“Don’t shoot! It’s me! I’m white! Hold your fire!”
One did, t’other didn’t, but he missed, thank God, and I was careering over the flat to the mouth of the coulee, hands raised and holding on with my aching knees, yelling to them not to shoot for any favour, and a knot of bewildered men were standing at gaze. There was E Troop’s guidon, and as I half-fell from my pony, there was Custer himself, all red scarf and campaign hat, carbine in hand. For a second he stared speechless, as well he might; then he said “Good God!” quite distinctly, and I replied at the top of my voice:
“Get out of it! Get out – now! Up to the top and ride for it!”
Somehow he found his tongue, and as God’s my witness the next thing he said was: “You’re wearing evening clothes!” and looked beyond me across the river, doubtless to see if other dinner guests were arriving. “How in—”
I seized him by the arm, preparing to yell some more until common sense told me that calm would serve better.
“George,” says I, “you must get out quickly, you know. Now! Mount ’em up and retire, as fast as you can! Back up this draw and on to the bluffs—”
“What d’you mean?” cries he. “Retire? And where in creation have you come from? How the deuce—”
“Doesn’t matter! I tell you, get this command away from here or you’re all dead men! Look, George, there are more Indians than you’ve ever seen over yonder; they’re beating the tar out of someone upriver, and they’ll do the same for you if you stay here!”
“Why, that’s Reno!” cries he. “Have you seen him?”
“No, for Christ’s sake! I haven’t been within a mile of him, but it’s my belief he’s beat! George, listen to me! You must get out now!”
Tom Custer was at my elbow. “How many hostiles over yonder?” snaps he.
“Thousands! Sioux, Cheyenne, God knows how many! Lord above, man, can’t you see the size of the village?” And in fury I turned to look – sure enough, they were swarming up to the ford from both directions, mounted Cheyenne among the trees downriver, now hidden, now in sight, like trout darting through weed, but coming by hundreds, and from the trees upstream a steady rattle of musketry was coming; balls were whizzing overhead and whining up the coulee; there were shouts of command to open fire coming from above us.
“Mount!” roars Custer. “Smith – E Troop! Prepare to advance! Tom, with your troop, sir!” He turned to bellow up the coulee. “Captain Yates, we’re going across! Bugler, sound!” He swung himself into his saddle, and behind was the creak and jingle and shouting as the troopers took their beasts from the holders, and a scout appeared at Custer’s side, pointing across the river.
“He’s right, Colonel! Didn’t I say – we go in there, we don’t come out!”75
It must have been obvious to anyone who wasn’t stark mad. But Custer was red in the face and roaring; he swung his hat and yelled at me.
“Come on, Flash! Forward the Light Brigade, hey? Didn’t I know you’d be in at the death?”
“Whose bloody death, you infernal idiot?” I yelled back, and grabbed at his leg. “George, for God’s sake—”
“What are you about, sir?” cries he angrily. “I’ll—” And at that moment he jerked back in his saddle, and I saw the splash of crimson on his sleeve even as his horse surged past me. He didn’t tumble – he was too good a horseman for that – but he reined in, and at that moment one of the Ree scouts close by spun round and fell, blood spouting from his neck. Shots were kicking up the dust all about us, a horse screamed and went down, thrashing – by George, that had been a regular volley, at least thirty rifles together, which you don’t expect from savages; across the river a perfect mob of them was closing on the ford, halting to bring up their pieces and bows for another fusilade, a scarlet-clad figure ahead of them, arms raised, to give the word. I flung myself flat as shots and arrows whizzed past, and came up to see Custer standing in his stirrups, blood running over his right hand.
“F Troop! Covering fire! Tom! Smith! Move out with your troops!” Thank God he’d seen sense; he was pointing up the hillside, away from the bluffs. “Retire out of range! Bugler, up to Captain Keogh, and I’ll be obliged if he and Mr Calhoun will hold the crest yonder – you see it, on the top, there? – with their troops! Go!” He urged his beast up the coulee. “Yates, sweep that bank yonder!” He pointed across the water, but already Yates’s troop was blazing away, and Smith and Tom Custer were urging their men over the northern bank of the coulee, upwards towards the Greasy Grass slope that lay between the crest and the river. I was among them, clawing my way up the coulee side on to the rough hilly ground in the middle of a hastening crowd of troopers, a few mounted, but mostly leading their beasts. I swung myself aboard one of the led ponies, arguing blasphemously with its owner as we jogged over the hillside; shots were still buzzing past, and here was another draw across our front over which we scrambled. Drawing rein as the bugle blared again, I had a moment to collect myself and look round.
