I want to shriek. Cry. Throw myself on that grave like I’ve seen Mama do. But I spool my nerves in tight because that ain’t who I’m supposed to be. I can’t even be Jeremiah’s wife in secret now.
Bugles call. The field echoes with reveille. But I can’t move, I can’t think of leaving this place. The woods are quiet. The grave is still and I have to turn away from Jeremiah laying buried under that tree spreading its branches to the sky, without even the company of crows.
CHAPTER
33
We line up for roll call in front of Captain’s tent, facing our flags flapping in the wind. We draw together to fill the holes in the ranks. There are all these men around me, but none of my boys hemming me in, keeping me safe, holding on to my secrets. There is Will to my right and Thomas on my left and they don’t even know what it is like where I come from. They didn’t see how my Mama smiled on my wedding day or the pride my Papa takes in bringing in the nicest hay in the whole county or the way my sister used to hold my hand walking up the schoolhouse steps. They don’t know none of those things about me. My eyes sting. I’ve got to keep myself from crying.
The list don’t take even half as long now when Captain don’t speak the names of the missing, the names I want to hear. I bite my lip, keep the tears from spilling over. My fingers clench onto my trousers. Hiram grumbles to Edward about McClellan only sending Porter’s men across the river to chase after the Rebs and how General Lee sent Porter running right back. If Sully were with us, he’d be saying the same. Even with all our dead, he’d be wanting revenge. But I don’t see how there is anything to make right what’s been taken from us.
Captain don’t pay no mind to those men grumbling, tells how General McClellan aims to get us fed and rested and supplied before we set foot chasing those Rebs, and after dress parade each morning, we won’t worry about drilling and such so long as we keep our rifles in working order.
‘Besides,’ Captain says, ‘Colonel Wheelock says we’ll be marching again in no time.’
A ripple of feeling, of excitement, goes through the whole Company, and I don’t understand it one bit. How they ain’t gagging at the soured milk and rotting meat smells coming off that field and knowing it is our own boys out there.
‘Some of the Regiments will be moving closer to the river, to the Potomac,’ Captain says.
My arms wrap themselves around my chest and my heart flies to bits just thinking on leaving Jeremiah. Will looks my way, silent. Jeremiah would tell me I am acting womanish. My arms fall but my fingers go back to gripping my trousers. I am raw as a skinned cow, thinking on all the holes I can’t fill. All the holes I can’t mend.
Captain keeps talking. ‘That’s where Lee will come from, if he comes back. For now, we’ll be staying here.’
Sully is still missing. Jeremiah is buried in the ground. But Captain leaves Sergeant to set up pickets and teams of men to go scavenging for rations and weapons scattered on the fields. Sergeant calls out my name along with Ambrose and Will and Thomas. My throat closes again thinking on working a detail without Jeremiah keeping between me and them. But I’ve got to keep myself hidden, keep moving, acting like the man I am trying to be, until I find my own way, until I can see what is next for me.
All I know is there is nothing I feel useful for.
Sergeant’s voice booms but I don’t care a thing about what he is saying. The only thing I care about is gone and I must be still. I stare at the Company flag until it is a blue blur moving against the lighter sky. Until I don’t even see the clouds or the trees off in the distance. Until there is nothing.
‘Ross!’ Will calls. ‘You coming?’
I take a steadying breath and set my fingers loose. I blink to see clusters of men already broken off, walking to their campfires and tents to get what there is for breakfast before they start working. Sergeant must have excused us to our duties. Will is with Ambrose and Thomas off to my right, and I can’t remember them moving away. There ain’t anybody near me, they’ve all gone. I wonder how long I’ve been standing there in front of Captain’s tent. I make my feet move, go to them.
I don’t say anything because I don’t know what sound will come out. I nod my head.
‘You sure you can do this?’ Will asks.
Thomas looks at me like Papa when Betsy gets to crying, like it is the saddest thing he’s ever seen but he don’t know what to do about it. ‘Maybe it ain’t time yet. Scavenging won’t be pretty.’
The smallest kindness makes me want to come apart. I steel myself, my brain snapping back to this place. I’ve got to do it, whatever duty Sergeant has given us, whatever my condition, because there ain’t a thing else for me now but working, keeping my mind from going off and staying someplace else.
‘I can do it, if it needs doing,’ I say, my voice jagged.