Watchfires (20 page)

"I suppose it does look rather awful," Dexter admitted as a boy came up with the champagne bucket. "But your father has set his heart on it."

The sight of the wine turned Rosalie's sarcasm to sharp disgust. "Awful? It's absolutely bloodthirsty! All these carriages and ladies with parasols." She turned scornfully away from the line of vehicles where similar preparations were being made. "Do you really want to see our boys killed?"

"I doubt there'll be much killing today. It should be a rout. McDowell outnumbers the enemy three to one."

"Well, I don't think one should even go to routs. Here's Father now. Goodbye. Happy hunting!"

Mr. Handy, in a light brown suit with a tall silk brown hat and a pearl-handled cane, appeared in the hotel doorway and bowed to them solemnly. Rosalie, raising her hand, hurried off. The damp air, the whitening sky, the mild mist, foretold a scorching day.

"We'd better get started," Mr. Handy announced.

They slowly followed the long line of traffic, carriages, cabs, army wagons and equestrians. Washington seemed to Dexter a study in white and brown. White was in the government buildings, some still unfinished, stark Greek temples, and brown in the military personnel and equipment that everywhere abounded. It was as if the capital, a pale virgin, had fallen into the hands of dun-colored, hirsute barbarians. As they crossed the Long Bridge into Virginia, Mr. Handy and Dexter compared bits of information about the relative deployments of McDowell's and Beauregard's troops. They agreed it should be only a brief encounter. Joanna was silent and moody.

"Rosalie's right," she said once. "We shouldn't have come."

After an hour of jolting Mr. Handy fell asleep. His head was tilted back, his mouth open, and he snored loudly. Joanna watched him until she was sure that he could hear nothing.

"Dexter, I want to ask you something. Don't you think I should be doing my part in the war, too?"

"But you're doing it. You're looking after a great public servant."

"Any maid could do what I do. Or maybe a paid companion. I want to be a nurse."

"You're too old."

"I'm not! I've asked Rosalie. They're
supposed
to be old. She says she can arrange it easily. But she told me I'd have to tell Father. Dexter, please! I want you to do that for me."

"Jo, you can't leave him now. A man of his age who's taking on the load of work he's taking on? Where's your sense of perspective?"

"Where's yours? Must I always be the one who's sacrificed? Oh, don't you see? It's my one chance to live!"

"Think of all the young men who are being given their one chance to die."

"I know I sound selfish. But I'm not, really. I only want to help. To do my part!"

"Well, look at me. I gave up the army to work for your father."

"But that's different. He needs you."

"He needs you, too."

"You just say that because you don't want to cause him the slightest annoyance. You all defer to him so! And nobody ever thinks of me!"

Dexter frowned. "These are not times for thinking of ourselves."

"There are never any times for thinking of Jo Handy! That's for sure!"

She flung herself back in her seat to pout, and the journey, which had started so gaily, proceeded in a rather sullen silence. Far to the west they heard the rumble of gunfire.

Dexter was to remember afterwards that the first ominous note was the approach of a group of soldiers, ambling along in no kind of order, followed by a cart pulled by one old horse and containing a pile of packsacks. Mr. Handy, waking with a start, ordered the coachman to stop.

"Aren't you fellows going in the wrong direction?" he called out benevolently.

One of them, who had been drinking, put his hand familiarly on the side of the carriage. "Not us, pops. We signed up for three months, and three months is up."

"But there's a battle going on! Don't you hear it?"

"All the more reason to get the hell out of here, don't you agree?"

Mr. Handy became magisterial. "What is your regiment?"

"The Sixteenth New York."

"Good God! One that I helped organize! Young man, you're a disgrace to the cause! And so are all the rest of you!"

Dexter, fearing violence, called to the coachman to drive on. As they trotted ahead a loud burst of jeering came from the men, and Dexter had trouble restraining his father-in-law from standing up in the carriage to shout back at them.

"After all, sir, it's their right to leave."

"You talk about rights? In
these
times? There are no rights. We must have a draft! Of course, we must have a draft."

As they approached Centreville, the sound of gunfire was now constant, and Dexter climbed up to the driver's seat to help him to decide which of the hills looking down on the little stream of Bull Run would provide the best observation post.

