Here is the
latest story from Spanking romance:
“Miss Beecher? I think he’s awake now.”
“No, I am not,” I groaned.
I certainly did not want to return to consciousness. When the Yankees had shot me at Resaca, as I was burning the railroad bridge, I felt sure that they had finished me. My last thought had been that this was not a bad way to go, in the heat of battle, even though we had lost.
No such luck. My chest ached so viciously, I wanted only to be unconscious again. And if anyone did awaken me, I certainly did not want it to be that terrible woman who had written that horrible book that had brought me to this awful place. I could only hope that “Miss Beecher” was not Harriet Beecher Stowe herself.
“Thank you, Nurse Peterson,” she said. I heard the rustle of petticoats as the speaker came towards me, and I smelled her harsh lye soap as she bent close to my ear. In loud, clear tones, she demanded, “Do you know where you are, Captain Wainwright?”
Forcing my eyes open, I saw that at least I was spared old Harriet’s presence. This lady was much prettier than the writer’s pictures in the newspapers. She certainly seemed as forbidding, though, in a black gown that was barely softened by its round lace collar and plain white apron. Only a few simple petticoats kept the skirt from clinging to her legs.
Her sharp face, with its pale blue eyes, thin lips and high cheekbones, seemed even more severe than her wardrobe. Pinned straight back into a tight bun, her straw-colored hair did not have even a pretty net to adorn it.
It was not entirely her fault that she looked that way. She was obviously trying hard to follow the official regulations of the Union Army Nursing Corps. How we rebels had laughed when we had heard about those rules, stating that the nurses must be physically plain and dressed in simple brown or black, to avoid arousing their patients’ passions. As though any Yankee nurse were likely to do that!
This lady was not naturally homely, but I could see that she was doing her darndest to seem that way, just as the code required. If so, it was working. At the moment, I assured myself that I did not feel the least desire for her.
“Captain Wainwright?” she asked again, her face still close to mine.
Glancing around, I saw that I was lying under a woolen blanket. The beds around me were filled with other wounded men, in rebel grey and Yankee blue alike. Most were sitting up, playing cards or checkers with each other. They tried hard to concentrate on those pastimes, in order to give me some small privacy while the nurse examined me.
The men were lit clearly by the June sun, coming through the windows. So was the Union flag suspended from the high plank ceilings. It left no doubt as to where I had landed.
“In a Union Army hospital,” I answered. “But it is not a tent field hospital, at least. I can be thankful for that.”
“You can indeed,” she assured me, as she stood up straight again. “You have survived your surgery without an amputation…and without an infection, either. That makes you a very lucky man. Even better, you are in a recovery ward at Armory Square Hospital in Washington City.”
With a faint smile, she added, “It’s the best facility we have, because our congressmen are close enough to make sure it stays that way, for our brave soldiers’ sake. But you Johnny Rebs get the benefit, too.”
“Ahmory” was the way she pronounced it…in an accent that clearly told me she hailed from Boston, the anti-slavery, anti-whiskey, pro-feminist headquarters of the world. If she had not seemed homely enough to me before, that accent would have done it.
But at least she was good at her job. Reaching down to the cart beside my bed, she took a sponge from the basin of soapy water and wrung it expertly. Then I winced as she picked up a scissors, but her long, thin hands were surprisingly gentle as she removed the remains of my shirt and lifted the old bandage away.
“Your chest seems to be healing well,” she told me, after gently lifting the blood-soaked cloth. “You’ve been in and out of semi-consciousness since the operation, but now you seem to be back with us for good. Now I will bathe you and dress the wound again. I think you can feed yourself.”
As she washed me, I cast about for something to say. Only one question occurred to me.
“Are you related to the famous Beechers?” I finally asked.
“They are my distant cousins, I am proud to say,” she answered. “My father has donated a great deal to support their cause. He even helped her brother buy his Beecher Bibles. And, yes, just in case you were wondering, I have read Cousin Harriet’s book several times.”
She did not need to tell me the title of her cousin’s little novel. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” had been banned in several Southern states, and no wonder. Even Old Abe himself had called Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe “The little woman who started the great war.”
