The Face of Heaven

by Murray Pura

  “Ah, this is good, this is very good,” sighed Joshua, leaning back against a tree trunk.

  “It is better than good,” responded Levi, settling himself with his sister’s help. “We should be singing hymns. Don’t you think so, Lyndy?”

  Lyndel smiled and sat down facing the three men. “Sure, ja, hymns. Hymns and prayers of thanks. If this were some Baptist Holy Ghost meeting we could even dance.”

  Nathaniel laughed. “The dancing Amish. How would that go over in Elizabethtown?”

  “In Elizabethtown, I don’t know,” Lyndel replied. “But in heaven very well, I think.”

  “You are so sure?” asked Levi.

  “Ja. So many people Jesus and the apostles healed in the Bible—did not some of them leap and dance for joy?”

  “Yes, sister, they did. I have read it.”

  “So I am so grateful. So happy. It has been a long time since I have been this happy.”

  Nathaniel reached over and played with a strand of her red hair. “Back at the Fitzhugh House before we marched for Pennsylvania, maybe?”

  “Maybe. But there was war waiting for us just through the forest. I could never forget that. Now our war is over. Even though we must pray for others while the fighting goes on.”

  Nathaniel nodded. “Yes. Our war is over.” He looked around them at the wounded lying on the grass and the men and women giving them long drinks of water. “It is time to go home. Past time. But can they spare you here at the seminary?”

  “Well. They will say they cannot. But they have plenty of help now. Plenty of volunteers, as you can see. Many, many soldiers. I will ask my father if we cannot hitch up the wagons. I know the women want to get back to their families.” She smiled. “And to tell you the truth, though they will not complain, I think they are quite tired of army food.”

  “That must be an Amish thing,” said Joshua, “because so am I.”

  “Is tomorrow or Wednesday too soon?” asked Nathaniel.

  “Not for me,” spoke up Levi. “I want to see how fast I can get chores done on the new leg they’ll make for me once the stump is healed.”

  “What about Ham?” asked Levi.

  “He is doing very well,” Lyndel told them. “I am sure he will be able to walk outside to say goodbye.”

  Levi was startled. “Goodbye? No. I want him to come with us.”

  “To Elizabethtown? To our people? My brother, he is not Amish.”

  “He is not Amish but he can be our guest. For as long as he likes. He fought with us, Lyndel. He saved our lives and we saved his. I know he is an orphan. He has no home to speak of.”

  “Well, if he wants to, of course, no one would mind. But all four of you must be strong enough to travel—” Lyndel began.

  Joshua waved his crutches in the air. “For me it is boots. Zook makes the best. The wooden feet they’ll give me will never get tired and with new boots I will soon need two dairy herds and four hayfields and at least five crops to keep me busy. I will be tireless.”

  Lyndel shook her head. “How can you three be so cheerful when you have all been so badly wounded? Where is the anger I expected? Where is the bitterness?”

  Levi put a hand on her shoulder. “Must we have that? Must you see that in us?”

  “No, of course not, it’s just…I don’t understand how you men can be so hopeful when you have been through so much…when you have lost so much…war is a terrible darkness…”

  Levi nodded. “But it is our bodies that are wounded, sister. Not our spirits.”

  The plans were made and the string of Amish wagons and buggies began to move away from the seminary and the battlefield early on Wednesday, July 15th. Ham was with them, his voice no more than a harsh whisper and his body thin, but he was eager to see his friends’ houses and land. The four men lay or sat on mounds of hay as their wagon creaked along ruts of mud and rainwater. Bishop Keim glanced back at them, as did Lyndel, who was seated beside her father.

  “I am going too fast? It is too rough?” he asked.

  “It is fine, Father.” Levi smiled. “The sooner we are back in Elizabethtown the better.”

  Hiram and Morganne walked beside the wagon. Nathaniel, who had been lying back, suddenly propped himself up on his elbow.

  “Who is that?” he asked Hiram.

  Hiram glanced over at a bearded man carrying a camera with a tripod on his shoulder. Several young men walked beside him, carrying all sorts of gear.

