by John Jakes
The explosion must have done it. But where was his friend? He didn’t see Orry anywhere.
He lurched to his feet, looking down the short stretch of road to the new crater where the cottage had been. The last bits of wreckage pattered to earth. The smoke was dispersing. Behind him he heard officers yelling—Bent was one—as they once more tried to organize the men straggling through the cornfield. George’s attention fixed on something lying at the crater’s edge.
He passed his right hand back and forth in front of his eyes, as if he were shooing a fly. He wanted to deny the evidence of his senses. He couldn’t. He began to run.
Next to the crater lay a man’s left hand and half of the forearm. The cloth around the forearm was torn and scorched. He found Orry sprawled on the embankment on the left side of the road, bleeding to death.
George’s mind blotted out memories of the next four or five minutes. He later concluded that he never could have endured what he saw or done what was necessary if he had stopped to think about it. By shutting the horror out of his mind, he was able to function.
He did remember crouching over Orry and repeating three words—“You can’t die”—but he had absolutely no recollection of fixing a tourniquet with material torn from his uniform and twisted tight with the muzzle of his own pistol, stanching the flow from what was left of Orry’s arm.
He went staggering to the rear with Orry lying head down over his shoulder. He steadied Orry with his right hand and held the gun in place with his left. He couldn’t tell whether Orry was still breathing. He might be trying to save a corpse. He didn’t dare think about that. Calling on strength he never knew he had, he quickened his step until he was almost running again.
The major of mounted rifles cantered past, rallying men behind him with flourishes of his saber. Next came Bent, panting but safely surrounded by two noncoms and several privates with fixed bayonets. George gave the captain a murderous look. George’s face was blackened, the eyes standing out as comical white circles. If Bent recognized the apparition with the body slung over its shoulder, he gave no sign.
The soldiers disappeared up the road to Mexico City. George kept going in the other direction, the effort filling his eyes with sweat and tears. His chest began to hurt. A couple of minutes later he came upon an ambulance stopped at the roadside.
The orderly examined Orry quickly. “Help me lift him inside.”
On the orderly’s instructions, the driver turned the ambulance swiftly and whipped the horses into a run. George was flung back and forth inside. He braced his palms against the walls so that he wouldn’t fall on his friend.
“You’ll kill him, for Christ’s sake!” he protested. “Slow down!”
“Do you want him alive and bruised, or dead?” the orderly shouted. “His only chance is to get to the surgeons. Shut up and hang onto him.”
George squeezed his eyes shut, clearing his vision a little. He gazed down at his friend. Orry’s head bounced against the filthy blankets spread on the floor of the ambulance. George stripped off his blouse, rolled it into a pillow, and eased it beneath Orry’s head. In that moment, with the dust blowing through the ambulance and the sounds of battle ringing outside, he understood how much he loved his friend.
To a God he prayed was listening he said, “Don’t let him die.” Tears ran down his cheeks.
The field hospital was a bedlam of blood and screaming. The exhausted surgeon turned up the lamps above the red table while an orderly held the gun-barrel tourniquet. After a brief examination, the surgeon gestured to a second orderly.
“Get him ready.”
“What are you going to do?” George asked.
“Take the rest of the arm. It’s the only way I can save him.”
“No,” George said with a ferocity that made heads turn six feet away. The surgeon gave him a scathing look.
“Would you like to take over the management of his case?”
George wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “No, of course not, but—if you cut off his arm, it’ll kill him.”
“Nonsense. He’s lost half of it already, and he’s still breathing, thanks to your quick action. I perform dozens of amputations every day that there’s fighting. Forty or fifty percent of the men survive.”
“That isn’t what I meant when I said—”
“Well, I’ve no time for riddles,” the surgeon broke in. “Leave the tent, if you please. I’ll let you know when we’re finished.”
