I Have Seen Him in the Watchfires

by Cathy Gohlke

  Jenkins was not on duty this time. The private standing at attention outside the fort took my name and the name of the prisoner I wanted to see without a blink. He directed me to a guard sitting at a table inside the sally port, a ledger spread open before him.

  “Col. Mitchell’s on the hospital list.”

  “May I see him?”

  The private nodded. “I’ll get a private to take you over.” He glanced at the small parcel in my hand and the crock of broth. “All packages for prisoners must be searched here.”

  I pulled back. “That’s fine. But I want whatever is not allowed held till I come out; then I’m taking it home.”

  The private looked up surprised. “Of course.” He opened the crock and sniffed appreciatively. “The soup is not a problem.” He unwrapped the package and weighed the paper and inkwell in his hand. “I don’t know if this prisoner is allowed writing paper … though if he’s in hospital I doubt he’s up to writing.” He hesitated, then leaned forward. “I’m going to let this go through—only because he might want you to write letters home for him. There aren’t enough able to do that. You do write, don’t you?”

  I nodded, not wanting to get in a fuss then and there.

  “When you leave here today the writing paper, pen, and inkwell must all come out with you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.” I didn’t understand why he was allowing them at all.

  The hospital ran a long, single-story room, high ceiling, with two long rows of cots, side by side, along the outer walls. High windows kept the light low, even though it neared noon. Soft moans, hacking chest coughs, and the running chatter of a man who didn’t seem to know where he was kept a steady hum through the ward. I searched faces from the doorway, looking again for Ma’s blue eyes, hoping Cousin Albert would agree to see me.

  The standing guard listened to the private who’d walked me over, then led me to a bed at the far end of the room. The patient faced the wall, his eyes closed. The body under the sheets scarcely made a man’s form—nothing like the tall, strong man I’d known four years ago. I shook my head, wanting to say there must be some mistake, that he’d picked the wrong man. But the guard looked away, like he’d seen that question a hundred times. He spoke low, “Take all the time you need,” then walked away.

  “Cousin Albert?” I whispered, almost hoping he wouldn’t answer. The form didn’t move. I coughed, sat on the edge of the bed, and tried again, a little louder. “Cousin Albert?” His eyes opened, and there they stood, Ma’s blue. He turned enough to see me. But the effort seemed to cost more strength than he had, and he looked away. “It’s Robert.” He blinked. “I’ve brought you some broth, and something from Emily.” His eyes found mine, and I knew I held a lifeline in her name.

  “Emily wrote that you were here. A soldier, an exchanged prisoner, found her and told her you’d been wounded, captured at Gettysburg. She’d heard you had the smallpox. She asked me to come find you.” He looked as if he didn’t want to believe me.

  I looked over my shoulder, to make sure we weren’t watched, then pulled out Emily’s gifts, one by one. “She sent some things for you—this housewife—I think she embroidered it herself. See? Those are your initials, and these are hers.” His eyes gained a spark of life. “She sent a tin of pecans.” I pulled the handkerchief from my pocket and untied it, tried to place a pecan between his lips, but it fell away. I unwound the muffler from inside my shirt and rested it on his chest. “I’ll bet she knitted this muffler herself. It was Christmas when she sent the package, but it came just a couple days before I found you. I don’t know how it got through—who delivered it.” I set the paper and inkwell on the small table by his bed. His eyes followed my every move.

  “I’d have come sooner, but they wouldn’t let me see you, not while you were in solitary.” That sparked anger in his eyes and made me sorry I’d mentioned it. He turned away. “I’m sorry if my coming caused you more trouble, Cousin Albert. I never meant that to happen.”

  He stared at the wall, and a long minute passed. “If you…” He tried to speak, but I couldn’t hear him.

  “Sir?” I put my ear close to his mouth.

  “If you hadn’t come I would be on my way home to Emily.”

  The pendulum ticked off the minutes on the heavy wall clock at the end of the room. “I’m sorry,” I said at last. I was sorry. But how could I be sorry that his prison break turned sour? Wouldn’t that be disloyal to the Union, to Pa? Then I remembered Emily’s Testament and letter, and pulled them from my vest pocket. “There’s something else—the best yet. Emily sent this Testament too … and I think there’s a letter inside.”

