Once an Eagle (4 page)

He thought of the bank, her father's square white face, the steel-rimmed spectacles, the dark suit and high starched collar. He'd been enraged when Wilson beat Hughes, Sam had heard him on the steps of the town hall. “This country is in a bad way when we're obliged to trust our future to a college president.” It had been a dazzling fall day, northwest, the sky an aching deep blue and the elm leaves on Main Street a million shimmering flakes of gold; and Mr. Harrodsen had looked like a stand of pine in the dead of winter. He always seemed to move in shadow …

It was a lot pleasanter dwelling on Celia. That kiss. That kiss! She'd never done anything like that before. The time at the Hart's Island picnic when he'd sneaked up behind her and grabbed her she'd let out a yelp and shot off like a yearling deer. What had got into her tonight? Idly he wondered if he was in love. She was beautiful, she was lively, she had a will of her own—it was fun walking and dancing and drinking cherry phosphates with her at Winnott's Drug Store. He tried to imagine himself married to her, sprawled on the lawn in front of their own home on High Street—but there the vision abruptly ended. There was nothing more. There rose in its place those dreams of foreign lands, piling one upon another like monsoon thunderheads—a cascading diorama of alabaster cities and jungles and gaunt castle towns, of moments lurid with crises so desperate the very stoutest hearts would blanch; and finally, pressed beyond endurance, overwhelmed, all would quail but Samuel A. Damon of Walt Whitman, Nebraska, and the 6th Cavalry Regiment …

“… Ah, it was a sight to wake the dead.” Billy Hanlon's voice was louder now, and hoarser. “There was Voybada with his throat laid open like a butchered calf, the blood running in a Niagara between the cots, and little Jerry Driscoll on his hands and knees, his head split open like a cassava melon and his brains—”

“All right, Billy,” Kitty Damon said in the sharp, forbidding tone none of them ever disputed. “That's more than enough of such sights.”

“That's
war,
my girl,” he retorted, and rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. “What are you suggesting—that I boodle-ize it all for the boy? That's what war is …”

“…War.” Old George Verney clucked softly in his beard. “War … Why, you don't know what battle is, Billy Hanlon. You should have stood on the bluff at Shiloh, with the Johnny Rebs coming at you thick as Spanish needles in a fence corner, with their
Yip! Yip! Ya-hoooo!
war cry that would freeze your blood in your bones. First time you heard it, that is. After that you paid it no mind. And the minnie balls coming overhead in a sleet storm, and the canister whizzing and whining till you could hardly think or feel or see …
That
was war, Billy Hanlon.”

The younger man nodded, irritated and out of countenance. “Ah, well. Shiloh …”

“You bet, Shiloh. None of this skulking around in swamps flushing little brown-skinned boys out of their bamboo huts and giving them the water cure—”

“Brown-skinned boys—they were devils incarnate, slashers and stabbers born with a machete in their hands … millions of 'em, I tell you, deep in a thousand miles of Godforsaken jungle and living by the light of your wits and a good Krag-Jorgensen rifle and a Hail Mary, full of grace. And malaria and yellow jack, don't you forget that, the hot-and-cold chills—we walked in the rain and heat until we dropped …”

But the old man wasn't listening. Tilted dangerously far back in the slat-backed rocker he was launched now, living it again. “Why, at the Peach Orchard the Johnnies—”

Hanlon rubbed his eyes, exasperated. “You going to tell us about that Peach Orchard again?”

“You wouldn't have lasted long at the Peach Orchard. Bushwhacker. Like to see you try to give the Johnny Rebs the water cure.” George Verney emitted a high, dry cackle that was like retching, and chewed hard at the edge of his beard. Saliva lay in little foamy chains at the corners of his mouth. “They came on and they came on, as though no power on earth or under it was going to stop them. And Johnston riding out front of them, whipping them on, couldn't none of us hit him, with a shiny bright mess cup in his hand.”

“A cup, Mr. Verney?” Ty asked. “A drinking cup?”

“That's right, boy. That's what he was waving. He'd picked it up in the tents of the Fifty-third Ohio when they came through.”

“But didn't he have a sword? Why wasn't he waving his sword?”

