A Soldier's Secret

by Marissa Moss

  My heart lifts, a moment of warmth amid so much ugliness. In all the horror, his familiar voice is a balm to me. I want to rush up to him, to hold him tight, to cover his face with kisses. We’re both alive among so much death, and all I want is to feel his arms around me. Instead, I stand stock-still, not trusting myself if I get any closer.

  “Jerome, it’s good to see you.” As if we’ve met up in the line for supper. As if what has happened, what is happening all around us, is ordinary.

  “This is what I imagined Armageddon would be like,” Jerome says. “This is my idea of hell.” He gestures toward the nearby bodies, arms bent unnaturally, parts of faces, legs, torsos ripped apart by shells.

  “Wait!” I cry. “There’s someone moving there.” I hurry over to a tangle of bodies.

  “I see it, too!” Jerome follows me.

  Yellow eyes glow in the torch’s glare. A raccoon rears up on its hindquarters, baring its teeth.

  Fury surges through me. I stoop down, grab a rock, and heave it at the raccoon. “Get away! Go!” I shriek. “You won’t eat these men, you ugly critter!” The raccoon turns and bounds away. There are plenty of other places to find fresh meat.

  “Come on,” Jerome sighs. “Let’s head back to the hospital. We’re no use here. There’s no one left to save.”

  I nod, exhausted, drained by all the death around me. I trudge heavily, slowly, forcing my hands to stay at my sides. I’ve never wanted to touch anyone the way I ache to reach my fingers out to Jerome now. But I can’t. I have to push the urge down. I try not to look at Jerome. I try to close my ears to his rich, tender voice.

  At the edge of the field, corpses lie in long rows, their faces cloaked by handkerchiefs or coats. If they can’t have coffins, they can still have some dignity, the coverings seem to say. But to me the anonymity makes the scene even more depressing. Maybe vacant eyes staring into nothing would be worse, but I want these soldiers to be known, to be remembered. I want to care about every single one of them. I bend down and gently lift the corner of one kerchief. The face I look into is young, perhaps sixteen, killed by a ball shot through the temple. The boy looks surprised. I notice he’s wearing shoulder straps, that he’s already been promoted to sergeant for bravery under fire. I close his eyes and murmur a prayer, like I did so long ago at Bull Run when I saw my first soldier killed. I don’t recognize this boy, don’t know his name, but at least now I’ll remember his face, his valor. He won’t be an abstract loss, a number in a ledger, but the person he deserves to be.

  “Come,” Jerome says softly. “Let’s do what we can for the living. They’re taking care of the dead.” He points to the soldiers digging wide trenches for a mass grave.

  I nod numbly.

  After a night of steady recovery work, hundreds still remain to be buried. Dead and wounded lie piled together in ravines and rifle pits, covered with mud and gore. In that pitched day of battle, more than two thousand Union soldiers have been killed or wounded, joined by as many Confederates.

  For the next two weeks Williamsburg becomes one enormous hospital. Churches, schools, homes—all become wards for the injured. I hardly sleep as I go from bed to bed, trying to keep up the wounded men’s strength and spirits. General McClellan has given Confederate doctors permission to treat the injured, so that gray and blue surgeons work side by side caring for gray and blue soldiers. It’s a strange sort of truce, a reminder of how close the two sides are, a reminder of how stupidly blind war is.

  I’m making the rounds with Dr. Bonine when I recognize a slender black boy, his head swathed in a bandage. It’s the slave who traded jobs with me back at Yorktown in the Rebel camp.

  “Are the doctors taking good care of you?” I ask.

  The boy blinks, surprised by the attention. He nods.

  I turn to Dr. Bonine. “I know this boy, and he deserves special treatment. He’s helped the Union cause.” The boy stares at me with wide eyes.

  “I ain’t done nuthin',” he protests. “You’re mistakin' me for some other body.”

  “No, I’m not.” I pat his hand. “You were generous to me when I asked for a favor. I’m happy to do you one in return. How ’bout I bring you some brandy? It’ll help you sleep.” I thought I’d never see the boy again, and now I have a chance to actually do something for him.

  The boy nods again, mystified. He has no idea that he’s ever seen me before, especially not dressed as a slave. And I have no intention of explaining how we first met. All that matters is that the boy gets better, and that when he leaves the hospital he be free, as he always should have been.

