Fire by Night

by Lynn Austin

  “I’m not really hungry,” she said. “Maybe we could just take a carriage ride around Washington City until your meeting.” She was content to simply sit beside him in the carriage and finally see the admiration in his eyes.

  “That sounds good to me.” Nathaniel took a moment to instruct his driver, then turned his attention back to Julia. “Ever since I saw you working in Virginia, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I know it’s selfish of me, but I wish you were returning to Philadelphia, too. I wish I could spend more time with you. When do you think you will be coming home?”

  Julia longed to say, I’ll go home with you tomorrow. Doctor Mc-Grath had warned her that there might be another battle soon and that now would be a good time to leave. But then she thought of the hospital wards filled with wounded men and knew that a small part of her didn’t want to go home, even if it was with Nathaniel Greene. Her patients depended on her. They looked forward to her smile and a few simple words of comfort to ease their pain.

  “The hospital is full right now,” she said. “It’s so hard to leave—”

  “Of course. I’m sure you’ll come home as soon as you can.”

  How different Nathaniel was from Hiram Stone—and from most of the other men in her social circle.

  “May I ask …a woman as lovely as you are …is it too much to hope that you haven’t found a beau yet?”

  Could he possibly be serious? What miracle had transpired that had finally allowed her to win his heart? She looked at his face, wondering if he was mocking her—or if she was dreaming. He wore the same lovesick expression in his gray-blue eyes that she’d seen in Hiram Stone’s.

  “I’ve been much too busy to do any courting,” she managed to say.

  “Good. Then I’ll trust that, if it’s the Lord’s will, He’ll bring us together when the time is right. I’ve waited a long time to find someone, Julia. And I nearly despaired of ever finding a woman like you—selfless, giving, compassionate. When I think of all the luxuries you’ve sacrificed in order to work as a nurse …well …the least I can do is be as unselfish as you are and wait a little longer.”

  Something in his words struck Julia as wrong. She needed to tell him that the image he had formed of her wasn’t right. She was not selfless and giving; she was a fraud who had become a nurse in order to impress him and win his heart. Because if she really had won him, she would have to live up to that false image in order to keep him.

  His first assessment of her on the morning after Bull Run had been the truer one—she was shallow and spoiled and unbearably self-absorbed. But as she sat in the carriage with him, holding his hand at last, Julia had no idea how to stop the charade she had set in motion without losing him again.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sharpsburg, Maryland

  September 1862

  Phoebe crawled out of her tent shortly before dawn and made her way through the woods to the creek, alone. Her fever, which had raged all night, had finally broken. She still felt weak from this latest bout of malaria, but at least she had stopped shaking. Poor Ted couldn’t have gotten much sleep with her moaning and thrashing beside him in their tent all night. He’d finally fetched her a dose of quinine from the regimental surgeon, and that had done the trick. She couldn’t remember if she had thanked him.

  Her symptoms had been coming and going ever since she’d marched through White Oak Swamp last July—every few days at first, but now dwindling down to every few weeks. In early September, the regiment had boarded a steamship at Harrison’s Landing and sailed up the Potomac River toWashington City. They’d come right back to where they’d started from seven months ago with nothing to show for it. The Union was still split in two. Richmond was still the Rebel capital. The Negroes were still slaves. All that equipment, all that time, all those dead and wounded soldiers—for nothing. The waste of it made Phoebe sick.

  The regiment had barely had time to make a proper camp in Washington before they’d learned that the Rebels were on the move, marching north into Maryland. Fearing an attack on Washington or Baltimore, General McClellan had ordered his army to go after them. Phoebe and Ted had packed their knapsacks again and marched into Maryland with the eighty-five-thousand-man army and a train of three thousand wagons, strung out for miles. There was no mud this time, only billowing clouds of choking dust, kicked up by thousands of horses and tramping feet.

