Character Analysis
If there's a character who says less than Noah, it has to be Dr. Hutchings, Grand Tower's doctor, and later, Tilly's husband. He's a perfect picture of a good doctor, with a strong sense of personal responsibility for his patients and his country:
He sat in his porch rocker, transparent with age, courteous even in drooping sleep. He had the dignity I saw in my dad. His clean white hands were folded neatly in his lap. These were the hands that had amputated Noah's arm in the first year of the war, after the Battle of Belmont. And how many more arms and legs, how many thousands, through all the blood-slick years of war? (15.6)
When Dr. Hutchings finds out there aren't enough doctors in Cairo, he goes to help, and when he finds out there aren't enough army doctors, he joins up. He and Tilly have an almost unspoken courtship—one dance, one brother returned missing an arm but alive, and four long years of letters. And then, a lifetime of true love.