The Traveler's Gift Read online

  Chamberlain stood up and offered his hand to David. Helping him to his feet, he said, “I’m Colonel Chamberlain. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. I know why you’re here, but I don’t know your name.”

  “I’m David Ponder, sir. Is it safe to be standing up like this?”

  “For the moment,” Chamberlain replied as he pulled a small twig from his mustache. “But they’ll sure be back. That was the fourth time they made a try for us already.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking,” David stammered, “who are they?”

  The colonel cocked his head and frowned. “Why, Lee’s boys . . . the Army of Northern Virginia. We have fully half the Confederate battle complement facing off against us in a long line that stretches to a little town about a mile that way.” Chamberlain pointed with his rifle.

  “What’s the name of the town?” David asked.

  “Gettysburg,” Chamberlain offered. “Ever hear of it?”

  David nodded his head as a cold boiling began deep in his stomach. “The Civil War,” he whispered.

  “What?” Chamberlain asked.

  “I said this is the Civil War.”

  “Hmmph,” Chamberlain snorted. “That may be what you call it. Stick around for a bit. I can assure you that there is nothing civil about it. Come with me,” he said, beginning to walk. “We won’t have much time until they hit us again.”

  “Joshua!” The two men turned at the shout. “Joshua!”

  It was Tom and John Chamberlain, the colonel’s younger brothers. Tom was a lieutenant in the regiment, while John, a muscular young man, had been pressed into service as a medic. Both were almost as tall as the colonel and wore mustaches and sideburns that almost covered their faces. They were endowed with a cheerfulness, however, that their older brother had long since discarded. “You’re a little dirtier than you ought to be, Joshua, but you’re looking well. Are you all right?” John asked.

  “Yes. Fine to this point. You?”

  “So far, so good,” John said. David followed the three brothers as they walked quickly along the wall. “Sergeant Tozier was hit but not seriously. His section took some heavy losses, though.”

  “How’re we doing, Colonel?” The question came from a man of about fifty. He had a bandage around his head and was busily making a wounded friend comfortable.

  “You’re giving it to them, soldier,” Chamberlain said. “Keep pouring it on.” Turning to his brothers, he instructed, “John, get over the hill and find a place for the wounded. Tom, go to the rear of the regiment and see that it is well closed up. And tell the men to thin their lines. Stretch at least half the men to the left of that big rock. The Rebs are working that way, and if they flank us . . .” Chamberlain’s voice trailed away. “Well,” he continued, “they just can’t flank us. That’s all.” They turned to move away when their older brother stopped them again. “Boys,” he said, “I don’t like this. Keep your head down. With all of us here, it could be a bad day for Mother.”

  As his brothers ran off, Chamberlain turned to David and motioned for him to follow. They picked their way through the broken trees and tumbled sections of the wall, stepping over the men who were preparing to fight again and the ones who would fight no more. The colonel climbed onto the big rock he had indicated earlier to his brother and helped David up beside him. “You can see them from here,” he said.

  David squinted through the smoke that still lay thick in the air. Following Chamberlain’s gaze, he saw the gray and pale yellow uniforms of the Confederate army massing below. They were less than 150 yards away. David could see their hats and the occasional face looking up the hill.

  “Who are you?” David asked.

  Chamberlain had been peering intently down the hill, but at this question, he jerked his head sharply back toward his visitor. “What? I’ve already told you. My name is—”

  “That’s not what I mean,” David interrupted. “I mean who are you? No offense, but are you famous? The other places I appeared, it was to see someone . . . well . . . famous.”

  Chamberlain laughed. It was a quick, dry laugh devoid of humor. “Famous? Ten months ago I was a schoolteacher. Now, I’m a soldier. For a while anyway. Actually, it was about the time I joined up that I started dreaming about you. I knew what you looked like, how tall you were.” The colonel tugged at David’s sleeve. “I even knew you’d be wearing this. I’ve never had dreams like these before. Strange, constant, every night for months. You want to hear something spooky? Just before you arrived—there in the middle of the fight—I looked up and raised my hand. You appeared. I closed my fist on your shirt and pulled you down. When I raised my hand to grab you, I knew you’d be there. It was just like in my dreams.”

