Let There Be Light (14 page)

“And we now know that you are head-over-heels in love with the handsome Lieutenant Nate Conrad,” said Nancy. “You were calling him ‘Nate darling’ in your dream and pouring out such sweet words, telling him how very much you love him.”

“You also told him that you think Harrisburg would be a nice place to live.”

Millie blushed as a smile spread and threw her hands up. “What can I say? You heard it from my own mouth. I’m in love with the guy.”

“And he’s in love with you, too, isn’t he?” said Paula.

“Well-l-l, he hasn’t come out with the exact words ‘I love you,’ but I know he loves me. He is the perfect gentleman and is working up to it slowly.”

Millie’s roommates smiled at each other, then Nancy asked, “How much longer will Nate be in the hospital?”

“There’s no way to know exactly at this point, but the doctors are saying he will be here at least five more months, maybe six.”

Paula laid a hand on Millie’s shoulder. “Honey, I’m glad for what’s happening between you and Nate. It’s just too bad the two of you can’t have some privacy so you could talk to each other freely and be able to show some affection.”

“Yes,” said Nancy. “I understand why there have to be rules concerning nurses becoming romantically involved with the male patients, but when two people are genuinely in love with each other, they should be able to express it and show it.”

Millie nodded. “I’d sure like to be able to do that, and from the look I see in Nate’s eyes and some of the things he says, I’m sure he would too.”

Paula squeezed Millie’s shoulder. “Maybe when Nate is able to occupy a wheelchair, you can wheel him somewhere that you can at least have enough privacy to express yourselves without other hospital personnel or other patients being able to listen to what you say.”

A smile curved Millie’s lips. “Maybe this will be possible. I sure hope so.”

“Of course, honey,” said Nancy, “if this develops between you and Nate, the day will come when you will have to leave here and go to Harrisburg with him. And, of course, there will be wedding bells.”

Millie’s eyes brightened. “Oh, won’t that be the day?”

It was almost seven o’clock when Millie, Paula, and Nancy arrived at the hospital to start their shift. Millie’s first duty was to check on each patient who had been assigned to her. Her desire was to go to Nate first, but not wanting to give the head nurse or anyone else in authority a reason to reprimand her, she took them in order.

Some thirty minutes later, she came to Nate, who was her fifth patient in a list of twelve.

Nate’s face beamed as he looked up and smiled at her. “My, oh my, you sure look lovely this morning, Miss Ross. I like the way you have your hair styled. I mean, I like each style you use, but you look exceptionally beautiful today.”

The heavyset man in the next bed grinned. “Now, Lieutenant Conrad, you are not supposed to flirt with the nurses.”

Nate chuckled nervously. “I wasn’t flirting, Major. I was just stating a fact. Miss Millie Ross, I would like to introduce you to Major Leonard Saunders.”

“Good morning, ma’am,” said the major. “I’m happy to meet you.”

Millie smiled. “And I’m happy to meet you, sir. Are you feeling all right this morning? I know you had surgery yesterday afternoon.”

“I’m doing fine, thank you. My nurse, Miss Walker, is taking good care of me.”

“Excellent,” she said, then turned her back to Saunders and looked down at Nate. There was love in her eyes. Nate’s heart skipped a beat. “Well, Lieutenant, I need to get to the usual—checking your vital signs and all that.”

Nate wanted to tell her that she’d better check his heart first, since it was skipping one beat after another, but he refrained.

While Millie was checking his vital signs, Nelda Walker drew up to the major’s bed to check his bandage. She spoke to Millie, then put her attention on the major.

Nate kept an eye on the major and his nurse, and when they were engaged in conversation, he drew Millie’s attention by pointing to his lips and silently mouthed,
I love you, Millie!

It was Millie’s turn to have her heart skip a beat. Her eyes lit up. Making sure no one was looking, she silently mouthed in return,
I love you too!

At that instant, she was checking his pulse. The beat picked up and she smiled down at him.

Nate ran his eyes to the major and the nurse and to the sleeping patient on his other side. Knowing that he had a private moment, he took hold of Millie’s hand, squeezed the forefinger and the middle finger together, and planted a kiss on them. The lovely redhead casually looked around, and when she was sure no one was looking, she pressed the kiss on her fingers to her lips. Nate’s face was beaming as he silently mouthed again,
I love you!

