Ailsa Paige Part 37

"Are the rebels there?"

"Yes'm. Little Mac, he lets 'em stay there till he's good 'n' ready to gobble 'em."

Ailsa and Letty stared at the bluish hill, the top of which just showed above the forest.

A young soldier of engineers, carrying a bundle of axes, came along the road, singing in a delightful tenor voice the hymn, "Arise, My Soul, Arise!" He glanced admiringly at Ailsa, then at Letty, as the ambulance drove by, but his song did not falter; and far away they heard him singing gloriously through the autumn woods.

Presently a brigade medical officer rode up, signalling the driver to stop, with his gloved hand.

"Where do you come from, ladies-the General Hospital at Alexandria?"

Ailsa explained.

"That's good," he said emphatically; "the brigade hospitals are short handed. We need experienced nurses badly." And he pointed across the fields toward a hillside where a group of farm-houses and barns stood. A red flag napped darkly against the sky from the cupola of a barn.

"Is that the hospital?" asked Ailsa, noticing some ambulances parked near by.

"Yes, madam. You will report to Dr. West." He looked at them for a second, shook his head thoughtfully, then saluted and wheeled his horse.

"Pa.s.s on, Sanitary!" he added to the driver.

There was a deeply rutted farm road across the fields, guarded by gates which now hung wide open. Through these the supply waggons and the Commission ambulance rolled, followed slowly by the rain-soaked troopers of the escort.

In front of one of the outhouses a tall, bald-headed, jolly-faced civilian stood in his checked s.h.i.+rt sleeves, was.h.i.+ng b.l.o.o.d.y hands in a tin basin. To Ailsa's question he answered:

"I'm Dr. Hammond of the Sanitary Commission. Dr. West is in the wards. Very glad you came, Mrs. Paige; very glad, indeed, Miss Lynden. Here's an orderly who'll show you your quarters-can't give you more than one room and one bed. You'll get breakfast in that house over there, as soon as it's ready. After that come back here to me. There's plenty to do," he added grimly; "we're just sending fifty patients to Alexandria, and twenty-five to Was.h.i.+ngton. Oh, yes, there's plenty to do-plenty to do in this G.o.d-forsaken land. And, it isn't battles that are keeping us busy."

No, it was not battles that kept the doctors, nurses, and details for the ambulance corps busy at the front that first autumn and winter in Virginia. Few patients required the surgeon, few wounded were received, victims of skirmish or sharpshooting or of their own comrades' carelessness. But unwounded patients were arriving faster and faster from the corduroy road squads, from the outposts in the marshy forests, from the pickets' hovels on the red-mud banks of the river, from chilly rifle pits and windy hill camps, from the trenches along Richmond Turnpike, from the stockades at Fairfax. And there seemed no end of them. Hundreds of regimental hospital tents, big affairs, sixty feet long by forty wide, were always full. The hospitals at Alexandria, Kalorama, the Columbia, and the Stone Mansion, took the overflow, or directed it to Was.h.i.+ngton, Philadelphia, and the North.

In one regiment alone, the Saratoga Regiment, the majority of the men were unfit for duty. In one company only twelve men could be mustered for evening parade. Typhoid, pneumonia, diphtheria, spotted fever were doing their work in the raw, unacclimated regiments. Regimental medical officers were exhausted.

Two steady streams of human beings, flowing in opposite directions, had set in with the autumn; the sick, going North, the new regiments arriving from the North to this vast rendezvous, where a great organizer of men was welding together militia and volunteers, hammering out of the raw ma.s.s something, that was slowly beginning to resemble an army.

Through the wards of their hospital Ailsa and Letty saw the unbroken column of the sick pa.s.s northward or deathward; from their shuttered window they beheld endless columns arriving-cavalry, infantry, artillery, engineers, all seeking their allotted fields or hillsides, which presently blossomed white with tents and grew blue and hazy with the smoke of camp fires.

All day long, rain or sun, the landscape swarmed with men and horses; all day long bugle answered bugle from hill to hill; drums rattled at dawn and evening; the music from regimental and brigade bands was almost constant, saluting the nag at sunset, or, with m.u.f.fled drums, sounding for the dead, or cras.h.i.+ng out smartly at guard-mount, or, on dress parade, playing the favorite, "Evening Bells."

Leaning on her window ledge when off duty, deadly tired, Ailsa would listen dully to the near or distant strains, wondering at the strangeness of her life; wondering what it all was coming to.

But if life was strange, it was also becoming very real and very full as autumn quickened into winter, and the fever waxed fiercer in every regiment.

Life gave her now scant time for brooding-scarce time for thought at all. There were no other women at the Farm Hospital except the laundresses. Every regiment in the newly formed division encamped in the vicinity furnished one man from each company for hospital work; and from this contingent came their only relief.

But work was what Ailsa needed, and what Letty needed, too. It left them no chance to think of themselves, no leisure for self-pity, no inclination for it in the dreadful daily presence of pestilence and death.

So many, many died; young men, mostly. So many were sent away, hopelessly broken, and very, very young. And there was so much to do-so much!-instruments and sponges and lint to hold for surgeons; bandages, iced compresses, medicines to hand to physicians; and there were ghastly faces to be washed, and filthy bodies to be cleansed, and limp hands to be held, and pillows to be turned, and heads to be lifted. And there were letters to be written for sick boys and dying boys and dead boys; there was tea and lemonade and whisky and wine to be measured out and given; there was broth to be ordered and tasted and watched, delicacies to be prepared; clothing to be boiled; inventories to be made of dwindling medical supplies and of fresh stores to be ordered or unpacked from the pyramids of muddy boxes and barrels in the courts.

