The Better Angels of Our Nature (7 page)

Nash just managed to catch the case before it landed on the floor and whatever further insults might have been exchanged were halted as two orderlies brought a litter into the dimly lit tent, closely followed by Jacob, who, like his superior, never seemed to rest. On the litter was a young man with flushed cheeks, his eyelids flickering as he murmured softly in delirium. The orderlies, drummer boys on loan from the band, were so small that the young man’s arm, fallen from under the blanket, dragged along the ground.

“This officer is sick, Doctor, he needs you.”

Cartwright poked the boy in the shoulder. “Follow me.”

The surgeon opened his case while Jacob and Jesse removed the officer’s frock coat. He was a lieutenant with boyish features, and a head of thick blond hair.

“Ouch,” the surgeon said, wincing. Jacob had eased the left arm out of the sleeve. Wrapped carelessly around the arm was a dressing that looked as if it hadn’t been changed in weeks. Even from where he stood at the foot of the cot the surgeon could smell, as well as see, the yellow-green pus that had soaked through the layers of cotton cloth. As Jacob stepped aside, Jesse saw a tall, slender officer enter the tent, glance around anxiously, and, spotting Cartwright in his apron, walked toward them.

“Lieutenant Colonel Ransom, Eleventh Illinois,” the officer introduced himself as he came close to the cot. “This is Lieutenant Bennett, one of my regimental commanders. He accompanied me to Colonel Buckland’s headquarters this evening and suddenly collapsed. How is he, Doctor?”

“I’ll tell you when
I
know. In the meantime don’t get under my damn feet. Fetch a lantern,” the surgeon instructed Jesse, “a good one.” When Jesse returned, Cartwright told the officer, “If you get out of the way, the boy can bringer it closer.”

Obediently the lieutenant colonel stood back and Jesse took his place beside Cartwright, who was examining the wound. “Throw it out,” he said of the foul-smelling dressing he had dropped into the bucket. “Flesh wound. No broken bone. See the entrance and exit wound?” he demanded of Jesse, who nodded. The wounds were but a couple of inches apart, both draining foul-smelling pus. The area was red, swollen, tender, and hot. No wonder the feverish lieutenant had collapsed. Cartwright spoke to the officer patiently awaiting his verdict. “It looks like the ball entered the arm and passed right through. This ain’t a fresh wound. How long has he been sick?”

“He was wounded a week ago in a skirmish,” the lieutenant colonel said. “He didn’t see a surgeon. He had it dressed by a medical orderly. He told me the wound was healing.”

“Well, he was lying or blind. I’d guess the orderly rinsed off the arm and wrapped a dressing around it. The ball may have carried a piece of his shirt into the wound, or some dirt or tree bark, if it ricocheted off a tree before hitting him.”

“Will he lose the arm, Doctor?”

“Not if I can help it.” This was said without the slightest trace of bombast. “I’ve seen much worse. You’d be surprised how much a wounded man can take, or how far he can drag himself when he has to—I’ve seen soldiers with half their faces blown away, arms and legs gone, drag themselves to the rear because they know if they stay where they are and wait for help they’ll bleed to death. Needs must when the devil drives, isn’t that what they say? Well, the devil is doing most the driving in this godforsaken world.”

“This world is not godforsaken,” said Jesse quietly, almost to himself, soliciting a brief, sad smile from the lieutenant colonel.

“Lantern, closer,” said Cartwright, giving the boy a shove with his elbow. “Lantern, closer” was his constant refrain.

Jesse’s arm was aching but he did as he was told, using the light just once to sneak a furtive glance at the lieutenant colonel watching anxiously. If asked, he would have said the officer was, in all aspects of feature and physique and dress, the most beautiful man he had ever seen.

Using the sponge and water Jacob held for him, Cartwright washed the wound, rinsing away the pus that had clung to it. He took a good look around the entrance wound, using a pair of forceps and a probe. The young man in the cot moved his head on the pillow and Jesse used his free hand to stroke the moist brow, speaking softly, reassuringly, to him.

“Rest easy, sir, you’ll be feeling better very soon.”

“Here, Private, let me hold the lantern, your arm is shaking with fatigue,” the officer offered, in his soft, well-modulated New England accent.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Hold it lower, damn you,” Cartwright ordered.

If the lieutenant colonel felt offended at being cussed out by a mere captain, he did not show it, but obeyed in silence, bringing the lantern close to the wound.