Orry woke in unfamiliar surroundings. He saw eight lanterns hanging above him, all glowing. Pain came in great surging waves, but in spite of it he tried to move his arms and found he couldn’t. There was a feeling of something wrong, over and above the pain, though what it was he couldn’t fathom. Suddenly a man appeared, a paunchy man wearing a stained apron. The man’s pudgy hand held a wet red saw. All at once Orry knew where he was and why. He screamed. Unseen hands gripped his shoulders. He twisted his head, saw another man heating a cauterizing iron in a brazier of coals. He screamed again. They poured whiskey into his open mouth to stop him.
Six nights later, George entered the field tent of Orry’s company commander. He helped himself to some of Captain Place’s whiskey without asking. The valley of Mexico lay silent except for distant bugle calls and the occasional crackle of musketry. The generals had arranged yet another armistice, presumably to discuss peace terms. George didn’t know the details and didn’t care. Like most other line officers and men in the American army, he thought that whoever had proposed an armistice just when Mexico City was ready to fall ought to be lynched.
“How is he?” The captain’s question, as well as George’s visit, had become a nightly ritual.
“Still no change. Could go either way.”
George tossed down the whiskey. Sometimes, shamefully, he thought it would be better if Orry died.
Place sorted through a pile of reports and orders. He drew out a document which he handed to George, who gazed at it without seeing. “Well,” the captain said, “I hope he recovers sufficiently to read that.”
“What is it?”
“His promotion. He’s no longer a brevet. There’s a commendation coming from General Scott, too. For helping to clear the highroad so that the fortified bridge could be stormed and overcome. I presume Captain Hoctor will have the same good tidings for you.”
“Full rank,” George said in a blank way. “Took less than a year.”
“I heard another bit of news that’s less satisfying. Captain Bent of the Third Infantry has apparently offered an acceptable explanation for turning up so far from his regular command. He also managed to convince his superiors that he directed the attack on that nest of guerrillas. I’m reliably informed that he’s being breveted to major.”
George swore and reached for the whiskey. Place was no stranger to soldierly cursing, but George’s language embarrassed even him.
One of the surgeons told Orry he would live, but a full day passed before he realized the price of that statement. When he did, he raved and wept for an hour, then turned his face to the tent wall and shut his eyes.
From then on, all he wanted to do was sleep. But even that means of escape was imperfect. Again and again he dreamed of an Army drum standing on a rock in the sunshine, silent. Someone had attacked the drum with a bayonet or saber. There was nothing left of the drumhead but tatters.
It was the sixteenth of September before Orry consented to receive a visitor. Two days earlier, General Scott had ridden into Mexico City as a conqueror. The armistice had failed, there had been hot fighting at several locations, and then the enemy had surrendered.
“Hello, Orry.”
George moved an ammunition box next to the cot and sat down. Orry had good color. His beard was thick and luxuriant. But his eyes were dead. He had pulled the soiled sheet over his left shoulder, so that his friend couldn’t see the bandaged stump.
At last he said, “Hello, George. I hear we won.”
George nodded. “There’s
a commendation waiting for you. You’re a full second lieutenant now. So am I. Our friend Bent, unfortunately, is a brevet major. I’m told we were all great heroes on the road to Churubusco.”
He smiled but Orry didn’t. Orry stared at the ridgepole of the tent. George twisted his forage cap in his hands. “How do you feel?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Orry’s voice was so flat, it was impossible to tell what the answer meant. George sat perfectly still, his hat held in both hands. He wanted to tell his friend about some of the sharp fighting that had led to the surrender of Mexico City, but obviously it was the wrong time. Would there ever be a right one?
Somewhere outside an amateur musician started playing a popular tune on a mouth organ. George had always known the tune as “Zip Coon,” but some fiddlers were starting to refer to it as “Turkey in the Straw.” He wanted to go out and strangle the musician. The song was too zestful, too much of a reminder of the pleasures a man could enjoy if he was whole.
Presently Orry looked at him again. “I reckon I owe you thanks for saving my life. Most of the time I lie here wishing you hadn’t.”