A bare hundred yards away, at the foot of the slope, the trees were alive with hostiles, firing raggedly up at us. There were three troops on the slope round about where I was; when I looked up the hill, there were I and L Troops skirmishing out in good order. Custer was sliding down from his pony, using one hand and his teeth to tie a handkerchief round his grazed wrist; I ran to him and jerked the ends tight.
“Good man!” he gasped, and looked about. I don’t know if he saw what I already knew, although it was too late now. Take a squint at my map and you’ll see it. He’d come the wrong way.
I ain’t being clever, but if he’d done what I’d told him he might have saved most of his command – by withdrawing straight up Medicine Tail Coulee and making a stand on the high bluffs, where five troops could have held off an army. Or, if he’d retired flat out, Calhoun and Keogh could certainly have saved their troops. By coming across to the Greasy Grass slope he’d put his command out in the open, where the redskins could skirmish up over good broken ground and our only hope was to achieve the hill at the far end of the crest and make good a position there. And we might have done it, too, if that red-jacketed bastard Gall hadn’t been an Indian in a million – that is, an Indian with an eye for ground like Wellington. The little swine saw at once how we’d blundered, and exactly what he must do.
It’s a simple, tactical thing, and for those of you who ain’t sure what turning a flank means, it’s a fair example. See on the map – we had to make for the hill marked X, with half the Sioux nation coming up from the ford at our heels. If they’d simply pursued us straight, we’d likely have reached it, but Gall saw that the crest between the bluffs and the hill was all-important, and as soon as we were out on the Greasy Grass slope he had his warriors pouring up the second coulee in droves, nicely under cover until they could get high enough up to emerge all along the line of the second coulee, especially at the crest itself, where they could hit at I and L troops, and be well above Custer’s three other troops making for the hill. Smart Indian, fighting the white man in the white man’s way, and with overwhelming strength to make a go of it. In the meantime his skirmishers coming up on us from the river were pressing us too hard to give Custer time to regroup for any kind of counter-stroke. He couldn’t charge downhill, for even if he’d scattered our pursuers he’d have been stopped by the river with Keogh’s folk stranded; all he could do was retire to the hill with Keogh falling back the same way.
Our fellows were all dismounted, in three main groups across the slope, leading their horses and firing down at the Indians, who were swarming up through the folds and gullies, blazing away as they came. Curiously, I don’t think we’d lost many men yet, but now troopers began to fall as the slugs and arrows came whistling out of the blue. And I saw the first example of something that was to happen horrid frequent on that slope in the next fifteen minutes – a trooper kneeling with his reins over his arm, raving obscenely as he dug frenziedly with his knife at a spent case jammed in his carbine. That’s what ha
ppens: some factory expert don’t test a weapon properly, and you pay for it out on the hill when the rim shears off and your gun’s useless.
“Tell Smith to close up with E Troop!” yells Custer, and I saw the hostiles were up with Smith fifty yards below us in a murderous struggle of pistols and lances, hatchets and carbine butts. To our own front they were surging up, ducking and firing, and we were retreating, firing back; I stumbled over a little gully through a clump of thistles, fell on my face – heard the rattle within a foot of my ear, and there was a snake gliding under my nose into the dusty grass; I never even thought about him.
“Give me a gun, for pity’s sake!” I yelped, and Custer flung away his jammed carbine and threw me one of his Bulldog repeaters while he drew the other for himself. Christ, they were a bare ten yards off, shrieking painted faces and feathered heads racing towards me; I fired and one fell sprawling at my feet, guns were blasting all about me, Custer (he was cool, say that for him) was firing with one hand while with his wounded one he was thrusting a packet of cartridges at me. I saw the lens of his field-glasses splinter as a shot hit them; there were a dozen of us clawing our way backwards up out of a gully, firing frantically at the red mob pouring down the other bank. We broke and ran, in a confusion of yelling swearing men and rearing horses; below on the slope a body of kneeling troopers with their sorrels behind them – Tom Custer’s people – were firing revolver volleys at our pursuers, and behind me as I flew were shrieks of agony blending with the war-whoops.
