A battery of mounted artillery burst upon us. Sliding over the crest they came, their horses terrified and whinnying, all eyes and teeth, with men in blue clinging to the caissons.
They smashed into the company.
What the Rebels could not do, the gunners did in an instant. Our ranks collapsed as men dodged to save themselves. It was sudden and unspeakable. I ran after the boys, shouting for them to re-form the lines. Twas then that a team of horses and a caisson wheel knocked me down and went over me.
I remember a horse spewing blood from its nostrils. And the gunshot sound of breaking bone. Through it all, I shouted useless commands to rally, lying there in shock and failure.
You can see I was no hero.
A sergeant I had never seen before and never saw again rescued me. He had the confidence of a regular and an enormous pistol. He held the gun on two frightened boys from Connecticut and forced them to carry me off the field. In truth, they did more damage to me than necessary, but they were frightened and it was not done on purpose. I could not believe what had happened to me, and I wept with shame and anger. Nor was I in comfortable mind, for a man does not like to see the bone of his own thigh come through his pant leg.
They must have lugged me a pair of miles before they found a place for me on a meat wagon. And thus I joined the long retreat.
In the darkness, the wagon stopped at a barn lit with lanterns and rough men took us down. The pain was full with me then. Many a man was mad in his screaming. I pretended their screams were mine and kept my silence. Then they come for me and threw me on a table made of boards. The blood on it gripped my hair and soaked through my tunic. They cut away my trousers.
“I cannot… lose my leg,” I said. It was difficult to speak and I had to concentrate on the one thing that mattered.
The bloodiest human being I have ever seen looked down at me.
“There’s no time to fiddle,” he told me. He sounded weary.
“I’m going to keep my leg, see.”
He considered the break.
“Fracture that bad,” he said, “I splint it up, it’s just going to rot.”
“I need my leg.”
“There’s many a man here who—”
I grabbed his arm with all the strength I had left.
“No,” I told him.
He shook his head at my folly. “Wouldn’t you as soon have your life, man? Leg or no leg?”
I could not help it. The tears broke free. “There’s not enough of me as it is,” I told him. “You can’t take any more away.”
After a moment, he sighed and said, “All right, Captain. But you’re taking your own life.” He turned to his helpers. “Hold him down, boys. He’ll be screaming to change his mind in a minute.”
The next day, it rained and Confederate cavalrymen stopped by the barn. They had a look at us and left again. Eventually, a wagon carried me the thirty endless miles to a hospital set up in a hurry in a Georgetown church. Twas a special place for those expected to die of their wounds, and soon it stank of gas gangrene and fouled bandages. But a Welshman is hard to keep down.
Chapter 7
Since the day I put his back to the floor, Major Trenchard stood wary of me, elegantly spiteful, and Bates and poor Livingston copied his pattern. There was a truce between us, but an unhappy one, for they did not trust me, and liked me less than I was trusted. I kept my place and did my work. But there is the devil in men. Bit by bit, they tested me, as children will, to see how far they might go.
Trenchard sat back in his handsomeness, with his fine boots braced on his desk and a smile thin as barley water. Twas fine outside, a high November morning, but we were in.
“Jones?”
I looked up from my work and theirs.
“Fond of poetry, by any chance?” he asked me.
I put up my pen, careful of the ink, for I knew Trenchard was but started.
“Poetry is it?”
“Yes, Jones. Poetry. You know the stuff. ‘Roses are red, violets are blue…’ ”
A brashness of leaves struck our window. Golden they were. “I am not a great reader of it, sir. Though I have been through my Homer. There is good in him.”
Trenchard made one of his playactor’s faces for his friends, a great orbit of the eyes under lifted brows.
“Homer! Think of it, gentlemen. Our toiling scribe has ‘been through his Homer.’ The diligence of it! The ambition!” Handsome he was, I will admit, as he turned his face to me. “You read him in Greek, of course?”
