July 21. Woke up and called to arms. Thought we were going into battle for sure, and it made me damned scared, I’ll admit it. Jonathan joking around as usual, but I think he is scared too. He tricked me into filling our canteens. Robley is ordering everyone around, but that is his way and I think he is just nervous and does that to shake the nerves off.
“You writing to Ma?” Jonathan asked.
Nathaniel looked up with a flush of embarrassment. “No.”
“Well, you should. And when you do, tell her I love her too, all right?”
“Why don’t you write yourself?”
“I will. But you’re the one always writing. You planning on publishing your memoirs? Get rich that way?”
“Might. Once I get famous.”
“Oh? When you gonna get famous?”
“Once I get a chance to start licking Yankees.”
“Humph. Good thing your daddy’s got money.”
Nathaniel put the book and pencil away, lay on his backpack, and pretended to sleep. At last the officers came riding and racing down the line, stirring the men of 3rd Brigade, urging them back into ranks. Nathaniel felt the languor drain away as he snatched up his rifle, shuffled back into line. He could see grins on the other men’s faces, nervous shuffling of feet as they prepared to plunge forward.
But they did not. Rather, they were ordered about, marched back toward where they had come from. Fifty-five minutes later, Nathaniel Paine’s now dry shoes once again plunged into the lazy Bull Run. Twenty minutes after that, he found himself at approximately the same place he had started that morning. If his rifle had not been loaded he would have thrown it down in disgust. The fight was out of him now. Not spent but worn away, and he did not think he would get it back, not that day.
Jonathan Bonaventure Paine saw the disgust on Nathaniel’s face and told himself that he felt the same. And he did. To a degree.
He leaned on his rifle, took off his kepi, and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. It was terribly hot, and not yet noon.
“Hey, Nathaniel?”
“What?” His brother’s tone disgusted, resigned, weary.
“Got any water left in your canteen, there?”
“Yeah.” Nathaniel pulled the half-empty canteen off his shoulder, handed it to Jonathan. Jonathan took it, tipped the water into his mouth. It was warm, near hot, and he could taste the mud of the Bull Run, but he was grateful for it.
Here was the difference between them, Jonathan thought. Nathaniel had saved half his water, while he had drained his an hour ago. He imagined that if they checked Robley’s canteen they would find it near full, that the lieutenant was saving the entire thing for when it was really needed.
Jonathan handed the canteen back, looked off to the country that lay south of the Bull Run. That morning there had been regiments spread out around the McLean house, held in reserve for the attack that was to come their way. They were not there now. They had been ordered off to reinforce the left flank, when it became clear that that was where the fighting actually was. Only the trampled grass and the dark circles where fires had once burned indicated that armies had once bivouacked there.
He turned and looked toward the northwest. The smoke was thick over the low hills, and the sound of the firing, soft and distant though it was, was continuous. Someone was catching hell.
“Reckon they were right about a battle today,” Nathaniel said. “But someone was wrong about where.”
“Reckon.” Cresting one of the low hills between themselves and the battle line, and about a mile away, Jonathan could see a battalion heading for the fight. They were marching fast, a long, gray line, the sun glinting off bayonets. The sight moved him in a strange way, and he felt the emotions rush one way and another until he thought he might go quietly mad, standing there in the Virginia sun.
It had frightened him, marching across the Bull Run. And yet he had been disappointed when they halted, confused when they were ordered back over the river. At one moment he wanted to be at the Yankees, the next he wanted to skulk off into a stand of trees and hide.
There was Nathaniel, obviously angry about missing out on the fight. Jonathan had always thought his brother felt as he did, though they certainly had never discussed it. But in the final instant, he wondered, was Nathaniel more of a fire-eater than he?
Robley was afraid, he had said so, but he was afraid of running, not of stopping a bullet. Well, Jonathan was afraid of that too. He was afraid to miss the fight, afraid to join the fight, afraid he was a coward, unsure how he measured up against the others. He wanted to take the butt of his gun and bash himself on the head, just to drive the thoughts away.
He looked at the distant brigade, the diamond flashes of sun on polished steel, and in that instant, with no consideration given to it, he made a decision, and with that decision, everything else was wiped away. There was no more room for any of it.
“Nathaniel, see that brigade yonder?”
“Yeah. Jackson, I reckon.”
“I’m gonna go join up with them.”
Nathaniel had no reply to that. Finally he said, “What are you talking about, Jonathan?”
“I’m going to go. Right now. Catch up with them. Go see the monkey show.”
He pulled his eyes from the bayonets, looked his brother square in the face, and to his surprise, he saw a smile growing on Nathaniel’s face.
“Damn…I’m going too.”
Jonathan bit his lip. How many times had he instigated Nathaniel into joining him on some stupid venture or other, only to catch it from Robley? Here it was again, and while this was surely different from lighting fires in the woods, or taking off down the Yazoo River on a homemade raft, it was the same thing as well.
Jonathan grinned. “Let’s go!”
The boys picked up their knapsacks and rifles, shuffled out of what was left of the line of march. The men of the 3rd Brigade were spreading out again, going after blackberries, ambling down to the river to fill canteens. There were no officers that they could see, so they walked along, slow and inconspicuous, as if they were in search of a blackberry bush of their own.
“Hey, you.” Jonathan heard a voice, Robley’s voice, behind.
Damn… He turned around. “Lieutenant! Are we going to attack them Yankees, or what?”
“Where y’all going?” Robley ran his eyes over his brothers. “Nathaniel, where y’all going?”
“Looking for blackberries,” Jonathan supplied, because he knew Nathaniel could not lie with conviction.
“That’s a damned lie. Where the hell you going?”
Nathaniel straightened a bit. “We’re going to join that brigade yonder. Going into the fight.”
Robley squinted at them, shook his head. “You can’t do that. This here’s your regiment. You can’t just go off where the hell you like. This isn’t playing soldier back home.”
“Well, goddamn it, Robley, there isn’t anything going on here!” Jonathan replied. “I’m not going to spend the whole damned war marching back and forth over that infernal river.”
“There is a reason we are here, you ever think about that? What if them Yankees come down that road, try and flank us?”
“The Yankees aren’t coming down that road! The Yankees are over there! That’s why every damned brigade but us is over there. I’m going. You can come or not, but I’m going.”
“I order you to get back in line!” Robley pointed back to where the 18th Mississippi was milling about.
“There’s no damned line. I’m going. Have me arrested or don’t, but I’m going.” He tossed his rifle over his shoulder, turned on his heel, as he had been taught in drill, and marched off on the double quick, his eyes on the tail end of Brigadier General Thomas Jackson’s 1st Brigade, Army of the Shenandoah.
Robley Paine scowled, clenched his teeth, balled his fists in fury at the sight of Jonathan, marching double-quick away. Issuing another order was pointless. He could summon the provosts, have his brother arrested. If they charged him with deserting, he could be shot. The thought made Robley sick.