The Storm Before Atlanta (26 page)

“P
LEASE TELL
C
HALKIE TO BE A GOOD GIRL SO THAT
her daddy will get all better,” said Dulcie.

Jeremy dipped his pen in an inkwell and wrote this on a piece of Union stationery. “Got it.”

“Tell Davis I am so proud he made head of the class and spelled down the whole school even though I knew he could do it.”

Jeremy wrote this, too. He wondered how old Davis was. Jeremy himself had once spelled down the whole school, and he had only been seven when he did it. It seemed like a childish thing to be proud of now, and he wouldn’t have actually
told
anyone about it, but he was proud of it nonetheless.

“I don’t like what he said to Chalkie,” Jeremy said. “What if he doesn’t get better? What was wrong with him, anyway?”

“This one? Shot in the hand.”

“Will he get better?”

“I don’t know, probably. It depends on whether gangrene sets in.”

“Well, what if he doesn’t? And then Chalkie thinks it’s because she hasn’t been good enough?”

“I don’t know.” Dulcie shrugged. “They all say that.”

It was true, they did, or at least all the ones with children. Jeremy had been writing letters for days. It amazed him how Dulcie could remember everything the soldiers wanted written, and even the addresses. The Christian Commission was helping them out with the postage. They were supplying paper, too, although sometimes they ran out and Jeremy had to go around asking for more from the soldiers. He had not yet approached his own pardners. He hadn’t been back to his mess since that day he’d taken Charlie there. He didn’t want to face his messmates again, and he wasn’t entirely sure why. All right, maybe he did know why, but he didn’t want to think about it. The fact was, it was awful being told you were wrong, especially in front of other people, and he wasn’t sure if he was angrier because he’d been wrong to make friends with Charlie or because he’d been
told
he was wrong.

“With affectionate regards, I remain, your father, Hiram,” said Dulcie.

Jeremy wrote it down and signed “Hiram” with a flourish, even though it wasn’t his name. Writing with a flourish had been the next most important part of his formal education after spelling and memorizing. A really good writer could make a capital letter take up the width
of a page, once all the swirls and scrolls were worked into it.

He blew on the ink to dry it and reached for an envelope.

“What’s it say?” said Dulcie.

Jeremy looked down at the envelope. There was a picture stamped on it in red and blue ink of a ragged colored man with an enormous grin.

“It’s got the address on it you told me to write,” he said guardedly.

“No, underneath the picture on the envelope.”

Charlie looked at the envelope. “It says, ‘The Latest Contraband of War,’ ” he admitted reluctantly. “And then it says—that’s supposed to be the man talking—‘Dis chile ain’t nebber gwine back to Massa, dat’s what’s de matter!’ ”

“Ah,” said Dulcie.

“It’s supposed to be funny,” Jeremy said. “See, because—”

“I understand it,” said Dulcie.

“We’re short of paper anyway,” said Jeremy.

“Yes, I know. All right. ‘Dearest Maddie, I take pen in hand to acquaint you with the events of May 25th, 1864, at New Hope Church near Dallas, Georgia.’ ”

Jeremy took another piece of paper and wrote.

He wasn’t entirely sure what his job was, now that he no longer had a drum. It was possible he no longer had a job. The 107th had been relieved the night before—Jeremy
could imagine his messmates making jokes about how very, very relieved they had been—from the position they’d helped hold at New Hope Church ever since the Hell-Hole. They’d marched in the sweltering heat to Picket’s Mill, which seemed to Jeremy to be another part of the same long battle, six miles away. They were behind the front lines here. The war pounded on ahead of them, and Jeremy stayed around the field hospital and made himself as useful as he could. As far as he knew no one was looking for him. Anyway, it wasn’t like he had deserted. He just couldn’t face his pardners after the way Nicholas had scolded him in front of all of them.

Besides, he saw Seth once or twice in the distance, and so he assumed Seth had seen him too and had told his messmates where he was. If they’d wondered.

