Faded Coat of Blue

by Ralph Peters (as Owen Parry)

  He had a little square stove going behind his camp table. Its heat crisped the front of me while the cold seeped through the canvas and fitted itself to my back.

  “Now, sir… if I may ask… why is it you say your regiment’s to blame?”

  He waved his hand at the mottled tentage. “What they’re all saying. That’s what you’ll hear. ‘Should’ve protected young Fowler. Should’ve rescued him. Whole regiment snoring away. Rebs with free run of the place. And the martyred boy… the poor martyred boy… lying dead on their doorstep…’”

  I do not like imprecision of speech and there were no doorsteps in the camp. But let that bide.

  “I do not see that it follows, sir,” I told him, “that you could have protected a man when you were not aware of his presence.”

  He nearly jumped to his feet. But his legs would not support him. “That’s what I say! What I tell ‘em. But they’ll turn it all around. You wait. You watch ’em. Say I’m a political man, not fit to lead. Shame on the regiment.” He poured himself another glass. “McClellan, you said? McClellan himself? See how they’re after me? They all want to nail me to the cross. All of them out to crucify me. Crucify me like a dog. Disgrace my uniform. Shame the regiment.”

  “Now, sir,” I said, watching his neck throb as he drank, “I am to look impartially into these matters under the terms of inquiry. But I do not see the fault of your regiment. We cannot yet say what all the facts might be, but—”

  “No-good New Jersey fellows. Over the ridge there. Saying we shot him down. Shot the boy down in cold blood. Afraid of our shadows.”

  “Is there any proof of such a thing?” I asked.

  The colonel shook his head. “No proof we didn’t, neither. Nothing the newspapers’ll believe. Journalists all need hanging. Ruining the country. Traitors to the war effort. Every one of ‘em. Worthless New Jerseys. Shame on the regiment. My honor as an officer…”

  “Sir… before we go farther along… did Captain Fowler have acquaintance in your camp? A friend, perhaps? Might he have come by for a visit and—”

  The colonel railed on, with great bellowing sobs and references to the Romans murdering Socrates and Hannibal dividing Gaul into three parts, but it come out that none of the regiment’s officers moved in the high circles of the likes of Anthony Fowler. The colonel was a devil of a man with the classics even when intoxicated, but he could not explain the dead lad’s presence at the edge of his camp.

  “My honor…” he said. “… officer… shame… regiment.”

  I did a cruel thing, may the Lord forgive me. I poured the man another libation. Then I spoke to him as I would have spoken to a subaltern suicidal with gambling debts.

  “I believe I can help you, sir,” I told him. “I need but a bit of cooperation…”

  Colonel Goodman was pleased to remain in his tent while I made my inspection, but he conjured a lieutenant for my escort. The lad’s mouth never quite closed and he kept crying out, “This way, sir,” though he hardly knew where he was going himself. Between his spurs and his sword, he seemed at constant risk of self-injury.

  The first person I wanted to talk to was Private Haney, the sentry who had stumbled upon young Fowler’s body. We found the boy singing in a sweet, thin tenor as he burnished a cookpot. One look and I marked him as the sort of young man born too mild to cut himself a fair portion of life’s pie. I introduced myself and he dropped the pot in the mud as he saluted.

  “Only a matter of some questions, Private Haney,” I assured him. Then I told the lieutenant to remain behind while the private and I walked the ground, for a lieutenant is a meddling, infernal thing.

  “Watch your step there, sir,” the private told me. “Boys throws their slops down that way.”

  It was a foul and disorderly camp. Commanding officers always set the tone.

  “Over here’s where I was posted,” Haney said.

  “There’s no sentry.”

  “Yes, sir. We only put a fellow back here nighttimes. Daytimes we just guard facing out at the enemy.”

  I looked down the slope into a ravine. Off to the right, the road up which I had come curved toward us climbing a small valley. Washington lay hidden by a ridge, but all about me a new military city had sprung up. Some of the tent lines were as finely ordered as our summer encampments in India, when we left the cantonments to escape the heat and the cholera. Other camps appeared wretched.

