Andersonville (65 page)

Little cans of stew bubbled constantly, the slices of fair raw vegetable were presented, they were pressed upon Val; he’d have none of them. He suffered a night of delirium and hootings. John had looked at the buttock that day when the Irishman tried to dress it, and the entire adjacent area of the thin small body was polluted, discolored, sending out a stench. It was as if the boy wore a great black pillow stitched against his frame from his knee to the middle of his back, and it was splitting wide.

No, no, no hospital, mates—they’d never be letting me tend him. . . .

Another steaming, frying, boiling, stewing afternoon, when the whole marsh crawled and lifted and sank in its maggoty tides. People went down beneath the heat, they went flat in permanent submission. As the Vermonters sat weak in sweat beneath the shelter, Garrett pointed out to John that four different dead-parties were wending toward the dead row at one and the same time. . . . Watch them, he said. Four, all at once’t. Over there—just beyond that blue overcoat shebang.

I see them.

And there’s two chaps— I’m certain they’re carrying a dead one—yes, they are—right by that well where all them folks are haggling. And over there, above the sink-path. And just down here. . . . They dropped him. Fellow with a piece of blanket tied around him like a skirt. Now they’re picking him up again. Four all at once’t.

I see another. There, towards the North Gate. That’d make five.

Another evening of Val’s clear-voiced agonies, but in the protracted hotness of the night his crying was muted; at last he sounded more like a crippled kitten than a pig about to be butchered. By morning he was giving no utterance at all. Pay fought to jam food into the blackened horny little mouth, but Val could not swallow; soup welled up and rose like water in a spring, and ran away down the emaciated face. Pay took the boy up in his arms and sat rocking back and forth, muttering in Gaelic. It must have been Gaelic, no one could understand what he said.

About three in the afternoon they heard a thin roar from the Irishman, and folks came to peer. Pay had the body wrapped in his arms, and he kept patting and slapping the shoulders crazily; but even his frenzy could put no heat in a shape which was cooling implacably, or limpness in a body which stiffened in that bent attitude into which it had been pressed.

Well, now he’ll have to carry him down to the row.

Says he won’t.

He’ll have to.

Says he wants to bury him here where he can lie on his grave.

There’s a hundred men hereabouts who’ll say they’re not going to dwell above a corpse. Anyway, they’d stop rations for the whole camp. You know that.

Might as well have corpses around as what we got. Couldn’t smell much worse, now could they?

I vow, no.

The New Yorkers were moved to a kind of pity; they persuaded Pay to take the little body down to the line. Come, they said, we’ll help.

Ah, none except myself shall carry him.

Tie his toes together. Here, I’ll do it. . . . Very well, come along with you, Irish. It’s hotter than hell today. He’ll be swolled up before nightfall. You got to get rid of him.

Something told Garrett, Best go and watch. The final certain summation of tragedy would now occur; he felt it in his scorched and weary bones. Bring your Scriptures, Johnny.

But them fellers are Catholics. Holy Romans, next to being heathens.

Adam asked Pay if he wanted to hear some Scriptures read, or a prayer. . . . A Protestant prayer? Never.

They had difficulty in learning the dead boy’s name; but from Pay’s mutterings they decided that Valentine Connell must be correct, and they wrote it on a scrap of paper, along with
U.S. Navy
and buttoned the scrap on the chicken’s blouse.

Get along, Irish, the New Yorkers were insisting.

Sun burned hard against Pay all the way down to the marsh. Adam and Appleby followed at a slight distance. Pay carried the half-curled body just as he’d held it in his arms all day—bare legs caught up over his right upper-arms, left forearm supporting the blue-bloused back. The hairy claws of hands which had slapped and stroked were motionless.

He carried him, without once adjusting the burden or moving his hands or arms, all the way to the dead row; there he put Valentine down. He placed him on his right flank where the wound was out of sight. Then slowly Pay stripped off his own ragged verminous blouse and spread it above the shrunken yellow face. He stood back, gasping audibly; there were no tears to come.

Put him down without a screech, muttered Appleby. Never thought he would.

Watch, said Adam. I got a feeling.

