CHAPTER SIX
The prisoners were shouted to a halt beside a two-story depot with a turreted top and moss-covered walls. An old man poked his head out of one of the upper windows and glared at the sergeant through steel-rimmed spectacles. “Sit them down,” he squawked. “The train won’t be here for quite a spell. Just got it over the telegraph.”
“Where’s the Home Guard, granddaddy? We want to get back to the barracks for dinner.”
“They’re with the train,” the old man said and shut the window.
In front of the building three Negro women had set up shop. They sat on the steps, their bright cotton dresses, straw hats and shawls gleaming in the sun, oranges and yams and figs and shrimp in baskets and wooden bowls ranged around their feet. “Gentlemen, buy here!” one of them called. “Fruits and vegetables, molasses cakes. We still have tobacco and a few cigars.”
The Rebel sergeant loosened his collar and slung his rifle over his shoulder. “Buy if you have money,” he said to the prisoners, “but stay on the platform. We’ll shootthe first man who wanders. We’ve had enough running for today.”
The sergeant walked past the colored women, up the steps and through the depot door.
Greene looked at the food. “I could eat it all,” he gulped.
“We’d better buy what we can and save what we can,” Tim said. “We may have to make it last a while.”
The prisoners clustered around the women. Tim noticed Dawson eating and stuffing his pockets with food. The woman in the center was big and fat. She was wreathed in smiles. “We give you good exchange,” she said, “five Confederate dollars to one greenback for Yankee gentlemen.”
Tim bought some yams and molasses cakes, and Greene cradled five big oranges in the crook of his arm.
The mean-faced Confederate corporal yelled, “Fall in at the center of the platform where I can keep my eyes on you.”
The prisoners drifted away from the bright little island of smiling, brown-skinned women and did as they were told.
Greene fumbled for his money and paid for his oranges. As he slipped his wallet into his pocket one of the oranges fell to the platform and rolled toward the track. He chased the orange, clutching the others against his blouse. Tim had pocketed his food and he started toward the orange as it rolled to the edge of the platform. The Confederate corporal watched the orange with cold indifference as it bumped onto the track. Greene scrambled after it. Suddenly the corporal swung his rifle around and caught Greene in the side with the point of his bayonet.
The wounded boy cried out in pain, the other orangesdropped from his grasp and bumped and rolled onto the roadbed, bright spots against the stones.
Greene crumpled to the ground, holding his side, gasping and sucking for breath.
Tim’s eyes blazed fury. “Why, you damned fool,” he said. He turned his back to the corporal and knelt beside Greene.
The sergeant appeared from the shadow of the doorway. “Corporal,” he rasped, “we’ve had enough trouble today without you doing a thing like that.”
The color drained from the corporal’s face. “Just doing what you told us,” he choked, “getting the Yankees back in line.”
The fat woman dropped to her knees and wailed, “Lord have mercy on us all. That boy didn’t mean no harm.”
The sergeant turned on the woman. “Shut your face. You better do your selling some place else.”
Tim loosened the boy’s clothing, exposing the white flesh and the ugly mouth-shaped wound.
The sergeant squatted. “That’s nothing to worry about.” He reached into his haversack. “We’ll bandage it and they’ll dress it proper when you get to your jail.”
“Where are we going, Sergeant?” Tim asked.
“I’m not supposed to say.”
“How long a ride is it?” Tim asked evenly.
“Three or four hours I guess.”
Tim stood up slowly. “This man needs a doctor now.”
“My commanding officer would give me the devil if he knew about this.”
Tim clenched his fists. “Greene needs care. He needs it now.”
The sergeant wavered. “The train ...” he said.
“The train be damned, Sergeant. Stabbing this boy was an act of cruelty. If you send him to a prison in the shapehe’s in, I’ll find a way to let your commanding general know.”
Greene was breathing heavily. He had lost a lot of blood. It had soaked his trousers and formed a little pool on the ground. “Don’t bother, Lieutenant,” he whispered. “I can make the trip.”
Tim looked coldly into the Sergeant’s eyes. “Well, Sergeant?”
The sergeant turned to the corporal. “Leave your rifle with me,” he said. “Bring a baggage wagon around from the back. You can drive the Yankee to the hospital. If he dies, it’s on your head.”
“But ...” the Rebel corporal whined.
“But nothing. I’ve had enough of you.”
Greene looked up at Tim. “I’d rather stay with you, Lieutenant.”
“You can’t do that. You’ll be better off in a hospital. If your wound had been higher, you might have been killed, but it’s just in the flesh of the hip. If it’s properly dressed, you’ll be well in a week or two.”
The colored women were gathering up their bowls and baskets and getting ready to move away. The prisoners watched in silent anger as the corporal brought the wagon around and reined the horse to a stop.
Tim and the sergeant lifted Greene gently to the wagon floor, and Tim touched the boy’s sleeve. “You’re a brave lad, Greene,” he said quietly. Greene smiled and turned his face away.
As the wagon squeaked and rattled off, the sergeant turned to Tim. “Gather up the boy’s oranges, if you’re a mind to,” he said.
Tim stepped off the platform and leaned down to pick up the oranges. The other prisoners sat along the wall of the building. Tim stuffed the oranges into the bulgingpockets of his blouse and settled himself on the heavy, splintering planks of the baggage platform. He watched the wagon disappear into the dusty distance and then stared down at the backs of his hands, tanned and moist and heavily veined.
He thought of Greene and his other men. With a flash of fear he thought of Red. He studied the row of prisoners, looking for a familiar face, and there—turning toward him as if at a signal—was Dawson’s. The eyes of the two men met and Dawson turned away.
Tim looked along the length of track. The ribbons of steel reflected the blinding sun as they converged in the shimmering distance. He nodded sleepily but his ear caught a sound. A column of men moved along the street, thinly veiled by a cloud of dust. As they came closer Tim could see that their clothes were in tatters and they were pitifully thin. Some of them wore slouch hats and some of them straws. On poles that rested on their shoulders they carried their belongings: rusty pots and pans and bits of clothing, a three-legged chair and a couple of homemade tables. When the column halted Tim looked closely. He was shocked to see that two of the scarecrows wore dark blue forage caps and that a barefooted man had a tattered Federal blouse tucked into his belt at the back. They must be Yankee soldiers captured many months ago.
Their faces were sunken and vacant. They put down their rattling, tinkling poles and settled against the wall near the far corner of the building.
Tim felt a little sick. He turned his eyes away and rested his head in the flats of his hands and went to sleep.