A Soldier's Secret

by Marissa Moss

  I follow the line of sweating workers pushing gravel-filled wheelbarrows over a narrow plank to build up the earthworks facing the Union army. I’m used to hard work, but by midday my palms are bloody and raw. I’m so exhausted, I almost tip the wheelbarrow twice. Each time, another worker rushes over to help me. I murmur my thanks, touched by the kindness of the other slaves. None of them seems the least bit suspicious of me. None of them are cold or unwelcoming. They’re treated like animals, but they laugh and joke with one another. It reminds me of how gentle the soldiers are with their wounded friends, how they comfort and care for them. These people—the slaves and soldiers—are all part of bigger families, while I’m left on the edge. I will never belong to any kind of community. Frank Thompson, yes, but not me, the real me.

  I watch a father guide his son as they lay stones onto the earthen wall, and feel a jolt of jealousy. I envy their closeness, the love and respect they clearly have for each other. For a second I feel sorry for myself—I’m nobody’s son, nobody’s daughter. But I tell myself it doesn’t matter. I’m a spy and I have a job to do.

  While I dig, wheel, and heap up gravel, I study the layout of the Rebel fortifications. I count guns and note logs that have been painted black and set up to look like cannon from a distance. When night falls, and everyone else sleeps, I take out the paper and pencil I’ve hidden inside my shoe and write what I remember, listing each piece of artillery and where it’s placed.

  It feels good to have a specific purpose, a sense of mission. I flip over the paper to sketch the ramparts and mark where each gun stands and where the painted logs have been set to trick the Union troops into thinking we’re facing formidable cannons, not tree trunks. Footsteps clomp behind me—someone heading for the latrine? I don’t wait to find out but quickly snuff out my candle, fold the plan, and stick it back in its hiding place. Looking up through slitted eyes, I recognize the officer who set me to work that morning. I tuck my chin, trying to disappear, to be nothing but a ragged, bone-tired slave, waiting for sleep to overtake me. The shiny leather boots stride right past.

  The next morning, my muscles are stiff and sore and my palms so raw I can’t manage the pickaxe. When I see the slender boy with the friendly eyes again filling buckets with water, I get an idea.

  “You bringin' water to the troops?” I ask the boy.

  “Uh-huh.” He nods.

  “Would you min' tradin' jobs with me—I ain’t got no skin left on my hands and that’s the truth. I’ll give you thirty cents if’n you switch with me.” I hold out some coins.

  The boy shakes his head. “I can’t use no money, that’s for sure. But I’ll switch jobs, don’t you worry.” He peers closely at me. “You lookin' mighty peaked. What happened to yuh face?”

  I dab at the streaking color on my forehead, wishing I’d thought to bring silver nitrate with me to refresh my disguise. “It’s a condition that comes on me from time to time. Can’t do nuthin' ’bout it—it’ll jus' pass on its own.” I tuck my head down and heave up the heavy buckets. “Thank you for yo' kindness.”

  I head for a cluster of soldiers, stopping behind a tree to smear the color more evenly on my face. I hope I still look like a slave, if a light-skinned one now. As I fill canteens, I’m surprised to recognize a peddler, a tall, lanky fellow who comes to the Union camp once a week, selling newspapers and stationery for letters home. He spends a lot of time hanging around headquarters, and now I understand why. The man is still tall and lanky, but he isn’t dressed as a peddler anymore. Now he wears a Rebel uniform, and he’s busy describing the layout of the Union camp and its defenses.

  “Well, I’ll be,” I mutter, sloshing water on the spy’s leg.

  “Hey, watch it there, dolt!” the fake peddler yells.

  I lower my head. “Sorry, suh, sorry.” And I really am sorry, sorry I can’t rush back to the Union camp right away and tell the generals the truth. But how can I leave camp safely? It’s not easy for a soldier to desert, let alone for a slave to run away, and if I get caught, I’ll be shot for sure. Still, I can’t risk staying much longer—another day and I’ll definitely look white.

  I wait until the sun sets before heading toward the pickets, hoping to slip by the sentries the same way I snuck in. If only there were more trees or bushes! Between the two army camps stretches a swell of ground with low shrubs and grasses. The only thing to hide me is the darkness.

