Lost Cause by J.R. Ayers Page B

his even younger sister
walked by with their mother and stopped to gawk at the bandaged
soldiers for a while. The little girl wore blonde ringlets and a
cotton dress that made her look like the doll Jack had seen in a
curio shop in San Antonio in the Spring of sixty-one. The mother
was young and quite stout with pale eyes that regarded the soldiers
with mild amusement.
    “Mornin’ ma’am,” Campbell said. Jack doffed
his cap and said,
    “Don’t mind his garbled speech, ma’am, he
received a wound the other day fighting to defend our glorious
State.” The woman drew her children closer to her skirts and smiled
politely and moved out across the ramp toward the rail office.
    “Guess she has trouble speaking too,” Jack
said. Campbell adjusted his bandages and said,
    “She might have spoken if you hadn’t scared
her off.”
    “How’s that?”
    “That, fighting to defend the State,
nonsense.”
    “Just trying to make you look good.” Campbell
spat out a wad of bloody drool.
    “Good luck with that,” he said.
    A soldier walked by with a canteen on his
belt and Jack asked if Campbell might have a drink and the soldier
stood patiently by while Campbell slurped down the water spilling
most of it on his blood stained shirt. They thanked the man and
Campbell offered him a dime and the soldier said it wasn’t
necessary and went on his way.
    The day grew hot and the men began to wonder
if they were to sit in the heat all day waiting for someone to
collect them. Finally a squat fat man accompanied by a rail thin
nurse carrying a large satchel approached the men and introduced
themselves. “I’m Jenks,” the fat man said. “This is Nurse Lisette
Babeneaux. She’ll be attending to your wounds during the journey to
Corpus Christi.”
    Nurse Lisette was a gaunt woman with brown
hair and mismatched eyes. The left iris was amber colored with
black striations and the right was as blue as the sky above her
head. Her nurse uniform was of a dark gray with a white collar that
was loose fitting and her black shoes were a maze of silver buttons
extending up her ankles to disappear under the dusty hem of her
dress. She had a tiny nose and large pale lips and virtually no
breasts. Jack thought her generally an unfortunate looking woman
but she had a confident air about her that was somehow vaguely
appealing.
    She nodded curtly to the men and Jenks said,
“Our transport will be here directly. In the meantime I suggest
Nurse Lisette replace your bandages.”
    Campbell wasn’t keen on the idea so the other
men went first then finally Campbell who ooohed and awwwed when she
pushed the new bandages in place. “You’re not going to be a baby
are you?” she asked. She had a strange accent that Jack couldn’t
identify. She wore an alabaster carving around her neck depicting
some obscure French big shot. “Louis Pasteur,” she explained when
she saw Jack looking.
    “So you’re French?” he asked.
    “French Creole. I hail from Beauregard
Parish, not far from the Texas border.”
    “Interesting. You wouldn’t happen to know a
nurse called Marie Hayes would you?”
    “No, sorry, I have not heard of her.”
    “Charlotte Mason?”
    “Oh yes, Charlotte and I went to university
together. Do you know her?”
    “I know of her. Pity you never met Miss
Hayes. I know her much better.”
    “She is your wife, no?”
    “No.”
    “Your sweetheart then?”
    Campbell spoke up and said, “It’s a one way
thing. He’s sweet on her and she’s just sweet.”
    “I’ll handle my own conversations, thank
you,” Jack said curtly.
     
     
    Nurse Lisette went about packing up her
medical supplies and the men ate a lunch of collard greens and salt
pork and cornbread and the afternoon advanced into early evening
and finally the troop train bound for Corpus Christi pulled into
the station. The men found seats near the mail car and Jenks filled
out government forms and the nurse sat calmly reading a worn copy
of the King James Bible. Campbell