Fiddlehead

Six

It took so little time to reach Richmond from Washington, D.C., that Maria wondered how the two cities managed to fight on opposite sides of the same war. It wasn’t even terribly difficult to travel between them; all it took was a false set of paperwork (provided by Mr. Pinkerton) claiming that she was a Red Cross nurse, a train ticket, and finally a carriage that took her to the doorstep of the Robertson Hospital.

The hospital was once a very large house, owned by a judge who’d fled the premises when the Yankees were coming, back in 1861. As the Confederacy stabilized into a state of war, the house’s original owner had made several attempts to return and reclaim the property; but Captain Sally had countersued, on grounds that possession is nine-tenths of the law … and besides, she was performing a service for the nation, a service she successfully argued was more important than the cowardly relocation effort that left the house abandoned in the first place. Since then, the house had been augmented extensively in order to accommodate the thousand or so men who found their way to Robertson from the fronts each year. Now it sat in the center of a small compound of tents, outbuildings, storage lean-tos, and a carriage house for the single ambulance that operated on the hospital’s behalf.

Maria Boyd stood on the steps in front of the main entryway and took it all in.

She’d heard stories about the Robertson for years, even as a teenager, long before it became the sprawling institution she saw before her. Renowned around the world, it was a first-class facility with a shocking 90 percent survival rate—unheard of for civilian hospitals, much less for a ward that almost exclusively treated battlefield injuries. Doctors visited from distant nations and scholars wrote papers on the exceptional cleanliness of the premises, drawing parallels between the unexpected medical success and routines of boiled laundry, washed floors, and frequent patient baths.

Maybe the cleanliness did have something to do with it. Maria didn’t imagine that a filthy hospital was ideal, but as odors billowed forcefully from the open windows, she couldn’t help but wonder precisely what a dirty hospital must smell like, because this was positively awful.

The air was permeated with a frozen fog of blood and medicine, burned hair, charred skin, body odor, rotting flesh, and some sharp, unidentifiable note. Maria put one gloved hand over her nose and mouth, but it didn’t do anything, so she reached for the door’s latch instead.

It vibrated under her hand, and a humming noise buzzed through her glove. Steeling herself, she pulled down the lever. The door snapped outward with such ferocity that it nearly knocked her back into the yard, but she held on, and planted her feet against the ensuing gust.

Three enormous turbines on rollers stood against the far wall, aimed at the open windows on either side of the door, overlooking the driveway and the carriage house. These giant wind-screws were powered by a diesel generator; they blasted air from the back of the main foyer to the windows on either side of the door, and now they caught Maria in their horizontal tornado.

Her hatpins struggled against the wind; her hair flapped and blew; her skirt whipped around her legs. She squinted against the bitterly cold onslaught and saw no beds, equipment, or people. Then a voice cried out, “Time! Go ahead and turn them off!” And, indeed, the generator clacked to a halt. Within a few seconds the giant blades slowed to a stop, pivoting with a soft creaking sound but making no further commotion.

Shortly thereafter, the room flooded with nurses and retained men in improvised hospital uniforms. They swarmed Maria, rushing past her to close the windows and open the interior doors. And then she saw that yes, the beds were in those other rooms. Rows and rows of them, perhaps a couple dozen in each of the clusters she could see from her vantage point right inside the foyer. Each bed had a warmly bundled body upon it, and each small ward had a series of attendants, as well.

Maria realized she hadn’t shut the door behind herself. She hadn’t been able to. She reached back to do so now, and finally someone approached to acknowledge her.

He was tall and heavyset, missing part of his left hand and the whole of his right eye. His voice was all Alabama vowels when he asked her, “Excuse me, ma’am … can I help you with something?”

“Yes, I … I…” But she couldn’t gather her thoughts, not while she was testing the integrity of her hat and hoping the feeling would come back into her frozen cheeks sooner rather than later. She also remembered her accent. Chicago had been filing off its edges, so she sharpened them afresh to make sure she sounded like a local. “I’m sorry, could I ask you—those fans…?”

