Fire by Night

by Lynn Austin

  Then, just when things had started to ease, more casualties arrived from the Seven Days’ Battles that raged on the Virginia Peninsula. Along with these new patients came a very unwelcome surprise— Dr. McGrath returned. Julia was trying to persuade a feverish soldier to eat the milk toast Dr. Whitney had prescribed when she heard McGrath’s gruff voice in the doorway behind her.

  “Well, well. Mrs. Hoffman. Don’t tell me you’re still here?”

  Julia nearly groaned aloud when she saw him. He looked as ornery and disheveled as ever—hands on hips, sleeves rolled up, auburn hair unkempt. After what she’d learned about him from Hiram Stone, Julia felt a little afraid of him.

  “Yes, I’m still here, Doctor. You seem surprised.”

  “Frankly, yes. Now that we’re treating real battlefield casualties instead of measles and chicken pox, I’m quite surprised. I didn’t think you had it in you to face such gruesome stuff.”

  He was baiting her. Julia knew she should ignore him, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Well, you’re wrong. After you left I volunteered to serve as a nurse with the Sanitary Commission. I went to the Peninsula and worked on one of their evacuation ships.”

  “Bravo!” He wore a smirk on his face as he mockingly applauded her. “I hope you proved what you set out to prove.”

  “I wasn’t trying to prove anything.”

  “Of course you were.” He made certain he had the last word by walking away. She wanted to throw something at him.

  “Who was that?” her patient asked.

  She exhaled in frustration. “Dr. McGrath. He’s in charge of this hospital.” Unfortunately, she added to herself.

  “Do you think he’ll make me eat this blasted milk toast, too?”

  Julia gave up trying to feed it to him. She dropped the spoon into the pasty mixture and set the bowl on the night table. “No, he’s actually quite kind to his patients.” The ones he doesn’t murder, that is. “He’ll probably feed you steak and whiskey.”

  Later that night, dismayed by the doctor’s return—and her reaction to him—Julia thought of Sister Irene’s words to her on board the hospital ship. God’s greatest commandment was to love others. And difficult people like James McGrath needed love the most. Grudgingly, Julia prayed for enough patience to be kind to him. Her first opportunity came the next day. The doctor walked into her ward as she was feeding one of the men his breakfast.

  “Put the bowl down, Mrs. Hoffman,” he said without a word of greeting. “Someone from the Invalid Corps can feed your patients and perform all those other menial duties. Since you’re an experienced nurse now, you should be changing dressings and assisting with surgical procedures.”

  “Yes, of course.” But she continued to feed the last few spoonfuls to her patient, careful not to meet the doctor’s gaze. He would surely see how upset she was at the prospect of tending wounds.

  Julia was not at all certain she could perform such duties. She had always looked away, unnerved, whenever the other nurses changed a patient’s dressing. But pride made her unwilling to admit as much to Dr. McGrath. He was certain to have a sarcastic comment and a knowing laugh at her expense. He might even send her home if she refused. But an even bigger problem was that she had led him to believe she’d gained nursing experience while working on the hospital ship. He was about to discover that she had no idea how to change surgical dressings and care for amputated limbs.

  By the time her patient swallowed his last bite, Julia had made up her mind. She had learned to wash linens, build fires, cook gruel, and perform a dozen other distasteful duties that she never would have believed she could do. Now she would just have to bluff her way through these new tasks, too.

  “I’m waiting, Mrs. Hoffman,” the doctor said. And none too patiently, judging by his scowling face. He stood across the room beside a patient’s bed, his arms crossed.

  “Sorry, Doctor.” She reluctantly joined him at the bedside.

  “Now, I have my own way of doing things,” he told her, “so if you don’t mind, I’d prefer that you forget everything you’ve learned from the other physicians and let me show you exactly how I want things done.”

  “That’s fine with me.” She nearly sighed aloud with relief. She hadn’t asked God for help, but He’d sent her a little just the same.