Flashman’s map of Little Bighorn is erratic in details – the course of the river, and the placing of the various tribal camp circles – but agrees with most authorities in showing Custer’s advance along the bluffs, down Medicine Tail Coulee to a point near the ford, and then north up the Greasy Grass slope in an attempt to reach the hill marked X, where the remnants of his force were caught between the Indian charge from Gall’s Gully and the encircling movement of Crazy Horse’s cavalry. The underlined names (e.g. CUSTER) show where the various troops died with their commanders.
“Steady!” roars Custer. There he was, shoving rounds into his Bulldog and firing coolly, picking his men while the arrows whizzed round him. “Fall back in order! Close on C Troop!” Beside him a trooper with the guidon staggered, an arrow between his shoulders; Custer wrenched the staff from him and plunged uphill; I scrambled up beside him, swearing pathetically as I fumbled shells into my revolver – and for a moment the firing died, and Yates was beside me, yelling something I couldn’t hear as I staggered to my feet.
We were in a long gully running from the hill-top to the trees far down by the river. The slopes below me were littered with bodies – the blue of troopers among the Indians, and lower still Indian attackers were bounding up the gully sides. The remnant of Smith’s troop was reeling up the gully, turning and firing, loose horses among them, redskins racing in to grapple at close quarters. I heard the hideous “Hoon! Hoon!” as the clubs and hatchets swung and the knives went home, and the crash of Army pistols firing point-blank. Around me were what was left of Yates’s troop, staggering figures streaked with dust and blood; just down the slope Tom Custer’s fellows were at grips with a horde of painted, shrieking braves, slashing and clubbing at each other hand to hand. I struggled out of the gully; in its bed a trooper was lying, screaming and plucking feebly at a lance buried in his side, two Indians dead beside him and a third still kicking. I looked back across the gully – and saw the final Death bearing down upon us.
Across the upper slopes of the Greasy Grass they came, hundreds of running, painted figures, and on a pony among them that crimson leader, waving them on for the kill. Tom Custer’s tattered remnant was breaking clear of a tangled mêlée of blue-shirted and red half-naked fighters who still hacked and stabbed and shot at each other; somewhere on the crest I knew Keogh’s people must be struggling with the right wing of that Indian charge sweeping across the slope. In less than a minute they would be on us; I turned sobbing to run for the hill-top, a bare hundred yards away – and even in that moment it crossed my mind: we’ve come a long way damned fast, for I’d no notion it was so close. We must have retreated a good mile from the ford where I’d ridden across with the Cheyenne just a moment ago.
Custer was on his feet, reloading, looking this way and that; his hat was gone, his hand was caked with dried blood. There were about forty troopers round him, firing past me down the hill. As I came up to them an arrow-shower fell among us; there were screams and groans and raging blasphemy; Yates was on the ground, trying to staunch blood pumping from a wound in his thigh – artery gone, I saw. Custer bent over him.
“I’m sorry, old fellow,” I heard him say. “I’m sorry. God bless all of you, and have you in His keeping.”
There was a slow moment – one of those which you get in terrible times, as at the Balaclava battery, when everything seemed to happen at slow march, and the details are as clear and inevitable as day. Even the shots seemed slower and far-off. I saw Yates fall back, and put up a hand to his eyes like a man who’s tired and ready for bed; Custer straightened up, breathing noisily, and cocked his Bulldog, and I thought, you don’t need to do that, it’s British-made and fires at one pressure; a trooper was crying out: “Oh, no, no, no, it’s a damned shame!” and the F Troop guidon fell over on a wounded sergeant, and he pawed at it, wondering what it was, and frowned, and tried to push its butt into the ground. On the crest behind them I saw a sudden tumult of movement, and thought, ah yes, those are mounted Sioux – by Jove, there are plenty of them, and tearing down like those Russians at Campbell’s Highlanders. Lot of warbonnets and lance-heads, and how hot the sun is, and me with no hat. Elspeth would have sent me indoors for one. Elspeth …
“Hoo’hay, Lacotah! It’s a good day to die! Kye-ee-kye!”