  Beyond the road, a gaggle of uniformed men at tempted to club a ball with a stick, cheering each other on in dubious language.

  “That would be the New Jersey fellows, I take it?”

  Private Haney stuck out his face like a dog who hears a game bird but cannot see it. After he had taken a good look, he said, “Yes, sir. That’s them, Captain.”

  “All right. Let’s walk down to the spot where you found the body.”

  He looked at my cane, then at my leg, as if he could only understand the two things in succession.

  “I will manage, Private,” I told him. “Take me straight to the place, if you please.”

  “Yes, sir. You be careful now, sir. Major Campbell he says we can’t have no more trouble.” He stepped out and I followed him. Every few paces he glanced back to see if I had kept up. There are times when the reactions of others to my slight disablement is more bothersome than the damage itself, for Abel Jones has always been an able man and no nonsense.

  “I know I shouldn’t of left my post, Captain,” Haney said. “But when a fellow has the screaming trots, something got to get done about it.”

  I slipped in the brown sludge, but braced myself with my cane. Haney kept up his chattering. I only half-listened, for I was counting the paces.

  We reached a level spot from which I could just see the military road to our right.

  “It was here,” the private told me, pointing at the earth. “Right down here. Put one devil of a scare into me, coming up on him like that.”

  “Here?” I positioned myself where he had pointed.

  He considered. “Maybe two, three foot over yet. But thereabouts.”

  I made it fifty-seven paces. My stride had been regular in my marching days, but now I had a difficult leg, and the mud of the slope had an effect. Still, I had always owned a good eye for correcting ranges. The distance from the guard post to the spot where the body had been found was between one-hundred-thirty and one-hundred-forty feet.

  “How was he positioned, Private Haney? Face up? Belly down? Head uphill, or down?”

  “I remember that right enough. He was lying there flat on his backside, like he was just resting and looking up at the sky. Only he was shot dead. His head was up that way.” He pointed toward the guard post.

  “It was still dark when you found him?”

  “Sort of like. Up home we call it ‘rooster light.’ ”

  “So you could not have seen him from your post?”

  He looked at me. “Captain, if I could of seen him, I wouldn’t of come down here.”

  “Can you shoot, son? Are you one of our American ‘crack shots’? A frontiersman?”

  He looked toward the earth. Blushing a bit. “I guess not. I’m not so good at seeing far away.”

  I had suspected as much.

  Just across the military road, the soldiers were still at their batting game, which seemed a tedious affair.

  “What are those New Jersey fellows doing now, Private Haney?”

  He took a hard look. Squinting.

  “Not much,” he said. “Them fellows never do much.”

  “What do you see, though?”

  “Looks like fellows standing around. I hear them good, though. Cussing terrible.”

  To kill Anthony Fowler, nearsighted Haney would have needed to shoot down a steep hill—and fine huntsmen shoot too high down a slope—and to do it in the dark. And there had been a hard wind, to say nothing of the rain earlier. Even had he gotten off a lucky shot, the corpse would have been pointing the wrong way. The head would have lain downhill
, if the dead man had fallen on his back.

  If a sentry had killed Anthony Fowler, it had not been Haney.

  “Private Haney… I do not wish to be indelicate… but you just suggested your health… was not quite in order.”

  “I had them bloody trots. Something fierce. I was—”

  “I am not unfamiliar with the symptoms. Now, how long had you been standing post?”

  “Since midnight abouts.”

  I looked at him hard. There was no lie in that face. “Isn’t that a long pull of duty?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Especially for a sick man?”

  He shrugged. “Everybody gets the runs around here, Captain. And I shouldn’t of been out so long, but I lost at cards. So I had to take old Clarkie’s duty, too. I was out here all night.”

  “Didn’t you… I mean, given your condition… surely the little trip that led you to discover Captain Fowler’s body could not have been your first?”

