Andersonville

by MacKinlay Kantor

  In this way their friendship began. Within a week Willie Mann was committed solidly to the task of excavation, and he kept at it with a passion exceeded only by the burrowing of Judah Hansom. Judah ached for trees and blue space, Willie had Katrine pictured in rosy soft flesh before him when he dug in loneliest depths. Most of the others worked with comparative apathy, and did not send out so much dirt, and could not stay underground as long as these two. Judah and Willie were more able-bodied than others of the group, although Willie was plagued by encroaching illness. He had loose teeth, one came out, his limbs hurt him, his mouth was sore perpetually. He kept the faithful large tin cup as a thing sacred to himself, to drink from, to feed from; he would not lend it or share from it because he feared in conscience that he might infect others.

  The twelve-foot well had been dug by earlier inmates solely as a well and not as a preparation for escape. It went straight down and ended in a floor of caked clay. It had gone dry on the opening of Providence Spring, but Willie could remember when the fetid seepage of it sold for five or ten cents per cup. He had never consumed any of the water because there were too many sick in that hut above, but now they were all dead (or carried to the hospital, and thus probably dead). He remembered these things within the hour after Judah Hansom first came calling, for the knife. You knew things in this stockade, you recognized men or incidents of the moment; then, under the blanketing of days and nights and listlessness and dissolution, they were gone, scarcely a portion of memory, never a portion of recognized history. The past drifted from you because it was nearly identical with the present, and would be a stencil from which the future might be printed.

  Seven men worked at the tunnel, the rest of the shebang dwellers crouched uncaring up above. There were Judah, four of his fellow York State men, Willie and a tentmate of his. They used the hand-carved spades, the hoe, canteen halves, and a utensil made from twisted stovepipe. Each had special tools which he preferred, but there was room for only one man at a time to toil at the face of the tunnel. On the bottom of the perpendicular shaft which had formed the old well, the tunnel began. It ran at right angles to the stockade with a slight downward trend. People hoped that it would clear safely the region of Providence Spring, for now rocks could be seen when you peered down into the clear pushing water. Levering stones of any size would be beyond the prisoners’ power. It was concluded that at a distance of sixty feet from the tunnel’s commencement the passage would have extended to the line of inner stockade posts; eventually it would rise gradually like a long straight hollow blacksnake extending toward freedom.

  The symbolism of the snake occurred to Judah as he shoved his shoulders through the orifice, and thrust his long arms in alternate attack against packed earth. He had devised a system of working with the two whittled-out wooden spades. They were rather like bent paddles with sharpened edges. He would dig-dig, dig-dig . . . a downward and backward shaving of the soil, until a harvest of loose dirt lay before his face . . . he could rest his chin on it, and particles got into his mouth and nose if he didn’t take care. Then with the hoe which he had dragged along with him, he would work the loose earth under his body until he could surmount the pile of it and shave deeper into solidity ahead.

  He thought of that blacksnake . . . tunnel inching forward. He thought of his father, of Aunt Annie, and more often of Benny Ballentine. . . . Might get shot. Well, he hadn’t gotten shot, and now probably wouldn’t get shot unless he were careless about the deadline. Baaaa. He did not prefer dying here, either, as he watched ungainly hosts weaken and starve and slough their manhood away. If he were bitten by catch-dogs outside and finally bled to death, it would be preferable to puffing with dropsy. Judah’s body was transforming itself into a loose pulp inside his caked hide, and he wondered how many pounds of weight he was losing each day.

  It had been agreed that no man should be compelled to lie cutting away at the penetration of the tunnel for more than one hour at a time. None of the party owned a watch, but a sun-dial of sorts had been rigged up with pebbles and splinters, although someone was always stumbling over it and spoiling it. This served moderately well as a reminder to the men above, but only on sunny days. Other days they had to guess at the time. When they were digging at night, it was simple; then guards signalled from their stations on the half hour. Night or day, it made no difference to the creature who mined below. All was empty earthiness, the raw earthiness of the grave. The world was composed of nothing but soil, and you could not see it—it had no color, there was no light, there was not even true blackness after you had once immersed yourself in the ground, because somehow it seemed that you needed the suggestion of associated light in order to recognize blackness. This color, this formlessness, this silence declaiming—you could recognize nothing except the feel of your implements, the sound of breathing and labor, the pumping of your heart, the drifting march of people and distorted events which came as a nightmare troop. You dug.

