DEMENT: A Texas Ghost Story

Chapter IV

Dearest Diary,

Maude has well and truly eaten her words. Convinced as she was that serving here at the old plantation house now that it has been converted into a hospital for the sick and wounded infantrymen would provide a prime opportunity to encounter a handsome and gentlemanly suitor, the harsh reality of this place has been difficult for her to accept. I often find her out back, far from the burn pit, purging her stomach into the tall weeds. Mother caught Lily and I chuckling as Maude was sick this morning and gave us a right proper tongue lashing. I attempted to explain that we laughed not at Maude's misfortune, but at the pleasure of seeing her, spoiled baby she is, being proven wrong for once.

The mere fact that we must find humor in such dour circumstances should illuminate for you, Dearest Diary, the utter joylessness of life here at the house. I thought I might appreciate being away from the fear and anxieties of town, but this is something much worse. I cannot adequately describe for you the constant odor of this place: the intermingled fetor of sick and blood and, of course, the burn pit. That is not to mention the noises: not just the moaning of the soldiers, but the horrible constant bump-thump of bodies being dragged up and down the stairs like garbage, like something never human. Also, there is the hacking.

It is difficult to explain what so sets apart this specific noise from the coughs and moans and screams of the wounded men. It is a persistent sound, the hacking. It comes from nowhere and everywhere at once; the great throaty retching of some unseen man. Lily calls him the Coughing Man. Sometimes, during my few moments of lone solace, when I am at the needle or writing in you, Dearest Diary, it sounds as if he is choking right behind me. I can hear it now, even as I write this entry. I dare not look over my shoulder. We have all taught ourselves to ignore it.

I shared a disconcerting conversation, Dearest Diary, with a new soldier just brought in from the battlefield this morning. I had entered the upstairs room where he and many others were sprawled out on cots to bring some fresh towels for their wounds. He was an older gentleman of perhaps thirty, with thick raven hair and a manly jaw. His once-grey uniform was now largely the color of rust and dirt. His right leg caught a musket shot at short range and was thus little more than a mangled mess of torn meat and shattered bone. When I entered the room, I found him tossing about on his blanket, muttering to himself, as the soldiers so often do on the rare occasions their pain ebbs enough to allow them some rest. I thought perhaps he might be dreaming of his attacker, as he begged whatever invisible dream figure he faced to leave him alone, to get away.

At my presence, he startled, screaming awake. "Who's that?" he asked, squinting into the candlelight. I quickly apologized. He stared up at me from his cot, taking in the stack of blankets in my arms.

"You here to cut it off?" he asked. I requested clarification, to which he gestured at his ruined leg. "Hurts terribly," he said. "Feels like burning oil creeping under my skin. Just want it gone."

I quickly explained that I was not the doctor, that I was just there to help as best I could. "Is it diseased," I asked, "the wound?"

"Smells that way," he said, "do you not think, Miss?"

"The smells here," I said, "they all run together a bit, do they not? Smells like—"

"Like decay," he finished. "Like shot game left out in the sun. Like rot."

"Yes," I said. I stood in uncomfortable silence a moment, watching him struggle and fail to keep the pain and fear out of his eyes. Finally, I set down the blankets beside him and turned to leave. "I will leave you to rest," I said.

"Wait!" he shouted. I paused. "Please. I have little interest in sleeping again. And the company is welcome." Reluctantly I agreed to remain. I sat beside the soldier and asked him his name.