  “Oh, that’s Alex,” Hiram replied. “Alex Gardner. Would you like me to introduce you?”

  “What is he doing?”

  “He’s a photographer. Don’t you remember his pictures of Antietam?”

  Nathaniel frowned. “So he is here to take photographs of dead soldiers at Gettysburg?”

  “Yes. He’s been out on the battleground since just after the fighting ended.”

  “Who does he take pictures of dead people for? Who wants to see such things?”

  “Well…the public, Nathaniel. The same people who buy newspapers to read my stories about the battles.”

  “So the war has become an entertainment, Hiram? Complete with photographs of corpses?”

  “Not an entertainment, Nathaniel. But it’s news. It’s always been news. Now the pictures of the dead soldiers are news too.”

  Nathaniel sat up straight. “Stop the wagon.”

  Bishop Keim glanced back at him. “Vas?”

  “Stop the wagon. Bitte.” Please.

  Lyndel turned around in her seat as her father reined in the team. “What is it, Nathaniel? Is something wrong?”

  “Are there clothes in one of the wagons or buggies, Lyndel? Bishop Keim? Clothes that would fit the three of us?”

  Bishop Keim stared at him. “Sure. There are good plain shirts and trousers.”

  Nathaniel began to unbutton his uniform, a slower process with just one hand. “We have done our fight. Now we lay down our guns. And we will never take them up again. It is peace we return to. It is peace we pray for.” He looked at Joshua and Levi. “It is time to become who we are once again.”

  Levi had watched as Gardner had set up his camera to photograph the rows of dead at the back of the seminary. He also began to unbutton the frock coat worn by the men of the Iron Brigade.

  Joshua hesitated. “We needed to fight slavery,” he protested quietly.

  Nathaniel nodded. “Yes. We did. Now it is time to fight it in another way. And pray for the healing of the land. Have we not been part of enough death, Joshua? Let us be part of the other way now. Let us go home.”

  Joshua thought about it for a few more moments and slowly began to remove his coat, rolling it carefully into a bundle. Ham also began to tug off his.

  “No,” Nathaniel said to him. “It isn’t necessary. You are not one of us.”

  “Of course I am one of you.”

  Nathaniel burrowed down into the hay so that he could remove his pants without being seen. Bishop Keim brought them four sets of clothes from another wagon.

  “Thank you,” Nathaniel said, taking shirt and pants and undergarments.

  The bishop smiled. “It is I who thank you. It is good to have you back, Nathaniel. I brought clothing for your friend in case he also wishes to dress plainly for now.”

  “Yes. He has asked for a shirt and pants. Das ist gut so, Bischof Keim.”

  Lyndel averted her eyes for several minutes. “May I look now?” she finally asked.

  “Yes,” responded Levi in his black shirt and coat and pants. He spread his arms. “What do you think?”

  She smiled. “You are very plain again. It is very nice. And you also, Joshua. Perfect and simple.”

  “Does it work for me?” rasped Ham.

  “Very much so. You look like one of our ministers. You are a natural.”

  “And I?” Nathaniel was placing a black hat on his head. “How is it with me?”

  “All is well, mein Mann. Only one thing is not right.”

  “Ja? And what is that, l
iebe Frau?”

  She stroked her chin. “There should be a beard. Or was that only a soldier’s wedding, and are we not married among the Amish?”

  “We are married among the Amish all right. I will get to work on the beard right away.” He rubbed his jaw. “Only—I would have thought I would have more to show—for not having shaved since the end of June.”

  Morganne laughed. “A nurse did it. I saw her with the razor.”

  Lyndel looked away, covering her mouth with her hand. “I thought it would help you heal,” she mumbled through her fingers, trying not to laugh along with her friend.

  The wagon lurched and Nathaniel fell back into the hay. “It doesn’t matter. I’m glad you gave me the last shave I’ll ever have.”

  “So long,” said Hiram, staying behind as the wagons continued east. “Read about me in the papers.”

  “Goodbye, Lyndel King.” Morganne waved a hand. “I will write. And I will visit.”

  The wagons were not moving very quickly yet. Lyndel jumped down and ran back to her friend, throwing her arms around her.

