The Cellar (2 page)

“I suppose you must be hungry now.” The
woman said, staring at Ike in a way that he couldn’t decipher.  

“Yes Ma’am…..I don’t know how long it’s
been.” He said, trying to sound apologetic.  For a brief moment something
inside of him made him want to say “I’m hungry enough to eat a horse turd.” He
was appalled that such a thought would come to his mind.  It was just the kind
of thing Johnny O’Donnell would have said.

 Ike had caught his Sergeant’s distaste
for foraging and wished he had the words to convey how reluctant he had been to
pilfer food from civilians.  “Military necessity,” the Colonel had called it
when he first assigned them the duty. 

The old Colonel had been mortified when he
had returned to his regiment from sick leave to find Company “G” clumsily
butchering a stolen cow at the side of the road.  He had wanted the men
punished for their thievery but the Brigadier had looked at the cow and the men
standing around it with their heads bowed in shame from the Colonel’s
outburst.  The Colonel’s superior cleared his throat to bring silence to the
crowd and said “If I ever hear of any of my men doing such a piss-poor job of
butchering again, I’ll have the whole lot of you flogged.  The officer climbed
down off his horse, grabbed a knife from one of the soldiers and began dissecting
the hind quarter of the animal with obvious skill.  “Now this is how you carve
a flank steak!” 

The Colonel had not been able to look his
men in the eye for a couple of days without betraying his sadness and dismay. 
A couple of more weeks of living on short rations or none at all and the
Colonel overcame some of his qualms about “Jayhawking.”

Of course there were those who saw
“Military Necessity” as a license to take anything that wasn’t nailed down and
a good number of items that were.  The only time Ike had ever seen Sarge really
mad at one of his men was when he found out that Dan Clark had stolen a valise
full of women’s clothing.  Sarge was a big man and normally easy going, but
when he found Clark stowing the bag in the supply wagon and determined what was
in it he lost his temper.  Sarge punched and pummeled the soldier until he had
to be pulled off of him by a couple of the other men.  As soon as the Sergeant
had calmed down a bit he had Clark marched back to the house where he had
purloined the clothes. 

The detail assigned to accompany Clark had
great fun at the expense of their comrade who was carrying the valise and
wearing a bonnet that had been found inside.  As if this weren’t enough Sarge
had insisted that the soldier also carry the dainty parasol that had been found
tucked away amidst the other clothes.  Johnny O’Donnell had rolled on the
ground and laughed his distinctive donkey bray as the small squad left the
camp.  Clark was in the lead and Sarge walked behind him delivering a kick or a
prod if he lowered the parasol.

As much as most of the soldiers detested
the “military necessity” of separating the locals from their foodstuffs, an
army had to eat, and it was beginning to be seen that the sufferings of the
general population might lead to their losing the will to continue the
conflict.  General Sherman’s quote about war being hell was being brought home
to the citizens of northern Mississippi.  The Home Guard was fighting  back and
retaliating for what they saw as wanton theft.

As abhorrent as the “military necessity”
of raiding the larders of civilians was, the wholesale slaughter of his fellow
human beings was a “military necessity” that had left Ike far more sickened and
scarred.  He knew that men who he had known and loved had died in this woman’s
door yard, the question that hung over them was how many and which ones.

After staring at Ike for a few moments the
woman called over her shoulder to an unseen presence.  “Marcus, get him
something to eat, I think mush will do for now.”

“Yas’m.” came a deep voice from behind the
woman.  Footsteps followed and a door creaked open letting moonlight in to
illuminate the wooden steps going up to the cellar door.  The massive shape of
a man blocked out most of the light and then the door was closed, shutting out
all but the light from the lamp.

The silence was disquieting to Ike as the
woman resumed her stare.

“Ma’am?” Ike started.

“Yes.” She replied.

“How long have I been here?”

“Two days.  It was the day before
yesterday that you and your companions attempted to pillage my farm.”

“Two days…” Ike rasped, trying to think of
what day it had been and what time of day he had last been conscious.  “What
time is it?”  he asked.

