The Brightest Day, the Darkest Night, page 15
When Patrick returned to the tent, Oxy was already under the covers but not yet asleep. Thinking of his Kizzie, Patrick imagined. Just as he himself was of Emmeline.
‘Oxy,’ he asked quietly, ‘are you afraid?’
‘Of course I am … but if a fellow could get enough sleep, he could then be speeding ahead of those slow-coach Yankee bullets.’
Patrick laughed. Oxy could take the sting out of anything with his sharp wit. Even death.
Then he wrote to Emmeline, the words tumbling unmanageably onto the page. He had not seen her since they had left before Christmas. It was different now, the pomp of their leaving Louisiana, the bands pumping out their ‘oom-pah-pahs’, the banners, the ladies’ fondly-scented handkerchiefs, fluttering them away to glory. They had been trained, roughly enough trained, Patrick thought, in the taking of orders, marching and the use of their weapons. It was enough, he supposed, to kill … or be killed. Now, in the early spring of 1862, they would be put to the test. Now they were in the heart of it all. Virginia, its state capital Richmond, also the Confederate capital. Its roads and rivers within striking distance of the other capital, Washington.
The letter to Emmeline was short, Patrick afraid he would reveal his fears to her. Now he must concentrate on the next morning’s battle.
Tomorrow he would train his eye on men he never knew. Shoot them dead … or be shot dead by them.
It was a restless night but blessedly brief. Reveille sounded at 4.30 a.m.
Before they broke camp, Father O’Grady, the chaplain, a robust and bearded Irishman addressed them. ‘Men! This is your first battle. Do not fear it. Put on the whole armour of Good. Your cause is just and you must be clear of mind, ready now before the throne of God, to die rather than forsake the cause … Trust … Obedience … Faith. Trust … Obedience … Faith,’ he repeated. ‘For the honour of your country and for Christ as Saviour, the true soldier is prepared to die in the path of duty even if it leads to the very mouth of the cannon. ‘Remember,’ he reminded them yet again. ‘Trust … Obedience … Faith.’
‘Twaddling Theology,’ was what Oxy called it.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Louisiana Infantry
Army of Northern Virginia
near Richmond, Virginia
12th April 1862
Dearest Emmeline,
It seems a thousand miles since I left Le Petit Versailles and a thousand days since I left you. Each mile and each day I draw away from you is a burden but each such day draws us closer to the task at hand. Through it all I have the picture of you before me – pleasant days filled with magnolia and evenings full with music. It is my hope to return at the earliest opportunity to such happy hours.
Captain Joyce has proven to be a steady choice for the men. He sends his kindest of regards and to Madame Labiche. Oxy, too, asks to be remembered to you and Cordelia.
What news of your father and brothers? Write and tell me all and of your sweet self.
My warmest affections to your mother and sister. It is a trying time for good ladies to whom the reins of responsibility have been passed.
Ever affectionately yours,
Patrick O’Malley
THIRTY-NINE
Louisiana Boys
Army of Northern Virginia
Via Richmond, Virginia
12th April 1862
My darling Kizzie,
Already I am missing you, your silken purse, your sheltered cove.
Here, I am one of the boys, a ‘Johnny Reb’.
The only fear is in being wounded. Death is not a fear – I will be dust to dust like the rest. But hospital and the Protestant doctors! They dislike to touch us Irish anyway! What of a perverted Papist like me?
But I should not talk like this when all my thoughts are of you … and your fond breasts and steaming nights in New Orleans. And you, sweet Kizzie, tossing and turning to the heat with no soothing hand or cooling lips.
Patrick asks me about ‘my Kizzie’ in the same way he talks about ‘his Emmeline’. He is forever writing to her, of the days of splendour … and the magnolias … and music … and the lips he has not yet kissed. I am polite, agree with him, without revealing too much of days of a thousand kisses … and lips – unspoken of. I think he would be shocked to learn how gloriously free I have been to taste whole joys in you. And now I lay to sleep and think on them.