Meantime, the surgeon had taken a small pair of scissors and was snipping off the flap of black skin folded into the wound. “There’s no pain,” he said, feeling around the entrance hole with his index finger, “that was necrotic tissue,
dead
tissue. Okay, that’s clean.” He turned his attention to the jagged exit wound, the bigger of the two holes. From here, he snipped off more pieces of dead skin, before using his forceps to extract a piece of cloth from an inch or so inside the wound. “Like I said, a piece of the lieutenant’s shirt.” He showed Ransom the cloth plug before letting it fall to the floor. Next, he rinsed away the remainder of the foul pus that was oozing from the exit wound.

In the next cot, a soldier began to cry in his sleep, calling out for “Charlie,” and begging him not to die. This awakened a fever-racked patient across the aisle who began to shout deliriously for water. Somewhere close to the front of the tent a man started coughing, a deep, wet, rattling cough as if he would choke up his lungs. The orderly left him to attend the patient crying out for Charlie, but could not quieten his distress.

“Doc—” he appealed despairingly to Cartwright across the cots. He was willing to dress wounds, bring water, change soiled sheets, and fetch the bedpan, but he had never guessed that his duties would include comforting grown men as their own mothers had once comforted them as children.

“Let Jesse go to him,” Jacob said.

“Go on,” Cartwright agreed, “before he wakes the whole damn tent.”

Jesse eased the troubled soldier slowly back to his pillow, laid his small hand across the wrinkled brow, and spoke reassuringly to him, the way he had spoken to the feverish sergeant. In a few seconds, the man was sleeping peacefully. The boy glanced up to see the lieutenant colonel watching him, admiration in those large eyes set deeply under a prominent brow. He returned to the young lieutenant’s cot just in time for Cartwright to give him a lesson in dressing the arm.

“You’ll be doing this, Private, so take note. Clean cotton bandage wrapped around a cold-water dressing of compressed lint. Change the dressing twice a day for the next three or four days. As soon as the wound begins to look better, no pus, and the redness subsides, once a day is enough. If the wound starts to look the slightest bit inflamed since the previous dressing change, you let me know immediately.” He stood up, wiping his hands on his apron. “We’ll get him well again, won’t we, Private Davis?” He slapped the boy hard around the head, because instead of listening to the surgeon’s words of wisdom he was staring at the lieutenant colonel with awed eyes and parted lips.

“Yes sir,” the boy answered quickly, rubbing the sore spot.

“I’ll give him a little morphine for the pain, and to make sure he sleeps through the night.”

“I am much obliged to you, Doctor.” The stern and serious young officer offered his hand.

The surgeon ignored it and jerked his head. “I’ll send you the bill.”

The lieutenant colonel’s sympathetic gaze moved around the tent, resonant with all the sounds of suffering humanity, not to mention the smells. “I know you have other patients who require your skills. As soon as Lieutenant Bennett is well enough I will have him transferred back to my regimental hospital.”

“Forget it. You’ve caught me in my quiet period, we’re between battles. After Bull Run you’d have waited months for an appointment.”

Ransom nodded his blond head, and then smiled a gentle, indulgent smile. Then gave up. It seemed he had realized any attempt at showing appreciation would be met by a humorous deflection. He watched the surgeon walk off down the aisle, then he looked at Jesse, who said, “With Dr. Cartwright looking after him, sir, the lieutenant will get well very soon.” He wiped the beads of sweat from a sick man’s neck, brought the blanket to his chin, and laid a cold cloth across his brow. “He couldn’t be in better hands.”

“Yes, I can see that—” His broad white-toothed smile lit up his entire face, making him look much younger than he had appeared in the dim shadowy light. He was perhaps no more than twenty-six, smooth-skinned and clear-eyed, but his sharp elegant features, severe slicked-back hair relieved only by fashionably long sideburns ending at the base of his jutting jaw, and the upright, military bearing in his immaculate uniform gave the impression of a much older man. A man who knew he was born to command, yet there was about him a touching vulnerability.

“I have some tea for the colonel,” Jacob said, joining them. He had a tin cup and a cookie, both of which he offered the astonished colonel. “The cookie was baked by my sister Beatrice; she is the best cookie maker in all of America.”

“Well, thank you, Sergeant.” Ransom laughed, tasted the contents of the cup, took a bite of cookie. “Delicious, and what fine tea, I never tasted better at any fancy Chicago hotel, nor received better hospitality.”

Jacob beamed. “You are very welcome to visit us anytime, sir, but we hope it will be a social call, not because you are in need of our services.” He laughed, Ransom laughed, and Jesse nodded enthusiastically.

“What a fine man,” said the colonel after the steward’s departure.

“Yes sir,” the boy said simply. “The sergeant and Dr. Cartwright are the finest of men.”

