Джеймс Кейн - Mignon

He leaned close, and buzzed into my ear:

“But,” he went on, “next day, at Pleasant Hill, when they tried to finish us up, we cut them to pieces, Bill. Don’t let anyone tell you different on that! And there’s the tragedy of it! This army’s not licked — how could it be when it won that Pleasant Hill fight? This headquarters is! Of backbiting, disloyalty, undercutting, and bickering you can take just so much. And that’s why we’re getting out. Not from defeat, from disunity! So, in regard to your friend Landry and what he thinks we’ll do next, he could be right. We could be going to Shreveport, in case this dam’s a bust, we could be doing just that — and we know all about it, Kirby Smith’s dispersal of Richard Taylor’s army. He sent Price with six thousand men to stop Steele, who’s supposed to be working with us, and that army is way the hell and gone up in Arkansas someplace, so it couldn’t be a factor. It’s quite true, I imagine, that there’s no effective force under the Reb command between this place and Shreveport.”

“All right, but what do I do?”

“Bill, I’ve told you: the goddam cotton is hooded. It’s the cause of all our trouble, the cause of the headquarters bickering, of the Navy’s being stuck. If they hadn’t gone upriver for this cotton Landry wants, they wouldn’t be where they are now. Stay out of it! Don’t touch it with a ten-foot pole.”

“I can’t stay out of it. I’m already in.”

I told him about Sandy, the Navy receipt, and the rest. He whistled. “Well!” he said. “You certainly are in, all the way, with both feet... Then — a little more can’t make much difference. In for a penny, in for a pound.”

“You mean let Mr. Landry go ahead?”

“What harm is it going to do?”

“That’s it! If we don’t go to Shreveport, Dan...?”

“Then we didn’t and he did. That’s all.”

“You’re sure I wouldn’t be disloyal, doing this?”

“Well? Lincoln wants it, doesn’t he?”

Back in the flat i didn’t quite say yes, but they smelled I was going to, and she made herself so sweet butter wouldn’t have melted in her mouth. Next morning she came early, snuggling close to me, and whispering little jokes in between the kisses. She got my promise at last, and I went on down to see Hager and cancel my pass application, since if I was going to Shreveport it would head off all kinds of mix-ups if I reapplied up there to the new Provost Marshal, without still another request dangling in Alexandria. But he waved as soon as he saw me, there in the courthouse door, and left his desk to come over, stepping past doctors, orderlies, and wounded lying on stretchers. “Surprise for you, Cresap!” he roared as soon as he’d shaken hands. “You’re on your way out, you’re leaving! The Warner ’ s going tomorrow, and I’ve arranged to get you on board. And the style you’ll be going in! Two gunboats are taking her down — you’ll be like Mason and Slidell!”

“Fine!” I said. “Love to feel important!”

Because of course this couldn’t be turned down, just at the drop of a hat, without my making sure how Mr. Landry felt. On his own favorite principle of grabbing the bird in hand, he might want me to go. And even if outvoted, I could decline the honor later in the day. So I talked along, got the various details, like the leaving time of the boat, which was eight o’clock in the morning, and the probable space I’d have, which was half a stateroom. “ But ,” he warned, “this is for Cresap alone. It does not include a lady, or the lady’s courtly father.”

“That’s understood,” I told him.

“You board tonight . Get there first.”

“I’ll be there with bells, Captain.”

“I think they’ll be stopping at Cairo, and you can go to Springfield from there. But if they take you to Cincinnati, that’s not so far either.”

“Cincinnati’s perfect with me.”

And it was perfect with Mr. Landry, as I learned when I came charging in with my news — and not only with him but with her. Shreveport was entirely forgotten as both of them got all excited over definite action at last. “It’s the difference,” she said, “between a million up in the sky and one-twenty thousand there in the bank — sixty thousand for Father and sixty thousand for us. Who wouldn’t take what’s sure?” He told her: “Nothing’s sure, Daughter, especially in this war — but short of having the money, this is as sure as anything can be.” We talked of getting married, of going to Dr. Dow, the Episcopal rector there, and having it done at once, that same day, before I left. But she didn’t want to be married in Alexandria. “I was once,” she said, “and it didn’t turn out very well.” And also, I think, she was shy of marrying a bluebelly here, where everyone knew her, and starting a lot of talk. We checked their end of it over, and he said: “Don’t worry about us, Mr. Cresap — if, as I assume, the Union goes through to Shreveport, that’ll end the war in the West, and we’ll stay right where we are until navigation resumes and then join you in Springfield, if you care to have us come. If, on the other hand, they’re captured or manage to cut their way out, this place will be under the Rebs — but we’ve nothing to fear from them. We’ll leave as soon as we can, and be seeing you before very long.” Communication would be a problem, but we left it that they would write me in care of General Delivery at Springfield, and I would write them whichever way I could, in the light of the news as it broke. I asked: “Isn’t somebody sorry I’m going?”

“Of course,” she yipped. “We both are!”

“I’d like to be missed, a little! ”

She kissed me, right in front of him, said: “You’re going to be missed a lot — morning, noon, and night, but specially in the morning. Now come on, I’ll help you pack.”

I was sitting there with him, the packed bag beside me, my overcoat, oilskin, and hat piled on top, and she was in the kitchen putting me up some lunch, in case food was scarce on the boat, when a knock came on the door. He answered and then came back with Sandy, who was looking pretty glum, not to say seedy, and whom I hadn’t seen since that day on the falls. He shook hands, and seemed surprised when I asked if his boat was one of those stuck. “Why, yes,” he said, “in a way. She kind of got permanently stuck and we had to scuttle her.”

“Oh? When did that happen?”

“Last week.”

“And what boat are you on now?”

“We all got distributed around, pending reassignment, and I got taken on board the Neosho — monitor aground on the upper falls. I’m subject to duty as ordered, meaning at-large mud-turtle to this dam they’re trying to build.”

“Which is not going well, I hear.”

“It’s not going at all.”

She came in about that time, with her packages wrapped in newspaper, and after shaking hands, excused herself while she stuffed them into my bag. He had been eyeing it, and now asked: “You going somewhere, Bill?”

I told him about the Warner , and he said: “Well, in that case I’ll forget what I came about.” I pressed him, of course, and he said: “No, if you have a chance to get out, and especially to go to Springfield, I can’t stand in your way. That’s important — it’s the one way to get the money we’re going to need, so let’s forget the dam, which can’t be built anyhow. It’s a completely ridiculous idea.” It came out, little by little, that what he had wanted of me was to Walk across the bridge and pass out a couple of pointers to the boys on the left bank about how to do their work. “On this side,” he said, “it makes sense — not much, but a little. They’re building cribs out of logs, hauling them into the stream, and filling them with stone. How much water they hold I wouldn’t like to say, but at least they stay there, they don’t go floating off. But on the other side it’s a madhouse.” He explained about the brackets, corroborating what Mr. Landry had said, and went on: “They wash out, they break apart, and it’s not only the river. It’s the troops, a bunch of Maine woodsmen, who can cut trees down but can’t hook ’em together. I’ve tried to tell ’em, but they won’t listen to me, and besides I don’t really know. But you do, and to you I thought they might pay some attention — that’s all. But, you’d have to stay with ’em, of course, see it through to the end; so let’s forget it.”