Chapter Fifteen

Sharpsburg, Maryland
September 1862

Phoebe crawled out of her tent shortly before dawn and made her way through the woods to the creek, alone. Her fever, which had raged all night, had finally broken. She still felt weak from this latest bout of malaria, but at least she had stopped shaking. Poor Ted couldn’t have gotten much sleep with her moaning and thrashing beside him in their tent all night. He’d finally fetched her a dose of quinine from the regimental surgeon, and that had done the trick. She couldn’t remember if she had thanked him.

Her symptoms had been coming and going ever since she’d marched through White Oak Swamp last July—every few days at first, but now dwindling down to every few weeks. In early September, the regiment had boarded a steamship at Harrison’s Landing and sailed up the Potomac River toWashington City. They’d come right back to where they’d started from seven months ago with nothing to show for it. The Union was still split in two. Richmond was still the Rebel capital. The Negroes were still slaves. All that equipment, all that time, all those dead and wounded soldiers—for nothing. The waste of it made Phoebe sick.

The regiment had barely had time to make a proper camp in Washington before they’d learned that the Rebels were on the move, marching north into Maryland. Fearing an attack on Washington or Baltimore, General McClellan had ordered his army to go after them. Phoebe and Ted had packed their knapsacks again and marched into Maryland with the eighty-five-thousand-man army and a train of three thousand wagons, strung out for miles. There was no mud this time, only billowing clouds of choking dust, kicked up by thousands of horses and tramping feet.

Now, after several days of marching and a long night of fever, Phoebe felt filthy. She had risen early to cool off in Antietam Creek before anyone else was awake. Leaving her uniform on shore, she waded into the chilly water in her union suit, which she never took off. But it had been almost a year since she had wrapped the muslin around her bosom to flatten it, and the filthy cloth had rotted into shreds from dirt and sweat and age. Her fingers poked through it like paper. Phoebe quickly unbuttoned her underwear and stripped off the tattered cloth, letting it float away downstream. Then she took out the bar of soap she had tucked into her sleeve and washed her sweaty skin before buttoning up again.

It felt good to be clean, even if the water was cold enough to make her shiver. She lay back in the creek and wet her hair then scrubbed it clean with the soap, holding her breath and ducking under to rinse it. When she finished, Phoebe rose up out of the water, her wet union suit clinging to her body.

Ted stood on shore.

They stared at each other for a long, horrible moment before Phoebe shrieked and dove behind the bush where her uniform was. But even as she scrambled into her clothes, she knew it was too late. She’d seen Ted’s dazed eyes, wide with disbelief, his slack jaw. He had dropped straight to the ground on his backside, as if someone had pulled a chair out from under him.

Phoebe tried to think what to do as she quickly pulled on her trousers and shoved her arms into the sleeves of her jacket. She didn’t bother with her shirt. She scooped up her shoes and the rest of her clothes and hurried out to where she’d left him. Ted was gone. She heard him stumbling through the bushes. Phoebe tore off after him, buttoning her jacket as she ran.

“Ted! Ted, wait up!”

She easily caught up with him even though she was barefooted. Ted was so bewildered with shock that he had strayed from the path and was groping blindly through the brush. He staggered as though he was about to faint. When she grabbed the back of his jacket to stop him, he collapsed to the ground again.

“Get away from me! Get away!” He held his arms outstretched to keep her at bay.

“Stop it, Ted. It’s me.”

“No …no …it’s your face, but it’s on the wrong body!”

She exhaled and passed her hand over her eyes, struggling not to cry. “Why did you have to go and follow me? You know I like my privacy.”

“You had a fever all night. I wanted to make sure you weren’t sick.” But now Ted was the one who looked sick.

Phoebe turned away, wishing she could erase the look of revulsion on his face and replace it with his familiar, friendly grin. Her best friend—her only friend—had seen her as she really was, and he was horrified.

“Don’t tell nobody. Please, Ted. You can’t tell nobody.”

He scrambled to his feet as if he was about to run. “Don’t tell anybody? Are you crazy? No, get away from me,” he said when she tried to grab his sleeve to stop him. He took off blindly through the brush again. Phoebe followed, hopping from foot to foot as she put on her shoes.

“What’s wrong with you, Ted? Ain’t we still friends?”

