Clockwork Souls

by Phyllis Irene Radford

  After the war, was the unspoken addendum. Many of their plans were now amended to include those words.

  Marie received letters from her children and friends in New Orleans. In response to her quiet inquires, she learned that the Army had also occupied Laurel Grove plantation, as they had done with many such establishments in Louisiana. Of Anthony Ramsey, she heard nothing. She sent another letter to him, this time in the care of a trusted acquaintance in the Queen City.

  One day, a gentlemanly automaton arrived bearing a copy of the handbill that Dominic had circulated among the automata in Boston and nearby towns. He was plainly designed as a house servant, and his manner suggested that of a gentleman’s attendant, or perhaps a butler.

  “I should like to offer my services,” he said in a polished voice with a trace of an English accent.

  Marie came to the door of the neighboring room where she and Philomène were sewing buttons onto uniforms, and listened while Dominic interviewed the newcomer.

  “Name?”

  “Ives, sir.”

  “You are a free automaton?”

  “Yes, sir. I was freed upon my master’s demise, in accordance with the terms of his will.”

  “You have military experience?” Dominic asked doubtfully.

  “Yes, sir. I accompanied my former master as batman in the Crimea.”

  “You would have to serve as an enlisted man again. I fear it is not appropriate to your programming.”

  “I am not proud, sir. Not in this case. Too much is at stake.”

  “Very well. Your pay will be thirteen dollars a month. Sign here.” Private Ives was to become one of the gems of the regiment. He undertook to train the other recruits, having studied military protocol during his prior service. His tact in dealing with automata who had no knowledge of military discipline soon won him the respect and affection of the recruits. Before long he was promoted to corporal, then sergeant.

  Sergeant Ives, through inquiries among his acquaintance in Boston, was able to provide Dominic with the names of several young gentlemen who proved suitable and, more importantly, persuadable candidates for officers.

  One night, as Marie was preparing to retire, a knock fell upon the door of her house. Philomène went to answer it, and soon returned, her soft brown eyes wide.

  “Maman, it is Mr. Ramsey. I thought you would wish me to invite him in.”

  Marie was already standing, tightening the sash of her dressing gown. Her hair, which Philomène had been brushing, floated cloud-like about her shoulders. She hastened to the front parlor, where a handsome gentleman of some thirty years rose from the sofa at her approach, turning his hat nervously in his hands.

  “Madame Paris?” he asked.

  His voice was deep, but even though it had been decades, Marie recognized the soul behind the blue eyes—the soul of a child, that had lent a piece of itself to Mignon.

  “Anthony,” she said, inhaling deeply in relief.

  “Forgive my intrusion at this late hour,” he began.

  “Nonsense! I begged you to hasten to me. How glad I am to see you again, my child!”

  At this he smiled, and took the hand she held out to him. While Philomène bustled about making café au lait, Marie questioned Anthony about his present life. She frowned when she learned that, despite his cooperation with the Union officials, Laurel Grove had been seized.

  “I was lucky they did not arrest me,” he said. “Some of my neighbors fared worse.”

  “What of your slaves?”

  “Commandeered to serve the Army,” he said. “I’ve kept track of them as well as I could, but they have been sent in several directions.”

  “And your family?”

  A tinge of color rose to his cheek. “Madame, I have none. My parents are deceased.”

  “And you have not wed? A man of your stature should have heirs.”

  He shook his head. “I have not wanted to add to a household sustained by slavery. Perhaps you will understand my hesitation when I tell you that I have not forgotten the help you gave me, nor the fix I was in before you came to me.”

  Marie nodded. “You remember, then? You were so ill then, and so young. I was not sure that you would recall it as more than a fevered dream.”

  Anthony drew himself up, sitting straighter and taller, his cup and saucer balanced on one knee. “Every moment I spent in the body of that automaton, I recall with crystal clarity, Madame. It is why I did not hesitate to respond to your summons, despite the uncertainty of my fortunes.”

