“I wish they’d come already,” he said, still looking out toward sea.
Ryan had taken off his hat to let rain water run off the brim. He combed his wet hair with his fingers, pulled the soaked hat back on, and asked, shivering: “Who?”
“The Yankees. They’re out there, you know.”
Of course, Ryan knew that. The Union Navy had already managed to start a blockade, but it had been a quiet war so far. Except for that night when a man-of-war, the USS South Carolina—of all names!—had exchanged fire with a Confederate battery at the end of Twentieth Street. That had been back in early August. Captain Smith had dismissed the troops, and Ryan had raced to the beach, joining businessmen in silk hats, women with picnic baskets, and even children and their schoolteachers to watch the show.
The slaves sang, Ryan fiddled “Dixie” with a wharfie clawing a banjo, and Little Sam Houston danced with a beautiful redhead wearing a walking dress with a long jacket. An elderly woman had rewarded Ryan and the banjo picker with heaping servings of pumpkin bread, and they watched the shells explode like fireworks overhead, and the shells from the South Battery sent geysers hundreds of feet into the air out in the bay. It had reminded Ryan of the Independence Day celebrations, which, for a reason he couldn’t quite comprehend, saddened him.
After half an hour, the fireworks had ended, Company C and the rest of the Second Texas had returned to drills, and everybody else had gone back to work or home. Except for that poor fellow from Portugal. One shell from the South Carolina hadn’t exploded in the air, but had landed on the beach, and the foreigner had been blown to pieces. Three others, also civilians, had been wounded.
That had been as close to battle as anyone in the Second Texas Infantry had come.
“We’re going to miss the whole blasted war!” Matt smashed a fist into an open palm.
“We’ll get our chance,” Ryan said.
“Yeah, with a spade. Our boys in Virginia killed ten thousand Yankees at Manassas. Appears we must have slaughtered half that many up in Missouri.”
“I wouldn’t believe everything you read in the newspapers,” Ryan said. “Especially in the Weekly Civilian and Gazette.” He stepped beside his friend and looked across the black waters. Through the fog, he thought he could make out the flickering light from a ship, a Yankee ship.
“No, we’ll miss our chance.” Matt’s voice sounded a thousand miles away.
Ryan shuddered. Remembering that line from the newspaper’s report on the battle at Manassas, Virginia, “The battle was terrible and ended with great slaughter on both sides,” he wouldn’t mind missing his chance. The Confederates had lost three thousand, according to newspaper accounts.
Yet since then, news had been scarce. The blockade had seen to that. Oh, Galveston had a couple of sleek and slippery ships that kept proving successful at running through that gauntlet, but Ryan kept thinking about General Sam Houston’s warning. Most citizens and soldiers dismissed the old war horse, with a handful of fire-eaters calling him a traitor to the South and saying he should be hanged from the highest yardarm in the harbor.
You are about to sink in fire and rivers of blood.
Little Sam had whispered rumors he had heard about the Confederates deciding to abandon Galveston Island, that it could not be defended, that it was only a matter of time before the Union captured the port. This afternoon, he had read a story, more vague and mostly innuendo, of a Union naval assault on a couple of Confederate forts—he couldn’t remember their names—along North Carolina’s Outer Banks.
Newspaper editors and Galveston’s leaders proclaimed that the war would be over in six months, if not six weeks, but Colonel Moore said they must prepare to defend Texas, the South, their homes, and their families.
The rain slackened, and, wiping his nose, Ryan turned around. Somewhere along the Strand, a piano player hammered out “Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair,” and he imagined his mother singing along in their parlor, Mrs. Tennebaum and all the other fine members of the Ladies Auxiliary Club of Harris County applauding politely, then Fionala serving tea and cookies.
“You two buckos come here.”
The deep-throated call, more snort than sentence, snapped Ryan and Matt out of their daydreams. A massive shadow stood in front of them—a face, dark beard dripping with water, intermittently illuminated by a stinking cigar.
“Anda logo!” the man shouted. The words were Portuguese, but his accent was Texian.
