University of Virginia Library

17. CHAPTER XVII.
THE COLONEL.

TEN years earlier Christie made her début as an
Amazon, now she had a braver part to play on a
larger stage, with a nation for audience, martial music
and the boom of cannon for orchestra; the glare of
battle-fields was the “red light;” danger, disease, and
death, the foes she was to contend against; and the
troupe she joined, not timid girls, but high-hearted
women, who fought gallantly till the “demon” lay
dead, and sang their song of exultation with bleeding
hearts, for this great spectacle was a dire tragedy to
them.

Christie followed David in a week, and soon proved
herself so capable that Mrs. Amory rapidly promoted
her from one important post to another, and bestowed
upon her the only honors left the women, hard work,
responsibility, and the gratitude of many men.

“You are a treasure, my dear, for you can turn your
hand to any thing and do well whatever you undertake.
So many come with plenty of good-will, but not
a particle of practical ability, and are offended because
I decline their help. The boys don't want to be cried
over, or have their brows `everlastingly swabbed,' as
old Watkins calls it: they want to be well fed and

nursed, and cheered up with creature comforts. Your
nice beef-tea and cheery ways are worth oceans of
tears and cart-loads of tracts.”

Mrs. Amory said this, as Christie stood waiting while
she wrote an order for some extra delicacy for a very
sick patient. Mrs. Sterling, Jr., certainly did look like
an efficient nurse, who thought more of “the boys”
than of herself; for one hand bore a pitcher of gruel,
the other a bag of oranges, clean shirts hung over the
right arm, a rubber cushion under the left, and every
pocket in the big apron was full of bottles and bandages,
papers and letters.

“I never discovered what an accomplished woman I
was till I came here,” answered Christie, laughing.
“I 'm getting vain with so much praise, but I like it
immensely, and never was so pleased in my life as I
was yesterday when Dr. Harvey came for me to take
care of poor Dunbar, because no one else could manage
him.”

“It 's your firm yet pitiful way the men like so well.
I can't describe it better than in big Ben's words: `Mis
Sterlin' is the nuss for me, marm. She takes care of
me as ef she was my own mother, and it 's a comfort
jest to see her round.' It 's a gift, my dear, and you
may thank heaven you have got it, for it works wonders
in a place like this.”

“I only treat the poor fellows as I would have other
women treat my David if he should be in their care.
He may be any hour, you know.”

“And my boys, God keep them!”

The pen lay idle, and the gruel cooled, as young wife
and gray-haired mother forgot their duty for a moment

in tender thoughts of the absent. Only a moment, for
in came an attendant with a troubled face, and an important
young surgeon with the well-worn little case
under his arm.

“Bartlett 's dying, marm: could you come and see to
him?” says the man to Mrs. Amory.

“We have got to amputate Porter's arm this morning,
and he won't consent unless you are with him. You
will come, of course?” added the surgeon to Christie,
having tried and found her a woman with no “confounded
nerves” to impair her usefulness.

So matron and nurse go back to their duty, and
dying Bartlett and suffering Porter are all the more
tenderly served for that wasted minute.

Like David, Christie had enlisted for the war, and
in the two years that followed, she saw all sorts of
service; for Mrs. Amory had influence, and her right-hand
woman, after a few months' apprenticeship, was
ready for any post. The gray gown and comforting
face were known in many hospitals, seen on crowded
transports, among the ambulances at the front, invalid
cars, relief tents, and food depots up and down the
land, and many men went out of life like tired children
holding the hand that did its work so well.

David meanwhile was doing his part manfully, not
only in some of the great battles of those years, but
among the hardships, temptations, and sacrifices of a
soldiers' life. Spite of his Quaker ancestors, he was a
good fighter, and, better still, a magnanimous enemy,
hating slavery, but not the slave-holder, and often
spared the master while he saved the chattel. He was
soon promoted, and might have risen rapidly, but was

content to remain as captain of his company; for his
men loved him, and he was prouder of his influence
over them than of any decoration he could win.

His was the sort of courage that keeps a man faithful
to death, and though he made no brilliant charge,
uttered few protestations of loyalty, and was never
heard to “damn the rebs,” his comrades felt that his
brave example had often kept them steady till a forlorn
hope turned into a victory, knew that all the wealth
of the world could not bribe him from his duty, and
learned of him to treat with respect an enemy as brave
and less fortunate than themselves. A noble nature
soon takes its proper rank and exerts its purifying influence,
and Private Sterling won confidence, affection, and
respect, long before promotion came; for, though he
had tended his flowers like a woman and loved his
books like a student, he now proved that he could also
do his duty and keep his honor stainless as a soldier
and a gentleman.

