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Down in the laundry rooh stacks of sheets, wraps, and blankets, Vinita Lynch was elbows-​deep in a vat full of dirty pillowcases because she’d promised--she’d sworn on her mother’s life--that she’d find a certain windup pocket watch belonging to Private Hugh Morton before the device was plunged into a tub of siood

Why the private had stashed it in a pillowcase wasn’tplace like the Robertson Hospital, s froetting about it was no great leap either: the shot he took in the forehead had been a lucky one because he’d survived it, but it left hi at breakfast had been one of those tiainst the strict orders of Captain Sally he’d sat up and bolted into the mess hall, which existed only in that bullet-​buffeted brain of his In the time it took for him to be captured and redirected to his cot, where the meal would come to hih to receive it, the junior nursing staff had co of all and sundry

None of them had noticed the watch, but it would’ve been easy tohot hospital baseh laundry soiled by injured and greasy heads, running noses, and rheuh Morton would either be reunited with the absent treasure, or would be separated froet all about it

Upstairs, someone cried out, "Mercy!"

And downstairs, in the hospital basement, Vinita Lynch took a very deep breath and let it out slowly, between her teeth

"Mercy! Mercy, come up here, please!"

Because that’s what they’d taken to calling her, through so or paperwork, or because it was easier for a room full of bed-​bound iven name

"Mercy!"

It was louder this time, and insistent, and bellowed by Captain Sally herself somewhere up on the first floor Captain Sally sounded like she ain, Captain Sally always meant business, and that hy she was the captain

The nurse angled her head to cast her voice up the stairs and shouted, "Coh the laundry, because soainst the nail of her thuer around the smooth metal plate of the watch’s back--yes, that had to be it--then she’d be only a !" she said even h the suain

She had it Her fist closed around it and wrested the palh the folds of cotton bedding and out of the vat The watch was cool in her hand, and heavier than it appeared--not an expensive piece, but one with thumb-​spots worn into its finish from a lifetime of use and appreciation

"Found it," she said to herself, and she shoved it into her apron’s pocket for teain fro!" she responded as she hiked the hem of her skirts and bolted up the stairs, less ladylike than swiftly, back into the hall behind the kitchen Moving sideways, she squeezed past the orderlies, one of the doctors, and three of the elderly wo but st themselves Her as briefly blocked by one of the retained es and wraps; they did a brief and aard dance, back and forth, each trying to let the other pass, until she finally dashed by with an apology--but if he replied, she didn’t hear him, because the main as now immediately before her

She entered it with a breathless flourish and stood panting, squeezing at the pocket watch in her apron and trying to spot Captain Sally in the sea of supine bodies lying on cots in varying states of health and repair

The rows ran eight cots by fifteen in this ward, which served as ade, and recovery room alike It should’ve held only two-​thirds that nu served to narrow the aisles to the point that they were nearly impassible, but no one was turned away Captain Sally said that if they had to stitch the up and lash them to the closet walls, they’d take every Confederate boy who’d been carried off the field

But she could ally outranked everyone else in the building The "Captain" bit was not a nickname It was a commission froranted because a military hospital must have a military commander, but Sally Louisa Tompkins would accept no superior, and she was too wealthy and conored

The din of the as at its ordinary hideous level; the groaning patients, creaking cot springs, and hoarse requests coround hum It was not a pretty noise, and it was so or cries of pain, but it was always there, along with the ever-​present scents of dirty bodies, sweat, blood, shit, the medicinal reek of ether, the yellowy sharp stink of saltpeter and spent gunpowder, and the feeble efforts of lye soap to combat it all Mere soap, no matter how finely scented, could never scour the odors of urine, scorched flesh, and burned hair No perfu lirenous flesh

Mercy told herself that the reek of the hospital wasn’t any worse than that of the farinia That was a lie

It orse than the suone out to the back twenty and found their bull lying with its legs in the air, its belly distended with the bloat of rot and a crawling carpet of flies This orse than that because it wasn’t the decoray and mushy This orse because after a while the bull had faded and gone, its smell washed away by the summer rains and its remains buried by her stepfather and brother After a while, she’d altogether forgotten where the creature had fallen and died, and it was as if it’d never happened

But that never happened here