I Shall Be Near to You: A Novel

‘If we don’t fight, our plans, our farm … I don’t know what will come of it,’ Jeremiah says in the quietest whisper, and it’s the truth.

 

‘I don’t know what will come of our lives either way, if we fight or if we don’t. But when this war is over, we don’t have to say one word or think one thing about it ever again if we don’t want. You heard Will. God will forgive us what we got regrets for, even if we ain’t the same new husband and wife that started away from home.’

 

‘There’s some things ain’t changed,’ Jeremiah says, and then his mouth is on mine again, his hands roving across my back, kissing down my neck. When he unclasps my belt, his hands hover over my belly, like he is feeling something different about my person. But I find the buckle on his belt and work his trousers open too and that is the end of it. Then we are crashing together and I have to clamp my mouth against his until the next roar of artillery comes.

 

 

BEFORE THE FIRST light even hits my face, battering artillery echoes through the valley and into my bones. I roll over to see Jeremiah gazing on me, his mouth starting on a smile, but there is another bang of the cannons and that smile fades as he reaches to hold my hand. We ain’t got words for each other and we just stay like that, alone for a little while, our eyes saying what needs to be told before the Company gets to rustling itself together for reveille. When we drag ourselves out of our blankets there’s patches of fog hovering like ghosts over graves. Rising above the low woods to the South is a twisting line of black smoke, thick enough that it ain’t coming from a campfire or stove.

 

The Company is scattered under the broad-leafed trees, hardly a soul talking. Me and Jeremiah make our way to Will and Sully. Sully sits quiet on the ground, his eyes dull and hard, and he ain’t a dog straining at his tether no more. Seeing him so still gets me wondering what changes the boys might see in me, if they’re even looking. We’ve all seen things we never hoped or dreamed, done things we ain’t planned. My life back home weren’t near so bad as I thought.

 

As soon as me and Jeremiah sit down, Will says, ‘There’s something on my heart, making me think of how, before the Battle of Jericho, the Lord told Joshua: “Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.” I feel the Lord in this day.’

 

‘I don’t know about the Lord,’ Ambrose says. ‘I’ve found it more expedient getting my strength elsewhere,’ and he pats the pocket where he keeps his flask.

 

Will’s words don’t make me feel better either. Especially not once we get our orders before it’s even past milking time and my only hope is that they keep us in reserve again this time. We shoulder our muskets and get into formation, our Company blending in with the lines of all the others, rows and rows of blue soldiers. Our Regiment and two others march across a ragged field, moving toward the woods ahead. The horns of the Regimental band out in front float back to us through the fog, through the noise of cannonading, but what I listen for is the swish of our legs through tall grass. Then the swish is gone and we are marching through plowed farmland, our feet quilting new lines in the harrowed soil. The sound of artillery gets louder and our own batteries blast over our heads. It is too much to think we ain’t going to battle now when they are working to clear the way for us. My heart pounds and my mouth is so dry but I’ve got to keep moving, and anyhow my feet wouldn’t stop now even if I told them to, they’ve got to keep themselves lined up right next to Jeremiah’s; as long as I am with him, it will be all right. It has always been all right.

 

At a field of corn grown up taller than any of us, the ears ripe with browning and drying tassels, Sergeant orders us into line of battle, and we stand like our own crop, waiting, wondering who is going to be picked off.

 

Up and down the rows of corn, men check their rifles, making sure they’ve got them loaded, and I do the same. Every swallow turns to a gag. Jeremiah’s face, drawn and more pale than ever, brings sorrow crashing through me. I look straight up to the sky and hope Will is right.

 

Then Sergeant yells, ‘Forward, March!’ as we watch that first line of men disappear into the corn, the rows scarcely wider than their shoulders, the leaves swallowing them as soon as they are two steps in. We are not in reserve. We are being put forward, but there is nothing to do now because the next line steps forward and we do too and it is like I can feel the throbbing of every heart in the line stretching to my left and right.

 

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