  Now, after several days of marching and a long night of fever, Phoebe felt filthy. She had risen early to cool off in Antietam Creek before anyone else was awake. Leaving her uniform on shore, she waded into the chilly water in her union suit, which she never took off. But it had been almost a year since she had wrapped the muslin around her bosom to flatten it, and the filthy cloth had rotted into shreds from dirt and sweat and age. Her fingers poked through it like paper. Phoebe quickly unbuttoned her underwear and stripped off the tattered cloth, letting it float away downstream. Then she took out the bar of soap she had tucked into her sleeve and washed her sweaty skin before buttoning up again.

  It felt good to be clean, even if the water was cold enough to make her shiver. She lay back in the creek and wet her hair then scrubbed it clean with the soap, holding her breath and ducking under to rinse it. When she finished, Phoebe rose up out of the water, her wet union suit clinging to her body.

  Ted stood on shore.

  They stared at each other for a long, horrible moment before Phoebe shrieked and dove behind the bush where her uniform was. But even as she scrambled into her clothes, she knew it was too late. She’d seen Ted’s dazed eyes, wide with disbelief, his slack jaw. He had dropped straight to the ground on his backside, as if someone had pulled a chair out from under him.

  Phoebe tried to think what to do as she quickly pulled on her trousers and shoved her arms into the sleeves of her jacket. She didn’t bother with her shirt. She scooped up her shoes and the rest of her clothes and hurried out to where she’d left him. Ted was gone. She heard him stumbling through the bushes. Phoebe tore off after him, buttoning her jacket as she ran.

  “Ted! Ted, wait up!”

  She easily caught up with him even though she was barefooted. Ted was so bewildered with shock that he had strayed from the path and was groping blindly through the brush. He staggered as though he was about to faint. When she grabbed the back of his jacket to stop him, he collapsed to the ground again.

  “Get away from me! Get away!” He held his arms outstretched to keep her at bay.

  “Stop it, Ted. It’s me.”

  “No …no …it’s your face, but it’s on the wrong body!”

  She exhaled and passed her hand over her eyes, struggling not to cry. “Why did you have to go and follow me? You know I like my privacy.”

  “You had a fever all night. I wanted to make sure you weren’t sick.” But now Ted was the one who looked sick.

  Phoebe turned away, wishing she could erase the look of revulsion on his face and replace it with his familiar, friendly grin. Her best friend—her only friend—had seen her as she really was, and he was horrified.

  “Don’t tell nobody. Please, Ted. You can’t tell nobody.”

  He scrambled to his feet as if he was about to run. “Don’t tell anybody? Are you crazy? No, get away from me,” he said when she tried to grab his sleeve to stop him. He took off blindly through the brush again. Phoebe followed, hopping from foot to foot as she put on her shoes.

  “What’s wrong with you, Ted? Ain’t we still friends?”

  He whirled around to face her. “How could you do this to me? I’ve been with you day and night …sleeping beside you …getting undressed …and …and everything! I didn’t know you were a—”

  “Don’t say it! I don’t want anyone to know.”

  He sank to the ground again, covering his face with his hands. “This can’t be true. I don’t believe it.”

  “Then forget about it. Forget what you saw, and let’s just go on like we always were. Nothing’s changed.”

  “Nothing’s changed?
You’re not …you’re not a man! For crying out loud, you beat up the Bailey brothers! You shot a sniper! You do everything like a man—shooting, fighting. … How could you do all those things? Girls aren’t supposed to kill people, Ike. They—” He stopped short, groaning. “That isn’t even your real name, is it?”

  “Yes, it is. My brothers always called me Ike. Ted, listen to me, please.”

  But he wasn’t listening. He covered his face again, moaning. “Oh, my God. How could you do this to me?”

  She knelt in front of him and grabbed his shoulders, shaking him. “Look at me, Ted. I look like a man. I’m big and I’m tall and I’m ugly. You think anybody’s gonna marry me? I got no life at all as a girl. But like you said, I can march and fight and shoot a gun. I made a darn good soldier …and a friend. We’re best friends, ain’t we, Ted? That won’t change.”

  He twisted away from her and stood again. “Friends don’t play dirty tricks on each other. They don’t lie about who they really are. I told you the truth about my grandmother, and here you’ve been lying to me all along.”