The fence was a swimming mountain of tan, tall and close through oily heat waves. Standing near the scantlings of the deadline which ruled behind the dead row itself, it seemed that you could hear the very pop of resin as it cooked from upright logs.

A young guard stood directly above them, leaning under the low sloping square of his roof. He held his musket poised idly across his chest. He stiffened and seemed to grow taller in an instant.

Watch this, said Adam again.

Hellfire, no. I’m getting out of the way.

The throng of prisoners who stood nearest the dead row began to step back, pushing backward with hasty steps, jostling and using their elbows. The crowd split, widened. Pay had put both his hands on the rail.

Yank. Take care, called the guard.

The Irishman bent down and slid one shoulder under the scantling. There came a warning whistle from the guard at the next station toward the right, the last station next to the gate. Up above, the nearest guard had his musket butt at his shoulder, but his hands were trembling and the gun barrel moved in a loose circle.

Get out of that, Yank.

The scattering of prisoners became a stampede. Even scurvy-ridden ones who sat closest, waiting for a first blessed shadow of the stockade to cool them when the sun went low enough— Even these cripples were hobbling and rolling and lurching away like stiff ungainly gnomes.

The guard directly above could not bring himself to pull the trigger. Pay stood erect inside the deadline and walked two steps toward the stockade. Guards at the right and left stations fired almost simultaneously.

Thirty days, thirty days, the prisoners were howling. Give the Rebel sons of bitches a furlough. Pay lurched when the balls went through him; he turned slowly and started back toward the deadline. Then he toppled forward, and the force of even his desiccated body snapped the scantling when he fell.

 XXXIX 

T
here were times when sound of thirty thousand people assailed the senses more terribly than might have been imagined by one who was not there to hear them. Since the overthrow of the raiders the stockade was well-policed by Regulators, operating under command of the slow-spoken A. R. Hill of the One Hundredth Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Few civilian communities of comparable size could have boasted an equal passiveness and freedom from violent crime. But there were bound to ensue rivalry, fuss, abrasion. Men contended in a mere bickering or in a tussle to the death. Waldo took umbrage because Ned snored against the back of his head when they were pushed together at night, Amos claimed that Hez had stolen the bacon rind which Amos had bought on South Street the day before. A young agnostic, reared in an intensely Protestant environment (but who now shunned any established religion, and was darkly contemptuous of Catholics)— He called Herrity or Hanrahan a mackerel snapper or a Pope’s child. Thus the private war which might be fought merely with words, more likely with fists and feet, not too rarely with slung-shots or hickory staves. Herman said that he had heard that a friend had told him (a friend who had it on good authority) that the whole Twenty-fourth Michigan Infantry was made up of bounty men; and Guy from the Twenty-fourth Michigan rose up to affirm that not a man in his regiment had received so much as a dollar in State or County money, and anyone who said he had was a lying son of a bitch.

Oh. Does that mean that I’m a son of a bitch?

You heard me.

Thus the ear torn off, the bitten nose, the kicked belly, the friends of both taking up the conflict, fists and feet and clubs mixed, the cries of, Keep your damn fighting over in your own territory. Don’t come busting up our shebang or we’ll beat the poop out of you.

Aw, shut up. Aw, hush your jaw. Aw, hush your gab. Aw, pound salt up your butt. Aw, bugger your brother. The talk of struggle . . . niceties worn off, the demons in every individual appearing unskinned (if he had such evil dwelling within him, and most men did have). The noise the men made.

The argument which resounded pointlessly, the sick red rheumy eye a-glowering. Any man who reads a word Charles Darwin has written is destined for Hell. Who said that? I did. Think you’re a preacher or such-like? Think you’re God? I didn’t claim I was God; but it says clearly in the Scriptures that— Who are you, to interpret the Scriptures to me? Now, listen, Columbus Ohio, don’t get gay. Take your hand off my arm. The devil I will. The devil you won’t.
Whack. Thwack. Crack.
Come along, fellers, you’ll spoil the mess! Hey, come aid me, he’s too big for me to handle . . . looky here, Columbus Ohio, pick on somebody your own size. Well, you’re my size and— The noise of strife: the men made it. Forever they constructed a contention if one did not exist naturally.

