The Bloody Ground. Bernard Cornwell
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the horses!” a voice snarled. A Yankee in the corn was calling for help, his voice desperate with pain. A horse was whinnying, then a flat, hard shot abruptly ended the pathetic sound. Rebel voices laughed, then Billy heard the scraping rattle as a rifle was reloaded. The rebels were evidently collecting the horses; valuable prizes for an army already short for good cavalry mounts, and Billy hoped they would be content with that booty, but then the officer shouted again. “Look for any survivors! Careful now, but look good.”
Billy swore. He thought about running, but he guessed he was too weak to outrun a fit men and besides the noise he made would bring a slew of the bastards chasing after him, so instead he feverishly stripped off his blue coat and pulled on the threadbare gray jacket, and then he pushed the betraying blue garment deep under the bushes where he covered it with a thick layer of leaf mold. He buttoned the gray coat and buckled his belt about its waist and then he waited. Damn, he thought, damn and son of a bitch and damn again, but now he would have to play the rebel for a few weeks while he found another way to get back north.
Footsteps came nearer and Billy decided it was time to play his role. “Are you Southern boys?” he called aloud. The footsteps stopped. “The name’s Billy Tumlin!” he called out, “Billy Tumlin from New Orleans.” There was no future in using his real name, not when so many men in the Confederacy were eager to test a rope on Billy Blythe’s gullet. “Are you boys Rebs?” he asked.
“Can’t see you,” a voice said flatly, neither friendly nor hostile, but then came the unmistakably hostile sound of a rifle being cocked.
“I’m standing up, boys,” Billy said, “standing up real slow. Standing up right plumb in front of you.” Billy stood and held his hands high to show he was not armed. Facing him were a pair of scruffy rebels with bayonet-tipped rifles. “Thank the good Lord above, boys,” Billy said, “praise His holy name, amen.”
The two faces showed only caution. “Who did you say you was?” one of the men asked.
“Captain Billy Tumlin, boys. From New Orleans, Louisiana. I’ve been on the run for weeks now and sure am pleased to see you. Mind if I lower my hands?” He began to lower his arms, but a twitch of a blackened rifle muzzle put them back up fast.
“On the run?” the second man asked.
“I was taken at New Orleans,” Blythe explained in his broadest Southern accent, “and I’ve been a prisoner up north ever since. But I slipped away, see? And I’m kind of hungry, boys. Even a piece of hardtack would be welcome. Or some tobacco? Ain’t seen good tobacco since the day I got captured.”
An hour later Captain Billy Tumlin was introduced to Lieutenant Colonel Ned Maitland, whose men had discovered the fugitive. Maitland’s regiment was bivouacking and the smoke from hundreds of small fires sifted into the early evening air. Maitland, a courtly and generous host, hospitably shared a leg of stringy chicken, some hard-boiled eggs, and a flask of cognac with the newly escaped prisoner. He seemed blessedly uninterested in Blythe’s supposed experiences as a captive of the Northerners, preferring to discuss which prominent New Orleans families might be common acquaintances. Billy Blythe had spent just long enough in New Orleans to pass that test, especially when he figured that Maitland knew less about the city’s society than he did himself.
“I guess,” Maitland said after a while, “that you’d better report to brigade.”
“I can’t stay here?” Blythe suggested. Maitland would be a considerate commander, he reckoned, and the Legion would be serving close enough to the Yankees to give Blythe and easy chance to slip across the lines.
Maitland shook his head. He would have liked to keep Billy Tumlin in the Legion, for the considered most of his present officers to be well below the proper standard, but he had no authority to appoint a new captain. “I could use you,” Maitland admitted, “I surely could. It looks like we’ll all be moving north soon so there’ll be plenty of fighting and I’m not exactly fixed right with good officers.”
“You’re invading the North?” Billy Blythe asked, horrified at the thought.
“There’s nothing north of here but foreign soil,” Maitland observed dryly, “but sadly I can’t keep you in the Legion. Things have changed since you were captured, Captain. We don’t elect or appoint officers anymore. Everything goes through the War Department in Richmond and I guess you’ll have to report there. At least if you want wages, you will.”
“Wages would help,” Blythe agreed and so, an hour later, he found himself in the altogether less prepossessing company of the brigade commander. Colonel Griffin Swynyard’s queries about Blythe’s captivity were brief, but much sharper than Maitland’s. “Where were you held?” he asked.
“Massachusetts,” Blythe said.
“Where exactly?” Swynyard demanded.
Blythe was momentarily flustered. “Union,” he finally said, reckoning that every state in the United and Confederate States had a town called Union. “Just outside, anyway,” he added lamely.
“We must thank God for your escape,” Swynyard said, and Blythe eagerly agreed, then realized he was actually expected to fall onto his knees to offer the thanks. He got down awkwardly and closed his eyes while Swynyard thanked Almighty God for the release of His servant Billy Tumlin from captivity, and after that Swynyard told Billy he would have the brigade major issue a travel pass permitting Captain Tumlin to report to the army headquarters.
“In Richmond?” Blythe asked, not unhappy at that thought. He had no enemies in Richmond that he knew of, for his foes were all further south, so Richmond would be a fine resting place for a short while. And at least in the Confederacy’s capital he would be spared the bloodletting that would surely follow if Robert Lee took this hardscrabble army of ragged-uniformed men across the Potomac into the north’s plump fields.
“They may send you to Richmond,” Swynyard said, “or they might post you to a battalion here. Ain’t my decision, Captain.”
“Just so long as I can be useful,” Billy Blythe said sanctimoniously. “That’s all I pray for, Colonel, to be useful.” Billy Blythe was doing what Billy Blythe did best. He was surviving.
YOU DON’T SOUND LIKE A SOUTHERNER, POTTER,” CAPTAIN Dennison said and the three other captains who shared the supper table stared accusingly at Starbuck.
“My ma was from Connecticut,” Starbuck said.
“Sir,” Dennison corrected Starbuck. Captain Dennison was more than a little drunk, indeed he had almost fallen asleep a moment before, but now he had jerked himself into wakefulness and was scowling at Starbuck down the length of the table. “I’m a captain,” Dennison said, “and you’re a shad-belly piece of ordure, otherwise known as a lieutenant. You call me sir.”
“My ma was from Connecticut, sir,” Starbuck said dutifully. He was playing his role as the hapless Potter, but he was no longer enjoying it. Impetuosity, if not downright foolishness, had trapped him in the deception and he knew that every moment he stayed in the role would make it more difficult to extricate himself with any dignity, but he still reckoned there were things to learn so long as the real Lieutenant Potter did not arrive at Camp Lee.
“So you picked up your momma’s accent with her ditty milk, did you, Potter?” Dennison asked.
“I reckon I must have done, sir.”
Dennison leaned back in his chair. The sores on his face gleamed wetly in the flickering light of the bad candles set on the dinner table that bore the remains of a meal of fried chicken, fried rice, and beans. There were some of Colonel Holborrow’s beloved peaches to end the meal, though Holborrow himself was not present. The colonel, having carried Sally to the city, had evidently stayed to make a night of it, leaving Starbuck to share this evening meal with the four captains. There were plenty of other officers in Camp Lee, but they ate elsewhere for no one, it seemed, wanted to be contaminated by this handful of officers who remained with the Yellowlegs.
And no wonder, Starbuck,