The Bloody Ground

  "Yes," Starbuck said, wondering how the hell he would back out of this deception.

  "Yes, sir," Holborrow said, correcting him. "You forgetting I'm a Colonel, Potter?"

  "Yes, sir. I mean no, sir."

  Holborrow, still holding Sally's hand, shook his head at Starbuck's apparent confusion. "So how is your father?" he asked Starbuck.

  Starbuck shrugged. "I guess," he began, then shrugged again, suddenly bereft of imagination.

  "He's mending," Sally said. She was enjoying the playacting much more than Starbuck who, though he had started it, was now regretting the deception. "Thank the Lord," Sally said as she finally extricated her fingers from Holborrow's grasp, "but he is surely mending."

  "Praise the Lord," Holborrow said. "But you've been a burden to him, boy, a burden," he snarled at Starbuck, "and you'll forgive my bluntness, Mrs. Potter, but when a man's son is a burden it's right he should be told plain."

  "It sure is," Sally agreed firmly.

  "We was expecting you a week ago!" Holborrow snarled at Starbuck, then gave Sally a yellow-toothed smile. "Got a room all set up for you, ma'am. Bed, washstand, clothes press. The Reverend wanted you comfortable. Not to be pampered, he said, but comfortable."

  "You're too kind, sir," Sally said, "but I'm sleeping with my cousin Alice in the city."

  Holborrow looked disappointed, but Sally had spoken firmly and he did not contest the issue. "Your cousin's gain is our loss, ma'am," he said, "but you'll stay for a lemonade and maybe partake of a peach? I'm partial to a fine peach, as all Georgians ought to be."

  "Pleasure, sir."

  Holborrow glanced at Lucifer, who was carrying Starbuck's shabby bag. "Get to the kitchen, boy. Move your black ass! Go!" Holborrow turned to Starbuck again. "Hope you've got a decent uniform in that bag, boy, because the one you're wearing is a disgrace. A disgrace. And where the hell are your lieutenant's bars?" He gestured at Starbuck's shoulders. "You sell your bars for liquor, boy?"

  "Lost them," Starbuck said hopelessly.

  "You are a sad man, Potter, a sad man," Holborrow said, shaking his head. "When your father wrote and asked my help he had the grace to tell me as much. He said you were a sore disappointment, a reproach to the good name of Potter, so I can't say as how I wasn't warned about you, but get drunk with me, boy, and I'll kick your son of a bitch ass blue, forgive me, ma'am."

  "Forgiven, Colonel," Sally said.

  "Your father now," Holborrow continued to lecture Starbuck, "he never drinks. Every day we had an execution the Reverend would come to the penitentiary to pray with the bastards, forgive me, ma'am, but he never touched a drop of the ardent. Not a drop! Even after the bastards, forgive me, ma'am, were strung up and kicking away and the rest of us felt the need for a restorative libation, your father would stick to lemonade, but he often said that he feared you'd end up on that same scaffold, boy, with him saying a prayer on one side of you and me ready to push the stool out from under your feet on the other. So he's sent you here, Potter, to learn discipline!" This last word was shouted into Starbuck's face. "Now, ma'am," he turned his attention back to Sally, "give me your pretty little hand and we'll divide ourselves a peach, and after that, ma'am, if you'll permit me, I'll give you a ride back to the city in my carriage. It's not the best day for walking. A mite too hot and a pretty lady like you should be in a carriage, don't that sound good.7"

  "You're too kind, Colonel," Sally said. She had thrust her left hand, which was conspicuously lacking a wedding ring, into a fold of her shawl. "I ain't never ridden in a carriage," she added in a pitiful voice.

  "We must accustom you to luxury," Holborrow said lasciviously, "like a pretty little Georgia girl should be." He led her to the house and put his free arm around her waist at the bottom of the steps. "I've been riding in a carriage ever since a Yankee bullet took away the use of my right leg. I must tell you the tale. But for now, ma'am, allow me to assist you up the stairs. There's a loose board or two," Holborrow half lifted Sally up the verandah's stairs, "and you just sit yourself down, ma'am, next to Captain Dennison."

