With this Pledge

by Tamera Alexander

  Even as the words formed inside her, she knew the silent plea was intended for two men.

  For Captain Jones, because she would feel responsible if he died, all due to the promise she’d made him. But not only that. She stared at his rugged features. She didn’t understand it, and even the silent admittance brought her some discomfort, but she felt tied to him somehow. The more she thought about it, she realized the connection she felt was likely due to the letter she’d read from his wife. The private nature of the missive had given her insight into the kind of man Captain Jones was, and the kind of marriage he shared with his wife. That had to be it, she told herself, still not fully convinced. But thinking it made her feel better.

  And the plea was also for Towny. He was the closest friend she’d ever had. When something happened, either good or bad, he was the one she wanted to share it with first. Tempy was right. He would make a good husband. She only hoped she would make an equally good wife. She was determined to be what he needed, even while not quite knowing what that meant. But first, she needed to find him.

  Footsteps sounded behind her, and she turned. Her eyes widened at what appeared to be an apparition bathed in light standing in the threshold of the doorway. But an apparition wouldn’t possess discernible footsteps, would it?

  “Miss Clouston?” a soft voice inquired, and the apparition stepped from the swath of sunlight into the room. “I’m Sister Catherine Margaret. Mrs. McGavock suggested I come upstairs and see if you need any assistance. The other sisters and I are here to help in whatever way we can.”

  A trace of humor edged up the corners of Lizzie’s mouth. “Sister Catherine Margaret, that’s most kind of you. But can I say . . . When I first saw you standing there, I thought I might be seeing a ghost. Or should I say an angel.”

  Warmth filled the woman’s eyes. “While I’m neither, my dear, you could say that I’m most definitely in league with the latter.”

  Lizzie liked her instantly. And saw the opportunity for what it was.

  She gave Sister Catherine Margaret a quick summary of the men in the room, along with instructions in caring for Captain Jones, who, though his fever hadn’t yet broken, didn’t seem to feel quite as warm to the touch as he had earlier.

  The nun picked up the cloth and dipped it into the water. “Rest assured, Miss Clouston, I’ll keep careful watch on them while you’re gone, and will stay here until you return.”

  Lizzie instinctively wanted to hug the woman, but she wasn’t certain whether nuns hugged. So she settled for a gentle touch on the arm instead and headed for the stairs. Then she paused in the doorway and looked back, feeling the weight of death in this house and willing the captain to heed her silent warning.

  Don’t you die on me, Captain Jones. Don’t you dare die on me.

  “MA’AM, IT’S NOT a good idea for you to go out there. You don’t know what you’re gettin’ yourself into. It’s nothin’ that femi-nine emotions should ever have to reckon with.”

  Lizzie looked up at the driver seated in the ambulance, reins in his grip. “I appreciate your concern for my femi-nine emotions, Lieutenant—” She raised a brow in question.

  “O’Brien, ma’am.”

  Lizzie gave him a single nod, impatience and fatigue stiffening her spine. “Lieutenant O’Brien, but I have spent the better part of the past fourteen hours assisting Dr. Phillips with amputations upstairs. I’ve lost count of the number of limbs I’ve seen sawn from men’s bodies, then have watched their faces as they’ve awakened from surgery to see the body they’ve known forever altered. Along with the life they knew and the future they’d hoped for. So while I appreciate your concern for my emotional well-being, I intend to get to that battlefield whether you allow me to ride along with you or force me to walk afoot.”

  Lizzie clenched her jaw tight, the tangled knot at the base of her throat all but choking her. But if there was one man here she would not cry in front of, it was this man. Not with the weight of condescension in his gaze.

  Lieutenant O’Brien eyed her, then shook his head, murmuring a profanity. “You can’t ride up here with me. It’s against military regulations. Climb on up in the back, and I’ll take you. But you’ll have to walk back on your own steam. I’ll be loaded with wounded.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant O’Brien.” Lizzie pulled her cloak closer about her and walked around to the back of the canvas-enclosed wagon and climbed in, surprised to see the same young man who’d helped her prepare the generals’ bodies for viewing.

