“Miss Clouston! Your assistance is required!”
    She looked up, a blood-soaked cloth in her hand, to see one of the surgeons making his way toward her across the crowded parlor, his focus intent.
    “We need assistance in surgery, ma’am. Colonel McGavock suggested you might be of aid.”
    She hesitated. “I’m . . . most willing to be of any help I can, Doctor. But I’ve not been trained in the specifics of—”
    “Have you ever administered chloroform? Or ether?”
    “No, sir. Though I have read accounts of such.”
    “That will be sufficient, under the circumstances. I’ll guide you through the rest. The most important thing—” He looked her square on. “According to the colonel, you possess a stalwart constitution and are a compassionate woman whose sensibilities will not be easily offended by the aftermath of war.”
    Despite her unsteadiness a moment earlier, Lizzie nodded, finding “the aftermath of war” a rather sanitized description for the carnage all around them. 
    “Colonel McGavock is gracious in his assessment, Doctor. But in this regard, I do possess a sturdy constitution.”
    “Then tonight you’re  a surgical assistant, Miss Clouston. There are at least forty men upstairs on the second-floor, with at least that many waiting outside, and more to come. They need surgery now or many of them are going to die. Keeping the men sedated during the procedures is crucial to saving as many as we can.” He leaned closer, his voice lowering. “For as long as the chloroform holds out.”
    Sobered yet further, Lizzie nodded. “Of course. I’ll come upstairs straightaway.
    The surgeon left the parlor and she shadowed his path, mindful of where she stepped. She spotted attendants loading the deceased onto stretchers before carrying them outside, and she hesitated, recalling again what the young boy who’d died in her arms had whispered.
    With no time to spare, she crossed the room, wiping the blood from her hands on her apron. She hastily searched the boy’s clothing, his desperate tone so clear in her memory. I done grieved over h-how I left things ‘tween us, Mama. His thinning voice had faltered. But I didn’t take it with me like I said. I-I left it. Buried. Way back on our land. ‘Neath that ol’ willow. And now . . . somehow it makes dyin’ easier knowin’ you’ll have it.
What did that mean? Knowin’ you’ll have it. Have what? Oh, that she’d had time to ask him, but he’d slipped too swiftly beyond the veil.

Taken from “With This Pledge” by Tamera Alexander
Copyright © 2019 by Tamera Alexander 
Used by permission of http://www.thomasnelson.com/