March Toward the Thunder Part 25

"Cook? Devlin? Kirk?"

"Not in my list of casualties."

"Corporal Hayes?"

The new lieutenant's face darkened. "Missing, I'm afraid. a.s.sumed dead or captured. Sorry about that."

The second visit, a day or so later, had been from The Angel.

That was what they called her-not just the sick and wounded, but the nurses as well. A ripple of excited voices marked her approach.

"The Angel's here!"

"She's come down to visit!"

It was one of his bad days. He didn't sit up or open his eyes, just kept pressing his hand to his forehead to try and make the aching stop. Then he felt a warm presence. Someone was kneeling by his cot. A smell as sweet as spring flowers was replacing the awful odors of illness and death that were never gone, even from an open-air tent.

"Young soldier," a strong, clear voice spoke.

A small, firm hand slid in to replace Louis's own on his forehead. He opened his eyes to look up into the round, handsome face of a small woman. Her expression was as caring as a mother looking at her own sick child. She had a bottle in her other hand and was sprinkling it around her and his cot.

"Lavender water," the woman explained. "My name is Clara Barton."

Clara Barton.

Louis knew her name. So did everyone in the army.

The Angel of the Battlefield herself.

Louis had read about her. She'd left a good job in the U.S. Patent Office to tend the wounded at Second Bull Run. So few doctors and so little planning for casualties in those early days of the war that Clara with her wagonload of food and her own medical supplies had been the first to arrive. Cooking, comforting the injured, caring for their wounds herself, that was what Clara Barton did then and was still doing.

"What is your name, young man?"

"Louis."

"Louis," Clara Barton repeated. "A fine name for a brave young soldier." Her hand was still on his forehead. For the first time in days Louis felt his headache diminishing. He started to smile-his lips trembling as he did so. It was the first time he'd really smiled since the battle at the railroad.

"Where were you wounded?"

Louis wondered for a moment why she couldn't see the bandages on his legs and arms, then realized she was asking about the place.

"Reams Station," he said.

Clara Barton nodded. "A very bad one. But you came through."

She moved her hand across his forehead and as she did so Louis saw a hole in the long sleeve of her black dress.

"Ah," she said, noticing where his gaze had strayed. She put down her bottle of lavender water to touch the hole in her garment with her other hand. "I have never mended this and I never shall. A bullet pa.s.sed through there, killing the man I was tending."

She smiled, but it didn't go beyond her lips.

Mon Dieu, she is sad.

Clara Barton shook her sleeve back down. "Of course, I do not need it as a reminder of what war is about. I have seen too often that it is not conquering armies, but boys like yourself toiling in the rain and darkness with no thought of pride or glory or reward, their faces bathed in tears and their hands in blood." Clara Barton sighed. "There is no need for me to make a speech to you. I only pray that you shall grow well and strong again."

She pressed his forehead again with her hand, rose, and was gone.

But I haven't grown well and strong again.

Louis shook his head in near despair. He'd been getting weaker every day since The Angel's visit. He slid his hand, which was too heavy to lift, down toward his leg.

No doubt about it. Hot to the touch.

Plus his nose had begun picking up a smell from his wound.

The doctor looked graver than usual as he did his customary painful poking and prodding.

Louis heard the words he spoke to one of the nurses as he walked away.

"I haven't the time now to do it, but that leg will have to come off this afternoon. It won't take long. Fifteen minutes at the most."

I'd rather die.

A wry smile twisted his face.

With this doctor's care I probably will.

He began to think about his death.

What will it be like? Will I walk the road of stars that leads up into the skyland? Will I see my father again? Will one of those angels that Father Andre spoke to me about come down and open its great white wings to embrace me? I wish . . .

But Louis never finished that thought. The sound of a commotion reached his ears.

"You cannot . . ."

"You're not allowed . . ."

"Madame!"

"Nda! Allez! You will not stop me."

"Hands off the lady," a second voice said.

Louis knew that second voice. It was Artis. It made his heart leap, but what filled him with even more joy was that he had also recognized the woman's voice he heard first.

Only one person in the world could sound as fierce and loving as that or speak such a mix of Indian and French and English. Another sort of angel had just arrived for him.

"M'mere," Louis sobbed as Artis helped him to sit up. Then he was in Marie Nolette's strong arms.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE.

HEALING.

There was no logical way-as far as white man's logic went- for his mother to have known he needed her. No one had written her a letter about his injuries. No one sent a telegram to the Indian mother of one insignificant private.

