warm blanket. Most of the Cape Fears were seated around the place, Taylor and Moses on stools at the forward end. It was a very congenial affair, and it made Samuel sad, that such a thing could go on and he, as captain, could have no part of it.
Not that he wished to, with their crude folk ditties and dreary sentimentality.
“Cap’n, come to join us, sir?” Taylor lowered his violin from his chin and called out.
“No, Chief, I fear not. I…ah…I’m off, just now, and I wanted to tell you we’ll be underway at first light, so we’ll need steam up then.”
“Never fear, Cap’n, the engineering division stands ever ready. Got them boys to clean the grates and the fireboxes, blew the boiler down, topped off the feed-water tanks…they don’t get no music unless the engine room’s up to snuff.”
“Very good. Well, then…”
“Where you off to, Cap’n, if you don’t mind my askin? Y’all are dressed to the nines, I mean, and it ain’t often we poor navy men have a chance for such formality.”
“Oh, well…as it happens I am off to a concert. Mozart. What they might term ‘classical music.’”
“Mozart…his music kinda like that Bach fella’s?”
“Yes, sort of. In a broad sense. You should take in some classical music, Chief Taylor. With your interest in the violin you might find it instructive.”
“Well, that’s damned kind of you, Cap’n.” Taylor stood, set his violin back in the box. “Sorry, boys, no fiddlin tonight. I’m goin to hear ‘classic music’ with the Cap’n!”
“Oh, well…” Bowater began, over a chorus of disapproval from the men. “It’s just that I don’t know what to expect from this quintet. Sort of a local, amateur thing. I’d hate to subject you to something that turned out to be awful.”
“Ah, it’ll be all right,” Taylor said, closing and latching the violin case. “Reckon if I started with the best I wouldn’t have nowhere to go.” He straightened, looked around the galley. “Seems a shame, though. These boys were sure looking forward to their music tonight.”
“I should think so, Chief. I don’t think it would be fair for you to deprive them.”
“Not fair at all. All right, boys. Get your shore-goin rigs on. We all goin to listen to classical music.”
“Oh…”
“And Cap’n, what about the darkies?”
“Well, there is generally a place in the balcony for servants to sit.”
“Well, that’s fine. Servants, coal passers, it don’t make no difference. Go on, boys, git your shore-goin rigs on.”
The galley cleared out as the men went to make their preparations for a run ashore. Hieronymus Taylor began to pull his overcoat on, and stopped. “Cap’n, I’m sorry. It just occurred to me, might be you didn’t intend for all the men to come to this here shindy of yours.”
“No, no, Chief, that’s quite all right. I am always happy for the chance to introduce people to the beauty of fine music,” Samuel said, and he knew that if he was a better man he would have meant it.
30
– Mary Boykin Chesnut
They fitted Jonathan Paine with a prosthetic leg. They made him stand while they did it, made him endure their happy banter about his being as good as new, about how the girls were all swooning for a young soldier with an empty pant leg in his uniform. Jonathan said nothing.
They fitted the thing, took measurements, discussed adjustments. They left and came back another day and made him stand again and strapped it on. Bobby stood beside him-he might have been a tree trunk-and Bobby did not make clever jokes.
They gave him crutches and made him hobble about on the thing and his stump hurt like hell. He could hardly bear to look down and see his own damaged body. The act of standing made the room swirl around him in brilliant lit windows and white sheets and rows of beds and he thought he might fall down, but Bobby was there.
Finally they declared the thing done, set it beside his bed, and went away, and Jonathan got back in his bed and did not look at it again. It was a hateful thing.
Bobby came by to clean and dress his stump. He unwrapped the bandages, looked over the truncated limb as if he was evaluating horse flesh. “Mmm, my. This don’t need no cleanin’. This here looks good and healed-up to me.”
“You let me know when they start giving medical degrees to darkies. Then I’ll be happy to let you treat me.” The November wind made the windows rattle, and the sound chilled Jonathan right through.
Bobby smiled, sat down, uninvited, on a stool beside Jonathan’s bed. “Don’t need no fancy school to tell some things.”
Jonathan rolled his head over, looked into Bobby’s dark eyes. The black man was the only regular thing in his life. “That a fact? So what can you tell me, Dr. Sambo?”
“I kin tell you you bin layin in dat bed for a long damned time. Lot longer den it take for one shot-off leg to mend up.”
“That a fact?”
“Yassuh. Seen plenty a boys come and go, in da time you been layin here. Boys hurt wus den you.”
Jonathan rolled his head back, looked up at the ceiling. He knew every crack, every fleck of chipped paint. It was the landscape of the last part of his life.
Bobby was telling him a true thing. He had seen them too, the young men so grievously injured, seen them come and go while he remained, staring at the ceiling.
“Those other boys, they must have someplace to go,” Jonathan said.
“I tell you true…” Bobby said. He leaned closer and his voice was nearly a whisper. “You best find someplace too. I done heard the doctor talkin to Cap’n Tompkins yesserday. He say dere ain’t no reason you should still be here. He say da provosts, dey makin everyone in town give a bed to a hurt man, ain’t no room for one ain’t hurt.”
Jonathan closed his eyes. Of course, this would happen. He had known all along that it would, someday. He could not stay in that bed for the rest of his life, unless somehow his life were to end that day. But that did not seem likely. The only two things he could hope for-to remain fixed in that bed, or to die there-and neither one a possibility.
He was terrified. More frightened than he had been leaving his home for the uncertainties of war. More frightened than he had been looking down that hill-he now knew it was called “Henry House Hill”-into the swirl of battle, or standing in front of the charging Yankees, bullets plucking at his clothing. None of it was half so frightening to him as the prospect of standing up, tucking the crutches under his arms, hobbling out that door.
“You got no idea what kind of hurt I’m going through,” Jonathan said, and Bobby said, soft, “You think a nigger don’t know nuttin ’bout hurt? You think a boy sold away from his mammy, five years old, don’t know nuttin ’bout feelin sorry fo hisself? Missuh Jon’tin, you gots to go home.”
He was quiet for a long moment. He could feel Bobby’s presence beside him. Finally he spoke. It was just a whisper. “I can’t.”
Bobby replied, and his voice seemed to come from some place beyond the room, “You gots to. An I’se goin to help.” Then he stood and walked away.
With that exchange, everything, for Jonathan, changed. Where before there had been deadness, nothing, there was now terror. Where there had been no thought of the future, there was now obsession with it. And from that obsession, no clear idea emerged of where to go, what to do. Jonathan felt sick to his stomach. His missing leg ached.
