In The Face Of Death (38 page)

“No, not at present,” she said, some of her habitual formality returning. “I appreciate your telling me your views.”

“I will tell them to Doctor Faugh, if he will listen,” said Madelaine, who had run out of patience with the surgeon assigned to Saint Eustace. “But he wants no part of those poor men who have been wounded in their minds as well as their bodies.”

This embarrassed Miss Sachs, who stared off into the distance. “I have had word that Corporal Hayward has been sent to the asylum at Philadelphia.”

Madelaine stifled a number of replies. “I am certain he will do as well there as anywhere.”

“Yes,” said Miss Sachs. “I suppose he will. So long as there is someone to watch him and keep him clean and fed. . . .” She looked around the laundry as if she had not seen it before. “You will have less to do once the men are gone.”

“For a while,” said Madelaine. “And there are other hospitals here that need more hands for the work.”

At last Miss Sachs burst out, “Don’t you want to leave?”

“Yes,” said Madelaine. “But not on troop trains going North and not while I have unfinished work here.” She put the last of the laundry into the baskets and went to the door. “Jeanette, they’re ready,” she called, thinking as she did that the nuns would be proud of her now, after all those hours they spent trying to teach her to care properly for washing.

Jeanette, a handsome, lithe girl of eleven with caramel-colored skin and startling green eyes, and already taller than Madelaine, came in the door, faltering as she caught sight of Miss Sachs. “Yes, Ma’am?”

“The baskets. You can take them out, rinse them and get them hanging,” Madelaine indicated a pile of clothes in the hampers near the stove. “One more load and we’re done.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” she repeated, and went to drag the first of the baskets outside.

“She’s a very hard worker, I must say,” Miss Sachs approved, her long hatchet face set in rigid lines.

“Yes, she is,” said Madelaine, watching through the narrow window as the girl dragged the basket across the yard toward the rinsing vats.

“I will leave a recommendation that she be given work to do, and not left behind when the army moves again.” This was an astonishing offer coming from Miss Sachs, who strongly disapproved both of Jeanette’s mixed race and illegitimacy. “Otherwise, who knows what will become of her?”

“You mean, you’re afraid that without the labor we offer her she might turn to whoring? Or that she would give information to Hood’s men, or Forrest’s?” Madelaine used the bluntest language she dared. “I don’t think you need ever fear that she would do either of those things.”

Now Miss Sachs was flustered. “But . . . I mean, look at her. You can tell that her morals are . . . imperfect.”

“How? Because her skin is darker than yours? Because her mother is a Negress? Because her father used her mother and sold the fruits of it to a brothel? Because she has seen other females of her race used for men’s pleasure? Because she has no other means of earning a living? Because the people of Africa are less principled than those of Europe? Look at the work she has done so willingly for us. She is still a child, one who has worked from the time she was big enough to carry a towel, or hold a brush. She hasn’t begun her courses yet, and you think of her as debauched.” Madelaine saw that her challenges distressed Miss Sachs and she took some satisfaction in it.

Miss Sachs looked affronted. “Why are you talking to me in this disagreeable way? What have I done to offend you?” She was backing toward the door, not quite retreating, but not standing her ground.

“You do not offend me, you offend that unfortunate child, who has done nothing to deserve your poor opinion,” said Madelaine, her attitude becoming more firm. “How can you think of her so disparagingly when she has spent her every waking hour helping all of us with these wounded men? Since Enoch was injured, she has been our only real assistant, and I, for one, am grateful to her.”

“And I am, as well,” said Miss Sachs. “But she is so ignorant—”

“What do you expect in a place where it has been illegal to teach slaves how to read and write? Yes. She is ignorant and superstitious and all the rest of it. How else should she be? Do you think you would be different, if you were in her situation?”

Madelaine gave Miss Sachs a look of exasperation, knowing that the other woman did not understand the reason for her outburst. “You are all so shocked that these people who have been so relentlessly oppressed should show the signs of it.” She stuffed the last of the laundry into the boiling tubs, saying recklessly, “When I was a girl, there were many who thought educated women were freaks, unfeminine, as if ignorance were concomitant with being female.” It was true enough; she hoped that Miss Sachs had no understanding of how girls were taught in France now.

