Call to Arms

by Frederick Nolan

  Then he stood up in the driving rain above the body of the woman he had loved, tears mingling with the water streaming down his face. The blinding rage of the preceding night had gone, to be replaced by a cold and iron resolve. He had once turned his back on soldiering, on killing, on the bloody attrition of war. Well, no more, he vowed. What the Rebel army had done at Centerville had made it personal, direct and unavoidable. I will learn to make war again, Andrew vowed silently. And this time I will do it well.

  Five days later, he rejoined the army, with the rank of major.

  Ten – The Story of Samuel Strong

  October 1861

  Trying to do business with the War Department, Sam always said, was like making love to an elephant. It was difficult and uncomfortable; you were in constant danger of being squashed like a bug; and it was two years before you saw any result. After Manassas he thought he might be able to convince them to buy the carbine, but no: Ripley panicked, placing stupid contracts with, it seemed to Sam, every damned gun maker in the world except Carver & Strong. Not only that, they were paying as much as thirty dollars a weapon, which was horrifying and quite unnecessarily high. Nothing he said seemed to make any damned difference though. If he thought the aged, infirm Lieutenant-Colonel James W. Ripley, head of the Ordnance Department, a slow, unenterprising old fool who was totally unwilling to take the most limited chance, Sam was not alone. If he thought the War Department obtuse and indifferent, there were plenty to agree with him. Knowing that he was in good company did not, however, get Sam a single order for a single gun.

  He tried, time and again, to make the case for the Carver breech loading rifle, but to no avail. He told Ripley and his aides that breechloaders would win the war faster and save hundreds of thousands of soldiers’ lives in the doing. He put his case bluntly, forcefully and unemotionally – typically, you might say, for Sam was all in all a blunt, and unemotional man. But he ended up, as always, leaving the Department confused, angry and unsuccessful.

  ‘You must be patient, Mr. Strong,’ Ripley snuffled. ‘You must be patient, sir. We have hundreds of people pressing newfangled weapons upon us. Why, do you know, sir, we had a fellow in here the other day …’ And off he would go on some maundering tale of a crackpot inventor, either not realizing or not caring that he was lumping Sam in with them by telling the story.

  ‘I’ve got men to pay, Mr. Secretary,’ he would say. ‘Mouths to feed.’

  ‘As have we all,’ Ripley would reply sententiously. ‘As have we all. Well, sir, you have my promise that I shall do what I can for you.’

  Which, as usual, was nothing; and with nothing Sam had to remain content. That there were other ways he knew. If you wanted to grease a few palms, you could get contracts. There were men who knew their way about the lobbies of the government who could put a word in the right ear for a price. But some stubborn streak in Sam refused to let him go that way. The damned gun, he said, was good enough to get contracts on its own merits. It was good enough for the navy. It was good enough for soldiers to actually pay for it with their own money. It was just those blasted fools in the Ordnance Department who hadn’t got the sense God gave billy goats. He got back on the train to New York no more and no less satisfied than he had expected to be.

  As a matter of fact, he wasn’t much looking forward to returning home. Henry was on furlough and his son’s arrival had subtly altered the atmosphere in the house on Clover Hill. Sam felt that Henry was uneasy around him, although he could not imagine why it should be so. Abby said it was because Henry was afraid of him.

  ‘Why in the name of God should he be afraid of me?’ Sam said. It was a shock. Such a thought had never occurred to him.

  ‘Not scared, Sam,’ she said. ‘Not frightened. But … overpowered. Henry isn’t confident like you are. He’s timid and he’s not very robust. Why, he almost cowers when you come into the room.’

  Maybe there was some truth in what Abby said, Sam thought. She was a shrewd woman, observant. And she and Henry were much closer than he and the boy were or ever had been. Abby would know.