  “Why are you here?” David asked.

  Chamberlain eyed him curiously. “Do you mean the war in general or this specific desolate hill?”

  “Both, I suppose.”

  “Hmm,” Chamberlain stroked his beard. “I joined the Union army for a myriad of reasons—same as everyone else really. We got caught up in the patriotism. We were bored. We were ashamed not to join. We thought it’d be quick and fun. For the most part, though, I think the vast majority of our men left their homes and families because it was the right thing to do.”

  Chamberlain was quiet for a moment, distracted by the men forming behind fallen trees as they spread out their line. “Colonel!” one of the men yelled. “The brush is too thick here. We can’t see thirty yards!”

  “Dig in and stay where you are, son,” Chamberlain yelled back. “They’ll be a lot closer than that!”

  After a few moments of silence, David prompted Chamberlain. “Colonel?” he started. “You said you joined because it was the right thing to do.”

  “Yes,” Chamberlain continued. “Over the centuries, wars have been fought for land or women or money. Thousands of people have died in battles caused by jealousy or an insult. More than a few times, men have fought because a king or president or someone told them to fight.” Chamberlain turned squarely to face David and looked him in the eye. “David Ponder, I say to you now that this is the first time in history that men have fought to set another man free. Most of us Maine boys have never even seen black skin on a man, but if it is true that all men are created equal, then we are fighting for each other. We are fighting because it is the right thing to do.”

  The colonel held David’s eyes for a long moment, then slowly turned to look up the line of men. “I’m not certain anymore just what I expected when I signed on for this fight, but it wasn’t this.” He lowered himself into a squatting position, balancing easily on the balls of his feet. Picking absently at a weed that had grown through the rock, Chamberlain said, “I was at Fredericksburg, you know.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.

  “Three thousand of us attacked a rock wall just like this one. We came across a field as the sun was setting. From about fifty, sixty yards they fired. We dropped in waves. Literally sheets of men falling like a curtain on a bad play. The attack failed, but I made it to the wall. I lay there all night, too scared to withdraw, cold. I burrowed down into the corpses for warmth, listening to our men shoot, their men shoot back. Whap! That’s the sound a bullet makes when it hits a dead body. Altogether different from the sound of a bullet in living flesh.”

  Chamberlain shook his head forcefully as if to drive the memory away. “Oh, well,” he said as he stood up. He had pulled the weed from the rock and used it as a sword, pointing again toward the wall. “That’ll never happen here. This wall won’t turn ’em much longer. We don’t have enough men left.” He threw the weed to the ground. “I have a feeling,” he said, “that if we lose this fight, the war will be over.”

  David stepped up beside the colonel. “Why did you choose this place to defend?”

  “I didn’t choose it,” Chamberlain said dryly. “Colonel Vincent placed me here this morning.”

  “Why did he place you here?” David pressed.

  “We are the extreme left of
the Union army. The Eighty-third Pennsylvania is formed on our right, but to our left, nothing. We are the end of a line that runs from here all the way back into Gettysburg. That means I cannot withdraw. If the Confederate army flanks us, if the Rebs overrun us, they’ll come in behind our cannons and barricades, and the Army of the Potomac will be forfeit. Eighty thousand men caught from the back on a downhill charge with no protection. And if it happens, it will have come through me.”

  At that very second, David heard a ghostly sound resonate from down the hill. Rising to a high, thin pitch, a thousand voices strained in a long, continuous scream. It was the Rebel yell. They were coming. David caught glimpses of the soldiers through the trees as they ran up the steep hill.

  Chamberlain had turned to direct David off the rock when the cannon shell hit. Striking the base of the rock on which they were standing, the projectile threw both men into the air. As he hit the ground, David felt as though a giant vacuum had sucked all the air from his body. Before he could check to see if he’d been injured—before he could even breathe—Chamberlain had him by the arm, dragging him to the protection of the wall.