Those “Beecher Bibles,” on the other hand, were not reading materials at all, but rather rifles smuggled to abolitionists in Kansas, even before the war started. And she was proud of that crime!
Obviously, this lady bending over me was as fanatical as the rest of her infamous family. Still, I could not resist telling her, “You can’t believe everything you read.”
“Did she lie about your fine Southern gentlemen like Simon Legree keeping slave harems?” she sharply replied.
“In the first place, her Simon Legree was not a Southern gentleman,” I reminded her, as patiently as I could. “He was a Yankee who came South, so he could have slaves. In the second, he did not keep a harem…only two favorite slave girls, and they both got away from him.”
“Whereas you apparently wanted only one,” she snapped, obviously angry at having lost the argument. “It might interest you to know that she is here with us right now…helping the nurses to care for the soldiers who are fighting to keep her free from men like you. You called her Wainwright’s Andromeda, but she is Andromeda Wainwright here.” Grudgingly, Miss Beecher added, “She asked about you, too.”
For a moment, I was stunned into silence at the news. Andromeda, here, and so close to me! Just thinking about her, she aroused my desires as a regiment of Yankee nurses could not have done, even if they had been stripped stark naked and floating in mint juleps.
I lowered my eyes, so that Miss Beecher could not see the naked longing in them. “I was wondering where she had gone, when she left us,” I muttered.
Now her blue eyes flashed with fire, as she added, “Perhaps you did not whip her often enough to make her submit completely.”
“I never whipped her at all!” I answered angrily. “I had too much pride to take a woman who did not want me. There were plenty of women who did.”
“But I suppose you would like to whip me, especially since you can’t flog my cousins,” she answered.
“Let me think about that,” I said. “You need not look so angry or scrub me so hard…that was just a joke. And, no, I would not like to whip you.”
When she sniffed in disbelief, I could not resist adding, “But if I could turn you over my knee and spank you until you howled for mercy…yes, I might enjoy doing that. It might teach you some manners, too.”
Looking around, I saw that the other prisoners were no longer even pretending to ignore us. Instead, they were grinning openly, and one or two even snickered.
“You certainly seem to have your health and spirits back,” she told me. “I will tell the doctor that soon he can move you to the prisoners’ tents outside, where our visitors can pay ten cents to see you. That way, you can help pay for your care…since you can no longer force your slaves to provide it.”
Her skirts billowed angrily around her like black sails, as she flounced away.
“It will not pay for my care…it will go right into the jailers’ pockets!” I called after her, but she was too angry to reply.
Yes, I thought, with my right hand tingling…I would have liked very much to spank her. Not that I would ever have the chance.
* * *
FROM: The Journal of Judith Beecher
Dear Diary, I am so agitated that I dare not share my thoughts with anyone but you…for fear that anyone else might think I am too resentful to care for any wounded Johnny Reb. The truth, of course, is that I will do my duty towards him, just as I do for our own brave Billy Yank.
But the fact is, this insolent Captain Wainwright has offended me so deeply, I must vent my feelings somehow, lest they explode and cause me to harm my patients, even against my will. So I will tell you that he is the most entirely annoying and infuriating man I have ever met, from any part of the country.
If his insignia told me that he is an officer, and his former slaves gave me his name, his words made it clear that he is far from being a gentleman.
Now, as you are well aware, I have met many fools from our own region. They all politely changed the subject when I tried to raise the issues of all the injustices that men have done to both their wives and slaves.
As you can well imagine, I am not eager to enter either form of captivity. Thanks to my father’s factories, I have no need to do so. Their profits would even support me in founding my own nursing school or hospital…a far more satisfying prospect than domestic slavery.
But this rude fellow has actually told me that he would like to spank me, like a naughty little girl. Obviously, he sees no difference among slaves, women and children, since he has claimed the right to rule them all. Really, it was all I could do to keep from handing him over to Andromeda’s care, thus sparing myself from further insults…except that he would no doubt persecute her with his attentions.
Well, speaking of attentions, he will soon have all of those he needs. I do indeed intend to be sure that he is sent outside to the prisoners’ tents, as soon as he is well enough to go there, so that he can help to amuse the citizens who pay to see them. That should humble him well enough…just as he obviously hoped that his talk of spankings would embarrass me.
