A Soldier's Secret

by Marissa Moss

  Shame rushes through me, thinking of how I didn’t fight back then, how I let Pa stomp on me. Will I have the guts to fight back now? Sure, I’m older, bigger, stronger, but am I brave? I look over at Damon, asleep beside me. I don’t want to let him down, to let myself down. I clench my fists so tightly, the fingernails dig into my palms. Tomorrow’s my chance to prove myself, to make up for years of cowering in front of Pa. I have to fight the Rebels the way I never dared fight him. After all, I remind myself, releasing my fists, now I have a gun. You don’t need muscle to be daring with a rifle. I’m a good shot, and that’s all that matters. Tomorrow I’ll prove myself to be a real man.

  HE SKY LOOMS chill and dark, no longer night but not yet day, when the order comes for our regiment to join General Samuel P. Heintzelman’s Third Division. There’s no time left to wonder what battle will be like. Every muscle in my body tenses, and every sound seems magnified to my anxious ears. The tramp of thousands of feet, the creaking of the artillery wheels, the wind rustling the grasses, the croaking of frogs, all rumble loudly in the summer stillness. Column after column of blue uniforms weaves ahead of me, snaking along the green hills, through the valley hazy with morning dew. One division heads south toward Manassas, while the two other divisions, including ours, swing north to head off the Confederates near the stone bridge crossing Bull Run.

  The thundering roar of our cannon stuns me, echoing all the way to the soles of my feet. I’ve never heard anything so terrible, so full of doom. Damon, standing next to me, grabs my arm. I flinch as always when someone tries to touch me. For a second I worry he’ll think I’m a coward. The truth is, I might be.

  Confederate fortifications, Manassas, Va., for the first Battle of Bull Run.

  “That’s our boys! We hit ’em before they even fired a shot! I knew it!” He grins, pointing toward the Confederate forces looming behind earthworks built up from the steep shore on the other side of the stream. Shooting up at an enemy doesn’t look like an easy prospect to me. I know from hunting that you want to be above your prey, not the other way around. My stomach twists with sour fear. This isn’t going to be the easy victory everyone predicted. It’s going to get ugly, and soon.

  A sharp whistle screeches overhead, and before I can duck or react, a shell explodes behind me. After that, I’m not a soldier—I’m a nurse. I don’t think about what I’m supposed to do. I just race to the center of the explosion, where a man lies broken in a pool of his own blood. I recognize the battered face of the young recruit who led the prayer service the night before.

  “Don’t die on me,” I beg. “I’m getting you back to the hospital.” I cradle his head in my lap, but it’s too late. His blue eyes stare lifeless in their sockets. I set his head back down gently on the ground and close his eyelids. It’s the least I can do. The Battle of Bull Run has just begun and I’ve already seen my first death. But it doesn’t feel real—nothing feels real. I’m caught in a strange dream world where nothing makes sense.

  The battle is a swirl of chaos: color and movement and the sharp crack of guns. I can’t plan what to do. I can’t think at all. I can only react. My mind shuts off and my body takes over. Whenever a man falls, I rush to his side. Often there’s nothing I can do—I can’t even allow myself the luxury of closing the corpse’s eyes like I did for that first soldier. I need to save precious minutes for the living, for the times when I can drag soldiers to stretchers, help carry them away from the field, bandage them as best I can, then race to aid another fallen comrade. Running from body to body, I notice the sun filtering through the leaves casting lacy shadows. Deep-blue wildflowers carpet the ground. How strange, I think, that such a pretty place should be splattered with blood, torn up by shells. The blue of the petals, the red of the men’s gaping wounds, all have a dreamlike intensity. I want to scream and wake up, but I can’t. Instead, I simply become eyes, ears, hands, feet: a machine to help the wounded.

  It’s the first time the Army of the Potomac has seen battle, and it’s a grisly sight for all of us. I see one recruit running away from the battle, screaming in terror. I see another hide behind a tree, shaking, eyes wide yet unseeing. I watch Damon pass the dead and dying and stop to vomit, sickened by the brutal wounds, the mangled bodies. Me, I don’t pause, I don’t think. I do my work. The strange image of Ma snapping the neck of a chicken comes to me, how calm and collected her face was as she twisted the life out of the bird. Now it’s men having their bodies broken, but I feel the same iciness creep into me as when I watched the chickens die. I push down the bile rising in my throat and focus on the task at hand—not preparing a meal, but getting the wounded to safety.

