Caleb (29 page)

51

Caleb’s unexpected and speedy transition from shit shoveler to sergeant was not without complications. Although Lieutenant Padgett, commander of D Troop, had been informed about his new black sergeant in advance, he looked at him with a combination of alarm and doubt. Showing Caleb the small cadre room where he would sleep, Padgett said, “Noncommissioned officers meeting in the orderly room in thirty minutes. Don’t be late.” He hurried away.

Caleb was sitting on the metal springs of his new bed wondering what the hell to do next when he heard a loud rap on the door, and a man with a pale-white freckled face stuck his head in the room.

“Jardine?” said the man.

“Yes,” said Caleb, startled.

“Can I come in, then?” His voice had a foreign-sounding lilt to it.

“Yes,” said Caleb, and in walked a large man wearing sergeant’s stripes.

“I’m O’Neill,” he said, holding out his hand, “B Troop. Colonel Surridge said you might be sitting here wondering which end is up.”

“He was right,” said Caleb.

“O’Neill is here,” the stranger said, “to see that all becomes clear. As an Irishman and a Fenian to boot, I’m considered by many in this squadron the next thing to a black, so it is poetic justice that I should look after you.”

“What’s a Fenian?”

“Don’t start me on that,” O’Neill said, “or we’ll never get there and back.”

“Get where?”

“To the supply room, of course. The most important thing about this sergeant business is looking like one.” He took a step back and surveyed Caleb from top to toe. “That jacket will do—barely. But the rest of your gear, especially those clodhopping boots, will have to go. Let’s get moving. Wee Padgett gets very vexed if anyone is late for his meetings.”

Twenty-five minutes later, when Caleb and O’Neill walked into the orderly room, the lieutenant was looking at his pocket watch. Everyone else in the room was looking at Caleb with surprise. Snapping shut the cover on his watch, Padgett announced that the meeting had started. “As you can see, we have a new sergeant—Jardine,” he told the assembled NCOs. “He will handle the third squad, assisted by Corporal Whitmore. Now—”

Before Padgett could continue, Whitmore, a rangy dark-haired man with a hatchet face, stood up. “I’m no rebel, sir,” he said with a pronounced drawl, “but I did not come up here from western Virginia to work under no nigger.”

“Sit down, Corporal,” Padgett said coldly and stared at Whitmore until he obeyed. “Nobody is going to force you to work under Sergeant Jardine, Whitmore. But the word from Colonel Surridge is that anyone who cannot live with his staffing decisions can leave his stripes in my office after this meeting. Now, let’s continue.” He raked over the NCOs with his eyes. “We have only a few more weeks to turn this rabble into a fair approximation of mounted riflemen, and we will do it. As of now, all leaves and passes are canceled until we do. First Sergeant Dixon will distribute the schedule for the next three weeks, starting at 0600 hours tomorrow morning. Any questions?”

When none of the NCOs spoke, Padgett said, “Meeting dismissed.”

Dixon’s command of “Attention!” brought the sergeants and corporals to their feet, and Padgett left the room. All was silent, and Caleb and O’Neill waited until the rest had filed out of the office. No one looked at Caleb.

“Well, son,” said O’Neill after they had left, “you survived your first ordeal, but don’t worry, you have plenty to come.”

“Do you think Whitmore will quit?” Caleb asked.

“Not that boyo,” O’Neill said. “He loves those stripes too much. But you’ll doubtless have to fight him. Now, let’s have a quick drink.”

Over a small whiskey in his room, O’Neill did his best to fill Caleb in on some of the details about being an NCO that Caleb would ideally have had months, if not years, to learn.

“First thing you have to know,” O’Neill said, “is that a sergeant is someone who acts like a sergeant. It’s as simple as that. Second is that the corporals do all the work. That’s how they become sergeants. I know you can whip Whitmore, but you’ll be better off using him. He’s a good corporal, even if he is poor white trash from Virginia. He’s never owned slaves—couldn’t afford them—but that doesn’t mean he loves niggers. Does that word bother you?”

“Nope,” Caleb said. “I’m used to it.”

“Get used to it some more. You’re going to hear a lot of it. Now,” said O’Neill, draining his glass, “get over to your barracks, go over that training schedule with Whitmore, and kick some arses.”

“Whose?”

“It don’t matter. Just kick some.”

Back at his barracks, Caleb found Whitmore and told him to muster the troops. Whitmore looked at him hard, but five minutes later Caleb’s squad was assembled outside the barracks with Whitmore standing in front of them.

Caleb looked them over for a couple of minutes. They did the same to him. He wasn’t impressed. Though they seemed slightly more like soldiers than the recruits back at the armory, and they stood at a version of attention, they didn’t look a lot like cavalry. Caleb wasn’t pleased, and he thought that he’d better let them know it from the beginning.

“I am Sergeant Jardine,” he told them. “Corporal Whitmore and I are your noncommissioned officers. It is our job to make you into a fighting unit. This is going to involve a lot of hard work, starting right now. Are there any questions? Speak up if there are.”

A big private in the first rank raised his hand.

“Yes?” said Caleb, stepping in front of him.

“Were you a slave, Sergeant?”

“Yes I was, until last spring,” Caleb said. “Why do you ask?”

“I was born free, right here in New York,” the private said, “and I ain’t taking orders from a slave.”

Caleb didn’t speak, but his fist shot out and caught the man on the jaw. The private fell forward from the ranks like a sack of flour.

Ignoring him, Caleb asked, “Any more questions?”

