Free Die Once Live Twice by Lawrence Dorr Page B

would be with Katherine every day, waited on by the household. But in Washington... He tried to remember what Katherine’s body felt like, but all he could think of was Patricia’s ample breasts. Two nights before, she had come very late, when all the others were in an alcoholic slumber. She pinched off the candles around his bed and reached across him to bathe his far shoulder. She wore no apron and had unbuttoned three of the front buttons of her bodice, so that when she leaned over him, her breast spilled out and her nipple filled his mouth. As he squeezed her breast and sucked on her hungrily, she inhaled sharply and held her breath, then shuddered. It was but a minute before Patrick climaxed as well.
    After all, Katherine would never know, and it is just six weeks more. “When did you say I go?”
    “Tomorrow.”

Chapter Eight

RENEWAL OF LOVE
    “B e sure you stay within Campbell Hospital grounds, Miss Lovington,” the soldier warned Katherine as he helped her into the carriage to take her to the hospital. “There is a cholera outbreak at Armory Hospital—twenty-five men sick and ten dead so far. We have quarantined that hospital, but these men came in from the field so it’s possible a contaminated patient was admitted. Captain Sullivan is in the officers’ ward, which gives a measure of safety.”
    “The cholera and typhoid at Pennsylvania Hospital have killed more soldiers than injury,” Katherine responded. “All the water is boiled now. Do you do that here?”
    He shook his head. “Too many hospitals, too many new sick each day.”
    As they bounced their way through the crowded, dusty roads towards the center of town, Katherine was shocked to see that the city appeared to be one large infirmary. Every street corner, every alley, every church and every other available building was thick with hospital carts. Old men in white tunics and young boys in blood-stained trousers hauled litters to and fro. The natural perfume of trees, grass, and rivers was hidden beneath the stench of fouled water and the smoke from wood fires. Katherine’s eyes welled from the hazy layer of fumes as they ventured deeper into the city.
    When they arrived at Campbell, the adjunct delivered Katherine to the chief nurse in the Administration Building. “I will meet you here at five o’clock to transport you to the Willard Hotel,” the soldier said. “If I have your schedule correct, you leave on the nine o’clock Army train to Philadelphia in three days?”
    “Yes. I will see you tonight at five. Thank you.”
    The chief nurse escorted Katherine to the officer’s ward where Patrick was housed. “The general wards are these four buildings that extend out from the Administration Building,” she explained as they walked. “The officers’ ward, though, is separate.” The chief nurse handed off Katherine to a young red-haired woman in a nurse’s uniform and bonnet in the doorway of Patrick’s ward. “May I help you?” Patricia asked.
    “Yes,” Katherine answered, surprised to hear a slight drawl in her voice. “I was told I could find Captain Patrick Sullivan here. I’m his fiancée.”
    “Oh, my. You must be Miss Lovington. I’ve heard so much about you from the good captain. Please allow me to take you in.”
    There were fifty or so beds in the sunlit room, with four large windows along one wall. Loud complaints were noticeably absent—due to the laudanum, she knew, and the whiskey. Suddenly Katherine saw him. He was thin, sallow, almost unrecognizable, but she would have known him if he had become a wraith. The tears she had held off all morning trailed down her cheeks as she rushed to the tiny metal-frame bed. Clasping his hand in both of hers she leaned over to place her cheek against his bearded face to wake him up.
    Patrick awoke with a start. Jerking his hand free of Katherine’s grasp, his whole body shifted, causing his traction unit to shake at the end of the bed. He yelped in surprise. Patricia