Ryan shot Matt a quick glance, but the rough voice snapped out a curse, and the two boys had become used to following orders, especially those punctuated by profanity and threats. They eased down the wharf, brogans sloshing through the dampness, and stopped in front of a blue-coated man who looked larger than some of the wooden barrels they had passed along the dock.
“You boys be with Capt’n Ashbel’s Guards, ain’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” Matt answered first.
“Thought so. Remembered that one sawing ‘Dixie’ when the South Carolina give us a show last month.” He jutted the cigar toward Ryan. “Come here, I gots something for you soldier boys.”
Again, they shot each other nervous looks, but the big man was moving down the wharf, and they followed him into the darkness until lights from the city guided them again through the cotton bales and hogsheads. The sailor stopped, flicking his cigar into the night, and pointed at a half dozen crates.
“That idiot, Mister Crisp, brung these here by mistake, but that be a land-lovin’ freighter for you.” He spit out his contempt. “I need one of you to run fetch Capt’n Ashbel. Tell him to bring down some wagons and a score of men. The other one of you needs to stand guard here.”
One of the crates had been pried open with crowbars, and the big man shoved the lid off, and, bending over, he reached inside, his hand rustling through greasy, dark paper.
“What is it?” Matt asked.
The big man turned, and shoved something heavy into Ryan’s arms.
“Before long, bucko,” the sailor said, “you’ll declare that this here baby plays as pretty a tune as your fiddle.”
Ryan almost dropped the weapon, which must have weighted ten pounds and had to be close to five feet long.
“That’s a sixty-nine-caliber musket, boy, and it’s just a-itchin’ to kill a mess of Yankee tyrants.”
Chapter Seven
October 7–18, 1861
Laclede, Missouri
They had gone as far as Brookfield, to protect the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad, only to return to Laclede to be shouted at by Sergeant Masterson and preached at by sky pilot Garner. To drill and march. To march and drill.
Colonel Morgan and the other officers were fêted by the society of Laclede, the Confederate officials, even passers-by. There seemed to be a ball every other night for the officers of the Eighteenth Missouri, but for the enlisted men there was only drilling—and Fort Morgan.
The monotony of learning to be a soldier had been broken up by shoveling and swinging a pick. Caleb and others of the Eighteenth Missouri had worked alongside Negroes—conscripts, Sergeant Masterson had called them—to build an earthworks fort. It looked like nothing Caleb Cole had ever seen, but it sure stood out in Laclede.
Colonel W. James Morgan had named the redoubt Fort Morgan.
“Since we’re no longer Morgan’s Rangers,” Caleb had overheard Captain Clark tell Captain Pratt, “he had to have something named after him.”
So here lay Caleb Cole, in a tent surrounded by earthen walls, sweating, itching, dying.
For three days, he had been sick. At first, he thought he had caught cold, coughing, his nose running, his head aching. His eyes seemed bloodshot, and chills made him shiver. Reluctantly he had taken to bed. Ewald Ehrenreich had jokingly told Caleb he just didn’t want to risk having Sergeant Masterson order him on privy duty. Now Ewald lay next to him.
Caleb
tossed the blanket off himself, rolled over, began scratching his left arm. It felt like a million fleas biting him. A firm hand gripped his right arm, jerked it away, and Caleb swore.
“I itch all over!” he wailed.
“I know,” the voice said. The blanket pulled up again.
“I’m burning up,” he said. “Don’t cover me with that.”
“Doctor’s orders.”
His eyes opened. The face fell slowly into focus. “You aren’t Doc Torrey.”
“I’m not Doctor Hamlin, either.”
“Then what do you know?” He tried to toss the blanket off, to ease that relentless itching that had spread up and down his arm to his back, his side, his neck, and his stomach.
The cover came back up. His hand was pinned to the bunk.
“Come on, Sergeant Masterson!”
“You got the measles, Caleb!” the one-time barber from Pennville snapped. “Doctor Torrey said you must stay warm.”
“I am warm. I’m on fire!”
“You don’t want this to turn into pneumonia.”
“Don’t you have somebody to boss around?”
Beside him, Ewald wailed. With a sigh, Sergeant Masterson eased his grip and craned his neck, saying something to the Ehrenreich twin that Caleb couldn’t catch.