  The four officers, all captains, had stood to greet Sally. Captain Dennison proved to be a thin clean-shaven man whose face was horribly scarred by some skin disease that had caused his cheeks and forehead to be foul with livid sores. He pulled a wicker chair forward and brushed at its cushion with his hand. Holborrow gestured at Starbuck. "This here's Lieutenant Matthew Potter, so he ain't a rumor after all." The four captains laughed at Holborrow's witticism, while the Colonel ushered Sally forward with his right arm still firmly planted about her slender waist. "And this his wife. I'm sorry, my dear, but I don't have the advantage of your name." "Emily," Sally said.

  "And a prettier name I never did hear, upon my soul, but I never did. You sit down, ma'am. This here is Captain Dennison, Captain Cartwright, Captain Peel, and Captain Lippincott. You make yourself at home and I'll settle your husband. You don't mind if I put him to work straight off? He should have been at work a week ago."

  Holborrow limped ahead of Starbuck into a gloomy hall where a tangle of gray officers' coats hung on a bentwood stand. "Why a good woman like that would marry a no-good son of a bitch like you, Potter," the Colonel grumbled, "the good Lord only knows. Come in here, boy. If your wife ain't staying then you don't need a bedroom. You can put a cot in here and sleep by your work. This here was Major Maitland's office, but then the son of a bitch got himself promoted and given a real battalion, so now we're waiting for a Yankee son of a bitch called Starbuck. And when he gets here, Potter, I don't want him pestering me about unfinished paperwork. You understand me? So get those papers straight!"

  Starbuck said nothing, but just gazed at the pile of untidy papers. So Maitland had originally been assigned to the Yellowlegs? That was intriguing, but the bastard had evidently persuaded his lodge brothers to pull strings and so Maitland had been promoted and given command of the Legion and Starbuck had got the punishment battalion.

  "Are you dozing, boy?" Holborrow thrust his face into Starbuck's.

  "What am I to do, sir?" Starbuck asked plaintively.

  "Tidy it up. Just tidy it. You're supposed to be the adjutant of the Second Special Battalion, ain't you? Now get on with it, boy, while I entertain your wife." Holborrow stumped out of the room, banging the door shut behind him. Then the door suddenly opened again and the Colonel's narrow face peered round the edge. "I'll send you some lemonade, Potter, but no liquor, you hear me?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "No liquor for you, Potter, not while you're under my orders."

  The door slammed shut again, so hard that the whole house seemed to shudder, then Starbuck let out a long breath and sank into a leather-upholstered chair that stood at a desk littered with a mess of papers. What the hell, he wondered, had he got himself into? He was tempted to end the deception right now except that there was a possible profit in it. He was certain that if he announced himself as Major Starbuck then he would learn nothing, for Holborrow would take care to cover up any deficiencies in the training and equipment of the Special Battalion, while the despised Lieutenant Potter was clearly a man from whom nothing needed to be hidden. Besides, Starbuck thought, there was no elegant way out of the deception now. Better to play the tomfoolery through while he spied on Holborrow's work, then he would go back into the city and find Belvedere Delaney, who would make sure Starbuck had a fine time and a warm bed for the next few nights.

  He began to sift through the heaps of paper. There were receipts for food, receipts for ammunition, and urgent letters asking for the receipts to be signed and returned to the relevant departments. There were pay books, lists, amendments to lists, and prison rosters from all the military jails in Richmond. Not every man in the Special Battalion was from the Yellowlegs; at least a fifth had been drafted in from the prisons, thus leavening the cowards with crooks. Under the prison rosters Starbuck found a letter addressed to Major Edward Maitland from the Richmond State Armory acknowledging that the Special Battalion was to be
equipped with rifles and requesting that the twenty boxes of muskets be returned forthwith. There was a grudging tone to the letter, suggesting that Maitland had used his influence to have the despised muskets replaced with modern weapons and Starbuck, knowing he would have to fight the battle all over again, sighed. He put the letter aside to find, beneath it, yet another letter, this one addressed to Chas. Holborrow and signed by the Reverend Simeon Potter of Decatur, Georgia. Starbuck leaned back to read it.

