“I will see to it,” Taylor told him. “You have my word. And for yourself—”
The captain offered him a hand. “For myself, I am in good health. I am nothing more than weary. I will survive the war and return home, and until then, I will go to bed nightly praying for it all to end.”
“Amen to that!” Taylor told him and, soon after, left the man for what sleep he might acquire during the night.
Tomorrow ...
Tomorrow would bring more savage fighting. And he would follow orders, and do his duty to his country.
And yet ...
God help him, he would also try to find his wife.
Musket flashes ignited dry timber. Pine and scrub oak immediately caught fire. The woods were blazing.
Pandemonium broke out in the hospital at first. Tia, trying to calm a soldier with a shattered leg, heard her cousin’s voice rise above the shouts in a deep tone of command. Order began to return; those who could walk were up. Ambulances were loaded; soldiers threw wet towels over the heads of the panicking horses. The conveyances began to leave. There were still soldiers to be moved when the trees surrounding the hospital began to smoke, smolder, and catch. Tia was busy tying a temporary bandage when Brent came behind her, picked her up by the waist, and set her on one of the wagons next to a soldier with an arm wound.
“Get going.”
“Not until you leave.”
“Stay on that wagon!”
“Brent—”
“I’m right behind you. I’ll make it out much easier without worrying about you. For the love of God! Corporal O’Malley!” he said, addressing the man at her side. “Keep her there beside you! Get her out of these woods!”
“Yessir!” the slender, graying O’Malley said.
“Brent—”
Brent stepped back, shouting to the driver. The reins snapped, and the wagon started off along the trail.
“Brent ...” Tia said, ready to hop off the rear of the wagon and race back for her cousin, no matter what his command. But she couldn’t do so. The soldier at her side had her in a firm grip with his one good arm. “Miss Tia, I’ve been told to get you out of these woods. That was an order, ma’am.”
The wagon moved down the road. Tia stared back toward the place where their field hospital had been. Her cousin was back there. Brent wouldn’t leave until every last man had been moved from the path of the fire.
She heard the snaps and crackling sounds of the blaze as more and more of the brush and trees caught fire. The air began to fill more and more with the blinding smoke.
And even as they moved along the trail, above the din of the creaking wagons and the gunfire that remained, they could hear the screams of the dying.
Men caught in the field of trees. Hurt, fallen, not dead ... seeing the flames.
“Oh, God!” Tia cried, covering her ears with her hands. But she couldn’t block out the sounds, and she was suddenly certain that a cry she was hearing was coming from just ahead.
Taking Corporal O’Malley by surprise, she leapt down from the wagon. “Wait! Give me just a few seconds!” she shouted to the driver.
“Miss Tia!” O’Malley shouted from behind her.
“A few seconds!”
She ran along the trail, desperately seeking the source of the cries she’d heard. Were the cries real? Or were they just more of the awful sounds of the forest, the rat-tat-tat of guns, the thuds, and bumps and crackling of burning, falling trees?
“Help, Jesus, oh sweet Jesus, oh God, if I only had a bullet ...”
The words were real. She burst through the shrub on the side of the road. “Where are you?”
“Here, here ... help! Oh, Mother of God, help me! Sweet Jesus, pray for us poor sinners now ... oh, God, oh, God, and at the hour of our death ... Amen ...”
“Where are you! Talk to me, help me find you!” Tia shouted.
“Here, here; are you real, please, for the love of God, my leg ... can’t move it, caught, the branch is burning. The heat, here, here, please, please ...”
She burst through the trees into a little copse. She saw that already the tinder-dry fallen leaves on the ground were beginning to catch in clumps. Then, across the copse, she saw him,
A Yankee infantryman, down against the bark of one tree, the gunfire-severed limb of another tree down upon him. She rushed across the copse.
