“I want his bandages replaced daily,” she told the nurse.
“Consider it done, Doctor.”
“And clean your hands before you change the bandage.” She glanced at the other men with gut-wounds. “If their condition changes I wish to be notified immediately.”
She noted a major talking to a few of the wounded. Abbey asked a nurse if he was a doctor.
“No. He does something at headquarters but visits the wounded troops regularly. Name of Sokolov, I believe.”
* * *
Just before Abbey began camp medicine, Dr. Fellows approached. Sgt. Scharf whispered to Abbey. “Take a gander at the wisp of a fellow with our chief surgeon. A good puff of wind would carry him away.”
“I learned of your adventures with abdominal wounds. Don’t do it again,” the old doctor grumbled at Abbey.
A skinny young man with a shy expression stood at his side. He glanced briefly at Abbey then stared at the tops of his shoes.
The lady doctor explained, “But two of them recovered despite having pierced intestines…which I repaired.”
He sneered. “Even a broken clock is correct twice a day you fool. You’ll not experiment on soldiers again.”
Abbey was incredulous. “Experiment? I used procedures as specified in a directive and saved two lives.”
“Gut-shots are fatal. Everyone knows except, apparently, some bureaucrats in Washington. You’ll treat those wounds as such; not waste time on them. Do I make myself clear?”
She replied sweetly with no intention of complying, “Yes, Doctor.”
“This is Dr. Albert Nelson. He’ll be training with us.”
“Pleased to meet you, Dr. Kaplan.” He held out a thin hand, glanced at her face then returned his gaze to his shoe tops.
“Dr. Nelson, in honor of your arrival, please join me in my tent for a drink.”
“I don’t.”
“What?”
“Drink alcohol.”
Dr. Fellows glared at the new arrival.
“Then go with her and she’ll begin your training. I’ll be at the recovery hospital.”
As he left the area, Abbey heard him mumble, “Is this command’s idea of a man?”
Five-hours of camp medicine followed with Dr. Nelson observing and occasionally assisting.
“Time for lunch,” Abbey said after she directed a nurse to bandage a wound she’d just closed.
“Tell me about yourself,” She said to the newcomer as they filled their muckets.
“From Vermont. Lived in a small town near Lake Champlain.”
“Beautiful country I hear.”
“Incredibly peaceful once you’re away from the city.”
“Which city?”
“Burlington.”
They ate quietly for a bit then he volunteered, “My father is a doctor so everyone expected me to go into medicine.”
“If you were to choose a career…”
“Short story writer.” He gazed skyward with an expression which made Abbey think he was enjoying a pleasant memory. “I’d extol the virtues of sailing and fly-fishing.”
“The only sailing I’ve done was on the ship which took us to the Northwest. I hated it.”
“Not large boat sailing. I’m talking small boat. Only the sound of the water gently kissing the hull and the creaking of the rigging to listen to. My boat is nineteen-feet-long. I worked in a boatyard after school for three years until I had enough money to buy it.”
“Seems a long way from medicine.”
“My father decided my career.” He sighed. “Also insisted I join the military as our family’s contribution to the cause.”
Abbey stared at his thin body.
“I know. Skinny and, although I’m twenty-one, I don’t shave yet.”
“I’m sorry…”
“Don’t be. I was sickly as a child.”
Abbey sighed then asked, “Are you my replacement?”
“I was asked not to discuss my future with you.”
She nodded over her shoulder. “Ambulances approaching. Let’s prep for surgery.”
In the surgical tent and closing a large laceration on a man’s thigh, Abbey’s ears perked up as high-pitched-whistling sound screamed at them.
Someone screamed, “Incoming!”
“Hit the dirt,” Sgt. Scharf yelled.
Abbey glanced at him, her surgical instruments still in hand. He bounded over the surgical table, roughly shoved her to the ground then covered as much of her body with his as possible.
She tried to push him away as they heard more high-pitched sounds followed by explosions. Each explosion’s pressure-wave hitting them milliseconds before the sound reached them. Two nearby explosions, each making the earth to tremble, assaulted their ears and caused constant ringing.