He nodded and gestured at them with his good arm. “Just installed ’em a month ago. And I do apologize for the temperature in here; they chill the place up good. We only run them for a quarter-hour, twice a day. It circulates the air, keeps the smell down, and dries the laundry good.” He pointed up at the ceiling, where hundreds of dangling sheets were strung across a jungle of tightly stretched cords. “Don’t worry, we warm ’em up before we put ’em back on the beds.”

“But isn’t it hard … on the patients, I mean? It’s colder in here than it is outside!”

“No, ma’am, it only feels that way. And as you can see”—he cocked a thumb at the newly opened doors—“the patients are all tucked away. There aren’t any fans in the wards—just ductwork and ventilation to draw the bad air, so we can shoot it out the windows. The furnaces will kick on in a minute, and the whole place will come up toasty, quick as can be. Now, what can I do for you, Miss…?” he tried uncertainly.

“Boyd,” she supplied. She sniffled, and her nose stung. “Miss Boyd. And if you could direct me to Captain Sally, I would dearly appreciate it. Is she in? And might I have a word with her?”

The greeter’s demeanor shifted very slightly. His remaining eye darkened, and he sized her up again. “Could I ask what business you have with the captain?”

She reached into her bag, pulled out the paperwork Mr. Pinkerton had arranged from Chicago, and offered it to him. “I’m with the Red Cross,” she said. She hadn’t expected to need a more in-depth story than this, perhaps with the addition of “I’m a nurse,” but she didn’t say that. Her instincts suggested another direction, so she ran with them. “I want to speak with her about what happened when she testified before Congress. We want to hear what she tried to say. What she wasn’t allowed to say.”

Now the man relaxed, even brightened. “Well, thank God!” he exclaimed. “Come on, now. I’ll bring you up to her office. I’d offer to take your coat, but I expect you still want it.”

As if on cue, the diesel generator rumbled to life once more—but this time it wasn’t for the fans. A lower sound, coming from deeper in the basement, suggested that the circuit had now been shifted to serve the heating system. “Yes, thank you. I’d prefer to wear it, if that’s all the same to you.”

Through one of the sickrooms he led her, past men who slept, men who groaned, men who stared at the wall. They were all tucked in beneath quilts. A good idea, Maria thought, since it seemed they couldn’t work both the fans and the furnace at the same time.

He took her through a corridor, around a bend, and up a set of stairs. At the top of the stairs they were stopped by a man who was larger still than her guide. He did not look injured, so perhaps he wasn’t one of the retained men, too badly wounded to return to the war. In fact, he looked physically fit, and prepared to hit somebody.

He asked her companion, “Who’s this?”

“Red Cross woman. Wants a word with the captain about the wheezers,” he said, unable to keep a note of excitement out of the explanation.

“Red Cross? Do you have the papers to prove it? Miss Barton and Captain Sally are friendly, you know. They have more in common than in difference, never mind the lines. I didn’t hear word that she’d sent anyone … and I wonder why she didn’t come herself. The captain’s been trying to reach her for weeks.”

“Of course I have papers,” she said, and handed them over, hoping they were good.

The man at the top of the stairs perused them, his frown never melting. Finally he said, “Fine. I’ll take you to see my sister. Thanks for bringing her up, Richard.”

Richard took the hint, bowed, and left Maria there.

“Your … your sister?” she asked her new escort.

“Sister-in-law, if you like that better.” He put one arm behind her shoulders, not quite touching her, but urging her forward. “And I hope you don’t mind, but I’ll be coming with you, to have whatever word it is you want.”

“There have been threats?” Maria surmised. “Problems, in the wake of what occurred in Congress?”

He didn’t answer, but he didn’t need to. When she glanced at his chest, she saw the large six-shooter he kept tucked in a holster—it peeked out from the underside of his jacket, and she had an idea that he probably had a matching weapon under the other arm, too.

“This way,” was all he said. He knocked on a closed door. It was a calculated knock, two strikes with a pause, and then a third.

