Bold Sons of Erin (15 page)

I tried to keep up with their handsome attack, despite my resolutions to mind my business, but the lads soon left me behind, a-sweat and limping, for my leg does not like slopes and the way was steep. Where others had faltered, the 96th went over the stone fence the Rebels had embraced, then stormed their way to the very top of the pass. I heard our 48th did equally well. And yet, good men were lost, Major Martin and young Lieutenant Dougherty, felled by Confederate ball. The action is forgotten now, but desperate enough it was that September day.

The cursed thing—begging your pardon—is that General McClellan could have smashed Lee’s army after that, had he
possessed the courage of even a dog. He should have bit at the Rebels’ heels, snapping behind them all the way, instead of letting them flee us unmolested. As Lee drew up his lines on the Sharpsburg heights, Little Mac dawdled and quoted de Saxe and Napoleon. And when he finally sent our boys in, the Confederates were coiled and waiting. First Little Mac sent in his right, and when it threatened to carry the day, he failed to support it, preferring a fresh attack headlong in the middle. That is where I saw the Irish Brigade, performing better than such a plan deserved. And dying for it. At last, as the brute day waned, he sent in his left, too late to decide the issue of the war, but still in time to shatter an enemy corps or two.

And Little Mac paused again. He claimed that he had carried the day, but barely carried a creek. I had not even seen such gore at Delhi. And all for naught. But McClellan praised himself to the very skies, asking the assembled lot of us had we ever seen a battle better executed. I said nothing, of course, for I am but a jumped-up clerk and need to mind my temper. But I will tell you: The execution was of those thousands of boys, in blue or butternut brown or ragged gray, the common soldiers of both sides, who deserved a proper answer of the war, not just another savage, blood-soaked maybe.

Mr. Lincoln understood his politics. He, too, claimed the battle was a victory, though he saw through it. McClellan had been given a second chance, had failed, and would have to go. But I must not get ahead of my own story. Suffice to say I was glad to leave the stink of death behind me, when Mr. Nicolay startled me with a counter-order to return to my own dear Pottsville. When I heard I was to go home and the reason for it, I am not sure I regretted General Stone’s murder. That is but a jest, I must point out. But happy enough I was to return to the arms of my dear, if newly querulous, wife.

And now I sat in a mining patch, afraid of my dreams and the darkness. The rain dwindled, then stopped. Long before the gray light come up, the colliery whistle blew to wake the miners. Tired I was, and lulled with bitter reveries. When the
whistle called again, bidding the miners leave their homes behind, the window had just begun to frame a grayness, and the furniture—sparse—in my room emerged again. Twas then I laid me down on the bed at last, just to rest my bones for a pair of moments, and fell asleep to the tramp of boots as the miners trudged down blackened lanes to bury themselves.

I THOUGHT THE POUNDING on the door was cannon. For I had fallen back into dreams of war. Then I heard the voice of Sergeant Dietrich, calling my name as if I was murdered twice.

He was in a proper Dutchman’s fit, the poor fellow. When they are riled, there is no talking to them. A Dutchman is a steady, reliable fellow, if lacking in zest and outward signs of joy, but when confronted with the unfamiliar, he goes to pieces like a frightened child. That is what would happen, half a year hence, at Chancellorsville, and that is how Sergeant Dietrich behaved that morning.

Hammering on the door with the butt of a Colt he was, wailing,
“Gott im Himmel, der Herr Major ist ermordet in seinem Schlaf!
He is killt all dead by the Irish!”

Twas all a nonsense. And more than a little ruckus ensued, I will tell you. There was howling throughout the house, with doors slamming and Irish voices raised in alarm and wonder. A woman keened as if the roof were burning and a deep voice swore, “Sure, and I ate the very same supper meself as the little bugger . . . we didn’t pizen him even a little, your honor.” You would have thought the whole world was at sixes and sevens.

When I shifted the dresser and let him into my room, the sergeant’s expression collapsed into disappointment at the sight of me safe and sound. Not that he meant me ill, see. But even Dutchmen like a bit of scandal.

