The Final Robert
Stories
Object:
Contents
What's Up This Week
"The Final Robert" by David O. Bales
"White's Run" by Keith Hewitt
What's Up This Week
"Space -- the final frontier," intones the Star Trek voiceover… but for most of us who will never experience space travel except vicariously, isn't death really the final frontier? We don't really know for certain what lies beyond this earthly dimension -- but we have faith that God has something in waiting more wonderful than we can imagine. Yet we are discomfited by the grim reality of death. We mourn the passing of loved ones, especially those who, like Absalom, have left us in difficult circumstances. And we have fear too… fear for how we might be judged on the Dies Irae, the Day of Wrath, if we are not beneficiaries of God's grace. In this week's StoryShare, David Bales shares an account of a man who comes to realize just how badly he might fare at the judgment seat, while Keith Hewitt draws an intense portrait of a man who, like King David, must deal with the excruciating grief of his son's death on the battlefield.
* * * * * * * * *
The Final Robert
by David O. Bales
Psalm 130
Everything seemed strange. The church was long and dark, and from the back it was difficult to see in the subdued light. The extreme strangeness began with the first speaker.
"When the final Robert was the original Bobby we had to play his games. At anyone else's birthday he was always last to come to the table; and, if we were going somewhere for someone else's birthday, we had to sit and wait for him until Dad blew the horn a couple times."
Other people spoke, and then Aunt Virginia. Didn't she die ten years ago? "We gave the final Robert all the chances we gave others -- the hugs and presents, and we listened to his childhood concerns. Yet he was the child of the permanent scowl and the word 'No.' "
His sister again: "When he was an adult and married, we knew the final Robert didn't like his nieces and nephews. At Christmas, our only family gathering, he didn't talk much, he would go read a book instead of playing games, or bundled up and went for a walk alone no matter how cold it was. We weren't surprised when one December his wife phoned us that the two-hour drive at the Christmas season was just too much for them."
A colleague stood. "All teachers had to take their turn in organizing transportation and lodging for band trips. It fell to the final Robert to arrange all details for the band to travel to the state playoffs that our boys' basketball team was in. He sent notes home with band members that the buses would leave at 7 a.m. That morning he had everyone on the buses and was looking at his watch and the clipboard with the names of the band members. At 7:00 he turned to the driver and said, 'Go.' The band director beside him said, 'There's a student yet to come.' 'No matter,' final Robert said, 'It's seven on the nose.' As the buses drove out of the school's parking lot, a car rushed in, honking. The student's mother waved from the car window. The final Robert said, 'They're late. Keep going,' which the driver did. The student's mother missed a day's work and drove her three hours to the game. Throughout the high school the final Robert was understood to be bad news and one who liked to deliver it."
Gladys spoke. Although often in the marriage she was quiet or uncommunicative, breaking into tears instead of being able to explain herself, today she pronounced every word correctly and spoke in full sentences. "I saw the final Robert try, but never very long. A few times he seemed even to admit his mistakes, but soon found ways to blame them on others. He gave little and always remembered exactly how much it was and expected more in return. He said he didn't suffer fools gladly. He never suffered anyone gladly, certainly not me." Amazingly, she said this in a monotone -- no weeping, no calling of names, no stamping of feet or clutching of fists.
The church seemed to become even longer, darker, and filled now with high school students who sat in class groups. The pastor stood, but the place was so poorly lit and the pastor was so far away that he seemed to have no eyes or nose, only a mouth.
He said, "Family and acquaintances have reviewed final Robert. Everyone has spoken who requested the privilege. No one objected that any report has been unfair. Although we held a place on this podium for any who'd speak in his favor, none has come. No vote will be taken today. This isn't an election. We'll bring, instead, a verdict, unanimous from our human perspective; but it will be announced tomorrow morning.
"Follow along with me through this summary: The final Robert had all the opportunities that everyone else receives. He was surrounded by friends, nurtured by family, taught in the church. Memos on file at the high school state that at several yearly reviews sensitivity training was strongly urged upon him, but he refused these suggestions.
"For being what most people considered a respectable person, the final Robert became nearly less than human. He descended about as far as he could go. Therefore, would you all please rise to confirm this sad event."
As one, the gigantic congregation rose as though they were soldiers. They bowed their heads in silence. The pastor spoke in a sad, slow manner: "We have no alternative left but to commit him to the depths."
