ALL THAT'S LEFT OF ME

By Jo Anzalone

Chapter 59:

As he crumpled, Jonathon was vaguely aware of a drawn-out, anguished scream. He seemed

to hear it inside his head, not with his ears, but it was, in fact, coming from his own lips.

Whatever its source, it was too muffled under the absolute roar of pain that ripped through

him, too removed from him to be recognized audibly for what it was.

Gray heard it though and the sound of it cut through him like a knife. He shrieked, "Johnnie!!"

and began to run out into the field. Without the flash of exploding shells, however, the field

lay in utter blackness and he tripped over a dead soldier, sprawling forward. When he

scrambled to his feet, he was disoriented in the blackness around him, not knowing which way

to go to find Jonathon.  Other wounded men lay on the field, many of them moaning or calling

out for help, and Gray made his way from man to man, checking for his friend.

Jonathon had fallen on his left side then rolled a few feet down a small slope, ending on his

back.  His teeth clamped together, his breath came in little hissing gasps through them, his

lips squared, tense, framing them.  The absolute agony in his body was too great to permit

thoughts to form and for a while all he could do was lie there, his eyes squeezed tightly shut,

his arms slightly raised with fists clenched, and hiss those gasping breaths in and out. Only

as the moments passed did he gradually come to understand that he had been wounded. He

forced his eyes open, looking straight up at the star-laden sky. Above him still hovered a veil

of smoke and through it rose a large flock of birds.  Briefly, he felt so detached from himself

that he was able to watch the flight of the birds, which seemed strangely beautiful.  (This really

did happen, the flock of birds rising through the battlefield smoke.) In fact, he lifted his right hand toward

them, spreading his fingers as though to let them filter through. Then he passed out, though

only for a matter of seconds.

He moved his left hand, having to concentrate through the pain to do so, his fingers sliding

slowly past his hip, down his left thigh. Very soon they encountered a sticky wetness where

his pants leg was soaked in blood. Little grunting noises coming through his teeth, he moved

them still further, trying to reach his knee, but from his lower thigh on down nothing seemed

to be where it should.  When his fingertips touched something unfamiliar and sharp sticking

through the material of his pants, he let his hand slip off onto the grass.  It fell into a pool of

his blood. Thinking was becoming steadily harder but he knew if he didn't tie something

around his thigh, he would bleed to death.  He lifted both hands to his throat, fumbling at the

knot of his neckerchief, finally loosening it and pulling it free.  For a moment he held it,

knowing what he should do with it, but something stayed his hands.  He couldn't see his leg,

but he'd felt the splintered ends of his thighbone.  There were no 'if's' about this, not like at

Sharpsburg where his arm had been spared.  This time they would take his leg. "No," he

breathed, letting the piece of cloth drop.  Closing his eyes, and through the exquisite sharpness

of the pain, he lay there, aware of his blood pumping into the field.

Gray was getting desperate, breathing hard, as he continued his search for Jonathon. The

cannonfire had stopped completely though he hadn't really noticed.  He turned over one dead

soldier, then another, tripped over a third and fell, the fall taking him close beside Jonathon.

"Johnnie?" he said, getting up on his knees. "Is that...oh, God...Johnnie...it's you!"  He began

to pat Jonathon's face. "Don't you be dead, Jonathon McDaniel! Don't you dare be dead!"

Jonathon opened his eyes, trying to speak.

"Johnnie, it's Gray. I'm here, Johnnie. I'm here. I got you now."

"I...I....."  Jonathon's voice was low, barely audible and Gray leaned close.

"What, Johnnie? What is it?"

"I...can't...find my...hat."

"Hat? Your hat? What in....?"

But Jonathon's eyes had closed again and Gray frantically began to feel down his body, trying

to discover where he'd been hurt.  When his hands found Jonathon's left leg, he sat back on

his heels, moaning, "Oh, God....no, Johnnie...oh, God, no, Johnnie!"

He'd located the neckerchief and decided Jonathon must have passed out before he could get

the cloth tied as a tourniquet. Quickly he fastened it around Jonathon's upper thigh, tying it

tight, then lifting his head as he heard low voices nearby.

"Over here!" he yelled and two men soon loomed out of the darkness.

"You got a live one?" one of them asked.

"My friend...yes. Please, you've got to help me get him to the surgeon."

They had a blanket, not a litter, and it was a blanket Jonathon had seen earlier when the

litter bearer had gone down.  As the wagons had been left behind in Columbia early that

morning, no litters had been brought along for the coming battle.  Together with the men,

Gray got Jonathon moved onto the blanket. One of the men remarked during the process,

"Man's leg's pretty much gone."  He'd had a hard time getting it on the blanket.

