Rebels of Babylon (24 page)

“Who’s dead this time?” he asked. His interest was not impressive.

“The maiden!” Mr. Barnaby interjected, fighting a sob. “The fair maiden.”

Mystified, the captain looked at me. “He don’t mean that high-yella gal? Does he? That scrawny thing you were snuggling yesterday morning?”

“Likely her,” I said, too worn to be irate at his suspicions.

“If that don’t beat all,” Bolt said. “I swear to God.” He was not quick of wit, to say the least.

My temper come up again, though. Not at the limitations of his character, but at his neglect of elementary duties. Aggravated by my rebellious jaw, my lecture was not gentle.

“Listen you,” I said, “and listen well. It is tired I am of the doings in this hotel, which you and your soldiers have been set to guard. I am tired to a vomiting, Captain Bolt. If your masters have set you to watch me like a dog, you could at least observe my door often enough to keep stray murderers out. Look you, boy. Here is what you will do, and do not argue. Do not say a word until I finish. Or we can visit General Banks in the morning. To ask if you might not be rewarded with a posting to the front, where officers do not lounge about hotels, dreaming of fine dinners. Heed what I say, or I will see you become a soldier proper.”

Grunting for emphasis, I reared up like the sergeant I once was. “The moment it is light enough to wake the residents, you and your men will search this cursed hotel from top to bottom. Do not pull faces at me, boy. Even if you find nothing—which is likely—it will tell these criminals their free run is past. You also will send a fellow to the paymaster to tell him I will come to inspect his accounts. Tell him to expect me in the afternoon. And warn him that I know the look of ledgers. If
he
objects, then he and I will visit General Banks. And you will go in your person to the provost marshal. To demand, in my name, any information he possesses about an organization called the ‘Fishers of Men.’ And he is not to put me off with Bible stories. He is to speak of men in their living flesh.”

I stabbed the air with my finger, which is unmannerly. “Lastly you will come down the stairs with me now, while I take another room. Where a fellow can sleep for a brace of hours without the creaking of secret doors or social calls by all the city’s assassins. And you will post a guard upon my room, with orders that no one, living or dead, may disturb me until I am ready to be disturbed. And that will not be until the hour of noon.”

Wheeling about, I faced poor Mr. Barnaby. I fear my temper was flowing in full flood. But who among us is perfect?

“And
you,
sir. You may sleep wherever you wish, then make inquiries anywhere you want. Ask about the lass, if you will. Living or dead or translated into gossamer. But you will also ask about these ‘Fishers of Men,’ and no nonsense. If you argue back to me and weep about a girl you have only laid eyes on, or waste another moment on penny romances, by God, sir, I will let your Master Francis rot in a Union prison a year beyond the end of this blasted war. Have I made myself understood?”

I looked from one man to the other, in a mood to devour raw flesh. Although I do not mean that literally, of course.

“Do you under
stand
me, gentlemen? Do you two understand what I have said?”

I did harbor some fear that they might
not
have understood me, given the impairment to my speech. But both men nodded, Mr. Barnaby pale as fresh milk and Captain Bolt as nervous as those brothers must have been when Joseph let them know the game was up.

“Good,” I said. I took up my cane, then stomped out the door, marched along the hallway and paraded down the stairs. Followed by my well-chastised companions.

The clerk behind the desk was the same fellow I had upbraided the night before for lassitude. He did not like my looks when he saw me coming.

If nothing else, the fellow had sound instincts regarding authority and seemed to have learned that I must be appeased. I got my new room and half a hundred assurances that it contained no contraptions for shameful doings. I also got my guard from Captain Bolt.

Mr. Barnaby shambled off like a wounded pachyderm. He was glum as Mr. Carlyle pondering the deeds of Robespierre.

Now, you will judge me a hard man—and I have already admitted to my temper—but I saw full well that Mr. Barnaby by himself could enter doors where I would
not be welcome. His fellows would speak more openly when not compelled to make a show for me. I wished to give him time alone which he would not take unless it were forced upon him. He was a lonely man and worried, too. Such fellows cling, Lord bless them. But I needed him to sink back into his city for a time.