“I don't know, boy … The bravest of the brave. I could hear him plain as day, swinging his big horse Fire-eater back and forth along the line. We were in two lines, first row prone, the second kneeling, the way they did in Wellington's army long ago. And on they came again, and we shot them down as though every bullet was a scythe blade at haying time, and still they came. And then they were on us and we rose up to meet them. I remember a short man with a black beard and a broken nose there in front of me, and we locked weapons, and I struck him down with the butt and bayoneted him through the heart … and right behind him was a slim young fellow with a handsome face and golden hair, he'd lost his cap somewhere along the line and his mouth was smeared with powder, he looked like the villain in a vaudeville show, comical with all that blond hair and that black powder mustache … he raised his rifle like a club and I couldn't get my weapon free of the other one. I kept twisting and yanking, twisting and yanking, and I couldn't take my eyes off that bayonet of his … and then, I don't know why, I let go my weapon and grabbed him around the waist and we wrestled around like two schoolboys quarreling over a fishing rod. And all at once I felt him sink against me soft as a cow's muzzle, and when I stepped back he fell dead at my feet …” He paused; his eyes were so narrowed it was impossible to see the pupils.

“What happened, Mr. Verney?” Ty pressed him.

“I don't know,” the old man answered with sudden indifference. “Somebody shot him, I suppose. Old Hurlbut told us to fall back then, and we did, what were left of us, and tried to re-form. And on they came. It wasn't five minutes later I got my wound. No more Shiloh for me.”

“How did you get wounded, Mr. Verney?”

“I don't know, boy. I don't rightly know. I've often wondered about it. Later I asked some of the boys and none of them could tell me.” George Verney wagged his head. “There's an old saying you never see the ball that's marked for you, and there's a lot of truth in it. I remember I'd stopped to reload, I was tumping away with my ramrod—and next thing I knew I was laying on the ground without rifle or cartridge belt either, and everything was ringing and gray and faraway feeling. It was right near the Bloody Pool.”

“Why'd they call it the Bloody Pool?” Ty asked him.

“They called it that, boy, because that's what it became. That day and night and most of the next day, too. The sun beat down on us hour after hour and we crawled to the pool, those of us that could crawl, friend and foe, and we put our heads in it and drank in the heat. And the water of that pool turned red …”

He paused. The night breeze seethed again in the trees on the lawn. Sam Damon was aware that he was scarcely breathing. The crucial moment, with the fate of the Northwest at stake. But Hurlbut had held beyond the Bloody Pool; Sherman had kept the lines from cracking open; and Grant had massed his cannon on the high ground near the Landing and made his plans for an attack at dawn on the 7th …

“
That
was the elephant and no mistake, Billy Hanlon,” George Verney went on, his voice clearer now, as though the recollection had roused him. “You could have walked all over the Peach Orchard on the bodies of the fallen and never once touched ground. Not once … Whiskey and chloroform, that was all we had for wounds.”

“Tell us about Sherman, Mr. Verney,” Sam heard himself say, with the eagerness of ten years past.

“Old Cump,” George Verney said, and smiled. “Well, we'd never cared much for him before that day—there were all those stories of his having lost the knot in his thread, pure unadulterated drivel put out by good-for-nothing journalists but we didn't know that, of course … but that day he was a marvel. I remember him once leaning against a tree right under the cannonading, smoking one of his ragged cigars, his wild red beard black with powder and smeared with his own blood, the brim of his hat torn to tatters by a ball and his wounded hand wrapped in a crazy blue rag. Cool as a cucumber in deep shade. Couldn't nothing faze him. That was his greatness, Sam: the critical moment. He could feel it the way you can feel weather breaking. And he never flinched, even after he was hit. Just to look at him was to have all your courage back again. And there were braver men than he who threw down their rifles and ran away that day. Yes, and repented of it and found themselves a weapon and came back and fought like lions. Because of Sherman … I recall a skinny preacher who'd euchered the governor into giving him a uniform and a commission, came up to us waving his long arms and calling, ‘Rally for God and country, oh rally, men, for God and country!' and old Sherman ran into him and roared: ‘Shut your mouth, you God damned old fool! Shut your mouth and get out of the way!'”

George Verney chuckled softly in the silence, his bony frame shaking; the corners of his eyes glowed with moisture. He took a slow, hesitant sip of beer. Bill Hanlon had finished his stein and sat with his arms folded, disgruntled and cross, staring at nothing. Sam Damon watched them. They had met the elephant on fields half a world away, they had both been wounded and had acquitted themselves with honor; and now they sat on this porch in the Nebraska town of Walt Whitman and drank beer and talked of those days of peril and triumph, those fiery moments when they had taken their destinies like an apple in their two hands …

