XXXIV
Lucy wrote. Dear Coz: Yours of July the 4th rec’d. and contents noted duly, with especial attention devoted to the illustration which was executed with a flourish remarkable in one professedly so weary. We did enjoy the row of Yankees sitting on the great Chinese cracker, with Mr. Lincoln’s tall hat in prominence! What an excellent fashion in which to dispose of those grand nuisances at the North! You did not identify the rather furtive figure shown setting a torch to the fuse. Who in the entire Christian domain wears spectacles as large as those? Twould be someone very proud of his spectacles, or else ashamed of them. Tut. You would not know, because you do not wear spectacles. Or do you? I can’t scarcely recollect.
Hereabouts the Yankees have no Chinese crackers, nor crackers of any kind, poor things. Dare I consider them as Poor Things? But charity should still be Christian virtue in an embittered age such as the one in which we dwell. Therefore, Miss L. Claffey, be virtuous and call them Poor Things! Poppy goes perpetually to watch. Wild horses could not drag me, though I hear that many ladies have been. Twas told that recently a bevy of simpering beauties from Americus or some nearby community ascended in daintiness to the guards’ little stations, assisted gallantly up the ladders by eager officers; and from their lofty situation they amused themselves by sprightly comments made to the prisoners; asking them how many niggers they owned at the North, Shouldn’t they like to have currant cakes baked for them?—et cetera. Had I been one of the unfortunates thus goaded, I should have hurled mud balls at Their Sweetnesses. Father became surly when he heard of the event. But still he himself insists on going to the pen each day, though not to taunt the captives. He says the mere thought of the place keeps him disturbed of nights. I conclude tis the unpleasant odor which causes me to lie restless.
But even amid such squalor there can arise amusement at times. For instance, immediately following the execution (which I recited to you in some detail. Secondhandedly, of course: I fear that my letter must have gone astray, and trust that eventually it shall turn up) the bodies of those executed were cut down, and preparations made to convey them to the graveyard. While this was being done, the gallows itself just naturally melted away! Wood is very hard to come by over there; the sight of those fine posts and boards was more than the wood-starved populace could bear. My father watched, he said it was a sight: Tom going off with a length of rope, Dick and Harry scuttling with a rafter betwixt them. There were no guards inside the enclosure at the time, so the light-fingered gentry made off safely with their plunder. Tis understood that the prison’s superintendent became apoplectic at the news.
I have met him barely: a glum bearded gentleman of foreign extraction. Some time since, Poppy thought that it would be an attention for me to call upon the Captain’s wife, so newly come amongst us. They dwell at the Boss place (one side, since it is a double house), and there I rode upon our tallest mule, ensconced upon my dearly-beloved-but-seldom-used-nowadays saddle. With Jem stepping beside in the role of groom! I invited Mrs. Wirz to take tea at some future time, but she has never availed herself of the invitation. The two elder children—I understand that they are the progeny of a previous union on the part of the lady—are named Susie and Cornelia, and are quite young ladies. The only child of Captain Wirz and Mrs. Wirz is little Coralie. Is that not a pretty name? She is nine or thereabouts: a gay and bubbling creature with extremely fair skin. Proudly she displayed her treasures, much impressed especially by a necklace her father fetched her from abroad. The elder half-sisters speak of and to her tenderly as Baby Sister. The child was having her hair combed and curled when first I saw her. Twas sweet to see that fair head between her mammy’s knees. The child said, with that definite air with which some infants impart nonsense, My Daddy is a Catholic, my Mother is a Methodist, but I shall be a Baptist when I am a grown-up lady! I felt that I should attempt to persuade her into our Presbyterian fold; but had no such dramatics as immersion to offer. Later we talked of horses and riding. Her big eyes gleamed as I described the fashion in which my brothers used to cavort, the fences they used to jump.