Robert rolled over in bed against Gladys. In her sleep she pushed him away. Even though the house on this Christmas Eve was chilly, Robert lay on top of the blankets, covered with sweat. He opened, then closed his eyes tightly. All he could think to do was to pray.
David O. Bales was a Presbyterian minister for 33 years. Recently retired as the pastor of Bethany Presbyterian Church in Ontario, Oregon, he is also a freelance writer and editor for Stephen Ministries and Tebunah Ministries. His sermons and articles have appeared in Lectionary Homiletics, Preaching Great Texts, and Interpretation, and he is the author of the CSS titles Scenes of Glory: Subplots of God's Long Story and Gospel Subplots: Story Sermons of God's Grace.
White's Run
by Keith Hewitt
2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33
The sun was long gone but its hot, muggy breath remained, coiled like a snake around Jamison Lee's chest, making him aware of each respiration. He pulled a damp bandana out of his coat pocket, raised his hat, and ran the cloth over hair plastered to his scalp, ran it around his neck, then put it back in its pocket and set the hat back on his head -- pushed back a little, to make the sweatband sit on a different place at least.
"It's godawful, isn't it?" a voice asked in the darkness.
Jamison peered into the darkness and made out a tall, thin form standing next to a tree; he would have recognized it by profile even without the hint of Prussia in his voice: Friedrich, his adjutant. "Makes me miss home, Fritz," he admitted, and he began carefully picking his way up the slope to the tree where Friedrich stood. "Sort of puts me in mind of Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God," he added, reaching the tree slightly out of breath. The air was heavy and damp, and seemed to offer little sustenance.
"Beg pardon?" Friedrich asked after a moment.
Jamison looked sideways at him. "You know, Jonathan Edwards' sermon, Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God? Around 120 years ago -- very powerful images of God dangling men over the fires of Hell. Talks about death and hell, and how we can be sent there any time… it's common knowledge."
"Now Major, I know you're older than me," Friedrich began, "but you cannot tell me --"
"I read it, Fritz. It's a classic."
"Ach!. Sorry, Major, I read Beadle's Dime Novels, not hundred-year-old sermons. I am not the philosophical type."
"I'll keep that in mind." Jamison took out the bandana again, snapped it open, and dabbed at his forehead, blinking against the sting of sweat in his eyes. He frowned as he looked across the broad valley, stretching from horizon to horizon like a lake of Indian ink. Points of flickering light were scattered across the deeper darkness of the far hills, reflections of the stars that shined above without illuminating the night. "You know what's over there, Fritz?" he asked quietly.
"Judging by the campfires, I would say about 2,000 men and boys who I never did anything to, and who never did anything to me. But come tomorrow morning, we'll be trying our very best to kill one another, just the same." His voice was just as quiet, almost mournful.
Jamison nodded invisibly. "More than that. According to stragglers our scouts have picked up, some of those fires belong to the 68th Tennessee Infantry."
"The 68th Tennessee? Ach, Cheezus, Major, I'm sorry -- I didn't know."
"I always knew it could happen, but still…"
"You know how units are attached and detached, Major. There's no saying your son is with them now."
"Thank you, Fritz. We both know the odds of that, but I appreciate the thought."
Silence flowed between them, finally broken by the rustle of wool as Friedrich shrugged in the darkness. "So what are you going to do, Major?"
Jamison reflected the shrug. "What else can I do, Fritz? Come tomorrow morning, they're going to try to cross the river. And I'm going to stop them."
And the ache in his heart was a physical thing…
# # #
There is a calculus to battle; trained commanders learn it as science, natural commanders learn it by gut and experience. It says that when assaulting dug-in defenders, the attacking force must at least be twice as strong as the defenders, just to give themselves a 50-50 chance of carrying the day. It defines doctrine and describes tactics for an opposed river crossing -- hard-won knowledge dating back at least as far as Julius Caesar, gained by the grim trial and error of battle.
Before the first shot was fired, Jamison Lee knew the Rebel commander was innocent of any such knowledge, instead relying on courage and fighting spirit to replace tactics and discipline. At least he had the grace to die in the opening minutes of battle, cut in half by a cannon ball, but to no positive effect. What Jamison had hoped would be a subsequent Rebel withdrawal was just a regrouping, and soon enough they threw themselves across the river once more, directly in the face of massed, defiladed rifle fire and one very disciplined artillery battery on the crest of the steep slope that anchored the right flank, six cannon pouring death into the valley at three rounds a minute.