  For the next few hours as they went from bed to bed, Dr. McGrath taught her how to care for wounds. He showed her how to cleanse them, how to treat them with iodine or carbolic acid, how to apply poultices and dressings, and which danger signs he wanted her to watch for.

  “Did you see how swollen and erythematous that man’s skin was?” he asked, pulling her aside after tending a patient. “When you see inflammation like that it could be a sign of pyemia—blood poisoning. The danger is that it will spread through his body to his heart valves or his lungs. It’s our job to make certain that he doesn’t survive his wounds only to die of complications.”

  They moved to another patient, newly arrived from the battlefield, and the doctor shook his head in disgust at the condition of the bullet wound in the man’s thigh.

  “I’m very meticulous about cleanliness, Mrs. Hoffman, so I’d like you to be, too. I believe that any foreign material—fragments of clothing, grass, dirt—that isn’t cleansed from these wounds right away can cause complications. And we don’t want complications, remember?”

  “Yes, from pyemia. I remember.”

  “Now, this is putrefaction,” he told her after removing another patient’s dressing. “Healthy tissue dies whenever there is an inadequate blood supply. The procedure I’m about to show you, this process of removing dead tissue, is called debridement.”

  Julia forced herself to watch, telling herself that it was no different from learning the steps involved in any task, such as a complicated needlepoint stitch or playing a piece on the piano.

  “You all right?” he asked after finishing with the ghastly wound.

  “I’m fine,” she lied. She had been praying that she wouldn’t faint. It was close to lunchtime, and if her stomach hadn’t been empty she would have surely vomited.

  “We’ll need to watch that last patient carefully,” he said. “Further amputation might be necessary.” He showed her how to spot the signs of gangrene and erysipelas, and insisted that such patients be isolated in a separate ward. “Other physicians think these are foolish precautions, but I’ve learned that they sometimes save lives.”

  In spite of her squeamishness, Julia found that the things Dr. McGrath explained to her about the body’s healing process fascinated her. If she detached herself from the notion that she was seeing blood and bone and ragged wounds and approached her task as a job that needed to be done, like scrubbing laundry, she found the work interesting and oddly satisfying. She might eventually get used to it.

  She was also surprised to see a different side of James McGrath. He knew all his patients by name and always spent a moment talking with them, listening attentively as they spoke of their sweethearts and families back home. He fought as hard as any soldier on the battlefield against the diseases that attacked his patients, refusing to give up hope, using every resource available to him. And as she worked alongside him all morning, Julia discovered that he was surprisingly kind and courteous to her, as well.

  When they reached the last patient in the ward, Dr. McGrath stood back, motioning for Julia to go first. “And now, Mrs. Hoffman, you will show me what you’ve learned.”

  Julia pulled up a chair beside the bed and began removing the old dressing as Dr. McGrath stood behind her, watching. The soldier, no older than she was, had his right arm amputated above his elbow. She had spent time with him the past few days, feeding him, writing a letter home for him, trying to convince him that his girlfriend would still find him handsome in spite of his injury. Julia knew she didn’t dare show revulsion now.

  At first her hands trembled as she worked, but she found that if she talked to the soldier and focused on him instead of herself, her nervousness su
bsided. She had to concentrate so hard in order not to forget any important steps that she soon found herself applying the fresh dressing without once feeling ill.

  “Excellent,” the doctor told her when she finished. “You have a nice gentle touch.”

  Julia looked up at him in surprise. It was the first compliment he’d ever paid her.

  “But you will have to learn to work faster,” he added, frowning.“Our wards are filled with patients, so I’ll expect you to be efficient.”

  Julia’s new skills were tested to the extreme after the second Battle of Bull Run at the end of August. It was another terrible defeat for the Union, but unlike the first battle, the wounded soldiers received much better care. The army not only had better hospital facilities, but they had organized an ambulance corps to quickly transport the casualties to Washington. Hundreds of them arrived at Fairfield Hospital.

