You are a lazy devil. So I’ve got that many dimes? Come along with you, and mind you don’t crush that packet of new laces.
This went on until Eric was sixteen, nearly seventeen, and one day he was walking alone on Broadway, on his way to pick up an express package, and he was attracted by a sign stating the large bounty offered to men who would enlist in the newest regiment being raised. He went into the tobacco store which served as recruiting headquarters, with two desks and a flag and a brilliantly-uniformed captain and an almost-as-brilliantly-uniformed sergeant and a not-too-brilliantly-uniformed pair of privates, accompanied by several neighborhood idlers who were not enlistees: they said that they were merely chewing the fat. One was a bearded old doctor whose hands shivered with palsy; but he guided Eric Torrosian into the back room among tobacco kegs and told him to take off his shirt. He pounded Eric’s thin chest and cupped his hairy ear against Eric’s ribs, listening. Also he whispered that Eric must unbutton his pants; he would see if he had any visible symptoms of syphilis. The entire examination took about three minutes, though they told him that a surgeon would look him over later. The old doctor, or so he claimed to be, begged the boy for a chew of tobacco, and, when he had none to give, the man said that a few cents in currency would be just as welcome; then the doctor could buy his own chew. Eric gave him a three-cent-piece and the doctor thanked him effusively. He propelled the boy into the front room, punching him alternately in the back and in the buttocks as he moved close behind him. He said, Captain O’Connor, I give you my word—a fine specimen of young manhood. A fine, fine specimen. This was the first time anyone had ever called Eric a fine specimen of manhood or even of boyhood, and he was proportionately pleased. He gave his age as eighteen and signed the roll. He was eager for the bounty, but they told him that the money could not be paid until he reported for duty at an uptown armory; that is, the State and Special bounties might be paid then. The National bounty would not be forthcoming until a certain amount of red tape had been untied.
Eric was sent home to get his personal belongings, and was warned to report at the armory not later than seven o’clock that night. Also he was given a ticket good for dinner and supper and breakfast at an eating-house near the armory, and the sergeant presented him with a paper nosegay of red-white-and-blue flowers to put in his button hole. Those soldiers laughed after he was outside, or as he was going out; he heard what they said; they knew well that Eric was not eighteen; in fact, one of them didn’t think that Eric was even sixteen. He guessed his age as fifteen, which infuriated the boy, and made him consider going back inside and giving that soldier a piece of his mind. But he didn’t go.
Instead he picked up the express package and took it home, where his father was mending the fringe on a mottled rug which had been chewed by rats somewhere in transit. Henry Torrosian was sitting cross-legged on the big wide work table shoved against the window to gain light. This alone prevented him from stabbing Eric with his needle when Eric gave the news. Anna burst into dreadful lamentation and cried and prayed in German, and when she could be understood she demanded that Henry go immediately to the recruiters and inform them that Eric was only sixteen, and couldn’t go to the army.
You do that and I’ll run away.
Where would you run to?
I’d walk, I’d catch rides on freight wagons. I’d get a job as a prentice in Philadelphia or Boston or somewheres. You’d never find me.
He spoke the truth, for he had planned to run away if they scotched his military plans.
Ai. Now by my own son I am deserted. My back is lame, boy. How can I carry carpetings up and down stairways?
Get a cart, get a boy, like I said. Then he played his trump card. He said that he would share his bounties with them. Was it one hundred dollars from the Government, fifty dollars from the State of New York, fifty dollars Special Bounty? Eric was not certain as to the amount but he would give his parents half the accrual.
Soon his father had put on his black beaver hat—he’d worn that same hat ever since Eric could remember, and long before Eric could remember; he mended it himself— Henry put on his black beaver hat and went to bargain for a used pushcart. Anna hung through the window, calling to neighbor women in the four-story building opposite, telling them that her bold son had enlisted and would soon go to fight Rebels; when the war was over he would return—as an officer, most likely—and then he would become a lawyer.