He and Christie met as often as the one could get a
brief furlough, or the other be spared from hospital
duty; but when these meetings did come, they were
wonderfully beautiful and rich, for into them was distilled
a concentration of the love, happiness, and communion
which many men and women only know
through years of wedded life.

Christie liked romance, and now she had it, with a
very sombre reality to give it an added charm. No
Juliet ever welcomed her Romeo more joyfully than
she welcomed David when he paid her a flying visit
unexpectedly; no Bayard ever had a more devoted
lady in his tent than David, when his wife came through

every obstacle to bring him comforts or to nurse the
few wounds he received. Love-letters, written beside
watch-fires and sick-beds, flew to and fro like carrier-doves
with wondrous speed; and nowhere in all the
brave and busy land was there a fonder pair than this,
although their honeymoon was spent apart in camp and
hospital, and well they knew that there might never
be for them a happy going home together.

In her wanderings to and fro, Christie not only made
many new friends, but met some old ones; and among
these one whose unexpected appearance much surprised
and touched her.

She was “scrabbling” eggs in a tin basin on board a
crowded transport, going up the river with the echoes
of a battle dying away behind her, and before her the
prospect of passing the next day on a wharf serving
out food to the wounded in an easterly storm.

“O Mrs. Sterling, do go up and see what 's to be
done! We are all full below, and more poor fellows
are lying about on deck in a dreadful state. I 'll take
your place here, but I can't stand that any longer,” said
one of her aids, coming in heart-sick and exhausted by
the ghastly sights and terrible confusion of the day.

“I 'll go: keep scrabbling while the eggs last, then
knock out the head of that barrel and make gruel till I
pass the word to stop.”

Forgetting her bonnet, and tying the ends of her
shawl behind her, Christie caught up a bottle of brandy
and a canteen of water, and ran on deck. There a sight
to daunt most any woman, met her eyes; for all about
her, so thick that she could hardly step without treading
on them, lay the sad wrecks of men: some moaning

for help; some silent, with set, white faces turned up
to the gray sky; all shelterless from the cold wind that
blew, and the fog rising from the river. Surgeons and
nurses were doing their best; but the boat was loaded,
and greater suffering reigned below.

“Heaven help us all!” sighed Christie, and then she
fell to work.

Bottle and canteen were both nearly empty by the
time she came to the end of the long line, where lay
a silent figure with a hidden face. “Poor fellow, is he
dead?” she said, kneeling down to lift a corner of the
blanket lent by a neighbor.

A familiar face looked up at her, and a well remembered
voice said courteously, but feebly:

“Thanks, not yet. Excuse my left hand. I 'm very
glad to see you.”

“Mr. Fletcher, can it be you!” she cried, looking at
him with pitiful amazement. Well she might ask, for
any thing more unlike his former self can hardly be
imagined. Unshaven, haggard, and begrimed with
powder, mud to the knees, coat half on, and, worst of
all, the right arm gone, there lay the “piece of elegance”
she had known, and answered with a smile she
never saw before:

“All that 's left of me, and very much at your service.
I must apologize for the dirt, but I 've laid in a
mud-puddle for two days; and, though it was much
easier than a board, it doesn't improve one's appearance.”

“What can I do for you? Where can I put you?
I can't bear to see you here!” said Christie, much
afflicted by the spectacle before her.

“Why not? we are all alike when it comes to this
pass. I shall do very well if I might trouble you for a
draught of water.”

She poured her last drop into his parched mouth and
hurried off for more. She was detained by the way,
and, when she returned, fancied he was asleep, but soon
discovered that he had fainted quietly away, utterly
spent with two days of hunger, suffering, and exposure.
He was himself again directly, and lay contentedly
looking up at her as she fed him with hot soup, longing
to talk, but refusing to listen to a word till he was
refreshed.

“That 's very nice,” he said gratefully, as he finished,
adding with a pathetic sort of gayety, as he groped
about with his one hand: “I don't expect napkins, but
I should like a handkerchief. They took my coat off
when they did my arm, and the gentleman who kindly
lent me this doesn't seem to have possessed such an
article.”

Christie wiped his lips with the clean towel at her
side, and smiled as she did it, at the idea of Mr. Fletcher's
praising burnt soup, and her feeding him like a
baby out of a tin cup.

“I think it would comfort you if I washed your face:
can you bear to have it done?” she asked.

“If you can bear to do it,” he answered, with an
apologetic look, evidently troubled at receiving such
services from her.