There was never any doubt of the outcome; it was just a matter of how much the foe would choose to leave on the table before folding his hand and walking away. On this day, in this place, he chose to bluff beyond all reason… the guns did not fall silent until early afternoon.
The cries of the wounded -- waiting to be carried to the surgeon's tent, or just waiting impatiently to die -- did not fade until much later, when the valley was once again in darkness…
# # #
The air hung hot and dense over the valley, a smothering, fetid blanket that carried the odor of death and decay the way an old quilt brought the smell of mothballs and cedar out of a chest. It was the hellish perfume of bodies just starting to bloat blending with the man-high mounds of severed limbs piled outside the surgeons' tent, waiting to be burned or buried. It was everywhere, and the breeze did nothing to carry it away.
Along the top of the ridge, near the surgeons' tent, the traveling embalmers had arrived during the night to set up their tents, like so many dirty canvas vultures waiting to feed, drawn to the carnage of White's Run by whatever mysterious means told them there was business to be had.
Jamison Lee took it all in as he rode down to the river, and hated that the odor didn't nauseate him or the sight repel him. Though the terrain was different, he had been here too many times, too many times… The burial detail had already collected most of the Federal dead, and they had been arrayed on the north bank of the river, in long, still rows beneath the shade of sheltering trees. Some of them -- already identified and their names recorded by the detail's officers, lay with blankets over their faces. The rest, who had not pinned their name and home address to their uniform and not been recognized by a member of the burial detail, lay exposed, waiting for members of their units to come by to identify them after they were missed at roll call.
Under the watchful eye of the officer in charge, pairs of privates walked the silent ranks and stopped by each identified corpse, checking to see which of them had pinned the $7 embalmer's fee to their tunic, along with their name and address. These would eventually be taken up the hill and prepared for shipment home instead of being buried near the battlefield. A few new privates on detail saluted as he rode by; the veterans ignored him, or waved a casual acknowledgment of one more victory.
He acknowledged them and said nothing as his horse chose its path down the sandy bank and into the river. A knot formed in Jamison's stomach as he neared the opposite shore; he forced it down, bid it no mind, and fixed his eyes on the scene before him. With no Rebel forces left behind to recover their own dead, their casualties would normally have been piled with more haste than reverence by Federal troops on the far side of the river, where most of them had died and where all would wait with the patience of the dead before being committed to common graves.
But this day was different; the orders had been peculiar, but clear. This day, the silent Rebels lay in endless rows, not heaps, with faces turned toward the sun… those that had them, anyway. By late afternoon, most of the ones who had died elsewhere had been brought back to the far side of White's Run, where they lay in the sun beneath blankets of fat green flies and other bugs that had come to feast almost as soon as the shooting stopped.
There were many more bodies, and they had lain in the sun for hours; the men on this detail wore dirty bandanas over mouth and nose, like bandits in some Western dime novel. Jamison's mount whinnied softly and shied away from the scene, but he gently kneed the big roan, forcing it to turn back and keep going 'til it stepped gracefully out of the water and sidestepped a little in the sandy soil as if to show it wasn't really afraid of this nightmare.
Friedrich was there; had been all day, assigning himself to oversee this task when his friend and commander wouldn't. He looked up as Jamison approached, sweat beading on his face, trickling down his beak-like nose. "All is ready, Major," he said crisply. "They are here."
Jamison nodded and looked away, his eyes searching the ground. "So I see." He drew up next to his friend and handed the reins to Friedrich, who held them while the major dismounted. His leg gave way as he stepped down, and Friedrich grasped his arm firmly to steady him while he recovered his balance, stepping in close so the brims of their hats nearly touched.
"You don't have to do this, Jamison," Friedrich said softly. "I've seen his picture many times -- let me."
Jamison met his eyes and reached out with his free hand to squeeze his friend's arm briefly, answering just as quietly, "Thank you, Fritz -- but this is one thing I can't delegate. I'm fine." He straightened up, squared his shoulders, and clasped his hands behind his back, almost marching as he came to the beginning of the first row of bodies. Friedrich fell in behind him, a silent, slightly elongated shadow that followed him as he walked down the long row.
