The Last Full Measure by Ann Rinaldi Read Free Book Online Page B

were bleeding inside, crying. Houses all around us were being shelled. And here we were, two old friends, and we couldn't even say hey to each other.
    She just nodded at David and ran out of the doorway right past us, as if a Confederate were chasing her with a bayonet.
    David said nothing. We went inside.
    All was organized confusion. Some men were on the floor. Still others in the main vestry. There was an amputating bench in an anteroom that opened off the main hall, and we heard yells of pain coming from within. Doctors were operating right there, with local women serving as nurses.
    People were rushing around answering the call of the wounded, bending over them, giving them water and tending their wounds, listening to their words, comforting them.
    This
, I thought,
must be what the first room of hell looks like, where they decide which room you go to next
.
    Looking around we saw no Marvelous, no Mary. David led me upstairs to the auditorium. Here most of the wounded were laid out, from one end of the room to the other, a few on cots, most on blankets on the floor, a few lucky ones on mattresses.
    It took us both a few brain-frying seconds to adjust our eyes to the scene.
All these men, wounded just this morning
. And the woman downstairs had told us there were more hospitals in town.
    And then, oh glorious then, I sighted across the wide expanse of pews Marvelous and her mother.
    They were doing the same thing as the other women. They were aiding the wounded soldiers.
    I tugged David's sleeve and he looked down at me and nodded, for he'd seen them, too.
    "Can I go to them?" I asked.
    "Yes, but just to say hello. And ask where they're staying tonight. They can sleep in our cellar, if they still need to hide. I'm going to make sure Joel and Brandon aren't here."
    I quickly made my way around and through the people, stepping over wounded, even stopping once to give a young man some water. Looking back once, I saw David wandering around, searching, offering help to some of the soldiers as he inspected the faces.
    When I caught up with Marvelous and her mother, Marvelous screamed briefly, then covered her mouth, remembering where she was. We hugged, we cried.
    "We were so lucky," she told me. "The wounded started coming in before the belfry got hit. And me and Mama came down, right off, to help. So we weren't up there when the shell came. Else we'd be dead."
    I hugged her again, tears streaming down my face.
    "The angels were with us," her mama said.
    I invited them to our house, to hide in our cellar. "No, we stay right here," her mama insisted. "We stay with the wounded."
    "But suppose the Reb soldiers come and take you?" I asked.
    Another woman standing nearby, who introduced herself as Mrs. Jacobs, interrupted our conversation. "I'd like to see that happen," she said vehemently. "I'd like to see a Reb soldier walk through that door and take these two wonderful people with him and walk out alive to tell the tale! They have nothing to worry about. They are part of us."
    I thanked her, then I saw David signaling to me from across the auditorium. "I must go," I told them sadly. "Send word if you need us."
    And I ran toward David with tears still streaming down my face.
    ***
    W E WENT BACK downstairs and he made a tour of the wounded there, too, lest any be Brandon or Joel. None was. We headed home and in the street men in gray uniforms with bayonets fastened to their rifles were chasing retreating men in blue, who turned to face them down. I was dumbfounded as I saw a Yankee spear the shirt front of a Reb, then saw the Confederate's blood spurt out and spread all over both of them.
    "How will we get home?" I asked David tearfully.
    He took my arm and we turned from the street. "We'll get there. Come on—you shouldn't see this." And soon we were skirting through alleys, around the backs of houses, ducking through fences and behind outhouses and sheds and copses of trees.
    David is a cripple in the true sense of the word.