  It was the most life I’d seen in him. “Help me sit,” he whispered. I doubled up his pillow under his head, then rolled the blanket and stuffed it beneath that. I pulled him up by the armpits. He winced, but didn’t cry out.

  “Do you want me to read it to you?”

  “Give it to me.” His voice took on a breathless authority.

  “Yes, sir,” I said, glad he wanted something—anything.

  He tugged at the seal and finally broke it. A heavier paper, a photograph, fell from the folds of Emily’s letter to the floor, turning over and over, two faces coming and going. I picked it up, glad he’d have a picture of Emily and Alex, anxious myself to see what Emily looked like these four years later. But it wasn’t Emily and Alex. It was Emily and Ma. I hadn’t seen Ma in more than four years, and there she was, posed with Emily like a mother and daughter. Their faces, the faces I’d been racking my brain for, and all the memory of the two women, so alike, so different, so important to me, rushed over me till I could scarce breathe.

  Cousin Albert held out his hand for the photograph. I swallowed and gave it to him. There were two letters in the envelope; one I knew to be Emily’s writing. I looked away. If the other was from Ma I couldn’t bear it. I’d prayed for a letter from her for nearly a year. That Cousin Albert should have both a letter and a photograph, when I had neither, made me hate him. And then I hated myself. What was I thinking, grudging a dying man the only air he wanted?

  He took a long time to read both letters. I could tell from his face that it was food and drink. I tried not to seem too eager. I hoped he would offer to let me read them, at least the one from Ma, or let me hold the picture. But he folded both letters and lay there, drinking in the picture.

  Twenty minutes passed. I felt a fool for sitting there, ashamed to ask for what I wanted from him. I had a mind to go, then remembered the flask hidden beneath my trouser leg. I lifted his head. He drank greedily, but ended in a fit of coughing, turning his head away. Still, the brandy seemed to bolster him. He lay back on the pillow and took up the picture again.

  From where I stood I could see Ma’s face. She looked older, thinner, but still beautiful. Her hair had streaked gray, something I never thought to see on Ma. The photographer must have caught her at an odd moment, the way she looked off in the distance, distracted. Emily was an hourglass, younger, a darker version of Ma, and I couldn’t help that my breath caught. Cousin Albert pulled the photograph away, turning it so I couldn’t see. I bit my lip and hated him for it. I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t speak to him, not anymore that day.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow.” When he didn’t answer I turned my back. “Is there anything you want me to bring you?” He didn’t answer. I walked out, not caring two bits if I saw him again. He was holding the thing I wanted most in life and wouldn’t let me look, no matter that I’d brought it to him!

  I left the fort and never checked out with the guard, but made tracks for the dock.

  I was grateful Captain Ames wasn’t on deck. I was done talking.

  Four

  The Maynards waited, curious about my day, but I was not of a mind to talk. They didn’t pry I thought well of them for that.

  At breakfast next morning Mrs. Maynard asked me if I’d be going over to the fort. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to leave for Ashland and never look back. But I nodd
ed. I owed Emily that.

  “Perhaps your cousin would benefit from more broth. If he’s not been eating, a good strong broth and bread could do him a world of good. I’d like to send some along if you are willing.” Mrs. Maynard’s kindness shamed me.

  “Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

  By the time I boarded the supply boat I toted a crock of soup and two loaves of fresh bread for Cousin Albert. The Maynards convinced me to ask the guards if I could carry fresh bread to other prisoners. I’d had good luck getting Emily’s things to Cousin Albert, and what harm could asking do?

  Cousin Albert needed help to eat the soup, to tear and soak the bread. But he seemed to gain a little strength with each mouthful. When he’d finished half the broth he turned his head away. “No more. No more.” I hinged the crock for later. He closed his eyes and lay back against his pillow and blanket roll. I watched him breathe. I couldn’t hate him. I couldn’t touch him in kindness and hate him at the same time, no matter that I struggled against it. And I wondered if it was like that for soldiers thrown together, left on the field. I wondered if they helped the men they’d shot, after a battle, or if they left them wounded or dying, and how a man would choose.