  Recognition registered in his eyes as well, and he scooted over on the bench seat to make room for her. No sooner did she sit than the wagon lurched forward. The ride was rough and jarring over the frozen, rutted field. But with her feet already aching, she was grateful not to have to walk. The dirt-stained canvas stretched taut over bowed wood shielded from the wind, yet made it impossible to see what lay ahead. As Carnton grew smaller in the distance, Lizzie felt a degree of her bravado shrinking as well.

  She’d hastily searched every room of the house, then both the front and back yards and the outbuildings, looking into the face of every wounded or dead soldier, praying she wouldn’t see Towny’s among them. And she hadn’t. But that meant one of three things. He was still on the battlefield—either dead, or alive but wounded, or he’d been captured and taken prisoner to Nashville. As much as she didn’t want to discover that he’d been taken to a Federal prison—she’d read accounts about those dreadful places in the newspapers—at least he would still be alive.

  The temperature was bitter, and she tucked her hands into the folds of her cloak to try to keep warm. She felt a bunching beneath the woolen fabric—and remembered the items in her skirt pocket. She reached inside, and her fingers touched something cool and hard. Thaddeus’s stone. She held it in her palm, then rubbed her thumb across the well-worn surface, imagining he’d done the same. What kind of boy had he been? Focused and eager to study? Or mischievous and adventure-loving like Winder? What color were his eyes? She couldn’t recall, but wished she’d paid closer attention. What she did know was that he’d died far too young.

  Why had he been on that battlefield? Did his mother sense yet that he was gone? She’d heard of mothers being able to feel such things across the miles, being so connected to their children. A connection Lizzie couldn’t begin to understand, but prayed that she would, one day.

  The wagon jolted to one side, and she gripped the seat just as a certainty gripped her. She would find Thaddeus’s mother. She would tell her what her precious son had said and how he’d died in her arms. That he hadn’t died alone. And Lizzie knew where she would start her search too. With Colonel McGavock. If anyone had ties with the War Department, he did.

  Sooner than she expected, the wagon slowed and came to a stop. She tucked the stone back into her pocket and—even in that scant passing of seconds—realized that Lieutenant O’Brien had likely been right. Because though three of her senses were rendered helpless as she sat there in the wagon—a chilling breeze billowing the canvas, her fingers white-knuckling the bench seat beneath her—the sounds and smells permeating the air stirred an uncanny fear inside her.

  And when she climbed down from the wagon and peered across the vast open valley, she would’ve sworn the devil had taken full possession of the earth.

  CHAPTER 10

  What indescribable fury wrought this unspeakable destruction . . .

  Trembling, part of her wanting to run, yet unable to move, Lizzie stared across the acres of carnage, locked in the grip of the unimaginable. She clamped her hand over her mouth to silence the sobs clawing their way up her throat as tears spilled down her cheeks. The dead lay everywhere. The ground so thick with them, a person could have walked all over the battlefield upon dead bodies without ever stepping on the ground. And their postures—she swallowed, tasting bile—inconceivable even in death.

  “Here, ma’am. You’ll need this.”

  Lieutenant O’Brien, his expression neither punishing nor self-congra
tulatory, held out a handkerchief, and she saw he already had one tied across his nose and mouth. She took the kerchief and held it to her nose. But it barely masked the thick smell of blood and death prevalent on the breeze, despite the freezing moisture that had settled over the valley during the night.

  The lieutenant and two corpsmen started toward the field, and she followed, not knowing where to begin her search for Towny. Not even in Dante’s darkest nightmares could he have imagined a scene such as this. In some of the hastily dug ditches, bodies were stacked seven deep. Many men were left standing, their corpses supported in an almost upright fashion by the dead who had fallen first. Two soldiers, one dressed in gray, the other blue, were fixed in the act of bayoneting each other, the blades still buried deep, their rage and agony frozen in their expressions. Lizzie turned away, but there was nowhere to look to escape the fury and death.