It was raining. A few days ago, when the rain began, they had all welcomed it. It had been a break from the unrelenting heat. But it hadn’t stopped. It had rained and rained and rained. There were no tents, of course, except for the hospitals. The trenches were knee-deep in water and slimy red mud. Everyone’s boots and shoes were full of water, and their clothes had been soaked for so long that it almost seemed like they were made that way, spun wet, woven wet, cut wet, and sewn together wet. Jeremy had stopped writing letters because the paper was all soggy and
the ink bled in brown blobs across the page. Instead he was tending the sick, of whom there seemed to be more every day, and the wounded, who poured in steadily from the front lines.

Funny that they had once supposed that they would march straight to Atlanta without opposition. Now it seemed as though the whole Confederate Army was between them and Atlanta, even though he knew this wasn’t true. A large part of both armies was up in Virginia, and news of one terrible battle after another trickled through the newspapers and the grapevine telegraph. Much of it turned out, with the next round of news, to have been wrong. Victories were reported in battles that had never even happened.

Sometimes rumors came through that the war was over—sometimes General Lee was about to surrender the Confederate forces, and other times General Grant was about to surrender the Union—and Jeremy was always disappointed when it turned out not to be true. Right now he felt, traitorously, that he would gladly trade the Union for a pair of dry socks.

A letter had come from Lars.

“It’s addressed to Nicholas,” said Jeremy

“Well, take it to him, then,” said Dulcie.

They were inside the medical tent, and the never-ending rain rattled down on the canvas over their heads.

“Seth can take it. He goes back and forth a lot.”

“Nicholas will want to read the letter
now
,” said Dulcie. “Besides, Seth does too much. In fact, I can’t believe you’d let Seth take it!”

He still looked reluctant, and Dulcie almost offered to carry it to the front line herself. But she didn’t, because she knew Jeremy was afraid and she thought it was time he got over it. Not afraid of the front line, of course. He’d seen the elephant and battle was just a job to him now. But Dulcie could tell he was afraid of his former messmates. She didn’t know what that was about, but she reckoned he’d better make it up with them, whatever it was. Because what if one of them got killed in battle and he never had made it up? Dulcie had seen enough now to know that this was pretty likely. And how would Jeremy feel then?

“Better take it right smart,” Dulcie suggested. “They probably want to know how he’s doing.”

She had helped to bundle Lars into the ambulance over a week ago. It was the last she saw of her patients, their departure laid out flat in the painfully jolting, mule-drawn wagons. After that she had no way of knowing what became of them. She knew that Lars had had a very fine infection when he left, which was considered promising. But sometimes infections made things worse instead of better. Nobody knew why.

Once, a couple of days after the Hell-Hole, she had seen a man with a wound that didn’t produce any pus at all. The flesh stayed the same color as healthy flesh, and
the slash in the man’s arm had healed without the help of any infection at all. This, Dr. Flood had told her, was called “healing by first intention.” Nobody knew what caused it.

“But couldn’t we find out?” Dulcie had asked. Dr. Flood had smiled and called her a good medic.

He’d been annoyed with her, though, a week or two ago. That night of the Hell-Hole—or the next morning, rather.

“Where were you?” he’d demanded. “I was operating all night.”

“So was I,” said Dulcie. “Sir. I couldn’t find you, and another doctor asked me to help.”

And the bloodstains on her apron and the exhaustion on her face backed her up, she knew that. But it occurred to her for the first time that, while she could leave Dr. Flood if she got tired of him, she would also have to leave him if
he
got tired of
her
. So she added, “I’m sorry.”

And then, to remind him that there was more than one side to every story, she’d added, “The other surgeon offered me a job, but I told him I was already working for you.”

And Dr. Flood had nodded and said, “I see,” and no more had been mentioned about it.

Seth helped Dr. Flood a lot too. But Dulcie was worried about Seth. He ought to have been in one of the invalid regiments, or been mustered out. The stump of his leg
had never finished healing, and now he seemed feverish and exhausted, although he kept working all the same. He just took more and more morphine to keep him going.

Nicholas was out on the skirmish line. Jeremy was relieved at that. It meant he could just leave the letter with someone else.

“Can I leave it with you, sir?” he asked Sergeant Kinney, the man who had told him this.

“You can take it right out to him,” said Sergeant Kinney, squinting at Jeremy through the pouring rain. “There’s an agreement not to fire.”

“Er, an agreement with who? Sir?”

“With the enemy. They want to get home to their families same as we do.” He nodded across an open field. “You’ll find ’em over t’other side of them trees.”