Before dawn that morning, just outside Rome, Georgia, the ninety-one Union prisoners who were to be taken to Andersonville Prison
Camp were being escorted at gunpoint to a train with three boxcars behind the engine and coal car. Some of the Confederate soldiers were carrying lanterns.

In the engine cab, engineer Walt Benson and fireman Link Hazzard were looking out the window. Hazzard had the fire going in the boiler, and the steam was almost up to power.

The fireman shook his head. “I can see their faces well enough by the light of the lanterns to discern that those Yankees are scared spitless.”

“Wouldn’t you be if you were going to Andersonville? They know about the death rate there.”

“I guess everybody from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Canada to Mexico have heard about Andersonville, Walt. I’ve been hearing about it since March, and I was in Kentucky at the time. I never dreamed when the army brought me to this part of Georgia last week that I’d actually be hauling prisoners to Macon so they could put them in wagons and take them to that disease-ridden prison.”

Benson sighed. “Well, I guess it’s something you and I can both tell our grandchildren about someday.”

A Confederate captain was coming their way. As he drew up, he said, “Okay, Walt. We’re locking them in the boxcars right now. You can pull out in five minutes.”

“All right, sir. Steam’s up. We’re ready.”

Five minutes later, Walt Benson gave the throttle a shove, and the big engine lurched forward. The couplings between the cars rattled with a deep thunderous sound and the train was rolling south.

Soon they were amid fields and forests as the engine belched black smoke toward the star bedecked sky. The powerful headlight shone on the gleaming twin tracks ahead, which seemed to become one as they disappeared a hundred yards in the distance in the predawn darkness.

In each of the three boxcars, a single lantern hung overhead, giving off a glow of pale yellow light and casting the shadows of the heartsick prisoners on the hard wooden floor where they sat.

In the third boxcar, Captain William Linden—who was the leader of A Company in the second battalion of the Third
Pennsylvania Cavalry Division—was sitting on the floor in a corner at the rear with his back braced against the boxcar wall.

Linden let his eyes roam over the other thirty men in the boxcar. Most of them were silent as they huddled in small groups, their heads hanging low. A few were talking in subdued voices that could barely be heard by anyone outside their group over the rumble of the steel wheels beneath the car.

The captain was feeling the same dread of Andersonville as were the rest of the men. His stomach flipped over at the thought of it. He wondered how many of the ninety-one men on the train would live to see their homes and families again. Squaring his jaw, he determined that he would be one of them.

This line of thought sent his mind to his wife and daughter at home in Harrisburg. He wished he could at least get word to Myrna and Jenny that he was still alive, but there was no possible way to do it. “Jenny,” he whispered, “I know you are taking care of your mother. Please, honey, do all you can to keep her from sinking deeper into her depression. I know you’re both wondering if I’m alive, and if so, if I am in one piece. No way to let you know. But someday this dreadful war will be over, and in spite of the disease and filth of Andersonville, I’ll come home to you.”

At that moment, Linden saw three of the men under his command making their way toward him from the other end of the car. Focusing on them in the dim light, he saw that their faces were grim.

No, not grim.

Angry
.

Lieutenant Edgar Toomey, Sergeant Keith Lewis, and Corporal Todd Zediker hunkered down in front of Linden, their glaring eyes burning his face.

Toomey, whose buckteeth always protruded past his lips, sneered at Linden. Keeping his voice low so the men in the car could not hear him, he hissed, “It’s your fault, Linden! All your fault!”

The captain met his hot gaze with steady eyes. “You can say that all you want, Toomey, but you’re wrong.”

“Well, you’re the commander of A Company, ain’t you? Huh?”

“That I am.”

“Okay. In that battle at Coosaville Road, sixteen of our men were killed—including my little brother, Lester! Twenty-one were wounded, and are now in the hands of those Confederate doctors, who’ll let ‘em die as sure as the sun comes up in the east! And the rest of us are on this train, goin’ to Andersonville so we can die of disease or starvation, or both! And it’s all your fault!”

Linden felt scorched by the flaming eyes of all three men. His own anger surfaced, making a dark tide shade his face. A glitter leaped into his eyes. “I’m telling you again: it is not my fault!”

