The Velvet Shadow (17 page)

Henrietta Fraser stopped moaning for a moment. A faint flicker of unease stirred in the girl’s soft brown eyes, then a tear slipped down her pale cheek. “You do whatever you have to,” she whispered, her voice fainter than air, “just don’t tell anyone my real name. If I die, you bury me under the name Henry Fraser and write a letter to my folks. They’ll understand.”

Sobered instantly by the frightening possibility that she might have to write that letter, Flanna reached for the tent flap and hoarsely called for Charity.

Alden Haynes stood back, feeling oddly helpless as the maid stepped out of the tent and repeated Flanna’s requests. “She wants a pitcher of clean water, a high table, a big tent with a bright light, and a cask of the strongest alcohol you’ve got.” Charity’s head bobbed in earnestness. “This soldier needs an operation, and he wants Miss Flanna to do it. And she’ll do it, she says, but I’m the only one allowed to help her. Everyone else has to stay clean away from the tent.”

“Surely Private Fraser would rather go to the hospital for surgery.” Alden thrust his hand into his belt and turned away. “I’ll arrange for a wagon—”

“No, he don’t want to go,” Charity insisted, grabbing his sleeve. “I heard him say that he’d die before he’d let any Yankee surgeon take a knife to him.” The maid arched her brows into triangles and tilted her head knowingly. “You gots to understand, Major, this is a Carolina boy. He don’t trust none of those Yankee doctors.”

Alden blew out his breath. Each day brought its own trying situation, but at least Flanna’s requests weren’t unreasonable. Most of the new recruits were drilling out in the field, so privacy wouldn’t be a problem.

He stroked his moustache, thinking. If the man died, no one in Boston would trust Dr. Flanna O’Connor, and he hadn’t brought her to camp to further damage her reputation. He had hoped the Fraser boy was only slightly sick, but despite his good intentions, he seemed to have placed Flanna O’Connor in the midst of trouble.

He straightened and clasped his hands behind his back. Sickness was always a problem in the crowded camps. If the boy died, he’d do his best to make certain Flanna’s name was left out of the reports. The surgeons had already been bedeviled by a host of diseases; no one would think it strange that another boy had died.

“I’ll get the things she needs,” Alden said, turning away. “I’ll call when we’re ready.”

“Miss Flanna says you’d better hurry if you want to save this boy’s life,” Charity called after him. “He’s knocking on heaven’s door now and will have one foot through the pearly gates before too long.”

Spurred by the warning, Alden quickened his pace.

Flanna moistened the strip of cotton with chloroform, then looked into Private Fraser’s eyes one last time. “You’re sure about this?” she whispered, trying to steady her own voice.

The frightened girl nodded.

“Then you just breathe normally through this cloth, and you’ll go to sleep,” Flanna promised. “When you wake up, it will be all over.”

Henrietta didn’t answer, but closed her eyes. Flanna pressed the chloroform-soaked cloth over the girl’s mouth and nose, holding it until Henrietta’s breathing slowed and steadied.

Flanna handed the bottle of chloroform to her maid. “Charity, if she moves or speaks, you press that cloth over her nose again until she settles down. Understand?”

“Yes ma’am.” Charity balanced the cloth on her palm, ready for anything.

Flanna moved to a basin and washed her hands.
Go ahead. Dr. Gulick, scoff.
She scrubbed between her knuckles until her skin glowed pink.
But if God commanded cleanliness, it must be important.

With clean hands, she moved to her patient and gingerly lifted the sheet she had placed over Private Fraser’s lower anatomy. Out of deference to Henrietta’s secret, Flanna had allowed the girl to wear her shirt into surgery and had promised to return her trousers as soon as the operation was completed. She had also revealed the truth to Charity, knowing the girl would keep Henrietta’s secret forever if need be.

Lifting the pitcher, Flanna poured running water over the girl’s abdomen, then held the blade of her scalpel in the lamp flame, reasoning that a heated blade cut more easily. When the blade glowed with heat, she held it over the faintly pink skin and closed her eyes, momentarily imprinting the girl’s flesh with diagrams from her medical school texts.
The appendix is a small appendage hanging from the beginning of the large intestine. A tube with no known function in human beings, it is known to burst if swollen or enlarged. Theoretically the appendix could be removed in order to save the patient’s life. Much caution must be observed, however. For the intestine is filled with filth, and any seepage can endanger the patient…

She would have to enter the peritoneum, the clear membrane that lined the walls of the abdominal cavity, so she would have to make at least four incisions—one through the flesh and fat, one through the wall of muscle that enclosed the gut, one through the peritoneum, and a final cut to sever the appendix itself. Dr. Aymand had used silk sutures to close the cuts, and Charity stood ready with
the finest needles and silk threads Flanna had been able to procure for her medical bag.

“Father God, bless my hands,” Flanna murmured. Then she lowered the scalpel and used the tip to trace a thin line over the spot where Henrietta Fraser’s appendix should lie.