He whirled around to face her. “How could you do this to me? I’ve been with you day and night …sleeping beside you …getting undressed …and …and everything! I didn’t know you were a—”

“Don’t say it! I don’t want anyone to know.”

He sank to the ground again, covering his face with his hands. “This can’t be true. I don’t believe it.”

“Then forget about it. Forget what you saw, and let’s just go on like we always were. Nothing’s changed.”

“Nothing’s changed? You’re not …you’re not a man! For crying out loud, you beat up the Bailey brothers! You shot a sniper! You do everything like a man—shooting, fighting. … How could you do all those things? Girls aren’t supposed to kill people, Ike. They—” He stopped short, groaning. “That isn’t even your real name, is it?”

“Yes, it is. My brothers always called me Ike. Ted, listen to me, please.”

But he wasn’t listening. He covered his face again, moaning. “Oh, my God. How could you do this to me?”

She knelt in front of him and grabbed his shoulders, shaking him. “Look at me, Ted. I look like a man. I’m big and I’m tall and I’m ugly. You think anybody’s gonna marry me? I got no life at all as a girl. But like you said, I can march and fight and shoot a gun. I made a darn good soldier …and a friend. We’re best friends, ain’t we, Ted? That won’t change.”

He twisted away from her and stood again. “Friends don’t play dirty tricks on each other. They don’t lie about who they really are. I told you the truth about my grandmother, and here you’ve been lying to me all along.”

She kept pace with him as he started tromping through the woods again. “Suppose I had told you the truth. What would you have done?”

“I don’t know. … Probably would’ve turned you in—like I’m going to do right now. You can’t keep pretending.”

“See? That’s why I didn’t tell—”

“You lied to me! I feel like a fool!” He clenched his teeth and his fists, walking faster. “You know, I’d like to beat the tar out of you for this, but I don’t hit girls!”

“Besides, you’d lose,” Phoebe said, hoping he’d smile. He didn’t. “Listen, I’m the same person I was yesterday, ain’t I? I’m still me.”

He stopped walking again, shaking his head in a baffled way as if struggling to comprehend the truth. “No, you’re not. … You’re a girl. For crying out loud, I’ve been telling all my secrets to a girl! You know how scared I was at Williamsburg …and I even bawled on your shoulder!”

“Oh, so what?” In her desperation, Phoebe tried making light of it, hoping Ted would get over his shock and laugh it off. “What’s the harm in being a girl and saying I was a man? It’s a lot better than being a man and making you think I was a girl, ain’t it?”

Her attempt at humor fell flat. Ted was growing angrier by the minute. “You have to tell them, Ike. You can’t keep lying like this.”

“Why not?”

“It isn’t right for a girl to fight a war. And I don’t feel right being with you anymore …sleeping beside you. … Oh, Lord! Do you have any idea what the other fellows are going to say about us when they find out you’re a girl? I’ll be humiliated!”

Tears filled Phoebe’s eyes at his words. The others wouldn’t envy him for sleeping with her all this time—they would make fun of him for being with such an ugly woman. “You don’t have to share a tent with me no more. But please don’t tell nobody, okay?”

“Somebody has to tell them. If you don’t, I will.”

“No! Please don’t do that. I got no place to go if I leave the army and nothing to go back to.”

“Go home to your family.”

“All I have left is three brothers, and they’re off fighting the war, too. Our farm’s rented out while they’re gone. I got no place to go, Ted.”

“Well, I can’t share a tent with you—and I can’t pretend that I don’t know the truth. I can’t keep quiet knowing what I do. Women don’t belong in a war.”

“Just give me some time to figure out where to go, okay? Then I promise I’ll leave. Please don’t tell nobody until then.”

“I’ll think about it.” He started walking blindly again, tree branches whipping against his face.

“Ted, stop!”

“Why should I?”

“Because you’re going the wrong way. Camp is that way,” she said, pointing. “If you don’t turn around soon the Rebel pickets are gonna shoot you.”

“Great!” he said, flapping his arms in exasperation. “Thanks for destroying the last few remnants of my pride, Ike.”

“I didn’t want you to get shot,” she said meekly.

