‘I ain’t talking about going home. I’m talking about those hurt boys out there. We’ve got to do something for them,’ I say, my voice loud to be heard over the noise. I catch Will’s eyes darting away from me.
‘Like what? You can’t go out there. We’ve got orders to wait.’
‘Maybe there’s other things I could do, if I’ve a mind to,’ I tell him.
‘It don’t matter what you’ve got a mind to do. We’ve got orders.’
I stand up and say, ‘Waiting here and seeing that down there don’t sit right with me. I’m going to ask Sergeant to let me go help those boys.’
Jeremiah doesn’t move.
‘You coming?’ I ask.
He doesn’t say anything at first and then he says, ‘I don’t know a thing about nursing.’
Jennie Chalmers’ pale face flashes in my mind before I say, ‘It ain’t difficult and you’re more than able. You don’t want to, that’s another thing altogether.’
I memorize the high set of his cheekbones and the straight line of his nose, the blue of his eyes, the shock of hair falling across his forehead, thinking on if it was him out there in that tall grass. He must see something in my stare because he says, ‘You get your answer from Sergeant and come back here.’
I work my way through the resting boys under the trees, nodding to Thomas and Ambrose. Edward is dozing and Hiram is busy carving on something with his bayonet. Near our Regimental flag, Sergeant Ames rests with Sergeant Fitzpatrick from Company G. When he sees me coming, he excuses himself and stands, and I wish Jeremiah were here beside me doing the talking.
‘Private Stone,’ he says.
‘Sir, I know we got orders to stay put, but I’d like to take water to those wounded boys on the field.’
Sergeant Ames has got a kind face but that ain’t why he got voted Sergeant. What got him voted is how he listens and stops to think on it, and then tells me the truth even when it ain’t what I want to hear.
‘Soon as night settles,’ he says. ‘Come dusk, soon as the shooting stops, you can go out to those soldiers. It’s a good thing you want to do, but it isn’t the time now. You’ve got to get some rest while you can.’
Then he points North, up the road to a two-story box of a house, all rust-red fieldstone against the gold-tipped green fields. ‘You see that stone house there?’
I nod.
‘That house is serving as hospital, and Pope’s headquarters are off behind it. We’ll want to get the wounded there.’
After Sergeant tells me the countersign for crossing through the picket line, I come back to Jeremiah. He has already dozed off so I just settle in quiet next to him, our backs against a tree trunk, our sides pressed against each other, the rest of our Company spread out to either side. He murmurs something, his arm shifting behind me and reaching around to hold me. I get to wondering what someone watching, Will maybe, would see between me and Jeremiah, what seeing two men like that might make him think, how Will has been thinking it all this time. But it don’t matter if anyone sees me and Jeremiah, not when we’ve got battle all around us and the screams of the shells and the dying mixing together. I’ve got to have this moment here with my man and anybody thinks it strange, I am past caring.
WHEN THE SHADOWS get long, Jeremiah and I take our rifles and canteens. We go careful through the trees to a branch of what must be the same creek running at the bottom of the hill. It’s nothing more than two or three steps across, running in a slow trickle behind the line of our boys along the road, this branch maybe flowing to water one of the farms near here, the boggy grass at its edges a deeper green. Jeremiah crouches at the bank, pushing both our canteens down into the water, careful so he don’t stir up any silt. Once they are full, he holds on to them. Both of them.
‘I don’t want you going out on that field. It ain’t safe,’ Jeremiah says, staring into the creek.
‘It ain’t dangerous now,’ I say, ignoring the sounds of battle way off to our West.
‘It’s a battlefield, Rosetta,’ he says. ‘Ain’t nothing safe about a battlefield.’
‘I’ve just got to, that’s all. I’ve got to do something good. I’d feel better, having you with me.’ I touch his shoulder, smiling like Jennie does, like I’ve seen Mama do. ‘You could do those men a kindness,’ I add, even though giving water ain’t going to help, not really.
‘I ain’t got that much kindness in me, Rosetta.’
‘That ain’t true. You’ve got plenty.’
Jeremiah scoops both hands under the water and splashes his face. I squat next to him and do the same, washing the road grime and sweat stick off my face, the cool water running down into my collar. When I open my eyes, he is watching me.
‘That may be, but we ain’t here to do kindnesses,’ he says. ‘It ain’t going to help us when the fighting comes. I want brave ideas in my head tomorrow.’ He looks quickly back from where we came and then turns to me again, steadying himself with a hand on my knee before kissing me.