Homeland
Page 15
I went with the orderlies and nurses, to bring in the wounded. In the silence you could hear them everywhere, lying in the gullies and under bushes, where they’d been for two days and nights without water or care. Their crying hung over the field, directionless, the way the sound of crickets fills a summer night. The flies were like black snow, and there were more ravens than I’ve ever seen in my life, and I could see the underbrush stirring with rats. The dead men were piled up on top of each other like a wall under the redoubt. It was two hundred yards down the hill before you could even see grass between the bodies. And way out on the other side of the field, I could see two dogs, trotting around among the wounded and the dead—not like they were looking for anyone, just out for a stroll the way dogs do—and I knew they were Sulla and Argus, Justin’s dogs.
So he’s here. (I looked at the dogs through Doc’s spyglass, and it’s them, all right.) He lived through the battle, and he’s in the camp outside town. I haven’t told Emory this, and I won’t. Everyone says—Emory, and Tom, and Gaius the last time I saw him, and the men in the hospital—that if you think about anything in the battle, except exactly what you’re doing at that moment, that’s when you’ll make a mistake that’ll get you killed. If Emory learned his father was out there, he’d look for him, and might not pay attention to what he was doing. Yet, it feels so strange to know he’s out there.
That’s all the paper I have for now, my dear Cora. As you can see, I’m tearing the flyleaves and title-pages out of Husband #3’s books, both to draw on, and to write to you. But, I wanted to write to you, wanted to let you know that I’m here, that I’m all right so far. Please don’t let Justin know I’m here, or that Emory’s here, because I don’t want him looking for either of us. I have all your letters down here with me, and some of Aunt Sally’s sheets and towels, to sleep on. Nellie and Emory made a sort of rough bedstead for Tom, to keep him off the ground, and one of Aunt Sally’s trunks, with the lid taken off, as a bed for Tommy. When the shelling sounds like it’s moved over a few streets away, Nellie and I run up to the house to get food, and sometimes we’ll bring down things like dishes or even chairs. On the next trip, we’re planning to get the parlor curtains, to close off the two rooms for privacy.
I will sleep now, before going to the hospital again. This is the first afternoon Doc has been able to spare me. Grant hasn’t attacked again. But the shells keep falling.
Your friend,
Susie
[sketches]
Cora Poole, Deer Isle, Maine
To
Susanna Ashford
[not sent]
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3, 1863
Dearest Susie,
My apologies for the delay. The moment wheat, corn, and gardens are in the ground, school starts, both here and on Isle au Haut, and though in the end Aunt H got us help with the plowing, Mother and I helped plant the corn. There are four “new babies” in my class this year, and the big boys of last year are out with their fathers in the fleet. As I walk up the hill to the school-house, I see my little scholars taking turns on the great boulder that stands near-by: “watching for pirates”—Confederate raiders—with spyglasses composed of their two curled hands.
Getting the garden in seemed harder this May, for I have formed the uneasy habit of keeping an eye on Mother. Will suggested I start a tally, of those moments of forgetfulness that are so unlike her, or of occasions when she seems clumsy as she was not before. For weeks she will be completely as she used to be before her fall … I think. Then last Friday morning I came into her room to wake her—which I never needed to do before—and found her standing in her night-gown, gazing before her at nothing like a revenant in one of Mr. Poe’s tales. I called her name twice before she seemed to wake. I am grateful that Papa is now back for the summer. He is inclined to believe my fears groundless. He has heard of many such cases from members of the medical faculty at Yale, and reassures me that the effects will pass in time.
FRIDAY, JUNE 5
I will write you at least a few lines, before I sleep! I sit in the summer kitchen, last of all this household awake, wearing an old straw hat with cheesecloth veiling sewed around its brim, as protection against mosquitoes. Dishes washed, pots scoured, floor mopped, ashes hauled away, knives cleaned, while the last twilight dies softly in the doorway. Now beyond the glow of my lamp the room is still. The air is laden with the wondrous scent of the meadows and the pond.
