None shall look back, p.30
None Shall Look Back, page 30
Forrest took another step forward. Rives saw his face and was startled. He had not imagined that his General’s face could wear such a look. Forrest’s eyes were bright. His lips quivered as he enunciated his words. He was like a man pleading for his life. He said: “They outnumber us but they’re demoralized. The whole Yankee army is demoralized, I tell you. Thomas’ corps is the only one with any fight left in it.”
Bragg was half leaning, half sitting against the footboard of the bed. As Forrest began speaking he let his head sink as if in deep thought. “General, what will Rosecrans be doing while we’re marching to attack Burnside.”
Forrest’s face had hardened. His voice was one of strained patience. “What can he do? You’ve got him bottled up in Chattanooga. We can starve him out or if he won’t surrender let him try to get out. There’s no way except over Walden’s Ridge. He’d find that a hard job.”
Bragg still appeared to be considering. He shook his head finally. “General, I do not think the movement you suggest is the correct military procedure. It involves crossing the river into a rough, mountainous country to attack a force superior in numbers.”
Forrest started. He fixed his great, luminous eyes on Bragg’s face. “General Bragg,” he said sternly, “you have an opportunity to destroy the whole Yankee army. Are you going to let them get away? Are you going to take that responsibility?”
Bragg’s body stiffened. His dark eyes glittered in the light as he turned his head sharply. His voice was formal and cold: “General Forrest, I shall ask you as I have asked the other general officers to hold your command in readiness for a general advance on Chattanooga in the morning.”
“In the morning? Oh, my great God!” Forrest’s voice broke on the words. Rives could hear his noisy breathing.
Bragg was climbing back into bed, among his high piled pillows. He sank back then raised himself up. “General, you will excuse me for not congratulating you before on yesterday’s success. I have had many reports of the splendid conduct of your men.”
There was silence, then Forrest said curtly, “Thank you, General.”
A door closed. Rives stepped quickly back into the shadow. A moment later Forrest and his aide emerged from the house. They mounted in silence and followed by the orderly, rode off. After a little Anderson laughed shortly. “Conquering hero! He’ll wait till he’s sure Rosecrans is out of Chattanooga, then he’ll march in and parade the streets.”
Forrest spoke in a low, strangled voice: “Anderson, I have written to him. I have sent to him. I have given information about the Federal army and still he will not move. What does he fight battles for?”
They came to the parting of the roads, turned to the right and began the long climb north. The scout kept a little distance behind the two officers. The great valley was below them. In its center the lights of the city twinkled and were reflected in the bosom of the river. Rives fancied that the faint, continuous sound he heard was the chopping of axes—axes that were building fortifications around the remnant of the Yankee army.
Riding behind the two dark figures he raised his clenched hand in impotent fury. When he had first heard the conversation between the two Generals he had been excited to think that he, a private, was receiving information about important manœuvres. That emotion seemed trivial now. The incidents of the morning seemed trivial too, and vain. He thought of George Rowan, dead and buried on the field. He had felt pity for the dead man as he laid him in his grave but now he knew envy. If the Confederate cause failed—and for the first time he felt fear for its outcome—there could be no happiness for him except in the grave.
18
NED was waked by the feeling that somebody was brushing past him. He sat up in his bunk. A guard—the one they called “Old Red”—was disappearing down the corridor. He had evidently just deposited a box on the foot of the bunk. Ned picked it up and examined it. It was empty, except for a neat coil of string. But the box was in good condition, its sides, top and bottom intact. He raised it to his nose and sniffed. It had contained ham. There was no mistaking the aroma. And that faint smudge on the side was surely chocolate, the icing, doubtless, from a cake. He wet his finger, ran it over the stain then licked it but got no taste.
He set the box down and got out of bed. He had gone to sleep at two o’clock in the afternoon. It must be nearly four now. He went to the window and looked out. Over the expanse of ice around the prison walls half a dozen figures moved, prisoners bringing in the night’s supply of wood. He had not been on wood duty now for over a week. Thank Blake, the hospital steward for that. Blake and diarrhea. He grinned faintly, and buttoning his jacket up to his neck went down the corridor to Spencer Rowe’s cell.
