The Velvet Shadow

by Angela Elwell Hunt

  A shot whizzed by, stinging Alden’s ear. He lifted his hand and pulled it away, surprised to find a streak of blood on his fingertips.

  “Enough of this,” he muttered, sliding off his horse. He turned the mare away from the battle line, pulled his rifle from its scabbard, then swatted the animal’s bony rear. The grateful animal bolted and was gone.

  Wanting to leave the regimental flag with someone else, Alden looked around. The sight of movement from behind a tree startled him, and Alden dropped the colors and crouched behind a bush, not certain what he would encounter. Through the veil of greenery he saw a soldier squatting behind a stout oak, a cartridge in his hand. As Alden watched, perplexed, the man bit the cartridge and ripped it open, then poured a handful of gunpowder into his palm. After casting a surreptitious glance over his shoulder, he spat into the powder and rubbed the moistened mixture on his face, then he obliterated the traces of gunpowder on his hands with mud. When he had finished, he turned and sank to the ground, his back against the tree, his eyes closed, his rifle in his hand, still unfired.

  Alden stared in stunned disbelief. The little coward! By all appearances anyone would think he had been out fighting on the front lines, but the shiftless sneak would undoubtedly remain here until retreat.

  Alden charged forward. “You, there!” He pulled his pistol from the holster at his waist. “Get up right now or, by heaven, I’ll shoot you myself!”

  The coward’s hands lifted in a don’t-shoot posture as Alden approached, his eyes showing white all around like a panicked horse.

  “I saw your little act and the application of your war paint.” Alden shook with impotent rage. “You will get up now, and you will march toward your fellows, proudly carrying our regimental colors. To make sure you do, I will march right behind you.”

  The fellow’s powder-blackened lips parted in a wide smile as he stood. “Why, Alden, why would I want to do that? The man who carries the colors might as well wear a sign that says Shoot Me.”

  Alden stared wordlessly at Roger, his heart pounding.

  “Say something, brother.” Roger slowly lowered his hands, warming Alden with that ever-so-charming smile. “You aren’t really angry, are you? I would have gone to the front with my company,” his hands moved to his stomach, “but I’ve an awful bellyache and I really didn’t think I should be fighting. You wouldn’t want me to have an attack of the quickstep out there on the field, would you?”

  Alden hesitated, weighing his anger against his responsibility to protect his brother. Mother would never forgive him for deliberately placing Roger in harm’s way.

  Seething with anger, humiliation, and frustration, he lowered his pistol.

  “You are a disgrace to your company, your men, and Massachusetts.” His voice vibrated with restrained fury. “Stay here, guard the regiment’s standard, play your little game. But as long as you persist in wearing that uniform, you are not to speak to me again.”

  He turned and walked toward the battle, leaving Roger in the cowardly shadows. And a few moments later, when a shot knocked Alden to the ground, he closed his eyes in resignation to God’s will.

  At least his mother would be spared one son.

  Flanna took cover while the battle surged in front of her. She had wanted to run and find Alden, but she knew she would have been simply a target for both sides if she entered the battlefield.

  After two days she finally got her chance. Under flags of truce soldiers of both armies moved out to collect the dead and wounded. Flanna moved among them, too, not caring whether the men at her feet wore butternut brown, the prevailing uniform among the homedressed Confederates, or Union blue. She closed the eyes of the dead and brought water to the wounded, trying to make them as comfortable as possible until a litter could arrive. Both Union and Confederate soldiers watched as she went about her grim task, and each side assumed she belonged to them. Which, in a way, she supposed she did.

  As she worked, she interrogated the Union litter bearers. While the Confederate wounded had access to a hospital in Richmond, the Union wounded had only the regimental surgeons’ tents at the rear of the army.

  “So what is happening to these men?” she demanded, placing her hands on her hips as she interrogated one young drummer boy.

  The boy blinked up at her, doubtless confused by her manner, her unconventional coiffure, and her mud- and blood-stained dress. “We’re taking’em to the railway depot at the rear.” He swatted away a fly that buzzed around his bloody hands. “Though I haven’t seen or heard a train in days. They’re just lyin’ out there, shivering.”