“We are not much better than you French,” said Miss Sachs with a sudden sigh. “We are taught to value prettiness and compliance of manner over good minds and strength of character.” She looked around the laundry. “I confess I will not miss this place.”

“Neither will I,” said Madelaine as the odorous steam rose afresh.

“You will go with the army, then?” Miss Sachs could not hide her disapproval of this plan.

“Yes, I will go with the army,” said Madelaine, thinking that what she meant was that she would go with Sherman.

Miss Sachs concealed a sigh of resignation. “At least there will be other nurses and women from the Sanitary Commission to help be certain the proprieties are maintained.”

“Gracious, yes. We must make every effort to keep the tone morally high. Heaven help us if there should be an impropriety in the midst of war,” Madelaine made no apology for her sarcasm.

“Miss de Montalia,” said Miss Sachs stiffly, “your free ways may be much admired in France, but we Americans are not so lax. We do not want it said that our army triumphed in the field and abandoned honor in the process.”

Madelaine realized the woman was serious, and she stopped her laundry chores long enough to address Miss Sachs directly. “You have entirely forgot what is going on out there? Have you lost sight of the suffering those men endure? Or the excesses they need when the battles are done? Where is the honor in that? And don’t tell me you believe that all these men are of blameless conduct just because they fight for a cause you endorse. Their purpose is honorable enough, I will give you that, but the men are men.” She flung up her hands. “I encountered a Southern man who helped slaves to escape and thought that bought him all sorts of privileges and favors, and behaved execrably with women. You came here as an Abolitionist, and yet you scorn Jeanette while you heap praise on men who may not deserve more than a passing nod, if that.”

“General Sherman has ordered the troops to behave in a manner befitting—” Miss Sachs began.

“General Sherman cannot be everywhere. Nor can any of his staff. They have other things to occupy their thoughts.” She felt angry now, and could not bring herself to address Miss Sachs any longer; she used the paddle to stir the boiling wash, grateful for the ordinariness of the job.

Miss Sachs hovered near the door for a short while, and then said, “Well, goodbye, Miss de Montalia.”

Near Marietta, Georgia, 7 November, 1864

We, and a number of other nursing stations, have been moved outside of the city in preparation to march, so that we may see our patients put aboard trains to take the last of them north. We are expected to be here for another week at most, by which time all the wounded should be headed back to Union hospitals. It has been a difficult two days, getting these men ready for travel. . . .

Tomorrow is election day for the Union, and the whole of the army is buzzing with speculation about it, though most of the men have not been able to vote. Will Mister Lincoln be re-elected, or General McClellan win? I am a little surprised at the number of men in this army who do not wish to throw in with McClellan, for he once held the position General Grant now occupies. I will have to ask Tecumseh to explain it to me, when the bustle around him dies down and he returns from Kingston. . . .

“We will be moving shortly, and about time,” Sherman said to Madelaine as he finished the last of the spit-roasted chicken, casting the bones aside onto the platter impatiently. He drank a long draught of coffee to wash it down. “There, woman. Are you satisfied? You’re worse than Nichols, and he fusses like a bitch with one pup,” he added, referring to his aide-de-camp.

“A midnight supper is fashionable still, in Paris,” said Madelaine in French, adding in English as she ran the tips of her fingers over the unused crystal goblet set above his china plate, “And you cannot live on air.” She blew out the last of the flames on the branch of candles before they could gutter.

“So I cannot, therefore the chicken,” said Sherman, wiping his hands on the frayed linen napkin she had salvaged from the looted stores in the cellar below. “Though you seem to manage it fairly well; living on air.” His steel-colored eyes glinted in the firelight and the last drops of moisture from his bath shone in his hair and beard, softening his stern features with a ruddy glow. His worn flannel robe was negligently tied, so that the curly thatch of his chest was revealed with every movement of his arms. “Both of us have bathed, I have eaten, and now I am wholly at your disposal; you may have your own buffet of me.”