My work called me down, while the brilliance beyond the window called me out, and I only wanted away from their meanness. But Trenchard would have his joke before lunch. There was nothing to be done. Then he and Captain Bates would prance off on their horses for the rest of the day, leaving Livingston back to mind me.
“Twas not in the Greek, sir, but in Mr. Pope’s rendering. I would commend the Iliad to all soldiers, for they will find in it all the cruelty of war and the vanity of heroes.”
“Yes, Jones. Homer, by way of the little country church. Just the thing, I’m sure. But I didn’t really have the Greeks in mind—although we’re all pleased to find your class reading anything at all.” He gave his whiskers a loving stroke. “Thing is, Jones, I find myself in need of your assistance.”
I sat and waited for him to make his speech, for I would not step to put my foot in his trap. I knew he would bring the trap over to me in good time.
“You see, Jones, I’ve come upon a poem from the land of your origins. Strikes me there’s wisdom in it. I thought you might identify the author. I’d like to read more of him.” Trenchard was a man with no music in his voice, and none in his heart. The sound of his yap was polished, but brittle. “Like to hear the poem, old fellow?”
“There is work I must do, sir.”
“Won’t take a minute, Jones. Then back to your scribbling. Here it is.”
“Taffy was a Welshman,
Taffy was a thief,
Taffy came to my house,
And stole a piece of beef.”
They laughed like bad children, the three of them. I knew the doggerel for a cradle rhyme from the wrong side of the Marches. Twas nothing. Still it angered me.
“I can tell you, sir,” I said, “that the author was an Englishman who had not the courage to sign his name to his doings.”
“But you do get the beauty of the piece, Jones?”
“And this I will tell you, Major Trenchard. If ever a Welshman took a bit of beef from an Englishman’s house, twas because only that much was left of the cow the Englishman stole from the Welshman.”
“No need to get your back up, Jones. We’re speaking of literary matters. Aren’t we, gentlemen?”
Oh, they murmured along like the cowards they were.
Trenchard stood up. “Well, Jones… I’m sure you have the office business in hand. Scribble, scribble, right? Captain Bates and I may not be back this afternoon. Liaison matters. Coming to lunch, Livingston?”
I took my meal in the yard to get the loveliness of the day. Mrs. Schutzengel had put a fine leg of chicken in my sack, and did that not come as a surprise. I had the last of the bread and cleaned myself with the cloth. Then I sat. I would take my time to feel God’s sun before the winter fell.
Evans the Telegraph come by. Pleased to see me.
“Well, sit you down,” I told him, moving over on the bench. But he waited a moment, stretching himself like the grocer’s cat.
“There is beautiful,” he said. “Do you not miss home on such a day, Captain Jones?” He sat down beside me and took out his pipe.
“My home, Mr. Evans, is by my wife and in America.”
Evans was the slowest man to fill a pipe that ever I saw. He nodded in rhythm to his hands.
“As it should be, Captain Jones,” he said. “For a wife that does not scratch is a blessing. But I had another meaning. Do you not miss the valleys gone pretty with the autumn, when even the Monday washing has beauty in it? Do yo
u not miss the silver in your breath in the morning, and all the world handsome as a well-sung hymn? Is there no more of Wales in you, then?”
I watched the blue sky above the city streets. “ ‘Season of mists… and mellow fruitfulness…’ ”
The curious face he gave me.
“Poetry,” I said, “though by an Englishman.”
“I think on home, Captain Jones, until the tears come bothering me.”
“We are Americans now.”
He gave his pipe a light. Tobacco seasoned the air like hearth smoke. “Cannot an American remember the fondness of old things?”
“I would look forward, and not back.”
Evans sighed. “That is the India in you. You broke away young. Twas India and the Hindoo took the love of the old country from you.”
“All that India took from me was the innocence of a boy and the folly of a young man. No, Mr. Evans, proud we Welsh may be, but I am for these United States. For if I remember the beauty of our hills, I remember the heaviness of the English boot, as well.”
“This war rends America. No good will come of it.”