Write and write and write.
Your darling Johnny Reb,
Oxy
FORTY
Le Petit Versailles
Confederate State of Louisiana
21st April 1862
Dear Mr O’Malley,
Your much sought-for letter received amidst great excitement. Cousin Constance was visiting and I trust you did not mind my reading to her the parts not intimate to you and I. She and Cordelia so begged me.
The gardens miss you and the magnolias – and other flowers too!
Of Father and my dear brothers there is no news yet. Perhaps they, like you, are marching, marching. Mother has taken the reins of running Versailles very admirably and to the surprise of all has succeeded wonderfully, following father’s written instructions. She has some trouble with Cupid, who so impudently spoke that ‘the Mistress could never be her Master’. Mother, to her credit, did not fail in administering the required remedy to the girl. She has now accepted that Mother is both Mistress and Master.
Cordelia enquires after you and Mr Joyce and Mr Moran.
We ladies send our affections to you all, who are our gallant protectors.
I am endeavouring to knit. It is tiresome but we hear reports that our army is short on socks.
I shall await hearing from you every day.
Emmy
Patrick, marvelling at the postal service, was in his element. The men spent much of their free time writing letters to loved ones. It was their lifeline to a previous life, a world once known – loved-ones, now framed in larger, more longed-for relief by the twin magnifiers of time and distance. But it was a retreating world – it retreating from them, they retreating even further from it.
A letter from home halted that retreat, reversed it momentarily. He wondered if, as war proceeded, railroad tracks ripped from the ground, deliveries intercepted, the old safe world would even further retreat.
For now, though, he was grateful. Grateful that the old world – the world of Emmeline, the girl he loved – had been delivered to his hand.
FORTY-ONE
Bourbon Street
New Orleans
Confederate States of America
17th April 1862
My darling Rebel,
Your letter excited such thoughts in me; I immediately went to my room. There, it being a hot day, I unshifted all clothing and stood naked at my window to catch the breeze of Bourbon Street, while again I read your letter. Then lay on my pillow, putting your soft words to my body, imagining the slender hand pressed against the page now pressed to me. Now I lie on it but it is flat, unmounded – no Oxy Moran!
A page is such a flimsy imposter.
On the street I hear the cries calling up to me …
‘Watermelon! Watermelon! Red to the rind! Juss eat the melon and pree … serve the rind.’
And the vendors, ‘Belles calas! … Belles calas! Rice fritters! Rice fritters! Tou chou! Tou chou! Tou chou! All hot! All hot! All hot!’
And I am remembering. Eating the sounds … and remembering. And I have a present for you … and within it a secret.
Do not think of me in this state … you will be unfit for marching!
Your best-kept secret,
Kizzie … tou chou, tou …
P.S. Today I printed out a prayer in my best hand and pinned it in the church, that the pestilence might fall on the Yankees as a sign from God of His intention to save New Orleans.
P.P.S. God and I are at odds. I thought Him merciful. That He would not send us General Butler and yellow fever at the same time!
FORTY-TWO
Patrick saw the Bluecoat pitch forward and fall.
It seemed he only needed to point his gun. Not even squeeze the trigger and they would fall. As if he hadn’t shot them, just aimed the intent at them. He marvelled at the sighting scope on his rifle. It made a sharpshooter invincible. Giving the enemy nowhere to hide.
Just as if the Yankee was stood in front of him. Waiting.
Patrick could not decide how to choose to which of the enemy he would send his singing bullet. An awkward movement which attracted his attention; an upright runner; or one crouching too low, trying to escape his notice. Whatever notion took him at the time. He was the arbiter of death … and its dispenser.
He always tried for the heart. To make it a quick dispatch. Sometimes, unwittingly, another Yankee stood up and took the shot, sometimes a jerk of the body over uneven ground, an angle of flight changed and he would miss the heart, shatter a shoulder instead, or a man’s throat.