  The first week after the battle, Jerome and I often eat together. It’s easy to fall back into our old friendship. It’s a familiar comfort, one we both desperately need. After a day spent cleaning festering wounds and writing down the last wishes of dying men, I crave talking to Jerome, emptying the ugly images out of my head. His familiar face and voice, his gestures and smell, all comfort me, giving me a sense of connection with him. I allow myself to sink into his presence like a warm bath. But it’s dangerous to let myself relax too much with him. If I’m not on my guard, my voice will soften or I’ll find myself tilting my chin coquettishly, moving closer so that our thighs may touch. I never mean to—it just happens. As if my body has a mind of its own, one that’s not listening to me. Horrified, I catch myself mooning over him with big eyes like a ninny or reaching up as if to stroke his cheek. Thank the heavens, so far I’ve always pulled back before Jerome has noticed anything. I hope he never will.

  I’m on nursing rounds in a church I haven’t been to before when I find another friend. Tossing with fever, Damon sprawls on a pew, his thigh pierced by a minié ball. The leg is swollen and gray where the bullet has entered. There’s been so much confusion after the battle, I haven’t noticed that he’s been missing. I’m ashamed I haven’t thought of him at all.

  “Damon,” I say, dabbing at his sweaty forehead with a cool, moist rag. “Damon, it’s me, Frank. I’m here now. I’ll take care of you.”

  Damon’s eyes snap open. “Frank!” he wails. “Frank, don’t let them saw off my leg. Don’t let them.” His hand shoots out and grabs my wrist with feverish force. “Promise me! Promise me! I can’t be a cripple! I’d rather die!” His panic surges through his fingers, rippling under my skin. I’m gripped by the urgency of his fear, the agony of his desperation.

  “All right, Damon,” I soothe, keeping my voice calm. “Don’t worry. I won’t let anyone touch your leg. Except me. Just let me change the bandage. We’ll get you healed, I promise. And you’ll keep your leg.”

  “You promise?” Damon’s chest heaves with wracking sobs, and tears run down his eyes into his ears. “Don’t leave me, Frank. I’m scared, I’m so scared!”

  “Hush, now, you’re safe. There’s no need to be frightened.” I peel Damon’s fingers from my wrist and take his hand. I hum a lullaby and stroke his forehead until I can feel the panic drain from his body, feel him slip away into the blankness of sleep. Then I gently unwrap the bloody bandage, revealing a jagged hole white with maggots. I take the brandy bottle that’s the universal medicine in every ward and drip it slowly into the wound. Then I wash it clean and put on a fresh bandage. At least it looks better now, though I doubt Damon will be able to keep the leg. Wounds like that normally mean amputation. But I’ll do everything I can to prevent that, like I promised. Maybe if I clean and change the bandage every day, that will be enough. Anyway, it’s all I know how to do, all I can really offer.

  That night I tell Jerome about finding Damon and the promise I’ve made to him.

  “You know he’s going to lose the leg,” Jerome says. “You’ve got to be honest with him.”

  “No, I can’t tell him that. And I don’t know that it’ll be amputated. Maybe it’ll heal.” I stare at my plate of beans, willing it to be true.

  Jerome shrugs. “You’re a stubborn one, Frank Thompson, that’s for sure. If your pigheadedness can make it happen, then that leg will be fine.�
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  I nod. “Good. It’s decided then. Damon keeps his leg.”

  Maybe it’s the constant cleaning, the brandy, the prayers, or simply my stubbornness, like Jerome says, but by the end of the week Damon’s leg looks much better. The swelling has gone down and a thick, brown scab covers the hole.

  I bring my old tentmate a bowl of porridge the day before we’re set to move out again, this time to West Point, near Williamsburg.

  “So you think you’ll be walking with us or will we be carrying you tomorrow?” I ask, handing Damon his breakfast.

  Damon slurps down a generous spoonful. The fever has gone and his color is good. “I’ll be walking—you can bet on it. Maybe limping, but still upright.” Damon puts down his spoon and looks up. “Thanks to you, Frank. You saved my leg, I know it.” His blue eyes brim with tears. “Thanks to you.”

  I smile and squeeze his hand. “I just wanted to be sure I’d see you dancing at your wedding. Now, come on, eat up. You still need to get your strength back.”