When I mentioned that plan to Andromeda, however, I noticed that she did not seem pleased. I would not accuse her of harboring any romantic feelings for her former master…but she did show some concern.
“The prisoners help pay for their care, with the pennies we pay to see them,” I told her.
To my surprise, she hesitated and lowered her great black eyes before she said, “Yes, m’am.”
“Yes, Miss Beecher,” I reminded her gently. “You have no mistress now.”
“Yes, Miss Beecher,” she repeated, in a bolder tone. “But, you know, I have heard that the collections are not really used for the prisoners’ care. I have heard that they go straight into the jailers’ pockets.”
“Did Captain Wainwright tell you that?” I asked.
“You have heard every word I said to him,” she answered, with just resentment.
“I merely asked because he had made the same charges to me,” I assured her. “But I am sure they are not true.”
“I am afraid they are, Miss Beecher,” she answered, with a sigh. “I have heard the other nurses talking about it. Some say it serves the rebels right, to be displayed like animals in the zoological garden. But others don’t agree with them…especially since the money raised is not being used to help them.”
“And you shared their feelings? Even though he owned you, and you had to escape from him?”
“He did not know any better, because he was raised that way,” she replied. Then she lowered her head again as she whispered, “Besides, he was always kind to me.”
“No doubt,” I muttered, “he wanted to be a lot kinder.”
“Well, wanting isn’t getting!” she angrily replied, jerking her head up proudly. “Whatever he asked me for, I would have refused.”
“I am sure you did,” I assured her. “But as pretty as you are, with those long black ringlets and those big black eyes, I am surprised that he never asked you.”
“Well,” she answered, starting to smile, “he did give me a few hints. But I pretended not to understand them.”
I must say, I had to admire her self-control. To be fair, any woman might have been flattered by Captain Wainwright’s attentions, if she cared about his physical attraction alone. His curly blond hair, his bright blue eyes, his square jaw and his broad shoulders…those might have been appealing to any woman who cared only about appearances. But Andromeda obviously had finer feelings.
No matter how handsome he might be, I don’t see how that shameless brute could appeal to any decent woman. Especially not when the only thing he wants to do with her is turn her over his knee! I must be thankful that he has absolutely no prospects of doing any such thing to me.
* * *
Now I had a very clear view of the new capitol building dome, rising over our wooden stockade. Even more vividly, I could see the platform that the visitors mounted, after paying their pennies to see us rebel prisoners, sitting out in front of our tents. The Yankee patients, needless to say, remained within the brick hospital walls.
With nothing much better to do, I would sometimes smile and wave at the groups of schoolgirls. They would cover their faces and giggle, while the bolder ones sometimes waved back. Their teachers quickly pushed their hands down, pretended to be horrified. Those good ladies knew I wasn’t much of a threat to their students’ virtue, though, thanks to both my own wounded chest and the very able-bodied men who patrolled beneath the wooden fence.
Many of our guards were men of color, from the well-known 54th Massachusetts Volunteers, better known as the “Glory Brigades.” Billy Yank had obviously sent them there for two very good reasons. First, the Union officers realized these former slaves were extremely unlikely to allow any of their former owners to escape. And, second, their mere presence was expected to drive us into a helpless fury.
Our escaped servant Hercules certainly tried his best to enrage me. Marching by me in his snappy blue uniform, complete with sergeant’s stripes…and seeing me sitting on the ground in my grey rags…he could hardly be blamed for showing his satisfaction.
“Things have sure changed, Massa Charles,” he growled, leaning down towards me, with a fierce grin. “Just for starters, I don’t have to call you Massa any more. You could ask the Rebs we attacked at Fort Wagner about that.”
“I don’t mind calling you Sergeant Wainwright,” I assured him. “I just hope that you will help bring honor to our name. And congratulations on your rank, by the way. I assume that the foreman’s job we gave you helped train you for army leadership.”
Too angry to answer, he gripped his rifle butt, in a way that told me he would have loved to use it on me. If that furious gesture was meant to frighten me, I must admit it succeeded. He might not have been any stronger than I was, but that was very strong indeed, if I must say so myself. Right now he held the rifle.
