Falling for the Enemy

Time to Inflict Pain

                                                                                Catherine

            My mind is racing; I have a United soldier in my barn and all of Goldsboro is covered with Rebel soldiers because of the battle that took place days ago.  It is my understanding that the United soldiers have moved further north back towards New Bern, so if he is discovered he will surely be captured and thrown into prison.   He is the enemy but he is also unarmed and injured.  Not just injured but on the edge of dying.  He has lost a lot of blood, a lot of which I can see on my barn loft floor.  

“How long have you been up here” I whisper to myself not expecting an answer because he is unconscious lying on the barn floor below me.  

I could allow him to die.  He is the enemy.  Plus he would just be another mouth to feed.  He’s a young man, who doesn't look much older than me.   He has dark brown wavy hair and tanned skin.  I can tell that he usually keeps his face clean-shaven but over the last few days, some stubble has begun to grow in. His woolen pant leg is blood-soaked.   Looking at him unconscious, he looks just like any other young man, and that’s when I make my decision.  If a northern girl were to find my Nathan in this same state I would hope she would be able to look past his uniform and take care of him.  Quickly I climb down the ladder; I must get this man into the house so I can take a closer look at his leg.  I know that I will not be able to carry this man by myself so I enlist the help of Samuel and Susanah.  Neither one is quite sure why I am asking them to carry a United soldier into my home, but neither one says a word.  We take the wounded soldier to my bedroom.  

    Luckily, there is still a bed and a wash dish that was left intact in this room.  Lying the soldier down on the bed, I quickly instruct Samuel to start a fire and to bring me some of my father’s old stash of alcohol that he kept hidden behind the wooden wall panels behind his bed.  Father also keeps my mother’s old jewelry hidden behind the same wooden panel but I know that Samuel can be trusted.  I then send Susanah for water, a knife, and any type of needle and thread she can find.  I have decided that I am going to save this man’s life, and in my mind, it is like I am saving my Nathan.  I will not let this soldier die.  

Behind me, I can suddenly hear Mary screaming.  When I look behind me I see Sarah holding onto Mary and pushing her out of the bedroom.  

“Catherine, what are you doing?  How could you bring that dirt into our house?  Get him out of here right now. I’ll kill him myself if you don’t do it.”  

Sternly I command Sarah to shut the door and to only admit Samuel and Susanah to the room.    First I remove the soldier’s black boots; then I quickly remove the poorly tied blood-soaked bandage from the soldier’s thigh.  It is obvious the soldier tied the bandage in haste because it is ready to fall off on its own.  After removing the bandage, I begin tearing the pants off of the young soldier’s body.  I am looking for the source of all the blood. Easily spotting the source and then effortlessly finding the bullet hole in the fleshy part of the man’s thigh, I prepare my mind for what I am about to do.  

“Where is Susanah with the knife and I need something to grip this bullet with,” I scream out in frustration.  

Busting through the door is Susanah with all the things I have requested of her.  

“Susanah I need something to grip the bullet with.  There is no exit wound, so that means the bullet is still inside his leg.”  I am going through the motions; I really have no idea what I am doing.  However, I did have the opportunity to once watch my mother remove a bullet from a man’s shoulder when he was accidentally shot during a hunting excursion on our property.   Susanah rushes out of the room.  

I begin washing the wound so I can see it easier.  It smells of rotting flesh, and the man’s skin is a strange purple-blue color that I have never seen before.  Every time I wipe away the blood it is replaced by more. I begin washing the knife in the alcohol that Susanah brought.  If she is unable to find something to grip the bullet with I am going to have to make the wound bigger so I can try to grip it with my fingers.  Luckily, I will not be using my fingers today; Susanah has found some old tweezers in one of the dressers downstairs.  I quickly rinse the tweezers with alcohol and begin digging in the wound.    

“Susanah, light a lantern and bring it here so I can see into the wound.”  Without hesitation Susanah lights and brings a lantern closer and holds it next to the soldier’s thigh.  I am reminded of what it felt like when I was skinning the deer the night before.  I can feel the tweezers digging into the fleshy parts of his leg and with each movement of the tweezers, more blood flows from the wound.  I can feel something hard.  It doesn’t feel like the rest of the pink fleshy parts of his thigh.  

“I think I found it” I say ecstatically and then I am hit by some unknown force in my right shoulder followed by an inhuman guttural scream.  The soldier is awake.  