The Irish publican who was master of the house was honestly relieved to see me. For no such fellow likes a corpse upstairs. And clear it was that Mr. Donnelly, the leader of the whole pack of Hibernians, had not decided I was worth the killing. At least not yet. I do not approve of alcohol and have
taken the Pledge myself, but I give you that a barkeep likes things quiet.

I had a sip of coffee for my troubles, though it was thin, and toasted bread from the stove-top, dripped with lard. My dinner and accommodations cost two dollars, which was dear, but I paid the fellow and tried not to be surly.

“Nun, ja, Herr Major,”
Sergeant Dietrich told me, “half the night we are driving in the wagon to come to you.
Sie haben so eine Angst in uns alle gejagt. Der Herr
Gowen is waking the provost marshal who is
tief, im Schlaf, und
then everyone is excited . . .”

Now why, I wondered, should young Mr. Gowen be worried about me? I will tell you what I thought that morning, and I was not far from the mark: I did not think he wanted more attention from Washington or even Harrisburg. Whatever pie he had put his fingers in, it had not been baked for the benefit of outsiders. He wanted quiet, as surely as did that publican.

“Ja, ja, und
the
Frau
Jones, she is so worrying in her
Nachtkleid,
I tell her
alles ist in Ordnung, ja, aber
she says to me that I must go now
und, Gott im Himmel,
she is like the wild animal with
Angst
for you, she believes she is the general who makes everyone listen to her . . .
aber
I am explaining—”

That is my darling Mary, see. A lioness protecting those she loves. I thought, though, I had heard something about a night-dress, which did not please me, for I am a friend to propriety. Queer it is, the way the Good Lord made us. My dearest had seen me off to war with the best heart she could muster, but now that I was come home, my absence for one night filled her with terror.

I hope she did not fear some misbehavior. I cannot control my dreams, but I am fully master of the rest of me.

The morning was gray, but thinly so, and a soldier learns to read the many weathers. I do not wager, but if I did, I would have bet the day would turn a fair one.

We made our way out through the muck to the wagon, where Mr. Downs was scouring his nose.

“There he is!” the teamster cried when he saw me. “Riz’ up like Jesus Christ awmighty Himself!”

I did not think that was an apt comparison.

Now, those who are unfamiliar with our ways in the realm of coal think only of the reek of winter chimneys or of the hiss of a sack emptied into a cellar bin. But the miner’s world is particular in its noises and its scents. Coal has an odd perfume, sharp, but not unpleasant, although the dust plays havoc with clothes on the line. A colliery grumbles steadily through the day, a great, insatiable, living, working thing, and there are hoots and whistles and constant shouts. You smell mules and men and earth. Metal clangs abruptly, wheels squeak along gangways, and the weigh-master’s chalk strikes a tally on his board. Taken together, you have the sound of our age, of modern times, relentless and productive. I believe it is the sound of America’s future.

That was the song we heard, played on iron, wood and rock, as Sergeant Dietrich mounted his horse and I climbed up on the wagon beside Mr. Downs, whose forefinger had wandered into his mouth.

“Nun,
we go back to Pottsville, I think,” the good sergeant declared.

“Not quite yet, Sergeant Dietrich. For I have calls to pay before we go.”

Twas not a popular idea. The teamster, the sergeant and the three weary guards all wished to leave Heckschersville and the Irish far behind them. But I held a rank that gave me license to command them, and I did.

First, I turned us up the hill past the graveyard, for I wished another interview with the priest. The coal dust thinned as we climbed away from the colliery and the day’s first shaft of sunlight struck a cross. Twas strange, when I thought of it, how the boneyard separated the houses in the valley from the church and priest above. The fellow lived like the missionaries in India, separate from the sheep he was called to tend—although I will tell you this: Our mission folk in India lived ten times better than that Catholic fellow, no matter the books and gewgaws in
his parlor. The Romans fill their churches with all the gaudy ornaments of popery, but ask a quiet hardship of their holy men. At least, it is that way among the poor parishes I know. I hear that their high churchmen live like princes.

My knock received no answer, so I took me around back of the shanty that served as a parish house. I found the priest in his garden, scrubbing his clothes in a tub in the morning chill.

Twas strange, that. These Catholic sorts are not allowed to marry, but they always seem to have an old woman by to clean and cook and see to their looking after. And I believe the parish ladies compete to do little things for a priest who is young and handsome. But this fellow stood so far apart from his flock that he washed his shirts himself.

