When the War Is Over (21 page)

“Have a mug of coffee,” Catto said. “They treat prisoners well here. Come in, come in. Sit down. I believe it's against regulations but we can always say I needed a maggot.”

“I can't believe this.”

“Fighting Joe Hooker,” Catto said. “Wants to be remembered for good hospitals, I think you said.”

Phelan sat on the bed. “I am struck dumb.”

Catto snorted. “What are your orders?”

“To go out there and declare the boy dead.”

“Nothing to it.”

“Hooker is demented.”

“He is made in the image of God,” Catto said in courteous and reasonable tones. “I don't believe he's demented at all. He's only human. This has all happened before. In Germany. I have that on good authority. And I've seen boys still younger shot through the belly or the eye or their limbs off.”

“Stop that.”

“All right.”

“How can you sit there like that? Can't we do something?”

“I'm under arrest,” Catto said. “What would you suggest?”

“They'll break you down to private or worse,” Phelan said, “and it won't help the boy.”

“I don't give a god damn what they do,” Catto said.

“Ah, you're too pure for it. Is that it? Let them dirty their hands, but not Catto. Is that it?”

“No, no.” Catto spoke gently. “It's just not my line of work, that's all. Though you've got a point there, about purity. Once they lie to you, there isn't much sense in talking to them again.”

“It can't be just that. There must be some purpose in this.” Phelan was begging. “There must be. There'll be hell to pay when the story gets out.”

“Nonsense. It will be burked. And then what's one boy more or less? Besides,” he burst out suddenly, “they shouldn't even be told about it. Let them go on believing and raising their children and saluting the damn flag.”

Phelan said stubbornly, “Nothing is without a reason.”

“Now listen,” Catto said softly, remembering fifty bushels of Albemarle pippins. “The last victim of the great rebellion is about to die, and what I've learned today—it was like a vision from on high—is that there will always be a Thomas Martin. It has nothing to do with truth or justice or any of those pretties. If no Thomas Martin is available, then they will go out of their way to find one, or to make one up. So none of your silly comforts. You know better.”

“God help you,” Phelan said. “God help Silliman too. He's vomiting.”

“Silliman?”

“They've put him in charge of the party.”

“Dear Ned,” Catto said. He stepped to the window. “Dear innocent Ned. The hope of the future. It's raining.”

“Yes. It's raining.”

“How's Thomas? Have you heard?”

“Booth says he slept badly but ate a big breakfast. He's calm.”

“Yes. He hasn't much to be excited about Damn,” Catto said. “Silliman. I wish you hadn't come here with your gossip.”

“Then I'll go,” Phelan said. “You're as mad as the rest of them. I don't know why I bother to heal anybody.”

“We must talk about that soon,” Catto said. “Come around tonight, and bring a bottle.”

“Yes. The wake.”

“The wake.” Standing in the doorway he found a weary eloquence: “Do you know, Jack, I believe you must be right: there is a God. Man alone could not contrive this evil.”

“Be quiet, Marius,” Phelan muttered. “Watch your tongue.”

“Ah, go along,” Catto said, and turned away, and heard the surgeon's fading footsteps.

He went to the window and looked out at nothing: a street, a city, the feeble rain. After a time he sat on his bed and trimmed a cigar, set a match to it, contemplated swirls of lazy smoke. He lay down, and wondered what was the use of anything. He tried to imagine death. It was unimaginable.

At last he rose, snubbed the cigar, donned his blouse, buckled his belt, inspected his buttons and shoulder straps, hung his sword properly and took up his hat. He walked to the main hallway, where he found Haller. “Fetch me a horse,” Catto said.

“You're under arrest.”

“Let it be on my head. Fetch me a horse.”

Haller hesitated, but then nodded and left him. Catto waited. After a time he stepped outside and stood beneath the modest portico. Haller rode up, dismounted and held the reins as Catto swung to the saddle. “The leathers.” Haller looped them over the horse's head into Catto's waiting hands.

Haller said, “You have to.”

“I have to,” Catto said. “Silliman couldn't live with it.”

