The Skirmish Near Marbury

Content warning: contains themes of racism.

“No agenda, just human interest”, said the managing editor before dispatching Andrew to the heart of England.

Andrew was Black, so there was always an agenda. 

“The American Civil war, right?”, said Andrew, who thought he’d mis-heard.

“That’s right”, said the editor, a gruff direct man with a deeply suppressed sense of humor, “Not Cromwell, but Robert E. Lee; zealots, both”.

“Will you issue me a musket?” said Andrew.

“Funny” said the editor.

+++

The Civil War re-enactment was taking place in Marbury, a pretty little village near a lake in undulating farmland, not far from the border with Wales. It was a typical English summer day, fat clouds threatened to shed rain on the small crowd of men, white men wearing blue and gray uniforms, accompanied by an even smaller group of spectators, mainly travelling wives and a few curious locals. Andrew wondered why anyone would want to go to all this bother, playing toy soldiers in a field that smelt of cow manure. And the abominable gray Confederate uniforms; who would voluntarily don those garbs, and what they represented?

Andrew used his press pass to get into the ACWS members’ area. Tea and sandwiches were being served ahead of the fight.

“I’m on your side” said the friendly white-whiskered man ahead of him in the queue, laughing at his own joke. Apparently, they did understand the implications, which only made it weirder. 

The elderly man, one of many, was wearing a blue tunic with brass buttons, a red and gray sash around his waist, and a brimmed hat. He was dressed as a Union officer, a general. There were more officers than enlisted men. Chiefs, no Indians, Andrew thought, a trope that would never appear in print with his name attached.

“Did you get lost and end up here by accident?” said another Union man, a private, wearing a blue kepi, tilted jauntily to one side on his balding head. The man did everything but wink to signal he was in on the joke.

“I’m a reporter, for a national newspaper”, said Andrew, “I’m writing a story about the ACWS”

This caused a ripple of excitement in the small blue and gray crowd.

Behind him stood a Confederate soldier, dark goatee. An intense little fellow, with an embroidered stars and bars flag sewn onto his sleeve. He was uninterested in Andrew, who towered over him; the man bristled with discomfort.

“I didn’t know the Confederates wore the flag on their uniforms”, said Andrew.  He’d done some googling before driving up from London. These people took the re-enactments very seriously. Every detail was debated for historical veracity. 

“Then you don’t know much about us rebels”, said the little man, with a low-toned burr, an accent that Andrew couldn’t quite peg, “Are you offended by the flag?” The question sounded hostile. Andrew could smell alcohol on the man’s breath.

Andrew was offended by the flag, but he didn’t really like the idea of being a subject in his own story. He cursed the editor.

“Where you from, soldier?”, Andrew said, play-acting, seeking out common ground.

“Someplace else”, said the man.

Andrew just wanted out of there. It was a stupid and obvious assignment. He’d pretty much written the piece before he left London, though he knew it was probably a bit condescending, lacking sympathy, it needed editing… and some amusing anecdotes. This absurd event, with its oddball characters, seemed rich with prospects.

It was the white-whiskered man again, a postman from Slough. “Are you participating today?” said the Union general.

“I’m not sure which side to join?” said Andrew, which drew laughs from several eavesdroppers, including the woman behind the serving table.

“Well, I think it’s great that you are here!” said the tea-lady, “we need more of your sort at these events. We’ve got to change with the times”. She handed him a steaming cup of tea. “That’s a very nice camera you’ve got there”, she said. 

Andrew was clean-cut man, well-dressed, every bit the serious columnist at the serious national newspaper, but always a Black man. On some assignments he doubled up as photographer, but the Nikon was also a prop. The posh camera put folk at ease; displaced suspicion by curiosity - shopkeepers in particular.

“I’m thinking of shooting the skirmish,” said Andrew. More laughs. 

The little man, the goatee man, the Confederate with whisky-breath, held his rifle up, which smelled of gunpowder and metal. “Careful what you say Mister!”, he said “you’ll be easy to deadeye in the crowd”. Maybe it was said in jest, but nobody laughed, and the man looked mean.

“Come on, Jimmy. That’s uncalled for,” said another man, a fellow Confederate, “there’s no room for racism”.  The English Premier League’s ‘No Room’ campaign had leaked into the American Civil War.

