Bloodlines, Chapter 3 - A Farm-Picture
Chapter One is here: http://community.livejournal.com/housefic/918594.html#cutid1
Chapter Two is here: http://community.livejournal.com/housefic/932770.html#cutid1
TITLE: Bloodlines
AUTHOR: maddoggirl
PAIRING: H/W gen
RATING: PG-13 for 19th century cussin’ and one use of the N-bomb
SUMMARY: Civil War AU. Even on opposite sides of a war, Fate has a way of bringing them together...
A/N: Through my own dumb-assery I lost my beta’s email address. When I make contact with her again, I shall try and persuade her to carry on beta-ing for me. But I couldn’t wait anymore to post this new chapter. Please, then, keep in mind that this has not been beta-ed and have mercy. Here’re the boys together, as promised. Again, comments FTW. Enjoy.
Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee - April 10th, 1862
House was awake for a while before he felt the inclination to open his eyes. Ten minutes at least. It was interesting to see how much he could work out about his surroundings just from lying there.
The warmth, and the smell of sawdust and broth, told him immediately that he was inside a building. He moved his hands slowly at his sides and felt sheets. There was a firm, soft pressure behind his head. So used was he to sleeping in a tent that it took him several seconds to realise that it was a pillow, and he was lying in a bed.
And sounds. From the next room came occasional sounds of pots and pans clinking together and a pair of feet shuffling back and forth, often accompanied by a tuneless whistle. He was making the broth, House realised. But there was something else, something that could only be heard in the silent moments. Breathing - someone in the room was asleep, or pretending to be.
House opened his eyes. He was staring at a white plaster ceiling crossed by dark wooden beams. He turned his head slightly to look around. A few feet to his left was a half-raised window letting a cool breeze and bright midday sun flood into the room. Outside the window he could only see an expanse of grass, sloping eventually into a small hill. On his right was empty space for about five feet, and then a wall with a bare fireplace and a closed door set into it. The floor of the room was plain wood.
The breathing came again. House slowly propped himself up on his elbows, with a little gnawing pain in his abdomen reminding him why he was here. He craned his head up and peered across the small room.
There was a bed opposite his, about seven feet away, against the facing wall. House sized up its occupant with interest. A dark-haired man, maybe a decade younger, wrapped loosely in his sheets with his face turned upward. What had once obviously been a carefully cherished moustache was now part of a thick, dark layer of stubble covering his jaw. His cheeks had an unhealthy flush to them and his forehead was damp with sweat, House noted with professional interest. The folded grey clothes on the bedside chair told him that this man was an enemy soldier, and the tight bandage on his left wrist told him the man’s injury.
Looking at the younger man’s untidy stubble, it occurred to him to touch his own chin, and he felt almost a beard beneath his hand. He had been out three days at least, then. He lifted the sheets and saw that he was wearing only white long johns. His uniform had been washed and repaired, and was piled on the chair next to the bed. Leaning against the chair was his sword and his cane, and in front of them stood his boots. With an exerted sigh, House let his head fall back down. After a moment’s consideration, he placed the pillow against the wall behind his head so that he could monitor his roommate and look out of the window. Next to his head was another window, closed, which looked out onto a small yard containing a water pump and an unoccupied henhouse.
His companion’s slumber was restless. Although the man never seemed to wake, he tossed and turned almost constantly, coughing harshly as he did so. His limbs agitatedly stirred the sheets and he uttered low, distressed groans. House watched with relative detachment until the door at his right opened and a pink-faced sergeant with black hair and moustache strode in. He was a short, stocky man of about forty years, and was carrying a small tin basin. Water sloshed around inside the bowl.
“Oh,” he said, looking at House, “You’re awake. Splendid.”
“Splendid,” House repeated tonelessly.
The sergeant lifted the sleeper’s uniform off the bedside chair and sat down on it. Placing the bowl on his knees, he wrung out the rag which lay in the water and began to dab it to the sleeper’s brow. The young man shifted, then sighed peacefully and lay still. The sergeant wet the cloth again, and then looked at House.
