back and forth, floating above the ground, suspended between four soldiers. Fitz’s head hung limply. Everything was upside down—a battery of cannons thundered by, wheels a blur in the boiling dust. Infantry double-timed toward the front, officers mounted, shouting orders, trying to make sense of the madness that swirled around them. And dust. Dust hanging in the air; dust covering the dark blue sack coats of the soldiers; dust, and a dun-colored film, spurting from the soldiers’ feet.
“Get his head,” someone ordered.
Fitz felt a strong hand cradle his neck and hold his head up. The muscles ached from the strain of the unnatural position. He tried to say thank you but even that was too much.
He remembered what happened—or at least some of it.
Men were running, shouting—it was a rout. The Union line had broken, and Fitz was trying to rally his men when everything had turned black. Stop, he had wanted to say, turn and fight them—don’t run away—hold your ground. He was floating now.
Darkness again, and this time Fitz welcomed it. He was tired and thirsty, and he thought that someone had set fire to his left arm and the blaze was just now feeding his flesh. He wondered why someone would do that.
“Colonel?” A surgeon stood over him, the man’s coat caked with blood. Above the man’s head was a tent, and Fitz knew he was at the surgeon’s station. He heard men groaning, and the air was pierced by a sharp scream that ended quickly. Flies buzzed industriously around the tent, feasting on the residue on the surgeon’s scalpel. “Colonel,” the surgeon said again, his hand clamping on Fitz’s chin. He shook Fitz’s head until he was sure that his patient was awake. “I’m giving you chloroform.” He interrupted his explanation to demand the drug. His eyes, ringed red with fatigue, found Fitz’s. “Your arm is badly mangled and I must repair it. Do you understand?”
Fitz blinked once, a signal for yes, and then realized it made no difference if he understood or not—the surgeon would do as he thought best. Then he knew.
“No,” he croaked. “No!” For God’s sake don’t do it. “Don’t take my arm.”
The surgeon, senses dulled from hacking arms and legs from perfectly good bodies, tried to focus his attention on Fitz.
“Please don’t take my arm,” Fitz cried out, but some imp snatched his voice away and replaced it with nothing more than a husky whisper. He licked his lips, hoping that would return power to his words, but his mouth was as dry as a vault. His tongue swept cracked lips in vain, and the surgeon, tired of this silly game, returned to his preparation.
“Water,” Fitz thought to say. He could wet his mouth and speak so that this butcher would understand him.
A steward appeared alongside the operating table, holding a cotton cloth and a tin can. No. Not water. Chloroform.
Fitz shook his head in desperation as the man soaked the cloth. The cotton threads grew, and the heavy stench of the medicine drifted over Fitz.
“Water!” Fitz cried, loud enough to stop the surgeon and steward.
“Later,” the surgeon said, irritated at the interruption.
“Now!” Fitz ordered. The surgeon responded with a flick of his chin at the steward.
It was a different cloth that descended on Fitz. It was heavy with hot water. The steward forced it between his lips and squeezed. It tasted sour but washed the dust from his mouth and replenished his strength. When it was pulled away, Fitz locked eyes with the surgeon. “Don’t take my arm.”
The surgeon’s impatience was compounded by weariness, and he replied in a curt tone, “I may have to. To save your life.”
Fitz propped himself up on his right arm, ignoring the searing pain from his wound. He was angry now and fed up with discussing the issue. “Surgeon. Bandage it. Drain it. Bleed it. But leave it attached to the rest of me. It’s been at my side for thirty-four years. I’ve given you an order and by God, you’d better obey.”
The surgeon eased Fitz onto the table, giving him a look of disgust. “As you wish, Colonel.” He nodded at the steward to continue.
The cloth, stinking of chloroform, covered Fitz’s mouth and nose. Before he felt sleep overcome him, he wondered what had become of the army, and his regiment. The rebels—ghostly shapes who rose out of a tangle of trees and fired from fewer than one hundred yards—had flanked them. What happened to the Union regiment on his right? Thomas? Why didn’t Thomas protect his flank? Clouds drifted over his mind and the question remained, unanswered.
The Devil had the lowest bid. He and his fellow demons had contracted with the army to ship poor wounded soldiers, in condemned cars, over pitted iron rails that had been hastily laid on gravel roadbeds.
Fitz, like his fellow inmates packed in the crowded ambulance cars, rocked back and forth in agony as the train thundered on its endless journey north. Occasionally a steward would squeeze between the stacks of beds and wipe Fitz’s face of soot and sweat, or glance indifferently at his heavily bandaged left arm. Sometimes water was provided, and twice a day broth, and bread for those who could handle the rock-hard substance. When the train stopped, a surgeon would sweep through the car, tossing out rapid-fire orders, and the stewards changed bandages or cleaned wounds or, if the patients were lucky, dispensed lemon halves to each man. Fitz sucked his down greedily, chewing at the pulp and even the bitter rind. If wounded officers are treated this way, Fitz reasoned, then how horrible must conditions be for the common soldier.
Some men died. Fitz would hear a hurried conference of nervous whispers and then several stewards would carry the blanket-covered body down the narrow aisle to the end car.
The stewards talked about the defeats. This general or that general was to blame, and the talk turned against the government and Lincoln. Fitz ordered them to stop that nonsense, but then realized he had not uttered a word. Perhaps he was dreaming.
“Get me water,” an officer several beds down ordered. “My leg. Oh, it hurts so. Give me water, won’t someone?”
A man across the aisle from Fitz, an officer with yellow skin and sunken eyes, glanced in his direction. “I wish someone would drown that creature.” He lifted his head with great effort. “Your arm, eh? Well, you’ve still got it. I can’t get rid of this sickness. I’m through with this war. Through with the army, and Lincoln, too.”
Fitz was too weak to talk, but he was tired of the other officer already. He had seen despair creep through the camps, soldiers sullen and despondent because they had fought the enemy and lost. Officers such as the sick one next to him were no help. If they did not discourage the men, they did not encourage them either. The officer continued speaking—the next election would see Lincoln and the Republicans out, let the South have its way—there was no reason for Americans to fight Americans.
Fitz was awake enough to speak. “Shut up, you cowardly creature. If you can’t pitch in fully then don’t pitch in at all.”
“I have a right to an opinion,” the officer said.
“Yes, and I have a right to draw a pistol and shoot you,” Fitz returned. “If you must talk, step out the nearest door and have at it.”
The voices died down in response to Fitz’s outburst. He felt good. He was a plain-spoken man—much more so than some people liked. Hot-tempered, one officer noted.
Fitz
