I Shall Be Near to You (14 page)

Mama says for me to tell you to Keep the Money you earn for whatever kind of Future you Hope to have
.

It is a hard thing, you being Gone this way
.

We Pray for you
,

Your Father, Charles Edwards

My hands are shaking before I get to the end. Papa don’t say it, but from the words he put on that page and the way Mama and Betsy ain’t added a thing to it in their own hand, I have shamed them. I shouldn’t have put what I’ve done before them; I shouldn’t have sent that tintype. Mama don’t want nothing to do with me, and Betsy ain’t said even a word of thanks about the ribbon I sent. It is a long time before I stand up and push my way out of our tent. Only the campfire is still there, dying down to embers, the boys all gone. I take big strides and thrust that letter in the coals and there is no one to stop me.

The letter curls its edges in the flames and goes black and fluttery. The breeze picks up some of the flakes, blowing them down the line to where a circle of boys play cards outside Edward Stiles’ tent. That must be where Jeremiah has got to.

No one notices when I walk up. Jeremiah stares at his cards, a pile of matchsticks in front of him. When he glances up at me, he wears a sly smile that tells me he is winning. It ain’t the time to try talking to him. I shrug and turn away, telling myself it is better he thinks I’ve got things of my own to do, that I don’t need attention all the time the way some girls do.

When Will sees me walking away, he calls out, ‘Ross! You’ve got to play! I’ve been wanting to win something off you!’ and the boys laugh.

I don’t turn back, making my way through camp instead, up our Company street, past the rows of shelter tents, where clusters of men gather, finding ways to pass the time ’til dinner. I ain’t ever thought I’d get to feeling lonely, but there’s all these men doing men things and no proper company for a woman. When women gather, they are always doing something of use, quilting to make the work go faster for each other, keeping company while they sew for kin, making long days nursing babies easier, passing gossip and family news. Here the men sing bawdy songs and play at cards and lose money their families need.

I find myself walking round to the other side of the parade ground, past Sergeant’s and the other Company officers’ tents, until I get to Captain’s big tent, set way off from the rest, where the stench of the latrines almost don’t reach. At his camp, there’s signs of a woman with too much time on her hands in the fresh-swept dooryard and the dripping washrags even-spaced on the line stretched between two young pines, the water leaving little dimples in the dirt below.

I’m turning to go, my feet ruining the broom’s crosshatching lines, when the tent flaps fly open and Mrs. Chalmers stoops to look through, holding a lantern up, even though it’s only getting on dusk now.

‘Oh! I thought I heard something out here! You startled me! Captain Chalmers isn’t here at the moment. Perhaps I can relay a message?’

‘I—I didn’t come to speak to Captain,’ I say.

‘You didn’t? Well, then what brings you?’ She hangs the lantern on the hook standing outside the tent.

Any made-up reason for coming flies clean out of my head. I ain’t even sure why I’ve come myself. I see how it’s got to be, but before I can turn
to go, she ducks inside the tent and comes back with a basket and her arms full of flannel strips.

‘I was rolling bandages. Please. Sit.’ She points to the cleared folding table and chairs in front of the tent and sits down herself.

I look this way and that before saying, ‘Mrs. Chalmers, it ain’t prop—’

‘There isn’t a soul who pays what I do any mind,’ she says, holding a strip of oatmeal-colored flannel out to me. ‘And if anybody starts, well, there isn’t any harm in you helping me on a hospital project to aid our wounded soldiers, is there?’ She smiles at me, tucking a loose strand of auburn hair behind her ear before saying, ‘There, now that’s solved, what brings you here?’

‘I can’t—It ain’t right, you being a married woman, and me being a soldier. And Captain, I don’t want trouble with him.’

She don’t look up from the bandage she’s rolling when she says, ‘That’s the most anybody’s said to me the entire time I have been here, save my husband.’

‘I’ve got to get back before I’m missed.’ I start to push away from the table.

‘Please—’ she says, reaching to grab my arm, and then my heart just stops to see Captain Chalmers standing at the edge of her swept dooryard, watching the two of us. I pull free of Mrs. Chalmers, saluting her husband as I walk by, his eyes on me the whole time.