On the cobbles he held his horse to a walk. Traffic was light. Soon he was away from the heart of the city and in a neighborhood of genteel shops. Hotels. A crew of roadmenders desisted and watched him pass by. He felt their envy. His eyes perceived, registered: the road, the city, a darting cat, umbrellas; his mind refrained from comment
(DELAINE
50¢
YD. LADIES GLOVES
55¢) as some of his past dropped away from him for good, no more fun with Phelan, farewell Isaac M. Trout
(SHOES
$1
AND UP)
, only this road out of town and the steady rain. Free of pavement, he urged his horse to a gallop. No more what was I, no more what will I be; how could it matter? Fields of honor became swamps of shame even as you trod them.

He slowed to a trot and veered off toward the quarry. At the field he saw them all: the officers together on horseback; the firing party waiting; Silliman pacing; the boy before his coffin, blindfolded; Father Garesche murmuring and gesticulating; the undertaker and his carriage; the spectators; and the rain washing them all clean of color. Gray, black, hushed, they stood. They all turned toward him, and he saw them as animals, brutes, carnivores. The moment was a flensing: layers of moral blubber, of fatty hope, of sentimental lard were stripped hot from his bones. He pulled up and stared contemptuously at the crowd.

Hoofbeats: Dunglas trotted toward him.

“Go back,” Catto said.

Dunglas reined in. “A message?”

“No message. Go back.”

“You've broken arrest.”

Catto said nothing. Dunglas trotted back to his station. Catto walked his horse forward, toward Silliman. He searched the crowd and found Jacob, pleading; Catto shook his head and Jacob slumped in disbelief, anguish, despair. Catto wondered if he understood. It would be a small consolation if he understood.

“Marius.” Silliman was drained white, and not so pretty today.

“Are they loaded?”

“They're ready. I was nerving myself.”

“Then get away,” Catto said.

Silliman stood perplexed.

“Get away,” Catto said. “Go over there with Phelan.”

Rain streamed off Silliman's face. Catto squinted up at a leaden sky. Phelan had started forward and Catto waved him off impatiently.

“You can't,” Silliman muttered.

“Of course I can,” Catto said. “Do you want me to be formal about it? Lieutenant Silliman, you will join Surgeon Phelan immediately.”

“No. I have my orders. You don't have to do this, Marius.”

“Booth,” Catto called. Booth spurred forward. “Lieutenant Silliman is under arrest. Please take him in charge.”

Booth growled, “Come on, Silliman. Get out of it now.”

Silliman was ready for a good cry, and struggled with himself.

Catto dismounted. “Take my horse, Lieutenant.” Silliman accepted the reins. Thomas Martin was waiting there to be killed. Now Phelan joined them.

“What are you about?” the surgeon demanded in a schoolmaster's tone, leaning down to grip Catto's shoulder.

Catto shook him off. “I know what I'm about. Keep your hands off me. I've learned something, I have,” he said furiously, his words exploding through the drizzle. “All on a sudden it's come down to me, what we are and what we're up to, this whole race of pigs, and never mind your god damn God.” Phelan took his horse a step backward, retreating from this hot assault as if he were a boy private and Catto a foam-flecked colonel. Silliman stood huddled, clutching the hilt of his sword with both hands. Catto pushed by him and marched to Godwinson, marched to him and jostled him backward with one stride too many; Godwinson too retreated, stumbled, caught himself. “All right, Sergeant,” Catto said. “I'm in command.” He wiped his moist hands on his jacket.

“Hooker—”

“To hell with Hooker. Don't you give me trouble now, Godwinson,” his voice rose, the rage returning, “or I'll bust you down and stand you on a barrel for a week.”

Godwinson said, “Yes sir.” Beyond Godwinson he could see Thomas Martin.

“Git on with it,” someone shouted. “The boy's gittin wet.” The crowd murmured, swayed. Mostly men, Catto saw. A few small boys and a couple of women. Hats and caps and cloaks and shawls. Their eyes, hooded in the rain.

“I'd like to be shooting them instead,” Catto said. Phelan had returned to his place, and Booth was leading Silliman off. Catto saw Dunglas again, the cold eyes, the plumed hat. Dunglas hated him. Or he hated Dunglas. But there was no one, at this moment, whom he did not hate. He hated the crow Garesche. He hated Thomas Martin; Hooker; Lincoln who had not acted and Johnson who had; Phelan who gibbered and healed, but not every ailment; Silliman who must be pampered. Catto sought Jacob's eyes, but was denied them and knew that Jacob had not understood. He did not hate himself. He knew what he was doing, and knew that more than most men he had fashioned his own destiny, and that he might someday fashion another destiny, but not soon. He hawked and spat, on all of them.

