A Chain of Thunder

by Jeff Shaara

  “For future engineers.”

  “Well, yes, sir.”

  “Fine, Captain, you want to write a text for West Point, you do that in your leisure time. Right now, there is no leisure time.”

  “Oh, no, sir. I understand. But you should see this. It’s … well, it’s beautiful, sir.”

  Kossak held out the papers, began to unroll them, and Sherman looked past him, down a wide hill, ravines and cut ground, thickets of trees, some of those being cut down. Far in the distance was the formidable fortress the rebels had named Stockade Redan, the place where so many of Sherman’s men had fallen. He could see now what the engineer was talking about, what was drawn in detail on his papers. From the deepest ravines to Sherman’s front, up onto the flatter fields, men were working half buried in the ground. The trench lines were laid out in a zigzag pattern, others, farther to one side, in parallel lines, connected by shortcuts. The artillery fire continued, the blasts striking the rebel works regularly, tossing sand and broken timbers skyward. Sherman raised his field glasses, scanned the works, no sign of rebels, no hint that anyone was there at all. Through the artillery, he could hear the pops of musket fire, knew it was all his own, the sharpshooters taking aim at anything that might be a target. He shared the engineer’s pride, that this plan was working, that the rebels seem to have no answer for Grant’s army digging their way closer, the distance shrinking every day.

  “How close are we now, Captain?”

  “Within ninety yards in places, sir. By tomorrow, closer still.”

  Sherman focused on the ground closer to him, saw spades tossing dirt up and out of the trenches.

  “Risky. The rebels will do something about this before long. I would. Can’t just let us waltz right up under their noses. We losing many people? There’s rebels who can shoot, too.”

  “Not many at all, sir. If you notice the cotton bales, the straw.”

  Sherman saw the fat lumps, scattered about the field, but there was nothing random about that. At the leading edge of every trench, where the shovels were doing their work, the men in the ground were protected by a fat barrier, certain to stop any musket fire.

  “Nice work, Captain. I assume this is going on all down the lines?”

  “Indeed, sir. General McPherson is doing precisely what we are. I can’t speak for General McClernand … haven’t ventured down that far, but I know from Captain Comstock that General Grant has issued the same working orders to everyone. It’s only a matter of time, sir.”

  Sherman lowered the glasses, heard the hard shriek of an artillery shell, could see the red trail to his left, the shell impacting flat against the redan’s wall. The answer came now, a burst of smoke from behind the works, the ball impacting somewhere in the ravine below. Sherman waited, knew what was coming. The blasts impacted the rebel cannon before its smoke had even cleared, a half-dozen fiery explosions he could hear now. It has to be that way in every position, he thought. They try to hit us back, and we swarm on them like wasps. Or reporters.

  “Very good, Captain. Keep me advised of your progress. There might be a textbook in this after all.” He turned, looked back toward the road, no sign of the civilians, more cavalry riding past, the business of the headquarters. “And before much longer, we’ll have something those reporters will want to crow about.” He looked at Kossak, the man impatient to be gone, to return to the work. “Tell you what, Captain. When it’s time to give these reporters what they’re after … I’ll let you do it.”

  CONFEDERATE HOSPITAL—THE GREEN HOUSE

  MAY 29, 1863

  She held the boy down, couldn’t avoid his blood on her hands. Already her apron was soaked through to her dress, the sticky dampness oozing through everything she was wearing.

  “Here! Harder!”

  The doctor grabbed her hand, pressed it on the boy’s chest, a thick pool of soft goo that spread up through her fingers.

  “Hold it there … tight. Stand up … lean over him. More pressure.”

  She obeyed, stood upright, bent out over the boy, her weight pushing down, the doctor now moving to the boy’s head, removing a thick bloody bandage.

  “Oh Lord.”

  The doctor stood straight across the table from her and shook his head.

  “No, missy. Let it be. The wound’s taken too much of his brain … behind the neck. He’s done.”

  She felt a rush of panic, could feel the boy’s heart beating through the mush in his chest.

  “No! He’s alive!”

  The doctor wiped his hands on a rag, was already moving toward the next man, another table close by. She was furious now and shouted, “No! Come back! You can save him!”

