Still, there were other matters that wanted attending. And more important those. A man cannot think on a duel any more than he should think on a battle beforehand.
Just as I walked from the War Department, Evans the Telegraph come running after.
“Captain Jones!” he called. “Wait you.” Twas as though he had been watching for his chance.
I stood by and let him come on. He was one of your slow Welshmen, and his bit of a sprint left him scarlet in the face.
He marked the stitches below the brim of my hat. “Fighting is it?” he asked.
“A matter of no consequence,” I said, for I had much to do and had no time for a proper conversation between valley men.
“And the Fowler business? Still not laid to rest, I think?”
“News, then?”
He scanned the street up and down. A few dismounted cavalrymen bantered on the corner, and a pair of rogues who looked the worse for the morning headed toward the President’s House. Twas said Mr. Lincoln would see anybody that waited on him, and that the halls were filled with supplicants and office-seekers every day.
“Come round the corner, if you please, Captain Jones.”
I followed the man. With another glance about for prying eyes, he handed me a scrap of paper. It was a telegraphic copied over in his own hand. And addressed to General McClelland.
Abell Jones questioned Gowen. Danger. Stop him now.Matters pursued sufficiently. Cawber will no longer support abolitionists. L. Fowler agrees to rein in Greely and press. Wants no further investigation, we have her now. Goals achieved. Suggest halt.Will Richmond negotiate if slave issue buried?Bonds subscribed wife’s name.Charlie must leave country. Respond soonest. D. Trenchard.
“Disappointment, is it?” Evans asked.
My hand trembled to hold that paper. Nor could I speak.
“In code it was,” Evans continued. “We received it yesterday. In military code, see. But there is no gentleman with the name of D. Trenchard receipted for a code book. I thought that was queer. So back I went. Through the listing of personal messages for General McClellan. And there was strange. A great flurry of messages between them, see. After the Fowler murder. But just before it as well. Strange, I call it.”
“And… would there be copies of those messages?”
He shook his head. “No copies kept of the personals, only the log. And I did not have the night watch. So I do not know what they contained. And I cannot ask, see.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. With my heart shriveling more every moment.
“You are a true buttie.” I gave him back the note. “Burn this.”
He had those gray eyes that always seem drawn to the chapel. A good man he was, Evans the Telegraph.
“Will you be finished with this business, then?” he asked me.
But I could not say more. For his sake. “And how is Mr. Lincoln?” I asked him. His smile was no smile at all. “Harried, I believe. For the general will not take the field, but only parades the army. While the President is under great pressures to make an end to the war. And Mrs. Lincoln is alarmed over the typhoid reaching the city, for she fears for her young ones. Strife there. He is a great sorrowful man, see.”
Yes. And that made two of us.
I found Tyrone in front of his tent, bloody from pulling a drummer boy’s tooth.
“Little bugger bit me,” he said, wiping his hands. “You’re early.”
“The best-laid plans,” I told him. “And the worst-laid, as well…”
“And you’re after talking to that sentry boy? Haney, wasn’t it?”
“Will you come with me? As a witness?”
He pulled off his gory apron and led me into his tent. There were more French books about, and a thick one with a thicker title, in German, by a fellow named Hegel.
“Every time I go near those damned New Yorkers,” he said, “the camp sanitation sends me into fits. But there’s no talking to them. Listen, Jones. You understand what happened now. You see it. Why not just get it all out in the open?”
I sat down on his camp chair. The last leg of my journey had been on foot, and the military roads were broken and gullied, and hard on even the best of legs.
“I will be certain this time,” I said. “Certain beyond certain. And there are still facts missing.”
“I don’t know what else that sentry boy could have to say.”
“We will see.”
We went out then, past the infirmary tents set aside from the rest of the camp. As we passed, a soldier screamed out at the horrors of hell.
I turned to Tyrone. “Typhoid, is it?”
He had a number of grim smiles in his repertoire. One of them tightened his lips.
“Delirium. A drunkard. The typhoid at its worst won’t do to this army what drink, indulgence, and diarrhea are doing.”
“Irish, is he?”
Tyrone gave me a hard look. “I think Davies is a Welsh name.”
There was progress in the army, though. McClellan, for all that he would fail us later, and for all of his shenanigans, must have the credit for bringing a professional touch to the forces under his command. When we got to the New York camp, I found that the old colonel had been relieved and replaced by a regular. The man had no objection to our interview with young Haney, and even offered to accompany us.
Private Haney was emptying slops when we found him. A look of fear crossed his face at this sudden convergence of officers—with his new colonel, at that—but he remembered me then and put down his bucket with a dunce’s smile.
“Salute, Private,” the colonel said. He did not bark, but had that good, cold voice of command in him. As though every word he said had been tested and found of worth.
Haney got up a salute of sorts. “Enough now,” the colonel told him. “These gentlemen want to talk to you.”
“Yes, sir. About that dead fella, I reckon.”
“Will we go someplace where we can sit?” the colonel asked me. “Is there a requirement for privacy, gentlemen?”