There was also the daily need of food and a breath of fresh air; and there were, sometimes, letters to read, None came to Ailsa from Berkley. No letters came to Letty at all, except from Dr. Benton, who wrote, without any preliminary explanation of why he wrote at all, once every fortnight with absolute regularity.

What he had to say in his letters Ailsa never knew, for Letty, who had been touched and surprised by the first one and had read it aloud to Ailsa, read no more of the letters which came to her from Dr. Benton. And Ailsa asked her nothing.

Part of Colonel Arran's regiment of lancers was now in Was.h.i.+ngton-or near it, encamped to the east of Meridian Hill, in a field beyond Seventh Street-at least these were the careful directions for posting letters given her by Captain Hallam, who wrote her cheerfully and incessantly; and in every letter he declared himself with a patient and cordial persistence that perhaps merited something more enthusiastic than Ailsa's shy and brief replies.

Colonel Arran had been to see her twice at her hospital that winter; he seemed grayer, bigger than ever in his tight blue and yellow cavalry uniform; and on both occasions he had spoken of Berkley, and had absently questioned her; and after both visits she had lain awake, her eyes wide in the darkness, the old pain stirring dully in her breast. But in the duties of the morning she forgot sorrow, forgot hope, and found strength and peace in a duty that led her ever amid the shadows of pain and death.

Once Hallam obtained leave, and made the journey to the Farm Hospital; but it had been a hard day for her, and she could scarcely keep awake to talk to him. He was very handsome, very bronzed, very eager and determined as a wooer; and she did not understand just how it happened, but suddenly the world's misery and her own loneliness overwhelmed her, and she broke down for the first time. And when Captain Hallam went lightly away about his business, and she lay on her mattress beside Letty, she could feel, furtively, a new jewel on the third finger of her left hand, and fell asleep, wondering what she had done, and why-too tired to really care.

The sick continued to drift North; new regiments continued to arrive; the steady, tireless welding of the army was going on all around her, night and day; and the clamour of it filled the sky.

Celia Craig wrote her and sent her boxes for herself; but the contents of the parcels went to her sick men. Camilla wrote her and requested information concerning Stephen, who was, it appeared, very lax in correspondence; but Ailsa had not heard from Colonel Craig since the 3rd Zouaves left Fortress Monroe, and she had no information for either Celia or Camilla.

Christmas boxes for the hospital began to arrive early; presents came to Ailsa from Colonel Arran, from Hallam, from Celia and Camilla,

Letty had only one gift, a beautiful watch and chain from Dr. Benton; and Ailsa, going up to undress for a short sleep before supper, found the girl sitting with the little timepiece in her hand, crying silently all to herself.

"Why, dear!" she exclaimed, "what in the world is the trouble?" and put both arms around her. But Letty only laid her head against Ailsa's breast, and sobbed anew, uncomforted.

"Won't you tell me what is wrong?" urged Ailsa, mystified.

"Yes ... I am ... Don't pay attention to what I say, Mrs.

Paige. You-you like me, don't you?"

"I love you, dear,"

"Please-do. I am-very unhappy."

"You are only tired out. Listen; don't the wards look pretty with all the laurel and evergreens and ribbons! Our poor boys will have something to remind them of Christmas... . I-do you know that young Langley is dead?"

"Yes-I helped him-die. Yesterday Dr. West seemed to think he would get well. But Hammond couldn't stop the gangrene, and he cut him almost to pieces. Oh-I'm very, very miserable-my boys die so fast-so fast--"

"You mustn't be miserable on Christmas Eve! I won't let you be silly!"

"I'm gay enough in the wards," said Letty listlessly; "I've got to be. Can't I cry a little in my own room?"

"No, we haven't time to cry," said Ailsa decisively. "Lie down beside me and go to sleep. Flannery has promised to wake us in time for supper."

"I can't get Langley's terrible face out of my mind," whimpered Letty, cuddling close to Ailsa, as they lay in bed in the wintry darkness. "It was all drawn up on one side."

"But coma had set in," said Ailsa gently. "You know, he wasn't suffering when he died... . You'll write to his mother, won't you, dear? Or shall I?"

"I will... . She wanted to come, you remember, but she's bedridden... . Her only son... . Yes, I'll write ... I think Peterson is going to die, next--"

"But Levy is getting well," interrupted Ailsa.

"Stop it, Letty dear! I won't let you become morbid. Think of your beautiful watch! Think of dear Dr. Benton." "I-I am," gasped Letty, and fell to crying again until she sobbed herself to sleep in Ailsa's tired arms.

Supper was spread in Dr. West's private office; Hallam had obtained leave, and Ailsa expected him; Colonel Arran was in Was.h.i.+ngton and could not come, but the company was to be a small one at best-Ailsa, Letty Lynden, Dr. West, Dr. Hammond, and Hallam were all who had been expected for Christmas Eve supper.

They waited for Hallam until Dr. West decided to wait no longer, saying that he was either stuck in the mud somewhere or had been detailed for duty unexpectedly.

So Ailsa lighted the Christmas candles, and the two young women in their fresh gray garbs, and the two civilian doctors in clean clothes, sat down before a rather thin roasted turkey. But the bird proved tender and juicy, and it was beautifully cooked; and a gla.s.s of wine sent the colour into Letty's pale cheeks, and straightened Ailsa's drooping neck.