Love and War

he'd be revolted by the sight of her body.

The fear melted as he stretched out his hands. He touched her shoulders and slowly slid his palms down her arms, a caress each found tender and exciting. His loving smile changed subtly to a look close to exaltation. Her smile burst into view, radiant, and her joyous laughter accompanied equally joyous tears. Only moments later, she helped him hurry into her for the reunion that was all the sweeter because it was so swift and urgently needed by both of them.

Captain Farmer had given him an overnight furlough. Late in the afternoon, Billy took Brett on a tour of the area near President's Park. The number of soldiers on the streets astonished her. They wore navy, they wore gray, and a few wore such gaudy outfits that they resembled the household troops of some Arab prince. She also noticed a great many blacks wandering.

About an hour before sunset, they crossed a foul-smelling canal to an uncompleted park near the fantastical red towers of the Smithsonian Institution. Several dozen fine carriages had brought well-dressed civilians to watch a retreat exercise conducted by a volunteer regiment, the First Rhode Island. Billy pointed out its commanding officer, Colonel Burnside, a man with magnificent side whiskers. The regimental band played, flags flew, and it was all marvelously exciting and unthreatening; the hour at the boardinghouse had left Brett euphoric.

Billy explained that retreats, parades, reviews, and other public displays were very much a part of the military presence in and around the city. 'But there will surely be a battle soon. They say Lincoln wants it, and it looks like Davis does, too. He's got his most popular general commanding the Alexandria line.' 'You mean General Beauregard?'

He took her arm and slipped it around his as they strolled. 'Yes. Once upon a time this army thought pretty highly of Old Bory. Now everyone calls him a scared little peacock. He didn't help matters when he said our side wanted only two things from the South — booty and beauty. Pretty damned insulting.'

Our side. It had become hers by marriage. Whenever that occurred to her, confusion and vague feelings of disloyalty set in. Tonight was no different.

'Does Captain Farmer know when the fighting will start?' 'No. Sometimes I wonder if anyone does — including our senior commanders.'

'You disapprove of them?'

'Most of the professionals are all right. The Academy men. But there are generals who got shoulder straps through political connections. They're pretty terrible. Arrogant as it sounds, I'm glad I went to West Point and into the engineers. It's the best branch.' 'Also the first into battle'.' 'Sometimes.' 'Scares me to death.'

He wanted to confess it scared him, too, but that would only worry her more.

For Brett, the glitter began to fall off the city as they walked to the hotel chosen for supper. They passed a pair of noncoms idling along, thuggish fellows. She heard one snicker and say all officers were shitasses.

Billy stiffened but didn't turn or stop. 'Don't pay any attention. If I stepped in every time I heard that kind of remark, I wouldn't have a minute for my duties. Army discipline's terrible — but not in Lije Farmer's company. I'm anxious to have you meet him.' 'When will that be?'

'Tomorrow. I'll take you out to camp and show you the fortifications we're building. Plans call for a ring of them, perhaps as many as fifty or sixty, surrounding the city.'

'Do you like your captain?'

'Very much. He's an extremely religious man. Prays a lot. The officers and noncoms pray right along with him.'

'You? Praying? Billy, have you —?' She didn't know how to complete the question tactfully.

He made it unnecessary. 'No, I'm still the same godless wretch you married. I pray for one reason. You don't disobey Lije Farmer. In fairness, I must say men with his kind of deep conviction aren't uncommon in the army.'

Abruptly, he steered her away from the curb where two white men were punching a ragged Negro. Billy ignored that, too.

But she couldn't. 'I see abuse of slaves isn't confined to the South.'

'He's probably a freedman. Slave or free, nigras aren't too popular around here.'

'Then why on earth are you going to war for them?'

'Brett, we've argued this before. We're at war because some crazy men in your home state broke the country in half. Nobody's mustering to fight for the nigra. Slavery's wrong; I'm convinced of that. Practically speaking, though, maybe it can't and shouldn't be done away with too quickly. The President feels that way, they say. So do most soldiers.'

He felt uneasy attempting to justify his view. He wasn't shading the truth, however. None but a fierce abolitionist minority in the army believed they'd gone to war to dismantle the peculiar institution. They had mustered to punish the fools and traitors who thought they could dismantle the Union.

Brett's pensive frown suggested she wanted to argue. He was glad to see the gaslit entrance to Willard's a few steps ahead.

In the bright, busy lobby, he noticed her still frowning. 'Come on, now — no politics and no gloom. You're only here for two days. I want us to have a good time.'

'Do we have to pay a call on Stanley and his wife?'

'Not unless you put a gun to my head. I'm ashamed to say it, but I haven't seen them since I reported for duty. I'd sooner face Old Bory's whole army.'

She laughed; the evening was back on a better track. At the dining-room entrance, he said, 'I'm hungry. Are you?'

'Famished. But we oughtn't to waste a lot of time on supper.'

Glancing at him with a smile he understood, she followed the bowing headwaiter. Billy strode after her, straight-backed, straight-faced, jubilant: 'Definitely not.'

In the night, Brett woke, alarmed by a distant ominous rumbling. Billy stirred, sensed something amiss, rolled over to face her in the dark.

'What's wrong?'

'What's that noise?'

'Army wagons.'

'I didn't hear it before.'

'You just didn't notice. If this town or this war has one primary sound, it's the wagons. They go all day and all night. Here — let me curl around you. Maybe it will help you go back to sleep.'

It didn't. She lay for over an hour listening to the plodding hoofs, creaking axles, grinding wheels — the thunder below the horizon, warning of inevitable storm.

In the morning she felt tired. A large breakfast, including some passable grits, perked her up a little. Billy had hired a fine barouche to drive across the Potomac. They set out under a threatening sky, and there was real thunder occasionally, muttering counterpoint to the wagons she heard quite clearly now.

As they crossed Long Bridge, Billy told her more about Farmer. He was a bachelor, from Indiana, and had graduated from the Military Academy thirty-five years ago. 'Just when a tremendous religious revival swept through the place. The captain and a classmate, Leonidas Polk, led the movement in the corps of cadets. Three years after graduation, Farmer resigned to become a Methodist circuit rider. I once asked him where he lived all those years, and he said on top of a horse. His home's really a little town called Greencastle.'

'I think I've heard of Polk, an Episcopal bishop in the South.'

'That's the man.'

'Why did Farmer rejoin the army? Isn't he too old?'

'No man's too old if he has engineering experience. And Old Mose hates slavery.'

'What did you call him?'

'Mose — as in Moses. The captain was put in charge of this volunteer company until the regular engineers return from Florida. The men decided Farmer is a good leader, so they christened him Old Mose. The name suits him. He might have stepped straight from the Old Testament. I still call him Lije — ah, here we are.' He pointed. 'That's one of the magnificent projects for which I'm responsible.'

'Mounds of dirt?'