by L. E. Waters
We both are quiet as we try to drift off in the darkness.
“You know you don’t smell half as bad as the other guys?” he says, almost making it a compliment.
I laugh. “I wish I could say the same of you.”
He chuckles and adds to the effect by waving the air under his armpits in my direction.
“I’m as dirty as the next guy.” And I wasn’t lying. It’s hard to get a moment to bathe in private.
“Are you hiding some fancy soap from me or something?”
I just throw my coat at him. “Go to sleep.”
I don’t realize until the morning that he’d rolled up my coat and used it as a pillow. I pull it out from under his head, waking him up.
Since Gettysburg, James has gotten more comfortable with me and with that begins the wrestling. It wasn’t strange for the guys to be boxing and play-fighting but I usually try to avoid it. James seems to take every chance to jump on my shoulders, or kick my knees out while I’m standing, or grab me in a headlock. I figure it’s in response to the guilt he still feels and an attempt to fill Elijah’s shoes. It’s in no way a substitute, but it’s nice to have someone trying to fill that huge void.
Sometimes when we’re sleeping he purposely rolls completely over me, pretending to be asleep while I try to roll him off. Usually I have to give up and move to his bed—which I secretly like because it smells of him. Even though he doesn’t get to wash or change his clothes as much as I’d like, he still has a pleasant, natural smell. The same way a horse smells strong but once you’re used to it you breathe the air deep, as if you’ve been missing it.
Chapter 8
There’s a great hubbub in our company today. A known deserter returned a few weeks ago and was immediately suspected of having come from the enemy for traitorous purposes. He protested his innocence even as his clothing was being searched, but was found out when an officer demanded that the hem of his trousers be cut open. Once the pass from a rebel general was found, the soldier dropped to his knees, begging for his life. They sent him off to be court marshaled and now they march him back to our company for his punishment to be carried out.
“Are they going to hang him?” I ask James, surprised at the sympathy I feel for this traitor. Something deep down pities his brave attempt and dire predicament.
James spits in his direction. “They should have, but I think they granted him a deserter’s death.”
The firing squad. I’m glad they have spared him the humiliation of a criminal’s hanging. Just the thought of that noose around my neck makes it hard to swallow. It’s one of the last ways I’d ever want to die.
“Let’s go see if we can volunteer to shoot some lead in the traitor.” James takes a few steps and looks back at me.
I stay seated on my log and lift my half-full coffee tin up. “I’m enjoying my coffee. You go have all the fun for me.”
He shrugs and fetches his musket and falls in line with the other soldiers eager to get some revenge on the spy. I sip my coffee slowly as they blindfold the poor deserter. Normally the sergeant loads the squad’s muskets for them, putting some blanks in so that no one knows who shoots the soldier, but, this time, given the bloodlust our company has for spies, he instructs the line of twelve selected men to load their muskets themselves.
James looks disappointed not to have been selected but he gets as close as he can to see the show. The whole camp quiets and I stoke the fire instead of watching them release their lead. Twelve shots ring out simultaneously and a heavy thud quickly follows. When cheers ring out and the band starts up, I know the spy is dead. Why don’t I feel their joy?
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
One especially hot night after our drills, a group of soldiers say they’re headed down to the river. James and Jessie ask me to come and I say, “I can’t swim. I’m going to sleep.”
But they look at each other with eyebrows lifted in signal, then pick me up and carry me, screaming, down to the water. They swing me and throw me into the pond and I’m thinking it’s a good thing I can swim after all. Coming up, they jump in fully dressed, in an attempt to get their filthy clothes a little cleaner. So the problem wasn’t having to get undressed to swim but having nothing to wear while my clothes dry later. Timmie sits on the bank, clutching his knees to his chest.
“Timmie, why don’t you come in?” I squint into the sun behind him.
He draws his knees in closer. “Naw, I have a stomach ache.”
“He’s been doing the Virginia quick step!” Jessie calls out.
James swims over to the bank. “How long you’ve had the flux?”