William Torrey had been the sawbones in Unionville. Caleb had been under his care a couple of times before he had joined the Army. Torrey was now the assistant to the regimental surgeon, Dr. Norman S. Hamlin, who Colonel Morgan had signed up in St. Catherine. Caleb wished one of those doctors could be here now instead of contemptible, ignorant Harold Masterson.
“Where’s Doc Torrey?” Caleb moaned. “I want to see him. He’ll understand …”
“Torrey’s busy,” Masterson fired back. “Everybody’s busy. Now stop scratching, boy. You don’t want to be all scarred up, and don’t want infection to set in.”
The pressure lessened on his hand, and he saw Sergeant Masterson moving toward Ewald.
“Keep those covers pulled up,” Masterson said.
Caleb muttered an oath. That rotter had eyes in the back of his head.
* * * * *
Sometime during his sleep, someone—undoubtedly Sergeant Masterson, hard rock that he was—had tied his arms to the cot. Caleb groaned, twisted, pulled at the twine until it cut his skin. He itched all over. He yelled for Sergeant Masterson, screamed for Seb Woolard, but no one came. Later he prayed for his mother, his father, even his sister to come help him through this torment.
“Nobody’s coming, Caleb,” Ewald Ehrenreich whispered. His voice sounded ancient, coarse, terribly weak. “Let me die in peace, will you?”
Caleb felt tears streaming down his face.
“Just shut up, Caleb, and let me die in peace.”
* * * * *
Sunlight bathed him when he opened his eyes. Beside him, Ewald Ehrenreich whined and groaned. He should be staring up at the dingy yellowing canvas of the tent, but instead looked over the mounds of Fort Morgan’s dirt walls at the pale blue sky.
“Thanks, friends!” Seb Woolard spit out the words, and some saliva, with sarcasm.
“What?” was all Caleb could manage.
“They’re gonna burn my tent.” Seb gestured outside the fort, and Caleb saw black smoke billowing into the sky.
“That’s enough, Woolard!” Sergeant Masterson said. “Fall in and march.”
Caleb turned as far as he could and watched Masterson lead a handful of men, loaded down with clothes and bedrolls, Seb Woolard’s tent, knapsacks, and bags. They marched across the sod, between rows and rows of sick men, toward the fort’s gate and the fire somewhere beyond the earthen walls.
He turned back to look at Ewald, but, when he saw the rash covering the twin’s face, he jerked back his head, and stared at the dirt wall before him.
Does my face look like that? he wondered.
* * * * *
The hand on his forehead felt cool, a calming closeness as if Jesus himself had touched him. He wanted to raise his arms, hold that hand on his head forever, but his arms were still tied.
“How do you feel, Master Cole?”
His tongue felt parched, swollen. The hand moved away, then cold, refreshing water dribbled onto his chapped, cracked lips. It felt as wonderful as his mother’s buttermilk.
Opening his eyes, Caleb saw, above him, Dr. Torrey’s hand squeezing a wet cloth, releasing cool water into his mouth. Caleb swallowed, wet his lips, watched the doctor dip the rag in an oaken bucket beside the cot, and perform the procedure again.
“The last time I saw you, I was treating Bessy for a bowel complaint,” Torrey said. “How is your sister?”
Caleb let the water run down his throat. He sighed and found his voice. “I haven’t seen her since August.”
“And your folks?”
He tried to remember the last letter he had gotten from his mother, but couldn’t recall what it had said, or how long it had been. For that matter, he didn’t know how long he had been sick. Yet he answered: “They’re as well as can be expected.”
Doc Torrey nodded and smiled an ancient smile. His lips moved, but Caleb didn’t catch what he had said, if he had said anything at all.
“Measles have struck down many of our brave lads,” Doc Torrey finally said, “like a pestilence unleashed by our Lord Jehovah.”
Caleb wished Doc Torrey would give him some more water, but instead he had dropped the rag in the bucket, and now was checking Caleb’s pulse.
“I thought only children got measles,” Caleb said.
