Free Lost Cause by J.R. Ayers Page A

Jack
wandered around the ward until he found an old copy of the Corpus
Christi Caller Times and returned to his bed to read. News of the
war dominated the headlines, none of it good for the Confederacy.
There was a list of the dead from Nueces County and an article on
the front page outlining Sherman’s march toward Atlanta. The editor
who had written the article had used some rather disparaging
language calling Sherman every descriptive adjective he knew except
Christian.
    Jack sat by the window and watched it get
dark outside and read and reread the paper until he couldn’t see
the small type any longer. Corporal Campbell remained in his bed
sleeping on and off. The grits and greasy pork had made him sick
and he was making frequent use of one of the chamber pots by his
bed.
    As the sun settled below the house tops,
night-hawks and ravens circled over the shops in the center of town
hoping to snatch a chicken or a scrap of meat left behind by one of
the butchers. Nurse Brewster came in with her medical bag and
announced that the men would not being seeing a doctor until the
next morning. “Doctor Pierce is exhausted,” she said. “and the
other doctors are either performing surgery or treating the gravely
ill.”
    “So I’m supposed to lay here and rot?” Jack
asked a bit more sharply than he’d intended.
    “No, I’m going to lance the wound and flush
it with carbolic acid,” she said calmly.
    “Sounds painful.”
    “It is. But I’m going to give you some
laudanum first. It will dull the pain.”
    Campbell woke from his nap and sat up in bed
to watch the procedure. After Jack had downed a tablespoon of
laudanum, Nurse Brewster placed a wash basin and several pieces of
cotton cloth on the bed beside his shoulder. Then she filled the
pan with water and several ounces of carbolic acid. “Now comes the
painful part,” she said.
    Jack lay back on the towel she’d placed on
the bed and she removed a large hollow needle from her bag and
swirled it in the water a couple of times and commenced to probe
Jack’s bullet wound with the tip of the three inch long instrument.
He groaned a couple of times and she paused briefly then pushed the
needle a full inch into his flesh. “You can cry out if you want,”
she said her eyes fixed in concentration. Pinkish blood seeped from
the wound and she soaked it up with a wad of cotton cloth. She
allowed the wound to bleed for a few moments then poured more
carbolic acid into the hole. Then she pressed a folded cotton
bandage over the wound and tied it in place with more strips of
cloth.
    “Are you finished?” Jack asked gritting his
teeth.
    “I’m not sure, but I think there’s a bullet
fragment in your shoulder.”
    “I thought it went straight through.”
    “The main projectile did, but it may have
fragmented. That would explain the infection.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “It means you’ll probably need an
operation.”
    “Oh no.”
    “Oh yes.”
    She removed the bloody bandage from Jack’s
head, cleaned the two inch long gash above his ear with carbolic
acid and wound a clean strip of cloth around his head and tied it
with a small bow.
    “That’s done,” she said. “That should hold
you until morning.”
    “Will my head need an operation too?”
    “No, of course not.”
    “What about Campbell?”
    “He will require surgery too. There’s nothing
more I can do for him at this point.”
     
     
    Before Nurse Brewster left Jack took more
laudanum and shortly fell asleep. He slept heavily for several
hours then woke sweating and disoriented. He’d been dreaming of
battle and blood and the eyes of dead men staring up at him milky
white and as void of life as a granite stone. It was not yet
daylight but he heard a rooster crow and the sound of a bell
clanging somewhere across town. He listened to the night birds
singing in the trees beside the hospital and thought about Marie
Hayes before drifting off to sleep.

Chapter 12
     
     
    It was extremely bright