“No, sir,” I said. “For we won’t be five minutes. Now… Private Haney… when last we spoke you made a curious remark to me, though I failed to appreciate it at the time. You told me you heard a party of drunks come singing up the road in the rain. In the night, before you found the body. You specified that they were officers. How could you know a thing like that? In the darkness of a storm? You couldn’t see them, could you?”
“No, sir.”
“Then?”
“Well, two things, Captain. First, only your officer fellas get to act that free-for-all, like. It was long after midnight. After the storm come over us. With tents blowing down and all. And all us soldiers were long since back to camp, and weren’t hardly gone in the first place. When they come up the road singing like that, I knew they had to be officers. Cause of their liberties alone.”
“And the second thing?”
God bless the boy, he made the story whole.
He worked his boot into the one cake of soil in Virginia that had not been turned to mud by the autumn. “Well, sir… it was that song they were singing. I know just about every song there is. I’m just singing all the time.” He eyed his colonel shyly. “When it’s time for singing, I mean. And I know ‘em all. But I didn’t know the song those fellas were singing. And they didn’t sound like no foreigners. So they had to be officers to know some funny song like that.”
“Do you think… you might recognize it again?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I got a fair ear.”
I braced back my shoulders and began to sing.
And didn’t they all give me the queerest look.
When I had finished verse and chorus, I asked, “Was that the song?”
Haney’s head twisted back and forth. “No, sir. I never heard nothing like that. That weren’t it.”
“All right. Listen again.” I tried the second song, the fraternity ditty.
Not four bars had gone by when a change swept over the p
rivate’s face. He began to nod along in time. Before I could reach the chorus, he broke in.
“That’s it. That’s the song, all right.”
The colonel only looked baffled by the entire business. But Tyrone had my measure.
“You’re sure that was the song? You’re absolutely certain?”
Haney was excited. “Oh, yes, sir. I’m real good that way. And it’s such a silly kind of tune, ain’t it?” He tried a few bars himself, and made a fair job of it, though his tenor was reedy and he did not have the words.
As we walked back toward the brigade headquarters, Tyrone said, “Well… that locks it in. Is there any more proof you need?”
“Yes.”
“Man, the business is clear as an August sky.”
“No. There’s more.”
“And what more could there be?”
“I can’t say. Not yet. You’d think me a fool. Or worse.”
He grumbled to himself. Then he laughed and said, “And I thought all Welshmen could sing. For the love of God.”
I ignored his remark, for he was in foul temper, and even an educated Irishman is no judge of musical ability.
As we approached the straight line of tents climbing his slope, I screwed up the nerve to speak of the other matter to him.
“Dr. Tyrone… there is a favor I would ask.”
“What’s that?” He seemed as gruff as he had that first day. My unwillingness to confide in him had put him in a temper. But I could not shape the words yet. For if I was wrong in my suspicions, I was horribly wrong. Fit for the blackest pit of Hell for even thinking such a thing. I needed one more piece for my puzzle. But I knew not from whence it might come. Twas a terrible feeling.
“I need a second,” I said. “For a duel.”
He stopped cold. His eyes contained all the ferocity of a northern sea during a winter blow. “Are you insane?”
“I must fight a duel. This afternoon. At last light. Will you stand my second, Dr. Tyrone?”
“I will not. I should write you into the madhouse for even suggesting such a thing.”
“It is with Major Trenchard.”
He snorted. “Then you’re twice the fool. Let justice take care of him. Anyway, duels are against the law. And all of it’s nothing but nonsense for rich ninnies. For God’s sake, Jones… let justice handle Trenchard.”
“There is justice… and there is justice. I will have my go at him first.”
Tyrone was exasperated. “And here I thought there was hope for at least one hard-nutted Welshman. But I see there’s none. And what is it that the man did to you, then? That’s so terrible you’re after him like a whisky priest after the poor box?”
I could barely speak it. “He… insulted my wife.”
I expected more mockery from him. But he surprised me. He settled and reached into his pocket for his pipe. “We’ll none of us ever learn,” he said. “Will we?” Then he looked at the lowering sky and said, “I will not be your second, for it’s all a nonsense anyway. But you may be needing a doctor, and you can count on Mick Tyrone for that.” He held the pipe halfway to his mouth. “You’re a religious man, are you not?”
“I am. For there is strength in it.”
“Do you pray? Every day, Jones?”
“I do.”
“On your knees? Like a child?”
“On my knees. And, sometimes, when I am only walking about.”
“And you have faith? You really have it? You really believe it all?”
These were difficult matters, but I answered as best I could. “I have faith when it is on me,” I said, “and duty when it is not.”
“But faith, then? At least some of the time?”
“Much of the time. I would it were more.”
“Then tell me something, Jones. Just tell me one thing.” I saw the clouds reflected in his eyes. “Why is your God such a bastard?”
Now I would not think on the duel. But there were matters that could not be avoided, and last things that wanted doing. Tyrone come back to the city with me, and we stopped by Mrs. Schutzengel’s. She wanted to feed us both, but I told her we had no time. Though I mentioned no duel.
“Men must eat,” she said. “For the strengths.”
“Supper will do, Mrs. Schutzengel, when suppertime comes.”
