Call Each River Jordan Read online

  I think I shouted orders out of habit, but know that I pressed on. A shabby, limping thing, if truth be told. But a Welshman is tenacious, when you spin him up. I plunged through the mêleé, clearing a path with my pistol. Every shot went into a man close enough to embrace me. I screamed out curses I had thought forgotten, and called to comrades dead on distant fields. I, too, was mad. With the old, familiar madness. My last round took an officer in the chest, a stately fellow following his sword. He looked amazed that anything could harm him. I whipped him across the snout with the pistol’s barrel and sent him sprawling. I think he died of astonishment.

  Then we were safe. Twas sudden, as the ways of battle are. But our safety was a thing to be closely measured. A bloody pack of us had gotten through, and not too soon. Behind us, the firing faltered, and bugles sounded the sorriest of calls.

  The regiments that stayed behind were finished. Surrendered. I closed my eyes in sorrow at the thought. For I would not have the day go lost. Too much had passed to end up in defeat, too much blood, too much hating, too much of mortal pride.

  Four boys remained of those who had gone with me. I did not give them any time to think. I made them hunt up cartridge, cap and water, and two replaced the rifles they had lost. I watched them as I put away my Colt. For soldiers must be kept occupied, their reason dampened down by constant labors. When I was sure the lads were steady, I joined their search myself, scanning for dead officers who might possess the cap and ball I needed.

  I found a spare canteen and splashed my face. The clotted gore mixed powder, grit and flies. My hat had gone astray upon the field. Sounds come to me ringing through a chamber. My leg ached, and my shoulder was a bother. Elsewhere, I was torn and scratched, but whole. The worst part was the bites left by the ants. It was a miracle, on such a day.

  I should have knelt and prayed my richest thanks. But I was too ashamed to face the Lord. The Testament weighed heavy in my pocket. We are but creatures steeped in lust and blood, and saints are few and short-lived in our midst.

  Where I stood now the battle held its breath, though fighting carried on to left and right. Still, there was something different in the noise, a thing I could not name but recognized. The rage was off, the fight was on the wane. For that day, at least. The enemy had used up their main strength. And we had held them, by the grace of God.

  My leg hurt with a vengeance now that the scrap was done.

  I married us to the end of an Illinois regiment, where we might be of some last use, if men were needed. But the wind was gone out of the Rebels, as sure as the devil was grinning.

  As evening settled over the field, a ragged line of blue firmed on good ground. Our cannon massed now. We had been driven back, and badly, and could not count the day a victory. But we had not been vanquished, either. And rumors spread that we had reinforcements, that Buell had come himself with all his men. The Rebels had a last go at our left. But that was where Sam Grant had set his guns. Aching to reach the river and a triumph, the Rebels were too late and far too few. I listened to the sound of distant fighting, wary of attacks on our own front. But the long day was done. Twas only that the living could not grasp it. Each man stood bewildered by his fortune. And none of us would think about tomorrow. The day still held us in its wicked straps.

  The flank assault broke off, and we saw naught but phantoms in the gloaming, and all we could hear were the wounded. Crying out in sorrow and delirium.

  I read once that old Wellington, describing Waterloo, said the battle was “a near-run thing.” And so was Shiloh. Had the Rebels had a strong reserve, they might have flung us in the Tennessee. But they did not, and fact is fact, and history does not give us second chances. In later years, the thing was much debated, but Abel kept his peace, for done is done.

  I had no peace that eve, though. I was an addled man, stinking of powder and the blood of others, with my leg a wicked annoyance. It was always the same after a fight, when my rage was gone. A shaking come over me. Twas then I felt the fear penned up inside. And thought of wife and child, and saw my folly. I soon was as useless as those runaways, the men who fled to safety by the river.

  I spoke to the boys I had led in a fragile voice:

  “It is all right now. Go you and find your regiments. Your friends will want you by them.”

  After that I sat against a tree, sick at the beast that Abel Jones remained. I rubbed my leg and scratched the ant bites that had saved my life. How dare I call myself a Christian man? Then I recalled again that it was Sunday, but still I could not find a word to pray.

  When darkness fit the land, the rain fell on us.