Why do you think my father had decided to call him Hercules? He lived up to his name just as well as Andromeda suited hers…borrowed from an Ethiopian princess of the original Hercules’ time.
Our Hercules could indeed have been that giant from Grecian legend, except for the mahogany skin that covered his six feet of muscular height. It made him one inch taller than I am, which was very tall indeed.
Right now, his expression would have frightened any nine-headed monster away. Since, as I said, he was holding the rifle at the moment, I undoubtedly should have kept silent.
But, as I said, I didn’t have much to do at the moment…except try to answer a question that had long nagged at me.
“You were very good at your job, too,” I reminded him. “No one ever seemed to disobey you, and it was easy to see why. So I could not help wondering why you left us the moment our army fired on Fort Sumter.”
“Can’t you guess, Massa Charles?” he demanded, with an even less pleasant smile. “Didn’t you notice that your own Andromeda left soon afterwards? Of course, she didn’t have to hide in the woods the way I did. She had a much easier time getting away, since she could pass for white.”
To his obvious satisfaction, I lowered my eyes, trying in vain to hide the hurt in them.
“I thought she cared for me,” I muttered, even as I realized how foolish I must sound. “I just assumed she cared even more about her freedom.”
“Would she have dared tell you otherwise?” he sneered. “What would you have done to her, if she had admitted that she preferred one of your slaves, in his cabin, over you in your fine house?”
“I would have told you both to jump over a broom together, if that’s what you wanted to do,” I assured him, with some resentment. “I know that slaves are not legally allowed to marry, but I have also seen that broom ceremony of yours, and it was easy to see what it meant. You would have had my blessings, and probably a nice gift as well. If Andromeda did not want me, there were plenty of women who did…both slave and free, I might add.”
But even as I said those words, I could feel myself choking on them. Andromeda, my God, Andromeda!
From the moment we inherited her from some uncle in Georgia, I had hoped to win her affections.
The first time I came across her cleaning the parlor, I hinted at my desires by asking if she would not prefer some easier work…as my chambermaid, perhaps.
“I don’t know what the housekeeper would say about that, Master Charles,” she answered, her eyes carefully lowered to the feather duster as she flicked it over the mantel. “She has told me that I am one of the best parlormaids she has ever had.”
“She would say nothing,” I assured her. “What could she say, when you have me to protect you, and she is merely a servant, as you are?”
“And you are as afraid of her as everyone else here!”
At that, I found myself nodding ruefully. Old Ruby had come to our house as part of my mother’s dowry. At the ripe old age of 21, I might have reached the point where I could finally face her shaking head and her muttered verdict that I was “pure evil”…but I would much rather not have to try.
So I had reluctantly left Andromeda to her work, sure that I would have other many other chances to charm her. Now it seemed that someone else had done it first.
Glancing up again at Hercules’ cold, hard, onyx eyes, I wondered why he had not frightened Andromeda away instead, instead of attracting her to him.
No doubt the Yankees had seen his menace, too. They were supposed to send back all runaway slaves as “contraband,” when the war began…but they must have seen how useful he would be on their side. Then, too, I doubted that any Union soldier wanted to be the first man to try to send our Hercules anywhere, if he did not wish to go.
“You are lying,” he told me, interrupting my thoughts. “You would never have given your blessings at all. No man could willingly give up his chance to win Andromeda.” I agreed with him so completely, I found myself nodding at his words. I even forgot to wonder what we would have done to him if he had ever dared say any such thing to me in the old days. No doubt we would have done nothing, since he was such a valuable foreman.
“But I would have given her up, if I knew she loved you,” I insisted.
“Because you are so kind?” he jeered.
“Because I am too proud to take a woman who did not want me. As I said, there are too many others who do.”
“But not like Andromeda.”
“No,” I admitted. “Not like her.”
“And now she belongs to me.”
“Congratulations,” I replied, in my most sarcastic tone. “But shouldn’t you go guard the other prisoners, too? Remember, you must do your duty, since you carry the name of Wainwright.”
“Hmph!” he snarled, as he marched away. At last, I had taken some revenge, by leaving him without any better answer.
It was not enough to satisfy me, when Miss Beecher came out of the hospital. She did not even seem to notice the crowds on the platform above us, who started muttering her famous name. I was annoyed enough to begin with, so she naturally succeeded in irritating me even more.