  Only the cannons were firing now, David realized as he struggled to get his lungs working again. He could still hear the blood-curdling yells as the Rebels worked their way up the hill. He rolled over onto his knees and glanced over the wall. They were within sight. It seemed to David as though the Confederate army was about to step into his lap. Shoot! he thought. For God’s sake, shoot! They’re right here!

  It seemed an eternity, but finally, David heard Chamberlain call out, “Hit ’em!” A long, rolling crack of rifle fire rang out. It began near David and ran like a fuse up the line to the right. Scores of Rebels fell on the first volley. They were more careful after that, using trees to shield them from the deadly fire, but still they came.

  The firing was continuous now. To David, it sounded like thunder and firecrackers thrown into an earthquake. The man next to him grunted and fell backward, his head and face a bloody mess. To David’s astonishment, the man sat up, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and wrapped the cloth around his head. Wiping the blood from his eyes with a sleeve, he picked up his rifle and began loading it to fire again.

  Chamberlain was directing his men now and had moved some distance from David. All down the line, a few of the Rebels had reached the wall. Most of the shooting was point-blank. The colonel had drawn his pistol, and David watched as Chamberlain and a Rebel, no more than three feet apart, aimed guns at each other. The Confederate soldier went down in a cloud of red mist. Chamberlain continued to fire at targets all around him until, without warning, the Rebels pulled back.

  As suddenly as they had appeared, they withdrew. Chamberlain’s men cautiously stood up to take stock of their situation. David walked quickly toward the colonel who was walking away from him. The rock wall, on his left side as he walked, was draped with the bodies of blue and gray. He passed a man who was crying and cursing as he held a younger man in his arms.

  Jogging as he caught up with Chamberlain, David reached out and touched his shoulder. “Colonel?” he said. Chamberlain stopped, staring straight ahead. “Colonel? I know you’re very busy, and I don’t want to bother you, but why am I here?”

  Chamberlain slowly shook his head. “I don’t know. I only knew that you would come.”

  “There is something I am to learn from you,” David pleaded. “I am sure of it. Think—what could it be?”

  The colonel smiled slightly and raised his eyebrows. Turning to David, he said, “I am a professor of rhetoric. I am fairly certain I have nothing you would care to learn. I am a teacher with a cause in my heart and men to lead. These poor men . . . their leader has no real knowledge of warfare or tactics. I am only a stubborn man, Ponder. That is my greatest advantage in this fight. I have deep within me the inability to do nothing. I may die today, but I will not die with a bullet in my back. I will not die in retreat. I am, at least, like the apostle Paul, who wrote, ‘This one thing I do . . . I press toward the mark.’ ”

  “Do you have anything written that you are to give me?” David asked.

  For a moment, David could see that Chamberlain did not understand his question. Then recognition flared in his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “I do. I had almost forgotten.”

  Digging into his pocket, he pulled out a small tobacco pouch. The pouch was hand-sized, navy blue, with crossed swords, the symbol of a fighting man, embroidered on the flap. It had been sewn from stout cloth, but the rough treatment it had received had worn the pouch to a moleskin softness. The two gold buttons that closed the flap were metal, engraved with the image of an eagle. The tobacco pouch was beaten and threadbare, but it was still handsome—regal in a sense—the possession of an officer.

  Chamberlain opened the pouch and extracted a small, folded piece of paper. “I wrote this more than two months ago,” he said. “We’ve had no tobacco for longer than that, so I slipped it in here for safekeeping.” Passing the paper to David, he said, “I’m a little foggy on what I actually wrote. I woke up in the middle of the night after one of those dreams. The words you have there were rumbling around in my head as plain as day. I lit the lamp, found an inkwell, and put them to paper. I knew they were for you.”

  “Thanks,” David said as he held the paper in his hand.

  “My pleasure,” Chamberlain replied. “This has all been a very curious situation. By the way, how do you get out of here?”