The words of Emeritus Labiche drummed through his head: ‘I pray that this Southern rifle may bring tears from many a Northern mother before this thing is over!’ Emmeline’s father would be proud of him. Patrick was exhilarated, brimming with the destruction he was wreaking, stopping only when his barrel, hot from death, burned his hand and he could no longer hold it. Then, he would fall to the ground at the base of the tree on which he was leaning his musket. Then the whining minié balls of the enemy would harmlessly thud into the tree bark. They, too, had their sharpshooters but he was untouchable. Now, with his barrel cooled, he was ready again.
‘The colour bearers,’ Stephen had instructed. ‘Lower the colours and you will lower morale.’
He must not think so much on everything, he reminded himself. Only concentrate on the job at hand. A fresh wave of Federals pushed forward, Stars and Stripes to the fore. Patrick tried to swing his rifle around but the fork of the tree where he rested his musket was narrow and would not allow it. Casting all caution to the wind he shinned the tree to the next level. ‘Thwack.’ A minié ball struck his knapsack, another so close he thought the hair on his forehead singed. He collapsed down to earth again and slowly edged upwards along the trunk of the tree.
A boy, carrying the flag of his country, entered Patrick’s vision. For a moment Patrick hesitated, then pulled the trigger. He saw the staff of the Union rise upwards like a prayer, slowly somersault on itself and then fall, banner downwards into the Confederate mud of Virginia. A great cheer went up from the Louisianians but before it had subsided, the enemy banner was again aloft. Once more he sighted the bearer. This time a slow moving, red-faced infantryman – a family man. He could not think of that, Patrick told himself and, letting his sight drift momentarily, mistakenly sent a bullet to the man’s head, instead of his heart.
Then, thinking of Oxy, Patrick scanned for his own flag. He rammed his cheek against the sweaty stock of the gun, closed one eye and rotated the sights through the Confederate lines. With what relief he spotted Oxy, somewhat adrift from the colour party, struggling to get back to his small band of men. Patrick relaxed, dropped to his knees, exhausted from the noise and the heat and the feverish excitement of the kill.
Then it was all over, a Rebel charge had repelled the Union troops, who ‘skedaddled, tails between their legs all the way back to Boston,’ Oxy reckoned.
Stephen who, from his big white charger, had led his command gallantly praised them both. Oxy, ‘for our colours never once being soiled’ and Patrick for his ‘unerring eye for Yankees.’
FORTY-THREE
Louisiana Infantry
Army of Northern Virginia
near Richmond, Virginia
3rd May 1862
Dearest Emmeline,
Thank you for yours of the twenty first inst.
It is perfectly all right for you to reveal portions of my letter to Cordelia and your cousin. I know you are discreet beyond virtue.
We had our first engagement and Captain Joyce said I have an unerring eye for Yankees. Indeed we sent them skedaddling northwards.
This war will be a short season and we shall soon return victorious to New Orleans. Will you come there? No matter what size the gathering you will stand out – like the morning star over the Mississippi. Hurry the day when I will see your dancing eyes and hear the sweet notes of your voice. My respects to Cordelia and your mother. War changes all things when even ladies are forced to be the steering hand.
Captain Joyce and Mr Moran, as ever, convey cordial wishes to all the ladies.
Please write again soon and tell me of your father and dear brothers.
Your ever affectionate,
Patrick O’Malley
Later, after he had sealed the letter, Patrick withdrew the book from his knapsack, leafed through it. Love Elegies and Holy Sonnets. His mind ever occupied by thoughts of Emmeline, he was drawn to the former. A page oft-opened it seemed, presented itself.
Twice or thrice had I lov’d thee,
Before I knew thy face or name;
It was the feeling Emmeline had stirred in him. He read the full poem. Then re-read it again, whispering the words. Sending them South to the vast wetlands and the magnolia blossoms of Louisiana.
