The Sword

by Gilbert, Morris

  The coffin went into the waiting hearse. Four white horses drew it, and their headdresses were made of black feathers, so suggestive of the fancy ostrich plumes that Jeb had worn in his wide-brimmed hat. At Hollywood Cemetery the Reverend Charles Minnegerode spoke very briefly in his thick German accent. They placed the coffin in a vault, and the carriages moved away. Just as the funeral party left the cemetery, the rain began once more.

  North of Richmond, in a vicious skirmish on Drewry’s Bluff, Clay paused for a moment as he realized that Jeb Stuart was being buried in the city below. He felt as if his heart would break, for he, and all of Jeb’s men, did not think of Stuart merely as their general. He was noble and fearless and valiant, he was their leader, and they loved him.

  Clay thought, His time was so short, Lord, too short! He and Miss Flora were so happy, and even in her grief I know that she doesn’t regret a single minute. I’m a fool. I’ve been a fool. I need to beg Chantel to marry me, right now, war or not. Even if she were my wife for only a day and I died the next, it would be worth it!

  Then, recalling his general’s last command, he turned, drew his saber, yelled, “Charge!” and galloped toward the enemy.

  Again, in spite of overwhelming odds against them, the Confederates beat back the Union forces from their attempt to send gunboats up the James River to Richmond. After the battle, Clay and his company were ordered to return to the front lines, about eight miles north. The night was wild, with violent thunderstorms sweeping them with walls of rain. No lantern could shine in such a maelstrom, and so the horsemen began carefully picking their way along the road north, lit only by constant stabs of lightning.

  Clay lingered behind, glancing back toward Richmond. He looked up; the troop was some distance in front of them. Suddenly he wheeled Lightning and turned back south at a breathtaking gallop.

  After the Battle of the Wilderness, Jacob had contributed his enormous sutler’s tent to the Glorious Cause. The wounded streamed in again by the hundreds. The hospitals, the warehouses, the barns, and the private homes that could accommodate patients were already overflowing. Surrounding Richmond, in every clearing, were field hospitals. Jacob’s tent had made a good surgeon’s operating room.

  Jacob had rented a tidy little cottage just on the northern outskirts of town, close to the fairgrounds, where hundreds of two-man pup tents still sheltered wounded men. Chantel and Jacob traveled around to the different field hospitals every day in the wagon, which had become a medical transport and which now held bandages, liniment, rubbing alcohol, and medicines instead of sutler’s goods.

  It was almost three o’clock in the morning when he reached the little cottage, but Clay was beyond caring. He banged on the door and called out desperately, “Chantel! Chantel, please!”

  After only a few moments, she opened the door, pulling on a dressing gown. Her long black hair was down, and her eyes were huge and luminous. “Clay—” she began, but he stepped forward and swept her into his arms, holding her so tightly she could barely breathe. He kissed her with desperation. She clung to him tightly. Behind her Clay could see Jacob peek down the hallway from his bedroom, but then he quickly disappeared and closed the door.

  Clay fell to his knees as if he were praying and clutched both of her hands. “Chantel, my most precious love, I had to come. I had to come now. I—I don’t want to be alone anymore. I want you to be my wife, because then even when I’m not here with you, I won’t be alone. You’ll be a part of me, and I’ll be a part of you. Will you please, please marry me?”

  She, too, fell to her knees and took his face in her hands. “Don’t you know, Clay? Don’t you know me? You’ll never have to beg me for anything, ever. Especially not this. I will marry you. I would marry you right now if we could.”

  “Oh Chantel,” he said, clutching her to him. “How I wish we could, right now! But soon, soon! As soon as I can arrange it. I don’t know how I will, but I know this. You’re the only woman for me. God sent you to me that awful day. Just to me, because we are supposed to be together. I know this is His will.”

  “I know this, too,” Chantel said. “I would never love anyone but you, Clay Tremayne.”

  Slowly he rose and helped her up. He searched her face. “I can’t stay.”

  “I know,” she said quietly. “But you send me word, Clay. I’ll be right here waiting.”

