by John Jakes
“Bob, help me.”
She seized the Irishman’s shoulders and with some effort kept him in bed. “We do not want to inflict more pain on you, Corporal, and we won’t if you cooperate with us. We intend to remove everything except your undergarments and scrub you thoroughly.”
“All over?”
“Yes, every inch.”
“Mother of God.”
“Stop that. Other men besides you need attention. We have no time to waste on the false modesty of fools.”
So saying, she ripped his collar open. Buttons flew.
The Irishman didn’t struggle much; he was too weak and hurting. Virgilia showed the stupefied Miss Alcott how to ply a soapy sponge, then a towel. The towel was dark gray after two passes over the corporal’s skin.
The Irishman kept his body rigid. Virgilia lifted his right arm and washed under it. He wriggled and giggled.
“Let’s have none of that,” she said, showing a slight smile.
“Jasus, who’d of thought it? A strange woman handlin’ me like she was my mother.” Sheepish then. “It don’t feel too bad after what I been through. Not too bad atall.”
“Your change of attitude is very helpful. I appreciate it. Miss Alcott, take over, and I’ll start on the next man.”
“But Miss Hazard—” she swallowed, pink-faced as the Irishman—“may I speak to you alone?”
“Certainly. Let’s step over there.”
She knew what was coming but dutifully bent her head to hear the whispered question. She answered with similar softness so as not to embarrass Miss Alcott. “Bob Pip or one of the other soldiers finishes each man. They have a saying: the old veterans wash the new privates.”
Miss Alcott was too relieved to be shocked. She pressed a fist to her breast and breathed deeply. “Oh, I’m thankful to hear it. I believe I can handle the other work. I’m getting accustomed to the odors. But I don’t believe I could bring myself to—to—” She couldn’t even bring herself to say it.
“You’ll do splendidly,” Virgilia said, giving her an encouraging pat.
Louisa Alcott did do well. In two hours, with the help of a third volunteer nurse who joined them, they had stripped the entire population of the ward of unwearable clothing and all but essential dressings and bandages. Then the orderlies brought in coffee, beef, and soup.
While the men ate, the surgeons began to appear, distinguishable by the green sashes worn with their uniforms. Two entered the ballroom, one an elderly fellow Virgilia hadn’t met before. He introduced himself and said he would handle all cases not requiring surgery. She knew the other doctor, a local man who went straight to work inspecting patients on the far side of the ward.
Virgilia found army surgeons a mixed lot. Some were dedicated, talented men; others, quacks without professional schooling, qualified by only a few weeks of apprenticeship in a physician’s office. It was those in the latter group who most often acted as if they were eminent practitioners. They were brutal with patients, curt with inferiors, vocal about lowering themselves to serve in the army. She was able to tolerate the pomposity of such quacks only because they shared a common purpose—the healing of men so they could return to their regiments and kill more Southerners.
The surgeon approaching was no quack, but a Washington practitioner of solid reputation. Erasmus Foyle, M.D., barely reached Virgilia’s shoulder, but he bore himself as if he were Brobdingnagian. Bald as an egg except for a fringe of oiled black hair, he sported mustachios with points and sweetened his breath with cloves. At their first meeting, he had made it evident that Virgilia interested him for reasons that were not professional.
After an ingratiating bow, he said, “Good morning, Miss Hazard. May I have a word outside?”
The last soldier Foyle had examined, a man with both legs bandaged from knee to groin, began to roll to and fro and moan. The moan slid upward into a high-register shriek. Miss Alcott dropped her bowl, but Pip caught it before it broke.
Virgilia called, “Give that man opium, Bob.”
“And plenty of it,” said Foyle, nodding vigorously. He slipped his right hand around Virgilia’s left arm; his knuckles indented the bulge of her breast. She was about to call him down when something occurred to her.
Men looked at her differently from the way they did in the past. How useful could that be? Perhaps she should find out. She let Foyle’s hand remain. He blushed with pleasure.
“Right along here—” He guided her through the doorway and to the left into a dingy hall where no one in the ward could see them. He stood close to her with his small, bright eyes on a level with her breasts. Grady had loved her breasts, too.
“Miss Hazard, what is your opinion of the condition of that poor wretch who’s screaming?”
