The Velvet Shadow

by Angela Elwell Hunt

  “He was a doctor.” Flanna pressed her fingertips to her temple; it was difficult to think straight when standing so close to Alden.

  “You’re a doctor.”

  “But he didn’t know that.”

  “You could have told him.”

  “No, I couldn’t.” She wavered, trying to understand his point. “Alden, you know I can’t tell anyone.”

  “Being a doctor has nothing to do with your secret.” He faced her now, and she could see no lingering gleam of amusement in his black-lashed eyes. “Private O’Connor, you must learn to speak up for yourself. God gave you a brain—use it. He gave you a tongue, and I’ve heard you use it to good effect when you’re confronted by a strong-willed woman like my mother. So why do you sheathe all your common sense when confronted with a difficult man?”

  She stepped back, momentarily stunned. What did he know of the confrontations she’d faced? She once sat before an entire examining board and spoke her mind; she grew up with a big brother and seven rambunctious cousins, daring them to best her in all sorts of verbal and physical games. And yet—

  Her mind came to an abrupt halt, as if hitting a wall. Hadn’t Mammy and Aunt Marsali taught her how to respond to men? On her fifteenth birthday, they had called her into the house and confronted her in her bedroom. There she learned lessons about what proper ladies could and could not do. “Miss Flanna, you can’t be arguin’ with young men no more,” Mammy had said. “You gots to hide your book learning and that sharp tongue.”

  “Men are like the earth, and we are like the moon,” Aunt Marsali added. “They think there is only one side of us because that is all they see—and sometimes you must allow them to believe that, Flanna. For when a woman’s will is as strong as the man’s who wants to govern her, half her strength must be dedicated to concealment.”

  Flanna absorbed those lessons without question. She was taught—and she believed—that men ought to assume authority over women, for a woman’s world centered on her family. A woman did not need to vote or express her opinion in mixed company, for she ruled her husband through his heart, and he spoke for her. According to everything Flanna had been taught, when a woman was confronted with a difficult man, she had no choice but to demur, for her husband would surely take up her case.

  But Flanna had no husband yet. No father or brother at hand to help. No one but Roger, who so disapproved of her actions that he had been avoiding her, and Alden, whose very glance unsettled her so much that every coherent thought flew out of her head.

  She drew in a breath, searching for words that would not come. “You don’t understand.” She clutched at the ship’s rail as if it were the only solid reality in a tilting world. “You’re a man; you’ve always been a man. I was trained to be…something else.”

  “Why?” His voice was tender now, his look gentle and understanding. “Why would anyone tell you to be anything other than what you are? Dr. O’Connor, you are a wonder.”

  He took a quick breath as if he would say more, then set his jaw and returned his gaze toward the shoreline. Flanna said nothing, but stood beside him, her heart lifting with the first words of honest encouragement she’d heard in months.

  The wind whispered across the river, the various conversations of other men wrapped around them like water around the ship. Alden wanted her to stand alone. Most amazing of all, he believed she could. Why, then, did she have to cling to the railing and fight an overwhelming need to stand closer to him?

  After the space of several moments, he turned from the rail and nodded to a pair of passing officers. “It’ll be time to bed down soon,” he said, his voice remarkably casual. “Find the men of your company and remain with them. I’ve smelled whiskey several times this evening, and if it’s flowing at all, there’s bound to be trouble of one sort or another.”

  “Yes sir.” She tugged on the rim of her cap, gave him a timid smile, and then went below.

  Twenty-Three

  Tuesday, April 15

  We have entered Virginia and set up our camp. I am delighted to be in the South again, but my first impression way that the Negroes are everywhere, going about their work with an air of importance I’ve never observed before. They are the contrabands of which I have heard so much—not yet free, but no longer enslaved. My messmates gape at them, for though they have grown used to “Charles,” they have never seen so many coloreds in one place.

  When we alighted, however, our first greeters were the army mules. A veritable herd of them were hitched to and eating out of pontoon boats. O’Neil says that mules are hungrier even than soldiery and are particularly fond of pontoon boats and rubber blankets. I would never have believed that a mule could eat a boat…but, then again, I would never have believed that I could eat hardtack either.

