Chamberlain saw now the young man sitting up in front, watching them holding the reins, and he looked at the smiling face, thought, Yes, it's... He tried to clear his head, staggered through names, said, "Yes, Mister... Silas. The rhetoric class."
The boy was beaming now, flattered at the recognition.
"Yes, Sir, Colonel Chamberlain. Welcome home."
Chamberlain remembered he was in uniform, had forgotten all about that, how the people here saw him, what it was like for him to come back home from such a different place. And he knew now what they all knew. He was not a professor anymore.
Chamberlain looked at Fannie now, who was watching him, questioning him silently with hard concern.
"We should get you home. Mr. Silas asked if he could drive me to the station. Many of your... the students have been calling on me every day. The word did get out, I'm afraid... that you were coming home."
He glanced out toward the small crowd, saw the people staring at him with a look of sorrow, dread. She waved a hand and said, "Thank you, he's all right. We're taking him home now."
Chamberlain looked at the faces, the sadness, did not understand. He saw a man, familiar, and the man removed his hat, gave a small bow, said, "God bless you, Colonel. We pray for you, Sir."
Chamberlain looked at the man, the others, suddenly wondered if they expected a speech. He said, "Thank you. I'm only here for a while... please, do not be concerned for me." He looked up at the boy, who was staring at him intently, and he suddenly felt confused, embarrassed.
Fannie said, "Mr. Silas, we should proceed." The boy slapped at the horse, and the carriage rolled into the wide street, the boy holding the horse to a slow walk. People were still gathering, pointing, but Chamberlain began to sag again, leaned weakly against Fannie, closed his eyes, heard his name in small faint voices. He was suddenly very sleepy, and the gentle lurch of the carriage rocked him against her side, his head resting against her shoulder. ]Fannie put her hand softly against his face and felt the hot sweat of the fever.
The malaria had been coming on slowly, during the weariness of the long marches, the summer heat beating him down. What the marches had not taken from him, the battlefield had-the small wound in his foot, the shock of the fight on Little Round Top. But it was afterward, the slow and miserable march, the sluggish pursuit of Lee's army, the mud and the wet chills, that had weakened him, left him prone to the sickness. And since there had been no fight, with Lee escaping across the Potomac, he'd been granted leave, two short weeks, much of it in a long train ride home to Maine.
E HEARD A CHILD'S VOICE, AND THEN FANNIE, A STERN whisper, and he looked toward the door. He saw her gently guiding the small boy out of the room, but the child saw Chamberlain looking at him over the thick bed covering, called out, "Daddy!" spun free of Fannie's grasp, ran to the bed and jumped up.
Chamberlain wanted to reach out, catch him, but the weight of the covers and his own weakness would not let him move. He did not fight it, smiled weakly, said, "Good morning, Wyllys. Are you helping your mother this morning?"
With a small groan, Fannie lifted the boy, and Chamberlain saw now how much bigger he was, tried to remember, fought through the fog in his mind, thought, He is four The boy protested, but Fannie carried him out of the room, and Chamberlain heard her in the hallway, scolding him.
Now she was back, moving quietly to the bed.
"I'm sorry. I've tried to keep them quiet. Daisy was in here earlier. She just wanted to look at you, but Wyllys... he doesn't understand why you're not up playing with him."
"Neither do L" Chamberlain tried to sit, to slide up from under the blanket, but there was no strength, no energy. He closed his eyes, frowned, then looked up at her.
"This is ridiculous. I'm supposed to be a soldier, a man of action." He tried to laugh, watched her eyes, and she smiled, could not help it.
She sat on the bed, put a hand on his forehead.
"Well, my soldier, you still have some fever. So, you will not be seeing much action of any kind for a while."
He reached up for her hand, held it for a brief moment. She stood, and he tried to hold on to her, to keep her from leaving, but she was away now, at the door.
"I'll bring you something cool to drink. And, you should eat something. I have some breakfast."
She was gone, and now he let himself relax, felt the weight of the blanket again. He stared up at the ceiling, then over toward the window, but there was no sunlight, the curtain was down. He flexed his foot, felt the small stab of pain, but knew it was improving. He'd been walking with less of a limp before he stopped walking at all.