  I HELPED AS BEST I COULD to cull the suffering. Lashed by rain as cold as the sun had been hot. I have known wounded men, shot in the jaw or throat, who drowned in a drizzle. I limped and bent and crawled to bring them in. But do not think the deed was Christian charity. It was my way of keeping off the devil.

  I had come in pursuit of some queer murder, of which I had not yet heard the details. And found myself a murderer among many. That is war, see. Murder. And even if the murder’s cause is justice, the thing is murder still. I wish to God that I could see the Right. Perhaps the generation after us will find a better way to settle things between them. But I fear otherwise. Cain dwells in every single living man.

  Let that bide. Every man has sorrows, and when we speak too much we tell too little. I worked until I was a ruined thing, soaked through and aching, with my fingers as cramped as my leg. Perhaps I should have tried to find headquarters, for Washington believed my task so urgent that I had not been granted time for counsel, but sent to General Grant straight from New York and a sad affair of Irishmen and spirits. The telegraph had chased me along the railroad, then leapt ahead along the great Ohio, where clerks stood at the landings waving papers, and trailed me up the swollen Tennessee. The President himself had gripped the matter.

  But what could be so urgent after this? And Grant would be somewhere upon the field, if he were any general at all. I would not find him now, in the rain and the dark. Even if I could, the man had more pressing matters before him than greeting a jumped-up clerk sent down from Washington. Let the battle end and settle, then I would seek him out. And time would solve the riddles of the day.

  I found no shelter, but I spied a fire. Some men had torn dry boards from a wagon’s belly, then cocked the rig half back against a tree, leaving a bit of cover for their flames. The fire was a trembling little thing, but soldiers by the hundred crowded round. Too far away to get the heat, I squeezed me down between a pair of strangers. They muttered, but made room, and I stretched out my leg. The little flame, unfelt, still seemed a comfort. Like a farmhouse lamp glimpsed through the snow.

  The rain poured down, and none of us had waterproofs. All had been left behind in spoiled camps. That night was long and cold. Upon the field, hogs ate the dead and dying. We were too tired and selfish to shoot many. They squealed and grunted, happy at their feast. Lightning lit their bulk, but men ignored them. He will not understand who was not there. The rain beats down and you move not a muscle.

  Our gunboats threw great shells across the night. Bombarding the wilderness, where our enemies shivered. The shells put me in mind of shrieking souls, hurled down from Heaven after one brief glimpse.

  Men spoke. In voices native to our fields, and in the accents of a dozen lands. One insisted, “Grant was drunk, I’ll betcha. They say he ain’t been sober in his life.” Another answered back indignantly, “Das ist ’ne reine Lüge. You are lying. I see him mittags, riding on his horse.” “McClernand’s the man for me,” a fellow offered. “He looks like a general oughta look, all right. That Grant’s no good. Nor Billy Sherman, neither.” A fire-lit banty took up the refrain, “Bob’s your uncle, ’e’s a queer one, Sherman. ’E’s got ’abits, that one. And . . . and preddylictions!” A shadow brogued, “The devil take the lot o’ them, for the general never was born what had no sense.” Not a few drenched men shared that conviction. But others cited D
onelson, and Belmont, holding Grant aloft against all comers, while damning braggarts who had joined up late. A whisper reminisced of Garibaldi. And one voice bid five dollars for a dram. The others laughed and called the poor soul “Paddy,” although his voice was Scots as Glasgow soot.

  Twas no affair of fists, such disagreement, but only soldiers rubbing in their balm. Those who argued shared their bits of hardtack, pleased to have their tongues still in their heads. If one voice blamed the war on damned slave-owners, another cursed the African as cause. A young voice claimed we had to save the Union. The fellow wet beside him cursed him down, then cursed the day that he had volunteered. In the end, all governments were damned, and politicians and officers, and those who stayed at home and would not fight. They hated the war, and hated those not in it, and bunched more closely for the slightest warmth.

  Now, you will say, “Jones should have intervened. He should have shown his rank and set them straight. Such talk is but one misstep short of mutiny.” But you do not know soldiers, I can tell. Even the most admirable complain. It is their only freedom. Words are but the way we spill our pain, and pain is one thing soldiers have in plenty. It is a lonely business, truth be told.