Then he wrote it out word for word in a new letter to Emmeline. But he would save this one, send it after the first letter. Surprise her with the poem.
FORTY-FOUR
Camp life seemed to revolve completely around two things: Food – and how there was never enough of it; Time – and how there was always too much of it.
Initially, time – like last year’s snow – evaporated in the thrill of the great adventure on which they were all embarking. The new grey uniforms, the rations, the guns, bayonets and all the accoutrements of war occupied their minds and their time. Then too there was a getting-to-know one’s fellow soldiers – a motley crew of swamp diggers, shopkeepers, bakers and butchers; Germans, Poles, French, Creoles, a wayward Welshman or two … and the Irish. The latter came from the four provinces of Ireland and the fifth province – America, both north and south. Fighting for as many different reasons as there were fingers on their hands.
‘Adventure’ … ‘Money’ … ‘To “see the elephant”.’
‘For the Republic and agin’ the Nativists.’
‘To keep the niggers down south!’
‘To raise an army when this war is over and take British Canada.’
‘The New England girls is too uppity – the Dixie girls more fun.’
Or even, ‘I just “jined” up.’
In Patrick’s own group along with Oxy and himself was an O’Toole from Oranmore in County Galway, who quickly earned the sobriquet of ‘Orator’, and with good cause. For as he himself said, ‘At forty paces I could talk the hind leg off Lincoln’s jackass, without Abe himself or the poor beast ever knowing it.’
‘Recruited in Ireland – a gun put in me hand when they got me to America’ was how he ‘was jined up!’
The Orator had a view on everything: the war; its real causes; how it could be won – if they’d only listen to him. Generals who had gout had not escaped his rheumy eye and the Orator could even recount how the alligator was once native to Ireland and brought over to America by Saint Brendan from the Allihies in Kerry, hence the origins of the first part of its name.
Then there was ‘Mother of Sorrows’ from Dublin’s Liberties, ‘christened as a child by the name of Mick Liddy!’ No sentence escaped Mick Liddy’s lips but it invoked God’s Mother at some stage before it was finished.
‘If the Mother of Sorrows looked down on us now what would she think? All this killin’. I’m killed meself too – the humidity is killin’ me – not a breath. An’ as well, I’m soaked through with that drizzly mist – it’s very wettin’. An’ if I put on me oilskins the backs of me trousers gets soaked on account o’ the drops of rain. O’ course I’m not thinkin’ straight – I should’ve stayed in the tent … but on a day like this with the smell o’ the wet on the canvas and them Germans steamin’ beside me, I’m scuppered altogether on account of the air an’ I won’t sit down in a tent neither, on account of I get agoraphobia an’ I have to get outside again, in the air. It’s a terrible thing – that agoraphobia.’
The Germans – Himmel and Gimmel – brothers fresh off the boat from ‘Lutherland’ as Mother of Sorrows called it, hadn’t two words of English to rub together. Fine buxom lads they were, ‘corn-fed like Virginia chickens, with heads like batterin’ rams on them,’ the Orator said.
‘Great men to have at the gates of Washington!’
FORTY-FIVE
When Patrick could get clear of them without attracting too much comment from the Orator or Mother of Sorrows about the Creole girls, he would again read the book that Stephen had gifted them. Now he pulled the book from his knapsack. He had not heard from Emmeline in response to the poem he had sent but was sure it would be acceptable to her, convey his deepest feelings. Now he read ‘To His Mistress Going to Bed’.
Licence my roving hands, and let them go,
Behind, before, above, between, below,
Oh my America, my new found land
This one he wouldn’t be sending to Emmeline. He showed it to Oxy. ‘Donne didn’t put a tooth in it. Can you imagine sending such-like to a lady?’
‘I can,’ Oxy answered him and asked permission to transcribe it for sending to Kizzie.
FORTY-SIX
Louisiana Boys
Army of Northern Virginia
