Andersonville (71 page)

Nein.
He was even much more beautiful. Maybe a fairy bird?

They laughed about it, they wandered on, a groundhog raced heavily to his burrow, the girl yelled about it, and clutched Willie tightly and said that she had known there would be bears.

He remembered the sunny place, the deep ravine where a basswood had been undermined and had fallen across the thinning stream; thus it left a hole in the dark green roof, and sun beat through to stamp this one circle of hot gold amid the shadows. He remembered the willow basket placed between them, the red-bordered cloth which Katrine produced and spread: the pickles with cloves clinging to them, the ivory of hard-boiled eggs, the slices of dark cured ham and corned beef, bread-and-butter sandwiches, the jug of milk.

(Within the stockade men dreamt of food until the very dreams slew them as surely as bullets. It was this luncheon which Willie Mann dreamed of.)

The luncheon, the solitude, the laughter of the creek, the peewee songs, solid piling clouds hiding the sun at last.

It started with gingerbread. She offered gingerbread and then took it back roguishly and said,
Nein,
already you have eaten too much.

But—I—want—that—gingerbread!

Nein.
She was on her feet, flying away from him . . . oh girl, oh goddess, oh the temptation in retreat and running, oh always in illusion the dear figure rushing away; and the hardihood of the male to pursue, the hardihood to effect the capture, to press the twisting arms tightly, to stumble, to sprawl together, to continue the embrace.

They had never kissed like this, their mouths had never touched before; they were alone, oh God the solitude, oh Katty, oh God the taste and smell of you, oh the hot ferocious breath of you, and breathing together with a gasping. . . .

She would cry softly,
Nein,
but when he sought to manage some denial and sought to drag his face from hers— Their mouths grew together again. And soon there was all the dainty majesty of her bosom revealed and touched and explored and slathered and warm with his kissing—

Nein. Ach, Gott—
Not
mein
gown, Willie— It is wrong we do this!
Ach,
Willie—
Küss’ mich, küss’ mich, küss’ mich—

Long he heard the tender gasp and whisper of her maidenly protestation, long he surmounted all objection which propriety had taught the two of them. Virgin boy and virgin girl, their tears and exclamation of desire and fright and conscience and terror and sheer abandoned delight were commingled throughout their uniting. Somewhere beyond the ferocity which ruled them, there stood a vast disapproving congregation composed of parents, brothers, sisters, Reverend Collins, Reverend Mueller, Sunday School teachers, aunts, Jesus, neighbors, teachers, Disciples, Apostles, the county sheriff, God the Father.

In a later hour Willie was impelled to blubber when he stood alone in the forest where she had sent him. He heard the splashing of water; there at the brookside she must be striving to repair the damage to herself and to her costume; and when he returned it was to see her hastily hiding a small damp bundle in the willow basket.

She sat in grass, he sat near her; she was calmer than he as she did up her hair, working knowingly by touch for she had no looking glass.

Wretchedly he importuned her, and she looked at him calmly. You think I am a bad girl?

Naw! Katty, I made you do It.

So we have done It. It is as if always I knew that we would.

Katty, do you think—?

What do I think,
mein
Willie?

Do you think—? Mightn’t—? Maybe now you’ll have—a baby?

Ja.
That could be.

Hi. He sat higher and stared at her. Let’s get married. I’ll marry you, Katty. We could get wed tomorrow.

Nein. Mein Vater und meine Mutter—
They would say I am too young. I am only sixteen until October. If I say I should be wed to you, then they know that we have done It. My mother she was wed to my father at eighteen was the age. Always she has said her daughters must wait until also they are eighteen.

But if you— If—a baby—

Then so, a baby I will have. When back you come from the army, then we can be wed.

He urged, he pleaded and begged and cajoled . . . she repeated that she was too young. Again they lay in each other’s arms, but there was a sainted seriousness in their touching; and again they stared at close mysterious range, and seemed worlds apart, and never the youth and the girl who entered Beverly’s Timber light-heartedly with their fishing poles and basket of lunch.

I guess somebody ought to horsewhip me. Or maybe shoot me. I promised your mother—

Quietly she placed her firm little finger on his lips. Talk no more, Willie. You are full of the talk. Some day we shall be older.