  “Is someone giving them food and water?” Softening her tone, Flanna stooped slightly and looked the young man in the eye. “Did the general or the surgeon appoint someone to care for these men, or are they lying in the rain?”

  The boy nodded slightly. “That’s it, ma’am, you have it right. They’re all just lyin’ there, with no one to help. If it was me”—he paused and chewed his lip thoughtfully—“yep, if it was me, I’d rather be dead. They’re calling and crying, but no one listens. And after the trains pick them up, if the trains ever come, they’ll have to lie at the wharf and wait for a boat.”

  Flanna turned away, hiding the storm of frustration and anger that surely showed on her face. General McClellan might enjoy preparing for war, but he had obviously made no preparation for its brutal aftermath.

  “Thank you, young man.” She turned and gave the boy a patient smile, then knelt down and smoothed the forehead of the wounded infantryman at her feet. He was unconscious. Considering all that lay ahead of him, that was probably a mercy.

  The boy and his companion lifted the litter and trudged back through the mud toward the Union lines. Flanna stood and pressed her hands to her back, easing the stiffness out of her joints. She had slept only a few hours of the last forty-eight, and had eaten nothing but two pieces of hardtack and a slab of dried beef from a dead Federal’s haversack. The rains had vanished, but the sun still hid its face, dropping only occasional shafts of light through breaks in the overhanging clouds.

  The foragers were out in force, too, hiding their dirty work under the pretext of caring for the wounded. Every dead man she had come across had already lost his rifle and pistol, and more than a few were missing their shoes and the brass buttons from their coats—buttons that would serve as ghoulish souvenirs. She had come across one Federal soldier taking a toothbrush from a dead Confederate’s knapsack; upon seeing her, the man merely grinned and thrust it in his pocket.

  Flanna stiffened as a bitter wail rose from beyond a sloping hill beyond. She moved toward the grassy knoll, then paused at the sight of a fallen soldier and a comrade who knelt at his side. The survivor’s moaning cry went on and on, lancing the silence, and Flanna frowned as she drew nearer. The fallen man wore gray, the survivor, blue. And the scarred face that now turned toward her belonged to William Sheahan, the veteran of Company M.

  She came to an abrupt halt, her heart jumping in her chest, but Sheahan only glanced at her, then turned back to the dead soldier in the field. “Its James.” He spoke in a broken whisper, then made a harsh keening sound in his throat. “Jimmy, why’d you leave home? You should have stayed with the folks and not come to war. I never wanted to see you like this, boy.”

  Flanna closed her eyes, her heart aching with pain. She had known Sheahan was from Georgia, but he had never spoken of family or friends back home. She had never dreamed that a heart lay beneath that granite strength, and the sight of his mourning unsettled her.

  “I’m very sorry,” she whispered, coming close enough to place her hand on his shoulder. Sheahan didn’t look up, but cradled the boy’s head in his lap and made soft, shushing sounds.

  Flanna drew in a deep breath, released it slowly, and left Sheahan to his mourning, knowing there was little she could do. Another soldier lay before her, only the tips of his boots visible through the tall grass. She hurried toward him, her jaw tightening, then stiffened in shock. Paddy O�
�Neil lay on his back on a patch of matted red grass, his face grimed with black powder, his hair sparking like copper in the sun. Except for the traces of gunpowder on his face, he could have been napping in the quiet warmth of afternoon.

  She knelt by his side and pressed her hand to his face. “O’Neil? Can you hear me?”

  He groaned, and his eyelids fluttered like the throats of baby birds. Then the blue eyes opened and a drowsy smile spread across his face. “O’Connor.” His voice was a weak and tremulous whisper. His eyelids drooped and closed again as he spoke, but the sleepy smile remained. “Now I know I’m dreaming. You look like a woman, O’Connor.”

  “Where are you hit, O’Neil?” Flanna frantically patted his body. There were no torn places in his shirt, no obvious wounds anywhere…

  “Don’t tell the others,” he said in an aching, husky voice she scarcely recognized. “I was hit in the back, but…don’t want the others to think I was running. I had just turned around…to check on Green.”

