On Secret Service (11 page)

How delicious it was, the impersonation. Far more pleasant than prancing about the stage in Cesario's tights and struggling to remember the Bard's lines during three awful performances, each more foul than the last thanks to Zephira Comfort's chewing the scenery.

She chose Thursday because the whole city was mad with patriotism; soldiers everywhere. Hundreds of flags hung out in a show of loyalty. Artillery batteries across the river and behind the city pounded the sky with salutes. Citizens threw streamers and dodged firecrackers tossed from balconies. Twenty thousand New York troops paraded on the Avenue, just a fraction of those quartered in and around Washington.

Soldiers not employed in martial displays loafed in the tents that covered every square yard of open space, or they wandered drunkenly, accosting strangers for money to get even drunker. The public was elated by news from western Virginia. A brave young general named McClellan, a true star of the West, was marching and countermarching to drive the rebels back over the Alleghenies. So far the North had experienced no significant battlefield losses; the capital was primed to celebrate. Hanna wondered what Margaret would do when the sun went down, the public squares blazed with Chinese lanterns, and the soldiers shot off fireworks all night long.

Uniforms of the regulars and the three-month militiamen who would soon go home were a hodgepodge of color and design. With Derek's permission, Hanna rooted in the drama society's costume trunks and assembled an outfit of gray harem pantaloons—passable as Zouave trousers—a navy blue jacket with tarnished buttons and worn gold piping, cheap Massachusetts-made shoes that fit either foot, and a gray cap with an embroidered design on top, left over from a French comedy. To this she added a havelock obtained from a friend who, along with other ladies of her church, was sewing them relentlessly for the Army. Hanna spent half the night of July 3 picking the embroidered fleur-de-lis off the cap, polishing the buttons, trimming the rattiest threads from the piping. The havelock, heavy white drill pinned into the cap to protect a soldier's neck from sunburn, was an import from the British Army in India.

While President Lincoln, General Scott, the cabinet, and senior Army staff reviewed the Pennsylvania Avenue parade, Hanna walked confidently toward the Long Bridge. Her stomach was fluttering and had been ever since she stole out of the house while the major snored. Stage fright was useful. Properly controlled, it lent an edge that improved a performance. She had pinned her chopped hair inside her cap, tugged the bill low over her eyes, and smeared dirt on one cheek. A two-cent cigar, purchased at a shop by means of a lot of grunting and pointing, hung from her teeth. She'd smoked half the cigar in an alley, choking the whole time. Anything for art. She hoped the unlit cigar stub enhanced the illusion of maleness.

Friendly soldiers greeted her on the approaches to the Long Bridge. Her response was the same each time: “Yo.”

The planks of the bustling bridge were smeared with the droppings of cavalry horses jogging back and forth from the city. The homes and shops of Arlington showed appropriate Union flags, limp and hazy in the ripening heat. Perspiration soaked Hanna's underclothes. The havelock was too heavy and scratchy. Surely the three-month men would be happy to see the last of their improvised uniforms. The major said the War Department was alarmed by the number of men whose enlistments expired in July, when a great battle was expected.

As she passed around two inbound sutler wagons, great canvas-topped freighters driven by men who foully cursed the foot traffic, Hanna realized someone had fallen in step beside her. If she didn't speak, he'd be suspicious. She turned her head an inch or so.

“Yo.”

The man wore a blue flannel shirt with an inverted U of buttons on the front, gray trousers with a blue stripe, a neckerchief and fatigue cap. His russet beard was long and thick. “Where you headed, soldier?”

“Yonder. Arlington.” Hanna pitched her voice low; chewed the slimy cigar.

“McDowell's at Arlington House, y'know. I mean not today, but it's his headquarters.”

“Yup. Goin' to see it.”

“My name's Cole. Reliance Cole. First Rhode Island. They finally moved us out of that damn Patent Office to some swell's estate north of town.” Hanna nodded and made small noises to signal interest. “What's your name?”

She blurted, “Smith.” Realizing the inadequacy, she tacked on, “Bethlehem Smith.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance. What's your unit?”

She'd anticipated that one. “Eleventh Indiana.”

