Andersonville (38 page)

The lieutenant drew back in disgust. What the hell do you want to go Outside for?

I got some information. He had to repeat it two or three times before the officer made out what he meant. I don’t want to talk in front of all these prisoners. Please—Outside—

The lieutenant turned pompously, called up to the parapet to have the wicket opened; and, squeezing his gray shape through, he beckoned for Chickamauga to follow. At that moment a shower of rain came down; it had been threatening since daylight, and the Officer of the Day directed the cripple to follow him under doubtful shelter of the nearest sentry-platform. Here they stood screened from all eyes, with outer gates of the protective cubicle closed firmly beyond them.

What do you know? The officer turned down the brim of his old yellow hat.

Chickamauga had no hat or cap. Water pearled on his bald head and pinched beardless face, it dripped from his bent nose. Please, will you pay cash? Cash?

Gholson put his hand in his pocket, then took it out again. He said, lying obviously, Left my purse in my quarters. I hain’t got no cash to pay you. Speak up.

Please, sir, just a little something to eat. Maybe you could get hold of some meat?

Meat. Everybody dreamed about meat.

You stay here. As a gesture the lieutenant unsnapped the flap of his holster, and then walked over to the outer gate and knocked loudly, calling for someone named Sipes. The wicket opened, a face appeared, and Chickamauga stood chilled and dripping but watching eagerly.

Sipes, send up to the kitchens for a dish of them nigger-peas. And a spoon. Make it lively—I hain’t got all day.

Big dish, Lieutenant?

A can full will do.

In the background Chickamauga jiggled on his crutch, eyes swelling out as he thought of hot peas.

There was a degree of shelter beside the outer gate, for rain was driving from the west. The fat Gholson lounged there while leisurely he cut a chew from his tobacco plug, put the plug and pocketknife away, and began to roll the fresh chew about in his mouth. He called through moist brown lips, You better have that information, crip. I’m wasting a sight of time.

Presently the wicket reopened and a small mess tin and a spoon were handed through to Gholson. The lieutenant signalled to Chickamauga, and the man came hopping across. Actually the nigger-peas were still warm, even in cold rain, and there were a few fragments of bacon in them. The lieutenant handed the treasure to the informer, saying, Just like the Planters’ Hotel in Charleston. You even got a spoon. What do you know? You can talk while you’re eating.

Chickamauga tried to talk while he was eating, but the officer soon stopped him. You cow-mouth bastard, I can’t make you out. Eat them peas, and then talk, and talk sense or you’ll go in the stocks.

Nothing had ever seemed so wonderful since the last dream of
Königsberger Klops.
Well, and he spooned up the last tasty drop of sauce, I know where there’s a tunnel.

He told all, he gave a clear description of the Westerners’ shebang.

Reckon I know that one. They got them a rubber blanket on the roof?

Yes, yes! Rubber blanket—

Chickamauga tried, again without success, to beg currency; then he asked for more peas or for an Outside pass with the next wood squad, but was refused. He began to cry. The lieutenant gave him a fair-sized piece of tobacco cut from his plug. Chickamauga did not chew or smoke, but this would be excellent for barter. He was ushered back into the stockade and went in, feeling that in some way he had been cheated. But Wirz might still let him go for berries when Wirz heard the tidings; anyway, another tunnel would be dug sooner or later. The memory of those heavenly peas lingered in his mind and on his tongue.

About forty-five minutes later a file of twelve guards followed Lieutenant Gholson into the pen. Ten of the men carried guns with bayonets fixed, and the lieutenant had his revolver out and cocked, carried dangerously in his hand. One of the men lugged a shovel and one a pick-axe. Gholson had no inclination toward the circuitous; he led his little army to the guilty shebang as directly as the crazy unsystematic arrangement of huts would allow.