“All this time I’ve been trying to keep up with you,” he said, walking toward her again. “To be as brave as you, to shoot as good as you do, to get around in the woods like you do. You even risked your life to save me when I was fool enough to stick my head out of the trench. I looked up to you in every way. I wanted to prove I was a man—like you! And now I find out I can’t even keep up with a girl? That a sniper would have shot me or I would have walked right into the Rebel lines if a blasted girl didn’t keep saving my neck? Why don’t you just shoot me in the head, Ike—or whoever you are—and put me out of my misery?”

He stomped past her, headed in the right direction this time. Phoebe didn’t follow him. Instead, she sank down in the woods, alone, and sobbed.

It didn’t take more than a day or two for the other men in Phoebe’s company to notice that she and Ted weren’t speaking to each other.

“You two have a fight?” Sergeant Anderson asked as Phoebe sat eating her dinner all alone.

“Yeah, Ted’s pretty sore at me,” she said, pushing her food around on her plate.

“You’ve been friends since way back in Harrisburg. It doesn’t seem right not seeing you together.”

Phoebe nodded, afraid she would cry if she tried to speak. It was awful having Ted look at her like he hated her guts—or worse, looking right past her. She had no one to share her canvas sheet with, to cook up a mess of beef and hardtack for, or to laugh with over a cup of bitter coffee. She missed Ted. She’d felt unloved and friendless all her life until she met him, but she had never felt lonely. Now that she’d lost her best friend, she thought she just might die of loneliness.

“You want to tell me what happened?” the sergeant asked, crouching beside her. “Maybe I can help patch things up?”

“Aw, it ain’t that serious,” she lied. “Ted’s sore at me because I wouldn’t see the doctor when I had a fever. He’ll get over it.”

“Listen, there’s going to be a fight here any day, and we have to all work together as a team. We can’t have hard feelings against each other when the real enemy’s out there.” He pointed to the woods with his thumb.

“I know. Ted’s still my best friend, sir.”

“It don’t seem right you two not bunking together.” He shook his head sadly. “You want me to talk to him?”

“Please don’t do that,” she said quickly. “He’ll cool off in another day or two.”

She was afraid that Ted would spill her secret if Sergeant Anderson talked to him. She had asked Ted to wait a few days so she could decide where to go, but she still hadn’t figured anything out. Truth was, she wanted to stay here. She kept hoping Ted would forgive her and say it didn’t matter that she had lied to him, and everything could go back to the way it was. It didn’t look like that was going to happen, though.

The sergeant stood again. “Well, you let me know if you want my help, son,” he said before moving away.

Early the next day, the battle began. Phoebe’s regiment, under General Hooker’s command, was ordered to take part in the attack. They would march across a cornfield toward a small whitewashed church without a steeple. The Confederates were waiting out there, but they had their backs to the Potomac River. They wouldn’t escape.

Union drums began to pound at dawn, stirring the men’s blood and signaling to prepare to march. As Phoebe loaded her rifle and checked her ammunition supply, Ted approached her for the first time in two days. But as he pulled her aside, she could tell by his expression that he was still angry.

“You said you were going to turn yourself in,” he said through clenched teeth.

“I got no place to go, Ted.”

“I don’t care! Tell them you’re sick again. Tell them you have to stay behind. There’s going to be an awful fight today, and you’ve got no business going out there!” He hurried away again as if she had something contagious.

Phoebe lagged behind as they fell into formation so that Ted would think she was staying put. But when the troops began to move out, she maneuvered into place right behind him, where she could keep an eye on him. If Ted Wilson got wounded in battle, Phoebe Bigelow would be right beside him to carry him to the field hospital. He would say it was humiliating to be rescued by a girl again, but she didn’t care one whit.

The morning mist was just starting to rise, the trees barely showing their fall colors as she marched out of the woods and into a field of corn as tall as her head. She didn’t get very far before the rumble of artillery began thundering all around her. She remembered Malvern Hill and how brave the Confederate soldiers had seemed, marching straight into enemy cannon fire. As the ground shook beneath her feet, Phoebe didn’t feel brave at all.

She’d been in enough artillery barrages in the past months to recognize the sound of canister shot. The shells, filled with thousands of pieces of metal, acted like a gigantic shotgun blast when they exploded, cutting a bloody path through the ranks and killing dozens of men in one blow. Shells were exploding all around her, but she kept marching forward in formation with the others, down through the rows of corn, just as she’d been trained to do.