  Julia slowly gained respect for Dr. McGrath’s considerable skills as a physician as they were forced to work together. He labored hard to save the lives of patients whom the elderly Dr. Whitney and even the doctors on board the hospital ships where she’d worked would have given up as hopeless. She learned to work smoothly with him, as a matched team of horses might pull together, and it sometimes seemed during those long hours beside him on the wards that they had become friends.

  But when he wasn’t with his patients, James McGrath continued to be rude and ill-tempered, growling at anyone who raised her voice above a whisper. Julia learned to tiptoe past his darkened office when he sat inside doing his paper work. She wished she could ask Sister Irene how to act lovingly toward such a complicated, contradictory man.

  As she was leaving the hospital one evening in September, Julia saw James still at work at his desk, buried behind his endless stack of papers, his forehead propped against his fist. A tumbler of amber liquid sat in front of him along with the photograph of his wife and daughter. Julia usually tried to scurry past him without being seen, but tonight he looked pitifully lonely to her, a man whose only friend was a glass of whiskey. She decided to make an effort to be pleasant to him instead of avoiding him, reminding herself that he was the same man she enjoyed working with on the wards. She stopped for a moment in his doorway.

  “Good night, Dr. McGrath. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He pushed his chair back with a loud scrape as if he was about to rise. “What game are you playing now?” he asked, glaring at her. She was immediately sorry that she had spoken.

  “I simply said good night—a common social courtesy, by the way—yet you’ve managed to take offense. Why do you do that? Why do you insist on pushing everyone away? And why do you always distrust my motives?”

  He stood, his arms folded across his chest. “Because you still haven’t told me the real reason why you’re here, doing this work. Is it because you want to be here or because someone else expects it of you?”

  She saw what he was doing—trying to take the focus off himself and his own rude behavior by putting her on the defensive. Even so, the question made her angry and she wanted to answer it. “I’m here because I choose to be here.”

  “And what does your husband say about it?”

  “My husband is none of your business,” she said wearily. “And would it really make a difference if I discussed him with you?Would you treat me any kinder?”

  “Try me and see. Does your husband have a name?”

  She knew she was digging herself into a deep hole with her lies, but she was tired of the doctor’s harassment. “His name is Robert. And neither he nor anyone else expects me to be a nurse. It’s my own choice.”

  “Ah. So that means either the good lieutenant is a liberal thinker when it comes to his wife’s unconventional activities or he doesn’t know about them. Since most of the career military men I know are rather conservative fellows, I’m guessing that it’s the latter. Poor Robert doesn’t know that you’re here. Tell me, what do you suppose he’ll say when he finds out what you’ve been up to in his absence?”

  Julia thought of the real Robert Hoffman—her cousin. He wouldn’t understand her determination to be a nurse any more than the rest of her family did. He would be horrified to learn where she’d been and what she’d seen and all the demeaning work she’d done. Scandalized, in fact. Just as Hiram Stone had been. The only man who seemed to understand and approve of her actions was Nathaniel Greene. Julia decided to picture the minister as her husband when she answered the doctor’s questions.

  “He will be very proud of me.”

  The doctor gave a grunt. It might have been disgust or derision or disbelief, Julia couldn’t tell which. He unfolded his arms and walked around the desk toward her, absently twisting his wedding ring as he spoke. “Well, there are rumors afoot that the Rebels are on the march again. Looks like our boys are going to have to go stop them. That means there will be more work for us to do very soon. Have you had your fill yet, Mrs. Hoffman? If so, now would be a good time to be a submissive little wife and go home.”

  Julia had had enough of the man. It was impossible to be kind to him. “I’ll do whatever I please,” she said coldly. “Good night.” She turned to leave and nearly collided with a man who was stepping through the front door. “Oh …excuse me.”

  Then she looked up and saw who it was—Reverend Nathaniel Greene. It was as if she had conjured him out of the blue by thinking about him a moment ago. How had he suddenly materialized in the front foyer of the hospital?

