Now what?
The moment he hit the mattress, the pain overwhelmed him and the darkness won.
Chapter 14
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.”
—Abraham Lincoln’s Inaugural Address
March 4, 1861
Ada found herself lost. At a standstill, she blew the wisp of hair that had freed itself from her coiled braid pinned at the nape of her neck and fell into her eyes. Staring blankly at the wall of supplies, she could not recall what she’d come in here for. With a deep breath, she steeled her shoulders, straightened and forced herself to concentrate. She’d spent too many hours at the hospital and way too long caring for that man that the lack of sleep was catching up to her. She bit back the growl that threatened to escape her lips and yanked the bottle off the shelf and turned to return to the ward when she ran right into Dr. Waxler.
“Nurse Lorrance.”
She jerked back, juggling the bottle with fingers that seemed very loose. “Dr. Waxler, I beg your pardon.” He actually ran into her, she was convinced, but waiting for him to apologize would take a month of Sundays, so she darted to the right.
“My dear, you look a bit pale. Are you all right?”
His words brought her to a stop. Her mind raced. Last thing she needed was a prying doctor. “I’m fine, sir. Just a bit in a hurry. If you’ll excuse—”
“Yes, you have done your duties here quite well, considering.”
That remark made the hairs on the back of her neck bristle. “I do what is required of me,” she snapped then bit her tongue. How dare he provoke her so? “I’ll do whatever is necessary to help our men to recover. You know that.” She paused for a moment. “Sir.”
She saw his mouth wiggle, as if he was fighting to hold back the smile of satisfaction. He made her skin crawl, because he knew perfectly well she could be aiding the patients so much more but it was an argument she had no time for. The end of her shift was coming and she had her own patient to see to. Again, she spun and this time, escaped any further words.
Grabbing the washbasin and her rag, she gave the young man in the bed a cooling wipe of his brow and prayed the fever was finally gone. But as she gave him a pasted smile, she soon found her mind wandering to her own patient as she continued to wipe his brow.
“Nurse Ada?”
She stopped and looked down at him. His face betrayed his youth, no more than sixteen she’d discovered. And after the race to ‘join up’ with his friends, he now found himself without an arm from battle. Her heart clenched.
“Yes, Private Sparks?”
“I think I’m pretty good, Miss Ada.”
It hit her that she’d doused the poor boy’s face with too much water from the rag and even his sad pillow was sopping. “Oh, dear, let me see to that.” She went to rise but he grabbed her hand.
“It’s fine. But you look lost, Miss. Maybe takin’ care of us is hard to keep doin’ day after day. We all be a sorry lot.”
Tears wanted to form but she bit her tongue to stop it. Instead, she gave him a sympathetic grin. “No, you fine young men risked your lives for the Union. It is I and the country that owe you a thanks. Tending you is a pleasure,” she reassured him.
He snorted as he squeezed her hand. “Hope you sleep well tonight, Nurse Ada. We don’t want ya gettin’ sick and not able to be here for us.”
A lump formed in her throat. With a nod, she took her supplies and virtually ran from the room.
Will had left that man in the room adjacent to hers at the boarding house. It wasn’t an ideal setting, but Will had quite the knack to sway anyone to his way when he set his mind to it. She wasn’t sure what he’d told Mrs. Turner but the woman had been very quiet when Ada tended to a man in a room next to hers.
Her patient’s fever had lessened to barely there. That first night, though, had been rough. The rebel soldier nearly catapulted off the bed when she touched his injured limb, but then he passed out. Placing the back of her hand against his forehead had verified her fear that he was burning with fever. The ankle and foot were swollen and the incision she had made now looked puffy yet hard with puss that had leaked.
“Will, hand me that pillow,” she pleaded. Will handed her the cushion and she placed it under the bruised foot. “We’ve got to get the swelling down. Whatever happened to him?”
In a broken voice, the patient answered. “Damn Yankees made me walk!”
Ada’s eyes widened in surprised, a sickening curl in her stomach when she knew if that happened, the wound was damaged then, for it wasn’t ready for the pressure. “Will, I need morphine, ether and a surgeon’s kit.”
“Ada, I can’t do that and you know it! I’ve risked enough as it is.”
She spun to face him. “Let me put this to you as it stands. If what he said is true, it would tie in with this infection. You say your family owes his for some past indiscretion you wish to not tell me. Fine, but I’ll lose him if I can’t open this back up and reset it, if I can, or it will have to be amputated, and that I’ll do my best to refrain from. My only hope is to clean it out and pray, do you hear me?”
Will had stared at her and she couldn’t tell