  She attempted to step over a body, but the ground was slippery from the night’s frozen rain and sleet and she went down hard. She scrambled to get up, and in the process fell again. It was then she realized, looking down at her hands and the handkerchief in her grip, that it wasn’t dew beneath her feet, but blood. Blood pooled so thick the ground’s thirst had been slaked until it refused to drink any more. She finally managed to stand. Wiping her hands on her skirt, she heard a sigh from one of the bodies beneath her and she scurried backward, desperate to put distance between them.

  “It happens,” she heard behind her and turned.

  The young corpsman who’d shared his bench seat with her in the ambulance pointed toward her feet. “They’re dead, but once you move the bodies, the air trapped in the windpipe sometimes finds its way up. Scared me right sorely too, first time I heard it.”

  Lizzie nodded, realizing her hands were shaking. “I-I didn’t know that. Thank you.”

  “Who is it you’re lookin’ for, ma’am?”

  Lizzie wondered how he knew she was searching for someone, until she saw the answer mirrored in his gaze. It seemed to say, Why else would you be out here?

  “I’m looking for my fiancé, Second Lieutenant Blake Townsend. He was—is,” she swiftly corrected, “in Tucker’s Brigade.”

  The young man turned and pointed across the valley where a gentle rise in the land obscured the remainder of the field from view. “Tucker’s Brigade was part of the western flank, so you’d do best to head over that way. That’s where most of the wounded men still are. We got the wounded through here last night.”

  “Thank you.” She paused. “What is your name?”

  “Private Rogers, ma’am. Albert Rogers.”

  “Thank you, Private Rogers, for your help. My name is—”

  “Oh, I know who you are, Miss Clouston. Every man at Carnton knows your name. Mrs. McGavock’s too.” For the first time, the young man smiled. “Everybody back there’s sayin’ that if they had to get all shot up, they’re mighty glad it got to be around Carnton.”

  Lizzie felt the warmth of his smile in her chest. “Thank you again, Private.” She nodded and walked on toward the west side of the field, stepping on the ground whenever she could, and cringing and stepping as gingerly as possible when she couldn’t.

  The corpses of horses redirected her steps more than a few times, and she instinctively checked to make sure a rider wasn’t trapped beneath and somehow still alive. Close by lay a Confederate colonel and a Federal major, their positions indicating they’d slain each other with pistols. And not three feet from them was a commander lying facedown, his sword in one hand, hat in the other, as though he’d been surging forward, rallying his troops, when death took him.

  On the scant parcels of ground not cradling the dead, the earth resembled fields recently raked or harrowed. She remembered what Captain Jones had said about ten thousand bullets plowing the ground around him. It was a wonder he—or anyone else—could have lived through this. And yet men had. And, she hoped prayerfully, Towny would be among them.

  As she ascended the gentle rise of land, she could hear the now all-too-familiar moans of the wounded. When she reached the top and the valley began to gently slope back down, spreading out before her, she saw hundreds of wounded men scattered among the dead and dying. The scene caused her to view the number of men convalescing at Carnton in a different light. The men groaned and begged for water, and she chided herself for not giving this undertaking more forethought.

  Infirmary corps worked their way among the soldiers, stopping to give aid to some while carrying others away on stretchers. Fires still burned here and there on the field. Whether started by intention or lingering from the battle, she didn’t know.

  She spotted townspeople, no doubt looking for someone as she was, picking their way across the valley. She peered down the pike and spotted even more people coming. Women and children in droves. She prayed for the children, that God would somehow protect them from being scarred by what they would see.

  She continued on, searching the faces of the deceased, praying she wouldn’t recognize any of them. Only yesterday these men had been living, breathing, conversing, some even jesting with each other and singing along with the band as they’d crossed the fields on their way past Carnton. On their way to die. If she could have spoken with them before the battle, she had no doubt they would have told her they were ready and willing to die for the Confederacy, for their families, for their convictions. Yet she couldn’t help but wonder . . . With the benefit now of looking back on this life from eternity, would they still think the sacrifice worth it?

