Raintree County (104 page)

—Hey, Sam, I can smell that old coffeepot a-bilin' right now.

—Say, I'm a-goin' to eat me a whole chicken all to myself.

—Reckon we'll have to do any fightin' tomorra?

—Hell, no. This time Sherman's flanked 'em so wide, they ain't an army within a hundred miles.

—Yes, but I heerd they was fightin' up ahead today at a place called Sandersville or somethin' like that.

—Let the calvary handle that.

—Sure, let the damn horseboys do the fightin' fer a change.

Then it was very dark. Breaking out on both sides of the road far up ahead were the first fires of the bivouacking troops. The wagoners were calling back and forth.

—Hey, anybody heard a the Twenty-second Indiana?

—They done got drowned in a river a piece back.

—Get your goddam corpsecart out a the way, and let a man past that
knows
how tew drive.

—Son, I was drivin' an Army ambulance when your maw was removin' snot from your chin.

—Reckon ole Jeff Davis'd like to know where we are.

—They say ole Abe hisself don't know where we are. Folks at the North ain't heerd from us since we left Atlanta.

—Lost—an Army of sixty thousand men. Please return to the owner. Signed, Abe Lincoln.

With laughter and with cursing, the wagons crowded toward their camps. Johnny and his companions found the regiment at last, bivouacked in a trampled cornfield beside a forest.

—Hey, what you got there? the men said, crowding around the wagon.

—We have a little of everything, Johnny said, from fat shoats to a plump Rebel officer. This is Captain Jim Rutherford, boys, of the Georgia Cavalry.

—Pleased to meet yuh, the men said.

It was good to see the comrades again, their faces lit by the flickering glare of pineknot campfires. Fragrance of burning balsam wood perfumed the air. A score of skewered turkeys dripped on the fire. Corporal Johnny Shawnessy was ravenously hungry.

By nine o'clock they were sitting at the fire gorged on cooked flesh, leaning back on beds of straw, cornstalks, and branches, drinking the stolen wine and smoking pipes and cigars. The entertainment was varied but familiar, the only new feature being the presence of the Rebel captain, whom the men permitted to stay in the camp for the night on
parole d'honneur
and whom they plied with wine and questions in their eagerness to learn about the Enemy.

—When this war goin' to end, Reb? Reckon it can't go on much longer now.

—Why, sir, I look to see right smart of fightin' yet. General Lee ain't whupped by a long shot.

—Suppose ole Sherman takes him in the rear, then what'll he do?

—Why, then, I reckon someone'll just have to take ole Sherman in the rear.

They compared notes on army food, combat experiences, women. Everyone agreed that the Rebel captain was a capital fellow.

—Jim, Flash Perkins said, I'll tell yuh the truth. For two cents
I'd a blowed your head off this afternoon and never thought a thing of it. Now, I'm glad I didn't do it. If all the traitors was like you, damn me but I think I could git along with 'em O.K.

—They ain't any different from me, the Rebel captain said.

—I talked with a whole lot of Rebel prisoners in Atlanta, a soldier said. They wan't no different from us fellers. They don't like the War no more'n we do. They acted real human.

—Trouble you damyankees, the Rebel said, is you never knew anything about us. You had to start a damn war to come down and find out what nice folks we are.

—You believe all this truck in the papers, Reb, Flash said, about us rapin' your women and all?

—No, I don't. That there's civilian talk. I don't take no stock in anything I read in the newspapers.

—There, you see! a soldier said.

—Way I look at it, the Rebel said, all the soldiers in both armies oughta go back home after the War and whup hell out of the speculators and newspapermen, beggin' your pardon, Mr. Stiles.

—Don't mind me, boys, the Perfessor said.

He was propped up so that he could read his stolen books, a volume of Shakespeare's
Plays,
a translation of
Les Misérables,
and a copy of Scott's
Life of Napoleon.