Thirty thousand men, so many making noises. The hullooing of the crazy, the whimpering of the bruised, the chop of knife or broken hatchet against a precious length of stovewood, the yell of the man offering five onions for sale, the quivering laughter of two friends who met suddenly at the North Gate (and each had supposed the other dead, and before winter both would be dead), the guard calling across to another guard, the bumping of wagon wheels at the South Gate, the wail like a cheer, the cheer identical with the voice of agony, the very small sound such as a canteen dropped, a stick snapped in two, wind broken from a body. The sound of Andersonville.

Nathan Dreyfoos told himself, Thirty thousand men might form a city of very fair size. But in a city of very fair size they would be spread far, some would be in homes, some in offices, others would be walking the streets, others would be down at the docks, others asleep in the park. Here the area is estimated at some twenty-nine acres, but that does not take into consideration that there is a deadline space twenty feet wide, or thereabouts, lining all four walls. How many acres should be subtracted to account for the deadline space? Two acres? The stockade is now said to measure, by engineers who have paced it, approximately sixteen hundred and twenty feet in length, and approximately seven hundred and eighty feet in width. Within the available rectangle, how many acres should be subtracted for the marsh? I am no engineer. Three acres less? Four acres? And the two streets must be kept unobstructed, so that wagons may drive in.

Let us say that our rectangle contains at least twenty acres of habitable space in which we may dwell—perhaps a trifle more. That would be a population of fifteen hundred men per acre. How many square feet in an acre? I know that there are six hundred and forty acres in one square mile, but how many square feet in—? I am no mathematician.

I am more fortunate than many people here, because I have patience, imagination, and recollections to stay me. My body may suffer, it has fallen away, it may fall into nothingness and I shall go into nothingness along with it. But my mental health is superb, my spirit was never better. It is strong, quiet. I muster my humor with a shrug when need be. I have known many quiet places, and now I may go to them, released to ride where I list in my cart or on my
mulo,
seeing warm gray mountains saluting the milky blue sky, seeing poppies, hearing a woman cry to her child,
Mah-ree-ah!
in the village below my feet.

Nathan Dreyfoos possessed a reservoir of pictures, perhaps he had more beauty stowed away than almost any other prisoner in the place. At will he could go to Suffolk or to Rome. There was the Swedish naval base; Karlskrona was the name; he could go there whenever he chose. Did Karlskrona have as large a population as Andersonville? He was positive that it had not. . . . He could go to Málaga. Málaga had many more people in it than did Andersonville.

But he did not want more people, so now he would leave. He would get into his
burrito
cart, the fine strong cart he’d had when he was eight or nine. But then his father insisted that José accompany him, unless he were to drive within restricted limits of the beach behind the big house . . . no, no! Better was the time when they’d come back to Spain again—Nathan recollected: he was fifteen at the time. That was when his father permitted him to go alone into the mountains. Nathan had begged endlessly that he be allowed to go, and alone; finally Solomon Dreyfoos weakened.

My son, there are bandits.

Father, I’m not afraid. Six feet one—

Yes, yes, yes, six feet one, and skinny as this pen in my hand!

Now, Father, did you ever know, personally, a man who was attacked by bandits on the road where I will go?

So which is the road on which you will go? You would go to Granada?

I thought I had rather go to Ronda; I’ve been to Granada by coach. I should like to go west to Marbella or Estepona. According to the maps, there are fine roads leading across the mountains to Ronda, by way of Ojen or Gaucín—

Fine roads? They’re nothing of the kind. I was there, years ago, when you were small. Don Juan Huelín and I— A miserable road, very long, very winding, very steep, going no place at all, huge stones rattling down the cliffs, going no place whatsoever, our carriage nearly upset— Ah, I think it
did
upset! A wheel came off and—

Father. Did you meet any bandits?

I’m telling you, my son, there were bandits all about!

Did you meet any?

Go away, go away, don’t twit me, I’m a busy man. Go get yourself hit over the head by bandits. No ransom will they get from me! Nathan, don’t tell your mother that you contemplate anything so dangerous. Such a worry it should be for her.

But I’ve already told Mother. She thinks it’s splendid.