I
COULD
KICK
myself for getting caught talking with Captain Chalmers’ wife. It is about the stupidest thing I’ve done in my whole life, going and ruining everything, calling attention to myself.

The boys are still playing cards, sitting there like not a thing is different, and that’s because for them nothing is.

Jeremiah turns to me before going back to his cards. That sweet look don’t make me feel better like it ought, it just makes me want to cry.

Edward says, ‘Where you coming from, Little Soldier?’

‘Nowhere,’ I say. ‘Moseying around.’

‘You hear anything new about Yorktown?’ Sully asks.

I can’t even think straight, so I stare at him until he shakes his head.

Will says, ‘At Sunday services we prayed for General McClellan, that he would know how best to storm the city.’

‘You think he could take Yorktown? With the soldiers he’s got? I bet he’ll send for more troops,’ Sully says.

Henry says, ‘McClellan don’t ever do a thing except sit and wait and everybody knows it.’

Hiram spits, ‘At least Grant fucking wins.’

‘Yeah,’ Edward says, ‘and only thirteen thousand men killed for it at Shiloh.’

Some of the boys laugh, but Thomas is always acting the papa. ‘Ain’t right to laugh at so many soldiers getting killed because some General was too drunk and saw fit to drill instead of make entrenchments.’

Ambrose mutters something about a little drink never hurting anyone and there is a long silence before Jeremiah says, ‘Well, McClellan can’t wait forever!’

I can’t wait forever either. Any minute Captain might send Sergeant to come find me, or maybe some orderly, and they will drag me off for dallying with the Captain’s wife. But I can’t say a thing about it. All I can do is sit like McClellan, listening to the boys talk about war like it is one big adventure, saying they can’t wait to send those Rebels home like they ain’t thinking how some of the soldiers on that battlefield ain’t ever going to leave it again. They talk big but there ain’t one of them that does any real thinking or says even one thing that might be how they really feel. Not even Jeremiah. I don’t dare say a thing about the way they’re pretending to be brave, like their uniforms make them something different than just farm boys in blue coats. If I wasn’t wearing this uniform, I could talk to Mrs. Chalmers any time I please.

It’s like Miss Riggs standing me before the whole class, making me read,
‘Lesson XXXI, On Speaking the Truth: There are many ways of being guilty of a falsehood without uttering the lie direct, in words.’
There ain’t an honest thing about being in this Army, but then that ain’t what I came all this way for.

WHEN THE BOYS
finally finish their poker game and we go to our tents, I’m nothing but one big prickly feeling. I can’t lie quiet, and it don’t take but a minute before Jeremiah groans and rolls away from me. ‘What is eating you?’

‘Captain Chalmers saw me talking to his wife and maybe he’s going to send me home.’

‘What? When?’

‘I don’t know. It could be any time!’

‘No,’ Jeremiah says. ‘When did Captain Chalmers see you talking to his wife?’

‘Earlier. After I got that letter. When you were playing cards, I went and Mrs. Chalmers was there rolling bandages …’

‘He’s known all night you were talking to his wife?’

In the dark I nod.

‘You’re fine then,’ he says, and finds my hand, squeezes it. ‘Nothing’s going to happen if it ain’t already. Captain wouldn’t sit on a thing like that if he thought anything of it.’

‘You sure?’

‘I’m sure.’ Jeremiah wraps his arms around me and holds me close, my ear against his chest. ‘You just stop thinking on it now and let us get some sleep.’ And then, like it is something easy, he don’t take but two minutes to start breathing slow and his arms slip away.

I ain’t resting and I don’t see how Jeremiah can be so sure. But there ain’t any help for the way I’m feeling except one. I grope for Jeremiah, kissing him awake.

‘You hold me.’

I say something of my good-byes to him, in case it comes to that, and he don’t complain one bit more about getting sleep.

A
FTER ROLL CALL
and battalion drill, Captain still ain’t sent for me. It seems I should have stopped worrying myself last night like Jeremiah said because maybe it’s true that nobody pays mind to what Mrs. Chalmers
does, not even her husband. We stack our arms, fitting the bayonets together to make the rifles stand like tent poles, and settle in to rest.