  “Then perhaps you would be willing to serve the cause of freedom for automata?”

  “Most willing,” he nodded. “But tell me—is it Mignon of whom you speak? I thought that she was now free.”

  “She is, and she is here in Boston, though you will find her greatly changed.”

  A joyful fire lit his eyes. “When may I see her?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  The reunion between Anthony and Mignon was at first strained. When he and Marie arrived at the Dubois house the next morning, he was clearly taken aback by the appearance of the short-haired automaton in a private’s uniform. Within a few minutes, though, they were talking as old friends. Marie, quietly pleased, watched and listened.

  “I have wanted for many years to thank you,” Anthony said.

  “For nursing you?” said Mignon. “It was my job.”

  “For that, yes. But also for . . . allowing me the shelter of your body when mine was so ill.” A tinge of color came into Anthony’s cheek. “I did not understand immediately what had happened. It took me a while to realize.”

  Mignon shook her head. “It is I who should thank you. Before then, I had no soul. I did not allow you anything. Until you resided in this machine, there was no awareness in it. I am the small spark you left behind when Madame returned you to your flesh.”

  Dominic, watching this exchange, addressed Anthony. “Since you appreciate the automaton’s plight, perhaps you would be willing to serve our cause.”

  “Of course I will serve!” Anthony said, turning to him. “But—I have little money. My fortunes are uncertain, at present.”

  “It is your breeding we need, if you will permit me to say so,” said Dominic. “We need gentlemen for officers.”

  Anthony put on a charming smile. “Then gentlemen you shall have.”

  Through his influence, as he made acquaintance among Boston’s polite society, the last few vacancies among the regiment’s officers were filled. Marie secretly chafed at the ease with which he was accepted in Boston. She, herself, though a free-born Creole, would never be accorded the same treatment.

  After the war, she told herself. Such small indignities were nothing compared with the suffering of the enslaved.

  On the sixteenth of May, the regiment was mustered in as the 1st Massachusetts Automated Engineers. Marie and Philomène stood near the governor’s reviewing stand and watched as Anthony, now Lieutenant Colonel Ramsey, rode by in company with Colonel Malcomb and the other officers. Dominic was Sergeant-major under Anthony, the highest possible non-commissioned rank. Mignon, in her guise as Private Smith, marched with the color guard.

  Marie’s heart fluttered for a moment as they passed. Mignon looked so small, almost frail, amid the larger automata in her company, yet her eyes showed determination. She would never yield, and she would never again be owned.

  The officers were in fine trim. The soldiers were a motley collection even in their new uniforms. Some looked human, others human-like, and some were nothing like. One, Thwart, had been a smelting machine in a factory, and was only mobile because of heavy modifications since his escape. The others were humanoid, though one—Rapp, he was called—had no skin to his face, so the metal works within were exposed, always in motion. Of necessity, uniforms for the more unusual recruits had been custom-made, and even so did not always fit well.

  The regiment was stationed in North Bridgewater, there to undergo further training. As engineers, their first duty was labor; b
uilding roads and bridges, laying railroad track, and other such dreary work. They toiled on such projects for a full month, by which time many of the enlisted automata were becoming impatient.

  “They want their chance to shine,” Anthony said over dinner in camp. Marie and Philomène, who had both insisted on accompanying the regiment, were serving as cooks to Anthony, unusual only in that the cooks were also welcome at the table.

  “They shall have it,” Dominic said. “I have persuaded Malcomb to request a transfer to the front in Virginia.”

  “Will they have us?” Anthony asked.

  “I believe so. I have been corresponding with a certain Colonel Pleasants, who has plans for breaching the Rebel works. He thinks we may be able to help, and has promised to request our assignment to him.”

  Marie’s spine tingled. So the regiment was going to war at last.

  “We are coming with you,” she said.

  “It will be rougher than this,” Dominic cautioned.

  His words were massively understated.

