by John Jakes
Stanley got up his nerve and plunged. “I understand there is a desperate need for shoes.”
“Desperate,” Butler murmured, blowing smoke.
“In the North, cotton is badly needed.”
“It’s available. One only needs to know cooperative sources and how to get it into the city and onto the docks.” Butler smiled. “You do understand that in every transaction I receive a commission from the purchaser as well as the seller?”
“Yes, yes—it makes no difference, if you can help me ship shoes to the Con—to those who need them and, at the same time, deliver cotton in sufficient quantity to make its resale worth the not inconsiderable risk. There are laws against aiding and trading with the enemy.”
“Are there? I’ve been too busy to notice.” He laughed heartily. Stanley joined in because he thought he should.
They went strolling, working out the details. In the mild sunshine of early winter, Stanley suddenly felt marvelous, unable to believe that, in remote places he would never see, men were living in fear and filth, and laying down their lives for slogans.
On his third cigar, Andrew Butler began to philosophize about his brother. “They nicknamed him Beast because he threatened to treat the townswomen as whores if they made disparaging remarks to our boys, and they nicknamed him Spoons because they say he loots private homes. He’s guilty of the former and proud of it, but believe me, Stanley, if Ben wanted to steal, he wouldn’t traffic in anything so trifling as spoons. After all, his background is Massachusetts politics—and he’s a lawyer besides.”
Stanley could have mentioned some things he had heard about the general—that, for instance, he had grown wealthy during his short tenure in New Orleans, though no one could say how. The sources of Andrew Butler’s burgeoning fortune were, by contrast, widely known.
Moving toward the riverfront where a paddle steamer lay moored, white as a wedding cake in the sunshine, Butler continued, “The people of this town are wrong to condemn my brother. He’s a much more fair-minded and efficient administrator than anyone will admit. He cleaned up pestilential conditions he found when he arrived, he brought in food and clothing when it was badly needed, he reopened the port for business. But all you hear is ‘Damn the Beast’ and ‘Damn Spoons.’ Fortunately, in our little commercial venture, you and I will deal with gentlemen who put personal profit ahead of public slogan-mongering.”
“You’re referring to the cotton planters?”
“Yes. Their desire to be practical was enhanced by the experience of a few who initially refused me their cooperation—and their cotton. Those gentlemen found their slaves absent all at once. When they subsequently consented to, ah, share their crop in the general marketplace, the slaves of course reappeared to do the hard labor.”
Working under bayonets held by United States soldiers, Stanley thought. The scandalous stories had reached Washington. But he didn’t mention it.
“Even in wartime,” Butler concluded, “practicality is often a wiser course than patriotism.”
“Yes, definitely,” Stanley agreed. The champagne and sunshine and success reached him all at once, generating a sense of self-worth unique in all his life. Isabel should be proud of what he had accomplished today. Damned proud. He was.
By the close of November, most officers in the Army of the Gulf knew they would have a new commander by the end of the year. Protests against Butler’s style had grown too numerous, accusations of thievery and profiteering too ripe. The coming of a new commandant usually produced a reorganization and many transfers. Elkanah Bent realized he must retrieve the painting at once.
He observed the entrance to Madame Conti’s on three randomly chosen evenings. The observation proved that what he had heard was true: the brothel was popular with officers and non-coms alike, though it was against regulations for them to associate, just as it was for them to visit such a place. Both rules were broken by large numbers of men, who went in quietly and came out rowdily—drunk to the eyes. Within one half-hour period he witnessed two fistfights, which further cheered him.
In his disorderly rented room around the corner from the Cotton Exchange, Bent sat down in his undershirt and devised a plan with the aid of his most helpful companion, a fresh bottle of whiskey. He drank as much as a quart a day—and vile stuff it was, too; little better than sutler’s slop. But he needed it to clarify his mind and help him cope with his burden of failure.
