The Bloody Ground - Starbuck 04

by Bernard Cornwell

  "Give it me," Lucifer said, and he tore the fuse into halves and pushed one half into a drilled copper plug that formed part of the case shot. "Five seconds is too long," Lucifer said, judging the distance to the enemy. "Give it two and a half."

  "How the hell do you know all this?" Starbuck asked.

  "Just do," Lucifer said, once again hiding his past. His dog was tied to his belt by its leash of rifle slings that almost tangled Lucifer's legs as he carried the shell to the gun. "You have to put the powder in first," he told Starbuck.

  Starbuck pushed the powder bag into the tube, then Lucifer plugged the case shot into the muzzle. A bullet whistled overhead. Starbuck guessed it was an errant shot, not deliberately aimed at his men.

  Lucifer had taken charge now. He had found the friction primer and a vent pick and, once the charge had been rammed down the barrel, he leaned over the muzzle and pushed the pick hard down to pierce the canvas bag of powder. He inserted the friction primer, attached the lanyard that had been in the dead gunner's hand, then stepped back. "Ready," he said.

  "What about the elevation?" Colonel Swynyard had seen the activity about the gun and come to join the makeshift crew. "Looks low to me," he added, gesturing at the wormed elevating screw.

  Starbuck gave the screw a pair of turns, but it seemed to make little difference. Maybe a man did need a college degree after all. "Let's just fire the damn thing," he said, then held up a hand. "Wait." The dead gunner with his wife's picture still on his lap had fallen behind the wheel and Starbuck first dragged the body clear, then picked up the tintype. It seemed sacrilegious to throw it away, so he put the picture in his pocket, then nodded at Lucifer. "You fire it," he said.

  Fifty yards behind the gun Sergeant Case took aim. He had found Captain Dennison and the two men were in the brush at the wood's edge. Case had almost given up hope of finding an opportunity to kill Starbuck, but suddenly Starbuck was fifty yards away and in the open while Case and Dennison were hidden deep in brush. "Fire when the nigger pulls the string," Case told the Captain. "You go for the bastard's body, I'll go for a head shot."

  Dennison, dry mouthed, could not answer, so just nodded. He was desperately nervous. He was about to commit murder and his hand was shaking as he rested his rifle on a small hillock. The men about the cannon had their backs to him and he was suddenly unsure which was Starbuck, but then he recognized the revolver holster Starbuck always wore at the small of his back and he aimed a few inches above it, where the gray jacket was darkened by a smear of blood. Case, calmer than Dennison, aimed at Starbuck's black hair. "Wait till they fire," he warned Dennison.

  Dennison nodded again, and the small movement was enough to dislodge the sights from his target. He hurriedly re-aimed and had only just realized that he was sighting the wrong man when Lucifer ducked away from the gun and yanked the lanyard.

  The Napoleon crashed back, its wheels bucking six inches up from the turf as the lunette at the end of its tail plowed hard back through the dirt. The noise was immense, a crack to hurt the ears of anyone within fifty paces. Smoke gushed ahead, writhing with flame, and under the cover of the noise, while the remnants of the Yellowlegs cheered, Case and Dennison fired.

  Potter pitched violently forward onto the ground.

  Starbuck was turning as the bullet hit Potter and, as he turned, a mist of blood exploded from the side of his face and then he too fell.

  The shell screamed across the field. The elevation had been much too low and the smoking case shot ricocheted off a patch of dry ground to explode harmlessly behind the Yankees. It killed no one.

  "It's all yours," Case said, lowering the Sharps rifle. "All yours." And soon, Case thought, it would all be his. The Virginia Fusiliers, the smartest regiment in the Confederacy.

  "Thank you, Captain," Dennison managed to answer. While to the south the great guns boomed and the Yankees closed on Sharpsburg.

  Lee could only watch as disaster threatened. He stood on the low height above the town, where his guns were lined along the edge of Sharpsburg's cemetery, and he watched as a flood of Yankees filled the countryside to the east and to the south.

  His men were still fighting. Their cannons were tearing huge holes in the Northern files while the gray infantry was stubbornly defending every fence, wall, and farm building, but it was the Yankees who had the advantage. There seemed so many of them. Wherever Lee looked another battalion or brigade would appear from hidden ground to join the advance on the town and toward the road that ran south toward the Confederate states. An aide checked each new appearance through a telescope and each time, just as Lee hoped that it might be one of the Light Division's battalions appearing on the flank, the aide would laconically announce, "It's Yankee, sir."

