The Bride of Texas (26 page)

“I think.…” The sergeant tried to recall if any of the camp women went by that name, maybe even a Czech, but he couldn’t. “I think I don’t, sir.”

“But of course you do know there are women like that in camp.”

“Of course,” the sergeant admitted, “Easy Lizzie, Bubbly Babsy, Hot Bottom Lynn.…”

“I’m not looking for a list,” the general interrupted. “I just need to know if there’s such a person as Busty Betsy.”

“I can’t help you with that one, sir. But I will check.”

The general exhaled and went back to the letter. They could hear the tinkle of tin cups as a platoon marched by. “Soldiers will always surprise you,” the general said. “Let me read you something.” He laid aside the letter from the parish. Beneath it lay another letter, on pink paper, with a picture of Cupid holding a bow and arrow — part of a folder that Corporal Gambetta sold to soldiers who wanted to write love letters. Cupid’s arrow, made of yellow metal, could be removed from his bow and stuck into the heart embossed on the other half of the folder. The recipient was supposed to write an answer on this half, tear it off, and return it to the archer. The general read: “ ‘Each evening, dear brother, I whisper to my sweetheart — a kind and lovely nurse who ministers to the ill and the afflicted in the regimental dispensary: Behold thou art fair’ ” — the general looked briefly at the sergeant — “ ‘Busty Betsy, ah, how fair — ’ ” As the general read on, the intriguing nickname popped up again and again, while the sergeant wondered furiously who it could be. “ ‘Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, Busty Betsy, which feed among the lilies’— well,” said the general, putting the letter down, “I don’t have to continue, do I? I assume you recognize the passage. You’re a Christian, are you not?”

The sergeant shook his head, wondering what the consequences of admitting the truth would be. “I used to be a Catholic. Now I call myself a free-thinker. I’m a theist, sir.”

“Have you been to college?”

“No, but I’ve read a lot. And I know the passage.”

“Even if you’re not a Christian, will you agree with me that there’s a fine bit of blasphemy here, when you consider that this is a Christian army, in name at least? And when you consider what it
is we’re fighting for? It’s one thing to get mixed up with a Busty Betsy, and even to blow off a little about it to your comrades, but it’s quite another thing to write such improprieties in a letter to your brother” — he perused the covering letter from the parish office, and the sergeant could feel an impending calamity — “especially,” the general went on, having found what he was looking for, “when the brother is only eight years old.”

He put the letter down and looked the sergeant in the eye. “I can’t just ignore this,” he said ominously. “The child couldn’t make head or tail of the letter, so he showed it to an older sister. She translated it for the parents and they took it to their priest and asked him to give the writer a good talking-to. The priest, in turn, has asked me to do it for him. Shall I read you what he wrote?”

“You don’t have to,” replied the sergeant hoarsely
.

“Do you know a private in the Twenty-sixth Wisconsin by the name of” — the general peered at the priest’s letter, and then spelled out, “V-o-j-t-e-c-h How-ska? He’s a fellow countryman of yours in K Company.”

“It wasn’t him!” blurted the sergeant. He stopped himself, but under the general’s glare his principles dissolved and he gave voice to his suspicions
.

In fifteen minutes, Shake, the pale practical joker, stood in front of the general, swearing up and down that he hadn’t known how young Vojta’s brother was. The general didn’t believe him and, although he was normally quite succinct, this time he delivered a lengthy lecture on the corrupting of innocents. An hour later, Shake was marching around the camp wearing a barrel around his waist with a sign that said, “I AM A LIAR.”

He had admitted to the general that he had invented Busty Betsy
.

The general didn’t bother to summon Houska, and the sergeant was relieved. Perhaps Vojta would remain happily ignorant of
what had happened. But then — letters! The garrulous parents would send letters. Sharing it with the priest wouldn’t be enough. True, they didn’t know how to write, but what are sons for?

As long as his sweetheart didn’t write! But surely the parents wouldn’t have told her
.

A few days later, he ran into Houska sitting in front of his tent with a letter in his hand, scowling and shaking his head
.

“What’s the news from home, Vojta?”

“I can’t figure it out,” said the private from Wisconsin. “Ma’s preaching to me like a priest. She says I should stay away from easy women and wash in cold water. And not put pepper or spices on my meat —” Houska raised his sad eyes from the page. “As if we had spices in the army!”

“Does your ma mention any easy woman in particular?”

“No,” said Houska. “I’d give a lot to know what’s eating her. After all, I’m engaged.”

You’re in dreamland again, the sergeant thought, but out loud he said, “You know mothers, they worry.”

So much for the home front. Now the sweetheart
.

A week later more mail arrived. Houska was again sitting in front of the tent with a letter, this time looking like a farmer whose barn had just burned down
.

“Something wrong, Vojta?”

“Read it,” said Houska gloomily
.

It contained a single sentence, written in the copperplate calligraphy of someone who had gone to a one-room school but no further: “Vojta I had no idea you are such a swine goodbye for ever I am marrying fredy houzvicka from cedar rapits your not for never more Rosie.”