It is like this, see: A stranger in New Orleans is an audience, for whom the city’s natives play their roles. The place is a great theater, and every child and grampus is an actor. There are real theaters, and music halls, as well, giving plays and shows despite the times. But the performances of the foremost rank occur in the streets and parlors. And, perhaps, elsewhere. I leave it to you to imagine the intimate scenery.

As a member long admitted to their company, Mr. Barnaby could step backstage. Where I am told all theaters are sordid.

I watched the fellow’s haunches recede through the doors that led to the terrace. The night gulped him down and I felt the stirrings of pity. After all, I am a lucky man, well married and well loved. But times there were when I believed that loneliness, not greed, was the root of all evil. Perhaps he was taken with the girl not because of a fullness he saw in her, but because of the hollowness echoing in himself. It is a hard enough life when we are loved. To walk the world alone is a terrible thing.

Well, we would find his missy, if she lived. In good time.

As I trudged up the staircase beside the guard who would post outside my door, the clerk come running after, calling my name.

Holding out a packet of letters, he told me, “Sorry, Major. I just plain forgot. Ship put in from Baltimore. Carrying the mails. Brought you these. Navy feller sent a letter, too.”

Such lads expect a “tip” for merely doing their work, but the clerk got none from me. Such generosities only breed corruption.

Yet, I was pleased and there is no denying it. At the thought of news from home, the stench of bloody murder faded wonderfully. Exhausted though I was, I could hardly restrain myself from hunting through the letters there on the landing. But an officer must be dignified in front of the other ranks. I marched myself to my old room and gathered up my belongings in good order.

Annoyed I was at finding blood on my traveling bag, which had been a Christmas gift from my Mary Myfanwy.

It is a horrid thing to admit, but the stains upon the leather moved me more than the lot of the servant girl. I would excuse myself by pleading weariness and the heartless temper that overtakes us all, but the truth is that a tired man reveals himself. I am a sorry sinner, there is true.

I let the soldier bear my bag, while I carried a uniform. It had been returned, nicely cleaned, by the merchants who had dressed me head to toe. Concealed in the wardrobe, it had not suffered attack.

Halfway down the hall, that lass with the painted cheeks slipped by with a wink.

In my new room, which was haunted by cigars, I tumbled everything over a chair, bid the guard goodnight, and locked the door. Throwing off my cape and wrestling my new boots free of my ankles, I meant to have a hasty wash, if water there was in the pitcher, then to scour my letters and pay my debt of prayers.

I made the mistake of lying back on the mattress in my clothing. Intending only to gather my strength, I plunged into sleep before I could read one word. Nor did I thank the Lord for all my blessings.

My punishment was a dream of my wife and son. So real they were that it tore my heart in two.

TWAS DAY WHEN I awoke, with the city rumbling and squawking beyond the window-glass. I reached out for my darling, who had been so vivid while my eyes were closed, but found only an emptiness fouled by cigars.

The ache had come to visit my jaw again.

I spent a moment on personal matters, then pushed the pot under the bed. Water there was in the pitcher, so I scrubbed my hands and splashed myself to life. Quick as a miner under the eye of his pit boss, I bent to dig out the crock the servant had given me. My only purpose was relief from pain. I had forgotten the hint to look inside.

There was a message in the jar, scrawled on a slip of paper:

QUENE MANWELER NO EVTHIN

I took it to mean that some personage called ‘Queen Manweler,’ whoever such might be, knew everything that Papa Champlain had not been obliged to tell me. Perhaps the words were only darky nonsense, yet I regretted my hounding of Mr. Barnaby. If a ‘Queen Manweler’ lived in the city, the fellow seemed likely to know of her. But I would not see him until the afternoon. Punished I was for being so heartless and hard.

Well, the intelligence had waited out the night. It could wait some hours longer. I dipped a finger into the pot and come up with a dab of green paste.

My wound was not complacent when I touched it.

After a shock that called tears to my eyes, I gently rubbed the concoction over my stitches. Then I coated the meat around the damage.

With my finger still roaming in my mouth, I recalled the stack of letters. I had been so worn down and weary that true events had blended into dreams, the letters consigned to a nether-world.

