The Captain Seeks the Lost

Prologue

The noise was deafening. Cannons thundered and rifles popped and exploded while men screamed in agony. Smoke filled the air, making it hard to tell which soldiers wore blue and which wore gray. The Southerners were in retreat up the steep mountainside, and Harry was trying to hold the line, or, failing that, at least rescue the fallen.Suddenly at his feet he saw Ned Spiva with a bullet wound in his leg.Ned was bleeding badly, and the leg appeared to be broken. Harry knelt and used his sash to wrap Ned's leg and staunch the bleeding. Through the smoke he saw Liam Banks walking dazedly, looking lost, blood running into his eyes from a cut on his head.

"Liam, come here!"

"C-C-Cap'n?" stuttered Liam.

"Come with me, Liam," he said. "Here. Help me get the Sergeant over my shoulder."

Liam helped as Harry stooped and pulled the semiconscious Ned up and over his shoulder. "Now help me carry him up the hill."

Liam walked beside Harry, supporting him, and together they struggled up the long hill to get behind what remained of their company's lines, carrying Ned. On the ridge, when they reached the tents where the doctors were working, the sight was even more horrifying than the scene on the battlefield. Doctors were amputating limbs so fast that a pile of arms, legs, hands, and feet lay on the ground beside the operating table. Amid the screams, smoke, and thunder of cannons, there was the smell of sulfur.

"Please, Harry. Don't let them do that to me," said Ned, when Harry eased him to the ground near the tents.

Harry nodded at his good friend, then looked quickly around and saw an orderly hurrying past pushing a handcart.

"Private, I need that cart!" he commanded.

"But sir, the doctor..."

"Get him another one," Harry ordered. "A man's life depends on it. And bring me paper and a pen. Do it now!"

”Yes, sir!" The boy dropped the cart and ran back, looking frantically for what the Captain needed.

Harry loaded Ned into the cart then pulled the bandana from around Ned's neck and used it to tie up the wound on Liam's head. "All right, you two. You're out of this war. Liam, I want you to follow that line of men heading south down the back of the ridge."Harry pointed at a line of wounded soldiers that was being evacuated."You take Ned all the way home to Dalton, then go back to your mother in the mountains. If anyone questions you, tell him you're following Captain Richardson's orders. After you get down off the mountain, go where Ned tells you to go; he'll know the way."

The orderly was back with paper, pen, and ink. Harry wrote two quick notes and signed them with a flourish, releasing the two men from duty. "I didn't know you had that authority," Ned said with a weak smile when Harry showed the notes to him.

"I don't," Harry confided. "Don't tell anybody."

"God be with you, Harry," said Ned.

"And you." He turned to Liam. "Go now. You can do this, Liam. When you get to a town, find Ned a good doctor."

Liam obeyed without hesitation. Harry turned and ran back through the tents and retreating soldiers, but now every face had a strange, eerie glow. As he passed the last tent, he saw a ghostly nurse stirring an iron caldron that seemed to be filled with blood. When she looked up at him he saw that it was Molly.

"What are you doing here, Molly?" he gasped.

"I've just delivered your baby," she said, smiling strangely. Harry choked with fear and looked wildly around for his wife. "Sarah!"

"Sarah! Sarah!" Harry called aloud and sat up, at first confused and then relieved to find himself in his own bed with Sarah at his side.

Sarah sat up, then held him and patted him. "Shhh, shhh. It's all right, Harry. Everything is all right."

"I'm sorry, honey. I'm sorry I woke you," said Harry, holding her close, still catching his breath.

"Was it the same dream?" she asked.

"Mostly, only worse."

"Poor Harry. Everything is all right. Go back to sleep now."

Harry lay down on his side and gathered Sarah close to him, his chest against her back and his arms around her. They lay contentedly together and he sighed with relief, feeling his heart rate gradually returning to normal. To Harry, one of the greatest comforts of marriage was having his wife to hold onto when the nightmares came. In some mysterious way her presence made him whole again, took away the fear. He wondered how he had ever lived without her. "How's Annie?" he asked softly.

Sarah placed Harry's hand on her gown so he could feel the baby kicking. "She's kicking up her heels. I think she's already learning to dance," said Sarah.

"Good," sighed Harry, relaxing toward sleep.

"Harry?" asked Sarah after a minute.

"Hmm?"

"What if it's a boy?"

Harry thought for a moment. "He'll be pretty annoyed when he finds out we named him Annie." When Sarah giggled, Harry said, "Don't worry, it's a girl."

"How do you know?"

"She kicks like a girl," said Harry.

"So you say," Sarah replied. "I'd say she kicks like a mule."

"Same thing. Girl-mule."

Sarah swung her heel back and kicked Harry on the shin.

"Ow! See?" laughed Harry. "My point exactly! Well, if that's the way you feel about it..." He rolled over, pulled the quilt up over his shoulder, and keeping his back close to Sarah's, settled back to sleep.

Sarah lay quietly, listening to her husband's soft breathing. When he had the nightmares he always awoke in a panic, but he usually went back to sleep fairly quickly while she lay awake. It was a recurring dream about the terrible day when everything went wrong in the battle of Missionary Ridge. The dream always stayed true to events until Harry managed to get Ned and Liam off the battlefield. Then things went strange, and the severed limbs of soldiers came crawling after him, or he fell into a pit of fire, or found his own body lying dead could possibly have been worse. Finally, she slept, too.