With a hint of sharpness, George said, “Come on, Stick, don’t feel so sorry for yourself. You’re alive. Life’s precious.”
“It is if there’s something you care about,” Orry agreed. “I’ve come to understand that I never really had a chance with Madeline. She was lost to me before I met her. But I had a fine chance to have the only career I ever wanted. Now they’ll muster me out.”
“But you’ll be able to go home.”
When George saw the hurt in Orry’s eyes he felt like a fool. “To what?” Orry asked.
Anger erupted within George then. He kept it bottled up because he realized he was really angry with himself. He had botched things, failed utterly to raise his friend’s spirits. If he couldn’t, who could?
He tried one last time. “I’ll be back to see you tomorrow. Meanwhile, you rest and collect yourself, and you’ll soon be feeling—”
He stopped, scarlet. Thoughtlessly, he had reached down to squeeze Orry’s arm. His left arm. He had remembered when his hand was just inches from the sheet.
Orry’s dark eyes seemed to say, You see? I’m not the same as you anymore, so don’t pretend I am. As he turned away he murmured a listless, “Thank you for coming.”
George slipped out, whipped. He hoped time would heal his friend’s bitterness and melancholy, but he wasn’t sure. Orry had been robbed of the two things he wanted most in life. How did a man survive when that happened?
Only the arrival of a letter from Constance kept the day from being a complete disaster.
In the balmy October sunshine, George sat at an outdoor table in a cantina in Mexico City. The cantina faced the magnificent National Palace, where the American flag now flew from all the flagstaffs. With him were Pickett, Tom Jackson, and Sam Grant. The four were together for the first time in months.
Pickett and Grant had several empty beer glasses in front of them, as did George. Jackson had only a single, full glass of wine. Continually fretting about his digestion, he always bought one glass of wine and left it untasted.
The Mexican population had a surprisingly cheerful attitude about the outcome of the war. Civilian shopkeepers and tavern owners had shrugged off the loss and quickly settled-down to profiting from the occupation. In the European manner, the government had struck medals commemorating every major battle, whether won or lost. Pickett, who was holding forth about Robert Lee, had gotten hold of a Churubusco medal, which was pinned to his jacket.
“I’m not saying this as a Virginian, though you’ll probably think I am. Bob Lee is the best man in the Army. He proved it once and for all in the pedregal.”
Pickett was speaking of a field of volcanic rock that the Americans had encountered on the approach to Mexico City. It looked impassable, but Lee and Pierre Beauregard had scouted it and said otherwise. Then, during a thunderstorm, Lee had volunteered to recross the pedregal to carry important information to Scott. He had ridden over sharp ridges and through treacherous ravines with only lightning flashes to show him the way.
“Agreed,” Grant said, and drank some beer. “I don’t know of a smarter or more audacious soldier. Thank heaven he’s not our enemy.”
Generally, members of the Academy-trained officer corps had done well in the six-month campaign. Even Elkanah Bent was being regarded as a hero. Had George accused him of incompetence or attacked him physically, few would have sided with him, and he knew it.
The others at the table were actual proof that West Point was turning out brave and competent officers, George reflected. Grant, for instance, had been among the first to storm Molino del Rey, along with Captain Robert Anderson of the Third Artillery. Later, in the assault on the city proper, Grant had dragged a mountain howitzer up into a belfry overlooking the San Cosme Gate. He had done it on his own initiative. The howitzer’s fire had all but wiped out the garrison defending the gate.
Jackson had distinguished himself several times, most notably at the north wall of Chapultepec, where he had single-handedly manned a gun from John Magruder’s light battery. As for Pickett, during the same assault an Academy man named Lieutenant Lewis Armistead had fallen wounded while carrying colors up a scaling ladder. A second West Pointer, James Longstreet, had taken up the flag and climbed with it. He, too, was wounded. It was Pickett who finally bore the colors to the top.
