each time the train rattled over a worn rail.
The pain was almost unbearable, but Fitz also struggled with the other trials of being wounded. His body defied him. His wound would not let him turn, seeking a more comfortable position. His bowels refused to function, unless the steward gave him a coarse medicine that rocked his stomach before it produced a watery mix. Lice became his constant companions, hundreds of them. Setting up housekeeping in his bed, crawling over his body, and milling about in the foul mass that covered his bedding. They invaded his bandages, hiding in the wound that protected them from his efforts to dig them out with his dirty fingernails.
The pain never left him. The stewards gave him a teaspoon of a hideous concoction they informed him would help with the pain. It did not. It made him light-headed and filled his brain with warped dreams of Asia, and dead soldiers, and lice gnawing his arm from his body.
He kept his mind focused on Asia Lossing as much as he could. Her name suited her. She was as mysterious as the Orient, he had remarked to her. Yes, she agreed, but not nearly as distant. He took a carnal inventory of her hips, arms, legs, and breasts, and reminded himself of the times that they had shared in her bed. Fitz found himself aroused as he thought of her, and glanced down sheepishly to see if the bulge in his blanket betrayed his thoughts.
I will ask her to marry me, Fitz vowed. She had spoken about marriage before, and he had halfheartedly agreed it was the thing to do. His reluctant response had hurt her, and now he felt guilty he had not asked for her hand then. You must hurry, she had warned him; at thirty I am an old maid. He had surprised himself with his chivalrous response. At any age, Fitz had said, you are beautiful. I will ask her when I arrive in Washington. If I arrive, he reminded himself.
The surgeon—another one, not the man who wanted to remove his arm—had told him he would have to spend some time in the hospital. “You won’t be able to use your arm for a while,” the surgeon had said. He was a major with a thick head of white hair, far too old for his position. But Fitz liked him because he was profane and blunt. They had a great deal in common. “I’ll send you up to the Armory Hospital. It’s practically within sight of the Capitol.” He examined the wound after carefully unwrapping it, and he filled the air with the curious physician’s incantations of “mmm”s before scowling at Fitz. “You’ve given some of our people a hard time, Colonel, but here’s my advice to you. Keep your damned mouth shut and do what the doctor tells you. This is a serious wound. We pulled enough lead out of it to build our own cannon. Hear me? Take your medicine and let it heal. Keep it clean. Once a day, new bandages.”
Fitz awoke with the shuddering of the car. Men groaned or screamed in pain as shattered bones bit into flesh. Open wounds twisted as the car swayed to a stop, and men cried for stewards, water, or the relief of death. They were someplace in Virginia, Fitz heard one of the stewards comment—a day’s journey from Washington. The stale air in the car stank of decay and the corruption of gangrene. Fitz turned his head toward a narrow slit in the car wall; beyond it, the full purity of summer. He saw trees fat with leaves that quaked with life in the faint breeze that teased them and carried into the car.
There was something else, an evil scent that reminded him of the dead carried on the train. He knew the smell—the thick and syrupy stink of flesh decaying, meat falling from bones, maggots swarming over vessels that had once been men.
They were carried off the train on stretchers and laid under tents as white as clouds. Surgeons and stewards moved among the long rows of wounded, replacing bandages, dispensing medicines, and giving the live-saving elixir of water. A male nurse, a gentle man with a bushy beard, slipped a soft hand under Fitz’s neck and lifted his head. Fitz felt the smooth lip of a tin cup at his mouth. Cool water ran down his throat, and Fitz begged for more. He was given nearly half a cup, but the nurse stopped.
“The surgeon will have to look you over first, Colonel,” the nurse said, guiding Fitz’s head to the canvas. “There are some ladies from the Sanitary Commission who will stop by. They will write a letter to your loved ones.”
“Washington?” Fitz asked, his mouth dry. He wanted more water. “How far?”
“Sixty miles,” the nurse said. He glanced at Fitz’s arm.
“How does it look?” Fitz asked, hoping the man would not answer.
The nurse smiled and stood. “The surgeon will be along. I’ll come later with more water.”
Fitz closed his eyes, sickened at the thought that he might yet lose his arm. He had seen the stacks of limbs near the surgeons’ tents. Shattered arms and legs, inarticulate pieces of meat, skin sagging for want of life, streaks of blood still draining from gaping wounds. Marching past the sight for the first time he had thought of hogs scalded and butchered, their parts stacked for salting.
A large woman carrying a stool appeared and, placing herself next to Fitz, pulled a sheaf of papers and a pencil from oversized pockets sewn onto her dress.
She smiled at Fitz, and for an instant he saw a pity in her eyes that said she was looking at a dead man. He calmed himself and forced a smile in return.
“I’m here to write to your loved ones,” the woman said, her voice surprisingly childlike. “What is your name?”
Fitz licked his lips. “Colonel Thomas Fitzgerald Dunaway.”
“A colonel,” she replied, impressed. “To whom shall I address the letter?”
Fitz told her and began an account of his condition. Asia must be informed of his wound and that he was in route to the Armory Hospital. He made light of his condition, hoping his description was not too shocking.
He did not reveal the truth. He was afraid he’d offend the woman scribbling dutifully. He could not bear to trouble Asia. She would know soon enough.
The pain was nearly overwhelming at times, knives piercing his flesh, scraping the muscle from his bone, but he knew if he could only get off that infernal train, he would feel better. He prayed to God that he would. It was an awkward effort; he had few conversations with the Almighty that weren’t firmly planted in a string of oaths.
The woman left, assuring Fitz that she would post the letter, and the nurse returned with more water, although not as much as Fitz wanted. The surgeon, some pale balding man with a weak chin, followed. After examining Fitz’s arm, he commented, “They’ll tend to this in Washington.”
Fitz felt hollow as the words echoed through his mind. They’ll tend to this in Washington.
He awoke, realizing that he was moving. His stretcher was being carried onto a train. He watched with a sense of longing as the cool tents that had housed him for such a short time receded.
Fitz felt the train move steadily, the swaying now reduced from a sharp pitch from side to side to a gentle oscillation, the train calmed by its impending arrival at its destination.
They entered the city in darkness; Fitz was surprised by the rush of lights visible through the louvers. He was alarmed by the city’s appearance. Lamps glowed in the darkness; wagons moved about freely, people behaving as if they had nothing to trouble them. He became unaccountably frightened by the disinterest and thought he would be pitched into a hospital and forgotten. His return to Washington plunged him into melancholy. It was no longer a city; it was strange and bewildering landscape of foreign sights.
He counted three changes, yard engines moving cars about, shuttling them to spurs that led to hospitals. He heard men shouting orders as cars were unhitched from the trains, and then the