"Where?" Gray almost snapped. "Where do we take him?"

"A little south.  Bit of a field hospital set up at the edge of the Thompson place."

With the two men holding the blanket near Jonathon's head, Gray lifted the end near his

feet and they moved off in the darkness, trying not to trip and drop him.  Jonathon had passed

out from blood loss and was unaware he was being moved. To Gray it seemed to take forever,

possibly longer, to get to their destination and when they did arrive, he was shocked.

"This?" he asked, his mouth dropping open. "This is the field hospital?"

"All we could manage without the wagons, I'm afraid. Better'n nothin'." The man shrugged.

There was no tent, no table, not much of anything. A door had been wrenched off a ramshackle

old shed and placed atop some hastily-gathered logs. Two lanterns hung from the lower branches of a leafless tree and the doctor was engrossed in probing a soldier's shoulder for

a bullet.  As the door was in use, Jonathon was laid on the ground to wait his turn. Gray kept

close to him, shaking his head, muttering prevarications under his breath. The land was flat

here and he could just make out a long, dirt lane that went off toward the horizon, disappearing into a clump of trees.  Flickering through the trees he could see a number of lights and heard

a faint sound of music.

"What's that?" he asked a passing soldier.

"That? Oh, that's the Thompson place, Oaklawn.  Thompson is Hood's doctor and invited him

for dinner tonight. That's the music you hear."

Gray stared at the house. Hood's...doctor? And he was giving a dinner party when soldiers

were out here on the lawn...dying? And Hood, he'd thought the general had been somewhere

on the battlefield. His eyes narrowing, he glared at the house.

Jonathon had awakened, though his mind seemed foggy and more outside his head than in.

Through slitted eyes, he looked around, seeing a man on some sort of table, another man

leaning over him.  Dimly, he recognized it for what it was and his fingers made their way

down his thigh again, finding the neckerchief.  It took him a while because he could only use

his left hand to reach it, but he managed to unknot it.

Gray turned his concentration away from the distant mansion and back to his friend. He

touched his face, finding it quite cool, almost cold, and that sent him to his knees to check on

the neckerchief. A fresh pool of blood lay under and around Jonathon's leg and Gray was

aghast to find the neckerchief had been undone.  His eyes flew to Jonathon's face, which he

could see in the lantern light. "You...?" He was appalled. "You did that, Johnnie?"

Jonathon just blinked slowly.

Biting his lip, Gray retied the cloth then looked at Jonathon again, seeing clearly in his eyes

that, given the chance, he'd do it again.

"No, Johnnie, I ain't gonna let you do that. You get me home, I get you home. That's our deal

an' there ain't no way this side of heaven or hell I ain't gettin' you home. You hear me, Johnnie.

I'm gettin' you home. I am!"

Their eyes fastened together, Jonathan began moving his hand to his leg, very slightly shaking

his head from side to side to indicate 'no'.

"God DAMN it, Johnnie! You ain't doin' that!" 

Crying, his fingers fumbling, shaking, he unbuckled Jonathon's belt, pulling it free. Then he

folded Jonathon's arms across his chest so that his right hand was by his left elbow and his

left hand by his right elbow.  Jonathon had no strength to resist as Gray began to wind the

belt around and around his forearms, then buckling it tightly. 

He'd just sat back on his heels, brushing at his tears, when one of the men who'd helped him

carry Jonathon came up to him.  "Been back over to where I found you. Lowrey's got men

out roundin' up strays so's they'll be in place for the fightin' come mornin'.  You'd best be

gettin' yourself back that way, soldier, before they think you've upped and deserted."

"But...."

"Ain't nothin' more you can do for your friend this night," the man said. "His turn on the

door'll be comin' up soon. You'd best be gettin' on back.  It ain't nothin' a friend wants to

watch happen to a friend anyway. You got my word on that."

"Oh, God...," Gray sighed.  He laid a hand on Jonathon's shoulder, but his friend's eyes

were closed. "I got to go now, Johnnie. Dammit, I got to go.  I'll try to get back after...after

whatever comes tomorrow. But you hear me an' you hear me good. No matter what, an' I

mean no matter what, I'm gettin' you home an' that's a promise. That's a promise, Johnnie."

Jonathon tried to speak, had a hard time forming words, then hoarsely whispered, "Shoe."

"Shoe?" Gray repeated, remembering how his friend had earlier asked about his hat. "You

got your shoes, Johnnie."

"Shoe...take...shoe."

"Take your shoe? What you talkin' about?"

"Need...shoe...take."

"Take your shoe? I ain't takin' your shoe, Johnnie."

"You...need. Take...shoe."

"Oh, you mean 'cause of my missin' sole! I done gone an' got all used to that, Johnnie."

