Page 16 of For This We Are Soldiers
“Go ahead,” he said.
“You called me Audra.” There, she said it. Audra waited to feel nervous or embarrassed, but she did not. Maybe she could tell this man anything.
He gave her the kindest expression, even though his face flamed now. “Blame Lysander Locke.” The lilt to his voice was more pronounced, as though he was conscious of every word he spoke to her. “What did he do but tell me all about you this morning, how … how you were beaten when you told that little girl your name was Audra and not Ozzie.”
“I’ve never told anyone before,” she murmured, wondering what it was about the actor that drew out her secrets. Maybe it had been the late hour. “No one wants to hear such things.”
He continued to look at her, measuring her in some way. “It’s no shame,” he said finally.
To her amazement, he turned around and pulled his woolen shirt out of his trousers and lifted it high enough to show wicked-looking scars on his back. “I was not the most obedient orphan at Saint Agnes,” he said, as he tucked his shirt in again. “You’re not the only one, Audra. Why us?”
Shocked, she willed herself to calm, with no idea how to reply. There was no need to say anything. Mumbling something about checking on the corpse in the dead house, Colm hurried from the kitchen.
Her mind in turmoil over what had just happened, Audra served breakfast silently.
Serving, always serving, she thought, distressed with herself at time a-wasting. For the first moment in her parched life, she allowed herself to think of fixing breakfast for just one man, of eating with him, and discussing this and that, as she had seen the Chambers do for years. She knew she wanted those things, but Colm had to make the move. It wasn’t something women did, and certainly not maids of color.
She shook her head when Lysander requested that she visit with him, and retreated to the kitchen. She banged the dishes around, blaming them for her misery. She took out her irritation on herself—over the shy hospital steward she loved, with the whole unfair universe—by sweeping the floor with impressive vigor.
“Stop it, Audra,” she muttered, and leaned the broom against the wall.
“Beg pardon?”
Suh stood in the doorway.
“I was talking to myself,” she said, monumentally dissatisfied with herself.
“Sounded more like a rare scold,” he replied with a half-smile. He cleared his throat, and the now-familiar blush rose up his neck from his uniform collar. “Audra, I’m sorry I pulled up my shirt like that. Where have my manners gone?”
Tears filled her eyes. “Maybe I needed reminding that mine was not the only hard life.”
“That’s not why I did it,” he said, coming closer. “I wanted you to see that you and I are not so different. Neither of us had a childhood. I know you’re tired, but please watch our patients. I have to embalm that poor coachman.” He left, even though the camphor lingered in the room.
Audra dabbed her eyes and returned to the ward, skipping Private Henry, because two of his bunkies must have sneaked away from a work detail to visit the sick and afflicted.
Private Jones lay staring at his bandaged arm, chewing on his lip. Audra sat beside his bed. “You’ll have a scar, but that’s all,” she assured him.
“I have a sweetheart …”
“She’ll still love you,” Audra teased.
He shook his head. “Bet you never met such a coward.”
“Burns are difficult.” She paused, then had to ask, “Do you get many letters from her?”
He grinned, looking happy for the first time since his arrival. “Every week, without fail. In fact …” He glanced over at the party on Private Henry’s bed. “Could one of you miscreants go to the post office to see if I have a letter?”
One of the “miscreants” gave him a friendly thumbs up, stood, and sauntered out the door. He was back in ten minutes, waving two letters. He dropped one in Private Jones’s lap, and handed the other to Audra, along with a folded note.
“Mrs. Chambers flagged me down and gave this to me,” he said. “She had fire in her eyes.”
“Oh, dear.”
Audra knew the letter was from herself, but she stared at her familiar handwriting a moment, wondering why on earth she had ever thought a fictitious letter from a mother she barely remembered could make up for the real thing.
I have been living in shadows, she thought, tucking the letter in her apron pocket, determined not to look at Private Jones and his real letter.
Mrs. Chambers’s familiar scrawl leaped out at her when she unfolded the note. “The Fourth is moving out in four days for Fort Assinniboine, Dakota Territory. Ozzie, we must pack! Only this day and night at the hospital!! That is all!!!”
