PARKER ADDERSON, PHILOSOPHER
"Prisoner, what is your name?"
"As I am to lose it at daylight to-morrow morning it is hardly worthwhile concealing it. Parker Adderson."
"Your rank?"
"A somewhat humble one; commissioned officers are too precious to berisked in the perilous business of a spy. I am a sergeant."
"Of what regiment?"
"You must excuse me; my answer might, for anything I know, give you anidea of whose forces are in your front. Such knowledge as that is what Icame into your lines to obtain, not to impart."
"You are not without wit."
"If you have the patience to wait you will find me dull enoughto-morrow."
"How do you know that you are to die to-morrow morning?"
"Among spies captured by night that is the custom. It is one of the niceobservances of the profession."
The general so far laid aside the dignity appropriate to a Confederateofficer of high rank and wide renown as to smile. But no one in hispower and out of his favor would have drawn any happy augury from thatoutward and visible sign of approval. It was neither genial norinfectious; it did not communicate itself to the other persons exposedto it--the caught spy who had provoked it and the armed guard who hadbrought him into the tent and now stood a little apart, watching hisprisoner in the yellow candle-light. It was no part of that warrior'sduty to smile; he had been detailed for another purpose. Theconversation was resumed; it was in character a trial for a capitaloffense.
"You admit, then, that you are a spy--that you came into my camp,disguised as you are in the uniform of a Confederate soldier, to obtaininformation secretly regarding the numbers and disposition of mytroops."
"Regarding, particularly, their numbers. Their disposition I alreadyknew. It is morose."
The general brightened again; the guard, with a severer sense of hisresponsibility, accentuated the austerity of his expression and stood atrifle more erect than before. Twirling his gray slouch hat round andround upon his forefinger, the spy took a leisurely survey of hissurroundings. They were simple enough. The tent was a common "walltent," about eight feet by ten in dimensions, lighted by a single tallowcandle stuck into the haft of a bayonet, which was itself stuck into apine table at which the general sat, now busily writing and apparentlyforgetful of his unwilling guest. An old rag carpet covered the earthenfloor; an older leather trunk, a second chair and a roll of blanketswere about all else that the tent contained; in General Clavering'scommand Confederate simplicity and penury of "pomp and circumstance" hadattained their highest development. On a large nail driven into the tentpole at the entrance was suspended a sword-belt supporting a long sabre,a pistol in its holster and, absurdly enough, a bowie-knife. Of thatmost unmilitary weapon it was the general's habit to explain that it wasa souvenir of the peaceful days when he was a civilian.
It was a stormy night. The rain cascaded upon the canvas in torrents,with the dull, drum-like sound familiar to dwellers in tents. As thewhooping blasts charged upon it the frail structure shook and swayed andstrained at its confining stakes and ropes.
The general finished writing, folded the half-sheet of paper and spoketo the soldier guarding Adderson: "Here, Tassman, take that to theadjutant-general; then return."
"And the prisoner, General?" said the soldier, saluting, with aninquiring glance in the direction of that unfortunate.
"Do as I said," replied the officer, curtly.
The soldier took the note and ducked himself out of the tent. GeneralClavering turned his handsome face toward the Federal spy, looked him inthe eyes, not unkindly, and said: "It is a bad night, my man."
"For me, yes."
"Do you guess what I have written?"
"Something worth reading, I dare say. And--perhaps it is my vanity--Iventure to suppose that I am mentioned in it."
"Yes; it is a memorandum for an order to be read to the troops at_reveille_ concerning your execution. Also some notes for the guidanceof the provost-marshal in arranging the details of that event."
"I hope, General, the spectacle will be intelligently arranged, for Ishall attend it myself."
"Have you any arrangements of your own that you wish to make? Do youwish to see a chaplain, for example?"
"I could hardly secure a longer rest for myself by depriving him of someof his."
"Good God, man! do you mean to go to your death with nothing but jokesupon your lips? Do you know that this is a serious matter?"