“It’s not the same, and you know it,” said Madelaine as a distant clock struck one. She hoped that Sherman would rid himself of some of his high-strung energy before he took her to bed, for that relentless urgency did not bode well for their gratification; his thoughts jumped and chirped like crickets when he was in such a state of mind, and he chafed at concern. Recognizing his need to talk, she asked, “Now that it is sure that Mister Lincoln is returned to office, there is much to do, isn’t there? Have you completed your plans, at last?”

“Pretty much, or so I trust, if the politicians don’t get a chance to ruin them, and the papers don’t spread them all over the South.” In spite of these growlings he warmed to her question at once, taking the salt cellar and pepper grinder and setting them up on the worn damask tablecloth between the remains of the chicken on the platter and his plate, where he had cleared a place for his demonstration. “We will march in two wings, Howard with the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps, Slocum with the Fourteenth and Twentieth. We’ll have Thomas behind us to harry Hood if he comes after us. The men will be very lightly provisioned, and will forage. I have ordered that the supply wagons carry ten days’ rations only. That will serve a number of purposes. We will move faster carrying less, we will encourage the men to keep up the pace in order to reach the fruits of Savannah, we will deprive the enemy of resupply by taking it for ourselves, we will have to remain vigilant against any militia parties for we will not have the means to make up for any lost supplies, and we will show the South and the world that the Union is the master in the United States of America by passing through the very heart of the Confederacy.” His determination was apparent from the timbre of his voice to the lines of his posture. “And we will make the South want an end to this as much as the North does.”

Madelaine watched with mixed feelings as Sherman continued his enthusiastic descriptions, for she saw in his excitement and anticipation of success the ghost of his bleak despair. “Tecumseh,” she said when he paused in his eager recitation, “is your intention truly to go to Savannah? Or are you telling me that so you can keep your true goal a secret?”

Sherman snorted, gave a quick shake of his head, and raised his hands in mock capitulation. “My true goal is Savannah; yes it is,” His grin was hard and flat. “Not the Gulf, not the coast south of Tallahassee, as I have let them all suppose it would be, but the Atlantic. Farragut has that part of the Gulf in the palm of his hand now, in any case. He does not need me.” He rose, starting to pace, his blue plaid robe swinging around his ankles as he moved. “I would like to go directly south: it is not as far to the water, and we could at last free the prisoners at Andersonville. But it is what Hood expects me to do, and doubtless he and Forrest have plans to intercept such an effort. So we will strike out east-southeast, where we are not expected. We will cut ourselves off from everything, including Washington, so that no news of our position can find its way into enemy hands.” He did not have his usual cigar to use as a pointer or visible punctuation mark, but he did his best to make up for it with his long fingers. “It is far more important that we pull up the rails between here and the Atlantic so that they cannot ship men and materiel to their own troops, and confiscate all supplies we find. It is just as vital that we keep the Western and Atlantic and the Nashville lines open for our uses, which will be Thomas’ work.” He rounded on her. “I have sought to do this from the first, and I will do it.”

“How long do you think it will take to reach Savannah?” asked Madelaine, knowing it was a long and demanding march.

“We’ll be there by early January, I should think,” he said with a studied laconic manner.

“Early January?” she repeated, amazed at this incredible assumption.

“If not sooner,” Again he spoke with deliberate blandness. “If we can move steadily at ten miles a day—and I will ask for more, to be certain we get that—we will arrive there in early January quite handily. That is, of course, assuming our resistance is minimal, we do not have to forage too far for our food, and the weather does not turn against us.”

“Ten miles a day, an army of this size, in enemy territory, and foraging at that, in winter; that vainglorious Corsican would have hesitated at such expectations,” Madelaine said, wanting to be certain she had understood his incredible plan. “I don’t know whether you are brilliantly audacious or stark, staring—” She stopped herself from going on.

His response was very quiet, almost serene. “No, dear love, I am not mad. It can be done. You’ll see. We will do it.” He offered her his hands, pulling her to her feet. “Come closer.” There was a somberness in his face now that troubled her as much as his hesitation and his wistful contemplation of her features. “I need you close to me now, for comfort.” It was an astonishing admission, coming from him. He drew her into his arms and stared at the fire over the top of her head. There was a catch in his voice as he murmured, “The trouble is I don’t know what to say to you, Madelaine.” He did not go on.