“Dr. Foyle, I am no physician—”
“Please, please—I respect your expertise.” He was practically dancing from boot to polished boot. “I have respected and, may I say, admired you since chance first threw us together. Kindly give me your opinion.”
The foxy little man reached for her right arm as he said that. He slipped his fingers around and under. Now he knows how the other one feels. Amused, she was also slightly bewildered by this unexpected power.
“Very well. I don’t believe the left leg can be saved.” She hated to say it; she had watched men as they regained consciousness after going under the saw.
“Amputation—yes, that was my conclusion also. And the right leg?”
“Not quite so bad, but the difference is marginal. Really, Doctor, shouldn’t you ask your colleague instead of me?”
“Bah! He’s no better than an apothecary. But you, Miss Hazard, you have a real grasp of medical matters. Intuitive, perhaps, but a real grasp.”
Just as he had a grasp of her arm. His knuckles pressed into her bosom again. “Surgery for that man as soon as possible. Could we perhaps discuss other cases at supper this evening?”
The sense of power intoxicated her. Foyle was no great physical specimen, but he was well off, respected, and he wanted her. A white man wanted her. It couldn’t be clearer. She had changed; her life had changed. She was grateful to Dr. Erasmus Foyle.
Not as grateful as he wished her to be, however.
“I should love that, but how would it be construed by your wife?”
“My—? Dear woman, I have never mentioned—”
“No. Another nurse did.”
His pink changed to red. “Damn her. Which one?”
“Actually, it was several. In this hospital and also in the one previous to this. Your reputation for protecting your wife’s good name is widespread. They say you protect it so zealously, hardly anyone knows she exists.”
Taking wicked delight in his reaction, she lifted her right arm, a peremptory signal that he should remove his hand. He was too astonished. She did it for him, dropping the hand as if it were soiled.
“I’m flattered by your attentions, Dr. Foyle, but I think we should return to our duties.”
“Attentions? What attentions?” He snarled it. “I wanted a private discussion on a medical matter, nothing more.” He jerked down the front of his blue coat, adjusted his sash, and quick-marched into the ballroom. In other circumstances Virgilia would have laughed.
“Well, Miss Alcott?” Virgilia asked when the tired nurses ate their first full meal, at eight that night. They had worked without interruption. “What do you think of the nursing service?”
Worn out and irritable, Louisa Alcott said, “How candid may I be?”
“As candid as you wish. We are all volunteers—all equal.”
“Well, then—to begin—this place is a pesthole. The mattresses are hard as plaster, the bedding’s filthy, the air putrid, and the food—have you tasted this beef? It must have been put up for the boys of ’76. The pork brought out for supper might be a secret weapon of the enemy, it looked so terrible. And the stewed blackberries more closely resembled stewed cockroaches.”
She was so emphatic she generated
laughter among the women on both sides of the trestle table. She looked tearful, then laughed, too.
Virgilia said, “We know all that, Miss Alcott. The question is—will you stick?”
“Oh, yes, Miss Hazard. I may not be experienced at bathing naked men—at least I was not until today—but I shall definitely stick.” As if to prove it, she put a chunk of the beef in her mouth and chewed.
The familiar hospital sounds crept to Virgilia in her room that night. Cries of pain. The weeping of grown men. A woman on duty singing a lullaby.
She was restless, remembering the awkward, seriocomical encounter with Foyle. How marvelous that he had wanted her. Not a field hand, not some fugitive, but a respectable white man. She had today discovered a truth only suspected before. Her body had a power over men, and because of that, she had power as a person. The discovery was as dazzling as a display of rockets on Independence Day.
Sometime in the future, when she met a man more solid and worthy than the randy little surgeon, she would put the newfound power to use. To lift herself higher than she had ever thought possible. To help her find a place to play a truly important part in the final crushing of the South.
In the dark, she slipped her hands down to her breasts and squeezed. She began to cry, the tears streaming while she smiled an exalted smile no one could see.
62
THAT SAME TUESDAY, THE day on which General Banks was to relieve General Butler in New Orleans, Elkanah Bent was summoned before the old commandant at eleven o’clock. He had been steeling himself for an inquiry about the brawl at Madame Conti’s but hadn’t expected the inquiry officer to be the general himself.
