The Bloody Ground - Starbuck 04 (14 page)

I'm not entirely persuaded of that truth. Do I improve myself by knowing I am eternally thirsty, overeducated, and sadly fallible? I think not. Would you both excuse me for another trifling moment?" He walked to the nearest wall, unbuttoned his pants, and pissed noisily onto the brick. "Oh, dear God," he said, raising his eyes, "in one end and out the other"

"So ashamed," Martha whispered.

"Did you say ashamed, sweet love of my benighted life?" Potter called loudly from the wall. "Ashamed? Do not the poets piss? Does not an anointed king empty his royal bladder? Did not George Washington micturate? Was our dear Lord spared the need to sprinkle?"

"Matthew!" Martha protested, shocked. "He was perfect!"

"And that, sweetest one, was a perfect piss." He turned back to them, buttoning his trousers, then waved imperiously at Starbuck. "Onward, Captain Ahab! Death to Moby Dick! God hunt us all if we do not hunt Moby Dick to his death! Onward, dear souls!"

Sally, as she had promised, was waiting outside Mitchell and Tyler's jewelry store on Main Street and with her, as Starbuck had hoped, was Belvedere Delaney. The lawyer was dressed in one of the expensive uniforms he bought from Shaffer's, but no amount of tailoring could disguise Delaney's unmilitary soul. He was a short, plump, kindly man whose talents were making money and taking amusement from other men's weaknesses. Officially he was a captain in the legal office of the Confederate War Department, an appointment that seemed to require no duties except to take the pay and to wear a uniform when it was convenient. Today he sported a major's stars. "You've been promoted?" Starbuck asked, gladly greeting his old friend.

"I deemed the rank appropriate," Delaney answered grandly. "No one else seems to have the power to promote or demote me, so 1 assumed the rank as one more fitting for my dignity. In time, just like a gas balloon, I shall rise to the dizziest of heights. Dear Nate, you look dreadful! Scarred, dirty, used up. Is this what soldiering does to one?"

"Yes," Starbuck said, then introduced the barechested Lieutenant Potter, who seemed rather frightened by Delaney. Martha nervously shook the lawyer's hand, then fell back to cling to her disreputable husband.

"Here," Sally said to Starbuck as they began to walk eastward along Main, "you need this," and she held out one of Patrick Lassan's sabers.

Starbuck buckled the sword belt round his waist. "Did you find anything?" he asked Delaney.

"Of course I didn't find anything," the lawyer said testily. "I am not a detective bureau, I am merely an attorney." Delaney paused to raise his peaked cap to a passing acquaintance. "But it's quite obvious," he went on, "what Holborrow is doing. He is using the Special Battalion as a milch cow. He feeds it scraps and it yields him money. He doesn't want it to go to war, because that would mean he loses the income."

"What does that mean?" Starbuck asked.

Delaney sighed. "It's obvious, isn't it? The government issues the Special Battalion boots, so Holborrow sells the boots to another regimen
t, then complains to the govern
ment that the boots were faulty. In time he will receive more boots that will also be sold. The same for rifles, canteens, coats, and anything else he can gouge out of the system. He's doing it quite cleverly, for the system hasn't discovered him, but I'm sure that's his game. Are you really going to fight a duel?"

"Son of a bitch challenged me," Starbuck said belligerently, then, unable to hide his disappointment, glanced back at the lawyer. "So you can't help me?" he asked. Starbuck, in the careful letter he had written to Delaney that morning, had described his suspicions that Holborrow had purloined the rifles meant for the Special Battalion and then sold them. He had hoped that somehow Delaney might discover some evidence in the War Department, but his hopes had been dashed.

"I can help you," Delaney said, "by being a lawyer."

"You mean you'll threaten Holborrow?"

Delaney sighed. "You are so blunt, Nate, so hopelessly blunt. How can I threaten him? I know nothing. I can, however, drop broad hints. I can insinuate. I can pretend to know what I do not know. I can suggest a formal investigation might be undertaken, and it is possible, just possible, that he'll come to an arrangement rather than call my bluff. How many men in the battalion?"