  On May 29, Chantel and Jacob sat in the sitting room, a homey small corner of the house with two comfortable rocking chairs, a sofa, and two armchairs.

  Gathered around was Clay’s family. Chantel and Clay’s mother, Bethany, sat on the sofa, the twins squeezed between them, quietly sewing. Chantel was making a gold satin sash for Clay, and Bethany was embroidering the distinctive Hussar’s facings on a new short jacket. Although the day was warm, a fitful rain dampened the air and a small but merry fire snapped in the fireplace. Morgan and Caleb Tremayne stood by it, sipping coffee and talking quietly to Jacob, who sat close in one of the rocking chairs.

  “I don’t understand how he’s going to get leave to come,” Morgan said. He spoke in a low tone, thinking Chantel would not hear.

  She didn’t look up from her sewing. “He’ll come,” she said firmly. “He’ll be here.”

  Grant had continued in his unyielding march toward Richmond. Lee had moved the Army of Northern Virginia to Cold Harbor and planted them squarely between Grant and the city. They were arrayed in a battle formation that was seven miles long, and they were digging in. No soldier could hope for a leave. Grant and his tens of thousands were too close.

  But three nights previously, a scared little boy of only thirteen, a courier, had brought the message from Clay. In three days, dear Chantel, you and I will be married. God bless you, my darling.

  It was noon, and they had a light dinner. Afternoon brought more rain. Bethany began to teach Chantel to knit. Chantel said very little, but she looked happy and expectant, never doubtful.

  The twins grew impatient. Belinda said, “Maybe Clay can’t come. Maybe it’s raining too much.”

  “Raining too much,” Brenda echoed.

  Chantel smiled. “You should know Lightning would bring Clay even in the rain. Clay promised, he did. He won’t break his promise. He’ll be here anytime now.”

  And at about three o’clock, he came riding up, Lightning snorting and stamping, and he had another cavalryman with him. Chantel had barely opened the door when they came in, snatching off their dripping hats and frock coats. Clay kissed her soundly and said, “Did you think I wouldn’t make it?”

  “No, I didn’t think that, me,” she said, blushing a little. “You promised.”

  Morgan was helping him out of his coat. “Well, I want to know how you wrangled a leave. There hasn’t been a soldier inside the city for weeks.”

  “I asked politely the first time,” Clay answered, “but that didn’t work too well. So I told Captain Dorsey that I was going to desert. And the captain said that he couldn’t hear me too well, and he turned his back and stalked off. And then I deserted. And this is my friend, Private Elijah Young. He’s a preacher.”

  Young, a slight man of thirty with fine blond hair, wide blue eyes, and thin features, said mournfully, “Lieutenant Tremayne made me desert, too.”

  “Too bad,” Clay grunted. “I needed you. I want to get married. Right now.”

  “What, like this?” Young blurted out. Both of them were dusty and damp and smelled like horses. Their boots and scabbards were splashed with red mud. Clay had a long streak of black powder on his cheek.

  Nonchalantly, Chantel licked her fingers and reached up to scrub it off. “Right now, just like this, Pastor Young,” she said. “I want to get married now, too, me.”

  And so Young fished a slim book from the pocket of his frock coat—Rites and Ceremonies of the Christian Church—and went to stand in front of the fireplace. Clay took his place in front of him. Jacob came to Chantel, entwined her arm in his, and escorted her to Clay’s side.

  “Who giveth t
his woman in marriage?” Pastor Young asked.

  “I’m her grandfather,” Jacob said quietly, “and gladly I give her to join in marriage with this man.” He took his seat in the rocking chair.

  Clay took Chantel’s hand and turned her so that they were facing each other. When they repeated the timeworn, solemn vows, they spoke only to each other.

  “And now, Lieutenant Tremayne, you may kiss your bride,” Young said, grinning boyishly.

  They had not kissed many times, because both of them had been so careful to preserve the purity of their relationship. This kiss, Chantel thought, was like a vow and a promise in itself, that she and her husband gave to each other.

  The men all congratulated Clay, and Bethany and the twins hugged Chantel. But only minutes after he had finished the ceremony, Private Young said, “Lieutenant, you may have ordered me to desert, and I did. But now I’m heading back, before the provosts come looking for us. Please don’t order me to stay deserted.”

