Andersonville
Page 40
Captain Winder, I tell you now, it is again I make request for you to— Requisition for spades and axes! It is I must have a larger prison, God damn!
Oh, that’s all very well, to speak of implements; and I got them last year and I presume I can get them again; but these damn planters won’t coöperate. All of them want to keep their niggers at home. They raise hell all the way from Macon to Milledgeville every time I try to get hold of a few niggers.
By God, mine own niggers I got. Prisoners I got, nigger prisoners. In the carload I got them!
Well, wouldn’t that be forced labor? Contrary to the Rules of War? Next time I have communication with my father I’ll—
I tell you, you Sid Winder, those picks and spades and axes, those I got to have. God damn, I blow them Rules of War up somebody’s ass, I tell you!
Sid Winder had been manicuring his nails with his penknife. After Wirz left he saw a great bluebottle fly upon the barrelhead beside him, and tried to impale the fly with his knife blade, and missed. He thought, Little bastard of a Swiss squirt. I don’t understand how the old man tolerates him. But we surely are killing off a lot of damn Yankees here. Everybody’s got to do his share. Sid Winder thought of Harrell Elkins, thought of him with undying hatred and with a fear which he could never quite put down . . . cavalry sabers at two paces.
Wirz hacked fiercely at the problem, and eventually he secured his coveted tools. Once more the chant of black voices moaned among trees, this time due north of the existing stockade. Once more resin dripped, chips spun, shaggy tops came crashing.
Oh, he gone up there. Never come back again.
Where you say he gone?
Ooohhh. . . .
Work went forward with speed surpassing far the laggardly construction of the original stockade. Only some ten acres were to be enclosed, the ground was mainly flat, there was no creek to be crossed, no gates to be made. Simply it was an extension of the rectangle by about six hundred feet. Main Street and South Street would still serve as arteries for traffic and commerce. It was told lugubriously Inside that the raiders would undoubtedly preëmpt the fresh space for themselves—it would not be saturated with slime, it would be higher, more healthful, farther away from effluvium of the marsh. In fact the raiders had no intention of moving. Why should they move? They had their castles, their pavilion, they had all the room they wanted; as for effluvium, most of them had been born in it. Faster, faster sounded the click of axes, drone of the diggers, sharp cries of overseers beyond the north wall. Henry Wirz was no lounging Sid Winder. He drove unceasingly.
Where you say he gone?
Ooohhh, ooohhhh, way up there above.
He gone up there, up in the sky. Never come back no more.
Ooohhh. . . .
A strange calm, comparative silence came in the middle of June: heavy work was done. Now was essential only the final touch on ladders and sentry stations. On the evening of June eighteenth there came the sound of digging and prying. The more energetic prisoners gathered outside the deadline to gape up at shacks on the north rim. There were no longer any guards on those platforms. A portion of the fence began to sway, first one log toppled, then three or four others were pried and they fell thunderously. That’s enough, a voice called outside. Big enough hole for them to get through.
Provident prisoners had taken up already their dirty bundles of personal belongings, their cooking tins; they rolled the fabric of shebangs and were treasuring the poles. Men seeped gingerly across the abandoned deadline at first, but soon a minor riot ensued as more and more sought to force their way through the aperture, to make claims on new holdings in the clean area. There were more than twenty-two thousand people in the place on this day, and if these twenty-two thousand were distributed evenly throughout the old acres and the new there would be an end to unbearable swarming. But— Hold on. What of the future? How many more trains would come wrenching to the Anderson depot? It was rumored that all prisoners held by the eastern States of the Confederacy might be concentrated in this one place. For how long would pressure be relaxed? Oh, dear Lord above, it would tighten, it would tighten.
