More “Nostalgia”

(Photo: Captain/Dr. James Dana Benton, or, as he is known in Nostalgia, Dr. Jim Banyon)

Yes, I know. I posted my first chapter of Nostalgia a few weeks ago. So if you feel like skipping this version, you won’t hurt my feelings. But as I mentioned in this post I got frustrated with what I’d written so far and basically started over. If you’re still with me, please read on.

Behind the Lines

September 13, 1862–Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia

The heavy rain had stopped, but the air was intolerably hot and steamy as Dr. Jim Banyon steadied what was once a leg. 

“It’ll be okay,” Jim lied to his patient. “I promise.” There was no way to save what remained—the tibia and fibula were shattered and twisted like a wrung-out dishcloth, the skin a bloody shredded fringe. 

The young soldier, who probably lied about his age to enlist, lay sprawled across the weathered barn door set on wobbly sawhorses that served as an operating table.

“Ready?” Dr. Larssen, the head surgeon, absent-mindedly stroked his beard, surgical saw in hand.

Jim re-tightened the tourniquet above the wound and nodded.

Minutes later, he held the unsalvageable remnant of the patient’s leg, amputated just below the knee, and dropped it on the muddy ground. He winced at the sound it made, like the thunk of a heavy stone tossed in a pond, but much more ominous: The patient had a good chance of dying and there would be nothing the medical staff could do regardless of their skill or attention. 

The patient moaned, immobilized under the straps that held him to the table. An ether-soaked rag covered his mouth. He was not fully unconscious, but Jim hoped the sedative at least dull the man’s wits—and his pain. He would have preferred chloroform, but the regiment ran out of that long ago. He gently squeezed the man’s shoulder, reassuring him that the procedure was over. 

Mud and blood splattered Jim’s pant legs, mingling with the blood of every other wounded soldier he’d cared for today. Severed body parts had become a sight as common to him as dead branches downed by wind and rain. 

There were days when time was measured in severed limbs. When there was a lull in fighting, Jim treated the rampant illnesses; dysentery and typhoid fever seemed always present. Either way, the days were long, with more injuries and disease than the regiment’s three medical officers could handle. Jim longed for the days when his only medical duty involved conducting a few hours of sick call, determining which soldiers would be given light duty for the day, and which ones needed a little motivation. He wished there was a way he could bank those long, boring afternoons for a day like today.

Perspiration soaked Jim’s uniform. Beads of sweat glistened on his cheekbones and dripped from his goatee. When the last remnants of daylight faded, the team worked by lantern light. By then, the pile of limbs had grown past Jim’s knees. Some patients lost only a foot, a crushed hand, a couple of fingers or toes, but the more severe injuries required the removal of the entire limb.

And to what end? Jim wondered. All that extra pain and he’s likely a dead man, anyway. 

True, some survived the amputation itself, but sometimes Jim wondered why he and the other doctors bothered. It wouldn’t be the loss of the leg that would kill the amputees, it would be the ensuing inflammation and gangrene, and sometimes it wasn’t even that: some soldiers simply wanted to die.

 “Damned Minié balls!” Jim spat, cursing the man who invented the weapon. It was a Confederate favorite; the thing the Rebs liked best about it was the damage it did to whatever it hit. On impact, the Minié flattened, sometimes splintering. Bones shattered, tissue shredded, and too often the only way a surgeon could save the body was to take the limb.

Dr. Larssen wiped the surgical saw across his pant leg. “You’ve got the closure?” he asked.

“All set.” Jim held the needle and catgut, prepared to begin.

“Then I’ll see to the next one,” Larssen said, moving to another patient. “Join me when you’re finished here.”

Jim lifted a flap of skin, folded it over the patient’s open wound, and meticulously sutured it, leaving enough slack for drainage and healing. Evidence of white pus emanating from the wound in the next day or two would be a sure sign of healthy healing.

When he finished, he carefully bound the leg and motioned to the stretcher-bearer who would transfer the soldier to the hospital tent.

It was nearly 10 p.m. when they called it a night. Lieutenant Erskine, the regiment’s medical steward, cleaned the surgical instruments in a nearby bucket of water and set them in place for tomorrow. He and Jim wiped the “operating table,” rinsed out the bloody rags and hung them over its edges, and proceeded to the hospital tent where the sick and wounded waited for their attention. At the moment, the tent held thirty-five men. Some of them might live until morning.

Jim and Erskine settled in chairs by the makeshift desk and consulted their notes before examining their patients.

“Nightcap?” Erskine propped his long legs on the desk, pulled a flask of whiskey from his coat, and grinned. He took a swig and held it out to Jim.

Tall and lanky, Tom Erskine was a good six inches taller than Jim and looked more like seventeen than twenty-two. His nose was broad, his lips full, his face clean-shaven. He kept his dark brown hair close-cropped, which only emphasized his oversized ears. His eyes were what attracted people’s attention at first glance: one iris was deep brown, the other azure blue. It was an inherited trait that, according to family lore, was the doom of many an ancestor declared a witch and burned at the stake. But his sincere smile was what gained their trust.

Jim nodded, too tired to muster words. He took a long pull from the flask, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and handed it back to Erskine. They sat in silence for a few moments, then Jim nodded, giving his partner a stack of notes.

“Private Andersen’s dysentery hasn’t improved much.” Jim nodded toward the soldier laying on a heavily soiled cot. “Try to get him to take a little quinine, and give him opium for the pain.”

“Will do,” Erskine studied Jim’s notes.

“And see if you can get him up and clean his bed linens,” Jim added. “They stink to high heaven.”

“What about Private Nichols?” Erskine pointed to a young man pulling at his tattered uniform and mumbling something about chores and what to do with the fresh hay.

Jim shook his head and shrugged. “There’s nothing physically wrong with him,’ he said. “But with all that ranting he certainly isn’t fit for duty.”

“Think he’s faking?”

“If he is, he’s putting on a good act.” Jim hesitated, then pointed toward the vial of powder sitting on the desk. “Maybe try a little opium on him too.”

“Gotcha.” Erskine nodded, scooped up the patients’ notes and stood. “Private Andersen, how’s it going?” He put on his most reassuring smile and went to work.

X X X

That night, Jim squirmed on his cot, unable to sleep and thankful for a tent of his own. The unrelenting heat and humidity hadn’t eased when the sun set, andhis mind raced, replaying the past eighteen hours of work: the wounds, the surgeries, the growing pile of useless limbs.

It wasn’t at all what Jim expected when he’d joined Lincoln’s Army. He thought he’d learned everything about doctoring from the prestigious medical college he attended. He thought he’d be treating bullet wounds, perhaps broken limbs. Of course, there would be deaths—the war guaranteed that—but the devastating wounds, the rampant disease, the deaths from malnutrition and starvation were so much more than he’d bargained for.

Maybe his father was right; maybe he was just a scared little kid hiding behind his bluster. It might have been the money that convinced Jim to enlist, but only God knew why he stayed.