Blood Moon (29 page)

Chapter Fifty-Three

Isaac and Belle ate lunch on the hospital grounds, beneath the leafy branches of an oak tree and hidden from the disapproving stares of Southerners. Isaac had tracked Belle down to her town house a couple of weeks previously, ignoring his gut feeling that she would turn him away just as Dolly had. He’d been pleasantly surprised by her welcome and even more delighted that their friendship had flourished. He had been wrong even to think that Belle would shun him, he’d thought after their first meeting.

Belle was not a typical Southern lady, feigning vulnerabilities and weakness of spirit. She had grown up spoilt and adored by a mammy and an overindulgent father, but she was made of sturdy stock, much like Southern women who did not have privileged upbringings. She was a woman of the world, often shirking convention and opinion for a life of her choosing.

The conversation today had turned away from talk of war to subjects of a more personal nature. Belle was deeply concerned about Hendry, but she was also optimistic in her belief that he and the
Carrabelle
had broken through the Union blockade. No ship with the
Carrabelle’s
description had been reported sunk, and the sinking of a Confederate Merchant ship was an event the Yankees just loved to brag about.

“Where do you think the
Carrabelle
might be?” she asked Isaac.

“I’m hoping she’s in Liverpool, and I pray she stays there. I know you miss him, Belle, and I can only imagine how hard this must be for you, but I think it best that he stays put in England. You tell him I said so in your next letter to him. I’m sure you’ll get one across to England somehow – I wish I could post it for you.”

“Why, thank you, Isaac, but I couldn’t possibly allow you to do that for me. I’ll keep trying; that’s all I can do.”

Isaac smiled, but he thought that there was a slim chance of Belle being successful in contacting Hendry. “What about Jacob? Have you heard from him?” he asked, changing the subject.

“I have, actually. He wrote me only last week to tell me that Elizabeth’s sentence is being appealed. I think he believes that his only chance for a divorce is if she is free. I think  Jacob would give her every penny he has for her signature on that last legal document. Of course, he pities her, as I do. It’s a dreadful situation, and not one I would wish on my worst enemy. I hear that Mrs Coulter is ill with worry. She’s convinced her daughter will die in that rat-infested prison.”

“I won’t lie –I can’t abide Elizabeth, but she did us all a favour when she killed Madame du Pont. Seems unfair that she should be punished for killing that damn whore of a woman.”

“I agree, but if we all killed folks we detested and got away with it, we’d be turning the South into a horde of savages.”

“We’re doin’ plenty of killin’ now. Maybe we’ve all become savages,” Isaac said sadly.

“Let’s not talk about the war. It’s such a glorious day. Isaac, Jacob also wrote that there is a chance he will be coming home to Stone Plantation. I shouldn’t be telling you this, with you being the enemy and all, but I thought you should know.”

Isaac cut into a loaf of bread. As always, his expression was sad and deeply pensive. “Hush now. You know me better than that. I won’t risk losing your friendship; it’s too   important, and so are our private conversations.”

Belle sighed, “I do wish you could be here when Jacob returns. You were such good friends until …”

“Mercy – until Mercy came into our lives.”

“Yes.”

“What news of her?” Isaac asked.

“Do you really want to know?”

“I do.”

“Well, she’s still in Richmond. She was with Jacob some weeks ago at his encampment. I declare, Isaac, she will give me a heart attack one of these days. She’s hopeless. Why, there’s more chance of corralling a herd of wild stallions than getting Mercy to stay put.”

“Is she returning to Norfolk?” Isaac asked.

“Yes, she’s coming home with Jacob. They have decided to live together. I’m sorry, Isaac. I know this is not what you want to hear.”

Isaac shrugged off the heavy weight of unrequited love. “I reckon I shouldn’t be surprised. I suppose it was only a matter of time, but damn it, it’s not right. She deserves marriage and children – not this.”

“We are all prisoners of love.”

“I know that – God knows I do. She loves him so much that she lied to me. She gave me hope where there should have been none, yet even now I adore her.”

“I’m so sorry, truly I am.”

“Me too. I go to sleep every night emptying my heart of her, but in the morning, she’s back, filling it again. I’m a doctor, but there’s no medicine to cure what ails me and no end to this hell in sight.”

“Isaac dear, time will heal your heart – you might not believe it, but it will.”

