by Jana Petken
Nelson hung his head like a moody child. “Them white folks don’ want ole Nelson to touch, Mr Isaac. They say niggers ain’t got no business treatin’ white men.”
“Well, we’ll just see about that. I can’t stay awake twenty-four hours a day, and I don’t think these doctors have enough time to see to Mr Isaac’s needs. So what do they allow you to do here?”
“I don’ rightly know. Mr Isaac, he done tol’ them doctors I’s his man. I reckon I ain’t got no job no more.”
Mercy frowned. Nelson was in a bad situation, she thought. She would have to keep a close eye on him. The last thing she needed was the Union army sending him off to the front line to fight.
Chapter Sixty-Two
Jacob’s head was throbbing, his ears rang, and pain – sharp and excruciating around his ribcage – was hampering his shallow breathing. He lay still, eyes closed but with eyelids fluttering wildly, a thousand and one thoughts cramming his mind. He was alive, that much he did know, for only the living could feel such agony. He refused to open his eyes. Only when he recalled what had happened to him, and where he’d been wounded, would he face the present and all its consequences.
Cavalrymen he had fought with, ridden with, and come to know like brothers were at a gallop through dust and smoke so thick that he could still taste dry soil and powder in his mouth. All encompassing rifle shots were enveloping them at such speed that there was no time to draw guns or raise rifles to return fire. Young George Coulter, his face blown apart, eyes staring at Jacob in death; men falling; horses dropping to the ground like bricks; and his shoulder and back burning and bloodied by bullets …
He recalled these events, reliving them with both emotional and physical pain. His heart thumped against his chest with anguish, so strong that he felt his lungs were being crushed. He had failed his men – good men – led by him into a trap that had killed them. Before he faced reality, he had to steady and subdue the panic that rushed through him.
He moved his right arm across his body. His fingers felt a bandage wrapped around his belly, from just below his chest to his waist. He moved his hand over the area, prodding it lightly with his fingers. He winced as they reached the left hand side of his body. Jesus, his ribs felt as though someone had taken a hammer to them. The fingers moved towards his left arm. He prayed it was still there. He couldn’t feel it. He prayed, panting with exertion and terrified of finding out that they had amputated his limb. He caught the edge of a cotton sling and traced it with his shaking hand until he found his arm and hand. Grateful tears slipped down his cheeks. He was still whole – still able to fight and kill the Yankee bastards that had slaughtered his comrades.
He lifted his trembling arm up to his head. That too was bandaged. For a second, he pictured himself falling off Thor’s back and landing with a sickening thud on the ground. Thank God his head pounded because of that fall, not because he’d taken a bullet. He felt a hand, not his own, grab his arm and push it down by his side. Finally, he opened his eyes and stared groggily into the face of a Union soldier.
“Lay still. You’ll be undoin’ all the doc’s good work movin’ about like that,” the soldier said impatiently.
Jacob focused his eyes on the man’s uniform. He was definitely a Yankee, which meant that he, Jacob, was a prisoner of war. He couldn’t remember a damn thing about being captured or lifted from that field – not a thing. “Did any of my men make it here?” he croaked in a whisper. With the Ninth Cavalry, Virginia?”
“I don’t know about that. We got thousands of soldiers here, and we got hundreds of prisoners too. How the hell am I supposed to know who your men are?”
“Is there someone you could ask? I need to know.”
“Yep, well I need to be going home to my family instead of fighting a bunch of traitors, but I reckon that ain’t gonna happen anytime soon. You just lie there until you feel better, and then you can find your Reb friends in one of our nice holdin’ facilities.”
Jacob watched the soldier walk away with an arrogant swagger, and he was left with all his questions unanswered. He shifted his head and cast his eyes around the room, wincing with every movement. The noises that surrounded him became clearer and louder as he became more aware of his surroundings. The smell of chlorine, burning flesh, sulphur, and iodine assaulted his nostrils. Men were moaning loudly, and others were asleep, unconscious, or dead. A dead man lay on an uncovered stretcher two beds from his. Why weren’t the attendants removing the dead bodies? he found himself wondering.