  When the regiment arrived at the trenches before Petersburg early in June, they were stunned at the expanse of the earthworks. These went on for miles, embracing the city in a broad arc of more than twenty miles. Union troops had made no headway against this defense in the months they had been there.

  Gazing at the works from the Headquarters hilltop, Marie was dismayed. Death hung over the place like a dreary fog. She wished she were anywhere else.

  The regiment had been given a site at the western extreme of the Union camp. It was damp and somewhat boggy, but they set up their camp with dogged cheerfulness.

  The neighboring regiment’s camp was aglow with firelight that evening. The 1st built no fires, automata being in no need of such human comforts, though at Headquarters there was a fire for the officers. Marie spent the first evening in camp sitting beside it, wrapped in her shawl, gazing into the flames as if they could show her a way out.

  Footsteps roused her. She looked up to see a stranger—young like Anthony, dark-haired with a goatee, wearing a lieutenant-colonel’s straps—shaking hands with Colonel Malcomb a few yards away. Anthony joined them, and drew Dominic into the conversation. They all stood talking for a few minutes, then the stranger went away.

  Dominic came to the fire and sat beside Marie. “Did you see? That was Colonel Pleasants.”

  “The one who has a plan for . . . this?” Marie gestured toward the earthworks hidden by darkness.

  “Yes. We are to start tomorrow.”

  “Can you tell me?”

  Dominic glanced around, then leaned close to Marie. “We are to dig a mine.”

  “Mining? Here? What resources can be found in this swamp?”

  “That I think I should not tell you, save that we are not seeking valuable substances.”

  Marie frowned, but no more was to be got from him. He returned to his camp among the enlisted, and the officers retired early, weary from the long day’s travel.

  Marie lay upon her cot, gazing at the canvas roof of the tent that Anthony had provided for her and Philomène. She felt deep misgivings, particularly about her daughter’s safety, but that was the price of being here. She would not trade it for all the comforts of home. And Philomène had friends enough to watch over her.

  The next day the regiment marched off toward the earthworks. Marie and Philomène occupied the day in setting up their kitchen and preparing dinner for Anthony and his subordinates. At four o’clock, in a small gesture of defiance, Marie made café au lait with the set of pots she had found in Boston, one of the few treasures she had brought along.

  She and Philomène dressed plainly here, in clothing suitable for working and camping. They both wore headcloths of plain white, and Marie tied hers simply, desiring to attract no attention. They might have been taken for slaves, and the thought that beyond the trenches the opposing army was served by many slaves made her skin tingle with dread.

  The regiment marched back into camp as the sun set. Watching from the Headquarters kitchen, Marie thought that not all the companies were present. Anthony confirmed this over dinner.

  “We are to work in shifts until our assignment is done. Our soldiers do not need sleep, so they can work around the clock. Three companies are on duty at a time, with one on guard duty and the rest in camp, from now until we finish.”

  “And you cannot tell us what this assignment is?” Marie asked.

  “Alas, no. But I promise you will be alerted when we are nearing completion.”

  There was an undertone of tense excitement in his voice. Marie glanced at Dominic, wondering if she could wheedle the details from him. He looked weary, so she decided to leave him be.

  The days dragged on. Summer heat oppressed the humans, though it did not affect the spirits of the automata. The damp, however, took its toll in rusted joints and mechanisms. The mechanical ward, which had its own large tent, was the busiest place in the regiment’s camp.

  The companies that were off duty amused themselves in various ways, including playing at cards and an obsession for building things; anything that could be made with the materials at hand. Marie and Philomène began to receive presents—a clock, a collapsible kitchen sink, a Sibley stove that had been converted into an oven—and soon had so many such things in their kitchen that Marie feared the day when they would have to move it all.

  One night after dinner Marie heard distant drumming, not a military rhythm but a beat that moved her soul and made her want to dance. She could not resist investigating, and stopped Dominic as he was about to return to his camp.

  “What is the drumming?”

  “Soldiers entertaining themselves,” he replied.