  No one slept. Not with the sleep that heals and makes you ready. We drowsed in the mud and shivered, and longed for the day to return. Despite the horrors that the light might bring. For memory is short when misery is upon us. Even the dirtiest cottage seemed fine in the memory, and those who had a home were sick and silent. Not far away, fresh regiments trudged by, countermarching to abrupt commands. And we had not delivered all the wounded hidden by the darkness of that night. You heard that plain.

  A boy leaned on my shoulder, feigning sleep. I think he only wanted human warmth.

  In the morning, the sun shone diamond-white behind the haze. We went on the attack. The Rebels held at first, but the lifeblood had drained out of them. I do not slight their valor. But we had the numbers now, and the energy that comes from going forward. I could not long keep pace with healthy legs and fell out of the advance. Relieved, if truth be told. For I had drunk my fill of the wine of war, and had no lust to taste the cup again. Not in that moment. Nor would I look too far into the future. Sufficient unto the day it was, that Abel Jones no longer was required. I thought I had become myself again, and promised I would study war no more.

  But the mist cleared and a spectacle stretched before me, quickening my heart. Whether I wished my heart quickened by such matters or no. Long blue lines swept forward in good order, flags aloft above retaken fields. The 75th at Badli-ki-Serai was no more stirring to a soldier’s soul. A part of me yearned to fall back in beside them, God forgive the weakness of my will. I almost took off at a child’s run. So much for resolutions in this world. I wondered when my ghosts would be put down, when I might be a peaceful man and decent. I longed for grace, but felt the devil’s claws. Only love is vivid as a war.

  And that was Shiloh. Oh, they kept scrapping well into the evening. But all had been decided before noon. The rest was spite.

  That field of death was one of birth, as well. It made the army that would conquer Vicksburg, then march down from Atlanta to the sea. But all that lay beyond time’s bloody river, and I have got a different tale to tell.

  So let that bide.

  TWO

  I FOUND MICK AT HIS WORK THAT AFTERNOON. Standing in the door-yard of a cabin, where early lilacs bloomed. Just above the bluff that hid the river. I spotted him from afar. Blood-soaked and hat-less he was, with that scowling sliver of face and his hard black hair. I knew his leanness and the way he moved, the way you always recognize a friend. Drenched in blood, he remained a man of edges.

  I would have run, despite my bothered leg. But hundreds of the wounded blocked my path, some curled on blankets, others dropped in the mud. All quivering, beneath the churning sky. We would have rain again, and a cold night behind it. Steel has pierced my skin more than once and I can tell you: Lying there gives a man a whiff of eternity.

  Hospital tents stood pitched behind the shanty, too few for the wounded of a single regiment. But it is the sounds that linger in my mind. Perhaps because I like a proper hymn and this was supplication in the raw. They hummed like bees, that swarm of broken boys. Until the saw bit flesh. Then you heard the naked voice of Man.

  I cannot seem to get me free of blood.

  Grim and careful, I marched across that field. Men begged for help, but I had none to give. Not even water, for all the streams ran foul. I muttered lies to get me by their pleading. That is what my pride had tumbled down to: A man who lied to dying boys to get himself past their misery.

  “It won’t be a moment,” I told them. “You’re hardly scratched. It’s nothing.”

  I only want to be a Christian man, and find I am a Judas to my kind.

  He did not see me coming, good old Mick. Nettled he was by an ivory jut of bone. His apron was soaked like a threepenny butcher’s. Sleeves rolled high, his arms were slimed with gore. He sighed and dragged a wrist across his forehead, leaving blood to mingle with his sweat. Then he marked me.

  You would have thought poor Mick had seen a ghost. He believed me still in the New York countryside, see. And I was hardly cleaner than my friend. I had the muck of battle streaked upon me. Bareheaded, I leaned upon a stick to help me go. I must have looked a wounded sort myself.

  “Abel?” he said, mouth unsteady and eyes in a gale. “You . . . you’re not . . .”

  “I’m fit and fine, Mick, fit and fine. And trust you are yourself?”

  His face repented emotion. Wintry eyes glared at the world.