  ...Muskrat. That was the creature Judah’d always considered Benny Ballentine to be, but nowadays he couldn’t be too sure. More like a squirrel.

  The right-hand wooden shovel had a notch in its crude handle, and that notch hurt Judah’s hand halfway up his first finger, and it rubbed it, and maybe made a blister; he must change paddles and hold that paddle in his left hand.

  Mr. Endicott owned a letter press with a big iron wheel to work it, and once when Judah was little he went to Mr. Endicott’s office with Pa, and he kept wanting to play with that letter press, so finally they said, Very well, bubby, go ahead. He liked to smashed his little hand in it; oh, how he did bellow; but Pa said it would teach him a trick or two. Maybe so. He never more wanted to play with letter presses.

  And earth coming back around his chin, and he could lift his matted bearded chin and kind of nudge the soil back under his Adam’s apple against his ragged breast; then he would have to grunt, and put down his spades, and lift himself on one arm, and get the hoe and work the loose earth farther back from the face.

  O silence. The pressure of lurking solid tons above, every pound a threat. O pressure and squeeze and no clarity of vision. Sand in eyes, burning, and the moisture oozing from eyelids. Bad air draining from the crude noisy world upstairs, and impregnating soil it touched as it passed with its taint, and flowing gradually through the hard-won cleft until it oozed across Judah Hansom’s sour body, drifted through the itching hair, the itching hair of his peeling scalp, the itching fungus of his beard, and found its way into those caked nostrils with which he still drew the breath of life (it smelled like the breath of decay).

  He served more than his stint; so did Willie Mann. Each held his private reason for making perpetual sacrifice as he went worming a rod or nearly a rod beneath the populous sty on the surface. A man they called Old Bush—and a fellow pioneer of Judah he was— Old Bush said he couldn’t breathe for long down there; he didn’t know how the others breathed, he thought that they must be half mole or ground-puppy. He said he nearly smothered the last time he crept below. Now, fellers, you know I hain’t no shirker; Old Bush has always tried to play fair and square, hain’t he? . . . sat with pained legs bent beneath him, gluey tears coming down from his harsh pink-lidded eyes . . . tried to do my share. I want to get Outside just as bad as the next feller, but I can’t stomach that chore thout no air.

  Judah served Old Bush’s shift, Willie Mann served Lew Ammons’s turn when Lew lay crippled with cords taut as fishlines in his legs . . . a big fish pulling at those cords, and what was the big fish’s name? Ah.

  Judah recognized that he must have committed some unpardonable sin, and was now engaged in a fruitless attempt at expiation. He searched his past for the sin. He could not find it. Had he ever made unto himself a graven image? Well, if you could call a pumpkin head . . . he carved one of those when he was nine or so, and held it up to the window to frighten Aunt Annie, but she paid little heed. Had he taken the name of the Lord his God in vain? Only when a
chip flew into his eye, or when—

  Remember the Sabbath day . . . six days shalt thou labour . . . dutifully, willingly, piously he had bowed to these injunctions. He had honored a father in whom there was almost nothing to love. Why this restraint and tightening of lands and seas and antiquities? All Creation past and all Creation of the moment built into a box of clay, sand, pebbles, moistures, for the unique purpose of caging a Judah Hansom who had never liked to stand within a closet with the door shut, who felt manacled when he entered a room as small as the kitchen pantry, who had wept at crawling into the oat-chest in the barn when ordered there on an errand. Had he borne false witness, had he stolen? Nay, nay . . . oh, tarts and cream when he was small; he had stolen the prize Red Antwerp raspberries after being instructed not to touch them. Aunt Annie whipped him with a lilac switch. Had he committed adultery? Oh, Heavenly Father, he had not so much as kissed a girl when the rest were playing Spin-the-Platter; he’d just pretended to kiss Lydia Ruggles—he sort of pushed his face down past her cheek against her neck, and his face was a fiery furnace, and once again he was the first to leave the merrymaking.