Garesche had moved off. Catto called out “Ready!” He wondered if Thomas knew his voice. Of course he did. But the boy stood quite still, soaked, his blond hair plastered flat. Catto looked once more for Jacob; their eyes met briefly and for a moment Catto hoped again; it seemed to him now that only pain was wisdom, and of them all in that ravine probably Jacob knew pain best, but Jacob's eyes said nothing of that, only poured upon him a look of molten accusation. Catto turned back to the boy. Quick. Out of his misery. “Aim!” Catto bowed his head; a runnel of rain splashed from his hat to his feet, and he raised his head abruptly and with no warning heard himself cry out, “Thomas! Thomas! You'll be in heaven tonight! Remember that! You'll be in heaven tonight!” He thought, hoped, that the boy's chin rose a fraction, and then Catto said “Fire.” The rifles roared and Thomas Martin fell backward into the coffin. The edge of it caught him beneath the knees, so that his feet dangled.

Catto said to Godwinson, “Take over,” and trudged through the rain toward his horse. He stood with Booth, Dunglas and Silliman while Phelan examined the boy. Then Phelan came to them and said, “Major Phelan presents his respects to General Hooker and reports that the prisoner is indeed dead and will not rise again until Judgment Day, when the General will surely meet him again and I hope I am present.”

But Dunglas only said, “Thank you, Major.” And to Catto: “Thank you, Captain. That couldn't have been easy, but I'm sure you're back in General Hooker's good graces.”

Catto contemplated this popinjay. There was absolutely nothing worth saying to such a man. But Dunglas was wheeling to ride off.

“Damn that man,” Phelan said. “Damn us all.”

A hand squeezed at Catto's arm; it was Father Garesche. “I must thank you,” The priest said. “It was so good of you, what you said to him. That poor boy—”

“Go to hell,” Catto said, and to Phelan and Silliman, “Let's get away from this place.” As he mounted he caught a glimpse of the priest's outrage, of the toiling undertaker, of the dispersing crowd.

Halfway back to town Silliman said, “Oh my God, Marius, I am nothing. Nothing!”

“We are none of us much,” said Catto.

IX

And the epilogue: Thomas Martin, who was real, who lived and died as here recorded, lies moldering in his grave, somewhere in or around Cincinnati. He went to his death “dressed in light pants, satinet vest, black frock coat, white shirt with no collar, and around his neck a small black string constituted his necktie. On his feet were a pair of rough brogans. He wore on his head a light slouch hat.” He had even slept four hours the night before. He told Father Garesche that he felt he would really die this time. “He bid goodbye to the officers of the barracks, thanking them for the many kindnesses they had extended to him.” And “… as he crossed the sidewalk toward the carriage in company with Father Garesche he glanced his eye toward the hearse in the rear of the carriage, in which was his coffin, of plain manufacture. Martin smiled and nodded to the undertaker.” He bore himself well on that second journey. As they approached the final field “his nature mellowed at the spectacle, and he wept for a few moments. Some stimulants were given him and he again rallied.” Captain Booth asked him if he had anything to say in his last hour on earth. Martin said, “I have nothing to say.” Following military custom the members of the firing squad bore the coffin on their rifles to the waiting hearse.

On May 29th, when Thomas Martin had been dead for eighteen days, President Johnson decreed a full amnesty for all former Johnnys.

Jacob, who was fictional, disappeared into Bucktown and paid no further attention to white men except as necessary to avoid, placate or dupe them. He was a good carpenter and in time became a casual sort of building contractor. He did marry; he did raise a family. He and they were steady and pious. He never drank at all until late in life, when his travail diminished and he had grandchildren to care for him, and a little nip now and then helped him through the winter. He liked to sit on his porch with a glass of whiskey warming in his hand, and tell his friends about Thomas Martin. When he spoke of Catto he spat.

General Joseph “fighting Joe” Hooker, who Was real, married his Miss Groesbeck and retired to Garden City, Long Island, where he died in 1879, sixty-five and garrulous. His life, like his wars, had been full of incident and glory, and upon reflection he found no one event less interesting or important than any other, so he rattled on, and was invited to the best homes.