  “Take me to see.”

  “Madame! It is not fitting for you to walk the camps at night!”

  “That is why I ask for your escort.”

  She would not be dissuaded, and at last Dominic agreed to take her to the drumming. For the first time since their arrival, she walked far beyond the safe confines of the 1st’s camp.

  The air was damp; heavy and warm. Marie, accustomed to the tropical climate of New Orleans, thought it pleasant enough.

  They skirted the neighboring camps, following the drums. At length they reached the camp of a Negro regiment where a bonfire burned high into the night. Drums rumbled, hands clapped. Occasionally a voice would sing out for a moment, then fade. This was no structured music. This was the music of a tribe.

  Marie stood listening, swaying slightly to the drums. Too long had she been away from this; not since she had left New Orleans had she danced.

  Someone came toward them from the fire. A soldier, yes, but with eyes alight. Dominic took a step forward and the man stopped.

  “Madame Laveau! It is you!”

  Marie blinked. “Skinny Jim!”

  He grinned. “Not so skinny no more. Father Abraham feeds us good!”

  The last time she had seen Jim, he had been a slave. He was often seen about New Orleans, executing errands for his wealthy owners.

  Marie had met his gaze sometimes in the market as he followed his master, carrying parcels. Now and then, when his master’s attention was elsewhere, she had slipped Jim a coin and a kind word. How he had gained his freedom she would not ask, but she was glad.

  “Come to the fire, Madame! Come and dance!”

  How sorely she was tempted. She shook her head. “I am not dressed for dancing.”

  “Come anyway!”

  “Not tonight.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  She glanced at Dominic. He looked disapproving.

  “Perhaps.”

  “And you bring your snake, Madame?”

  “No, she is at home.”

  At home. Suddenly the longing struck her. She had not been much troubled by it, being so busy, but seeing Jim brought back memories that made her homesick.

  “Do not look so dour,” she said as she and Dominic turned away. “It is only a dance.”

  They returned to
their own camp to find that a meeting of the headquarters staff had convened. Marie retired to her tent while Dominic reported to Anthony.

  She opened her trunk and carefully moved aside her clothing until she found what she wanted. Fabric of brilliant colors and lively patterns. Fabric no white woman would be caught wearing.

  She drew out the headcloth, bright with patterns of white against the purple and wine. Just touching it filled her with excitement. It was far too long since she had worn it.

  Tomorrow night, she would dance. She closed the trunk and sat back on her heels, softly smiling.

  The next day the entire regiment was on duty in the mine. Evening came, and they did not return. The bread that Marie and Philomène had baked cooled. They ate their own supper, then banked the fire beneath the stew pot, and waited.

  Colonel Malcomb came into the camp, looking pleased. “Ramsey’s missed his dinner, eh? Well, it shouldn’t go to waste. Bring me a plate.”

  He sat at Anthony’s camp table and looked expectantly at Marie. She was on the verge of defying him. Only the thought that it might bring trouble to Anthony prevented her.

  She caught Philomène’s eye and with a tiny jerk of her head, sent her into the tent. When her daughter was out of sight, she dished up a plate of stew for Malcomb.

  Why was he here, casually demanding supper, when the rest of the officers were off with the regiment? While they toiled, he made himself comfortable at their expense. It did not surprise Marie, particularly, but it did offend her.

  “Excellent, excellent!” said Malcomb as he devoured the stew. “Better than my own cook can do. I’m inclined to hire you away from Ramsey.”

  Marie said nothing. To keep busy, she started a pot of coffee. As soon as he smelled it, Ramsey demanded this, too. Marie poured half-cooked coffee into a tin mug and gave it to him, then returned the pot to the fire.

  This man would never know how she despised him. Because he saw her only as a cook, he did not know her strength and determination. He did not see her contempt.

  She formed a resolve to protect those she loved from this man. As soon as he departed, she summoned Philomène to watch the coffee, then began to work.