  He turned to her, and she saw the calm, the exhaustion, his strength overpowering her will, draining away the fury. He held out the rag and said, “Missy, we tried to stop the bleeding. It might have saved him. But the head wound is too severe. I can’t explain this to you again.”

  “He’s too young.”

  Her words were soft, a plaintive cry, but the doctor was working on the next man, a mess of an arm wound, more blood, the man reacting to the doctor’s touch.

  “Leave me be! I’m all right, you see?”

  There was terror in the man’s voice, and Lucy saw his face, frightened eyes, panicking madness.

  “I’ll take a look at it, son. Might be able to fix you up in no time. Missy, over here, please.”

  Lucy pulled her hands free of the soggy slop of the boy’s chest, stared at the face, silent, pale. She couldn’t move away, not yet.

  “Missy. Here, now!”

  She wiped at her hands, the rag wet with the blood of a half-dozen men. She said the words again, silently, a plea for the boy. He’s not more than fourteen. Can’t be. We could still…

  The boy suddenly bowed up, his chest foaming, gasping for one great burst of air. But it was one breath, one final sound, and she heard a hard gurgling, and then a soft rattle that seemed to come from the boy’s throat. She knew the meaning, had seen it already, all morning long, the shock of witnessing a man’s last breath. The boy’s eyes were still open, and she turned away, wouldn’t look at that, wouldn’t touch him to shut them. It was the worst thing she had done, touching any of the men who died in front of her, feeling the body suddenly soulless. There should have been comfort in that, and she scolded herself for her uneasiness, knew the boy was with the Almighty now, the pain gone, the wounds healed in ways only God could do. She felt like crying, again, but the tears wouldn’t come, were no longer there.

  “Missy …”

  “Coming, sir.”

  She slipped around the table, stopped, made way for two men who moved quickly by her, lifting the dead boy. She knew there was need for more space, the corpse just taking up room. The two men didn’t speak to her, a relief. There had been too much of that already, teasing this wisp of a girl, sickening jokes about the blood on her clothing, blood in her hair, the apron doing her no good at all. But the men were as exhausted as she was. She glanced once at the boy as they lifted him up, the body carried quickly from the tent, and now, more men came in, carrying a litter, a man bawling like an infant, a high-pitched sobbing that sliced through her. She fought that, stepped to the surgery table across from the doctor, focused now on the new patient, older, a sergeant. It had stopped mattering, that first curiosity if the man was an officer, the terrible burst of panic that it might be her officer. But now the faces were losing meaning, just men, soldiers engulfed in their own nightmares, each one different, but all so much the same.

  The sergeant looked up at her, a small ray of hopefulness.

  “Ma’am? You be takin’ care of me?”

  “That she will, soldier. Finest nurse in this hospital.”

  Lucy tried to manage a smile, the doctor looking at her now, measuring, and she put a hand on the man’s forehead.

  “Yes. I’ll take care of you.”

  The doctor called out toward one of the ambulance men nearby.

  “Here!
I need your hands.” He looked at Lucy, the command she had heard all day. “Chloroform.”

  Lucy went to the table close by, wrapped her fingers around the small brown bottle, tried not to see the crust of dried blood on her hands.

  “Here, Doctor.”

  “Apply it to the cloth. You know how.”

  She pulled the cork from the bottle, picked up a small dirty bandage from the table, put it over the bottle, and tilted it up for a long second.

  “Now, to the soldier, missy.”

  She moved with automatic motions, bent over, the man’s terror returning.

  “What you gonna do? You suffocatin’ me?”

  She tried to show reassurance, keep the tremor out of her voice, and said, “Not at all, Sergeant. This will make you feel better. The pain will stop.”

  “The pain ain’t all that bad. I’m all right! What you gonna do then?”

  The fear in his voice was increasing, and the doctor said, “Now, missy. Don’t delay.”

  She pressed the cloth over the man’s face, and he jumped, terrified, but the doctor clamped down on his undamaged arm, the other man putting weight on the man’s legs. In a few seconds the sergeant stopped struggling, and Lucy stood back, waited while the doctor tested the man, sticking him with a small needle, making sure he was as near unconscious as they could make him.

