Fire by Night (7 page)

“Hey, there,” a voice beside her said. “Want to trade jackets?”

Phoebe looked down, then smiled. The little fellow standing alongside her wore a coat that was so huge he looked like a tiny little pea in a big blue pod.

“Sure,” she said. “Guess it can’t hurt to try.” Phoebe unfastened the long row of buttons and traded jackets. The other fellow’s coat fit her a little better, but not by much. “Must have been a sale on all these brass buttons,” she said as she fastened them again. “Can’t see why else we’d need so many.”

“We have to keep them all shiny-looking, too,” the little fellow said. “My uncle joined up a few months back, and he says we have to polish the brass with emery paper every night or we’ll get into trouble.”

“Seems like a waste of time, don’t it?” Phoebe said. “I joined up to fight a war, not polish buttons.”

“Hey, you aren’t from around here, are you?” the little stranger asked. He had an eager, friendly voice that dipped from highpitched to low and back again when he talked, like a wagon wheel sliding in and out of a rut.

“No, I crossed over from Kentucky to enlist,” Phoebe replied.

“What’s your name?”

“Ike …Ike Bigelow.”

“Nice to meet you, Ike,” he said, extending his hand. It was soft, with no calluses, a city boy’s hand. “I’m Theodore Wilson. Folks call me Ted.”

The top of Ted’s curly brown head barely reached Phoebe’s chin. He had a wiry build that made him look as though he’d be quick as a deer if he decided to run. His smooth, tanned skin and wide brown eyes gave him the innocent, trusting look of a child. Then he smiled, revealing a pair of oversized front teeth, and he reminded Phoebe for all the world of a squirrel.

“I don’t mean to insult you,” she said, “but you hardly look old enough to enlist.”

“I’m nineteen,” Ted told her. “I live around here, so folks know I’m old enough. Hey, did you get all your other gear yet?”

Phoebe shook her head. “They only give me this uniform. The man said I wouldn’t get me a gun until I get to Washington. If I’d a known that, I’d have brought a gun from home.”

“You have your own gun? You know how to shoot already?” Ted was practically dancing.

“Sure. I been shooting since I could walk and talk. I hardly ever miss, either.”

“Will you teach me how?” His voice squeaked with excitement.

“I reckon so,” she said, hiding a smile.

“Great. Thanks. Hey, we get our knapsacks and stuff in that line over there. Come on.”

Phoebe followed her new friend to the supply line, enjoying the fact that Ted already looked up to her in more ways than one. As the youngest and smallest sibling back home, Phoebe had always been picked on by her brothers and had to fight for the right to do all the things they did. Her brother Jack, especially, took great delight in reminding her that she was a girl.

“You got a girl, Ike?” Ted flung out the word
girl
so suddenly that it threw Phoebe off balance. It took her a moment to realize that he wasn’t accusing her of being one but was asking her if she had one.

“Huh? No …no, I never had a gal or nothing.”

“Me, either, but I sure would like one, wouldn’t you? Some of the other fellows carry pictures of their girlfriends. They were showing them all around a while ago and bragging about which one was the prettiest. Sure wish I had a pretty girl’s picture to carry with me. … But, hey, I kissed a girl once.”

“You did?” Phoebe looked at Ted’s lips—soft and full, like a baby’s—and tried to imagine them pressed against her own. She couldn’t recall ever being kissed, not even by her ma or pa, much less a beau.

“Yeah, I kissed Maggie Fisk in the schoolyard one day. Just on the cheek, though. Gosh, she smelled good. Like something you’d eat for dessert.”

They finally reached the front of the line. The supply sergeant began piling items into Phoebe’s outstretched arms: a haversack for her provisions, a woolen blanket and waterproof sheet, a cartridge box and belt, a bayonet, a tin drinking cup, a canteen, and a knapsack to carry all her personal belongings. The supply sergeant glanced down at her feet, then set a pair of square-toed brogans on top of the pile. Phoebe had never owned a brand-new pair of shoes in her life; she’d either worn her brothers’ hand-me-downs or gone barefoot, which she preferred.

“How do you know them are gonna fit me?” she asked the soldier doling out the shoes.

His look told her that asking questions was the wrong thing to do. “We only have three sizes left,” he finally said. “Since your feet are the biggest ones I’ve seen all morning, I gave you the biggest pair I got. Move along now. Gotta keep this line moving.”

Phoebe sighed in resignation and followed her new friend through the back door and into a vacant lot behind the building where the other recruits were gathering. The fresh autumn air felt good. Ted flopped down in a small patch of shade to try on his new shoes; Phoebe did the same. The leather was very stiff, and they made her feet feel squished, even before she laced them up. She decided she’d better keep her old, worn-out shoes for now and stuffed them into her new knapsack along with her blanket, rubber sheet, and the possessions from her burlap bag. The knapsack was crammed full to the top, and she was still left with a tangle of straps, sacks, and all the other contraptions they’d just given her.

“What’re we supposed to do with all of this?” she wondered aloud.

“My uncle showed me how to carry everything,” Ted told her. “Watch.” Following his lead, she soon had her cartridge box, belt, bayonet, and haversack fastened properly, her canteen and tin cup hung where they’d be handy, and her bedding rolled up and fastened to her knapsack, ready to carry. She hefted the pack onto her shoulders with a grunt.

“I sure hope they don’t expect us to carry this stuff very far,” she said. “Feels like somebody’s hanging onto the back of my pack, trying to pull me over backward.”