Tuesday I had a letter from Justin, the first since March. He is indeed with Grant’s army, camped before Vicksburg, and asks, Are you still in that town? The letter he encloses to you, Susie, is addressed to you there: Please Forward. Imagination, and hope, can only go so far, toward loosening the grip of fear.
Like the heroine of Bleak House, I try to make each day a bright stepping-stone through a world of dark surmise. Without my daily crossings to Isle au Haut, I would feel imprisoned indeed, like Robinson Crusoe: bounded within the narrow compass of what I can see. Mother asked me Sunday, with great concern, whether it is true that I am a Copperhead, of the sort they are arresting in New York. I can only surmise that she heard this at church in Northwest Harbor. Yet unlike the intrepid Mr. Crusoe, I am not alone.
Always your friend,
Cora
Susanna Ashford, Vicksburg, Mississippi
To
Cora Poole, Deer Isle, Maine
[not sent]
THURSDAY, JUNE 4, 1863
Dear Cora,
It’s very strange, not having the slightest idea what’s happening in the rest of the country, or the rest of the world, or even five miles away. Now that there aren’t regiments of wounded coming in every day, I’ve gone around V’brg to see my friends and make sure everyone is all right so far. The Petrie Sisters and Mrs. Bell are sharing a cave over on Adams Street, and there’s a huge cave, sheltering perhaps a hundred people, a few blocks farther on. Every day, there’s somebody going someplace (usually looking for food), when the shells start to move from one block to the next (as they turn the guns, I guess). So there’s always someone taking refuge here with us. Or, I’ll miscalculate how long it will take me to get from one place to another, and have to duck into the nearest cellar or hole in the ground when the shelling moves my way. Some people are still living in their houses, because the caves are like ovens, not to speak of the wildlife that visits. At night we all sleep as close to the cave-mouth as we dare.
The first day I wasn’t needed at the hospital, Nellie and I raced up to the house and took a count of the food left in the larder. Aunt Sally left us with half a wheel of cheese, three sacks of cornmeal, half a barrel of potatoes, most of a ham, and assorted preserves—we were due to start pickling cucumbers and bottling peaches in a few weeks, so supplies of those were low. We’re moving those down to the cave a little at a time, because nobody knows how long it will be before the town is either relieved or surrenders. (Nobody admits there’s any possibility of surrender, but President Davis would never make Lee leave Virginia to march here overland, the way everyone is saying he will and must.) In a way I’m glad Cookie ran away, the night Grant’s men moved into position around the town, even if she did take all the sugar. I suspect we’ll need all the food we can save.
After we move sacks and jars and dishes and bedding, I’ll make one more trip—it takes twenty-three seconds to run from the mouth of the cave, up the bank, across the yard, and in the kitchen door—and run into the library and tear the flyleaves and end-papers out of as many books as I can in thirty seconds, then race back. Once, I got caught in the open, when the guns moved earlier than I expected and shells started landing in Aunt Sally’s yard, but I threw myself down the bank and scrambled into the cave. At least we have plenty of water. Or we will unless a shell hits Aunt Sally’s cistern, which stands in the back of the house. Emory tells us that there’s no water to be had out at the rifle-pits, and in this heat the men are always desperate for it. I wonder if it’s the same, on the other side of the lines?
TU
ESDAY, JUNE 9
Emory to dinner again—I say, “to dinner,” as if we had something other than cornmeal mush, a sprinkle of cheese, and a few thinly-sliced potatoes, but he swears it’s a thousand times better than they have at the rifle-pits. He says they have only a little bacon or salt beef (only it’s probably not really beef), to last them a whole day’s fighting, plus cornmeal and pea-meal, mixed. But, we now have the parlor table and three chairs, and plates and cups. Emory told us about the latest rumors, including a most pitiful story being circulated in the Northern newspapers, about Mrs. Pemberton, the Gen’l’s wife, being killed in the bombardment. (She is perfectly safe in Mobile, and everyone in town knows it.) Where the rumors start, no one has any idea, but many are called across the lines from the Federals. Men come in from the lines all the time, for aside from the shelling—about which they can do nothing—and the shooting back and forth, they also have very little to do. Emory says it’s like being trapped perpetually in a shooting-gallery, only the targets are shooting back and the building is on fire!