“Oh, sweet Jesus!” he cried, seeing her. He was young. As young as some of the Rebel soldiers newly rushed into the ranks of the Florida militia. His hair was platinum-white, his whiskers nonexistent, his eyes powder-blue, making him appear even younger. His pale face was sooted and streaked with tears. “Please ...” he said, reaching a hand to her.
She came to her knees at his side, aware of the ever-encroaching fire. “I’ve got to get the branch first,” she told him, and she locked her arms around it, straining. Sweat broke out on her forehead. It had not looked so heavy. She changed position, trying to drag it from his thigh. He let out a horrible scream—and passed out. She saw that his leg was not just broken, but a bullet had probably lodged somewhere in his thigh. “God help me!” she whispered, tugging at the branch, again. She wasn’t going to make it. She could feel the heat of the flames beginning to lick at her now. “Miss Tia!”
She turned around. Corporal O’Malley had followed her. “Miss Tia, it’s going to burn!”
“Help me.”
“He’s a Yankee.”
“He’s a boy.”
“Big Yank, little Yank—”
“I’m not leaving him.”
O’Malley sighed, anxiously coming to her side. He gripped the tree limb with his good arm. Gritted his teeth.
The boy’s head began to wobble. His blue eyes opened. He quickly realized his situation and looked up at O’Malley. “Shoot me, sir, please shoot me before the fire ...”
“Both of us at once,” Tia said. “For the love of God, O’Malley! Come, man, please, you’re a good Irish Catholic, aren’t you? You should have heard him saying his Rosary just now. God could be watching this very minute—”
“Miss Tia, you know where to strike a man as the Yanks do not. On the count of three!” O’Malley told her. They both gripped the tree limb. O’Malley counted. The limb moved. They leapt quickly to their feet. “I can’t lift him; my arm’s broken,” O’Malley said,
“Soldier, you’ll have to limp with me.”
They got the boy to his feet. Aware of the flames close behind, they hurried toward the road. Suddenly, before them, a tree fell, sending sparks flying everywhere. “Turn!” O’Malley commanded. “Run!”
They did so, the young Yankee screaming at the agony in his leg. They burst upon the road. The wagon had already started moving. “Help him!” Tia called to a number of the men. They did so without question, reaching for the boy. She didn’t know if they were so weary and hurt that they didn’t care that they reached their hands out to the enemy—or if they just simply couldn’t tell what he was anymore. The boy was covered in dirt and soot and ash, making his uniform appear to be made of gray, Confederate-issue cloth. Now, the sounds of men coughing were almost loud enough to cover up the terrible crackling that continued to fill the air.
“Get O’Malley!” she cried loudly when the boy was up. “He can’t use his arm!” Despite their own wounds, the injured soldiers responded. When O’Malley was boarded, the shattering sounds of trees exploding came from behind them.
Tia gasped. The crash had come from the site of the hospital. And Brent was still back there. The mules, pulling the wagon, bolted.
She heard the driver shouting, “Whoa!” The wagon was taking flight as if suddenly airborne.
“Miss Tia!”
She heard O’Malley’s cry. And she ignored it. Her cousin was back in the flames. She was not leaving without him.
The wagon continued its wild race from the inferno.
Tia started to run back.
The continual twists and turns in the path of the fire had left many men lost, w
ith no perception of the locations of the poor trails through the woods. Taylor Douglas had been ordered into the Wilderness, to find the various officers and commanders caught in scattered pockets in the woods and escort them out.
Moving into the smoke and fire, Taylor thanked God for Friar; his warhorse was an experienced animal as seasoned as any soldier. Instinct must have warned the horse to steer clear of the flames, but he stalwartly followed the course Taylor commanded.
At first, his mission seemed somewhat feasible. And he was glad of it. His orders coincided with the direction in which he had anxiously longed to ride—toward what had been the Rebel line.
He found able-bodied men caught in copses who were able to carry some of the wounded to the roads, and toward safety. Naturally, he had been ordered to salvage what he could of the Union fighting force. But no one had ordered that he should leave any Rebels in danger of burning, and he was more determined than ever to find Brent McKenzie and his field hospital—and Tia. With the fires raging so furiously, he knew that he was on a course that would take him far beyond his basic orders.