  "Are you sure?" Lee asked once.

  "Sir?" The aide offered the telescope.

  "Can't use it," Lee said, gesturing with his bandaged hands.

  The guns banged on, layering a new mist of smoke across the high ground. Some of the guns had been dismounted by the heavy Yankee counterfire, others lay canted on splintered wheels that gunners struggled to change. One of the army's few heavy Parrott guns had exploded, killing two of its crew and foully wounding another three. "Try to find out if they varnished their shells," Lee said to the aide.

  "Sir?" The aide frowned in puzzlement.

  "The gun crew. The Parrott," Lee explained. "Find out if they greased the shells. Not now, just when you have a moment."

  "Yes, sir," the aide said and trained his telescope south again.

  Belvedere Delaney climbed up through the gravestones to join the nervous band of aides who stood a few paces behind Lee. Delaney's uniform was bloody and his face sheened with sweat. Lee noted his arrival and smiled at him. "Are you wounded, Delaney?'

  "Other men's blood, sir," Delaney answered. He was tired through and appalled beyond measure by what he had seen this day. He had never dreamed that such horrors could exist outside of slaughterhouses. The town was filled with wounded, and every house was sheltering dying and broken men. Yet the worst moment of the day had been when Delaney had gone down into a cellar to fetch some apples that the householder was storing for the winter and now offered to the wounded troops. As Delaney had filled a pail with the fruit he had felt liquid drip on his head. It had been blood seeping through the floorboards. He had begun to weep then, and his eyes were still red.

  Lee saw that the lawyer was engulfed in horror. "Thank you for all your efforts, Delaney," he said gently.

  "I did nothing, sir," Delaney said, "nothing," and he suddenly felt guilty, for it was he, surely, who had precipitated this slaughter. He suddenly resented it, fearing that the memory of blood dripping through floorboards would sour his idyllic life in some foreign capital. He shook that suspicion away, then frowned and managed to blurt out what he had been sent to say. "Colonel Chilton wonders if you should withdraw, sir."

  Lee laughed. "And you were the only man brave enough to convey the message? Maybe you should abandon the law, Delaney, and take up soldiering. We need brave men. But in the meantime you can tell Chilton that we haven't lost yet." Delaney flinched as the shrapnel from a Yankee shell whipped the air overhead. Lee appeared not to notice the whirring sound of the hot metal. "We haven't lost yet," he said again with a tone of wistfulness.

  "No," Delaney said, not because he believed the General, but because it was not his place to point out the obvious. The Yankees were winning. Half the Southern army lay in exhaustion and the other half was being driven remorselessly back by the vast Northern assault. Colonel Chilton had readied an ambulance to hurry Lee away from the imminent disaster, but Lee, it seemed, was not willing to go. .

  More troops appeared in the south. Lee glanced at them, but even at this distance it was possible to see that the new men were wearing blue. He sighed, but said nothing. The aide turned the glass on the newly arrived troops who were dangerously close to the single road south. The air was hazed by the heat and obscured by filaments of smoke and the aide st
ared for a long time before he spoke. "Sir?" he said.

  "I know, Hudson," Lee said gently. "I've seen them. They wear blue." He sounded immensely tired as if he was suddenly realizing that it was all over. He knew he should make some effort to withdraw now, to rescue what he could of his army, but he seemed consumed by a terrible lassitude. If he did not escape then he would be captured and McClellan would have him as his guest at dinner and the humiliation of such a meal seemed unbearable.

  "Re-equipped at Harper's Ferry, sir," the aide said. "I'm sorry?" Lee asked, thinking he must have misheard the aide.

  Hudson's voice rose in sudden excitement. "They're our men in Yankee coats, sir. It's our banner!"

  Lee smiled. "The flags look alike when there's no wind."

