The Bloody Ground - Starbuck 04 (21 page)

None dared oppose him, not with Case retching into the grass. His face had gone red, the breath was hoarse in his constricted throat, and his eyes were wide with terror. Starbuck turned away. "Captain Dennison!"

"Sir?" Dennison was white-faced, appalled.

"Get a knife, Captain," Starbuck said calmly, "and cut Case's stripes off."

Dennison obeyed while Starbuck retrieved his coat and revolver. "Anyone else here think they know better than me how to run this battalion?" he shouted at the men.

Someone began clapping. It was Caton Rothwell, and his applause spread among the many men who had hated their sergeants. Starbuck waved the clapping to silence, then looked at Captain Potter. "You come to me when you're sober, Potter," he said, then walked away. He felt that he must be shaking, but when he looked at his bruised right hand it seemed quite still. He ducked into his makeshift tent, then suddenly the tension flowed out of him and he shuddered like a man with fever.

Lucifer, without being asked, brought him a mug of coffee. "There's some of Captain Potter's whiskey in it," he told Starbuck. "I rescued it from the bottle." He stared at Starbuck's left ear that was throbbing painfully. "He hit you hard."

"I hit him harder."

"Man won't like you for it."

"He didn't like me anyway."

Lucifer watched Starbuck warily. "He'll be wanting you." "Meaning?"

Lucifer shrugged and touched his Colt revolver that Starbuck had restored. "Meaning," the boy said, "you should take care of him properly."

"Let the Yankees do it," Starbuck said dismissively.

"Hell, they can't do nothing proper! You want me to do it?"

"I want you to get me supper," Starbuck said. His ear was hurting and he had work to do, even more work now that his new company lists had to be rewritten to accommodate the names of the newly chosen sergeants. Some of the old sergeants were re
-
elected, and Starbuck suspected threats might have been used to ensure those choices, but Case's name was not on the list. The last company to report was E, the half-formed company of skirmishers, and Caton Rothwell brought that list written in clumsy letters on the bac
k of a tobacco wrapper. Rothwell’
s own name was at the top of the page. Starbuck was seated outside his tent, close enough to a fire for the flames to illuminate the page that he first read and then handed to Billy Tumlin, who had come to share a late-night mug of coffee. "Good," Starbuck said
to Rothwell when he saw Rothwell’
s name on the list. "Don't make the mistake I did."

"Which was what?" Rothwell asked.

"Being too easy on the men."

Rothwell looked surprised. "Hell, I don't reckon you're easy," he said. "Case don't, either." "How is he?" Starbuck asked. "He can walk in the morning." "Make sure the son of a bitch does."

"Where are we going tomorrow?" Rothwell asked.

"North past Charlestown," Starbuck said.

"Past Charlestown?" Billy Blythe asked, accenting past. "I kind of hoped we'd find billets there."

"We're joining Old Jack's men to attack Harper's Ferry," Starbuck said, "and they won't be lollygagging in Charlestown, so nor will we. You want some coffee?" he asked Rothwell.

Rothwell hesitated, then nodded. "Kind of you, Major."

Starbuck shouted for Lucifer, then gestured Rothwell to sit. "When I first met you, Sergeant," he said,
using Rothwell’
s new rank for the first time, "you told me that your wife was in trouble, which was why you walked away from your old regiment. What was the trouble?"

It was a blunt question and Rothwell met it with a hostile stare. "Ain't none of your business, Major," he finally said.

"It is my business if it happens again," Starbuck answered just as curtly. His curiosity was not prompted by prurience, but rather because he suspected that Rothwell could be a leader in the battalion and he needed reassurance about the man's dependability. "And it is if I need new officers, and Yankee bullets have a way of creating vacancies."

Rothwell considered Starbuck's words, then shrugged. "Won't happen again," he said grimly, and seemed content to leave it at that, but a moment later he spat into the fire. "Not unless the Yankees rape her again," he added bitterly.

Tumlin, sitting next to Starbuck, hissed in evident disapproval.

Starbuck, embarrassed by the answer, did not know what to say and so said nothing.

