by John Jakes
“Next week, Miss Hazard, if I can,” the Sunday man promised, settling the haversack strap on his shoulder. He shambled out the doors at one end of the aisle as the dignitaries came in at the other end. The delegation consisted of two women and four men from the Sanitary Commission, plus a seventh individual, to whom the others seemed to defer. Virgilia was glad she and her ward-masters had scrubbed the floor and walls with disinfectant last night; it muted the odors of wounds and incontinence.
“—a typical ward, Congressman. Well maintained by the volunteer nursing staff, as you can see.” The speaker, one of the gentlemen from the Commission, beckoned to Virgilia. “Matron? May we have a moment of your time?”
Touching her hairnet and smoothing her apron, she hurried to the visitors. All were middle-aged except the man addressed as Congressman. He was pale and tall, stooped and unprepossessing. Yet he impressed her as he swept off his tall hat—wavy hair gleamed with too much oil, a common fault with gentlemen—and swiftly inspected her face and figure.
The white-whiskered scarecrow who had summoned her said, “You are Miss—?”
“Hazard, Mr. Turner.”
“Kind of you to remember me. We have a special guest, who wished to inspect several of our facilities. May I present the Honorable Samuel G. Stout, representative from Indiana?”
“Miss Hazard, is it?” said the congressman, stunning Virgilia. Out of that clerkish body rolled the deepest, most resonant tones she had ever heard—the voice of a born orator or divine, a voice to draw tears and sway mobs. He spoke four words, peering at her with rather small, close-set brown eyes, and sent shivers down her back.
His gaze made her inordinately nervous. “That’s correct, Congressman. We’re pleased to have you here. A great many dignitaries from Washington pass through Aquia Creek Landing—the President and his party went down to Falmouth on the train recently—but we’ve not been fortunate enough to have any of them visit our ward until now.”
“Next to serving on the lines,” Stout said, “this is the most important work of all—restoring our lads to fight again. I don’t agree with Mr. Lincoln’s contention that we must treat the traitors gently. I am in Mr. Stevens’s camp, believing we should punish them without pity. You are helping to hasten that task to its conclusion.”
Sententious murmurs of approval came from the others. One woman, huge as a gas balloon, pressed a glove to her vast front and breathed, “Bravo.” Virgilia recognized that Stout was behaving like a politician, turning a scrap of casual conversation into a platform statement. Yet his sentiments and his voice continued to touch nerves.
“You are a member of Miss Dix’s corps?” he asked, managing to step closer. She said that was true. She smelled the cinnamon oil on his hair.
“Perhaps you’ll tell us a little about your charges.” Stout smiled. His teeth were crooked—her first impression was correct; he was unimpressive physically—yet she sensed determination and strength in him. “This young lad, for example.” Directing her to a bed on the left, he contrived to take hold of her elbow. Instantly, she experienced a physical reaction so unexpected she was afraid she might be blushing.
The boy in bed stared at the visitors with feverish eyes. “Henry was on picket duty on the Rappahannock,” she said. “Rebel scouts crossed near his post. Shots were exchanged.” The boy turned his cheek to the pillow and shut his eyes. Virgilia drew the visitors out of earshot. “I’m afraid his right leg can’t be saved. It’s just a matter of a day or two before the surgeons take it.”
“I would take the lives of ten rebels for blighting a young man that way,” Stout said. “I would crucify them if that form of punishment were condoned in our society. It ought to be. Nothing is too cruel for those who precipitated this war of cruelty.”
One of the Commission members said, “With all due respect, Congressman, don’t you feel that’s a bit severe?”
“No, sir, I do not. A dear relative of mine, an aide to General Rosecrans, was slain at Murfreesboro not sixty days ago. There were no remains fit to be returned to his wife and little ones. His body was foully mutilated by those who slew him. Certain parts were—”
He stopped, clearing his throat; he knew he had overstepped.
But not so far as Virgilia was concerned. The man excited her as few had since her acquaintance with the visionary John Brown. She led the visitors through the ward in a curious light-headed state, her mind functioning well enough for her to describe each case, yet a part of it reserved for exhilarated contemplation of the congressman. Did he possibly find her as attractive as she found him?
