Authors: Harold Keith
A shadow fell across the bed. “Time's up, Bussey!” somebody barked gruffly. Jeff looked up. It was Sergeant Pike.
“I'll hurry, Sergeant.”
The Sergeant moved off.
A shaft of winter sunshine, clean and warm, fell across Jimmy's rude coverlet, then faded away. A sudden gust of wind shook the old church. Jeff talked a minute to the Sister of Mercy. She promised to keep Jimmy's drum for Jeff until he returned from Van Buren. He felt awful about leaving. He wished with all his heart that he could stay.
“Jeff, I don't wanta die while I'm asleep. Hold up my hand so Jesus will see it when he comes,” Jimmy murmured feebly.
Jeff propped his hand up with the bedclothing as best he could, and sobbing softly to himself, tiptoed silently out of the church.
The march to Van Buren was miserable. How awful it must be to die when you are only fifteen years old. Every time he thought of Jimmy, Jeff felt as if something was pinching his throat. His eyes became so misty that twice he stepped in roadside puddles and felt the icy water rise in his brogans and wet his socks. Darkness was descending on the land. There was still snow on the north sides of the mountains. Thin sheets of ice were forming on the puddles in the road.
He pulled up the collar on his long coat and tried to walk around the puddles. As usual, it didn't look good for the infantry. However, as they kept moving southward, there was less and less snow until soon it had all disappeared and the roads became firmer and smoother. They marched until midnight, rested until dawn, and after a breakfast of hot coffee, cold bacon and the hated hardtack, began walking again.
But now a new species of torture awaited them. About ten o'clock in the morning they struck the head of Cove Creek. The stream grew wider and deeper as the snow melting in the mountains emptied hundreds of noisy rivulets into it, and meandered in so many loops and curves that the road crossed it thirty-seven times.
The first time they forded it, the water was only ankle-deep and they ran through it with loud whoops. Then it got deeper, and their pants were soaked a little higher. Soon it was bellydeep on the horses. That was fine for the cavalry but tough on the infantry. Holding their muskets and packs shoulder-high, the men plunged into the icy, milk-hued water up to their armpits.
As an ambulance with Clardy aboard crossed a ford, lurching, bumping, and floating, the driver cracking his whip and yelling shrilly at the swimming mules, Bill Earle grasped an iron rail on the rear, hoping to be towed across the stream.
Snarling, Clardy brought his heel down hard on Bill's hand. Uttering a cry of pain, Bill released his grip on the rail and with a big splash disappeared beneath the swift water. When he bobbed up a few feet downstream without his cap, his wet blond hair plastered to his head, Jeff plunged in after him, extending his musket at arm's length. Clasping the barrel tightly, Bill was towed to shore, his face blue with cold, his teeth chattering as he cursed Clardy with every breath he drew.
Jeff was surprised how well the infantry bore the frequent wettings. It was amazing how much you could stand when you had to. The constant marching with the wind to their backs kept them from growing chilled. They marched until ten o'clock that night, then built great log fires on the bank to dry their wet clothing. The bugles sounded reveille at three o'clock next morning, and after a breakfast of dried peas and hot coffee, they resumed the punishing trek. They plodded through the noon hour without food. The valley had widened now, and the road crossed the creek less often. Hunger was their main discomfort.
“I'm so famished I'm gut-shrunk,” Stuart Mitchell confessed, weakly.
Without breaking stride, Bill Earle took a long pull from his canteen. Smacking his lips, he growled, “Dried peas for breakfust an' water fer dinner. I guess I'll jest swell up fer supper.” Soon they heard cannonading ahead. Jeff figured the Union cavalry and battery ahead must be encountering rebels.
Half an hour later they came to the top of a high bluff overlooking the Arkansas River.
“Lookie thar!” somebody sputtered in awe. Below them a town of considerable size sprawled at the foot of the bluff on their side of the river. Jeff looked inquiringly at Noah.
“Van Buren?”
Noah nodded. “Must be.”
Jeff sighed wearily. They had walked forty miles to reach it. Even if they took it, what would they have accomplished?