“It should be around 4 O’clock in the
morning, I thought I heard you stirring around 3 O’clock and came down here to
see about you and I’m sure it has been at least an hour.”  As if in
confirmation Ike heard a clock somewhere above striking four times. 

“The home guard knew you were coming this
way and lay in wait.  For my part, I was against bloodshed in my own dooryard,
but I had little choice, and I did not fancy having all my foodstuffs pilfered
and I had no idea what other depredations might follow.”

Ike was sure of and embarrassed for the
“depredations” that the woman was referring to.  There had been accusations of
rape and looting by Union soldiers not long ago.  There had been several men in
the division flogged for looting and one was hanged for assaulting a woman.  It
was suddenly important to Ike for the woman to know that his own squad had only
been interested in finding something to eat.

“I…I’m sorry, Ma’am.” Ike wheezed. “We
were starving.” He realized how dry his mouth was.  As if the woman had read
his thoughts she handed him a cup.

“Drink this.  It’s water and a little
brandy.  Don’t drink it too fast or it will come back up and I might not be
inclined to give you more.”

He took the cup and obediently sipped with
care.  The water cooled his parched mouth and the liquor warmed him deeper
inside. 

“Thank you, Ma’am.” Ike replied between
cautious sips.  “I’m normally a Teetotaler, but that seems to have a medicinal
effect.” Ike lied.  The warmth of the brandy was not an alien presence in any
sense, but he instinctively implied otherwise.

“A little wine for thy stomach’s sake and
thine often infirmities.” The woman said with no hesitation.

“1
^st
Timothy 5:23.”  Ike
responded, not too quickly he hoped.  He knew his Bible well, but not as well as
his response might have implied.  He had used this verse often to justify his
bouts of drinking to Emma and to himself.  His “infirmities” were usually not
too often, but had put a strain on his marriage.

The woman’s expression remained as before,
not betraying her reaction to his statement as he finished off the liquid in
the cup.

The door creaked open again and broke the
silence that followed Ike’s scriptural exposition.  Marcus placed a tray next
to Ike’s pallet on the floor and helped him sit up, turning him so that he
could sit with his back propped against the stone wall and hold the warm bowl
on his lap.

Ike had never been fond of mush.  His
family had endured some hard times in his very early youth and there was
sometimes little else to eat and the memory of his childhood poverty usually
clung to the humble fare.  This mush, however assumed a flavor and texture that
was marvelous.  The splendor of it was partly because it had been so long since
Ike had eaten anything and partly that this normally bland fare was accompanied
by substances that had been missing from Ike’s diet for weeks.  There was
butter in an exuberant quantity, and salt which had been missing from his diet
for days and a sweetness that he thought was probably honey.

He forced himself to eat slowly and found
it hard not to moan in ecstasy.  Ike ate every last bite and resisted the urge
to scrape out the last lingering smear on the inside of the bowl with his grimy
fingers and lick the crockery and fingers clean. 

“Thank you.” He said, quietly looking
first at the woman and then at Marcus.  The man was an enormous brown mountain. 

Ike’s experience with the ebony race was
recent.   The first Negroes he had ever seen had been the field slaves who had
cheered and sang to them as they had marched west from Corinth after
Beauregard’s stealthy retreat.  These people were something new and exotic to
most of the men in the ranks.  Free blacks had been banned from Illinois
several years ago and slavery had long been forbidden.

The soldiers had laughed at the antics of
the children as they brought buckets of cool water.  Johnny openly ogled a
young slave woman whose worn dress was so thin as to reveal enticing details of
her shapely figure to a young man whose lust had become legendary.  “Eyes forward,
jackass!” Sarge had barked as Johnny marched forward with his head twisted
nearly backward for one last leer.   As more and more slaves walked away from
their lives of servitude and attached themselves to the Union Army, Johnny
managed a few attachments of his own.