  “Go on, and if you meet those provosts on their way here,” Clay said grandly, “you tell them I said they can arrest me tomorrow. Because tonight is my honeymoon, and if I have to fight off a battalion to have it, I will!”

  The Tremayne family was staying in town with friends, and they had invited Jacob to come stay with them so that Clay and Chantel could have their one night together in her little house. They didn’t linger long, and soon Clay and Chantel were alone.

  He kissed her again, softly and sweetly. Then he lifted his head and stared down at her, slight worry furrowing his brow. “I’m so sorry it had to be like this,” he said. “I would have liked for us to have had a big wedding and at least a weeklong honeymoon.”

  “I would like that, too,” Chantel said, “but I would rather be married to you now, like this, instead of waiting for that big wedding. But I—I—” She blushed and finished shyly, “I wish we had a longer honeymoon, too. Still, one night now is better than a week when this war is over. I just—I’m not—I don’t know—”

  He pulled her close and ran his hands over her thick glossy black hair. “I have another promise to make to you,” he said in a deep voice “I promise that on this night, we’ll learn what real love, God’s pure and abiding love that He gives to a man and wife, really is. Both of us will learn.”

  The 1st Virginia Cavalry, under the command of Fitzhugh Lee, fought on as valiantly as they ever had under Jeb Stuart, although without the same fierce joy. Clay fought the Battle of Cold Harbor in June, and then the Army of Northern Virginia wheeled around to Petersburg. Grant had circled them and invested the old city to approach Richmond from the south, and once again Lee positioned his men between him and the capital of the Confederacy. The siege of Petersburg lasted from June 1864 through March 1865.

  During the winter, when both of the armies listlessly huddled in their winter quarters, Clay managed to get leave several times to ride back to Richmond and see Chantel. But that first year of their marriage, they were together few enough times that Chantel could count them on her fingers. Though she worried, she refused to lose hope. In her heart she believed that Clay had been so grievously wounded and had been healed, and that had been God’s plan to bring them together. All during that endless year, even as the Confederacy slowly disintegrated into a smoking ruin, she was certain that she and Clay would live out their days, together, in peace.

  By the end of March 1865, General Lee knew that the end was near, and he could no longer guard Richmond. The army moved west to join other forces in the Shenandoah Valley. Clay sent Chantel and Jacob to his parents’ home in Lexington. Grant, with nothing to stop him now, occupied Richmond and dogged Lee. The forlorn retreat of the Army of Northern Virginia lasted only a week. It ended at Appomattox Court House.

  General Grant rode up to Wilmer McLean’s fine two-story home. He was shabby and dusty. He had on a single-breasted blouse made of dark blue flannel, unbuttoned in front, showing a waistcoat underneath. His trousers were tucked into muddy boots. He had no spurs, and he wore no sword. The only designation of his rank was a pair of faded shoulder straps with four dimmed stars.

  The aides he had sent ahead were waiting for him, and a group of Confederates, dressed in rather worn full-dress uniforms stood around the home.

  Grant dismounted. “He’s already here?” he asked an aide.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Grant nodded and hurried into the house.

  Clay had found the remnants of the Louisiana Tigers, and Armand Latane was there, in his full-dress uniform. It was clean, but it was faded and patched, as was Clay’s uniform. They watched as Grant and General Phil Sheridan went inside with several other officers.

  “And so it’s over,” Armand murmured. “At last. I joined, I fought, I thought that we would win. Until the winter, in Petersburg.”

  Clay said quietly, “You know, when I joined, I just knew the South would win. I kept thinking that, even after Grant came after us and kept pushing us back, throwing more and more men at us. But on the day Jeb Stuart was shot, I began to think that we were going to lose. It’s as if all my hopes were in him. That was wrong. No one man can win a war. But I couldn’t help it. Not one day since that day did I ever think again that we would be able to beat them.” The two could say nothing more.