"How can I know that? I have never been dead in all my life. I haveheard that death is a serious matter, but never from any of those whohave experienced it."
The general was silent for a moment; the man interested, perhaps amusedhim--a type not previously encountered.
"Death," he said, "is at least a loss--a loss of such happiness as wehave, and of opportunities for more."
"A loss of which we shall never be conscious can be borne with composureand therefore expected without apprehension. You must have observed,General, that of all the dead men with whom it is your soldierlypleasure to strew your path none shows signs of regret."
"If the being dead is not a regrettable condition, yet the becoming so--the act of dying--appears to be distinctly disagreeable to one who hasnot lost the power to feel."
"Pain is disagreeable, no doubt. I never suffer it without more or lessdiscomfort. But he who lives longest is most exposed to it. What youcall dying is simply the last pain--there is really no such thing asdying. Suppose, for illustration, that I attempt to escape. You lift therevolver that you are courteously concealing in your lap, and--"
The general blushed like a girl, then laughed softly, disclosing hisbrilliant teeth, made a slight inclination of his handsome head and saidnothing. The spy continued: "You fire, and I have in my stomach what Idid not swallow. I fall, but am not dead. After a half-hour of agony Iam dead. But at any given instant of that half-hour I was either aliveor dead. There is no transition period.
"When I am hanged to-morrow morning it will be quite the same; whileconscious I shall be living; when dead, unconscious. Nature appears tohave ordered the matter quite in my interest--the way that I should haveordered it myself. It is so simple," he added with a smile, "that itseems hardly worth while to be hanged at all."
At the finish of his remarks there was a long silence. The general satimpassive, looking into the man's face, but apparently not attentive towhat had been said. It was as if his eyes had mounted guard over theprisoner while his mind concerned itself with other matters. Presentlyhe drew a long, deep breath, shuddered, as one awakened from a dreadfuldream, and exclaimed almost inaudibly: "Death is horrible!"--this man ofdeath.
"It was horrible to our savage ancestors," said the spy, gravely,"because they had not enough intelligence to dissociate the idea ofconsciousness from the idea of the physical forms in which it ismanifested--as an even lower order of intelligence, that of the monkey,for example, may be unable to imagine a house without inhabitants, andseeing a ruined hut fancies a suffering occupant. To us it is horriblebecause we have inherited the tendency to think it so, accounting forthe notion by wild and fanciful theories of another world--as names ofplaces give rise to legends explaining them and reasonless conduct tophilosophies in justification. You can hang me, General, but there yourpower of evil ends; you cannot condemn me to heaven."
The general appeared not to have heard; the spy's talk had merely turnedhis thoughts into an unfamiliar channel, but there they pursued theirwill independently to conclusions of their own. The storm had ceased,and something of the solemn spirit of the night had imparted itself tohis reflections, giving them the sombre tinge of a supernatural dread.Perhaps there was an element of prescience in it. "I should not like todie," he said--"not to-night."
He was interrupted--if, indeed, he had intended to speak further--by theentrance of an officer of his staff, Captain Hasterlick, theprovost-marshal. This recalled him to himself; the absent look passedaway from his face.
"Captain," he sa
id, acknowledging the officer's salute, "this man is aYankee spy captured inside our lines with incriminating papers on him.He has confessed. How is the weather?"
"The storm is over, sir, and the moon shining."
"Good; take a file of men, conduct him at once to the parade ground, andshoot him."
A sharp cry broke from the spy's lips. He threw himself forward, thrustout his neck, expanded his eyes, clenched his hands.
"Good God!" he cried hoarsely, almost inarticulately; "you do not meanthat! You forget--I am not to die until morning."
"I have said nothing of morning," replied the general, coldly; "that wasan assumption of your own. You die now."
"But, General, I beg--I implore you to remember; I am to hang! It willtake some time to erect the gallows--two hours--an hour. Spies arehanged; I have rights under military law. For Heaven's sake, General,consider how short--"
"Captain, observe my directions."