Jeremy squelched off across the field. It seemed like an odd way to conduct a war. But then, why not? He and Charlie had met several times without fighting each other, and as far as he was concerned it was nothing to be ashamed of. It was maybe even a good thing. So if the rest of the 107th, and the rest of Sherman’s army, learned to do the same—well, then maybe everyone would get home safe.

He smiled to himself at the thought that he had once wanted to die in battle. There were plenty of more useful things a person could do—he knew that now.

He found Nicholas sitting on a log under a loblolly pine, playing cards with a soldier Jeremy did not know. They both had rifles propped up beside them, with bayonets fixed. Raindrops splashed on the guns and the cards and the cardplayers.

“Er,” said Jeremy.

Somewhere in the distance there was the sound of a gunshot.

Nicholas looked up. “Are we starting up again?”

“Ah reckon not,” said the other soldier. “Ah told you we’d warn you if we got orders to shoot, and we ain’t had none.”

Jeremy stared at Nicholas, who had the grace to look embarrassed.

“You’re playing cards with the enemy!”

Nicholas gave Jeremy his easy smile. “Oh, it’s all right. We ain’t playin’ for money.”

The enemy grinned. “Couldn’t get no one to play for
my
money. It ain’t fit to start a fire with.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a purse made of blue cloth, with the words
Confederate States of America
embroidered on it in red. He took out a crisp, blue-printed bill and handed it to Jeremy. “There’s a little souvenir for you, kid.”

“But it’s two dollars!” said Jeremy. He tried to give it back. You couldn’t take money from the enemy. It would be like taking a bribe.

“Naw, it ain’t. Don’t believe everything you read, kid. Who steals my purse steals trash.” He seemed to consider
the whole thing a pleasant joke. “Well, the contents, anyway. I’m right proud of the purse.”

Jeremy figured the Reb had made the purse himself. The Reb was wearing Union blue breeches and a Union blouse that had been dyed some sort of color that you couldn’t really put a name to. The Confederates called it “butternut.” Anyway, it was not blue.

“Give it to your grandkids,” said the Reb. “Tell ’em it’s a souvenir of when you fought in the Second War of Independence.”

Jeremy tried again to give the bill back, but the Reb wouldn’t take it. Jeremy didn’t want to hurt the man’s feelings, so he said, “Thank you, sir,” and pocketed it.

He looked accusingly at Nicholas again. Jeremy wasn’t embarrassed at all anymore. He didn’t feel he’d been childish to trust Charlie, because here was Nicholas the schoolmaster, playing cards with the enemy.

“Everyone’s doing it now,” said Nicholas easily.

“Here’s a letter from Lars,” said Jeremy.

“Give it here!” Nicholas set his cards facedown and ripped the envelope open. He scanned the contents quickly. “He’s in Tennessee,” he reported. “The sweetheart is on her way down by rail—Oh! I guess that makes it official, eh? That louse, he’s gonna get married on the sly and cheat us out of our shivaree. Still in the hospital. Doesn’t know how long.”

“Is he going to be all right?” said Jeremy.

“Who knows?” Nicholas shook his head. “He’s all
right now, but anything can happen—he’s got a healthy infection. Could get better, could get worse.”

“I sure do hope he pulls through,” said the man who for all any of them knew had shot Lars himself. “Shame he didn’t marry the girl he was sparking before he left.”

“Didn’t have her then,” said Nicholas. “We think it came about through letters.”

“Ah.” The Reb touched his shirt pocket. “We have letters like that on our side too.”

“
Why
is everyone doing it now?” said Jeremy.

“What, writing love letters?” said Nicholas. “I’m not. Can’t speak for the others.”

“No, I mean
this
. What
you
told
me
not to do,” said Jeremy meaningly.

“Oh, this. Well, along the skirmish lines, we agreed that we won’t shoot if they don’t.”

“So we pass the time,” said the Reb. He had an easy smile, like Charlie’s. Like Nicholas’s, for that matter.

Jeremy took his leave of them, deep in thought. He’d been scolded for passing time with Charlie, and now everyone was passing time with Rebs. Hmph. And they’d called Charlie a spy. They’d been angry at Jeremy just because they could be, because he was young and they wanted to remind him that he was just a drummer boy and not a full-in soldier.