He looked up from his labors at my approach. His first expression was one of surprise and not a pleasant one. But he straightened his back and ordered his features, shaking the wet from his hands.

“Oh,” he said. “You again.”

“Good morning, Father Wilde,” I told him. The sun was cracking through the haze, and the rain had left the whole world ripe and glistening.

He drew a canvas cover over the wash tub. “Well, what is it? I’m busy.” He gestured toward the tub.

“Yes. I see.”

“I’ve given Mrs. Brady leave of her work,” he said, which was more than I had asked. “A sick relative. In Tamaqua, as I recall.”

“Well, that is very good of you,” I said. Then I paused. To see what else he might feel compelled to tell me. I had my questions, but I have learned to wait.

In a moment, he said, “I hear you risked a night among us. Rather bold, I should say. And I believe you made the acquaintance of Mr. Kehoe and our Mr. Donnelly.”

“And of a Mr. Swankie Cooley, too. Please, Father Wilde. Go on with your work, if you will. I am content to talk with a man at his labors.”

“I don’t mind a rest,” he said, moving himself a step farther off from the tub. I don’t know Cooley. One of the Hibernians, I should suspect.”

“Yes, I believe that was his business. Something about the poor relief. Does this ‘Ancient Order of Hibernians’ work in harness with your church, then?”

“No.”

“I see.”

We both waited. And, again, twas the priest who broke the silence.

“The Church frowns upon the order, but does not forbid it.”

“I was told they hope to make good Americans of the Irish.”

The priest could not help but smile, although he soon enough turned his lips to a grimace. “Look, Major Jones. The Catholic Church has no use for secret societies. Not that the Hibernian Order
is
a secret society, precisely. But the danger is always there. The Church is organization enough for all Catholics. Oh, if the Hibernians content themselves with their pipes and beer and mourning for all they left behind in Ireland, that’s one thing. But oaths . . . any oaths or pledges taken outside of the Church are condemned by the Church.”

“And they take secret oaths?”

“Not to my knowledge. But the danger is always there.”

“It seems that a great deal of danger lies here and there.”

“Don’t be coy, Jones. I’ve told you the Church’s position. The Church stands for public order and social advancement through law-abiding behavior and honest work. The Church is ever willing to defend its flock, even in temporal matters, should that prove necessary. But I simply wanted to make it clear to you that the Church bears no taint of any such nonsense or tomfoolery.”

“Then you do not see eye to eye with Mr. Donnelly.”

“It isn’t the obligation of the Church to see ‘eye to eye’ with anyone.”

“But you yourself, Father Wilde? Do you and Mr. Donnelly get along, then?”

“Donnelly’s something of a village elder. And the miners’ spokesman with the coal company. I believe he has the best interests of his people at heart. Our personal relations are irrelevant.”

“You told him I had visited you yesterday.”

“I was asked.”

“But you did not tell him about Mrs. Boland. That I reported seeing her to you.”

“I didn’t think of it,” he said. He was a stoical fellow in many regards, but the morning chill was as hard as ice, despite the thickening sunlight. He turned, slightly, to reach for a black coat that hung over a sawhorse.

And I saw a stain on the back of his shirt. But a few inches long it was, below the shoulder.

“Father Wilde?” I said. “Your back is bleeding.”

He wheeled his body to face me, front to front, with a look I have seen on men in the middle of battle, when they are killing with relish.

“That’s absurd.” He drew on his coat, one sleeve then the other, and settled it over his shoulders and chest.

“Perhaps I was mistaken,” I said.

“I should rather think so.” He tried, unsuccessfully, to bring it off with a smile. “I’m afraid I’m not much of a success at laundering my own clothing. Perhaps I stained my shirt.”

“Most likely that,” I agreed. Then I took a turn at smiling. “Look you. I have been a soldier far too many years for sense,” I told him, “and not only in our Federal blue. I served in the ranks and learned to wash things proper.” I stepped toward his washtub. “Would you like me to show you how it’s done, then?”

He leapt forward to meet me. Blocking my approach to the covered tub. “I’m nearly finished. Really, there’s not so much to it, is there?”