Suddenly everyone froze as if on command. One of the shells screaming overhead sounded different. It took Phoebe only a second to realize why—it was coming straight toward them. She dove at Ted, tackling him the way she had the day the sniper had fired at him. She landed on top of him, shielding him with her body. At the same instant she heard a deafening explosion. The shock of it blasted through her body as if her insides were trying to escape through her skin and her head might explode. A powerful blow struck the back of her shoulder. She lay there, stunned.

Then debris began raining down on her, pummeling her, burying her in clods of earth and shredded cornstalks and ears of corn. For a long moment the din of battle died away, as if the war had suddenly stopped. She couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t see anything through the stinging cloud of dust and smoke. She lay on her stomach on top of Ted, her eyes burning, her ears ringing. The place on her back where she’d been punched felt warm and wet.

Phoebe tried to move, but the hand that had punched her held her down. She saw her rifle a few inches away and tried to reach for it, but her arm wouldn’t move. As the tingling shock of a million needles gradually died, the pain began—a white-hot fire that spread out from her shoulder and across her back. It was so agonizing that Phoebe thought she might faint. Someone was moving her, trying to roll her over, and she screamed for them to stop.

It was Ted, crawling out from under her. His hair was dusted with gray and his eyes were very wide, staring at her. She saw his lips moving as he mouthed “Ike! Ike!” over and over again, but his voice sounded muffled.

The sun seemed very bright, and she realized that the corn was gone, sheared away as if it had been harvested. The soldiers who had been marching alongside her a moment ago lay sprawled in the furrows in neat rows, as if they’d suddenly decided to lie down and take a nap. None of them moved. But Ted was all right. He was alive. That was all that mattered.

“I’m sorry,” she said, but she wasn’t sure if Ted could hear her above the deafening explosions that still thundered all around them. She wasn’t even certain she had spoken out loud.

He bent toward her. Tears washed two clean paths down his dusty face. He grabbed her beneath her lifeless arms and started moving her, dragging her across the uneven ground on her stomach. The unseen hand twisted a knife in her back. The pain was excruciating, unlike anything she’d ever known.

Phoebe cried out, and the world went black.

The earthshaking explosions jolted Julia awake. It took her a moment to recall where she was—in a canvas tent provided by the Sanitary Commission, camping in a farmer’s field outside Sharpsburg, Maryland. But she recognized the sounds of battle right away from her experience at Bull Run—the thunder of artillery, the scream of falling shells. The sun was barely up, but the battle had already begun. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and hurried outside to join the other nurses, doctors, and ambulance drivers, all waiting grimly for their work to begin.

When the Union Army began moving into Maryland, the newly formed ambulance corps went along with it. Once again, Dr. McGrath had been called into field service. Julia had gone downstairs to his office as he’d packed up his surgical instruments and volunteered to join him. He had cut off her words before she’d even finished her sentence, waving her away like a fly.

“I don’t want to hear it, Mrs. Hoffman. The answer is no.”

“Why not?” she asked from the doorway. “You know I’m a good nurse. You trained me yourself.”

“Women don’t belong near the battlefield—especially women who are as young and nai ve as you are.”

“That’s what you said the last time, remember? And I volunteered on an evacuation ship.”

He rested both hands on his desk and leaned toward her. “And do you remember how ugly those sights were? Well, it was a picnic compared to a field hospital. Stay here.”

Of course she had ignored his orders. The fact that he had demanded she stay behind had made her even more determined to go. Who did he think he was to order her around? She had gone to the Sanitary Commission’s offices that same day and volunteered.

The train of ambulances carrying medical supplies and volunteer surgeons and nurses had followed well to the rear of the army. Julia had seen Dr. McGrath on the first night they’d camped, standing near a fire, sipping from a tin cup. He had seen her, too. He had turned his back and walked away.

But there was no sign of the doctor this morning as Julia stood in the chilly fog, waiting for instructions. By the time they moved several loads of medical supplies up to the barnyard and commandeered the farmhouse for an operating room, the casualties were already streaming in. The field hospital was very close to the battleground in a nearby cornfield, so close that Julia could hear the roar of gunfire and the screams of dying men. On top of a nearby hill, she could see Union artillerymen getting ready to fire their cannons.

