War Torn Hearts - Chapter One

Chapter One
April 5th 1862 - Hardin County, tn

The sun was warm and high in the sky above the Union camp when the bustling of soldiers awoke Captain Damon Harbinger from his sleep. His back was sore from sleeping on the ground, despite the blankets we had used to try and soften his bed, and even laying still while shifting to try to ease the ache caused sharp stabs of pain all throughout his back. A groan escaped his lips a few times but other than that he showed no real sign of discomfort. He knew he needed to get up and get ready for the day and this, he figured, was a sign from above to move his lazy ass.

After a few more minutes of laying still, he decided enough was enough and stood up carefully, stretching his sore muscles, then went about gathering his uniform. His knee length, double breasted frock, taken for the sake of warmth rather than him being in the actual infantry, hung neatly around his shoulders and dark blue slacks with a single, long red stripe on the outside gave him a very professional look, even if they were not ironed. The white dress shirt he wore beneath the dark coat was a bit long in the sleeves, so it poked out a bit from under the cuffs but not enough to draw that much attention. The dark boots that went on his feet lost a bit of their color from all the dust he had spent his days walking in but they were still effective and useful as he tied the laces. After grabbing his kepi, which helped to keep the sun from blinding him, he stepped out of his tent to meet the new day.

His short black hair, kept nice and neat under his cap, stuck out a bit here and there and his thin but dark eyebrows accented both the pallor of his skin and the ice blue of his eyes that only stood out more against the dark eyelashes around them. His lean, toned body was hugged nicely by the tailored uniform but no one around this area could care less, he knew, and as he fought away sleep, his lanky limbs regained a bit of their usual grace exhaustion. A gentle smile crossed his features as he took a deep breath of fresh air and caught the whiff of breakfast being made. Now that he thought about it, he was a bit hungry.

Before he could even think about leaving his tent, however a loud voice, calling his name made him pause and roll his eyes. It came from his left, meaning it was from head quarters and he sighed. How stupid was he to think that he could get away from orders so late in the day?

“Captain sir!” the younger breathless soldier said, a lieutenant according to the rank on him as he bent over and held his knees. The captain waited for him to catch his breath and then returned the crisp salute the lower ranking man gave him. “Its good to see you awake sir. The colonel was just looking for you.”
Damon frowned. That couldn’t be good if he had to talk to the colonel himself. “Did he say what it was about lieutenant?”

The younger man shook his head and grinned at his commander. “Of course not. Why would he tell me anything?”

Captain Harbinger looked over this messenger, trying to remember why it was he was friends with him. Short chestnut brown hair, similarly cut to his own black, looked like a mess under the hat and hazel eyes that laughed at the slightest joke could not hold back their mirth at this situation. He had a more healthy tan to his skin and although he wasn’t as thin as the superior officer, he certainly wasn’t fat either. Being an assistant surgeon had gotten rid of any weight he did have in excess. His name was Eric Edwards and although he was useful in battle, he was a jokester outside of his work that knew no limits.

Damon sighed and scratched at some of his hair at the base of his skull, the other unconsciously going to his hip as he tried to think of the subject matter the colonel wanted to speak to him about. “It probably has something to do about where the surgeons are to set up their equipment. Well, we had better not keep him waiting.” Sometimes the position of head surgeon of the this small unit was a never ending task.
“Where is he again?”

Lieutenant Edwards indicated the way behind him with his thumb. “You know, for a surgeon, you are kind of slow sometimes.”

The older man said nothing and walked around his friend, wordlessly dismissing him as he headed for the colonel’s tent. It wasn’t that far, only half a mile from where his tent was near what was assumed to be the front lines, but the sea of white tents and bustling bodies as young soldiers were awakened by their commanders and given tasks to get their lazy behinds started on right away make the journey seem longer. Smoke rising periodically from camp fires set up in front of every few tents let the doctor know easily how many people were working on breakfasts while the others went about into the woods collecting branches and such to keep the same fires going and others went about their messenger tasks given by their commanders to run to other commanders. Damon had even had to pause in his walk a few times to avoid getting run down by an overly eager messenger.

