Crescent City Part 38

"Oh, for G.o.d's sake," Gabriel cries, "kill it! Shoot it!"

"Shoot who?" The Yankee sergeant, cradling his gun by the side of the wagon, hears him and laughs. He has big, rotten teeth. "Not allowed to shoot prisoners, you know that."

Gabriel's tongue is thick. He points.

The sergeant looks. "Oh, the horse, you mean?"

Gabriel nods. "Your rifle," he manages to say.

"You know how many men died these last few days? And you're worried about a horse?"

But the horse, Gabriel thinks, more clearly now, as they move on, the horse doesn't even know why-the horse must ponder why. Polaris, surely she wonders where I am. Polaris needs somebody to take care of her so that she will not die in a ditch like this one.

In Fredericksburg they put him down in some sort of public building, a warehouse or mill. There are holes in the roof and puddles where the rain comes in. There's food, some hardtack and water, but never enough water. How long he lies there, he doesn't know.

"You won't need to lose this foot," someone says at last, a tired man with pouches under the eyes. As on our side, they don't have enough doctors. Wouldn't it be strange if David were to walk in here now? Wouldn't it be sunlight in the dark?

"No, you won't lose it. I've cleaned it out. Keep it clean, if you can."

More days, and then back onto the wagons, going north. Of course, where else but north? And they come to a stop near a river. There is a dock at which a steamer waits for the long line of wagons. Like a floating cavern, it takes him away from sh.e.l.ls, smoke, b.l.o.o.d.y faces, and dawn attacks, away into a buried silence, a peace that is not peace. Yes, he feels relief as they move down the river, but more than that, a weighty guilt at this removal to the territory of the enemy, at being relieved of the struggle while others must go on fighting as long as they- "You fainted," someone says, "but you're all right now."

He is lying down on solid ground. Something soft whisks over his nose, a little clump of pine needles. He lets the sweet forest smell He on his lips. They have put him under a tree.

"Where are we?" he asks.

The man steps back, and Gabriel sees him at full length; fat chest, bearded face, and medical insignia. For a moment, because of the touch of a German accent, he has thought of David. Why not? Stranger things have happened. But this is not David's acquiline face. This man is ruddy-round, and his beard is grizzled. Northern armies have so many Germans. Irish, too. Funny. But southern ones have Cajuns and Scotch-Irish in North Carolina. Funny, all of it. He drowses again.

His feet are in the sun, now, but his head and shoulders are still in the shade. Lucky. The things you're grateful for! A piece of shade. It is so bright out that even the gra.s.s looks white. There are rows and rows of stretchers in the white sun. The rows run as far as the flagpole. On the flagpole the Stars and Stripes flatten out when the wind pulls, and fall back again, drooping down the pole.

Someone comes to look at his foot, which has begun to bleed again. He bites his lip. Isn't going to make a sound, no, G.o.d d.a.m.n it, not here.

"There, that's better. Can you get up and limp?" This is a different voice, not the German's.

He steadies himself. "How far?"

"Not far. Just a couple of steps to the train." The man is making an attempt at kindness. "Only as far as the train."

"I thought-his is Washington?"

"Oh, yes, but you're not staying here. Did you think you were staying here?" This is spoken with flat amus.e.m.e.nt, tired amus.e.m.e.nt. "You're off to Elmira to be locked up, you and this whole bunch."

The train lies glistening on its bed of cinders like a snake on a sunlit rock. The engine is the snake's head. Impatient, hissing noises come from its throat.

All along the path to the train stands a double line of soldiers with rifles and bayonets. h.e.l.l, do they think we're going to run away? Even the ones among us who haven't a scratch can't run away; where the h.e.l.l could we go? Silently, shuffling, the wounded and the whole climb up onto the train.

"Here, get in. I'll hoist you."

"Elmira," someone says. "Had a cousin there. Alabama boy, my mother's kin. Died there last winter, too."

"Likely froze to death."

"Snow gets up to your belly b.u.t.ton, I've heard tell."

"Shucks! And I forgot my winter overcoat." That's the humorous one; Gabriel remembers him from when they lay in Fredericksburg that first night. Sounds like him, anyway. Not more than seventeen, with a high, still-girlish voice, cracking jokes to keep from crying.

"Winter? It's only May! You don't think we'll still be there by winter?"

n.o.body answers.

28.

Where once a sweep of gra.s.ses, succulent and high, had covered it, the red Georgia earth lay bare, brick-hard, and brick-hot under the broiling sun. Within the stockade no tree gave shade to comfort a man's head. No brook ran to cool a man's feet. There were no tents into which men might crawl to seek relief, only for some the meager shelter, self-contrived, of a torn blanket stretched on four weak sticks.

In one of these David Raphael had established a claim to his share of s.p.a.ce, about six square feet to a man, he estimated. Humanity swarmed and overlapped like cl.u.s.tered beetles. He fancied that if one could view the scene from above, it would appear as a single solid ma.s.s of flesh.

When he stretched his legs for length, they touched another man's back. It didn't matter, because the man scarcely felt the touch; he hadn't moved all morning and would soon die, might be dead already. In that case one hoped they would pick him up soon. The cart would be coming by sometime before noon, and if they should miss him then, they wouldn't take him away until tomorrow, G.o.d help us.

Someone stirred on his left, mumbling a question.

"Talk louder, I can't hear you."

"Turn around, then."

"I can't." It was too great an effort to turn.

"I said, I asked, where did they catch you?"

"Wilderness. Battle of the Wilderness. I blundered into the wrong lines in the dark."