I observe that I have said little of the mother. She is short, small-boned, a bit inclined to plumpness. Her voice is affable; poor thing, they have so little space in the small half of that double house, and it must be a trial. One of the elder girls possesses also a beautiful voice. I heard her singing in the garden. Mrs. W. set out her best to serve me what passes for Java nowadays (but her wench could not make miracles out of crusts or okra, as can Naomi): an Austrian china coffee set complete with pitchers, very lovely, purple flowers on white. As I said, she has never returned my call, but I do not think it rude. She has much to claim her time. The husband appeared before I left. He is grave, almost to the point of glowering, he seemed; but, poor man, he suffers from an old wound, and his arm was slung, and Poppy says tis often carried thus. He is commended to the tender mercies of the Old Scratch by guards and Yankees alike. Still, I should not be surprised but that he does the best he can, and with so little in the way of supplies or food available. I should not say food: tis sickening to watch the munificence of our garden go to waste beneath the sun. Even after our black people have eaten their fill. Poppy plants so much and tends with such care that we are surfeited with green things. One day I loaded the wenches with baskets of turnips and lettuces, and set out to play Lady Bountiful—even to Yankees. We were turned back by the guards, who said that we must have a pass. I knew not how to obtain one. I reported the matter to my father that evening, and thought that he would be highly indignant; but he only smiled his patient smile and said something about dipping the Nile with a sieve.
They do make beer, those Yankees. Now I shall offer you the formula, in the event that you may wish to tipple likewise. They mix cornmeal in water, and beg or buy some sorghum from the youths who guard them. This concoction is set out in the boiling sun to brew or ferment. Perish the thought! I should not wish to be a brewer, nor even to taste. On the other hand, Poppy declares that the mixture is good for them. Might it possibly delay the effects of scurvy from which so many are said to be suffering? What say you to this, out of your lore of medical wisdom? Please, Surgeon, do not prescribe such a dose for your ailing Cousin!
Enough of such jesting. Now to a sadder report: my mother’s health concerns us greatly. We are powerless to cope with the situation. More and more through recent weeks has she ignored the plate put before her. I have tried broths, jellies, egg-nogs and the like, have racked my brain to no avail. She appears to be starving; it is self-induced. Were she to take a fever, the end would be near. But in her demented state she is deaf to any plea or argument put against her. Weep for me, Cousin Harry. I am so very tired of weeping for myself. . . .
Elkins wrote: Dear Cousin Lucy, Your letter of recent date has crystallized an intention in my mind. I have requested an assignment to duty at Camp Sumter. I cannot guarantee that I shall get it. Vaguely have I told myself, in viewing repeatedly those reports relating to shocking inadequacies at the stockade, that I would be serving our Nation far better in that situation than I might in Macon or Savannah. Sometimes there is naught upon my desk in the way of a paper. On other occasions you might dig far beneath the heaps ere you unearthed a veritable caricature of a surgeon who finds fewer and fewer hairs to scratch upon his head each day. As you know, I earnestly desired further duty in the field, and this was not to be. Were I at Camp Sumter, I might feel that I fought somewhere along a line of battle, even though my task entailed saving a few lives among the very human beings whom once I strove to destroy. Humanity seems crying aloud, and who is there to listen? Certainly not those dullards up Richmond way! Report and file, report and file: that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. Our poor and admired Keats! Would he not have had a quicker wastage had he dwelt in that City Upon Your Doorstep, Coz?
But now I am impelled to add another motive, and that is to be of service to you and yours, who have been so generous, more than generous, in the
friendship afforded me. I am not worthy of the name soldier in so putting my own desires above whatever orders have been issued or may be issued. But let us observe, my dear Lucy—
She read the line again and again. The first time he has addressed me so. . . .
—I am but one of mankind, proportionately selfish. I witness selfishness demonstrated in variety each day that I live; even did I see it so when engaged in the field. Now I am not a soldier; I am a surgeon accompanying the military, and subservient to military command. My intelligence is puny at best, I confess. But at night, in or out of my slumbers, I hear a voice saying, Go to Camp Sumter. An angel ordering me about? Could that be? I know not. Angel or fiend. But I have applied as I described to you ante, and shall be in inner turmoil from now on. There is this to be said, also: they are so woefully understaffed, and it is so difficult to procure even the most indolent of the contract surgeons for duty at Anderson, that someone might observe, Huzza! Have we here an imbecile who actually desires to go there? By Heaven, he shall go!