For the first time, Doc Torrey smiled a true smile. He released his hold on Caleb’s bound wrist, and patted his shoulder. Suddenly Caleb felt embarrassed. He was a soldier, not some farmer’s kid any more. Doc Torrey should know that.
“I’m afraid this case of measles knows no age limit,” Doc Torrey said, his good-humored countenance replaced by a haggard face with bloodshot eyes and four days’ growth of beard covering his cheeks and chin. “Do you still itch?”
“No, sir.” The answer surprised Caleb, who looked down at his arms.
“I don’t think Sergeant Masterson needs to keep you shackled any more, my boy.” That was almost as wonderful as the water. But urinating in a chamber pot like some wretched, ancient invalid made him ashamed. “However,” Doc Torrey continued, “I’d like you to stay in bed, keep covered, at least another day or two.”
Caleb’s head bobbed.
“I’ll write your father, son, and let him know you’re all right.”
More good news. Relief swept through Caleb’s body. He wasn’t going to die in Fort Morgan after all.
“Thank you,” he said.
The doctor picked up the water bucket with his left hand and stood. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Caleb.”
He nodded a reply, but, as Doc Torrey turned to leave, Caleb called out: “How’s Ewald?”
An old tongue ran across Doc Torrey’s dried lips. “Tomorrow,” he said. “You rest. And stay warm.”
Wearily Doc Torrey made his way out of the tent.
* * * * *
“It’s your fault!” Seb Woolard jammed a finger inches from Caleb’s nose.
He was squatting by the fire, new blanket draped over his shoulder. They had burned his cot, and the old blanket, too. Caleb sank back, stunned.
“What are you talking about?”
“Thanks to you and Ewald, I’ve lost my tent, my knapsack, just about everything I come to this war with.”
“It is no one’s fault,” Rémy Ehrenreich said without looking up.
“It sure is. That was a good tent. I never should have joined this man’s army. It’s brought me nothing but misery and a bunch of louts for messmates.”
“You?” Rémy looked up. His eyes were bloodshot, but Caleb saw no signs of a rash
on Ewald’s twin brother.
“That’s right.” Seb rose. “I’m glad your brother’s dead. Cost me my tent, him and this sick son-of-a—”
Seb was gesturing toward Caleb, but Rémy exploded from his crouch and sent a looping right that slammed into the Milan farm boy’s jaw, not allowing him to finish the curse. Before Seb could rise, Rémy was on top of him, swinging, slashing, pounding. Caleb tried to rise, but his legs buckled, and he found himself sitting on the ground, watching Rémy Ehrenreich turn into a mad dog, mouth practically foaming, face red as the blood spurting from Seb’s face.
Almost instantly a crowd surrounded the fight, cheering, shouting, betting. Caleb had managed to push himself to his knees, tried to call out for his two bunkies to stop, when two men stormed through the circle of soldiers, flinging men and boys right and left.
“Stop this!” Captain Clark ordered, but it took Sergeant Masterson’s strong arms to pull Rémy Ehrenreich off the whimpering Seb Woolard.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Captain Clark said. Without waiting for an answer, he whirled to face the circle of men. “Haven’t we buried enough of our boys over the past two weeks? Do we need to bury more from a round of fisticuffs?” He turned back to Rémy Ehrenreich. “There’s a war going on, lad. We should be fighting Yankees and Kansas trash, not each other.”
Rémy just stood there, shaking with rage, Sergeant Masterson pinning his arms behind his back.
Captain Clark looked at Seb, who had curled into a ball. “Two of you men assist this soldier to Surgeon Hamlin.”
Four volunteers immediately helped Seb Woolard to his feet.
“No, belay that order.” The men backed away, and Captain Clark stepped closer. “Hamlin and Torrey haven’t slept in … I don’t know how long, and I dare say they are busy enough trying to save lives so they certainly don’t need to waste their time on the likes of you.” He looked up, his face tight, angry, and staring at Sergeant Masterson. “To the guardhouse with both of them, Sergeant.”
“Yes, sir, Captain.”
“They can heal there or die there.”
“Yes, sir.”
And There I’ll Be a Soldier Page 6