For the people of America
We’re marching in the van
And will do the work before us
If the bravest sailors can
We will drive the despot’s forces
From their strongholds to the sea
And will live and die together
In the Army of the Free—
It is a yankee war song, of course, but Harry can feel the audience downstairs loosen to it as they hear the altered lyrics. Who does not want to be a part of the Army of the Free? A few of the colored sports in the balcony are singing along, and it is a stirring moment. As he sings, the tenor exchanges his navy jacket for a torn shirt and places a battered sombrero on his head, climbing from deck to floor on a rope ladder. His Captain sings the final verse alone, an audible gasp of amazement from the audience as the massive white hull of the Maine suddenly melts into a green and brown tangle of jungle—
We will shield our steadfast brothers
Neath the Flag of Liberty
And will live and die together
In the Army of the Free!
The tenor swings a machete and walks in place as the jungle behind him moves in the opposite direction, creating the illusion of travel, the pianist creeping along suspensefully on the bass keys.
A shot rings out, the tenor beginning to run in place as the orchestra leaps into a breakneck snatch of the overture from Rossini’s William Tell, the bows seeming to ricochet off the strings, a stirring, galloping chase motif as two Spanish sentries appear from the wings in pursuit. The jungle behind is nearly a blur now and Harry realizes it must be some manner of diapositive projection that can be twirled at varying speeds, operated behind the translucent hull of the “ship.” One of the Spaniards raises his rifle and fires again and the tenor, wounded in the leg, drops to the ground.
The jungle scenery jerks to a halt, the sentries catching up to take Ensign Tom prisoner.
“Ay, Señor,” says one of the sentries, “soon ju will weesh ju was never born.”
Jessie has read all the books. The ones her tutors have insisted on, Miss Alcott and Mrs. Stowe, and the ones Alma gives her that she keeps hidden beneath the mattress — Charlotte Brame, Metta Victor, and her favorite, Laura Jean Libbey. There are no young ladies of color like her in the books, only a few dusky parlor maids meant to portray someone of Alma’s station, but as she reads she imagines herself in the position of the heroines and by the end of the tale Nell Lestrange or poor Minnie Taylor or Little Rosebud are no longer so pale.
It is from the books and from Alma’s chatter and from the cautionary lectures with which her mother describes the world that Jessie has learned there is but one great adventure open to women.
And that hers has begun.
It was true! What her brother had said was true! He was not above teasing her, despite the moustache he had so recently grown her brother was still a boy in many ways, with a boy’s fondness for pranks and mischief. But when he had said of his handsome fellow soldier “He inquires of you constantly,” her hopes had been raised, and when the young man stood in their parlor, shy and self-effacing, her pulse had quickened so alarmingly she was afraid it would betray her, that her father, with his physician’s skill of diagnosis, would at once sense her infatuation. And she felt a fool, cheeks burning with shame, for at first the young man seemed barely to recognize her presence, exchanging polite conversation with her father, hat at rest in the crook of his arm, stiff with a military bearing that only enhanced his good looks. But his words at their parting—
“I hope to see you again.”
He had said that, he really had, looking straight into her eyes when he took her hand and bowed slightly to say goodbye. Junior was worried about missing the transport and Mother was in tears to see her boy go off possibly to war and Father was cramming in every last bit of advice, which gave them, Royal and Jessie — it makes her flush now, lying back on her bed, just to intertwine their names in her thoughts — gave them an almost private moment. He held her hand much longer than you would if she was wrong about it and he squeezed it, he did, she wasn’t fooling herself about that. Yes, he was saying with that squeeze, you are right. I am too.
They had been children together, he a few years the elder and wonderful in her eyes, sitting bareback high up on their coach horse Boots while his uncle dealt with the harness straps. He let her play with his jacks and his marbles, and pet the field animals he found and cared for awhile, and never taunted her the way some others did for being female or for her manners or for her abrupt departure from their games when it was time for the day’s lesson. And then one day it was over, Mother explaining that she was a young lady now and must learn to dwell in a more prescribed environment, to leave that easy camaraderie of bare feet and imaginary battles behind. Sometimes she would look off from her piano bench, out the window to the side yard, and he would be there, watching her. His clothes were threadbare but always clean, his shoes no doubt several generations removed from their original owner, but there was a dignity in him, calm and kindly, that stirred her in the genteel prison of her parents’ fine house.
Junior says he’ll send an address as soon as they’ve got one and that Royal will send his own letters through Alma. Without Alma she would be lost. Father has his ideas of what is right for his daughter and he means the best for her but it is her adventure, her only one, and she knows from the books and from Alma’s lurid stories what happens to girls who ignore their heart and think only of what is sensible. His chest looked massive in the blue uniform, his arms thick and muscular, his hands — she has always loved his hands, loved to watch them at work. Once he let her help him and his brother Jubal groom Boots after a long day’s riding and they had barely spoken, just the sound of the brush on the animal’s coat, the smell of horse strong in her nose and them standing close together, hot in the crowded stall and she thought her thumping heart would explode. Jessie thinks of his arms around her and rolls over onto her front and wonders if this is wicked, wonders what it must be like to be Alma, whose life has been so filled with men, so filled with adventure compared to Mother’s placid account of her brief season of availability, married at seventeen with not a ripple of excitement between courtship and contract.
When she touches herself, or presses her body hard against the bed, she imagines she is Alma. Alma can do what she pleases, so little is expected of her. But Dr. Lunceford’s daughter—
“Every eye is upon you,” he has told them, Junior most prominent under his judging gaze but Jessie just behind and included in the statement. “Your actions reflect on us all.”
And she knows the “us all” goes beyond the Luncefords, beyond even the proper colored community here in Wilmington. But Alma, when she is Alma she can be every thrilling thing she might imagine.
There will be a war. Her brother is sure of it, all Father’s friends look forward to it, the newspapers seem to ache for its commencement. The thought of those brave boys on the field of battle, suffering under the enemy’s fire, the thought of many of them never to return — but he will survive, he will return. The mortal danger only deepens her resolve to discover a method, first, to communicate her love to him, and then to win Mother and Father to her design. Or, failing, to throw herself into the hands of Fate.