  I haven’t gone far when a voice stops me. “You there,” a thickset officer calls.

  I turn to face the beefy soldier. “Yessuh,” I gulp.

  “Take this rifle and head for the picket post by the brambles. The guard was shot. You’re his replacement.” The soldier hands me a gun. “And don’t you even think about shutting those eyes of yours!”

  “Nossuh!” I say, trying to keep from smiling. I can’t believe the officer is handing over a rifle. Does he think that Africans want to be slaves? Don’t the Rebels worry about slave uprisings? I take the gun and picture myself pointing it at the officer’s gut and blowing a hole in it. I shake my head. Can’t do that. I’ll just get myself killed. Best to leave the job to the Union army.

  In the moonless night, it’s easy for me to take my post and then keep on going. Once I get close to the Union pickets, I curl up on the ground and wait until morning, shivering in the damp chill. Still, it’s better than being shot by my own side.

  As the sun rises, I take off the wig and wave it at the picket nearby. My hair ruffles cool and free in the morning breeze. “It’s Private Frank Thompson,” I holler.

  “I don’t care what yo' name is. Yo' ain’t comin' one step closer less’n you got the password.” The guard cocks his rifle and squints down the barrel.

  “Liberty Bell.” I twirl the wig on my finger. The guard gapes but lowers his gun. I must make an odd sight, dressed in rags with splotchy darkened skin and matted hair. I take long, easy strides, tired and hungry but strangely light inside. I’ve done it—I’ve carried off my first mission. I really am a spy! And maybe the paper in my shoe will make a difference, help end this war. Being a nurse, I’ve felt like I’m helping to save lives or at least ease the work of dying, but this work seems even more important.

  I pass by the hospital on the way to headquarters to report to the commanders. Jerome sits on a stump outside, taking a break, but I don’t stop to talk with him. My assignment isn’t over yet, not until I’ve given the intelligence I’ve collected. Besides, ever since I started delivering mail, I rarely see Jerome. It’s better that way.

  “Is that you, Frank?” he asks, standing up and shaking off the dust from his pants. “Where have you been? Your horse was here, so I knew you weren’t getting mail. I’ve been worried sick about you.”

  “You have?” I’m surprised. Of course Jerome cares for me, as a friend, but it’s been a long time since our regular chats.

  “Why are you dressed like that? What happened to your skin? What’s going on?” Jerome reaches out a finger and rubs at my cheek.

  I pull back, my cheek burning from his touch. I shake my head, feeling like a fool, desperate to erase the memory of how his finger felt on my skin. It’s spring, the time when young men’s thoughts are supposed to turn to love. I’m not a man, but I can’t help thinking of Jerome’s soft lips, his warm eyes, his handsome, firm hands. And he’s a man with absolutely no thoughts of love toward me.

  “I have to go to headquarters,” I say. “I’ll explain everything on the way, if you like.” I keep my tone light and friendly. That’s what we are—all we are—comrades in arms.

  Jerome falls into step beside me and I tell him the whole story. When I’m finished, he looks at me, astonished.

  “Now that takes guts.” Jerome lets out a long, slow whistle.

  “Nah.” I can’t help it. I feel a blush rise in my cheeks. I look down, hoping he won’t notice.

  “No, really, Frank, I’m proud of you, proud to know you,” Jerome says.

  The blush fades as quickly as it came. Just proud
? That’s all he feels about me? I study his familiar, handsome profile. I wish I didn’t love him. I wish his coolness didn’t hurt so much. But I do and it does. And I just have to swallow both those truths.

  REPORT THE PEDDLER as a spy but he seems to have disappeared. Worse still, my detailed map and list of artillery prove worthless, since before we can use the information, the Confederate army breaks camp and slips away the following night. Their big guns fire at us until morning, when they fall silent and their use as a diversion to allow a quick retreat is revealed. I’m depressed that my mission has turned out to be a waste, but my comrades are exultant. Instead of feeling manipulated or fooled, they’re in a celebratory mood—we’ve taken Yorktown without firing a single shot of our own. But the commanders want more than towns—they want to rout the Rebels, so McClellan sends troops to catch the retreating Confederates before they can reinforce Richmond.