  David held up the paper. “All I have to do is read this—” he snapped his fingers, “—and I’m gone.”

  Chamberlain looked around him. Noticing his brother Tom and several other men approaching, he put his hand on David’s shoulder, squeezed it, and said, “If that’s all you have to do, then, brother, you might want to read it now.”

  He turned to go, then turned back to David. Still in his hand was the small tobacco pouch. Holding it out, he offered it to David. “I’ll not be getting any more tobacco anyway,” Chamberlain said.

  Wordlessly, David took the gift and watched the colonel walk away. Alone for a moment, everything in him wanted to take Chamberlain’s advice. Read the paper now, he told himself. Get out of here. But something kept nudging him to stay, to watch.

  Placing the precious piece of paper back into the tobacco pouch, David shoved the whole thing in his jeans pocket and eased up to the group of men surrounding Colonel Chamberlain. Sergeant Tozier was there, the hard-nosed old soldier who carried the battle flag. Tozier had a thick wad of torn cloth stuck into a hole in his shoulder where he had been wounded earlier. “No help from the Eighty-third,” he growled. “They’re shot to ribbons. All they can do is extend the line a bit. We’re getting murdered on the flank.”

  “Can we extend?” Chamberlain asked.

  “There’s nothing to extend, Joshua,” his brother Tom answered. “Over half our men are down.”

  “How are we for ammunition?”

  “We’ve been shooting a lot.”

  “I know we’ve been shooting a lot! I want to know how we’re holding out.”

  “I’ll check, sir.”

  As Tom moved off, a voice came from a young soldier who had climbed a tree. “They’re forming again, Colonel.” Chamberlain looked up to see the boy pointing downhill. “They’re forming up right now,” he said, “and they’ve been reinforced. There’re more of them this time.”

  “Sir!” Sergeant Ruel Thomas, out of breath, stumbled into their midst. “Colonel Chamberlain, sir. Sir . . . Colonel Vincent is dead.”

  “Are you sure, Sergeant?”

  “Yes, sir. He was shot right at the first of the fight. We were firmed up by Weed’s Brigade in the front, but now Weed is dead. They moved Hazlett’s Battery up top. Hazlett’s dead too.”

  Tom came running back. “Joshua,” he said, “we’re out. One, two rounds per man at the most. Some of the men have nothing at all.”

  Chamberlain turned to a thin man standing to his right. It was First Sergeant Ellis Spear. �
�Spear,” he said calmly, “tell the boys to take ammunition from the wounded and dead.”

  “Maybe we should think about pulling out, sir,” Spear said cautiously.

  “We will not be pulling out, Sergeant,” Chamberlain replied grimly. “Carry out my orders, please.”

  “Colonel,” Tozier spoke up. “Sir, we won’t hold ’em again. You know we won’t.”

  “Joshua.” It was Tom speaking again. “Here they come.”

  David had been listening to the exchange between the officers, fascinated by the horror of their situation, but when he heard the Rebel yells coursing up through the trees once more, his blood turned icy cold. I’ve waited too late to read the paper, he thought. I’ll never get out of here now. As he grabbed for the tobacco pouch, a calm washed over him with that same familiar urging—wait, watch, listen, learn.

  Chamberlain was standing in full view on top of the wall, his arms crossed, staring down at the advancing enemy. Sergeant Spear had returned and was standing at his colonel’s feet. Tozier, Tom, and another lieutenant, a boy named Melcher, were also bunched below. David stood several feet behind the group. “Joshua!” Tom shouted. “Give an order!”

  Chamberlain remained stoic. Deep in thought, he was quickly sorting the situation. We can’t retreat, he said to himself. We can’t stay here. When I am faced with the choice of doing nothing or doing something, I will always choose to act. I am a person of action. Turning his back to the Rebels, he looked down at his men. “Fix bayonets,” he said.

  At first, no one moved. They simply stared at him with open mouths. “We’ll have the advantage of moving downhill,” Chamberlain said. “Fix bayonets now. Execute a great right wheel of the entire regiment. Swing the left first.”