Spencer was sitting under the window on his stool, writing. Ned lay down on his vacant bunk and pulled the blanket up over him. Spencer closed his copy book. “I didn’t see you at exercise this afternoon, Lieutenant.”
“No,” Ned said, “I didn’t feel like it.”
“That’s too bad. A little turn in the air does you good.”
“Not in this air,” Ned said, “when you’re in the fix I’m in. Wind goes through you like a knife.”
“Had a bad night?”
“I went to those damned sinks fifteen times,” Ned said.
Spencer shook his head. “Hash,” he murmured, “Avery’s hash. Those that have hash are troubled about it. Those that have none are troubled without it. . . . Would you like for me to read to you?”
“If you won’t read poetry,” Ned said.
Spencer nodded, flipping the pages of his copy book. “Here is something I wrote only yesterday: Among the hundreds of officers captured at Fort Donelson Captain Winstead is one of the most marked; tall, distingué, with classical features, elegant manners, a vast amount of bonhomie. Winstead is acceptable to the men, agreeable to the ladies. I became acquainted with Captain Winstead at Camp Chase, in prison Number 3, mess 46, composed of a splendid set of fellows. The mess gave me a grand dinner on my arrival, Captain Winstead presiding. . . . The cards of invitation were playing cards with the names of the guests on the backs. They were distributed through the agency of a tin plate in the hands of George Diggons. . . .”
Ned made an irritable gesture. “Can’t you write about anything but prison?”
“Ah, yes, I should have remembered that yours is not an introspective nature. Would foreign travel please you?” He turned the pages. “Ah, here it is: We leave Normandy, with its famous old towers and its beautiful scenery described by a multitude of writers of all kinds and pass on to Paris where much is to be seen. To find Americans you go to the Grand Hotel, the most magnificent and the worst kept in Paris. For elegance and comfort go to the Grand Hotel du Louvre on the Rue Rivoli. We leave the hotel, drive out the Rivoli, cross the Place de la Concorde, look at the site of the guillotine now surmounted by an Egyptian obelisk of Luxor of the time of Sesostris, three thousand years ago. You leave this beautiful square and continue out the Champs Elysées to the Bois de Boulogne. Here you have some of the most magnificent works of art to be found upon the globe, lakes, cascades, a miniature Niagara, artificial banks of roses which fascinate you even to weariness and you turn to gaze upon the brilliant pageant of vehicles, comprising phaetons, carriages, voitures remises, filled with the beauty and fashion of Paris. . . .”
Steps were heard approaching down the corridor. A well-setup man in the uniform of a hospital steward stood in the doorway. “Ah, Rowe,” he said pleasantly, then went to the side of the bunk and laid a hand on Ned’s forehead. “No fever this morning, Allard?”
“No fever,” Ned said wearily, “but I’m weak as a cat.”
The steward whipped a small bottle out of his pocket and presented it to Ned with a spoon. “Paregoric,” he said, “take it three times a day, but only a spoonful at a time, mind you. . . .” He stepped quickly to the door.
“Blake’s a nice fellow,” Ned said when his steps had died away.
Spencer looked up absently. “Blake? Ah, yes, our hospital steward is a prince—or shall we say a real snob? Prison brings out his best nature. Or shall we say that prison is after all the one place for your real snob? Now Blake is like many of us. In prison he is natural. Once out of prison he will be artificial. I can see him now as some seedy personage approaches.” He raised his voice to a falsetto. “ ‘Do I know him? Oh, yes, a mere watering-place acquaintance. No, it was not Saratoga or Cape May. Johnson’s Island, an obscure watering-place. . . .’ ”
“Not much water now,” Ned said. “It’s frozen tight as a drum.”
Spencer got up and walked to the window. It was almost dark and a few lamps had already been lighted in the prison. In the streaks of light that they sent out the icy plains that surrounded the prison glittered blue.
He shivered and turned away. “I’ve often thought that we should not blame the Yankees for their depredations,” he said absently. “It’s only natural they should be bent on conquest. This country was not meant for human habitation. . . . My boy, did I ever read you my account of my stay on the Riviera? Palms, my boy, palms and blue sky. . . .”
Ned stood up, grimacing. “Read it to me another time. I’ve got to make a trip now.”