  I have never seen such a colorful mix of men as I saw at the landing. The Zouaves, who wear red copy, white leggings, and baggy trousers, strutted like peacocks around those of us who wore plain infantry blue. The cavalry fellows wear short jackets with a yellow stripe at the sleeve—an easy target in the woods, O’Neil assured me. He had a point—why don’t they wear green or brown? Even nature camouflages its creatures.

  We all came ashore and hurried to our posts, though some of us (me included) had no clear idea what those posts were to be. I stayed with my messmates and kept my head low, not wanting to hinder Roger or Alden with my presence. They have rather enough to think about.

  The people who lived here before we invaded have moved aside and watch us curiously. My messmates, who have never traveled in the South, hold varying opinions about the land I love. Freddie Smith, who was returned to us before we left Washington, says that Southern women “are void of the roseate hue of health and beauty that adorns our Northern belles.” Philip Hart, also returned in a prisoner exchange, says that the Virginia women who walk outside our camp each night are “nasty, slab-sided, long-haired specimens of humanity. I would as soon kiss a dried codfish as one of them.” I can understand why he feels ill will toward them, for I saw several of these women piously hold their handkerchiefs to their noses as they approached our Yankee camp. They will inspire no love for the South with that attitude.

  Sweet Andrew Green, bless his heart, is quite enamored of a young lady who sells milk to the men for a quarter. Andrew confided in me, “I have found the sweetest girl that ever man looked upon. She is about your size and form, O’Connor, with large deep brown eyes that sparkle like stars. I declare, I was never so bewitched before.” He sighed and looked away toward the ditch that separates us from the secesh damsel he adores. “Oh, this war,” he sighs.

  This afternoon, hoping to buy something to eat betides hardtack, salt beef, or coffee, O’Neil and I visited a woman in one of the dwellings outside our camp. She looked at me with tears in her eyes, and proclaimed that she had a son in the Confederate army. How I wanted to comfort her! Together we could have prayed over our boys, for the sight of her teary made me want to weep for Wesley and my brave cousins.

  While we visited the woman, O’Neil expressed the opinion that we were on our way to Richmond and would end the war as soon as we had reached that city. “No,” said our hostess, “you will all drink not blood before you all get that for!”

  I pray she is mistaken.

  Alden’s gloomy predictions came true. The Army of the Potomac camped in a continual spring drizzle, waiting for McClellan to move. But the Union General was in no hurry. Convinced that the entire Confederate army waited in Yorktown, McClellan ordered his men to dig ditches and build defensive earthworks.

  Flanna bent and shoveled until she thought her back would break. Each night her messmates gathered around their campfire and munched on tasteless hardtack and salty sowbelly, too tired to complain about anything but the mindless work. “All talk and no fight,” Sergeant Marvin groused. “I don’t see the sense in piling up earth to keep us from the Rebs. If we don’t get at each other sometime, when will the war end? I’d like to quit ditching and get to fighting.”<
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  Though she could not admire McClellan’s reluctance, Flanna was nonetheless grateful for it. At night they could hear sounds from the Confederates—music from army bands, the pop of an occasional sharpshooter, the whooping yelps of men at play—and she trembled to think that her loved ones might lie on the other side of those muddy breastworks. She could not help but believe that Alden was right—the Confederate general was only bluffing. If the Confederates had been able, they would have driven the Yankees from Virginia before the first landing. The fact that they sat and waited, too, convinced Flanna that they were waiting for reinforcements.

  Hundreds of men fell sick during the waiting time. Dr. Gulick was so harassed by the sheer numbers of men needing attention that Alden allowed Flanna to set up her own dispensary tent, where she treated men who suffered from digestive upsets and other assorted ailments. One man who wandered into her tent had slept the night before in a bed of dry leaves. He awoke the next morning in a panic, discovering that during the night an army of wood ticks had sought the warmth of his body.