  The dead and maimed pile up, like sheaves of wheat. It’s a bloody and abundant harvest, more and more bodies being added to those already writhing in pain or motionless in death. Still, we seem to be winning, and by the afternoon, the Confederate army falls back and renewed confidence surges through our troops as they rush forward, howling with rage and fierce energy.

  I’ve been waiting for a break like this to get needed supplies and borrow a horse from a doctor to ride to Centreville, seven miles away, for brandy to clean wounds and ease the soldiers' pain and for more cloth to tear into bandages. It’s the first time there’s been a lull long enough for me to think about what’s happened, what battle is actually like. I’m relieved that I didn’t turn tail as so many others have, but have done my duty as nurse as well as the next man. I haven’t even thought about needing to disguise myself. In fact, I haven’t thought about myself at all. It seems strange to be grateful for something as horrible as a battle, but in an odd way I am—it’s the first time I’ve been part of something so enormous and horrific, I don’t matter at all. The only thing that counts is doing the job, helping the wounded, killing the enemy.

  As I spur the horse on, I watch two Union batteries push forward, set to clear out the remaining Rebel stragglers. Riding away from the dead and dying, I am overcome by a rush of energy—the battle is almost over and we’ve actually won. We … I am part of this victory, and an unfamiliar sense of pride surges through me.

  Except that’s the moment Confederate reinforcements arrive. They cut down our blue vanguard in a rain of shots, shells, and cannon fire. The men scream like avenging furies, and the shrill Rebel yell, a mix between a fox-hunt call and a banshee shriek, makes the skin crawl on everyone who hears it. “Ya-yoo-yoo-yoo, ya-yoo-yoo-yoo!” screeches out of thousands of throats, terrifying our troops. I can’t leave, now that the Rebels are mowing down our soldiers. It’s a terrifying sight, a complete rout, but not the one we had expected. Panicked, men and officers throw down their arms and flee. The supply trains, artillery, dead, and wounded are left to the field while everyone who can retreats, rushing to get as far from the enemy as possible.

  I don’t understand what’s happening. I can’t find my regiment. Just moments ago, I was so sure of myself—now I’m mired in confusion. As I head for the battlefield, all I see are troops running away from it. I’m swept away with them in a current of panic, turning back in the direction I came from.

  “Where are we going?” I call to a foot soldier next to me. “What are the orders?”

  The soldier stares up at me, glassy-eyed. Then he turns away, without a word, and keeps on running.

  “You, there!” I try someone else, a burly man with a gash on his forehead. “Where are the generals? What are the orders?”

  “Retreat!” he shrieks. “Retreat!”

  I’m not sure where I’m supposed to retreat to, but I don’t want to join the mass panic, the crazed mob rushing from the field. I’m still a nurse, so I ride to the place where I know I’m needed, back to Centreville, where hundreds lie in agony, waiting for some kind of doctoring. I hear the church-turned-hospital before I see it—groans and moans and screams of pain. As I come nearer, I see the full horror of what war means. The churchyard stinks of death. Bodies are piled up like so much firewood. Next to them, heaps of amputated arms and legs make a grisly sig
ht.

  I tie up my horse and head inside among the living, where it’s even uglier. There’s no trace of the neat rows of cots I arranged the night before. There’s simply a mass of bodies, some on beds, some on the floor, some writhing and moaning, some as still as death. I’ve never seen such suffering—men whose bodies are crushed and mangled, wild with pain; others who lie smothered in hopelessness and panic and blood. And there’s nothing I can do for them except press a cool cloth to their feverish faces or dribble some water down a parched throat.

  “You, there, nurse!” a doctor yells at me. “Help me with this man. Hold him down now. I’ve got to cut off his leg.”

  I lean forward, putting all my weight into my arms as I hold down the slender man, his face white with pain. I look into his eyes, willing myself not to see the doctor take the saw and start hacking right above the knee. The soldier howls an ungodly sound that pierces deep into my gut. Then he faints, mercifully unaware of the dreadful sound of blade on flesh and bone.

