Chapter XIII

In Which Appears a General of Division, and One of "the Brethren."

If Gard entered the war, as he claimed, in the theory of a spiritual adventure, it must be hinted that he had sometimes lost sight of his theory. Outside events had shown a tendency to usurp and absorb in the process of the happening. It was not so noticeable during the first nine months. He marched, drilled, felt the rain and the cold wind at night in the open, heard the enemy's guns, saw bleeding men carried by from the distant field, and shared in what was called "the defence of Washington," a matter that did not seem difficult or exciting beyond reason. He was made a sergeant--a purely outside event. There was leisure to watch the scene, to keep one's poise, to experiment with existence. If at times his old sense of separateness, of isolation among objects, scenes, and persons whose importance to him was only in their inner effect upon him--if this sense at times seemed less vivid than before, and the movements of men in masses, the common enthusiasms, made him feel that his solitary journeying was in some mystical way accompanied by watching myriads with the same forward step and shadowy goal, it was rather a passing, a recurrent sensation.

But with the middle of spring came three months of storm and stress in the Virginia peninsula. He came out of the ranks by reason of some inscrutable opinion of him conceived and reported to authorities--something connected with an expedition through a swamp--was promoted because there were no other officers to speak of in the company when the army reached its new base at last on the James River.

He looked back curiously now to the tumult of those weeks, a period when he could not remember to have remembered himself, a long night of irrelevant dreams, the sense of identity lost in the dull confusion, himself going and coming, ordering and obeying, seeing difficulties and finding solutions with a set of surface faculties, the soul within him torpid, at least taciturn. The experience had left him with a sense of distaste and humiliation, with a certain troubled doubt. Was a man captain of himself, if he could be seized, stunned, drowned in circumstance, lost like a drop of water in a flood, rendered indistinct to his own consciousness from the flowing, pouring mass around him?

Gard did not suppose himself to be unique. He supposed other men had similar paths to walk in, pilgrim fashion; that every man owned merely himself and his destiny, his issue in the nature of things his own; that to every man there was but one great distinction, it lying between himself and what was not himself. In his own age, at least, he supposed it a growing tendency for men to look within their own souls for the infinite which they could not find without.

There was no doubt the peninsular campaign had been an experience affecting him profoundly. It had shown him what a pit of danger lay on the side of such absorption; that to plunge into affairs so intense, so physical, so powerful in their sweep and pull, was for the individualist numbing, miasmic, clouding the eye whose function should be to see one path clearly. It had given him a new sense and a certain dread of the strength of what lay on the other side of that distinction between himself and the not himself. It had left in him, he fancied, a kind of sediment, an element in respect to which it became illustrated that what a man has experienced is a part of him. It had made him perhaps more consciously watchful of his poise, his mental erectness and control. But the main result so far had been that sense of uncertainty and troubled doubt, as if he had lost the trail, as if much had grown dim that was once definite and guiding. Mavering's appearance seemed to suggest something, a clew or an omen. Jack, at least, was individual, nomadic, and distinct. He never let his surroundings grow into him.

Thursday, the day after the battle, the hills, woods, and fields were quiet except for stray picket shooting. The two armies could feel each other. Why they lay all day so near, so quiet, was no business of either's subordinate atoms. Gard felt that he but barely cared, if no more was asked of him and his remnant of thirty than to stay where they were. No doubt they also serve who wait. He could stretch in the sunlight, listen to Mavering's home despatches, choice, flowing, vehement, and supply him with technical language.

Farmers drove in on the road during the day, and distributed apples from their wagons, or peddled home-made bread. A number of them wore singular, broad-brimmed hats, smooth hair, long, and parted in the middle, shaven lips and long beards below, and some spoke broken English with an odd, German dialect. They were said to be the Dunkers of the squat-chimneyed church, now spotted with bullet-holes, one casement blown in. To Gard they seemed to illustrate grimly the shaping power of externals, these men whose mouths were set to the line of their wide hats, hair plastered smoothly to mark the even tenor of their peace. They called themselves "The Brethren." There was something in their faces at once a reminder of and a contrast to the faces he remembered in the Brotherhood of Consolation.

The camp-fires flickered once more at night against the black foliage.

Company B, in a new manner, admired its captain and the extraordinary correspondent, while they recited Brutus and Cassius with mellow mouthings, and after gave impromptu dialogues between a Dunker advocating the use of apples with Biblical extracts, and the general of division, explosive, impatient, dropping oaths like solid round shot. Other men left their own camp-fires and crowded the road. Some officers sat on the fence and applauded. The distant crack of the pickets' rifles was sometimes heard, stabbing blindly at the night. The stars were brilliant and the slim moon was in the south.

Friday morning it was rumored that the enemy had slipped away in the night, and gone across the Potomac again; that the general of division had been heard putting violent terms to the name of his chief for committing all the sins of omission which man could commit, seeing his aides' enjoyment of which language he had reddened and set his grim mouth. The fields beyond the wood, at least, were empty, and the village among the hills. One could walk abroad without being shot at from the bushes where those scarlet berries grew.