Jamison looked at each face as he came to it -- some were relaxed, almost as though sleeping, others distorted by last moments of fear or pain, others too incomplete to read any expression at all… but one by one they flowed by. Knowing he could not look away made him want to all the more -- but he walked and looked, and tried not to think about what he might find. The knot in his belly grew colder and tighter. Behind him his friend and adjutant kept pace, avoiding the faces, noting instead the conditions of their uniforms -- or lack of them -- and the bare and bloody feet that had carried many of them to their final battle. In the back of his mind he counted off the paces, to give it something to occupy itself.
He had reached 209 when the row ended, and it was time to turn and walk back along the next. And then the one after that…
Midway down the last row, just as both men were beginning to believe that it might not happen, that he might not be there, Jamison stopped -- stopped so abruptly that Friedrich nearly bumped into him from behind, but he did not notice. Jamison looked down at the young man, eyes closed and thick sandy hair matted with blood on one side. He wore gray wool pants with a red stripe down the leg, a threadbare, brown-checked shirt, and mismatched boots worn through on the sole of his right foot.
And all Jamison saw was a blond, freckle-faced boy in a white shirt, sitting on the swing that hung from the old oak in their yard… or was it the painfully serious young man waiting on the platform for the train that would take him off to school? Whichever, it was not the man that lay before him now. "Ah, Michael," he said softly, to no one in particular.
He felt Friedrich's hand on his shoulder, then turned his head so he could see. "It's him," he said simply.
"I know. I'm so sorry, Jamison."
"Can you…" He stopped, stumbling over words he had never imagined he would say. "Can you have him taken up there, please?" He nodded toward the embalmers' wagons. "I'll pay after I get back to camp."
"Of course. Do you…"
"Later, Fritz. I just need to be alone for a bit."
Friedrich nodded silently, stepped away, and called over a pair of privates, giving terse orders while Jamison walked away, slowly pacing down the rest of the long row of Rebel dead. He tried to put it away, to clear his head, but memories followed him like terriers nipping at his heels. The midwife presenting this squirmy red thing to him, and knowing there could be no better feeling in the world. His son learning to walk, learning to talk, learning to sing -- bedtime stories, his first shave, that girl he had been sweet on… what was her name? His boots crunched softly on the dry grass of the flat, and he felt his son's life roll over him -- a whole life telescoped and smashed to ground here in this place no one had ever heard of.
And why? He looked down, then looked away; the faces asked him why. What sense was there in a good and noble man -- or boy -- ending this way? The lump in his belly melted, flowed into his arms and legs, and he shivered in the heat. He reached the end of the row of silent accusers and stopped, turned, and looked back. The privates had crossed the river and were carrying their burden up the far bank to join the dozens of others who were strung out along the paths leading to the top of the ridge, carrying their own burdens. He watched, and remembered that first day at school, watching him walk down the road toward the schoolhouse, joined by other children along the way.
As he watched, some of those other faces started to take his son's place, so it was as though he was seeing the memories of someone else, but they were definitely his son… and he blinked, closed his eyes tightly, and opened them again. The memories were gone, and in their place were the rows of wasted lives.
"Are you all right?"
The question startled him; he turned his eyes from the waiting dead and looked at his friend. Friedrich had stepped up next to him without a sound. He started to speak and just shook his head, not trusting the words that would come out or the voice that would carry them.
"I'm so sorry, Jamison. I can't imagine."
Jamison shook his head again. "No, you can't."
Friedrich pried a rock out of the soil with the toe of his boot and kicked it toward the river. "The men -- when I gave the orders, one of them just looked at me first and said, 'Why? Is he somebody's son?' " Friedrich paused. "I didn't know what you would want me to say."
Jamison straightened up once more, as though pressing up against some great weight, and forced himself to stand straight as he looked at the Rebel casualties, then at the Federal side of the river where bodies also lay in silent rows, and he shook his head. "What is there to say, Fritz? They're all somebody's son."
And the two men stood in silence until darkness fell on White's Run.
Keith Hewitt is the author of two volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). He is a lay speaker, co-youth leader, and former Sunday school teacher at Wilmot United Methodist Church in Wilmot, Wisconsin. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife and two children, and works in the IT department at a major public safety testing organization.
**************
StoryShare, August 9, 2009, issue.