"A Southron did it," Rothwell said, "but he was riding with the Northern cavalry." Now that he was launched on the story his reluctance to tell it had disappeared. He probed inside his top pocket to bring out a square of oilcloth that was tied with string. He carefully unknotted the string, then just as carefully unfolded the waterproof cloth to reveal another scrap of paper. He handled the paper as though it were a relic, which to him it was. "Bunch of Yankee cavalry raiders came to the farm, Major," he told Starbuck, "and left her this. The Southron took my Becky to the barn that day, but he was stopped. He burned the barn though, and the next week he came back and burned the house and took my Becky out to the orchard. Beat her bloody." There were glints in the corner of Rothwell's eyes. He sniffed and held the paper out to Starbuck. "This man," he said bleakly.

The paper was an official US government form, printed in Washington, that promised payment for supplies taken by US forces from Southern householders. The payment, which would be made at the war's end, was dependent on the family being able to prove that none of its members had carried arms against the US government. The paper, in brief, was a license for Northerners to steal whatever they liked, and this paper carried a penciled signature that Starbuck read aloud. "William Blythe," he read, "Captain, US Army."

Tumlin did not move, did not speak, did not even seem to breathe.

Starbuck carefully folded the form and handed it back to Rothwell. "I know about Blythe," he said.

"You do, Major?" Rothwell asked with surprise.

"I was with the Faulconer Legion when cavalry attacked us. Blythe trapped some of our officers in a tavern and shot them down like dogs. Women too. You say he's a Southerner?"

"Speaks like one."

Tumlin let out a long sigh. "Reckon there are bad apples in every basket," he said, and his voice was so shaken that Starbuck looked at him with surprise. Somehow Tumlin had not struck Starbuck as a man easily moved by tales of hardship and Starbuck reckoned it was to Tumlin's credit that he had taken Rothwell's story so hard. Tumlin sighed. "Reckon I wouldn't want to be Mister Blythe if you got your hands on him, Sergeant," he said.

"I reckon not," Rothwell said. He blinked. "Farm belonged to my father," he went on, "but he weren't there when this happened. He's going to rebuild, he says, but how, I don't know." He stared into the fire that whirled a stream of sparks into the air. "Nothing left there now," Rothwell said, "just ashes. And my Becky's real hurt. And the children are scared it'll happen again." He carefully retied the string, then put the package back in his pocket. "Kind of hard," he said to himself.

"And you were arrested," Starbuck asked, "for trying to be with her?"

Rothwell nodded. "My Major wouldn't give me furlough. Said no one gets furlough before the Yankees are beat, but hell, we'd just whipped the bastards at Manassas so I reckoned I'd take my own furlough. Ain't sorry I did, either." He swallowed the lukewarm coffee, then glanced at Starbuck. "You arresting Case?" he asked.

"He's already in a punishment battalion," Starbuck said, "what else can they do to him?"

"They can shoot the son of a bitch," Rothwell said.

"We'll let the Yankees do it," Starbuck said, "and save the government the price of a bullet."

Rothwell was unhappy. "I reckon he ain't a safe man to keep around, Major."

Starbuck agreed, but was unsure what else he could do.

If he was to have Case arrested then he would need to send the man under escort to Winchester and he could not spare an officer to lead such a party, nor the time to write up the paperwork for a court-martial. He could hardly have Case shot on his own authority, for he had invited the fight, and so the best course seemed to let things lie, but to tread warily.

"I'll keep an eye on him," Tumlin promised.

Rothwell stood. "Grateful for the coffee, Major."

Starbuck watched him walk away, then shook his head. "Poor man."

"Poor woman," Blythe said, then let out a long sigh. "I suspect that Mister Blythe will be long gone," he added.

"Maybe," Starbuck said. "But I was fond of one of the girls who died in that tavern and when this war is over, Billy, I might just go looking for Mister Blythe. Give me something to do in the piping time of peace. But for now, what the hell do I do with Potter?"

"Nothing," Blythe said.

"Nothing? Hell, I make him up to captain and he rewards me by getting blind drunk."

Blythe stretched out a cramped leg. Then he leaned forward and snatched a burning stick from the fire and used it to light a pair of cigars. He handed one to Starbuck. "I guess I'm going to have to tell you the truth, Major."

"What truth?"