  The Reverend Potter, it seemed, had the superintendence of the prison chaplaincies in the State of Georgia and had written to his old acquaintance—he seemed no more than an acquaintance and scarcely a friend—Charles Holborrow, to beg his help in the matter of his second son, Matthew. The letter, written in deliberate strokes in a dark black ink, irresistibly reminded Starbuck of his own father's handwriting. Matthew, the letter said, had been a sore trial to his dear mother, a disgrace to his family's name, and a shame to his Christian upbringing. Though educated at the finest academies in the south and enrolled in Savannah Medical School, Matthew Potter had insisted upon the paths of iniquity. "Ardent liquor has been his downfall," the Reverend Potter wrote, "and now we hear he has taken a wife, poor girl, and, furthermore, has been ejected from his regiment because of continual drunkenness. I had apprenticed him to a cousin of ours in Mississippi, hoping that hard work would prove his salvation, but instead of entering upon his duties he insisted upon engaging in Hardcastle's Battalion, but even as a soldier, it seems, he could not be trusted. It pains me to write thus, but in begging your help I owe you a duty of truthfulness, a duty thrice burdened by my faith in Christ Jesus, to Whom I daily pray for Matthew's repentance. I also recall a service I was once able to perform on your behalf, a service you will doubtless recollect clearly, and in recompense for that favor I would ask that you find employment for my son who is no longer welcome under my roof." Starbuck grinned. Lieutenant Matthew Potter, it was clear, was a ton of tribulation ancf Starbuck wondered what service the Reverend Simeon Potter had rendered to make it worth Holborrow's while to accept the Lieutenant. That favor had been subtly emphasized in the Reverend Potter's letter, suggesting that Holborrow's debt to the preacher was considerable. "I believe there to be good in Matthew," the letter finished, "and his commanding officer commended his behavior at Shiloh, but unless he can be weaned from liquor then I fear he is doomed to everlasting hellfire. My wife unites with me in sending our prayers for your kind aid in this sad business." A note, evidently in Holborrow's handwriting, had been penned at the bottom of the letter. "I'd be thankful if you could employ him." Maitland must have said yes, and Starbuck wondered how tangible Holborrow's thanks had been.

  The door opened and a rebellious Lucifer brought in a tall glass of lemonade. "I was told to bring this, Lieutenant Potter,' he said sourly, stressing the false name with a mocking pronunciation.

  "You don't like it here, Lucifer?" Starbuck asked.

  "He beats his people," Lucifer said, jerking his head toward the sound of Holborrow's voice. "You ain't think' ing of staying here, are your' he asked with alarm, seeing how comfortably Starbuck's boots rested on the edge of the Major's desk.

  "For a short while," Starbuck said. "I reckon I'll learn more as Lieutenant Potter than I ever could as Major Starbuck."

  "And what if the real Mister Potter comes?" Starbuck grinned. "Be one hell of a tangle, Lucifer." Lucifer sniffed. "He ain't beating me!" "I'll make sure he doesn't. And we won't be here long."

  "You're crazy," Lucifer said. "I should have kept going north. I'd rather be preached at in a contraband camp than be living in a place like this." Lucifer sniffed his disgust and went back to the kitchens, leaving Starbuck to hunt through the rest of the papers. None of the battalion lists tallied exactly, but there seemed to be around a hundred and eighty men in the battalion. There were four captains—Dennison, Cartwright, Peel, and Lippincott—and eight sergeants, one of whom was the belligerent Case, who had joined the battalion just a month before.

  Sally came to the office after a half hour. She closed the door behind her and laughed mischievously. "Hell, Nate, ain't this something?"

  Starbuck stood and gestured at the mess in the room. "I'm beginning to feel sorry for Lieutenant Potter, whoever the hell Lieutenant Potter is," he said.

  "You staying on here?" Sally asked.

  "Maybe one night."

  "In that case," Sally said, "I'm saying good-bye to my dearest husband and then the Major's going to take me in his coach back to the city and I just know he's going to ask me to take supper with him. I'll say I'm too tired. You sure you want to stay?"

  "I'd look an idiot telling him who I am now," Starbuck said. "Besides, there must be something to discover in all these papers."

  "You discover how the hog's making his money," Sally said. "That'd be real useful." She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. "Watch that Captain Dennison, Nate, he's a snake."

  "He's the one with the pretty face, right?"

  She grimaced. "I thought it had to be syphilis, but it ain't 'cos he ain't shaking or babbling like a loon. Must be nothing but a skin disease. I hope it hurts."

  Starbuck grinned. "Begged you for a kiss, did he?" he guessed.

  "I reckon he wants more than a kiss," she grimaced, then touched Starbuck's cheek. "Be good, Matthew Potter."