A muffled voice called from inside. “Adam?” It was a cautious voice, but not a frightened one.

“There’s a woman from the Red Cross here to see you,” he said through the door. “Her papers look good, but it’s not Miss Barton. Shall I bring her in?”

Ten seconds later, a bolt slid back and the office door opened wide to reveal a slim, smallish woman with tidy, sensible hair and a crisp brown dress. Her eyes were large and intelligent, and they scanned Maria coolly, with interest, and then … with recognition.

Maria swallowed. “Captain Sally,” she began, but the captain cut her off.

“Adam,” she said, her eyes never leaving Maria. “Thank you for bringing this woman to my office. I know you intend to stay for the sake of security … but I think we can have this particular chat without you.”

“You and I agreed,” he said firmly. “I’m not leaving you alone with anyone who’s not on the list.”

“I’m adding her to the list. I know her business here, and everything will be fine. But I thank you for your vigilance, and I would ask that you remain nearby, if that’s all right.”

He bobbed his head, still not pleased, but prepared to defer. He withdrew, and Sally stepped aside to let Maria join her. “Please, come inside,” she said … and when her brother-in-law was gone, she added, “Belle.”

Maria held her head up and did not cringe as she entered the office and the other woman closed the door.

“Won’t you have a seat?”

Maria did. She resisted the urge to pat at her tousled hair—not because she cared, but because she wasn’t sure what to do with her hands. Instead, she put them in her lap and folded them. “Thank you for taking the time to speak with me,” she tried as an opener. When in doubt, lead with manners.

Sally Louisa Tompkins shook her head. She said, “Skip the formalities, dear. I know who you are, and I want to know what you really want.”

“That’s an abrupt way to begin a conversation.”

“I could’ve begun it with a lie, as you began your visit. Richard and Adam believed you, I expect. Both of them good men, but easily distracted, in their way. They expect a different kind of treachery from women, and aren’t on guard against the worst of it.”

“Very well, but if you value a woman’s treachery so highly, then why did you let me in?”

She smiled. A proper smile, one backed up by a laugh that she wouldn’t release. “As I said, I know who you are. Or I know who you were.”

Maria wanted to ask what she meant by that, but it wasn’t necessary, much as it annoyed her. “I’m not here as a Yankee. Not as a Confederate. I’m here as a human being, in pursuit of the truth.”

“If that’s what you want to tell yourself.”

“Right now the continent has bigger problems than Northern and Southern ones, wouldn’t you say? Or, more to the point—isn’t that what you tried to say? At the congressional session. When you were so ungraciously silenced.”

Sally cocked her head to the right. “Word made it over the line? All the way to … where are the Pinkertons headquartered these days, Chicago?”

“Chicago,” Maria confirmed. “And yes—word went fast, and went far, though that’s not where I first heard of it.”

Sally leaned back in her chair and tapped her fingers on the armrests. “How embarrassing,” she mused. “Not my most dignified moment.”

“You weren’t the one doing anything undignified. Did they really drag you off the floor, rather than hear you speak?”

“Oh, yes.” She shook her head at the memory. “And afterward, everyone pretended that I didn’t exist. It was as if I’d died and had a funeral, and no one had told me. Old contacts, old friends. Old colleagues … people I’d worked with for years. They behave as if they’ve never known me, except for Clara. She responded to a telegram on Monday, saying she’d heard about the hullabaloo and wanted to talk. When they said I had a caller, I thought it might be her messenger—I know she’s as busy as I am, these days. But then I saw you.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“Not sure if I’m disappointed or not, but I’m definitely intrigued. Since you didn’t correct me, shall I assume I’ve heard right? You’re working as a Pinkerton agent, these days?”

Maria smiled nervously. “I didn’t realize it was such common knowledge.”