“I can’t understand —” Houska sat there like an undertaker. “Sarge, did I get drunk and do something I don’t remember? But how could anyone not remember something like that?” He thought a moment, then added angrily, “And what bastard would have written her about it if I did?”

For the next two months — except for two weeks when they were skirmishing with the Rebels and the mail wasn’t getting through — Houska ignored his family and concentrated on winning Rosie back
.

When the sergeant read Rosie’s letter, he went looking for Shake, who had served only half his barrel penalty. Shake sat down and meekly wrote a long letter. But right after that the Rebels struck, the mail was blocked, they fought, they bled, and it was two months before letters started arriving again
.

Houska sat in front of his tent, crushed. “So much for my bride,” he told the sergeant, showing him the letter
.

It said: “dear Vojta forgive me I was wrong but its two late now I got married last week to fredy from rapits with a baby coming for chrismas dont send me any more leters as I am a married woman now your forever Rosie.”

That was the end of September. The sergeant wondered if the lad from Bee Grove ever realized the implications of what Rosie had written him. If he did, he never let on
.

“I couldn’t help myself, sarge, I got so mad,” said the tattered soldier. He had regained consciousness and was sitting up on the divan, while Madam Sosniowski wound a strip of white linen around his head. He was barefoot except for a dirty rag wrapped around the big toe of his right foot. “When I see paintings of those stuck-up Rebel mugs, I go crazy! I’ve sliced up at least fifty of them since Kennesaw Mountain. You would too, sarge. They killed my kid brother at Kennesaw.”

As hardened as he had become, the sergeant felt some sympathy for the man. He saw the bandaged toe on the bare foot. Harshly he said, “This time you were wrong. This is no Rebel officer.”

“Come on, sarge, I know their faces and their feathers. And that sabre —”

“This man fought in another war,” said the sergeant. Madam Sosniowski had finished binding his head, and pinned the bandage down. The soldier carefully turned his head to look at the portrait.

“The Mexican War?”

“No,” said the sergeant.

The soldier examined the portrait. “They never wore uniforms like that in the Revolution.”

“That is my late husband,” said Madam Sosniowski, her Polish accent heavy. The soldier scowled. “He fought in Poland.” He didn’t seem to understand. “In Europe,” she said, “against the Russian tsar.”

Perhaps that word, anathema to America, meant something to the soldier. He rose heavily from the divan and growled, “I’m sorry, ma’am.” He looked around, noticed the spilled spoons, bent down and started to put them back into the case. “If only your daughter had said something —” He got up, handed Madam Sosniowski the case, and turned uncertainly back to the sergeant. “Sarge —”

“Go sleep it off,” said the sergeant. “Tomorrow we’re on our way to North Carolina.”

“Thanks, sarge!” The soldier turned and stumbled towards the door.

“Private,” said Madam Sosniowski softly. The soldier stopped and turned back to her with obvious effort. Madam Sosniowski picked up the doll and, without a word, handed it to Sherman’s shabby soldier.

“But ma’am, I couldn’t —”

“Take it,” she said, “as a souvenir.”

Once again the sergeant had the impression — with the
horse, the bloodied eagle, the horse dung on the green carpet — that this was somebody’s crazy dream.

In this war anything was possible.

The tattered soldier might not understand these images. The sergeant did.

“Quit staring at me like a heifer at a new gate, and light yourself a cheroot!” The lieutenant — if that was what he was — handed him a cigar with a gold band. Kapsa let him light it for him, although the man with the sharp nose reminded him more than ever of the man he had killed in the house on Gottestischlein. “You’re in it up to here, just like me, isn’t that so?”

“I don’t know what you’re in,” Kapsa said, looking at his tweed jacket rather than into his eyes. “All I know is where you’re not from. You’re not a smallholder,” he said. “I know that.”

The lieutenant chuckled. “You guessed correctly. I grew up on an estate.”

He was a lieutenant then, for certain
.

“A butler’s son,” he added, and, noticing renewed suspicion in Kapsa’s eyes, he continued, “Look here, you’re telling me you’re an ordinary soldier, and yet you’ve rented a room at the Hotel Savoy and bought a bottle for two gulden. Either you’re lying and you’re no ordinary soldier, or you’re not lying and — well, the alternative that suggests itself —”

The same alternative had just suggested itself to Kapsa
.

“What about you? You’re also an ordinary soldier?”

“A general’s orderly. An ordinary soldier with a leg up.”

Kapsa felt relief wash over him. He took a deep pull on the cigar and his head began to swim a little. He pointed to the half-empty cigar box. “You stole this from the general?”

The lieutenant-orderly grinned. “The same way you stole this bottle from the bartender.”

The tweed suit was just a tweed suit again. Kapsa realized that the other man’s assessment of his situation was far more logical than the truth about what had happened on Gottestischlein, which Kapsa might have revealed in a moment of madness
.

“But you did steal something, didn’t you?”

“The general’s strong-box. And you?”

“Me? Just a captain’s.”

“Let’s drink to that!” The orderly refilled their snifters with Kapsa’s cognac and the glasses rang like a bell
.

“How much have you got?” the lieutenant asked him
.

Kapsa didn’t tell him till they were halfway across the Atlantic
.