George soon began to fidget. The others were lingering over their drinks, and he had two new letters in his pocket. One was from Constance. As the table talk turned to still another subject, he pulled out her letter and opened it. When he finished reading, he laughed and carefully put the letter away, intending to add it to all the others he was saving.
“Who’s that from?” Grant inquired. “Your fair colleen?”
George nodded.
“Planning to marry her?”
“I might.” He patted the bulge made by the letter. “She still likes me.”
“Naturally.” Pickett grinned. “You’re a flaming hero. We’re all flaming heroes this month. For a change even Congress agrees.”
The dour Jackson cleared his throat. “Does your young lady practice the Roman faith, George?”
“Yes. Why do you ask?”
“Only to remind you that your career might be impeded if you married a Papist. I’ve been cognizant of that lately because I—ah—I’ve been calling on a young woman of this city.”
Pickett leaned forward, agog. “You, General? Courting a señorita?”
Jackson blushed and stared at his wineglass. “I have that honor, yes. Regrettably, I am afraid marriage is out of the question. God creates all His children equal, but in the eyes of the general staff and the majority of Americans, Catholics are less equal than most.”
Grant and Pickett laughed, but George’s face remained sober. Loving Constance as much as he did, he tended to brush aside the question of religion. He knew it was a potential problem. He tried not to show that as he said:
“I don’t have much of a career to worry about. My hitch is up in less than three years.”
“That’s long enough for them to make it miserable for you,” Grant said.
“Especially the beloved Major Bent,” Pickett said.
Bells clanged in the nearby cathedral. A flock of pigeons took wing from the roof of the National Palace. The sunlight had changed to the amber of late afternoon. For George the happy reunion at the cantina table was spoiled.
Well, maybe there would be something cheering in the other letter he had received today. It came from Lehigh Station. While Grant and Pickett ordered one more round, George broke the wax wafer and read the first few lines of his mother’s fine hand. He turned pale.
“What’s wrong, Stump?”
He looked blankly at Grant. “It’s my father. Eight weeks ago he had a seizure at the mill. His heart. He’s dead.”
Maude Hazard’s short letter was followed by a much longer one from Stanley two d
ays later. Stanley begged his younger brother to resign and hurry home. Hazard Iron was too large an enterprise for one man to run, especially now that the firm was putting a new mill in operation. William Hazard had designed that mill, supervised its construction, and had been struggling with an equipment problem the day he died.
Hazard’s latest addition was a three-high rolling mill, designed to roll wrought-iron rails of the T configuration. The T was rapidly replacing the inverted U as the standard on American railroads. In his letter Stanley repeated an earlier statement to the effect that their father had been prodded into the expansion by the opening of a competitive mill in Danville, Pennsylvania. Had the decision been his, Stanley wrote, he would have vetoed the idea as too novel and fraught with risk.
“Too novel,” George snorted to Orry, who was packing to go home. “Even though Henry Cort has been operating a three-high mill at Fontley, England, for more than twenty years. My fainthearted brother will probably go on crying ‘fraught with risk’ until the railroad boom’s over, the country’s covered with tracks from ocean to ocean, and the market’s gone.”
Orry folded a shirt and placed it in his footlocker. He was becoming adept at doing things with one hand. He had once said that the leather-capped stump hurt a good deal and often kept him from sleeping, but beyond that he never discussed his injury. He seldom smiled these days.
He sat on the edge of his cot to rest a moment. “Have you decided what you’re going to do, George?” Since his release from the hospital, Orry never called George by his nickname.
George nodded unhappily. “I’m going to be loyal to my family when they need me. Much as I hate the blasted Army—much as I want to see Constance again—I don’t feel good about the decision. I guess it’s because I agreed to serve four years, and a promise is a promise. Well, nothing I can do about that. I’m going to write Stanley and tell him I’ll come home. Of course, there’s no guaranteeing the War Department will release me. Not soon, anyway.”