"How long you been here?"

"Couple of months, I guess, if this is July."

"It's July."

Silence. The fellow stirred again, clumsily shifting. He sounded young. David sighed. It was too much effort to talk, but maybe the boy needed to talk to somebody.

"I'm David Raphael."

"Tim Woods. Artillery. And you?"

"A doctor."

"Oh. I've a wound. Fleshy part, back of the knee. How do you know when there's gangrene? I've heard-"

Oh, my G.o.d, son, how do you know. By the stench and the pain, enough to send you through the ceiling, if there were a ceiling- "Don't worry, you haven't got it. You'd know if you had."

"I know I haven't yet. But will I get it?"

"Oh, I'd say not. Youth is on your side, you know."

No harm in a lie, and maybe some temporary use.

"They live long in my family. My grandfather was ninety-eight. I suppose that's a good sign."

"The best. Heredity is what counts."

"Say, Doctor, what do you think our chances are?"

"For what? Getting out of here?"

"Yeah. What do you think?"

"Oh, not long. War can't last much longer."

"G.o.d, this heat! How do folks live here?"

"They do."

They live in shacks under the trees and sleep in hammocks in the shade. Or they live in tall rooms on verandahs with palmetto fans and drinks in cold gla.s.ses.

"I'm from New Hampshire. We have hot summers, but this ..." The voice trailed away. Suddenly it resumed. "This leg hurts me like h.e.l.l."

"Don't talk, then. It tires you out. It'll heal better if you try to sleep."

"Thanks, Doctor, I'll try."

And now the wind, such as it was, a hot wind like the blast from the open oven when the meat is roasting, veered abruptly to blow the fetid air from a corner in which someone had vomited or soiled himself again. It brought a stench not like the natural smell of a manured field, which, though hardly perfumed as it steams in the sun, is yet so natural as to be almost inoffensive, but a stench so nauseating that the contents of the stomach must rise to the throat.

What contents? Moldy bread, some slops, indistinguishable warm grease, and yet, not enough even of these.

We are starving, David thought. He moved his teeth with his tongue. He had already lost three by last count. If he had some lemons, it might not be too late to save the rest. Or limes. His tongue moved over his gums, feeling the wet, clean sting of lemons. Or limes.

A man screamed. "s.h.i.t! Oh, you darling-"

"Shut up! Shut up, you crazy b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

"Oh, you darling!"

It might be a lucky thing to lose your mind here. You wouldn't know, then, that you were here. There'd be no past to remember.

So far David's mind was sharp. Maybe abnormally keen, unnaturally acute? He worried, giving careful notice to a louse that crawled on the shoulder of the man on his right. That other man, standing up, had a dark patch of sweat on his ragged shirt. The stain made a fish shape; there the fins, and there the tail, curving when the man bent over. Was it normal to notice things like that, or a sign that his mind was going? G.o.d knew, an hour from now he might start to rave, to see things that weren't there.

That poor fellow in the hospital that time. I remember. The Christian chaplain tried to convert him before he died. Meant well but it didn't work. If I die, I would like a Jewish chaplain to read services over me There never are enough of them. I had to read for so many Jewish dead myself. I think I am dying. Can't last much longer like this. So filthy, I disgust myself.

Over the low drone and murmur of suffering came voices, not loud, but incisive, clear, and close by.

"Well, but Dr. Joseph Jones of our medical department spoke just last month about conditions here."

On the left New Hampshire whispered, "Inspection tour, for what good it will do."

With tremendous effort David raised his head a few inches. Two officers in gray and a man in civilian clothes were standing together. The blond civilian wore a suit of fine dark cloth. People still dressed like that and were clean. It was he who inquired how many there were in this place.

"About thirty thousand," replied the elder of the officers.

"Well, I do appreciate your invitation. I was just pa.s.sing through on business .... Curious to see ... Still, quite terrible ... Sorry I came." The voice, borne to and fro by the hot wind, revealed distress.

"Well. A prison camp is hardly a pleasant place, I agree."

And the man in the fine suit repeated himself. "Yes, sorry I came to see it."

There was something familiar in the southern voice, something from long ago. An easy grace. Sylvain? No, you killed him. Remember?

The men were still standing in the aisle.

"This heat is murderous," said the man who was not Sylvain.

"But on the other hand," the officer answered, "our men freeze in their prisons, in open box cars, in the snow, wearing cotton fit for New Orleans."

New Orleans. If not Sylvain, someone else, then? Someone I didn't like. Why didn't I like him? I do know. I do know. He was dancing-somewhere-he was dancing-where was it? And Gabriel was there, and my sister. I always thought Gabriel was half in love with her, or more than half. He must be dead by now, and she and all of us must be dead, or will be soon. But this man, who was he? Where was it?

And raising his arm, he struggled, got up, and lurched, pulling the blanket so that the stick shelter collapsed upon the New Hampshire boy's wounded leg. And at his cry the men, the officers and the civilian, turned around.

Look at me, David wanted to say. I'm not crazy, even though I know my mouth is bleeding, I'm only dirty, I'm disgusting, but look at me.

Instead he heard his own cry: "Raphael, David Raphael!"

On the bright, blond face of the civilian he saw astonishment. The man took a step, opened his mouth to speak, and was decisively pulled back.

"Not permitted," said the officer. "Sorry, but absolutely not permitted."

The three men moved quickly away.

And David sobbed now, crying over and over, "David, David Raphael. You know. Kennst du mich nicht? kennst-" At the same time he knew he was raving.

29.