  I’m not arrogant enough to believe that I cured Damon, but I’ve helped him, and that’s comforting. I can shoot a surrendering woman clean through the hand and still be a good person. I can hold men down while their legs are amputated and still be a caring, kind man. Yes, I think of myself like that, the kind of man I am. Maybe it’s simply from the habit of acting like a man so much that even I’m beginning to think of myself that way. Unless I’m around Jerome. Then whatever traces of femininity I’ve long buried erupt at the most inconvenient times. I actually titter at one of Jerome’s jokes—titter like a silly lovesick goose. I try to change the tone midlaugh into a manly chuckle, but I only end up sounding like a panicked turkey. I follow up with a good loud belch. That’s sure to erase any notion of me as a woman.

  It’s a useful trick I’ve learned. Whenever I’m uneasy about my disguise or worried that someone around me is looking at me more carefully than usual, I spit out a big wad of phlegm, break wind, or belch. Not only do I seem more manly then, I feel more like a fellow. It’s strange how acting like something can become convincing in itself if you do it enough.

  A good thing, too, since who knows when the next battle will be or how ugly it will get? Whatever happens, I need to be a strong man, determined and fearless. At least, that’s the kind of man I want to be, the kind who gets the job done. I was lucky at Williamsburg to race through hours of shooting and shelling without so much as a scratch. I was more numb than scared then. But will my luck hold at West Point? If it doesn’t, will I turn soft and womanish—or worse, turn tail?

  T’S MID-MAY 1862 and I’ve been in the army for a year now. So much for a quick victory! It’s strange to think of how optimistic we were this time last year, how sure of a quick rout. In our new position we’re close enough to taste the possibility of laying siege to Richmond, but we know better than to expect a quick finish. We need to control the railroads running southwest to the city. And we have to get our artillery over the Chickahominy River. Both might seem simple, but they’re not. Nothing’s easy in this war.

  If you ask me, the river is more of a creek, bordered by wide swamps, something the men and horses can easily cross but the big guns can’t. The bridges have been burned down by the retreating Confederates, so General McClellan sets men to building new ones while other regiments push along the railroad, all the way to the Fair Oaks depot. Our advance troops are now less than ten miles from Richmond. Close but not there yet. Those ten miles may as well be a thousand.

  Military bridge across the Chickahominy River, Va.

  The Second Michigan isn’t working on either the rail lines or the bridges. We’re sitting in camp, the way we’ve spent much of the war. Days of intense fighting are interspersed with long stretches of doing nothing, waiting for action. Being stuck in camp is always difficult for me. Not just because it’s boring and I feel useless. Not just because it seems like we’re doing nothing to help end this war. There’s a more practical reason why staying in camp weighs on me. Every time I need to relieve myself, it’s like I’m on another spy mission, plunging into enemy territory where my disguise can be discovered. I wish there were more mail to deliver so I could be free of prying eyes.

  For Damon, lounging around in camp is welcome news, giving his leg plenty of time to heal. He’s walking again, without crutches or a cane. True, he has a limp, and sometimes the ache in his thigh keeps him up at night, but he’s lucky, one of the few who have been shot in a leg and haven’t lost it to amputation.

  “What do you think happens next?” he asks, lying next to me in the tent we’ve shared for a year now.

  “Sounds like we’re working to cut off and surround Richmond. I like the idea of a siege much better than another battle.” I sit up and face Damon. “How many more clashes before one of us gets killed? I didn’t think about dying when I enlisted, but now I think about it all the time.” I bite my lip. “Does that make me a coward?” I’ve never admitted my fear to anyone before, but it just blurts out, lying there like a stinking fish between us.

  Damon guffaws. “You’d have to be stupid not to worry about getting killed—or maimed in some awful way. Being brave is knowing what could happen, fearing it but still going ahead and plunging into the fight. You’re not one to turn tail. You’re about the bravest soldier I know.”

  Damon thinks I’m brave? A warm buzzing fills my chest at the compliment.

  He crosses his arms over his chest and nods. “We’ll get through this mess, I promise you. We’ll smoke the Rebs out of Richmond and that’ll be the end of it. Maybe I didn’t get home by last year’s harvest, but I’m making this year’s!”

  Officers (seated) of the 114th Pennsylvania Infantry playing cards in camp, Petersburg, Va.

  “I believe you, Damon. This year you’ll make the harvest!” I want to imagine him home with his sweetheart, both legs intact.

