“That, my dear sir, is a good question. For now, let us stay with nurse. It is easier on your palate, I’ve no doubt.”
He caught that hesitation in her tongue, as if she’d spent a lifetime justifying her worth. He was familiar with that to a certain extent. He watched her intently as she worked. Her touch was soft, like Jenny’s back at home. That elderly matron slave had been a mammy to them when they had minor aches and pains and she, too, had chuckled when he squealed as a boy when she poked at an injury. This Miss, or Nurse Lorrance did the same, though he kept his complaints quiet. Flinching was another matter.
She cocked her chin, her eyes narrowing at the limb. Still lifting his heel slightly, she looked about and found in reach a butternut coat that she wadded up under his calf when she lowered the foot. The wool of the material scratched his skin but the pain kept him from moving.
“Stay there, sir,” she mumbled as if that command was an afterthought. “I’ll return shortly.” She turned to leave when he bent and grabbed her arm.
“You’re not going to let them take my leg!”
Her lips pursed as she peeled his fingers off her. “I will do my best, Private…” she raised a brow, expecting him to tell her.
“Corporal.” He dropped his hand to the cot he was on. “Corporal Francois Fontaine.”
“Corporal Fontaine,” she repeated. Her eyes mesmerized him, playing a myriad of colors at once—amber blue with a silver glint. Realizing he was staring at her, he blinked and when he looked again, she was gone.
His leg throbbed and when he’d reached for her, he’d set off a sting in his arm from the previous wound. Parched but too weak to do anything about it, he rolled his head and closed his eyes, praying the girl wasn’t a ghost but an angel, though God knew he didn’t deserve one…
Ada raced into the linen closet where they had stored some of the medical supplies. Biting her bottom lip, she couldn’t shake the scared but determined look on that man’s face out of her mind. She knew Waxler and the other surgeons would diagnosis the foot unsalvageable and amputate it, but she didn’t think, from her view of the wound, that it was that severe. She needed to clean it to see it better.
“How is that soldier?”
She gasped and dropped the cotton bandages to the floor. Stooping to retrieve them, she glanced over her shoulder.
“Will, you should have announced you were there.”
He shook his head wearily. “If you’d looked, you would’ve seen me.” He sighed. “I had to step away. It’s a mess out there.”
His hands were scarlet stained from blood and his hospital coat splattered crimson.
“There’s coffee in the kitchen. I’ll have Maybelle bring you some—”
“While you do what?”
She squirmed under his narrow gaze. “I’ll need hot water and one of the medical kits.”
Will laughed. “They are all in use, Ada. No one will let a nurse have one, especially not for use for the enemy.”
Anger struck her with those words. Wadding the cotton into ball under her arm, she swung around and hit him square in the chest with the palm of her free hand.
“Enemy? He’s a wounded man, Dr. Leonard. One bleeding and needing attention. In fact, there’s a whole ward of them back there. They deserve to be seen just as the men in there!”
“Ah, my abolitionist lady has turned soft on the slave-owners?”
Her blood boiled more. “Get out of my way, Will!” She stormed past him and into the former dining room, where hell greeted. Surgeons at work over the ghastly wounds of the Union men, many moaning, one screamed from the work being done. She hadn’t been this close to the pit of Hades, as Lettermann kept the nurses only in at the periphery.
“See why you were refrained from this?” Will stated. “This isn’t the worst, either.”
Still angry at him, she went to the empty table, no doubt where he stationed himself, and snagged his kit. “You don’t appear to be in need right now.”
“Ada!” he called after her.
She blazed back to the Confederate. He was insensible once more. She was thankful for that. Now, she needed that water.
“Here.”
Will stood next to the bucket of hot water. “Let’s see what he’s got.”
She dipped the cotton strip into the water and cleaned the wound. “Appears the bullet entered here,” she took the wand with the pearled ends. She gingerly put the probe into the wound and searched. After a moment, she pulled it. The pearl tip was still white, though dripped in blood. She went around to the other side of the leg and found a smaller hole.
“The exit, I believe.” She probed the area and again, the tip remained white, not great in size but enough to indicate exit wound.
Will sighed. “So we’ve irritated the Major over a simple gunshot wound. Ada…”
She took the foot by the ankle and turned it slightly, feeling an unusual bend in the ankle that made her groan. “Easy wound, one that should heal, but I strongly suspect there is a break in the bone.”
Will stared, only to sigh again, running his hand through his hair. “So, he’s lame. He’ll limp at best, if it heals. Though if Waxler finds it, he’ll amputate regardless.”
“Will, we can’t let him!”
She realized she sounded frantic and he knew it, too. He frowned, his gaze burning.
“Ada, what are you doing? This man is the enemy, for God’s sake! A Southerner, the type who supports the one thing you’ve been ranting against at those rallies, falling in with all the other abolitionists. He’s a slaver, probably owns a share. So why, in all that is holy, do you want to waste your time on him?”
His words stabbed at her soul. She knew he was no