By the hour of darkness the bulk of migration was concluded. In human and animal fashion grass had appeared greener on the other side (it was greener, it would not be for many hours; by the next day there would be no grass) and more folks stampeded into the north enclosure than could be accommodated. Many late arrivals limped back to their old haunts in disgust, and in turn found their original quarters occupied by men who had moved up from marshy regions; there were fights throughout the wet moonlit hours. Henry Wirz rode home pleased with himself. They had said that it was impossible to move the hospital outside; the hospital was now outside. They had said that it was impossible to enlarge the stockade; the stockade had been enlarged. His immediate project was for the removal of the old fence. Seven hundred and eighty feet of palisading, each log twenty feet in length . . . dried out; and the buried ends would not have been long enough in the earth to decay. What might not he build with this treasure? A separate punishment stockade—he had thought of that, he had planned for that with what amounted to affection. And bridges and trestles. On the morrow he would cry for wagons, wagons. Should he not obtain wagons from some source or other the logs could easily be snaked out at the ends of chains, hauled by mules. If worst came to worst he might harness gangs of Negroes together and have them pull the logs.
Chastised into performance by tightening of narcotic energy, he was back at the stockade soon after sunrise on the morning of June nineteenth. He climbed fussing to a new sentry station north of the corner of the old stockade. At first he became sick at his stomach and tottered dizzily; then he began to rave, literally, until frothy spittle flew from his beard. The fence was gone. The old fence was gone. The solid palisade was vanished as if giants had leaned down from the sky and plucked the pines like toothpicks. It was not merely that the old line of stockading had been dug up or knocked down: there were simply no logs in sight.
Who, who, who? That damn Sid Winder? That damn Dick Winder? That damn colonel commanding the post? No one had authority to do this thing. The lumber was his, his—it belonged to Henry Wirz, he had plans for using it— He stood gasping for breath at last, German curses still lingering in echo— He would find curses in English when— When he had more strength— He would go to General Winder in person— His property had been stolen. A seven-hundred-and-eighty-foot line of logs twenty feet tall. Someone had taken his logs.
Prisoners, sir, the old guard was saying weakly behind him.
Vas? What you say, guard?
I said, Captain, twas the prisoners as done it.
Them damn logs? Mein logs? Them damn Yankees? Son of a bitch—
Yes sir, Captain. We heard them a-doing it. All night long. But nobody’d give us any orders to fire. And they wasn’t inside the deadline—not much, anyways—
Yankees. They had taken his fence, with their bare hands they had taken it, picked it apart with striving fingernails, scraped it to nothingness with puny primitive tools. Firewood, flooring, roofing: it bloomed about the fuming area. As Henry’s vision cleared, he could look down and recognize split pine posts here and there, the rows of newly splintered material.
They do that, he croaked again, not daring to believe.
Yes, Captain, they did so, sure as white blossoms make little apples.
He crept down the ladder, his head was aching. Twenty-two thousand three hundred sixty-two Yankees. Was that the last report he had drawn up? No, no, he could not recollect. Twenty-two thousand Yankees, each had eight fingers and two thumbs . . . ach, ja, some had been amputated; but there were more than twenty-two thousand prisoners, and so— Call it two hundred and twenty thousand fingers. He closed his eyes and he could see the mass of those clawing twitching curling fierce fingers like a nest of worms as big as a house— As big as— As big as the Louvre? Not that big.
Papa, said little Coralie when she came barefoot and in her nightdress, Please, Papa, can I get in bed with you?
Ja, Liebchen, he said after a moment or two, when the knowledge of her request reached through befuddlement. He held up the covering with his left hand, and the child giggled and hunched with pleasure, snuggling close to his side.
Shall you sing me the song, Mein Vater?
He liked to have her call him Father in German, he had taught her to do so. In his cracked nasal voice, but softly, softly, he began to sing a little song which a kind old lady had sung to him first in 1826 when he was but four. He wished that it were 1826 now, he wished that he were but four. Cora lay still as a mouse, her gentle appreciative breathing reached his ears.
