The Brightest Day, The Darkest Night. Brendan Graham

my will but Thine,’ Ellen thought she heard Mary whisper.

      The audience brought to a conclusion, Sister Lazarus ushered them out informing the young nuns that, ‘In charity, Reverend Mother has decided that you both may remain here until your mother’s treatment is complete. In the meantime you will be restricted to within convent walls and in waking hours to within the Oratory itself.’

      Both Mary and Louisa nodded in silent assent, awaiting what yet further there was to come. Sister Lazarus did not hold them in suspense for long.

      ‘You will undertake penance and fasting as directed and converse with none other than myself, or Reverend Mother should she require it.’ Reverend Mother did not.

      

      When Dr Thackeray’s ‘month of days’ had run its course, Ellen returned to the oculist, shepherded this time by Sister Lazarus. Little was exchanged by way of conversation between them. Sister Lazarus, Ellen guessed, no doubt praying for a miracle – that the blind might quickly see and be sent forth!

      Indeed Sister Lazarus’s rigor mortis-like countenance seemed to considerably soften when Dr Thackeray, upon examination of Ellen, professed himself ‘cautiously pleased’ at her progress. Though her eyes were still impaired, she could now see more and at a greater distance, during each test through which he had put her.

      ‘These will improve you further,’ he said, producing a pair of spectacles of a more lightly-shaded hue than those previously stolen.

      He re-dressed her eyes, advising her to ‘continue the poulticing for a further uninterrupted period of two weeks.’

      Behind her, Ellen imagined Sister Lazarus’s lips move in supplication to the Almighty – that a more immediate miracle might occur.

      On their homewards journey, Sister Lazarus solicitously guided Ellen, thus avoiding any mishap which might befall her … and longer extend her time at the convent.

      ‘God is good … God is good,’ Sister Lazarus regularly repeated to no one in particular. Ellen herself was unsure if this acclamation served purely to acknowledge the restorative powers of the Lord, or was a thanksgiving for her own resulting departure from the convent which the healing itself would precipitate.

      

      Two weeks to the day of her visit to Dr Thackeray, Ellen, along with Mary and Louisa were quietly exited from the grounds of the Convent of St Mary Magdalen and led to Boston’s railroad station.

      From there the two nuns would travel to Richmond, Virginia, and await further instructions.

      At Mary and Louisa’s insistence, Ellen accompanied them, her newly constructed spectacles perched snugly on her nose. All the better with which to see the fatal tides of civil war on which they were now cast.

       EIGHT

       Union Army Military Field Hospital, Virginia, 1862

       Manual of Military Surgery for the Surgeons of the Confederate States Army

      ‘… the rule in military surgery is absolute, viz: that the amputating knife should immediately follow the condemnation of the limb. These are operations of the battlefield and should be performed at the field infirmary. When this golden opportunity, before reaction, is lost, it can never be compensated for.’

      Wearing Dr Thackeray’s spectacles, Ellen read carefully the surgery manual. The spectacles had been such a boon to her, not that she could overdo it, but a world previously closed had now again been opened.

      She paused, thinking about her eyes before continuing. They had troubled her less than expected. Not that they were perfect. At times she found herself looking slightly to the right of people, as if they had imperceptibly shifted under her gaze.

      Reading was problematic. She laughed to Mary about, ‘How childlike my reading skills have become.’ But, in general, she found the condition of her eyes to be of little hindrance to her work.

      Dr Sawyer had been marvellous, procuring a continuation of Dr Thackeray’s soothing balm. He had also today located for her a pair of more recently developed shaded spectacles, an improvement on those given her in Boston.

      ‘Developed alongside those new-fangled rifle sights,’ he had told Ellen. He, Dr Shubael Sawyer, rather brusque of manner but an efficient practitioner of his profession, was the operating surgeon in the field hospital in which she, Louisa and Mary now found themselves.

      ‘Maybe this war, after all, will bring some benefit to humanity … though such benefits will weigh poorly enough when the balances are writ,’ Dr Sawyer had added.

      These she now substituted for Dr Thackeray’s spectacles and continued with reading the manual …

      ‘Amputate with as little delay as possible after the receipt of the injury. In army practice, attempts to save a limb, which might be perfectly successful in civil life, cannot be made. Especially in the case of compound gunshot fractures of the thigh, bullet wounds of the knee joint and similar injuries to the leg, in which, at first sight, amputation may not seem necessary. Under such circumstances attempts to preserve the limb will be followed by extreme local and constitutional disturbance. Conservative surgery is here in error; in order to save life, the limb must be sacrificed.’

      So there it was, in black and white. The saw saved lives.

      In the time she had been here, Ellen had lain hands on everything she could read on medical practise. Not that there was much available. Good fortune had brought her current reading, The Confederate Manual of Surgery. A prize of war captured from the enemy. But there was a shortage of nurses for the many hospitals the war had occasioned. They had received some training from a Sister of Mercy who had then been moved to some duty elsewhere. She, like Mary and Louise, had had to learn quickly. It had been trial and error, mistakes made, while assisting at the regular stream of operations and mostly amputations.

      ‘Hips … I don’t like hips,’ Dr Sawyer said plainly to her later that afternoon. ‘Too near the trunk. We lose ninety per cent if we have to take the leg from the hip joint … and one hundred per cent if we don’t!’ It was Ellen’s first hip joint operation.

      Three aides were required for such an operation. ‘Fetch the Sisters,’ Dr Sawyer ordered her. ‘The sight of blood holds no terrors for them.’

      The soldier, a wan looking boy from Rhode Island, with freckled face and red hair had lost a lot of blood.

      ‘Pray, ladies,’ he said, when Mary and Louisa arrived, ‘that I’ll be one of the ten per cents! I ain’t seen much of life.’

      They laid him out on the only available operating table – a diseased-looking church pew.

      ‘I hope it’s a good Catholic pew and not a Protestant one, Sister!’ the young soldier said to Mary, putting a brave face on it. She held his hand, making the Act of Contrition with him, something of which Mary was aware Dr Sawyer did not approve.

      ‘O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee … and I detest my sins … firmly resolve never more to offend … but to amend my life …’

      When he had repeated the words firmly resolving to ‘sin no more’ Mary administered the chloroform by means of a dampened napkin. This she held cone-shaped over his mouth and nose, telling him to ‘inhale deeply’, ensuring that he also had an adequate supply of natural air while inhaling. Soon the young Rhode Islander was in a surgical sleep, though still exhibiting the ‘state of excitement’ they had come to expect in the early stages after administration of the anaesthetic.

      ‘Remove his uniform, Sister,’ Dr Sawyer ordered Louisa. Deftly, while Ellen restrained him, Louisa opened the top of the soldier’s tunic and with Mary’s help slipped it off. Then, she rolled up his flannel shirt to the chest. Next, Louisa unbuttoned his trousers, the left side