Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor

Author:MacKinlay Kantor [Kantor, MacKinlay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-04-13T18:30:00+00:00

XXXVI

John Winder stood with Henry Wirz on a sentry platform. John Winder did not see the bears witnessed by Henry Wirz; he saw scum, a marsh under the scum, pollywogs in the marsh. They were too thick, the marsh could not support their life, it was fated that many would die. Perhaps the survivors, if sufficiently cannabalistic, could sustain themselves directly by feasting on dead pollywogs. Or indirectly, as by swallowing fruits to be reared in a forest of growth which the dead creatures had manured.

I have not yet seen your most recent return, Captain.

General, that Gus Gleich he is sick. Ach, so much trouble I have with my office! And that Gus Moesner, he is good for the work, but with the English he is not so good. Slow he goes, ja. Tomorrow I present the return of prisoners to date.

Approximately . . . Captain?

Sir, it is maybe twenty-nine thousand now.

Because Winder was older in his mind than in his years, and sometimes worse than senile in his addiction to a crusty past, he sent Cadet Davis to the board again. Winder, aged perhaps twenty-seven, sat behind his small desk on a raised platform, and the cadets of this section sat before him, lining the sides of the long form—six on the left, five on the right, now that Mr. Davis had vacated his chair. Mr. Davis stood beside the easel which held the board, and gripped a pointer in one of his knotted bony young hands—the hand nearest the board, as prescribed.

Elementary tactical combinations of the Greeks were very simple, but they were methodical. An army corps was composed of—

The pointer found the long printed word at the top.

A Tetraphalangarchia.

Sprightly young Mr. Wayland at the lower end of the form wished to make a joke about this, you could see mischief peppered in his eyes, you could see his naughty soul fairly writhing for release within his rigid body; but he had a dangerous weight of demerits already, and the tactical instructor’s hard eye was upon him.

This consisted of sixteen thousand, three hundred and forty-five Oplitai.

The pointer moved.

An Epitagma, numbering eight thousand, one hundred and ninety-two Psiloi; also an Epitagma of cavalry numbering four thousand and ninety-six men.

Might you explain to the section, Mr. Davis, the composition of the grand phalanx.

Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.

The tip of the pointer went walking. Tetraphalangarchia, four. Phalanxes, sixteen. Chiliarchiae, sixty-four. Syntagmata, two hundred and fifty-six.

...But in Andersonville these scraps of mouthing, hobbling, gurgling debris were neither Greeks nor Romans. Said old John Winder, They are Yankees, they are Nationalists; they must be treated so.

He cried at Henry Wirz, and so unexpectedly that Wirz’s nerves gave a leap— He cried, I haven’t yet set foot in this damnable place, nor do I intend to!

Ja, General. It is not good you do so. You they would attack!

Ah, I’m not afraid of the sons of bitches! Are you afraid?

No, no!

Ah, you fear them.

Sir, they are very bad. Like bears in Bern.

Where in hell’s that?

Sir— I mean— General Winder, so many we have now; not more should be sent by me here.

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