Yet her long journey south began on the day Louis fell at Reams Station.

When I called for her to come and help me.

"The trees," M'mere said. "They tell me you need me. So I come."

Things have to be done according to the rules in the army. Regulations have to be followed. Louis had learned that in the months he'd been a soldier. But even the army found it hard to resist Marie Nolette. After marching across four states carrying a bag nearly as big as herself on her back, she was not about to be deterred by rules, regulations, or those who thought they could enforce them when faced by one small French Canadian Indian mother.

The first one she confounded was the doctor. As M'mere held Louis, he returned with his saw and two attendants to carry Louis to the operating table.

M'mere s.n.a.t.c.hed the saw from him and threw it on the ground!

"You man with dirty hands! Nda! You will take my head before you touch his leg."

As the doctor and his two helpers backed off from his mother, who looked more like a female wolverine than a human, Louis caught a glimpse of Jake, the male nurse. Jake grinned like a jack-o'-lantern and held up both thumbs.

The next was a corporal who tried to explain that there was no way a mother could just sweep in and take her son with her. Although a patient, Private Nolette was still a soldier.

"And you have used him up," Marie said. "Now you go to cut off his leg. So what use will he be as a soldier? Him you do not need. You give him back to me."

Louis watched openmouthed. He hadn't realized how well his mother could speak the English language that she always said stuck in her throat like a fish bone.

The cowed corporal was replaced by a sergeant who ended up shaking his head and going for a lieutenant. By now a crowd of soldiers on crutches, nurses, and orderlies had formed around the tent.

"I will stay here to fight for my son if it take me all summer!" Marie Nolette said, standing beside his cot and crossing her arms on her chest. She turned to wink at Louis to let him know her choice of words had been no accident.

"You tell him, ma'am!" a soldier leaning on two canes shouted out from the bandages that covered most of his face.

"They ain't gonna back her down!" a one-armed private chipped in, pumping his remaining fist in the air.

A loud Hurrah! went up from the crowd as the befuddled lieutenant retired from the field of battle. This was the best entertainment that had ever come to Depot Hospital.

My mother!

There was so much hope and pride in his heart now that Louis thought it might burst. He was grinning as widely as all the others who'd gathered to take his mother's side.

The captain, who was the last to arrive, came with a handful of papers.

Louis's mother took half a step forward, her chin up, her index finger raised. Before she could speak, the officer raised his hand in a conciliatory manner.

"Mrs. Nolette," the captain said, in an extremely polite voice, "we've looked into your son's records. He's due to be honored with several commendations, it seems. Wouldn't you like to see him stay here to get his medals?"

"You want him to have medals, you send them to him, eh?" Marie Nolette pressed her lips together and nodded.

The captain nodded back to her.

The man is trying not to laugh. He's smart enough to be as amused by this as everyone else-except that sawbones.

Louis could see the doctor out of the corner of his eye. Clearly displeased, he'd been pushed to the back of the crowd-hopefully holding the dirty saw he'd retrieved from the muddy tent floor.

"In that case," the captain said, handing the papers to Louis's mother, "if you accept the consequences of removing him from professional hands, we're placing your son in your care."

The captain produced a pen. "Just make your mark here, ma'am."

Artis helped him to his feet, wrapping a blanket around his shoulders. Louis's head was spinning even more than it had been from his fever. People were cheering, patting him on the back, grasping his hands.

"Good luck to you, laddie."

"'Bout time somebody on our side had a victory."

"Your ma'd make a better general than the sorry lot we been saddled with!"

Then they were in the sunshine outside the tent, Artis supporting him with an arm around his shoulders on one side, M'mere under Louis's arm to his left.

"Nigawes, my mother, I have no clothes for traveling."

"In my bag," Marie Nolette replied.

A cheer went up from somewhere behind the tent they'd just left.

Louis turned to look. Near the back of the crowd Jake cupped his hands to shout to Louis.

"Had a little ac-cy-dent back here. Doc fell into the sinkhole!"

The elation that gave him strength began to fade as they moved away from Depot Hospital. They were on one of the roads now that led up from the river.

Don't know if I can take another step.

A wagon pulled up next to them.

"Sorry I'm late, ma'am," a bearded wagoneer said to Louis's mother.

Artis slipped his arm from around Louis's shoulders. "Grab hold."

Louis grasped the side of the wagon to steady himself.

His mother wrapped her arms around Artis. Louis could see from the surprised look on his Mohawk friend's face how much strength Marie Nolette was putting into that hug.