style="font-size:15px;"> “Perhaps I should have asked you to teach me knitting.” He looked as if he’d rather read Atlantic Shipping Records from cover to cover than take up the craft—as if he found it a frilly pastime better suited to grandmothers in rocking chairs.
“Many men have, you know. There was a time, centuries ago, when knitting was purely a man’s craft. And you can’t argue that every hand is needed. Perhaps we can arrange a lesson for you yet.” She couldn’t for the life of her say where such boldness had come from. Perhaps Ida was rubbing off on her.
“If anyone could…” The fact that he didn’t finish the sentence made it all the more daunting.
Leanne chose to shift the subject. “You gave a stunning presentation, Captain. The boys were on their feet cheering by the end of things.”
He leaned against the bookcase, and while she had the urge to ask him if he’d like to sit down, she had the notion that he wouldn’t take to such a consideration of his injury. “You stopped knitting there for a moment. I saw you.”
He made it sound as if her pause revealed secrets. “I was inspired. It is a harrowing tale.”
A flicker of a shadow came over his eye at her use of the word. Only for a sliver of a second, however, and it was so instantly replaced by a cavalier expression that it made her wonder if it had been there at all. “Ah, but so heroic and inspiring.”
“It makes it unfair that your leg pains you so much.” She hadn’t planned on making such a remark, but somehow it jumped out of her.
She expected him to give some dashing dismissal of the judgment, but he paused. He looked at her as if she were the first person ever to say such a thing, which couldn’t possibly be true. “Why?” He had the oddest tone of expression.
“I…” she fumbled, not knowing the answer herself. “I should think it a terrible shame. It seems a very brave thing you’ve done, and I would like to think God rewards bravery, not punishes it.”
“God? Rewarding me for being caught on a failing airship?” He laughed, but far too sharply. “The very thought.” He took the book from her, snapping it shut before replacing it on the shelf between them. “You have a very odd way of thinking, Nurse Sample.”
What did the captain think of his “fate”? Or his Creator? Did he even acknowledge Him? Unsure what to make of Gallows, Leanne pressed her point. “Odd? By thinking God is just or by thinking you brave?”
That got a hearty laugh from him. He spun his cane in his hand, almost like a showman, and stared at her a long, puzzling moment before he said, “Both.”
She wasn’t going to let him go at a clever dodge like that. “How so?”
Gallows’s face told her the conversation had ventured into difficult territory. “Are you always so pointed in your conversations?”
“Would you prefer we return to Atlantic Shipping Records? Or I could get the good professor to rejoin us…”
“No,” he cut in. He pulled a hand over his chin, groping for his answer while she patiently waited. Leanne found herself genuinely curious—and surprisingly so—as to what this man truly thought of himself when no one else was watching. “Wars need heroes,” he said eventually, “and those of us in the wrong place at the wrong time find ourselves drafted into that need. I’ve been too busy staying alive and playing hero to worry about who did the drafting or why. I don’t ponder whether I limp from justice or bravery, Nurse Sample. I just try to walk.”
His smile had a dark edge to it as he turned and walked away. With an odd little catch under her chest, Leanne noted that while he hid it extremely well, he still limped.
* * *
Ashton Barnes was a big, barrel-chested man who barked orders with the intensity of cannon-fire. He’d been one of Colonel Gallows’s protégés, rising fast and far to head up a logistical marvel like Camp Jackson even though he was barely pushing fifty. The general’s balding head stubbornly held on to what was left of his white-blond hair, the rounded pate in stark contrast to the rectangular metal glasses he wore. Fond of cigars, hunting and blueberry pie, Barnes was the kind of larger-than-life commander a bursting enterprise like Camp Jackson required.
Every soldier knew Barnes as firm but fair, and even though one might consider Barnes “a friend of the family,” John knew better than to think his last name bought him any leverage with the general. His talents earned him the man’s eye, not his pedigree, and John had seen Barnes at the rally, sizing up his performance from the back corner. He’d known the job they’d given him to do yesterday, and he’d done it well, so John wasn’t surprised to receive a summons to the general’s office this morning.
While he also prided himself on good soldiering, drama and attention were John’s strongest weapons to wield. He’d known within the first ten minutes how to draw this particular audience into the cause. Really, what young man doesn’t want a chance at heroism? Doesn’t yearn to know he’s stepped into the destiny life handed him? The kindling was dry—it was only his job to strike the match and set it aflame. In his more whimsical moments, John sometimes wondered if his father was at all amused that John’s “gift for instigation,” as Mama always put it, had been put to such a virtuous use.
No sense pondering that. Father was undoubtedly back in Charleston and it was General Barnes’s approval that mattered at the moment. When John walked into the general’s office and stood at attention, Barnes gave him a broad smile. “Outstanding speech. I could have piled all the ‘Four Minute Men’ into one uniform and not done as well. We had two dozen new recruits before lunchtime today, and while I haven’t talked to the navy I suspect they did just as well.” He gestured toward the chair that fronted his desk. “At ease, son, get off that leg of yours.”
John settled into the chair. “I’m glad to see you pleased, sir.” He’d always liked Ashton Barnes, but he was smart enough to be a little afraid of the man and the power he wielded.
“I am. I am indeed. I knew you were the man for the job.” Usually a straight shooter, John didn’t like the way the general watched the way he laid his cane against the chair. Why did people always stare at the cane? Why never the leg? Or just at him? The general at least did him the courtesy of acknowledging the injury. That reaction was always easier to bear than those who did a poor job of pretending to ignore it, like his father. Barnes nodded toward John’s outstretched right leg. “How is the leg getting on?”
John stared down at the stiff limb. It never bent easily anymore so he’d stopped trying in cases where there was enough room. “Fine, sir. I’m better than most.”
“I suspect you are.” Barnes took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t like to see our boys coming home in pieces like this. Victory can’t come soon enough, in my book.”
The general had handed him the perfect opening, and John was going to take it. “I mean to go back, sir. As soon as I can.”
“So your father tells me.”
So Father had spoken with Barnes. John had suspected it—expected it, actually, given the colonel’s clear-but-unspoken distaste for his current assignment. It struck John as ironic that Oscar Gallows’s long, deep shadow lent John half the “marquee value” his current speeches produced. The Gallows family name got him this job as much as his silver tongue. After all, Gallowses