The room was lit by gaslights casting ghostly shadows. His eyes couldn’t focus more than a few feet on each side of him. God only knew where he was or for how long he had been there. He tried to push his body up to get a better look at the faces of the wounded, but he could barely hold his head up, never mind move his strapped-up body.
He couldn’t be the only survivor from the Ninth, could he? Some of his men must have made it out of that field alive. They would have ridden hard, reporting back to General Jackson – Jesus, he would be believed dead. The field was crawling with Yankees, and the bastards had been moving forwards, not back, as the lieutenant in the previous field had thought.
He recalled riding into the first field and seeing hundreds of Confederates chasing the Yankees off. They would have been lured into that cornfield beyond the trees and massacred by a much bigger enemy force, hiding like rats among the corn stalks, had he not stood them down and gone in there himself like a damn fool.
Another memory surfaced. This one was the sight of blue coats streaming out of the field, running past him as he was lying on the ground. There had been a damn tide of them – thousands. They must have held that ground. They had far outnumbered the Confederate force.
An image struck him. Yankees had picked him up and brought him to wherever he was now. They had cleared that field, not Confederates. Jesus, they had saved his life, he thought for the first time since waking up.
Jacob closed his eyes and then snapped them open a second later at the sound of another voice. A doctor, he presumed by the stethoscope, examined him with his eyes, which were kind and red-rimmed with fatigue. “Will I live, Doc?” Jacob asked the man.
“Yep, Captain, you’ll live.”
Jacob’s eyes widened with surprise. The doctor had called him by his rank.
“I saw you when they brought you in and didn’t think you stood a chance in hell. There was letter in your coat pocket. Your name was on the back of the envelope.”
Jacob nodded. His letter to Mercy – the mail wagon never did show up that morning. “Am I listed as captured?”
“You are, but I don’t know how long it takes for the communication to go through. Your folks will know soon enough that you’re still alive. I operated,” the doctor continued. “You were out cold, which was just as well. Had a hell of a job getting that bullet out of your shoulder – collarbone’s broken, but it should mend. You were damn lucky. The other bullet glanced off your ribs, a through and through. You’ll need to stay put, and you’ll hurt like the devil. And as for your head, well, not much I could do for that except stitch it up and wait for you to wake up.”
“Thank you, Doc. You saved my life.”
“Don’t thank me. Thank the Union Army of the Potomac for lifting you up off the ground.”
“Doc, my men … There were thirty of us. I saw some go down, but I don’t know …”
“Son, you best keep that question for someone else. I don’t do the soldiering round here; I just do the mending. If your men were wounded and made it here, they’ll turn up.”
The doctor turned to leave. Jacob was desperate to get more answers. “Where am I?” he called out.
“South of Yorktown, near the James River.”
“What day is it?”
“You sure ask a lot of questions for a prisoner. It’s July first – welcome back to the land of the living, Captain.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Mercy’s fitful sleep had left her with an aching neck a
nd limbs, which alternated between being painful and being numb. She sat in a chair, but her head rested on the edge of the bed, cradled in her arms. Her leg muscles were cramped, being jammed between the chair and the bed, and her feet were bootless. She winced when she lifted her head, massaging the knots in the back of her neck. For two weeks, she had slept, either on the chair or on a blanket on the floor. Tonight the floor would be her preference, for at least she would be able to stretch her legs.
She rubbed her eyes and glanced at Isaac through half-closed eyelids. He looked peaceful this morning, she thought. She rose to stretch her legs, leaving the room for a moment to refill a bowl of water and to wash the sleep from her eyes. Nelson would be here shortly with coffee, she thought gratefully. After she had drunk it, she would tend to Isaac and then go to Dolly’s house for a couple of hours to bathe and eat.
She walked unsteadily down the hallway, still half asleep. Her mind was filled with dreary thoughts. Over the past weeks, she and Nelson had taken shifts, concentrating on keeping the room and Isaac as clean as possible. There were not enough nurses to do these jobs, for more than twenty patients in the hospital had come down with typhoid and all but four were still alive. She could not keep doing this, she thought. Every day she was more exhausted, and every night sleep was more evasive.