  Using tweezers, Flanna carefully pulled all the ticks from the man’s scalp and back, then handed him the tweezers when he announced that he preferred to pluck the “villainous secesh ticks” from his chest and limbs. She had turned her back to her patient and was rummaging through a crate of medical supplies when Dr. Gulick stalked into the tent.

  He stood before Flanna like a dark and vigilant presence. Sweat had made clear runnels in the dust on his face and neck, and his cheeks were flushed, as though he’d been running. After one quick glance around the tent, he took a deep breath, barreled his chest, and pointed at the crate Flanna was unpacking.

  “What on earth do you think you are doing?” His soft voice was filled with a quiet, controlled menace that aroused her old fears and uncertainties.

  Flanna flinched and retreated a step before his thunderous expression. Charity, she noticed from the corner of her eye, ran out of the tent like a rat fleeing a sinking ship.

  “I’m tending one of my fellow soldiers.” Her voice was shakier than she intended.

  Dr. Gulick ignored the patient and advanced toward Flanna. “Who gave you leave to set up this tent?” His gray eyes darkened like thunderclouds. “And who gave you permission to take my medical supplies? That box belongs in my tent.”

  Flanna lowered her gaze, feeling as though he’d hit her in the stomach. She’d known this was a risky endeavor. Alden had told her to work quietly and not call attention to herself. Neither of them had dreamed the doctor would have the time or the inclination to seek her out. Apparently they had underestimated Gulick.

  “You will return that box to my tent immediately,” the doctor ordered, the muscles in his face tightening into a mask of rage. “Snap to it! And you”—he whirled on Flanna’s bewildered patient—“put your shirt on and get back to digging. You’re not sick! I can tell by looking that you’re as healthy as a May morning.”

  “These varmints—” the man began, pointing at his reddened skin.

  “A little bloodletting is good for a body! Now get a move on!”

  Flanna closed her eyes, feeling a strange lurch of recognition. This was the same narrow-minded incompetence she had come to disdain at the Medical College. Gulick was a fool and would never change. Unfortunately, the men would suffer for his stupidity.

  She felt herself trembling as her mood veered swiftly to anger. “You”—she whirled around to face Gulick—“will get out of my tent. Major Haynes established this dispensary with Colonel Farnham’s permission. I requisitioned these supplies, and you’ll take them from me over my dead body.”

  She stood straight and tall, every muscle in her body speaking defiance.

  The doctor’s breath came raggedly in impotent anger. “You dare challenge me?”

  “Yes sir.” She shot him a cold look. “I do.”

  “You’re not a doctor. You know nothing, you little imbecile!”

  “I am a doctor.”

  “You think you can dose a man with calomel and call yourself a physician? I don’t know which hill you crawled out from under, but you’re a quack, if you’re anything at all, you superstitious little runt.”

  Flanna forced dignity into her voice. “I know how to treat my patients. And if you are any doctor at all, you will get back to your tent and wait upon the men there. I understand there are more sick today than yesterday.”

  He lurched toward her, one square hand uplifted as if he would slap her for her impertinence, then his eyes darted toward the back of the tent.

  He halted in midstep, his hand falling to his side. “I’m going.” He gave Flanna a glare hot enough to sear her eyebrows. “But if I hear that you have harmed one patient, young man, I’ll have you drummed out of camp—no, imprisoned! And I will be watching you!”

  He left the tent as suddenly as he’d come. The space he had occupied seemed to vibrate softly, and Flanna felt her knees grow weak. She put out a hand to steady herself against the table.

  “I’m very impressed, Dr. O’Connor.”

  She turned to see Alden standing behind her, with Charity at his side. Her patient had disappeared.

  “Oh.” Flanna moved to a chair and fell into it. “It was nothing, really. Dr. Gulick has always been…difficult.”

  Alden came forward and peered out the front opening of the tent as if to make certain Gulick had disappeared. “I don’t think he’ll bother you again.” He turned back to face her and gave Charity a warm smile. “Thank you for fetching me, Charity. But it appears our Dr. O’Connor has everything under control.”