  He wished there was some way he could get to know his son better. Henry had always been a bit of a Mama’s boy, and there had never been anything in which he and Sam were mutually interested. Horses, cards, billiards, firearms: Sam could have talked to Henry about those. But Henry read poetry and liked paintings, high-falutin’ nonsense for which Sam had little time and less patience. Nearly all the paintings they did these days were sentimental muck and every bit of the poetry. What a man wanted to see was a good picture, straightforward, trees, horses, mountains. And what did Henry have on his wall? Some damned painting showing a half-naked man with arrows stuck in him. St Sebastian, Henry said it was. When Sam pointed out that St Sebastian looked pretty lively for a fellow with several arrows sticking in his belly, Henry said Sam didn’t understand Boticelli’s intent. To which Sam replied that whatever Botty-whatsis’s intent was, a man who took a couple of arrows in the gut didn’t lollygag around looking soulful, and he could vouch for that.

  ‘Oh, Father!’ Henry said, turning away. ‘Don’t be crude!’

  Crude! You spent your life on them. You tried to work out what they needed, what made them tick. You learned, after years of trying, to be as kind to your sons as possible, to be honest with them as often as possible, to give rather than take. You tried to teach them honor and loyalty and everything you thought of value. And what did you get for your pains? They told you you were crude. Sam was a man of quick anger and equally rapid forgiveness, but it was a long time before he stopped feeling wounded by what his son had said. Not that it mattered; Henry was apparently either unaware of the hurt he had given or did not give a damn.

  ‘Where the devil does he go to every night, anyway?’ Sam asked his wife. ‘He hasn’t spent a single evening with us since he got here!’

  ‘Sam, Sam, he’s only twenty-four!’ Abby said. ‘He doesn’t want to sit here every night. Let him have his pleasures!’

  Aye, Sam thought, but where does he take them? Unlike his older brother, Henry was certainly no ladies’ man. He had no women friends. Nor any men friends either, as far as I can recall, Sam thought. Henry was a loner. What does he get up to from seven till after midnight every night, then? Where does he go? Whom does he see?

  ‘He doesn’t go to the theater,’ he said to Abby. ‘He doesn’t go to concerts. Where the devil does he go?’

  ‘Oh, Sam, let the boy be!’ Abby said. As always, she was on the boy’s side. When Travis got into hot water, as he always had, or when Henry sulked, as he always had, Abby shielded them from Sam’s anger. Exasperated, Sam put the problem aside and tackled others he could do something about.

  There was a surprise waiting for him when he got back to Clover Hill. Abby met him at the door with a broad smile.

  ‘Well, Sam Strong, you’ll never guess who’s here!’ she said, taking his arm. If I’ll never guess then there’s no point in trying, Sam thought with a touch of asperity.

  ‘Jeff Davis?’ he said, putting his hat on the little sofa table that stood by the front door.

  ‘Not Jeff Davis, but someone nearly as unexpected!’ Abby said, making a production out of leading him to the parlor door and turning to face him, her hands behind her. She smiled and then, with a theatrical flourish, flung it open.

  ‘Ta-daaaah!’ she said.

  ‘My God!’ Sam said. It was Travis and he had a woman with him. He looked very fit and tanned but his clothes were shabby and travel-stained. The woman was young, not more than twenty. She had a good figure, slender and full-breasted. Her face was oval and pale, and her eyes were large and blue as cornflowers. She looked demure and appealing and yet something told Sam that she was not.

  ‘Well, Pa,’ Travis said, smiling that dare-you grin he had. ‘I want you to meet my wife. Louise, this is my Pa, Sam Strong.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ the girl said. Her voice was a disappointment, flat and hard.

  ‘Likewise,’ Sam said
. He felt challenged, uncertain, off-balance. It was one of Travis’ less appealing techniques. It was as if, knowing Sam’s liking for regularity and order, he went out of his way to disrupt them. Hold on, Sam wanted to say, everything is going too fast, wait. Travis always had that effect on him; always had. ‘Why didn’t you let us know you were coming?’

  ‘Wanted to surprise you, Pa,’ Travis grinned. ‘I know how much you enjoy surprises.’

  ‘Where have you come from?’

  ‘Texas,’ Louise said. She pronounced it Tay-xus. ‘Sweetie, why don’t you give Pa the present we brung him?’ Travis said. ‘It’s right over there on the sideboard.’

  ‘Sure will,’ Louise said. She brought the wrapped carton over to Sam. It was square and heavy.

