to miss the battle, that he was afraid to stand up in that great fight. That, too, was not an uncommon fear, but it was not so popular a topic.
All of that seemed long ago, and those fears were smothered under the weight of drilling, guard duty, mess duty, general boredom, and now fear that he or his brothers would fall victim to the measles, which were spreading like plague through the 3rd Brigade. After weeks of dull camp routine, the possibility of battle seemed so unlikely as to not warrant concern.
Yes, Robley figured he had already experienced just about all there was to soldiering. There were only two things left, that he knew of. One was the misery of a winter march or encampment, and the other was the horror of battle. The former he reckoned he could do without. The latter he was desperately eager to try, to be done with it, if only to discover the truth about himself.
Robley put his kepi back on, trudged to the end of the 18th Mississippi’s encampment. Coming from the other direction was Nathaniel Paine, alone.
“Couldn’t find him?” Robley said.
“No, sir.” Nathaniel pulled his kepi off, just as Robley had done, wiped his forehead. As soon as Robley had been promoted, Nathaniel had begun to address him as “sir,” with not the least hint of irony.
Robley frowned, looked around again. Miles of identical tents, thousands upon thousands of men. The Confederate Stars and Bars hung limp from a flagpole near the center of the camp. The two-story brick home of Wilmer McLean, headquarters of Brigadier General David Jones, stood brooding over the rows of Lilliputian tents.
Far off in the distance they heard the flat boom of cannon fire, the artillery units around Washington, D.C., exercising at their pieces. It had caused a stir in camp the first time they had heard it, but now it was hardly noticed.
“Fella told me he saw him with his bird, heading for the South Carolina boys,” Nathaniel added.
“All right. We’ll try there.” Robley headed off, with Nathaniel behind, and soon they crossed the largely invisible divide between the 18th Mississippi camp and the 5th South Carolina, with whom they were brigaded.
Near the center of the 5th South Carolina’s camp the tents were arranged in such a way as to form a parade ground, and at the far end of the parade there was a cluster of men in a circle, and Robley had a good idea that Jonathan might be among them. He was not a fellow to miss a frolic of any kind.
The brothers crossed the parade, peered through the group of men standing and kneeling, and Robley was not surprised to see Jonathan at the center of the circle, holding the fighting cock he had been training up for a week now. Money was passing around the circle of men.
Jonathan was in his shirtsleeves and his kepi was tilted back and his face was red with exertion and excitement. His light brown hair was plastered to the sweat on his forehead and he was grinning, and even Robley could appreciate how handsome and vital his brother looked.
“What y’all say your chicken’s name is?” Jonathan called to his opponent at the far end of the circle, a big Irish- looking fellow who also clutched a straining rooster. “Y’all said his name is Abe Lincoln, didn’t ya?”
“Abe Lincoln, my ass. Yankee Killer. Gonna git himself some practice now.”
“Yankee Killer? Well, hell, just put a uniform on him. He’s as much a man as any of you South Carolina boys.”
Robley could not help but smile. Jonathan had a quick wit about him. It got him in trouble more often then not.
Then, on some unseen signal, the birds were released. In a great welter of feathers and flying dust the fighting cocks fell on each other, flailing and lashing with dagger spurs. The roosters screamed and the men screamed and shouted and urged the animals on to greater violence.
A stream of blood made a red slash across the tan earth, and Robley winced and felt a rush of shame that he should have such a reaction. They were birds. How would he fare when men were being shot down around him?
The shouting of the men and birds built and Robley pushed his concerns aside, watched the battle of brilliant red and yellow and black feathers. Some of the watchers let out a wild, unearthly whoop, a pagan battle cry that came from some place deep inside, and it sent shivers down Robley’s spine.
And then it was over and Jonathan Paine’s bird lay in a crumpled heap of bloody feathers.
“What the hell you say the name of your bird is?” the victor taunted Jonathan. “Winfield Scott, ain’t that what you said? Or wasn’t it Bluebelly?”
Jonathan grinned. He did not get angry. He rarely did. He picked up the rooster’s limp body. “His name, suh, is Stew Meat.” Jonathan bowed, turned to leave the circle, saw Robley watching him.
“Ah, brothers, you had to witness my bird’s ignominious defeat. He left a great string of dead fighting cocks in his path, and the one time you see him fight is when he gets beat by that cheating South Carolina son of a bitch.”
“He left one rooster dead in his path, and I think that one was sick with consumption to start,” Nathaniel said.
“Come on, Private,” Robley said, “there’s been a reassignment and you have picket duty tonight.”
“Picket duty?” The three brothers stepped off across the dry, dusty parade ground. “If y’all are putting me on picket duty,” Jonathan said, “you must reckon them Yankees’ll be coming down the road tonight.”
“You don’t mind fighting them single-hand, do you?” asked Nathaniel.
“Who else is gonna do it?”
They marched back toward the 18th Mississippi’s camp, slower now, as the sun reached its zenith. “Tell me true, Lieutenant,” Jonathan said. When he used Robley’s title with sincerity, it meant he was looking for a real answer. “When you think we’re gonna be at them bluebellies?”
Robley stopped in the middle of the wide central street. His wool clothing itched intolerably and he wanted some relief.
“Can’t be too much longer,” he said, scratching with abandon, which got his brothers scratching as well. Robley heard enough talk around camp to know that speculating about future action was the quickest way to sound like an idiot. But with his brothers it was different. “Uncle Abe’s three-month enlistments are up soon. He’s got to do something, before his army goes home. Got to be a battle soon.”
Nathaniel and Jonathan nodded. For all the casual, hunting-trip quality of Camp Walker, there was always that, the impending battle, hanging there. The Sword of Damocles, it would have to fall eventually.
“You afraid?” Jonathan asked Robley, and again there was a sincerity that the youngest did not generally show. Standing there, his dead rooster in his hand, he looked like the little boy that Robley remembered, holding a broken toy, a bit bewildered in a world where his father imposed no strict rules. The boys had always turned to Robley for structure in their lives.
Now Robley just shrugged, spit on the ground. “You mean am I afraid there won’t be a fight?” he asked, though he knew that was not what Jonathan meant.
“No, I mean, you afraid of the fight?”
Robley looked away, collecting his words, making sure there was no one else to hear them. These were his brothers. He did not always have to be Lieutenant Paine in front of them.
“Yeah. I’m afraid of the monkey show. I’m afraid I’ll run. Won’t have the nerve to stand up to it.”
Jonathan smiled, chuckled, shook his head. “That it? Aren’t you afraid of being killed? I’m…seems to me a Yankee bullet’s a more frightening prospect than doing a skeedaddle.”
The words took Robley by surprise, and he realized that his thoughts had been so directed toward how he would perform when the bullets started to fly that the thought of being killed had never occurred to him.
“No, I’m not afraid of being killed, I don’t reckon. Rather die with honor than live with the shame of running,” he said, and that seemed true, but was it?
Here now was a whole new question with which he would have to wrestle.
13