The Sgt.’s barely audible words, “Stay Still,” were punctuated by an explosion which cut holes in the tent making its sides and roof appear like Swiss cheese. A soldier screamed as his intestines spilled from his body. He grabbed at them screaming in a tremulous voice for his mother…while trying to return them to his abdomen.
Abbey prayed, “Please Lord, don’t let me end up torn to pieces.”
On the Battlefield
Abbey’s ears were ringing so loud, she heard little else as Sgt. Scharf helped her stand. She saw rather than heard him say the words, “We have to get out of here.”
“The patients,” she yelled.
“Later,” he screamed. “We’re being overrun.”
She didn’t move. They cringed as more explosions occurred nearby.
He screamed in her ear, “You can’t help them if you’re dead.”
A large explosion knocked them off their feet a second time. She quickly stood, this time helping Sgt. Scharf stand. The sergeant grabbed Dr. Nelson’s arm and pulled until he began moving with them. The threesome ran opposite the enemy’s direction and into the surrounding woods.
A few more shells exploded in front then behind them.
“We need to keep going,” Sgt. Scharf screamed.
“I haven’t run this hard since I was a child,” Abbey thought as her feet slapped a terrified rhythm into the dry soil.
They’d run seventy-yards when Abbey’s ears recovered sufficiently to hear the angry-bee sound of the enemy’s lead balls as they whizzed past. Her leg muscles were tiring and she was winded.
Dr. Nelson, running ahead of Abbey and panting deeply, slowed and turned to glance behind. A roughly half-inch red hole appeared at the front of his skull, just above his nose. The rear of his head and a red mist of blood and brain-matter exploded out the back. Abbey cursed then dug deep inside to find the strength to ignore her muscle pain and increase her torrid pace.
They reached the middle of a field bisected by a fence line. Four squads of Union soldiers wearing Michigan insignia were arrayed along the mostly open rail fence which utilized two horizontal beams roughly three-feet apart and X-shaped supports every ten-feet. Sgt. Scharf leaped over the barrier and Abbey ducked through the middle. They each took adjacent positions in the battle line. One squad was to their left and three to their right as they faced the enemy. Two of the soldiers were cut down. Sgt. Scharf kneeled next to one while Abbey checked the second. They looked at each other and shook their heads. The Sergeant picked up the dead soldier’s lever-action Spencer rifle, fired seven rounds then began reloading.
Abbey flattened herself to the ground at his side while bullets whizzed overhead. A cannon shell exploded twenty-five-yards behind them. With shaking hands, lungs on fire and heart pounding with the intensity of a galloping horse, the doctor picked up the other soldier’s lever-action rifle. Lying flat on her back, the doctor took a handful of cartridges, pulled the spring from the rifle’s butt and inserted more rounds. She swore as her sweaty fingers allowed one of the cartridges to drop into the dirt. When the rifle Sgt. Scharf was using emptied, they traded and she began reloading again. The enemy small-arms-fire intensified. They heard the whistling soun
d of another shell. Abbey rolled onto her belly, covering her head with her hands.
Sgt. Scharf’s sweat covered face evidenced anger. “Keep Low,” he yelled.
The doctor thought, “I can’t get any damn lower ‘cuz my buttons are in the way.”
Bullets whizzed past them like angry bees. A large whump sounded behind them. Abbey dropped her rifle, rolled over into a fetal position and covered her head.
They were showered by dirt and the remnants of a hedgerow. Abbey grabbed for the rifle, which was now covered in soil. She momentarily considering wiping the dirt off it and her hands but with the enemy’s rifle fire getting closer, her mind screamed, it was time to shoot…not clean.
Sgt. Scharf and now Abbey as well, began firing at the line of advancing enemy soldiers. They were within fifty-yards of the twosome’s position when a tremendous fusillade of enemy rifle fire rang out. Numerous Michigan soldiers screamed and collapsed. The doctor dropped three enemy soldiers and the man carrying the unit flag. Another man picked it up and they continued advancing.