XXVII
Laurel Tebbs came in shyness to the Claffey plantation, seeking the loan of a thimble. I did have one, she said in her high-pitched voice. Her voice was a whine suggesting some kind of animal inheritance, an inheritance from an animal whipped too frequently for its own good, and fearing more blows. Did have one, silver one what belonged to Granny or so twas said; but Zoral he kept a-playing with it, dropping it down a crack; and then I’d have to give him a lick and make him crawl under the house after it; and one day he couldn’t find it no way, nor could I, though I went under the house my own self; and I surely hated to do that, count of the dead chickens and rats he’s always a-dragging under there. Reckon maybe he dropped it down— She lowered her tone, faced with the delicacy of Lucy’s presence. Down the privy.
Lucy said, I’m sorry it was lost.
Coral he was kind enough to make me a thimble out’n a big acorn; but that split in two today; and I was part way through sewing myself a gown, and I hain’t got no other gown fit to put on, cepting this one, and the purple one used to belong to Ma. That’s for dress-up.
Lucy said, Come into the house, child, and let me look about. She addressed Laurel thus naturally, not realizing that the girl was fifteen, thinking of her still as the shrunken bag-of-bones she’d always been, peering from behind fences and weed-brakes at the doings of the Claffeys and their people.
Laurel’s father was a frightened Americus widower who had the devil’s own time trying to support his five children on meager returns from his occupation as cooper. Mr. Marion Padgett was hopelessly pale, his kinky hair was orange, his sad small face was spattered with orange freckles and so were his hands and wiry arms. When he made a statement of a fact it sounded like a question, for every sentence ended with a rising inflection which said, Excuse me, was it all right for me to say this, to say anything at all? His children sounded the same way, even when speaking to one another. Marion Padgett hovered over them ceaselessly, putting clothes to soak at ungodly hours of the morning, running from his workbench to take a boiler from the fire, putting down his hammer to take up a soup ladle. He was fortunate in that the children never needed discipline or punishment, they were all too wan and apologetic to fight even among themselves. The Padgetts trotted to the Methodist church each Sunday like a covey of starved red-headed warblers, but mainly silent warblers who did not know how to warble. One day in 1848 a bearded stranger with a tall beaver hat marched into the cooperage which stood in the same yard as the Padgett cottage. It appeared that Marion’s sister had died in Charleston, and her husband had preceded her to the grave by only five days. There were no children, no other relatives, no heirs but Francis Marion Padgett. The property consisted of a house and furniture and some jewelry of value, together with a large lot on Meeting Street and five well-trained Negroes, and forty-two hundred dollars in cash. Marion Padgett spat the nails out of his mouth and wandered in a daze. His children wept to see him go, and he was deaf to the stranger who hastened for a time at his side saying, But, sir, where are you going—? Damn it, sir! Mr. Padgett, I request that you pay some heed to what I am saying— Come back to your house, sir! Your children are in tears! Eventually the lawyer had to return to the cooperage alone, and he parceled the children out to neighbors, and sat in a nearby inn awaiting Marion’s return, in dudgeon. He had to wait three days.
Reports drifted back of a Marion Padgett who wandered from one seller of brandy to another seller of brandy. Mistrusting any orthodox depository, he carried always what few funds he had about him in a chamois-skin bag tied to the belt which held up his pantaloons. Through rigorous saving and self-denial and child-denial he had accumulated thirty-seven dollars against a mortgage payment of forty dollars, plus the quarter’s interest which must be paid soon. Reports drifted of a Marion Padgett who hired a horse and chaise and was seen driving madly over rough roads in the adjacent wilderness. In time he arrived at the Tebbs place. Thus he fathered Laurel. (There was always some doubt about this in the Widow Tebbs’ mind, since it chanced that she had entertained two other red-headed gentlemen in that same week. Well, she said, my little girl does look a sight like that Marion, and I knowed him when I was scarce more’n a infant myself; but I reckon she looks a sight like one of the others, too. And I weren’t yet a widow then, and— But it’s been quite a time since; and all them doses of gunpowder never did do no good at all. She had a vague thought of puppies and kittens. The child cried, and Mag picked her up and cuddled her. She thought briefly of Marion Padgett, now said to be living in distant luxury. She thought once more of Marion, then he strayed from her simple mind, he returned seldom.)
