The Bloody Ground. Bernard Cornwell
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Captain Cartwright, Captain Peel, and Captain Lippincott. You make yourself at home and I’ll settle your husband. You don’t mind if I put him to work straight off? He should have been at work a week ago.”
Holborrow limped ahead of starbuck into a gloomy hall where a tangle of gray officers’ coats hung on a bentwood stand. “Why a good woman like that would marry a no-good son of a bitch like you, Potter,” the colonel grumbled, “the good Lord only knows. Come in here, boy. If your wife ain’t staying then you don’t need a bedroom. You can put a cot in here and sleep by your work. This here was Major Maitland’s office, but then the son of a bitch got himself promoted and given a real battalion, so now we’re waiting for a Yankee son of a bitch called Starbuck. And when he gets here, Potter, I don’t want him pestering me about unfinished paperwork. You understand me? So get those papers straight!”
Starbuck said nothing, but just gazed at the pile of untidy papers. So Maitland had originally been assigned to the Yellowlegs? That was intriguing, but the bastard had evidently persuaded his lodge brothers to pull strings and so Maitland had been promoted and given command of the Legion and Starbuck had got the punishment battalion.
“Are you dozing, boy?” Holborrow thrust his face into Starbuck’s.
“What am I to do, sir?” Starbuck asked plaintively.
“Tidy it up. Just tidy it. You’re supposed to be the adjutant of the Second Special Battalion, ain’t you? Now get on with it, boy, while I entertain your wife.” Holborrow stumped out of the room, banging the door shut behind him. Then the door suddenly opened again and the colonel’s narrow face peered round the edge. “I’ll send you some lemonade, Potter, but no liquor, you hear me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“No liquor for you, Potter, not while you’re under my orders.”
The door slammed shut again, so hard that the whole house seemed to shudder, then Starbuck let out a long breath and sank into a leather-upholstered chair that stood at a desk littered with a mess of papers. What the hell, he wondered, had he got himself into? He was tempted to end the deception right now except that there was a possible profit in it. He was certain that if he announced himself as Major Starbuck then he would learn nothing, for Holborrow would take care to cover up any deficiencies in the training and equipment of the Special Battalion, while the despised Lieutenant Potter was clearly a man from whom nothing needed to be hidden. Besides, Starbuck thought, there was no elegant way out of the deception now. Better to play the tomfoolery through while he spied on Holborrow’s work, then he would go back into the city and find Belvedere Delaney, who would make sure Starbuck had a fine time and a warm bed for the next few nights.
He began to sift through the heaps of paper. There were receipts for food, receipts for ammunition, and urgent letters asking for the receipts to be signed and returned to the relevant departments. There were pay books, lists, amendments to lists, and prison rosters from all the military jails in Richmond. Not every man in the Special Battalion was from the Yellowlegs; at least a fifth had been drafted in from the prisons, thus leavening the cowards with crooks. Under the prison rosters Starbuck found a letter addressed to Major Edward Maitland from the Richmond State Armory acknowledging that the Special Battalion was to be equipped with rifles and requesting that the twenty boxes of muskets be returned forthwith. there was a grudging tone to the letter, suggesting that Maitland had used his influence to have the despised muskets replaced with modern weapons and Starbuck, knowing he would have to fight the battle all over again, sighed. He put the letter aside to find, beneath it, yet another letter, this one addressed to Chas. Holborrow and signed by the Reverend Simeon Potter of Decatur, Georgia. Starbuck leaned back to read it.
The Reverend Potter, it seemed, had the superintendence of the prison chaplaincies in the State of Georgia and had written to his old acquaintance—he seemed no more than an acquaintance and scarcely a friend—Charles Holborrow, to beg his help in the matter of his second son, Matthew. The letter, written in deliberate strokes in a dark black ink, irresistibly reminded Starbuck of his own father’s handwriting. Matthew, the letter said, had been a sore trial to his dear mother, a disgrace to his family’s name, and a shame to his Christian upbringing. Though educated at the finest academies in the south and enrolled in Savannah Medical School, Matthew Potter had insisted upon the paths of iniquity. “Ardent liquor has been his downfall,” the Reverend Potter wrote, “and now we hear he has taken a wife, poor girl, and, furthermore, has been ejected from his regiment because of continual drunkenness. I had apprenticed him to a cousin of ours in Mississippi, hoping that hard work would prove his salvation, but instead of entering upon his duties he insisted upon engaging in Hardcastle’s Battalion, but even as a soldier, it seems, he could not be trusted. It pains me to write thus, but in begging your help I owe you a duty of truthfulness, a duty thrice burdened by my faith in Christ Jesus, to Whom I daily pray for Matthew’s repentance. I also recall a service I was once able to perform on your behalf, a service you will doubtless recollect clearly, and in recompense for that favor I would ask that you find employment for my son who is no longer welcome under my roof.” Starbuck grinned. Lieutenant Matthew Potter, it was clear, was a ton of tribulation and Starbuck wondered what service the Reverend Simeon Potter had rendered to make it worth Holborrow’s while to accept the Lieutenant. That favor had been subtly emphasized in the Reverend Potter’s letter, suggesting that Holborrow’s debt to the preacher was considerable. “I believe there to be good in Matthew,” the letter finished, “and his commanding officer commended his behavior at Shiloh, but unless he can be weaned from liquor then I fear he is doomed to everlasting hellfire. My wife unites with me in sending our prayers for your kind aid in this sad business.” A note, evidently in Holborrow’s handwriting, had been penned at the bottom of the letter. “I’d be thankful if you could employ him.” Maitland must have said yes, and Starbuck wondered how tangible Holborrow’s thanks had been.
The door opened and a rebellious Lucifer brought in a tall glass of lemonade. “I was told to bring this, Lieutenant Potter,” he said sourly, stressing the false name with a mocking pronunciation.
“You don’t like it here, Lucifer?” Starbuck asked.
“He beats his people,” Lucifer said, jerking his head toward the sound of Holborrow’s voice. “You ain’t thinking of staying here, are you?” he asked with alarm, seeing how comfortably Starbuck’s boots rested on the edge of the major’s desk.
“For a short while,” Starbuck said. “I reckon I’ll learn more as Lieutenant Potter than I ever could as Major Starbuck.”
“And what if the real Mister Potter comes?”
Starbuck grinned. “Be one hell of a tangle, Lucifer.”
Lucifer sniffed. “He ain’t beating me!”
“I’ll make sure he doesn’t. And we won’t be here long.”
“You’re crazy,” Lucifer said. “I should have kept going north. I’d rather be preached at in a contraband camp than be living in a place like this.” Lucifer sniffed his disgust and went back to the kitchens, leaving Starbuck to hunt through the rest of the papers. None of the battalion lists tallied exactly, but there seemed to be around a hundred and eighty men in the battalion. There were four captains—Dennison, Cartwright, Peel, and Lippincott—and eight sergeants, one of whom was the belligerent Case, who had joined the battalion just a month before.
Sally came to the office after a half hour. She closed the door behind her and laughed mischievously. “Hell, Nate, ain’t this something?”
Starbuck stood and gestured at the mess in the room. “I’m beginning to feel sorry for Lieutenant Potter, whoever the hell Lieutenant Potter is,” he said.
“You staying on here?” Sally asked.
“Maybe one night.”
“In that case,” Sally said, “I’m saying good-bye to my dearest husband and then the major’s going to take me in his coach back to the city and I just know he’s going to ask me to take supper with him. I’ll say I’m too tired. You sure you want to stay?”
“I’d