Slaves of Obsession

by Anne Perry

  No, it was not panic! Not in him. But the Union forces were in complete disarray, running towards him, throwing weapons and cartridge belts aside, hurling away anything that cumbered their flight. Blind terror galvanized their legs.

  Monk turned on his heel and charged back into the church.

  “They’re in retreat!” he yelled. “They’re all making for the road to Washington. Get the wounded and get out of here! Everyone that can walk, do it!”

  Hester turned to stare at him, her eyes steady, questioning. It was only an instant before she believed him.

  “Out!” she ordered. “Merrit, you stay with me!” Her eyes were still on Monk’s. She had not forgotten why they had come.

  There was a volley of shots close outside.

  As if it were the spur he was needing, the surgeon moved at last. He pushed past her and ran to the door, the others following on his heels.

  Outside, they stopped abruptly. A small detachment of Rebel cavalry was twenty yards away and approaching fast. A bullet whined past Hester and slammed into the church wall, sending splinters flying. One grazed her hand, and she gasped involuntarily, putting it to her lips to stop the blood.

  The Rebels stopped and the surgeon stepped forward to speak to the officer.

  “This is a field hospital,” he said, his voice shaking. “Will you give us safe conduct to evacuate our wounded?”

  The officer shook his head. “Get them out the best you can, but I can’t give you any promise.” He looked him up and down. “And you’re coming with us … back to Manassas Junction.”

  The surgeon pleaded, but the Rebels would brook no argument, and ten minutes later they were gone, and the surgeon with them, leaving Monk, Hester, Merrit and the two orderlies to help the wounded.

  They were carrying men into the carts and about to begin the journey back towards Centreville and Washington when a Union cavalry officer rode up, his arm in a sling across his chest, his tunic dark with blood.

  “You’ll have to go west!” he shouted. “You can’t go by the turnpike. The bridge over Cub Run River is blocked. There’s a cart turned over on it and there are civilians all over the place, sightseers out from Washington to watch the battle, picnic hampers an’ all. Now they’re overrun and nothing can get through … not even ambulances.” He waved his good arm. “You’ll have to go that way.” He swung his horse around and headed off, picking up speed and disappearing into the dust and smoke.

  “Has the Union really lost?” Hester said miserably.

  Monk was standing close to her. He could give his reply quietly enough in the momentary lull that even Merrit could barely hear him.

  “This battle, by the look of it. I don’t know what’s going to happen along the road.” He could hardly believe what the cavalryman had said. Who on God’s earth would look at this voluntarily?

  But the shock he had expected to see in Hester’s face was not there. He stared, puzzled. Why did it not horrify her?

  She read his thoughts.

  “It happened in the Crimea as well,” she said with a sad, lopsided grimace. “I don’t know what it is … a failure of the imagination. Some people cannot think themselves into anyone else’s pain. If they don’t feel it themselves, then it isn’t real.” Then she started to move again, picking up what few belongings were most important and passing around the canteens of water to anyone who could carry them.

  The firing was growing closer all the time, but it was very sporadic now.

  Merrit was standing frozen with dismay. In the distance they could hear the strange, high Rebel yell on the wind.

  “Where’s Trace?” Hester said urgently.

  Monk made the decision in the instant, even as he spoke. “He’s gone into the battle. He’s hell-bent on finding Breeland, whatever happens. We’ll have to go south if we are to get out. Take Merrit with us. It will be hard, but I think trying to find our way through the chaos here, and get Breeland out through his own people, will be next to impossible.”

  Her voice caught for a moment. “Go … that way?” She looked towards the gunfire. But even as she protested he could see in her face that she understood the reason behind his words. “Will we be able to find Trace?”

  He thought for a moment of lying. Was it his responsibility to comfort her, show strength and hope, regardless of the truth? They had never told each other what was comfortable. In fact, they had spent the first year or two of their acquaintance being as abrupt, as brutally honest, as possible. To do less now would be like a denial of what was precious between them, a terrible condescension, as if by marrying him at last she had forfeited his friendship.

