“You scared?” Jonathan asked, speaking soft.
Robley considered his answer. “No. You?”
“No.”
“I’m not either,” Nathaniel offered, but they were all lying and they all knew it.
Captain Clarence F. Hamer came stamping up the line, his tall boots in high polish, his tailored gray coat buttoned snug around his midriff, the top of his kepi a swirl of gold lace. “Lieutenant Paine! Get the company in order! We move out in half an hour. You hear?”
“Yes, sir!” Robley fairly shouted. He turned to the soldiers closest to him-his brothers-and began to issue orders. “Fall in, there! Get ready to march, men!” The order to move, to actually move, pitched his excitement even higher. And when Nathaniel and Jonathan said nothing but “Yessir!” and stumbled off to fetch their gear, he knew that they felt the same.
It was an hour and a half after Hamer’s orders that Private Nathaniel Paine splashed into the Bull Run River. The warm, brown water quickly filled his shoes so that each step was accompanied by a sucking, squishing feel. He wished he could shed them, go barefoot, as he had for half of his life, but Robley would not like that.
Nathaniel felt twisted up, alternately nauseated and jubilant. He wanted to get into the fight, he wanted to run, he wanted to move just to release the awful tension boiling inside. Robley could issue orders and yell at the beats, Jonathan could make jokes and get the ranks roaring with laughter. Nathaniel did not have those safety valves, so he marched, and that was some relief. But the pace was agonizingly slow, stopping, starting, stopping, until he wanted to scream with frustration.
They crossed through the river and trudged up the bank on the north side, and Nathaniel considered how he was now at the northernmost point on earth he had ever been. It was pretty, with the rolling green fields and the darker trees and the brown roads crisscrossing the country. Pretty, but not the place he would care to spend eternity.
Off to the left, northeast of their position, he could hear artillery making it a hot morning for someone. Longstreet’s brigade, he imagined. Third Brigade was marching now, and he wondered where they were going, what they were trying to accomplish. March on Centreville? Hit the flank of a Union attack? What was it like, to hit a flank? It was an expression he had heard again and again from the many would-be generals in camp, but he had only the vaguest idea of what it meant.
Still, they were moving toward something, and that alone buoyed him. The marching was good, the final call to action. And just as his shoes were starting to dry, and he was taking some joy in the long, rhythmic strides of the army advancing, someone called a halt.
The sound of tramping feet died away, and in its place came groans of frustration, muttered curses. Some said, “Aw, now what the hell is it?” loud, so the words carried over the ranks.
Jonathan, at Nathaniel’s side, shouted back, “We got to wait for the Yankees to change into their brown pants!” It was not a particularly funny reply, but in that charged atmosphere the men would have laughed at anything, and they laughed at that.
For twenty minutes or so they remained in place, on the road, standing ready to move out. Then slowly, like a cube of sugar in coffee, the tight ranks began to dissolve. Men leaned on rifles, then sat on the road, then stretched out on the roadside with their heads on their knapsacks and fell asleep. Others wandered down into the fields that bordered the road and began to eat the ubiquitous blackberries off the tall, dense, thorny bushes.
To the northwest the artillery continued to pound away, and farther off, five miles or so, on the Confederate left, where there was not supposed to be a battle, they could hear sounds that sounded very much like a battle indeed. Over the tops of the trees, smoke like low-lying fog rose from the field and hung there. And on the Confederate right, where the 3rd Brigade waited, the insects buzzed in the grass, the songbirds flashed through the trees, and the men ate blackberries and dozed.
The morning grew hotter, the men more lethargic, and the gunfire off to the far left grew more intense. Jonathan sat on the road, leaning on his knapsack, and Nathaniel sat beside him. From his knapsack he pulled a battered leather-bound journal and the pencil that he kept stuck in the binding.
July 21. Woke up and called to arms. Thought we were going into battle for sure, and it made me damned scared, I’ll admit it. Jonathan joking around as ususal, but I think he is scared too. He tricked me into filling our canteens. Robley is ordering everyone around, but that is his way and I think he is just nervous and does that to shake the nerves off.
“You writing to Ma?” Jonathan asked.
Nathaniel looked up with a flush of embarrassment. “No.”
“Well, you should. And when you do, tell her I love her too, all right?”
“Why don’t you write yourself?”
“I will. But you’re the one always writing. You planning on publishing your memoirs? Get rich that way?”
“Might. Once I get famous.”
“Oh? When you gonna get famous?”
“Once I get a chance to start licking Yankees.”
“Humph. Good thing your daddy’s got money.”
Nathaniel put the book and pencil away, lay on his backpack, and pretended to sleep. At last the officers came riding and racing down the line, stirring the men of 3rd Brigade, urging them back into ranks. Nathaniel felt the languor drain away as he snatched up his rifle, shuffled back into line. He could see grins on the other men’s faces, nervous shuffling of feet as they prepared to plunge forward.
But they did not. Rather, they were ordered about, marched back toward where they had come from. Fifty-five minutes later, Nathaniel Paine’s now dry shoes once again plunged into the lazy Bull Run. Twenty minutes after that, he found himself at approximately the same place he had started that morning. If his rifle had not been loaded he would have thrown it down in disgust. The fight was out of him now. Not spent but worn away, and he did not think he would get it back, not that day.