He meant either to find Brent and Tia, or at least locate someone who could tell them that the hospital had been moved, and that his wife and kin were safe.
Yet as time went on, the danger grew ever greater, and although he was aware that there were still men caught and trapped, soon, looking for anyone alive in the wildfire of the Wilderness would be madness. By now, every breath of air was filled with smoke.
And worse.
He could not inhale without breathing in the horrible scent of charred and burning human flesh. What devil had thought up this day’s outcome to the battle? He could not believe that any man living would have wished such a fate on his enemy. And despite the horrible losses in the burning woods, neither side had gained a real advantage.
Hearing screams ahead, Taylor left the road, moving into the thicket. The smoke was so thick he could barely see. Friar began fidgeting at last. “Just a bit forward, boy, just a bit.”
But a wall of flame suddenly rose before him. Beyond it, he could hear shouts. “To the south, see there, a clearing!”
“Take it, men, take it—”
“Try there east—”
“No, see the flames rising?”
“Friar, which way, boy?” he said to the horse. “And I don’t mean hightailing it out of the woods.”
Friar inched forward, reared back. Finally, the horse turned southward. Taylor allowed him to keep the lead, finally coming around to where he found a space in the wall of flames. “Hello! This way—if you’re trapped, there’s a space through here ...”
He broke off, surveying the area. There were no flames there now because the scrub had burned itself out. He gritted his teeth, seeing that what had appeared to be a log were the remnants of a man, blackened beyond recognition.
And beyond North and South. What color he had worn in life, no one would ever know.
He nudged Friar through the slender trail. Coming around into the copse, he found the pocket of men. They had stopped speaking because they were coughing and choking. One had fallen. “This way, through the trail here!” he called out. Dismounting from Friar, he took his canteen, soaked the scarf of one of the men with water, pressed it to the man’s face, then offered the canteen around. “Soak your kerchiefs! Head that way, quickly. It looks like a wall of flame but there’s a trail through. Go! I’ll get the sergeant!”
While the others obeyed him, soaking cloths and turning desperately toward the trail, one of the men came back to him. “Colonel, sir, I’ll help with the old timer there!”
Taylor realized suddenly that this man, remaining in the inferno, ready to help the old sergeant who had fallen, was a Rebel captain. The smoke, ash, and constant soot had blinded him to this strange grouping at first.
“You’re a Reb,” Taylor said.
“Two of us, sir, are Rebs. Three Yanks.” He shrugged. “We were busy killing one another in a crossfire when a tree went down. Fellow screamed so that we all dropped our weapons. Then the whole place was burning.”
Caught in the flames together, they had looked for a way to live, rather than die.
Taylor studied the man and nodded slowly, looking back at the sergeant. The old, winded man probably didn’t have a chance of surviving much more smoke.
“Let me take him, sir. I’ll follow your orders; you can lead on!”
“Fine, Captain!” Taylor said, allowing the captain to take the sergeant. He headed toward Friar, took his horse’s reins, and pointed out their route of escape. He looked at the young Rebel. “I won’t be leading you anywhere. I’m going on a bit farther, looking for—others. You, sir, will give me your word that you’ll be leading yourself toward Union forces,” he said quietly.
The captain grinned. “Sir, you can lead me straight into prison camp, if you send me from this inferno. I will go, and gladly. Sergeant Foster, we’re going to make it. Hang on, old man, hang on!”
Friar was beginning to react badly to the flames, and still, Taylor thought that the horse might be the sergeant’s only salvation. He called out to the captain. “Get the sergeant up on my horse. I’ll lead the way out and you go on. And so help me, Captain, come hell or high water, you take care of my horse!”
“Aye, sir!” the captain called.