"A hundred and eighty nine."

"Ah, that's something. He's drawing rations and pay for two hundred and sixty." Delaney smiled, seeing an advantage. "I can tell you one other thing. Holborrow was never wounded by a Yankee bullet. That bad leg came from a fall off his horse and the damage isn't half so bad as he pretends. He doesn't want to go to war, you see? So he's playing up the wound. What he wants is a nice, safe, profitable war in plump Richmond, and I guess he'll do quite a lot to make sure he gets it. But what do you want, Nate?"

"You know what I want."

"Two hundred rifles?" Delaney shook his head. "The rifles will have been sold long ago. I doubt Holborrow can lay his hands on fifty, but I'll do my best. But do you really want to be sent to Lee's army?" That was Starbuck's main request; that Holborrow would affirm that the Special Battalion was ready for combat and so release it to the war. "Why?" Delaney asked in genuine puzzlement. "Why don't you just take the God-given rest, Nate? Haven't you fought enough?"

Starbuck was not really sure of the answer. One part of him, a great shadowed horrid part of him, feared combat like a small child feared the night-ghouls, but still he felt compelled to take his battalion to war. He doubted if he could live with the knowledge that he was skulking while other men fought, but it was more than that. All he now possessed in the world was his reputation as a soldier. He had no family, no wealth, and no position other than his Confederate commission and if he betrayed that commission by skulking then he was abandoning his pride. He did not want to go to battle, he only knew he had to go to battle. "I'm a soldier," he answered inadequately.

"I shall never understand you," Delaney said happily, "but maybe the next few weeks will give me an answer. I'm joining Lee myself."

"You?" Starbuck asked, astonished. He stopped on the sidewalk and looked at his friend. "You're going to the army?"

"My country calls!" Delaney said grandiloquently. "To do what?"

Delaney shrugged and walked on. "My idea, really. No one ordered me to go, Nate, but it seemed like a good idea when it occurred to me. Lee's invading the North, did you know? Well, he is and there are bound to be tricky points of law involved. If a man steals from enemy property, is it theft? It might seem a trivial thing to you, even irrelevant, but when this war does end there's bound to be all sorts of legal settlements to be made between the two jurisdictions and it seems only prudent to try and anticipate the issues."

"You'll hate campaigning," Starbuck said.

"I'm sure I shall," Delaney said fervently. In truth the lawyer had absolutely no wish to join Lee's army, but the orders had come from an angry man in Washington, and Delaney, who was convinced the North would win the war and had no desire to be attached to the losing side, had weighed his future and decided that the discomforts of a brief campaign should prove a good investment. He still resented
Thorne
's peremptory demand that he should spy on Lee's headquarters, for Delaney had reckoned he could do all his spying from Richmond's comfortable parlors rather than from some muddy and dangerous bivouac in the countryside, and he doubted that he would be made privy to any useful information. It was all, he reckoned, a waste of time, but he dared not refuse
Thorne
's demand, not if he wanted the rewards that would be in Washington when the war ended, and so he had invented a reason for attaching himself to Lee's army and now, with a mixture of horror and apprehension, he planned to travel north. "Tomorrow morning!" he announced. "George has packed us some wine and tobacco, so we won't be comfortless." George was his house slave.

"You'll be a damned fool to carry expensive wine to war," Starbuck said. "It'll be stolen."

"What a suspicious mind you do have," Delaney said. He was hiding his fears, and so was pleased to have this evening's distraction at Richmond's dueling ground. Duels were supposedly illegal, but still the Richmond Anti-Dueling Society had its headquarters not two doors down from Belvedere Delaney's expensive brothel and the society kept itself busy raising funds and prosecuting men known to have fought affairs of honor. But not all the pious efforts of a hundred such societies had succeeded in eliminating dueling fro
m the Confederate states. Rich
mond's dueling ground lay just beyond the city's limits, beneath the Chimborazo Hill on which was built the sprawling military hospital. Starbuck led his companions up Elm Street, crossed a plank bridge that spanned the dirt and garbage through which the Bloody Run trickled down to the James, and so reached the patch of desolate land squeezed between the shoulder of the hill and the rusting rails of the York River Railroad. Scrubby, soot-darkened trees fringed the dueling ground, which was overshadowed by the tall, gaunt, and windowless facade of a sawmill.

