The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg (19 page)

“Will they shoot a boy?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Who can say what men will do when the heat of battle is upon them? But these rebels are decent enough. They will be aiming for men in blue uniforms.” He looks at me with great concern. “But why flee? I thought you favored the South, that your family owned slaves by the dozen.”

“By the hundreds,” I tell him. “All lies. The only side I favor is named Harold Figg, and I will find him or die trying.”

“There’s an excellent chance you will succeed in dying,” he warns me. “Best stay here and keep your head down.”

“I made a promise,” I explain. “Remember my name in case I am forgot. Homer Figg, of Pine Swamp, Maine.”

A moment later I’m over the stall and leading a pony to daylight.

I
LIKE TO BELIEVE THAT
our Dear Mother watched over me that day. Maybe it is wishful to think that them in Heaven are concerned with those of us on earth, but
something
kept me alive, because by rights I should have been killed six times over.

The first is a hail of bullets zinging past my ears as I put heels to that rebel pony and gallop out of the farmyard. No saddle nor bridle to steer by, just me clinging to the mane for dear life, and bullets cleaving the air like invisible knives.

The next is not a mile away, when an artillery shell lands so close I can feel the heat as it explodes and smell the dirt in the air. Then I’m galloping the stolen pony through clouds of smoke, over rolling fields, over a railroad track, past thousands of soldiers massed to attack, and rolling batteries of artillery cannon, and startled men who shake their heads as me and the pony fly by, running for our lives.

Somehow the poor animal seems to understand that I want to go through the gray Confederate lines and head for the Union blue. Or maybe it’s just so spooked that it runs straight at what frightens it most.

Time and again shells explode, tearing up the ground, knocking down trees, and making soldiers vanish, leaving nothing behind but their boots.

I cling to the pony as if in a bad dream, although it is nothing like the war in my nightmares, where I have seen Harold die a hundred times. In nightmares the noise of war is not louder than a thousand thunderstorms, or as blinding as a thousand bolts of lightning. In nightmares it never smelled so bad. In nightmares I do not hear the cry of wounded horses and think that it is worse than the crying of wounded men because the animals do not understand what has happened to them, or why they have been shot down.

Men and horses are dying all around me and yet on I ride, on and on and on, spurring the pony with my bare heels, expecting to be struck at any moment.

Like the pony, fear keeps me going. That, and anger at being so scared. I keep riding and riding through bullets and bombshells because I am furiously afraid to stop moving. Stopping is where the world explodes. Stopping is certain death.

In that mad ride across the field of battle I see many things:

L
ATER SOMEONE TOLD ME
I must have covered five miles or more, from the rebel-held farmhouse to the Union lines at Culp’s Hill. To me it felt longer than forever. After a while I could not hear the fearsome thumping of the artillery, or the bee buzz of the bullets, or the crying of man and beast. It’s as if my ears have been stuffed with thick cotton, muffling the noise of war. The only thing I can really be sure of is my own heart slamming, and the beating heart of the pony as we ride on through the carnage, leaping over the dead and dying, our pace never slacking.

It’s as if me and the pony exist all to ourselves, inside the battle but somehow separate. Galloping on and on until suddenly the smoke clears away and there’s a sloping hill in front of us and rows and rows of cannons pointing their dark black barrels right at me, speaking in puffs of white smoke, and I’m shouting back at the cannons, shouting for my brother, but I can’t hear my own voice.

The pony rears up and I lose my hold, falling with a hard thump to the rocky ground. Can’t tell if I’m seeing stars, or real shells exploding, and then rough hands grab me and pull me into a trench dug in the ground below the cannon.

Bearded men in blue uniforms are shouting, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. Finally one of them gives me water and covers my ears with a cool damp cloth and slowly my hearing returns.

“Who are you, boy? Have you lost your mind? Charging over a battlefield without so much as a sword or gun? That’s madness! Four or five of our best sharpshooters were trying to cut you down, I don’t know how they missed!”

“Are you from Maine?” I ask, gulping the water.

“Vermont,” says the man with the water. “Poultney, Vermont. I never been to Maine, nor anywhere else but here.”

I try to explain about my brother, that he will be with a company of new recruits from Maine, but the Vermont man has no patience for my story.

“Medicine shows? Pigs like human beings? Confederate spies? Balloon rides? You’re speaking nonsense, boy! You took a bad fall and it’s gone to your head!”

“Harold Figg,” I insist. “He’s not yet eighteen!”