Timmie starts to redden. “Not too long. Maybe a week.”
“You should probably go to the hospital tent for Blue Mass tomorrow.”
Jessie comes up and plunges James beneath the water, then sings the song we all have humming through our heads when the sick call drums out:
“Dr. Jones says, Dr. Jones says:
Come and get your quin, quin, quin, quinine,
Come and get your quinine,
Q-u-i-n-i-n-e!!!”
Timmie shakes his head. “I’ll be fine, it was that green salt horse we ate last week. It’ll pass soon.”
It’s great fun with everyone splashing, and Jessie climbs a large tree hanging over the pond. Everyone whistles as he jumps about twenty feet into the water.
I loved the feeling of my clothes billowing underwater around me. It irritates me how heavy and stiff they’ve become from heavy wear and dirt. We all stay for about an hour and then realize if we don’t get going we won’t make it back for retreat. I’m nervous to see how tight my shirt clings to me but my chest seems to still be hidden. I think the whole way back of what I’m going to wear to sleep. As soon as we get to the tent, James has his shirt off. I turn away and start to slowly take off my coat while sitting on my bedroll. By the time I have that off and turn around, I’m startled by James’ fully naked body standing there at the entrance to the tent, pulling his pants off his feet. I react automatically by turning away, but he starts talking to me and I don’t know where to look.
“You’re not going to sleep like that are you?” he says, as he gathers up his things and goes to hang his damp clothes. I watch him as he heads out and see the camp is riddled with naked men hanging up their clothes. What am I going to do? I quickly take the opportunity to rip off my shirt and pants and lay them out on the floor next to me and squirm down under my blanket and pretend to be fast asleep in my soaked drawers and bandages. James comes in and chuckles. My heart warms as I hear him pick up my clothes and go back outside to hang them up. I obviously don’t realize until morning that I have a huge problem with my clothes outside. So I again pretend to sleep in slightly past reveille, hoping he’ll think to bring mine in also, which he does, thankfully. I dress quickly when he’s pulling his shoes on outside our tent and get in line barefoot just in time to hear my name called. I can’t believe I figured my way out of that one and my clothes feel so good and clean.
We always hear the butcher’s shots a few hours before supper and the last couple steers have been sacrificed for the comfort of our bellies. I’m sure to get a flabby piece tonight since my last few steaks have been high quality. Oh well, I’ll be sure to make a lobscouse of it if I can get an onion from the regimental sutler. I head over to robbers’ row to his enormous hospital tent, afraid to breath in any wafts of something I won’t be able to resist. I look directly past the canned delicacies—which only the officers can afford—to the more than likely rancid butter, aged cheeses, condensed milk and the small selection of dried and fresh produce. There’s one medium onion left, growing green shoots from it, but good enough for my shoddy cut of steak.
“How much for that onion?” I ask the greasy sutler who has a large bulge in his pockets from his day’s business.
He scratches his head. “For one that large, and seeing they’re as scarce as hen’s teeth, no less t
han two dollars.”
“Two dollars? Was it grown in the White House garden?”
“Take it or leave it. Someone will be coming ‘round for an onion to fry with their steaks tonight.”
I throw two dollars his way but with a scowl. “It’s not right how much you profit off our discomfort. It’ll catch up to you.”
“The prices are high due to the risk I take in these perilous times. You think my wagon just flies here on angel wings, high over the skirmishes and scouts? At any moment, the Secesh could clean me out. And if they don’t, the weather surely can turn and all my investment ruined.” He taps his dirty finger on the top of the barrel his wares rest on. “You should be thanking me, young man.”
I decline a thank you, eyeing that fat pocket he adds my two dollars to, and take the onion up.
He quickly adds with a sugared smile, “Molasses cakes, six for a quarter.” He holds them up close enough that I get a sweet waft of them. He sure knows how to tantalize a soldier.
