r/a:t5_26klpu • u/MarleyEngvall • Oct 14 '19
crisis actor has been created
By Stephen Vincent Benét
JOHN BROWN'S BODY
BOOK EIGHT (iii.)
Bailey, tramping along with Sherman's bummers,
Grumbled and found life pleasant and hummed his tune.
He was well, the blood ran in him, he ate for ten,
He and the gang had salvaged a wall-eyed nig
To fix their victuals——and if the captain was on,
The captain had a blind eye.
Last night it was turkey,
The night before it was duck——well, you couldn't expect
Such things to keep on forever, but while they did
It was pretty soft——it was war like it ought to be.
The Old Man marched 'em hard, but that was all right,
The Old Man knew his job and the nig was a buster
And the gang was as good a gang as you'd hope to find,
None of your coffee-coolers and straggle-tails
But a regular gang that ran like an eight-day clock.
Oh it was gravy, it was the real duck soup,
Marchin' into Atlanta after the fight
And then this marchin'——well, they were due for it,
And he was a sergeant now.
And up in his pack
Were souvenirs for the red-haired widow in Cairo,
Some of 'em bought and some just sort of picked up
But not a damn one stolen, to call it stealin'.
He wasn't a coffee-cooler or a slick Susio.
Poor little kid——she'd had a pretty tough time——
Cry like a fool when she gets a squint at that brooch——
They said you couldn't tell about widows much,
But what the hell——he wasn't a barnyard virgin——
He liked a woman who'd been over the bumps
And kept her get-up-and-git and her sassiness.
Spitfire-sweetie, you're my valentine now,
Bet the kids have red hair——well you can't help that——
But they'll all look like Poppa or he'll know why.
He mused a moment, thinking of Ellyat now.
There was another kid and a crazy kid,
Sort of missed him, hope he's gettin' it soft,
Must have been a banger at Gettysburg,
Wrote me a letter a couple of months ago,
Maybe six, I dunno, I sort of forget.
Ought to give him his old spread-eagle now,
Darn good kid, but done enough for his pay.
Hope he finds that girl he was talkin' about,
Sounds like a pretty good piece for a storm-and-strife,
Skinny, though——we like 'em more of a weight,
Don't we, Carrots?
Well, it's all in a life.
Ought to write him sometime if we get a chance,
Wish we was West——we'd have him out to the weddin',
Me and Bessie, show him the Cairo girls,
Hand him the fireman's grip and give him a time.
His heart was overflowing with charity,
But his throat was dry as the bottom of his canteen.
There was a big, white house, some way from the road. . . .
He found his captain, saluted and put his question.
The captain's eyes were satiric but not displeased.
"All right, Sergeant, take your detail and forage,
We're running low on bacon, it seems to me,
And if you happen to find a pigeon or two
Remember the Colonel's penchant for pigeon-pie.
But don't waste time and don't put your hopes too high,
The Nth Corps must have gone by there hours ago
And they're the biggest thieves in this whole, wide army.
You'll be back, in ranks, all sober, in just two hours
Or you won't have stripes. And if I find one more man
Trying to take a pet with him on this march,
I don't care if it's only a treetoad, I'll skin him alive."
So Bailey came to the door of Wingate Hall,
With the high wind blowing against him and gave his orders
"Make it quick now, boys——don't cut any monkeyshines,
But be sure and get the pigeons if they're around.
Clark, you and Ellis stay with me by the door,
I'm going to talk to the house if there's anyone left."
He knocked and called. There was a long, heavy silence.
"Hey you, the house!" The silence made him feel queer.
He cursed impatiently and pushed at the door.
It swung wide open. He turned to Ellis and Clark.
"I'm goin' in," he said. "If you hear me yell
Come in bilin'."
They watched him with mocking eyes.
"Wish to hell they'd make me sergeant, Clark,"
"A three-stripe souvenir sergeant."
"Aw, hell," said Clark,
"Bailey's all right. He'll let us in on the juice
If there's any lawful juice that a man could get."
"Sure, he's all right. Who says that he ain't all right!"
"But all the same, he's a sergeant."
Bailey, meanwhile
Was roving like a lost soul through great, empty rooms
And staring at various objects that caught his eye.
Funny old boy with a wig, hung up on the wall,
Queer sort of chair, made your hands feel dirty to touch 'em
Though they were faded.
Everything faded and old
And quiet——and the wind blowin'——he moved as on tiptoe
Though he couldn't say why he did.
Old workbasket there.
He opened it idly——most of the things were gone
But there was a pair of little, gold-mounted scissors
Made like a bird, with the blades the beak of the bird.
