Unholy Fire Read Online Free PDF

said, “it will ease the pain.”
    It did. When I next awoke it was to darkness. A sliver of moon had risen in the east, and I was very cold. Closing my eyes, I prayed that I would survive. When I opened them again, two men were kneeling on the ground beside me. One of them held a lantern over my face.
    â€œAnother for the dead pile,” he said, reaching down to grab my legs.
    My mouth was so dry I could not speak.
    â€œAww, he’s shit hisself. I can see his guts, too,” said the other one.
    They picked up the man next to me, placed him on a litter, and left.
    A harsh wind came up that made the suffering doubly hard for the men still lying in the fields with no blankets. A few well-intentioned soldiers cut up raw pine boughs and lit several small bonfires. Unfortunately, the swirling wind whipped the burning embers and smoke in every direction, just adding to the misery.
    A few yards away from me, an officer babbled on endlessly about the plans he wanted his wife to make for their five children. He must have been very wealthy because the dispositions kept coming for more than an hour until he died.
    As the balm of laudanum began to wear off, we all began to groan and wail in an unholy chorus, our torn bodies each moving to an individual ballet dictated by the spasms of pain. The wailing was punctuated by howling shrieks, as tortured nerve endings came back to life. My own screams lasted as long as my strength held out. Eventually, they subsided down to pathetic moans, and I rolled back and forth from side to side, clutching the purplish bloody mass inside me as if there was something I could do to put things back together the way they had been.
    It was after I had already given up against the enormity of the pain and was praying for God to take me that I felt a sharp, painful sensation under my neck. Reaching up, I discovered that the locket my mother had given me the day I left our island was gone, ripped free by someone who thought he was robbing the dead. I felt him go through my pockets, but could do nothing to stop him.
    Finding it impossible even to die, I cursed God and cursed my fate. By the time I regained my senses again, the bonfires had gone out and there was no longer any movement around me. Then I thought I heard someone calling my name. Another cruel illusion, I decided.
    â€œJohn McKittredge,” I heard someone shout again, and knew it could not be a dream. I could see the glare of a torch moving slowly through the darkness forty or fifty feet away from me.
    â€œCall out if you can,” came back the same voice, which I now recognized as that of Harlan Colfax.
    â€œHere, Sergeant,” I shouted, but the words came out like the bark of a small dog.
    The light came closer as he went from body to body.
    â€œHere,” I called out once more, and then he was at my side, his rough, homely face reflected in the torchlight like a treasured heirloom.
    â€œI only got across an hour ago, Lieutenant. I’ve been looking for you ever since.”
    His eyes closed for several seconds after he pulled my bloody hands away from my stomach and saw what was there. It was his only visible reaction before he said, “I’ve seen worse today, believe me,” and ripped the red card away from my chest.
    There were two men from the regiment with him. They placed me on a litter and carried me to the farmhouse, which had been turned into a surgical hospital. In the courtyard, corpses lay everywhere, covered with canvas shrouds. I was carried inside.
    In the light of the oil lamps, I could see hideous shadows playing on the whitewashed walls as a surgeon cut and sawed away at a man lying on the kitchen table. It reminded me of paintings I had seen of the Spanish inquisition.
    â€œDoctor, this officer is still alive,” said Sergeant Colfax to a surgeon who was standing in the hallway smoking a cigar.
    The doctor stepped back into the kitchen and raised a lamp over me. I saw that