  “I have no idea,” he said with a smile which was a little wild, more than a little crooked.

  A flash of humor—and of fear—in her eyes answered him.

  He turned, knowing absolutely that she would follow, and bring Merrit with her, dragging her if she must, but surely she would come willingly, towards Breeland?

  The battle had become a total flight, with men running and scrambling any way they knew how away from the field and towards the turnpike back to Washington.

  “Come!” Hester’s voice interrupted him, and he felt her hand on his sleeve and winced.

  She glanced at it.

  “Nothing,” he said quickly. “A scratch.”

  She shut her eyes tightly for a moment. “William … how could they let it come to this? I thought we were the only ones so … so arrogantly stupid!”

  “Apparently not … poor devils,” he answered. Now she was no longer pulling at him; it was he who turned to go, taking her hand and half dragging her until she stopped looking and tore her attention away.

  Together the three of them went against the tide, towards the still-advancing Confederate troops, always looking for Philo Trace in his pale jacket and trousers against the blues and grays which were now covered in blood and dirt and barely distinguishable in the clouds of dust rising around everyone.

  Twice Monk called out the name of Breeland’s regiment to fleeing Union troops. The first time he was ignored; the second someone waved a frantic arm, and they turned and went as well as they could judge in the direction indicated.

  The ground was littered with bodies, most of them beyond all human help but the decency of burial. Once they heard someone crying out, and Hester stopped, almost pulling Monk off his feet.

  A man lay with both legs shattered, unable to move to help himself.

  Hester stared at him. Monk knew she was horrified, and at the same time trying to judge what she could do to help him—or if he was dying anyway.

  Monk longed to keep on going, to not even look at the pain, the welling blood and the despair in the man’s face. And at the same time as all of him shrank from it, he knew he would have lost something irrevocably beautiful if Hester had been willing to leave. He would not have loved her less, but the burning admiration would have dimmed.

  The tears were streaming down Merrit’s white, exhausted face. She had moved into that realm of nightmare where even movement was hardly real.

  Hester bent down to the man and started talking to him, quietly, in a level, cool voice, her fingers trying to move the torn and mangled cloth out of the wounds so she could see what had happened to the bone.

  Monk went to find guns fallen when fleeing men had hurled them aside. He got two, broke off the splintered stocks, and returned with the long, metal barrels and gave them to her.

  “Well, at last they’re good for something,” she said bitterly, and with cloth torn from her skirt she padded the wounds and tied the barrels on tightly as splints.

  Monk held the man in his arms and gently tilted the one water bottle they had brought to his lips, helping him drink.

  “Thank you,” the man whispered hoarsely. “Thank you.”

  “We can’t move you,” Hester apologized.

  “I know, ma’am.…”

  It was too late to think of such a thing. The Confederate soldiers were on them. Long muskets w
ere pointed, then lowered when it was realized they were unarmed.

  The wounded man was lifted up and they did not see what happened to him. He was a prisoner of war, but he was alive.

  “And who are you?” a Confederate officer demanded.

  Monk told the exact truth, ignoring Merrit. “We have come to arrest a Union officer and take him back to England to stand trial for murder.”

  Merrit burst into denial, but her words were choked with tears, and there was nowhere for her to run. She could not go back through the confusion of the fleeing Union army. She had no idea what to expect in Washington. No one had. Her only loyalty was to Breeland, and he was somewhere ahead of her, and regardless of his reasons, Monk was doing all he could to find him.

  The Confederate officer thought for a moment, turned and asked a man a few yards away, then looked back at Monk, his eyes wide.

  “You must surely want him badly to come out here now … or didn’t you all know about this?”

  “We knew,” Monk said grimly. “He was a gun buyer for the North, negotiating for six thousand first-class rifles with half a million rounds of ammunition. The dealer and his men were murdered and the shipment stolen for the North, instead of the South. I don’t imagine you would be that fond of him either.”

