He was sitting on the edge of the bed. He started to rise but she pushed him back down. She took his head and held it to her breasts. “First things first,” she said. We have all night so we will take all night. You will now kiss my breasts lovingly and slowly like I’ve always wanted and imagined and then we will move on to other things.”
He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her so tightly she gasped. “My dear Juana, I exist to please you,” he said and realized that he meant it.
* * *
Clarissa Harlow Barton was in her early sixties. Better known as Clara Barton, she had recently founded the American Red Cross. She had tended the sick and wounded in the Civil War and seen the results of the most horrific fighting. She’d also come under fire and nearly been killed. After the war, she’d travelled to Europe and helped during the Franco-Prussian War. To Sarah, she gave the immediate impression that she was a stern and demanding taskmistress.
The unmarried Clara Barton was in Baltimore to oversee the shipment of medical supplies to the south when the army finally embarked for Cuba.
“You and your friend will not be permitted to serve on the battlefield,” she said sternly.
“May I ask why not,” Sarah enquired. “I have experience with terrible wounds. My father is a doctor and I assisted him on many occasions. I’ve seen men bleeding and mangled from wounds and injuries and, yes, even shot. I did not flinch then and will not in the future. Not that it matters, but I’ve also assisted in childbirth, and I’ve even watched as people died.
“And as to my friend, Ruth Holden spent many months as a volunteer nurse in Paris during the terrible fighting. If anything, she has far more experience than I do.”
“Who is he?” Barton asked.
Sarah was perplexed. “Who?”
Barton smiled slightly. “The man you wish to follow, that’s who.”
“Am I that obvious? I guess I am. His name is Martin Ryder and he commands the First Maryland Volunteers.”
Barton shuffled through papers on her desk until she found the one she wanted. “According to this, your young colonel is highly regarded by his superiors, his peers and his men. His men are well disciplined and well behaved. I understand that he is concerned about their hygiene. The next time you see him tell him to make sure his medical personnel keep themselves and their tools as clean as possible.”
“He will be leaving in a couple of days. When I seem him next, I will tell him what you said.” Of course it would be in between desperate and passionate kisses.
Barton nodded. “As to you and your friends, you will accompany us to Jacksonville and, if circumstances warrant, perhaps down to the Florida Keys. We will be going by train to Charleston, which is as far south as decent rail lines go. There is a narrow gauge track running from Charleston to Jacksonville and, if possible we will use that. It’s a shame that the Confederate railroad tracks were so miserable during the war and that there have been only minimal improvements since then.”
It was common knowledge that the U.S. government was trying to widen the gauge and extend the line south to Daytona, but that was not going to happen overnight. There was resistance on the part of the railroad lines to building farther south since there is little in the way of civilization and customers in that direction.
Sarah nodded politely. She was delighted that the redoubtable Clara Barton was going to let her at least go to Jacksonville. Once there she and the others could prove their worth and, if the war lasted as long as some people thought it would, then she was confident that hospitals would be established on Cuban soil. It only made sense. Wounded soldiers had to be treated by skilled medical personnel as soon as possible; thus, they would have to be close to the battlefields. Shipping them to Jacksonville or even the Florida Keys made no sense. She would take one step at a time.
She profusely thanked Miss Barton and left before the woman could change her mind. On the train back to Baltimore, she thought how much her life had changed and how much Martin Ryder now meant to her. The kiss she’d promised him at the White House for not punching President Custer had quickly turned into a number of them and all given joyously and passionately. She found herself worried sick that he might not return from the war or that he might be terribly maimed. She recalled helping her father operating on a man who’d lost his legs in a train accident. That such horrible wounds could happen to Martin as well, would soon be a terrifying reality.
She had not given herself to him nor would she, at least not yet. However, she thought it was time to permit just a few liberties that would let him know just how much she cared for him.
Sarah smiled to herself. One nice thing about being a widow, she thought, was that she now knew so much about what pleased a man.
* * *
Maria Vasquez peered through one of the small gaps in the rough wooden stockade that kept her a prisoner. She was twenty-five and a widow. Her husband had been killed by a Spanish firing squad. They thought he’d been a guerilla. He hadn’t been but Maria was now. She had worked hard for the revolution, carrying messages and supplies. Even though she never carried a gun, she still could have been executed. It was ironic that she had been condemned to spend God knows how long in the prison camp because she had protested the lack of food that had claimed the life of her small son. Then she had been hungry. Now she was close to starving.
Some of the gaps were wide enough for her to stick her hand through and beg for food. Sometimes she actually got some from sympathetic Cubans. They were careful, thought. They didn’t want to attract attention and wind up in the camp themselves.
Several priests routinely passed out charity along with a few civilians. In particular, an old man named Luis would bring her pieces of cheese and chunks of stale bread. She could not count on Luis, however. He was old and scrawny. He would talk to her in a respectful manner and she loved him for that. He had a shoe repair shop a mile from the camp. She knew where it was and he had told her to run to it if she could ever escape from the hell she was in.
Maria was afraid that she would spend the rest of her life in the camp. People came in but the only ones who left were carried out as cadavers. She could see happy people walking by the camp and a number of wealthy men and women riding in carriages. She had never seen a zoo, but she knew what one was. To the rich Spaniards, she and the others were little more than animals in a zoo. Somewhere, life was normal. Just not here.
Luis was not the only man in her life. One of the guards, a heavy set man named Ramon, had made it plain to her that she would have a much better life if only she would become his mistress or at least let him fuck her every now and then. His comments told her that she was still reasonably attractive. She was not light skinned like a Spaniard or dark like a Negro. She was somewhere in between and she knew that men found her color fascinating. As a child she’d asked her mother whether she was Mexican, Indian, or Negro and her mother had laughed and said everything.
A lot of the women in the camp had succumbed to Ramon and other guards. So far, she had not given in, although every day in the camp made it more and more difficult. At least what Ramon wanted was straightforward. There were two other guards who took great delight in watching the women relieve themselves in the disgusting latrine trenches. She and some of the others shuddered at what they might want to do with a woman.
By telling her he would provide a place of refuge, Luis had given her the germ of an idea. Even though the thought of it disgusted her, she would use Ramon’s lust to gain her freedom. She turned away from the stockade and went to her sleeping mat. The old woman who had been sleeping beside her had died during the night, which was a farther shame. For the last few days, when the woman had slipped into a coma and death was inevitable, Maria had been using her food ticket. The thought that she was depriving the old woman of a little nutrition disturbed her only a little. The woman was unconscious and dying. Perhaps a doctor could have fed her and saved her, but there were no doctors available.