She looked down at Ted and saw that the little fellow was bent nearly double beneath his load. She’d watched him pack a lot of extra stuff from home into his knapsack—three books, four extra pairs of socks, two flannel shirts, two spare suits of underwear, a sewing kit, a mirror and shaving items, a jar of homemade preserves, paper and writing utensils, and a bottle of Dr. Barker’s Blood Tonic.

“I …um …hope you don’t take offense, Ted, but you better get rid of some of that extra gear you’re carrying or you’ll be a hunchback by the time the war ends.”

“I’m fine,” he said, puffing slightly. “Hey, I think we’re supposed to go on over to the train depot when we’re done changing. You know where that is?”

Phoebe shook her head.

“Come on, I’ll show you.” She set off down the lane beside Ted, both bearing their loads like pack mules. Phoebe’s shoes squeaked and groaned. When she and Ted walked side by side, their tin cups, canteens, and other equipment jangled and clanked and rattled so noisily they sounded like a tinker’s wagon going down a bumpy road.

“I think I know why the Union ain’t won very many battles,” Phoebe said.

“Why’s that?” Ted asked, panting.

“I reckon them Rebels can hear us coming for miles.”

The army fed them supper in the town’s only hotel, then billeted them there for the night, cramming as many recruits into each room as they possibly could. When the train arrived before breakfast the next morning, it seemed to Phoebe that the entire town turned out to see their boys off. The ladies boohooed, waved their handkerchiefs, and threw flowers as mothers and sisters and sweethearts said farewell to their loved ones. With no one to see her off, Phoebe was the first one to board the train, and she took a seat by a window. She’d never been on a train before—had never even been this close to one—and she didn’t know if the tremor that rumbled through her was from the huge steam locomotive or from her own excitement and fear.

Outside on the platform, a woman who had to be Ted’s mother cried a cloudburst of tears and gripped him in her arms as if she had no intention of ever letting go. She was small and squirrel-like, too, with the same tanned skin and curly brown hair that Ted had.

“Teddy! Oh, my Teddy! Don’t leave me. Don’t go,” she cried in such a heartbroken voice that tears filled Phoebe’s eyes. She sometimes dreamed of someone holding her that way, rocking her, loving her, but as far as she knew they were only dreams, not memories. She slouched down on the stiff bench seat, pulling her forage cap over her face and closing her eyes to block out the sight of hugs and kisses and expressions of love beyond her reach. She didn’t open her eyes again until the train whistle shrieked, nearly startling her out of her seat.

“Hey,” Ted said a moment later. “Mind if I sit here?”

“Go ahead. It ain’t my train.” She tried to sound indifferent and gruff, but she was secretly pleased to see him. They’d only met yesterday, but she’d already taken a liking to the little fellow. She moved over to make room for him.

Ted perched on the edge of the seat, shrugging off the straps of his bulging backpack so he could set it on the floor. He balanced a huge parcel wrapped in brown paper on his lap.

“Confounded woman got me all wet,” he mumbled, wiping his face against his shoulder. “Did your mama bawl and carry on like that when you left home?”

Phoebe glanced at him, then quickly looked away. The tears Ted was trying to wipe away were his own. “My ma died when I was pretty young,” she told him.

“Oh. Sorry.”

“That’s okay. I don’t remember her at all, so I can’t really miss her.”

That much was true. But Phoebe did miss knowing what a mother’s love was like. She’d seen mothers like Mrs. Haggerty who yelled all the time and went after their kids with a hickory switch when they didn’t mind. But she’d also seen mothers back in Bone Hollow who looked at their kids like they were made of gold or something. Those mothers couldn’t stop touching their kids’ cheeks or ruffling their hair all the time. She was willing to bet that Ted’s mother was the second kind—the kind Phoebe dreamed of.

The whistle screamed again, drowning out the last good-byes and cries of farewell from the platform. The train gave a huge lurch, nearly pitching Phoebe out of her seat. It began rolling forward, hissing steam and huffing like a tired horse plodding uphill. She gripped the armrest, excited and scared at the same time.

“Guess your ma was sorry to see you go, huh?” she asked, trying to push away her fear as the locomotive picked up speed.

“Yeah, I’m all she has now that my sisters are all married and my father’s passed on.” Ted’s voice sounded even shakier than usual. “She didn’t want me to go to war at all. Begged me and begged me not to enlist. But I had to get away, you know? See new things, meet new people. I’ll have to send my paycheck home every month so she’ll have something to live on.”

He unwrapped the parcel while he talked, and Phoebe saw that it contained food—fried chicken, a square of johnnycake, several dill pickles, a couple of turnovers, a jar of plum jelly. It also contained a small frypan, a pair of homemade mittens, a pocket-sized Bible, and three more bottles of Dr. Barker’s Blood Tonic.

“What’re you fixing to do with all that stuff?” Phoebe asked. “Your knapsack’s gonna burst at the seams if you try and put anything else in it.”

“Hey, I’ll make you a deal. If you help me carry some of this, I’ll share my food with you.”

Phoebe reached for one of the turnovers. “It’s a deal.”

Outside her train window, the rolling Pennsylvania countryside flew past faster than a whole team of horses could have carried her. She was on her way to an exciting new adventure, with good food in her stomach, new shoes on her feet, and a new friend by her side. Nobody knew that she was a girl. Phoebe Bigelow had never felt happier in her life.

Later that day they arrived in Harrisburg, and Phoebe’s happiness quickly began to fade. She and the other recruits were thrown together with greenhorns from other small towns across southern Pennsylvania, and army life truly began. She had her first taste of U
Army rations—stringy beef, overboiled potatoes, and bitter coffee. She spent her first night in a Sibley tent, a round, pointytopped contraption where eighteen recruits slept spoon-style, their feet pointing toward the middle. And she met her new drill sergeant.