Ty was asking Uncle Billy something about the Philippines and Sam shifted his feet, gazing at the ivory porcelain globe of the lamp, where a gray-blue moth bumped and fluttered clumsily. Destiny … He remembered when he'd first felt it. He had been lying in the field behind Clausen's, a glittering July afternoon, watching clouds soar by in the shapes of bears and warriors and rearing stallions, the wheat stalks swaying above him in the puffs of breeze … and the idea had started up in his mind like a bugle call, piercing and sweet and infinitely insistent: a clarion born of the hours of poring over Fanchett's
Pictorial History of the World for Boys
—a massive tome laced with fine old engravings: Wolfe dying on the heights of Quebec, Alexander's cavalry charge at Arbela, Frederick the Great at Rossbach, Bonaparte rallying his men at the bridge of Arcola … a roll call glorious and stern that had set his mind dancing; but what excited him most of all were the stories of Cincinnatus and Dumouriez and Prescott, of farmers and citizens who took arms to confound tyranny and crush it, who stepped into the mortal breach to save their native lands …

“It must be nearly nine, Sam,” his mother said.

“Right.” He drew out his father's gold watch with its slender black roman numerals: quarter to. As he started up to his room he met Peg coming down. Putting his hand on the railing, he blocked the stairs. “I hear you girls have been exchanging confidences.”

Her homely, boyish face went blank with surprise—then she grinned mischievously. “Oh, she can't keep
anything
to herself! I should have known better.”

“I ought to spank you good—” He lunged out for her but she danced away up the steps, swinging about on the newel post.

“She try to talk you out of it?”

“Yes.”

“Good! It'll strengthen your character.”

“Peg, now it'll be all over town,” he complained. “Of course it will!—if you want to be different from everybody else you've got to pay the price …” Laughing, she ran back into her room and banged the door shut.

He stared after her, smiling faintly; then he turned and went back down the stairs. As he left the porch Uncle Bill was regaling Ty and a sleepy, skeptical George Verney about the 9th Infantry's heroic storming of Tung P'en.

2

At nine thirty
a hardware drummer from Chicago came in, and Sam Damon put him in Fourteen; and ten minutes later a couple named Ormsby, also off the Omaha train, who were on their way to visit relatives in Sheridan Forks.

Sam took them up to the large double room, Twenty-seven, and got them settled in. Then he went back to Mr. Thornton's desk at the head of the landing on the second floor and wrote down the times they wished to be awakened and their breakfast orders, to leave for Malvern Leach, the cook, when he came in at five thirty. Then it was quiet again; there was only an occasional horse clop-clopping by outside, and the low, uneven murmur of voices in the bar to the left of the front door downstairs. Sam sat for a few moments listening to the night sounds; then he reopened the big worn leatherbound volume at its place mark and began to read:

 

The din of the battle now grew by leaps and bounds, while Arnold, who as has been noted had been removed from his command as the result of the violent altercation with Gates on the 20th, paced up and down before his tent like a caged lion. The firing on the British right reached a crescendo, and at length Arnold could stand this helpless activity no longer. Turning to his aide-de-camp he exclaimed: “No power on earth shall hold me in this tent today! If I am to be without a command, then I will fight in the ranks like a common soldier. But the men, God bless them, will follow me wherever I shall lead them.”

He then called for his horse, a powerful dun charger, and vaulting into the saddle galloped furiously toward the fray. General Gates observed his departure and cried for an aide to recall him; but Arnold put spurs to his horse, crossed the marshy ground at Mills Creek and hastened up the slope, where he came upon his old regiments, who recognized their former commander with joyous shouts and cheers. Drawing his sword Arnold led them forward in a violent onslaught upon the German center under Baron Reidesel; the Hessians however held firm. Arnold then hastened to the American left wing and incited Morgan's redoubtable riflemen in their attack against Balcarres' Light Infantry, who fell back in good order upon their fortifications near Freeman's Farm.

It was at this point that Arnold, traversing the length of the front line for the third time that morning and exposed to the extremely hazardous crossfire of the contending armies, perceived that the battle had attained its crucial stage; that the key to the situation lay in Breyman's Redoubt, and that, if it could be forced, Burgoyne's entire position would be turned, and so untenable. Once more encountering his old brigade, he led them in a savage assault upon the works, himself setting an example of the utmost valor, repeatedly riding, sword in hand, into the British ranks, until wounded in that same leg that had sustained injury—

 

The front door opened softly below; and looking down—Mr. Thornton had placed the desk so near the landing that its occupant could observe all comings and goings at a glance—Sam could see Ted Barlow's red hair in the light from the gas jet. He leaned into the bar and replied to a low chorus of greetings; leaned out again and came up the stairs two at a time and said: “Hello, Ace. What you reading there?”

Sam closed the book on its place mark. “Oh, little history. Revolutionary War history.”

