The Face of Heaven

by Murray Pura

  “No, I’m fine,” Morganne mumbled around the long pins in her mouth. “I had four hours’ sleep. Who needs more than four hours’ sleep? Especially when there’s a war on.”

  Lyndel leaned forward to look at Hiram. “Do you know where Nathaniel’s regiment is?”

  Hiram shook his head, his eyes on the carriages and wagons and horses all around him. “As I mentioned, his brigade was the rear guard for the army. Pope has the troops double-timing it to the fortifications at Fort Buffalo in Upton’s Hill. Not far from here. Though they can’t stay for long.”

  “Why not?”

  “All the reports I’ve seen at the office have Southern units pressing into Maryland. The army has to go after them. There will be another battle. And we’d better win this one, or Washington will be wide open to the Rebels.”

  Lyndel found she was squeezing her hands together so tightly her knuckles were white. “Do you…do you think the 19th will be at Upton’s Hill too?”

  “If not today then tomorrow.”

  “Would the army still be there when I return from Fairfax?” Hiram glanced at her. “Miss Barton will stay in Virginia until every wounded man is brought off by rail. It will be days.”

  “Are you—perhaps you’ll be traveling with us?”

  “I’m afraid not, Miss Keim. The army has not granted me a pass to report on their latest debacle.”

  The thought Lyndel dared not think slipped into her mind without permission: If Nathaniel is among the wounded or the dead it will not matter if you get to Upton’s Hill.

  Clara Barton was waiting for them at the station, hands on her hips, bonnet on her head to keep off the rain and a red bow at her throat. “Miss Keim. Miss David. You’re just in time. Otherwise you would have had to join me by horse-drawn ambulance.”

  Hiram tipped his derby. “We came as fast as we could, Miss Barton. The city is in a bit of a to-do, what with the defeat and Lee invading Maryland.”

  She nodded. “Defeat does not bring out the best in anyone. Or fear of defeat.” She looked at Lyndel and Morganne. “I asked you two to join me because I’ve seen how hard you work at Armory Square. You will have to work twice as hard in Virginia. No Sabbath rest for us. Still interested?”

  Lyndel and Morganne said yes at the same time. Miss Barton finally smiled.

  “My two Pennsylvania girls. Well, get on board. You’ll have to find a place among the bandages and medicines and jars of New England preserves. These ladies are Mrs. Morrell and Miss Haskell. They will be helping as well. I expect another to join us later. My goodness, Miss David, what is that contraption?”

  Morganne was taking her luggage from Hiram, who was handing it down from the carriage.

  “This? This is my Martin guitar. Mr. C.F. Martin has his shop in my hometown of Nazareth.”

  Miss Barton pinched her lips. “You won’t have time for that.”

  Morganne’s blue eyes flickered with fire. “I have time at Armory Square despite how busy it gets. The soldiers say it soothes them. Miss Barton, I have heard you singing to the patients.”

  After a momentary pause, Miss Barton said, “Well, first they get bandages and poultices. Then they get food and water. When all of the wounded have that, then you may serenade them.”

  Morganne inclined her head, her eyes a rock blue. “Thank you. Now I’d like to get it in out of the rain. Excuse me.” She climbed into the boxcar and found a seat on a crate.

  Hiram helped Miss Barton and Lyndel up into the car. “You two ladies take care of each other as well as the wounded.”

  “That’s in God’s hands,” said Miss Barton. “We can only do what is right in his eyes and leave the rest up to him.”

  “Make sure you come back with a good story I can put in the paper.”

  “No doubt I will. Carry on, Mr. Clements.”

  The young engineer had poked his head out of a window in the steam locomotive. Now he gave her a quick salute and his head disappeared. A whistle blew three times and the engine began to move, its string of cars behind. Hiram waved, the rain streaming off his derby.

  “You’ll ruin your hat,” called Lyndel.

  “I’ll go to Upton’s Hill, Miss Keim,” he called back. “I’ll see who I can find.”

  “Oh, thank you, thank you.”

  Miss Barton glanced at Lyndel as she pulled the door to the freight car shut. “Do you have a brother in the army? Or a beau?”