Eventually Eric and thirty-three other recruits were transferred, from the regiment in which they had originally enlisted, to the ranks of the One Hundred and Twentieth New York. Eric was a serious-minded youth with syrupy eyes, a mound of coarse black hair, hollow cheeks and thick, wide lips. No one picked on him because of his youth; firstly, there were many other fifteen- or sixteen- or seventeen-year-olds in the One Hundred and Twentieth New York; secondly, he had grown up in a neighborhood where one must maul or be mauled in a fight, and he had learned aptly several delicate tricks of mayhem. He served with no complaint and liked the life better than life at home, although a cannonade always frightened him, it made him turn sheet-white and shaking; still he trotted along with his musket as the others trotted, grunting and mumbling when he caught enough breath to do so. One day in May it was unbearably hot, and the Virginia woods were afire, and folks said that wounded men were being burned to death in the woods up ahead: if you listened closely you could hear them screaming. Eric listened but he couldn’t hear the shrieks—too many cannon in the distance. What he did observe, however, was a broken tiny farmhouse barely visible through trees on the right, and he made out the remains of a wooden well-curb out in back. Even a ruined well might hold water, and he and Malachi Plover and a big youth named Kennedy discussed the problem in low tones. This task called for one man to climb down into the well, one to pass canteens back and forth, one to remain on guard. On a farm of that kind, a mere wasted shell of a farm, most likely there would be no rope remaining on the windlass or else the windlass wouldn’t work. Every canteen in their company was dry as a bone; the regiment had sprawled in those woods for a long time. Eric Torrosian talked to his sergeant. The sergeant said that he didn’t dare give him any Hitch Up And Go Ahead; their orders were to remain where they were, until ordered to move forward or back; but the sergeant guessed that the One Hundred and Twentieth would be lying right there on their lame asses the rest of that day. He handed over his own canteen to Eric and so did others. The sergeant turned his back and pretended not to witness their departure.
There were a few bullets whining through the forest from time to time and whacking into trees, and a few men in the regiment had been hit by this overflow of fire, so the boys kept low. Malachi and Eric left their muskets and other equipment behind; they were bedecked with canteens until they could barely crawl, and they wondered how they’d ever make the return when those canteens were filled—if they were filled. Kennedy crawled behind; they warned him to keep his musket off cock, they didn’t want to be shot. In the shelter of the stripped old cottage and outhouses they scurried to the well, and Eric saw water shining at the bottom. Kennedy found an old wagon tongue lying in the grass, and they employed it as a kind of ladder . . . Eric crawled down, and Malachi passed him the canteens two at a time, dangling from extended straps taken from other canteens. It was cool and wonderful at the bottom of this mossy, slimy shaft; there were frogs and maybe lizards slipping about; the water was muddy as soon as he’d stirred it up, but it was water.
Suddenly in woods nearby a crashing wave of gunfire broke out in a string of sound like Chinese crackers at a celebration, and son of a bitch if you couldn’t hear the Rebs a-hollering. Let’s get, cried Malachi, and his face loomed patched with shadow, an inhuman face as he bent over the well-curbing. A piece of the rotten wood broke beneath his weight, and damp dust and splinters and punk came down all over Eric Torrosian’s upturned face, and fairly blinded him. He wouldn’t bother with those last two canteens— Yes, surely he would; maybe one was his
; so he wound the straps around his neck and went pawing and wrenching up the wagon tongue, trying to shinny up rapidly, tearing his clothes as he went. His left eye pained him, and it had dust in it and it stung and watered. When he got to the top and tumbled out on the ground the other canteens were lying there, just the way Plover had dumped them when he took flight. Malachi Plover was halfway to the fence, but he was looking back as he ran, and he beckoned wildly at Eric when the boy appeared. Kennedy was a couple of rods ahead of Plover, and Eric saw him turn, halt, lift his gun and fire, and he heard the ball tear the air past him. There was a loud bum, bum, bum of answering fire from the other side of the little farm. By this time Eric had dropped to the ground and so had Plover. They both saw Kennedy: he threw his arms out widely—his musket flew one way, something else from his right hand flew in the other direction, and he seemed to jump high and fall backward as if the wind had been knocked out of him by a boxer’s blow. Back among trees the flags of the One Hundred and Twentieth were being hastened to safety, and the entire regiment was seeking safety too; the boys couldn’t see hide nor hair of anybody, except for those bobbing wads of Colors. (When the regimental Colors were presented, they were presented by a rather pretty spinster sister of one of the field officers who said charmingly, These Colors are warranted not to run! Hah. Eric thought of her now—straw bonnet and black lace mitts and all.)