“Sorry I am for the war. But we do not know what will come of it. Anyway, my heart is here.”
He shook his head. “There is an obstinacy in you, Captain Jones. You are worse than a chapel deacon. That you will not admit the longing in your own heart. There is no Welshman alive who does not miss his valley on such a day. Not even a Merthyr man.”
“And how is Mr. Lincoln?” I asked.
A shower of leaves fell on us, and we laughed like butties.
“Oh, Mr. Lincoln is himself. More cares on him than a mother of ten.” He put his face closer to me. His tobacco had a wash of rum on it, and I will admit to liking the smell. “But it is a hard thing to see General McClellan with him. For I think there is little respect there, and less patience. The general will treat Mr. Lincoln as a schoolboy.”
“The general has his cares, too. But let that bide. There is work now.”
He laid his small hand on my arm, asking me not to rise. “Wait you, Captain Jones. The Fowler lad is still much in the newspapers, I see. And on the lips. Is there no revelation?”
Leaves scoured past the bench. One caught on my trousers. “They have made a martyr of him,” I said. “Mr. Greeley and the lot. They have been judge and jury, and the verdict is murder by the Confederates. It will put hatred in the killing to come. McClellan sees that rightly.”
“But… the telegram. From the Rebels. Has nothing come of that?”
“Oh, the Confederates did not do the murder,” I said, not without a strain of anger. “There are lies from here to the top of the hill. It is a black business.”
“Natural, though, to blame your enemy,” Evans the Telegraph said, with the weight of thoughtfulness in his voice. “And him a keeper of slaves.”
I stood up. “I will see fairness, Mr. Evans. We need not like the Confederates to deal with them honestly. They had no hand in this thing. I may fight a man without bearing false witness against him. There are greater sins and lesser.”
Knowledge lit his eyes.
“Ah,” he said. “Then it is progress you have made.” He looked at the bowl of his pipe, then back to me.
Across the street, Lieutenant Livingston shambled toward us. Coming from the direction of the Willard Hotel bar. I think I have never seen a man with less confidence. He passed by without seeing me. Like a great pale mole.
“There has been progress,” I told Evans, my voice low.
“Do you know who did it, then?”
Fool that I was, I said:
“Yes.”
“Congratulations,” I told Livingston as I entered our office again.
He gave me those befuddled eyes. Confused first that I had not been in my chair waiting for him as always, then by my salutation.
I moved for my desk, with its paper hills and valleys. “Your engagement,” I said. “I have only been told of it. My congratulations. Marriage is a thing of wonder.”
“Thank you… Jones.” He never called me “sir” or “Captain,” but I let that go. There was not consequence enough in him for disputation.
“She is a pretty one, I hear, your Miss Cathcart.”
He brightened. Twas a rare thing, rarer than the glory of the day, for he was a sad man, though how sad I did not yet know. “Betty—I mean, Miss Cathcart—she’s an angel. Wonderful family, too. Quakers.” Suddenly, his eyes alarmed. Over nothing. For small things frightened the boy. “Philadelphia Quakers are a different sort, Jones,” he added quickly. “Not like… the ones you might know. The Cathcarts are people of excellent standing. Aristocratic, really.”
“Authentic dynasties, I hear. These Philadelphia Quakers.”
He nodded, a happy child. “Got ‘em on my mother’s side, too. She was a Blake. But the Cathcarts… their family came over on the same ship as William Penn.”
“My congratulations again. A grand society match it will be. And will the wedding wait on the war’s end? Or will the golden day come sooner?”
Something happened to his face. Twas the look of a man bitten by a flea after he has just put on clean linen.
“Oh… her parents… they want June… I mean, Betty and I… we could… they have nothing against my wearing of the uniform. ‘Fighting Quakers,’ you know… it’s just that…”
Something wrong there. At first mention of the business, his enthusiasm had lifted him out of the drink that was in him, but now the alcohol came back to his voice.
“Speaking of families,” I said, “I’m told Major Trenchard’s father has the biggest merchant bank in Philadelphia.”
