The Red Book Magazine/Volume 16/Number 3/Christmas at Swamp Creek

by Hugh Pendexter

Christmas At Swamp Creek

BY HUGH PENDEXTER

Author of “Lem Tibbetts' Celestial Campaign,” etc.

The Johnnies run and we give chase,
What they call fight we call a race,
Tee-do, tee-dum, the girls all hum,
Soon the boys will be marching home

AS Lieutenant Peerson's drenched and weary squad of dare-devil riders shouted this doggerel to the accompaniment of stamping feet and rattling sabers, the officer lifted his head in irritation. The meager light of a sickly candle revealed their thin, bronzed faces imperfectly as they sprawled in chairs and on the floor of the long hallway. Outside, the storm was worrying Swamp Creek into muddy foam as it leaped forward to join Hatcher's Run. The old Virginia mansion had been made just as night added to the discomfiture caused by the swirling tempest. Despite the egotism of their song the dozen survivors of the fruitless raid on the South Side railroad had been floundering for hours through the almost impassable roads with Lee's famine pinched men at their heels. It had been one of many attempts to destroy the debilitated and only connecting link between the starving Confederate army and the scanty supplies of the South. And it had failed and Lieutenant Peerson was not in an amiable frame of mind.

Oh, the girls up North are jest the broth
The girls down South are home-lee,
Dum, dum, dum, beats the drum,
Soon the boys will be marching home.
Ye-o-w!

The wild yell punctuating this stanza and overcoming the clamor of the elements was the last straw, and the lieutenant in a peremptory voice commanded, “Let up on that damnable yowling.”

Gray-haired Sergeant McKeen, ever partial to vocal treats, paused in wringing the water from his coat and whispered, “Leftenant darling; I told thim they could go ahead once we entered our lines. I thought a bit of singing might cheer thim up and kind of cilibrate its being Christmas Day.”

He staggered to a side door where he knew he would find a back stairway

The lieutenant silently surveyed the downcast faces peering from the shadows. He had forgotten it was Christmas, and he smiled sourly as he inventoried the day's doings. Barely escaped from his teens, he felt immeasurably older than these reckless veterans, who had so cheerfully endeavored at his command to rip up the worn rails that stood between Grant and Richmond. For many months he had told himself the war was about to end. If he pulled through, what remained for him but dreary routine and a life of regret?

However, his morose frame of mind did not preclude his conscience from wincing a bit as he again swung his eyes over the silent group. Could they find aught of cheer and good will in the day, God knows he should not hinder them, he rebuked himself. And rising and wrapping his soaked cloak about him he strode to the door, gruffly conceding, “I forgot it is Christmas and that we are within our lines. Whoop it up if you want to and howl your heads off. I'm going outside to look at the horses.”

“Hurrah for Lieutenant Peerson,” cried young Tommy Butler. “Now, boys, all together and let the sergeant imitate the drum alone. Let her go.”

Oh, I met a reb at 8 a. m.
Under each arm he had a ham—

But the conclusion of this incident was lost to the lieutenant once he opened the door to be clutched and dragged into the darkness by the shrieking, sleet-laden blasts. Bowing against the grip of the wind that clawed at his legs and pinioned his arms, he fought his way ankle-deep in slush and mud to an outer building where two disconsolate men were guarding the horses.

“Merry Christmas, sir,” ironically greeted one of the guards, as the lieutenant stumbled inside the miserable shelter.

“Everything all right, eh?” growled the lieutenant. Then without waiting to be reassured he bluntly consoled, “You'll be relieved in two hours. Good-night.”

As he began working his way to the house and leaned back against the crowding insistence of the storm, his gaze for a second swept the second-story windows of the long, rambling structure, and he exclaimed aloud in surprise as he caught the twinkle of a light. It vanished almost as soon as it had pricked a hole through the darkness. The mansion was deserted, he had believed, on taking refuge in it. He knew the old sergeant would allow none of the troopers to explore the place against his positive orders. Loosening his service revolver he staggered to a side door where he knew he would find a back stairway.