There was a noticeable sadness in the depth of her eyes and the depth of her tone; yet she was serene, she had courage, she had an amiable wisdom, and here she was fifteen months younger than Willie Mann. A burden seemed placed now upon her fine slender shoulders, and he marveled confusedly at the way she managed it: the weight she carried seemed not labeled as Guilt but as Womanhood. In vague wonderment the boy ascribed her strength to the discipline in which she had been reared and also to the heritage awarded to Katrine by generations of good-hearted peasants with limited but sturdy minds. . . . Katty was his forever; and she seemed much older than he; strangely she seemed like his mother.

Nevertheless he fretted constantly, once he was away from her and coping with the first dread impersonal complications of soldier life. He lost weight, gave sharp retorts to his companions when they joked at him, was sullen if tractable beneath the scrutiny of his sergeant. Aloof on his sweat-soaked blanket at night, he envisioned all manner of complaints, disasters, social disgraces. Katty had a baby and the baby was born dead. Katty died in childbirth. Katty had a baby, and the baby was an idiot, waving foolish arms and legs and grunting like a pig. The neighbors drew in their skirts when Katty passed. Katty’s father tied her in the woodshed as soon as he learned that she was pregnant, and beat her daily with a thick willow switch; and he walked up and down the road with his cowhide whip coiled in his huge hand, watching for Willie to return from the army so that Jake Fiedenbruster could savor the glee of thrashing Willie to a pulp. Sometimes these imaginings took the form of distinct colorful dreams and nightmares. Titus Cherry said, What in time ails you, Willie? You were groaning and growling in your sleep like my little brother when he et too many gooseberry tarts.

My dear friend, she addressed him timidly at long last, and that was the letter he carried folded in his Bible. (The Rebels did not take his Bible from him when he was captured; and sometimes he thought it was better for him than food; but the mere thought of locusts and honey made his mouth water.) My dear friend, I take my pen in hand to write that I hope you are well. Often I think of you and wish to see you. One letter from you I rec’d, but it is not wise that you should speak so freely of such matters, setting the words down in pencil and paper; for suppose my mother or my father should have chanced to read it?? Quickly I put it in the stove! But I write to inform you that no more such worries should be entertained in your thoughts. I have waited long in order to make certain; two months have elapsed and now I am certain that there is no fear. Willie, I am young and know very little of such matters! But I am sure now and you may be sure and free in your heart. By that I do not mean that you should be free enough to seek for another friend! For you are mine, Willie, and I am thine. And I am trying to remember the verses which Teacher set for us upon the big slate, but it is something about a vine entwining, and maybe about a stump. Oh, my Willie, the tears are flowing freely as I think of thee, and some have fallen upon this letter paper. Is it not handsome, with the Flag and spirit of Our Fair United Country standing side by side, and all in beautiful colors?? It is dear, costing five cents for each pretty sheet and envelope, but I paid for it with some of my berry money. May the Heavenly Father bless and keep thee safely, my dear friend Willie. Now I have covered all the little paper. The mother is calling to me to pare a pumpkin for the pies. Always I am thine, heart’s dearest. Katrine Christine Ernestine Fiedenbruster.

There were other letters later, but none rang with the joy of this. As he wore it to a thin tinted rag, rereading and rereading, Willie thought that he heard the brown polished music box playing—a small music box which the Germans had brought from the Old Country along with their clock and the ugly silhouettes of two grandmothers and two grandfathers.

Now Willie could hop like a young frog in springtime. He was the life of the squad, sometimes the most bounding, least trammeled spirit in the column. No task was too arduous, no march too wearying, no shellfire too filled with threat. Remus Hillburner perished of his fever, Romulus Hillburner was shot through the knee and sent home to walk stiff-legged through the balance of his years, Titus Cherry was creased on the head by a bouncing piece of solid shot: they left him for dead, with blood pooling in his eyesockets, and then when they went back to fetch his body Tite wasn’t there at all; and he came walking into camp that night with his scalp stiffening and painful where some old Rebel granny had kindly sewed it up with linen thread. Within the month Titus was well again, sound as a nut, and his mass of long black hair covered the huge scar. . . . Willie Mann suffered neither wound nor sickness, and was promoted to fourth corporal. The delighted Katty jigged and squeaked when she received the news, and that very day she wrote a letter to Willie with the word
Corporal
underscored with red crayon in the address, but the letter never reached Willie.