What began as a trickle of casualties quickly became a deluge. For the next few hours, Julia saw wave after wave of devastating injuries too horrible to comprehend—arms and legs blown off or shattered by Minie balls; chests and stomachs ripped open; faces mutilated beyond recognition. Bloodied, mangled soldiers flooded the barnyard outside the farmhouse, many of them crying out to God for mercy as they waited.

As she struggled to cope with the devastation all around her, Julia knew that Dr. McGrath had been right once again. There was a world of difference between tending wounded men in the safety of White House Landing and trying to keep her wits about her with shells exploding nearby. She mumbled unending prayers as she tied tourniquets and bandaged wounds and offered medicinal brandy to weeping, dying soldiers. Some of the men grew hysterical when they learned they were about to have amputations, and she wept along with them as she tried to calm them, reassuring them that everything would be all right—though she couldn’t imagine the horror of having an arm or a leg sawn off. She gave the men food and water, listening to deathbed confessions and tender last words whispered to wives and sweethearts and children.

All the while, Rebel shells continued to explode nearby, crashing in the cornfield and shaking the ground underfoot. The sheer number of casualties and the horrifying nature of their injuries testified to the appalling violence that raged all around her. Long before noon, a swirling cloud of dust and smoke had blotted out the sun. Then the battle shifted in a different direction, and they enjoyed a brief reprieve from the fearsome noise of bombardment. The screams and cries of the wounded quickly filled the void.

Around four o’clock a barrage of artillery suddenly opened fire nearby. The furor of sound and smoke seemed like the end of the world to Julia. As the earth quaked and debris fell from the sky like hail, all the nurses and as many of the men as possible fled into the barn to escape the holocaust. But there was no escape from the fear. Julia cowered in the straw, trembling, wishing with all her heart that she had listened to Dr. McGrath. She was certain that she was about to die.

A long hour later it finally stopped. The world felt strangely quiet. As she ventured outside again, the yard stank of sulfur and smoke. Some of the farmhouse windows had shattered, and there was a gaping hole in the roof, but a light still shone in the kitchen, where the doctors continued to operate. The ambulance drivers soothed their frightened horses, then quickly returned to their duties.

Julia had worked without stopping, without thinking, all day. Now the sun was setting in the west, staining the sky blood red. She leaned against the doorframe of the barn and looked around as if for the first time, slowly comprehending the enormity of what she was witnessing. It wasn’t the horror of the scene that stunned her, as gruesome as it was, but the incomprehensible loss of life—all the vibrant young men who had been alive only this morning, laughing and sipping their coffee, now lying shattered and dead. The waste of it—the terrible waste. She slowly slid down the doorframe to the ground, then buried her face in her folded arms and cried.

“Ike! Ike, where are you?” Ted wove in and out among the wounded men, searching for his friend, calling her name. Hundreds and hundreds of blue-uniformed men blanketed the ground around the barn and the farmhouse, and he searched every face in desperation. Some of the men looked up at him as he called out; others gazed sightlessly into the distance, their bodies already growing stiff.

He made his way into the barn where there were more wounded, searching for a thatch of yellow hair, a pair of oversized feet. He saw nurses bending over their patients, tending them. None of the soldiers was as tall as Ike.

He came out of the barn again, wondering if he had missed her somehow. A soldier reached out a hand to grab Ted’s pant leg.

“Please, I need water,” the man begged. He had a huge hole in his side. His other hand was barely attached to his arm. Ted crouched beside him and gave him a drink from his canteen.

“I’m trying to find my friend,” Ted told him. “He was wounded early this morning. Have you seen a big fellow with yellow hair? Ike saved my life. I-I didn’t thank him.”

The man sighed gratefully when he’d drunk his fill, then licked his lips. “Maybe the ambulance took him.”

Ted hurried over to two stretcher-bearers who were loading a man with one leg into the back of a covered wagon. “Do either of you remember a big, tall fellow with yellow hair? He was wounded this morning. In the shoulder.”

One orderly shook his head and turned away. The other mumbled, “Needle in a haystack, pal.”

Ted ran from wagon to wagon, asking the same question, getting the same weary responses. None of the men would look Ted in the eye, and he knew they weren’t looking too closely at the grisly cargo they carried, either.

“Come on, one of you must remember him,” he begged. “Ike is very tall. His feet would have hung off the stretcher.”