He was impressed by how far he could see from the top of the bluff. The wide river stretched away for miles. Beyond it, the brown woods dominated the landscape, growing uphill toward a range of blue mountains in the distance. Jeff could see the sun's rays slanting obliquely off the distant mountain peaks. Union cannon were booming. Across the sandy river half a mile away, a regiment of rebel infantry fled the city, scurrying for safety beneath a belt of cottonwood trees. Van Buren was theirs.
They marched into it down a wide road gullied by recent rains. Orders were passed along the line to stop talking, brace up, and present a soldierly appearance. Jeff was proud of how trim and orderly the army looked despite its hardships. The guidons were fluttering and flags of the infantry and the battery were unfurled. As the long blue lines entered the streets of the rebel town in platoon formation, the band struck up “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Hearing the stirring music, Jeff was prouder than ever. He guessed that starving and fighting all day and being marched to death all night was what made a good soldier out of you.
“Let's show 'em what a real army looks like,” Bill Earle challenged, straightening his body.
“Yeah, an' a winnin' army,” growled Stuart Mitchell, picking up his big, muddy feet.
“Yeah, and a wet one,” said Jeff, throwing back his shoulders. As they swung smartly into town, their ragged shoes smacking the ground in unison with the rattle of parade drums, Jeff heard people along the sidewalks say in admiration, “They look like sure soldiers.”
The army was ravenously hungry. They had been marching without food since three o'clock in the morning. Soon they broke ranks, and four thousand Union soldiers were helping themselves to whatever they could find. Jeff, Noah, Bill, and Stuart Mitchell, foraging in a side street, had immediate luck. They ran into a Negro who had emerged from a deserted brick store, carrying a large ham.
Noah stepped suddenly in front of him, and the Negro stopped, the whites of his eyes rolling in fright. Seeing the yearning looks of the soldiers, he thrust the meat behind him. But Jeff could smell it anyhow.
Noah licked his lips, motioning toward the ham. “Any more like that in there?”
The Negro's white teeth flashed in a relieved smile. “Yassuh! Yassuh! Plenty hams in theah, suh.”
“Wal, you go on back and git you another 'un,” Noah said roughly. And to Jeff's astonishment, he took the ham bodily away from the Negro. Quickly they all jerked out their knives and carved off a piece.
Jeff bit greedily into the tender meat. “Gosh, Noah,” he said, his mouth full, “what would you have done if he hadn't given it to you?”
Noah lowered his shank of pink meat and, with the back of one hand, wiped the grease from his mouth.
“I 'spect I'da shot him, youngster.” Noah looked as though he would have, too. Jeff's jaw slacked. It was funny how war changed men.
Nearly every store in town was plundered by the soldiers. A big cavalryman swaggered out of a grocery store, his hat filled with oats. Carefully he poured the oats on the wooden sidewalk, so his half-starved horse, tethered to an iron post nearby, could reach it. The horse nickered hungrily, lowered its head, and thrust out its thick lips.
The cavalryman saw the infantrymen and grinned. With a sweeping gesture of his arm, he pointed at the store.
“Pitch in, boys!” he invited. “It's all ours.”
It was indeed. As Noah led them inside, they met other soldiers coming out, their arms filled with all sorts of merchandise. Noah concentrated on tobacco, filling a sack with twist after twist. He also pocketed several boxes of sulphur matches.
From the back of the store, they heard Bill Earle whoop exultantly in his high voice. Triumphantly he held up a pair of shiny black shoes and a pair of thick woolen socks. Sitting down on the floor, he kicked off his old, tattered brogans and laced on the new ones.
Jeff looked at him enviously. “What size are they?”
Bill chuckled, gaily, “I used to wear an eight but a nine felt so good that I jest took me a ten.”
“If you hain't no objection, git me a pair, too,” Stuart Mitchell called in a muffled voice from the front of the store. His head was out of sight in a hogshead of raw brown sugar.
“What size you wear?” Bill called.
Mitchell came up for air, sugar all over his freckled face. “I don't care,” he bellowed amiably, “jest hand me a pair.”
Although the owner of the store had fled, inviting looting, Jeff couldn't bring himself to take the heavy merchandise on the shelves. He nibbled tentatively at a piece of rock candy somebody had dropped on the counter. Stuart assured him that the store-owners were all rebels anyhow and therefore their goods were subject to confiscation. Mitchell and Earle led Jeff over to the shoe counter and made him try on several pairs, but they were all too large.