“It’s not a secret, if that’s what you mean. It made the papers here and there, usually in the gossip lines. I’ll admit to a weakness for them, at the end of the day—sometimes I sit in bed with whatever dreadfuls or magazines I can find, so long as the stories have nothing at all to do with the war. And I’ll read them cover to cover, even if they aren’t very good or very interesting. Just … spare me from the casualty reports, troop movements, and mentions of the Mason-Dixon.” She sighed. “A few months ago I saw a paragraph or two, that’s all—no more than that, surely—saying that you’d moved up north and taken up detecting.”

“I wonder who wrote it. I wonder why anyone knew, or cared.”

Sally shrugged and said, “People are nosy; it isn’t any more complicated than that. You were a celebrity—a golden child, weren’t you? And then … you weren’t. Actually”—she smiled— “I thought it was interesting. I read about your exploits when I was younger—when we both were. You were such a character, like someone lifted from one of my dreadfuls.”

Maria eyed the diminutive officer, and estimated that she was likely in her mid-forties. A bit older than herself, but not much. “It’s been a long war,” she said.

“That is has.” The captain was eyeing Maria back. For a moment, she didn’t say anything. Then she came to some conclusion, and pulled her chair forward so they could speak more closely. “It seems unlikely, but…” she began quietly.

“But?” Maria leaned in closer.

“But you might be just what I need right now. So improbable … but sometimes that’s the way the world works. Maybe the unexpected is all we can count on, given the state of things. But tell me the truth: Why did the Pinkertons send you to me? Answer that first—and depending on your answer, perhaps I’ll give you the keys to the kingdom.” Then she cast a brief glance at the door, and added in a mumble, “I can’t keep them much longer. Not here, and not like this. I have to give them to someone.”

Almost too eagerly, Maria replied. “I’m here because a scientist in Washington, D.C., made a machine designed to think like a man, but much faster and much more efficiently. The machine can’t lie; it can only report its calculations, and it says that neither the North nor South will win the war—but both sides will lose to a coming plague.”

“The wheezers…” Sally breathed, her lips scarcely moving to form the word.

“Up North they call them stumblebums, or sometimes lepers—or some variation. I’ve heard guttersnipe lepers and goldenrod lepers; and I’ve heard them called pollen-heads too, though I don’t know where that designation comes from.”

“I do. And if you like, I’ll show you—but it isn’t pretty: Around the nostrils, ears, lips, and other orifices … the wheezers collect a yellowish, grainy substance that accumulates uncomfortably unless it’s washed away.”

“Dear God.”

“I said it wasn’t pretty. But tell me more about this machine.”

“Well, it was saying we should end the war, and turn the full attention of both governments toward addressing this mutual threat—at least, until someone tried to kill the man who made it. Someone, somewhere, does not want the Union or the CSA to hear its analysis.”

Sally nodded unhappily. “Must be someone who makes quite a lot of money off the conflict.”

“You might as well assume; no matter how hard I try, I can’t imagine any other excuse big enough. One of the first things I learned as an operative was to chase the money. See where it flows, see where it pools. See who’s pouring it out, and who’s collecting it.”

Conspiratorially, the captain asked, “And what have you learned so far? About the money behind the attempted murder, I mean.”

“Precious little,” she confessed. “I only just arrived in D.C. last night, in time for an awkward briefing and a change of clothes.”

“Why was it awkward?” Sally asked.

Maria mentally weighed the truth against the potential cost. But she’d gotten this far by being straightforward, so she stayed the course. She kept her voice as soft as possible, while still making herself heard. “Because Abraham Lincoln is the man who hired me. It was a real shock, let me tell you.”

Sally’s eyes went wide. “No doubt!”

“But this is what I believe, Captain: Lincoln is working to end the war; he’s struggling to protect this innocent scientist, whose family was kidnapped—though the Pinks are working on that, and I’m told that the missing people have been recovered. The former president is investing a great deal of his personal fortune in a peaceful future, and he’s leveraging every ounce of his remaining reputation to bring this war to a halt. He believes in the machine and the man who built it, but his resources are limited. He no longer commands the federal army, so now he can only buy agents like myself—unless he wants to rely on the Secret Service, which he apparently doesn’t.”

“But he asked for you?”

“To no one’s greater surprise than my own.”