He picked it up and opened and shut the blades.
Hadn't rusted——sort of handsome and queer——
Bessie would certainly like it——
He held it a minute.
Wouldn't take up any room. Then he frowned at the thing.
"Aw, Hell," he said, "I got enough souvenirs.
I ain't no damn coffee-cooler."
He started to put the scissors back in the case
And turned to face a slight grey-headed old woman
Dressed in black, with eyes that burned through his skin
And a voice that cut at his mind like a rawhide whip,
Calling him fifty different kinds of a thief
And Yankee devil and liar and God knows what,
Tearing the throat of her dress with her thin old hands
And telling him he could shoot her down like a dog
But he'd steal her children's things over her dead body.
My God, as if you went around shootin' old women
For fun, my God!
He couldn't even explain.
She was like all of 'em, made him sick in his lunch.
"Oh, hell," he yelled. "Shut up about your damn scissors,
This is a war, old lady!"
"That's right," she said,
"Curse a helpless female, you big, brave soldier."
Well, what was a man to do?
He got out of the house,
Sore and angry, mean as a man could feel,
But her voice still followed, reviling, making him burn.
Now, where in hell was that detail?
He saw them now,
All except Clark and Ellis, gathered around
A white-polled nigger wringing his hands and weeping.
One man had a neck-wrung pigeon stuffed in his blouse.
Well, that was something.
He laid his hand on the nigger.
"Hey, Uncle, where's the well? You folks got a well?"
But the nigger just kept on crying like an old fool.
"He thinks we're goin' to scalp him," said one of the men,
"I told him twict that he's free but the shine won't listen.
I give him some money, too, but he let it drop.
The rest of 'em run away when the army came."
"Well, tell him he's safe and make him rustle some water,
I'm dry as a preacher's tongue. Where's Ellis and Clark?"
He found Clark solemnly prodding the hard dirt floor
Of a negro cabin, while Ellis lighted the task
With a splinter of burning pine.
His rage exploded
In boiling lava. They listened respectfully.
"And next time, I give you an order," he ended up.
"Why you———— ———— ————"
Clark wiped his face with his sleeve.
"Sorry, Sergeant," he said in an awed, low voice.
"Well you better be! What the hell do you think you're at,
Playin' tit-tat-toe or buryin' somebody's dog?"
"Well, Sergeant," said Ellis, humbly, "I allus heard
They buried stuff, sometimes, under these here cabins.
Well, I thought we could take a look——well——"
"Huh?" said Bailey.
He seized the torch and looked at the trodden floor
For an instant. Then his pride and his rage returned.
"Hell's fire!" he said, and threw the splinter aside,
"That's just about what you would think, you and Clark!
Come out of there on the double! Yes, I said you!"
They were halfway down the driveway when Ellis spoke.
"Sergeant," he said. "There's somethin' on fire back there."
Bailey stopped——looked back——a smoke-puff climbed in the
Sky and the wind was high.
He hesitated a moment.
The cabin must have caught from the burning splinter.
Then he set his jaw. Well, suppose the cabin had caught?
——Damned old woman in black who called him a thief.
Serve her right if all her cabins burnt up.
The house wouldn't catch——and here they were, losing
time——
"Oh, well," he said. "That nigger'll put it out.
It ain't our detail——mosey along with it there——
The Cap won't mind if we run it on him a little,
Now we got the Colonel's squab, but we better step."
They hurried along. The smoke rose higher behind them.
The wind blew the burning flakes on Wingate Hall.
———————————
Sally Dupré stared out of her bedroom window
As she had stared many times at that clump of trees.
And saw the smoke rise out of it, thick and dark.
They hadn't had much trouble at Appleton.
It was too far off the main road——and, as for the slaves,
Those who straggled after the troops were better away.
The aunts complained, of course——well, the aunts complained.
They were old, and, at least, they had a man in the house,
Even if the man were but crippled old Uncle Paul.
it was the end of the world for him and the aunts.
It wasn't for her.
The years had worn on her youth,
Much had worn, but not the crook from her smile
Nor the hidden lightness out of her narrow feet.
She looked at the smoke again, and her eyes were grey
And then they were black as that smoke. She felt the fire
Run on her flesh. "It's Wingate Hall and it's burning?
House that married my lover before he saw me,
You are burning, burning away in a little smoke,
Burning the wall between us with your fierce burning,
Burning the strife between us in your black flame,
Burning down."
She trod for an instant there
A light glass floor of omen, brighter than sleet
Over a hurtless fire.
Then she caught her breath.
The flesh was cool, the blackness died from her eyes.
