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How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion, a fiction by George W. Peck |
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Chapter 16 |
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_ CHAPTER XVI My Varied Experiences in the Hospital--The Doctor Seems Sure of My Death--I Suggest the Postponement of My Funeral--I Get Very Sick of Gruel--I Go Back to my Regiment. Let's see, last week I wound up in the hospital. When Jim, my old comrade, and the rebel angel, left me, I to all intents and purposes. I supposed I was going to sleep, but after I got well enough to know what was going on, I found that for about ten days I had been out of my head. It was not much of a head to get out of, but however small and insignificant a man's head is, he had rather have it with him, keeping good time, than to have it wandering around out of his reach. When I "come to," as the saying is, it only seemed as though I had been asleep over night, but I dreamed more than any able-bodied man could have done in one night. I was what they call un-. conscious, but I did a great deal of work during that period of unconsciousness. One thing I did, which I was proud of, was to wind up the war. I arranged it so that all of the bullets that were fired on each side, were made of India-rubber, like those little toy balloons, and war was just fun. The boys on both sides would fire at each other and watch the rubber balloons hit the mark, and explode, and nobody was hurt, and everybody laughed. There was no more blood. Everything was rubber and wind. There was no one killed, no legs shot off, and the men on each side; when not fighting with the harmless missiles, were gathered together, blue and gray, having a regular picnic, and every evening there was a dance, the rebels furnishing the girls. In my delirium I could see that my rebel angel was dancing a good deal with the boys, and frequently with my comrade, Jim, and I was pretty jealous. I made up my mind that I wouldn't speak to either of them again. I would watch my balloon battles with a good deal of interest, and think how much better and safer it was to fight that way. Every day, when the battle was over, and the two sides would get together for fun, I noticed when the bugle sounded for battle again, that on each side the boys were terribly mixed, there being about as many blue-coated Yankees among the gray rebels as there were rebels among the Yankees, and after awhile it seemed as though all were dressed alike, in a sort of "blue-gray," and then they disappeared, and I recovered my senses. Frequently, during my delerium and unconsciousness, I would feel my mouth pulled open, and hear a spoon chink against my teeth, and I would taste something bad going down my neck, and then my head would buzz as though a swarm of bees had taken up their abode where my brain used to be. Sometimes I would hear the clanking of a saber and a pair of Mexican spurs, and feel a great big hand on my head, and I knew that was Jim, but I couldn't move a muscle, or say a word. "I guess he's dead, ain't he doc?" I would hear in Jim's voice, and the doc would say there was a little life left, but not enough, to swear by. Then the doc would say, "You better come in about 10:30 tomorrow, as we bury them all at that hour, and I guess he'll croak by that time." I tried to speak and tell them that I was alive, and that I was going to get well, but it, wasn't any use. I was tongue-tied. Again I would hear the sweet rustle of a dress, and feel a warm hand on my head, and I knew that the rebel angel had rode her mule to town to see me. Then I would try hard to tell her that I was going to write a letter to the governor of Wisconsin, and ask him to look out particularly for her brother, who was a rebel prisoner at Madison, and take care of him if he was sick, but I couldn't say a word, and after smoothing my hair a little while, she would give my cheek three or four pats, just as a mother pats her child, and she would go away. One morning, a little after daylight, I woke up and looked around the ward of the hospital. My eyes were weak, and I was hungry as a bear. I had to try two or three times before I could raise my hand to my head, and when I felt of my head it seemed awfully small. I could feel my cheek bones stick out so that you could hang your hat on them. My cheeks were sunken, and my fingers were like pipe-stems. I wondered how a man could change so in one night. I saw two or three fellows over at the other end of the room, and I thought I would get up and go over there and have some fun with them. I wanted to know where my horse was, and where I was. I tried to raise up and couldn't get any further than on my elbow. From that position I looked around to see what was going on, and tried to attract the attention of some attendant. Finally, I saw four fellows bringing a stretcher along towards my cot. They had evidently been told by the doctor that I would be dead in the morning, and having confidence in the word of the professional man, had come to take me to the dead house, before the other sick man was awake. As they came up to the foot of my cot and sat the stretcher down, I thought I would play a joke on them. I pulled the sheet over my face, and laid still. One of the men said, "Two of us can lift it, as it is thinner than a lathe." To be considered dead, when I was alive, was bad enough, but to be called "it" was too much. I felt one of the men take hold of my feet, and then I threw the sheet off my face and in a hoarse voice I said, "Say, Mr. Body-snotcher, you can postpone the funeral and bring me a porter-house steak and some fried potatoes." Well, nobody ever saw a couple of men fall over themselves and turn pale, as those fellows did. Before I had given my order for breakfast, the two men had fallen back over the stretcher and the two others were backing on as though a ghost had appeared. But finally they came toward me and I convinced them that I was not dead. They seemed