“Didn't know there were Westerners here.”

Hanna nodded again. She hadn't visited a privy since early morning. Pressure was building. Cole chuckled. “Hanged if you look old enough to soldier, Bethlehem. You started to shave yet?”

She rubbed her dirty cheek. “Beard never shows. Fair skin.”

“Fair to invisible.” Cole laughed. They left the Long Bridge, and the guard posts where bored men stared sullenly at those off duty. “Up ahead there's a good Union tavern. Better'n the Marshall House in Alexandria where Ellsworth bought the farm. 'Least they killed the cowardly innkeeper who shot him. 'Spect I can stand a beer in this heat. You?”

“Oh, no, I don't think—”

“Sure you can, c'mon.” Cole wrapped a thick arm around Hanna and squeezed.

A hundred yards along the rutted road, the tavern he'd pointed out had a good crowd of soldiers and civilians, some lounging outside with glasses and tankards. As they strolled up, Cole pulled at his crotch. “Gents, where's the shitter?”

“Trench, out back.”

“Got a bellyache,” Cole told Hanna as he started away. “Figger it's the bad water. Need to piss?”

“No, no, I'll wait here.” The pressure had increased; she was suffering. She rested against the tavern's painted siding, sweat in her eyes, heart beating unnaturally fast. This was the hardest role she'd ever played. In broad daylight too. She felt proud of herself, but anxious. The day was far from over.

Cole reappeared, buttoning up. “Let's have that cooler.”

They marched into the smoky taproom. Cole ordered two glasses of lager. Hanna was too full for beer but she sipped it to soothe her nerves. Cole delivered himself of opinions on the President's unattractive phiz, possible diseases carried by whores he'd plunked in the District, the beauties of summer at Little Compton, Rhode Island, which he sure-God hated to be missing. Hanna drank a quarter of her beer in the time it took him to consume two glasses. The beer made her feel better, although the pressure to relieve herself was almost intolerable.

“Let's see Arlington,” Cole said, and away they tramped, to the sloping green lawns crowned by the white-columned house where Lee and his family had lived until, as Cole put it, “he sold out the country what educated and trusted him.” Guards stood outside four large tents in front of the mansion, headquarters flags flying above them.

After they had their fill of gazing at McDowell's headquarters, Cole said, “Heard there's a pretty fine cathouse 'bout a mile or so on. Want to go?”

“Nah. Have to get back to camp.”

Cole fingered his russet beard. “Bethlehem, you're the oddest soldier I ever seen in my twenty-five years. Sounds like you'd sing soprano in church choir.”

“Tenor.”

“Got no beard, got a voice like a piping bird—” Rooted to the earth, Hanna waited for certain exposure. Cole farted loudly, pulled his pants away from his seat, and shrugged. “Reckon an Army takes all kinds. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.” He offered a hand.

Hanna had to shake. Cole said, “What do y'do out in Indiana? Them soft hands sure don't work a plow.”

“Music teacher. Piano and singing.”

“Shoulda guessed. Tenor in the choir. It does take all kinds,” he repeated as though it were heavy philosophy. Hanna's bladder was ready to burst. She gave a little salute, about-faced, and marched hurriedly in the direction of the bridge. She hadn't gone forty steps before she darted into an airless lane between small houses with gardens already parched by summer heat. Frantically she hunted for an outhouse. Then it was too late.

She leaned against a toolshed, making a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. This was the strangest but most exhilarating day she'd ever spent. She could say that even with her pants wet.

She loitered in the lane until the spot began to dry, then set out again, feeling vastly better. Despite the hot wool, the shameful dampness, the way she'd nearly died a dozen times as Cole fired questions, she was excited and proud of herself. A rush of sensation that was almost sexual buoyed her all the way back to the Northern Liberties.

She slipped into the silent house and changed clothes as the sun was going down. She tied on a faded but feminine apron and pondered her next goal. A battlefield, in or at least near the fighting…

She tidied the house, straightening the broken and mismatched furniture as though it were actually worth something. She hummed as she worked. She was still humming when the major booted the front door open shortly after dark. He smelled of cigars; better ones, no doubt, than the weed she'd chewed on all day.

