On that Monday morning, Angus and Searcy ate a breakfast of bacon and drank their coffee together. They held their meal in a little clump of woodsy boulders, away from the trestle tables, lent by the Corporation of Frederick, where most of the staff officers ate.
‘Anything happening?’ Searcy asked the boy. He always did. Angus was a source, as newspapermen said even then. Searcy yawned and cut at his bacon while he asked, but the yawn was a fake. He had noticed last night that the lamps had burned to a late hour in Lee’s tent, and Longstreet and Jackson had limped in and out and staff officers had wandered around, talking low, with maps and estimates in their hands. Lee’s lamps had still been alight at three a.m. when Searcy had fallen asleep. So, ‘Anything happening?’ Searcy asked.
Well, Angus had that vanity some people have, the vanity of being in the know. He said: ‘There’s some revision going on, Searcy ole boy.’
‘Revision?’
‘Ole Robert’ (Angus meant Lee) ‘ole Robert – he always thought that once we got into Maryland, the Yankee garrison at Harpers Ferry would clear out as a matter of course, a matter of course, Searcy ole boy.’
‘And …?’
‘Well, they’re still there.’
Good for them, thought Searcy. Can it be? A display of resolute behaviour from the side of right? A bit of blessed stubbornness? ‘Awkward for you chaps,’ he said lightly.
‘Well it seems the War Department in Washington might’ve ordered them to stick. But as you say, Searcy, damn awkward. There they are, stuck in the mouth of the Valley like a cork in a bottle …’
‘And of course, Lee … ole Robert … can’t get his supply line running up the Valley and into Maryland while ever they remain.’
‘Exactly,’ said Angus. ‘Exactly, Searcy.’
‘And would I be right to guess, old chap,’ Searcy asked, ‘that your chieftain is looking for someone to go and drive the cork out of the bottle?’
‘No fool you, Searcy ole boy.’
‘But that means dividing the army again, doesn’t it?’
‘Not such a terrible thing,’ said Angus, yawning. ‘General Lee knows he can depend on ole McClellan to be slow and wary as a Christian bride.’
‘Of course.’
That was the first item of value Searcy was given, the word that Lee meant to send part of his army away to the Ferry. The Lord Christ himself could not get away with dividing an army in the face of the enemy three times over. Lee had already tried his luck with that ploy twice. It excited Searcy that he might now try it a fatal third time. If he does that, thought Searcy, there is hope for Mrs Dora Whipple and one wandering soul called Searcy.
So he sat still and watched everything that was happening in Best’s Grove all day. He propped himself on a rock in the fine September sun and wrote in his notebook.
In the early afternoon he saw Longstreet make another hobbling visit to Lee’s tent. The Confederate generals didn’t snooze after lunch, no matter if they did have blisters and broken bones. Longstreet was in the tent for about two hours.
When he came out again, Angus visited the British journalist and had another long talk to him. The rumour was Lee had asked James Longstreet to go down and take Harpers Ferry. And Longstreet had said no, the men needed rest, and anyway he didn’t think it was militarily wise.
‘You can bet,’ Angus told Searcy, ‘Lee will ask Jackson to do the job. Jackson’s bruised leg is taking his weight now and he can ride. You can bet he’ll be asked to go, and go he will.’
But nothing happened overnight. Jackson, limping just a little, didn’t visit Robert E. Lee’s tent till early Tuesday morning. Searcy was up early like everyone else and again was eating breakfast with Angus. And there was Stonewall thumping along through the thin ground mist.
‘Stonewall was keen as mustard as soon as ole Robert mentioned it,’ Angus told Searcy later. ‘He’s a tiger, that Stonewall! One of the boys who was there told me he looked Lee fair in the eye and said to him, I’ve got friends in the Harpers Ferry area I’ve neglected too long. Meaning certain Union generals, you know. And ole Robert took up the joke and said, Sure, Tom, but there are some friends you’ve got there that won’t be so very pleased to see you. He’s got a fine turn with words, ole Robert. An orator and a writer, Searcy ole boy!’