Yet as her hands moved gently about his face, he
shut his eyes, and there was a little quiver of the lips
now and then, as if he was remembering a time when
he had hoped to have her near him in a tenderer capacity

than that of nurse. She guessed the thought, and tried
to banish it by saying cheerfully as she finished:

“There, you look more like yourself after that. Now
the hands.”

“Fortunately for you, there is but one,” and he
rather reluctantly surrendered a very dirty member.

“Forgive me, I forgot. It is a brave hand, and I
am proud to wash it!”

“How do you know that?” he asked, surprised at
her little burst of enthusiasm, for as she spoke she
pressed the grimy hand in both her own.

“While I was recovering you from your faint, that
man over there informed me that you were his Colonel;
that you `fit like a tiger,' and when your right arm was
disabled, you took your sword in the left and cheered
them on as if you `were bound to beat the whole rebel
army.”'

“That 's Drake's story,” and Mr. Fletcher tried to
give the old shrug, but gave an irrepressible groan
instead, then endeavored to cover it, by saying in a
careless tone, “I thought I might get a little excitement
out of it, so I went soldiering like all the rest of
you. I 'm not good for much, but I can lead the way
for the brave fellows who do the work. Officers make
good targets, and a rebel bullet would cause no sorrow
in taking me out of the world.”

“Don't say that! I should grieve sincerely; and
yet I 'm very glad you came, for it will always be a
satisfaction to you in spite of your great loss.”

“There are greater losses than right arms,” muttered
Mr. Fletcher gloomily, then checked himself, and added
with a pleasant change in voice and face, as he glanced
at the wedding-ring she wore:

“This is not exactly the place for congratulations,
but I can't help offering mine; for if I 'm not mistaken
your left hand also has grown doubly precious since we
met?”

Christie had been wondering if he knew, and was
much relieved to find he took it so well. Her face said
more than her words, as she answered briefly:

“Thank you. Yes, we were married the day David
left, and have both been in the ranks ever since.”

“Not wounded yet? your husband, I mean,” he said,
getting over the hard words bravely.

“Three times, but not badly. I think a special angel
stands before him with a shield;” and Christie smiled
as she spoke.

“I think a special angel stands behind him with
prayers that avail much,” added Mr. Fletcher, looking
up at her with an expression of reverence that touched
her heart.

“Now I must go to my work, and you to sleep:
you need all the rest you can get before you have
to knock about in the ambulances again,” she said,
marking the feverish color in his face, and knowing
well that excitement was his only strength.

“How can I sleep in such an Inferno as this?”

“Try, you are so weak, you 'll soon drop off;” and,
laying the cool tips of her fingers on his eyelids, she
kept them shut till he yielded with a long sigh of
mingled weariness and pleasure, and was asleep before
he knew it.

When he woke it was late at night; but little of
night's blessed rest was known on board that boat laden
with a freight of suffering. Cries still came up from

below, and moans of pain still sounded from the
deek, where shadowy figures with lanterns went to
and fro among the beds that in the darkness looked
like graves.

Weak with pain and fever, the poor man gazed
about him half bewildered, and, conscious only of one
desire, feebly called “Christie!”

“Here I am;” and the dull light of a lantern showed
him her face very worn and tired, but full of friendliest
compassion.

“What can I do for you?” she asked, as he clutched
her gown, and peered up at her with mingled doubt and
satisfaction in his haggard eyes.

“Just speak to me; let me touch you: I thought it
was a dream; thank God it isn't. How much longer
will this last?” he added, falling back on the softest
pillows she could find for him.

“We shall soon land now; I believe there is an
officers' hospital in the town, and you will be quite
comfortable there.”

“I want to go to your hospital: where is it?”

“I have none; and, unless the old hotel is ready, I
shall stay on the wharf with the boys until it is.”

“Then I shall stay also. Don't send me away,
Christie: I shall not be a trouble long; surely David
will let you help me die?” and poor Fletcher stretched
his one hand imploringly to her in the first terror of the
delirium that was coming on.

“I will not leave you: I 'll take care of you, and no
one can forbid it. Drink this, Philip, and trust to
Christie.”

He obeyed like a child, and soon fell again into a

troubled sleep while she sat by him thinking about
David.

The old hotel was ready; but by the time he got
there Mr. Fletcher was past caring where he went, and
for a week was too ill to know any thing, except that
Christie nursed him. Then he turned the corner and
began to recover. She wanted him to go into more
comfortable quarters; but he would not stir as long as
she remained; so she put him in a little room by himself,
got a man to wait on him, and gave him as much of her
care and time as she could spare from her many duties.
He was not an agreeable patient, I regret to say;
he tried to bear his woes heroically, but did not succeed
very well, not being used to any exertion of that sort;
and, though in Christie's presence he did his best, his
man confided to her that the Colonel was “as fractious
as a teething baby, and the domineeringest party he
ever nussed.”