The crippled Third, with its odds and ends of companies, moved as far as the village, now turned a bustling hospital, and heard big guns booming again south of the Potomac. There it was that Mavering wrote that sketch of red death and amputation which his paper expurgated before publishing, to Mavering's disgust. "As fine a bit of realism as was ever done! And look at it, butchered to make a civilian holiday!" He read the first draft to Gard.

"I'll trade my job for yours, Jack."

"Quite the contrary"--Mavering altered an adjective in his copy--"you will not."

A messenger rode into the camp of the crippled Third with a led horse.

"Captain Windham?"

"Here."

"Order of ----; relieved indefinitely. Will take this horse--report at division headquarters," and the messenger clattered away. Mavering jumped to his feet.

"I'll trade you."

"Quite the contrary, you will not."

Mavering grumbled and went back to his copy.

"It's that elegant comedy last night. Poor boy! Ruined! Ruined!"

Gard rode down the road that led from the village to the creek. The centre of Wednesday's fight had been here, but the fighting must have been mainly on the wings. There were signs of heavy artillery work, but little else. Beyond the bridge was a large house on the hill, with a white picket fence around it. From the hill he could look up the winding creek, and see the bluffs, the sloped fields and ploughed ground of Wednesday's charges and retreats, the Dunker church against the woods. Some men in front of the house directed him to take the right fork of the road. The sun was low, the day-moon like a white scallop of cloud. He found the headquarters a half-mile beyond, a small brick house, distinguished by the number of saddled horses fastened at the fence, and within the general, a familiar figure enough, with his red face and white whiskers, a hot-tempered man and well beloved, now puffing a cigar and quite self-controlled.

"Captain Windham."

"Gentlemen!" cried the general, "will you allow me--I want to see this man," and they were presently alone.

The general leaned back and looked at Gard critically. He began:

"Captain Windham--mm--these theatrical performances by officers for the entertainment of privates--umm--this disgraceful mimicry of--mm--myself--this disrespect leading to insubordination--"

"I beg your pardon, sir. It was not intended--"

"I was about to say," thundered the general, "when you interrupted me, that I don't believe the commander-in-chief would approve. Personally. I'd have given something to be there. I have about me, I believe, another cigar. Sit down."

He spoke in a jerky way, coming down on selected words with emphasis.

"I have need of a particular kind of a man. It occurs to me you may be that kind--mm--a certain _variety_, perhaps, of talent. It's a bit of secret service. _Well_, now look here. It is this. The War Department wants private information about the actual effective _numbers_--if possible--and _condition_, of the enemy--at present. I will tell you more. The estimates that come to it from the commander-in-chief are--I quote the word--'_contradictory_.' It is _suspected_ that those estimates depend--I still quote--'on the _impression_ that gentleman wishes to make on the department or the public.' The suspicion may be wrong; or it may be that a change is going to be made in commanders; or, at _any rate_, 'before issuing a definite order to the present commander'--it needs information independent of the regular source. _Do_ you understand?"

"So far as you've gone, sir."

"Oh--mm--exactly. That's right. No doubt it is procuring other sources. That's no business of ours. I've been asked--_confidentially_--to furnish one source--mm--The impersonation of Dunker elders and generals of divisions implies--mm--also I know your record--mm--_Captain Windham_, I am at the present moment guilty of insubordination and treachery to my superior officer. I am also giving away what amounts perhaps to a state secret. I am doing so--for the reason--that your discretion must be relied on, anyway, and you cannot understand too clearly the point to be gained. This information must reach either _me_, or the _department_ directly--preferably the latter--and _no one else_. You see the point?"

"Yes, sir."

"Preferably the latter. I needn't be connected with it hereafter--would rather not be."

"I see."

"Very good. This information should be had as soon as possible. In case you have to send a _message_, this paper contains a code, simple enough. The meaning depends on the position of the words. You can apparently mean anything you choose. Learn, and destroy paper. So much for _that_. Your name will be known at the department. You are at your own disposition till the thing is done. There are no directions. Now--one moment--this map. Lee and Longstreet are probably here. Somebody is, anyway. Jackson is God knows where--possibly there. If so, he'll be somewhere else to-morrow. Here's your pass. Any questions?"

"No, sir."

"That's all, then. You may go--mm--Captain Windham--some time I should like to see the impersonation of a general of division in a state of excitement. Hem! hem! Good-day, sir."

Gard galloped through the little village in the dusk, looking for Mavering, and found the fields beyond empty. The brigade was gone, the Third gone with it.

"I can't chase after him all night," he thought, impatiently. "Why doesn't he stay where he'd be useful?"

He caught sight of a horse fastened to a maple-tree up the road.

Mavering lay on his back under the maple, smoking.

"Get up. Come along."

"This cigar is the worst--"

"Get on your horse. I want you."

"What do I care what you want? I was about to say, this cigar is the--"

"Throw it away, then."

Mavering unfolded his legs and mounted, grumbling.

"You're the blankedest, most egotistic anchorite that ever petted his soul, not to say dosed it allopathically with wars and red rebellions. One question: Is there any copy in this?"

