“I know it,” answered Rachel, depressed even more by the apparition of martial law than she had been by the heat.
“And what I have been telling you is only the beginning,” continued the Surgeon, noting the effect of his words, and exulting in their humbling power. “The cornerstone of everything military is obedience—prompt, unfailing obedience, by everybody, soldier or officer, to his superiors. Without it——”
“Major Moxon,” said an officer, entering and saluting, “the General presents his compliments, and desires to know why his repeated orders in regard to the furloughing of men have been so persistently disregarded.”
“Because,” said the Surgeon, getting purplish-red about the cheeks and nose, “because the matter's one which I consider outside of his province—beyond his control, sir. I am Chief of the Medical Department, as you are perhaps aware, sir.”
“We presumed that you were taking that view of the matter, from your course,” answered the Aide calmly. “I am not here to argue the matter with you, but simply to direct you to consider yourself under arrest. Charges are being prepared against you, to which I will add specifications based on this interview. Good afternoon, sir.” The Aide saluted stiffly and moved away, leaving the Surgeon in a state of collapse at the prospect of what he had brought upon himself by his injudicious contumacy. Mis Rachel was in that state of wonderment that comes to pupils at seeing their teachers rebel agains their own precepts. The Surgeon was too much engrossed in his own affairs to pay farther heed to her. He tapped a bell.
“Orderly,” he said, to the soldier who responded, “conduct this young woman to Dr. Denslow. Inform him that she is to be with us as a nurse, and ask him to be kind enough to assign her suitable quarters. Good afternoon, ma'am.”
In another office, much smaller and far less luxuriously furnished, she found Dr. Denslow, a hazel-eyed, brown-bearded man of thirty, whose shoulder-straps bore the modest bars of Captain. The reader has already made his acquaintance. He received her with the pleasant, manly sympathy for her sex, which had already made him one of the most popular of family physicians in the city where he was practicing at the outbreak of the war.
Rachel's depressed spirits rose again at his cordial reception.
“I am so busy,” he said, after a brief exchange of commonplaces, “that I'll not have the time to give you much information this afternoon as to your duties, and I know that you are so fatigued with your journey and the heat that you will not care to do anything but rest and refresh yourself. I will therefore show you immediately to your quarters.”
“This will be your field of labor,” he said, as he led her down the long aisle between rows of cots toward her room. “It's not a cheerful one to contemplate at first. Human suffering is always a depressing spectacle, and you will see here more of it and more varied agony than you can find anywhere outside of an army hospital's walls. But as the deed is so is the duty, and the glory of doing it. To one who wants to serve God and his fellow-creatures—which I take it is the highest form of religion—here is an opportunity that he may bless God for giving him. Here he can earn a brighter crown than is given them who die at the stake for opinion's sake.”