  She knew her personal loathing for this war influenced her perspective, but she had a difficult time believing that all of these men had died with honor. Because surely the honor in giving one’s life for a cause could not be measured solely by the act of laying down one’s life. The pages of history were rife with people who had willingly died in the name of despicable convictions and beliefs. So how did one make sense of all this death?

  Both sides had committed atrocities. Both sides believed God was on their side. Both sides had families waiting at home. Families who, for scores of men on this field, would never see their father, husband, son, or uncle again. The weight of the question bowed her head. And she soon realized it was impossible to answer without having known each man’s heart.

  But God knows.

  The thought came like gentle thunder, and she slowly lifted her head and stared across the valley. Her throat filled with unshed tears. Each man lying dead on this field had had his reasons for joining the war. And although God seemed another world away right now, and had for some time, he knew the heart of every one of them. She believed that even when the world—and everything around her—told her otherwise. So as she continued on, looking for the one face she prayed she would not see among the dead, she silently honored in her heart every man she passed, those dressed in blue and those in butternut and gray, even while wishing they hadn’t had to kill each other.

  West of the pike lay the locust thicket where she and Johnny had hunted together as children. But the thicket looked more like a forest of toothpicks now. The trees, once twelve inches in diameter at the stump, either stood stripped bare of their leaves, limbs, and bark or had been struck by so many bullets they’d toppled beneath their own weight.

  She passed another ditch piled high with mangled bodies and was several steps past when she thought she heard something. She turned back to listen, recalling only too well what Private Rogers had told her. Apparently having been mistaken, she moved on.

  There it was again. An almost inaudible moan. She retraced her steps to the ditch.

  “Hello?” she said softly, too softly. So she said it again, louder this time. And someone answered. Someone from beneath the pile! Heart racing, Lizzie turned back and spotted a corpsman about a hundred yards away. She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Help! I need help over here! Someone is still alive!”

  The corpsman lifted an arm and called something back to her, but he was downwind so she couldn’t hear him. He turne
d to another man a ways behind him, and together they came running. Lizzie tried to pull one of the bodies off, but the weight was too much for her.

  She leaned down close to the ground. “If you can hear me . . . help is coming!”

  A muffled response. Perhaps weaker than before? She couldn’t be sure.

  The first corpsman reached her, his breath heavy. “You think somebody’s alive under there?” He began hefting the bodies and laying them to the side.

  “Yes, I believe I heard a voice calling out.”

  “We checked all these ditches through here earlier.”

  The second corpsman arrived, and working together, the two men removed the bodies down to the last layer. And sure enough, when they’d hefted a particularly large man off the pile, a young soldier lay at the bottom, faceup, his skin pale and eyes glassy, and with a nasty leg wound. Grapeshot, Lizzie felt certain, based on the damage. But he was alive.

  She climbed down into the ditch. “Do either of you have any water?”

  The second corpsman had a pack with him, and he handed her a canteen. Lizzie uncorked the cap and held it to the soldier’s mouth. He gulped the water down.

  “Take your time. Little sips. You can have more.” Judging by his lean physique and the fine smattering of fuzz on his jawline, she guessed him to be around fifteen or sixteen years old. On closer inspection, she saw a bone in his leg was shattered, so she knew what fate awaited him.

  “Did . . . we win?” he asked, looking up at her.

  She brushed the matted hair from his forehead. “You fought bravely. All of you fought so bravely.”

  He seemed to understand her meaning and didn’t ask again.

  “We’ll go fetch a stretcher, ma’am, and get him out of here.”

  Within minutes they returned and transferred him to the stretcher—a painful process. And when the young soldier reached out to her, Lizzie gladly took hold of his hand. They lifted him from the ditch, and when they started in the direction of the ambulance, Lizzie gave his hand a final squeeze. But his grip tightened on hers as tears welled up in his eyes.