Holding his saber clear he cautiously ascended. The upper hall was black, with no relief from the sleet-lashed windows. As he advanced, he swept the wall with his left hand, his right holding the revolver half raised for action. Near the end of the hall a door gave before his groping search. As he had seen the light at the end of the house he unhesitatingly continued his quest until he had passed two more thresholds and was rewarded by a dull streak of yellow.

“Dum, dum, dum, beats the drum,” filtered after him, as the storm paused to catch its breath.

Then, with weapon cocked, he gently seized the knob and turned it.

“Hands up!” he harshly commanded, detecting the movement of a figure behind the heavy curtains at the window.

The curtains became motionless for a moment, but as he was taking aim a woman stepped forth into the zone of a candle spluttering on the wall.

The lieutenant stared incredulously at the slim figure, the revolver still rigidly extended. She faced him quietly at first, but as recognition pervaded her gaze she retreated and placed a hand on a table as if to support her shrinking form.

“Kate!” he whispered. “Can it be you?”

“Rodney!” she murmured, now surveying him wildly. “You here?”

His arm dropped limply as he muttered, “It isn't real. I can't understand it. You here, Kate?”

“It is my home,” she replied, her voice toned to an almost inaudible key.

“But how?” he dazedly demanded, rubbing a hand across his eyes as if doubting the reality of her presence. “You live in Georgia. You said up North on that last day—”

Then his faculties sharpened. That last day up North when he was in college and met her while she was visiting friends! The day over which he had brooded and sorrowed: for four long years! Again it was commencement week and she had won his heart and had told him to wait until she came back again. She had left him and he had lived only in thoughts of her return. In an instant he had reviewed the blank that intervened; the breaking out of the war, his response to Lincoln's call, the chaos of bloodshed. It all formed an hiatus that seemed an eternity as he bridged it in a second.

“You came with the men below?” she was asking in a dull voice.

“I wrote you repeatedly and you never answered my letters,'” he choked.

“I did not dare to lock the doors,” she whispered. “I hoped you would rest a bit and then go away.”

The new light blazing in his eyes, the light of rekindled hope and passion, burned low at her query, and in a harsh voice he demanded: “You received my letters and would not write? Now I've found you, you ask me to leave you? I've lived in hell all these years and you ask me to stay there? You didn't mean what you said on the campus?”

“I am here alone,' she weakly reminded. “I ask you to go. It is no time for explanations now. You have not much farther to ride. I think the storm has lifted. Will you go?”

As he stared at her the rude chorus from below took advantage of the subsiding winds and floated up the stairway:

Dum, dum, dum, beats the drum,
Soon the boys will be marching home.

“You shall not harm him!” she panted

“Home,” he bitterly repeated, his lips grimacing. Without removing his gaze from her wan face he reached behind him and softly closed the door against the jarring hilarity, and humbly begged: “You don't mean you'll send me away, Kate, now that I've found you? Not without some word!”

“If ever you thought kindly of me, go at once, Rodney,” she pleaded, her mental distress apparent in her voice.

He slipped the revolver into the holster and folding his arms gazed at her sternly, all gentleness gone from his visage. “Then it is true; you never meant what you said up there?” And he jerked his head to indicate the North-land. “You were fooling me, playing with me? Have you any excuse to make?”

She hung her head and faintly defended. “I wanted to be honest. I thought I knew, but I was mistaken. I did not have the courage to write and tell you. You are a man—you can be generous.”

“True, Miss Morgan. I will say no more to you,” he gritted. “You are safe behind the proprieties. But if it's Henry Coleman that's come between us, I only hope this war will last till I can find him in front of me.”

“No, no. Don't say that, Rodney,” she wildly besought, drawing close to him in her emotion. “Oh, you do not mean that. I wanted to be honest. I thought I was not mistaken. But—” Her voice sank to a whimpering moan and she turned from him, burying her face in her hands.

“By heavens! It is Coleman, then,” he whispered, striding forward. “Then I'll find him, war or no war. He knew you were promised to me. I'll find him and I'll—”

“You shall not,” she broke in to destroy his threat, and her whole frame trembled as she faced him with hands clinched. “He had as much right to love me as you did. The mistake was mine.”

