Triumph (26 page)

“Miss Tia!”

She looked closer through the dirt.

It was Gilly.

“Gilly, good God ...”

“I’m dying, Miss Tia.”

“No, you’re not. I won’t allow you to die, do you understand?”

He closed his eyes, tried to smile. “My foot ...”

She winced, looking at his foot. It had been halfway blown off. She had seen a lot that day, but she nearly vomited at the sight of the bloody stump.

“Julian will take your foot. You’ll walk with a crutch. “You’ll live, do you hear me?”

He stopped twitching. For a moment she froze, biting her lower lip. Had he died?

More cannon fire exploded. She winced. Liam, one of her brother’s men, an amazingly capable amputee, came to her side, setting a hand on her shoulder. “He’s alive; he’s just passed out.”

“His foot—”

“Your brother is ready for him.”

More cutting. Julian hated being a butcher.

The day was no longer beautiful. It was filled with a miasma of flying dirt, black powder, the screams of dying horses.

The screams of dying men.

A rider came to the hospital, crying out with a bone-chilling Rebel yell.

“We’re taking the day, gentlemen! Confederate artillery has riddled the center of the Yankee line! The Rebs are on the move, pushing back the Yanks.”

Julian’s eyes met his sister’s above Gilly’s body. She didn’t know if either of them felt the general jubilation that quickly spread throughout the surgery. If they were winning, why were they patching up man after man?

Losing so many ...

Finishing with Gilly, Julian told Tia that he thought the boy would make it. “You know as well as I do, though, that it’s infection that kills the boys more often than the wounds.”

“But you lose fewer men to infection than other surgeons.”

“Usually,” he told her ruefully. “I always use a clean sponge on each wound. Today ... we’re running out.”

That was not all they were running out of. Toward the late afternoon, a man brought in with a broken arm told him that they’d run out of ammunition. His arm had been broken by the strike of a Yankee bayonet—he and the enemy had tried to beat one another to death. The arrival of a friend who had crushed the Yank’s skull had saved his own life.

She listened, feeling very sick.

Orderlies were drawn from the hospital to help as officers, and anyone available rode back and forth at utmost speed with supplies from a railcar held far to the rear of the line. Cartridges were carried back in hats, pockets, haversacks, and even the skirts of some of the other women assisting.

New ammunition, and the last of the Southern troops held back at the line, arrived at the front nearly simultaneously.

There was a mighty advance against the Federal line.

Soon after, with night almost upon them, Federal wounded began to be brought in. The Yanks had been forced to leave them behind during their retreat.

“We won! We won!”

Across the field, the shout went up. Among the standing, there was a feeling of victory so great that it seemed like a cry upon the very wind. “We won, Florida won, the Yanks will not be taking Tallahassee, they’ll not be taking our state!”

Bugles could be heard.

Shots that signaled victory.

“The battle has been won,” Julian said quietly. “Our night has just begun.”

The battle could definitely be called a victory, but the fight wasn’t over. The Rebs were pressing the Union forces back, back. God knew how far they would follow; what territory they would gain.

The night was horrible. With the fighting over; it was time to search the battlefield. While Julian remained in the surgery, Tia rode out with his orderlies, trying to find the living among the dead.

“Miss Tia?”

Liam, who had learned to ride with his one leg, was with her, ready to summon orderlies with stretchers and litters when they found men who could be saved.

A remnant of the sun remained, as red as the blood that covered the ground.

They dismounted and studied the uniforms on the corpses.

“Mostly Yanks here,” Liam said.

“Yes.” She turned to him. “I’m so afraid, Liam. Of who I will find.”

“Your brother Ian isn’t here,” he said gently. “He was ordered to Virginia after Christmas.”

“You’re sure? How do you know?”

“We brought in a cavalryman Julian knew. He told us.”

Tia suddenly saw a cavalry officer, lying facedown. He wore a navy frockcoat, and his hair was dark as pitch, straight, long ...

“Oh, God!” She fell to her knees at his side.

“Tia, I told you, Ian isn’t here.”

Yes, but Taylor Douglas is!
she screamed inwardly.

