I pass back and forth each side of the line, as a hand in a coat sleeve. See me now.īack on the Union side I spot him again-the newspaper salesman, in our camp, detestable spy. A phrenology test confirmed large bumps of secretiveness and adventure-love. Last year in Washington, McClellan and the others interviewed me, a Canadian, to determine my patriotism. The tent flap in hand, you feel its grain? Inside, a warmth from the bedroll swells toward you, thin smell of bread, sweat. I'm a nurse and I hold the one hand a soldier has left. I'm a nurse-quick, remember-man or woman this time? He's talking about Yankee fortifications, doesn't notice me. In the reb camp I spot a salesman I've seen before, loitering behind the Union lines selling newspapers. I pull out earthenware, clothing, quilts, add them to my wares. Inside the house there's red ink that I use to line my eyes, mustard that I make into a plaster for blistering my face, and pepper I sprinkle in a handkerchief. In between the picket lines I find an abandoned house. See me now: I'm an Irish peddler woman, I practice a brogue. On picket duty I step into the darkness and step again, one more time, and I'm gliding through forest back to the Union side. I write down the position of fourteen ten-inch mortars, and seven eight-inch siege howitzers, tuck the paper in the inner sole of my shoe. My paint rubs off my hands, and one of the other negros says, “I'll be darned if that feller ain't turnin' white." I add more silver nitrate. See me now: I'm a contraband boy in the rebel camp.
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