  "It's our banner, sir!" Hudson insisted. "It is, sir!" And suddenly the splintering sound of musketry echoed across the landscape and the far-off blue-coated troops were whitened by smoke as they fired a volley at other troops, also blue-coated. New guns were unlimbering and their fire was streaking slantwise across the attacking Yankee troops. It was the Light Division, come at last, and Lee closed his eyes as though he was at prayer. "Well done, Hill," he murmured, "well, well done." He would not have to eat McClellan's humble pie. More troops appeared to the south, these in gray, and suddenly the Yankee advance, which had reached almost to the gardens at the edge of Sharpsburg, was checked.

  For the Light Division had arrived.

  Lucifer, pulling the lanyard that had fired the gun, saw the two shots fired from the edge of the trees. A heartbeat later he connected the two shots with the two bodies on the gun's far side. Potter was flat on his belly, Starbuck was on his knees, but with his head on the ground spilling blood. Neither man moved until Starbuck, after a hopeless effort to straighten up, collapsed.

  Lucifer shouted in anger and drew his revolver. He ran toward the patches of smoke, tugging the small dog along by its leash.

  Colonel Swynyard realized a second after Lucifer that the shots had been fired from the rebel side. He started after the boy and saw one man rise up out of the brush.

  Lucifer had drawn his revolver and was pointing it at the man. The Colonel shouted at him. "No! No, boy! No!"

  Lucifer did not care. He fired, and his bullet went wide up into the trees. He slowed to take proper aim, knowing that the man who had shot Starbuck would need twenty seconds to reload his rifle. "Murderer!" he screamed at Case and raised the revolver again.

  Case dropped the trigger guard and put his last cartridge into the breech of the Sharps. He snapped the guard up and thumbed the percussion cap into place.

  Lucifer fired again, but even at twenty yards a revolver was inaccurate.

  "No!" Swynyard called again and ran after the boy.

  Case raised the gun. He saw the look of terror dawn on Lucifer's face and that look pleased him. He was grinning as he fired.

  The boy was plucked backward. The force of the heavy bullet was so great that it lifted him off the ground and tugged the small dog back with him. The dog yelped in terror as Lucifer fell back, then whined as the small body twitched. Blood was pumping out of a hole in Lucifer's skull and the twitching stopped quickly.

  Swynyard stooped by the boy, but knew he was dead long before he put a hand on the small throat. He looked up at Case, who shrugged. "He was shooting at me, Colonel," Case said, "you saw him."

  "Name?" Swynyard snapped, standing up.

  "Case," Case said defiantly, then slung the rifle. "And there ain't no bloody law 'gainst shooting niggers, sir. Specially niggers with guns."

  "There is a law, Case, about shooting your own officers," Swynyard said.

  Case shook his head. "Hell, Colonel, me and the Captain were firing at a pair of bloody Yankees out in the field." He jerked his beard toward the Smoketown Road. "Out there, Colonel. I reckon they killed Starbuck. Weren't me."

  A second figure stood up beside Case. Swynyard recognized Captain Dennison, who licked his lips nervously, then nodded his head to support Case's statement. "In that patch of brush, Colonel," Dennison said, pointing toward the road. "Pair of Yankee skirmishers. I reckon we killed them both."

  Swynyard turned. About three hundred yards away, just beside the Smoketown Road, there was a small patch of thorns where a mess of bodies lay thick under the pall of filmy smoke that smothered the field. Not enough smoke, Swynyard reckoned, to show that a pair of Yankee skirmishers had fired from the bushes, but he felt a terrible weariness as he understood that the two men would stick by their story and it would be a hard one to disprove. He turned back to them. He would put them under arrest anyway. There had been a time, he knew, when he would have shot them down like dogs, but he obeyed a higher law now. He would do the proper thing even though he guessed it would be useless.

  He opened his mouth to speak, then saw a look of litter horror show on both men's faces. They were staring past him and Swynyard turned to see what had scared them.

  Starbuck was standing. The left side of his face was a horror of blood. He staggered, then spat a great gob of thick blood and scraps of broken teeth. The bullet had gone through his open mouth, scored across his tongue, torn away four teeth from his upper jaw, then ripped out through his cheek. He walked unsteadily toward the two men, then paused beside Lucifer. He knelt by the boy and Swynyard saw the tears rolling down to mix with the blood. "Nate," Swynyard said, but Starbuck shook his head as if he did not want anything said. He stroked Lucifer's dead face with his hand, then untied the whimpering puppy from the boy's belt. He stood and walked toward Case and Dennison. He spoke to them, but the wound made his words a blood-curdled mumble. He spat again, then pointed toward the clump of bushes. "Go," he managed to say.

