Andersonville by Edward M. Erdelac Read Free Book Online Page B

respectable single field tent set into a dugout at the center, where he stooped and called inside: “New man here to see the major!”
    “Enter,” croaked a voice.
    Barclay thanked Callixtus, lifted the flap, and ducked inside.
    The sunken shelter was cool compared with the heat of the June sun outside, but there was a subtle raw stink of metal and sickness, of blood and death.
    Major Bruegel was sitting on the floor against the earthen wall of the shebang, one hand tucked into his unbuttoned filthy officer’s tunic, the sleeve dark with blood. He was no more than twenty-four or so, very pale, with darkly ringed eyes and a handsome blond mustache that although meticulously waxed and styled had begun to smear down his pickled face with stray hairs. His hair was combed and oiled neatly, and his blue eyes shone in glassy red-cracked seas as though peering across the dimness at him from beneath the surface of a murky pond. He straightened at Barclay’s entrance, though it appeared to take much effort just to keep his posture aright. There was a dark wound just below his left knee that stank of gangrene.
    Bruegel managed a thin smile when Barclay saluted and weakly returned the gesture.
    There was a gentlemanliness to the young man, a civility despite his ravaged state. Barclay had seen older, harder men cry and bemoan their approaching death. Bruegel was maintaining his professionalism to such a degree in the face of his impending fate that Barclay felt, maybe foolishly, he owed it to the younger man not to lie to him, at least not entirely.
    “Barclay Lourdes, sir,” said Barclay. “44th Colored.”
    “Major Archimedes Bruegel, 12th Colored. Welcome to Camp Sumter, Lourdes,” Bruegel said. There was a bit of a southern twang to his speech, which surprised Barclay.
    “Sir, there’s something familiar about your name,” Barclay said.
    “I get that all the time. My father makes Bruegel’s Hair Tonic,” he said, smiling as he stroked his curled mustache. “That’s how I keep myself so impeccably well groomed. Pa always kept me well supplied with the stuff.”
    Barclay grinned. He liked Bruegel.
    “Well, at any rate, as you can see, I’m somewhat incapacitated, but if there are any questions you have concerning your incarceration, I can certainly do my best to answer them or direct you to the right parties if you need anything.”
    Barclay peered at Bruegel, listening to the ragged breath rattling in his lungs.
    “You should be in the hospital, sir,” Barcay said, forgetting his affect altogether as he leaned in and inspected the wound in the major’s stomach, wrinkling his nose at the smell coming from it.
    “Well, our captors have refused me a place there,” said Bruegel, “though by the quality of the amputations I’ve seen, perhaps I’m better off.”
    Barclay pursed his lips and shook his head.
    “I don’t think so, sir.”
    “I know I am pretty well done for, Lourdes, but I’m not suffering as much as some. You know, there was a man in my command. A fellow named Partridge. The bravest man I ever saw, black or white. He had personally shot so many Rebels that when he was taken, they took his ears off as souvenirs and shot him through both his knees. They would have killed him if I hadn’t stepped in. That was how I got my wound. It was his coup de grâce. I was a fool not to have let them kill him. He could do no more than flop around like a catfish on the bank. They wouldn’t treat his wounds, either, and he succumbed not long after, in much pain.”
    Barclay’s eyes went to the rotten wound in his knee.
    “Oh, that?” said Bruegel. “An even more ignominious wound, I’m afraid. When the train stopped at a water tower between Macon and Andersonville, a Rebel captain learned I was inside and emptied his revolver into the car. He was a poor shot. Only caught me the once.”
    “Haven’t you written any letters of protest?”
    “I have, as have some of the men,” Bruegel said, shrugging