As she defended his successful rival his face became gnarled with impotent and jealous rage. He opened his lips to charge her anew with perfidy, when a clear voice from an inner room held him speechless with mouth agape by calling out, “Right wheel! By fours, trot!”

The tableau endured but briefly, and with a spring the lieutenant swept the terrified woman from his path and gained the door beyond the table. Unheeding her shrill cry as she failed to stay him, he wrenched at the knob.

Stretched on a bed, mumbling incoherently, his face flushed with delirium, was a man. With a quick movement Peerson stepped back, snatched the candle from its socket and returning, bent low over the tossing figure. Then with an inarticulate sound he staggered back, his face distorted. “Coleman!” he hoarsely cried. “Coleman! Here with you—alone.”

“You shall not harm him,” she panted, clutching his arm and struggling to keep him from re-entering the room. “You shall not harm him.”

“Coleman,” he whispered, oblivious to her efforts and methodically restoring the candle, even pausing to rub the drippings from his hand. “Within our lines. Captain Coleman, of the Confederate army, within our lines—and not in uniform.”

The horrible significance of his words beat her to her knees, and fumbling for his hand with both of hers, she moaned, “Oh, not that! I swear he is not a spy. He was wounded. His men brought him where I might take care for him—to give him a chance to live. He is helpless. He can harm no one. Oh, I pray you to forget it all and go.”

“Forward, men! Charge!” broke in the delirious officer's voice; then it subsided to a pitiful muttering.

Gently disengaging her hands and raising her to her feet, Lieutenant Peerson turned upon her a face gray with the conflict waging within him. She stood immovable, awaiting the sentence.

“Miss Morgan,” he huskily began, “I believe I am man enough to wish my meeting with him had been on a different footing. I wish to God I had not found him here.”

She pressed her hands to her heart, but her voice was almost listless as she asked, “You mean you will take him from me?”

“As an officer and a Northerner I owe it to my general and my country to remove this man as soon as it can be done without endangering his life,” he replied, his tone drearily monotonous. “My orders are explicit.”

“And you car answer your conscience in so doing?” sh: asked.

“I must answer to every mother and wife up North. I must answer to every child left without a father; to every comrade who has fallen in this struggle. I must do my duty,” he replied.

She tottered to the window and for a moment rested her aching forehead against the glistening glass. “You would not leave him for my sake?” she murmured.

“No.”

The finality of his refusal seemed to rouse her benumbed mind, and with quick strides she was at his side again, her face uplifted. “Not for the sake of the love you once felt for me? Not even for that?”

His throat contracted with a physical pain and he could only shake his head for an answer.

She looked up into his face fixedly and next demanded, “Is there nothing that will move you from your purpose to turn this sick man over to Grant's executioners? If I had loved you, you would not have done it for my sake?” The sweat seemed to blister his brow as he remained silent. And she continued, her voice reminding him of a child's treble, “If I should tell you now that I love you, you would not be merciful?”

Locking his hands and then tearing them apart so as to loosen his cloak at the neck and with his face twisted. in agony he choked: “It isn't a question of me or you, of my love or my hate. It's a question of honor. He must be taken.”

“Then never speak again of woman's fickleness. Never again sneer at woman's use of the word generosity,” she whispered. “Never deny that this is a man's world—horrible and brutal. That man lying there is my husband.”

He viewed her outburst as if not comprehending; his intelligence was befuddled. Outside the wind had given up the contest and now, despite the closed door, the doggerel faintly beat upon their ears:

Oh, the girls up North are just the broth,
The girls down South are home-lee,
Dum, dum, dum, beats the drum,
Soon the boys will be marching home.

“Do you understand?” she asked. “Captain Coleman is my husband. We were married in Georgia four years ago.”

“Your husband,” he muttered.

“Salute your officer,” commanded the man on the bed in a thick voice.

With mechanical precision Lieutenant Peerson's heels clicked together and he brought his hand up smartly. Then, emerging from his stupor with a start, he rapidly said, “I will leave a guard until he is able to be moved.”

He was leaving her, and she could utter no words to detain him. She had urged him to go; now her soul was fighting for some expedient to keep him. As he stiffly gained the door she became galvanized into action, and with a wild protest darted forward and stood between him and the threshold.