Mitchell shook his red head disappointedly. “You got feet like a deer.”
Two hours and three stores later, the bugles sounded and they were pressed into duty as a guard for several rebel cavalrymen who had been captured and brought in by the Sixth Kansas Cavalry. Some of the rebel prisoners were laughing and joking and asking how far it was to the “Lincoln coffee.” The South had no coffee and was using a vile-tasting substitute brewed from roasted bran. But Jeff noticed that all the rebels looked unhappy when they were parted from their horses, brought with them from their homes. Now that they were prisoners, they knew they would never see their pets again. When they dismounted they hesitated a minute to bestow a fond look and a final pat. Jeff respected them for that, even if they were rebels.
Three of the dismounted rebels were assigned to Jeff. He had never been given custody of a prisoner before. Gingerly, he felt over each of them for weapons, then ordered them to sit down on the curb. Then he noticed that the oldest man, a captain wearing a big felt hat with a plume, had on a pair of handsome new riding boots, polished and hand-stitched. They looked just Jeff's size.
Fascinated, Jeff couldn't take his eyes off them. The rebel captain saw him staring. Frowning, he drew his feet up under him. He was a big, important-looking fellow with a sandy, cowhorn mustache. Jeff thought if the rebel officer had been half smart, he would have daubed mud all over those new boots so they wouldn't look so inviting. Jeff glanced once at his own crumbling footwear, then back at the captain.
“What size are they?” Jeff asked boldly.
“They don't have any size. They are custom-built.”
Jeff was tempted. “You won't need 'em anyway where you're going.”
The rebel officer's face flushed with indignation. “Young man,” he said, sternly, “that's highway robbery.”
Jeff laughed. “Well, if that's the way you look at it, keep 'em. I won't take 'em. But the boys down the line will.” He walked the three prisoners to the prison compound, an abandoned school building of native stone, and turned them over to the guards.
Five minutes later Jeff passed the prison compound again and heard somebody calling, “Young man. Young man.”
The same rebel captain came hobbling to the log fence and hailed him. Jeff saw that he had lost both his pretty brown boots and his plumed hat. In their place, he wore a cast-off pair of union brogans, his toes protruding; and on his head was an old straw hat that looked as if the Arkansas crows had been nesting in it all winter. But he was beaming.
“Young man, you're the only gentleman in camp,” he told Jeff, his cowhorn mustache bobbing excitedly up and down as he talked. “Before you got out of sight, they took my boots and watch, and swapped hats with me. They're nothin' but a lot of thieves.”
Jeff grinned. He thought of the stories he had heard about Watie's raiders. There were looters in both armies.
Suddenly the fresh booming of cannon was heard. A two-story red brick building half a block down the street began to twist and buckle. With a shivering roar, it toppled and collapsed. Bricks flew in every direction. A rebel shell had made a direct hit.
A lieutenant sprinted down the middle of the street, one hand on his clanking sword to keep it from tripping him. As he ran, he muttered, “That crazy, dumb Hindman! Shelling his own town!”
Bugles sounded and drums rolled. Jeff ran to join his company, and they were sent to rescue the wounded from the ruins. Among the dead were three Union soldiers. One of the worst hurt was a rebel prisoner whom the three dead men had been escorting to the prison compound. He was old and white-headed. Unarmed and painfully wounded in the shoulder, he was lying on his back in the street, yelling at the top of his lungs.
The wounded man's screaming seemed to enrage Clardy, who was standing nearby. Drawing his saber, he ran over to where the rebel was lying.
“Shut your trap!” he roared, his face livid with anger. Cursing, Clardy raised his right boot and, stamping powerfully downward, deliberately ground his heel into the helpless rebel's eye. The dying man's mouth flopped open. There was a slow rattling in his throat, and his hands clawed and twitched. Then he lay quiet.
Every man in the company saw it. Sickened by the brutal act, Jeff rushed at Clardy, his eyes blazing with anger. Paying no attention to the drawn saber, he pushed Clardy backward roughly with both hands.
“You're not fit to be an officer!” he told him, hotly.
Stuart Mitchell thrust his bearded chin into Clardy's face. “You cowardly swine! Why don't you try rammin' your heel in my eye?”