He stood up and held up his hands, for Rebels were all around him. A tall fellow with seasoned sunburnt face pointed to the doorway with a revolver in his hand and said, Yank, go over and set down on that stoop. Go on, youngster, move—move e’er I put a chunk of lead through you! So Eric went to the step of the ruined house and sat down. Presently an armed soldier brought Malachi Plover to sit beside him, and Malachi said that Kennedy was dead, stone dead. He had been pierced by at least five bullets. Malachi gave the news stupidly, and Eric received the news just as stupidly. They sat and looked at grassy ground before them, and now and then stole glances at the Rebels who guarded them. It seemed odd to see gray and tan and brownish dust-colored figures standing erect so close at hand. The only ones they’d seen previously, close at hand, had been lying mute.
In this manner Eric Torrosian was captured, and no enemy so much as touched an article of his belongings that first night. But the second day following, when the guardianship of seventy-two prisoners was taken over by irregular troops behind the lines, he was stripped of watch, pocketknife, new shoes and all such sundries. He saw what was happening to the column and managed to put slabs of currency inside both cheeks, for recently he had been paid. Hence the villains got only his small change. He talked oddly, with those folds of money bulking between his teeth and the wet flesh of his mouth’s inner lining, but since the Rebels didn’t know how he talked at other times they discerned nothing suspicious in his responses. His cheeks appeared smooth instead of hollow, and the Rebels didn’t know that he was naturally hollow-cheeked. He saved twenty-nine dollars in greenbacks which would be about three hundred dollars Confed. It gagged him when finally he removed the money, and he vomited copiously, but at least he had the money; and it helped to keep him and Malachi alive after they reached Andersonville, and it fed them en route. Malachi’s money was stolen.
They arrived at Andersonville in a pouring rain, and waded through mud all the way from the cars to the stockade.
They landed in a shebang with three fellows also from the Second Brigade of the Fourth Division of the Second Corps, who had been captured in the Virginia woods too. The other fellows said it was true about the wounded being burned to death in the forest fire; one man had been wounded himself, and, temporarily weakened from loss of blood, he had to lie there and listen to the squeals and yaaah and Mother, have mercy, shoot me for Goddddssake. Finally he summoned enough strength to drag himself out of the fire’s course and into some smoking rubble where a blaze had swept already. The man’s name was Toby Mutterson and Toby bragged that he had been a hero and had pulled out another man as well, but he didn’t know what happened to the other man finally. Toby’s clothing was pretty well scorched as he lay amid those soft embers, and he exhibited the holes and raw brown fibers to prove his tale. He said that his blood-soaked condition might have saved his life; and the bleeding had stopped, praise be, and didn’t start up again. He was wounded in the fleshy part of his thigh, but the bone wasn’t broken.
Toby did not thrive at Andersonville because worms got into his wound promptly, and the authorities wouldn’t let him into the hospital because he made the mistake of walking down to the gate surgeons to apply for admittance, instead of being carried. He jerked and whined in his sleep, and then his wound would hurt him so badly that he’d get up and limp around outside the shebang and blunder against neighboring shebangs or step upon sleeping men, and would be cursed and pummeled. Someone told him that ground oak ashes would expel the maggots from his wound, and he begged Eric to buy oak ashes for him. Finally Eric found an old man among the guards who said that he could burn some oak and fetch the ashes for ten dollars Confed. When the twelve o’clock round of calls issued from the stockade’s rim that night, Eric must be lying in wait in blackness, just next to the deadline in front of the old guard’s booth. The guard would toss down a cord with a stone attached to the end, and Eric should fasten his currency to the cord; the guard would pull it up, and then he would toss out the cord a second time with the packet of ground-up ashes attached. . . . Faithfully Eric followed instructions; he crouched amid shadows and heard the yells go out, and the answering growls of prisoners. A guard would start in and call, Station Number Three, twelve o’clock and all’s well, and immediately the prisoners would start yapping. Twelve o’clock and, Mister, here’s your mule, and other things less polite. Station Number Five, twelve o’clock and all’s well, and the whoop to confound all guards and all enemies, Station Number Five, twelve o’clock and go diddle your grandma.