Copyright 2009 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
What's Up This Week
"The Final Robert" by David O. Bales
"White's Run" by Keith Hewitt
What's Up This Week
"Space -- the final frontier," intones the Star Trek voiceover… but for most of us who will never experience space travel except vicariously, isn't death really the final frontier? We don't really know for certain what lies beyond this earthly dimension -- but we have faith that God has something in waiting more wonderful than we can imagine. Yet we are discomfited by the grim reality of death. We mourn the passing of loved ones, especially those who, like Absalom, have left us in difficult circumstances. And we have fear too… fear for how we might be judged on the Dies Irae, the Day of Wrath, if we are not beneficiaries of God's grace. In this week's StoryShare, David Bales shares an account of a man who comes to realize just how badly he might fare at the judgment seat, while Keith Hewitt draws an intense portrait of a man who, like King David, must deal with the excruciating grief of his son's death on the battlefield.
* * * * * * * * *
The Final Robert
by David O. Bales
Psalm 130
Everything seemed strange. The church was long and dark, and from the back it was difficult to see in the subdued light. The extreme strangeness began with the first speaker.
"When the final Robert was the original Bobby we had to play his games. At anyone else's birthday he was always last to come to the table; and, if we were going somewhere for someone else's birthday, we had to sit and wait for him until Dad blew the horn a couple times."
Other people spoke, and then Aunt Virginia. Didn't she die ten years ago? "We gave the final Robert all the chances we gave others -- the hugs and presents, and we listened to his childhood concerns. Yet he was the child of the permanent scowl and the word 'No.' "
His sister again: "When he was an adult and married, we knew the final Robert didn't like his nieces and nephews. At Christmas, our only family gathering, he didn't talk much, he would go read a book instead of playing games, or bundled up and went for a walk alone no matter how cold it was. We weren't surprised when one December his wife phoned us that the two-hour drive at the Christmas season was just too much for them."
A colleague stood. "All teachers had to take their turn in organizing transportation and lodging for band trips. It fell to the final Robert to arrange all details for the band to travel to the state playoffs that our boys' basketball team was in. He sent notes home with band members that the buses would leave at 7 a.m. That morning he had everyone on the buses and was looking at his watch and the clipboard with the names of the band members. At 7:00 he turned to the driver and said, 'Go.' The band director beside him said, 'There's a student yet to come.' 'No matter,' final Robert said, 'It's seven on the nose.' As the buses drove out of the school's parking lot, a car rushed in, honking. The student's mother waved from the car window. The final Robert said, 'They're late. Keep going,' which the driver did. The student's mother missed a day's work and drove her three hours to the game. Throughout the high school the final Robert was understood to be bad news and one who liked to deliver it."
Gladys spoke. Although often in the marriage she was quiet or uncommunicative, breaking into tears instead of being able to explain herself, today she pronounced every word correctly and spoke in full sentences. "I saw the final Robert try, but never very long. A few times he seemed even to admit his mistakes, but soon found ways to blame them on others. He gave little and always remembered exactly how much it was and expected more in return. He said he didn't suffer fools gladly. He never suffered anyone gladly, certainly not me." Amazingly, she said this in a monotone -- no weeping, no calling of names, no stamping of feet or clutching of fists.
The church seemed to become even longer, darker, and filled now with high school students who sat in class groups. The pastor stood, but the place was so poorly lit and the pastor was so far away that he seemed to have no eyes or nose, only a mouth.
He said, "Family and acquaintances have reviewed final Robert. Everyone has spoken who requested the privilege. No one objected that any report has been unfair. Although we held a place on this podium for any who'd speak in his favor, none has come. No vote will be taken today. This isn't an election. We'll bring, instead, a verdict, unanimous from our human perspective; but it will be announced tomorrow morning.
"Follow along with me through this summary: The final Robert had all the opportunities that everyone else receives. He was surrounded by friends, nurtured by family, taught in the church. Memos on file at the high school state that at several yearly reviews sensitivity training was strongly urged upon him, but he refused these suggestions.
"For being what most people considered a respectable person, the final Robert became nearly less than human. He descended about as far as he could go. Therefore, would you all please rise to confirm this sad event."
As one, the gigantic congregation rose as though they were soldiers. They bowed their heads in silence. The pastor spoke in a sad, slow manner: "We have no alternative left but to commit him to the depths."