“All that fine print. Ruin your eyes and then where'll we be?” Barlow clucked his tongue and sat down in the hard black horsehair chair to the right of the desk. He was several years older than Sam; short and stocky, with a button nose and a low, bulging forehead from which the hair had already begun to recede. Pulling a piece of paper from his shirt pocket he unfolded it and tossed it on the desk. “Here's their lineup.”

Sam studied it intently. “Harrison's a sucker for low stuff. We got Galder on curves. Who's this Burchall?”

“I don't know. A big new guy, Wally says. Two doubles and a home run against Tyson Park.”

Sam whistled once. “Well. We'll keep it low and away from him, see what he does. All right?”

“I guess so.”

“And if he hits that—why then we'll just play deep and cut across.”

The two men laughed, then bent over the list and went down it carefully, discussing the positioning of outfielders and other tactical problems in great detail. Ted worked in the Union Pacific yards but his passion was baseball. He was catcher, coach and general manager for the Walt Whitman Warriors, an aggregation that played teams from other towns every Sunday afternoon at the town field. His hopes of a big league tryout had faded as the years passed and the fat began to set in his muscles; but he continued to dream nonetheless—a perfect season, a shutout against Josselyn; there was even the possibility of becoming a scout for a major league team. Why not? If the Warriors could win all their games this year there was no telling where it might end. His enthusiasm was infectious. When Sam Damon had finished high school as their star pitcher and clean-up hitter Ted had talked him into pitching for the Warriors; and Sam was still winning.

“I've been thinking about a play,” Sam said.

“Bit of deep strategy?”

The younger man nodded and grinned. “With a man on third and none or one out. You pretend you're defending against the squeeze. The third and first basemen charge the plate. The pitcher of course takes his full windup.”

“What about the runner on third?”

“That's just it.
You
call for a pitch-out. And as I start my windup, the shortstop breaks for third. I throw a fast ball, way outside, and you fire back to the bag without any hesitation. With Stevie charging the plate the runner comes down the line a lot farther than he would ordinarily, and so we've got a chance to nail him. It's a matter of timing.”

Barlow blinked, and ducked his head. “I remember that play—something like it … Where'd you hear of it?”

“I didn't. I made it up, the other night.”

The catcher frowned. “They won't fall for it. It's bush league.”

“We're bush league.”

“You can't use it very often, I'll tell you that.”

“Only once.” Sam smiled. “The crucial place in a game.” Barlow watched him, his blue eyes twinkling. “You're pretty slick. All right. We'll give it a try.”

“You'd better put your glove over your knee—something good and distinct. If I ever missed the sign and the batter swung away, poor Stevie could get killed.”

“That's right, too …You never heard of that play?” Sam shook his head. “You beat everything, fella. You ought to go over to Flanders and show them how to fight that war.” He picked up the sheet of paper. “You want a copy of this?”

“No. I've got it in my head.”

Barlow nodded. He'd been incredulous and had said so sarcastically when Sam had first made that reply the year before—and then to his amazement Sam had repeated the line-up and every batter's weakness in perfect detail. “Mind like a photographic plate,” he would boast of Sam to his friends or his wife, who had heard all she wanted to about Sam Damon.

“I wrote Hap Donnally,” he said aloud. “I haven't had an answer yet but I will. He always answers my letters. I told him I want him to see you work.”

“Do you think he'll come? way out here?” Hap Donnally was a celebrated scout for the Chicago Cubs.

“Sure he will. They've got expense accounts, those fellows. They go anywhere they want to, and the club picks up the tab.” Barlow had been east once, to Chicago. “They're big spenders.”

There was a little silence, punctuated by a low rumble of laughter down in the bar. Sam thought of Hap Donnally, of the great green diamonds and looming stadia of the major leagues, and chewed at the inside of his cheek. Ted Barlow got up, sat down again, pushed his stocky legs out, crossed them, and jammed his hands deep in his trouser pockets. “Hot this evening.”

“Not bad.”

Barlow fiddled some more, and said finally: “You seen Tim Riley?”

Sam shook his head, watching the coach without expression.

“I heard him down at the shop. He says he's going to come in here and have a few drinks tonight. As many as he wants. And that he's going to engage himself a room for good measure.”

“Not here, he isn't,” Sam said.

The manager puffed out his lips and scowled. “He was telling it all around. He won't back down after all that.”

“I know.”

“He gets off at quarter of eleven.”

Sam glanced at Barlow but made no reply. Big Tim Riley was an ex-lumberjack, ex-sailor, ex-stevedore with a legendary past. He stood six feet five in his socks, a mountain of a man, uproarious and ungovernable. The week before he had got into a fight down in the bar with three patrons over the merits of the left-hander Rube Waddell, and caught up in the passion of the argument and the delights of destruction, had smashed to pieces four chairs, innumerable glasses and bottles and finally the large painted mirror behind the bar before roaring out into the warm Nebraska night, where the law had caught up with him. He'd paid the damages readily enough and no one had pressed charges; but Mr. Thornton had explicitly told everyone at the Grand Western that Riley was not to be served if he came in again.