  “I’ll need both of you for this. Missy, hand me the scalpel. Butch, have that tourniquet ready. I’ll need it quick, once I get the skin cut.”

  Lucy saw what seemed to be the remnants of a tourniquet high on the man’s arm, and said, “He’s got one already.”

  The doctor grabbed the strip of cloth, yanked, the tourniquet coming free, and tossed it on the ground beside him.

  “Wasn’t doing any more good. The scalpel, missy.”

  She picked up the small razor-sharp knife from the table and handed it to the doctor, careful to keep the blade pointing back toward her.

  “Tear open the sleeve, Butch.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The man complied, the wound exposed, shattered bone, torn flesh. She was becoming used to this now, a man’s arm reduced to the simplest of terms. Meat. The doctor made fast work with the scalpel, cutting through the bloody skin, the ripped muscle, exposing what was left of the bone.

  “Tourniquet, Butch. Tie it tight … right there.”

  The man moved quickly, experienced, and Lucy was grateful for so little fresh blood.

  “All right, missy, use that curved instrument there, the silver one. Hold the muscle out of the way. I have to get up a ways, past the worst of it.”

  She moved closer, knew this part as well, slid the flat metal into the cut flesh, pulled the muscle up the man’s arm, holding it back while the doctor slid his fingers along what she could see of the bone.

  “That’s it. Right there. Butch, here, take the scalpel. Now, hand me the saw.”

  The man retrieved the small rectangular saw from the table, a quick exchange of instruments with the doctor, the doctor not hesitating. He pulled the saw back and forth across the exposed bone, and Lucy shut her eyes tight, her jaw clamped, but she couldn’t escape the sound, the teeth of the saw slicing quickly through the man’s arm.

  “That’s it. Missy, check on him when you can. When he wakes up, he’s not gonna like what he finds. This wasn’t too bad, though. He’ll probably survive this.”

  She took a hard breath, was engulfed by a new wave of nausea, infuriating, steadied herself against the table. The doctor had moved away, and she saw the worst part of it now, the doctor tossing the arm onto a pile of limbs. The arm landed with a soft thump, rolled partway off the pile, just one of a dozen arms, piled together with legs and fingers.

  She looked at the sergeant’s face, the man breathing softly, just a peaceful nap. The doubt came now, a foolish curiosity she could never ask the doctor. Is he asleep or not? Does the chloroform just freeze him, keeping him still? Might he know everything that had happened? She touched the man’s forehead again, cold silence, and she said softly, “I’ll return very soon, soldier.”

  “He can’t hear you, miss. Dead to the world, at least for now.” The words came from Butch, a smirk she had grown to despise, one more ambulance driver who had become so utterly callous about his job. And about her. “Doctor, I best be headin’ back out to the lines. There’ll be more, pretty certain.”

  “Go on, Butch. We’re not going anywhere. Missy, over here please. This one’s a leg. Oh my Lord, both of ’em. Real mess. Shrapnel.”

  She moved that way, wiped her hands against her apron, too tired to search for the rag, felt a small soft lump between her fingers. She looked at it, knew already what it was, a piece of flesh from the man who had just lost his arm. Meat.

  She saw the face of a nurse, an older woman who never smiled.

  “Get up, Miss Spence. Doctor, she’s awake.”

  Lucy felt the floor of the tent beneath her, tried to sit up, her head spinning. The doctor was at one of the tables and glanced her way.

  “Get her out of here. Missy, go outside, sit for a while. You feel like coming back in here, I sure could use you.”

  She stood slowly, helped by the other nurse, heard laughter, a pair of ambulance drivers carrying a litter, dropping it down on the hard table.

  “Well, there, Miss Nursie, things getting a little rough in here? Maybe you best go make some tea for your husband.”

  “Leave her be, Henry. She ain’t been doin’ this long.”

  Lucy felt something familiar about the friendlier man, realized now it was the teamster who had brought her to the hospital. He tipped his hat, a brief gesture of kindness, and she nodded his way.

  “Thank you. I’ll be all right.”

  The nurse still held her under one arm.

  “Doubt that,” the nurse said. “Go on outside. Or go on home. Can’t have fainting spells in here. You could kill somebody. Look at the back of your dress. This floor’s no place for such foolishness.”