  Once again, I shut off my thoughts and feelings. I’m a water bearer, a wound washer, someone to hold down a heaving chest and thrashing arms while a surgeon amputates yet another leg. I’m an ear to listen to last prayers, a kind face to smile and reassure young men crazed with the fear of death.

  Amputation being performed in a hospital tent, Gettysburg, Pa.

  One soldier, his head swathed in a bandage, wheezes at me. “Please tell my mother I love her. And cut off a lock of my hair to give her. Please.” I write down his name and address with trembling fingers and fold a lock of his clipped hair into the paper. I want to be a nurse, but I feel like an angel of death, taking down last requests from the bloody mouths of the dying. It’s the only solace I can give.

  The sun is setting and a drenching rain has started when the regimental chaplain rides up, his horse lathered in sweat.

  “Everyone leave!” He cups his hands and bellows through them. “The Union army is gone, back behind the Potomac River. Centreville is surrounded by the Confederates!”

  The army has abandoned us, left the wounded to be taken as prisoners? I hurry outside, searching for any sign of a blue uniform in the fading light. My horse has been taken in the panic, so I walk down the road a ways to see what’s going on.

  It’s true, the army is gone. But there are wounded men who still need me. I turn back to the church. Only what about the Rebel army? They’re closing in—I feel it in my gut. Where are they?

  The answer gallops up as I melt into the shadows by the side of the road. A group of gray-uniformed horsemen appears.

  I crawl behind a bush and wait, my heart pounding noisily. I’m sure the Rebel soldiers can hear my panicked gasps, so I hold my breath as they pass by. I stay frozen in my hiding place beside the road until my muscles are stiff. When it seems safe, I shake out my legs and rush back to the makeshift hospital.

  The church is dark when I get there. The chaplain has left with the doctors and other nurses. The wounded men lie groaning with thirst and despair. They know they will be taken prisoner and there’s nothing they can do about it. Anyone who could walk or ride is already gone. Those who are left are too maimed or weak to move. I go from cot to cot, offering water, the only thing I have left to give. I can’t leave them. I won’t.

  “You have to go,” one soldier rasps. “We’re dying anyway.”

  “Go!” seconds another. “You can’t help us once the Rebels get here.”

  It’s Miles, the soldier I marched next to on the way to Bull Run. He lies with two bandaged stumps where his legs used to be. I take his hand and shake my head. “I can’t abandon you.”

  “The doctor didn’t want to leave, but he did. We told him to,” Miles insists. “He worked like the devil to save us, but he couldn’t, you see. He couldn’t and you can’t, either. So go, please go. The Rebels are coming. It won’t be long.” He drops his head back, exhausted by the effort of so many words.

  I blink away tears. He’s right. There’s nothing more I can do for any of them. I’m failing them, failing myself. Miserable, I set out canteens within the reach of any man who still has arms to hold one and turn toward the door when a voice calls me back. A young officer from Massachusetts holds out a gold locket.

  “Open it, please,” he gasps. “I can’t.”

  I flip the locket open, revealing a sepia daguerreotype of a woman holding a small baby. “You have a beautiful family,” I soothe, handing it back to him.

  He nods and presses the picture to his lips, tears streaming from his tightly closed eyes.

  “Tell them I’ll always love them. Tell them …” His voice drifts off weakly as he shoves the picture back at me and closes his eyes.

  “I will, I promise.” Is he still alive to hear me? There’s no time to check for a pulse on the still, pale body. I write down his name on a scrap of paper and tuck the locket away as the clatter of hooves echoes from the road. If I’m going to leave, it has to be now.

  I slip into the darkness, away from the main road. As I climb fences and zigzag across fields, I remember playing hide-and-seek with my brother and sisters in the woods around the farm. I tell myself it’s only a game, like then, an innocent, easy game. I try to push the ugly images of the day out of my head, the horrors of what men can do to each other, and think about nothing but moving one foot in front of another.