  Lyndel found a seat on several hard, lumpy sacks. “A friend, Miss Barton. From my home in Elizabethtown.” To avoid Miss Barton’s eyes she removed her black kapp, shook the water off, then placed it back on her head.

  Miss Barton made herself comfortable on top of a barrel that swayed with the movement of the train. “What unit is he with?”

  “His regiment is the 19th Indiana.”

  “But you’re from Pennsylvania.”

  “So is he. But he was living in Elkhart County, Indiana, for a short time and that’s where he chose to enlist.”

  “May I ask his name?”

  “Nathaniel King.”

  Miss Barton nodded. “If I run into him I will know to tell you.”

  Lyndel met her gaze. “Thank you.”

  There wasn’t much talk. Morganne was still simmering and kept her eyes on the walls of the car. Miss Barton chatted with her two friends a while but the talk soon petered out. Lyndel prayed through a list she kept in her head: her family, especially her brother with the ambulance service; Nathaniel and Corinth and their family; the Amish of Elizabethtown; the Amish of Elkhart County. The news that Nathaniel had been in a battle focused her attention on prayers for him and Corinth. The more she prayed the better she felt, though she realized she would never feel settled until she knew whether he and his brother were all right. If they weren’t all right she would pray about that and deal with it when she had to.

  I am not going to give in to fear and worry. I know what that’s like and it never helps. It only makes a person more distraught, worn out, and miserable.

  The train finally stopped at Fairfax. Miss Barton and Miss Haskell pulled back the sliding door of the freight car with the engineer’s help. The sky was overcast and rain was spattering over the tracks and the station. Lyndel stepped down expecting to see soldiers lined up in neat rows inside the depot. Instead, when she walked around to the front of the hissing locomotive, she saw hundreds of men laid out on a grassy slope with nothing under them but hay from bales that had been broken open. Their uniforms were wet and caked with blood, their faces and arms and hands dripped with rain, and she heard many of them groaning and crying out for water. The bodies seemed to her to cover acres. She put her hand to her mouth.

  Oh, my Lord. What are we going to do?

  Miss Barton clapped her hands together.

  “The trains will be taking these men to Washington hospitals. But no man, absolutely no man, goes on any train before one of us has tended to him. Water, food if he can keep it down, wounds dressed, arms in slings if necessary, poultices or compresses kept wet—all these things are critical. When you’ve finished working on one soldier please indicate that to the men here, who will then place that man on a stretcher and put him in a car. Any questions?”

  None of the women spoke up. Like Lyndel they continued to stare at the hundreds of bodies and the ambulances that were driving in with even more wounded.

  Clara tied a gingham apron over her dress. “Then let us begin. Perhaps we could all start in different locations. Excuse me.” She turned to an officer who was standing and watching them. “We’re nurses from the capital. There are medical supplies and food in three of the freight cars. Can you ask some of your men to unload them for us? The bandages are especially important.”

  The officer looked at her more closely. “Are you Clara Barton?”

  “I am, sir.”

  “It’s an honor, ma’am. You’re helping our boys. We’ll do all we can.”

  Lyndel and Morganne went together to the soldiers far on the right and
began to work side by side, Lyndel with one man, Morganne with another. They took bandages and other material to make poultices and slings, as well as several canteens to offer mouthfuls of water. Lyndel’s first soldier had a large bullet hole through both of his cheeks. His teeth had been damaged and his tongue was swollen and he couldn’t chew. Slowly she tipped the canteen against his lips and let him take as many short swallows as he wanted. Then she cleaned the dirt and grit and caked blood out of the wounds and out of his mouth.

  She went to Miss Barton who was bent over a soldier hundreds of feet away. “Can I make soup for a soldier who can’t chew solid food?”

  “Of course. Go right ahead.”

  “There is hardly anything to cook with.”

  She looked up at Lyndel. “Empty a can of red beans and feed someone else with them. Then use the can for a pot. That’s all we can do.”

  Clara worked at getting a small fire going in the drizzle, something not easily done, so that when Lyndel came up with her can of homemade soup there was a place to warm it.

  “Thank you, Miss Barton,” she said, crouching beside her.

  “We can all make good use of this fire. Let’s make sure it doesn’t go out.”