Robert rolled over in bed against Gladys. In her sleep she pushed him away. Even though the house on this Christmas Eve was chilly, Robert lay on top of the blankets, covered with sweat. He opened, then closed his eyes tightly. All he could think to do was to pray.
David O. Bales was a Presbyterian minister for 33 years. Recently retired as the pastor of Bethany Presbyterian Church in Ontario, Oregon, he is also a freelance writer and editor for Stephen Ministries and Tebunah Ministries. His sermons and articles have appeared in Lectionary Homiletics, Preaching Great Texts, and Interpretation, and he is the author of the CSS titles Scenes of Glory: Subplots of God's Long Story and Gospel Subplots: Story Sermons of God's Grace.
White's Run
by Keith Hewitt
2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33
The sun was long gone but its hot, muggy breath remained, coiled like a snake around Jamison Lee's chest, making him aware of each respiration. He pulled a damp bandana out of his coat pocket, raised his hat, and ran the cloth over hair plastered to his scalp, ran it around his neck, then put it back in its pocket and set the hat back on his head -- pushed back a little, to make the sweatband sit on a different place at least.
"It's godawful, isn't it?" a voice asked in the darkness.
Jamison peered into the darkness and made out a tall, thin form standing next to a tree; he would have recognized it by profile even without the hint of Prussia in his voice: Friedrich, his adjutant. "Makes me miss home, Fritz," he admitted, and he began carefully picking his way up the slope to the tree where Friedrich stood. "Sort of puts me in mind of Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God," he added, reaching the tree slightly out of breath. The air was heavy and damp, and seemed to offer little sustenance.
"Beg pardon?" Friedrich asked after a moment.
Jamison looked sideways at him. "You know, Jonathan Edwards' sermon, Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God? Around 120 years ago -- very powerful images of God dangling men over the fires of Hell. Talks about death and hell, and how we can be sent there any time… it's common knowledge."
"Now Major, I know you're older than me," Friedrich began, "but you cannot tell me --"
"I read it, Fritz. It's a classic."
"Ach!. Sorry, Major, I read Beadle's Dime Novels, not hundred-year-old sermons. I am not the philosophical type."
"I'll keep that in mind." Jamison took out the bandana again, snapped it open, and dabbed at his forehead, blinking against the sting of sweat in his eyes. He frowned as he looked across the broad valley, stretching from horizon to horizon like a lake of Indian ink. Points of flickering light were scattered across the deeper darkness of the far hills, reflections of the stars that shined above without illuminating the night. "You know what's over there, Fritz?" he asked quietly.
"Judging by the campfires, I would say about 2,000 men and boys who I never did anything to, and who never did anything to me. But come tomorrow morning, we'll be trying our very best to kill one another, just the same." His voice was just as quiet, almost mournful.
Jamison nodded invisibly. "More than that. According to stragglers our scouts have picked up, some of those fires belong to the 68th Tennessee Infantry."
"The 68th Tennessee? Ach, Cheezus, Major, I'm sorry -- I didn't know."
"I always knew it could happen, but still…"
"You know how units are attached and detached, Major. There's no saying your son is with them now."
"Thank you, Fritz. We both know the odds of that, but I appreciate the thought."
Silence flowed between them, finally broken by the rustle of wool as Friedrich shrugged in the darkness. "So what are you going to do, Major?"
Jamison reflected the shrug. "What else can I do, Fritz? Come tomorrow morning, they're going to try to cross the river. And I'm going to stop them."
And the ache in his heart was a physical thing…
# # #
There is a calculus to battle; trained commanders learn it as science, natural commanders learn it by gut and experience. It says that when assaulting dug-in defenders, the attacking force must at least be twice as strong as the defenders, just to give themselves a 50-50 chance of carrying the day. It defines doctrine and describes tactics for an opposed river crossing -- hard-won knowledge dating back at least as far as Julius Caesar, gained by the grim trial and error of battle.
Before the first shot was fired, Jamison Lee knew the Rebel commander was innocent of any such knowledge, instead relying on courage and fighting spirit to replace tactics and discipline. At least he had the grace to die in the opening minutes of battle, cut in half by a cannon ball, but to no positive effect. What Jamison had hoped would be a subsequent Rebel withdrawal was just a regrouping, and soon enough they threw themselves across the river once more, directly in the face of massed, defiladed rifle fire and one very disciplined artillery battery on the crest of the steep slope that anchored the right flank, six cannon pouring death into the valley at three rounds a minute.
