Nostalgia by Dennis McFarland

at his tie with the other.
    Now the pace of the evening was to escalate, though with an inverse prolonging effect. He would view much of it as through the bottom of a glass bottle. A remarkably cheerful Dr. Tilbrook would make an appearance after all, at
his
bedside. Some sort of vile aromatic bitters would be administered. And somehow, as if by an unprecedented miracle, night would fall.
    In his room, Sarah and Dr. Tilbrook would agree about the inferiority of the gas they were lately being delivered—it burned faster and provided a poorer light. In hushed tones meant to spare him, he would hear them speak about a small fortune’s worth of perfectly good oysters, thrown out, when all along it had been the sausages. Doubled over in agony and heaving, he would strike his head against the rim of a pan, and he would think of a small gray bird crashing with a thump against a windowpane.
    And then, he would open his eyes and see her face as she sat smiling beside him on the bed, holding a cold cloth to his brow. He would think she’d changed her dress, but perhaps she’d only put on an apron over what she’d worn all day. The light in the room would seem an odd mix of gold and pale white. She would catch him glancing at the window and say that, yes, indeed, Christmas Eve’s full moon seemed even brighter a day later, tonight, on Christmas. At his first attempt to speak, his lips would feel as if they were glued shut, but with some effort he would ask his question: “In church today,” he would say, “what did you pray for?”
    Her smile would not fade even slightly. “For more than one thing,” she would say.
    “But was there a dominant thing?”
    “Oh, I think you know.”
    “Yes, but I want to hear you say it.”
    “All right,” she would say. “I prayed that you might still change your mind. There, I’ve said it. Now try to sleep.”
    L ATE IN THE AFTERNOON , Leggett returned to the tent in an even fouler mood than before. Agitated and unhappy about their having to sleep in the Wilderness, he’d left the tent an hour earlier to go scouting and see what he could learn; Hayes surmised from the looks of him that either he’d learned nothing or what he’d learned had failed to please him. The long march, which had taken its toll on everybody, seemed to have shrunken Leggett, and he appeared to Hayes bonier, with sharp angles and a permanent scowl. Now he tore about noisily rearranging everything Hayes had already arranged, sweating,slinging gear this way and that, and swearing under his breath. Hayes sat on the ground nearby, barefoot and opposite St. Clair, the fellow from Maine with the backgammon set, who’d stopped by for a few games. St. Clair had beat him in every game but one, yet Hayes felt proud, for in that one, he’d executed a near-perfect backgame and taken St. Clair for four points. With a knifelike glower, Leggett dismissed them both as frivolous and stupid, and soon St. Clair leaned across the board and whispered to Hayes, “I think I’d best be on my way.”
    Last night, they’d left camp between eleven and midnight, a great raucous migration through darkness. As rumored, the Second Corps was to march down into the fork of land between the Rappahannock and the Rapidan, toward Richardsville, and from there on to Ely’s Ford. They went in two columns of two divisions each, splitting the corps in half and advancing along two separate routes, one more southerly than the other. For the first few hours—afforded little light from the stars and a sliver of moon—they could see nothing of their surroundings; in generally fine spirits, happy to be on the move at last, the men brightened the night with laughter and song. But as time wore on, their heavy packs grew heavier, and the march grew quieter. At first light, Hayes saw violets along the edges of the road and the shredded blankets and overcoats discarded by soldiers desperately wanting to reduce their burden. At sunrise, the two columns