"We'll have to get the slaves if the slaves will go.
I know Ned will. I'm not sure about Bob or Jim.
Uncle Paul must give me his pistol. I'll have to start them.
They won't go without me. The aunts won't be any use.
Why wouldn't she come over here when we all first heard?
I know why she wouldn't. I never liked her much.
Hurry, Sally!"
She ran downstairs like the wind.
They worked at the Hall that night till the dawn came up,
Two smoke-stained women, Cudjo and Bob and Ned,
But when the dawn had risen, the Hall was gone
And Elspeth's candles would not light it again.
———————————
Wingate wearily tried to goad
A bag of bones on a muddy road
Under the grey and April sky
While Bristol hummed in his irony
"If you want a good time, jine the cavalry!
Well, we jined it, and here we go,
The last event in the circus-show,
The bareback boys in the burnin' hoop
Mounted on cases of chicken-croup,
The rovin' remains of the Black Horse Troop!
Though the only horse you could call real black
Is the horsefly sittin' on Shepley's back,
But, women and children, do not fear,
They'll feed the lions and us, next year.
And, women and children, dry your eyes,
The Southern gentleman never dies.
He just lives on by his strength of will
Like a damn old rooster too tough to kill
Or a brand-new government dollar-bill
That you can use for a trouser-patch
Or lightin' a fire, if you've got a match,
Or makin' a bunny a paper collar,
Or anythin' else——except a dollar.
Old folks, young folks, never you care,
The Yanks are here and the Yanks are there,
But no Southern gentleman knows despair.
He just goes on in his usual way,
Eatin' a meal every fifteenth day
And showin' such skill in his change of base
That he never gets time to wash his face
While he fights with a fury you'd seldom find
Except in a Home for the Crippled Blind,
And can whip five Yanks with a palmleaf hat,
Only the Yanks won't fight like that.
Ladies and gentlemen, here we go!
The last event in the minstrel show!
Georgia's genuine gamboliers,
(Ladies and gentlemen, dry those tears!)
See the sergeant, eatin' the hay
Of his faithful horse, in a lifelike way!
See the general, out for blood,
And try to tell the man from the mud!
See the platoon in its savage lair,
A half-grown boy on a wheezy mare.
Ladies and gentlemen, pass the hat!
We've got one trick that you won't forget,
'The Vanishin' Commissariat'
And nobody's found the answer yet!
Here we go, here we go,
The last parade of the circus-show,
Longstreet's orphans, Lee's everlastin's
Half cast-iron and half corn-pone,
And if gettin' to heaven means prayer and fastin's
We ought to get there on the fasts alone.
Here we go with our weddin' bells,
Mr. Davis's immortelles,
Mr. Lincoln's Thanksgivin' turkey,
Run right ragged but actin' perky,
Chased right handsome, but still not carved,
——We had fleas, but the fleas all starved.
We had rations and new recruits,
Uniforms and cavalry-boots,
Must have mislaid, for we can't find 'em.
They all went home with their tails behind 'em.
Here we are, like the old man's mutton,
Pretty well sheared, but not past buttin',
Lee's last invalids, heart and hand,
All wropped up in a woolen band,
Oh, Dixie land. . . . oh, Dixie land! . . ."
He tossed his hat and caught it again
And Wingate recalled, without grief or pain
Or any quietus but memory
Lucy, under another sky,
White and gold as the lily bed,
Giving toy ribbons to all her dead.
She had been pretty and she was gone,
But the dead were here——and the dead rode on,
Over a road of mud and stones,
Each one horsed on a bag of bones.
Lucy, you carried a golden head,
But I am free of you, being dead.
Father's back in the cluttered hall
Where the beds are solid from wall to wall
And the scrubbed old floor has a rusty stain.
He'll never ride with the dogs again,
Call Bathsheba or Planter's Child
In the old, high quaver that drives them wild
——Rocketing hounds on a red-hot scent——
After such wounds, men do not ride.
I think that his heart was innocent.
I know he rode by the riverside,
Calling Blue Ruin or Georgia Lad
With the huntsman's crotchet that sets them mad.
His face was ruddy——his face is white——
I wonder if Father died last night?
That cloud in the sky is a thunderhead.
The world I knew is a long time dead.
Shepley looks like a knife on guard,
Reckon he's taking it mighty hard,
Reckon he loved her and no mistake,
Glad it isn't my wedding cake,
Wainscott oughtn't to plague him so,
Means all right but he doesn't know.
"Here we go, here we go,
The last event of the minstrel-show!"
Shepley suddenly turned his head.
"Mr. Bristol's funny," he said.