It was that same June day that three boys in torn brown shirts descended upon Willie from a cleft in Georgia rocks, and called him a Yankee son of a bitch, and told him to stick his bayoneted musket in the ground or they would blow his guts out of his ass. Willie’s musket was empty, and his companions were scampering in retreat for the moment. He had no wish for his guts to be blown through any aperture whatsoever, so the bayonet sank quickly into earth. The boys (two of them appeared even younger than he) took all his accoutrements, along with his pocketknife and old silver watch, and the twenty-one cents in currency he had in his pocket. They snatched his knapsack and pawed through it, but they took nothing except the little blue housewife his sisters had sewn hastily for him before his departure. And later one of the boys came around with a shamed face and said, Yank, I reckon that was stealing, and stealing is a sin in the sight of the Almighty, and he gave the housewife back to Willie. Willie rather expected to have his watch returned also, and asked for it boldly; but another Rebel who now possessed it suffered no squirmings of conscience.

Along with other strays Willie was guarded rudely in various tanyards, schoolhouses, sawmill enclosures, cotton gin enclosures, and periodically on the cars. He arrived at Andersonville along with three hundred and fourteen fellow prisoners, only one of whom he had known by face but not by name when he was a recruit. This person, whose name was Dundridge, was no fit companion for anyone, be he man-at-arms or prisoner. One day Willie’s ration disappeared while he rushed to answer a call of nature; he was almost sure that Dundridge took it and gobbled it, but he had no evidence. . . . Willie owned a capacious tin cup, fine to drink out of, fine to boil coffee in, or even stew or mush. Well, the cup disappeared also; and a day or so later Dundridge made a great to-do about a cup he had bought from a guard. Somehow secretly Dundridge had scoured off all the black, and he had twisted the handle to make it look different, but Willie snatched the cup and looked inside on the bottom. There it was: the crude symbol composed of W and M which Willie had scratched with his bayonet point long ago. Dundridge denied, protested and finally threatened; which vociferations Willie halted by means of the old-fashioned hip throw, and he banged Dundridge’s head against the ground until a guard bruised his bottom with a musket butt and said, If you’re such a smart scrapper, little Yank, why didn’t you scrap harder and not get cotched? Dundridge and Willie remained distinctly aloof. In the hospital at Andersonville, Dundridge died, and his death was recorded as being due to marasmus—a wasting of flesh without fever or obvious disease. When Willie Mann heard of his demise he did not feel regretful in the least: he regretted only that so many others had to die. With an angry mustering of fanatic quality he was determined that he himself should not die.

If he had known more about the business of being a prisoner (he would learn) he would have recognized that he was of the type to last long. He was a knobby tanned streak of lean, such as you might extract from a bacon slice. He had youth, no extra weight, elasticity, a good humor, he did not require much food for sustenance, he had taught himself to drink very little water and now he would drink even less.

He held lengthy private conversations with his father, conversations in which he supplied the dialogue for both; yet if Doctor had been dropped into the stockade from a gas balloon his questions and comments would have been no more characteristic.

Sonny, tell me about that Dundridge.

Well, I know a fellow works Outside every now and again, and he was fetching pine boughs to the hospital. He heard it from another fellow from our Ninety—I mean from our mess. Said he died of marasmus.

Hain’t no such disease in my book. Oh, I know the term; but it’s employed to cover a multitude of sins. Did he have fever?

Not a grain, when he was sick here.

Flesh seem to fall away?

Reckon that’s how you’d describe it. Didn’t slough off—wasn’t nary a sore on him. Teeth didn’t come out, neither. Take that Canadian—the one they call Frenchy in that A-tent shebang over there. You can pull his teeth out betwixt your two fingers if you’re game to try. I’ve seen him win money on it.

Dropsical?

Not so you’d notice. Entirely unpuffed-up.