“There’s broth cooking on the stove. I’ll bring you some when I’ve done here.”
“All right. I assume that we won.”
“Certainly did. Those reinforcements took the rebs by the throat, by thunder. Cleared ‘em right off the field. It was a tight scratch, though.”
House nodded.
“Who’s he?” he asked, jerking his head at the recumbent soldier. The sergeant dabbed the man’s forehead once more, then looked thoughtfully at him.
“Rebel prisoner. Got papers on him, name’s Wilson. Broken wrist - probably tripped over his own feet retreating!” the sergeant chuckled. House did not join him. He looked around the room, then frowned.
“What are we doing here?”
“Well,” the sergeant replied, getting to his feet, “this is a requisitioned little farmhouse about a mile back from the battlefield. There were other wounded men billeted around the village but now most of them are either back with the regiment, in a field hospital or dead.”
“Yet we’re not. Why?” House demanded, pulling himself a little more upright.
“The - huh - well…” the sergeant hesitated, broke off and moved to the window. He fussed over the latch and adjusted it a little, House’s eyes burning into his back. After a few moments of this, the sergeant wheeled around to face House, leaning his back against the sill.
“The nub of it, Grig’ry…”
“Don’t call me that, sergeant.”
“I’m sorry, sir, I guess I forgot myself,” the sergeant stammered, “But the nub is this: the regiment’s advancing tomorrow at dawn. You won’t be fit to go with them, and this Wilson feller ain’t fit to move nowhere.”
House’s frown deepened. The sergeant crossed the floor and sat on the edge of his bed. His tone was soft and sympathetic as he spoke.
“Captain House…you’ve done a great deal for your country and I’m blamed if you ain’t as warm a patriot as I ever met. But the thing is that you’re not in a condition to be amongst fighters, and likely never will be again. You’re nearly forty, and you’ve had nine kinds of hell knocked out of you.”
He paused awkwardly. House didn’t prompt him, but instead stared fixedly out the window, wilfully unresponsive. The sergeant sighed heavily, and finished his speech.
“You’re being discharged, Captain. By order of the colonel.”
“Fine,” House replied quickly, “I was getting tired of it anyway.”
“That’s not it, I’m afraid. That feller, Wilson - we got to send him up to the prison at headquarters.”
“Fort Douglas, Illinois.”
“Yes. And you’ll have to present yourself there to have your discharge papers confirmed. The regiment has no-one to spare, and…”
House’s face showed a flash of realisation. “You want me to take him there? Impossible. Absurd.”
“He won’t hurt you. He’ll have his hands shackled, and you’ll be well armed.”
House snorted disparagingly. “Fear really isn’t the point of debate here. I don’t care if he’s trussed like a turkey, I won’t do it.”
“The army will pay for your mount and cover all your expenses.”
“The rebs blow out your ears? I said no.”
The sergeant’s patience seemed to be thinning. He smiled with just a hint of malice.
“I’m afraid, Captain, that you really don’t have a choice in the matter. You took an oath to this army and this army has given you an order.”
The cold stare House pinned him with seemed to last for whole minutes.
“Get me some broth,” House said eventually, his eyes still fixed and blazing. The sergeant seemed only too glad to obey, hurrying out of the room and leaving the captain alone with his thoughts. Unfortunately, he felt too tired to pursue them, and simply watched his roommate blankly. When the sergeant returned with a tin bowl of soup, House pointed towards the prisoner, who now slept peacefully.
“Give him a shave while he’s like that. Trying to shave someone while they’re tossing and turning is liable to get messy.”
“Right you are, sir,” the sergeant said heavily.
House ate his broth slowly, watching the sergeant leave the room and return with a steaming bowl of water and a razor. The sergeant rolled up his sleeves and wiped the razor against his trouser leg. He scraped it across the sleeper’s hairy jaw and, in time, slowly brought him back to humanity. Ten years seemed to fall away with the stubble, leaving House looking in something like surprise at the young man now lying opposite him.