Why not? I don’t have a family back home to split my paychecks with. I nod and dig out the extra quarter and eat all six on the way back to my tent so that I don’t have the guilt to share them. I could’ve eaten a dozen more. I accept my piece of meat, not fit for hogs, and go to work in my pan, rendering it down to fatty juices then adding in my onion, some hardtack to thicken it, and salt and pepper it to taste. James and Jessie fry their juicy pieces over the fire and I try not to be jealous.
That night someone gets a hold of a couple of jugs of apple jack, which everyone passes around the campfire. Everyone but me, of course, and Timmie, who hits his bedroll early. James seems to have gotten a large share of the jug because he’s jigging and singing like Jessie. Our fiddler was injured at Lookout Mountain and, after a few failed attempts by some to get a tune off his abandoned fiddle, they ask me to play something on my fife. I play the only two jigs I know and they have me play them over and over. I have never seen James wallpapered like this. He dances in such a peculiar, wild way that I can only describe it as what I’ve always imagined a leprechaun would dance like. It makes all the war-worn laugh heartily though.
Suddenly he puts his hands up in the air to quiet the rowdy circle. After a few hollers and coughs, everyone settles. He turns to me. “Can you play, ‘Just Before the Battle, Mother’?”
I nod. It’s one of the boys’ favorites before battle. I start up the slow, lullaby tune and almost halt when James starts to sing. He’s never sung alone before. The liquor has obviously made him brave and his voice is plain but full of pain.
“Just before the battle, Mother,
I am thinking most of you
While upon the fields we’re watching,
With the enemy in view
Comrades, brave, are ‘round me lying
Filled with thoughts of home and God
For well they know that on the morrow
Some will sleep beneath the sod
Farewell, Mother, you may never
Press me to your heart again
But, oh, you’ll not forget me, Mother
If I’m numbered with the slain
Oh, I long to see you, Mother,
And the loving ones at home,
But I’ll never leave our banner,
Till in honor I can come.
Tell the traitors all around you
That their cruel words we know,
In every battle kill our soldiers
By the help they give the foe.
Hark! I hear the bugles sounding,
‘Tis the signal for the fight,
Now, may God protect us, mother,
As He ever does the right.
Hear the “Battle-Cry of Freedom,”
How it swells upon the air,
Oh, yes, we’ll rally ‘round the standard,
Or we’ll perish nobly there.
Farewell, Mother, you may never
Press me to your heart again
But, oh, you’ll not forget me, Mother
If I’m numbered with the slain.”
He weaves back and forth as he sings but takes one too many steps at the end and goes into the ground. I have to help him back to our tent. He’s nearly impossible for me to support since he’s falling in every direction. He seems a hundred pounds heavier. We barely get inside the tent before taps sounds and he keels over on his face. He just keeps laughing, even though there’s no reason to. He rolls over to look at me and he starts laughing again as I position a poncho at either end of our stockaded tent in a desperate attempt to keep out the winter chill. I try to shush him before we’re given fatigue duty for making a ruckus after taps. I lie down on our joined bed rolls and pull our doubled up blankets over us. I can’t keep from shivering and regret leaving the warmth of the fire. James holds his hand up to his lips so I’m quiet, watching him. He just stares at me, one eye to the next.
He then says quietly, “Do you know there is something about you that’s different?” He continues after a brief pause. “You remind me of a girl I knew. She had dark flashing eyes like yours.”
I break his gaze at this and quickly retort, “You’re asking for a punch.”
I roll away, but he presses on. “I shouldn’t have said anything, but I have always thought it since the first time I saw you.” He pauses. “Do you think that’s unnatural or something?” he says with sincere concern.
“Just because you think I have the same eyes as some girl you knew? A lot of people have the same eyes,” is all I can come up with.
“It’s not just that, but, well, I’ve had some dreams about you, dreams where we’re wrestling, but then you change into a woman.”
I don’t know what to say to this, so I say nothing.
Thankfully, he begins to slur and sputter. “You…just…smell…so…nice…” and with that last garbled word he’s asleep, ending that awkward moment.