  ‘Happy birthday,’ she said. ‘Or somethin’.’

  ‘Uh … thank you,’ Sam said. ‘Thank you, Louise.’

  ‘Ahuh,’ she said. Her eyes were bright and lively, as if she was expecting something funny to happen. Sam looked at her as he fumbled with the string and paper. While the dress she was wearing was completely proper, there was something about the way the girl stood, something he could not quite identify. Maybe they were just more forward down in Tay-xus, he thought. He opened the box. In it was a crystal decanter, solid and heavy.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that fine? Abby, will you look?’

  ‘Very nice,’ Abby agreed. ‘Although the Lord will be my witness to the fact that a bottle of whiskey don’t usually last long enough round here to get poured into a decanter. ‘

  They all laughed at that, albeit, a shade too heartily. Abby turned to Louise. ‘I’ll just go and see how supper is coming,’ she said. ‘Louise, you can come and help me.’

  ‘Sure will,’ Louise said.

  ‘Well, Pa,’ Travis said as the two women went out of the room. ‘You got any whiskey to put in that thing?’ He pronounced the last word thang and Sam asked him about it.

  ‘The accent? Oh, that’s Texas, I guess.’

  ‘What’s it like down there in Texas?’

  ‘Muddy or dusty,’ Travis said. ‘Hot or humid. Lots of flies, lots of fleas, lots of mosquitoes, lots of cactus.’

  ‘Sounds delightful,’ Sam said, pouring whiskey into a pair of solid glasses. He wished he had some good Kentucky bourbon, but he’d sworn not to drink any while they were at war with the South. ‘Say when.’ He kept pouring. Travis just grinned.

  ‘I said, “Say when”,’ Sam said.

  ‘I will,’ Travis said. ‘Eventually.’

  ‘Damnation you will!’ Sam growled. ‘You’ll take a civilized drink while you’re in this house, and to Hell with how you do it in Texas!’

  He sipped his whiskey and let the silence build for a moment, looking at his older son over the rim of the glass. Well over six feet tall, head and shoulders taller than his father, Travis had grown into a man, the slim, boyish frame hardened. He looked powerful and capable. Like a buccaneer, Sam thought, or an outlaw. The corn-yellow hair was bleached almost white. Sam wondered if he still had those murderous rages he’d had in his teens.

  ‘Tell me about the – about Louise,’ he said.

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Hell, Travis, don’t be dense!’ Sam said. ‘Where you met her, who her family are—’

  ‘Louise is an orphan, Pa,’ Travis said, before Sam’s irritation turned to anger. ‘Met her in a little trading post down in Texas. A place called Dallas. She was working in a – in a store.’

  He hesitated, Sam thought, and wondered why. ‘You never wrote us,’ he said. ‘Not till long after.’

  ‘Hell, Pa!’ Travis said, and the grin was back. ‘A trading post on the Trinity River isn’t like New York or Boston, you know. Caddo Indians ain’t got a lot of use for postage stamps!’

  ‘Well,’ Sam said grudgingly. ‘Getting married, joining the army. Why aren’t you in uniform, by the way?’

  ‘Because I deserted,’ Travis said.

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘I deserted. Ran away. Quit. Took off. The Confederate Army and I just didn’t get along.’

  ‘But … desertion!’ Sam said. ‘You could be shot!’

  ‘I don’t think there are going to be too many Confederate provost-marshals searching for me on the streets of New York, Pa!’ Travis grinned. ‘And I sure as hell won’t be going back South. They can take their glorious Cause and shove it up their asses!’ The black anger Sam remembered was in his eyes: it had been frightening when Travis was a boy. Now that he was a man Sam recognized it for what it was: the look of a man who could kill without compunction. And all at once he realized why Travis made him uneasy: it was fear of that wild killer streak.

  ‘Look, Pa, you say desertion and it means certain things to you – a man abandoning his post, running away from the enemy, too feared to fight. It wasn’t like that with me. I joined up in a fire, certain I was going to save the South single-handed. I found out soon enough that buck privates don’t save anything, except maybe their worthless officers’ lives. Buck privates are two levels lower than horseshit. Buck privates are for sending on forced marches for no pay, with poor food and sadistic sergeants and officers who don’t give a damn whether their men live or die. You can’t believe they can be so stupid, but they are. And if you buck them, they tie you to a wheel and they whip you!’