The missives lay beneath my cape, a happy dozen and more. Flipping from one to the next with the haste of a child, I saw that fully seven were from my darling, with one from dear Mrs. Schutzengel, a pair from our Pottsville lawyers, another from Matt Cawber, who had become a partner in our coal business, and, not least in value, two letters from my friend, Dr. Mick Tyrone. He was serving General Sherman, north of Vicksburg. With the Rebels stubborn between us, his letters had needed to travel a great, long way.

A note from a Navy captain intruded into the welcome stack. I laid it aside, unread. Once informed that I answered to Mr. Lincoln, the Navy men missed no chance to curry favor. I had been asked aboard many a ship for dinner, but my duty, as well as my interests, lay ashore. I had no time for fripperies and flatterers.

Now, a single letter from loved ones is a soldier’s pride and joy, but to receive such abundance all at once promised me an interlude of happiness amid the horrors of Babylon. Nor could the timing have been more opportune. I had resolved the night before to cordon off the morning for rumination. Too much had happened too swiftly and I know myself well enough to understand that, while I may be deep of mind, I am not quick of grasp. I needed time to ponder, to let the facts arrange themselves—as facts will do when they are left to themselves. I also intended to give myself the pleasantest breakfast my wounded mouth would bear, then to engage my Bible for my soul’s sake. My duty to our Union could wait for the afternoon. Every man has a higher duty still.

Oh, I love a letter when the news blows fair.

There is the queerness of it: I knew in my heart that the news would not be bad, at least not of my Mary, John or Fanny. There is still much that Mick Tyrone and his science cannot explain to us.

Oh, I was rich that morning! Joy gripped me before I cut a single envelope. Murder was naught, sin vanquished. All my thoughts were of hearth and home, of those I loved beyond reckoning. I yearned to read every letter at once, to devour all they contained.

Still, a fellow must not be weak or unmanly. My Mary says that a gentleman is someone who will not do in private what he would not do before the public’s eye, although such a rule seems hard.

Leaving my Colt in my bag for the term of my breakfast, I allowed myself to choose three letters to take along to table, all from my wife. Then I warned myself that Southron indolence might well mean I would have to wait for my victuals. I took up the other letters from home, as well. Just at the door, I turned again and added the missives from Mick Tyrone and Matt Cawber. But I am not completely without restraint. I let the letters from the lawyers and the naval fellow wait.

The guard without my door had changed, but the new fellow looked alert, if a bit unkempt. He greeted me with a countryman’s nod, which hardly suited military courtesy.

I said nothing. I wanted only my coffee and all the news from home.

To my dismay, I was far from the only officer in the dining room. They should have been at work, since it was Friday and after nine. But a dozen dawdled over their plates, like gentlemen at a club in Piccadilly.

I ordered coffee, soft eggs and bread with butter. It seemed a wise and careful choice that morning, although I found the smell of bacon tempting. A well-fried pig has a lovelier scent than all the perfumes of the Peshawar bazaar.

As soon as the waiter slouched away, I opened the first letter from my darling. The world faded away. The scald of coffee hot as guns in action drew little notice. The slop of eggs and moistened bread slipped down my gullet half-tasted. One after another, the letters carried me to a realm of goodness and affection, reminding me of all that makes this world worth enduring.

MY MARY MYFANWY, my darling, could pack more love in a letter than a corporal can stuff rations in his bedroll. The child was not yet arrived, of course, since the letters had spent long weeks coming by ship. But my Mary is not the sort to take to a day bed while awaiting her confinement. She wrote that she still spent some hours in her shop each day. Of course, that concerned me. Even if robust in constitution, a woman approaching her lying in must have some care in her doings. But my Mary has a head for business that rivals many a man’s and, though I sought to persuade her to give up dressmaking after our fortunes turned for the better, she had grown a taste for being a proprietress.

Young John was ever larking about, and delighted in the snow. He sometimes asked where I had gone, which moved me. Little enough sense he had of me, his father gone off to war. Whenever I returned home, the lad spent the first few days in outright fear, though I am gentle. He was healthy and ever so
clever, Mary wrote. Concerns that had been raised to me by Mr. Evan Evans on his deathbed found no credence in our young son’s person.