  There was nothing kind in the woman’s words, and Lucy slid free of her grip, had already absorbed too much of the woman’s surliness.

  “I’ll be fine. Thank you.”

  She moved quickly past the pair of tables, the familiar sounds, cries and soft whimpers, one man saying some kind of prayer, the words jumbled nonsense, the man falling silent.

  She was outside now, the air hot, steaming, the smell of the wounds and the wounded, the smell of her own dress, the brown crust coating her hands, jammed under her fingernails. She walked out past the tents, three rows now, the need increasing every day, more injured men, too few doctors to treat them. She thought of the doctor, a hint of kindness in a man who went about his work with bored matter-of-factness. She was one of a dozen nurses, the standard being one nurse for every eight men. She hadn’t understood that at first, part of the quick training she had been given by the older nurse, as though Lucy should already know the routine. The doctor knew otherwise, had seen through her show of courage, her need to be helpful, had tolerated her inexperience, at least for the first day. But there was no time for tolerance of any kind now, the flow of wounded from the east steady, the ambulance drivers pressed into service restraining the most violent of the wounded, the doctor quick to administer chloroform to silence anyone who disrupted the flow of work.

  She walked out across the wide yard of the house, beyond the tents, avoided the big oak tree, the place where the rows of corpses lay. There were burials ongoing, men with shovels down the hill, graves just deep enough to hide a body from anyone’s sight. She watched them working, laughter, one man handing a bottle to another as they stabbed their spades into the soft soil. She stared, indignant at their lack of respect for the awful duty, the men drinking liquor to steel themselves from a job that was no worse than anything she had been told to do, anything she had already seen. But she kept silent, knew better than to speak out to drunk men, the queasiness in her stomach keeping her from the sight of what they were doing.

&nb
sp; “Hello, miss. You be wanting a ride, then?”

  She turned to the voice, the ambulance driver, his hat in his hand.

  “What do you mean? Where?”

  “Well, forgive me for sayin’, miss. But I been watchin’ you for a while now. This ain’t the sorta thing you was cut out for. Maybe I take you back to your papa, or wherever you came from.”

  She wanted to be angry at the man, but she had absorbed all she could, rubbed her fingers together, wondered if her hands would ever be clean. She said nothing, moved toward him, and he led the way, back to his ambulance, climbed up in front of her, held out a hand, pulled her up beside him. Without a word, he grabbed the leather straps and slapped the mule, the wagon lurching ahead, back toward the caves, and beyond, toward the men who couldn’t escape the punishment from the Federal guns.

  She knelt by the small creek, let the cool water flow over her hands, dug at her fingernails for the last specks of dried blood. The creek was used by the cave dwellers on both sides of the hill, a gravelly stream that ran through the base of the ravine. The water was drinkable, and the women had finally succumbed to the necessities of life underground, the only place close by where they could try to wash what needed washing. They came out of their shelters when the artillery seemed to fall elsewhere, but those moments were brief, and anyone who dared stand in the open was risking a horrible fate. Those stories had flowed over the hillsides, a child killed by shrapnel, a cave-in that crushed one of the Negroes, a dozen accounts of injuries from the horrible effects of the shredded iron from the mortars. For days now the shelling hadn’t stopped for more than a few minutes at a time, and as always, there was no order to it, no aim, no purpose anyone could explain. The mortars were still the worst of all, coming again from the river, and now coming in from the east as well. The men had gathered with their predictable chatter, but Lucy had stopped listening, her brain wrapping around the only piece of this war that mattered to her now. She had run her hands through the most graphic filth she could ever have known, parts of men’s bodies she had never seen before, wounds that bathed her in blood and fluids that smelled worse than death itself. The amputations had been the worst, and no matter that doctor’s casual routine or encouraging words, the nurses had told her that half those men would not survive anyway. The greatest surprise had been the comfort she had drawn from the quick deaths, what she now realized was a blessing. She had felt guilt at the odd sensation of welcoming a man’s death. But when the wounds were the worst, unending, unstoppable pain, harsh screams, men begging for mercy, for any relief at all, the suddenness of death had been a relief, as though the unspeakable suffering had been swept away by the Divine Hand.