—Willie, Walter, and Victor, he said to Johnny, are true classics. Your true classic confines himself to the classic view of life, which is that men are most alive when fighting and loving. The blood-thirstiest writing ever, is in Shakespeare's historical plays. They are singularly devoid of what we miscall humanity. The heroes kill, rape, murder, and loot equally with the villains. And the whole strong drench is washed down with magnificent verbal poetry alternating with rude Falstaffian comedy. When you write your American historical plays, John, keep in mind that the prime ingredients are blood, lust, and laughter.

Johnny lay and listened to the good soldier talk, which, to illustrate the Perfessor's remark, continued to revolve upon its two eternal subjects, the War and the Women. The Rebel captain contributed affably to the discussion. There was a heated argument about the respective beauty of the ladies North and South. Blondes, brunettes, and redheads were compared as to their intrinsic talents in the art of
love. Flash Perkins described in robust detail and with gestures his last contact with a woman. Notes were compared on the campfollowers of the armies North and South.

On all these subjects, the Rebel captain was well informed and entertainingly vivid.

The Perfessor now and then joined in the discussion and now and then read aloud a choice bit from
Henry IV.
Corporal Johnny Shawnessy was never so happy in the whole war as on that night.

Later on, the soldiers began to sing. As he lay listening to the simple soldier ballads, the songs of mother, home, the Union, and the girls they left behind, Johnny felt epic fulfillment. Encamping for a night on alien earth and far from home, he had become at last the Hero of Raintree County. There was no hero like the veteran soldier, the comrade of comrades. In after years, he would be able to say with pride, Yes, I was one of those soldiers. I made the Great March with Sherman to the Sea. I was part of that Army. I saw those places. I remember that earth.

Now for the first time he felt that the War was really coming to a close. Many comrades might be lost, but the end was in view.

—A few more days for to tote the weary load,

No matter, ‘twill never be light,

A few more days till we totter on the road,

Then my old Kentucky Home, good night.

Yes, a few more days, and good night to the Old Kentucky Home, the sentimental republic founded on a crime, good night to flags, bands, uniforms, good night to valors and enthusiasms. He and his comrades had conquered more than they supposed in this avenging sweep from Atlanta to the sea.

—Weep no more, my lady,

O, weep no more today!

We will sing one song for the old Kentucky Home,

For the old Kentucky Home, far away.

Later, the singing died, and the bugles sounded taps. Soon the large, low stars of the Southern night whited the upturned faces of fifty thousand young men, sleeping in bedrolls. Sleep touched with mystic wand the face of Private Flash Perkins, closed his savage eyes,
erased the ridges from his forehead, stole the insolent laughter from his mouth. Sleep put its soft enchantment on the face of Jerusalem Webster Stiles, correspondent for the New York
Dial,
and turned him into a sharpfaced child in a chinbeard. It touched the face of Corporal Johnny Shawnessy with the beginning of an affectionate smile and discovered, beneath the stage whiskers, Johnny Shawnessy of Raintree County. They slept, these children of far-off counties, in their costume of the Civil War, each one reprieved from time and soldiering, each one escaping into a private world of memory and desire. The Southern night silvered in deep sleep the ravagers of Georgia, Sherman's terrible men.

Where was the sleeping soul of John Wickliff Shawnessy? It was lost in a classic dream of love and war, whose ingredients were blood, lust, and laughter but transmuted from inhumanity by the humane poetry which was the idiom of Johnny Shawnessy's mind. The Southern earth had touched a young Northerner with a sword of silver light, and in his breast a not unamiable warrior leapt alive and was off to the wars in his own private historical drama. . . .

Sleeping, Corporal Johnny Shawnessy dreamed that he was standing in the wings of the Old Opera House while Professor Jerusalem Webster Stiles in the guise of a Chorus stalked out before the curtain and read from a scroll.

CHORUS

—Scene One. Off to the Wars!

The stage and orchestra of the Opera House were lit scarlet with an eruption of soft fire. Behind the scenes Johnny saw a young woman ascending a spiral stair, beckoning with lips and eyes. The dim loft of the theatre turned out to be the upper floor of a house on Pennsylvania Avenue.

NELL GAITHER

lying under a sheet in a huge fourposter bed, bare arm beckoning,

—I do hope Aunt isn't up.

