Chapter Text
The story of how Robert Morehouse lost his leg was funny if you didn't think about it too hard. Not funny ha-ha, but funny-ironic, which was the same thing after a few shots and a good screw. He'd told it at parties before, getting raucous laughs from fellow military men and pitiful grimaces from sober ladies. Sober ladies always pitied him, and that's why he never let one hang around too long.
Robert's leg, the one still intact, was almost shot off at Little Round Top the previous July. Gettysburg. It was a good fight, a big victory. He'd got the heel of his boot stuck in a gap in the rock, seen a bullet fly straight past and tumble down the rock face. Lucky boy, he was, for surviving that. It would've been a hell of a lot more poetic if that was the incident that really did take his leg, and for awhile he considered making that his story, but he'd only been out of the war two and a half months, and people of his status tended to have a basic grip on mathematics. He could go down to Five Points, bellow the tale to a couple tipsy micks who wouldn't know any better, but he was no hero to them either way.
He'd actually lost it a year later, in the shit middle of nowhere, under heavy fire, and he'd cried like a bitch. He'd seen enough of those bullets mate with the limbs of his men to know what happened. Bite on a rag and break out the saw, boys. This one's coming off. He'd stood a safe distance away as decent men cried out in pain. A lot of them didn't make it, with infections and blood loss and such. Some of them screamed out their prayers like God Himself was the one cutting them open. Others whispered their last words like they were telling a scary story, talking to people who weren't there. Some who hadn't been for a very long time.
The Catholics made a bigger production of it. The Irish were big on wakes in their homeland- a proper cleaning and burial. Some of them got real worked up when that didn't happen. A couple of the Negroes were considerate; Freeman was one of them. Once, when he couldn't find a coin for a dead man's eyes, he popped a button off his own jacket. He always wished condolences. Talked a lot about a woman named Sarah back home.
It was enough to drive a man to drink, and Robert could only imagine what it was like to sleep in those tents. He had his own barracks, even when they were on the road, but he could hear his men playing cards, spinning yarns, singing songs. He often caught himself whistling spirituals and reels at breakfast, wondering how he knew all the words.
As a child, he'd been warned against these kinds of people.
"The Irish are worse than the coloreds," his roommate at Harvard once said. "They'll drink your scotch and fuck your wife while their sister robs you blind." Robert had just nodded his throbbing head and pretended to read the paper. That roommate was now a senator in Boston.
The men were in the middle of breakfast when Robert heard the first musket. He'd called out to his men like Prince Hal. "Once more unto the breach, boys!" he joked. "Give em hell, you know what you're doing."
They did. Robert fired on a few gray backs, unable to aim well in the thick air. A big black man named Russell fell down at his feet, clutching his chest.
He only looked down for a second. The next thing he knew, he was on the ground, too.
Everything went slow after that. Got a bit fuzzy. The world took on a creamy blur around the edges, like he was looking through a dirty telescope. The sound of the battle suddenly went dull, as if he were hearing it with ears full of water.
Someone was yelling at him, one of the Irish, but he couldn't make out his face. Calling him sir. Major, you're hit. Can you hear me?
The world went dark.
When he woke up, he was on fire. Arms, legs, chest, hell, the world even looked red. He screamed bloody murder, tried to sit up, but a big hand pushed him back down.
"Hold him there," said a deep voice.
Two hands obeyed, one pinning him at the sternum and the other taking both his wrists. What the fuck happened? Where was he?
The scene slowly came into view. He was lying on a bed of coats in a trench, far away from the gunfire. His captors came into focus, suddenly familiar faces. The negro Freeman and an Irishman name of Corcoran. He'd bet on Corcoran when the men boxed and wrestled. A brute of a man. He had a wife someplace too, and a little girl. He'd been a hell of a guy when the riots broke out. He'd been a hell of a guy at Gettysburg. And he had a hell of a grip.
"Easy, Major," Corcoran growled. He had a cut on his eyebrow, mud, sweat and blood caked above his eye. His was the voice Robert heard before blacking out. He was singing under his breath as he struggled against Morehouse's strength. It sounded like "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," but the words weren't right.
"...where are the eyes that looked so mild, haroo, haroo..." It was almost indetectable, a soft bass voice. Robert's vision was blurred to hell but his hearing was back. The flames licked higher, setting his torso ablaze. He heard a scream. The singing got a bit louder, and Corcoran's grip tightened. "...guns and drums and drums and guns, haroo, haroo..." Robert realized that the scream must've been his. He tried to focus on the song. Freeman was humming it from his invisible position at the foot of the makeshift bed.
"...we have guns and drums and drums and guns, the enemy nearly slew ya, but darlin, dear, ya look so queer... Johnny I hardly knew ya."
His heart sank. He'd heard this song before. The next verse. God, no.
"Where are the legs with which you run, when first ye learned to carry a gun..."
Robert choked. He prayed against character, hoped against hope, wished to pass out again, but no such luck. He just bit down on the rag and listened as the Negro and his saw fueled the fire.