  Finally the door opened, and the two generals came out. Clay sighed deeply when he saw Robert E. Lee. He was dressed in a new uniform, spotless and crisp. A great heavy sword, the hilt bejeweled, was at his side. He stood erect, his bearing as always dignified and grave, but deep sadness was written on his face. His eyes went out over the fields and valley below, where his army waited for him to speak to them for the last time. He mounted Traveler, his beautiful, graceful gray horse, and settled his hat on his head. As he rode through the silent gray ranks, he said, “Go to your homes and resume your occupations. Obey the laws and become as good citizens as you were soldiers.”

  Clay stacked his musket, setting it upright alongside Armand’s. “I hope I never have to raise my hand to another man again,” he said wearily. “All I want is a quiet life, a simple life, with Chantel.”

  Armand laid his hand on Clay’s shoulder. “My friend, your life might be simple, yes. But with Chantel I doubt it will be quiet. You got the prize, my friend. Never forget that.”

  “Never,” Clay repeated firmly. “I never will.”

  He could see his house, up on a rise, with a small green valley below it. It was almost a mile off the main road. He rode slowly, for Lightning was weary. Clay himself had grown thin and was a much weaker man than he had been before wintering in Petersburg. But as he drew nearer to his house, he suddenly felt a surge of energy that somehow translated itself to Lightning. The horse raised his lowered head as in the old days when he had caught the scent of battle, and with the slightest touch of Clay’s heels, he began to canter and then to gallop.

  Chantel was sitting on the veranda, sipping tea and knitting. At the first distant sounds of hoofbeats, she looked up alertly. Then she jumped to her feet, lifted her skirts, and took off down the road at a dead run.

  Clay slid off Lightning even before he stopped. Chantel threw herself into his arms. For a long time they stood there, clasped in each other’s arms, saying nothing. Finally Clay put one finger under her chin, lifted her face, and kissed her. The kiss, too, lasted for a long time.

  Lightning stopped for a moment, but as they stayed clasped in their embrace, he unconcernedly trotted past them and went to the shade trees on the side of the yard, where there was a watering trough.

  Arm in arm Clay and Chantel walked toward the house. “It’s over,” Clay said, marveling. “It’s over, and I’m home. And the biggest miracle is that you’re here. My wife. I love you dearly, my wife.”

  “I love you dearly, too, me,” Chantel said, laughing. “It’s good that you’re home. You’re too skinny, you. Maybe I catch an alligator and cook it, fatten you up.”

  “Even alligator sounds good right now,” Clay sighed. “It’s been a long
time since I’ve eaten a good, solid meal.”

  They went up onto the veranda, and Clay started to go in, but Chantel pulled at his arm and said, “Sit down here for a minute with me. I should get to see my husband alone for a little while when he comes home from this war.”

  They sat down in two rockers, Clay pulling his so close to Chantel’s that she couldn’t rock. But she obviously didn’t care. They held hands and looked out over the peaceful valley.

  Clay said, “On the way home, I thought a lot about what I would like to do, Chantel.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Well, first I want to be the best husband who ever lived,” he said lightly. Then he sobered a little and continued, “I’m sick of fighting. I’m sick of killing and hurting men. I want to do something good, something to help people instead of hurting them. I think I’d like to be a doctor.”

  With delight Chantel clapped her hands. “Oh Clay, you would be such a good, such a fine doctor! And you can get rich and buy me lots of pretty dresses!”

  “I surely will,” he said, grinning. “All you want.”

  “But that’s not the only reason I would be glad you’ll be a doctor,” she said firmly. “There is another reason. You must hurry, Clay, and start studying right now.”

  “What? Why?” he asked, bewildered.

  “Because,” she said slowly, “around about September I’m going to need a doctor.”

  He stared at her wide-eyed. Then his gaze fell to the knitting on the little low table by Chantel’s chair. Slowly he reached down,

  lifted it up, and saw with shock that Chantel was knitting a pair of baby’s booties.

  “This—we’re going to have a baby?” he breathed.

  “Yes.”

  “In—in September?”

  “Yes.”

  Clay jumped up, Chantel jumped up, and he put his hands on her waist and held her high in the air and whooped like a madman.