  “Will there be enough blankets for those who have to remain outside tonight?”

  Clara shook her head. “No. I have only what I have. And the army has nothing.”

  “I could make coffee. Very good coffee for the men that will help them stay warm. If we have beans. And sugar.”

  “We have beans and sugar. But nothing to grind the beans with.”

  Lyndel smiled. “You have done a great deal with very little, Miss Barton. I think God can multiply my loaves and fishes too. There are other ways to grind beans. Once I feed my soldier his soup he’ll be ready for Washington. Then I’ll take a few minutes to make some coffee for the wounded.”

  Miss Barton stood up. “Wonderful. We will need it too in order to stay awake.”

  “I’ll keep it going so long as we remain here.”

  “We remain here until every soldier is bandaged and fed and on the train. It will be days.”

  Lyndel looked up at her while she continued to heat the can of soup. “If we have enough beans there will always be the coffee.”

  “I’m glad you’re here, Lyndel. Now I must get back to my boys.”

  Lyndel got to her feet. “I also. The soup is more than ready.”

  But Clara didn’t walk away. “Your black apron works better than the white ones.”

  “I think so too.”

  “You told me at Armory Square one night that you were Amish. I spoke with a senator from Pennsylvania about it. He said you were not a people given to battle. That you would not fight in a war such as this.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Yet here you are close to a battlefield, a place very few women would dare to go.”

  Lyndel laughed. “My father is also not sure I should be nursing wounded soldiers. You sound like him.” Then the laughter left her face. “This is the road to Jericho, Miss Barton. These men have been beaten and robbed and left to die. Jesus tells me to care for them as they are my neighbors. So I clean and bind up their wounds. Then I put them on the train that takes them to the inn where they will get rest and, I pray to God, a restoration of their health. This is what I do as an Amish woman. Of course it is the war that hurts these men. But it is God who would heal them.”

  “You have a lively mind, Lyndel. I’ll use that illustration the next time I’m called upon to speak at a church.” She paused to wipe rainwater out of her eyes. “Now we must both get back on the road to Jericho. I fear your soup is turning cold.”

  The women worked through the day and into the night. Every time she cleaned, bandaged, and fed a man, Lyndel prayed over him, sometimes in English, sometimes in German. Many times they grasped her hand tightly in thanks. After she had prayed she called stretcher bearers to carry the soldier to a waiting train. Once a train was full it left for Washington. Soon another would take its place.

  When night fell, they had a pair of lanterns to work with and a handful of candles in the damp and the drizzle. Blankets were wrapped around the men they felt needed it the most—they didn’t have nearly enough to go around. But they carefully covered the others with fresh hay from the bales stacked under the eaves of the station house. There were plenty of woolen socks and they placed these on the feet of every soldier.

  At one point, stumbling over her feet, Lyndel crawled onto one of the bales and slept from three until five. Then a familiar voice woke her and she instantly sat up and strained to listen.

  “Hey, you! Hey, yup!”

  A team of horses pulled up to the station, an ambulance rattling and bouncing behind it. Lyndel jumped down and ran through the darkness to where lanterns swung from the front and back of the ambulance wagon. The driver peered at her through the mist and she said softly, “Levi, it’s me.”

  He sprang down from the driver’s seat and caught her up in his arms, lifting her feet off the ground.

  “How I’ve missed you,” he said, almost too loudly.

  “Shh, shh, the wounded are sleeping.” She smiled. “I’ve missed you too. It’s so good to see your face.”

  “What on earth are you doing at Fairfax Station?”

  “I’m helping nurse the soldiers from the Manassas battle. The nurse in charge was given a pass to permit her to bring us this far forward.”

  “But it’s much too dangerous. Lee’s army is moving into Maryland. Some of his troops will come through here.”

  Clara Barton walked up to them holding a lantern. “So is this your beau?”

  Lyndel laughed quietly. “Oh, no—this is my brother. Levi, I would like to introduce to you the nurse in charge of our work here, Miss Clara Barton.”

  Levi removed his rain-soaked cavalry Stetson with its wide brim. “Miss Barton. The soldiers speak well of you.”

