WE STOPPED at our house on the way home, joyous to find it had not yet been shelled or destroyed in any way. Landon said he thought Mama ought to offer it for a residence hospital, that he’d talk to her about it.
Andy and Clothilda were there, and since the shelling had commenced Landon said we should go into the cellar to wait it out.
“No,” I said, “not the cellar.”
He had taken a letter out of his pocket. I’d seen Dr. Balfour give it to him, heard him say that the Confederate dispatch rider had been through this morning, asking him to find Dr. Corbet. Landon was reading the soiled and wrinkled envelope, not looking at me.
“What do you mean ‘not the cellar’?”
“I’m afraid of the cellar.”
He sighed, stuffed the envelope back in his coat pocket, and gave me his full attention. “You mean you still haven’t gotten over that nonsense?”
I blushed. “No.”
“Well, maybe a day and a night down there would cure you of it then.”
I bit my bottom lip. “Please, Landon.”
He took pity on me. His voice went kind. “Look, I’ll go with you. We’ll stay until the shelling stops. I’ll have Clothilda bring us some food, and I promise I won’t leave you. How’s that?”
I said all right. Hesitantly. I followed him down, trying to ignore the shadows and the dark corners that had so terrorized my childhood. As soon as we had found some old blankets and settled on the floor, Landon opened and reread the letter.
Shells burst outside, Porter’s shells from the river.
“I’ve been reassigned,” Landon said. “To the division hospital at Milliken’s Bend, close by. Grant wants to make it a hospital for the slightly injured who can be made well quickly so they can go back into the field as replacements. The Sanitary Commission has brought three boats of supplies and doctors and nurses down the river to get started. I report by the beginning of July.”
He looked at me. “At least I won’t be far from home. I can still keep an eye on you,” he teased, but I sensed there was some sadness in his demeanor. And then I thought of something.
“What of Robert?” I said.
He shrugged, and looked terrible sad. “I have to figure out what to do with him before then,” he said quietly. “Just make up my mind and do it.”
“Landon, I don’t understand. Isn’t it Robert’s place to decide what to do? I mean, is he your prisoner or something?”
“You’re too wise for your age, you know that?”
I pouted. The shells were exploding overhead regularly now. One was especially loud and close and I ducked, instinctively. Just then Andy came down the steps and sought Landon out.
“Mister Landon. Suh?”
“Yes, Andy, over here.”
He had two pillows and two blankets in one arm and a basket of fried chicken and biscuits in the other. “Clothilda, she say you all shud eat, then catch some shut-eye if’n you can wif those shells screamin’ out there. They won’t stop till noon.”
“Thank you, Andy.” Landon took the pillows and blankets and threw one of each at me. “Clothilda’s orders,” he said. “Here, take some food. And then get some sleep.”
“Mister Landon, suh?” Andy was still standing there, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “I gots a favor to axe you.”
“Have at it, Andy.”
“Well, the other day when I wuz washin’ Mr. Robert he wuz tellin’ me how he wants to go home. Only he gots no money to travel. I wuz thinkin’, suh, if’n it be okay wif you an’ your mama, if’n I hire myself out to dig a cave. There’s a gentleman I know who will pay up to fifty dollars to get himself a cave dug proper like. I could do it in my spare time and give the money to Robert, suh. If’n it be okay wif you.”
Landon was silent for a moment, taking it in. “Confederate money?” he asked. “Or Yankee dollars?”
“Why, Confederate, I ’spect,” Andy told him.
Landon sighed. “Confederate paper is sixty cents to the Yankee dollar, but it’s still sound,” Landon said. “If you’re willing to do it, Andy, go right ahead. I’ll clear it with my mother. Now I have a favor to ask you.”
“Yessuh.”
“I’m dying for a cup of coffee, Andy.”
“Bring it right quick, suh.”
“Me, too?” I begged. “Please, Landon, Ma lets me have it.”
He said all right and Andy went back upstairs to fetch it.
That coffee was wonderful, hot and sweet, and I must admit that the fried chicken and biscuits tasted like angel food. We ate in pleasant comradeship. Then I settled myself under my blanket and closed my eyes.
“You still awake?” Landon asked.
“Yes.”
“You hear that from Andy? It means Robert is planning on going home.”