  Had he coveted? Well, once he saw a giant in Seth Howe’s Circus, and the giant had such mighty legs and arms that Judah wished the giant’s legs and arms were his own. Perhaps that was coveting.

  He had worked hard and long. He had been frugal, he had prayed, he had eaten bread earned by the sweat of his brow; frequently he had fed tramps when his father wasn’t around; in the army he had stayed awake many nights to nurse the sick, to help nurse the wounded, because he thought that God expected him to do these things, and he had done his full share of marching and hewing on the days following, no matter how sleepy he felt. He had slapped his own face to keep himself awake, he had given himself a bloody nose with a careless slap, and thus recognized himself as a martyr.

  How long must this tunnel be, how long could a hollow blacksnake grow to be? Judah put back his hand and felt for the knotted length of rags and string which they used for their reckoning. It was like the dirty tail of a kite: there was one big knot tied every three feet, so that it could be felt in the lonely dungeon where no light ever fell. His hand found the nearest knot and pulled the strand tight against the peg to which it was anchored at the tunnel’s beginning. . . . He’d scratched out another foot and a half, at least, since he came in.

  Dark, dark, dark. The dread, the stifling, the granules in the mouth, the ache of ill-nourished arms which seemed mouldering away even as they were employed. Judah Hansom lay pressed in a vise of the ground. The Adirondacks tumbled all the way down from York State to heap themselves on Rebel ground in Georgia, to effect extinction, the worst extinction if one of the quickest, the extinction of the squeeze, the extinction of the stamp and mashing.

  A light snapped ice-white, glaring behind his eyes even as his tired paw hunted for the hoe.

  That was it: the truth.

  Now it was revealed.

  He saw, he saw—he had reasoned it out.

  Deadfalls. Traps made of logs. He’d made them often in the woods in winter, balancing heavy logs, trimming triggers and notches deftly so they’d never slip. How many creatures had he crushed beneath those logs? Pine martens, weasels galore, even a lynx . . . he’d sold the furs, he’d made money out of them; never should he have slain those animals, not in that way. Not with deadfalls. For this must be the wickedness because of which he was now commanded to be a lonely beetle.

  The stockade of Andersonville was a deadfall log, balanced prettily above him, ready to drop.

  Willie Mann crawled to relieve him, Willie closed his hand on Judah’s scabby ankle, and the perspiration was flowing anew.

  Hey, Jude. Muffled voice booming stuffily.

  Like I was under a deadfall.

  What say?

  Maybe a backlog. Like I told Benny . . . twould all be his, and now Aunt Annie’s gone too.

  Hey, what you talking about?

  Oh.

  I got a drink for you. I got the canteen and bucket and bootlegs. Here you be. I’ll pass some up to you, and start filling back here. My, you done a sight. Lots of dirt.

  Willie, I thought twas Eri’s turn down here.

  He’s got running-off-of-the-bowels again. I’d rather do his chore myself than have him stinking everything up like he did the other day.

  What time is it?

  Six and after, hot as blazes still. Guard just shot a fellow in front of the Twenty-third station, clear over at the northeast corner. Everybody’s yelling about it. Wirz came up to the station.

  Oh. Who’d he shoot?

  They say it was a Michigander, I don’t know who. Here, I got water in your own cup. Harris fetched the bucket from the spring, and we all had a good swig. Sorry, but I reckon I spilt half of it a-crawling in.

  Thankee.

  Now I’ll get out to the well with these bootlegs, and you can back out after me. We’ll pass them up. Eri is holding the cord, if he hain’t gone to the sink. Somebody’s got the cord.

  Air was shut off for awhile. I thought I was going to stifle. What happened?

  Oh, couple of strangers came by, hunting for a man named Kennedy they thought was in your regiment. We were all sitting in front of the well, but we eased the overcoat across it just to be safe. They stayed about five minutes, but none of your comrades knew the man they wanted to find. Know him, Jude?