Andrew almost burst out laughing at the amassed ironies, but this man, his Confederate ally, was earnest and well-intentioned; it felt churlish to spurn this small gesture. History repeats, rhymes, summersaults and moves on. He let the moment slide.

But not Jimmy, not the goatee man; he would not let it slide.

“Why the fuck is he here, anyway?” he said, “Is he spying on us? Here to make us look like a bunch of idiots?”. He was in the grip of booze and outsize angry. Small wiry drunks were unpredictable, dangerous, and he had a gun of some sort, and his questions weren’t baseless, thought Andrew. 

Blue and gray formed a defensive rank between Andrew and this Jimmy, protecting their Black man, apologizing, excusing.

“Here love, take a sandwich. It’s on the house”, said the tea lady, holding out a curling white-bread cheese sandwich for Andrew. He didn’t want it, but he took it anyway, as a courtesy.

“Best you stay with us”, said the Union General, who was joined by a couple of blue-jacket soldiers, his friends. “Jimmy’s part Scot and a bit of a nutter when he’s been drinking. You’re safer if you come with us”. The General tried to lead him away from the members’ area, a hand placed firmly against his back.

Andrew flinched at the touch. They were making him angry. “Safe? Safe from what? Is this some kind of joke?” he said. “Are these guns loaded?”

“Come with us” insisted the General, “you will get a really good view from the top of the hill. The skirmish is at 10 o’clock”.

It was 9.45am. 

At the prescribed time Andrew was behind the Union lines, at the top of the hill. Seething, but resolved to see the assignment through.

The Confederates, the rebels, started whooping and hollering in the woods at the bottom of the hill, but in an English way; like drunks spilling out of the pubs on a Friday night.   Cannons fired, muskets discharged, the blue and gray advanced and clashed in the middle of the field, where a pantomime ensued; bayonets and sabers swung slowly, harmlessly, men lay carefully on soft dry grass, avoiding the cow dung; the young with theatrical abandon, the elderly with arthritic stiffness. One man, mutton-chopped, staggered, fell to his knees, then face-planted, which drew desultory cheers from the on-lookers. The sickly-sweet smell of gun smoke hung in the still air.

Andrew thought the whole affair pathetic and endearing in equal measure. He was standing at the top of the hill looking at the scene through the camera’s telephoto lens. Men were lying comfortably on the grass, waiting for - he supposed - a whistle or a shout to draw the whole tawdry thing to an end.  Could he get a decent photo that somehow captured the irony, or the uniquely English silliness?

The white-whispered Union General was standing, chatting with a wounded Confederate soldier… a younger man in repose; they were both smoking, a vignette which seemed strangely authentic, and intimate, even sweet. Andrew was a voyeur. He focused the lens, pressed the shutter-release. It would do. The battlefield was peaceful.

He scanned for another picture, through the viewfinder, focusing here and there.

In the background, near the trees at the bottom of the hill, a shadow, a kneeling man in gray, a pale face, momentarily visible, then obscured by a glint of metal, a hand, a rifle, a flash, a puff of smoke.

The bullet whizzed by Andrew’s ear, and he heard the loud report of the rifle, which echoed around the valley. Andrew dropped the Nikon, threw himself to the ground, pressed his head to the grass, and covered his head with his hands.  His stomach heaved, and he tasted the cheese sandwich in his spittle.

+++

“What kept you?” said the editor.

“The police. They wanted me to hang around until they’d finished their investigation”, said Andrew, slumping into the chair opposite the editor’s messy desk.

“And…”

“And nothing. No evidence. The little shit lives to fight another day. The only person that believed me was the General”, said Andrew. The editor looked confused, so Andrew elaborated, “The General is a postman from Slough”. Andrew was still pissed off, and tired of it all.

“Do you want our lawyers to get involved? We can send someone from Curtis and Willis up to represent you if you want” said the editor, who felt pretty bad about the whole thing. He needed to make good; Andrew was a rising star. “I’m really sorry about this assignment. I thought it would be a welcome change and give you good material for something witty and acerbic.”

“Well, I’d have to say, you succeeded under the heading Drunk Confederate Soldier Kills Black Journalist”. Andrew spat the headline out with venom. He had an agenda now.

“Next time we’ll give you a firearm”. 

“Funny,” said Andrew.