‘Hey, Ross! Did you hear anything from Betsy in that letter you got? It was from home, wasn’t it?’ Jimmy leans to ask me and I am glad for a second when Captain’s aide, Josiah Price, comes running. He can’t be more than fourteen, still fresh-faced and big-eyed, breathing fit to die. Sully jumps up and blurts out, ‘You got orders for us?’

Josiah shakes his head. Finally, when he catches his breath, he looks round at us and says, ‘Private Stone? Captain Chalmers wants to see you, right away.’

My heart about drops out of my boots.

Jeremiah stands. ‘I’m coming along.’

‘It’s a private matter,’ Josiah announces, straightening up. ‘He sent me special.’

I try to smile, but inside my whole self is falling to pieces. ‘Guess I better go then.’

‘He said for you to bring your knapsack.’

‘Couldn’t last forever,’ Henry says, shaking his head like he’s sorry when he ain’t one bit.

My eyes find Jeremiah’s and we hold them together, and at least it is good he knows what might happen. ‘I’ll be back,’ I say, but Jeremiah’s shoulders slump to see me slinging my knapsack on again.

Josiah goes at such a clip I’ve almost got to jog to keep up with him, a sick feeling coming over me at being called out special. It can’t be any good, Captain’s notice falling on me. There ain’t a thing I’ve done in drill or over the past few days to warrant this except one, and then there at Captain’s tent is Mrs. Chalmers sitting at the table, her head low.

I am caught for something I ain’t even done and all that’s left is whether I am punished or sent home.

‘P
RIVATE
S
TONE,
’ C
APTAIN
says, starched and formal. ‘It has come to my attention that you saw fit to speak to my wife last night.’

‘Sir, I—’ I try not to look away.

‘I have not ASKED you a QUESTION!’ Captain barks. ‘My wife says you approached her. Is that TRUE?’

Captain ain’t ever going to believe me over his wife, and the lie dies right in my throat.

‘It’s the truth, Sir.’ I hold my voice steady, swallowing as he glares at me.

‘Speaking to an officer’s wife is entirely INAPPROPRIATE,’ he says.

‘Sir, I apologize—’

‘I HAVE NOT ASKED YOU A QUESTION!’ he yells again, and even Mrs. Chalmers jumps.

He pauses a moment, his eyes boring into mine before he says, ‘Mrs. Chalmers has told me of your proclivities and I see now that perhaps employment of a different sort might be better suited to your talents.’

He knows what I am. His wife has found me out, but still I say, ‘I am quite happy soldiering, Sir.’

‘To be sure, I have no intention of sacrificing any of my soldiers from their duty to our nation, when the time comes.’ He glances at Mrs. Chalmers. ‘However, until then perhaps your service could be of use in hospital duties. My wife has need of an escort and our wounded have need of attention.’

‘Sir, I ain’t got no talent for the sick and no fondness for doctors—’ I can barely think, let alone talk.

‘There is no need for false modesty,’ Captain Chalmers says. ‘My wife was quite impressed with your practical knowledge.’

My eyes fly to Mrs. Chalmers, but she don’t raise her head from the table, and I wonder what it is she has told Captain. Relief floods my body and brand-hot anger gallops right on after.

‘You will be expected to accompany Mrs. Chalmers to Judiciary Square Hospital and return this evening. I trust you will keep my wife safe.’ He surveys me and then adds, ‘I believe Mrs. Chalmers is ready to start this instant. Have you enough provisions for your own supper?’

‘Yes, Sir,’ I say, because she has worked it so I can’t say no.

‘That will be all then.’ He salutes and then turns to his wife, who is beaming at him. She stands, picks up her basket full of bandages from
the bench where it was resting beside her. She touches Captain’s arm, her fingers drifting slow across his sleeve, and whispers, ‘Thank you,’ as she steps toward me, the smile still on her lips, making me think of Carrie Jewett sashaying over to Jeremiah, laying her hand on his shoulder, blinking up at him, asking if he knew where to find some nettle for her Mama’s breathing.