  No. Could be he got captured after we did. It seemed longer’n five minutes.

  Judah was shivering as he hitched himself out into the shaft and began to beat damply suspicious fresh dirt from his rags. They always did that before climbing to the top again. Thus far they believed that they had escaped the detection of informers. They were sly about their disposal of the dirt they hoisted up.

  Judah was shivering, but it was the idea of the trap, the deadfall, the log pitching down, the tumbling Adirondacks, the power of a million tons of Georgia land coming down on him like a boulder squashing a grasshopper— It was this terror that ruled him. Willie Mann crawled to his job at the blacksnake’s head, and Judah Hansom went up to join tribes who had at least light if they did not have freedom.

  As had occurred throughout all the long hot months, heat bred a fury. It was in a pattern so repetitious as to be unworthy of note. First, the sunset swaddled with dun metallic clouds, lightning twitching sickly behind them. Then a distant sound of lonely caravans, caravans traveling with heavy loaded wagons, and their trip was pursued down a pike of corduroy construction, hollow, hollow underneath . . . great wheels a-rumble, the ravine and slopes of the stockade unsteadied by rumbling. Then the beckoning of wind above the fence, the beckoning changing to power and malignancy, scooping lower in whirls and whorls, papers and ashes caught in the wind’s scope while thirty thousand rough male termagants began yelling with tonic of the wind which brought decent air to them for a moment (during most sunlit days no breeze moved between the walls, the stolid smell went aloft unbroken). They looked to props and fastenings of their huts, they hung onto scraps of overcoat, jacket, blanket, pine boughs; they hung onto their scraps of roofing material; but every now and then a chunk of clay-daubed chimney was blown free, or a loose leaf of Bible or a ragged leg-of-drawers went kiting on high, and showed black as a bat against the evening glare. Then, usually, rain hit them. Sometimes rain barely touched, and then lifted to assault another region; but more often it lingered to whip the people here. Guards turned up their ragged collars and hunched beneath sharp-sloped roofs of the sentry stations, but those high shacks offered little protection: soon the guards were as drenched as the men they watched.

  To Judah, Willie, Old Bush, Eri, Lew and the rest, as they grubbed sporadically in turn—or to Judah and Willie as the responsibility of labor at their little mine’s face came more and more to the two of them—freshet or tempest or cyclonic garbage flapping above could make no difference.

  We grop
e for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noon day as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men.

  That was Isaiah, and the Missourian and the York Stater had mourned like doves and roared like bears, each in his time; they knew Isaiah; the verse recurred to them separately in their struggles.

  But Job persisted more strenuously with Judah, for Judah’s bleak past life had been tinctured with the illusion of Job. He had thought it a compliment to any man to say, He has the patience of Job, and secretly had hoped that such compliment might in time be paid to himself.

  Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.

  Willie Mann had a grimness behind him, but there was music ahead. Judah had a grimness behind him and a grimness to go to. But still he thought of hills leading off to lakes and summits above West Canada Creek, he thought of the sound of a grindstone, he heard loons on one of those lakes, he felt his axe-blade sink cleanly into damp dressed wood, he saw the polished designs traced by God on a new chip as it lay prettily like a great coin.

  Pelting through night the rain protracted, making gum of ground which had been gum before, recently, and would be gum consecutively again. Earth loosened, it was soaked sponge which amid the hours lost its spongy quality and dissolved into a paste as loose as cow manure. Dawn came gray, cooler than the dawn of yesterday; clouds were still soaked and soaking; at five-thirty o’clock, as time was told by the few watches still remaining to those hordes, no true light was discernible . . . clouds roosting above the eastern fence . . . barest hint of morning, perhaps imagined. At the bottom of the perpendicular shaft, knotted rags tightened once more in measurement, a new knot was counted.

  Willie Mann came up with triumph in his shrunken face. He rubbed the colored spittle from his lips with a caked little hand, and his eyes were like pale brown buttons. Cracky, Jude. We ought to be under the stockade by now! Well past the deadline, at least.