“A fine business to deal with on my last day with the department.” Petulant, Butler whacked a file in front of him. Bent was numb. A bad tone was already set, and he hadn’t said a word.
Ben Butler was a squat, round man, bald and perpetually squinting. His eyes went different ways, and subordinates joked that if you looked at the wrong one, the bad one, he would demote you. He seemed in that kind of mood now.
“I suppose it never occurred to you that the proprietress of the house would file a complaint with the civil authorities and with me as well?”
“General, I—” Bent tried to strengthen his voice but couldn’t. “Sir, I plead guilty to effecting rough justice. But the woman is a prostitute, no matter how grand her manners. Her employees insulted you, then attacked me.” He fingered the healing nail marks. “When I and others protested, she provoked us with more insults. I admit matters got somewhat out of control—”
“That’s putting a nice gloss on it,” Butler interrupted, squinting harder than ever. His voice had the nasal quality Bent associated with New England. “You totally destroyed the place. To go by the book, I should request that General Banks convene a court-martial.”
Bent almost fainted. Seconds went by. Then Butler said, “Personally, I would prefer to exonerate you completely.” Buoyed, Bent was quickly cast down again: “Can’t do it, though. You’re one reason, she’s the other.”
Confused, Bent muttered, “Sir?”
“Plain enough, isn’t it? It is because of your record that I can’t extend leniency.” He opened the file and removed several pages; the topmost ones had yellowed. “It’s covered with blemishes, and you have now added another. As for the woman, of course you’re right; she’s a prostitute, and I know she’s vilified me more than once. But if I hanged everyone who did that, there’d be no more hemp in the Northern Hemisphere.”
Bent’s forehead began to ooze and glisten. With a grunt, Butler launched himself from his chair. Hands behind his back and paunch preceding him, he walked in small circles, like a pigeon.
“Unfortunately, Madame Conti’s charges run deeper than inciting to vandalism, which is bad enough. She accuses you of theft of a valuable painting. She accuses you of assault on her person in order to accomplish that theft.”
“Both—damned lies.” He gulped.
“You deny the charges?”
“On my honor, General. On my sacred oath as an officer of the United States Army.”
Butler knuckled his mustache, chewed his lip, stepped in a circle again. “She won’t like that. She hinted that if she could get her property back, she might drop the charges.”
Something told Bent it was a critical moment. Told him to attack or he’d be finished. “General—if I am not speaking out of turn—why is it necessary to accommodate in any way a woman who is both a traitor and disreputable?”
“That’s the point,” Butler exclaimed crossly. “She isn’t as disreputable as one might expect. Her family goes back generations in this town. Haven’t you ever noticed the street in the old quarter that bears her last name?” Of course he had, but he had drawn no conclusions from it. “What I’m telling you, Colonel, is that some of Madame Conti’s clients are also friends and highly placed in the municipal government. They’re men I dislike but men I was forced to depend upon to keep the city running. General Banks is in the same unfortunate position. So I have to throw her a bone, don’t you see?”
That was it, then; accommodation with traitors. In the wake of the realization came rage. Butler, meantime, sank back into his chair, a little comic-opera man. Ludicrous.
But he had dangerous power.
“I suppose I could put you in command of a black regiment”—Bent almost fainted a second time—“but I doubt Madame Conti knows I can’t find white officers for that duty. She wouldn’t see the nicety of the punishment. Regrettably, I must find a more visible alternative.”
From under the contents of the file—the record of humiliations and reversals engineered by others—Butler plucked a crisp new sheet, the ink stark black. He spun the order around and laid it on the desk for Bent to read. The junior officer was too dazed and upset.
“Effective today, your brevet is revoked. That will keep the bitch from barking till I get out of town. Someone from General Banks’s staff will speak to you about financial reparations. I am afraid you may spend the rest of your army career paying for this little escapade, Lieutenant Bent. Dismissed.”
Lieutenant Bent? After sixteen years, he was to be reduced to the rank he had when he came out of the Academy? “No, by God,” he shouted to the disordered room near the mint. He hauled his travel trunk from a cluttered alcove and kicked the lid open. He packed a few books, a miniature of Starkwether, and, last, cushioned by suits of cotton underwear, carefully rolled, wrapped in oiled paper, and tied, the painting. Into the trunk went everything he owned except one civilian suit, a broad-brimmed hat he had purchased an hour after leaving Butler, and all of his uniforms, which he left in a heap on the floor.