“You’re a liar, Linden!” Lewis was breathing hard. “I heard Edgar warn you just before we entered into the battle with those stinkin’ Rebels, that if we didn’t withdraw and ride quickly to the safety of that nearby forest to the west, we were all gonna get killed or captured along with those other Union troops who were already fightin’ those Rebels who outnumbered us all.”

“I heard Edgar’s warnin’ to you, too,” growled Zediker. “We had that one opportunity at that precise moment of time. It was head for the protection of that forest unnoticed by the enemy and not battle such a large number, or end up like this. Oh, but no, you wouldn’t listen. Now, look what’s happened! Now, what’s left of our company is on our way to that horrible Andersonville Prison. And it
is
all your fault!”

Linden bristled. “Don’t you guys have any sense at all? I told you this when you spoke your warning, Edgar, and I’m telling you again. If I had led A Company away from a battle that was already in progress, and we had taken refuge in the forest to save our own skins when our comrades were already greatly outnumbered, it would have been a cowardly act, and the rest of us would have been charged with desertion in the face of battle. Those of us who lived through it to the end of the War would face the shame of our cowardice for the rest of our lives.”

“Call it what you want, Captain, but my brother’s dead, as are fifteen other men in our unit,” Toomey snarled. “As I said, those wounded ones the Rebels picked up off the battlefield won’t get proper care from the Rebel doctors. They’ll all die! And the rest of us are gonna die in that rotten disease-infested Rebel prison camp at Andersonville.”

“Right!” snapped Lewis. “If you’d listened to Edgar, his brother would still be alive, as well as the other fifteen men, and we wouldn’t be ridin’ in this dirty boxcar toward that filthy prison camp!”

“Yeah,” said Zediker. “You and your big sense of honor. Look what it got us!”

Linden looked at them with dull hostility. “May I remind you that you are speaking to a superior officer, and that I am also your assigned leader? If we do get out of this, I’ll have to report you to the army officials in Washington.”

All three regarded him with hate-filled eyes, but did not reply.

Linden fixed his eyes like hot pinpoints on Toomey. “Let me also remind you, Lieutenant, that you and I are both from Harrisburg and will be living in the same town together when this war is over. You are sowing seeds that will be a crop of trouble later.”

“Hah!” said Toomey, showing his buckteeth in fury. “Neither one of us are gonna live to ever see Harrisburg again!” Then he said to his pals, “Let’s go back to the front of the car. It stinks worse back here.”

Linden watched as they stood up and walked away, without looking back.

When the trio reached the other end of the car, where they had been sitting before, they tightened into a knot and sat down.

Toomey spoke in a low voice so only his two friends could hear. “I’m tellin’ you this much—even if I do live till the end of the War and get to go home, Linden’s gonna die! I’ll see to that!”

M
YRNA
L
INDEN WAS IN A FRIGHTENING
nightmare, observing swarms of infantrymen and cavalrymen clashing amid cannons and rifles on some Southern battlefield. Foot soldiers were dropping by the dozens, as were cavalrymen and their horses. Cannonballs were exploding, sending fragments of metal and flaming bodies twisting through the air.

Suddenly she caught sight of William on his horse, leading his company in the battle. Seconds later, cannonballs struck all around William. The smoke and fire enveloped him and his horse, and when the smoke drifted away, she saw both of them lying on the ground, dead.

She screamed, “William! William! Please don’t be dead! Please don’t—”

“Mama! Mama!” Jenny’s voice came to her ears, penetrating her nightmare.

Myrna opened her eyes to see her daughter standing over her. She reached for her. “He’s dead, Jenny! Your papa’s dead!” And suddenly she was shrieking, rolling her head back and forth.

Jenny shook her. “Mama! Mama! It’s all right. I’m right here with you.”

Myrna closed her eyes and shrieked till her throat seized shut, then gasped for breath. When Jenny called to her again, she opened
her eyes, still trying to catch her breath.

Jenny stroked her forehead. “Mama, you were having another one of your bad dreams. It’s all right. Everything is fine.”

Myrna stared at her with wide, frightened eyes. Her face shrunk around her cheekbones, giving her a grimace of perpetual sorrow. Desperation was in her tight voice. “Jenny … Jenny … he’s dead. Your papa’s dead. I saw him die in an explosion of cannonballs. He’s dead! He’s dead!”