The Tinsmith Read Online Free PDF

wounded man and follow him. Together they crossed the debris-strewn battlefield. Just as they reached the first white cluster of hospital tents near the barnyard, a drum roll rippled through the stillness.
    â€œBaird! Where the hell have you been?”
    Rawley’s face was florid, his lips pulled back, revealing his incisors. “I told you not to leave the table! This isn’t your cozy little practice back home.” The blood splattered on his hands and forearms and smeared across his brow explained more than his words why he was so angry. And with a glance at the waiting wounded, Anson realized that every moment he’d been absent was a moment that couldn’t be spared. He turned to tell the tall soldier where to deliver the wounded man, but both the soldier and his burden had moved on and were soon lost among the tents.
    â€œNow that this blasted rain’s stopped, we can go back to operating outside,” Rawley said. “And work fast, dammit. We might be moving out anytime.”
    Recovering his instruments from the barn, Anson plunged back into his duty, joining the dozens of surgeons, stewards, and soldiers deputized for hospital detail who scurried about the barnyard, setting up the wrenched doors and oak barrels for surgery. Hours passed in a blur. The day grew warm, then hot. Sweat poured into his eyes, trickled through his moustache and beard. He hardly noticed that the sounds of battle had not resumed. No artillery pounded the earth, though sporadic musket cracks continued through the early morning. At one point, looking up from his table, Anson noticed two soldiers going through one of the viscous stacks of arms and legs. They reached in gingerly, then tossed limbs off to the side. Anson hurried over.
    â€œWhat are you doing there?”
    The men looked up sheepishly. One, corn-haired and freckled, with rubbery lips, immediately lowered his head again. His companion, who wore a beard dark and sharp as a spade under cheeks of a vivid red, spoke up mildly.
    â€œSorry, sir, it was only Jim’s fancy. He’s got it into his head to have his arm back. You see . . .”
    The man’s embarrassed hesitation irritated Anson. “I can’t see anything if you don’t tell me.”
    â€œWell, it’s this way, sir.” The soldier’s cheeks seemed to drain of colour and immediately flush red again, as if he were continually dying and returning to life. His grey eyes fluttered. “Jim’s a seaman, and the arm he’s missing has his favourite tattoo on it. And Jim, why, he’s afraid if he don’t at least study it a while, he won’t remember it exactly so as to get it made again just right.”
    The corn-haired soldier looked up, scowling. “But I don’t see as how he ’spects us to know which one of these is rightly his. You can’t tell the blood from a tattoo nohow.”
    â€œMebbe we should just pick one,” the bearded soldier said, the red in his cheeks almost reaching his eyes. “Jim’s pretty sick. He might not look hard enough to know the difference.”
    Speechless, Anson turned heavily away. Just then, a violent commotion erupted in a near corner of the barnyard. A stocky civilian on a large white charger shouted at Josiah Rawley.
    â€œI have the right to recover my property!” He yanked on the reins, but the more he did so, the more the horse seemed to react to the violence of his words. “And if it’s in that barn, I aim to find out!”
    â€œThis is a hospital!” Rawley brandished his amputating knife. “And I am its commanding officer. No man’s going to search for anything here unless I say so.”
    â€œThen say so before I go ahead and do it anyway. I’ve got a government contract here to round up dead horses and I’m going to need all my niggers to get the job done.”
    â€œWell, then, come back when the fighting’s over. As far as I