Watching through a narrow crack in the tent flap, Alden marveled at Flanna’s composure. Though he’d been sincere in his belief that she could dose a sick man, some part of him had been quite unwilling to believe her capable of cutting on a Union soldier. But now she moved gracefully, in complete and quiet control of the situation.

Any other female of his acquaintance would have fainted at the sight of the blade, but Flanna seemed to wield it with as much confidence inside Private Fraser as when she ripped the seam in her gown. From his vantage point, Alden could see that she had two fingers inside the soldier’s gut and was now lifting a flaming bit of flesh with a huge pair of elongated tweezers—

Alden looked away as his stomach roiled. He couldn’t vomit in front of his men, no matter how unsettling the sight he’d just witnessed. And yet Flanna O’Connor, a polite and proper Southern belle, had not only borne the bloody sight without so much as a grimace, but she’d actually initiated the surgery!

Alden sat on a stump and pulled out his handkerchief, blotting the sweat from his forehead. Years before, at West Point, Alden had known another soldier who took to his bed with a gut-ache similar to Private Fraser’s. For three days the military doctor bled him and dosed him with everything from laudanum to alcohol, but no one dared suggest surgery. That young cadet had died in unspeakable agony.

Alden leaned back on a crate of hardtack. Roger probably had no idea what he had in Flanna O’Connor, and he would never fully appreciate her. If Roger were not now out on the parade grounds with Company K, he never would have allowed Flanna inside Private Fraser’s tent. He would feel that such things wouldn’t be proper
for a politician’s wife, and proper ladies certainly should never look upon another man’s body.

No, Roger would not appreciate Flanna’s lifesaving skill, but one day Private Fraser might be very grateful that Roger dearly loved drill practice.

Calmer now that his gorge had stopped heaving, Alden stood and peered inside the tent again. Flanna stood at the side of the table, her right hand rising and falling in a regular, graceful pattern, like the women he’d seen at country quilting bees. She was sewing, he realized, holding a needle in another pair of surgical tweezers, moving over the patient’s gut in a regular and even rhythm.

He held his breath as Flanna gave another order to her maid. The girl came forward, held a pitcher of water over the patient, and doused Private Fraser’s gut with a blasting stream of water. Once that was done, Flanna pulled a sheet up to the private’s chin, then stepped back and gave Charity a wavering smile.

“All right, open the tent and we’ll let the fresh air revive him,” she said, her voice carrying outside to Alden. He stepped forward, lifting the tent flap as he came.

“Major?” Flanna’s brow arched in surprise as she moved toward another basin to wash the blood from her hands. “Did you feel it necessary to spy on me?”

“Not at all.” He took a step forward, then halted at the odors in the tent—the pungent scent of chloroform, the stale scent of sweat, the tang of blood. “I was merely…curious.” He glanced at the covered body on the table, then thrust his arms behind his back and returned his gaze to Flanna. “Did the operation go well?”

“I believe it did,” she said, her eyes flitting toward the unconscious soldier, “but time will tell. There is always the chance of infection, though I did everything I could to keep the area clean.”

“Is cleanliness so important?”

A thoughtful smile curved her mouth. “Cleanliness is next to godliness, isn’t it? I believe it also aids in the practice of medicine.”

“Well then.” Alden paused, casting about for something to say.
For some unknown reason he suddenly felt as tongue-tied as a boy alone with a girl for the first time. “I was very impressed, Dr. O’Connor. You seemed most capable.”

Flanna looked up, her fascinating smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. “We were both fortunate this time, Major. Your soldier—well, he put me at ease.” She lifted a towel from a table and began to dry her hands. “I wouldn’t want to do this type of surgery every day. But perhaps you should reconsider my offer to accompany your regiment.”

“Now, Flanna—” Alden lifted his hand, amazed at her persistence.

“Think about it, Major.” Humor struggled with annoyance on her fine-boned face as she looked up at him. “I’ve heard about Dr. Gulick’s so-called work for your regiment. And while I may not share his gender, I can guarantee that I do not share his fondness for taverns and gambling.” A tremor touched her smooth, rose-colored lips as she dropped the towel and took a step toward him. “Let me go south with you. You don’t have to pay me. I’ll go and I’ll help your men…because I must go home.”

Alden shook his head, unwilling to voice the feelings that had risen in his throat. Again she had asked the impossible, but his reasons for refusing this time were far different than the last time she’d asked. Before he had cited rules, regulations, and the practical impossibility of allowing a woman from South Carolina to act as a Union physician. But now he would not take her for the simple reason that men did not carry beloved valuables to war.

For some reason, she seemed to find his refusal amusing. “Still not willing to consider the idea?” She took a deep breath and adjusted her smile. “Apparently I shall have to wait out this war in Boston. But there may come a time, Major Haynes, when you will wish you had another pair of experienced medical hands—even if they are a woman’s.”

“Dr. O’Connor,” he said, a wry smile curling his own lips, “I fear you may be completely correct.”