“I hope you’re right, Belle, but it seems unlikely …”

Norfolk harbour and the Elizabeth River bustled with Union soldiers. Martial law had come into effect, much to the chagrin of the Southern population. There was no way in or out of Portsmouth and Norfolk nowadays without going through checkpoints, put in place in an attempt to strangle the flow of weapons and any commodities that might aid the Confederacy.

The mundane daily searches of wagons and carriages had caused numerous underground movements to spring up in Norfolk and Portsmouth. Contraband was hidden in the basements of private homes by loyal Confederates intent on supplying medicines, victuals, and weapons to rebel army units and militias hiding in the area. Items were smuggled out of the city through a variety of well-thought-out routes by people willing to take risks. Many were caught, but nothing seemed to deter the rebels from seeking new and even more inventive ways to get supplies to their army.

Isaac waited at the dockside until Belle was safely aboard the ferry. He waved to her just as it pulled away, floating slowly in the calm glassy water. He smiled with the aftermath of pleasure and walked his horse to the road beyond the harbour checkpoint. It was mid-afternoon, and the sun slanted through the trees, brightening the leaves and making them shimmer with light.

The street was quiet bar soldiers walking to and from the harbour and a few Union supply wagons being pulled by jaded horses. The atmosphere in Norfolk had become dreary. Isaac recalled these streets, once full of life, with great fondness. He’d visited just about every restaurant, saloon, and music hall filled to the brim with sailors, tradesmen, and businessmen, and he had often woken up the next morning to a thumping headache caused by too many libations. Those were good days.

He continued to maintain a slow pace, with no real desire to return to the hospital. A small smile lifted the corners of his mouth as he thought about his afternoon with Belle. He enjoyed his meetings with her. Their conversations reignited memories of a happier period in his life and caused him, for just a little while, to forget the war, hatred, and bigotry that went with it. These pleasurable outings were the best part of his week, and he was resolved not to give them up. The news of Jacob’s impending return to Stone Plantation with Mercy had affected Isaac more than he’d let on to Belle. Jacob might have something to say about this friendship, Isaac thought, but Jacob could go to hell.

              The noise of gunfire snapped in the air, sending Isaac’s horse into a panic. As it reared and whinnied, he felt a sharp burning sensation shooting through his leg, as though all the blood in his veins had rushed to that one spot just above his knee. He screamed in agony, clinging to the horse’s mane as it sped off down the street. His head spun with the shock of being shot and the searing pain that worsened with every movement his body was forced to make to stop from falling off the horse’s back. His ears were ringing, but despite the chaos in his mind and flashes of light affecting his vision, he still managed to hear his own voice scream the word
no …

His feet came loose from the stirrups, making his body bounce awkwardly in the saddle. He tried to draw the reins, sawing at the horse’s mouth, but his strength and senses were dulled, so much so that even the pain in his leg had receded into a cold numbness. He lifted his heavy stupefied head to see misty outlines of trees and houses just before he slid off the lathered horse and hit the ground with a sickening thump. He stared up at the sky and then closed his eyes. He was going to die, he determined, and no one but Belle and Nelson would give a damn.

Chapter Fifty-Four

Isaac lay on the hard wooden floor of an army cart, squirming with pain and trying to speak through chattering lips. Three Union soldiers sat in the back of the cart with him. One was binding Isaac’s wound, whilst the other two trained their eyes and rifles on the street. The cart swayed from side to side, travelling faster than it should on this narrow street leading to the hospital, but speed was of the essence.

Snipers had been active in two areas near the harbour, taking shots at any blue coat that happened to pass the rebel positions. These Confederates marksmen were like ghosts, hiding in the shadows throughout the city at any time of day or night. The Union had been unsuccessful in rooting them out, and their new policy of sweeping civilian houses at random had not achieved anything, bar an ever-growing hatred that spewed from the eyes of the civilian population. Isaac had been unlucky to catch a bullet, but fortunately the sniper had not been a particularly good shot, one of the soldiers commented.

              The cart drew up outside the hospital. Isaac moaned loudly as he was carried by two men with fumbling arms, racing through the entrance and down the hallway to the operating rooms.

Inside an empty surgical room, Isaac tried to stop the panic and fear that had risen up quite suddenly at the sight of the wooden table that would probably see him lose his leg. He prayed that the rebel doctors, who shunned him every day, would look kindly on him now and do everything they could to leave him with two limbs. He was sure
he
could repair the damage without cutting through flesh and bone. If the leg was attached to another man, he would show the doctors all that he had learned at Williamsburg, where speed and nimbleness of hand were requisites for any measure of success, and where limbs could be saved with good surgical skills.