His eyes dreamed in drink again. “Second biggest. Oldest, though. Rich as Croesus. Though a gentleman… shouldn’t say so.” He smiled to himself. “Charlie’s father got us put here. He’s great pals with Mr. Cameron… although the Secretary doesn’t have… quite the social standing, of course. Politicians. And Governor Curtin. Knows everybody, old Trenchard. And Billy’s father is the shipping fellow. But you must’ve known that. ‘Pride of Philadelphia’ and all.”
“And your father is in the railroads?”
His mouth lived while his eyes died. “The railroads are a sport for Dad.”
I did not want him thinking too clearly, but neither did I want him asleep. I slammed down a ledger. Just hard enough to startle his eyes back open and lift his hands from the arm of his chair. I already knew everything he had told me, for I had spent the heft of November studying the business. But I had other aims for the conversation.
“None of you are assigned to this office, though. Not officially. As I am not. For Congress has not authorized an increase in the number of officers for the Ordnance Department.” I watched his face, the slack of it. “We’re all ghosts here.”
A smile dressed his lips without reaching his eyes. “ ‘Ghosts.’ You’re a good one, Jones. I’ll tell the boys that one. ‘Ghosts.’”
“Perhaps you will go to a regiment soon?”
He laughed, the sound fragile as a consumptive’s chest. “You don’t think I’m a real soldier. Do you?”
“We can be made such.”
He shook his head. “I know I’m no soldier. But Father… he wants to run for the Senate. Stevens isn’t in the best of health, you know. Old Thad. Now there’s a loony for you. Educate the poor… free the Negro. One of these days he’ll choke on his own nigger-loving heart during one of his rants. And Father will take his place.”
I acted as though the papers before me were of more interest than the conversation. “But his son must wear a uniform, if the father is to run?”
“You’re not stupid, Jones.”
“I see the sense of it.”
“And Charlie and Bill… a fellow has to wear the blue coat. In times like these. But you can carry a thing too far. Anthony… he was always one for carrying things too far.”
I opened the bottom drawer of my desk. “Lieutenant Livingston… can you keep a secret?”
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His eyes opened at that one. “What?”
“If you do not object… I will take just a preacher’s swig of whisky to pass the afternoon.” I brought out a bottle it had pained me to buy.
“Why, Jones…”
I passed my hand through the air. “Forbidden. I know it. But if you are not one for telling, I will not be. A small one is it?”
He tried to rise.
“Sit you there,” I said, getting up with bottle and glass in hand, God forgive me. I poured him a fine glass, near twenty cents worth, and set it by him.
“Our secret,” he said, toasting the four walls. “You’re not such a bad sort, Jones. Every man his vices, right?”
“Right.”
How he drank, the boy. He did not notice that my own glass went untouched. Nor did he care, I think.
“And all this fine Philadelphia society,” I said, “that would include Mr. Matthew Cawber? Of the iron works?”
He shook his head with a great wildness, as if the whisky had turned to fire on his lips. “Not Cawber. Society won’t have him. Can’t have him.”
“A rich man like him?”
He drank to rinse the taste of the last drink from his mouth. “Cawber… can’t be invited. Nobody has him to dinner. Unwelcome. No club… no club will…”
I slammed down the ledger again.
“He is a great man of industry, though,” I said. “This Mr. Cawber.”
“He’s a stinking crook. And worse. A seducer. Of honest women. Stole his wife, the bastard. He… he might live in Philadelphia… but he isn’t part of Philadelphia. Never will be.”
“Did your friend… was Anthony acquainted with Mr. Cawber?”
He gave me the astonishment, and honest it was. “Jones… Anthony would never… Anthony wouldn’t have said so much as, ‘Good morning,’ to that sort.”
“But wasn’t young Fowler a great democrat? What about the abolition business? The freeing of the Negro?”
He waved that away. “Touch of the eccentric in all of them, the Fowlers. First-rate family, though. Excellent bloodlines. Smacking rich. Just quirky.”
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