Unwittingly, she lengthened her description of each patient’s diagnosis, until Turner started to tap his foot. When that did no good, he pulled out a large gold watch. “I am afraid we shall have to hurry along, Miss Hazard. We are due to inspect the quartermaster’s stores.”
“Certainly, Mr. Turner.” She hesitated, then reminded herself that if Stout walked out unaware of her reaction to him, she might never see him again. “I wonder if I first might have a moment to speak privately with the congressman? This hospital has certain urgent needs. Perhaps he could help with them.”
She knew it was flimsy, but she could think of nothing better. Turner and the balloon-shaped female suspected her game and exchanged sharp looks; propriety was being outraged here. Congressman Stout rolled his hat brim in white fingers, unsmiling except in his dark eyes. He understood, too.
Virgilia turned and walked away. The visitors moved in the opposite direction, one grumbling. Stout followed her. Feeling that she must be scarlet, she halted between two beds in which the patients were asleep. No one could hear when she turned and whispered to Stout.
“I lied a moment ago. Our needs are well supplied.”
His eyes drifted to her breasts, then upward again. With his back to the others, he permitted himself a smile. “I thought that might be the happy circumstance. Hoped so, to be truthful.”
“I—” She hardly believed it was Virgilia Hazard searching for the words, but it was the new Virgilia, conceived the night Brett came to her and brushed her hair. “—I merely wished to express admiration for your remarks about the enemy. I share your loathing of the South, and I can’t tolerate the prospect of a soft peace of the kind Mr. Lincoln advocates.”
Stout’s lips compressed. “There will be no soft peace if certain of us in Congress have our way.” He bent forward, his voice as magnificent as the low registers of a pipe organ. “If you have occasion to visit Washington, it would be pleasant to exchange views on the subject at greater length.”
“I—would enjoy that, Congressman. I can understand your passion for prosecuting the war, since you had a relative tortured by the enemy.”
“My wife’s older brother.”
He said it and let it hang between them. She felt as if he had hit her. From the slight curl of his mouth and the expression in his eyes, she knew the revelation was not accidental.
“Your—?”
“Wife,” he repeated. “Since we came from Muncie, she has been preoccupied with female society—humanitarian committees, that type of thing. I accompany her in public only when some obligation demands it. I say all this to indicate we have little in common.”
“Except a marriage certificate.”
“That is rather stiff-necked, Miss Hazard. I am not a man given to falsehoods—except when addressing constituents.” The effort to produce a smile failed. “Please, don’t be angry. I find you exceedingly attractive. I merely wanted to be candid. If I lied and you found out, you’d think the worse of me.”
Her head began to hurt. A queasy conviction came over her that he had said all this before. It had a practiced smoothness.
“My marriage should not be an obstacle to our meeting discreetly for a meal and some stimulating conversation.”
She took a step backward. “I’m afraid it definitely is an obstacle.”
He frowned. “My dear Miss Hazard, don’t let foolish prudery—”
&nb
sp; “You must excuse me, Congressman.” She spun and walked away.
Virgilia was furious because she had let her emotions betray her—take her by surprise and humiliate her. She had felt a physical desire for the man stronger than any she had experienced since Grady died. The desire was all the sharper because Stout was a person of power and influence.
The image of his eyes, the memories of his reverberating voice brought a look of pain to her face as she crashed through the swing doors at the end of the ward.
“Damn him, damn him, damn him for being married.”
69
THE TAPROOM WAS UNSAVORY and in a bad location, down on Q Street near Greenleaf’s Point. The place teemed with boisterous officers from the arsenal, goatish civilians, loitering thugs, and prostitutes—white, black, even a Chinese. Jasper Dills had gone there with enormous reluctance and only because a meeting could not be held in his usual, respectable haunts. He was, after all, responding to an appeal from an army deserter.
