Stringbean

Writer's Cramp Entry for May 18, 2010

W/C:  914

Stringbean

“Stringbean, you think you can get up there?”  The LT was looking at me and pointing to a rocky outcropping we could see along the ridgeline above us.

I shrugged my shoulders.  I could probably get up there, but what was the point?

“Listen up soldier,” The LT said getting my attention.  “I want you to climb up there and see if you can see the road.  It should be just on the other side of this ridge.”

We were hunkered down in a hollow just a few hundred yards from the road, but this ridgeline was between the road and our position, shielding us from detection.  For the last five days we had moved only by night and holed up each day.

I left my rifle and necessities bag below the ridge so I could climb with both hands.  It was steep, but eventually I came over the crest, and just like the LT said I could see the pike cutting through the valley in front of me.  I could see the road in four or five different places and at first it looked deserted.  Then I saw movement along the road.  All at once the road came alive in multiple places and everywhere I looked I could see soldiers.  They were all moving south, and all wearing blue.

Well this sure ain't good. I thought.  Better tell the LT

I studied the road for a few minutes, and then slithered back off the face.  I looked down to where I knew the LT and the others were waiting, but I could see nothing but forest.  I came back to the large hickory tree where I had stashed my rifle and picked it up.

“Now how about you just ease that rifle back down.”

I looked up and saw a blue belly with sergeant’s stripes pointing a rifle at me.  I snapped the hammer back on my own rifle and pointed it at him fast as a rattler, but when I pulled the trigger and the hammer fell there was nothing but an empty click of metal.

The Yankee was laughing now.  “I already removed your cap boy, now do as I saw and put that rifle down.”

Up until that very moment I had honestly believed I would get home alive.  Despite all we had seen and done, despite the sickness, despite the hiding we had done since Harrison and I joined the LT and abandoned our positions at Petersburg five days before, despite it all I had believed I would make it home.  Now I knew, I knew I would die there on some nameless hill.  I wasn’t even sure which state I was in, only that I was going to die.

We didn’t have bayonets on our rifles like the Yankee’s did, but knew I could use the butt end to wallop somebody pretty good and never hesitated.  I ran at the blue belly sergeant as fast as I could.  I knew he was going to shoot me dead but that was ok.  If by some chance he missed I was going to bash his brains in.

I never made it.  Before I was half way to him someone else came up on my right and knocked me down.  I saw a flicker of movement there before they hit me, but I had no idea that would happen.   Then I was kicked by someone else on my left.  My rifle was gone and I tried to grab the knife on my belt, but someone else kicked me backwards and another foot came down on my chest.  The last thing saw was that Yankee sergeant’s face as he kicked me in the head.  Then the world went black.

--------------------------------------------------

I could hear my mama’s voice calling me to breakfast.  It was like a dream, but I could smell bacon frying.  I opened my eyes.

It was a dream, but looking up I could see Harrison smiling at me with those missing front teeth.

“You awake stringbean?” he asked.

I moaned quietly.  My head ached and my entire body screamed at me to stay still.

“Them Yankee boys did a number on you, but you’re going to be alright.”

This does not feel alright I thought to myself.

I looked at Harrison.

“What are you grinning about?” I finally asked.

“Don’t you get it boy?  The Yankees got us.”

“And that is supposed to be good news?”

“Stringbean, if our own boys had caught us we would have been enrolled in another unit.  Either that or shot as deserters, but the Yankees got us.  The war is got to be about over.  Our war is for sure; no more fighting.  It’s just a matter of time now.  We are going home.  We are going to make it.”

I let the thought of that sink in a little.  Just a few hours before the truth that I was going to die had washed over me like an epiphany, but now I was alive.

I sat up and looked around.  The bacon I had smelled was cooking on a nearby fire.  That smell was mixed with the stench of sweat and waste that made up any camp.  The LT was there, and so were the other guys who had come with us from Petersburg.  So many friends from the last few years were gone, but some, some like me had made it.

I lay back down, closed my eyes, and dreamed of home.