  Our regiment, led by Colonel Poe, brings up the rear. It’s two o’clock in the afternoon and pouring rain when we catch up to the two clashing armies. Just outside Williamsburg we slog through a thick forest broken up by ditches and swamps, firing at Rebel sharpshooters hidden behind trees, bushes, and fallen logs. They seem to be everywhere and nowhere, impossible for us to see and hit, yet they have no problem finding us with their deadly aim.

  I’ve been marching next to Damon, but in the chaos of the battle I lose track of him, focused only on shooting as many gray uniforms as possible. I aim, shoot, and reload as quickly as I can. My shoulder aches and my fingers are numb, my mind a blank. Before the battle I was worried whether I’d actually shoot anybody, whether I’d do any good as a soldier, but now that the fighting clashes all around me, like the time with Alice, I don’t hesitate. I’m a machine, doing what’s necessary. It’s like Bull Run, when I didn’t think about the wounded soldiers, the grue-someness of their injuries, the gushing rivers of blood. I simply became hands and feet, tools for doing what had to be done.

  “You, there, nurse,” a slender blond soldier from my regiment yells at me. “Help me retrieve the wounded. I see an officer down yonder.”

  I sling my rifle over my shoulder and grab the other side of the stretcher, diving into the fiercest part of the fighting. A colonel lies under a barrage of bullets, groaning in agony. Blondie and I heave his weight onto the stretcher and scramble back through a storm of rain and minié balls, searching for the nearest field hospital.

  “Dr. Bonine is over there,” I bellow, straining to be heard over the boom of cannons. I don’t have a free hand to point, so I gesture with my jutting chin and head toward the edge of the battlefield, where a makeshift surgery has been set up.

  The shrill Rebel yell echoes in the woods. Shells scream overhead. Gunshots crackle. Men lie crumpled—dying or already dead—but we don’t pause. We’ll go back later for the others, the ones we can save. Right now we have to get the colonel to safety, to medical care.

  I gasp for breath but keep on running while Blondie pants behind me. We come to a pocket of stillness, where Dr. Bonine leans over a growing row of wounded men.

  “Doctor,” I rasp, “this colonel needs you.” We set down the stretcher and unfold a blanket alongside it.

  “You take the feet, I’ll take the shoulders,” Blondie directs. Quickly, we shift the officer onto the blanket, where he lies as still as death.

  “I don’t see any blood. Where are you hit, sir?” Dr. Bonine asks, probing the inert body carefully. The officer screws his eyes shut and says nothing.

  “Are you hit?” the doctor demands. “Are you hit at all?” His voice thunders in anger. “You, sir, are a fake and a coward! Get back to your regiment or I’ll report you to the general.”

  I watch, astounded, as the colonel abruptly sits up, brushes himself off, and strides away. I’m sick to my stomach, thinking of the truly wounded we passed by to rush this fake to safety.

  “I’m sorry, Doctor,” I say. “Next time I’ll make sure the man is really hurt before I put him on a stretcher.”

  Blondie hangs his head, equally shamefaced. “I’m sorry too, Doctor,” he mumbles.

  Dr. Bonine claps us both on the shoulder. “You did nothing wrong. That scum should be ashamed to call himself an officer!”

  There isn’t time to think about the colonel’s sneaky trick. The Rebel artillery booms louder and closer than ever. The pace of firing quickens. The battle reaches a fever pitch. Men shoot and are shot at, kill and are killed, in a haze of smoke and blood. I rush back into the tumult of bodies. Hour after hour I carry soldiers off the battlefield to have their legs or arms amputated, their wounds bandaged, their bleeding stanched. Now I’m careful to make sure the men are truly injured, but once I make the mistake of picking up a dead man and carrying a corpse to safety. Or maybe he isn’t dead when we start our sprint to the doctor. Maybe he dies as we carry him. My heart feels heavy at the thought. It’s best not to think at all, to simply plunge into the minié balls and shells falling as fast as the rain to get to the men who need me.

  A cannonball thuds to earth nearby, throwing up mud, branches, blood, and flesh. The soldier who’s hit is unrecognizable, reduced to torn bits, a torso, a sleeve, a boot with a foot still in it. I race past the bloody fragments to a man whose leg is crushed from the ankle to the knee. When I come closer, I recognize the captain of our regiment, Captain Morse. It’s the first time someone I know has been hit, the first time I feel bile rise up in my throat, and I’m afraid I’ll be sick. I swallow the sour taste and try to calm the trembling in my legs.