Colonel Holborrow's carriage was standing at the end of a track that led from the sawmill, while Holborrow and Dennison were pacing up and down the worn length of turf where the fights took place.

"Potter!" Holborrow limped forward as Starbuck walked into the slanting late sunlight. "You're under arrest! You hear me, boy? You ain't fighting no duel! You're going back to Camp Lee, where I'm going to break you down to private unless you can explain yourself. Just where the hell have you been all day? Are you drunk, boy? Let me smell your breath!"

"I ain't Potter, Holborrow," Starbuck said. "That's Potter," he pointed to the half-clothed Lieutenant, who was weakly leaning against the balustrade of the wooden bridge that crossed the Bloody Run. "Sorry son of a drunken bitch, ain't he? And that's his wife with him. You want to go talk to them while I teach Dennison some manners?"

The effect of Starbuck's words was everything he could have wished. Holborrow's confused face turned between Potter and Starbuck, but no words came, only a spluttering indignation. Starbuck patted the Colonel's shoulder and walked toward Dennison. "Ready, Captain?" he called.

"Who are you?" Holborrow shouted after him.

Starbuck looked into Dennison's eyes while he answered. "Major Nathaniel Starbuck, Colonel, once of the Faulconer Legion, now commander of the Second Special Battalion. And, according to Captain Dennison, a goddamned Yankee who ain't worth fighting for. Isn't that what you said, Captain?"

Dennison blanched, but did not answer. Starbuck shrugged, unbuckled the sword belt, and took off his jacket. He drew the saber, tossed its scabbard onto the coat then gave the blade two hissing cuts through the evening air. "I kind of reckoned you'd have the Colonel arrest me, Captain," he said to Dennison, "on account of your being a coward. I knew you wouldn't want to fight me, but you ain't got any choice now." He gave another practice cut, then smiled into Dennison's scarred face. "There was a fencing society at Yale," he said in a conversational tone, "where we goddamned Yankees learned to fight." Starbuck had never joined the society, but he did not need to make that plain to his opponent. "It was larded with European rubbish, of course.
Derobement
of the
prise de fer."
He gave the naked blade an impressive twisting cut. "Bind from
quarte
to
seconde
he gave the sword another meaningless flourish before bringing it up into the salute. "Ready, Dennison?" he asked. "I got business to do tonight, so let's get it over with."

"That's Potter?" Colonel Holborrow had hurried back to Starbuck's side, even forgetting to limp in his haste. "Are you telling me that's Potter?"

"Don't shout so!" Starbuck said chidingly. "Lieutenant Potter is badly hung over, Holborrow. I found the sorry son of a bitch down in the Hells."

"Hell," Holborrow said, still thoroughly confused.

"Then what in hell's name were you doing at Camp Lee?"

Starbuck smiled. "Looking you over, Holborrow, so I could report back to the War Department. See that short, plump fellow there? That's Major Belvedere Delaney from the Legal Department. He's my second tonight, but he also wants a word with you." Starbuck looked back to Dennison. "I decided against bringing a surgeon, Captain. I know it's against the rules printed in Wilson's
Code of
Honor,
but I never did think that a duel was proper unless it ends in death, don't you agree?"

"He's from the Legal Department?" Holborrow rapped Starbuck's arm with his cane and gestured toward Delaney.

"He heads the department," Starbuck said, then turned back to the aghast Dennison. "Ready, Captain?"

Holborrow again demanded Starbuck's attention with a tap of his cane. "Are you really Starbuck?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Then you're a slippery son of a bitch," Holborrow said, but not without some admiration.

"It takes one to recognize another," Starbuck said.

"Inside the carriage, Colonel?" Delaney had joined them and gestured at the vehicle. "I find our sort of business is best done in privacy. Let's leave Starbuck to his slaughter, shall we? He enjoys slaughter," Delaney smiled at Dennison, "but I find the sight of blood upsetting before supper."