Tim Bowling - The Tinsmith

Four days after the great battle, Anson Baird had been reassigned to a large encampment of tents filled with Rebel wounded, more than a mile to the west of his previous field hospital, across the dusty turnpike and a half-mile south of the little white Dunker church that had been in the centre of the fiercest fighting. His labours remained unpleasant and unending. He stooped in and out of the sagging canvas tents, checking wounds and amputations for infection, trying to cool fevers, changing pus and bloodstained dressings when supplies of fresh bandages were available. His eyes were sore and bloodshot, he shook constantly, and he coughed until he thought his bones would fracture. When he slept—infrequently—he suffered terrible nightmares in which whole armies of horses were tossed alive on great blazing pyres of railroad ties, and then awoke to the stomach-churning reality of an ever-thickening miasma that enveloped the whole landscape.

Only one thing sustained him in his daily rounds, one small contribution he had made to the cause outside of his expected duties. At his lowest ebb, when yet another amputee did not survive, when a hemorrhage proved unstoppable or a wound blackened or a face set into the awful devil’s grin of lockjaw, he thought of the tall soldier and his spirits lifted just enough to carry him to the next tragic, mundane moment. To save a life by cutting off an arm or leg was necessary and unpleasant; to save a life without taking up an instrument at all was something he had not expected, and it felt like a blessing. In fact, the knowledge of the tall soldier’s escape from the army’s investigations of the farmer’s gruesome death and molestation became as much of an addictive drug to Anson as the opium he swallowed.

It wasn’t difficult, what he’d done, at least not on a practical level. A young soldier new to the regiment had fallen in the fight, and no one would miss him. The army’s recordkeeping was, to be charitable, incomplete. And so, within just a few days of the battle, a runaway slave with no other name besides John became, in the army’s records, a Union soldier named William Sullivan Dare. Though the deceit initially troubled Anson’s sense of honour, he soon accepted it as a necessity for the greater good. But there was a problem.

The newly named William Dare still required medical attention and was in no shape to understand that he’d been given a new identity, a chance to move on with what remained of the army as something more than a white-looking contraband. The shock of killing his former master had unhinged his mind, and so Anson kept him hidden from prying eyes, covered with blankets in a tent full of dying rebels. Ever since Anson had become his protector, the tall soldier had done little but shake and gaze at the empty air as if it flashed a steady stream of pictures. He pulled at his scraped cheek and mumbled incoherently. A few times he sprang bolt upright and cried out, “The mulatto! He’s come!” Once, he shouted violently into Anson’s face, “It’s a lie! He’s a liar!” Anson could make no sense of these sudden exclamations, but they were infrequent and caused little trouble or notice amid the groans and cries of the men around him. Besides, the tall soldier grew less agitated day by day, and that, more than anything else, strengthened Anson as he made his rounds. He had been so saturated with death and misery, had felt so deeply in his own body the relentless onslaught of physical suffering, that the mere thought of preserving one life and setting it on a clearer, if not exactly safer, course proved a continual elixir to his spirit.

Late on the day of the 21st, however, after he had bent and emerged from yet another tent of moans and decay, Anson received a jolt. From twenty feet away, a man standing upright behind a tripod was staring at him. Anson shrank from the sight, though at first he was not sure why.

“Ah, doctor,” the man said, walking forward, his broad face jovial, trailing a beard thick as smoke. “I’ve come about that study at last.”

Study? Anson blinked into the sunlight. Behind him a patient snored heavily, the sound like tearing canvas. Anson’s thoughts became clear and he remembered, with a quickening pulse, who the bearded man was.

“I can see you dinna remember our bargain.” The Scotsman smiled and pushed his long hair back from his face. But Anson felt threatened anyway. This man—yes—this man alone could have suspicions. Did he? His expression seemed innocent enough. Anson shivered, started to walk out from the group of tents onto the grass.

“Nay, doctor, if you dinna mind.” The Scotsman held up one hand, the fingernails black, as if rotting. “If you’ll just be so good as to stand right there. Still as still. That’s right. I won’t be but a few minutes.”

Anson stood completely unprotected as the man hurried back to the strange-looking wagon all hung with tarp and spoke a few words into it. Anson struggled to calm himself. How could the photographer suspect anything?

The Scotsman ran to the tripod, a small object in his hands. He busied himself about the camera. Then, holding up one hand again, said, “Just like that, just exactly there,” and slipped under the black cloth.

Anson’s eyes shifted from side to side. This man was reading him, possibly discovering the truth about the tall soldier’s changed identity. And if so, well… Anson’s forced, weak smile broke. Out of the corners of his eyes, he watched for motion, afraid that Dare would choose just that moment to emerge from his shock.

The black cloth shook and the Scotsman reappeared. Again, he worked rapidly around the camera. Then he sped to the wagon, as if yanked back by an invisible rope. More words, but Anson couldn’t hear them. The tarp moved. A hand appeared, disappeared. Then the Scotsman strode toward the tents, still smiling. But his soft eyes had a questioning, curious cast to them. He stopped a few feet before the first tent, his long coat opened in two behind him like great wings, his legs apart, firmly braced. Anson couldn’t shake the sense that the man had become a tripod and camera himself—he seemed to investigate and record, he seemed like a small god. Anson glanced to one side. No one was there. He exhaled slowly.

“I’ve not seen you since… ah, when was it?… at the other hospital, in the barnyard.”

Anson clutched his side. If the man was leading up to something, why didn’t he just get on with it?

“I wasna sure I’d be able to take your study, after all. I’ve been busy, and then I thought perhaps when some of the army moved, you’d have moved with it.”

“No. I had to stay behind.” Anson lowered his eyes to the tent in front of him.

“Ah, of course, of course.” The Scotsman relaxed his stance, exhaled through pursed lips. “I’ve no right to talk about being busy to you, have I? You dinna look as though you’ve slept much, doctor.”

Anson scowled. Was the man suggesting he had reason for his conscience to keep him awake?

“I’ll no ee keep you then. I’ve my own work to do, though it’s not as important as yours.”

The Scotsman seemed sincere enough. Even so, Anson breathed easier as the burly figure turned to go. But the man took only a few steps before stopping and turning back.

“Ah, doctor? About that body?”

Anson’s heart thumped and turned over. If Dare should appear now…

“You remember?” the Scotsman continued.

Anson nodded and looked along the line of tents. Still no one appeared. The thin smoke of a fire drifted on the heavy air.

“The army’s still after it. Seems the man might have had some important papers on his person.” He paused and leaned forward, his coat tails flowing out like the ends of his cloven beard. “I hope that soldier who was helping you so much with your surgeries has gone with the troops that have left. I was not more than two hours ago privy to a conversation that might prove uncomfortable for him.”