NEWSBOY

popping head in at roomdoor, throwing newspaper,

—Extra! Read all about it! Young soldier off to the Wars. Most affecting were the farewells exchanged on this occasion.

COMMITTEE FROM THE LADIES' AID

fussy spinsters, sitting on bed, folding hands solicitously,

—Corporal Shawnessy, is there anything we can do to assist you in this trying hour?

DELEGATION FROM THE DANWEBSTER METHODIST CHURCH

blackfrocked elders, cleaning teeth with whittled sticks, taking armchairs in a halfcircle around bed,

—Brother Shawnessy, have you been baptized?

T. D. SHAWNESSY

rocking blandly back on his heels, hands behind back, surveying scene from a great height,

—I see, my boy, that you're just a good cleancut Shawnessy. I think this calls for a little prayer.

The old man held up his hand. As he did so, someone pulled him violently through the curtains with a loop of rope, and a cardboard train crossed the stage with a rhythmical, butting motion, forlornly wailing. The sound turned into the trumpet voice of the

CHORUS

—Scene Two. An incident in the French Camp. . . .

He was wandering through the backstreet of a shabby little Southern river town. On the highbreasted hills of Tennessee, he saw wan fires burning. Repeating an ancient act of soldierdom, he knocked at the door of a flimsy building shaken with rough merriment.

GIRL

opening and standing in the dim hall dressed in a costume sewn together from greenbacks and Confederate paper dollars,

—What can love's little counterfeit do for you, honey?

Following her into the brothel, he found himself standing on a platform draped with bunting and seating a collection of celebrities, including President Abraham Lincoln, General U. S. Grant, General William Tecumseh Sherman, members of the Cabinet, and foreign dignitaries. The crowd consisted of soldiers and campfollowers. He held a timesmoothed coin, a quarter-dollar having the head of George Washington on one side and an American eagle with spread wings on the other.

JOHNNY

reading from scroll and addressing girl,

—The President, the Supreme Court, the Senate, and the House of Representatives in joint session assembled have empowered me to present to you, my dear, this medallion, the Republic's highest award, given only to those who have fought with courage beyond the call of duty in this great war for the Preservation of the Republic and the Emancipation of the Race. For Valor.

GIRL

accepting coin with a curtsey, singing dolefully with pretty gestures,

—I'm little May of the Great White Way.

I'm only a twobit whore.

You can get the same from a sprightlier dame,

But it will cost you more.

JOHNNY

—Una cauda, legionem perturbavit.
'Tis an ancient and dishonorable profession, as old as——

CHORUS

—Scene Three. The Battle. Perhaps the greatest and most decisive conflict of all time, the Battle of the Shawmucky, as it is denominated in the history books, changed the fate of republics and caused thousands yet unborn to tremble on the shadowy shore of time. Yet it was precipitated by the most trifling circumstance in the world when a number of young men living in the vicinity of Danwebster went swimming one day and, leaving their vestments on the bank, crossed to the far side where as luck would have it . . .

Hundreds of naked women were hiding in the rushes at the rim of the river. Through the green mesh he could see their flametipped breasts, smoothmuscled thighs, and tufted love-mounds, their white teeth gleaming and their red lips.

YOUNG WOMEN

with cruel, lipcurling laughter,

—Jackj ackj ackj ackj ackie.

CENTURION JOHANNES FACTOTUM SHAWNESSY

armed in shield, short sword, helmet, and shinpieces,

—The Republic hath need of wombs to bear her lusty sons. What valiant arms are stiffened to the charge?

WILLIE SHAKESPEARE

springing up in Elizabethan breastplate and helmet, brandishing a spear, presenting shield with full heraldic elaboration—a falcon, his wings displayed argent, standing on a wreath of his colors, supporting a spear gold steeled, on a bed sable,

—Behold, Dan William of the doughty spear!

Full many a field hath felt his martial tread.

Queen Bess herself his crest did knightly rear—

A gold spear regnant on a royal bed!

JERUSALEM STILES

springing up, the young professor of the Academy, gesturing with classroom pointer, glasses swinging by a string, coat of arms chalked on a blackboard,

—Behold, Jay Stiles that hath the hissing tongue.