“Well, what else did you think he was planning on?”
He closed his eyes for a minute, like he was praying. “Claire Louise, sit up. I have to talk to you,” he said.
“Landon,” I whined, “five minutes ago you told me to go to sleep. And now you tell me—”
“Claire Louise, shut your mouth and listen to me!”
I sat up. “Not if you talk to me like that, I won’t.”
He sighed heavily. He gathered himself in. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry, but I need somebody to listen. I just got done talking to Dr. Balfour about Robert, and he gave me his professional physician’s opinion of what I had to do to save my army career and my reputation as a doctor. As well as my family name. I know he’s right, but I still can’t bear to think about it. I’ve become friends with Robert. Did you hear that? I don’t even know his last name. He won’t tell me, and yet I’ve become friends with him. And now, if I listen to Balfour, and my own conscience, I have to turn him in.”
I listened, respectfully. He was going on like he would never stop. Like somebody had loosened something in him. He was pouring out his heart. To me.
“What did he do?” I whispered.
“Do? Yes, there is that, too, isn’t there. As well as the fact that he deserted. All right, I’m going to tell you, Claire Louise. But you must swear to me that you’ll never tell another soul.”
I swore. He nodded his head, accepting my word. And then he told me.
“Do you remember the battle of Antietam? Last fall?”
“Yes. We lost it.”
“Well, Robert is the reason the South lost it.”
I looked at him as if he’d taken leave of his senses.
“Did you ever hear of Lee’s lost Order Number 191?”
I searched my memory. “I recollect Pa talking about it. Reading about it in the Citizen.’”
“Last September ninth Lee wrote an order,” he explained. “In it were the details of the march of his army, which had all but disappeared behind the Blue Ridge Mountains during its invasion of the North. The Yankees never knew where he was. And Bobby Lee wanted the orders to be circulated to his division commanders. They were given out to staff officers to be delivered to those commanders.
“One of those officers was Robert. He told Lee his courier delivered the order to Hill. But to his disgrace, if you will, Hill never signed for it. Robert had no signature.
“Nobody did. The order was lost. Four days later it was in Union hands.”
I gasped. “How did it get there?”
“Good question. The Confederate bigwigs are still investigating. All they know is that the order was found by a private named Mitchell of the 27th Indiana in an envelope containing three cigars wrapped in a piece of paper. The piece of paper was the orders. The 27th Indiana was encamped on a former Confederate campground.”
I found myself shaking. I drew my blanket closer. “But what of Robert?”
“He told me that piece of paper dropped out of his pocket before he could give it to his courier. This takes his courier off the hook because Hill never signed for the order. It all goes back to Robert, but they can’t prove anything. But it’s the result of it all that matters.
“Lincoln’s General McCellan was able to make an immediate strike at Lee’s army because of the intelligence he got from that piece of paper. Four days later we had the battle of Antietam because of it. England pulled back on any promises of aid to the South because of the loss at Antietam. And I have on my hands a severely depressed and confused and guilty Robert because of it. And that’s why Dr. Balfour says I should turn him in.”
Silence between us then. My head whirred. “And what will you do?”
“I don’t know, Claire Louise. I have a week to have a crisis of conscience. I want to aid him in getting home. I know I should walk over to brigade headquarters this day and tell General Pemberton that I have him. Either way I’m in hell.”
I crawled out from under my blanket and over to him and gave him a hug. “I’ll help you, whatever you do,” I said.
He hugged me back. “I can’t drag my family into this. When I met him, he was a wounded Confederate soldier who’d fought in a minor skirmish to do something decent. I was honor bound to do something for him. I’m still not sure he won’t lose that arm.”
He released me. “Hey, the shelling’s stopped. It must be noon. Let’s get home,” he said.
I giggled.
“What’s so funny?”
“You said home. And we are home,” I told him. “I want to go upstairs and get a pillowcase full of clean clothes for me and Mama. Can I?”
He said yes. He also said he wanted to give me something. So he came upstairs and while I gathered clothes for myself and Mama and James, he stuffed his whole set of Dickens into a pillowcase. As well as some of his childhood books, for James.
“For you to read,” he said of the Dickens, “during those terrible times when the shells are falling. These books will get you through. I promise.”