"Look there, sir! It looks as if those people were coming over to us!"

And, indeed, across a field an open carriage was approaching them rapidly. Dexter had just made out a lady in white in the back holding tightly to a wide-brimmed hat when the man beside her half rose from his seat and hollered:

"Our boys are licked. It's going to be a stampede!"

But it was by no means clear from what direction the stampede would be coming. Every horse or vehicle in sight seemed to be headed in a different direction. Two army officers cantered towards them down the road, and Dexter cried out:

"Is the battle really lost?"

"Thanks to you blasted tourists!" one of them shouted back as they sped past.

Dexter was to recall afterwards what the next sight had reminded him of. As a boy he had once gone camping with his father in the Adirondacks, and they had stumbled upon and startled a huge herd of deer. Traversing a long valley of high grass between two hill ranges, they had happened upon a splendid grazing stag surrounded by his bodyguard of lesser males. The big buck had reared up his head and departed at a gallop, while his guard had scattered to give the alarm. Dexter had never forgotten his amazement at seeing the whole valley suddenly turn brown as hundreds of deer had leaped into sight and poured away from him in opposite directions in two tumultuous streams. So now did the few carriages and carts that had been visible seem suddenly to be converted into wild caravans as from every point, on the road and across the fields, hustling carriages and creaking carts and running figures appeared.

"Get going!" a gentleman on horseback shouted at them. "Johnny Reb is only a mile back!"

The driver did not wait to be told twice. Lashing his horses he turned the carriage around so abruptly that Mr. Handy roared at him to mind what he was doing. Dexter shouted questions to any who came near, but nobody heeded him. At the first turn on the way back they encountered soldiers, mud-covered, shuffling, running, in total disorder.

"Oh, look!" Joanna cried. "There are two who are hobbling. We must take them in! Driver! Stop!"

The driver did not do so until Mr. Handy had stuck his cane hard into the middle of his back.

"Did you hear my daughter, rascal? Pull up!"

Joanna was out of the carriage in a second, and she and Dexter helped two dazed youths in ragged blue into the back seat on either side of the compliant Mr. Handy. Joanna wanted to take more, but at this the driver protested vociferously that it would be too much for the horses, and Dexter persuaded her to give in. He resumed his former seat beside her, and the long ride back to the capital began.

Nothing on the road could move at more than a walk, and the slowest pedestrian could keep abreast of the horses. Dexter, after the first hour, considered getting out and walking to make room for another exhausted soldier, but he decided, on due consideration, that it was his duty to stay close to the old man and his daughter. The traffic ahead seemed more orderly now, as the carriages and vehicles that had led the retreat were those in better condition.

Silence had fallen over their little group. Mr. Handy stared disconsolately at the countryside, and Joanna watched the two soldiers, one of whom was asleep. The distant rattle of gunfire continued. From time to time an officer would gallop past them along the side of the road. People would shriek questions at him, but they could never hear the answer.

It was as if the bowels of the earth had moved to eject dust and darkness over the somber fields. All that had been green and fresh was brown and spent. The war seemed to have reached into the very afternoon sky to cover it with murky clouds. What was the chairman of the Union Defense Committee now but a poor old King Lear, stripped of his crown and knights, seeking with his poor fool of a son-in-law the warmth of some wretched hut against the horror of a pounding storm?

Oh, they had talked and talked, of freedom, of union, of sacraments, of duties, but what were those things when the real wind blew but the big floppy hats and parasols of the ladies of their excursion lost in the muds of Virginia? There had been tongues, silver tongues, in the North, in the South, the tongues of Mr. Handy, of Garrison, of Sumner, of Phillips, of Webster, of Calhoun, of Davis, but what were they all but the dangerous whistles that could only, in the end, shiver the giant ice bank and deluge the land in avalanche?

"Mr. Handy, is that you, sir?" A young cavalry officer had pulled up beside the carriage. "I'm adjutant to General Miles of the Seventh. He told me to keep an eye out for you. Are you all right?"

"I am fine!" Mr. Handy exclaimed sharply. "Kindly tell your general that he should not be wasting his concern on civilians. It's very kind and polite, I'm sure, but I'd rather have you after Beauregard!"

"We'll take care of him, sir. Never fear."

"The day is not lost, then?"