The Westerners were lined up. Five had been caught at home, but two others escaped because they happened to be away. The five said that they were the only dwellers in that place; this they would still affirm, even in torture of stocks and balls-and-chains. They did not admit that people from adjacent shebangs had also helped in the digging (this was true of course). Away the prisoners were marched, to be put into a chain gang. Wirz regarded a prisoner’s attempt to escape not as a duty, a military obligation to his own cause, but as a fiendish effort to visit murder and rapine upon an innocent countryside. The shovel man and pick-axe man remained behind with Gholson still in command, breaking the ground around the tunnel’s entrance, and filling in the hole. A hundred silent neighbors stood and glowered. Others went about their ordinary affairs in an elaborately casual manner, fearing to be associated in any demonstration of sympathy or resentment. The tunnel itself was well-made and well-executed . . . it was rumored that the leader in the enterprise had engineering experience. The tunnel began with a vertical shaft, shored up in its more crumbly portions, and other people could only guess at its depth before the horizontal passageway began. As was usual, the opening had been concealed by a blanket near which a couple of men were forever lounging during daytimes.

Chickamauga kept away from the immediate neighborhood while the arrest and destruction took place. He ambled along Main Street, seeking the best possible rate of exchange for his tobacco, and he said, What do you know about that? when people discussed the tunnel and pointed to the little squad of prisoners being marched Outside for punishment.

Chickamauga made finally a handsome bargain in which he paid his tobacco as rent for a deck of cards; he would be allowed to keep the cards for twenty-four hours, but was instructed not to lose so much as a single card under penalty of having his parrot’s nose mashed flat. With these tools so necessary to the fortune teller’s trade, he went about through the afternoon with satisfaction and profit. He devised fortunes for a few cents here, half a spoonful of salt there. He encountered a prosperous newcomer who delighted in hearing that positively he would be exchanged within either three days, three weeks or three months (could it have been three years? the man worried later) and he paid Chickamauga with a wooden plate filled with freshly fried potatoes of which the newcomer had a supply. After delighting in these viands and others, Chickamauga turned in and slept until sunset when the sky was clearing.

He returned to Main Street, trusting to earn a supper by means of his art, and was calling for clients along the muddy strand when a hand fell upon his shoulder. He turned and looked into the narrowed eyes of a seventeen-year-old stripling whose muscles had not yet fallen into threads. Two other men, older but equally grim, were with the prisoner.

We’re from the Fifth Iowa, he said sternly to Chickamauga. You’re the one who give our friends away.

No, I ain’t!

Hell you ain’t. You were all around there early today, asking questions about who lived in that tent—

No, I wasn’t! You let me lone—

Hell you wasn’t. Didn’t you say he was, Ebe?

Yes. One of the other men had moved around behind the cripple to bar his escape. I saw him and heard him.

The tall youth struck Chickamauga on the mouth and knocked him against Eben Dolliver; he would have fallen if Eben had not been there, and he lost his crutches. He tottered forward on his left leg as Dolliver shoved him away. The youth punched Chickamauga twice more—in the belly, and he doubled forward; then on the side of the jaw. The victim tried to scream but could make only guttural growlings and gaspings, for his breath had been nearly knocked out of him. He stretched his length in the greasy mud, he tried to roll away from punishment. The youth wore shoes, or apologies for them; and with these shoes he kicked Chickamauga in the ribs four or five times.

Stop killing that poor cripple, cried a shocked voice.

Try and stop me. He got our friends on the chain gang!

The youth awarded several more kicks, and so did the man beside him. Ebe Dolliver did not kick, but he approved the treatment, shocking as it might have seemed to him when first he was captured. They went away and left Chickamauga, who began to sob stupidly as soon as he had enough wind.

Some kind men were nearby, and they stood appalled at witnessing what seemed to them such unprovoked viciousness, yet they were not strong enough to interfere. They helped Chickamauga to stand up, they wiped blood from his mouth; one prisoner who professed to a knowledge of anatomy felt along the unhappy creature’s ribs and assured him that they were not broken—only bruised. These benefactors even offered him a jacket at the edge of their shebang where he rested for a time. But it was growing dark, and there was not room for him there. People were settling down, tightly packed in spoon fashion, to spend another May night and to pray for August. (In July they would pray for November, in February they would pray for June.) Chickamauga could hobble, though stiffly. He traveled to his own shebang.

A stranger was there, and he was more powerful than Chickamauga, crutches and all.

This here’s my shebang.

Do tell. It’s mine now.

I’ll larrup you with this crutch—

I don’t know half what you’re saying, but I’ve moved in here and I’m going to stay.

