Part 23 (1/2)

Louis had been so overwhelmed by the sheer size of City Point, the thousand new sights, that he hadn't noticed what else was truly different about this place. The presence of the fairer s.e.x.

Mon Dieu, there's females everywhere.

It wasn't that he'd not been seeing women over the past four months. Women dressed like women, that is, and not disguised like a man as Mary had been. There'd always been some women around Petersburg or any of the places the Army of the Potomac pitched their tents for more than a night. Some were wives and daughters of sutlers, some were laundresses plying their trade. Others were daughters of Eve earning a living in a less respectable way.

Louis's face grew red as he thought about them. He had no experience with those fallen angels, but he'd heard other older soldiers speak of those women with their forward ways and extravagant clothes.

Fallen angels, Cyprians, ladies of the evening. Those were some of the names he'd heard them called.

These women here at City Point, though, didn't look like the ladies of the night. Their demeanor and dress were modest. They walked with purpose as if on their way to accomplish worthy tasks.

Louis tried not to stare.

”True angels of mercy,” Flynn said in a surprisingly tender voice, putting a meaty hand on Louis's shoulder. ”Nurses come t' care for our sick and injured. They make me think of me own sweet, modest Lizzy back home in Boston.”

Louis turned to look at Flynn. Lizzy? He'd never thought of his sergeant as being anything but a soldier, not a man with someone waiting for him back home. Was that a tear in the corner of Flynn's eye?

Flynn patted Louis's shoulder once more and then turned to walk down the pier.

Louis looked again at the purposeful women around them.

Women nurses. I've read about them.

The Women's Nursing Corps. Another new thing brought into being by this war. Louis took note of the plain brown or black dresses that marked those women as nurses. Standard uniforms for those allowed to join the organization founded by a woman named Dorothea Dix early on in the war.

What was it I saw in the New York Herald about them?

”If a woman is too fond of adorning herself with finery or her face is pretty, she shall be judged unsuitable to join.”

Modest and plain, that was how a nurse was supposed to be.

”Let's get us some of that fruit,” Artis said.

”Huh?” Louis said. ”Oh.” His friend was pointing with his chin toward the commissary workers with the baskets of apples and pears.

Joker, Songbird, and Bull joined them. The five made their way over to the edge of the pier where the fruit had been unloaded. Fifty yards downriver from them were broken and blackened timbers-signs of the recent catastrophe.

”Guess you had some fun here last week,” Kirk said to an old man with a thick gray beard handing out apples from a basket.

The old man jerked his head toward the right. ”Y' wanta hear 'bout that,” he said, ”y'ought spen' some time with them fellas over there what seen it firsthand.”

Louis and Joker looked in the direction the man indicated. A wide field spread with hundreds of tents stretched off into the distance.

”Depot Field Hospital,” the old man said proudly. ”Two hunnerd acres 'n' ten thousand beds. Makes it 'bout the biggest hospital in the world, don't it? A right popular place. Men's jest dying t' get in there.” He guffawed at his own joke.

The five of them took their food to sit in the shade of a tree. As the breeze from the river washed over him, an unfamiliar feeling of contentment came to Louis.

I wouldn't mind spending some time here.

A shadow fell across his feet.

”Don't get too comfortable, men.”

The five men looked up at Corporal Hayes, pointing up the river with a hand that held a half-eaten apple.

”Re-forming the company over there. Boarding that barge in ten minutes.”

Louis looked up and his eyes met those of their corporal.

Here we go again, the look on Hayes's face said.

As soon as the last man had tromped across the planks, the transport barges began to steam away, heading east from City Point. Joker elbowed his way next to Louis, who stood leaning over the rail.

”A fine rumor's being spread,” Kirk said, putting an arm around Louis's shoulders. ”If we go downriver they'll be sending us to Was.h.i.+ngton so as we can help recruit and train more men to fill in the gaps. And wouldn't that be fine?”

”Better,” Louis said. ”Too good to be true.”

Downriver. Out of the fighting?

At Wilson's Landing, twelve miles below the point, they anch.o.r.ed for the evening. At midnight, though, the anchors were weighed and the engines reversed. Back upriver they went until the light of dawn showed their true destination. They pulled in to sh.o.r.e by a familiar-looking pontoon bridge.

”Deep Bottom,” Corporal Hayes said in a sepulchral tone.

We've been here before.

”Lads,” Flynn intoned, his voice heavy with irony, ”once again our orders are easy ones. Our simple task is t' break through the Rebel lines and take Richmond.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO.

REAMS STATION.

Wednesday, August 24, 1864

Louis sat back to back with Artis as they refilled their cap boxes from the new supply of s.h.i.+ny copper percussion caps, each shaped like a little top hat.

More than a week had pa.s.sed since they'd disembarked from the transport barges and made their first two-hour march. Under the blazing sun of midday, it had been so hot that two men fell dead out of the line of march from heatstroke. And that had just been the start of their trial by fire.

A few yards away from them, Songbird was recounting the latest battle at Deep Bottom to an awed circle of recruits- brand-new arrivals about to be pressed into service for the first time in this campaign.

You can almost read the word green on their foreheads. No need to learn their names. They won't last long enough.

Meanwhile, Songbird's words were coming close to a martial hymn.