  “Of course you’ll visit,” Lyndel said. “And of course you’ll be welcome. God bless you.”

  Morganne kissed her on the cheek. “When the war is over. Soon.”

  “Yes, soon. When the war is over.” Lyndel extended a hand to Hiram. “Will it be soon?”

  Hiram shrugged and took her hand. “If Meade had pursued Lee last week after the Army of Northern Virginia retreated. If he had attacked him when Lee could not cross the swollen rivers and streams and his men were trapped. But now it will go on.”

  Lyndel bit her lower lip. “Pictures for Mr. Alexander Garland.”

  Hiram looked down at the muddy road. “Yes. Too many pictures.”

  31

  The war continued long after the wagons returned to the Amish community at Elizabethtown, long after the three soldiers learned how to chop wood, harness teams, nail boards, and thresh grain despite Nathaniel’s loss of his arm, or Levi’s loss of his leg, or Joshua’s wooden feet tucked securely into two of Eli Zook’s black leather boots. Battles raged from east to west, Grant was brought to Virginia to command the Union armies and pursued Lee south to Richmond, Sherman would capture Atlanta and march his way to Savannah and the sea, burning and destroying as he went.

  But peace reigned among the Amish. Levi married and had a son, Ham learned how to work with dairy cattle, crops were harvested, hymns sung, and prayers offered to heaven for an end to the years of conflict.

  Lyndel had twins in late March 1864. She gave birth in the house the Amish helped Nathaniel build after his return from Gettysburg. Lyndel’s own mother, and Nathaniel’s mother as well, were her midwives. Breads and soups and roasts came to the home in a steady stream for weeks afterward. The boy they named Corinth, the girl Lincoln. The year of 1864 was, Nathaniel declared in September, the happiest in his life.

  “I have a whole family,” he grinned, holding Lincoln while Lyndel fed Corinth. “A stunning wife. Two beautiful children. Why, I think we’ll even get a couple of dogs and a cat.”

  “Slow down,” laughed Lyndel. “Let the pair of them start walking first. Then we’ll talk about pets.”

  “Oh, they’ll be walking any day now. Kings don’t wait for twelve months to slip by before they get in on that.”

  “Or Keims. Levi swears his boy will be on his feet by January.”

  “He was born before ours.”

  Yet other moods fastened themselves onto Nathaniel during the year. He fretted about the ongoing slaughter and the casualty lists that filled the newspapers. Refusing to view any photographs, he nevertheless read Hiram’s accounts of the clashes, especially the ones the Iron Brigade and the 19th Indiana were involved in—the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg. No, he did not want to take up arms again. He had sworn he would not. His weapons now were prayer and worship and faith. But he wished he could drive an ambulance or help carry wounded men off the field and out of harm’s way.

  “If you are thinking seriously of this,” Lyndel said to him one afternoon in early October when both children were napping, “bear in mind they are not likely to take a man with one arm.”

  “I can drive a team better than most men with two hands!” Nathaniel said, his temper flaring.

  “I know you can. But still they will not take you on.”

  He got out of his chair and paced the kitchen. For a moment he glanced out at the trees changing color near their barn. Then he said, “I could train as a surgeon. I only need one arm to administer medicines or ply a saw.”

  “I think you would be a wonderful surgeon. I am sure you could convince the teachers of your ability to do the tasks of a physician competently. But it will take you several years to complete medical training, Nathaniel. And then you would have another clash on your hands with my father and the ministers. The Amish do not become doctors.”

  Nathaniel leaned against the wall on his fist. “So I do nothing to save lives or hasten the war’s end?”

  “You and your men saved the country at Gettysburg. Sherman has captured Atlanta and Grant has Lee trapped in Richmond and Petersburg. Everyone knows the conflict is coming to an end. Even Hiram writes that we are talking about months now and not years.”

  “Still.”

  Lyndel sat up in her chair. “Yes. Still. Lives are being lost that could be saved. And you can do nothing. But we are one flesh. I feel the same things you do. Only I am in a position to do something about them.”

  Nathaniel turned away from the wall and stared at her. “What do you mean?”

