Caleb (28 page)

Henkins marched the dazed troops away, and the corporal rushed up to see what damage had been done to his horse.

Blanchard whirled around. “What the hell do you think you were doing?”

“Shock tactics, sir,” said Caleb.

“You could have killed me,” Blanchard said.

“Yes, sir,” Caleb said, “if I’d wanted to.”

“Get off that horse,” Blanchard ordered.

“Yes, sir,” Caleb said, dismounting easily and giving the gray a pat on the neck by way of apology. The corporal grabbed the reins from Caleb’s hand and for a moment considered throwing a punch at him. Once he took in the size of the recruit, however, the urge passed quickly.

Blanchard also dismounted and threw the reins of the bay to Pritchard. “Cool ’em off and rub them down and see if this madman has done any harm to Ben,” he told the corporal. He turned to Caleb. “You, follow me.”

Caleb followed the sergeant’s broad back into the castlelike headquarters and through the gloomy corridors to Major Rogers’s outer office. Rogers’s orderly looked up at Blanchard affably.

“I want to see the major,” Blanchard told him.

“I’ll see if he’s in,” said the orderly.

“I know damn well he’s in,” Blanchard said.

“I’ll see if he is in to
you
,” said the orderly.

In a minute, the orderly was back. “The major will see you now,” he told Blanchard.

“You sit down,” Blanchard told Caleb.

“The major will see you
both
now,” the orderly told him. “His orders.”

Without another glance at Caleb, Blanchard marched stiffly into Rogers’s office and saluted with an unnecessarily forceful stamp of his right boot.

Rogers returned his salute. “At ease, Sergeant. What can I do for you?” Caleb remained at attention. He might as well not have been there.

“Sir,” Blanchard began, “this man—”

“I know, Sergeant,” the major interrupted. “I saw it all.”

“Then you know, sir, that this recruit disrupted a demonstration of equestrian saber techniques, abused a US Army horse, endangered my life as well as his own, and violated army discipline,” said Blanchard.

“That’s about what it looked like to me, too,” Rogers said easily. “He also deeply embarrassed a noncommissioned officer of the US Army in the course of his official duty.” Rogers swiveled toward Caleb. “What do you have to say for yourself, Recruit Jardine?”

“Nothing, sir,” Caleb said.

“Well, then,” Rogers said. “It looks like an open and shut case to me. What would you like me to do with this man?”

“I want you to give him to me, sir,” Blanchard said. “We’re forming the first unit of black cavalry, and I need men who can ride and fight. I don’t have time to turn your webfeet into horse soldiers. I reckon this one”—he nodded toward Caleb—“is crazy, but then you have to be crazy to be in the cavalry anyway. I think I can tame him.”

“I don’t know, Sergeant,” Rogers said as if Caleb weren’t there, “I had plans for Recruit Jardine myself. When his draft finishes training, I was thinking of keeping him on to help train new levies.”

“Sir,” Blanchard said, “begging your pardon, but that would be a waste of a natural cavalryman. If he can shoot like he can ride and handle a saber—”

“I know,” Rogers said, “I know. And I do not want to impede the war effort, but there are other considerations. I was going to make Recruit Jardine a corporal, the first black noncommissioned officer in this command. What has your unit got to offer Jardine besides hard work, horse shit, and certain death? I assume that the officers and NCOs of this new black unit will be white.”

“Of course, sir,” said Blanchard, taken aback. “Our blacks are all privates.”

“That’s a shame,” Rogers said. “Now, if I thought that within, say, three months, given continuing progress on Recruit Jardine’s part, he could be wearing corporal’s stripes, that might go a long way toward loosening my hold on him, which, at the current time, is a death grip. I don’t like to lose a good soldier.”

“Sir, as you well know, I can promise nothing,” said Blanchard. “In the cavalry, sergeants do not hand out corporal’s stripes.”

“Oh, I know,” Rogers said with a smile, “but in my experience they have an awful lot of influence on their commanders. Who is yours, by the way?”

“Colonel Surridge,” Blanchard said.

“Iron Pants Surridge?”

“I have heard the expression,” Blanchard said neutrally.

Rogers thought and tugged on his long mustache. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If Recruit Jardine wants to die in the saddle, you can take him with you. But I’m going to be writing Colonel Surridge about our little discussion and your promise to make Jardine a corporal within three months.”

“Sir,” Blanchard protested, “I—” but Rogers was turning to Caleb.

“Recruit Jardine,” he said, “are you crazy enough to join the cavalry?”

“Yes, sir,” said Caleb.

50

For his first two weeks with the cavalry, Caleb cleaned the stables. He could see some justice in this because of the way he’d abused that corporal’s gray gelding, and he made special efforts to be nice to Ben, sneaking him sugar cubes and carrots from the mess hall. But toward the end of the second week, horse shit and wet straw had begun to pall.