Along the way, he discovered something about the men that were sitting around small camp fires, chatting about this and that and joking around as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Most of the soldiers were not yet full grown adults, in fact half, just by looking at them, were still children in so many ways. What kind of a country did he live in, he wondered, when the people send children to fight wars for them?

“HARBINGER!” a voice shouted ahead of him and the captain looked up, recognizing the tone and hurrying a bit to his destination. The colonel could not be happy if he had resorted to shouting the names of his subordinates from his tent. “Get in here! Now!”

The tent the commander was using for his strategic planning was no more than a bit of cloth over some sticks to give the small group already gathered there some shade and from the glowering look he was being given by the man, his already bad temper had gotten worse from the head surgeon’s tardiness. “What the hell took you so long?”

“Pardon me, sir, but it took the messenger you sent a bit of time to find me,” he answered somewhat calmly, trying to soothe the other. “Is there something important you needed to speak with me about?”

The other commanders of the smaller divisions under the colonel’s commander laughed at him. “The colonel calls you here and you wonder that?” one of the infantry commanders, an older gentleman with a scruffy face and annoyingly smug attitude sneered. “You must be a newborn in the war department, surgeon.”

Blue eyes became cold as the locked with this mocking man’s. “I’ll just have you remember that the next time I save your life, footman.” The other man’s comrades snickered at the retort and how their friend was unable to answer it.

The colonel coughed roughly to get their attention and all turned their gazes back on him and the map laid out on the table in front of them. Drawn out against the white of the area were little symbols of where each of the colonels has their people stationed but at the moment there were no Confederate marks. This confused the surgeon a bit but he said nothing. That aspect of this meeting had nothing to do with him.

“Now, listen up. From what the reports tell us, there are some grey-coats not too far south of here so we want to keep ourselves as inconspicuous as possible. They don’t need to know we are here until we want them to know.” The leader of their small group at the moment looked to every one of his division commanders. “Now, we need to set up just in case. Harbinger.”

“Yes sir,”

“You will take your surgeons and other necessary medical personnel to the Church. That will be the hospital for the time being. We cleared it earlier so there shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Understood sir.”

“Then you are dismissed.”

Captain Harbinger saluted the colonel and left the area, heading back to his tent to gather his supplies. He never did like that the colonel excluded him from such important information as to where the troops were going to be, but, he figured, that was probably one of the smartest things to do. That meant that if, for some unknown reason, he was captured during a battle, he wouldn’t have any information to give. He sighed a bit as he side-stepped a soldier who had fallen back and folded his arms across his chest. This was going to be fun.

On his way back to his small shelter to start packing things away another group of young men, these ones a bit older than the average, called to him. He turned and was dismayed to see that they were his ambulance personnel and fellow surgeons. There weren’t many of them, there never were many in any army, but that just made their drunken actions more deplorable.

“So, Captain, what’s going on?” one of the more sober men asked him, motioning for him to join them. “Come on, sit and have a drink with us. It’s not going to kill you.”

“You never know,” another one of the group slurred. “He may just roll over and die the second alcohol touches those lips of his. Isn’t it against his religion or something?”

Damon couldn’t bring himself to dignify that last comment with a response and instead he took the offered seat but refused the alcohol. “One of us needs to remain sober after all in case the colonel should walk by,” he reasoned. “And we need to be ready to grab our stuff and head off soon.”

“Deployed already?” The more sober one apparently was going to be the conversationalist one this time. “Where to?”

“We get to use the church we passed by not long back. It’s been cleared for us to use but we have to walk to get there. I don’t need you idiots drunk and breaking half the equipment.”

There was some loud protesting but that was silenced when Lieutenant Edwards told them to shut their traps not so nicely. Either they were afraid of him or respected him too much to argue with his word. The captain jumped too, having not heard his assistant behind him. He bit back some rather harsh words about startling him.

There was a soft breeze that suddenly blew through the camp and those that did not have their hats on properly had to rush after them. Damon shuddered. The breeze itself was not what bothered him; it was the smell of blood and death it brought, barely recognizable to those who hadn’t worked surrounded by such hellish images every battle their unit had been engaged in for the duration of this pointless war. He felt his stomach do a flip flop. They were going to suffer heavy causalities this time, he knew it.