Free The Better Angels of Our Nature by S. C. Gylanders Page A

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