Ted remembered his frustration earlier that morning when he’d wished he were taller himself so he could carry Ike off the field instead of dragging her. He’d been surprised at how light she felt, how bony her ribs were beneath her wool uniform. She had lost a lot of weight while she was sick with malaria.

He’d been so afraid that he would hurt her, dragging her that way. But then the stretcher-bearers had appeared out of nowhere, hurrying toward him, and he’d let them load Ike onto a litter and carry her away. He had wanted to go with them to make sure she was going to be all right. But he’d wanted revenge even more. Once the orderlies assured him that his friend would be taken care of, Ted had run back to where he’d dropped his rifle and charged forward into battle.

“Where are the ambulances taking them?” he now asked one of the drivers. “Maybe my friend is there already.”

“There’s a train depot not far from here,” the driver said, climbing onto the wagon seat. “They’ll go by train to a hospital in Washington or Baltimore.”

“Have the trains taken anybody yet? Can I ride along with you and look for him on the platform?”

“Sorry. We need every inch of space to transport the wounded. Why don’t you talk to the surgeons? Maybe one of them will remember.” He snapped the reins and drove away in a cloud of dust.

Ted found three surgeons inside the farmhouse, covered to their elbows in blood. They were arguing as one of them gave chloroform to a man who was laid out on the kitchen table. “I can save this arm,” one of the doctors shouted. “Feel his hand. I’m telling you, there’s circulation.”

“We don’t have time for that kind of surgery, James. There are two hundred more just like him out there. The arm’s coming off.”

There was blood everywhere; the floor was slippery with it. Ted had to look up at the ceiling to keep from getting sick.

“What are you doing in here?” one of the doctors shouted when he saw Ted. “Get out!”

“I’m looking for my friend Ike—a tall fellow with yellow hair. Have you—”

“We look at wounds, not faces. And we don’t ask names.”

“He was wounded in the shoulder—”

“Him and a hundred others. Out!” The doctor pointed his bloody finger at the door.

Ted finally wandered around to the rear of the barn where the dead bodies were being stacked. Some of them were so badly shattered and bloated they hardly seemed human. He couldn’t take any more. This was too horrible. If Ike was among these pitiful souls, he didn’t want to know. He didn’t want this to be how he remembered his friend.

He wished he could tell Ike how much he liked her, how lonely he’d felt the past few days without her, how sorry he was that he’d gotten mad at her. When he’d heard that shell whistling toward him today, he’d known it was going to hit him. He remembered thinking that he was about to die. Then Ike had flown at him from behind, tackling him the way he had—the way she had—on the day the sniper fired. She had covered his body with her own. Ted would have been the one lying here wounded or dead if Ike hadn’t saved his life.

Why had she done it? Why had Ike jumped into the path of a shell that was meant for him? Ike—his funny, odd, faithful friend. All this time, Ike had been a girl. And Ted didn’t even know her real name. He sat down behind the woodpile where no one would see him and wept.

“Mrs. Hoffman…” Julia looked up. The head nurse was standing over her. “Go back to your tent and rest for an hour.”

Julia stood, supporting herself on the doorframe of the barn. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—”

“You’ve been working all day. You’re no good to us exhausted. People make mistakes when they’re exhausted. Go have a short rest and something to eat. Come back in an hour.”

“But I’m fine. … ”

“Rest, Mrs. Hoffman. That’s an order.”

It seemed wrong to rest with so much work to be done, but Julia knew that the head nurse was right. She remembered being so tired on board the ship that she’d collapsed on top of a wounded man.

Julia walked down the dusty road past the farmhouse, staying close to the side, out of the path of the rumbling ambulances. The nurses’ tents had been pitched in a field a short distance from the house.

Julia lifted the tent flap to duck inside, then stopped. A Union soldier lay asleep on her bed. At first she thought she must have gone to the wrong tent. But no, her comb and brush were beside the bed, her carpetbag and shawl lay nearby. Had the man crept in here by mistake?

She crawled inside for a closer look. The soldier was sound asleep. She saw by the fresh dressings that he had been badly wounded and that the surgeons had already operated. She went outside again and walked up the road to where the stretcher-bearers were loading the ambulances.

“I think someone has made a mistake,” she said. “There’s a wounded soldier in my tent.”