He had always been a miserable patient, had no tolerance for being ill, fought it angrily, thought of the disease, went through this every time he was sick: What right do you have to invade me? It was a rhetorical question, it never seemed to make the sickness go away. He never did understand why he got sick in the first place. Punishment? Was this the hand of God, slowing you down from your own work, telling you, "Stop, you're not doing it right"? But what if your work was good, of benefit to others? Even doctors got sick. He thought of the bizarre illogic of that. How can You punish a doctor when he is helping cure the illnesses of others?
He thought of his mother: This was a question for her. He smiled, pictured the stern devout face, the faith of the pious optimist. She would say the malaria is a sign from God, a message: give up this foolishness, this soldiering, and come home and accept the life she had always insisted was his destiny; take up the cloth, preach the word of God. And here he was, at home. Maybe she was right. He felt the impatience again. Maybe this was her doing, maybe she had talked God into giving him this disease. But I won't take this lying down, Chamberlain thought. It won't work. Now he relaxed again, felt guilty. No, his mother just wanted what was best. That's what mothers did. She had never seen him as anything but her gift from God, and the gift had to be repaid. But there were other ways. God did not need everyone to be a preacher.
He smelled food, was suddenly very hungry. Yes, I am better, he thought. I will fight this thing. He suddenly felt Shakespearean. Plague, be gone! Out, damned spot! He tried to focus, sort out the smells, an exercise. What food is that? Bread, yes, and something burnt; when Fannie cooks, there is always something burnt. He wanted to get up, push away the covers, but his body did not respond, and he suddenly felt depressed, his mind slowed, quieted. I cannot stay here, he thought. And he knew he would not stay here, that this was only a short break, the inconvenience of illness, that when his strength came back, the uniform would be there.
He closed his eyes. I should rest, sleep, he thought. But there was no sleep, because now he began to think of his men. He thought of the mud, the deep mire of the roads. Still, they had moved eagerly through the rains, always believing they would catch Lee's army, that there would be another fight, possibly the last fight. Each man had moved as quickly as the man in front of him would allow, and they did not take the time to see the numbers, what was left of the regiment, how many were no longer there. There were no official reports yet, the men did not know how badly their army had been bled. They only saw the men beside them and the man who led them. They looked at him differently now; every one of them carried the memory of the colonel who had stood out in front of them on that bloody rocky hill, and they all had written of it, letters home, had remembered that place, Little Round Top. They would never forget that he'd ordered them to do the unbelievable, the wild bayonet charge through those men from Alabama, the shock so complete that the rebels had simply stopped fighting. Those who could not run had given up, had nothing left inside to resist the small wave of screaming blue troops that suddenly rolled down into their lines.
For a moment he was there again, running wildly through the rocks and trees. His heart was racing, and seeing the raw shock in the faces of the enemy, he opened his eyes, stared up at the ceiling of his room, clenched his fists under the covers of the bed.
To do it again... another fight. He thought, H
ow can there be another fight like that? Was it not enough? It should have been, we should have hit them again, and on the march, finally, there had been hope, maybe Lee would just... surrender? Surely, with his back to the river... but then it became familiar, and the veterans understood, had been through this before. There would be no attack, they had waited too long, and Lee had prepared, was ready for it. And so they were brought to a halt from behind, from their own commanders, the men under the great tents who alone knew how badly hurt this army had been.
They had seen bits of Lee's lines, small skirmishes, often at night, firing only at brief flashes of musket fire, firing back at the brief glimpses of them. Chamberlain stayed close to his men, and they spoke of it, that even if the fight was not to happen then, they realized what Gettysburg had meant, that Lee's invasion was stopped, that the Army of the Potomac had finally put the right people in the right place. The hard power of the good guns and the good soldiers had been put to the test, and they had prevailed. It was the test they'd always wanted, especially the veterans, the men who had been there from the beginning, from the early disasters at Bull Run, at Fredericksburg, men who carried the fight as well as any soldier could.