Lucy wrote: Your most recent dispatch has Poppy and me agog. Frankly I dread to inform you that not even your tender offices would aid my poor mother now. She is sinking, all skin and bone she is, and with such a stare. We try to force her physically to take nourishment. Grief, what a time. And the weather hotter and hotter. May I say primly that twould be a comfort and a pleasure to Poppy and myself to know that your kind person was at hand, not merely the kindness of your thoughts? Poppy is so concerned with the desperate condition of those prisoners. It occupies him night and day. Fairly does he walk the floor. I read to him the portion of your letter describing your intent. He struck his hands together and spoke something in this wise: I have seen the hospital, and am aware that no individual might cope with the situation. There are too many lacks, too many needs. But surely it would be better for those suffering youths, and better thus in the sight of God, if at least one man of strong purpose were to be on duty at the hospital.
Oh dear, I have made a botch of trying to convey the tenor of his thought. But at least, Coz, he hopes that you will be ordered here. And so, I confess with all maidenly decorum, do I. Now must I scamper off. Pet has the toothache, and I am to pull it. Your old room—Suthy’s room—is awaiting you. Surely twill not be necessary for you to sleep yonder in that squalid place? No, unnecessary—I know that much—I see various of the surgeons lounging past in the lane, and hear their talk. They dwell elsewhere. Many I fear are very much elsewhere much of the time. . . .
Elkins did not appear until late in the month, and when he did arrive he was accompanied by a soldierly person named Chandler. They had become acquainted briefly at the Macon headquarters. When at last Harrell Elkins boarded the car which would jolt him sixty miles to the south, he found Colonel Chandler sitting with luggage beside him.
Elkins possessed and exuded the power and sweetness of the simple man who has suffered. Colonel Chandler might have been withdrawn, almost austere, confronted with a person more pretentious. Elkins’s shape, appearance, voice, attitude made him a butt for the ignorant or unheeding; but identified him as trustworthy promptly to the experienced and discerning.
The two men bumped along through the hours, side by side on the scratched wooden bench with three militiamen and a wounded home-going corporal chattering distantly at the forward end of the car. Colonel Chandler was a graduate of the United States Military Academy. Like so many devoted to his cause he had felt that the Confederacy (like its army) was the repository of the best brains and abilities extant. He had never attempted to evaluate the economic factors, in fact was not too keenly aware of their existence, until repeated thudding defeats of 1863 made him aware. Now he saw his new proud Country prostrate before Northern assaults, armored only by its armies. The Confederacy was weaponed no longer with hope, only with determination. To most men Chandler would have voiced his opinion never; to a few he would have spoken directly if satirically. To Elkins, through the seven tiring laggardly hours, he opened his heart. The men were stronger friends when they got down from the ugly car at the Anderson station than many people would have been after an extended sea voyage. Harrell Elkins begged the colonel to accompany him to the Claffeys’—he knew that he would have been welcome. The colonel said No, he must get about his business. The assistant adjutant and inspector-general, Colonel R. H. Chilton, had ordered him to make a thorough examination of conditions at the prison, and to prepare a report as soon as was expedient.
Which report, came the grating voice of Elkins, who was no longer tempted by the illusion of justice, will be filed in the nearest chamber pot?
I fear as much. Nevertheless, what does one do?
Proceed according to the orders at hand!
Harry took up his residence at the Claffey place once more. Chandler went to live beyond the Sweetwater branch, where he was shrugged at by Henry Wirz (behind his back) and scorned by the Winders.