Considering how much danger we’re in, the days drag fearfully. Emory carved a set of chess pieces out of spent minié balls, and I play with him when he’s here. I think of you, Cora, shut into your house with darling Mercy for months on end in wintertime; sometimes this feels like a not-very-funny parody. We—Nellie and I—sweep the dirt floor, fetch water from the cistern, and count the hours until it’s time to make a little mush for the five of us—or six, if Emory will be in from the lines. We are always hungry. Julia and I have had a dozen squabbles, for she cannot resist Tommy’s pleas for food, and I say harshly, “Better he cries now than starves next week.” She tells me—as Aunt Sally was always doing—that I am cold, and unwomanly, and selfish.
Today, before he went back to the lines, Emory helped me make a barrier out of a shed the Yankees obligingly blew up for us, to keep Tommy from wandering out of the cave when no one is watching.
Many afternoons, I read. I carried down books from the house—Catherine de Medici and Rienzi this week—but I have to keep an eye on them, and carry them back when I’m done, or Julia or Nellie will tear out pages to put on the fire, rather than go out searching for kindling. I cannot blame them, and yet, I cannot see it done. Rather, I always select some awful tome or collection of sermons to bring down, as well. Sometimes I read aloud to poor Tom, who drifts in and out of sleep—for he is in the most awful pain. Mostly, I just read. It’s better than thinking, sometimes.
Yours from the Seige of
Troy, Susanna
[sketches]
Cora Poole, Deer Isle, Maine
To
Susanna Ashford
[not sent]
TUESDAY, JUNE 16, 1863
Dearest,
A confusion of rumor, spreading fast over the island as the lobstermen come in from the mainland. A Confederate army has invaded Pennsylvania, and is en route to Washington. No one would speak to Will at Green’s Landing, but when I stopped at Uncle M’s on the way home, Aunt Hester said that some of the men had gone across to Portland to get news if there was any. The moon is new, and they will not be back tonight.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17
I try to imagine you across the table from me; yet tonight I feel more alone than I have, perhaps in my life. The rumor is indeed true that the North has been invaded in force, and we know that Oliver’s regiment is in the army that was sent to intercept the invaders. But there is a deeper trouble here. Papa met me on the road, and said, Mother did not come back in from evening milking. When he went out to see what delayed her, he found her sitting on the milking-stool staring before her, and she did not seem to hear him when he spoke her name. He led her into the house and laid her down on the bed, where she fell at once asleep. Yet, when I went in with him and shook her, she at once woke up, and was herself, complaining only of a headache. Papa tries to be cheerful, and to act as if this is but a normal consequence of her fall in March. Yet last night I came into the kitchen, and surprised him watching her with such a look of fearful helplessness in his eyes as I have never seen. He knows no more of how to help her than I do, Susie!
THURSDAY, JUNE 18
And on top of great disasters come petty annoyances, like biting gnats! As if doing so would shield Oliver from danger, Peggie has taken to leaving pamphlets from the New England Propaganda Society on my pillow, or tucked beneath the sheets of my bed. Execrable verse—one can not call it poetry. I would laugh, but for my own terrible anxiety for my brother’s sake.
Mother, at least, seems better today. Rain is falling, and fills the summer kitchen with the scent of the woods, mercifully keeping both mosquitoes and blackflies away. The whole night whispers with it.
My compliments to Julia on her twenty-second birthday. Please forward to her my sincere hopes for her health and happiness.
