"Which, is the side that I must go withal?
I am with both: each army hath a hand;
And, in their rage, I having hold of both,
They whirl asunder, and dismember me."
--SHAKESPEARE.
I had been in the battle of Manassas, fighting in the ranks of blue
soldiers--yes, I remember the charge and the defeat and the rout. How
vividly I now remember the words--strange I thought them then--of Dr.
Khayme. He had said that it might be a spy's duty to desert even, in
order to accomplish his designs.
Had this suggestion been made before the fact? I am again in a mist. But
what matter? I had not deserted in reality; I had only pretended to
desert. Yet I think it strange that I cannot remember what Jones Berwick
felt when deciding to act the deserter. Had he found pretended desertion
necessary?
Yes, undoubtedly; unless he had passed himself off as a deserter he
could not have been received into the Yankee army, and I now knew that I
was once in that army.
But why could I not have joined it as a recruit?
Simply because Jones Berwick was in the Confederate army; I could not
have easily gone North to enlist.
But could I not have clothed myself at once as a Union soldier, so that
there would have been no need of desertion?
No; I could not have answered questions; I should have been asked my
regiment; I should have been ordered back to my regiment. I remember
the difficulty I had met with when I joined, or when Berwick Jones
joined, Company H. I had been compelled to lay aside the Confederate
uniform, and join as a recruit dressed in civilian's clothing, merely
because I could not bear to have questions asked. So, when I had played
the Federal, if I had presented myself in a blue uniform, I could not
have answered questions, and the requirement to report to my company
would have destroyed my whole plan.
Yet it was just possible that I had succeeded in obtaining civilian's
clothing, and had joined the Federals as a pretended recruit, just as I
had joined Company H later. This was less unlikely when coupled with the
thought that possibly my first experience in this course had had some
hidden influence on my second.
But why is it that I cannot recall my first service as a Confederate?
The question disturbs me. My peculiar way of forgetting must be the
reason. When, as Jones Berwick the Confederate, I became Berwick Jones
the Federal, there must have come upon my mind a phase of oblivion
similar to that which clouded it when I became a Confederate again.
Yet this explanation is weak. No such thing could occur twice just at
the critical time ... unless ... some power, mysterious and profound....
What was Dr. Khayme in all this?
And another thought, winch bewilders me no less. On my musket I had
carved J.B. I was Jones Berwick as a Federal. Then I must always have
been Berwick Jones when a Confederate. How did I ever get to be Berwick
Jones? How did I ever become Jones Berwick? Which was I at first? Had I
ever deserted? Had I ever been a spy? I doubt everything.
My mind became clearer. I could connect events: the first Manassas, or
Bull Bun; the helping of Willis; the meeting with the Doctor; the return
to Willis; the shore and the battle of the ships; the _Merrimac_; the
line of the Warwick; the lines at Hanover; the night tramp in the
swamp; crossing the hill; a blank, which my double memory knew how to
fill, and the subsequent events of my second service in our army.
Nothing important seemed lacking since the battle of Bull Run. Before
that battle everything was confusion. My home was still unknown. The
friends of my former life, so far as I could remember, had been
Federals, if Dr. Khayme and Lydia could be called Federals.
Yet I supposed my home was Charleston. My memory now began with that
city. There were but two great gaps remaining to be filled: first, my
life before I was at school under the Doctor; second, my life at home
and in the Confederate army before I pretended to desert to
the Federals.
I am Jones Berwick and I am Berwick Jones? What an absurdity! Let reason
work; the idea is preposterous! What does it mean? Can it mean any more
than that you were known at one time as Jones Berwick and at another
time as Berwick Jones? It is insanity to think that you are two persons
at once. Have you imagined that now, while you are a Confederate again,
there is also a you in the Yankee army? When your connection with the
Confederates was interrupted you were received by the Federals as Jones
Berwick; the J.B. on the gunstock shows that well enough; but when you
became a Confederate again, your name was reversed because of
that diary!
I took out the diary. It was too dark to read, but I knew every word of
the few lines in it,--B. Jones, on the fly-leaf.
And now I recall that the Doctor had told me to write in the little
book.... What was his purpose? To deceive the enemy in case I should be
taken? Yes.
But--I was going to become a Confederate again!
Did the Doctor know that?
Yes; he knew it. At least he provided for such a change; the words he
dictated were for a Confederate's diary. He knew it? Yes; he helped me
on with the Confederate uniform!
Then why should he think that additional effort--the diary--was
required to make Confederates believe a Confederate a Confederate?
Could I not at once have named my original company and its officers? Why
this child's play of the diary?