Harry had built his return to this region into an accomplishment: a savoring of all that was reassuring or noble. In common with those who dream too pleasurably in advance of an event, he suffered a letting down. His later warmness with Lucy had been constructed on paper; now, confronted with each other, the two young people remained aloof. But Ira offered affection and hospitality . . . Elkins felt himself received properly. Nevertheless there was a weakness, a lack of fulfillment here. The plague of Veronica’s insanity pervaded the household as did the odor of Andersonville. Harry sat by the woman’s bedside, was horrified but not too surprised at her shrinkage. He recognized fever, he felt the age-old perplexity of the physician who observes shadows of death merging, and feels that there is necessity in the approaching death; yet has sworn to hold it off as long as he may. In the end Elkins could recommend nothing but the hope that gruel and milk and soft eggs might be forced between the wooden jaws. He hoped the sufferer might be deluded into coöperation with those who would help her. Then he went to the prison hospital, he turned ghastly when he saw the prison hospital. He stayed for an afternoon and the following night; he slept heavily the next day, and was returned to the hospital before sunset.
XXXV
They tortured Veronica through the night, cooking her on the griddle of her bed. Veronica wished to be free of the griddle and of Them. Who They were she did not know, but They were many; some were white, some colored, They had hands and voices, They did annoying things like sponging the shred which was her body, putting spoons to her lips. She would set her jaws, spill the contents of the spoons, laugh because she had tricked Them again.
Ninny, rouse yourself.
The servant grunted, sighed, rolled her head against the padded chair-back.
Ninny. I’m speaking to you! Rouse softly.
Eyes opened at last, the kinky head shook. Yas, Miss Lucy.
Lucy whispered intently, I’m falling asleep myself, watching so. It is after one by the clock, so I must snatch an hour’s sleep or I’ll be fit for nothing. Hear me now: the master is with Jem, doctoring the Blackberry cow again, trying to save her. Should he come into the house he is not to watch by my mother’s bed, but also must rest. Hear?
Yas’m.
You can’t tell time, mused Lucy unhappily. (She had tried to teach Ninny to tell time, she had taught Extra when they were small; Ninny could not be taught.) Do you come over here to the clock, Ninny. Now, watch with care. This large hand moves faster than the small one. It will go slowly around—like this—and will pass the small hand; then when it reaches here, you are to come to my room and awaken me. Understand?
Yas’m, whispered the black woman, bored and frightened by the soft ticking wooden clock.
Veronica heard low conversation, heard it unheeded. I won’t, she told herself stubbornly. Definitely I shall not. They cannot compel me. She lay with eyes closed, dry lips hanging apart and revealing a protrusion of her small beautiful teeth.
Later there was no sound in the room but that conversational
clock and the easy snoring of the slave who again had fallen asleep a few minutes after Lucy left. Through coarse cloth fastened across open windows in lieu of mosquito netting came the vile odor and an audible medley of birds or children. . . . Her children? No. Safe. Asleep and must not be routed out. They’re gone to war. In the ground. The taller are dead. Nay, it is the smaller ones who are dead. Indeed, yes, Mrs. Ladshaw, Sutherland is still at Oglethorpe but this is his final year, commencement will occur in July. Moses has gone boating on the Flint with the McWhorters. Arwood lies sickly again, we fear for him.
She was ruled not only by craft of the demented but also by slyness of the cooked and dying. A deep resounding voice said, Come in, so she must respond to it as always. She’d heard the voice often in recent hours but, when she attempted to leave the pan in which she lay parching, certain creatures restrained her.
Miss Veronica, you must pretend to be tractable, pretend that you are submissive. With quiet leer and calm you must accept the heat over which They are baking you, even though you stick to the pan.
You are crying before a cupboard, you have shuddered down into a pile. This gown belonged to Baby Peggy, you have your face buried in it. . . . Move spectrally, or They’ll put you back into the skillet and build blazes higher.
Remotely birds and children made incessant mild tumult, closer at hand the Yellow Smell walked. It surrounded the bed as if curtains were drawn to hold it in; but curtains were not drawn. Veronica had her eyes opened at last (hard scheming burning eyes) and could see that it was true: curtains were caught up. She could look past the foot of the bed and see that solemn clock on its table, and the frizzled head of a servant lolling. Snoring again, said Veronica. Abominable sound. She should be broken of the habit, but how?
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