I pray so hard that he will forget what he said. In the morning he seems perfectly normal and I think my prayers were answered but I notice that the wrestling stops completely and he seems to avoid being alone with me in the tent after that. He always comes to sleep after I’ve retired, or wakes up before me and sneaks out quietly. He must have remembered after all.
Chapter 9
It’s a cold, damp morning in late November when we get our call to ready and march before the sun is even up and the sky’s still purple. Jessie begrudgingly abandons the fine miniature log cabin he built, equipped with a working chimney that kept the tent toasty all night with little smoke backup. He rips off the wooden plaque hung over the rubber blanket door that read, in charcoal, Astor House, and it was just as fine to all of us as the prestigious hotel.
He sits down next to me and James and fumes, “Some other company will camp here behind us and a lucky deadbeat will get to benefit from all my labor.”
James holds up the hardtack given to us this morning. “You’ll be in an even better mood when you see the extra protein they’ve given us in the hardtack.”
I look down at the ten squares doled out, covered in webs and signs of burrowed weevils. “I’ll take the weevils over the moldy, damp ones you can’t salvage.” I put the ten flour tiles on my pan and watch the little brown bugs crawl out to die on the hot metal. Then I gobble the hardtack up quickly, as soldiers in the camp hurry their morning tasks in anticipation of the march.
Jessie and James just crumble theirs up and toss it in their coffee, skimming off the bugs that rise to the surface.
“That’s why I prefer them stale as stones.” Jessie taps the glop left over from the bottom of his tin. “The weevils and maggots can’t even break in.”
“Or you just eat them with your eyes closed.” I laugh.
“I nearly broke my teeth on one once.” James sucks his tooth. “I think we could use them as shrapnel and end this war once and for all.”
I realize Timmie’s not drumming The General, calling us to pack up our tents. Another
young man carries his drum. I search the landscape as acres of canvas collapse at the signal.
“Where’s Timmie?” I ask, as James dips his hardtack in the last few gulps of coffee.
“He’s not drumming?” James squints to get a better look at the drummer. “Maybe he finally went to the ol’ sawbones for some quinine.”
Since I’ve finished my breakfast, I have time to head to where the hospital tent packs up. I check the hospital rats ‘ailing’ on cots—Sunday soldiers all trying to get a ride on the ambulance wagon instead of walking, but don’t see Timmie among them. A packed two-wheeled ambulance wagon waits for orders to roll into line. I peek in to see Timmie’s pale face poking out above layers of blankets beside a few coughing soldiers.
“Timmie,” I say and he opens his eyes slightly. “What happened?”
“I’ve joined Company Q.” His voice comes out weakly. “They won’t let me march.” He tries to pull himself up to talk to me but I stay him.
“Don’t get up. Sit this battle out and you’ll get your strength back.” The drum signals Attention, and I need to find our place in the column.
He nods. “See you at the other end.”
“Feel better.” I hurry to find James.
We all knew this was coming. We’ve had a few skirmishes around the base of the mountain, but the word throughout the line is that we’re going to scale the mountain for a full attack. We’re told to pack one day’s rations, our blankets and sixty rounds of ammunition in a cartridge box. I rush to keep up with James, but he manages to gather his things faster and other men fill in the line next to James and Jessie. I don’t feel comfortable going into battle without either of them next to me and, to my surprise, Jessie’s looking around for me worriedly. James points my position out and my heart falls as he turns forward, as if it doesn’t mean a thing that I’m not in my normal spot between them.
We hear the call to march forward. A sharp-pitched whinny causes us all to turn to our right where a rider less horse, still in saddle and reins, prances up to ride beside our officers’ horses. The horse was obviously separated from his rider in the heat of some battle and, by the clear outline of its ribs, looks like it might have been sometime since he has been left to forage on his own. Nevertheless, he has heard the call to march forward and, like most of the horses I’ve come across, responds more devoutly than many soldiers to the call of duty.