“Tell me, Zeke,” he complained to another black recruit one day in the stables, “does a black man in this troop ever get to handle anything more dangerous than a pitchfork?”

“You may be eager to get your ass shot off,” Zeke said, “but not me. I still can’t explain why I raised my hand when they asked could anybody ride a horse. I’m happy in this nice, warm stable. I’m in no hurry to get killed.”

“You’re a smart boy, Zeke,” said the first sergeant, who had just walked into the area between the stalls. “You may live to see this war finished.” The first sergeant, a big man with an outsized head, opened the door to the stall where they were working. “As for you, Jardine, report to the parade ground with your unit tomorrow morning, and we’ll see how dangerous you are with a bayonet. In the meantime, get this shit hole cleaned up. The horses are starting to complain.”

Caleb found it hard to get to sleep that night. He knew why he’d spent two weeks shoveling shit, and he knew that he would be a target the next morning. Sergeant Blanchard, when he noticed Caleb at all, still shot him surly looks when they passed in the squadron area. In the black barracks, which not so long before had been stables and still smelled like it, the other recruits stared curiously at Caleb, both in awe of what they had heard of him and glad that they were not getting the attention he was.

The next morning dawned cool and misty. On the parade ground, the black recruits were issued old bayonets to fix onto their even older rifles. “Now, listen, meatheads,” the corporal, an old infantryman, shouted, “whatever you do, do not remove the scabbard from your bayonets. You are here this morning to learn, not kill each other. Now, fall in, and let’s get at it.”

The corporal marched them to a remote corner of the training area, where bales of straw stacked three high and draped with crudely drawn Confederate flags served as the targets for bayonet practice. “Now,” he said, “just because the bayonet is an infantry weapon and you will be the high and mighty cavalry, do not think that it is beneath you to learn how to use it. When you come off those beautiful ponies in battle—and you will—you will be damned glad that you know what to do with a bayonet. Now, form lines facing those stacks of hay bales, and when I say ‘Charge!’ I want you to tear those bales apart. Don’t be shy. You don’t need an introduction. And remember, I want to hear some noise when you attack. If you can’t kill the rebs with the bayonet, maybe you can scare them to death.”

Caleb purposely got himself third in line to attack one of the targets. Back at the armory, Sergeant Henkins had given them some basic bayonet drills. Caleb had a pretty good idea of what to do, but he wanted to see how the other recruits did it before he tried.

“Recruits! Attention. Fix bayonets. Present bayonets! Charge!” the corporal shouted, and the first half-dozen recruits started forward in a ragged line, none wanting to be the first to attack the bales. “No, no, no, no!” screamed the corporal before they got halfway to the bales. The recruits straggled to an embarrassed halt and stood awkwardly, like passengers waiting for a trolley. “It’s not a goddamn dance,” the corporal said. “You’re fighting for your life. It’s kill or be killed. Does anybody here have any idea how it’s supposed to be done?”

They were all silent, but then Caleb raised his hand. The other recruits backed away from him as if he had smallpox.

“What’s your name?” the corporal demanded.

“Jardine, sir.”

“Well, Jardine, step forward. Recruits, Mr. Jardine here believes he is an expert on this weapon. In fact, he is a bayoneting fool. He will now show you the approved method of attacking and killing the enemy.” The other recruits laughed and jostled each other. “Recruit Jardine,” the corporal screamed. “Attention. Fix bayonet! Present bayonet! Charge!”

Before the final word left the corporal’s mouth, Caleb sprang forward with a blood-curdling howl of rage and in three long steps was upon the targets. Using his sheathed bayonet more as a blunt instrument than a blade, he speared the central bale of hay in the first stack, got his weight under it, and then threw it back high over his head, knocking down one recruit and scattering the rest. Then, continuing to scream like a madman, Caleb whirled and attacked the other stacks of bales, leveling them with a sweep of his bayonet and jabbing them viciously when they were on the ground. When his bayonet stuck in one bale, Caleb kicked it to pieces with his heavy boots.

The other recruits just gaped, but the corporal, once he was over his surprise, started shouting, “Well done, Jardine! That’s the way! Enough, Jardine, enough! For Christ’s sake—”

But not until the sixth and final stack had been laid low did Caleb, running with sweat and festooned with bits of straw, stop and come to attention, his eyes staring straight ahead. He tried to control his gasping breaths.

“That, boys, is a bit more like it,” said the corporal.

Drawn to the area by Caleb’s howls, Colonel Surridge and his adjutant rode their horses to about fifty yards away, and then the adjutant stood in the stirrups and shouted, “Corporal!”

Spotting his commanding officer, the corporal said, “Jardine. Get those stacks rebuilt and see if you can inspire these dummies.” As he ran toward the colonel, he heard Caleb say, “All right, let’s get them back up!”

When he got to the two officers, the corporal snapped a salute. “Sir!”