“This could be the end,” she thought, briefly glancing around at what might become her final resting place. “What an ugly place to die.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Abbey spotted movement thirty-yards to their left. Seeing a kneeling soldier wearing a gray uniform aiming a musket at them, she swung her rifle in his direction. The enemy soldier fired and a bullet struck a nearby infantryman who moaned and pitched forward. Abbey wrenched the lever of her Spencer to chamber another round then aimed center mass and fired; her bullet knocking the bark off a tree just above and behind the enemy combatant’s left shoulder. He stood to reload. She racked the lever action again, aimed slightly left and down from center mass then fired again. This time she struck him mid-chest and he toppled backwards. Sgt. Scharf glanced in the direction she’d fired. “More gray coats over there,” he shouted then partially stood and surveyed the terrain behind them.
“We’re being flanked.” He screamed to the soldiers on his left, “Corporal, take your squad, drop back, and cut off the flanking movement.” Sgt. Scharf turned to his right and yelled, “Lieutenant, I suggest you move one squad to my left to cover that part of the line, then we’ll gradually fall back. There’s a dry streambed behind us which we can use for cover.”
“You heard the Sergeant. Move your asses!” the lieutenant screamed at the top of his lungs while trying to sound confident…but his shaky voice betrayed his fear.
“Abbey, we need to get out of here.”
Abbey didn’t move but stared at the last soldier she’d shot. Sgt. Scharf grabbed her shoulder and shook her. “We have to move.” He took the rectangular leather pouch that was the dead soldier’s cartridge box and placed its strap over his shoulder. Abbey did the same. Rifles in hand, they belly- crawled, keeping their heads as low as possible while small- arms-rounds, now sounding like an angry hornet’s nest, buzzed just over them. Rounds hit the dirt space which separated them. A high-pitched sound approached them.
“Incoming,” Sgt. Scharf yelled putting his body over Abbey and one arm over his head. The ground shook and again, they were showered with dirt and debris.
“Damn,” Abbey cursed, realizing the right side of her face landed in warm manure. She wiped her face on her shoulder while they continued crawling. The doctor was forced to pull herself along primarily using her hands, forearms and elbows as her long skirt limited effective assistance from her legs.
“Keep moving!” the sergeant shouted.
A shell exploded in a nearby stand of cottonwoods. The shell’s fuse caused it to explode before it hit the ground. Splintered wood, branches and bark struck them; killing three of the infantry soldiers, wounding numerous more plus cutting and bruising Abbey and Lt. Scharf.
They continued crawling, dragging themselves over sharp gravel and branches which cut and tore at their bodies. The duo and the remaining soldiers withdrew another twenty- yards then took cover in the dry streambed. Crouching, Sgt. Scharf moved up and back among the soldiers to direct their fire. He and Abbey continued shooting. When she ran out of ammo, she belly-crawled to dead soldiers or those too injured to fire their weapons, utilizing the rounds in their cartridge boxes. The line of enemy soldiers was now only twenty-yards away. A handful had advanced close enough to their line, some of the combatants were engaged in hand-to-hand fighting.
They were running out of ammo and the doctor thought they’d have to retreat again when multiple squads of Union soldiers and horse cavalry came up behind them and engaged the enemy force; pushing them back until, sixty-minutes and many deaths later, the bulge in the northern line would no longer exist.
Abbey rolled onto her back. Only now did the doctor take stock of how frightened she was. She experienced difficulty catching her breath; her entire body was covered in sweat and trembled. Her hands to wiped more of the cow manure off her face and neck then wiped them on her skirt. Small cuts on her arms bled. The distant shooting and cannon fire gradually died down. The doctor rolled onto her right elbow and sat up. Sgt. Scharf held out a hand to assist her in standing.
She closed her eyes and still sitting, held up a hand, palm out. “Please let me rest,” she said, in between deep breaths.
“Take your time.”
Abbey examined her trembling hands then examined nicks and scrapes from the tree detritus plus the damage to her forearms and elbows from pulling herself along the ground.
