Unwholesome Victuals

Jonathan awoke with a startled gasp that erupted into a violent coughing fit. He instinctively reached for his rag, ever close at hand and stained with flecks of blood and sputum, and clamped it over his mouth. When the spell finally passed and he drew breath again, he turned gingerly to his side, his whole body quaking, and addressed the man standing next to him.

“Is it morning already, James?” he rasped. In the early morning darkness and his confused state of exhaustion, Jonathan did not notice that the man, with a kerosene lantern in hand and attired in dark blue fatigues and khaki suspenders, was not his usual orderly. Nor did he make any comment about the short wooden pole he wielded in the other hand, though he thought it an unusually rough method of rousing.

Even bedridden in the hospital, Jonathan was the perpetually cheerful and generous sort. He was a born-believer in the goodness of other men, and an optimist in the bargain. When his physician diagnosed him with consumption, he wasted no energy in despair, and he placed the utmost confidence in Dr. Barret’s assurances that, with the aid of “clean, cool air and wholesome victuals” he would make a full recovery. Not even the surprise of the Invasion and the unbroken chain of enemy victories was able to darken his sunny outlook. When the first advance of the Tripods was thrown back at Aberdeen, Jonathan said to his fellows in the sick ward, “See, gentlemen? Just as I have said.” When further assaults brought the enemy closer to Baltimore, and finally laid the city under siege, Jonathan’s indefatigable optimism was a source of great encouragement to those around him.

He was not daunted by the restrictive rationing or the increasing cruelties that the Federal soldiers inflicted on the populace. He could speak of electricity and soap without becoming bitter at their lack, and gnaw horse meat while recalling fond memories of salted pork and fresh apples. When the rumor spread that the invaders had cut off the city from the bay with a mat of red weeds so tangled and thick that even the mighty screws of the battleship Massachusetts were fouled, he consoled his fellows with his firm conviction that the siege would soon be lifted by the long-rumored relief force. When news arrived that said relief force had been annihilated in the Cumberland Gap, he was not downcast for more than a few minutes. At that point, his obstinacy in the face of grim reality became a source of annoyance rather than encouragement for those around him, and many of his caregivers and fellow patients grew to hate him. He returned their mocking only with goodwill, and forever his spirit was buoyed by the thought that some strange, far-off cacophony originated in the barrel of a new wonder weapon of the Gun Club, or from the engines of one of Frank Reade’s aerial battleships. Being jammed in the ribs with a stick was hardly enough to perturb Jonathan.

“I ain’t James.” The curt speech of the prodding stranger was muffled by the scarf tied over his lips. “Can you walk?”

Jonathan favored him with a wan smile. “Why yes, yes I believe I can, today. If I can just lean on you, and we start very slowly — ”

The soldier snapped his head to the side impatiently and yelled, “Bring a litter!” He stormed away without further conversation. As several more soldiers rolled him off his cot into the litter, Jonathan could hear the first man’s voice echoing down the darkened hallway, repeating that question of the other patients. The corridors were filled with other uniformed men, some with slung rifles, all of them masked, carrying laden stretchers.

As they were carrying Jonathan down the stairwell, he politely asked about the unusual circumstances. One of the soldiers, a much friendlier chap than the one who woke him, told him not to worry. “A hole’s opened up in the enemy lines. We’re evacuating the sick first. You’ll be taken out of the city to receive better care.”

“Thank God!” Jonathan exclaimed, and silently he thought, ‘See gentlemen? Just as I have said.’

The two soldiers deposited him in the hospital courtyard and helped him off the litter. “The wagons are all loaded up now, but they’ll be back. Stay here until they call you,” the friendly soldier said. “And good luck to you!”

Indeed, several horse-drawn wagons were already clopping off through the gate, and the last remaining wagon, burdened with patients, was being waved off by other soldiers. A handful of consumptives were left with Jonathan, many of them moaning of their treatment in between hacking fits. “Oh, God, the chill! Do they mean to kill us, casting us out in the cold air like this?” one asked. Jonathan realized that not all of the patients had heard the happy news, and he hurried to tell them.

“Shut up!” one of them barked.

“We’ve heard just about enough of your fantasies,” rejoined another.

Jonathan didn’t bother to correct them again. The cold October wind was blowing from the north; it bit into his frail frame through the thin fabric of his nightclothes, and he hugged himself as he shivered. He cleared his mind of all thoughts but that joyful news, and he remembered that Dr. Barret had told him the value of clean, cold air in effecting a cure. Jonathan steeled himself and took in a deep breath through his open mouth, but his throat stung and his lungs burned with fire, and he burst into another coughing spell.