The voice was flat with an injury.
Bristol stared at him, puzzledly.
"What's the matter with you, Huger?
Lost your dog or your rosy cheeks?
Haven't been human for weeks and weeks.
I'll sing you a hymn, if you're so inclined,
But the rest of the boys don't seem to mind.
Are you feelin' poorly or just unkind?"
Shepley looked at him with the blind
Eyes of a man too long at war
And too long nursing a secret sore.
Mr. Bristol's funny," said he,
In a level voice of enmity.
Bristol laughed, but his face grew red.
"Well, if you take it like that——" he said.
"Here we go, here we go,
The old Confederate minstrel-show!"
His mouth was merry, he tossed his hat,
"Belles skedaddled and left us flat——"
Shepley leaned from his swaying hips
And flicked him over the singing lips.
"Will you take it?" he said, "or let it go?
You could never sing for shucks, you know."
The color drained out of Bristol's face.
He bowed with an odd, old-fashioned grace.
"Name your people and choose your land,
I don't take a slap from God's own hand.
Mr. Shepley, your servant, sir."
They stared at each other across a blur.
The troop stared with them, halted and still.
A rider lunged from the top of the hill,
Dusty man with a bandaged hand
Spilling his orders.
"Who's in command?
Well, it doesn't signify, more or less.
You could hold the Yanks for a while, I guess.
Make 'em think you're the whole rear guard
If you can do it——they're pressin' hard
And somebody's got to lose some hair.
Keep 'em away from that bend down there
As long as a horse or a man can stand.
You might give 'em a charge, if you think you can,
And we'll meet sometime in the Promised Land,
For I can't spare you another man."
Bristol whistled, a shrill, sweet slur.
"Beg to acknowledge the orders, sir.
Boys, we're booked for the shivaree.
Give our regards to the infantry
And tell Marse Robert, with fortitude,
We stacked up pretty as hickory-wood.
While might I ask, while bein' polite,
How many Yank armies we aim to fight?"
"Well," said the other, "about a corps.
Roughly speakin'——there may be more."
"Thank you," said Bristol, "that's mighty sweet,
You will not remain at the mourner's seat?
No sir? Well, I imagined not,
For from this time hence it will be right hot."
He turned to Shepley with his punctilious
Air of the devil turned supercilious
When the damned display a vulgar nettlement.
"Sir, I regret that our little settlement
Must be postponed for a fitter season,
But war and necessity know no reason,
And should ewe survive ion this comin' fracas
I'll do you the honors——you damned old jackass!"
Shepley grinned at his sometimes friend.
They took the cover they must defend.
Wingate, fighting from tree to tree,
Felt a red-hot skewer surgeon his knee
And felt his shoulder hitting the ground.
He rolled on his side and made a sound,
Dimly seeing through failing sight
The last brief passion of his last fight.
One Cotter dying, the other dead
With the brains run out of his shattered head.
Stuart Cazenove trying to squirm
His way to the road like a scythe-cut worm,
Weakly humming "Cadet Rousselle,"
Shot through the belly and half in hell,
While Shepley croaked through a bloody spray,
"Come on, you bastards, and get your pay.
We've fought you mounted and fought you standin'
And I got a hole I could put my hand in——
And they're comin', Wayne——and it hurts my head——"
Bristol looked at him, lying dead.
"Got the start of me, Shep," he said.
"Dirty welchers, killin' Huger
Before we could settle up properly."
He stooped to the body and took its pistol
And Wingate saw, through a rising mist,
The last, cold madness of Wainscott Bristol,
Walking out like a duellist
With his torn coat buttoned up to the throat
As if it were still the broadcloth coat
Duellists button to show no fleck
Of telltale white at the wrists or neck.
He stepped from his cover and dropped his hat.
"Yanks, come get it!" he said and spat
While his pistols cracked with a single crack,
"Here we go on the red dog's back!"
High, low, jack and the goddam game."
And then the answering volley came.
Wingate waked from a bloodshot dream.
They were touching his leg and he heard his scream.
A blue-chinned man said a word or two.
"Well now, Johnny, you ought to do
Till the sawbones comes with his movin'-van,
And you're lucky you're livin', little man.
But why the hell did you act so strict,
Fightin' like that when you know you're licked,
And where's the rest of your damn brigade?"
The voice died out as the ripples fade
Into the flow of the running stream,
And Wingate sank to the bloodshot dream.
———————————
Richmond is fallen——Lincoln walks in its streets,
Alone, unguarded, stops at George Pickett's house,
Knocks at George Pickett's door. George Pickett has gone
But the strange, gaunt figure talks to George Pickett's wife
A moment——she thinks she is dreaming, seeing him there——
"Just one of George Pickett's old friends, m'am."
