[
171]
Chapter 6: Omega.
The detention of the railroad-train belated us, and when we (I and my servant) were left at a small station in
Mississippi, night had fallen.
The light from a little fire of pine knots, built on the ground outside, while illuminating the rough depot and platform, left the country beyond in deeper darkness.
It was bitterly cold.
The driver of the ambulance informed me, we had ‘quite a piece to ride yet.’
A moment later,
Dr. Beatty rode up on horseback, welcomed me pleasantly, waiting to see me safely stowed away in the ambulance.
The ride to camp was dismal.
I continued to shiver with cold; my heart grew heavy as lead, and yearned sadly for a sight of the pleasant faces, the sound of the kindly voices, to which I had been so long accustomed.
At last a turn in the road brought us in sight of the numberless fires of a large camp.
It was a bright scene, though far from gay. The few men who crouched by the fires were not roistering, rollicking soldiers, but pale shadows, holding their thin hands over the blaze which scorched their faces, while their thinly-covered backs were exposed to a cold so intense that it congealed the sap in the farthest end of the log on which they sat. Driving in among these, up an ‘avenue’ bordered on either side by rows of white tents, the ambulance drew up at last before the door of my ‘quarters,’—a rough cabin built of logs.
Through the open door streamed the cheery light of a wood-fire, upon which pine knots had been freshly thrown.