Outside in the courtyard the paths to the sinks were full. There were two lines of men in continual movement, one coming and one going. Ned stood in line for half an hour before his turn came. When he came out of the enclosure the line of men returning to the court was in brisk motion. Involuntarily he glanced toward the water tower. From that spot on the parapet yesterday a sentinel had shot a man who lingered on the path. Ned had not been in line at the time but reports of the affair were all over the prison. Colonel Jones, the dead man, was a little lame and was hobbling over a rough place near the water house when the sentinel challenged him. Jones did not hear the sentry’s call and continued to move at the same slow pace. The sentinel, a boy of eighteen, had fired immediately. Jones sank to the ground then rolled down the embankment. As he fell he called out in a voice that was heard in all the cells: “Oh, God, oh God, my God, what did you shoot me for? Why didn’t you tell me to go on? I never heard you say anything to me.”
The bugle was sounding. Men were crowding into the mess hall. Ned followed and stood in line until he had received his dab of salt pork and cup of soup. The pork he swallowed but the soup as usual repelled him so that he set it down untasted, and went back into the yard. A stiff wind was blowing but men were still walking about there, enjoying the brief hour of liberty before time to return to the cells. Ned felt too weak to walk but he wanted a little fresh air. He saw a man he knew, Lieutenant Grover from Alabama, sitting on a bench and went over and joined him.
Grover coughed and moved aside to make room on the bench. “What did they have for supper?” he asked.
“Sow-belly,” Ned said, “and bread. Soup, too, but it tasted too much like slop for me.”
Grover turned around. His eyes glittered fiercely. “I’m not eating,” he said. “I’m not eating any of their slop till they move that.”
Ned did not need to follow the direction of the pointing finger. Twenty feet from the wall and not ten feet from the sinks ran the imaginary line called the “dead line” common to all prisons. Ten days ago an officer named Anderson had suddenly broken from the row of men going to the sinks and had made a break for the wall. The sentry had shot him down just after he passed the dead line and they had left his body there as a warning.
For days Ned had trained himself not to look at that spot. He raised his head and stared now. There was only a heap of bones left. The rats had carried most of Anderson off. A good thing. The stench had been pretty bad for several days.
He felt a revulsion against both the dead man and the man at his side. Anderson alive had been a nuisance—the guards were always stringing him up by the thumbs for petty infractions of rules—dead he had still contrived to be a stench in his comrades’ nostrils and now this fellow was keeping the stench alive. He would probably be doing the same thing in a few days and there would be another smell to live with.
He thought of Spencer. The first day he had arrived in prison Spencer had proclaimed what he called his philosophy. “Work, my boy, all day and half the night, if the guards will let you. Carve buttons, plait horse hair . . . anything so you’re busy. Look at me. Acclaimed by all as the sanest man in this pen. . . .”
Ned got up, nodded coolly to Grover and walked about for a few minutes looking for Spencer. When he did not find him he went to seek him in his cell.
Spencer was sitting on the edge of his bunk. A stoutly built gray-haired man of fifty, Colonel Parham, occupied the stool. The two men broke off a low-voiced conversation as Ned entered. Spencer motioned Ned to a place beside him on the bunk. He leaned over and picked up a sheet from among his papers. “I was just showing Colonel Parham an interesting item in today’s news.” He read:
“Lost: A little white poodle answering to the name of Fifi, belonging to Mrs. H., Maughersby. This little dog disappeared when Mrs. Maughersby was making her weekly visit to the hospital last Friday. Mrs. M. offers a reward of one dollar for little Fifi. . . .”
Colonel Parham looked a little bewildered, then his big laugh rang out suddenly.
Spencer looked up. “Colonel, you’re not the ladies’ man I’d thought you.” He shook his head. “Too bad about little Fifi. I understand it was Mess Number 7 made away with him. Jenkins tells me he tasted much like veal.”