There was never any doubt of the outcome; it was just a matter of how much the foe would choose to leave on the table before folding his hand and walking away. On this day, in this place, he chose to bluff beyond all reason… the guns did not fall silent until early afternoon.
The cries of the wounded -- waiting to be carried to the surgeon's tent, or just waiting impatiently to die -- did not fade until much later, when the valley was once again in darkness…
# # #
The air hung hot and dense over the valley, a smothering, fetid blanket that carried the odor of death and decay the way an old quilt brought the smell of mothballs and cedar out of a chest. It was the hellish perfume of bodies just starting to bloat blending with the man-high mounds of severed limbs piled outside the surgeons' tent, waiting to be burned or buried. It was everywhere, and the breeze did nothing to carry it away.
Along the top of the ridge, near the surgeons' tent, the traveling embalmers had arrived during the night to set up their tents, like so many dirty canvas vultures waiting to feed, drawn to the carnage of White's Run by whatever mysterious means told them there was business to be had.
Jamison Lee took it all in as he rode down to the river, and hated that the odor didn't nauseate him or the sight repel him. Though the terrain was different, he had been here too many times, too many times… The burial detail had already collected most of the Federal dead, and they had been arrayed on the north bank of the river, in long, still rows beneath the shade of sheltering trees. Some of them -- already identified and their names recorded by the detail's officers, lay with blankets over their faces. The rest, who had not pinned their name and home address to their uniform and not been recognized by a member of the burial detail, lay exposed, waiting for members of their units to come by to identify them after they were missed at roll call.
Under the watchful eye of the officer in charge, pairs of privates walked the silent ranks and stopped by each identified corpse, checking to see which of them had pinned the $7 embalmer's fee to their tunic, along with their name and address. These would eventually be taken up the hill and prepared for shipment home instead of being buried near the battlefield. A few new privates on detail saluted as he rode by; the veterans ignored him, or waved a casual acknowledgment of one more victory.
He acknowledged them and said nothing as his horse chose its path down the sandy bank and into the river. A knot formed in Jamison's stomach as he neared the opposite shore; he forced it down, bid it no mind, and fixed his eyes on the scene before him. With no Rebel forces left behind to recover their own dead, their casualties would normally have been piled with more haste than reverence by Federal troops on the far side of the river, where most of them had died and where all would wait with the patience of the dead before being committed to common graves.
But this day was different; the orders had been peculiar, but clear. This day, the silent Rebels lay in endless rows, not heaps, with faces turned toward the sun… those that had them, anyway. By late afternoon, most of the ones who had died elsewhere had been brought back to the far side of White's Run, where they lay in the sun beneath blankets of fat green flies and other bugs that had come to feast almost as soon as the shooting stopped.
There were many more bodies, and they had lain in the sun for hours; the men on this detail wore dirty bandanas over mouth and nose, like bandits in some Western dime novel. Jamison's mount whinnied softly and shied away from the scene, but he gently kneed the big roan, forcing it to turn back and keep going 'til it stepped gracefully out of the water and sidestepped a little in the sandy soil as if to show it wasn't really afraid of this nightmare.
Friedrich was there; had been all day, assigning himself to oversee this task when his friend and commander wouldn't. He looked up as Jamison approached, sweat beading on his face, trickling down his beak-like nose. "All is ready, Major," he said crisply. "They are here."
Jamison nodded and looked away, his eyes searching the ground. "So I see." He drew up next to his friend and handed the reins to Friedrich, who held them while the major dismounted. His leg gave way as he stepped down, and Friedrich grasped his arm firmly to steady him while he recovered his balance, stepping in close so the brims of their hats nearly touched.
"You don't have to do this, Jamison," Friedrich said softly. "I've seen his picture many times -- let me."
Jamison met his eyes and reached out with his free hand to squeeze his friend's arm briefly, answering just as quietly, "Thank you, Fritz -- but this is one thing I can't delegate. I'm fine." He straightened up, squared his shoulders, and clasped his hands behind his back, almost marching as he came to the beginning of the first row of bodies. Friedrich fell in behind him, a silent, slightly elongated shadow that followed him as he walked down the long row.