The only trouble with that was that Mr. Thornton, who was fifty-seven and who wore a pin-stripe suit and pince-nez and hummed loudly to himself while he worked, was in bed fast asleep right now.

“He claims he got a raw deal, Sam,” Barlow was saying cautiously. “He's something when he gets going.”

“I know.”

“What are you going to do?”

Damon shrugged. “I guess I'll think of something when the time comes.”

“It better be awful good.” Barlow looked distressed and locked his hands. “Look, I—you know, I could hang around a little while. If you'd like. I'm no Jack Johnson but I'd be some help.”

Sam shook his head again, firmly. “If I can't handle him alone then I'm not fit to sit at this desk.”

“Jesus, Sam, he weighs two hundred and forty-five pounds. And he's not fat. There isn't a man in this county who could lick him in a fair fight.”

“That's true.”

“…You're pretty damn cool, it seems to me.” Barlow stared at the night clerk a moment longer, then got reluctantly to his feet. “Well. It's your funeral. Good-bye and good luck. As they say. I still think you're making one whale of a mistake.”

“We'll see.”

Ted Barlow's steps faded away down the stairs. Pop Ainslie, the crusty little old bartender, said something to him, and for a moment Sam Damon found himself hoping Barlow would go inside for a drink and stay on. But he said good night and went out, closing the big door carefully behind him. For a few minutes Sam listened to the desultory talk in the bar, which did seem more subdued than usual. Down in the swamp behind Clausen's Forge the tree toads were shrilling softly, and from far away, probably at Hart's Island, came the rhythmic clang of iron on iron. He stared out at the elms' dense leafy mass against the night sky, dreaming for a moment of Celia Harrodsen, and big-league baseball, and brooding, savage coasts under a blazing copper sky …

He opened the big leatherbound book again and went on reading for ten minutes or so; then reaching into the bottom drawer of the desk, took out a loose-leaf notebook with a soft black leather cover and big brass rings and began to write in a small, nicely formed hand:

 

Second Battle of
Freeman's Farm, Saratoga, October 7, 1777.
Analysis:
Benedict Arnold won Battle of Saratoga—& possibly War of Independence—when Gates would have lost it. Arnold's effectiveness lay in (1) flexibility & tactical sense, (2) calm under fire, (3) ability to inspire loyalty & confidence in men through force of personal example.

Key points:
(a) when Reidesel's troops held firm, he did not waste men & time in fruitless additional assaults, but shifted attack to Balcarres; (b) when he realized tactical importance of Breyman's Redoubt he threw weight against it w/o delay, pressed assault relentlessly until position taken; (c) “But the soldiers … will follow me wherever I shall lead them.” Knew he must lead—& had complete confidence that Brigade would follow him. Fact that he could inspire them to 3 successive assaults, each more severe, is crux of whole matter.

Problems:
Gates pompous, vain, stupid man, continually confused trivial with important. Through either fear or incompetence, incapable of decisive action. Arnold knew Gates was incompetent. He had had ample opportunity to gauge him in 1st Battle of Freeman's Farm, Sept. 19th. He probably realized battle would be lost if Burgoyne were permitted to force action, turn American position on Bemis Heights & open door to Albany … So Arnold disobeyed orders, dominated action, won battle & perhaps war. Should he have been court-martialled or decorated? or both? Apparently he was neither. Can direct disobedience of orders be justified by circumstances? & if so, when, and for what reasons? Compare and contrast: Stuart at Gettysburg, Grouchy at Waterloo, Grant at Vicksburg.

Conclusions:
If your leadership & tactical sense is better than your superior's & if you are certain a battle would be lost if orders of that superior allowed to stand, you MIGHT be justified in seizing initiative yourself; BUT you must be prepared to accept consequences, in either victory or defeat. Arnold was not. Is there a foreshadowing of his later defection & treason in refusal to obey orders here? or was it more a matter of outrage at lack of personal recognition? Was Arnold guilty of excessive pride? Could he perhaps have handled that idiot Gates more effectively, avoided violent quarrel after action of Sept. 19th? Or did he lack—

 

The front door
swung open and banged shut with a thump that shivered the building. A large shadow passed across the threshold into the entrance to the bar and a voice roared: “Hello, one and all! Fancy meeting up with you once again.” And listening intently, Sam Damon thought: He's already had something. Plenty.