“There anyone else here?” House asked as the sergeant finished his work.
“There’s an old Negro named Hector who helps out. He and his son ran out of a plantation and came to the camp. They assigned him up here.”
“Call him in. He can help you wash the reb - he smells like a damned sty. There’s a pump in the yard, isn’t there?”
“Yes, sir, there is,” the sergeant answered with strained civility, “I’ll get right on it.”
He left. House thought about how long he would be able to use his privilege of rank. The Army, with all its strange yet well-learned ways, was soon going to be a memory. They were getting rid of him, yet they expected that he should escort some insipid Alabama farmboy over five hundred miles from here to Chicago? That was the Army way, he reflected.
The sergeant returned presently, this time accompanied by a thin Negro of just under sixty years. The two men, watched with clinical detachment by House, lifted the prisoner from his bed and stripped off his grimy underclothing. Wilson hung limply between their arms and didn’t open his eyes. Hector and the sergeant half-carried, half-dragged him out of the room, and House twisted to see through the window behind his bed as they brought him out into the yard.
House watched Hector prop Wilson up, the Negro’s slim, wrinkled arms looped under Wilson’s shoulders, while the sergeant inspected the pump and tested its lever gingerly. The prisoner’s body was pale and wasted in a way that House knew came from the sudden lack of food this four-day fever had brought. The sergeant began pumping the metal handle furiously up and down, sending water spilling from it. Hector hauled Wilson under the tap and let the cold water tumble down over him. He did not respond to this sudden shower expect for a few weak moans. The sergeant pointed to him, then made a remark to Hector which was covered by the falling water. Hector grinned in response and muttered something back, which House also couldn’t make out.
When they had drenched the prisoner thoroughly, the two men brought him back in, his arms draped over their shoulders. His toes were stubbed and bleeding where he had been towed across the ground, and he was shaking violently. They wrapped him in his grey Confederate jacket and lay him out on his bed. There was a silence, during which all three men looked at the naked, trembling prisoner sprawled deliriously over the sheets.
“So,” House broke the pause, “he’s Jewish.”
Corporal James Wilson came to with a start three and a half hours after his abrupt shower. He was staring up at the flaky white plaster ceiling. It was quiet in here, he noted, and the sun washed warmly over the bed in which he found himself lying. There were birds outside, and a soft spring breeze cooled his still-feverish skin. For a long, dreamy moment, he was blissful in his ignorance. It didn’t last.
“Where am I?” he cried in sudden panic, sensing there was someone close by and trying to sit up. A thin Negro chuckled softly, leaned forward from his chair by the bed and laid his bony hands on Wilson’s shoulders.
“You don’t want to do that, son,” he said in a soft, throaty voice, “You gonna make yo’self sick again.”
“W...where...”
The Negro chuckled again. “Oh, just a little farmhouse in Tennessee. You wouldn’t know it. Lie back, sonny, and I’ll get you a little of the sergeant’s broth.”
“Who are you?” Wilson asked, shifting his back up against the wall to a semi-sitting position.
“My name? Hector. You try to lie back now, and I’ll get you some of that broth.”
He got up and shuffled to the door, Wilson’s eyes darting after him and taking in the room uncertainly. With his hand on the door, Hector turned back.
“Oh, by the way, sonny - you a prisoner.” He bared his teeth good-naturedly and departed.
Wilson barely registered the fact he had already worked out. His gaze was fixed on the man in the bed opposite. He was older than Wilson and with lighter hair, curled up on his side fast asleep. His hair was sticking out at angles and his jaw unshaved. His uniform was piled on and around the bedside chair, and it didn’t take Wilson long to spot the cane. Wilson wondered what the man’s injury was. There were several patches of dark dried blood on the sheets, which were grimy and unwashed.
Almost as if he knew he was being watched, the man turned suddenly and opened his eyes. They swivelled towards Wilson almost immediately, staring brazenly. Wilson smiled politely.
“Good afternoon, friend. My name’s James Wilson.”