“You bloody liars!” I screamed, and all was fast and furious again, with a hellish din of drumming hooves and screams and war-whoops and shots crashing like a dozen Gatlings all together, the mounted horde charging on one side, and as I wheeled to flee, the solid mass of red devils on foot racing in like mad things, clubs and knives raised, and before I knew it they were among us, and I went down in an inferno of dust and stamping feet and slashing weapons, with stinking bodies on top of me, and my right hand pumping the Bulldog trigger while I gibbered in expectation of the agony of my death-stroke. A moccasined foot smashed into my ribs, I rolled away and fired at a painted face – and it vanished, but whether I hit it or not God knows, for directly behind it Custer was falling, on hands and knees, and whether I’d hit him, God knows again. He rocked back on his heels, blood coming out of his mouth, and toppled over,76 and I scrambled up and away, cannoning into a red body, hurling my empty Bulldog at a leaping Indian and closing with him; he had a sabre, of all things, and I closed my teeth in his wrist and heard him shriek as I got my hand on the hilt, and began laying about me blindly. Indians and troopers were struggling all around me, a lance brushed before my face, I was aware of a rearing horse and its Indian rider grabbing for his club; I slashed him across the thigh and he pitched screaming from the saddle; I hurled myself at the beast’s head and was dragged through the mass of yelling, stabbing, struggling men. Two clear yards and I hauled myself across its back, righting myself as an Indian stumbled under its hooves, and then I was urging the pony up and away from that horror, over grassy ground that was carpeted with still and writhing bodies, and beyond it little knots of men fighting, soldiers with clubbed carbines being overwhelmed by waves of Sioux – but there was a guidon, and a little cluster of blue shirts that still fired steadily. I rode for them roaring for help, and they scrambled aside to let me through, and I tumbled out of the saddle into Keogh’s arms.
“Where’s the General?” he yelled, and I could only shake my head and point dumbly towards the carnage behind me – but it wasn’t visible, and I saw that somehow I’d ridden over the crest, on the far side from the river, and the crest itself was alive with Indians firing at us, rushing closer and firing again. K
eogh yelled above the din:
“Sergeant Butler!” A ragged blue figure was beside him, gold chevrons smeared with blood and dust. “Ride out! See if you can find Major Reno! Tell him we’re hemmed in and the General’s dead!”
He shoved hard at Butler, who turned and slapped the neck of a bay horse that was lying among the troopers; it came up, whinnying, at his touch, and as Butler grabbed the reins he came face to face with me, and he must have seen me at Fort Lincoln, for he said:
“’Allo then, Colonel! Long way from ’Orse Guards, ain’t we, though?” Then he was up and away, head down, going hell for leather at the advancing Sioux,77 and thinks I, by God, it’s that or nothing, and scrambled on my own beast as the red tide flooded in amongst us. It was like Scarlett’s charge, a mass of men close-packed, contorted faces, white and red, all about me, carrying me and the horse whether we would or no, and there was no time to think or do anything but swing my sabre at every eagle feather in sight, screaming wildly as the mass of men disintegrated and I dug in my heels and went in blind panic. As I fled I lifted my head and gazed on such a scene as even I can hardly match from all my memories of bloody catastrophe.
Until this moment, you’ll agree, I’d had little time for careful thought or action. From the moment I’d crossed the ford and tried to reason with Custer, it had been one shot-torn nightmare of struggle up the slope away from those hordes of red fiends, followed by the chaos when our retreat had been caught in the death-grip between Gall’s charge and the mounted assault (led, I’m told, by Crazy Horse in person) over the very hill to which we’d been struggling for safety. Now, with Keogh’s troop being engulfed behind me, I was recrossing the crest overlooking the whole Greasy Grass slope to the river at its foot; I wasn’t there above an instant, but I’ll never forget it.
The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection Page 213