hurt to know that I was still alive, and one of them went off after the doctor, to enter a complaint, I supposed. The doctor soon came and he was the only one that seemed pleased at my recovery. He ordered some sort of gruel for me, but wouldn't let me have meat and things. I took the gruel under protest but it did strengthen me. I told the doctor I wanted him to send for my horse, because I wanted to go out with the boys, but he said he guessed I wouldn't go out with the boys very soon. He said I might sit up in bed a little while, and when I did so I found that I did not have my clothes on, but was clothed in a hospital night-gown, which was also used for a shroud for burial when a fellow died. He said Jim and the girl would be in about 10 o clock, as he had sent for them, and some of my comrades. I told him if I was going to entertain company, and give a reception, I wanted my pants on, as I was sure no gentleman could give a reception successfully without pants. The doctor seemed sort of glad to see me taking an interest in human affairs again, and so he let me put my pants and jacket on. I got a butcher to shave me, and when ten o clock came I looked quite presentable for a skeleton. I was sitting up in bed, with a little round zinc frame looking-glass, noting the changes in my personal appearance, when a door opened and Jim entered, dressed up in his best, with the rebel angel on his arm, and followed by six boys from the regiment. They came in as solemn as any party I ever saw. The angel looked as sad as I ever saw anybody, and I thought she had probably heard that her brother was dead. It did not occur to me that they had come to attend my funeral. They stood there by the door, in that helpless manner that people always stand around at a funeral, waiting for the master of ceremonies to tell them that they can now pass in the other room and view the remains. I finally caught Jim looking my way, and I waved a handkerchief at him. He gave me one look, and jumped over two cots and came up to me with tears in his eyes, and a package in his hand, and said, "Pard, you ain't dead worth a cent," and then he hugged me, and added, "but there ain't enough left of you for a full size funeral." Then he unrolled the package he had in his hand, and dropped on the bed four silver-plated coffin handles. By that time the girl, and the six boys had seen me, and they came over, and we had a regular visit. They were all surprised to find me alive, as they had been notified that I was on my last legs, and would be buried in the morning, and the captain had detailed the six boys to act as pall-bearers and fire a salute over the grave, while Jim and the girl were to act as mourners. "Well, it saves ammunition," said Jim. "But how be I going to get these coffin handles off my hands. There is no dependence to be placed on doctors, anyway. When that doctor appointed this funeral, we thought he knew his business, and I told the angel, say I, 'My pard ain't going to be buried without any style, in one of those pine boxes that ain't planed, and has got slivers on.' So I hired the hospital coffin-maker to sand-paper the inside and outside of a box, and black it with shoe-blacking, and I went to a store down town and bought these handles. Of course, pard, I am glad you pulled through, and all that, but I want to say to you, if you had croaked in the night, and been ready to bury this A. m., you would have had a more stylish outfit than anybody, except officers, usually get in this army, and the angel and I would have been a pair of mourners that would have slung grief so your folks to home would have felt proud of you." The angel was tickled to see me alive, and suggested to Jim and the boys, that it was easy to talk a fellow to death after he had been so sick, and told them to go back to camp, and she would stay with me all day. So the boys shook hands with me, and Jim had an attendant to roll my cot up to a window, so I could see my horse when they rode away. The boys got on their horses and Jim led my horse, and I could see that my pet had been fixed up for the occasion. He had the saddle on, and it was draped with black, a pair of boots were fastened in the stirrups, and my carbine was in the socket. The idea was to have my horse, with empty boot and saddle tied behind the wagon that took me to the cemetery where soldiers wind up their career. It was not a cheerful thing to look at, and to think of, but it did me good to see the old horse, and the boys ride away in good health, and happy at my escape, and it encouraged me to make every effort to get well, so I could ride with the gang. The rebel angel re-mained with me till almost night, and superintended my eating. No person who has never had a fever, can appreciate the appetite of a person when the fever "turns." I wanted everything that was ever eaten, and roast beef or turkey was constantly in my mind. As anything of that kind would have made use for Jim's coffin-handles, I had to put up with soups and gruels. The doctor thought that this thin gruel was good enough, but it didn't seem to hit the spot, and so the girl asked the doctor if he thought nice gumbo soup and a weak milk punch wouldn't be pretty good for me. He said it would, but nobody in the hospital could make gumbo soup, or milk punch. She said she could, and she told me not to eat a thing until she came back, and she would bring me a dish fit for the gods. She said she knew an old colored woman in town, who cooked for a lady friend of hers, who had some gumbo, and the lady had a little brandy that was seventy years old, but she said the lady was a rebel, and I must overlook that. I told her I didn't care, as I had got considerably mashed on all the rebels I had met personally. She went out with a smile that would have knocked a stronger man than I was silly, and I turned over and took a nap, the first real sleep I had had in a week. I woke up finally smelling something that was not gruel. O, I had got so sick of gruel. The angel handed me a glass of milk