“You okay?” the sergeant said.
“Other than frightened out of my mind, I think so. Minor cuts. That’s all. I stink like horseshit. Tough to crawl across the ground in a dress.”
“You need britches…and, just like the other officers, should likely keep a pistol on your hip just in case.”
“I agree about the pistol…but wearing britches…someone might mistake me for a man.”
Without looking at her, Sgt. Scharf said. “Not from the front or side.”
Abbey glared at him momentarily then burst out in tension-relieving laughter.
He smiled.
She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. “That was some shit.”
“It was.” He reached out with both hands and helped her stand.
“We should see what we can do for the wounded.” Abbey removed her underskirt; tearing it into strips. She and the sergeant began applying bandages.
“These three will need surgery.”
“Let’s get back and I’ll send men to recover them.”
Abbey examined her hands. “First time these hands have shot someone.”
“Either that or the sniper would have killed us. How many do you think you shot?”
“Not sure. Too busy shooting. Maybe four, five; maybe more.” Abbey sighed. “I came here to learn medicine and surgery; learn to save people.”
“And that’s what you do.”
She slowly shook her head. “Not all the time, apparently,” she mumbled. Her mind replayed the memory of the Confederate soldier as he crumpled to the ground. She shuddered.
The Michigan company’s lieutenant approached them. He and Sgt. Scharf exchanged salutes. “Thanks for the direction, Sergeant. That was my first time in combat. Not at all certain what to do. It hurts to admit but I didn’t notice we were being flanked.”
“Your Wolverines acquitted themselves well.”
“Thank you. During training we were told we could rely on experienced Sergeants like yourself.” He saluted.
The sergeant smartly returned the salute. The lieutenant walked away.
Abbey compared her rifle to the sergeant’s. “The barrel on my rifle is shorter.”
“It’s called a carbine.”
“Less accurate?”
“Not at these distances. A carbine is easier to maneuver in close-quarters battle.”
“This wasn’t your first time in combat?” Abbey asked her helper.
“Possibly sixth or seventh. I’ve lost count.” He sighed. “In case we run into more…stuff, I’ll get perm
ission to hang on to the rifles and cartridge boxes. Besides bullets, I’m going to carry an extra box filled with bandages and lint.”
Returning to the field hospital, they found felled and wounded soldiers of both armies scattered about. The field hospital’s tents were in shreds from the cannon and rifle fire. The pole which held the red flag was lying on the ground having been splintered near its base.
Abbey searched for her surgical instruments. She found the remnants of their case. Most of her surgical tools were bent and twisted. Abbey secured a bowl of water and washed off as best she could.
Sgt. Scharf walked up with armloads of bandages and lint then handed them to team members who busied themselves with the wounded. He glanced around and said, “I need to get more.” He turned away and Abbey yelled at him to stop.
“You have blood all over the back of your shirt and right buttock.”
“I think I was nicked when the first shell hit then by the damn airburst in the trees.”
“Take off your shirt. Pvt. Silver, over here. Clean his back, please.” She found a serviceable pair of forceps and poured alcohol over them. Abbey began removing wood and steel shrapnel from the area over his shoulder blades. He winced and gritted his teeth each time she probed. The private held a tin cup which clanked as Abbey dropped pieces of metal shrapnel in it. The doctor closed two of the wounds with sutures. “Lower your britches.”
He did and two jagged pieces from his left butt cheek clanked into the tin cup. “Stay still until the private finishes bandaging your wounds then we need to find Lt. Smith and get setup for surgery.”
“Yes Doctor,” Sgt. Scharf said, while he pulled up his britches.
“And thank you,” Abbey said.
“For what?”
“My face was against your shoulder when the explosion in the tent occurred. The pieces of shrapnel which struck your shoulder blade would have been in my face.”
“Your accurate shooting…taking out the sniper…you probably saved one or both of us.”
The doctor relived a pleasant memory. “I learned about guns from my brothers and an old trapper.” She shrugged. “It was little more than a game then.”
The Surgeon: A Civil War Story Page 6