Dills’s driver, who carried a concealed pistol, waited at the copper-clad bar, which helped to relieve the little lawyer’s anxiety. One couldn’t be too careful in Washington. Even these once-remote warrens of the island swarmed with new inhabitants—speculators, white refugees who had tossed loyalty aside and fled the war-blasted counties of northern Virginia, contrabands of every age and hue. Dills would never risk himself in such surroundings if it weren’t for the stipend.
Across the table, Bent said, “I am desperate, Mr. Dills. I have no means of supporting myself.”
Dills tapped manicured nails against his glass of mineral water. “Your somewhat incoherent letter managed to make that clear. I’ll speak straightforwardly, and I expect you to heed every word. If I make the arrangements—if I write the note I have in mind—you must not place me at risk. You must deal with the gentleman to whom I propose to introduce you as if the past didn’t exist. You must wipe from your mind your difficulties at West Point. Your fancied grievances—”
Bent struck the table. “They are not fancied.”
“Do that once more,” Dills whispered, “and I will get up and leave.”
Shaking, Bent covered his eyes. What a contemptible hulk he was, the lawyer thought. “Please, Mr. Dills— I’m sorry. I can overlook the past.”
“You’d better. Because of your actions in New Orleans, no legitimate avenues are open to you. This one is marginal at best.”
“How—how did you hear about New Orleans?”
“I have ways. I maintain an interest in your career. It isn’t material to our discussion. Now, down to cases. You assure me that, so far as you know, you’ve never met the gentleman under discussion?”
“No.”
“But he is probably familiar with your real name. For that reason, and also because he has access to military records, we must outfit you with another. Let’s call it your nom de guerre.” The conceit produced a cool smile, the lawyer’s first during this encounter.
Nom de guerre. Wonderfully fitting, Bent thought. He was still fighting a war, this one for survival, for life itself.
A tawny whore stroked Dills’s shoulder. He lifted her hand and flung it off. She glared and waggled away to someone else. Dills sipped his mineral water.
Then he asked, “What name shall I use?”
Bent fingered his jowl. “Something from Ohio? What about Dayton? Ezra Dayton.”
“Bland enough,” Dills responded, shrugging. “You will have to go to the War Department for the initial meeting. Can you do that?”
“Is there no other—?” He stopped, seeing Dills’s hard stare. “Yes, I’m sure I can.”
Dills wasn’t, but he said, “Very well. Before your late disappearance from the military rolls, you earned something of a reputation for brutality—Oh, don’t gasp and feign innocence. I’ve seen copies of your records. In this instance, that unpleasant propensity works to your advantage. Write the address of your rooming house on this piece of paper. Tomorrow I’ll send a messenger with an envelope addressed to Ezra Dayton, Esquire. The envelope will contain a second, sealed one, which you must not open. That will be my note of introduction, recommending you for employment by the secretary’s aide for domestic security, Stanley Hazard.”
Two days later, at half past seven in the morning, Bent brushed up the sack coat he had purchased in New Orleans. He deplored its travel-stained condition, but he had nothing else. He planned to walk the whole way to the War Department; he was down to his last few dollars and wouldn’t squander them on transportation. The interview might go badly. If it did, he was done. He would be forced to thievery—or worse.
Outside his sleazy rooming house, he turned right, past a weedy lot where contrabands had erected blanket tents and shanties of scrap lumber, undoubtedly stolen. He glared at the colored people squatting around a cook fire.
A mild spell had interrupted the severe February weather. In brightening sunshine, he trudged all the way across the island, over the canal, and through the mall to the columned portico of the War Department building, which looked immense to him: three stories of brick, with chimneys jutting above bare trees.
Inside, an armed soldier demanded to know his business. With a perspiring hand, Bent presented the sealed letter. The soldier directed him upstairs. On his way, he paused to peer into an anteroom where a pudgy gnome with steel-rimmed spectacles stood at a tall writing desk that separated him from a line of petitioners—weeping women, army officers and noncoms, civilians who were probably contractors. The gnome was Stanton, Bent realized with some astonishment. Did he hold public audiences regularly?