As if he hadn’t heard, the man sat up and swung his legs over the bed. He put on his blue jacket and picked up the cane, getting to his feet and hobbling unevenly out the door without a backward glance. Wilson stared after him. He was already uncertain how he was going to be treated by his captors, and this encounter did not instil much confidence in him. Even with the sound of Hector next door, he felt inescapably lonely. In the yard came the sound of water being pumped and Wilson assumed that the strange Union soldier was washing. He wondered how he was operating the pump and cleaning himself at the same time, but the musing left him as soon as the door opened and the smell of warm soup washed in.
“Sit down, Hector. I want to talk a little while I eat.”
Hector handed over the bowl and settled himself on the chair.
“Well? What you want to talk about?”
“Who’s he? Out back,” Wilson indicated the yard with his head. Hector flashed a secret smile and shook his head.
“That, son? That’s the devil himself. The crossest, most disagreeable sonofabitch I seen in a good long time. And you’re gonna get to know him good.”
“Me?” Wilson said, a note of horror creeping into his voice, “why?”
“He gonna be taking you up to Chicago to be put in a prison camp.”
Wilson sighed. Loneliness was flooding into him, alone in this strange place. Hector watched the prisoner carefully, and seemed to sense his misery.
“Where you come from, son?”
“Me? Alabama.”
“Me too. How’d you like that? I was sold across to Tennessee before my boy was born, but I was born and raised in Alabammy.”
“I never saw many slaves,” Wilson said softly, lowering his eyes. Outside, the sound of the water stopped. “Who is that feller out there anyway?”
“One Captain Gri’gry House. Surgeon with the reg’ment.”
“Surgeon?” Wilson’s eyes seemed to spark with interest.
“Yes, and a fine one too, so I hear. I only know what they tell me about him.”
“What happened to his leg? That ain’t a new wound.”
Hector nodded in confirmation and stretched out on the chair. “Got it blowed up at Manassas last year. The stubborn devil wouldn’t let them do away with the leg, so they just kinda cut out the bad part. Like Jacob, you know?”
Wilson mulled this over, picturing the scene in his mind. “I know,” he said vaguely, “‘And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrastled with him’.”
“You know your Book better than me. What does it say? ‘Limping with the touch of the Lord’, I believe.”
“He hate everyone, or is it just me?”
“Most everyone,” Hector replied, grinning, “except a nigger he got for an orderly named Foreman. Guess he won’t see him nomore, on account of they’re discharging him.”
A heavy, clumping step entered the back door. Hector took the now-empty bowl from Wilson’s lap and departed with a wink. House shoved open the door and stumped across the bare boards to his bed. He was in his uniform, but his hair was wetly plastered to his head. He lay on the bed and withdrew a newspaper from under the pillow. He steadily ignored Wilson.
“You think you’re bitter about this, you should try being me,” Wilson remarked after several minutes of silence.
“Wilson,” House said sternly, “I’m trying to read about our glorious victory.”
“You can call me Jimmy.”
“No, thanks.”
Wilson laughed, and tossed aside his blankets. Shakily at first, he walked towards the window and leaned his hands on the sill.
“When do we leave?”
House looked over the top of the newspaper. “Tomorrow, first light. Think you’ll be well enough? If you die on my hands, I might not get my pension.”
“I’ll be fine. I’m feeling fine - well, tolerable.”
“Good. Got any whiskey?” House asked, extracting from his pocket a brown bottle.
“Yeah,” Wilson walked back to the bed and rummaged in his uniform until he found a small iron hip flask. He threw it lightly over to House. House picked up a glass of water from the bedside chair and threw its contents out the window behind his head. He then measured a small amount of the brown liquid into it and topped it up with liquor. He screwed the cap on the flask and threw it back to its owner.
“Laudanum,” Wilson said quietly, “for the pain.”
“No, because it covers the taste of the whiskey,” House muttered darkly, downed the glass and set it down. He shot Wilson a cold, unflinching stare. Wilson looked at him, raised the flask and drained it dry.