  “Thank you, Robert.” It was the first kind word he’d given. We sat in the stillness, listening as the pendulum of the ticking clock counted off the minutes. “Thank you for coming,” he said, his eyes still closed. “I know you didn’t mean me harm. War and starvation make a man-made me—behave in ways I never would have done before. I’m sorry.” It was a long speech for a sickly man.

  “I never meant you anything but good, Cousin Albert. And I’d do anything in the world that Emily asked me.”

  His face relaxed. “I’m too weak to talk on, Robert. But stay a while; talk to me.”

  I wanted to ask him for the picture, just to see the picture, to run my finger over Ma’s face, to touch Emily’s hair. But I couldn’t ask him and keep my voice steady. Not yet.

  I thought of when Miz Laura was sick, before she’d died, how she wanted folks to sit with her and talk, when it was just too much of a strain to keep her eyes open. So I talked about Laurelea, about the fields we’d turned, what we’d planted and hoped to plant. I talked about the fine tobacco at Ashland and Mitchell House, wondered how it was doing, wondered if Noah was still his driver. It was all small talk, safe talk, talk about home and the lands and people we both felt akin to. I was careful not to mention Pa, or the work that he was doing.

  After a time Cousin Albert grew restless. I wasn’t sure if he was in pain or dreaming. “Cousin Albert? Cousin Albert?” He settled down. “Where is your Testament, Cousin Albert? I could read to you.”

  “No!” His eyes shot open, and he spoke sharply, then caught himself. “No, thank you. I read yesterday. I don’t want it now. I’m tired, Robert.”

  “Maybe I should go now.”

  “Yes,” he said, quickly.

  I stood to go, then remembered the pen and inkwell. “Cousin Albert? Cousin Albert?” He opened his eyes. “Yesterday I left a pen and inkwell here on your stand. Emily sent them. The guard at the sally port ordered me to take them out when I left, but I forgot. I can bring them back tomorrow if you want me to write letters for you. Do you know where they are?”

  While I talked his muscles tensed, but his eyes grew heavy. He mumbled, “Guard must have taken them away.” And then he seemed to be sleeping.

  I regretted that. Emily had sent those things especially for her pa. I picked up my jacket and found my cap, which had fallen to the floor. That’s when I spotted the dark ink splotch on the floorboard by the bed, and another on the bed quilt just above it, as though someone had dropped a pen. It could have happened anytime, by anyone. But the ink stain on Cousin Albert’s third finger was recent.

  All the way to the boat I asked, “Why would he lie about such a thing?” Why would he think I’d care if he’d tried to write a letter? And then I wondered, why would the guard care if he wrote anything? He was stuck in the hospital, far from his men, too weak to escape or help anyone else escape. But the idea of him writing didn’t ring true. He seemed too weak to sit up for such a thing.

  By the third day I’d either smuggled or openly carried in everything I had to take to Cousin Albert and was determined this would be my last visit. I needed to head South. Mrs. Maynard had piled my arms with sacks of bread for the prisoners that day and sent a crock of vegetable soup and one of elderberry jam for Cousin Albert. She must have baked half the night.

  “Make certain you give these loaves directly to the prisoners,” she’d said. “If they go through the guards those suffering men won’t get a bite!”

  I got past the first set of guards.

  “I brought this bread for the men of the 26th North Carolina. I want to deliver it myself.” Helping his starving men would please Cousin Albert, and maybe that would help him set his sights to getting well.

  “Shame to waste good bread.” The guard spat a stream of tobacco juice across my shoes. “Five minutes I’ll give you. If you last that long.” He chuckled, and swung open the barracks door.

  In the time it took my eyes to adjust to the low light two dozen ragged men swarmed off the bunks. “A lady in town made this bread for you, for all of you.” The bread was ripped from my arms by more hands than I could count, then torn in pieces, shared in as many directions as it could stretch.

  In the rush my arm was twisted high behind my back, till tears sprang to my eyes. A voice hissed near my ear. “Where is the colonel? Where is Col. Mitchell?”