Well, well, well, Mr. Halliburton says that you have done so fine in your studies. I promised you should have a treat if he gave a good report on your work for the recent months. Now it’s late in July: a holiday you shall have. Oh, my poor son, going to the mountains with bandits—!

Nathan flew up the wide winding marble staircase from the ground floor of the house, where his father’s office was located; he sprang up that staircase three steps at a time, and found his mother working at needlepoint in the high cool sitting room. She tortured her eyes to build the thing, but she was not happy unless she put in four or five hours of work daily. . . . She was creative: she wrote simple little rhymes about children and pets and gardens, and many of these had been published in newspapers and magazines. The money which she received in small amounts for her efforts was kept in a purse of blue brocade, especially to give to beggars or to nuns who came soliciting alms.

Nathan’s mother had been Rose Margolis. She was brought together with Solomon Dreyfoos by a marriage broker in Boston when she was twenty-four and Solomon was forty-three. The match was made in Boston but little Nathan considered that it might have been made in Heaven. Never did he hear his parents exchange a word of doubt, rivalry or recrimination. They must have been solid in devotion from the day of their wedding. Rose was big-boned, homely, and had grown very fat by the time she was in her middle thirties; Sol Dreyfoos appeared to become more spare and stooped, if more energetic, each year of his life. He was nervous but dependable—a haggard black-eyed man with a little string of whiskers which looked false.

Nathan was an only child, but he wished that he had brothers and sisters by the dozen; it would have been such fun when they traveled, which was aggressively, constantly. Solomon’s business took him to England and France, back across the Atlantic to Boston, Philadelphia, New York again; perhaps back across the Atlantic to France again; by boat to Spain; thence by boat to Genoa or Naples; back to Boston in the autumn once more. We, said Solomon, are the Wandering Jews. He said it often, he said it to Nathan when Nate was three, and Sol was holding him up at the rail of a fast mail ship, listening to fog horns announcing that Liverpool was near and the fast mail would become slow mail if the fog didn’t lift.

...Went springing up those stairs, his brooding eyes alight, his wide loose-lipped mouth at a grin. His mother pushed down her specs and beamed at him, her plump hands came away from the frame whereon she was effecting seriously a collection of marble columns, bedizened ponies, incredibly lean and pink greyhounds, and a peasant population provided with baskets of fruit and vegetables. Sometimes she worked for a week on one figure, sometimes for a fortnight on another; when she was in a mood to work on flowers she could not work on knights and ladies. Therefore the assemblage of figures seemed suffering from ulceration at various colorful points, some looked like lepers, some were skeletal; but Rose could see far beyond this incompleteness, she could see the thing of beauty which would emerge.

What are you going to do with it, Rose? And what shall you do with it in the end, Madame? Is this destined for a museum, Señora? Oh, no, and her smooth contented laugh rippled, the sound which to Nathan was the most comforting music in the world (when he needed to be comforted, which was seldom: the world was so kind to him, so violent and mean to many other boys he saw). Oh, no. I just thought maybe it would make A Nice Present To Give Someone. She always said that, whether she worked at lace or embroidery: A Nice Present To Give Someone. Rose loved to give things away—personal things, toiled over. At this rate it would be a long while before her latest needlepoint became A Nice Present; she had begun it in Holland early in 1854, and here it was July, 1856. Of course she worked on other things from time to time, and she had written a sonata in between, to say nothing of seven poems entitled respectively, Humility, The Happy Lambs, I Tread the Path, To My Kitten, Trust, On A Sleeping Baby, The Bobbins. Five of these had been accepted by editors and published, and now reposed in the album for which Rose had worked covers decorated with silver wire stitching, and which bore the imposing title, The Works Of Mrs. R. M. Dreyfoos.

Sol Dreyfoos thought the album a magnificent thing, and was eternally fetching it out to show to callers. Each poem or musical achievement of his wife’s filled him with admiration. Always he said that he did not think he understood it completely (an old purchasing agent like himself—nothing but figures in his head—nothing but francs and dollar-signs and pounds sterling!) but that it was very beautiful. Secretly he was alarmed to see how little his wife’s creations brought when they were sold; Sol wondered how composers and poets got along; he had heard that they didn’t, that many of them starved.