  “Oh, no, sir. I was running like a fool. I was just jumping.”

  “Why didn’t you use your company latrines?”

  He briefly met my eyes, then looked down again. “Ain’t got no company latrines, Captain. Just them what’s for everybody in the regiment. Way across camp there. Somebody would of seen me leaving my post and there would of been the devil to pay.” He stuck a hand down the back of his collar and gave himself a good scratch. “I know I wasn’t supposed to leave away from where I was guarding. It was… it was a dilemma.”

  “So you traveled down here repeatedly during the night? Perhaps not to this exact spot, but…”

  His eyelids half closed as he figured on things, then they opened again. “You mean did I come all the way down here when I felt the trots coming on?”

  “Yes. That is what I mean.”

  He waved his head. “No, sir. It was too darned far. And I didn’t want to leave my post. I knew it was wrong. No, sir. I stuck close.”

  “Then why come all the way down here the time you found Captain Fowler?”

  He lowered his head toward his shoulder. “Well, sir… I didn’t want the boys to see me. If any a one of them woke up. It was just getting light, like I said, and I couldn’t just slip a few steps down the hill like before. So I come down here.”

  “It’s a long way to come.”

  He looked up the slope. “Well… yes, sir. And I remember how stirred up I was inside. But twixt the guard post and down here it’s just steep and steeper. I didn’t want to take a tumble while I was going about my business. The boys are always laughing over me like it is.”

  From behind an earthen parapet, my escort peered down at us. When he saw me looking, he faded away again.

  “All right, then,” I said. “Let us recapitulate.”

  He looked at me with panic in his eyes. “I didn’t mean to do nothing wrong.”

  “You were on duty all night?”

  “From midnight, sir.”

  “And you came upon the body at dawn?”

  “Thereabouts. It was that dirty kind of light.”

  “And, when you found him, you fired your rifle. Your regiment carries Enfields, does it not?”

  “Yes, sir. I didn’t mean to.”

  “Was that the only time you fired your rifle that night?”

  “Yes, sir.” He thought for a second, and a look of shock and terror fell over his features. “Captain, I sure didn’t—”

  “I know that, Haney. Did you hear anyone else discharge their weapons? At any time during the night? Did you hear a shot that might have killed Captain Fowler?”

  “No, sir.”

  “No gunshots? None at all? You’re sure?”

  He nodded. “Yes, sir. I’d know a thing like that.”

  “Did you hear anything else during the night? Anything at all? Was there anything you saw that seemed unusual?”

  He chewed the corner of his lower lip. “Sir, that was one terrible, awful night. All that wind, and the rain worse than Pap’s temper. Tents all blowing down. And then the fog just sort of filled up the ravine. Things didn’t settle down till towards morning. It was so miserable, I promised myself I’d never play cards again.”

  I clapped him on the upper arm. “And that would be a fine thing to come out of it, Private Haney, for the playing card is the devil’s calling card. Now… when you found the body down here… you fired a shot and your comrades rallied to you?”

  He smiled. “That was some kind of rallying, all right.”

  “So your comrades heard your shot. Without difficulty.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Was it still raining?”

  “No, sir. Not really. Just kind of spitting now and then. And windy like.”

  “Private Haney, have you ever stood guard before?”

  He looked surprised. “Sure, Captain. Lots of times. Hundreds, maybe.”

  “Did you ever hear any shots fired? In the distance? While you were standing guard?”

  He thought about that. “I guess so. Fellows get nervous. Start shooting at things. It ain’t so bad now as it was. Used to be a great to-do about every night.”

  “You could hear those shots from a great distance, could you not?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Even in the wind and the rain?”

  “Yes, sir. Maybe not so good always. But you heard them. You hear all sorts of things when you’re out here at night. Hear fellows talking way over there, every word they say.” He pointed toward the New Jersey camp. “And singing. You can hear a banjo a real long ways off.”