The officer drew his sword and fixing his eyes upon the prisoner pointedsilently to the opening of the tent. The prisoner hesitated; the officergrasped him by the collar and pushed him gently forward. As heapproached the tent pole the frantic man sprang to it and with cat-likeagility seized the handle of the bowie-knife, plucked the weapon fromthe scabbard and thrusting the captain aside leaped upon the generalwith the fury of a madman, hurling him to the ground and fallingheadlong upon him as he lay. The table was overturned, the candleextinguished and they fought blindly in the darkness. Theprovost-marshal sprang to the assistance of his Superior officer and washimself prostrated upon the struggling forms. Curses and inarticulatecries of rage and pain came from the welter of limbs and bodies; thetent came down upon them and beneath its hampering and enveloping foldsthe struggle went on. Private Tassman, returning from his errand anddimly conjecturing the situation, threw down his rifle and laying holdof the flouncing canvas at random vainly tried to drag it off the menunder it; and the sentinel who paced up and down in front, not daring toleave his beat though the skies should fall, discharged his rifle. Thereport alarmed the camp; drums beat the long roll and bugles sounded theassembly, bringing swarms of half-clad men into the moonlight, dressingas they ran, and falling into line at the sharp commands of theirofficers. This was well; being in line the men were under control; theystood at arms while the general's staff and the men of his escortbrought order out of confusion by lifting off the fallen tent andpulling apart the breathless and bleeding actors in that strangecontention.
Breathless, indeed, was one: the captain was dead; the handle of thebowie-knife, protruding from his throat, was pressed back beneath hischin until the end had caught in the angle of the jaw and the hand thatdelivered the blow had been unable to remove the weapon. In the deadman's hand was his sword, clenched with a grip that defied the strengthof the living. Its blade was streaked with red to the hilt.
Lifted to his feet, the general sank back to the earth with a moan andfainted. Besides his bruises he had two sword-thrusts--one through thethigh, the other through the shoulder.
The spy had suffered the least damage. Apart from a broken right arm,his wounds were such only as might have been incurred in an ordinarycombat with nature's weapons. But he was dazed and seemed hardly to knowwhat had occurred. He shrank away from those attending him, cowered uponthe ground and uttered unintelligible remonstrances. His face, swollenby blows and stained with gouts of blood, nevertheless showed whitebeneath his disheveled hair--as white as that of a corpse.
"The man is not insane," said the surgeon, preparing bandages andreplying to a question; "he is suffering from fright. Who and what ishe?"
Private Tassman began to explain. It was the opportunity of his life; heomitted nothing that could in any way accentuate the importance of hisown relation to the night's events. When he had finished his story andwas ready to begin it again nobody gave him any attention.
The general had now recovered consciousness. He raised himself upon hiselbow, looked about him, and, seeing the spy crouching by a camp-fire,guarded, said simply:
"Take that man to the parade ground and shoot him."
"The general's mind wanders," said an officer standing near.
"His mind does _not_ wander," the adjutant-general said. "I have amemorandum from him about this business; he had given that same order toHasterlick"--with a motion of the hand toward the dead provost-marshal--"and, by God! it shall be executed."
Ten minutes later Sergeant Parker Adderson, of the Federal army,philosopher and wit, kneeling in the moonlight and begging incoherentlyfor his life, was shot to death by twenty men. As the volley rang outupon the keen air of the midnight, General Clavering, lying white andstill in the red glow of the camp-fire, opened his big blue eyes, lookedpleasantly upon those about him and said: "How silent it all is!"
The surgeon looked at the adjutant-general, gravely and significantly.The patient's eyes slowly closed, and thus he lay for a few moments;then, his face suffused with a smile of ineffable sweetness, he said,faintly: "I suppose this must be death," and so passed away.
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce — Volume 2: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians Page 9