Jonathan Bonaventure Paine saw the disgust on Nathaniel’s face and told himself that he felt the same. And he did. To a degree.
He leaned on his rifle, took off his kepi, and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. It was terribly hot, and not yet noon.
“Hey, Nathaniel?”
“What?” His brother’s tone disgusted, resigned, weary.
“Got any water left in your canteen, there?”
“Yeah.” Nathaniel pulled the half-empty canteen off his shoulder, handed it to Jonathan. Jonathan took it, tipped the water into his mouth. It was warm, near hot, and he could taste the mud of the Bull Run, but he was grateful for it.
Here was the difference between them, Jonathan thought. Nathaniel had saved half his water, while he had drained his an hour ago. He imagined that if they checked Robley’s canteen they would find it near full, that the lieutenant was saving the entire thing for when it was really needed.
Jonathan handed the canteen back, looked off to the country that lay south of the Bull Run. That morning there had been regiments spread out around the McLean house, held in reserve for the attack that was to come their way. They were not there now. They had been ordered off to reinforce the left flank, when it became clear that that was where the fighting actually was. Only the trampled grass and the dark circles where fires had once burned indicated that armies had once bivouacked there.
He turned and looked toward the northwest. The smoke was thick over the low hills, and the sound of the firing, soft and distant though it was, was continuous. Someone was catching hell.
“Reckon they were right about a battle today,” Nathaniel said. “But someone was wrong about where.”
“Reckon.” Cresting one of the low hills between themselves and the battle line, and about a mile away, Jonathan could see a battalion heading for the fight. They were marching fast, a long, gray line, the sun glinting off bayonets. The sight moved him in a strange way, and he felt the emotions rush one way and another until he thought he might go quietly mad, standing t
here in the Virginia sun.
It had frightened him, marching across the Bull Run. And yet he had been disappointed when they halted, confused when they were ordered back over the river. At one moment he wanted to be at the Yankees, the next he wanted to skulk off into a stand of trees and hide.
There was Nathaniel, obviously angry about missing out on the fight. Jonathan had always thought his brother felt as he did, though they certainly had never discussed it. But in the final instant, he wondered, was Nathaniel more of a fire-eater than he?
Robley was afraid, he had said so, but he was afraid of running, not of stopping a bullet. Well, Jonathan was afraid of that too. He was afraid to miss the fight, afraid to join the fight, afraid he was a coward, unsure how he measured up against the others. He wanted to take the butt of his gun and bash himself on the head, just to drive the thoughts away.
He looked at the distant brigade, the diamond flashes of sun on polished steel, and in that instant, with no consideration given to it, he made a decision, and with that decision, everything else was wiped away. There was no more room for any of it.
“Nathaniel, see that brigade yonder?”
“Yeah. Jackson, I reckon.”
“I’m gonna go join up with them.”
Nathaniel had no reply to that. Finally he said, “What are you talking about, Jonathan?”
“I’m going to go. Right now. Catch up with them. Go see the monkey show.”
He pulled his eyes from the bayonets, looked his brother square in the face, and to his surprise, he saw a smile growing on Nathaniel’s face.
“Damn…I’m going too.”
Jonathan bit his lip. How many times had he instigated Nathaniel into joining him on some stupid venture or other, only to catch it from Robley? Here it was again, and while this was surely different from lighting fires in the woods, or taking off down the Yazoo River on a homemade raft, it was the same thing as well.
Jonathan grinned. “Let’s go!”
The boys picked up their knapsacks and rifles, shuffled out of what was left of the line of march. The men of the 3rd Brigade were spreading out again, going after blackberries, ambling down to the river to fill canteens. There were no officers that they could see, so they walked along, slow and inconspicuous, as if they were in search of a blackberry bush of their own.
“Hey, you.” Jonathan heard a voice, Robley’s voice, behind.
Damn… He turned around. “Lieutenant! Are we going to attack them Yankees, or what?”
“Where y’all going?” Robley ran his eyes over his brothers. “Nathaniel, where y’all going?”
“Looking for blackberries,” Jonathan supplied, because he knew Nathaniel could not lie with conviction.
“That’s a damned lie. Where the hell you going?”
Nathaniel straightened a bit. “We’re going to join that brigade yonder. Going into the fight.”
Robley squinted at them, shook his head. “You can’t do that. This here’s your regiment. You can’t just go off where the hell you like. This isn’t playing soldier back home.”
“Well, goddamn it, Robley, there isn’t anything going on here!” Jonathan replied. “I’m not going to spend the whole damned war marching back and forth over that infernal river.”
“There is a reason we are here, you ever think about that? What if them Yankees come down that road, try and flank us?”
“The Yankees aren’t coming down that road! The Yankees are over there! That’s why every damned brigade but us is over there. I’m going. You can come or not, but I’m going.”
“I order you to get back in line!” Robley pointed back to where the 18th Mississippi was milling about.