  Swynyard understood. "Go and find the men you killed," he ordered the two.

  "Hell," Case said, "there's a bunch of dead Yankees there!"

  "Then bring me two warm bodies!" Swynyard snapped. "Because if they aren't warm, Captain Dennison, I'll know you're lying. And if you are lying, Captain Dennison, I'll have the two of you in front of a firing squad."

  "Go!" Starbuck snarled, spitting more blood.

  The two men walked east. Starbuck waited till they were gone, then turned back to the gun. Blood was pouring down his face as he heaved on the handspike to turn the trail the few feet necessary so that the barrel was pointing toward the Smoketown Road.

  "No, Nate," Swynyard said. "No."

  Starbuck ignored the Colonel. He went to the limber and brought back a bag of powder and a canister. Two of Potter's men rammed the cannon while Connolly ran to retrieve the vent pick from Lucifer's body.

  Potter rolled over. He was crying. Swynyard, who had not expected his protest to work, knelt beside him. "Is it hurting, son?"

  "Stone jug of whiskey," Potter said, "best damn whiskey I ever saw. I was saving it, Colonel, and they bust it. God damn bust it. Now my back's soaked in whiskey, but it's all on the outside and I was praying so hard for it to be on the inside."

  Swynyard tried not to smile, but could not help it. "You ain't hurt?" he asked.

  "Had the breath knocked clean out of me," Potter said, then sat up. He took Swynyard's offered hand and hauled himself to his feet. "Had my back to them, Colonel," he said, "and I was shot in the back."

  "There are proper procedures," Swynyard said lamely.

  Starbuck gave his opinion of proper procedures, an opinion so muffled by blood that it came out as a splutter of gore and bone. He bent, spat again, then straightened and cupped his hands about his shattered mouth. "Case!" he roared.

  Case and Dennison had been advancing cautiously into the open, almost as scared of the distant Yankees as they were of what waited for them on their return to the battalion. Then they saw there would be no return. The cannon was fifty yards from them, and aimed straight for them. Dennison shook his head, Case began to run, and Starbuck whipped the lanyard back.

  The smoke of the cannon enveloped the two men, but not until the blast of canister had turned them to red ri
bbons of flesh.

  Starbuck did not even look to see what the canister had done. He walked back to Lucifer and cradled the dead boy in his arms. He hugged him, rocking the small body, and dripping blood onto the boy's bloody face. Swynyard knelt beside him. "You need a doctor, Nate."

  "It'll wait," Starbuck managed to say. "I never knew his real Christian name," he added, speaking slowly to articulate the words through the torn-up mess inside his mouth, "so what the hell can I put on his grave?"

  "That he was a brave soldier," Swynyard said.

  "He was," Starbuck said, "he truly was."

  The guns to the south fell silent. The silence seemed unnatural, for all day long the sky had been bruised by fire, but now there was silence. Silence and a small wind that at long last stirred the smoke and carried the stench of battle east across the creek. The killing was over.

  In the night the wounded cried. Some died. Flickering campfires showed where the armies rested, the small flames marking the advances the Yankees had made during the day's long fight. The North and East Woods were theirs, and all the field that lay between the creek and the high ground above the town, but the rebels had not broken, they had not fled. The Light Division, sweating from its aching march, had struck Burnside's flank and hurled his carefully composed columns back just when they had thought they had broken through to the town.

  Confederate Provosts searched the town's wooden houses for men who had taken refuge from the fighting. They rousted the fugitives from cellars and attics, from cowsheds and springhouses, then marched them back to their units. A child, killed by a Yankee shell that had screamed over the ridge to plunge into Sharpsburg, lay in her best frock on a parlor table. A house burned, its stone chimney stack all that was left when the sun rose above the Red Hill on the Thursday morning. The plateau was still hung with a haze of smoke and by the stench of the dead that lay in ghastly windrows across the fire-scorched fields.

  All night men had trickled back to Swynyard's Brigade so that now there were 112 men left in Faulconer's Legion and seventy eight in Starbuck's battalion. When the rising sun dazzled them they shaded their eyes and stared east from the woods close to the Dunker church and waited for the Yankees to attack. But the Yankees did not come.