Making Camp

Canvas tents, colorless from exposure to the weather, form a neat grid in parallel rows marked out by stakes and ropes by the pickets who ran on ahead. A campfire ringed with muddy stones marks the center of the camp. The fire that crackles in the middle is smoky from the damp wood, and grey-uniformed boys build a pile of boughs and twigs off to one side of it. A large black pot, dangling from a make-shift tripod, hangs over the slow flames, and the scent of fern stew washes over the crowd of young men gathered at the fire. Some rest, stretched along the carpet of dead leaves and pine needles, knapsacks as pillows, hats tilted over their faces to block out the white-blinding sun and the haze of black motion that is a swarm of gnats that never seems to leave. Rifles are scattered here and there like fallen matchsticks, though they are laid with a certain deliberately insouciant air, and each is within hand’s reach of at least one man. The largest tent, closest to the fire, has its front flaps open, and inside is a morass of boxes, papers, and glass lanterns so the commanders can study the night away. The clerk’s desk - wooden, rickety, a relic from a big-time law-firm in a small town - is tucked into the corner, stained with ink and covered with quills, a pen knife incongruously tucked into the midst of the feathers. At the edge of the camp, also in a scrupulously neat row, is a series of wooden crosses, cobbled together by twine and someone’s bowie knife, hammered into place my a rifle butt, and twined with garlands of dead flowers.

(287 Words)