  Damon relaxes around camp, playing cards, swapping stories, and writing letters. He has a lot of mail to answer, he gets so much—from his parents, his girl, his sister, even the preacher back home. So when a letter comes for me, something personal, not a thank-you from a family I’ve notified, he’s almost as excited as I am.

  “Is it from Virginia? Has she written you like I asked her to?”

  “No,” I say, opening the envelope. “It’s from Mr. Hurlburt, my old boss, the bookseller.” I read the few scrawled lines, pleased to hear from someone I actually know, someone I can imagine taking pen to paper, whose voice I can hear as I follow the words. “He hopes I’m doing well and says he’d love to get personal reports of what’s happening. He wants to put together a newsletter, to give the folks back home a sense of what their sons, husbands, brothers, and fathers are enduring.” I fold up the letter, slip it back into the envelope. “He wants me to write for him. Me, a writer?”

  “Why not?” says Damon. “You’re everything else-nurse, soldier, spy. I bet you’d be a fine writer, too.”

  I’m not so sure, but it feels good to have someone to write to, someone interested in hearing what I have to say. I describe the boredom of waiting around camp, the problems with fording the Chickahominy, the battle that might happen but hasn’t yet. I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but I add my “dispatch,” as Mr. Hurlburt calls it, to the pile of mail.

  Only before riding out on mail duty, I’m ordered to the commander’s tent. I know what that means—another spy mission.

  “We need you to go behind enemy lines again,” Colonel Poe orders. “Find out what their plans are, what their next move is. You leave tomorrow.”

  “Yessir!”

  “And use a new disguise. They may remember the last one.”

  I wonder who I should pretend to be, but by the time I’ve ridden to Williamsburg that afternoon to collect the mail, I’ve come up with a plan. I stop at a dry-goods store and buy an old dress, shoes, a shawl, and a basket filled with thread, scissors, buttons, and other small notions. Sarah Emma Edmonds, now Frank Thompson, is going to turn herself
back into a woman, an old Irish peddler this time.

  “See, Flag?” I say, showing him my purchases. “I’ll be a nice old biddy—what do you think? Will you still like me that way?” Flag pushes his bony head toward my chest, hoping for a treat among the sewing notions. “Of course I didn’t forget you,” I reassure him, pulling an apple out of my pocket. I pat the blaze on his forehead as he chomps, spraying me with apple juice. “I wonder how you see me. Am I a man to you or a woman? Or simply your friend?”

  Flag snorts. To him I’m Giver of Apples, and that’s what matters.

  When Damon crawls into the tent that evening, he’s startled by the sight of an old woman hunched over her sewing, sitting on my bedroll.

  “Excuse me, ma’am, but this is a soldiers' tent. Where do you mean to be?” Damon tries to remember his manners, but it’s been a long time since he’s talked to a woman, and he sounds rusty.

  “Well, me sonny boy, this is exactly where I mean to be. I thought I’d just darn me socks before I’m off, if ye don' mind,” I trill in my best Irish burr.

  “Um, ma’am, you see, well,” Damon stumbles. I can tell he wants to be polite but is worried that his tentmate will stomp in any minute and demand his bed back. “That there bed belongs to my buddy Frank, and he’ll be here any second now. So, um, well …” He trails off, staring at the ground.

  “Now don' ye worry about yer friend, dear. He’s not coming back,” I soothe.

  “He’s not coming back?” Damon’s head snaps up. “What happened to him? Where is he?”

  I whip the shawl off my head. “He’s already right here! You don’t recognize me? Pretty good disguise, huh?”

  Damon snorts in relief. “Frank! Why are you dressed like that? What’s going on?”

  “I’ve got some spying to do. So what do you think? Can I pass?”

  “You certainly had me fooled!” Damon grins. “But without the shawl, your face ain’t womanish enough—or old enough. I know some fellows call you ‘our little woman,’ but that just shows how much they’re missing their sweethearts. It would be too hard to make you look ladyish, but if you look old enough, that won’t matter. Some old women look jus’ like old men, down to the wiry whiskers sticking out of their chins!” Damon clambers out of the tent and comes back with some charcoal from the cook fire. He daubs circles under my eyes and draws lines around my mouth and across my forehead. “There,” he says, sitting back and admiring his handiwork. “You make a fine old hag now. You remind me of Old Woman Forster, two farms down from us. Too bad you don’t have an old gray bun, but if you keep your hair hid under the shawl, you’ll be the perfect picture of a crone.”