When he finally recovered, Jonathan’s ringing ears perceived the voice of Dr. Barret. He craned his neck, searching the courtyard for him, eager that the kindly physician should find his way over to deliver the happy news to this group and vindicate his faith. Instead, he spied the doctor’s tall and spare figure vehemently arguing with a group of soldiers beneath the eaves of the building. The doctor looked like he had been roused from bed as abruptly and thoughtlessly as Jonathan was, for he was dressed very hastily in a half-buttoned jacket and a crooked cravat and his wispy hair blew in the wind. Jonathan found the usually immaculate doctor’s disheveled appearance concerning. The physician was very animated, and his words soon turned into shouting, loud enough for the entire courtyard to hear.

“Where is Colonel Huntsinger? These men are not fit to be turned out of bed! You will not remove one more of them until I have spoken to Colonel Huntsinger! Where is he?”

“Colonel Huntsinger has been relieved for dereliction of duty, a fate that you are largely responsible for, Dr. Barret,” replied one of the soldiers. The pistol holster on his hip and the decoration on his heavy wool coat identified him as an officer. “I’ve taken his place as chief physician, so anything you wanted to say to him you can say to me.”

“These are my patients! They are human beings! They are not the Army’s to dispose of!”

“General Order 29, which you have been defying for weeks, says otherwise: ‘No one stricken with communicable disease shall be harbored within the city.’ Here is a copy of the order so that you can adhere to it more closely in the future.” The officer produced a sheet of paper and handed it to the doctor, who promptly tore it up.

“Your orders can go to hell, and General Otis along with it! He is a fiend and a devil, spawned from the same black pit as the invaders! Do you think I don’t know what you’re really doing? Do you think I don’t know where you’re taking — ”.

Dr. Barret was cut off by his own sharp cry of pain as one of the other soldiers rammed the butt of his rifle into the doctor’s stomach. Another followed with a blow between his shoulder blades. Dr. Barret collapsed amid a scramble of kicking legs and descending cudgels.

Jonathan recoiled and fell backward onto the grass. He convulsed with another agonizing, raking cough and found that for the first time in many weeks he could not suppress his doubt and fear.

The cold, gray light of dawn was just beginning to filter over the horizon as Jonathan’s wagon rolled through the gate at the first ring of earthworks that encircled the city. The road was loosely compacted dirt, criss-crossed with ruts and half washed out, and the wagon pitched and jolted its wretched passengers with bone-shaking force. Jonathan took measured breaths, hoping not to excite another coughing spell. In the miserable hour he spent shivering waiting for the wagon, he had given up the idea that cold air was a help to his condition.

The convoy wended toward the northeast, passing beside and under the line of fortifications. Jonathan half-expected to see the lines deserted, and a swell of infantry moving alongside them to recapture the farther perimeter, but sheltering troops still crowded beneath the high berms, cooking their meager breakfasts. He could see men with field glasses leaning out of the armored watchtowers that rose up from behind the trenches, and bored artillerymen leaning on the open breeches of their guns or playing cards behind the barbettes. The soldiers, including the pair that rode in the wagon with the sick, seemed peculiarly subdued, and yet they must have known about the break in the Martian line. Perhaps, thought Jonathan, a sortie had already been launched, and the men on the lines were merely the reserves.

A loud droning sound broke from the east, and the soldiers on the lines all turned to look in its direction. A chorus of similar sounds backed up the first, followed by the clank and clatter of artillery mechanisms and the confused shouting of men. The teamsters urged the horses on, snapping the reins furiously, and the wagon convoy soon left the fortifications behind.

Eventually they slowed amid a moonscape of mud-bottomed craters and crumbled casemates littered with warped gun barrels, empty shell casings, and dented and charred helmets. The droning noise kicked up again, closer this time. Jonathan heard one of the teamsters yell, “That’s far enough!” and he brought the wagon to a halt.

Immediately, one of the soldiers leaped off the back of the wagon and unlatched the tailgate while the other rammed the butt of his rifle into the backs of the sick passengers, herding them off. “Everybody out! Shake a leg, god damn you!”

Jonathan began to protest, but the press of bodies turned him around and forced him back, and he tumbled to the wet dirt. All around him were dozens of people — men and women, children and elderly — many he knew from the hospital, but others he had never seen. All of them appeared sick or somehow injured, many of them seriously, and the soldiers liberally donated to their storehouse of woes with their boot heels and rifle stocks.

As the violence increased and a few of the wagons dashed away, the tumult of confused and angry voices gave way to a choir of screams and desperate pleading. Old men struggled in vain to pull themselves back aboard the wagons with palsied hands. Fever-stricken children grabbed at the pants of passing soldiers, crying deliriously for their mothers. Frail women collapsed to the mud on their knees, their hands clasped in supplication either to the soldiers or to God. One cry was universal: “Do not abandon us! Do not leave us to die!”

The effect of this pitiful scene was soon evident, as several of the soldiers, their hearts not behind their dreadful duties, added their own mournful sobs and pleas for forgiveness. One man knelt down, tore off his scarf and embraced the ill, determined to share their fate. Another halted his staggering steps just before reaching the wagon and turned to look at the huddled masses of the abandoned sick. Overcome with grief, he unholstered his revolver and shot himself in the temple.