She touched the man, carefully drawing him back toward her. He moaned. He lived. He had a bullet through his shoulder.

He wasn’t Taylor.

“We’ve got one to bring back!” she called to Liam. He nodded, and whistled for the men with the litters and stretchers. Tia moved on.

And on.

During the night, she still thought that she heard the sounds of moans and cries from the battlefield.

She thought that she would hear them forever, for the rest of her life.

During the next six days, the Confederate forces pushed the Union soldiers back to within twelve miles of Jacksonville. The battle had been a disaster for the Union.

Yet the Confederate victory at Olustee Station did little to lighten the mood of the South.

Supplies grew ever scarcer during the spring of 1864. Throughout the South, battles were being waged, and mostly lost. The Union grip was tightening; the Northern generals were considering new ways to tame their Southern counterparts. A “scorched earth” policy became popular—where Yankee armies went, nothing was left for the surviving civilians.

In the weeks that followed the battle of Olustee, Tia could afford little concern for the rest of the Confederacy. Julian was left with the seriously injured to be tended.

During the first few days after the battle, they moved their surgery to an old house at Lake City. Local matrons came to read to the soldiers, to bring whatever food treats they could improvise, and to write letters.

A week after the battle, she and Julian were invited to dinner at the home of General Victor Roper, a septuagenarian who had served during the Mexican War, and a passionate secessionist. A number of officers still in the vicinity had been invited, militia and regular army. The local men brought their wives and daughters. To fill in for those men from other Southern regions, a number of young ladies from the nearby towns were present as well.

It was the closest thing to an old-time Southern party that Tia had attended since the war began. She had been too tired at first to want to come, but Julian had convinced her.

Raymond Weir was there.

At first, she avoided him, but she was glad—after all she had seen on the battlefield—that he was alive. He and his militia troops had been involved at Olustee. His troops had been too far south to be called in for the battle, but he was there because he had ridden quickly northward in anticipation of trouble to follow.

He was persistent, following her until she would listen to him. He apologized for the trouble at Christmas, telling her he was sorry to have ruined her Christmas.

She accepted the apology on the surface.

He did not say that he was sorry for threatening her father, or challenging Taylor Douglas. But to her, he was so earnest and sincere that she couldn’t help but forgive him, he seemed so desperate that she understand.

There were musicians from the 2
^nd
Corps of Engineers. Tia danced with her brother, with enlisted men and officers—and with Ray. She was touched again by his affection for her, but equally determined that this was not the right time for her own involvement. To her annoyance, she continued to wonder about Taylor Douglas, and pray that his had not been among the bodies at Olustee that she had not seen.

“Marry me, Tia,” Raymond Weir said, looking at her gravely as they danced.

“Raymond, do you think that my father would let me marry you right now?” she asked innocently.

“You’re over twenty-one, Tia. You don’t share your father’s beliefs.”

“I share his love,” she said softly.

“If he understood what I felt for you, he might readily agree.”

“I can’t marry until the war is over,” she said. “I have to work.”

They came to a halt by a table laden with a punch bowl. He poured them both a glass, and looked at her gravely.

“You shouldn’t be involved in such work, Tia. It isn’t fitting for a proper young woman.”

Their hostess, Amelia Roper, a resplendent woman with a huge bosom and assumed dignity to match, stood by the table chatting with a young soldier—until she heard the comment. She tapped hex glasses on Tia’s arm and joined in, uninvited. “The colonel is quite right, my dear. The work you do is better managed by the orderlies—and by the injured. In Washington, they use the convalescing men to work in the hospitals. The amputees make useful nurses.”

“There are never enough nurses. Especially here in Florida,” Tia said. “You know that our men are constantly drawn from the state to serve elsewhere. Even Julian, who has dedicated himself to his fellow Floridians, was ordered north last year. I believe I can be helpful.”

“What are our men fighting for if not our Southern honor—and that of our Southern womanhood, Tia McKenzie?” Amelia demanded indignantly.

“They are fighting—for us all,” Tia said, surprised by the attack on her effort. “And if they fight, then I feel that I must help as I may.”