No one else spoke from the ranks, but Whitmore said under his breath, “I’ve been wanting to do that since that boy arrived.”

“Detail a man to get a bucket of water, Corporal,” Caleb said. “In the meantime, I want to see how these troops drill. Carry on.”

That evening, when Caleb and O’Neill walked into the noncommissioned officers’ mess and sat down, about thirty sergeants and corporals got up, left their dinners, and stalked out. The two ordered and started eating as if nothing had happened.

“It’s started,” said Caleb.

“Yes,” O’Neill said, “but let’s see how long it lasts. What they don’t know is that Surridge has closed the NCO club and sealed the post. That means they won’t be able to buy any dinner tonight. We’ll see what a little hunger does for their tolerance.”

The next morning, only half a dozen NCOs walked out. “They’re learning,” said O’Neill. At dinner that night, Caleb was still eating alone with O’Neill and getting hostile looks, but nobody left the mess without eating.

“It’s working,” said O’Neill. “Are you the sociable type?”

“Not usually. Why?”

“Well, if I were you, I’d steer clear of the NCO bar until one of the white sergeants invites you. Those poor fellows need somewhere to talk about niggers with stripes.”

“That suits me,” said Caleb. “I’m going to be pretty busy for the next six weeks.”

At the next muster of his squad, Caleb looked over his men. “How’s your jaw, Carter?” he asked.

“Still a bit sore, Sergeant,” Carter said.

“Learn from it,” Caleb said. “Now listen, all of you. Corporal Whitmore and I are trying to do the impossible: turn you into some sort of cavalrymen in a very short time. But we are going to do our best, and
you
are going to do your best or perish. You were chosen for this unit because you can ride, and you will be the best riders in this squadron.” He drew his saber and brandished it overhead.

“You may not become as good with your saber as you should be, but—Corporal!” Whitmore threw him a carbine, and Caleb raised it high in his other hand. “You will become expert with this. It is a Sharps 1851 single-shot .52 caliber carbine. You will fire it from horseback at a gallop, and your accuracy will be outstanding. I can guarantee you that you will be the best mounted rifles the rebs have ever seen. They will not believe their eyes.”

He turned to Whitmore. “Dismiss the squad, Corporal. I want them back here with their carbines and their mounts fully saddled in fifteen minutes.”

After a meeting of his officers at the end of that week, Colonel Surridge asked Lieutenant Padgett how Sergeant Jardine was doing.

“Well, sir,” said Padgett, “Corporal Whitmore despises him and the men hate him.”

Surridge waited for the rest with a sick feeling in his stomach.

“But he’s a natural sergeant. In less than a week, Jardine’s got them working their butts off. They hate every minute of it, but he’s taken the worst squad in my troop, and damned if I don’t think he’s going to turn it into one of the best. That is, if one of them doesn’t shoot him first. Do you know he had them out riding an obstacle course in full field packs until eleven o’clock last night?”

“Lose any men or horses?” Surridge asked.

“Not that I know of,” said Padgett.

At the end of training, Colonel Surridge scheduled a parade and a war game on a big enclosed field just outside the camp. The parade was intended to show just how well his blacks had learned to handle their mounts.

The war game was something special, a long-standing tradition of the camp. At the center of the large close-cropped field was a flat-topped mound some thirty feet in diameter with sharply sloping sides that were eight feet high. At dead center of the mound was a tall wooden flagpole. Fixed to the top of the flagpole that morning would be the colors of a nearby white infantry training regiment. Surridge had invited the regiment to defend the mound from his men. After their display of equestrian skills, Surridge’s mounted rifles would have fifteen minutes to capture those colors or lose the game.

Along with Surridge and the colonel commanding the infantry battalion, a number of invited guests—including two brigadier generals and the divisional commander—stood on the reviewing stand, looking on doubtfully as Surridge’s squadrons formed on the field.

“You claim these troops can ride some, Surridge?” asked one of the brigadier generals, striking the leg of his high boot with a riding crop.

“We’ll see very soon, sir,” Surridge said ambiguously.

“Tell you what, Surridge,” suggested the infantry colonel, a West Point man, “to make this more interesting, I’ll bet you fifty dollars that your blacks don’t capture our colors.”

“I hate to sully military matters with filthy lucre, Colonel,” Surridge said, “but I’ll stake our colors against yours. Winner gets to keep the other’s colors until the next war game. What do you say? I’ve got a spot for yours all picked out in our mess hall.”

“Top that bet up with three barrels of beer,” said the infantry colonel, “and it’s a deal.”

“Done!” said Surridge, trying to look more confident than he felt.

A blare of bugles announced that Surridge’s squadron had formed on the field. His officers rode to the front of the reviewing stand to salute their colonel and the visitors.

“Carry on, Major,” Surridge said, and the officers, including Padgett, wheeled their mounts around and returned to their respective troops. The squadron band began to play “Garry Owen,” and Surridge’s squadron began a standard display of equestrian skills. In ranks around the edge of the field stood the white infantrymen waiting impatiently for their part in the day’s activities.

Carefully, and with only slightly ragged precision, the mounted blacks answered their sergeants’ commands. Forming first two columns, then four, then eight, the riders guided their mounts through a series of drills designed to show their ability to control the horses. Then a bugle sounded “Charge!” and the troopers, on a thirty-horse front, galloped across the parade ground, sabers glinting in the bright sunlight.

“I don’t believe it,” sang out a voice from the ranks of the visiting white battalion, “niggers on horseback.”

“Maybe they’re really minstrels,” called out another, but their sergeants quickly scowled them into silence.