Jamison looked at each face as he came to it -- some were relaxed, almost as though sleeping, others distorted by last moments of fear or pain, others too incomplete to read any expression at all… but one by one they flowed by. Knowing he could not look away made him want to all the more -- but he walked and looked, and tried not to think about what he might find. The knot in his belly grew colder and tighter. Behind him his friend and adjutant kept pace, avoiding the faces, noting instead the conditions of their uniforms -- or lack of them -- and the bare and bloody feet that had carried many of them to their final battle. In the back of his mind he counted off the paces, to give it something to occupy itself.
He had reached 209 when the row ended, and it was time to turn and walk back along the next. And then the one after that…
Midway down the last row, just as both men were beginning to believe that it might not happen, that he might not be there, Jamison stopped -- stopped so abruptly that Friedrich nearly bumped into him from behind, but he did not notice. Jamison looked down at the young man, eyes closed and thick sandy hair matted with blood on one side. He wore gray wool pants with a red stripe down the leg, a threadbare, brown-checked shirt, and mismatched boots worn through on the sole of his right foot.
And all Jamison saw was a blond, freckle-faced boy in a white shirt, sitting on the swing that hung from the old oak in their yard… or was it the painfully serious young man waiting on the platform for the train that would take him off to school? Whichever, it was not the man that lay before him now. "Ah, Michael," he said softly, to no one in particular.
He felt Friedrich's hand on his shoulder, then turned his head so he could see. "It's him," he said simply.
"I know. I'm so sorry, Jamison."
"Can you…" He stopped, stumbling over words he had never imagined he would say. "Can you have him taken up there, please?" He nodded toward the embalmers' wagons. "I'll pay after I get back to camp."
"Of course. Do you…"
"Later, Fritz. I just need to be alone for a bit."
Friedrich nodded silently, stepped away, and called over a pair of privates, giving terse orders while Jamison walked away, slowly pacing down the rest of the long row of Rebel dead. He tried to put it away, to clear his head, but memories followed him like terriers nipping at his heels. The midwife presenting this squirmy red thing to him, and knowing there could be no better feeling in the world. His son learning to walk, learning to talk, learning to sing -- bedtime stories, his first shave, that girl he had been sweet on… what was her name? His boots crunched softly on the dry grass of the flat, and he felt his son's life roll over him -- a whole life telescoped and smashed to ground here in this place no one had ever heard of.
And why? He looked down, then looked away; the faces asked him why. What sense was there in a good and noble man -- or boy -- ending this way? The lump in his belly melted, flowed into his arms and legs, and he shivered in the heat. He reached the end of the row of silent accusers and stopped, turned, and looked back. The privates had crossed the river and were carrying their burden up the far bank to join the dozens of others who were strung out along the paths leading to the top of the ridge, carrying their own burdens. He watched, and remembered that first day at school, watching him walk down the road toward the schoolhouse, joined by other children along the way.
As he watched, some of those other faces started to take his son's place, so it was as though he was seeing the memories of someone else, but they were definitely his son… and he blinked, closed his eyes tightly, and opened them again. The memories were gone, and in their place were the rows of wasted lives.
"Are you all right?"
The question startled him; he turned his eyes from the waiting dead and looked at his friend. Friedrich had stepped up next to him without a sound. He started to speak and just shook his head, not trusting the words that would come out or the voice that would carry them.
"I'm so sorry, Jamison. I can't imagine."
Jamison shook his head again. "No, you can't."
Friedrich pried a rock out of the soil with the toe of his boot and kicked it toward the river. "The men -- when I gave the orders, one of them just looked at me first and said, 'Why? Is he somebody's son?' " Friedrich paused. "I didn't know what you would want me to say."
Jamison straightened up once more, as though pressing up against some great weight, and forced himself to stand straight as he looked at the Rebel casualties, then at the Federal side of the river where bodies also lay in silent rows, and he shook his head. "What is there to say, Fritz? They're all somebody's son."
And the two men stood in silence until darkness fell on White's Run.
Keith Hewitt is the author of two volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). He is a lay speaker, co-youth leader, and former Sunday school teacher at Wilmot United Methodist Church in Wilmot, Wisconsin. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife and two children, and works in the IT department at a major public safety testing organization.
**************
StoryShare, August 9, 2009, issue.
Copyright 2009 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