  The officer stared at him, horror in his tired face, smeared with gun smoke and blood. “Oh, sweet Jesus!” he said almost under his breath, his eyes distant on the carnage of the field. “I hope you find him, and when you do, hang him high. Try that way.” He pointed with an arm Monk only now noticed was bandaged and heavily seeping blood. The other arm held his rifle.

  They thanked him and moved on as directed, through the dust and smoke, Monk ahead, Hester a yard behind him, holding Merrit by one hand, half pulling her along in case in her stupefied horror she should stop and be lost.

  They found Trace first. He was easier to recognize because of his white shirt and pale trousers, unlike any of the uniforms. He carried a pistol, and Monk had also picked one up from one of the dead.

  It was quieter here, on the bank on the far side of Bull Run. The dead were everywhere on the ground. It was still hot, the air motionless. Monk could hear the flies buzzing and smell the dust, cordite and blood.

  Half an hour later they found Breeland dazed, holding one arm crookedly as if his shoulder were dislocated, still unwilling or unable to believe the battle was over and his men had fled. He was seeking to help the wounded, and bewildered to know how. He was surrounded by Confederate troops but he did not seem to realize it. Most of them simply passed him; perhaps they mistook him for a field surgeon. He no longer carried a gun and offered them no threat.

  Trace stood squarely, the pistol in his hand pointing at Breeland’s chest.

  “Lyman!” Merrit lunged forward. Hester had her by the hand and the impetus of her movement almost overbalanced them both, dragging Merrit to her knees.

  “Get up!” Trace said bitterly. “He’ll be all right.” He gestured to the man on the ground, then jerked his hand at Hester. “She’ll stop the bleeding. Then you’re coming with us.”

  “Trace?” Breeland seemed startled to see him. He had not yet looked at Merrit.

  Trace’s voice was pitched sharp, on the edge of losing control, his face smeared with dust and blood, rivulets of sweat running down his cheeks.

  “Did you think I would just let you go?” he demanded. “After all that … did you think any of us would let you walk away? Is that your great cause?” He sounded on the edge of hysteria and the gun in his hand was shaking. For a terrible moment Monk was afraid he was going to shoot Breeland right there.

  Breeland was nonplussed. He stared at the gun in Trace’s hand, then up at his face.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked.

  Merrit swung around to Hester, defiance in every angle of her body, and justification.

  Monk kept his gun level, pointing at Breeland. “Get up,” he ordered. “Now! Let Hester tend to the soldier. Now!”

  Slowly Breeland obeyed, automatically cradling his injured arm. He did not reach for any weapon himself. He still appeared totally confused. Monk was not sure if it was their questions, or more probably that for him the inconceivable had happened: the Union had lost the battle; but worse, far worse, they had panicked and run away. That was not within his belief of the possible. Men of the great cause could not do that.

  “We found Daniel Alberton’s body, and those of the guards,” Monk said between his clenched teeth, remembering what he had seen, even though it was dwarfed by the slaughter around him now. Still there was a moral gulf between war and murder, even if there was no physical one. Different kinds of men committed one from those who were caught up in the other, even if the death was much the same.

  Breeland frowned at them, and for the first time he looked at Merrit, and a rush of shame added to the confusion.

  “Papa was murdered,” she said with difficulty, forcing the words out. She was too drained of emotion to weep. “They think you did it, because they found your watch in the warehouse yard. I told them you didn’t, but they don’t believe me.”

  Breeland was incredulous. He looked at each of them in turn as if expecting at least one to deny it. No one spoke; no eye wavered.

  “You came for that?” His voice cracked into a squeak. “You came all the way over here …” He flung his good arm out. “To this! Because you think I murdered Alberton?”

  “What did you expect us to do?” Trace said bitterly. “Just count it as the fortune of war and forget about it?” He rubbed the back of his hand across his face, wiping the sweat out of his eyes. “Three men are dead, not to mention six thousand guns stolen. Your precious Union might justify that for you … it doesn’t to anyone else.”