  “Captain! We’re here,” I say. “We’ll get you to safety, don’t worry.”

  “I’m not worried about me,” he gasps. “I’m worried about my men. I can’t leave them. They need me.”

  “Not this way, they don’t.” I lift my commander onto the stretcher as gingerly as I can, but still he grimaces in pain.

  “Just cut the leg off and be done with it. I have to get back to my men.”

  “You will, sir, in good time. Right now we have to get you to the doctor.” I pick up one end of the stretcher, nodding at Blondie to do the same. We work well as a team now, having done this same simple act many times over—a mad dash through cross fire, a quick lift of the wounded soldier onto the stretcher, and another mad dash back to the doctor. I try to think of it like that, just another stretcher run. But this time is different. This time I’m carrying a friend, and all the injuries that have seemed so abstract to me are vividly real now.

  By the time we set the stretcher down again, the captain has lost consciousness, a blessing considering the doctor immediately starts sawing at the doomed leg. My own leg quivers as the blade meets bone. And this time I can’t stop myself. I lean over and heave, retching up stomach juices. I turn away, tears blurring my eyes. No one should see me like this, weak and panicked and terrified.

  Blondie puts his hand on my back. “It’ll be fine,” he murmurs.

  I jerk myself away, ashamed. I don’t want comfort—I want to be strong.

  The nurse stands there, calm as death. “When you’re ready, we should go back in there.”

  How can he be so indifferent, so unfeeling? I swallow my tears and face his impassive eyes, his careful mouth.

  “He could be dying, you know! He’s a good man with a wife and three small boys, not just another body!” The rage feels good, surging through me with a rush of power. The trembling in my legs vanishes, and I feel strong enough to hurl boulders.

  The nurse nods, steady as ever. “We’re in the same regiment. He’s my captain, too. I know what kind of man he is, the kind who deserves to be saved. There are more like him lying on the field right now. I want to help them. Do you?”

  The anger leaks out of me. He’s right. Of course, he’s right. “I’m sorry,” I mutter. “Let’s go.”

  We each pick up an end of the stretcher and jog back toward the battle. Neither of us mentions the incident again. I’m grateful for Blondie’s discretion, for his compassion. What I’ve learned about
myself isn’t as pretty. I snapped, and for those few moments I forgot how to be a soldier or a nurse. I forgot how to be a man.

  As the sun sinks below the horizon, I catch sight of a wave of blue uniforms running through the field. Not a patch of blue here and there but a solid mass of men, rifles blazing. Reinforcements at last! A spark of hope cuts through my exhaustion. I join the soldiers as one of them, not a nurse anymore, and fight with a new rush of energy. The fresh soldiers push the battle into our favor, and the Rebels flee.

  But there are so many dead, so many casualties, it doesn’t feel like much of a victory. As Colonel Poe writes in his journal: “It was an awful battle, awfully conducted, and if it had not been for a handful of Michigan men who threw themselves through the broken ranks of General Hooker’s division, the Army of the Potomac would not now be in existence.” The Second Michigan, our regiment, actually makes a difference that day, but the win comes at too high a price for us to feel much satisfaction. The regiment loses seventeen men, thirty-eight are wounded, including the captain, and four are missing, their bodies lost in the brambles and woods to be found by vultures and foxes.

  General McClellan calls a temporary truce to allow both sides to collect their dead and wounded. As darkness falls and the storm continues, drenching both living and dead, I wade through the bloody mud, shielding my torch from the rain while I search for men to carry to the hospital.

  It’s a nightmarish sight—the torchlit mouths frozen in grimaces of despair and horror. Even more jarring, shadows flicker on an angelic face calm in repose above a body with a gaping hole torn through it. I slog past corpse after corpse, searching for any sign of life, of movement, of breath. Finally something catches my eye. A man walks toward me, his own torch before him.

  “Frank!” the soldier calls out. “You’re alive! I didn’t see you. I thought …” Jerome lowers his torch, lighting his drawn face, his eyes black with sorrow.