Purgatory's Shore (Artillerymen # 1)

by Taylor Anderson

As Captain Anson said, Lewis had been wounded at Monterrey: a musket ball in his lower chest. Only distance, inferior Mexican gunpowder, or divine providence stopped the ball from passing through the ribs it broke and cracking his liver open. So sure it had and he would die, Lewis took mad chances, exposing himself stupidly until the end of the battle—and he discovered the wound wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. That had been part of the source of his “heroism,” as he prayed for another ball to give him a quick, clean death so he could avoid the lingering suffering he’d watched Major Ringgold endure. And in any event, he had to withstand it anyway. Relatively minor as it was, the wound turned septic due to all the filthy uniform fragments the ball carried under the skin, and Lewis nearly died. His chest still hurt, and the wound remained partially open, disgorging pus and rotten fibers of wool or cotton in addition to slivers of bone and tiny flakes of lead. Sometimes he wondered if it would ever heal—and if his mind had been damaged as badly.