"Not a word."

"Just what I thought. Wherever a man goes he finds selfishness."

They turned into the northern road, clattered past the cornfield and the church. Gard continued: "One of those Dunker farmers lives up here half a mile. I want his clothes, his expression, and his language, and his theology--the whole outfit."

"Going to steal his most intimate properties. Blanked immoral thing to do. All right, go on."

"About copy. Anything that goes south of the Potomac will be apt to mean a rope for me, and New York papers go south of the Potomac."

"Egotistic still, but perspicuous. I see."

"It's between me and you and the Dunker."

"And that's a pretty combination!"

"Not a sign, Jack."

"Not a misplaced comma, not an agitated phrase shall betray the mystery of this night. Now, then. Why?"

"Oh, you! You'll have to make me up."

"And the Dunker?"

"They're all anti-slavery and non-combatant. Besides, I picked an acquaintance with this one yesterday."

The small, plain, whitewashed house, with its whitewashed barn, stood close to the road and shining in the moonlit dusk. An elderly man, with smooth, gray hair falling to his collar, shaven lips, and spade-shaped beard, came to the door and stood there, mild, quiet, round-shouldered.

"Can we put up our horses here and pass the night?"

He nodded and turned back into the room without speaking, but left the door open.

They spent the evening talking with him, studying the while his outward make-up, his manner and language, critically. He had a certain gentle suggestiveness of his own, and before they parted for the night brought out a pair of saddle-bags and a large bundle of printed sheets.

"De is tracts," he said, gently, "of religion."

"Good," said Mavering. "An ungodly army, no doubt. Oh, I beg pardon!"

"De is not of de doctrine of the bruderen only. De is Christian."

"Oh, well, Captain Windham was bred a Catholic. He'll distribute them, and read some himself."

The quiet elder seemed to have taken a shy liking for Gard. He touched him softly on the back of the hand.

"I hope you are a good man. I hope you are not to die in what you do."

At daybreak they rode away westward, making a wide circuit of the village, Gard with his lips shaven, hair parted and plastered down, and wearing the gentle old brother's waistcoat that buttoned to the throat, his dingy black coat and wide-brimmed hat. His saddle was primitive, his bridle-bit rusty. Mavering's experienced eye judged that he looked his part. Even the whiteness of his lips, where the razor had gone, added to the impression of calm and austere withdrawal. Was it some lingering touch of the monastery? One does not live without result during the formative years, secluded between cool, white walls, among unworldly lives. Mavering called him "the anchorite," and swore the phrase still truthful.

A glimpse of the Potomac between the hills; a troop of Union cavalry breaking camp in a meadow; clank and rattle of side-arms; men gathering and packing kit; men sitting listlessly in their saddles; a mounted officer in the middle of the road, looking down towards the Potomac--large, square-shouldered, and massive. He turned in his saddle.

"Hold on here! Halt!"

Gard pulled up and looked at him under drooped eyelids.

Mavering pushed between.

"Without circumlocution, Captain Map, you're precisely what I'm looking for. Cavalry's the thing for a correspondent. I have an unsubstantial vision I used to know you in Hamilton."

"That's all right. Who's this?"

"Oh, that's a Dunker brother. Got some blanked tracts in his saddle-bags. Let me join you?"

"Is--is he?" His horse blocked the road aggressively. He kept his eyes on Gard.

"Well"--Mavering turned and surveyed the "make-up" critically, complacently--"I slept with him at his old man's last night. If a twenty-minute Dutch prayer is any proof, he's still in the faith of his fathers. I'm leaving you here, brother."

Gard nodded, rode into the ditch with a face conscientiously blank, mild, non-combatant, and passed the obstacle. Morgan watched him ambling leisurely away in the sunlight and the dust. Mavering waited some time.

"Look here, captain. Did I understand you laconically to insinuate I might accompany and chronicle your glories?"

Morgan wheeled his horse slowly.

"I guess so. Yes, you may."

The road went around a sandy hummock and disappeared. Gard did not look back. Beyond the strip of the Potomac the Virginia hills were blue and cool and peaceful.

Mavering meditated a disclosure. Still, whether Morgan had recognized Gard, or for a time had suspected it was he, or had only acted on constitutional aggressiveness, it did not seem likely in any case that he would chatter about the matter. He could hold his tongue without being warned. "It's none of my funeral." Gard had precisely stated what he wanted. Mavering remarked:

"That Dunker had a pass, if you'd asked for it--permit to scatter his tracts wherever he liked."

But Morgan did not comment. Mavering thought him likely to be dull company, and set himself to making other acquaintance and finding entertainment with experienced skill.

The troop filed out, formed loosely, and clattered south. It occurred to Mavering that they might overtake Gard. Down through the narrow valleys they came at length to the willow-fringed bank of the river, but he saw the broad-brimmed hat nowhere. It seemed to have vanished from the earth. Mavering concluded his connection with it over. New pastures of interest were before him. The nomad owns no real estate in any one else. His soul knows not title or tenure. He will be folding his tent at daybreak and leaving the night's oasis, and the sands drift over his footprints.