Hell or Richmond by Ralph Peters Read Free Book Online Page A

stoop, would rankle him until his dying day.
    If Boston’s self-congratulation had become odious, he had not found a home in uniform, either. Having turned his back on those who spoke ad infinitum without acting, he now found himself among active men incapable of speech. He never had a proper conversation. Except with Arabella, when she visited.
    His smirk was his armor; he wore it as his custom. He found the human species absurdly limited. No doubt that rogue of an Englishman was right and they were all descended from apes. Although the proposition seemed hard on the monkeys.
    He sat down in the camp chair Hancock’s bulk had threatened to crumple. About to call for his orderly to help him with his boots, he decided that he preferred to extend his solitude. Carefully, he worked the boots off himself and felt, simultaneously, the relief of cool air on his damp wool stockings and the attack of the infernal itching that wouldn’t leave him.
    Rolling off the stockings, he examined the peeling, flaking skin that led down to his toes. It was a wretched business. He’d seen doctors. Their succession of salves seemed to help for a time, as did the salt baths mixed like alchemist’s potions. But the damnable itch always, always returned. One ass of a doctor in New York had prescribed a summer at Newport, where Barlow could go barefoot and bathe his feet in the sea each morning and evening.
    Barlow did not doubt that his feet would get wet as the weather warmed. But it was going to be from the mud of Virginia’s swamps, not the great salt ocean.
    “Orderly!” he bellowed. “Orderly!”
    The man appeared at the double-quick. He was new at the work, a replacement, and wonderfully terrified.
    “Bring me a bucket of water.”
    “Hot water, sir?”
    “Cold.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    The corporal eyed Barlow’s exposed feet, and Barlow caught it.
    “Sir … if you don’t mind my saying…”
    “I do mind, Corporal.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Barlow believed that Hancock had it wrong. Whether or not this was the Prussian army—and it damned well wasn’t, more’s the pity—he believed that Frederick had been absolutely correct that the men should fear their officers more than the enemy. Look at the rabble they were putting in uniform these days. Oh, the old veterans were fine. He still loved to visit the men of the 61st, his first real regiment, down in Miles’ brigade. But the drafted lot, and the Irish, the bounty-jumpers. They hadn’t the mettle. The gaps in his division had been filled with the scum of the earth, he didn’t see how a sane person could deny it, and the only way to get such men to face the bayonets to their front was to place even sharper bayonets at their backs. And the only thing worse than a cowardly soldier was a cowardly officer.
    Barlow had never quite understood the importance men attached to their puny lives. Certainly, he preferred life to death. That was ordained. But evaluated by a man of sense, life wasn’t to be taken all that seriously. As far as commodities went, human lives sold cheap. The politicians could spout their praises of the common citizen, but many a man wasn’t worth the food he stuffed in his maw at dinner.
    He just could not understand the fear men felt on the verge of battle or in its midst. There was nothing on earth more exhilarating. Certainly, it was an incalculably greater thrill than intimate association with a woman, an enterprise much overpraised by poets. Of the many causes for his appreciation of his wife, not least was Arabella’s sense of proportion.
    The orderly returned, announcing himself before entering the tent. The bucket the man carried was sloshing full.
    “Your pardon, sir, but Colonel Miles is trotting up the way.”
    “Put down the bucket. Outside, put it outside, man. And come back here.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Sentenced to suffer, Barlow drew on his stockings again.
    The corporal stepped back under the canvas. He looked at Barlow’s now clad feet.