"Take...shoe...please."

"How could I go an' take your shoe, Johnnie? Don't seem fittin'."

"I...not...need.  You...need. Please."

"Oh...Johnnie." Gray's voice caught in his throat. "You sure?"

"Please...yes."

So very reluctantly, very, very gently, Gray removed Jonathon's left shoe, noting that his

friend's foot was entirely intact.

About thirty minutes passed after Gray left and Jonathon slipped in and out of consciousness.

Then he felt himself being lifted and carried and a bolt of pure horror shot through him, worse

than the unrelenting pain.  He was laid down on the blood-soaked wood of the door and a

nameless, faceless doctor leaned over him.

"Why in hell is this man trussed up like a goddamn turkey?" the doctor spat.

"His friend said he kept tryin' to undo his tourniquet," a litter bearer supplied.

The horror of what was about to befall him gave Jonathon a surge of strength and he twisted

on the table, trying to get away, but two men pinned his shoulders to the door and another

his right leg.

"Keep him down!" the doctor growled, pouring some chloroform onto a cloth. He preferred

to use a sponge, but the Confederacy had long ago run out of sponges. Making a slight tent

of the cloth, he placed it over Jonathon's lower face. Jonathon jerked his head to the side,

making it fall off. Another man grabbed his head, holding it down, and the doctor replaced

the cloth, somewhat less tented, and poured more drops of the liquid onto it.

Jonathon felt like his throat was closing up and tried to struggle, but his arms were lashed

together and four men were holding him down. A minute or two passed and he lost control

over his muscles. As he began to sink into blackness, his last thought was that this...this...

was the pit of his recurring nightmare.

The doctor replaced the neckerchief with his own tourniquet then cut away the leg of

Jonathon's pants as an assistant unbuckled the belt from his arms, tossing it off to the side.

His left leg was exposed from the upper thigh down to his foot. As Gray had seen, his foot

was untouched, but from mid-calf to his knee, the leg had been literally shattered by a large

piece of the exploding shell. A second piece had sliced into his leg not far above the knee,

splintering his femur.

Nodding to his assistant, who slid his hands behind Jonathon's knee, lifting his leg, the doctor

quickly slid his knife in two strokes, completely around his thigh. His movements were rapid,

sure, for this late in the war he had performed more amputations than he could count, and

the average time of one ranged from ten to fifteen minutes. Cutting through the loose muscles

under the skin first, he then cut obliquely upwards through those attached to the bone. With

the muscles cut, Jonathon's leg from the knee down simply fell away, leaving the jagged end

of his femur protruding.  Removing a number of bone splinters from the thigh muscles, the doctor nodded for his retractor, which was merely a piece of already blood-soaked linen, a

little wider than Jonathon's leg. It had a slit in its middle and the doctor placed Jonathon's

thigh bone through it.

While an assistant pulled upwards on the ends of the linen, exposing more of the femur, the doctor sawed through the bone, not an easy task as two men had to hold the leg in the air and the force of the sawing action made the limb shake no matter how hard they tried to keep it steady.  In order to make a groove for the saw, he drew the instrument across the bone with

a long backward sweep.  Using long, bold, regular strokes, he pulled the saw back and forth,

the double edged teeth of the instrument helping prevent more splintering of the bone.  He finished with three backwards movements of the blade and when he was done, smoothed the

end of the bone. When the linen was removed, the muscles came back down beyond the end

of the bone so it would not work its way through the stump. Using boiled horse hair, silk

thread a thing of the past and cotton having run low, he'd tied off both the femoral artery and vein, searching for other vessels that still bled. The tourniquet was slackened and he wiped

the wound to be sure he'd gotten all the bleeders.

He moved the skin and muscles over the bone, stitching them together so that the wound

appeared as a single line, with angles at each end from which the ligatures protruded. Applying

an unguent to keep them from sticking, the bandages were quickly put on, strips of adhesive

plaster, supported by two cross-bandages and a linen roller, wrapped in a spiral way around

and around Jonathon's leg.  In earlier days of the war, he'd used elastic woolen caps to place

over all the dressings, but those, too, were long gone.

The amputation complete, Jonathon was placed on a blanket to one side and another man

carried to the door.  He lay insensible for just a few more minutes, waking slowly and in pain

so grave it defied description.  An assistant knelt beside him when he made a noise. "Sorry,

soldier," he said kindly, "but we don't have any laudanum, nothin' of that sort. If we can get

some wagons, maybe ambulances up here tomorrow, we'll get you to Columbia. They might

have somethin' there can ease the pain."

Jonathon turned his head to the side, biting his lip. He'd been running when it had come upon

him, running across the field, not once thinking he would never run again.