  T’S MIDDAY, THE sun bright and hot overhead, by the time I limp into the capital, two days later, my feet sore with blisters, my clothes drenched in sweat. I stand for a moment, wavering, taking in the neat rows of tents. Relief washes over me—I’m back where I belong. But I can’t stop thinking of those left behind, either dead now or prisoners. Beyond the tents, the Confederate flag flaps in the breeze over Munson’s Hill, a reminder of how close the enemy is. The Rebel army, fueled by their victory at Bull Run, seems poised to attack Washington. I try to push it down, but the despair of defeat wells up inside me as I stand there, too tired and dispirited to take another step.

  “Frank! We thought you were dead! Oh, it’s good to see you.” Damon runs up to me and claps me on the back. “I thought for sure you were a goner.”

  I force a smile but my cheeks feel wooden. “It’s good to see you, too, Damon. It wasn’t as quick as we thought, was it?”

  Damon laughs uneasily. “Nope, sure wasn’t. I learned me a lesson but good. Still, we’re both breathing, with all our arms and legs, so there’s reason to be thankful.” He folds his arm protectively around me. “You look like you just came from hell. Let me show you where our tent is and you can rest up. I’ll bring you some pea soup and bread.”

  Normally I avoid any touch, but it’s a comfort to let myself be led through the rows of tents, and I lean into Damon’s shoulder until he stops in front of one, lifts up the flap, and helps me inside. I sink onto my cot, feel the weight of my exhaustion cover me, and I sleep.

  I wake up late the next day, my head throbbing, every muscle in my body stiff and aching. I blink, trying to remember where I am, what has happened. Then I see Damon is in the tent with me, his forehead wrinkled in worry.

  “Good to see you awake, Frank. You were fit for the hospital yourself when you got in. Here,” he says, offering a plate of bully beef. “It’s not hot no more, but I expect that don’t matter much to you.”

  It’s strange—after so many years holding myself apart from people, isolated by my secret, a rush of affection for Damon overwhelms me. I can’t recall the last time anyone has been this kind and gentle with me. I remember Ma’s cool palm pressing on my forehead whenever I was sick with fever, and tears well into my eyes.

  “Thank you, Damon—you take good care of me,” I murmur.

  Damon’s cheeks turn pink. “You’d do the same for me! We’re in this together, Frank.”

  While I bolt down the food, Damon catches me up on the news. The battle was every bit as disastrous as I feared. Now with the Rebels camped just southwest of Arlington, Washington is girding for a fight in the capital itself. There hav
e been minor skirmishes between the pickets—advance guards for each camp—but nothing worse so far. Everyone’s nerves are on edge, waiting for the blast of Confederate cannon, the rush of gray uniforms, or the eerie Rebel yell.

  I feel queasy. I never for a second thought the Union could actually lose the war. Could it all be over so quickly, with the South triumphant?

  And I haven’t even shot at the Rebels, my rifle slung uselessly over my shoulder the whole time. I was so busy working as a nurse at Bull Run, I forgot to be a soldier. Now I chew my lip, angry at myself for not doing my share, for not helping to defeat the enemy. I abandoned the wounded in the church and I didn’t kill a single Confederate. I want another chance—now.

  “We should attack them first, before they come at us,” I growl.

  Damon grins. “That’s the spirit! Too bad you’re not a general. Privates don’t get to tell the army what to do. We’re supposed to sit tight and drill and drill and drill, so that when we do fight again, we’ll win.”

  I nod, but I’m not good at waiting, and practicing drills isn’t enough to keep me busy. Guilt gnaws at me. I told the army I’m a soldier, but maybe I’m not one after all. I hear Pa’s voice in my head, calling me useless, a ninny like my brother. I see Ma’s eyes full of disappointment. And I imagine Edward curled up in the corner, trying to ward off Pa’s blows. I didn’t help him then and I’m not helping anyone now.

  Working with the doctors is the only time I feel useful. When my official rounds are over, I go from hospital to hospital, checking to make sure everyone I know even remotely is all right, giving myself a second nursing shift. I’m touched by how the soldiers visit their wounded friends, how much they care for each other. The men may be crude or coarse, but they’re brave and loyal in a way I’m not. These men love each other, would die for each other. There’s nobody I care enough about to feel that way, nobody I would sacrifice myself for, nobody who feels that way about me.