With the sergeant up on Friar, Taylor led his horse out of the forest trail onto the road. Flames were shooting all around them, all but making an archway over the remaining passable road.
He should have gotten out. Gone with the captain and old Sergeant Foster. He could not. He felt a strange restlessness in his spirit, as if he knew he could find Tia. And that she would be in trouble.
He heard more cries of anguish, terror, pain. He hesitated on the road, looking back.
“Sir, you should lead your horse out. I’ll go back there for you.”
“No, Captain, that won’t be necessary. You take the sergeant out, sir. But tell me, do you know what troops were back there, and who was leading them?”
“Infantry troops ... and there was a Rebel field hospital back in a copse. I know, because I was in at first when my calf was hit.”
Looking down, Taylor saw that the man had been wounded. Blood seeped from a bandage around his calf. Despite his wound, the young captain had apparently come back into the fighting.
“Why the hell did you leave?” he asked harshly.
“They were busy. Colonel, we haven’t time to debate. I can’t just leave, I have to find what men I can. You can shoot me in the back, or let me go do what I can.”
“Sir, you can get up on my horse, and get your bleeding leg and this man to some help—I’ll go back for your Rebs.”
“They might shoot you on sight.”
“I’ll take my chances. Look after my horse!”
“Aye, sir.”
A field hospital.
There were bound to be scores of physicians on the field today, Taylor thought but his heart was pounding. This was where the Reb prisoner had said he would find Brent.
“Captain, do you know, by any chance, was a Dr. McKenzie at that site?”
“Dr. McKenzie was in charge of the site, sir. He ordered me not to move,” the captain said with a shrug. “But then ... well, there were so many men who were really badly injured. I think the ball passed right through my leg.”
“And you may still bleed to death if you don’t get help. Go.”
The captain saluted him. “On my honor, sir. I’ll bring the sergeant to the Yanks, and turn myself in—and take damned good care of the horse.”
Taylor nodded, turned, and started down the road. He was a fool. All around him now, the woods were burning. The sky itself seemed like a sheet of flame. Even if he could avoid the blaze, he’d soon die of smoke inhalation, no matter how he’d soaked his neckpiece.
His lungs were already burning. Brent had surely had the sense to get out by now.
He kept walking.
Finally, ahead of h
im, he could see the remains of the field hospital, in a copse. At first, it appeared, the hospital hadn’t caught fire because it was enough in a clearing to be away from the dry shrubbery that filled the woods. But now, flame had leaped to canvas, the whole of the place had collapsed, and a huge, ancient tree from the forest flank had fallen. Smoke rose everywhere. A team of mules, caught when the tree had covered their wagon, whinnied and neighed with a vengeance, fighting their restraints. From the stalled wagon, wounded men, near death, groaned, their signs of life pale against the onslaught and fury of the fire.
“McKenzie!” Taylor called out. “Brent McKenzie!”
He headed first toward the wagon, saw the charred oak limb that trapped it, and the men lying in the rear of the conveyance.
Some were dead already. He looked away from their faces, from the eyes left wide open in death, and strained to move the fallen tree. Too heavy. Burned wood crumpled in his hands. He tried for better leverage, saw a downed pole from the canvas tenting, and worked it under the limb. Throwing his weight against the pole, he shifted the limb. It fell to the ground in a hail of ash. The heat around him was growing intense. He returned to the wagon, searching the bodies in it. No sign of Brent McKenzie.
Taylor heard the sounds of movement. One of the men in the rear of the wagon had stirred. Taylor shifted to the man’s position. “Soldier, can you hear me?”
The man’s eyes opened. His face was nearly black from the ash.
“The doctor, soldier, Dr. McKenzie. What happened to him?”
The wounded man tried to respond. His mouth moved. Taylor reached for his canteen, praying he had water enough let after soaking the scarves of the other men. Yes. He moistened the fellow’s lips. The man drank then, slowly, carefully. “The ... tent ... collapsed,” the man said. His eyes closed again.