Those with less remorse ran to the wagons under the urgent imprecations of the impatient teamsters, trampling any who blocked their way. With supreme effort of strength, Jonathan surged to his feet and caught one of the retreating soldiers by the collar and held on despite the blows of his fists. “Why? In the name of God, why?” Jonathan demanded. But soon his grip faltered, and he was cast to the ground without receiving an answer.

Mired in the filth, he surrendered to the weakness and exhaustion in his cold-numbed limbs. His last quanta of hope and faith in the virtue of men drained with his tears into the mud.

“My friends, take heart! No, my friends, no more tears! Be unafraid!” It was a man’s voice, steady and full of the same cheer that Jonathan once recognized in his own.

Weakly, Jonathan pushed himself from the ground and turned toward the voice. It came from a spectacled man in an army dress uniform. His bearing was proud, too proud to go along with the crutches that grew out of his wiry arms or the way his flaccid legs dragged through the mud.

“Now is the time for rejoicing, for today we are delivered!” the man shouted. And then he swept the crowd with his gaze and smiled so placidly that Jonathan cursed.

For the first time in his life, he understood the contempt that the others in the hospital must have held him in whenever he uttered his hopeful inanities. He had never laid eyes on the man before, never come into contact with him in any way, but he hated him with a passion. One smile was all it took.

“Friends, no more will we be afflicted - not you with typhoid, or you with consumption. I will not be done in by polio, no sir! Not as an enfeebled cripple will I meet my end! Not as a victim will I perish, but as a hero! We will all be heroes this day, thank God! Heroes to beleaguered Baltimore, to all of America!”

Many in the crowd began to jeer him. Others ignored him, and refocused their attentions on their own hurts and those of their neighbors. Some who could walk began to peel away from the main group, heading in whatever direction they thought best. But as the man continued his oration, Jonathan began to think that he was more than just a deluded fool. A hideous rumor that he had once heard and tried to forget jumped instantly to the front of his mind. A chill from more than just the November air ran down his spine.

“Why flee, my friends? You flee only from glory! Who among you has not prayed, as I have, that some way might be found to defeat the invaders? We have it! My friends, it is you! We are the weapon of our foe’s downfall!”

Suddenly, that uncanny droning noise returned, only now it was close at hand. Now that he could hear it more clearly, Jonathan recognized in it a kinship to the sound of the coal-fired tugs, the motorized pumps, and all the din of machinery that filled the harbor. More fluid and less throaty than the engines he knew, but an engine all the same. An ear-piercing whine followed, and was quickly returned by one of lower pitch. Jonathan’s hand tightened on a bare rock and he slowly pushed himself up. Before he could turn in the direction of the sounds, someone else bawled, “Tripods! Tripods!”

“Harvesters!” yelled the man on crutches. He was insanely jubilant, laughing raucously and calling out to the Martians. Jonathan staggered to his side.

“What do you mean?” Jonathan demanded.

The other man didn’t answer. Jonathan grabbed him roughly and shook him free of his crutches. He looked up at Jonathan, who shouted more fiercely. “What did you mean, sir, by calling us weapons? How do we defeat the invaders? Speak up! Tell us what to do!”

The man laughed. “Nothing! We need do nothing at all! The Martians will do it to themselves!”

Less than a dozen yards behind them, the first of the tripods stooped, its metal coils lashing themselves around helpless bodies, constricting so tightly that men fainted and excrement from their voided bowels rained down. Others squirmed desperately, even though to escape the grip of those mighty tendrils so high in the air meant certain death.

“You’re a lunatic!”

“Not at all, sir! I understand things perfectly! In fact, I am the one who came up with the idea.” The cripple’s voice was full of pride and excitement. “I was with a surgeon at the field hospital outside of Wilmington when they attacked. I saw what they did to the captives. I escaped, but the memory — dear God, I can never forget! Only later did I understand why I was permitted to see those horrors and live. It was the key to their defeat! I saw how useless men and horses and cannons were against them, but a doctor knows there are other weapons upon the earth!”

Jonathan began to shake with fury and terror. “You’re feeding us to them? Feeding us to them, hoping they get sick!” As if in reply to his own question, Jonathan coughed, and a cloud of bloody saliva erupted onto the cripple’s cheek. “You… you bastard! You wretched, evil — ”

“Please understand. At first we tried emptying the mortuaries. But they won’t eat the dead. This was the only way. Tell me, isn’t this better than dying in squalor, for nothing? Don’t you want to die a — ”

The cripple hit the mud with a splash. His dented skull landed crookedly, dark blood pooling from the gash above his ear. Jonathan dropped the bloody rock onto his chest.

As the tendrils of the harvester coiled around Jonathan’s waist, his diseased body destined for the great mesh collecting basket forty feet above, he remembered all that Dr. Barret had told him months ago about the relationship between good health and “clean air and wholesome victuals.” He hoped the opposite held true as well.