  “Do they? I’ve done little enough to deserve their praise.”

  Levi looked quickly at Lyndel. “I must cut this short. I have several badly wounded men who need your attention.”

  “Bring them on, then,” Miss Barton said.

  Levi disappeared briefly to the back of his wagon and returned carrying the first of the injured and set him in a vacant spot under a tree that Miss Barton indicated. The two nurses bent over him immediately.

  “Get water into him, if you can,” said Miss Barton to Lyndel, “and then some hot soup or coffee. After that wrap a cold compress to his temple. A train is due within an hour. I must assist your brother in laying out the other wounded. Where is Morganne?”

  Lyndel lifted her head in the morning dark and scanned the lines of wounded on the grassy slope. “I know she didn’t sleep. She told me she could rest when we were back in Washington. There she is. Under that cluster of trees. Making a sling for someone, it looks like to me.”

  Clara followed her gaze and nodded. “Very good. I knew I didn’t go wrong in asking my Pennsylvanians to join this little entourage.” She stood up and smoothed her apron as best she could—it was stiff with blood. “Come, Mr. Keim, let us remove your passengers to a softer bed than your wagon.”

  Lyndel looked back to the man—no, the boy, for he could barely be more than sixteen—she was attending. He rose slightly to spit out the lukewarm water Lyndel put to his lips but then readily took in the hot coffee she offered him in small mouthfuls. Then she went to a small stream, soaked a cloth in it until it was ice cold, folded it, and wrapped the compress tightly over the injury on the side of his head. She began to pray over him in High German at the same time as a locomotive blew its whistle and creaked to a stop at the station.

  The boy looked at Lyndel through still-dazed eyes and asked, “Where am I?”

  “Fairfax, but we’re about to put you on a train for Washington.”

  The boy’s green eyes now looked past her. “We were fighting in the dark. We never gave an inch to Johnny Reb. Never gave an inch.”
/>
  “Shh. Shh. I know.”

  “Something knocked me down. Everything went white.”

  “You will get better.”

  “Will I? Will I really…my folks at home…they need me.”

  “Yes, I’m sure they do. And we shall do our best to see that you return to them. What’s your name?”

  “Les. Les Goodfellow.”

  “The perfect name for you!” Lyndel said with a smile.

  “Where will they take me?”

  “I think you will be taken to Armory Square Hospital.”

  “May I ask your name, ma’am?”

  “My name is Lyndel Keim.”

  “Would you remember me? Would you pray for me?”

  “I’ve prayed for you already. I will continue to do so. I will pray God’s hand upon your young life.”

  The boy nodded and closed his eyes. “I think I need to rest.”

  “Miss Keim, you really must move on to the next man,” Miss Barton cautioned.

  “Of course,” Lyndel replied. She patted the boy on his calf and said, “Here come the boys to put you on the train.”

  Two soldiers approached and lifted the boy onto a stretcher and began to carry him toward the tracks.

  The boy opened his eyes and said, “God bless you, Miss Keim.”

  Lyndel stepped toward the stretcher and halted the soldiers while she bent over and gave the boy a soft kiss on the cheek.

  “When I return to Armory Square, I’ll ask for you, Les Goodfellow.”

  The men resumed their walk to the train and Lyndel returned to aid the next soldier with a prayer on her lips—for Les Goodfellow and for Nathaniel King.

  10

  “My dear Lyndel, I lost the last letter I was writing to you. I must have dropped it in that field of clover when they blew reveille. I have no idea what the grasshoppers or Rebels will make of it. Now it is about two weeks later, the 16th of September, a Tuesday. It is hard, very hard, to tell you we lost Corinth during our first fight back in August. I don’t even know what happened. We found him in the field by the farmhouse and I saw no sign that he was breathing. I swear I feel as low and dark as a deep cold well. The army retreated again and I had to leave his body behind. I could only pray over him. I asked God what was the point of his death. Our brigade held but the rest of the army broke so his sacrifice made no difference. The people have cheered us mightily here in Maryland, that is where we are marching now, but it does not matter to me. Corinth is gone and it seems to me that pretty soon the Union will be gone too. So much for our holy crusade to end slavery and preserve a nation of liberty for all.”