The Vermont man shrugs. “There are drummer boys of fourteen or even younger. Drummer boys no older than you!”

“He was sworn to fight as a soldier,” I try to explain, but the cannons fire directly over our heads and once again my ears go deaf for a time.

When the cannons are reloading for another salvo, the Vermont man hauls me over the top of the hill, out of the line of fire, and won’t let me go until he’s delivered me to his company sergeant.

“This boy was recovered on the field of battle!” he yells to a sergeant. “He’s plum crazy! What should I do?”

“Send him to the rear!” shouts the sergeant, pointing with his sword. “All civilians to the rear! And be quick about it, private! The Johnny Rebs are coming again, sure as Christmas. They will mount one last assault before the sun sets!”

There are thousands of soldiers upon the hill and just behind it, and from the look most have been fighting all day. The wounded are being loaded into wagons and will be carried to where the Union surgeons await.

Just over the ridge the cannons are booming, but here there are fires lit, and camp stoves where coffee brews, and the men all seem calm and tired but also full of purpose.

“They have seen the worst of war and are determined to keep fighting,” the Vermont man says, with great satisfaction. “We stand our ground at last.”

He fetches a mug of hot black coffee and bids me drink it. “Might be this’ll restore your sanity,” he says. “It must suffice, for I can’t be babysitting a lunatic boy. I must return to my men before the next assault, or be marked down as a deserter.”

“Thank you,” I say. “I’m fine now. It was all the noise made my head crooked.”

“It’ll do that,” he agrees, and points to the wagons. “Best thing, follow the wounded. That will get you a safe distance from the fighting. Don’t know what became of your little horse. I think it may still be running.”

I promise to follow the wagons of wounded and find safety in the rear, but as soon as he’s out of sight I skedaddle to another group of soldiers, asking if any are from Maine. None are — they’re all Pennsylvania volunteers, and some from New York, and they know nothing of the regiments from Maine, or where they might be located.

Before they can ask what a boy is doing on the battlefield, out of uniform, I move on to the next group, looking for my brother. Fact is, they’re all too busy to take much notice of me, or too tired to give chase.

As the sun is going down, I finally come upon some men from Maine, and ask if they have any Figgs along.

“Figs, son? Figs?” says one of the soldiers, grinning so hard his droopy mustache goes horizontal. “How about apples or peaches? Would you settle for a pear? We have a Private Charles Pear, from Brunswick.”

“Figg,” I insist. “Harold Figg, from Pine Swamp.”

“Never heard of Pine Swamp. Never heard of Harold Figg. Do you know what regiment? What division?”

“All I know is, he’s my brother and he’s in the army.”

“And how did you come to be here, boy, looking for your brother?”

I’m too exhausted to tell the story again, with or without the ornamentation. “I come by train,” I tell him, to keep it simple.

“All the way to Gettysburg by train?”

“The last stretch by horse,” I admit.

The soldier studies me in the fading light. “You look like you could use a meal, son. Why not join us? We are all Maine men here, though none called Figg.”

“I must find my brother,” I insist.

“Night falls,” he warns. “If you wander in the wrong direction the pickets will shoot you. Can’t find your brother if you’re shot, can you?”

“No, sir.”

“Then join us for a little while,” he suggests. “Our cook is making soup in that big iron pot. A fine potato soup that we pretend is fish chowder. You can look for your brother tomorrow, at first light. If his company is within marching distance they’ll be on the move, coming our way. All companies have been summoned to Gettysburg. One way or another he’ll be in the fight. Tomorrow, son, that’s when you’ll find him.”

I figure to have a little of that fine-smelling potato soup and then move along, keep looking. I settle down by the fire, spooning the soup out of a tin pan — tastes as good as it smells — and then another soldier gives me his ration of hardtack and shows me how to soak it in the soup and I eat that, too. Then when I’m about ready to set out again, dark or not, the regimental band decides to play, and it seems impolite to sneak away, especially with so many familiar Maine voices raised in song:

The Union forever! Hurrah, boys, hurrah!

Down with the traitors, up with the stars;

While we rally ’round the flag, boys, rally once again,

Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

Later on, as my eyelids grow heavy, a young soldier with a fine high tenor sings “Just Before the Battle, Mother,” a sad song about a boy telling his Dear Mother not to worry, and that’s what carries me off to sleep, dreaming of mothers and brothers and sons.

J
UST BEFORE DAWN
I
AM
awakened by a tall, skinny soldier who finds me sleeping near the smoldering campfire.