Siegel never paid attention to where he discarded his clothes. Hanna picked up his cape. He said, “You smile sweet like that when you've been playacting.”

“Yes, I was playacting today. I was very good too.”

“I don't understand playacting on a holiday.”

“Derek's a taskmaster. Have you eaten supper?”

“Stopped at the National with some fellows from the department. Some of the regular waiters are joining the Army. The hotel is replacing them with
Negerin.
It's a disgrace, having colored men handle a white man's food.” He shook his head at the seriousness of it.

“Papa, isn't the National Hotel terribly expensive?”

“So we're on short rations for a week. They pay me a serf's wage but I won't live like one. Got to keep up appearances until I can do better.”

In the kitchen Hanna found a crust of bread spotted with mold. She picked off the mold and chewed the bread, struggling to recapture the ecstatic feelings of the afternoon.

On July 6, a Saturday, Margaret carried a message to Dr. Whyville. The following Tuesday she carried another. Each delivery consisted of a sealed oilskin packet no larger than a silver half-dollar. The thickness suggested a sheet of paper folded small. Rose handed the packets to Margaret with cautionary words about their importance.

On her trips to the doctor's house, Margaret was struck by the atmosphere of the city. Yes, Washington was crowded with strangers, tents everywhere, wagons tying up traffic, provisions and materiel piling up on the Potomac wharves where small schooners and steam-driven vessels docked and departed all day and all night. Work crews pulled insulated wire from huge wooden reels, stringing telegraph lines to government buildings, the bridges, the camps across the river. Merchants from out of town rented empty stores and kept late hours offering everything from poultry to photographic portraits. War had brought sudden prosperity, but there was more to it. Washington exuded confidence; a certainty that the first great battle of the war would be the last one.

Newspapers blandly declared that Irvin McDowell would advance to Fairfax Court House by mid-month. Broadsides and posters trumpeted editor Horace Greeley's cry of “Forward to Richmond!” The new Confederate congress was scheduled to convene there on July 20. Loyal Unionists expected the South to be crushed on the battlefield by that date or soon after.

At half past seven in the morning on Friday, July 12, a white boy brought an urgent note to Franklin Square. Margaret arrived at Rose's shortly after eight, wearing a cool dress of white linen lawn and a floppy straw hat.

“Dr. Whyville is incapacitated,” Rose said. “Typhoid fever. This must be carried down the doctor's line before the day's over. Will you take it? There's no one else.”

“Of course I will.”

“Let me show you how important it is.” Rose reached behind a row of books and brought out a map drawn in black ink. Margaret recognized the curving Potomac and the area around Washington. Black circles without labels indicated Virginia towns. A line of red dots ran from cross-hatching that represented the city down to a small Maltese cross. Rose touched the cross.

“This is Manassas Junction, where the Orange and Alexandria joins the Manassas Gap line to Winchester.” Beauregard's army was reportedly assembling there.

“And here”—the red dots—“this is the probable route McDowell will follow to move his five divisions into battle.”

Little Rose poked her head into the library, whining for candy. Her mother stamped her foot. “Not at this hour. Get out of here.” The child recognized the stress in her mother's voice and vanished.

Margaret said, “Is the map reliable?”

Rose smiled. “As reliable as any copied from the original at the War Department.” Margaret's pulse quickened with excitement. Had Rose gotten the map through Senator Wilson? Was he betraying his government in return for her favors? She knew better than to ask.

“This piece of information is second in importance only to definite word of the day and hour that McDowell will move on Manassas. I'm working to learn that. Meantime, this must be rushed to our friends.”

Margaret's assignment required a buggy ride to a Maryland hamlet called Surrattsville, roughly ten miles south of the Potomac's East Branch. “A half mile beyond the tavern there's a dead hollow tree of some size. It's on the left as you approach. On the side away from the road you'll find a hole about three feet above the ground. Leave the map there. One of Dr. Whyville's colleagues will retrieve it and take it further.”

“How should I carry it?”

“Come to the dressing room.”