  A new anguish seared her heart when Flanna looked up and spied another familiar form in a bed of tangled vines. Andrew Green lay completely still, his eyes wide and blank as windowpanes. The sensitive soul they had mirrored had long since flown.

  “You don’t have to worry about Green.” Flanna reached out and clasped O’Neil’s hand between both her own. “You just lie still. Help is coming.”

  “I can’t…see you.” His eyelids no longer fluttered. “And I can’t feel much of anything.”

  “It’s okay, O’Neil.” Flanna leaned forward to speak directly in his ear. “I’m with you.”

  “Tell Maggie…I’ll be wanting to meet her in heaven.” His smile faded a little, as if that admission had used up the last of his strength. “Tell her…I’ll wait.”

  “O’Neil!” Flanna pressed her hands to his chest, then leaned forward to listen for the sounds of breathing. There were none. In a surge of panic she ripped open his coat, tore at his shirt, and pressed her ear to his chest, but…nothing.

  Paddy O’Neil was dead. And in the grass, where she’d flung it when she tore open his coat, Flanna saw the letter she had written to Alden. Paddy had not had a chance to deliver it.

  Flanna sank back to her knees and brought her hand to her mouth, overwhelmed by a sense of loss far beyond tears. This, then, was the field where the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts fought. Paddy lay here, and Andrew…

  Her teeth chattered, her body trembled at the thought that others of her company might lie in the trampled earth beyond.

  Twenty-Six

  She didn’t know how long she sat beside Paddy, but the field had begun to fill with mist and gray-blue light by the time she composed herself enough to continue her search for the wounded. She could not work much longer, for the western sky was already blazing with violent copper and coral shades. Soon the sun would set, and the wounded would spend another night on the battlefield…if any remained alive.

  Flanna clenched her jaw to kill the sob in her throat. If there were others, she would find them.

  With a heavy heart she walked over the scarred field, her eyes searching behind every tangle of leaves for a glimpse of blue or gray or butternut. The pain and grief of this place clung to her like the gray smoke that hung over the battlefield, socked in by low-hanging clouds. A harrowing headache pounded her forehead while her heart mourned the bitter knowledge that Alden had not received her letter. He had opened her eyes, inspired her to act, and changed her life. She owed him everything, but he would never know it.

  Flanna’s eyes caught another form in the brush, and she moved doggedly toward it. She felt drained, as hollow and lifeless as the bodies she’d examined and left for the gravediggers. Her back ached between her shoulder blades; the images of brush and mud and trees seemed to quiver before her weary eyes.

  “Hello?” she called, stumbling toward the soldier in blue. He lay on his side, his back and shoulder toward her, and even from this distance she could see that his shoulder had taken a brutal hit. She squinted in concern at the sight of his shoulder strap—an officer. “Can you hear me, sir?”

  His head stirred and lifted, and something in his profile caught at Flanna’s heart.

  She stopped, her hand flying to her throat, then she rushed forward. Flanna felt her nerves begin to tense. “Alden?” She fell beside him in the muddy hollow where he had fallen, her practiced eye taking in the hoofprint on his pant leg, the bloody hole in his uniform, the cut above his right eye. “Alden, can you speak?”

  He gave her a faint but glorious smile that Flanna would have accepted as her last view of earth. “I can speak tolerably well.” His voice was low and controlled, but Flanna could hear an undertone of desolation in it. “Is the battle ours? Have we advanced?”

  “The battle belonged to no one.” Flanna gripped his shoulder and carefully lowered him onto his back. She gently pressed her fingers to the wound at his shoulder and nodded when he grimaced in pain. Pain was good. He could feel, and he hadn’t yet bled to death, so his heart had been spared. But there was no corresponding wound at his back, which meant that the bullet remained within him. It could shift or cause putrefaction and infection if not removed.