The woman who ran the bordello would never sell him the portrait. Nor was he willing to risk burglary late at night; he vividly remembered Madame Conti’s black helper. He had to steal the painting while others conducted what was known in military parlance as a diversionary demonstration. With the bordello patrons in a volatile state, it should not be hard to provoke one.
It was the best plan he could concoct. He drained the bottle and fell into bed, Wearily reminding himself to secure a knife.
The following Saturday night, in full-dress uniform, Bent ascended the beautiful black iron stair he had climbed once before. He found a large, noisy crowd of soldiers in the parlor and didn’t recognize one. A touch of luck there.
He ordered bourbon from the old black man behind the small bar. He sipped and listened. When the men weren’t boasting to the whores, they maundered about home or muttered anti-Southern sentiments. Ideal.
He ordered a second drink. His neck prickled suddenly. Someone watching—?
He turned. Sure enough, through the press he saw a large, solid woman approaching. She was well into her sixties, and her mass of white hair was as stunningly arranged as it had been the previous time. She wore a robe of emerald silk embroidered with bridges, pagodas, and Oriental figures.
“Good evening, Colonel. I thought I recognized an old customer.”
He started to sweat; insincerity lurked behind his smile. “You have a good memory, Madame Conti.”
“I just recall your face, not your name.” Shrewdly, she didn’t bring up their quarrel over the cost of certain special services obtained from the slut he had bedded.
“Bent.” On the first visit he had actually called himself Benton, wanting to protect his real name because he believed he could still have a career in the army. At that time, he had yet to learn that the generals never recognized talent, only influence.
And you don’t command any. You know who’s responsible: your father, who betrayed you in death. The Mains and the Hazards, the General Billy Shermans, and a host of unknown enemies who have whispered and conspired and—
“Colonel? Are you ill?”
A bulging vein in his forehead flattened out of sight. His breathing slowed. “Just a brief dizziness. Nothing alarming.”
She relaxed, musing. “Colonel Bent. Certainly, that was it.” He missed the flash of doubt in her eyes. He swallowed whiskey and listened to the din in the place. Excellent.
“I recall you had a Negro working for you—a huge, ferocious fellow.” Willing to kill on order. “I haven’t seen him tonight. Is he still here?”
Bitterness: “No. Pomp wanted to join your army. He was a freedman, and I couldn’t dissuade him. To business, Colonel. In what may we interest you this evening? You know our range of specialties, as I recall.”
He wanted one of her young boys, but in this military crowd dared not ask. “A white girl, I think. One with flesh on her bones.”
“Come and meet Marthe. She’s German, though she’s learning English. One caution: Marthe’s younger brother is serving in a Louisiana regiment. I advise Marthe and all the other girls that we run a nonpartisan establishment”—damn lie, that; the madam had several times criticized Butler publicly—“but you can assure yourself of congeniality by avoiding direct reference to the war.”
“Certainly, certainly.” Anxiety quickened the reply. Could he go through with it? He must.
Madame Conti’s hypocrisy helped stiffen his resolve. He ordered a magnum of French champagne for some further stiffening, then waddled along to be presented to the whore.
“Very lovely, dear,” Marthe said twenty minutes later. “Very satisfying.” She had an accent thick as a sausage and china-blue eyes, which she had kept focused on the ceiling throughout. Plump and slightly pink from her brief exertion, she lay touching and fluffing the corkscrew curls over her ears.
Back turned, Bent struggled into his trousers. Now, he said to himself. Now. He picked up the bottle and drained the last inch of flat champagne.
The plump whore rose and reached for her blue silk kimono. Madame Conti’s passion for things Asian was evident throughout the house. “It’s time to pay, darling. The chap at the bar downstairs will take your mon—”
Bent pivoted. She saw his fist rising, but astonishment prevented an outcry for a moment. He hit her hard. Her head snapped back. She fell on the bed, shrieking in anger and pain.
Turning away to conceal his next action, he raked his nails down his left cheek till he felt the blood. Then he snatched his coat and lurched for the door.
The whore was on him then, pounding with her fists, bellowing German curses. Bent kicked back twice and hurt her enough to stop the hitting. He plunged into the dim hall. Doors opened along it, blurred faces becoming visible. What was the commotion?