Chickamauga begged and cajoled, he asked for people in nearby shelters to aid him in expelling the intruder, but deaf ears were turned to him: he had won no regard from any by his previous conduct. Justly or not, this claim-jumper was going to stay. It was very chilly for a spring night. Chickamauga suggested that it would be warmer for two of them than for one; so the man agreed to share his stolen couch with the true owner. They lay together, shuddering . . . the other man had been drinking, and where had he got liquor? After an hour or two he became nauseated, and staggered off in search of water. He did not return, probably because he was unfamiliar with the lay of the land and could not find his way. Chickamauga took down the wisp of overcoat and wrapped it around himself. He could not sleep for a long time, his ribs hurt him terribly. Sniveling and mourning, he fell asleep and dreamed about his father. He was a little boy again, his father was drunk and chasing him with a strap. Chickamauga awakened in tears, but slept later and dreamed no more.

Morning came with sun, but it was misery for the lame man to haul himself up on his left foot. Knives were thrust into his side, a hammer had mauled his jaw and left it out of shape. But he hungered. He took stock of his stores . . . only salt, and not more than a few cents’ worth. However, no one of the playing cards had been lost when he was beaten the previous evening, and thus he might hope to earn a breakfast at even this early hour. Fearing the Fifth Iowa boys more than he now feared the New Yorkers, he picked his way past the sinks over to South Street and solicited for an hour or two without success. His voice worn shabby by repetition of his slogan, Chickamauga was squatted alongside a temporarily deserted shebang when two men passed; they were not strangers, they were men he knew.

News traveled like birds in that community, and a rumor flapped its wings. The men were talking close at hand as they dawdled painfully along . . . one was bent forward with scurvy. They did not see Chickamauga beside them, though he could have reached out and touched them with his crutch.

Hear about the cripple?

Heard he give away about a tunnel on the North Side—

So he did; he told Wirz. Well, one of them Iowa boys was shot last night on the Outside, trying to Take Leave from the chain gang. You know that fellow they call Big Mizzoo: he just tolt me; and he had it that them Iowa boys are hunting all over hell and high water for old Poll Parrot, and I reckon they’ll make him sweat. The men moved on, their voices weaker in the camp’s noise.

Wirz, Wirz. Wirz was the only hope now. Drooling, perspiring between his shiverings, Chickamauga set out for the South Gate as fast as he could travel. He had only twenty rods to go. As he approached the deadline and dead-row he saw a wagon drive in belatedly for a load of bodies, and Henry Wirz rode behind the wagon on his gray horse. With an armed guard near, the wagon guard, Wirz did not feel menaced and alone.

Wirz recognized an essential nastiness in this mutilated gabbler and dreaded encountering him, despite the various traitorous services Chickamauga had performed. Gentle and tired with age, the white-gray mare shied away from the figure which came humping. Wirz, an awkward but determined horseman, brought the beast under control with strong use of the bit.

Get away, you— You frighten my horse!

Captain, please, please, Captain, I want to go Outside.

It is nonsense. Why you go Outside?

This was a dilemma. Had the lieutenant told the captain of Chickamauga’s recent service to them? If Chickamauga mentioned it now, it would come as an assertion of guilt to all ears listening nearby.

Because—there’s bad men here. They beat me last night. Captain, they beat me! I didn’t do nothing bad. They—

Such stories I do not wish to hear. Go away, you damn Yankee!

The boys—the men—they made up lies about me! They—they hit me and knocked me down and kicked me— God’s sake, Captain Wirz, they’ll kill me unless you take me Outside!

Now you get away from my horse.

Chickamauga tottered forward, hand straining for a grasp on the stirrup. Wirz kicked out with his boot, he drove him off. You damn fool son of a bitch, you get away from my horse or my pistol I take and shoot you dead!

Men were close, herded close to the deadline, and many as always had petitions for their keeper. Aw, get out of that, Poll Parrot, somebody yelled. The Flying Dutchman don’t want you.

Outside! Captain, please—they’ll kill me—

Wirz took the mare past him, and Chickamauga toppled fairly against the scantling which ran on deadline poles. Tears were spurting afresh . . . oh, not again, he wailed within his soul. Not to be hit and kicked again, kicked until I die of it.