“There’s no damned line. I’m going. Have me arrested or don’t, but I’m going.” He tossed his rifle over his shoulder, turned on his heel, as he had been taught in drill, and marched off on the double quick, his eyes on the tail end of Brigadier General Thomas Jackson’s 1st Brigade, Army of the Shenandoah.
Robley Paine scowled, clenched his teeth, balled his fists in fury at the sight of Jonathan, marching double-quick away. Issuing another order was pointless. He could summon the provosts, have his brother arrested. If they charged him with deserting, he could be shot. The thought made Robley sick.
Besides, Jonathan was not deserting. In a way, he was doing just the opposite.
Robley turned and glared at Nathaniel, who remained where he had stopped. He was about to say something about Jonathan’s damned insubordination, how he would regret it, but the expression on Nathaniel’s face stopped him. Nathaniel looked apologetic, and sorry, and determined, all at once.
“Nathaniel…”
“I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I have to go.” He snapped to attention, gave a flawless salute, then turned as Jonathan had and hurried after his brother.
Robley stood alone and watched the two boys march away, and for that moment he hated them, hated them profoundly. He hated them for ignoring his orders and making a mockery of his rank. He hated them because they were going off to be in the fight and he was not, and they would find out if they had the brass for this work, and he might never know.
He hated them because they were privates and could get away with what they were doing, but he was an officer and could not.
And mostly, he hated them because he knew that he was using his lieutenancy as an excuse. He could follow them if he chose. There were nearly three thousand men in the 3rd Brigade. No one would see him, no one would care. At the core of it all, they had the courage to do the thing that they were doing, and he did not, and he hated them for it, and he hated himself.
15
They look for a fight at Norfolk. Beauregard is there. I think if I were a man I’d be there, too.
– Mary Boykin Chesnut
Sunday was perfect, the sun just shy of being too hot, a light breeze off the water, but Bowater felt guilty and exposed as he crossed the naval yard and left through the iron gates. He was still reeling from the terrible thing he had been led into doing, pulled apart by the opposing forces of his humiliation over having lied-there was no other word for it, no softer term-and his delight at seeing the big guns lowered onto the deck.
Bowater skirted the wall of the navy yard to a little waterfront park just to the north of the shipyard. It was no more than a strip of grass and a few trees and benches running along the Elizabeth River, but it afforded a nice view of the water and the town on the far side, a pretty view that Bowater had been working to capture on canvas for the past four Sunday afternoons.
He stopped at the place he had been working, set up his easel, and placed the half-finished canvas on it. He dabbed paint on his palette, stared at the canvas, the river, the canvas. It was the same view he had been staring at from the deck of the Cape Fear for over two months. He wondered why he had thought to paint that scene when he was already so sick of looking at it.
He wondered why he bothered to paint at all, when he was so utterly incapable of capturing that essence that he was seeking. The colors were rendered true, the proportions, the perspective. There was a nice sense of framing with the after end of one of the yard tugs taking up the foreground. It should have been a nice painting, but it was not. Something was not there, like a forgotten word on the tip of the tongue, tantalizing, but he could not find it.
Maddening. Painting was supposed to be his passion, the thing that drew his mind away from the horrible sameness of the rest of it. Now it, too, was becoming a burden.
He dabbed at the oil-paint river, coaxing some of the reflected sunlight out of it, and soon, despite his frustration, he was immersed in the work. There was no Cape Fear, no Hieronymus Taylor, no war that he was in danger of missing, no shame in compromising his integrity. There was only him and the river in front of him and the river he was making appear on the canvas.
“I should not have done that, but the effect is interesting.” A woman’s voice behind him, as if they had been carrying on a conversation, and Bowater jumped, nearly ran hi
s brush right over the canvas.
He turned around. The speaker was perhaps in her mid-twenties. Long, dark hair fell out from under a wide straw hat. She wore a short jacket and skirts-no hoops. Drops and splatters of paint dotted her clothing.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“You most certainly did not frighten me.”
“Startle you then. That’s not bad.” She nodded toward his painting. Samuel felt himself bristle.
“Thank you, ma’am, for so insightful a commentary.”
“You needn’t get in a huff. Just a friendly critique, one painter to another.”
She took a few steps forward, bent and studied the painting while Samuel Bowater studied her, tried to think how this person had managed to squeeze so many damnably irritating comments into two simple sentences.
“If you don’t mind…” Bowater said. The girl straightened, said, “Oh. Sorry. My name is Wendy Atkins.”
She held out her hand in a very masculine gesture and Samuel took it, shook, said, “I am Lieutenant Samuel Bowater, at your service.”
“‘Lieutenant’? An army officer?”
“Confederate States Navy.” Samuel heard the irritation creep into his voice, and Wendy heard it as well.
“Forgive me, Lieutenant, I don’t want to interfere with your artistry.” She turned and walked off, and Samuel watched her, despite himself. There was something about her, something of the libertine, that made Samuel think of the suffragettes or one of these radical, thoroughly distasteful women’s groups.
Forty feet away she stopped and set up an easel and rested a canvas on it. She had been holding a paint kit and canvas in her hand, but Samuel had not even noticed, and he only now caught her phrase “one painter to another.”
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