Searcy just sat on in the sun again, sketching and writing. It was harder for him to keep himself calm than it had been yesterday. If there were going to be orders that would split the army in bits, he was sitting some fifty steps away from the spot where the disposition of those bits was being planned. He – of all the friends of the Union – had the honour and the burden of finding out what they would be. He knew he could be killed trying to do that. There was at least this. Little lovely Mrs Whipple would honour his martyrdom. But he didn’t really want to be a martyr.
Angus saw him taking a dose of brandy about three o’clock in the afternoon. He knew it wasn’t like Searcy to be drinking so early in the day – so early for a Britisher that is. ‘Feeling the strain, ole chap?’ Angus called in his friendly but fake British accent. Searcy surely was feeling it. He looked at Angus. He had this urge to take him aside and tell him to go home. The boy couldn’t have been more than eighteen years. I am planning the death of all you stand for, you poor child.
Searcy was tempted to tell him.
Then it was as if Angus handed him the whole future history of North America on a plate. ‘You need a ride, ole man, and it’s fine weather for it. Look here, I have to stand by to take orders to Daniel Hill’s division.’
‘Orders?’
‘Movement orders of course, my friend. You know what orders. Why don’t you come for a ride with me seeing you look so confounded peaked?’
Searcy looked at the boy really hard now. The way he talked was a sort of pitiful Virginia imitation of a horsy young member of the British gentry. It seemed unfair to plot against someone like that. Will I have to kill him? Or will he kill me? And can I fool him? And how can you fool staff couriers? They had to hand the orders to the general they were sent to or to the general’s adjutant. Then they had to bring back the empty envelope to General Lee as a sign they’d delivered the orders properly. If Angus didn’t come back with the envelope with Daniel Hill’s name on it or if it disappeared, the tough Confederate cavalry would be all over Frederick County searching for it, which was the same as saying they’d be searching for the Honourable Horace Searcy as well. He got cold in the legs when he thought what they might do to him in their crazy old-fashioned righteousness.
And then, as if the whole thing came to Searcy direct from the god of Reason and Freedom and Decency, it struck him how he might get away with it.
That Tuesday, early, Colonel Wheat was also planning a ride. He brushed down his coat and told Gus to fetch his horse from the place it was informally stabled, namely in the corner of the field. He saw how Usaph and Gus watched him, sort of begging with their eyes to be taken into Frederick, but he felt today like being alone. To have a good look at a town, a nice white town with its nice glass-fronted shops, could sometimes be a private need which must be privately satisfied. This is so especially if you had sat up half the night suffering from the sudden thought that, by hokey, it was very likely that Frederick could be the last town you’d ever encounter.
Colonel Wheat followed the same path Tom Jackson had on his way to church a few nights back. From the garden of one of the big white houses a blackbird sang to him. It was a fine morning.
The town was quiet, but he found Hemming’s Emporium open. There wasn’t in its windows much that an army could want: a few winter hats for women, some books – sermons and novels fresh from Boston, New York or London, China tea in small decorative tins, button-up shoes, patent lamps, china that was too delicate for camp use.
He went inside. Ah, it was nice, that clothy smell you get when there are rolls of fabric round about.
A man of about sixty in a shiny suit came up to him and offered to help. ‘I’m jest lookin
g with admiration at your stock, sir,’ said Wheat.
‘I’m afraid we’re rather low on stock at the moment, sir,’ said the man in an off-putting way.
‘My friend,’ Wheat told him warmly, ‘if you transported this here store to one of the major cities of the South, it would be considered a branch of the goddam Cornucopia.’
‘Please feel free,’ the old man muttered, as unwelcoming as he could make it. Flying a flag for ole Abe, thought Wheat.
Wheat looked around and, first off, saw a woman. A pale girl of maybe 28 years old, wearing a green dress and a shawl. She had green eyes and a tilted nose and rich lips and good lines, goddamit it, good lines! A middle-aged black woman was standing by her to carry her parcels. The shop clerk, herself a young woman, was displaying rolls of chintz to this lady, and the lady was reacting to it with these delicate movements of the lips and subtle creasings of the bridge of the nose, as if she was responding not to curtain material, but to a profound song or a metaphysical question.