  “The Lord knows I love being a wife to you and I adore being a mother to my children. But they need nurses at Petersburg. I have been reading about the battles at Peebles Farm and New Market Heights and Darbytown. I can make a difference to Grant’s men.”

  “But you haven’t nursed in over a year.”

  “The skills will come back quickly. You don’t forget them any more than you forget how to bale hay or ride a horse.”

  “What about your father? Do you think he will still feel the way he did after Gettysburg?”

  “I have spoken to him about it. Remember how he helped the surgeons at the seminary? He has changed forever, he says. He sees binding up the wounds as an act of Christ now.”

  “The children—”

  “Lincoln and Corinth will miss me. I will pine after them. But their grandmothers will smother them in love. And they have a great father.”

  Nathaniel thrust his hand in his pocket and gave a low whistle. “So you have been thinking about this for some time. And your mind is made up.”

  She got out of her chair and came to him, resting both hands on his arm. “I think your mind is made up too. You want me to go, don’t you?”

  “No. Not at all. I don’t want you to leave us.”

  “But you are grateful that one of us is going to do something to ease the suffering.”

  “You could be killed.”

  She shook her head. “I will be behind the lines. The wounded will come to us in minutes at Petersburg, not hours. I will be all right, love.”

  He narrowed his bright green eyes. “I could insist that you stay. The Keim and King families have seen enough war. I cannot bear to have you hurt.”

  She squeezed his arm. “But you won’t insist. Because you know it is right we try to save the fallen. You know it is something holy, something sacred. Through me, we can do what so few others can—stop the flow of blood.”

  Nathaniel breathed out noisily. “Ah, it is difficult to argue with you. I have mixed feelings about this.”

  “You know it is right.”

  “Do I?” He brushed her cheek with his hand. “Have you thought about how you will get to the front?”

  “The 19th Indiana is still with the Iron Brigade, isn’t it? The Iron Brigade is at Petersburg. And I am a nurse of the 19th Indiana.” She patted a pocket on her dress. “I still have a pass from the president of the Uni
ted States.”

  Nathaniel cracked a smile. “You do beat all, Lyndel King. It’s so easy to love you. Why, it’s the easiest thing in the world.” His strong arm pulled her into his chest. “I think I want to kiss this woman.”

  She tilted her head. “I think this woman wants you to go ahead.”

  Lyndel took the train in January, right after the Christmas and New Year’s celebrations, with the blessings of her father and mother and the Amish community. The tears ran freely when she hugged Lincoln and Corinth but she turned quickly and stepped into the carriage driven by her brother Levi, who took her to the depot.

  She had no trouble reaching the Union lines and was escorted with a military guard to a large field hospital. The 19th Indiana had amalgamated with the 20th Indiana in the fall and no one she asked knew where it was located on the line. Nor was the Iron Brigade anywhere in sight—but surgeons put her to work immediately regardless of the brigade’s whereabouts. Along with the other nurses and volunteers she made sure the wounded were warm and fed and had their dressings changed regularly.

  For the first few weeks the front was quiet but she was busy enough despite the lull in fighting. On February 5th and 6th Union cavalry and infantry clashed with Confederate forces at Hatcher’s Run and the Union troops had extended their siege works and stranglehold on Petersburg by the time that fight was over. The casualties came pouring in with the ambulances and it reminded Lyndel immediately of Gettysburg and Antietam, though on a much smaller scale. She cabled Nathaniel and her father about dealing with the battle’s wounded. They cabled back prayers and Bible verses and their love.

  She wrote her friend, and Morganne came down to join her in March. She brought news from Hiram that with Sherman’s march through Georgia before Christmas, much of the South was about ready to give up the fight. More Union troops were converging on Petersburg and Richmond and Grant would soon have enough to overwhelm Lee’s dwindling army.

  Morganne’s return to nursing was as quiet as Lyndel’s had been in January. They only dealt with a few soldiers who had been shot by snipers or who had come down with dysentery and other ailments. It gave them time to relax and talk. Hiram had asked Morganne to marry him as soon as the war was over and he was already planning on a spring wedding.