“Sometimes they’re buried,” Hester said huskily. “You do if you can. But the living are always more important.”
Merrit turned away and went to fetch the horse. There were no more questions to which she wanted to know the answers, except the simple, practical ones of how to harness a horse, of which she had no idea.
They reached the small town of Centreville at dusk. It was no more than a stone church, a hotel and a few houses lying between five and six miles from Bull Run Creek and Henry Hill beyond it.
Hester was exhausted and certainly aware of how dirty she was, and she knew Merrit must feel the same, only she would be far less accustomed to it. But the girl had a fever of enthusiasm for the Union cause to spur her on, and if she wondered about Lyman Breeland even for a moment, it did not show in the deliberation with which she greeted the other women who had come to share in the work and offer their help also, or the few men from the army who were detailed off for medical duties.
They had already turned the church into a hospital, and other buildings also, and seen their first casualties from earlier, brief engagements. The last of those who could be moved were being put into ambulances to be taken to Fair-Fax Station, seven miles away, and from there to Alexandria.
A tall, slender woman with dark hair seemed to be in charge. There was a moment when she and Hester came face-to-face, having given conflicting orders on the storage of supplies.
“And who are you, may I ask?” the woman said abruptly.
“Hester Monk. I nursed in the Crimea, with Florence Nightingale. I thought I could be of help.…”
The anger in the woman’s face melted away. “Thank you,” she said simply. “General MacDowell’s men have been scouting the battlefield all day. I think they will probably attack about dawn. They cannot all be here yet, but they will be by then, or soon after.”
“That’s if they are to attack at first light,” Hester said quietly. “We had better get our rest so we have our strength to do what is necessary then.”
“Do you think …” The woman stopped. There was a moment’s blank fear in her face as she realized the reality was only hours away. Then her courage reasserted itself and the determination was back. There was only the slightest tremor in her voice when she continued. “We cannot rest until we are certain we have done all we can. Our men will be marching through the night. How can they have confidence in us if they find us asleep?”
“Post a watch,” Hester said simply. “Idealism has its place, and morale, but common sense is what will keep us going. We will need all our strength tomorrow, believe me. We will have to be working long after the battle itself is won or lost. For us that is only the beginning. Even the longest battle is very short, compared with the aftermath.”
The woman hesitated.
Merrit came into the room, her face white, her hair straggling out of its pins; she had tied it back with a torn kerchief. She looked dizzy with exhaustion.
“We need rest,” Hester said. “Tired people make mistakes, and our errors could cost soldiers their lives. What’s your name?”
“Emma.”
“There’s nothing more we can do now. We have lint, adhesive plasters, bandages, brandy, canteens of water, and instruments to hand. Now we need the strength to use them, and a steady hand.”
Emma conceded, and in weary gratitude they ate a little, drank from the water canteens, and settled in for what was left of the short night. Hester lay next to Merrit, and knew that she was not asleep. After a little while she heard her crying quietly. She did not touch her. Merrit needed to weep, and privacy was best. Hester hoped if anyone else were awake and heard her they would take it for fear and leave her to conquer it without the embarrassment of being noticed.
Monk and Trace also heard word that battle was bound to commence on Sunday, the twenty-first of July, and that the last of the volunteers and supplies had gone out to Centreville and the other tiny settlements near Manassas Junction, ready to do all they could to help.
They were in the street just outside the Willard Hotel. People were shouting. A man ran out of the foyer, waving his hat in the air. Two women clung to each other, sobbing.
“Damnation!” Trace said vehemently. “Now there’s no chance of getting Breeland before the fighting. It’ll be the devil’s own job to find him. He could be wounded and taken back to one of the field hospitals, or even evacuated back here.”
“There was never any chance of getting him before the battle,” Monk said realistically. “Chaos is our friend, not our enemy. And if he’s injured we’ll just have to leave him behind. If he’s killed, it hardly matters. Except it will be harder to blacken the name of a man who died fighting for his beliefs, whatever they were.”
Trace stared at him. “You’re a pragmatic devil, aren’t you. Our nation is about to tear itself apart, and you can be as cold as one of your English summers.”
Monk smiled at him, a wry baring of the teeth.
“Better than this suffocation!” he retorted. “I’ll recover from a cold in the head faster than from malaria.”
Trace sighed and smiled back, but his expression was shaky, too close to weeping.
A man careered by on horseback, shouting something unintelligible, sending up a cloud of dust.
Monk stiffened. “Our best chance of getting Breeland is if we can find him in the battlefield and take him by force, as if we were Confederates capturing a Union officer. No one will think anything odd of it, and from the fancy dress party of uniforms you’ve got, no one will know who anybody else is anyway! You could probably be joined by ancient Greeks and Romans without causing a stir, from what I’ve seen. You’ve already got Scots with kilts, French Zouaves in every color of the rainbow, not to mention sashes around the waist and everything on their heads from a turban to a fez!”
“They were supposed to be in gray,” Trace said with a shake of his head. “And the Union in blue. God! What a mess! We’ll be shooting friends and foes alike.”
Monk wished desperately that he could offer any comfort. If it had been England fighting its own he would not know how to bear it. There was nothing good or hopeful to say, nothing to ease the terrible truth. To try would be to show that he did not understand-or worse, that he did not care.
They took horses-there were no more carts or carriages to be hired-and rode through the night towards Manassas, stopping only for a short while to rest. The knowledge of what lay ahead prevented anything but the most fitful sleep.
By early Sunday morning just before dawn they passed columns of troops marching at double speed, others at a full run. Monk was horrified to see their sweating bodies stumbling along, some with haggard faces, gasping for breath in air already hot and clinging in the throat, thick with tiny flies.
Some men even threw away their blankets and haversacks, and the roadside was strewn with dropped equipment. Later, as the sky paled in the east and they got closer to the little river known as Bull Run, there were exhausted men tripped or fallen and simply lying, trying to regather some strength before they should be called upon to load their weapons and charge the enemy. Many of them had taken off their boots and socks, and their feet were rubbed raw and bleeding. Monk had heard at least one officer trying to get the men to slow down, but they were constantly pressed forward by those behind and had no choice but to keep moving. He could see disaster closing in on them as inevitably as the heat of the coming day.
Monk started as he heard the sharp report of a thirty-pounder gun firing three rounds, and he judged it to be on the side of the river he was on and aimed across to the other, close to a beautiful double-arched stone bridge which took the main turnpike over the Bull Run. It was the signal for the battle to begin.
He looked at Trace beside him, sitting half slumped in the saddle, his legs covered with dust, his horse’s flanks sweating. This would be the first pitched battle between the Union and the Confederacy; the die was cast forever, no more skirmishes-this was war irrevocable.
Monk searched Trace’s features and saw no anger, no hatred, no excitement, only an inner exhaustion of the emotions and a sense that somehow he had failed to grasp the vital thing which could have prevented this, and now it was too late.
Again Monk tried to imagine how he would feel if this were England, if these rolling hills and valleys dotted with copses of trees and small settlements were the older, greener hillsides he was familiar with. It was Northumberland he saw in his mind, the sweep of the high, bare moors, heather-covered in late summer, the wind-driven clouds, the farms huddled in the lea, stone walls dividing the fields, stone bridges like the one crossing