He remembered his saber, left behind. Let it go. You can buy another. There’s only one painting.
Down the stairs he went, staggering, blood dripping from his chin. “Damn rebel slut attacked me. She attacked me!”
He bolted through the arch to the parlor, where his outcry had already generated angry looks among the lounging soldiers. “Look what the whore did to me!” Bent pointed to his bloody cheek. “She called General Butler a pissing street dog—spat on my uniform—then she did this. I won’t pay a penny in this nest of traitors.”
“Right with you there, Colonel,” said a dark-bearded captain. Several men stood up. Marthe bounded down the stairs, heightening the effect of Bent’s story by howling her German damnations. Through heavy smoke tinted by the red glass mantles, he saw the barman’s hand drop beneath the counter. Madame Conti rushed from a doorway behind him: the office—exactly where he remembered it.
“All of you be quiet, please. I permit no such—”
“Here’s what we do to people who insult the United States Army.” Bent seized the nearest chair and brought it down on the marble bar, splintering it.
“Stop that, stop it,” Madame Conti cried with a note of despair. Several girls fled squealing; others crouched on the floor. The barman produced a pepper-pot pistol. Two noncoms jumped him, one throwing the gun into a spittoon while the other locked hands behind the man’s neck and dragged his face down to the marble, swiftly and hard. Bent heard a nose crack.
He picked up another chair and flung it sideways. It struck a decorative mirror; a waterfall of fragments flowed.
The soldiers, half of them drunk, joined the attack like gleeful boys. Tables flew. Chairs crunched. Madame Conti ineffectually pulled at the arms of those wrecking her parlor, gave up and dashed away as demolition commenced in other rooms. An officer caught her, lifted her, and carried her out of sight on his shoulder.
Panting with excitement and fear, Bent ran to the office. There was the red-flocked wallpaper, the array of paintings, including the great Bingham—and there was the quadroon’s portrait in its remembered place, among several canvases behind the madam’s desk. Bent produced a clasp knife and began to poke and saw the canvas around the inner edge of the frame. In a minute and a half, he nearly had the portrait loose.
“What are you doing?”
Cut, rip—the picture was his. He began to roll it. “You’ve ruined that,” Madame Conti cried, rushing at him. Bent dropped the painting, balled his fist, and hit her on the side of the head. She would have fallen, but she caught herself on the edge of the desk.
Her splendid hairdo undone, she stared at him through straggling gray strands. “Your name wasn’t Bent the first time; it was—”
He struck her again. The blow drove her four feet backward and hurled her to the floor. She floundered on her spine and made whimpering noises as he picked up the rolled painting, rushed through the parlor and down the iron stairs, leaving his army comrades to finish their work. From the hurrahs and the sounds of breakage that diminished as he hurried into the dark, they were enjoying the duty.
It had been a good night for everyone.
60
BURNSIDE BROUGHT THE ARMY of the Potomac to the Rappahannock in mid-November. The engineers hutted in a huge camp at Falmouth and waited. Seldom had Billy heard such complaining.
“We are delaying so long they will have their best ready to go against us.”
“Bad terrain, Fredericksburg. What are we to do, march up the heights like the redcoats at Breed’s Hill and be mowed down the same way?”
“The general is a shit-ass, fit for nothing but combing his whiskers. There isn’t an officer in the country capable of leading this army to a victory.”
Despite Lije Farmer’s urgings that he have faith and ignore the malcontents, it was the malcontents Billy was starting to believe. Confidence in Burnside was not enhanced when a story got around that he was asking his personal cook for advice on strategy.
The weather, wet and dismal, deepened Billy’s malaise and finally affected him physically. On the ninth of December he started sneezing. Then came queasiness and a headache. The next night, as the pontoon train began its advance to a previously scouted field beside the river, his forehead felt scorching, and he could barely suppress violent shivering. He said nothing.
