Джон Джейкс - North and South

"Special passenger,'' George explained to a pair of puzzled brakemen. He pressed money into their hands. He was about to bid his friend good-bye when his eye lit on Orry's crudely made rosette. "Just a minute."

He unfastened the rosette and tossed it away. Then he took off his own and pinned it on Orry's lapel.

"You might as well wear one that looks genuine. I'll be damned if I want to be responsible for them lynching you in Maryland."

They embraced. Orry boarded the train.

Orry reached Philadelphia the next morning. He left for Washington at four in the afternoon. A hard rain was falling. He sat with his forehead against the wet window, almost like a man in a trance. One memory, one image, sustained him now: Madeline.

Presently, after darkness fell, the train jerked to a halt. Lamps burned on a rickety platform. By their light he saw a northbound train standing on the other track. Passengers were crowding the platform, taking the opportunity to escape the smoky cars for a little while. Those around Orry got up to do the same. He felt no inclination to move.

"Where are we?" he asked a conductor.

"Relay House."

"Why are both trains stopped?"

"To pick up passengers from a local from the east shore. There'll be some people going north, some going south."

"That's fitting," Orry said. The conductor looked at him as if he were unbalanced.

Staring into the rain, Orry suddenly spied familiar faces. He jumped up, took three long strides down the aisle. Then, abruptly, he halted.

Bending to peer through another window, he studied his sister and her husband. Would he compromise the young couple or create danger for them if he spoke to them? Billy was in uniform.

He let out an oath. For a second he had started to think like the mob: If you're a Southerner, you're a traitor . He walked quickly to the head of the car.

Rain struck his face as he worked his way across the platform. "Brett? Billy?"

Surprise and confusion registered on the faces of the young couple when they recognized him. A few people gave him suspicious looks, but his rosette reassured them.

"What in the world are you doing here?" Brett exclaimed.

"Going home. I paid a visit to Lehigh Station. George said he was expecting you any time."

"I'm on leave," Billy said. "After that, everything's pretty uncertain."

"How's your arm?"

"Fine. No permanent damage." He circled Brett's waist and held her. "Those two or three hours after the wedding seem more like a bad dream than anything else. To this day I'm not sure why all of it happened."

"Nor I," Brett added. Orry still didn't know whether he'd ever be able to tell her of Ashton's involvement.

She noticed his rosette. "Where did you get that? You haven't undergone some miraculous conversion, have you?"

"Not quite. George gave it to me. To get me through enemy lines, you might say."

The east-shore local was chugging in. Passengers got off and rushed for the other trains with their luggage. "How is George?'' Brett asked.

"Good as ever."

She touched him gently. "How are you?"

"Better than I ever expected to be. I reckon you don't know Madeline LaMotte left her husband. She's staying at Mont Royal. We've been — friends for years."

Brett showed no surprise. Instead, she smiled. "I suspected something like that. Oh, there's so much to ask you, Orry — I can't think of a quarter of it."

A conductor from the northbound train called impatiently, "All aboard, please. We're half an hour late as it is."

Brett flung her arms around her brother's neck. "When will we see you again?"

"Not for a while, I expect. I don't think even Mr. Lincoln or Mr. Davis knows what's going to happen next. Whatever it is — even if there's fighting — I want the Hazards and the Mains to keep their ties unbroken. There are few things in the world that matter as much as friendship and love. They're both very fragile. We must preserve them till these times pass."

"I promise we will," she said, all at once crying.

"Here's the strongest bond yet." Billy lifted her left hand to display her wedding ring.

Orry nodded. "I finally realized that. It's the reason I changed my mind about the marriage."

"I'm glad you did," Billy said, smiling.

" Boooard !" the conductor cried. His colleague on Orry's train repeated the cry. The northbound conductor jumped to the steps of a coach and waved to the engineer. The noise — steam, bells, voices — instantly increased.

Billy and his brother-in-law shook hands. Orry hurried back to his car. Steam billowed up, hiding the platform that had become deserted within a space of seconds. The engine on the northbound track lurched, and soon both trains were pulling away in opposite directions, leaving the little island of light behind as they gathered speed in the vast dark.

In Washington, Orry again changed trains, this time to an express. Just before it departed, four men got aboard, young men in civilian clothes struggling with a great assortment of valises and parcels. From their posture and the way they moved, Orry knew they were soldiers. Southern soldiers going home.

They took seats two rows behind him. He listened to their conversation. Would Lincoln and Jeff Davis send armies into the field? Would the trains soon stop running? Would new currency be printed in Montgomery? Their questions were innumerable, answers nonexistent.

The rain slacked to a drizzle. Chugging slowly through the seedy capital district, the train crossed some of the sloughs and vacant lots so common there. In one weed-grown field Orry saw a military unit drilling. There were a few lanterns scattered here and there, but the dark figures were discernible chiefly because of a faraway light source, indefinable except as a bright, ghostly glow. He saw rows of bayonets on musket barrels; for an instant while he watched, one bayonet glittered like a star.

The militia was marching and counter-marching in the rain because Washington was vulnerable now. Just across the river was Virginia, the country of the enemy.

Where was Lee? Where were some of Orry's old comrades from Mexico? Little Mac McClellan, whom he had envied but never liked. Jackson, who had gone off to teach cadets at the Virginia Military Institute. Breezy George Pickett, such a good soldier and so seldom serious. How he'd love to see some of them again.

But not on a red field. Not if opposing generals arranged the reunion. Men who had been almost as close as brothers at the Academy might at this very moment be planning campaigns to annihilate one another. It was unthinkable, and it had happened.

He saw it all summed up in the blind marching of that nameless unit, a vision of gaunt shapes, sharp shiny steel, dim lamps flaring in the rain. The war machine was rolling. God help us all, he thought.

A light rain was falling on Tradd Street that night. Cooper wrote a letter he had been thinking about for some time. When he finished, he went searching for his wife. He found Judith just coming down from settling the children in bed. With war fever sweeping the state, Judah and Marie-Louise tended to become overly excited and stay up too late.

Without preamble, Cooper announced his decision. Judith's response was a moment of stunned silence. Then:

"Do you mean it?"

"I've already signed the letter to the gentlemen who called on me. I'll send it to Montgomery tomorrow. After the first of May, all the assets of the Carolina Shipping Company, including our vessels, belong to the Navy Department."

She shook her head as she sat down. "How can you make that decision, believing as you do?"

"Neutrality is the coward's way out. We either support the war or move north. I think secession's wrong, and the institution that brought it about is even worse. I think we'll be punished. Crushed. And yet'' — a troubled look, a gesture — "I feel a loyalty, Judith."