The stone fell down, Eric found the cord by fumbling and raking with both hands; here was the rock, and a long end of string for tying; he knotted the folded one-dollar U.S. greenback into place and jerked the cord hard to signify that the money was ready. It went scraping and tapping up the wall, and after a few minutes there was another thud, and Eric Torrosian clawed round until he found the string and the precious solid little envelope tied to it. He took the packet and ran back to the shebang as fast as he could go, which wasn’t very fast. Oh, thanks, thanks, thanks, you’re a real sport, Eric; give me that stuff, so’s I can start getting rid of them old cutworms; Eric, I swear that when we get out of here and get North, you come to Pennsylvania and my mother will take good care of you; cook you the best pork ribs you ever tasted, and shoo-fly pies and truck; and you can lie abed on a featherbed all morning if you want to. Come on, let’s open the paper up. . . . They were out of pine splinters, they had no light, so Toby Mutterson had to anoint his wound in the dark. Pretty soon he began to howl like all possessed. Oh, God, it’s killing me, help me get that stuff out of there, and he went plunging around, rolling and gargling in the dark, and asking for somebody to pour water in his wound. But you say you don’t want swamp water, and that’s all we got. It’ll just give you more worms. Ow, ow, ahhhh, I don’t care what God damn water you use; the hell with clean wells and well rights, the God damn hell with clean water; wash it, wash it out, it’s killlling me. And people from other shebangs hallooing, For Christ sake, quit that noise, you crazy poop. . . . So they used swamp water, and washed out Mutterson’s lively wound; Eric guessed that he and Malachi sponged the wound a dozen times with a scrap of rag. Toby would howl every time they touched the suppurating hole, but after numerous swabbings he subsided into a quieter whimpering. At dawn they woke up and looked; here were the remains of the packet. No oak ashes. Salt. That was it: just plain coarse salt.
Eric went to the old guard’s station late that day when the old man came back on duty, and he stood below and assailed him. The old man said, Sonny, I couldn’t find no oak like I said
I could. I lowed salt would do tolerable well. Eric kept crying epithets which had sunk early into his memory, but the bearded guard stood looking earnestly beyond Eric and pretending that he was deaf. Just about dusk Eric came back, and this time he had a stone. It was a fine stone, round and brownish and hard, and it was half as big as a good-sized apple. He watched his chance, and when the guard (a skinny patriarch he stood against the pale yellow western sky) was looking the other way, Eric flung the stone. He had taken careful aim, and as a small boy he had thrown stones in numerous street fights and hurled them accurately, but he missed the guard’s head by a few inches. The old man must have been astonished when he heard that whirring past his ear. He caught up his piece and fired into the stockade; in the dimness below there was a great scurrying and terror, but apparently no one was hit. The next day Eric saw a little throng around a shack of rags and pine bark, and people were pointing. He went over for a look, but naturally did not confess that it was he who threw the stone to provoke the guard. From the looks of that pine bark the musket had been loaded with buck-and-ball: maybe one of the old Sixty-nines from Harper’s Ferry. They took three buckshot and one heavy ball as a standard load. The charge passed just beneath the roof-tree, out the other side, and into earth beyond. Six men spooned together in that shack, and not one of them hit. Eric felt better. But Toby Mutterson was carried to the hospital the next Sunday, and they heard within the week that he was dead. Almost nobody ever came back from the hospital.
Eric went down to the old guard’s station and waited for him to appear. He wanted to have the satisfaction of telling him that he had killed Toby with that salt, although Eric’s conscience assured him that Toby would have died anyway sooner or later. Pretty soon the guard was changed, but it wasn’t the graybeard who came; it was a gaunt child. His gun was bigger than he was by far and maybe weighed more. Hey there, guard, where’s the old man used to be at this station? The boy was frightened—it seemed to be his first time on duty—for he jumped in surprise when Eric addressed him. Go way, Yank. We can’t speak to prisoners. Oh, don’t be a dunce; be a good fellow; all the guards talk to prisoners. Come on, where’s the old man? The boy looked around cautiously and then leaned his small shaggy head across the rim. He’s dead, Yank. Just died today. . . . What do you mean, dead? How did he die? . . . Just had a fit and died; just fell in a fit after eating. . . . That seemed queer. It seemed almost that Toby had come back like an avenging angel and taken the old man away with him.
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