SATURDAY, JUNE 20
MERCY’S BIRTHDAY TOMORROW
Thank you for the kind letter you would have sent my daughter! I hope and pray that all is well with you and yours, my dear Susie, wherever you are.
All my love,
Cora
Susanna Ashford, Vicksburg, Mississippi
To
Cora Poole, Deer Isle, Maine
[not sent]
SUNDAY, JUNE 21, 1863
Dearest Cora,
Wish your daughter happy birthday for me. The enclosed sketch is for her. The roses are real, and still blooming madly in the bottom corner of Aunt Sally’s yard. The cat is from memory: between the shelling, and no food in the town, and the possibility of being eaten themselves, I don’t think there’s a cat this side of the Union lines.
We’re just about out of cornmeal and all our flour is gone, so Wednesday I went down to the cane-brakes at the bottom of the bluff, to dig up the cane-shoots, which you can boil for food. It’s funny, to meet there some of the ladies I used to go take Sunday tea with, on the same errands. Emory says there are Louisiana men in the lines catching rats, and they swear they cook up just fine. None for me, thanks. Friday he brought us some mule-meat, which was ghastly. Julia gives most of her food to Tommy, and she grows pitifully thinner and more ethereal-looking by the day. She has this look of martyred intenseness in her eyes, as if she expects every second to be her last and is determined to give her life for the South. Tom is fading, too, feverish and weak, and she is so patient with him, so loving, as if nothing existed but him and their son. Sometimes when the bombs are falling close, she sings. It is hard to imagine such love. Thursday was her twenty-second birthday.
[sketches]
THURSDAY, JUNE 25
Dearest Cora,
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.
Good-by,
Susanna
Cora Poole, Deer Isle, Maine
To
Susanna Ashford
[not sent]
MONDAY, JUNE 29, 1863
Dearest,
As I came down to the wharf at Town Landing this afternoon, I saw the men gathered around talking wildly and feared that the lobstermen had brought news of battle before Washington. But the men said a Confederate Navy schooner had sailed into the harbor at Portland, a few hours’ sailing west of here, and attacked a Federal revenue cutter as it lay at anchor.
The island is aflame with suspicion of “Copperheads” and “traitors.” Anyone who does not cry hip-hurrah! at the sight of a bunch of red, white, and blue ribbons on a hat is automatically suspect.
My hands ache tonight, as you can see from my writing: an exhausting Saturday of hoeing, weeding, picking cherries, cucumbers, peaches! A Heaven of scent and sunshine! As a child I accepted without question the astounding bounty produced by a single plant or tree. As I grow older, I look upon this generosity with wonder. All day until darkness spent in the summer kitchen, making pickles and preserves. I told Mother I wished particularly for this to be done of a Saturday, so that I might help, having left so much of the pig-killing and soap-boiling to Peggie last fall while teaching. But in trut
h, I wanted it so because I was not easy with the thought of Mother working so close to a blazing fire and vats of boiling vinegar.
I moved about the schoolroom like an old lady today!
Your decrepit,
C
Cora Poole, Deer Isle, Maine
To
Susanna Ashford
[not sent]
MONDAY, JULY 6, 1863
Dearest,
I wish—how I wish—I knew where you were, and under what circumstances. Papa says Pastor Wainwright offered up a prayer of thanks at church yesterday, and that everyone on the island says that now the fighting will soon be done. Yet at what cost, Susie! Three days of fighting at Gettysburg, from dawn to the late fall of summer darkness! The whole island holds its breath, waiting for the casualty-lists. Peggie is distracted—
TUESDAY, JULY 7
Twenty-four hours. I recall how you wrote, after the fall of Nashville, that sentences penned only days before seemed to speak of another world. I speak calmly to Papa, and firmly to Peggie, and cross to Isle au Haut to explain to my students the six-times-tables, and behave just as if I were one of those perfect sweet courageous heroines in all of Mr. Poole’s books. Only on the way back across the Bay this afternoon did I weep a little, for sheer terror and grief.