Margaret sat with hands in her lap as Rose carefully folded the map inside one of the small oilskin packets. She lifted Margaret's hair in back and pinned it up, concealing the packet. With her hands on her hips, Rose studied her work.

“All secure. On your way, then.”

“I have a pistol at home. Should I get it?”

“No time. You must leave now.” Rose kissed and hugged her, and within an hour Margaret was across the East Branch into Maryland, jogging her buggy around farmers' carts coming to the city with melons and cabbages and potatoes. The fields and woods shimmered in the heat. The buggy horse raised dust from the winding road; Margaret's face and hands were powdered with it.

As she saw no one but residents of the bucolic countryside, her tension began to ease. She was congratulating herself on an uneventful trip when she heard a horseman. The pale blue ribbons trailing from her hat were sometimes called follow-me ribbons; the term was damnably appropriate.

She peered behind, wondering whether she'd heard two horses. She saw only one, ridden by a blue-clad soldier. Her first impulse was to whip up the buggy horse and race off, but that would only make her suspect. The rider broke into a trot and quickly drew up beside her. He raised his gauntlet to signal her to pull off the road.

The man was older, spindly, with homely features. He wore a holstered revolver and carried a shotgun in a saddle scabbard. He touched three fingers to his hat and she thought,
Polite. Old-fashioned.

“Greetings, ma'am. Snell's the name. Washington provost guard.”

“Aren't you far from your jurisdiction, Sergeant? I thought the provost guard only policed the District.”

“In wartime, ma'am, everything is our jurisdiction.” Margaret felt a trickle of perspiration on the nape of her neck below the hidden packet.

“What is it you want? I'm in a hurry.”

“Ma'am, I don't mean to be offensive. This is my duty. There's reason to believe you're carrying a piece of confidential information.”

“How did you come by that ridiculous conclusion?”

“We did, that's all. We expect the information is hidden somewhere on your person.”

“What do you propose to do? Lay hands on me to find it?”

“Ma'am, I really don't want to do that. But I'm required.”

“I've never heard anything so vile and uncivilized.” She hoped her glance and her tone were sufficiently fiery.

He mumbled his answer. “Sorry, ma'am. It's orders.”

Heart thumping so hard she fancied he must hear it, she pulled off her sun hat and laid it beside her. She patted the back of her head, loosening a pin. “Please avert your head while I climb down.”

Inviting him to look away, she suspected he wouldn't. She raised her skirts to show a few inches of ankle, calf, and stocking as she descended to the ground using the buggy step. Snell's face was blazing red. She snapped at him. “Sergeant, I ask you again—will you kindly look away?”

This time he did. Turning so her right side was hidden, she snatched the packet as she shook out her hair. She tossed the packet into weeds on the road shoulder. “You may conduct your business.”

Still flustered, Snell said, “I'd like to find some shelter. Where you wouldn't be embarrassed.”

“Embarrassed? I'm furious. If you insist on this unspeakable behavior, you might as well search me in front of God and everybody. I hope people come along to see how the Yankees make war on women.”

Snell dismounted, hesitating. “Hurry up, Sergeant. I haven't got forever.”

He blushed again. “Ma'am—I can't. I can't lay hands on a gentlewoman.”

“You have more breeding than I thought. Am I free to travel on?”

“Yes, ma'am, I guess you are.”

She took her seat in the buggy, making sure to give him another glimpse of leg. In adolescence, her female friends had criticized her for being too forward, too open with men. Those qualities had saved her from Sergeant Snell. There were advantages to being a woman of modern temperament.

As she took up the reins, Snell walked his horse to the other side of the road. She was startled to glimpse a mounted man half hidden by the branches of an enormous willow. When Snell lifted branches to ride underneath, Margaret clearly saw a second horseman wearing a white duster and a planter's hat that shaded his face. The willow branches settled, hiding both men.

She raced the buggy to Surratt's ramshackle tavern and stopped there to collect herself. A young man introduced himself as the owner's son. He apologized for the crudeness of the establishment. It was mostly for men. Would she take coffee and a bowl of Mrs. Surratt's barley soup if he pulled a table to the porch? She would.