  “Well, if you’re ‘fit and fine,’ ” he said, “get over here. Hold this fellow down until I finish.” He glanced at his two orderlies, a sallow, sorry, weary-looking pair. “Hold him, damn you.”

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt . . .” I began.

  Mick flicked a clot of man-meat from his fingers. It fell short of a pile of severed limbs. “Later, bucko. Save your explanations.” Then he flared up. “Hold him down, I said.”

  And that was my reunion with Mick Tyrone.

  “MICK,” I SAID, “there is a thing I would ask you.”

  We sat upon the bluff, amid human smells. Twas night. There had been rain, then hail, but now a swarm of torches lit the landing and sparks shot from the funnels of the boats. Tramping down the planks, troops filed ashore. Crates and kegs and sacks flew hand to hand where Negroes had been pressed into our service. Wounded men filled up departing decks. Whistles warned of comings and of goings, while in midstream the gunboats floated black. Wet through, we sat between the dead and the living.

  Mick’s pipe quaked in his hand, for he had worked until his muscles quit and his knife grew so unsteady it did harm. He should have been asleep, but wanted his smoke first. Perhaps he feared his dreams.

  I had lit the pipe, for he could not do it. Now I do not take tobacco, anymore than I would alcohol. But we must be prepared to help a friend. The brief taste took me back to younger days, when I was as wild as the world.

  A stevedore complained in words all filth, and a teamster’s whip drove mules. The darkies started a chant, but soon were silenced. Beyond the river’s glut the night ran endless.

  “Well,” Mick said, “what’s on your mind, laddybuck?” His voice was sour. For he wished to be at his duty and spurned the weakness that had made him rest.

  I knew him, see, and would not let him wound me. Twas only that Mick found our poor world wanting, and raged at it. He had no religion, only the hope of mortal things, and it told on him. A Socialist and atheist, he longed for men to act like perfect Christians.

  “Have you . . . heard no whispers about murder? Have there been no rumors of such like? Anything queer at all, Mick? I ask in confidence. Have you heard naught of murder?”

  He laughed. Twas so familiar. The lone crack of a syllable. A sentry might have thought it was a gunshot. He drew on his pipe and the glare revealed his face. Twas a ravaged thing.


  Smoke poured from him. A furnace in the Merthyr mills he was. “And what would you call all this, man? Christmas in Dublin?” He lowered his pipe and the world darkened again. “Murder, indeed. What is it, bucko? Has another spoiled brat got himself killed, then? Who is it this time? And where’s this one from? Another fine, old family, would it be?” He laughed again, the loneliest of souls. Harking back to matters best forgotten. Wicked scheming, and a murdered boy. “Sure, and whoever he is, he’s more important than the cheap meat I’ve been hacking at these two days. Or they wouldn’t be sending you scurrying down to see us.”

  “I do not think it like the Fowler matter. Although I cannot tell you that for certain, Mick. I only thought you might have got some knowledge. Look you. A man in your position hears things.”

  “Well, I don’t know what you’re gabbing about. Unless it’s some farmboy cut up by his regimental gambler. And I doubt they’d send you down for the likes of that. No, the wealthy will have their due, and it doesn’t take an Irishman to see it. The rest of us are only good for their slaughters.” He held out his pipe as he might extend a pistol. In a shaking hand. His voice grew loud and ever more unsteady. “They’re bastards. Every one of them. Davis. Lincoln. Your bloody Queen of England. What’s the difference? Tell me that, if you can. They’re naught but bloody bastards. Every one . . .”

  Then he broke to pieces, strong old Mick.

  I laid my hand upon my buttie’s knee, for touch was wanted. “There is good. It will all come right, you wait and see. Sorry I am for my bothering you, Mick. It will all come right when you are rested.”

  He shuddered. “None of it will ever be all right.” Twisting round with one last flame of anger, he asked me, “How can it be? How can it be all right? It’s damned to Hell and hopeless, every bit of it.” And then the hearty fellow started sobbing. For war was still unnatural to him.

  THE NEXT MORNING, a Tuesday, I said good-bye to Mick for the sake of duty. He had toughened again and talked of a proper field hospital as he hacked at shattered arms and rotting legs. I do not know how surgeons bear the stink.