  “Julia,” he said, smiling broadly. “I see that I have come to the right place. From the outside, this building looks as though it should be condemned.”

  “What are you doing here?” Her words came out in a horrified whisper. Nathaniel didn’t seem to notice.

  “I arrived in Washington earlier today, and I’m leaving again tomorrow, but I had to see you. I went to your residence, and your landlady directed me here.”

  This was certain to end in disaster. Nathaniel was going to expose her lies in front of Dr. McGrath, who had emerged from his office to stand in the foyer, right behind her. She had to be polite and make proper introductions—but she saw a terrible collision coming and felt desperate to avoid it. She had to get these two men apart, quickly.

  “Dr. McGrath, I’d like you to meet an old friend of our family, Reverend Nathaniel Greene, pastor of our church in Philadelphia. He’s been working with the U.S. Christian Commission for the past several months and is on his way home.”

  The doctor simply nodded, rudely refusing to say “How do you do” or shake Nathaniel’s hand.

  “I was just on my way to the boardinghouse,” she told Nathaniel. “Quick! Do you think we could stop your carriage from leaving? It’s so hard to catch another one at this time of day.” She tried to pull him toward the door, but he wouldn’t budge.

  “Don’t worry, I asked the driver to wait in case I didn’t find you here. You’re very fortunate, Dr. McGrath, to have such a fine nurse as Julia working in your hospital. I ran into her at White House Landing last June, and I saw firsthand what a wonderful job she does. Everyone she worked with had nothing but praise for her.”

  The doctor gave another one of his ambiguous grunts.

  “I can’t wait to see her family in Philadelphia and tell them what amazing work she’s doing. Correct me if I’m wrong, Julia, but I had the impression that your father wasn’t exactly thrilled with the idea of you becoming a nurse.”

  “Perhaps not in the beginning,” she said quickly, “but he supports my decision now.” She hoped that neither of them would see how nervous this conversation was making her.

  “And speaking of your family,” Nathaniel continued, “I could have kicked myself for not asking you about Robert the last time I saw you. Has there been any news of your—?”

  “No! None at all. Not a word.” Julia could scarcely breathe. “He’s still in Libby Prison in Richmond, as far as we know. Well, good night, Doctor.” She gave him a hasty wave and turned to Nathaniel, practically shoving him bac
kward through the door, saying, “You’re a savior, coming along with a carriage when you did. It’s so difficult to find one at this hour.”

  She shuddered with relief when the door banged shut behind them.

  “Your Dr. McGrath is a rather rude fellow, isn’t he?” Nathaniel said when they were in the carriage.

  “Yes, that’s why I wanted to leave quickly. He’s a very good physician but a complete boor when it comes to social skills. It would have been quite useless for you to waste any more time trying to engage him in polite conversation.”

  She debated briefly whether to tell the minister what she’d learned about the doctor from Hiram Stone, then decided not to. She couldn’t risk Nathaniel mentioning it to her father. Judge Hoffman would haul her home on the very first train if he learned she was working for a murderer.

  “Can I take you someplace for dinner?” Nathaniel asked.

  Julia was so surprised by his invitation that it took her a moment to reply. “It’s kind of you to offer, but I couldn’t possibly go anywhere dressed like this. I’ve been working all day. I should change my clothes first and freshen up.”

  Nathaniel gazed at her as if it didn’t matter to him if she was wearing rags. “You look quite lovely to me. Besides, I’m afraid there isn’t time for you to change and still go to dinner. I have a meeting later this evening that I can’t avoid. I’m so sorry. And then my train to Philadelphia leaves early tomorrow morning. I shouldn’t have presumed on your time this way, but I wanted to see you again.”

  “It’s good to see you, too, Nathaniel.” It was. He looked wonderful, this man she had dreamed of for so long. Julia wished she could write a letter to her cousin Caroline. At last! At long last, I have my wish! she would tell her.