  “Lawdy, I was scared.” Charity fanned herself with her hand as she came forward. “I’ve never seen a man so angry as that doctor. Why, he was about to slug you! Is he jealous or just meaner than a snake?”

  “He’s probably more concerned about losing his medical supplies than his patients,” Alden answered. The faint beginnings of a smile marked his mouth.

  “Why should he care about bandages and chloroform?” Flanna shook her head. “He has plenty; there’s no shortage at the moment.”

  “You’re forgetting about the whiskey.” Alden squatted on the earthen floor beside Flanna’s chair. “Every regiment gets a ration of rotgut for medicinal purposes, and the good doctor has doubtless noticed that he is a jug or two short. I had part of his allotment sent to you.”

  Stunned by the thought, Flanna laughed until tears rolled from the corners of her eyes. She paused to wipe them away, then noticed that Alden was still kneeling beside her. He was smiling, and in his smile she saw a warmth she didn’t expect.

  “Was there something else, Major?” She wiped the last of the wetness from her eyes. “Perhaps you slept with a tick or two last night?”

  “Afraid not.” Still smiling at her, he stood up. “But I must congratulate you. You are learning, Private O’Connor. You are changing.”

  She sniffed as he left and her heart settled back to its even keel. Didn’t war change everyone?

  At roll call on Saturday morning, May 3, the Union army learned that McClellan planned to begin bombarding the Confederate position on Monday, May 5. Flanna and Charity watched the artillery corps haul the last Federal guns into place, some so heavy that it took several horses to pull them to the top of the earthworks.

  But the Confederates cared nothing about McClellan’s carefully laid plans. As the monstrous guns pointed toward Yorktown, Confederate cannon began to bombard the Yankee position, shells and shot pouring into the camp from one line to the other. The flashes of gunfire and arches of trailing smoke created a pyrotechnic display unlike anything Flanna had ever seen.

  Not a man slept Sunday night. Most huddled behind the earthworks, their hands over their ears, their eyes wide to the sky above, always looking for that one shell that might be intended for them.

  Flanna ducked into the dirt as one particularly loud shell screamed over her head. When she lifted her eyes again, she was surprised to see Major Alden Haynes crouching in the di
rt in front of her.

  “Major Haynes?” Her heart flooded with relief at the sight of him, fit and well. Since the shells had begun to fly, she and her messmates had not dared venture out of their trench.

  “Private O’Connor, I need to speak with you.” His voice sounded uneasy, and the look in his eye sent a shiver down her spine.

  “Speak, Major.” They both instinctively ducked as another shell rocketed overhead, but this one flew with the wailing sound of a winter’s wind, not the loud whistling that meant it was coming their way.

  Alden turned and sat in the dirt, his back to the piled earth. He bent low so that his words reached her ears alone. “Flanna, you can’t stay here. This is real fighting, and there may be a real battle on the morrow. I owe it to Roger to see you safely away.”

  Always Roger. She pressed her lips together and waited for the dull thump that meant the wailing shell had landed. They both cocked their heads, listening for the sound, and slumped in relief when it came.

  “Major Haynes.” Her gaze flew up to study his face. “I want you to know that I am honestly grateful for your concern. You have taken good care of me, and I appreciate it, even if Roger doesn’t. But I’ve learned something in the last few months—something they did not teach me in medical school. I’ve learned that the Bible is right when it says that to everything there is a season—a time to be born, and a time to die. And I believe God will preserve me until it is my time.”

  “Surely you don’t believe that God protects those who take foolish risks.” In spite of his reserve, a tinge of exasperation lined his voice. “I want to protect you from those risks, Flanna.”

  “I’m not being any more foolish than you are.” She watched the play of emotions on his face. “Do you remember some weeks ago when a young boy was crushed under one of the artillery wagons? I sat with him for an hour and helped him make his peace with God. And when it was done, I realized that for some reason I cannot understand, it pleased my sovereign God to take that boy home.”