A burly, red-faced orderly stepped forward, mopping his brow with a bandanna. “No, ma’am. One of the doctors told us to put him in there.”

“But why? Do you remember which doctor it was?”

He chewed his cheek, thinking. “One of the contract surgeons, I think. He wasn’t wearing a uniform. And he had a reddish beard.”

James McGrath.

“He told you to put him in my tent?”

“Yes, ma’am. I don’t know why, but I remember that he asked for you by name. He said, ‘Mrs. Hoffman needs to take care of this one,’ and he told us to put him in your tent.”

She felt her anger boiling up like a kettle of water. “Where is the doctor now?”

“Up at the farmhouse.”

“Thank you.” Julia turned and began marching up the rise to the house.

“Mrs. Hoffman, wait,” the orderly called, hurrying after her. “You don’t want to go up there. The doctors are still operating.”

“I don’t care if Dr. McGrath is operating or napping or sunbathing in his union suit. He has no right to put a wounded soldier in my tent, and I intend to tell him so. This is just like him to play a nasty little trick to get rid of me. I’m very tired of his games.” She stormed up to the farmhouse in a temper.

As she entered the yard, she noticed an open window on the side of the house and below it a reddish heap, buzzing with flies. At first it didn’t register in Julia’s mind what she was seeing, but then the grisly pile slowly slid into focus. She recognized a human hand lying on top, palm up. Then a bloody foot.

Julia whirled around and ran, unheeding, in the opposite direction. She didn’t get far before she stumbled to her knees and was sick alongside the road. She knelt, too weak to stand, trembling with shock and anger. How could Dr. McGrath do that all day? How could he saw off parts of living, breathing people so callously and toss them out the window like that?

“Are you all right, ma’am?”

She turned at the sound of the orderly’s voice. “Yes. Thank you.” He helped her to her feet, and she wiped her mouth on her handkerchief, humiliated that he had seen her. He had tried to warn her. “I-I’ll still need to speak to Dr. McGrath,” she told him. “Will you please let me know when he’s finished?”

“Sure, ma’am.”

“I’ll be in my tent.”

She walked back, knees shaking, longing more than ever to lie down and rest in her tent for an hour. But the wounded soldier was still in her bed. She went inside and knelt beside him. He’d been wounded in the torso, which wasn’t good. Damage to a patient’s lungs and other internal organs usually meant a slow, certain death. He was already having trouble breathing. He was also filthy with crusted blood and dirt and leaves, but she didn’t want to wake him. She made sure his wound wasn’t bleeding, then went outside again and sat down on the ground. She drew her knees up to her chin, wrapped her arms around them, then lowered her head and closed her eyes.

“Mrs. Hoffman?”

Julia’s head jerked up. The orderly she’d spoken to earlier stood in front of her. The sun was gone and a star shone through the haze of smoke in the east. She hadn’t meant to sleep that long.

“I’m sorry, ma’am …I didn’t know you were asleep.”

“That’s all right. Did you need me for something?”

“That doctor you wanted to talk to is taking a break. You said to let you know.”

“Thank you.” Julia rose stiffly to her feet. She took a moment to stretch, to wipe the sleep from her eyes, and to comb her hair back with her hands. The air had turned cool now that the sun had set. She ducked inside her tent to get a shawl and heard the wounded man’s ragged breathing. He was still unconscious. Julia pulled her wrap around her shoulders and set off up the road to the farmhouse again.

Dr. McGrath sat alone on the front step, his elbows on his thighs, his face in his hands. His white shirt and the front of his trousers were soaked with blood—most of it stiff and dried, but some still wet, making his shirt stick to his skin. He looked beaten, exhausted, every trace of his usual cockiness gone. She felt a wave of pity for him. This was the kind, dedicated physician she had spent hours working beside at Fairfield Hospital. Now he needed care. She decided she would find him some food, offer him a change of clothes and a basin of warm water to wash with.

But as she started toward him again, he lowered his hands and pulled a silver flask from his pocket. All of her compassion fled as he tilted it to his mouth and took a long drink. She hurried over, knowing she’d better speak to him now before he passed out drunk.

“Excuse me, Doctor, but there’s a wounded soldier lying in my tent. The orderly told me that you ordered him to be put there.”