They moved as quietly as possible. Fog had settled in, helping to muffle sound. At three in the morning, the regular battalion, assisted by the Fifteenth and the Fiftieth New York Volunteer Engineers, unloaded the boats while the teamsters cursed and coddled their horses to minimize noise. Everyone knew the significance of the pale splotches of color in the fog; among the trees and tall houses on the other shore, Confederate picket fires burned.
“Quiet,” Billy said every minute or so. The men repeatedly dropped the boats as they labored across the plowed field or blundered into one another and threatened a fight. There was a bad feeling about this campaign so late in the year. It was misbegotten. Cursed.
The fever swirled his thoughts and filmed his vision, but Billy kept on, softly calling directions, maintaining order, lifting and carrying when some weaker man faltered and fell out. A misty drizzle started. Then he began to ache.
During a break in the work, he clasped his arms around his body in a vain effort to warm up. Lije appeared. Touched his shoulder.
“There are plenty to carry on here. Go to the surgeons, where you belong.”
Billy jerked away from his friend’s hand. “’M all right.”
Lije stood still, said nothing, but Billy knew he was hurt all the same. He started to apologize, but Lije turned and went back to the men.
Shame overwhelmed Billy, then uncharacteristic contempt for his friend. How could Lije believe all that Scriptural twaddle? If there was a compassionate God, how could He permit this nightmare war to drag on?
They kept at the work, continually watching the picket fires on the other side of the river. The drizzle produced heavy smoke from time to time, but the rebs kept the fires replenished with dry wood. One fire directly opposite the bridge site drew special attention because the soldier on picket duty could be seen with some clarity. He was reedy, bearded, and marched back and forth as if he had all the energy in the world. ‘ It was nearly daybreak when the first boats went in. The men dropped one, and it smacked the shallows, loud as a shot. Superintending the work of moving more boats to the shore, Billy heard someone exclaim, “It’s all up,” then saw the rebel picket pluck a brand from the fire and wave it over his head, an arc of sparks.
Over the picket’s cry, Lije shouted, “Press ahead, boys. No need for silence now.”
They rushed forward with balks, chesses, and rails as a small signal cannon banged on the opposite shore. Running figures showed against the watch fi
res. A detachment of infantry came up behind the engineers, sleepy marksmen readying weapons. Artillery wheeled into place on the bluff above. Billy suspected all of it would be scant protection.
They had five boats anchored and two planked by the time enemy skirmishers appeared and opened fire. Looking bilious in the breaking light, Lieutenant Cross and a crew put out in their boats, the first to strike for the enemy shore, which they might or might not reach.
Billy worked on the end of the bridge, soon extended to midstream; he helped to cleat each boat to a pair of balks, then run it out. He heard the guns begin to crackle. A ball plopped in the water to his right; another thunked the gunwale of the pontoon boat over which he was kneeling.
“Wish I had my fucking gun,” someone said.
“Stop wasting breath,” Billy said. “Work.”
Men ran forward with chesses. One of them jerked suddenly, stepped sideways, and tumbled into the Rappahannock.
Consternation. Hands shot down to seize and lift the wounded engineer. Billy had never felt water so icy. Lije ran out on the bridge. “Courage, boys. ‘Our soul waiteth for the Lord. He is our help and our shield.’”
Dragging the man to safety—blood and water streaming from his face—Billy twisted around and said, “Shut up, Lije. The Lord our shield didn’t help this man, and He isn’t going to help the rest of us, so shut up, will you?”
The white-bearded man seemed to shrivel. Anger flashed in his eyes, quickly replaced by sadness. Billy wanted to bite off his tongue. Men stared at him, but only one mattered. He ran to Lije along the slippery bridge and clutched his arm.
“I didn’t mean that. I’m eternally sorry for saying something so—”
“Down,” Lije yelled as rebs across the river volleyed. He pushed Billy and dropped on top of him.
Billy’s head smacked the bridge. He tried to rise, but too much had worn him down. Too much illness, tiredness, despair. Ashamed though he was, he let himself sink into comforting black.