  Breeland shook his head. “I didn’t kill Alberton! I bought the guns fairly and paid for them.”

  Inexplicably, completely unreasonably, it was not the lie that infuriated Monk; it was the fact that Breeland had never once touched Merrit or offered her any compassion. Her father was dead, and he was concerned only that they believed he was guilty of it.

  “We’re going back to England,” he stated. “You are coming with us, to stand trial.”

  “I can’t! I’m needed here!” Breeland was angry, as if they were being stupid.

  “You can come back with us to England to trial, or I can execute you here and now,” Trace said with a level, almost flat voice. “And we’ll take Merrit to stand trial alone. She can tell England what noble men the Union soldiers are … they shoot unarmed Englishmen in the back of the head and leave their daughters to take the blame.”

  “That’s a lie!” Breeland moved forward at last, his face filled with anger.

  Trace kept the gun aimed at him. “Then come and prove it. I don’t mind if you doubt I’ll shoot you.” He did not need to add the rest; it was wild and glittering in his face, and even Breeland in his indignant dismay could not have misunderstood. He stepped back a little, and turned to face the creek and the way back towards the road to Washington. “You’ll not succeed,” he said with a very slight smile, gone almost before it was seen.

  “Nobody’s making it back that way.” Trace’s contempt was like a lash. “Your good Union citizens crowded out for a Sunday afternoon’s entertainment to watch the battle, and they’re blocking the roads. We’re going south, through the Confederate lines to Richmond, and then Charleston. No one will help you there. In fact, if they learn what you’ve done, you’ll be lucky to make it all the way to the sea. If you really think you can show a British court you are innocent, you’d be very wise to come easily and say nothing to anyone else. Northerners aren’t very popular in the Confederacy right now.”

  Breeland took one last, aching look after the remnant of his men, the clouds of dust showing their retreating route, and his resistance collapsed. He took a deep breath and followed after Monk. Hester and Merrit walked together, a little apart from him, as if to support each other. Trace came behind, still
holding the gun.

  6

  IT TOOK THEM that evening and the next day to reach Richmond. They traveled partly by trains, begging rides where they could, amid the wounded passing back from the battlefront. However, unlike the Union troops, the Southerners were elated with victory, and several spoke of it being the end of the war. Perhaps now the Northerners would leave them alone and allow them to live as they chose as a separate nation. Hester saw in their faces a bewilderment as to why there should have been any fighting anyway. Among some there were jokes, a kind of relief that they had been pushed to the final measure and not been found wanting.

  Breeland’s bruised and dislocated shoulder had been wrenched back into place and was now in a sling. It must have been painful, but it was not an injury that needed any further treatment. His other cuts were minor. Most of the blood on his clothes was other people’s, from when he had been trying to help the wounded. Monk had found him a fresh jacket, not for cleanliness but in order not to give away his Union loyalty. Like all of them, he was exhausted, but perhaps more than they, he was heartsick. He could hardly be otherwise.

  Several times Hester glanced sideways at him as they rode south. The sun picked out the tiny lines in his skin, which were dirt ingrained and deepened by weariness. His muscles seemed locked tight, as if, were she to touch him, they would be hard. His hands were clenched on his legs, surprisingly large hands, very strong. She could see anger in him, but not fear. His thoughts were far away. He was struggling with something within himself and they had no part in it.

  She watched Merrit, who also was little aware of the lovely country through which they passed with its heavy shade trees and small rural communities. They saw few men working in the fields, and those they did see were white. Merrit could think only of Breeland. She did not interrupt his thoughts, but she watched him with tense anxiety, her face almost bloodless. Hester knew that in spite of her own horror and exhaustion, the girl was trying to imagine herself into his sense of confusion and shame because of the way the battle had turned. His beloved Union not only had lost but had done so with dishonor. He must feel his beliefs threatened. What was there one could say to a man suffering such pain? Wisely, she did not try.