In a spacious office on the floor above, an orderly led him to the fine walnut desk of Stanley Hazard. Standing in front of it, he noticed a flake on his left sleeve: some of the hardtack he had munched for breakfast and washed down with a cup of water. He was too nervous to remove the crumb.
He felt the prod of the past. But Mr. Stanley Hazard bore little resemblance to his younger brother. Further, he was plumper and sleeker than Bent remembered. Expensively dressed, too, with a ruffled shirt and a flowing cravat whose color matched his rusty orange frock coat.
Having kept his visitor waiting while he slit open the letter and read it, Stanley at last deigned to wave. “Do sit down. My time is rather short this morning.”
Stanley laid the letter in front of him. Bent had to struggle to squeeze his buttocks into the chair. The past overwhelmed him. A blood vessel in his temple started to quiver, but he forced himself to mute thoughts of violence. This man represented his best, perhaps his only, means of saving himself from poverty and total failure. He must forget the man’s family.
It became easier the moment Stanley smiled, a slow smile, comfortingly greasy. “This letter from Counselor Dills states that your name’s Dayton—but not really.”
Bent blinked in terror. “What’s that?” Had the lawyer betrayed him?
“You are not aware of the contents of this?”
“No, no.”
Stanley read aloud. “Dayton is a pseudonym. His true identity cannot be disclosed because of certain connections with highly placed persons. These must be protected. His enforced anonymity, however, in no wise diminishes his ability to assist you, or my strong commendation of him to your attention.”
“Very—very kind of the counselor to say that,” Bent gasped, relieved.
Stanley folded his hands and studied his caller. “The counselor presents you as a candidate for what we call special or detached service with a bureau of this department which, officially, does not exist. The bureau involves itself with purging the public sphere of persons whose opinions or actions are inimical to the government. This can be done by direct order of the secretary—”
Bent knew that much; Stanton had a reputation for immense power. He had only to murmur, and a critic of the administration disappeared into Old Capitol Prison, on First Street.
“—although more frequently of late, as enemies become more numerous, action has been initiated by
the bureau itself. Chief of the bureau is Colonel Baker, who is also charged with carrying out certain confidential missions behind enemy lines. Occasionally I send him a promising man. Evidently that is what Dills has in mind.”
Stanley left it there, awaiting a response. Perspiring, Bent blurted, “It sounds like tremendously important work, sir. Work I could do with enthusiasm. I am staunchly behind the programs of this administration—”
“That always seems to be the case with job seekers.” Stanley’s smirk made Bent squirm.
A moment later, a new thought struck Bent. This particular member of the Hazard clan might be cut from the same bolt as he was—and perhaps didn’t deserve his enmity. Stanley Hazard was haughty, open about his importance. Those were characteristics Bent admired.
“Bear in mind, Dayton, Colonel Baker is the gentleman who says yes or no to hiring an operative. I can, however, add my recommendation to that of Dills.”
“It would be very kind if you—”
“I haven’t said I would,” Stanley interrupted. Another moment of scrutiny. “Why aren’t you in the army?”
Terror then. He had prepared himself for the question, but it was as if he hadn’t. “I was, Mr. Hazard.”
“Of course we can’t check on that because of the problem with your identity. Very neat.” A faint smile relieved Stanley’s severity. “You can at least reveal the circumstances of your separation.”
“Yes, surely. I resigned. I refused to accept a transfer to command of a nigger unit.”
Stanley closed his fist. “Keep that sort of remark to yourself in this department. The secretary is a devout partisan of emancipation.”
Again Bent stared into the abyss of failure. “I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Hazard. I promise—”
Stanley waved a second time. “Take this bit of advice also. Colonel Baker is a strong temperance man. If you drink, don’t do it before you meet him.”
Bent’s hope soared. Stanley continued in a more confidential way. “That caveat aside, the colonel doesn’t demand sainthood or even ideological purity. He demands only two qualities. His men must be trustworthy and willing to obey orders. Any orders, no matter how—” a hand fluttered, struggling to convey meaning “—irregular they might appear to certain misguided constitutionalists.” He leaned forward so fast he seemed to be swooping down on prey. “Do I communicate clearly, sir?”