  She kept pace with him as he started tromping through the woods again. “Suppose I had told you the truth. What would you have done?”

  “I don’t know. … Probably would’ve turned you in—like I’m going to do right now. You can’t keep pretending.”

  “See? That’s why I didn’t tell—”

  “You lied to me! I feel like a fool!” He clenched his teeth and his fists, walking faster. “You know, I’d like to beat the tar out of you for this, but I don’t hit girls!”

  “Besides, you’d lose,” Phoebe said, hoping he’d smile. He didn’t. “Listen, I’m the same person I was yesterday, ain’t I? I’m still me.”

  He stopped walking again, shaking his head in a baffled way as if struggling to comprehend the truth. “No, you’re not. … You’re a girl. For crying out loud, I’ve been telling all my secrets to a girl! You know how scared I was at Williamsburg …and I even bawled on your shoulder!”

  “Oh, so what?” In her desperation, Phoebe tried making light of it, hoping Ted would get over his shock and laugh it off. “What’s the harm in being a girl and saying I was a man? It’s a lot better than being a man and making you think I was a girl, ain’t it?”

  Her attempt at humor fell flat. Ted was growing angrier by the minute. “You have to tell them, Ike. You can’t keep lying like this.”

  “Why not?”

  “It isn’t right for a girl to fight a war. And I don’t feel right being with you anymore …sleeping beside you. … Oh, Lord! Do you have any idea what the other fellows are going to say about us when they find out you’re a girl? I’ll be humiliated!”

  Tears filled Phoebe’s eyes at his words. The others wouldn’t envy him for sleeping with her all this time—they would make fun of him for being with such an ugly woman. “You don’t have to share a tent with me no more. But please don’t tell nobody, okay?”

  “Somebody has to tell them. If you don’t, I will.”

  “No! Please don’t do that. I got no place to go if I leave the army and nothing to go back to.”

  “Go home to your family.”

  “All I have left is three brothers, and they’re off fighting the war, too. Our farm’s rented out while they’re gone. I got no place to go, Ted.”

  “Well, I can’t share a tent with you—and I can’t pretend that I don’t know the truth. I can’t keep quiet knowing what I do. Women don’t belong in a war.”

  “Just give me some time to figure out where to go, okay? Then I promise I’ll leave. Please don’t tell nobody until then.”

  “I’ll think about it.” He started walking blindly again, tree branches whipping against his face.

  “Ted, stop!”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because you’re going the wrong way. Camp is that way,” she said, pointing. “If you don’t turn around soon the Rebel pickets are gonna shoot you.”

  “Great!” he said, flapping his arms in exasperation. “Thanks for destroying the last few remnants of my pride, Ike.”

  “I didn’t want you to get shot,” she said meekly.

  “All this time I’ve been trying to keep up with you,” he said, walking toward her again. “To be as brave as you, to shoot as good as you do, to get around in the woods like you do. You even risked your life to save me when I was fool enough to stick my head out of the trench. I looked up to you in every way. I wanted to prove I was a man—like you! And now I find out I can’t even keep up with a girl? That a sniper would have shot me or I would have walked right into the Rebel lines if a blasted girl didn’t keep saving my neck? Why don’t you just shoot me in the head, Ike—or whoever you are—and put me out of my misery?”

  He stomped past her, headed in the right direction this time. Phoebe didn’t follow him. Instead, she sank down in the woods, alone, and sobbed.

  It didn’t take more than a day or two for the other men in Phoebe’s company to notice that she and Ted weren’t speaking to each other.

  “You two have a fight?” Sergeant Anderson asked as Phoebe sat eating her dinner all alone.

  “Yeah, Ted’s pretty sore at me,” she said, pushing her food around on her plate.

  “You’ve been friends since way back in Harrisburg. It doesn’t seem right not seeing you together.”