  "And you, Emily Potter."

  A few minutes later Starbuck heard the jingle of trace chains as the Major's carriage was brought to the front of the house. There was the sound of good-byes being said, then the carriage clattered away.

  And Starbuck suddenly felt lonely.

  A hundred miles north of Starbuck, in a valley where corn grew tall between stands of thick trees, a fugitive crouched in a thicket and listened for sounds of pursuit. The fugitive was a tall, fleshy young man who was now severely hungry. He had lost his horse at the battle fought near Manassas four days before and, with the beast, he had lost a saddlebag of food and so he had gone hungry these four days, all but for some hardtack he had taken from a rebel corpse on the battlefield. Now, a dozen miles north of the battlefield and with his belly aching with hunger, the fugitive reluctantly gnawed at a cob of unripe corn and knew his bowels would punish him for the diet. He was tired of the war. He wanted a decent hotel, a hot bath, a soft bed, a good meal, and a bad woman. He could afford all those things for around his belly was a money belt filled with gold, and all he wanted to do was to get the hell away from this terrible countryside that the victorious rebels were scouring in search of fugitives from the Northern army. The rest of the Northern army had retreated toward Washington and the young man wanted to join them, but somehow he had got all turned about during the day of pouring rain and he guessed he had walked five miles west that day instead of north and now he was trying to work his way back northward.

  He wore the blue coat of a Northern soldier, but he wore it unbuttoned and unbelted so that he could discard it at a moment's notice and pull on the gray coat that he had taken from the corpse that had yielded him the hard-tack. The dead man's coat was a mite small, but the fugitive knew he could talk his way out of trouble if any rebel patrol did find and question him. He would be in more trouble if Northern soldiers found him for, though he had fought for the Yankees, he spoke with the raw accent of the Deep South, but deep in his pants pocket he had his papers that identified him as Captain William Blythe, second in command of Galloway's Horse, a unit of Northern cavalry composed of renegade Southerners. Galloway's Horse were supposed to be scouts who could ride the Southern trails with the same assurance as Jeb Stuart's confident men, but the fool Galloway had taken them right into the battle near Manassas where they had been shot to hell by a Confederate regiment. Billy Blythe knew that Galloway was dead and Blythe reckoned Galloway deserved to be dead for having got mixed up in a full battle. He also guessed that most of Galloway's men were probably dead and he did not care. He just needed to get away to the North and find himself another comfortable billet where he could stay alive unti
l the war ended. On that day, Blythe reckoned, there would be rich pickings for Southerners who had stayed loyal to the Union and he did not intend to be denied those rewards.

  But neither did he intend to land up in a Confederate prison. If capture was unavoidable he planned to discard the blue coat, don the gray, then talk his way out of trouble. Then he would find another way back North. It just took guile, planning, a little intelligence, and a helping of luck, and that should be enough to avoid the numerous folks in the Southern states who wanted nothing more than to put a rope around Billy Blythe's fleshy neck. One such rope had damn nearly done for him before the war's beginning, and it was only by the most outrageous daring that Billy had escaped the girl's family and fled north. Hell, he thought, it wasn't that he was a bad fellow. Billy Blythe had never thought of himself as a bad fellow. A bit wild, maybe, and a fellow who liked a good time, but not bad. Just faster witted than most others, and there was nothing like quick wits to provoke envy.

  He scraped at the raw cob with his teeth and chewed on the tough corn. It tasted foul, and he could already feel a ferment in his belly, but he was half starving and needed strengthening if he was to keep going. Hell, he thought, but his life had gone all wrong these last few weeks! He should never have got mixed up with Major Galloway, nor with the Yankee army. He should be further north, in New York say. Somewhere the guns did not sound. Somewhere there was money to be made and girls to impress.

  A twig snapped in the woodland and Blythe went very still. At least he tried to go very still, but there was an uncontrollable shaking in his legs, his belly was rumbling from the fermenting corn, and he kept blinking as sweat trickled into the corners of his eyes. A voice sounded far away. Pray God the man was a Northerner, he thought, then wondered why the hell the Yankees were losing all the battles. Billy Blythe had wagered his whole future on a Northern victory, but every time the Federals met the men in gray they got beat. It just plain was not right! Now the Northerners had got whipped again and Billy Blythe was eating raw com and was dressed in clothes still damp from the rainstorm of two days before.