslow . . . !” She thought of Aaron then, and fear flooded her thoughts. He was still out there fighting, and when the casualties were brought in she grew tense, dreading to look into their faces—afraid that Aaron would be among them.

“God—take care of him, please!” she prayed, her voice a bare whisper in the quiet ward. Lewis seemed to hear it and stirred restlessly. Placing her hand on his arm, Gail stood there praying for him to get well.

The choir of mosquitoes continued to sing their shrill tiny song, but Gail’s thoughts had drifted to the battle—far away in the hills, as rifles cracked at the Americans as they moved forward into the interior of Cuba.

****

The worst sensation was that he was falling from some terrible height, almost unimaginable—and always down, down, down into a black hole. He would tense his muscles, bracing himself for the moment when he would strike the bottom. His ears would always be filled with the roaring of a tornado, but when he would open his mouth to call out, the howling wind would fill his lungs, stifling him like a massive blanket.

Sometimes, though, it would be different. There would be no sound at all, merely an eerie quietness that seemed to have its own tiny echo deep inside. And with the quietness would come a light—soft and gentle—bathing him in a warmth that drove away the bone-cracking chill that racked him.

Sometimes he would dream he was on fire. His body would be parched with a scorching heat that blistered him to the bone, so that his skin crackled like paper. His eyes were almost fried with intense pain.

When the heat would become almost unbearable, he would feel a coolness on his face, a touch so light—like nothing he’d ever known. Then the cool moisture would bathe his burning
body, washing away the pain and the fear that surrounded him as if he were in a cocoon.

More than anything else, he had the feeling that he was drowning, trapped under a horrible weight that he could not break free of and escape. He would be far, far beneath the surface, swallowed in darkness with only faint light shimmering far overhead. Sometimes he would move closer to the surface, struggling with all his might. At those times, he could see movement and hear the voices of those who were out of the pit. And he would often cry out, trying to make himself heard.

More than once, he almost broke through, but would always sink back into the stygian darkness. But in that dark abyss, he learned to distinguish between those he could not see. There was more than one person, he knew, but the one voice was gentle as were the hands that went with it. It seemed the voice was calling him out of the pit, and the tender hands were urging him on, but he couldn’t understand the words, and sometimes he would cry out in fear as an old nightmare reached up to terrify his mind again.

Somehow, this time it was different. He rose out of the darkness toward the surface. Only this time he broke through. Opening his eyes, Lewis glanced around and saw that he was lying in a semidark room with a lantern over to his left. The amber light of an oil-burning lantern fell across the cots that were all occupied with men, most of them bandaged in white. They looked almost like specters. It was raining outside, he knew, for he could hear the gentle rain hitting the roof, the cadence soft and gentle and incessant. He tried to sit up, and as he did pain raked across his nerves. He lay back gritting his teeth, waiting for the terrible pain to subside. It throbbed at the top of his back, and he looked down to see his chest swathed in bandages. He was covered with a sheet to the waist—and suddenly he was aware that he had no feeling in his legs.

Fear gripped him then, and he moved again, ignoring the
pain. He tried to move his feet that lifted the covers in twin canopies.

Nothing!

He tried to draw his legs up, to move his toes—anything—but there was no response. “What’s wrong with me?” he cried out.