              The surgeon arrived. He took a split-second look at Isaac’s leg and then gave him a shot of opium. Isaac had craved the drug all the way here. He would have killed for it or paid any price to get it into his veins on that short agonising journey.

              He looked up with glazed eyes, feeling a luxurious floating sensation fill his body and mind. He had to say something quick, he thought, watching the surgeon gather his tools around him. Isaac could hear the man barking orders to a couple of nurses, yet not one of them was paying attention to their patient on the table. He panicked again, but thanks to the opium, he quickly quelled the fright. There was no time for fear right now. He was falling asleep, and he was more concerned with urging the surgeon to save his leg than giving in to the fear of losing it.

“Listen to me. You need to clean out the wound – make sure you get all the fragments out of there. Use use quinine and iodine and bind it well …”

“I’m sorry, son, but it has to come off. There ain’t no saving it – bones are shattered, and there’s a chance marrow will poison your leg as quick as a bird can shit on you. I ain’t got nothing that’ll put this knee back together.”

Isaac had said these very same words to soldiers. They had begged him to leave the limb be, until their begging was all his ears could hear. “I beg you – I’m begging you – don’t take it. Just don’t,” he mumbled. Isaac saw the mask descend. It covered his nose and mouth, and he immediately smelled the chloroform that would drip onto it.
God no!
he screamed silently.

Nelson sat by Isaac’s bedside, tears brightening his eyes and anger staining his good heart. Isaac’s face was ashen and his head dotted with perspiration. He slept soundly with the remnants of chloroform in his body and enough opium to ease his pain for a good long while. Mr Isaac was a kind and gentle soul, Nelson mused. He never did harm to nobody. Mr Isaac’s war was over. He would go home to Boston when he was better, and ole Nelson would be by his side.

He stared at the white sheet and the shape of the body underneath it. A full left leg, long of bone, was stretched down the length of the mattress. The other, stumped mid thigh, was thick with bandages and propped up slightly atop a pillow. Nelson had seen this sight before, but never had he felt this raging anguish that was ripping his heart to shreds. “Don’t you worry none, Mr Isaac, sir. Ole Nelson here will nurse you like a newborn babe and help you walk again,” he whispered. “There ain’t no shame in havin’ one leg – ain’t no shame at all. You be as good as new soon. That’s a promise I aim to keep.”

He hated the Southern slavers, those damned self-lovin’ men and women that stole a body of its decency and rights. He despised them even more now, after doin’ what they’d just done to Mr Isaac. He even hated Miss Mercy today, for leaving the major to find that Massa Jacob, who was not half the man as the one in this bed right here …

Isaac opened his eyes and was struck instantly by the question of his leg. He sensed a presence and turned his head to see Nelson’s black face, paled and taut with grief. He hadn’t the strength to lift his head to look at the lower part of his body, but his wounded leg was still burning like a poker, and that was a good sign. Maybe he still had it. “Nelson, my leg … Is it there?”

“Hush now, Mr Isaac, you needs to rest awhile.”

“Answer me – my leg?” Isaac insisted. “I need to know – I can’t see the damn thing.”

“They took it off you, Mr Isaac. They took that leg right off you. I was there, right outside. The doctor saved your life. You was struck real hard, like some men we saw in Williamsburg, with them bullets they call, minieballs, crashin’ in and breakin’ everything like a crushed hen’s body. Now, I knows you’s a great doctor, Mr Isaac. You knows it too, but not even you could have done saved that broken ole leg.”

Isaac turned away and closed his eyes, unable to face Nelson’s pitiful eyes brimming with tears. He had his answer. The bastard Reb doctor had taken his leg. He was alive but less of a man. He was a one-legged cripple and would be for the rest of his days. As a doctor, he knew exactly what would happen to him now. It would be life or death, depending on whether marrow had seeped into his bloodstream or not. There was risk of infection and catching some other disease that roamed the hospital. There was the agony of learning to walk again with the aid of a wooden limb. He’d witnessed the pain that hardy fellows went through when trying to come to terms with the cumbersome new prosthetics, made with wood and steel. Jesus, he would rather use crutches than put one of those on. His mind drifted to Mercy. Thank God she had run from him. She had saved herself from a hell of a life with half a man.