Some of Mr. Fletcher's attempts were comical, and
some pathetic, for though the sacred circle of her wedding-ring
was an effectual barrier against a look or
word of love, Christie knew that the old affection was
not dead, and it showed itself in his desire to win her
respect by all sorts of small sacrifices and efforts at self-control.
He would not use many of the comforts sent
him, but insisted on wearing an army dressing-gown,
and slippers that cost him a secret pang every time his
eye was affronted by their ugliness. Always after an
angry scene with his servant, he would be found going
round among the men bestowing little luxuries and kind
words; not condescendingly, but humbly, as if it was
an atonement for his own shortcomings, and a tribute

due to the brave fellows who bore their pains with a
fortitude he could not imitate.

“Poor Philip, he tries so hard I must pity, not despise
him; for he was never taught the manly virtues
that make David what he is,” thought Christie, as she
went to him one day with an unusually happy heart.

She found him sitting with a newly opened package
before him, and a gloomy look upon his face.

“See what rubbish one of my men has sent me, thinking
I might value it,” he said, pointing to a broken
sword-hilt and offering her a badly written letter.

She read it, and was touched by its affectionate respect
and manly sympathy; for the good fellow had been one
of those who saved the Colonel when he fell, and had
kept the broken sword as a trophy of his bravery,
“thinking it might be precious in the eyes of them that
loved him.”

“Poor Burny might have spared himself the trouble,
for I 've no one to give it to, and in my eyes it 's nothing
but a bit of old metal,” said Fletcher, pushing the parcel
away with a half-irritated, half-melancholy look.

“Give it to me as a parting keepsake. I have a fine
collection of relics of the brave men I have known; and
this shall have a high place in my museum when I go
home,” said Christie, taking up the “bit of old metal”
with more interest than she had ever felt in the brightest
blade.

“Parting keepsake! are you going away?” asked
Fletcher, catching at the words in anxious haste, yet
looking pleased at her desire to keep the relic.

“Yes, I 'm ordered to report in Washington, and
start to-morrow.”

“Then I 'll go as escort. The doctor has been wanting
me to leave for a week, and now I 've no desire to
stay,” he said eagerly.

But Christie shook her head, and began to fold up
paper and string with nervous industry as she answered:

“I am not going directly to Washington: I have a
week's furlough first.”

“And what is to become of me?” asked Mr. Fletcher,
as fretfully as a sick child; for he knew where her short
holiday would be passed, and his temper got the upperhand
for a minute.

“You should go home and be comfortably nursed:
you 'll need care for some time; and your friends will
be glad of a chance to give it I 've no doubt.”

“I have no home, as you know; and I don't believe
I 've got a friend in the world who cares whether I
live or die.”

“This looks as if you were mistaken;” and Christie
glanced about the little room, which was full of comforts
and luxuries accumulated during his stay.

His face changed instantly, and he answered with
the honest look and tone never given to any one but
her.

“I beg your pardon: I 'm an ungrateful brute. But
you see I 'd just made up my mind to do something
worth the doing, and now it is made impossible in
a way that renders it hard to bear. You are very
patient with me, and I owe my life to your care:
I never can thank you for it; but I will take myself
out of your way as soon as I can, and leave you free
to enjoy your happy holiday. Heaven knows you
have earned it!”

He said those last words so heartily that all the bitterness
went out of his voice, and Christie found it
easy to reply with a cordial smile:

“I shall stay and see you comfortably off before I go
myself. As for thanks and reward I have had both;
for you have done something worth the doing, and you
give me this.”

She took up the broken blade as she spoke, and carried
it away, looking proud of her new trophy.

Fletcher left next day, saying, while he pressed her
hand as warmly as if the vigor of two had gone into
his one:

“You will let me come and see you by and by when
you too get your discharge: won't you?”

“So gladly that you shall never again say you have
no home. But you must take care of yourself, or you
will get the long discharge, and we can't spare you
yet,” she answered warmly.

“No danger of that: the worthless ones are too
often left to cumber the earth; it is the precious ones
who are taken,” he said, thinking of her as he looked
into her tired face, and remembered all she had done
for him.

Christie shivered involuntarily at those ominous
words, but only said, “Good-by, Philip,” as he went
feebly away, leaning on his servant's arm, while all the
men touched their caps and wished the Colonel a
pleasant journey.