"_Drink,--for thy necessity is yet greater than mine._"
Sir Philip Sidney
The hospital boat, going out of Beaufort, was a sad, yet great sight. It
was but necessary to look around it to see that the men here gathered
had stood on the slippery battle-sod, and scorned to flinch. You heard
no cries, scarcely a groan; whatever anguish wrung them as they were
lifted into their berths, or were turned or raised for comfort, found
little outward sign,--a long, gasping breath now and then; a suppressed
exclamation; sometimes a laugh, to cover what would else be a cry of
mortal agony; almost no swearing; these men had been too near the awful
realities of death and eternity, some of them were still too near, to
make a mock at either. Having demonstrated themselves heroes in action,
they would, one and all, be equally heroes in the hour of suffering, or
on the bed of lingering death.
Jim, so wounded as to make every movement a pang, had been carefully
carried in on a stretcher, and as carefully lifted into a middle berth.
"Good," said one of the men, as he eased him down on his pillow.
"What's good?" queried Jim.
"The berth; middle berth. Put you in as easy as into the lowest one: bad
lifting such a leg as yours into the top one, and it's the comfortablest
of the three when you're in."
"O, that's it, is it? all right; glad I'm here then; getting in didn't
hurt more than a flea-bite,"--saying which Jim turned his face away to
put his teeth down hard on a lip already bleeding. The wrench to his
shattered leg was excruciating, "But then," as he announced to himself,
"no snivelling, James; you're not going to make a spooney of yourself."
Presently he moved, and lay quietly watching the others they were
bringing in.
"Why!" he called, "that's Bertie Curtis, ain't it?" as a slight,
beautiful-faced boy was carried past him, and raised to his place.
"Yes, it is," answered one of the men, shortly, to cover some strong
feeling.
Jim leaned out of his berth, regardless of his protesting leg, canteen
in hand. "Here, Bertie!" he called, "my canteen's full of fresh water,
just filled. I know it'll taste good to you."
The boy's fine face flushed. "O, thank you, Given, it would taste
deliriously, but I can't take it,"--glancing down. Jim followed the
look, to see that both arms were gone, close to the graceful, boyish
form; seeing which his face twitched painfully,--not with his own
suffering,--and for a moment words failed him. Just then came up one of
the sanitary nurses with some cooling drink, and fresh, wet bandages for
the fevered stumps.
Great drops were standing on Bertie's forehead, and ominous gray shadows
had already settled about the mouth, and under the long, shut lashes.
Looking at the face, so young, so refined, some mother's pride and
darling, the nurse brushed back tenderly the fair hair, murmuring, "Poor
fellow!"
The eyes unclosed quickly: "There are no poor fellows here, sir!" he
said.
"Well, brave fellow, then!"
"I did but do my duty,"--a smile breaking through the gathering mists.
Here some poor fellow,--poor indeed,--delirious with fever, called out,
"Mother! mother! I want to see my mother!"
Tears rushed to the clear, steady eyes, dimmed them, dropped down
unchecked upon the face. The nurse, with a sob choking in his throat,
softly raised his hand to brush them away. "Mother," Bertie
whispered,--"mother!" and was gone where God wipes away the tears from
all eyes.
For the space of five minutes, as Jim said afterwards, in telling about
it, "that boat was like a meeting-house." Used as they were to death in
all forms, more than one brave fellow's eye was dim as the silent shape
was carried away to make place for the stricken living,--one of whom was
directly brought in, and the stretcher put down near Jim.
"What's up?" he called, for the man's face was turned from him, and his
wounded body so covered as to give no clew to its condition. "What's
wrong?" seeing the bearers did not offer to lift him, and that they were
anxiously scanning the long rows of berths.
"Berth's wrong," one of them answered.
"What's the matter with the berth?"
"Matter enough! not a middle one nor a lower one empty."
"Well," called a wounded boy from the third tier, "plenty of room up
here; sky-parlor,--airy lodgings,--all fine,--I see a lot of empty
houses that'll take him in."
"Like enough,--but he's about blown to pieces," said the bearer in a low
voice, "and it'll be aw--ful putting him up there; however,"--commencing
to take off the light cover.
"Helloa!" cried Jim, "that's a dilapidated-looking leg,"--his head out,
looking at it. "Stop a bit!"--body half after the head,--"you just stop
that, and come here and catch hold of a fellow; now put me up there. I
reckon I'll bear hoisting better'n he will, anyway. Ugh! ah! um! owh!
here we are! bully!"
If Jim had been of the fainting or praying order he would certainly have
fainted or prayed; as it was, he said "Bully!" but lay for a while
thereafter still as a mouse.
"Given, you're a brick!" one of the boys was apostrophizing him. Jim
took no notice. "And your man's in, safe and sound"; he turned at that,
and leaned forward, as well as he could, to look at the occupant of his
late bed.
"Jemime!" he cried, when he saw the face. "I say, boys! it's
Ercildoune--Robert--flag--Wagner--hurray--let's give three cheers for
the color-sergeant,--long may he wave!"
The men, propped up or lying down, gave the three cheers with a will,
and then three more; and then, delighted with their performance, three
more after that, Jim winding up the whole with an "a-a-ah,--Tiger!" that
made them all laugh; then relapsing into silence and a hard battle with
pain.
A weary voyage,--a weary journey thereafter to the Northern
hospitals,--some dying by the way, and lowered through the shifting,
restless waves, or buried with hasty yet kindly hands in alien
soil,--accounted strangers and foemen in the land of their birth. God
grant that no tread of rebellion in the years to come, nor thunder of
contending armies, may disturb their peace!