“Corporal,” said Surridge, “who was that recruit imitating a madman?”

“Recruit Jardine, Caleb,” said the corporal.

The adjutant murmured to the colonel, “You may recall getting a letter about Jardine last week, from Major Rogers of the training command. Rogers said he reckoned him highly. Thinks Jardine ought to be wearing corporal’s stripes.”

Colonel Surridge looked over to where Caleb was supervising rebuilding of the bayoneting targets. “Perhaps, Greenaway,” the colonel told the adjutant, “or perhaps a straitjacket. Send that man to my office directly after lunch. And tell him to get some of that straw off of him first. That will be all, Corporal.”

Colonel Surridge had just reined his horse around to return to his office when a sudden burst of screams went up from the direction of the bayonet training. Turning his horse around again, Surridge saw that, under Caleb’s direction, the black recruits were attacking the haystack targets with noise and gusto. Caleb patrolled behind them shouting, “Stick ’em, boys, stick ’em!”

“Greenaway, didn’t I hear you say that free blacks have no spunk?” Surridge asked.

Colonel Surridge looked up from his paperwork when the orderly knocked and entered.

“He’s here, sir,” said the orderly.

“Who’s here?”

“The madman.”

“And which madman would that be?” the colonel asked.

“Recruit Jardine, sir.”

“Send him in.”

Caleb entered the room, saluted, and said, “Recruit Jardine reporting as ordered, sir.” He stood at attention.

“At ease, recruit,” the colonel said, indicating a heavy wooden chair in front of his desk. “Sit down.”

Once Caleb was seated, the colonel asked, “Jardine, are you mad?”

“No, sir.”

“Then how do you explain that display you put on today at bayoneting training?”

“Well, sir, nobody seemed to want to come to grips with the enemy, so—”

“The enemy?” the colonel inquired.

“The bales of hay, sir. So I thought that by exaggerating a bit, I could give them the idea and stir things up a bit. I was getting bored.”

“Bored?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want that,” the colonel said drily. “Jardine, how long have you been in the army?”

“Just over six weeks, sir.”

“I’ve seen from Sergeant Henkins’s report that you are an excellent shot. Do you think you can encourage that ability in recruits?”

“Yes, sir.”

Surridge looked down at a sheet of paper on his desk. “Major Rogers speaks highly of you. He didn’t want to lose you.”

“I owe a lot to Major Rogers, sir,” Caleb said. “It was his idea that I enlist. I was just curious.”

“Well, Jardine,” said Surridge, “I’m not going to take Major Rogers’s advice. I’m not going to promote you to corporal. Ordinarily I would, but I’m not.” He paused.

“Sir?”

“Jardine,” the colonel said decisively, “go get that jacket hanging next to my long coat.”

“This one, sir?” Caleb asked, laying his hand on a narrow-waisted blue jacket.

“That’s the one. Put it on.”

Jardine was puzzled, but he obeyed. He pulled the jacket over his work shirt and stood looking at the colonel.

“Do you see what is on the sleeves of that jacket, Jardine?”

“Yes, sir. Sergeant’s stripes.”

“They’re yours. Sit down, Sergeant Jardine, and I’ll explain a few things.”

When Jardine, still wearing the jacket, was seated, Surridge continued, “According to regulations, Sergeant Jardine, you shouldn’t even be a corporal, much less a sergeant. But I’m trying to build possibly the first black cavalry squadron here, and I haven’t got a hell of a lot of time. I need a black sergeant to inspire these men, to make them believe that they can be crack cavalrymen. You’re that sergeant. I’m giving you a squad in D Troop starting immediately. But don’t forget two things: One, if you let me down, those stripes will come off as fast as they went on. And two, you are going to catch hell from the white sergeants and corporals. Most of them think you should be up in a tree in Africa eating bananas. Do you think you can handle it?”

“Yes, sir,” said Caleb. “Being a slave’s a hard life, but it teaches you to survive.”

“I hope so,” Surridge said. “I will back you as much as I can, but you’re going to have to do most of it yourself.”

“I will, sir.”

Surridge stood up and extended his hand. “Now, get out there, Sergeant, and prove that I’m not out of my mind.”

Jardine stood up, shook the colonel’s hand, backed up a step, and saluted. “Yes, sir.” He started to take off the jacket.

“No,” said Surridge. “It’s yours. It looks a little big, but I think you’ll grow into it. Report to Lieutenant Padgett at D Troop barracks. He’ll assign your duties.”

“Sir.” Caleb saluted again and left the office.

Caleb hadn’t gone ten steps from headquarters when the corporal in charge of the stables, who until the day before had been his boss, saw him and roared, “Jardine! Where the hell did you get that jacket?”

“From Colonel Surridge, Corporal,” Caleb replied. They both turned and saw Surridge at his second-floor window, arms crossed over his chest, looking down at them. “Any other questions?”