“I wish it had been the old bitch herself,” Parham said. “Did you hear what Gahagan told her last time she came to see him? Old Mike was having a bad spell and she hung over him telling him she hoped he saw the error of his ways. Soon as he was able old Mike raised up. ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘I have been a sinner in my day, a drunkard and a wastrel, but I never had chronic diarrhea until I fell into the hands of your government.’ ”
Parham got to his feet before the other two stopped laughing. He was shaking hands with Spencer, looking at him with peculiar intentness, then after a second’s hesitation he extended his hand to Ned. “Good-by—if I don’t see you again today,” he said.
Ned lay back on the bunk. “I saw Grover down in the yard,” he said. “He was still going on about them leaving Anderson’s body there.”
Spencer had sat down on the stool with his back against the wall. His hands were in his pockets. He stared straight before him. It struck Ned that his cousin looked unusually pale today. Now that his face was in repose the crisscross of fine lines about his mouth was visible. His black eyes were sunk deeper in their sockets than they had been a month ago.
Ned felt remorseful as he looked at him. “Poor old Spence, he feels worse than I do half the time but he don’t say anything about it.”
A thought struck him. He sat up in the bunk. “What did Parham shake hands for when he left?”
“What?” Spencer asked. “Oh, shake hands. Well, Parham is a ceremonious fellow, you know, Lieutenant.”
“That wasn’t the reason he shook hands just now,” Ned said.
Spencer stood up. His thin face was working. He put his hand up to brush away imaginary flies, a gesture that was habitual with him of late, “Ned,” he said, “Parham and I are going to try to get out tonight.”
Ned fell back weakly against the side of the bunk. “You can’t,” he whispered. “You’ll be shot and if you aren’t shot you’ll freeze.”
Spencer shook his head. “I tell you Parham is an ingenious fellow. He’s got one of the guards fixed. We’re to go over in the shadow of the tower. Parham brought me some red pepper just now. We’re going to put it inside our gloves. That’ll keep our hands warm enough while we’re climbing the wall and after that . . .” he shrugged.
“Well, after that?” Ned said.
“Parham’s got another man fixed on the outside. It’s Red’s brother-in-law. You know where that dead tree sticks up out of the ice. He’s going to be waiting near there with a sled and a team. . . .”
“Red’s brother-in-law!” Ned said hoarsely. “I wouldn’t trust him as far as you could throw an elephant.”
Spencer shrugged again and was silent. When he looked up the expression on his face had changed. There was a note in his voice Ned had never heard before. “I’ve had enough prison life,” he said. “I’ve had enough. I’ve been here longer than you have. . . .”
Ned slid from the bunk and laid his hand on Spencer’s shoulder. “Take it easy, Spence,” he begged. “Wait till tomorrow. If you still feel like it try it then, but wait. Wait one more day.”
Spencer sat quiet for a moment then he gently detached Ned’s hand. He rose and going to the window stood with his back turned. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant,” he said as he came back toward Ned. “But it’s the truth. A time comes when you’ve had enough. I’m acclaimed, as you know”—he hunched his shoulders with something of his old arrogance—“as the sanest man in prison. But last night I had—a warning.”
“What kind of warning?”
“I was standing in the corridor,” Spencer said. “Standing there in the middle of the night and I didn’t know how I got there. I got back to my cell, all right. It just happened that nobody came along then.”
“You were walking in your sleep.”
“Maybe. Only I hadn’t gone to sleep. I hadn’t even lain down. . . . Ned, I’m not going to be shot down like a rat the way Anderson was. If I’m going, I’m going to have a run for my money.”
Ned did not answer. Spencer began moving about the cell, straightening his papers. He picked up the copy book containing his “Memoirs” and handed it to Ned with a smile. “If you’re exchanged and get home in any kind of shape take that along. They might like to know how I employed my time.” He snapped the rubber band that held the book shut. “There’s a letter inside. Don’t open it till after they sound ‘Lights out.’ He was holding out his hand, smiling.
Ned got up. “All right,” he said. “Good-by, Spence.”
When they had shaken hands he went back to his own cell. He sat up in bed for a long while and listened. Once he thought he heard steps in the corridor but he was not sure. The minutes went by. He found himself counting. Up to five thousand then stop and begin over again. The light coming in from the corridor revealed a dark object lying on the foot of his bunk. He picked the copy book up and shook it. A folded paper fell out. Ned unfolded the paper and shook a ten-dollar gold piece out on the blanket.