“Hold him down” Samuel jumps on top of the soldier but we both know that if the soldier doesn’t want to be held down, he won’t be kept down by Samuel.  Samuel is an old man with gray hair. He is far from his prime.  Slowly but frantically I start to explain to the soldier what is going on.  

“I can help you if you let me.  I have found the bullet in your leg and I have a needle and thread that I can use to sew your wound. If you fight me, you will die.”    

The man just barely lifts his head up from my pillow and looks into my eyes and gives me a nod.  It is then I realize that he has dark brown eyes, similar to Nathan’s.  

“This is going to hurt, but it has to be done.  I have to remove the bullet.” 

I look into the soldier's eyes once more, and then he gently closes his eyelids and I begin digging once again.  The soldier tries to hold his leg as still as he can even though I cannot imagine the pain I am causing him right now.  He releases low groans from his mouth with each movement of my tweezers. 

“I think I have it” gripping tightly with my tweezers I squeeze onto the hard ball that is inside his leg and with some sort of miracle it comes out.  I almost can’t believe it.  I never actually thought I would find the bullet, and even if I did find it, never did I dream I would actually get it out of his leg.  I stare at the bullet for a few seconds, amazed that something so little could cause such big damage.  Laying the tweezers down on the side table I begin explaining my next move as I pour alcohol into the wound.   

"I am going to remove some portions of your skin. I'm afraid that gangrene is setting in and the only hope we have is to remove the dead parts." The soldier stares at me wide eyed and I can clearly see the pain and fear in the depths of his stare.  

"Samuel, give him something to bite down on."  Samuel brings a twisted cloth and hands it to the soldier.  The soldier takes the twisted piece of cloth and bites down on it. He then gives me a nod. I try to make quick work of removing the dead skin, or at least what I believe to be dead skin.  The soldier's moans will haunt me for years to come I'm sure of it. I will not forget the pain in his screams as I sliced through his skin. When I finish the soldier is soaked in sweat and exhausted.  "I think I got it all. So breath for now but we still have one more thing to do."

“I am going to sew you up now.  It is going to hurt but it is necessary in order to stop the bleeding.” I again look at the young soldier, who is now panting breathlessly.  Beads of sweat drip from his forehead from the pain that he has just endured and now I am going to put him through more.  I slip the thread through the eye of the needle and tie a knot as my mother taught me when I was a little girl.  When my mother taught me to sew it was to make beautiful things, not to sew up the torn flesh of a man.  Slowly I stick the needle into one side of the man’s flesh and then into the opposite side of his flesh and pull tightly.  I continue this movement again and again until the wound is closed.  By the time I have finished sewing the man’s leg, he has passed out from the pain.  Again I pour more alcohol onto the wound.  

“We must find some clean linen to create bandages to wrap his wound.” I say without looking up.  I thrust my hands into the dish of water on the nightstand and begin scrubbing the foreign blood from my arms and hands. Slowly the water in the dish begins spiraling and turning red.  I have to take my eyes off the water because I am becoming ill.  I don’t know how long I sat scrubbing myself but when I stop I am alone with the union soldier.  Looking at his uniform, I soon realize I must dispose of his clothes.  Two things could happen.  Someone could think I am a sympathizer towards the United soldiers and kill us all or someone may think we attempted to murder a United soldier.  Either way, I must burn the uniform.  I begin unbuttoning the man’s double-breasted navy blue jacket and as gently as possible slide it from under his body.  I then begin to remove his white shirt.  With each button that is undone, I slowly begin to reveal the  soldier’s chest.  I am very aware that I have never touched a man in this manner before and I am suddenly very happy that he is unconscious.  As I undo the last button on his shirt I reveal a muscular torso and chest.  I didn’t realize how muscular he was under his uniform.  He is tanner than I am and I am forced to pull my eyes away from his body.  I shouldn’t be looking at this filth like this.  Disgusted with myself I slide his shirt out from under him.  Walking over to the burning fire I first place his navy blue jacket, followed by his blood-soaked woolen pants and finally his button-down shirt.  I will have to go to the barn to search for any other remnants of the soldiers past.  Walking back over to the soldier, I allow myself one more look at his tanned chest and then promise myself that I will never look at this man like anything else other than my enemy until the day he leaves my home.  I then pick up a blanket that my mother quilted years ago and lay it on top of his body.  I am nauseous to see my mother’s quilt on this treacherous man’s body but I force myself to leave the blanket there and to walk away.  Opening the door I pass Sarah in the hallway “His leg needs wrapping.” And I continue down the hallway and out the front door.