punch, and told me to drink a swallow and a half. I have drank a great many beverages in my lifetime, but I never swallowed anything that was as good as the milk punch that rebel girl made for me. It seemed to go clear to my toes, and I felt strong. Then she gave me a small soup plate and told me to taste of the gumbo. I had never tasted gumbo soup before, but I had no difficulty in mastering it. No description can do gumbo soup justice, or explain to a person who has never tasted it the rich odor, and palatable taste. The little that I ate seemed to make a man of me again, instead of the weak invalid. Since then I have been loyal to southern gumbo soup, and have always eaten it wherever it could be obtained, and I never put a spoonful of it to my lips without thinking of the rebel girl in the hospital, who prepared that dish for me. If I ever become a glutton, it will be on gumbo soup, and if I am ever a drunkard, it will be a milk-punch drunkard, and the soup and the punch must be prepared in the South. Well, my experience after that, in the hospital, was about the same as a hundred thousand other boys in blue, only few of the boys had such care, and such food. The girl kept me supplied with gumbo soup and milk punch until I could eat heartier food, and in a couple of days I got so I could walk around the hospital. At home I had never been much of a hand to be around with the sick, but experience had been a good teacher, and I found that going around among the boys, and talking cheerfully did them good and me too. I found men from my own regiment, that I did not know had been sick. The custom was to make just as little show about sending sick men to the hospital, as possible, hence they were often packed off in the night, and the first their comrades would know of their illness would be a detail to bury them, or a boy would suddenly appear in his company, looking pale and sick, having been discharged from the hospital. If the men had known how many of their comrades were sent to the hospital, it would have demoralized the well ones. For ten days I visited around among the sick men, telling a funny story to a group here and and cheering them up, and writing letters home for fellows that were too weak to write. I learned to lie a little bit in writing letters for the boys. One young fellow who had his leg taken off, wanted me to write to his intended, and tell her all about it, how the leg was taken off, and how he was sick and discouraged, and would always be a cripple and a burden on his friends, etc. I wrote the letter entirely different from the way he told me. I spoke of his being wounded in the leg but that the care he received had made him all right, and that he would probably soon have a discharge, and be home, and make them all happy. I thought to myself that if she loved him as a girl ought to, that a leg or two short wouldn't make any difference to her, and there was no use of harrowing up her feelings in advance, and that he could buy a cork leg before he got home, and may be she would never find it out. I might have been wrong, but when he got an answer from that letter he was the happiest fellow I ever saw in this world, and he arranged at my suggestion, to stop over in New York and get a cork leg before he went home. I have never learned whether the girl ever found out that he had a cork leg, but if she did, and blames anybody, she can lay it to me. Lots of the boys that wrote letters for wanted to detail all of their calamities to their mothers and sisters and sweet-hearts, but I worded the letters in a funny sort of way, so that the friends at home would not be worried, and the answers the boys got would please them very much. The hardest work I had was a couple of days writing letters for a doctor, to relatives of boys who had died, detailing the sickness, death and burial, and notifying friends that they could obtain the personal effects of the deceased, clothing, money, pipes, knives, etc., by sending express charges. It always seemed to me that if I had been running the government I would have paid the express charges on the clothing of the boys who had died, if I didn't lay up a cent. Finally I got well enough to go back to my regiment, and one day I showed up at my company, and the first man I met saluted me and said, "Hello, Lieutenant." I told him he did wrong to joke a sick man that way, and I went on to find Jim. He was in our tent, greasing his shoes, and he looked up with a queer expression on his face and said, "Hello, Lieutenant." "Look a here." I said, as I grasped his greasy hand, "what do you fellows mean by calling me names, I have never done anything to deserve to be made a fool of. Pard, what ails you anyway?" "Didn't they tell you," said Jim, as he scraped the mud on his other shoe with a stick. "The colonel has sent your name to the governor of Wisconsin to be commissioned as second Lieutenant of the company. All the boys are tickled to death, and they are going to whoop it up for you when your commission comes. But this pup tent will not be good enough for you then, and old Jim will have to pick up another pard. You won't have to cook your bacon on a stick when you get your commsssion, and you can drink out of a leather covered flask instead of a flannel covered canteen. But by the great horn spoons I shall love you if you get to be a Jigadier Brindle," and the old pard looked as though he wanted to cry like a baby. "Jim," I said, "I think the fellows are giving us taffy, and that there is nothing in this Lieutenant business. But if there is, you will be my pard till this cruel war is over, and don't you forget it," and I went along the company street towards the colonel's tent, leaning on a cane, and all the boys congratulated me, and I felt like a fool. "Lieutenant, I am glad to see you back," said the Colonel, as I entered his tent, and he showed it in his face. "What is the foolishness, colonel? I asked. The boys are all guying me. Can't I stay a private?" _ |
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