The Velvet Shadow (33 page)

Flanna took a long swallow of her coffee, then set the cup on the ground. “Truth to tell, my father is a doctor.” She stared at her cup. “I learned a lot from watching him. I went to medical school, but the war began before I could establish a practice.” She looked up and met the sergeant’s speculative stare. “I didn’t enlist as a surgeon because I had no experience with men, nor time to gain any.”

“I’ll be wanting to have you for my doctor always,” O’Neil crowed. “And so would any of the boys. ’Tis a terrible fate awaiting any man who throws his body on Gulick’s table.”

“Oh, you can throw yourself up there,” Sheahan added. “Just remember to pack a pistol under your belt before you do!”

The men laughed, then someone told an insulting joke about officers, and they cackled again. Flanna sat silently, sipping her coffee and looking around the circle of sweaty, grimy faces. William Sheahan, Sergeant Marvin, and Albert Valentine were well and accounted for, though Valentine’s dark eyes seemed a shade more melancholy, if such a thing was possible. Diltz was too mean to die, and Jonah Barker too clumsy to make a good target. Rufus Crydenwise, who sat by the sergeant’s side and stared at the fire, laughed at the free-flowing jokes, though his eyes streamed with tears in a simple overflow of feeling.

Flanna closed her eyes, picturing the absent ones. Matthew Larry lay buried somewhere in Maryland, a victim of disease, and Andrew Green waited back at camp. Philip Hart, the company’s prize forager, was missing, either dead or captured, and so was Freddie Smith, the dandy who spent more time polishing his enameled long-legged boots than his gun.

Flanna’s thoughts filtered back to the ascent on Ball’s Bluff. Freddie Smith had marched in front of her, grumbling occasionally about the red clay and complaining that it wouldn’t wash out of his trousers, for red clay stained wool terribly.

“You look tired, O’Connor.”

O’Neil’s lilting voice brought Flanna out of her reverie, and she shot him a smile across the fire. “Well, naturally, what do you expect? The entire time I was under guard I kept figuring how to get out and rejoin you fellows.” She wiped her hand across her nose and grinned around the circle. “I know there’s not a one of you who can manage without me.”

“Ah, listen to the wee lad!”

“What bunkum!”

“I do believe the little gallnipper’s got the big head!”

Flanna ducked as a storm of twigs and leaves rained down on her, then the men sat in companionable silence as they ate. Flanna reached behind her for her own haversack. Expecting to reconnoiter the area and return quickly, they had drawn six days’ rations before leaving the camp in Maryland. Today was their sixth day out, and Flanna knew they’d be hungry tomorrow.

She fumbled in the bottom of her bag and felt two squares of hardtack, the flour-and-water cracker that inspired more jokes than the officers. She brought out one square and lifted it to her lips.

“O’Connor, you ain’t gonna eat that without blessing it first, are you?” the sergeant called, a mischievous light in his eye.

“Um, well, no.” Flanna lowered the biscuit, embarrassed. Throughout their time together she’d been quietly offering a prayer before eating. She was amazed that anyone had noticed.

The sergeant straightened and held up his hand for silence. “Quiet, all! I’m gonna pray now for Dr. O’Connor’s dinner.”

Flanna smiled, but a flicker of apprehension coursed through her. The sergeant had inadvertently used her real name, and if she became known throughout the regiment as “Dr. O’Connor,” Roger or Dr. Gulick might be tempted to investigate the coincidence.

The sergeant bowed his head and spoke in a deep, booming voice:

“Good grief.” Flanna shook her head as hysterical mayhem broke out across the circle. O’Neil laughed so hard he absently slapped his bandaged leg. “’Tis quite enough, lads,” he pleaded, tears of mirth streaking down his face as it twisted in pain. “Och! Don’t make me laugh again.”

“Hey, Sergeant!” Jonah Barker called. “This morning I was eating a piece of hardtack and I bit into something soft. Can you guess what it was?”

The circle grew silent. Given Jonah’s penchant for ill luck, it could have been anything. “A worm?” Valentine suggested.

Jonah grinned. “No, by golly, it was a tenpenny nail.”

The sergeant snorted with the half-choked mirth of a man who seldom laughs, then the circle rocked with the hilarity of revelers. Laughter floated up from Flanna’s own throat, and she turned to catch Charity’s eye, then paused. Charity had just appeared, for she hadn’t been in the circle when Flanna returned. Where had the girl been keeping herself?

Taking advantage of the prevalent lighthearted mood, Rufus Crydenwise pulled a harmonica from his pocket and began to play “Yankee Doodle.” The men joined in the song, but Flanna merely listened, not wanting to startle her messmates with her classically trained alto.

The sunset spread itself like a peacock’s tail, luminous and brilliant, across the horizon as they lifted their voices in defiance of the darkening sky. But as the stars sprang out in the indigo vault of the heavens, nostalgia and sentiment overruled their bright spirits. The songs slowed and softened, and “John Brown’s Body” gave way to “When This Cruel War Is Over” and “The Sweet By and By.”

Rufus began to play another song, and Flanna could have fallen over when Herbert Diltz stood to sing it alone, his eyes shining in the firelight, his clear tenor rising to the night sky in unearthly clarity. She had never heard the song before, but it seemed especially poignant now.