  Phoebe nodded, afraid she would cry if she tried to speak. It was awful having Ted look at her like he hated her guts—or worse, looking right past her. She had no one to share her canvas sheet with, to cook up a mess of beef and hardtack for, or to laugh with over a cup of bitter coffee. She missed Ted. She’d felt unloved and friendless all her life until she met him, but she had never felt lonely. Now that she’d lost her best friend, she thought she just might die of loneliness.

  “You want to tell me what happened?” the sergeant asked, crouching beside her. “Maybe I can help patch things up?”

  “Aw, it ain’t that serious,” she lied. “Ted’s sore at me because I wouldn’t see the doctor when I had a fever. He’ll get over it.”

  “Listen, there’s going to be a fight here any day, and we have to all work together as a team. We can’t have hard feelings against each other when the real enemy’s out there.” He pointed to the woods with his thumb.

  “I know. Ted’s still my best friend, sir.”

  “It don’t seem right you two not bunking together.” He shook his head sadly. “You want me to talk to him?”

  “Please don’t do that,” she said quickly. “He’ll cool off in another day or two.”

  She was afraid that Ted would spill her secret if Sergeant Anderson talked to him. She had asked Ted to wait a few days so she could decide where to go, but she still hadn’t figured anything out. Truth was, she wanted to stay here. She kept hoping Ted would forgive her and say it didn’t matter that she had lied to him, and everything could go back to the way it was. It didn’t look like that was going to happen, though.

  The sergeant stood again. “Well, you let me know if you want my help, son,” he said before moving away.

  Early the next day, the battle began. Phoebe’s regiment, under General Hooker’s command, was ordered to take part in the attack. They would march across a cornfield toward a small whitewashed church without a steeple. The Confederates were waiting out there, but they had their backs to the Potomac River. They wouldn’t escape.

  Union drums began to pound at dawn, stirring the men’s blood and signaling to prepare to march. As Phoebe loaded her rifle and checked her ammunition supply, Ted approached her for the first time in two days. But as he pulled her aside, she could tell by his expression that he was still angry.

  “You said you were going to turn yourself in,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “I got no place to go, Ted.”

  “I don’t care! Tell them you’re sick again. Tell them you have to stay behind. There’s going to be an awful fight today, and you’ve got no business going out there!” He hurried away ag
ain as if she had something contagious.

  Phoebe lagged behind as they fell into formation so that Ted would think she was staying put. But when the troops began to move out, she maneuvered into place right behind him, where she could keep an eye on him. If Ted Wilson got wounded in battle, Phoebe Bigelow would be right beside him to carry him to the field hospital. He would say it was humiliating to be rescued by a girl again, but she didn’t care one whit.

  The morning mist was just starting to rise, the trees barely showing their fall colors as she marched out of the woods and into a field of corn as tall as her head. She didn’t get very far before the rumble of artillery began thundering all around her. She remembered Malvern Hill and how brave the Confederate soldiers had seemed, marching straight into enemy cannon fire. As the ground shook beneath her feet, Phoebe didn’t feel brave at all.

  She’d been in enough artillery barrages in the past months to recognize the sound of canister shot. The shells, filled with thousands of pieces of metal, acted like a gigantic shotgun blast when they exploded, cutting a bloody path through the ranks and killing dozens of men in one blow. Shells were exploding all around her, but she kept marching forward in formation with the others, down through the rows of corn, just as she’d been trained to do.

  Suddenly everyone froze as if on command. One of the shells screaming overhead sounded different. It took Phoebe only a second to realize why—it was coming straight toward them. She dove at Ted, tackling him the way she had the day the sniper had fired at him. She landed on top of him, shielding him with her body. At the same instant she heard a deafening explosion. The shock of it blasted through her body as if her insides were trying to escape through her skin and her head might explode. A powerful blow struck the back of her shoulder. She lay there, stunned.

  Then debris began raining down on her, pummeling her, burying her in clods of earth and shredded cornstalks and ears of corn. For a long moment the din of battle died away, as if the war had suddenly stopped. She couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t see anything through the stinging cloud of dust and smoke. She lay on her stomach on top of Ted, her eyes burning, her ears ringing. The place on her back where she’d been punched felt warm and wet.