“That’s right, Mrs. Hoffman, I did.” He spoke very slowly, as if drained of life.

“Well, if that’s your idea of a joke, I’m not laughing. I would like the man removed from my tent immediately.”

“It isn’t a man.”

“What do you mean it isn’t a man? I saw him myself, as plain as—”

“Go look again. Carefully. It’s a woman.”

“There is a man in a uniform in my tent …and he’s wounded.” The doctor was shaking his head. She noticed that his eyes looked heavy with fatigue. Blood speckled his forehead like freckles. “It’s a woman.”

“Are …are you sure?” she stammered.

“You ask the most ridiculous questions,” he said, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “I’m a doctor, Mrs. Hoffman. I’ve studied anatomy. Would you like a detailed explanation of exactly how I determined that the soldier was a woman?”

Julia felt herself blushing. “No, thank you. That won’t be necessary. I—I just don’t understand what she is doing …how …why is she wearing a uniform and fighting in the army if—”

“I didn’t have time to interview her. I’ve been busy.” He gestured to his bloody clothing. “Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to catch a few minutes’ rest before the carnage starts up again.” He lifted the flask and took another long drink.

“Do you think it’s wise to get drunk,” she asked coldly, “if you’re expecting more casualties?”

“Go away.”

“Our soldiers deserve the very best care we can give them, and that includes a sober doctor.”

“My sobriety is none of your business.”

“But these patients are my business.”

“I’m warning you, Mrs. Hoffman. Go away before I—”

“Before you what? Before you get drunk and kill somebody else?”

The moment the words were out of her mouth, Julia was sorry. James McGrath’s head jerked back as if she had struck him with her fist instead of her words. She’d seen pain often enough in a wounded man’s eyes to recognize it in his. She had hurt him deeply.

“Get out of here,” he said hoarsely.

“Dr. McGrath, I’m sorry …I didn’t mean it.”

“Yes, you did. Now get away from me.”

Julia turned and fled down the road to her tent.

She heard the soldier moaning as she approached. Julia stood outside for a long moment trying to calm herself, wishing she had held her tongue. Her hands were shaking. She told herself to focus on the soldier. He would need food. And water. She remembered that he—no, she—was filthy. Julia quickly gathered together what she needed and went inside.

The soldier was tall, so tall her feet hung off Julia’s pallet. Her yellow hair was short like a man’s, and though her face was smooth and beardless, there was nothing feminine about her features. She looked like a man to Julia—a very tall man. Even so, she wasn’t about to check and see. It wouldn’t surprise her one bit if this turned out to be one of the doctor’s cruel jokes, intended to embarrass her.

Julia knelt and began washing the soldier’s face. Her eyes slowly opened and focused on Julia. She tried to move, then groaned in pain.

“Lie still,” Julia soothed. “You’ve been wounded. This is a field 236 hospital. I’m a nurse.”

“Ted…? W-where’s—”

“You’ve been wounded.”

“No …no …Ted…”

“Shh …I’m going to clean some of this mud and blood off you, all right?” The soldier trembled from head to toe, but whether it was from shock or fear Julia couldn’t tell. She offered her a sip of brandy to calm her down. “There …just lie still, okay? My name is Julia. Can you tell me your name?”

The soldier ran her tongue around her parched lips, then closed her eyes. “Ike Bigelow.”

“I—I mean your real name. The doctor said that …I mean, he found out that you—”

Ike’s face crumpled and she started to cry—silent, gasping sobs that shook through her.

Julia watched helplessly, unsure what to do. “Are you in pain? Can I do anything for you?”

“Go away and leave me alone,” she said through her tears.

“I can’t do that. This is my tent. I sleep here. They put you in with me because …well, I suppose the doctor didn’t think you should be out there with all the men.”

Ike looked up at Julia, her face blotchy with tears. “I been sleeping with them all these months, ain’t I?”

Julia was taken aback. “That …that’s really none of my business.”

Ike shook her head. “It ain’t what you think, lady. Did you get a good look at me? Who would ever want a woman who looks like me?”

“Listen …Ike …What’s your real name?” she asked gently.

She hesitated a long time before answering. “It’s Phoebe.”

“Do you think you could eat something, Phoebe? Are you hungry?”

“No.”

“Well, what can I do for you, then?”

“You can leave me alone and let me die.”