  She looked up and scanned the horizon, judging that less than half an hour of daylight remained. If she left him here, he wouldn’t be picked up until morning. And then he’d lie in a long line of wounded patients outside the surgeons’ tents. If he was lucky enough to survive Gulick’s table, he’d lie on the ground and wait for the train, then he’d lie amid the stinking flies and dirt while he waited for the boat to Washington, where he’d be treated in that filthy Alexandria Hospital.

  He’d never make it. The wound didn’t look serious, and that would work to his disadvantage, for he’d be shuffled about from place to place while his body fought to repel the foreign object inside it.

  Flanna blew out her cheeks, then made her decision. Alden wouldn’t like it, but in his present condition he couldn’t protest.

  Pasting on a stiff smile, she prayed that she would not betray her agitation and fear. “Alden, you must trust me now.” She lifted his shoulder again, struggling to free the bloody coat from his arm. “And you must ask no questions. I am only acting for your own good.”

  “What are you talking about?” He inhaled in a soft hiss as she lifted the opposite shoulder, momentarily forcing his weight upon the wound.

  She yanked his coat free and tossed it aside, noticing that a pair of letters protruded from the inner pocket. Alden’s thoughts. She wouldn’t leave them for foragers.

  She picked up the letters and tossed them inside her medical bag, then turned back to Alden. He was trying to moisten his lips and speak.

  “Be quiet, rest, and let me look at you.” Alden shivered slightly in the chilly air, and Flanna noted his cooling body temperature even as she ripped his undershirt away from his neck and studied the entrance wound. The Minié ball had struck the flesh above his heart, probably shattering the collarbone. He might be able to walk, but if his heart began to pound, the increased rate of circulation could result in a disastrous loss of blood. She could not apply a tourniquet to that wound, nor could she stop a bone fragment from slipping out of place and puncturing his lung if he were jostled.

  “Alden.” She pressed her hands to his shoulders and looked steadily into his eyes. “I must remove that bullet. And I can’t do it here.”

  He had to be in shock from the pain. His eyes were soft and dreamy, as gentle as a child’s. He drew a ragged breath. “I trust you.”

  “Good.” She pressed her hand to his cheek. “I’ll be right back.”

  Back in the Union camp, Roger sat with his comrades and watched as the wounded were brought in. His brother had not been seen in two days, and Roger’s stomach churned when he thought of their last meeting. Alden had looked at him with loathing and disgust in his eyes, but why couldn’t he understand that they were fundamentally different? Alden was the soldier, the West Point instructor; Roger had never been a
nything but a charmer and persuader. He was destined to battle in the courtroom and the chambers of Congress, not here. He fought with the weapons of words and ideas, not rifles and cannon.

  Roger gazed at the men in his command, a thinner number than had been present three nights ago when Flanna called to him from the rain. At least she had escaped the slaughter. Roger hadn’t looked for her, but he imagined her to be somewhere at the rear of the camp, probably up to her arms in wounded men.

  He shook his head, imagining her in that horrid plaid dress, her hair blowing in the wind like a homeless child’s. Her compassion would do him credit when they were married, but he’d have to convince her not to become so directly involved in her causes. Respectable women always maintained a discreet distance from the raw issues of life; she could speak intelligently and forcefully about medicine without ever having to touch another patient. Ideally, of course, once they were married she would forget about medicine altogether.

  “Got a smoke, Captain?” one of the men called, his brow lifting with the question. Roger pulled a package of freshly rolled cigars from his pocket, then tossed it to the man without comment. He stood and stretched his legs, wondering how he’d find the courage to write his mother should the worst prove true. Mother adored Alden; the news of his death would destroy her.

  “Captain Haynes!” A high, girlish voice called from the darkness beyond his fire, and Roger’s heart skipped a beat, fearing that Flanna had come from the medical tents with bad news.

  “What?”

  “A message for you.”

  Roger squinted into the darkness. The summons had not come from Flanna, but from one of the young drummer boys. He relaxed and stepped away from the fire, resting his hand on his belt. “What message?”

  “This, sir.” The young man held up a letter and slanted it toward the campfire. Roger could see that someone had written “Major Haynes” on the envelope. The handwriting was feminine and remarkably similar to Flanna’s.