If only she could see an improvement in Isaac’s condition. If he could wake up just for a few moments to speak to her, to smile, and tell her he felt a little better, her spirits would be lifted. The epidemic, which had begun on a couple of farms, had spread rapidly and without mercy. Rich and poor alike had been infected. She put her hand to her own forehead, as she did every morning, checking for signs of a fever. She had not been feeling well, but she put her aches and pains down to uncomfortable sleeping habits, not the onset of the disease. She was fine. Her forehead was cool.
Returning to the room, she opened the curtains. It felt to her tired body like the middle of the night, yet sun streamed into the room, blinding her momentarily and making her feel giddy. She went to the basin and soaked a cloth in the cold water before turning her attention to Isaac.
She looked at his face and was puzzled for a second or two. Its grey pallor was tinged with blue. He was not perspiring; his skin was completely dry. She looked at his mouth. Lips were slightly parted. She heard a husky sob leave her mouth. Her hand flew up to stifle it. She tucked her hair behind her ear and then put it to Isaac’s mouth, praying for breathing sounds.
“Please … No no, no, no, he’s not dead!” she said hurriedly in a high-pitched, accelerated voice. She slumped into the chair, covering her face with shaking hands. He was … He was dead. He had taken his last breath whilst she slept. She had not heard his last words, nor had she been awake to comfort him in his last moments. He had died! No, it couldn’t be, she told herself. Isaac couldn’t die, not after fighting so hard to live.
She stumbled from the room blinded by tears and headed down the hallway and into an office where two attendants slept. “Wake up!” she shouted harshly. “Major Bernstein is dead. He’s dead, you hear?”
The attendants staggered down the hallway and into Isaac’s room. Mercy stood in the doorway, holding her hand to her throat, choking on tears, and for the first time in a long time, she had no idea what to do, say, or even think. “He is dead, isn’t he?” she asked stupidly. He’s gone – I don’t know when it happened …”
One of the attendants covered Isaac’s face with a sheet. “I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am,” he said. “We best be taking the major now.”
“No, you can’t,” Mercy cried. “Leave him be! I have to find Nelson. He has to come here. He has to say goodbye …”
“Nelson, the nigger?”
“Yes, Nelson the free man. He was the major’s friend, and you’re not taking his body away until Nelson sees him one last time. Please get him.”
“I ain’t goin’ to fetch no nigger,” the attendant said angrily, “and we ain’t leaving the major here. The nigger can come to the morgue if he has a mind to see the body.”
The body – the body – as if Isaac was already forgotten as the person he once was. She slumped again in the chair, rocking her body in a soothing motion. She watched as the men covered Isaac with a sheet and lifted his body like an old sack. She jumped to her feet and followed the men into the hallway. Oh God almighty, if she had a gun, she would shoot the ignorant, disrespectful gits right now, she thought.
Her tears continued to fall, and now she had the added worry of not knowing where Nelson was or when he would get here. She couldn’t let him walk into the room without being warned about Isaac’s death. Isaac, gone forever, never knowing how much she had loved him or how much she regretted hurting him.
Mercy went back to Isaac’s room and wept in private. After a time, she looked up to see Nelson’s tear-stained face staring at the bed as if not believing Isaac was no longer in it. He tried to speak, but not a sound left his lips. He stared at Mercy’s swollen eyes and closed the door. Mercy fell into his arms, and he held her tightly. “Hush now, Miss Mercy. Ole Nelson’s here,” he said as a father would to a child.
“Oh, Nelson, I wasn’t awake when he passed. I fell asleep …”
“Hush now. He’s gone to the good Lord. There ain’t nothin’ to be done. You just take comfort knowin’ he died happy seein’ you here – that’s all he wanted.”
“What are we going to do? What’s going to happen now?” she asked him.
“You got to leave now and git to your Plantation. Ain’t no more you can do here.”