When she finished, she drove back to the spot where Snell had confronted her. The road was empty, the packet easily found in the weeds. Turning south again, she reached the hollow tree with no difficulty.

A farmer and a barking collie appeared, herding some sheep in the direction of Washington. From the buggy parked in the shade, Margaret gave him a polite smile. He touched his forehead shyly and didn't speak. When he was gone, she looked around. She saw nothing more threatening than a distant barn. She walked behind the tree, dropped the packet in the hole. Traveling north again, she passed the herder and his bleating flock.

She let the weary buggy horse walk awhile. Heat blurred the landscape with a whitish haze. She felt better. She'd played the game and won. She began to sing softly to herself. Moments later she realized the song was “Dixie.”

 

On Wednesday, the seventeenth, Rose called her trusted ladies and gentlemen together for tea. Rose's color was high. She wore a burgundy gown with a daring neckline that showed cleavage. Mourning was definitely over.

“I have news,” she announced. “Our friend Thomas Rayford won't be with us in the future. He's gone to join General Beauregard's staff, under his rightful name. He served us splendidly by setting up our codes and courier lines.”

Rose smoothed her skirt. In the hall, little Rose was whistling and marching. “Mr. Donellan is also absent. He came over from Virginia on Monday evening and returned the same night with the most important message thus far sent from this house. Nine words.” She stretched the moment. “‘Order issued for McDowell to march upon Manassas tonight.' A friend at the Capitol has verified that McDowell is already in or near Fairfax Court House, but General Beauregard had the news in advance.”

Bettie Duvall sighed. “Oh, how fine.” Mr. Butler, the china dealer, applauded and asked how Rose got the information.

“It's best if that remains confidential.”

Little Rose ran in and thrust herself in front of her mother. “Mama, does that mean the Yankees will be killed?”

Rose laughed. “Yes, if all goes well for our side, that's what it means.”

“Hooray.” Little Rose turned a cartwheel that nearly toppled a Chinese jar from its pedestal.

 

During the next three days, Washington lived on signs and rumors. Smoke columns rising in Virginia came from campfires, houses put to the torch, or artillery, depending on your informant. On Friday, the butcher from whom Margaret bought meat said there was “desperate fighting,” though when pressed, he was vague about details.

In the afternoon, when Margaret continued her shopping for household necessities, she learned that the whole town expected the great battle to be fought on Sunday. In the Willard, where she ate an early supper, the catering desk was besieged by gentlemen ordering picnic baskets. She asked her waiter about it.

“Why, ma'am, they're going to drive out and watch McDowell whip the rebs. You can't find a rig or a saddle horse for rent at any price.” Margaret thought the idea of having a picnic while men slaughtered each other was bizarre. Death was inevitable in wartime, but she saw no reason to enjoy it as a spectator.

Throughout Saturday the city remained quiet except for a faint and far-off rumble of heavy guns. She woke on Sunday hearing the rumbling again, louder this time.

She was too restless to stay home. Her bed unmade, her breakfast coffee grounds still in the pot, she dressed and hurried to the Avenue. During the morning and into the afternoon she wandered among thousands of others awaiting news. At the newspaper offices, chalkboards used for bulletins remained blank. Occasionally a rumor flashed through the crowd. McDowell was victorious. No, he was beaten, his Army in wild retreat to Centreville. No, to Fairfax. No, the Potomac. As the sun went down, she was still drifting in the sea of men and women, all curiously subdued. If McDowell had won, wouldn't news have reached them?

She walked to the War Department, hoping she might learn something. Every window in the building was alight. She heard a great hollo on the Avenue, ran with others to see a bedraggled couple in a barouche surrounded and unable to move. The woman's face was pale with fear. In her lap she held a picnic hamper with its lid gone. Questions were shouted. The man shouted answers:

“Joe Johnston's Army came in on the Shenandoah railroad to reinforce Beauregard. Our troops broke and ran. The roads are swarming with cowards trying to save themselves. People had their carriages wrecked or stolen. We were lucky to get through.”

Someone cried, “Hurrah for Beauregard, hurrah for Jeff Davis!” With oaths and yells, others leaped on the man, beat him to the ground, and kicked him.