Sheets of rain swept the levee, lit from behind by glares of blue-white light. The storm shook the ground, shivered the slippery incline, dimmed the yellow windows of the city.
“Watch that trunk, boy,” Bent yelled to the old Negro dragging it up the rope-railed gangway ahead of him. Rain dripped from his hat brim as he staggered aboard Galena in the light-headed state which had persisted since his interview yesterday. His military dreams lay in pieces, ruined by jealous, vindictive enemies. He had chosen to desert rather than serve an army that betrayed years of loyalty and hard work with demotion. He was fearful of discovery but awash with hatreds surpassing any experienced in the past.
A terrifying figure with a blue halation blocked him at the head of the gangway. Calm down, else they’ll suspect, you’ll be caught, and Banks will hang you.
“Sir?” rumbled a voice as the halation faded and the thunder, too. Relieved, Bent saw it was merely the purser of the steamship, holding a damp list in the hand protruding from his slicker. “Your name?”
“Benton. Edward Benton.”
“Happy to see you, Mr. Benton. You’re the last passenger to come aboard. Cabin three, on the deck above.”
The wind roared. Bent stepped away from the exposed rail, but the rain found him anyway. He shouted, “How soon do we leave?”
; “Within half an hour.”
Half an hour. Christ. Could he hold out?
“The storm won’t delay us?”
“We’ll be bound for Head of Passes and the gulf on schedule, sir.”
“Good. Excellent.” The wind tore the words away. He groped for the rail of the stair, lost his footing, and almost fell. He spewed obscenities into the storm. The purser rushed to him.
“You all right, Mr. Benton?”
“Fine.” The man hovered. Bent wanted no undue notice. “Fine!” The purser withdrew, quickly gone in the dark.
It required both hands on the slippery rail to drag his tired body up the stairs toward the safety of his cabin. What did he have left? Nothing but the painting, hate, and a determination that his enemies would not succeed in destroying him.
No—lightning; his eyes shone like wet rocks as he heaved and pulled himself upward in the rain—oh, no. He would survive and destroy them first. Somehow.
Still weak from his sickness, Billy went down to the river again. Under the protection of muskets and artillery, he helped dismantle the bridge he had built. He felt he was committing an act of desecration. He told himself he was taking the military defeat too personally. He couldn’t help it.
The pontoon wagons vanished into the winter dark. Encamped at Falmouth again, he wanted to write Brett but feared to do it. He wrote in the journal instead.
Bitter cold again this evening. Someone is singing “Home, Sweet Home,” a mournful and curiously ominous refrain, given our place and plight. This week alone, our support regiments have lost a score of men by desertion. It is the same through the entire army. They steal away homeward, disheartened. Even Lije F prays privately and seldom quotes Scripture any longer. He knows the exhortations and promises ring false. Burnside is done, they say. There is much speculation about his replacement. The bitterest say things like “Oh, don’t let your faith waver, boys. They have dozens of equally stupid generals waiting in Washington.” Then they reel off a list of mock courses those officers took at West Point: “Principles of Bungling,” “Fundamentals of Foolhardiness.” It is a terrible medicine to swallow without protest. We might as well be encamped at the rim of the cosmos, so dismal and remote do these huts seem as Christmas nears. Look about and the eye falls upon an unbroken landscape of confusion and cupidity. My men have not been paid for six months. Down in New Orleans, if we may believe the occasional Richmond paper which comes across the river when the pickets make their exchanges—coffee going south, tobacco coming north—General Butler and his brother are busy stealing cotton for personal gain. General Grant occupies himself with ordering all Jews out of his military department—accusing them, as a class, of speculation and lawbreaking. A cabal of Republican senators is said to be agitating for the heads of Mr. Chase and Mr. Seward. Where in God’s name is there one iota of concern for this disgraced army? Where is one man whose whole energy is given over to the task of finding generals who can lead us from this swamp of failure in which blunder after blunder has mired us, seemingly for eternity?