Sally put her elbows down on the desktop and frowned thoughtfully. “Now that I’ve had a moment to consider it, I’m not sure I’m surprised at all. You’re perfect for his purposes, just like you’re perfect for mine.”

Genuinely confused, she asked, “How so?”

“Southern in sympathy, from sheer habit if nothing else, but carrying the clout and the badge of a Northern authority. I think Lincoln gambled on you, hoping that you still care enough about the South to help him defeat it, just in time to save it. And save the rest of the world, too.”

“That’s a grim thing to say. Particularly grim coming from you, Captain. How much of your own fortune have you lost to prolonging the war—cycling these boys back out to the front?”

“All of it, and then some. At present, the hospital operates on research grants and foreign investment funds, mostly doctors and universities overseas who want to know the secret of our survival rate. I have nothing left of my own, and when the war ends, I do not know what will become of me. But the war does need to end. And you know as well as I do that the CSA is a sinking ship. The only question left is how far it will fall, and how many can be saved before it’s lost altogether.”

They sat in silence, neither of them happy, yet somehow relieved to have that frightening sentiment out in the open.

Eventually, Maria spoke—still quite softly, in case anyone listened on the other side of the door. “What can we do?”

Sally stood up. “For starters, you can come with me. Keys to the kingdom, remember?”

“Hard to forget an offer like that. So you’ve made up your mind?”

“I’m running out of time—and if Lincoln will gamble on you, then I will, too.”

Maria rose to her feet, uncertain but strangely hopeful. She had no idea what these “keys” might be, but this was progress—and she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was on the cusp of something big. She only hoped she’d prove worthy of the captain’s trust. And the former president’s. And the U.S. Marshal’s. And the head Pinkerton’s.

The captain opened the door, and yes, her brother-in-law was beside it. Whether or not he’d been listening was anybody’s guess, but it didn’t matter. Sally told him, “Everything’s fine, Adam, but follow along and watch our backs, if you don’t mind. I’m taking Miss Boyd downstairs, so I can show her Mercy.”

“Show me…? What?” Maria asked, but Sally didn’t answer that question, not yet.

She said instead, “We’re going to the basement, dear. And if you think the main floors smell miserably ripe, then I apologize in advance for the state of our laundry room. It’s an appalling place, something out of Dante’s stories, or so it seems at times. Come, this way. We’ll go down the back stairway, the one the old judge’s servants used.”

“As you like,” Maria answered, her hopefulness wilting into uncertainty.

She followed in the captain’s wake. Farther behind came Adam, who pretended he simply had business in this general direction, in case anyone was watching. Down the back corridor they proceeded, all in a line; they descended stairs past nurses in fluttering aprons, they stepped aside for colored women carrying sacks of grain and bales of laundry, and they ducked quickly past a pair of men who were moving a bed from ward to ward, and at the end of the hall they rounded a corner.

Sally opened another door and a wave of steam gusted forth, shocking both for how pleasant the sudden warmth was, and for how bad it smelled—even there, in a land of terrible smells.

Maria winced. Sally said, “I would’ve grabbed you a vial of perfume, if I’d thought about it. Most of us become accustomed to the air here, eventually. You can always tell the newer workers, men and women both, because they’re the ones still carrying such things.”

“No, it’s fine. I can take it,” she insisted, even as she wished she’d taken a smaller breakfast so there’d be less to throw up later.

“I believe you. Now come along, it’s not much farther.”

“I still don’t understand why … why the laundry room?”

“Because,” Sally said, taking her arm and whispering the rest into her ear. “We hide our secrets where no one will ever wish to look for them.”

The laundry room had overtaken the entire basement, and if there was nothing else to be said for it, the temperature was a welcome change. Great furnaces boiled water nonstop, and enormous tubs collected it, brimming with the foam of industrial soaps and bleaching powders; vats simmered and bubbled with the tart, faint tang of peroxide. The room bustled with strong-armed, stern-faced women both colored and white, women who heaved and dragged sacks of wet laundry along tracks above their heads—drawing it forward and then yanking the cord to open the bags, dumping the contents into carts for sorting and drying. Some of the women wore nurse’s uniforms, some did not. They all wore sturdy boots made for workmen, unless Maria missed her guess; and when she slipped almost badly enough to fall, she understood why.