“Wait!” she said. “A moment only. Come here.” As she spoke she seized his hand and pulled him to an alcove, screened by curtains. Tearing these aside she reached for the candle and held it above her head and pointed at a child slumbering in a crib.

As Peerson gazed on the placidity of the youngster, idly noting one little fist clinched against the cheek, she whispered: “You make war on men and women. Do you war against babies?”

“Your child?” he dully inquired.

“My boy,” she murmured, her voice coming in sobs. “You say women forget. My mistake—was honest. I did you a great wrong in not telling you. I was very sorry. My husband knew it—he let me prove it the only way I knew.” She could speak no further, the quick intake of her breath choking back the words she would have uttered.

“What do you call him?” asked Peerson, with a catch in his voice, as he realized he was gazing at her child.

“Henry Rodney Coleman,” she whimpered. “I wanted to make it up in some way for not letting you know.”

Possibly disturbed by the reiterated vocal efforts downstairs, or perhaps aroused by the light, the boy now yawned luxuriously and woke up. His blinking gaze returned the officer's earnest scrutiny, as if he, too, were making an inventory. His eyes were very like his mother's, large and serious. As the two studied each other, the boy was the first to arrive at a conclusion. For, deciding the strange face contained nothing but amiability, he caught at the officer's hand and sought to tug him down beside the crib.

“You make war on men and women. Do you war against babies?”

There was no resisting the little hand and Peerson sank to his knees and bowed his head until his face touched the velvet cheek. Coleman Jr., crowed in triumph, and unheeding his mother's presence, next devoted both hands to investigating the metal things on the officer's collar.

As the little fingers sought to trace the outlines of the emblems and the wide, serious eyes blinked in the glint from them, gurgles of infantile delight issued from the rounded lips. The man had never before sensed the touch of baby fingers and the magic that they wrought was reflected in his worn, tired face. A curious light, blended of yearning and tenderness, flickered in his eyes and his mouth lost a meed of its setness. So he knelt there, bending over the crowing baby, as if oblivious to all else.

 

At last Peerson rose and backed from the alcove. He stared at the crib silently while the mother stood watching him in her final agony, and then abruptly saluted the youngster and in a strained voice announced: “The kid wins, Kate. I should be court martialed for it; but keep your man. Good-by.”

“I thank you,” she sobbed, humbly following him to the door. “When he grows up I'll tell him of his first Christmas and of your gift—to him.”

“And to you, Mrs. Coleman,” he gently amended. “I'll take my men and go, now.”

As he was about to close the door her quicker ears caught an alarm, and she restrained him, crying, “Hark! What is that?”

He became alert and listened. Some one was blundering hurriedly through the upper hall. Next a low voice called, “Lieutenant! Lieutenant Peerson! Where are you?”

“Here,” he answered, stepping forward to meet the intruder. “Is it you, McKeen?”

“No, it's Butler,” replied the youth, trying to conceal his amazement at beholding the woman. “About two hundred rebs have thrown a circle around the house, the guards say. It'll be warm work breaking through.”

No sooner had he given this warning than she darted by them, directing: “Tell your men to stay where they are and show no light. It is my husband's company.”

The two clattered after her down the stairs and the squad became silent as the word was passed. A loud knock sounded on the outer door, and she calmly opened it.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“Lieutenant Roice, of Captain Coleman's company,” informed an eager voice, “One of our scouts heard the noise of men singing over here, and we've come to see if the captain is all right. We were a little worried.”

“I heard the singing. It was a squad of men,” she said. “I thank you for your care, but I must ask you to go on, as Captain Coleman will be worse if he hears your men or the horses. Rest assured we are safe.”

“We know that, Mrs. Coleman,” proudly replied the officer, turning away. “The Yanks have fallen back half a mile and you've been inside our lines for more'n six hours. We'll ride north to investigate the carol-singers. Good-night, and a Merry Christmas.”

 

Fifteen minutes later a thin line of men splashed their way towards White Oak road in search of the Federal outposts. Their leader rode with chin hugging his collar, oblivious to all but the picture of a tiny boy demanding friendship.