"The day may be lost, sir. But it's only a day."

"God bless you, my boy! Give 'em hell!"

The adjutant cantered off towards the sound of gunfire, and Mr. Handy waved after him.

"Your spirit is wonderful, sir," Dexter observed.

"I trust that you don't mean yours isn't?" Mr. Handy demanded, aggressive from his encounter with the adjutant.

"I confess I feel a bit down."

"It's only a battle, you know. It only means that the war will be longer. For we're going to win, my boy. By God, we are going to win!"

Dexter regarded his father-in-law with a faint surprise. Had
none
of the old spirit of compromise been revived by the day's events? Apparently not. Wotan with his spear had thrust Talleyrand to the side. Charles Handy would fight rebellion to the death.

It was after midnight when they recrossed the Long Bridge. Rosalie was waiting in the throng before the door of the Willard. She hurried to the carriage as soon as she spotted it, and she and Joanna, without a word, supported their father into the hotel.

Upstairs in Mr. Handy's suite, when he had been put to bed and Joanna had retired, Rosalie, pale and tired, joined her husband in the little parlor. She left the door of her father's room ajar.

"Well! You had a memorable day!"

"Don't mock me, Rosalie. It was hell."

"And what will happen now? Will Beauregard take the capital?"

"General Scott has two regiments. He should be able to hold the city."

"And if he can't? Could the South afford to capture him? Would even the rebels be stupid enough to deprive us of our beloved chief?"

"You seem to take it very lightly."

"How else do you expect me to take it?" she demanded in a sudden, startling burst of anger. "How do you think
you've
been taking it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Traipsing over the countryside with bottles of champagne! Making a
fête champêtre
out of a bloody war! It's like your attitude about the slaves. All fine gestures and phrases!"

"Don't kick a man when he's down, Rosalie."

"Down? You should see yourself!"

"I've changed. Today has changed me."

"And how many boys in blue had to bite the dust to accomplish that?"

"You're very cruel."

"Am I very unfair?"

"I guess not. But is it ever too late to change? Won't you help me to
stay
changed?" He could see now that she was really very tired, as much as he was, but he couldn't let her go to her room quite yet. "Oh, stay for two minutes! Maybe Beauregard
will
take the town, and then it will be too late. All I want to say is..."

There was a snort from the other room. "Ah, you've awakened him!" she whispered in distress.

"Is that you, Rosalie?" came her father's voice.

They both went in and stood at the end of his bed.

"Go to sleep, Daddy. Dexter thinks even General Scott can hold the city."

"Of course, he can. Don't be disrespectful! What happened today only means that the war's going to be a little longer." He stretched his arms, yawned and then closed his eyes serenely. "That's all, my children. A little longer."

R
OSALIE
could hardly bring herself to speak to Dexter on the train ride back to New York. The more she thought of his ridiculous expedition, with the champagne and turkey sandwiches, the more it seemed to her that he was making as much of a travesty out of war as he had out of peace. But the god of battles, she reflected grimly, whom he had invoked with such pompous solemnity before the outbreak of hostilities, had looked as foolish in Virginia as in Union Square. At least it might be possible now for him to learn to face a few facts.

She realized that she was not being fair in putting it all on him. Her father had been the true inspirer of that jaunt to Manassas. But her father was an old man, and Dexter should have talked him out of it. Charles Handy in his day, after all, had been a hardheaded and realistic man.
He
had not suffered all his life from the memory of a libidinous parent whom he had ended by imitating!

One resolution that she had firmly made by the time she set foot on the station pavement in New York, was that she was going to accept the offer of the Sanitary Commission to serve on board the hospital ship,
Franklin Pierce.
This vessel would travel between the port of New York and the Chesapeake Bay area to transport the wounded to Northern hospitals. Most of the ship's nurses would be males, but the great Doctor Gurdon Buck wanted six matrons, or nurses-at-large, as he called them, to supply a note of feminine attention and consolation on what would be for many poor wretches a long, painful and perhaps fatal voyage. Rosalie had mentioned the possibility of this job to her sons, who had thoroughly approved of it, and then to Dexter, who had simply declined to believe that she was serious, and she had temporarily dropped the idea. But now she had the ammunition she needed. Now she was steeled.