“If you were to marry me, Tia,” Ray said, “I would see to it that you were removed from the ugliness and indecency you endure for this passion to work with the wounded.”

“Ray, I have said many times: it’s work I feel I must do. My father, mother, and brothers know what I do, and they are not appalled. They are proud of my commitment to life.”

“Even your father and your oldest brother, dear?” Mrs. Roper said tartly. “I imagine they might be happier were you to cease work, and allow for more Confederate dead!”

“No one wants men to die, Mrs. Roper.”

“No? Well, it’s quite bad enough in the state as it is. Your father and brother aren’t the only traitors among us.”

“Quite a number of people in the state were against secession, Mrs. Roper,” Tia reminded her.

“Oh, I know! And some of our brightest military stars failed to see the error of their ways!” She shook her head, glancing at Raymond, and speaking bitterly. “My husband—a brilliant leader when he was on the field!—has studied the battle at Olustee carefully. Do you know who was one of the first cavalry officers on the field for the Yankees?
Taylor Douglas!
My God, but I remember when that man was a guest in my house. They say he moves like the devil, faster than the wind. He is a traitor to us now—a thorn in our side when he should have been a hero for the state.”

Tia didn’t want to appear overly interested in Taylor, but she felt as if she were dying within herself, and needed what information she could gather.

“I met Colonel Douglas just before Christmas, Mrs. Roper. He is actually kin to my uncle, my father’s brother. I hadn’t heard that he was at Olustee.”

“Dead center of the battle, dear, leading troops out to the very first of the skirmishing and beyond. It’s a wonder he wasn’t killed.”

Thank God.

She almost said the words aloud, but realized that Ray Weir was watching her closely.

“He led troops out—and wasn’t injured?”

“Not by our men—or his own!” Mrs. Roper said with a sniff, then smiled. “Though I have heard the Yankees killed nearly as many of their own as they did Rebs! Young lady, don’t you go getting it into your head to tend to Yankee men! You will assuredly die with no proper husband!” With another sniff, she shook her head. “This war! It is amazing. The things going on ... have you heard of the new heroine being hailed by the soldiers? A woman dashing through the woods, leading the Yanks astray. In the buff, completely in the buff. The little slut! Godiva! They call her—Lady Godiva. Now, there’s a girl who will have no husband! There is war, and there is total indecency!”

“Isn’t the greatest indecency of war seeing a young human body totally broken and bloodied and maimed? Isn’t the greatest horror the destruction of human lives, of dreams, families ... isn’t death the indecent tragedy of it all?” Tia queried, amazed at the tumult suddenly inside her.

“A lack of honor is the greatest indecency! Honor is everything! What is life without honor, without society, without rules of what is proper and what is not? What do men fight for, if not their quality of life—and the honor and chastity and virtue of their womankind?” Amelia Roper demanded, and she waved her reading glasses in the air. “You remember that, young lady!”

“Perhaps we can have honor—and compassion!” Tia said.

Mrs. Roper let out another of her sniffs and turned her back on them.

Ray shrugged to Tia. “Many, many people don’t approve of your activities.”

For a moment, she froze.
To which activities was he referring? Did he know about Godiva?

No, Godiva was a story to them here, nothing more. She let go of the breath she had scarcely realized she had held, and answered.

“I thank God, then, that it is only the approval of my own family that matters to me, for as I have said, they are proud of my work with my brother.”

“Ah, Tia!” Ray took her hands. “I know that you care for me ... I feel it when we touch, I see it in your eyes. I wish I could make you see that wrong is just that—wrong. Your work is wrong, and Mrs. Roper is quite accurate in her assessment—many men would refuse to marry you, considering what you have seen and done entirely indecent. And you must realize ...” His voice tightened suddenly. “You must realize that your father is wrong. Very wrong.”

She drew her hands from his. He spoke to her so earnestly. Her feelings for him were very confused. They had been different before the war. She had liked him ... she had been tempted. He had liked horses, riding, agriculture, good brandy, and even books. Something had changed with the war; she did care for him, but with a strange reserve. It was still hard to hurt him.