* * *
FROM: The Journal of Judith Beecher
For a moment, I was almost sorry for him, sitting on the ground with one arm resting on his bent knee. That feeling did not last long.
“I saw you talking with Sergeant Wainwright,” I told him casually, as I checked his chest beneath the bandage. “It must have been quite a change for you, to see the black man keeping you prisoner.”
“I did not do that well in keeping him as a captive before,” he answered, in a very rueful tone. “It seems he is the reason why Andromeda left me, too.”
He sounded so forlorn about it, I actually tried to comfort him.
“Once she knew he was leaving, she was compelled to follow,” I explained. “Otherwise, you might have tried to force her to tell you where to find him.”
“You obviously don’t know her very well,” he assured me. “She would simply have told us that she had no idea what we were talking about.” Yes, I thought, and we would have had to believe her, once we looked into those great black eyes, filling up half of that cream-colored, heart-shaped face.
“How long could she have defied your whip?”
It had seemed a sensible question to me, from all I had heard of slaveowners. He chose to take terrible offense.
“And how long must I tell you that I never used a whip on anyone?”
“Then you must have had an overseer to do it for you.”
“We had a foreman instead,” he told me, through gritted teeth. “That was your friend Sergeant Wainwright, and he never struck anyone either. He never had to. His sheer size and his angry looks were enough to keep control.” Calming himself with a visible effort, he went on, “That’s why we made him our foreman to begin with.”
“Of course, that might not have been the only reason,” I mused. “I’ve read all about how the masters would give the best positions to the children they had sired themselves. I have seen the pictures of the scarred backs of other slaves. No doubt some of them were the master’s children, too.”
To my amazement, he leapt up from the ground, so angry that he was barely wincing as he did so.
“My father never sired any slave children,” he told me. “You have no call to defame the dead.”
In the heat of our discussion, I had not noticed that Captain Wainwright was looming angry above me, until I looked up to find myself staring into his cold blue eyes. I admit that I glanced around to make sure our soldiers were still there to protect me.
I need not have worried on THAT score. Now they were watching the two of us just as avidly as the visitors were.
“Will you please lower your voice?” I urged him. “Everyone can hear us.”
“If I had had ANY child,” he went on, in a harsh whisper that was more frightening than any shout could have been. “I would not have used a whip on him. But if he had ever been as annoying as you are, I would have punished him as he deserved…like this!”
Thoroughly alarmed now, I lifted my skirts in both hands and turned to race back towards the building. It was hard to run across the dry soil, though, and he quickly caught me.
I soon found myself wishing that he had suffered a leg wound…or, at least, that I had not been so careful in treating his chest. While his left arm held me against it, his right hand landed hard on my backside…so hard, I could feel the stinging even through my skirts.
Ten sharp smacks landed, one over the other, while I was too stunned to even struggle. Even more painful, I heard the other prisoners whooping, laughing and emitting their loudest rebel yells.
Some of our visitors shared my shocked surprise, but others seemed to be hiding their own laughter behind their hands. And, yes, even some of our own soldiers seemed to be grinning and biding their time, before they finally came to my rescue.
Sergeant Wainwright did so in a very decisive manner…by grabbing his former master in both hands and pulling him away.
“Are you all right, Miss Beecher?” he asked.
“Yes, of course,” I answered, while fighting the urge to reach back and rub my stinging bottom, which would surely have brought on a fresh round of laughter. “I am only glad that I tended him so well that he is now strong again.”
I had been trying to make light of the whole incident, but Sergeant Wainwright took me all too seriously.
“He is strong enough for Elmira,” he said.
My assailant had rejoined us now. From his slow pace and lowered head, I felt sure he was forming some apology. When he heard that last word, though, his head snapped up and his eyes filled with horror. Not that I blamed him, since we both knew that that particular prison camp had another title.
Hellmira.
All around us, we heard the whispers of that name. No one was laughing now.
Would you like to read more of this great story? The rest of Confederate's Captive, four more chapters, is in our members' area now! But don't wait."Confederate's Captive by Monica Vale" will be removed on August 15th.
Click here to join.
RSS Feed