Blythe waved his cigar toward the flickering camp fires. "These men here, they ain't an ordinary battalion any more than you're an ordinary major. They don't know much about you, but what they do know, they like. I don't say they like you, because they don't even know you, but they sure as hell are intrigued by you. You're a Yankee for a start, and you ain't inclined to follow the rules. You make your own rules and you fight your own fights. They like that. They don't want you to be ordinary."

"What the hell has this got to do with Potter?" Starbuck interrupted.

"Because men going into battle," Blythe went on as though Starbuck had never spoken, "don't want their leaders to be ordinary. Men have to believe in something, Major, and when God chooses to stay in heaven they're forced to believe in their officers instead. In you," he prodded the cigar toward Starbuck, "and if you show you're just an ordinary officer then, hell, they'll lose their faith."

"Tumlin," Starbuck said, "you're babbling."

"No, sir, I am not. I'm telling you that an ordinary officer would fall back on army regulations. An ordinary officer would humiliate Potter and that, sir, would be a mistake. Hell, give Potter a scare, put the fear of God in the bastard, but don't bust him back to lieutenant. The men like him."

"Let him off?" Starbuck asked dubiously. "That's weakness."

"Hell, Major, no one thinks you're weak after what you did to Case. Besides, Potter did you real proud with the wagon."

"He did that, right enough." Or rather Lucifer had done the battalion proud for, on his exploration of Winchester's side streets, the boy had glimpsed a magnificent hearse parked inside a shed. The shed had been locked tight by the time Potter's detail arrived and the owner swore there was nothing inside but baled hay, but Potter had forced the lock and revealed the black-painted vehicle with its etched glass windows, velvet curtains, and high black plumes in their silver holders. He had filled the hearse with ammunition, then, lacking horses, his men had dragged the quaint vehicle northward. "He sure did us proud," Starbuck admitted again, then pulled on his cigar. In truth he did not want to punish Potter, but he feared to send the battalion a signal of lenience. "I'll give him hell," he said after a while, "but if the bastard does it again I'll break him down to cookboy. You want to go find the son of a bitch and send him to me?"

"I'll do that," Tumlin said and shambled into the night.

Starbuck prepared himself for Potter's tongue-lashing. In truth, he thought, it had not been a bad day. Not a good day, but not bad either. The battalion had lost no one to straggling, he had faced down his enemies, but he had not made those enemies into friends. Perhaps that would never happen, but if it did, he thought, it would be in the fierce crucible of battle. And the sooner, the better, Starbuck thought, then he remembered the cornfield at Chantilly and recalled his gut-loosening fear. Oh God, he thought, let me not be a coward.

Late that night Starbuck toured the picket line that was not set against the incursion of enemies, but against the possibility of his own men deserting, then, wrapped in his dirty blanket, he slept.

Lucifer sat nearby. The boy was tired, but he was determined not to sleep. Instead he sat just outside the glow of the dying fire and he watched the makeshift tent where Starbuck slept and he watched the fire-dotted field where the battalion rested, and every now and then he would caress the long barrel of the Colt revolver that lay across his knees. Lucifer liked Starbuck, and if Starbuck would take no precautions, then Lucifer would guard him against the demons. For that, Lucifer knew, was what they were; white demons, bad as they came, just waiting to take revenge.

it was probably
the worst day of Delaney's life. At any moment he expected to hear that one of the precious copies of Special Order 191 had gone missing and then he would have to face the rigors of a full-scale inquiry, but to his astonishment no one seemed to notice that a copy had been purloined. The army rested in blissful, blind ignorance. Much of it left Frederick City on the morning after Delaney stole the order. They marched in the early dawn to encircle the trapped Federal garrison at Harper's Ferry, while the rest of Lee's men prepared for their own departure the next day. Cavalry patrols went eastward and reported that the Northern army was only a day's march from Frederick City, but was showing no eagerness to advance. George McClellan was behaving true to his old form, creeping timidly forward and fearing every imaginary threat while posing none himself. "Though he's not a man I'd care to attack, not if he knew I was coming," Lee said generously at lunch. The general's broken hands had been rebandaged with lighter splints and he was constantly flexing his fingers with a look of astonished gratitude that their use was partly restored. "McClellan would make a very good defensive general," he said, clumsily spooning beans to his mouth.