Джеймс Кейн - Mignon

“It’ll stand till the fleet gets down.”

“We’ll see about that, Mr. Cresap.”

With Sandy, who was so furious he couldn’t talk, I clumped around to my own flat and flung the bag inside. When I got down to the street again, she was there talking to him, her eyes squinched up mean, her mouth twisting around. When I saw she was making spit, I fetched her a clout on the cheek that sent her staggering back to the front of the Schmidt store. Then, grabbing Sandy’s arm, I marched on down to the courthouse and turned in my pass. Then, still with him to take me through, I headed for the bridge.

I drove them like animals; but driving was what they wanted, I have to say that for them all — the 29th Maine, which was hewing the trees, and the colored infantry outfits, known as the Corps D’Afrique, which were detailed as labor. I worked under a Captain Seymour whom Sandy took me to, in the woods on the Pineville side, which smelled of cut wood, where various squads were at work, chopping and sawing and hewing. But he wasn’t at all pleased, in spite of what Sandy had said, about my experience, my previous rank of lieutenant, and my willingness to help, at having a boy wonder, as he called me, “standing around in the shade, with his hands stuck in his pockets, telling me what to do.” He had a Down East way of talking that annoyed me more or less, and I said: “I wouldn’t dream of doing it — how the hell do you tell someone that sounds like a goddam quahog sucking water up with his foot and squirting it out of his eyeballs?” That kind of slowed him down, and he asked: “What’s your idea about it?”

“What do you think?” I fired back. “I figured to sign up.”

“... You mean, join? My outfit?”

“Now you got it, stupid.”

“What about that leg?”

“Leg’s been there before.”

He called to his supply sergeant: “Pair of pants for this recruit — extra longs! Blouse, if you got one!”

“Shirt’ll help,” I said.

“And a shirt!” he bellowed.

And then as we stood there, I in my balbriggans, Sandy helping me into the blues, Seymour asked in a quiet way: “All right, Cresap, what am I doing wrong?”

“Everything,” I said. “As well as everything else.”

“Hell, I know that! But what? ”

“To begin with, I’d say you have compression, tension, and function all stewed in one fearful and wonderful pot, so each fouls up the other.”

“Never mind the Trautwine stuff. Say something.”

“I will, don’t worry. Those brackets you’re putting together — trying to put together — are done wrong from the start. Positioning the trees as they fall, then nailing the boards on, then hauling them down to the water, is just asking for trouble. Before it even gets wet, that set, pretty weak to start with, is so rickety from the trip through the woods that it won’t hold up in the water, can’t take the strain when you try to work it with lines — and that ’ s why it goes floating off. Haul your trees to the water’s edge first! Then put together your bracket! Brace it with proper struts! Saw planks into four-foot lengths, notch ’em, and shove ’em between. That’ll take care of compression. Then lash on line, and tighten with clubs used as turnbuckles! That’ll take care of tension!”

“Where the hell do we get this line?”

“Navy,” said Sandy. “We got it.”

“Go on,” the captain told me.

“Then nail on your boards. They’re function.”

“I got it now. All right, then we—”

“Goddam it, who’s supposed to be talking?”

“I’m sorry, Cresap. What else?”

“When that’s all done, when the thing’s ready to go, notch the butts of those trees and lash a shackle on. Something a hawser can bend to, so the boats can give you help. Something that’s going to hold, so you’re running the set and the set’s not running you!”

“... Anything else?”

“Split your men into gangs, each with a job assigned that it rightly understands. Then, ’stead of laying around all the time, asleep under the trees, they’ll know what to do and do it. If the gang doesn’t speak English, pick out one man who does. Get some system into it!”

“You can work a gang?”

“Anyone that has sense can.”

“We haven’t been having much luck.”

“That’s because, instead of letting them know what you want, you’re making speeches at them about Lincoln, telling ’em how much he loves ’em. They don’t care about Lincoln — all they want is their grub and to be told what to do.”

“Then you’ll tell ’em?”

“I think first I have to tell you.”

We fixed it up, since I had to sign on as a private, that I’d tell and he’d beller, as he called it, but actually, by the time I’d been there an hour, I had it all to myself, doing the telling, bellering, and cussing all at the same time — but with some slight success. I don’t say I built the Red River dam. Colonel Joseph Bailey, of a Wisconsin outfit, thought the idea up and was in complete command. I do say that before I got there, things were in a mess, but that after I got on the spot, they began to go right.

By sundown, we had six sets in place which I anchored by floating crosslogs down, then letting them wash up on the brackets and lashing them in place, somewhat out of water to give a bit more weight and offset the tendency to float, which the whole thing suffered from. The Navy helped in grim earnest, and Sandy was there all the time, first on one boat, then on another, taking charge of lines, capstans, or barges, as they came up with stone for the cribs — or with bricks, or busted-up sugar mills, or whatever they could find for ballast. The third night, after I’d eaten the handful of beans my squad had cooked for mess and was stretched out beside the fire, Sandy suddenly appeared, squatting down beside me with a very different look from the one he had been wearing, which hadn’t been too friendly toward me. When I’d told him hello, he drew a deep breath and said: “Bill, I want to apologize.”

“Oh?” I asked him. “What for?”

“Various things. You heard about the Warner? ”

“The boat I was to take? No. What about her?”

“She got sunk.”

“Ouch. You mean the Rebs got her?”

“Not only her but the Covington . And not only her but the Signal . And not only her but the City Belle , a boat that was coming up with a bunch of replacement troops. Scores of men were killed, and it’s just one more thing. But what gets me is this: Suppose you had been killed? I’d never forgive myself. And I’d like to come out and say it: I glory in you, Bill. You burned those papers first, before the Warner left. And told everyone why — including me. Including her.”

“Leave her out, if you don’t mind.”

“All right. She has her troubles, though.”

“... What troubles?”

“Death. She was in a funeral procession.”

“When was this, Sandy?”

“Today. The Forest Rose had to heave to and idle in the current while this hearse went over the draw, a little bunch of people following along behind. It was kind of pathetic, at that. No horses now, you know — at least available to the Rebs. Pulling the hearse was Mr. Landry on one side of the tongue, with a rope harness hooked to one singletree, that fellow Burke to the other. She kind of brought up the rear, in that black dress she wears, looking damned cute, with the wind whipping her bottom.”

“I said leave her out! And her bottom!”

“Bill, you’re still stuck on that girl.”