Wheat told himself, I want to be with that girl sharper than I’ve wanted anything this past year.
He looked at goods and squinted in jars. ‘That’s ginseng root,’ the old man told him once. ‘From China.’
‘Why, thank you for your kindly information,’ Wheat told him.
Wheat found the book section by the door and pulled down a book, any book he could use as a cover to observe the woman from. Married, yes, you could tell that. Her husband would be some merchant or lawyer. A little skimped for money maybe, since the green dress wasn’t so new. But what a lucky son of a bitch he’d be at evening tide.
The Diary of an Austrian Secretary of Legation, Wheat read with half an eye on the title-page of the book and the other one and a half on the girl. At the Court of Moscow in the Reign of Peter the Great. Together with a Narration of the Dangerous Rebellion of the Strelitz, etc. Translated by Count McDonnell, London, Bradbury & Evans, 11 Bouverie Street, 1861. Goddam Bradbury & Evans and to hell with Austrian Secretaries of Legation! They had never seen this-here girl and so were beneath pity. But the transaction of that curtain cloth was taking her such a long time.
‘Do you have any cheroots, ole man?’ he called to the shop clerk.
‘No sir, we’re clean out,’ said the man, as if he was delighted to be out of stock. ‘We hope there’ll be some by train if the train is let through from Baltimore.’
‘Why I think it will be unless it’s got goddam Abe Lincoln aboard.’
‘I hope so,’ said the old man in a choked voice.
‘Mr Browning!’ said a voice behind him. It was a sort of rich county girl’s voice, more West Virginia than Baltimore. Wheat wasn’t going to begin to complain about that. ‘Give the poor man a cheroot. I’d want someone to give my Dudley a cheroot.’
The old man stared past Wheat at the girl who had finished with the cloth and had come up behind them.
Wheat watched the girl. Her green eyes were on him. Her eyes were so wide and piercing he wondered if she were short-sighted. She had that look astigmatic people often have of seeing through to the soul of things even when they’re day-dreaming.
The old man produced two cheroots from behind a counter and wrapped them neatly in paper. ‘You have to understand, sir,’ he announced, just a little more nicely than he’d been speaking up to now, ‘that we have to try to keep on to the last of our stock for our regular customers.’
‘With some luck and a little valour,’ said Wheat, bowing, ‘I might jest become a regular in Frederick.’
The lady gave a little mocking laugh. As the old man handed Wheat the little parcel she said: ‘I hope you’ll consider this a gift from the small body of Union sympathisers in Frederick.’
It was said so neat and friendly that he bowed again. She left the shop with her black lady. Like a true Republican, she carried one of her parcels, while her slave or servant carried the others.
Wheat followed her out into the street. She made for an old surrey that was some twenty paces down the street. Though it wasn’t the most fashionable carriage you could have seen, it was good enough to have attracted a couple of Georgian privates, who were kind of sniffing around it. They sidled off when they saw Wheat.
‘Ma’am,’ he called. She turned. Oh God! His hands sweated like a goddam ploughboy’s. ‘I feel that to a lady who offered me such kindness I should make some return. I am willing to escort you to your home. I am a colonel, ma’am, by name Lafcadio Wheat, and I can offer you protection from that set of unruly fellers you’ll run up against even in an army of gentlemen, ma’am.’
The woman shook her head. ‘I came to town this morning, sir, through myriads of your young men and wasn’t once troubled,’ she said. Wheat thought the combination of an educated word like myriads with her country intonation made a dazzling mixture. He itched to touch her hair right there, while standing on the pavement.
‘You didn’t likely meet any of those Louisiana Cajuns, ma’am, or those hoodlums from the Brazos who go by the name of Texicans …’ To stay close to her for a while he was willing to bad-mouth the entire population of the Confederacy. ‘Please, I have to insist on it. I shall be your guardian as you journey home.’
She argued, she shook her head and he shook his. ‘I’m a colonel, ma’am. You can’t argue with colonels.’