The man looking down at Ike seemed to be
old, but Ike could not place just how old he might have been.  Marcus looked
solid and strong, only the wrinkles in his otherwise flawless skin and the trace
of white in the wool over his ears betrayed long years.  The way that Marcus
looked at him was not unkind but it made Ike uncomfortable.  His gaze was
almost as inscrutable as that of the woman but  something in the way the
towering vassal looked at Ike seemed to convey pity.

Marcus knelt and took the bowl and spoon
gently from Ike’s hands, he then handed the soldier a damp cloth and a bowl of
water.  Ike bathed his face and hands and relished the feel of being even a
little clean after weeks of living in filth.  He returned the now grimy cloth to
Marcus and tried to convey his gratitude with a smile that was not returned.

“That is all for now, Marcus.” The woman
said.

“Yas’m.” Marcus rumbled and turned to
leave.  Ike noted that the big man could just barely stand erect in the
cellar.  The nappy hair brushed the beams in places as he took his leave.

“Do you feel better?” the woman asked
after Marcus had closed the door.

In spite of the pain in his leg and head,
Ike was feeling almost giddy, his first inclination had been to respond
“Yas’m.” but he thought better of it.

“Yes Ma’am, I thank you kindly.  I don’t
know what I can do to repay your kindness, but I intend to try as soon as I
can.”  Ike said as earnestly as he could.  His gratitude was sincere, the food
and drink had done much to restore him. 

“We will talk more tomorrow.  For now you
should sleep.”  She said, standing and picking up the lamp.  She walked toward
the door and as she reached the first step it opened outward for her.  Marcus
held it open as his mistress daintily ascended the steps.  When the woman had
cleared the door it shut again leaving Ike once more in total darkness. 

He lay back down and adjusted himself on
his blanket.  The food and the small amount of brandy, which Ike believed might
have been the best he had ever tasted, had left him feeling satisfied and for
now he felt safe.  He slept soundly and had no more dreams that he could
recall.

A thin line of light was visible along the
edge of the door on the hinged side when he awoke.  A single ray came through a
knot hole near the center of the door and painted a spot on the floor pale
yellow, helping to illuminate Ike’s new abode.  As his eyes adjusted he
carefully turned his head from side to side to allow him to take stock of his
surroundings.  The stonework of the cellar was finely done, the joints were
mortared with extreme care and the walls were nearly perfect.  The flagstone
floor was level and relatively smooth.  Above him were heavy timber beams that
he assumed supported a house. He pictured the house as he had seen it before
the ambush.  Something about the appearance of the building had spoken to him
even as he was reeling from the heat in the yard.  The house looked like
something of substance and permanence.  It actually had a recent coat of paint
unlike most of the houses they had seen in the south.  He thought of Emma and
of how she would love a house like this.  He tried to remember their own home
and could only remember small details of it and that it had somehow been a
disappointment to them.   He thought of how he would love to be able to give
his wife a home like this.  The reality of sleeping in such a permanent
structure, even in its cellar, struck him as something amazing.  After months
of sleeping in the open in all kinds of weather surrounded by snoring,
belching, and farting soldiers the quiet coolness of this cellar was agreeable.

He sat up carefully to see if his head
would swim as it had previously.   It did, but it was not as badly as before. 
He sat with his back against the wall and his legs stretched out before him and
noted how neatly the splint had been applied to his left leg.  Army doctors
would have not done nearly as well in immobilizing the leg, but Army doctors
were usually operating with the sound of cannons, small arms, and the screaming
of dying men assailing their ears.

The chair and small table remained and Ike
had an urge to sit in the chair.  He couldn’t remember the last time he has sat
on an actual chair.  Hard tack crates, chunks of firewood, and rocks had served
as furniture for the last two years when he could even find such amenities. 
Often the best one could do was to sit cross legged on the ground.  Real
furniture seemed like something remarkable.  Standing up made him light headed
for a moment but he braced his hands against the wall until the feeling passed
and hobbled over to occupy the seat where the woman had watched him……she had
sat there in the dark for a full hour.   Why had she bothered?  The chair felt
good, it made Ike feel more human to be sitting on something actually made for
that purpose.