  “But nobody played a banjo during the storm Friday night.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Did you hear anything at all? Now think. Anything?”

  He was a good boy and he did as he was told. After a minute, he just said, “Well, I heard some of the other fellows with the trots. They came running over to where the ground drops off, then went back just as quick, cussing all the way. And once some drunk fellas came along singing. Down on the road. Some crazy-drunk officer fellows, beg your pardon, Captain. Going back late to camp. Singing their lungs out in the rain like old fools.”

  I wished I were a smarter man. For I sensed there were other questions I should ask, but I could not close my fingers around the business.

  “So you found him just here?” I was beginning to repeat myself.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Lying on his back?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Shot through the heart, I am told.”

  “Right through. The brigade surgeon said it was right dead center.”

  “Ever see any Confederates around here?”

  He shook his head. “No, sir.” He looked around at the camps on the high ground. I glanced up and caught the lieutenant snooping again.

  “Ever see any Rebels at all, Private Haney? Anywhere?”

  “No, sir.”

  I poked a clump of turf with my cane. “And what did you do before you put on that blue coat, son?”

  “I clerked a while. In Uncle Bill’s store.”

  “And what sort of shop was that?”

  “Dry goods, mostly.”

  “Why’d you join up?”

  He gave me one of those innocent shrugs again. “Seemed like everybody else was doing it.”

  “You didn’t join to free the slaves?”

  Another shrug. “Ain’t thought on that.”

  “Do you think slavery’s a good thing?”

  After a moment, he shook his head gently. “Well, I guess not. We didn’t have no slaves back in Yates County, so I can’t fairly say. But I guess it ain’t Christian.”

  “You’re not an abolitionist?”

  “No, sir. I’m a Presbyterian.”

  “Who do you think shot Captain Fowler, the man you found here?”

  He thought on that for a fair time, but only said, “That’s too big for me to think on, sir. Are you going to arrest me now?”

  The regiment’s officers were useless, as officers o
ften are. Although few shared the colonel’s taste for whisky in the forenoon, all seemed to share his inability to think reasonably. The adjutant, Campbell, suggested that Confederate spies had sneaked all the way down from Canada to assassinate Fowler at a spot from which they could dash across the lines to take refuge with their own. As a lawyer, Captain Steele recognized the oddity of a man shot dead without a sound, but he had already solved the riddle for himself. Dark geniuses in Richmond had developed silent pistols with which to arm their spies. It was plain as day, he instructed me, and a threat to the entire Union. He begged me to warn General McClellan.

  No one in the regiment had ever met or even seen Anthony Fowler, but for his image in the illustrated weeklies.

  I left the camp and marched back down to the brigade headquarters I had passed on my way up. The officers were still at mess well into the afternoon and invited me to join them. When they learned that General McClellan himself had put me on the Fowler inquiry, it caused great excitement—not because of Fowler, since I clearly had not joined an abolitionist table, but due to their curiosity about McClellan himself. I knew little enough, but it was more knowledge than they possessed. I earned my soup.

  “He’s a splendid figure of a man,” I concluded. “The very image of a fighting general.”

  “It’ll be different now,” a colonel declared. “With Little Mac in charge, we’ll be in Richmond by Easter.”

  “By Christmas,” a major with a bountiful mustache insisted.

  Most of the officers seemed to be political fellows out of Albany, and they asked me to put in a word for their brigade. They wanted to be certain they were not held back in reserve when the general’s inevitable campaign began, since it was important to their electoral futures that they appear on the battlefield. They lunched on stewed rabbit and peaches in syrup and washed all down with claret wine. They found it extraordinary that I did not take alcohol, but they soon passed over the matter in preference to questions about how Welshmen were likely to vote in America and what favors they might desire of government. At the end, I asked to interview the brigade surgeon and drew a laugh.

  “Talk to him all you want,” the colonel headed for Richmond told me, “for you’ll never talk with him. We call him ‘Silent Mick.’ ”