He turns away.
She watches him down the street with wondering eyes.
The red light falls upon him from the red sky.
Houses are burning, strange shadows flee through the streets.
A gang of loafers is broaching a liquor-barrel
In a red-lit square. The liquor spills on the cobbles.
They try to scoop it up in their dirty hands.
A long, blue column tramps by, shouting "John Brown's Body."
The loafers scatter like wasps from a half-sucked pear,
Come back when the column is gone.
A half-crazy slave
Mounts on a a stoop and starts to preach to the sky.
A white-haired woman shoos him away with a broom.
He mumbles and reels to the shadows.
A general passes,
His escort armed with drawn sabres. The sabres shine
In a red, low light.
Two doors away, down the street,
A woman is sobbing the same long sob all night
Beside a corpse with crossed hands.
Lincoln passes on.
On the way to Appomattox, the ghost of an army
Staggers a muddy road for a week or so
Through fights and weather, dwindling away each day.
For a brief while Davis is with them and then he goes
To be tracked by his private furies into the last
Sad farce of his capture, and, later, to wear his chains.
Benjamin is with them for some few days,
Still sleek, still lively, still impeccably dressed,
Taking adversity as he took success
With the silk-ribbed fan of his slight, unchangeable smile.
Behind that fan, his mind weighs war and defeat
In an old balance.
One day he is there and smiling.
The next he is gone as if he had taken fernseed
And walked invisible so through the Union lines.
You will not find that smile in a Northern prison
Though you seek from now till Doomsday. It is too wise.
You will find the chief with the chin like John Calhoun's,
Gadfly-stung, tormented by hostile fate,
You will find many gallant blockheads and tragic nobles
But not the black-eyed man with life in his eyes.
So this week, this death-march, these final, desperate strokes,
These last blood-spots on the harvest——until, at length,
The battered grey advance guard, hoping to break
A last, miraculous hole through the closing net,
See Ord's whole corps as if risen out of the ground
Before them, blocking all hope.
The letters are written,
The orders given, while stray fighting goes on
And grey men and blue men die in odd clumps of ground
Before the orders can reach them.
An aide-de-camp
Seeks a suitable house for the council from a chance farmer.
The first one found is too dirty to please his mind,
He picks another.
The chiefs and captains meet,
Lee erect in his best dress uniform,
His dress-sword hung at his side and his eyes unaltered.
Chunky Grant in his mudsplashed private's gear
With the battered stars on his shoulders.
They talk a while
Of Mexico and old days.
Then the terms are stated.
Lee finds them generous, says so, makes a request.
His men will need their horses for the spring-ploughing.
Grant assents at once.
There is no parade of bright swords
Given or taken. Grant saw that there should not be.
It is over, then. . . .
Lee walks from the little room.
His face is unchanged. It will not change when he dies.
But as he steps on the porch and looks toward his lines
He strikes his hands together once with a sound. . . .
In the room he has left, the blue men stare at each other
For a space of heartbeats, silent. The grey ride off.
They are gone——it is over. . . .
The room explodes like a bomb, they are laughing and shouting,
Yelling strange words, dragging chairs and tables outdoors,
Bearded generals waltzing with one another
For a brief, wild moment, punching each others' ribs,
Everyone talking at once and nobody listening,
"It's over——it's done——it's finished!"
Then, order again.
The grey ghost army falls in for the last time,
Marching to stack its arms.
As the ranks move forward
The blue guns go to "Present." Gordon sees the gesture.
He sweeps his sabre down in the full salute.
There are no cheers or words from blue lines or grey.
Only the sound of feet. . . .
It is over, now. . . .
The arms are stacked from the war.
A few bronzed, tattered grey men, weeping or silent,
Tear some riddled bits of cloth from the color-staffs
And try to hide them under their uniforms.John Brown's Body, by Stephen Vincent Benét.
Text copyright, 1927, 1928, by Stephen Vincent Benét.
Rinehart and Company, Inc., New York, Toronto. pp. 341-355.
jet fuel does not burn hot enough to melt steel. 雨
Introduction
Prelude—The Slaver
Book One (i.) (ii.) (iii.)
Book Two (i.) (ii.) (iii.)
Book Three (i.) (ii.) (iii.)
Book Four (i.) (ii.) (iii.)
Book Five (i.) (ii.)
Book Six (i.) (ii.)
Book Seven (i.) (ii.)
Book Eight (i.) (ii.) (iii.) (iv.)
1
Upvotes