When Flanna was certain that not a man would be left dry-eyed, Sergeant Marvin stood and placed his hands on his hips. “Well, men, I hate to break up this little soiree, but we’ve miles to march in the morning. So let’s beat the bugle and get some sleep. Maybe we’ll be fresher than the others and move into camp first.”

Grumbling good-naturedly, the men rose from their places and fumbled among their knapsacks for blankets. Flanna unfurled hers and staked out a place between Charity and Paddy O’Neil. That soldier’s eyes were closed when she lay down, but she hoped he’d wake before too long. She wanted to ask him a question.

The night was clear and cool, and Flanna folded her arms tight around her chest and shivered. Silver filigree laced the branches of the
oaks, and above them a cloud reached out and grappled with the moon for possession of the night. Beside her, O’Neil snorted and grunted with pain.

“O’Neil?”

“Aye?”

“You awake?”

He let out a long, audible breath. “Am now, sure enough.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Don’t I know I couldn’t stop you?”

“Right.” Flanna paused, listening to the silence as she gathered her thoughts. “Have you ever wanted something really bad, and then when you were about to get it, realized that you didn’t want it at all?”

She turned her head, listening, but heard nothing but the lost and lonely cry of an owl in the dark.

“O’Neil?”

“Hush, I’m considerin’ the question.”

She waited a moment more. Silence, thick as wool, wrapped itself around her, then O’Neil spoke: “I try not to want things,” he said, his tone light and playful. “There are only two things to worry about, lad. Either you are well or you are sick, and if you are well, there is nothing to worry about. But if you are sick, there are two things to worry about. Either you will get well, or you will die. If you get well, there is nothing to worry about. But if you die, there are only two things to worry about. Either you will go to heaven or hell. If you go to heaven, there is nothing to worry about. But if you go to hell, you’ll be so bloomin’ busy shaking hands with friends you won’t have time to worry!”

He laughed at his own joke, muffling the sound in his coat so he wouldn’t wake the others. Flanna wanted to laugh, but couldn’t. First, she could find nothing funny in his devil-may-care attitude about heaven and hell. Second, though she had done her best to set his leg, he was not yet out of danger. A thousand things could happen between here and Maryland, and a thousand other calamities could befall him once he entered the army hospital.

“I’m serious, O’Neil,” she whispered. “Stop laughing!”

“I’m serious too.” His tone was still playful, but she caught a glimpse of his eyes in the moonlight. They were deadly earnest. “You asked whether I ever wanted anything really bad. Truth to tell, the only thing I’ll be wanting now is to be home again with my sweet wife, Maggie. I left her behind with our unborn babe, and I pray every night that I make it home to her.”

Flanna curled tighter under her blanket and hugged her knees. She hadn’t even known that O’Neil was married. Compared with her wish to go home, his prayer seemed much more urgent.

“Go to sleep, O’Neil,” she whispered, just before lowering her head to her knees. “I’ll pray for you tonight.”

Dawn came reluctantly, glowing sullen through a clouded sky. Alden stopped short in dismay when he thrust his head out of his small tent. The clouds above were swollen and heavy with rain, and if there was anything he dreaded more than a march with wounded, it was a march with wounded in the mud and pouring rain.

He fastened the last button on his uniform, then saluted Colonel Farnham as the regimental commander stepped out of his tent. No bugler would sound reveille this morning, for the woods might be thick with Rebels. Instead, the sergeants and corporals moved quietly through the camp, rousing men with a gentle nudge or tap on the shoulder.

Alden felt a small stirring of guilt as the colonel returned his salute. Every rule and principle of the military demanded that Alden report that he had discovered a woman in the regiment—two, in fact, if Flanna had spoken the truth about Henrietta Fraser. But how could he argue against Flanna’s logic and indisputable bravery? She had gone up to Ball’s Bluff with her comrades even though her heart probably yearned to embrace the Confederate cause. She had nursed and aided the wounded, going without rest so that others would not suffer. How could Alden betray so strong a heart?

The odds stood in her favor—she might not be discovered at all. After all, she had been unquestioningly accepted by the men of
Company M. And Roger, who was the only other man who might easily recognize her, lived with Company K, which marched at the front of the regiment. The odds of those two encountering each other in the next few days were small indeed, particularly on the long march back to Maryland.

After this march, then, Alden could stand before the colonel and reveal everything. He’d be sure to mention Flanna’s heroism and to describe how she’d risked Dr. Gulick’s censure to operate on men who would have lost limbs but for her quick thinking and diligence. Would that all the wounded could have felt her ministering hands! Alden suspected she would want to remain with her company until he could arrange for her transport. He was half-inclined to let her remain, but such deception flew in the face of everything military, and he was a general’s son, not easily persuaded to bend the rules.

Two voices argued in his head, the cool voice of reason and the ardent voice of passion. Reason wanted her to go back to Boston, or even to Charleston, anywhere safe. Passion wanted to keep her close, to watch her fulfill her dream of medicine, to marvel at her quiet competence and thrill to the sight of those emerald eyes. But they walked a dangerous road, and if something happened to Flanna, Roger would never forgive him…nor would Alden ever forgive himself.

A distant rumble echoed among the hills, and Alden looked up. Soft rain spattered his hair and his cheeks, blurring his sight like tears.

He pulled his cap down until the brim shielded his eyes, then thrust his hands behind his back and walked into the center of the camp, urging the stragglers to make ready for the long march.