boy,’ said the General quietly, ‘you are the heart of the army. Think of that. You’re the heart of the army. Listen, now.’
And, lying there, Joby listened.
And the General spoke on.
If he, Joby, beat slow tomorrow, the heart would beat slow in the men. They would lag by the wayside. They would drowse in the fields on their muskets. They would sleep forever, after that, in those same fields, their hearts slowed by a drummer boy and stopped by enemy lead.
But if he beat a sure, steady, ever faster rhythm, then, then their knees would come up in a long line down over that hill, one knee after the other, like a wave on the ocean shore! Had he seen the ocean ever? Seen the waves rolling in like a well-ordered cavalry charge to the sand? Well, that was it, that’s what he wanted, that’s what was needed! Joby was his right hand and his left. He gave the orders, but Joby set the pace!
So bring the right knee up and the right foot out and the left knee up and the left foot out. One following the other in good time, in brisk time. Move the blood up the body and make the head proud and the spine stiff and the jaw resolute. Focus the eye and set the teeth, flare the nostrils and tighten the hands, put steel armor all over the men, for blood moving fast in them does indeed make men feel as if they’d put on steel. He must keep at it, at it! Long and steady, steady and long! Then, even though shot or torn, those wounds got in hot blood – in blood he’d helped stir – would feel less pain. If their blood was cold, it would be more than slaughter, it would be murderous nightmare and pain best not told and no one to guess.
The General spoke and stopped, letting his breath slack off. Then, after a moment, he said, ‘So there you are, that’s it. Will you do that, boy? Do you know now you’re general of the army when the General’s left behind?’
The boy nodded mutely.
‘You’ll run them through for me then, boy?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good. And, God willing, many nights from tonight, many years from now, when you’re as old or far much older than me, when they ask you what you did in this awful time, you will tell them – one part humble and one part proud—“I was the drummer boy at the battle of Owl Creek,” or the Tennessee River, or maybe they’ll just name it after the church there. “I was the drummer boy at Shiloh.” Good grief, that has a beat and sound to it fitting for Mr Longfellow. “I was the drummer boy at Shiloh.” Who will ever hear those words and not know you, boy, or what you thought this night, or what you’ll think tomorrow or the next day when we must get up on our legs and move?’
The General stood up. ‘Well, then. God bless you, boy. Good night.’
‘Good night, sir.’
And, tobacco, brass, boot polish, salt sweat and leather, the man moved away through the grass.
Joby lay for a moment, staring but unable to see where the man had gone.
He swallowed. He wiped his eyes. He cleared his throat. He settled himself. Then, at last, very slowly and firmly, he turned the drum so that it faced up toward the sky.
He lay next to it, his arm around it, feeling the tremor, the touch, the muted thunder as, all the rest of the April night in the year 1862, near the Tennessee River, not far from the Owl Creek, very close to the church named Shiloh, the peach blossoms fell on the drum.
The Beggar on O’Connell Bridge
‘A fool,’ I said. ‘That’s what I am.’
‘Why?’ asked my wife. ‘What for?’
I brooded by our third-floor hotel window. On the Dublin street below, a man passed, his face to the lamplight.
‘Him,’ I muttered. ‘Two days ago …’
Two days ago, as I was walking along, someone had hissed at me from the hotel alley. ‘Sir, it’s important! Sir!’
I turned into the shadow. This little man, in the direst tones, said, ‘I’ve a job in Belfast if I just had a pound for the train fare!’
I hesitated.
‘A most important job!’ he went on swiftly. ‘Pays well! I’ll – I’ll mail you back the loan! Just give me your name and hotel.’
He knew me for a tourist. It was too late, his promise to pay had moved me. The pound note crackled in my hand, being worked free from several others.
The man’s eye skimmed like a shadowing hawk.
‘And if I had two pounds, why, I could eat on the way.’
I uncrumpled two bills.
‘And three pounds would bring the wife, not leave her here alone.’
I unleafed a third.
‘Ah, hell!’ cried the man. ‘Five, just five poor pounds, would find us a hotel in that brutal city, and let me get to the job, for sure!’
What a dancing fighter he was, light on his toes, in and out, weaving, tapping with his hands, flicking with his eyes, smiling with his mouth, jabbing with his tongue.
‘Lord thank you, bless you, sir!’
He ran, my five pounds with him.
I was half in the hotel before I realized that, for all his vows, he had not recorded my name.
‘Gah!’ I cried then.
‘Gah!’ I cried now, my wife behind me, at the window.
For there, passing below, was the very fellow who should have been in Belfast two nights ago.
‘Oh, I know him,’ said my wife. ‘He stopped me this noon. Wanted train fare to Galway.’
‘Did you give it to him?’
‘No,’ said my wife simply.
Then the worst thing happened. The demon far down on the sidewalk glanced up, saw us and damn if he didn’t wave!
I had to stop myself from waving back. A sickly grin played on my lips.
‘It’s got so I hate to leave the hotel,’ I said.
‘It’s cold out, all right.’ My wife was putting on her coat.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Not the cold. Them.’
And we looked again from the window.
There was the cobbled Dublin street with the night wind blowing in a fine soot along one way to Trinity College, another to St. Stephen’s Green. Across by the sweetshop two men stood mummified in the shadows. On the corner a single man, hands deep in his pockets, felt for his entombed bones, a muzzle of ice for a beard. Farther up, in a doorway, was a bundle