“The floors are wet. Always,” Sally told her. “Be extra careful past these tubs; yes, that’s right. It’s soapy over here, too. Good morning, Edna,” she added to a tall woman whose arms were blotchy and red up to the elbows. “Everything running smoothly today?”

“Yes, ma’am, though furnace number three is being fussy. Might want to send David along to take a look at it.”

“Yes, I’ll do that. Thank you for the suggestion.”

Edna paused and dragged the back of her wrist across her sweaty brow. “The incoming room is fresh, I hate to tell you. If that’s where you’re headed.”

Without breaking her stride, Sally said over her shoulder, “It won’t be the end of us.”

Maria tried not to worry about how bad it must be, if this hardened laundress felt the need to hand out warnings. She asked, “The incoming room? Is that…?”

“It’s where the dirty laundry dumps down the main chute. It’s sorted according to type. Pillowcases, sheets, blankets. Clothing. Bandages that are good enough to reuse. I don’t like putting the bandages back into circulation—it feels … dirty, somehow, and I can’t abide dirt. I believe in the bottom of my heart that this hospital’s lack of dirt is its saving grace. Literally, perhaps. But we get the wraps as white as we can before we give them back to the doctors and put them back into service. Cotton isn’t the disposable commodity it once was, and we must conserve every scrap.”

She stopped at a basket hanging on a wall beside a set of double doors. She reached into the basket and retrieved a pair of masks—one for her, and one for Maria. Presumably, Adam would wait out this particular leg of the adventure; he lingered back at the end of the corridor, looking out of place and distinctly uncomfortable.

Maria took the mask, a cotton one with straps to tie behind her ears. The mask was scented with lavender oil and a hint of eucalyptus.

Sally said, “We all wear them, down here. Put it on, or you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

Maria gratefully donned the mask, and when Sally opened the double doors enough to let them both inside, she was glad for the distraction of the fragranced cloth across her face. The incoming room truly was hell on earth.

One large metal chute dumped an intermittent tumble of filthy laundry into a terrifying heap, confined by a bin so large it could’ve comfortably held a pair of horses. Each new bundle was announced by the muffled clatter of its descent from the floors above, falling wetly, gruesomely into a heap like a blood-and-vomit-soaked pyramid of human misery.

Maria gagged.

Sally sniffed and cleared her throat. “Only a little farther. Back behind the mountain of things you don’t want to touch.”

Sally was right. Maria didn’t want to touch it. She didn’t want to see it, either. She didn’t want to know it existed at all, and if she could retrace her steps for a minute or two and smudge out the memory with a piece of India rubber, she would’ve given her soul to do so.

Stumbling behind Sally, Maria followed—almost blindly, her eyes watering from the vapors of stomach bile and pus, the old-penny scent of drying blood, the slick yellow stink of feverish sweat, the porklike odor of burned flesh, and a hundred other things too horrible to tease out from the whole. And the laundry fell and fell, bundle after bundle, dropping down the tin chute and sometimes landing with a thump, sometimes with a squish, sometimes with a splash. The laundry mountain grew and shrank, fed and whittled down at a similar tempo as masked women with elbow-length gloves and leather aprons removed it, one nasty armload at a time, for sorting in the bins along the wall. Almost as if it were alive and breathing—but that was a thought so impossibly awful that Maria choked on it, and swallowed it down lest she throw it up.

Sally pressed onward until she reached a small cupboard door behind the massive pyramid of disgusting cloth. “Here,” the captain said. Her voice was thick but satisfied as she drew out a leather satchel that was stuffed quite full. “This is what they want. Take it with you. Keep it safe. Give it to Mr. Lincoln and his scientist, and see if it can help them. Because if it can’t, then God help us all.”