  Sam looked up sharply. There was something in his son’s eyes, a rage that went way beyond mere anger and he knew instinctively what it was.

  ‘They whipped you?’ he whispered.

  ‘Yes, they whipped me,’ Travis hissed.

  He took off his coat and unfastened his shirt, peeling it down to his waist. As he turned around, Sam drew in a breath. His son’s back was crisscrossed with livid scars. It came to Sam that the nearest thing he had ever seen like it was a loin of pork, crisscrossed by a cook’s knife to make crackling before it went into the oven.

  ‘Sweet Jesus!’ he whispered. ‘How?’

  ‘We’d marched hard for Johnny Baylor,’ Travis said, eyes still burning with that old hatred. ‘All the way from San Antone to El Paso, and on to Mesilla. Drove the Yanks out of Fort Fillmore – Hell, they was too scared to fight, they just up and ran!’

  He drank the rest of his whiskey in one gulp. Sam passed him the bottle and wondered if Travis knew the damage that much hard liquor did to your stomach lining.

  ‘We were cold and hungry,’ Travis went on. ‘There were piles of stores in Fillmore that the Yanks’d left behind. Seemed to me nobody ought to mind if we was to take enough to fill our bellies. So I busted a window open and took some cheese. Just a piece, so big. Only somebody told.’

  ‘And they whipped you? For that?’

  ‘There was a sergeant,’ Travis said, his voice pitched so low that Sam had to strain to hear. ‘His name was Gardner. Johnny Gardner. A sadistic bastard who got his kicks out of seeing men scream for mercy on the flogging wheel. He told me that if I gave him the names of all the men who’d taken food from the stores, he’d let me off. I spat in his face!’

  The punishment was carried out in full view of the entire regiment. At high noon, to the steady brrrrat, brrrrat, brrrrat of the drums, Travis was slow-marched to the center of the Fort Fillmore parade ground and stripped to his drawers. His wrists were lashed to the rim of a caisson wheel and a wadded cloth was jammed between his teeth. An officer on a horse drew his saber and saluted Baylor and his staff, who were sitting on the porch of the officers’ quarters watching. Like some goddamned play, Travis thought bitterly, as Baylor nodded.

  ‘Let the punishment commence!’ the officer with the saber shouted. Travis braced his feet firmly on the ground and bit down hard on the wad of cloth. He heard the whistle of the cat as Johnny Gardner swung it back and up and over. Then there was pure white, blinding pain. Silence. Then pain. Silence and then pain, and then pain again and again, nothing but the pain and the grunt of the man behind him swinging the awful, cutting thing. Travis became lost in a place out of
life, as if he was suspended above the squalid little scene of one sweating man trying to cut a groaning, twitching animal to pieces with a whip, watching, as remote from it as were the officers on the veranda across the parade ground.

  The shock of the bucket of cold water being thrown over him was enormous; he passed in and out of consciousness as they cut his hands free and he slumped to his knees, aware only of pain and the stink of his own wastes.

  ‘All right!’ he heard the officer shouting. ‘Take him to the hospital!’

  Black rage surged through Travis but he was helpless. Wait, he thought, wait. It throbbed in him like the beat of a great heart, the seething, waiting anger.

  Twelve days later he killed Johnny Gardner with a bowie knife. He took his time over it. The man who found the dead sergeant the following day fainted on the spot. But by that time Travis Strong was already across the line and heading for Fort Stockton.

  ‘I got to Dallas, picked up Louise, and we lit out,’ he said. ‘Got on a ship out of Galveston heading for Halifax, Nova Scotia. And we made our way south from there.’

  ‘You’re still a deserter,’ Sam said.

  ‘Hell, that damned outfit wouldn’t have records, Pa,’ Travis said contemptuously.

  ‘What will you do now?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ Travis admitted. He shrugged back into his shirt and put on his jacket. ‘Maybe I’ll join the Federals.’

  ‘I’d’ve thought you’d had enough of army life.’