“Indeed. You’ll get no argument there.” Ransom drank some tea, finished the cookie, and put the cup on the night table. “Please say thank you to the sergeant for me. Would you tell Lieutenant Bennett when he wakes that I’ll be back tomorrow to see how he is.”

The boy got to his feet and saluted as smartly as he could and the lieutenant colonel brought forth that broad smile again. He mussed the red-gold curls as he had seen the steward do, then he took his hat off the blanket.

“One more thing, is there anything I can do to show my appreciation to the surgeon?”

“Yes sir, whiskey, sir,” the boy said unhesitatingly. “Surgeon Cartwright finds whiskey a great comfort. It sharpens his senses, helps him focus.”

“What is your name?” the officer said gently.

“Davis, sir, Jesse Davis.”

“Corporal Jesse Davis, I shall not forget that name. I must go, thank you again for your attentions to my officer.”

“Just
Private
Davis, sir,” the boy corrected.

“For now.” He smiled that wonderful smile.

“What in hell was all that about?” Cartwright said, approaching Lieutenant Bennett’s cot ten minutes later. “Anyone’d thought you’d never seen a goddamn lieutenant colonel before.” He was holding his whiskey bottle, only now it was empty. He indicated the young officer sleeping peacefully, probably for the first time in weeks. “Are you going to sit with him all night?”

“Just for a while, sir. I think the lieutenant colonel would appreciate it.”

“Oh you do, do you?” the surgeon did a little dance to go with his mocking voice. “Yer, I thought you might be the kind of kid who’d lick up to an officer.” He tilted his head back and emptied the very last drop of booze from the bottle onto his tongue, like a child trying to catch raindrops, and with equal frustration.

“He reminds me of a knight in shining armor, noble and brave and dignified. I think he must be a
very
fine man, a very fine soldier,” the boy said reflectively.

The surgeon’s laughter was thick with disdain. “Is that what
you
want to be, Private, a very fine soldier? Kill people,” Cartwright mumbled bitterly.

The boy said nothing.

“I’m not dignified.” Cartwright regarded the empty bottle with sorrow. “And you don’t think me a very fine soldier, do you?”

“I think you a very fine
surgeon,
sir, and a very compassionate man.”

“Forget all that horse shit. What you reading?” He snatched the book off the boy’s lap. “More damn Dickens. Stop wasting your time with this rubbish. I’ll give you books to read. The
Hand-Book for the Military Surgeon,
by Charles Tripler,
A Manual of Military Surgery,
by Samuel Gross, and in between those we’ll start you on journals and periodicals,
The American Medical Times, The Medical and Surgical Reporter.
They should keep you busy.” Cartwright was angry. He didn’t know why, angry and some other emotion.
Jealousy.
He was jealous of how this boy had reacted to that other officer. He didn’t like the admiration so plainly present in the boy’s gaze when he looked at the tall, straight-shouldered, and no doubt morally unimpeachable warrior. It was, of course, strictly a professional jealousy, he simply didn’t care to see a naturally talented boy waste his respect on a man trained to kill. Far better that he look up to a surgeon, a healer, not a destroyer. It was a professional jealousy. For what else could it possibly be? “I think it’s high time I taught you how to set simple fractures, a transverse crack, for instance, bone breaks that don’t perforate the skin. I’ll show you how to clean up lacerations and close them with adhesive plaster. You should be able to handle many of the minor procedures. I’ll make up a list and we’ll start right away. We’ll kit you out with essential medical items to carry in your knapsack. Put some quinine in there, for all fevers, not just malarial, morphine, a flask of whiskey.” He grinned. “A small pocket case of instruments, only the necessary ones. A scalpel, a bullet extractor, forceps, and a pair of scissors, a styptic pen, an eye spud, that’s a small metal probe with a sharp point that we use to remove a foreign body from the eye—with shells bursting all over the place, dirt and bits of metal get into a soldier’s eyes. Some silk suture and some suture needles. You’ll need a tourniquet, some lint compresses, and some rolls of either cotton or muslin for rolled bandage material. Adhesive plaster might come in handy.” His lips curled. “Jacob’ll tell you to get a Bible to put in your bag. The dying always want a Bible. Don’t ask me why. Ask Jacob, he’s the expert on all things religious. And oh yer—despite stories you may have heard, we surgeons don’t enjoy lopping off vital parts of a soldier’s anatomy.” Suddenly he grabbed the boy’s face by the strong, clefted chin, turned it from side to side and inspected it with narrowed, suspicious eyes. “Do you shave? For a boy you’ve got mighty smooth skin, did you know that, and small hands.” He shook his head as if to shake loose some crazy notion that had invaded it. “Where did you say you enlisted?”