Some stopped in the heat and dust of Washington to be nursed and tended
in the great barracks of hospitals,--uncomfortable-looking without,
clean and spacious and admirable within; some to their homes, on
long-desired and eagerly welcomed furloughs, there to be cured speedily,
the body swayed by the mind; some to suffer and die; some to struggle
against winds and tides of mortality and conquer,--yet scarred and
maimed; some to go out, as giants refreshed with new wine, to take their
places once more in the great conflict, and fight there faithfully to
the end.
Among these last was Jim; but not till after many a hard battle, and
buffet, and back-set did life triumph and strength prevail. One thing
which sadly retarded his recovery was his incessant anxiety about
Sallie, and his longing to see her once more. He had himself, after his
first hurt, written her that he was slightly wounded; but when he
reached Washington, and the surgeon, looking at his shattered leg,
talked about amputation and death, Jim decided that Sallie should not
know a word of all this till something definite was pronounced.
"She oughtn't to have an ugly, one-legged fellow," he said, "to drag
round with her; and, if she knows how bad it is, she'll post straight
down here, to nurse and look after me,--I know her! and she'll have me
in the end, out of sheer pity; and I ain't going to take any such mean
advantage of her: no, sir-ee, not if I know myself. If I get well, safe
and sound, I'll go to her; and, if I'm going to die, I'll send for her;
so I'll wait,"--which he did.
He found, however, that it was a great deal easier making the decision,
than keeping it when made. Sallie, hearing nothing from him,--supposing
him still in the South,--fearful as she had all along been that she
stood on uncertain ground,--Mrs. Surrey away in New York,--and Robert
Ercildoune, as the papers asserted in their published lists, mortally
wounded,--having no indirect means of communication with him, and
fearing to write again without some sign from him,--was sorrowing in
silence at home.
The silence reacted on him; not realizing its cause he grew fretful and
impatient, and the fretfulness and impatience told on his leg,
intensified his fever, and put the day of recovery--if recovery it was
to be--farther into the future.
"See here, my man,"--said the quick little surgeon one day, "you're
worrying about something. This'll never do; if you don't stop it, you'll
die, as sure as fate; and you might as well make up your mind to it at
once,--so, now!"
"Well, sir," answered Jim, "it's as good a time to die now, I reckon, as
often happens; but I ain't dead yet, not by a long shot; and I ain't
going to die neither; so, now, yourself!"
The doctor laughed. "All right; if you'll get up that spirit, and keep
it, I'll bet my pile on your recovery,--but you'll have to stop
fretting. You've got something on your mind that's troubling you; and
the sooner you get rid of it, if you can, the better. That's all I've
got to say." And he marched off.
"Get rid of it," mused Jim, "how in thunder'll I get rid of it if I
don't hear from Sallie? Let me see--ah! I have it!" and looking more
cheerful on the instant he lay still, watching for the doctor to come
down the ward once more. "Helloa!" he called, then. "Helloa!" responded
the doctor, coming over to him, "what's the go now? you're improved
already."
"Got any objection to telling a lie?"--this might be called coming to
the point.
"That depends--" said the doctor.
"Well, all's fair in love and war, they say. This is for love. Help a
fellow?"
"Of course,--if I can,--and the fellow's a good one, like Jim Given.
What is it you want?"
"Well, I want a letter written, and I can't do it myself, you
know,"--looking down at his still bandaged arm,--"likewise I want a lie
told in it, and these ladies here are all angels, and of course you
can't ask an angel to tell a lie,--no offence to you; so if you can take
the time, and'll do it, I'll stand your everlasting debtor, and shoulder
the responsibility if you're afraid of the weight."
"What sort of a lie?"
"A capital one; listen. I want a young lady to know that I'm wounded in
the arm,--you see? not bad; nor nothing over which she need worry, and
nothing that hurts me much; and I ain't damaged in any other way; legs
not mentioned in this concern,--you understand?" The doctor nodded. "But
it's tied up my hand, so that I have to get you to say all this for me.
I'll be well pretty soon; and, if I can get a furlough, I'll be up in
Philadelphia in a jiffy,--so she can just prepare for the infliction,
&c. Comprendy? And'll you do it?"
"Of course I will, if you don't want the truth told, and the fib'll do
you any good; and, upon my word, the way you're looking I really think
it will. So now for it."
Thus the letter was written, and read, and re-read, to make sure that
there was nothing in it to alarm Sallie; and, being satisfactory on that
head, was finally sent away, to rejoice the poor girl who had waited,
and watched, and hoped for it through such a weary time. When she
answered it, her letter was so full of happiness and solicitude, and a
love that, in spite of herself, spoke out in every line, that Jim
furtively kissed it, and read it into tatters in the first few hours of
its possession; then tucking it away in his hospital shirt, over his
heart, proceeded to get well as fast as fast could be.
"Well," said the doctor, a few weeks afterwards, as Jim was going home
on his coveted sick-leave, "Mr. Thomas Carlyle calls fibs wind-bags. If
that singular remedy would work to such a charm with all my men, I'd
tell lies with impunity. Good by, Jim, and the best of good luck to
you."
"The same to you, Doctor, and I hope you may always find a friend in
need, to lie for you. Good by, and God bless you!" wringing his hand
hard,--"and now, hurrah for home!"
"Hurrah it is!" cried the little surgeon after him, as, happy and proud,
he limped down the ward, and turned his face towards home.