Tim Bowling - The Tinsmith

Gibson grumbled something about wasting time, but Gardner ignored him. Maybe it was the whisky, or the rapidly improving quality of the light, but his confidence was riding high. Conditions could not have been better. No man in the country—certainly not that half-blind Brady back in New York waxing his moustache tips—was better qualified and ready for this chance. Except maybe Gibson and Timothy O’Sullivan, but they were both taking Gardner’s orders here. He knew, as well as Robert Owen himself had ever known the devilish machinations of the leisured classes, that he had enough time for everything if he just put himself in harness and set to work.

Even so, Gardner started that ripe morning in haste. Gibson, now that he’d had his fortifying coffee, proved every bit as eager, and together the two men were like children after butterflies in a meadow, except these butterflies were already pinned and still. Gardner decided right away to use only his stereo camera. That way, the gallery would have the most options for selling prints—stereo views, cartes de visite, and the big Imperials Brady’s nobs liked so much. And Gardner didn’t intend to take more than a single exposure from each angle; there was just too much ground to cover.

As soon as he’d settled on his first study—a Reb officer flat on his back with the brains spattered over his blackened face and his belly swollen like an observation balloon—he set Gibson to sensitizing the plates. Gardner knew it would be at least seven minutes before his assistant threw back the big tarp and scrambled out of the wagon, so he had just enough time to pick up a nearby rifle and stick it in the officer’s open hand. He couldn’t get the officer’s fingers closed around the stock—they were too stiff—but it was a useful touch nonetheless.

The sun crept over the nearby tree line now, gushing light over the field, so Gardner fixed the camera and aimed it at the body. Then, with a long breath to calm himself, he stepped under the cloth and focused.

And there the dead officer was, black-faced and swollen, his dirty grey uniform open at the breast, the rifle in his hand. Only, of course, he was upside down, and it seemed for a few seconds that the dead officer floated out of a torn cloud, a terrible vengeance in his cold rifle.

Gardner ducked out from the cloth just as Gibson stepped backwards from the wagon with the plate fixed in its wooden holder. He shut the door and hurried over, his face tense.

“Come on, man!” Gardner urged, knowing full well that even an extra second could dry the collodion and render the plate useless.

“Do you want me tripping, Alex? I canna go any faster.” His voice was a strained rasp already, and Gardner thanked the Lord for it. Say what he would about the man’s cussed cantankerousness, James Gibson cared as much as Gardner did about getting the job done.

Gardner took the plate holder from him. Then he moved the focusing frame out of the way and put in the holder—it took him a little longer than usual to attach it to the camera, his hands trembled so. But he drew another deep breath and slid the front panel out of the holder, exposing the plate to the inside of the camera. Now came the moment of truth! He removed the two lens caps and he almost swore that he could hear the light flooding through—it was like a torrent of water every time, though he knew well enough that he heard only the blood pounding in his temples.

If the battlefield had been still earlier, it was frozen now as Gardner counted out the exposure. One, two, three… slow down, easy… four, five… go even, Alex, boy… eight, nine. Those fifteen seconds were the longest of his life. When the last number finally passed his lips, he replaced the lens caps and the holder’s front cover. Then he looked up.

“Jimmy! Are you set?”

It was a foolish, unnecessary question, but Gardner put it with a smile. In fact, he couldn’t wipe the joy off as he strode to the wagon.

“Don’t be so daft, man,” Gibson said. “Just give me the plate.”

Gardner handed it over carefully. “We’ll have to sink them all in glycerin till tonight. There’s no ee time to heat them now.”

“Aye.” Gibson plunged back into the wagon, yanking the tarp behind him. Gardner could hear his assistant cussing a blue streak as he tied the tarp strings to his ankles, but he wasn’t worried. Gardner knew that safelight couldn’t be any safer even if he himself was the man working in it. Besides, he had to move the camera.

So an hour passed, unchanged but for the increased activity in the field. Several burial parties—a few consisting of negroes—dragged Gardner’s potential studies away and placed them in shallow graves; individual soldiers out searching for comrades sometimes found them, picked them up, and moved away soberly to find whatever better resting places might be available. The photographer rushed from one body to another, all the while thinking that everything was happening too fast, that he couldn’t delay going to the front lines any longer—there were bound to be even better studies there—but how long before the routine procedures of the army destroyed them? In his excitement, he took little interest in the activity around him.

Sometime before noon, however, Gardner witnessed a strange scene. A dozen yards to his left, a man in a fine suit and bowler, his hands in white gloves, was being threatened at knifepoint by a monkey-faced little fellow naked from the waist up. The two stood over the dead Rebel officer whose study had begun Gardner’s day. Cautiously, he moved closer.

Monkey-face’s lips pulled back to reveal mostly gums. A lock of oily hair hung over one yellow eye. He held the knife in his fist. “You git yore dad blamed paws offa this one. It’s mine. Touch it again and you’ll be dead on the ground too.”

The gentleman yawned as he reached into his breast pocket and removed a small pistol. His neat moustache quivered slightly. He held the gun straight in front of him, his arm fully extended.

“I strongly suggest, my good man, that you find another officer.” He sniffed, and scowled. “There are certain to be plenty for all. But this one’s now the property of the Horace Greaver Embalming and Fine Casket Company.”

Monkey-face brought the knifepoint so close to his face that it seemed he planned to put his own eye out. He squinted. “Greaver, you say? That the feller with the humpback? In the tent yonder?”

The gentleman grinned, exposing his sharp incisors. “Humpback? I believe you’re referring to one of the metal canisters.”

“Hunh?”

The gentleman sighed. “It’s not a hump. It’s one of the tanks for draining blood. Or for pumping the… ah… continual life into these distinguished fallen.”

Monkey-face shrugged. “Wal, whatever it is, that feller said he’d pay good for officers brung into his tent. And I aim to git that money.”

The gentleman, still grinning and holding the pistol out, said, “It seems we are working for the same fine establishment. And as I am not on commission…” He pocketed the pistol. “You may remove this hero from the field. But I warn you, there are competitors less patient than I. You would be wise to find a more… ah… persuasive weapon.” He made a graceful sweeping gesture with one arm. “I’m certain a man of your obvious discernment can find something amid the armoury here gathered.”

Monkey-face spat. Then, putting the knife between his teeth, he bent and took up the dead officer by the armpits.

The incident’s open, naked demonstration of money lust appalled Gardner, but not for long. When he reflected on his own considerable worldly ambitions on this battleground, he couldn’t exactly condemn others who also sought to improve their fortunes. After all, the fighting was over and the dead could hardly complain. With undiluted resolve, Gardner returned to the tripod, ducked under the cloth, and focused. Two dead Rebels, one’s head leaning on the other’s chest; he could perhaps come up with a title about dead brothers.