“Nelson, I can’t leave you. You are here because of Isaac. I know these people, and you know them even better than I do. They won’t let you stay here and tend to white people, not now that Isaac’s gone. He protected you. You were his orderly, and you served him, but now you’ll just be a soldier. Oh God, they will send you back to the front line to fight. I know they will.”
“I’s in the army. I’s got to do what they say. But I’s afraid to fight. Lord have mercy, I’s gonna join Mr Isaac real soon – I knows it.”
Nelson cried like a baby. Mercy comforted him as best she could, but in the back of her mind, a plan was forming. She had lost Isaac she was not going to lose Nelson too. She couldn’t, and she wouldn’t. “Nelson, do you want to stay in the army?”
“No!”
“Would you like to come with me to Stone Plantation – do you want to run away?”
“We gonna run away again? Like the last time? The Union ain’t never gonna let a nigger soldier leave the hospital all by himself. I reckon they’ll hang me for sure if I try to run. You knows its gospel true.”
“Well, running has to be better than your being on a battlefield running for your life! I’m not going to let you take a rebel bullet. There’s been enough dying – enough, Nelson! Maybe I’m not thinking straight right now, but I think we could get you out of here, if that’s what you want.”
“I sure would like to go wit’ you.”
“Then you will. We’ll face the future together. Isaac would have wanted this. He would not have wanted to see you going back to the front. Let me sit here awhile and think. We need to get you ready to leave …”
Chapter Sixty-Four
Mercy hailed a carriage that sat in the street adjacent to the hospital. She ordered it inside the hospital gates and told the driver to wait for a few minutes. She ran across the lawn and found Nelson where she had left him, just outside the entrance to the hospital basement, dressed in Isaac’s civilian trousers and shirt. He wore Eddie’s hat and had pulled it down over his eyes. “Thank goodness you made it outside – but you look too far too clean,” Mercy told him. “Spread some dirt on the clothes. We can’t have you looking like a gentleman.”
She asked the driver to take them to the harbour. Nelson sat on the bench seat at the rear of the carriage, clutching Mercy’s carpet bag, head down, afraid to look up, lest a hospital employee recognise him. Once they had left the hospital’s grounds, Mercy sat back
and relaxed her tired muscles. Nelson looked just like any other Negro slave, she thought.
Her head was pounding like hammers. She couldn’t get Isaac’s face out of her mind. His death was unbearable, and nothing could have prepared her for the terrible grief that enveloped her. Her mind conjured up images of Jacob, dead and buried, and of Nelson being ordered to fight, when he had not a bad bone in his body and would be incapable of shooting anyone, even to save himself. How could she bear the weight of so many horrible thoughts? All she saw and felt was darkness shrouding her. She could not find one vision of light or happiness.
The harbour was busy. A ferry came alongside after only a few moments, and for the first time today, a glimmer of hope found her. Across the water was Portsmouth and, five miles east of that city, Stone Plantation. Belle was there, and they would comfort each other. Nelson would be safe, although she had no idea how he was going to fit into a community of slaves when he looked like them but was not one of them.
Mercy noticed that Union soldiers on the ferry did not seem interested in her or Nelson, who was trailing behind her. For the first time since her arrival in the bay area, she was able to form an opinion, and it surprised her. Slaves were still openly owned by Southerners and were not being confiscated. Civilian tradesmen and labourers were going about their business, as usual. They were not being imprisoned or shot. Taverns were open, doing a roaring trade from what she had seen, and the harbour boats still crossed at regular intervals, carrying civilians and Union soldiers together, albeit in cold, uncomfortable silence.
Mercy bought a horse and cart from the blacksmith, two streets adjacent from the Portsmouth harbour. Nelson sat on the wooden floor in the back, and every now and then, he asked Mercy if she knew the direction she should be taking. Mercy couldn’t honestly say she was sure about which way she should be going. When she’d driven to Stone Plantation with Belle, a lifetime ago, she had been far too busy looking at trees and thinking about slave stories to remember what route they had taken.
