‘How’d you find this out?’ I ask, my mind working.
‘I got ways,’ he says, and smiles real sweet, pointing across the hall, to where a woman in charcoal-gray skirts bends over a soldier, a neighbor woman, or someone’s kin, come to be of help.
‘You get any other news with that smile of yours?’ I ask.
‘Nope. It’s tough gathering information when you only got one leg.’
‘Speaking of that, we’ve got to change your bandage,’ Will says, pulling back Sully’s blanket and starting to unwrap that leg. ‘Then we’ll see about getting you some air.’
Sully’s leg don’t look good. The red stump oozes with bubbling blood and thick yellow pus, and the stain of the iodine I painted Sully’s stump with is gone. Sully reads what is on my face and there ain’t a thing to tell him that’ll make things better.
With Miss Barton leaving, there is only one way for Sully to get good nursing. And that is when a path opens before me.
‘WE NEED TO get Sully on that wagon with Miss Barton,’ I tell Will when we leave the hospital, the sun low and golden across the ground, dancing in patches under the trees. It could almost be pretty, except for the dead stench hanging over the whole place.
‘What do you mean?’ he asks.
‘That’s the only way he’ll get well,’ I say. ‘He can’t stay here without good nursing and what if we get orders? He’s got to get back to the Capital, to a real hospital.’
Will is quiet, thinking.
‘But what if he won’t hold up for the journey? It’s more than sixty miles—and Miss Barton isn’t fit to nurse him all that way.’
‘I’m going with him,’ I say.
‘But—’
‘But nothing. I’ve got to get away from this place.’ There is no other way about it, I’ve got to tell him the whole of it. ‘Jeremiah got a baby on me,’ I say.
He stops where he is, the color going out of his face. ‘We ought to tell Sergeant—’
‘No! I’m getting on that wagon a soldier. I ain’t about to get myself drummed out of the Regiment and clapped in jail for not doing according to regulation.’
Will says, ‘You aren’t in any condition—’
‘There ain’t anything wrong with me,’ I say.
‘I’m going with you,’ Will says.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘To ask Sergeant. I’m going with you.’
‘There ain’t no need,’ I say.
‘There is a need,’ is all he says, his eyes on my belly, his mouth set in a line. ‘All you have got to do is tell the truth and Sergeant’ll let—’
‘Until I get paid, I ain’t leaving this Army any way but honorably. I aim to get the money that’s owed me,’ I say. ‘You give me your word. Promise you ain’t going to tell Sergeant. We both got secrets ain’t no reason to go telling.’
Will sighs. ‘I promise I won’t get you pushed out of this Company, if it can be helped.’
I don’t think, I just put my hand out.
The air is still around us, the sun lighting up his hair, making it bright. He looks at my face and then at my hand before taking it. I close my fingers tight, holding him there until our eyes meet again, and I know I’ve got to say this right so there ain’t broken feelings between us.
‘It is a kindness, what you’re doing, and I thank you. But Sergeant won’t say no,’ I tell him.
He nods and then shakes my hand hard, like he is trying to prove he is still more of a man than I’ll ever be, like our hands clasping is a test and he aims to pass it.
WE MARCH THROUGH the rows of tents, popped up like mushrooms on a dung pile. Boys sit in little clumps, getting fires going, the rising and falling sounds of talking too far off to make out any words.
Sergeant sits on a stump outside his own tent, scraping his razor across days’ worth of whiskers, a mirror in his left hand. When he sees us, he nods. We stand silent, watching while he finishes and goes into his tent.
‘You won’t say one thing?’ I ask Will under my breath. He don’t answer and I don’t press.
When Sergeant throws the tent flap back and comes out dressed in his jacket, I talk before Will even has a chance.
‘Sir, I got worries that need discussing, if you’re of a mind.’
Sergeant waves his hand at the stumps around his campfire, nothing more than a few embers giving off heat. ‘Let’s sit,’ he says.
I’d rather stand but I sit across the fire from Sergeant. Will sits next to me.
‘What is it, then?’ Sergeant asks once we are settled.
‘Sullivan Cameron, Sir. He’s in that hospital down the way, where we’ve been guarding.’
‘How does he?’ Sergeant asks.
‘That’s just it, Sir. He’s only got the one leg now, and what’s left of the other don’t look too good.’
Sergeant nods so I keep talking.
‘There’s a good nursing lady there, but she’s worked herself sick and come tomorrow she’ll be on a wagon headed for the Capital.’
‘You’re worried for Private Cameron’s life, I take it?’