‘Very well,’ she said. She wasn’t very friendly about it any more. She drove away, handling the reins herself, her house nigger by her side, and Wheat making his horse step dainty, keeping close to her right wheel and enjoying a view of the right quarter of her face and body. A woman on a porch at the north end of Main called out: ‘Making friends of the Army of the South, are we, Mrs Creel?’ And there was laughter from another female voice on that same porch. The girl did not answer, and they were just about clear of the town before she spoke to Wheat.
‘You don’t know the humiliation you put me to, sir. My husband is absent, serving as a captain in the Delaware Infantry.’
‘The army of the Union, ma’am?’
‘Yes. I am by no means very popular in the town of Frederick.’
Wheat leaned right forward as far as he could over his horse’s ears. ‘Ma’am, you are powerful popular with me,’ he whispered so that even her black woman – perhaps – couldn’t hear.
‘Sir, do you think that’s a proper remark,’ the girl said low and angry, and stared up the country road northwards.
‘Forgive me, ma’am. I am the one regimental colonel left in my brigade and that fact maybe makes me a little forward. I believe I was kept safe by a merciful Deity jest so that I could set eyes on you today. I know I would not be forgiven if I jest set eyes and said, thank you, Lord! And then went my way.’
The girl saw that he said this without a smile and was serious about the duty he had, which was to stick by the wheel of her surrey. That scared her a little but it excited her too, and Wheat himself could see as much. ‘Are you adding blasphemy to your rudeness?’ she asked, but she didn’t sound as firm and sure as she would have wanted to.
‘If I am, missy,’ he said, ‘then the Lord take in His hand us two poor pilgrims.’
She began to shake her head and bunch her lips. She looked out at the encampment of the enemy, the poor skinny enemy cracking lice in the fields and boiling up their cornmush amongst the little naked tepees of stacked rifles. ‘What do you want me to tell you?’ she asked him.
‘I won’t go away,’ he whispered, ‘until you let me rest my poor head on your heart.’
‘Goddam you, sir!’ she said, very roughly, enough to scare Wheat. But then she laughed and it wasn’t a welcoming laugh. ‘You’ll go away because I tell you so,’ she said.
‘What does the man in the Bible say, ma’am? I am a centurion, accustomed to being obeyed? You’ll have to find a general if you want a whisker of a chance of orderin’ me away.’
They turned off the main Emmitsburg Road and passed through apple trees on which the summer’s last apples hung heavy. Then they came to a white f
rame house, something that wasn’t quite farmhouse but was surely not a residence of the gentry. The girl’s old horse pulled the surrey in through the gate and the girl called over her shoulder: ‘I thank you for your escort. I take it you don’t intend to force your way into my house?’
‘I was hoping for an invitation, missy.’
‘You can go whistle for an invitation.’
‘I won’t go away,’ he told her levelly, ‘without one.’
A young black boy of maybe fourteen years took the horse out of its traces for her. She went right indoors without looking at Wheat. The colonel sat his horse for a while by the gate, but by noon it was so warm that he moved beneath a sycamore by the side of the road, and he got down and sat against the trunk. He wished now he had a book, that book about the Austrian legation, any book. I’m being a goddam fool, but I’m proud of it, he told himself.
He fell asleep for a while about one, and then towards two a few Arkansas boys came along, and he gave them a dollar to take a letter to Captain Hanks. ‘Dear Hanks, can be found if needed at the Creel house …’ For he owed a knowledge of her name to the old man in the store, and to the insult that woman had shouted from her porch. ‘… a mile north of town and half a mile or so to the left past apple orchards. Slightly indisposed. But can be fetched from her if needed. Lafcadio G. Wheat, Lieutenant-Colonel, C.S.A.’
Sometime past three, the middle-aged black woman appeared at the fence with a jug of lemonade. ‘Did your mistress send you with this, dearie?’ Wheat asked. ‘Nassah, Mrs Creel would noways like to see me doing this. But I knows what it is to be dry.’ About five the black boy who worked there turned out the gate and headed home. The shadow of the sycamore reached way east then and Wheat felt lost in it and, from a window of the house, looked young and pious. Then the black lady turned up again.
‘Miz Creel tells me you should come in and take sherry with her, sah.’