She regarded me dubiously, and looked to Tyrone for an ally. But he said nothing. He was a gaunt one, Mick Tyrone, with the look of one who fasts or at least finds no great pleasure in the world of tastes and aromas.
“Mrs. Schutzengel,” I said, “I do have a favor to ask of you.” Tyrone perked up at that, as if he thought I might ask her to be my second. And a fine second Hilda Schutzengel would have been, for she had more courage than ten of us, I think now. But I only said, “Lately… you’ve been complaining. About the amount of work you have to do. I thought perhaps—”
“Complaining? You are hearing me to complain? When am I complaining? Soli ich alles einfach gehen lassen?”
I took a step backward. “No need to get in a dudgeon, Mrs. Schutzengel. It’s only that there does seem to be an awful lot of work for you since you let the last girl go, and I just—”
“You think I am weak, maybe?” She filled her lungs and filled the room. “Weak and sick like the Englischen roses?”
“No, Mrs. Schutzengel… you may be… the strongest woman I’ve ever met… it’s—please just hear me out. There’s a young woman I’ve come across. Of excellent character. She’s looking for a domestic position, see. For she lost her last one through a tragedy, and no fault of her own. She’s a good girl, I think.”
Oh, the suspicion in her eyes. “And where do you meet this good girl?”
“She’s at a boardinghouse for young ladies. Very tidy it is. The establishment of one Mrs. Flaherty, just over in Swampoodle. Her name’s Annie Fitzgerald, and—”
“Flaherty? Swampoodle? Fitzgerald? Irish?”
“Well, yes.”
“An Irish girl he wants to bring into my house. Gott im Himmel. What kind of house does he think Hilda Schutzengel is for keeping?”
“The Irish… can’t all be bad,” I said, with a careful glance at Mick Tyrone. But he only seemed amused by the conversation.
“Men she will come sneaking in! And then the stealing! And such mouths they have, these Irishes! And dirty!” She crossed her massive arms across her bulwark of a chest. “Nein! No! Bis zur Ewigkeit!”
It was not a day to intimidate Abel Jones. I fair squared off with the good woman. “Mrs. Schutzengel… if you just give the girl a chance… just meet her, talk to her… I will stand her bond. I will… assume liability,” and how those words hurt coming out of my mouth, “financial liability for any… indiscretions on her part. Listen, she’s a good girl, and she needs a chance. I just don’t want to see her driven into the streets. And Irish she may be, but look at Dr. Tyrone here. Even the Irish can rise above themselves, given a chance.”
“She is a drunkard, this Irish?”
“No.”
“But dirty?”
“Spotlessly clean.”
“With the badness in the mouth, though?”
“She is the soul of modesty and politeness. Listen… you have that attic room nobody will take. Annie Fitzgerald would be glad of it. Glad and grateful she’d be. Can’t you just let the girl come over so you can judge for yourself? Just give her that much of a chance. Please, Mrs. Schutzengel. You said yourself justice would only come in America. But it will never come if we don’t make it come, see.”
Mrs. Schutzengel’s face looked as though she had just pulled it from the oven.
“She will scrub,” she said, “and clean the nightpots. Terrible things I will make her do. And then we will see about your Irish.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Schutzengel. I just want you to have a talk with her. Just that. You’ll like her.”
The last bit was too much for her and she hurled herself back into the sanctuary of her kitchen. “Now he will make me like her, too,” sh
e grumbled as she went.
After that, I went upstairs and wrote a letter to my Mary Myfanwy. For accidents will happen. And the truth is that, for all of my experience of war, I had none of duels. They were not matters for sergeants, and rare they were in India even among officers, for death prowled all around us there, and few had the luxury of the silly quarrels that might have laid them low back in England.
I would not be maudlin, and time there was little. So I wrote of my love and of the small account in the bank. Then I went back downstairs and gave the note to Tyrone, with an explanation. He laid down the book in which he had been browsing.
“I pray we shall not need it,” he said. “You know… this truly is madness, Jones. And you’re a rare good man. I pray you’ll see reason.”
“And who do you pray to?” I asked him, for my temper was not good.
“A figure of speech. You know what I mean. Listen… all these outmoded concepts of honor… I was certain you had more sense than that.”
“There are fights in life,” I told him, “from which we must not run. I look easily enough upon the cowardice of the body, Dr. Tyrone, but not on that of the soul.”
Twas a poor choice of words, and I regretted I had spoken them to him of all men, but could not take them back.
We walked in silence to Swampoodle then, where we rounded up Jimmy Molloy. He was not too drunk and agreed to stand my second.
Chapter 13
We fought amid the cattle. The commissary department grazed hundreds of beeves on the Mall, and the herd had bunched by the obelisk at the day’s end. The tower was to be a grand memorial to George Washington, they said, but its trunk stood unfinished. Discarded blocks of stone lay by the base, and the site drowsed in neglect. It might have been a broken pagan shrine. We shoved between the heifers, with their indolent unconcern and sudden trottings, until we reached the edge of the mud flats. At low water, all was stink and busted barrels, with broken wagon wheels and the bloated corpse of a goat. On top of all, the smell of ill-tended horses drifted down from the army’s remount stables across the canal. Twas an ugly place for an ugly business.
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