  “In hospital. He’s in the hospital,” I gasped.

  “You lie. They took him away!”

  “To solitary—but he’s out now—in the hospital!” I never saw the face of the man who’d nearly broken my arm. As quickly as he’d grabbed me he was gone, melted into the swarm of men. I cradled my arm, blinked my eyes. The men lay back on their bunks, as if they’d never left them, chewing the remnants of Mrs. Maynard’s bread.

  Trying to steady my breath, I backed out of the room, quickly as I dared, keeping my eyes on the bunks. A hand tugged on my trouser leg. I jerked away, almost missing the voice near my feet. “Tell the lady thank you. Thank you for the bread.” It was a boy, about my age, but gaunt, skin over bones, sitting on the lowest bunk platform near the door. His left trouser leg hung empty, pinned to his hip. “You’ll tell her?”

  “Yes.” I blinked again. “I’ll tell her.”

  I nearly ran up the path to the sally port, glad to get away from those men, hating that I’d turned my back on the one-legged boy. Is this what war does—turn men into beasts and boys into cripples, cripples I’m afraid to be near? What was the matter with me?

  I passed the guards, laughing, playing gambling cards inside the sally port.

  When I enlisted, would I become like these guards—hard, not seeing the sorry state of men in front of me, even if they were the enemy? Would I turn greedy, like Jenkins, a cruel streak running near my surface? Cousin Albert said that war and starvation make a man do things he never would’ve before. Then I remembered the guard who’d let me take Emily’s gifts to Cousin Albert, and the one-legged prisoner boy I’d just seen, thanking me for bread. Good and bad everywhere, like Mr. Maynard said.

  Cousin Albert looked stronger, seemed glad to see me, gladder still when I told him about the bread for the 26th. I didn’t tell him about the man who nearly broke my arm. “There’s never enough food. We eat rats when we can catch them. Fish from the river—when someone is allowed to fish—we divide fifty ways. Did you know five fish can be divided fifty ways?” I didn’t. “I fed my slaves fifty times better than that.”

  “Why did you stay with them? Why did you stay in those barracks when you could have been housed with the officers?”

  “It’s an officer’s duty to stand by his men, to lead. What kind of leader would I be if I’d deserted them?” His voice gained strength, authority. For the first time I saw something of the man I’d known four years ago.
r />   I leaned forward. “The Union officer said you organized escapes, that you were planning to escape yourself soon.”

  Cousin Albert leveled my stare. “You saw those barracks. You saw the guards, the prisoners. Those prisoners are men who followed orders, did their duty in battle, defended their homes and country. Now they’re starving—treated like animals. I never once treated my slaves in such a fashion. They deserve their freedom, Robert.” He looked away.

  “You, of all people, should understand that.” He closed his eyes, exhausted from the talk. “It’s the work you and Charles do with your abolition movement and your Underground Railroad.”

  His words gouged my belly. He’d spoken true. It was why I ran with Jeremiah, why I ran slaves north, against the law, time and time again.

  I pulled on my jacket and hat. Slavery was war too. And slavery had to end. It seemed that wouldn’t happen in the South except by war and bloodshed. But did that make it all right to treat prisoners of war like slaves or worse?

  “What will happen to those men?”

  “Men who rot in prison? They die, day by day. Unless they have the good fortune to fend off disease long enough to live out this war.” He stopped to rest, and I thought he’d fallen asleep. But his eyes opened of a sudden. “They’ll go home with broken health to live broken lives on decimated land. Their homes have been foraged and pilfered, if they’re lucky. If they’re not lucky their homes and barns have been burned. Their wives and daughters may have starved or been violated or had to relocate, God only knows where. Their families may be in hiding or dead. Win or lose the war, they’ve already lost what can’t be restored to them.”

  I’d never thought of the secesh in that way. Why hadn’t I? I’d seen those men as the enemy, men who might shoot my pa, who plotted to destroy the Union, who killed other men to hang on to slavery. They were men I was bound to kill when my time came. But they were men, just the same. And most of the war was fought on their homeland, not mine, not the Union’s.