This was an especially hot day, and Lucy was conscious of the strong odor of Laurel Tebbs as the round-shouldered little creature moved beside her. She said sharply, Miss, have you bathed yourself of late? as she might have said it to one of her own servants, and then felt that she had been heedless and cruel, and was ashamed.
Nome, spoke the languid voice. It’s so hard to bring up water from our well, and Coral he’s always off to the forest, and Flory’s gone to the army, and Zoral’s but a babe. Ma she’s always a-entertaining or a-sleeping. I just can’t scarcely pull that big sweep, hain’t got the power.
Then you shall go over to Little Sweetwater, said Lucy brightly. For I have some rose oil which I pressed, and I shall give you a bit of that, and it’s no earthly good, of course, if you’re not freshly scrubbed. And I shall give you a square of Windsor for your own.
Miss Lucy, whined Laurel, I’d be plumb scairt to go naked in the creek. Too many sojers about.
Then go far up the creek, the big creek, where there’s no one.
That I’ll do, if’n you say I got to. Please, what’s Windsor?
Tis a toilet soap I’ve made myself, and scented with caraway, and it’s just the best! Except for variegated toilet soap, and I used to make that too, with Extra shaving the bar-soap fine; but we’ve no longer any Chinese blue and only a teentsie bit of Chinese vermilion.
This conversation occurred in the hall and on the stairs, and Laurel now stood with her hostess in Lucy’s chamber. Oh, just lots of pretties, she said without envy. She was accustomed to seeing silver and portraits, certain elements of grandeur although decayed grandeur, when she helped at the Biles’. But she had never entered a dainty young lady’s room before.
Lucy searched through work-basket, work-table, drawers, appraising her stock of thimbles. She thought that she owned four but could find only three. One of these had belonged to Great-aunt Mary Flo; Lucy remembered this woman as a waspish invalid in a scarlet silk dressing gown; she cherished no particularly pleasant memories of Great-aunt Mary Flo. And the thimble was too narrow for her own finger now that she was grown.
This you may have.
&
nbsp; For to keep?
Certainly, for your own. Mind and don’t let Baby Brother get his paws on it.
Reckon I can hide it from him. The girl smiled in wan delight. Didn’t figure to come a-begging. Twas just for the lend; but I do thank you, Miss Lucy.
Now for rose oil and the Windsor! Lucy found the oil on her wash-stand shelf and poured a trifle into an empty pill-flask which had been saved with care. Here’s the toilet soap in my cupboard. And—
Critically she inspected the stringy hair of the child beside her; actually she expected to see vermin, but did not find any; she spread the hair with her fingers with disgust but also in explorative curiosity. She was very curious about fellow human beings—wondering privately how they ate, cared for their bodies, washed or did not wash, felt, thought, lived, died. Certain influences in her rearing cried that this was unwomanly, and Lucy had pride as a woman, she did not wish to be unwomanly although often she knew that she was unladylike in the generally accepted sense, and felt impish about it.
Such a lovely color to your hair, Laurel. It’s like a wild orange, and I remember how Uncle Felton fetched a sack of them.
Hain’t never ate no orange. Ma says they’re good to suck but mighty puckerish.
But pretty hair should be tended—I suppose it’s like the oranges themselves—they must need sun and rain, and your hair needs soap and water.
Well, I did wash it with soap but it like to burnt the hide off my head. And it got all stiff as weeds.
You had no fit shampoo, I fancy. Lucy scribbled a note at her desk and rang for one of the blacks; after some time there was a response. Ninny looked injured at finding Laurel Tebbs in the young mistress’s bed chamber; she stood in a silently sneering attitude, firm in conviction that the young mistress was demeaning herself.