‘Yes, sir!’ the men responded, bellowing their agreement from deep in the pits of their stomachs.
‘We’re going to show them Yankees how Southerners fight! You hear me, boys? We’re going to beat those bastards. Are you with me?’
‘Yes, sir!’ The roars of approval came back at him. These men had tried once to take the Union position and they had been beaten back. Now Jack fanned their anger so that it mixed with their shame and fear to produce the volatile cocktail that would throw them back into the fight.
The fury had him fully in its grasp now. It was the madness he knew well. Nothing else mattered. Nothing save the need to fight. Martha had summoned the devil, and now Jack would show her, would show them all, what he was.
For he was the master of war, and he would not be defeated.
‘Advance!’
The order came from a major who had taken station at the head of the column. He led his command forward. There was no room for manoeuvre, the flanks of the Union position secured by other blue-coated troops. The Confederates had no choice but to mount another frontal assault.
The column lurched into motion. Its ranks might have been uneven, but they were all brave Southern men. They did not shirk from the fight ahead.
The rest of the assaulting columns were on the move too. Yet this was no grand attack on good ground. The troops were advancing through heavy brush and thick undergrowth. Little could be seen other than fleeting glimpses of more men marching in the same direction. It gave the attack an eerie feel, enhanced by the clouds of powder smoke wafting through the trees.
The column pushed into the brush cut low by Union fire, the ground beneath their boots now carpeted with the dead and the dying. They cheered then, the sound coming deep from their guts. They knew what was ahead, yet they went forward willingly.
Jack had taken position at the end of the row where he had left Martha. Hightower was to his left, with the other men from his group scattered around them. As one, they began to yell.
The noise of the war cry wrapped around the column. To Jack’s ear it sounded eerie, as if it were made by animals, or creatures from another realm. Yet there was something hidden in the series of yips and cries that fed his fury. For the first time he joined in, matching his pitch to the men around him. The sound filled his head, intoxicating and powerful. He was one of them now. And so he gave the rebel yell, the unearthly shriek in tune with the searing madness in his soul.
He looked ahead and saw the men that waited for them. They were little more than shadows, their forms hidden behind the tangled greenery that lined the farm track. He knew that he would kill them without question. They were his enemy now.
‘Charge!’ He shouted the encouragement. The pace of the advance was increasing as the madness took them all. They raced forward, screaming like men released from the dungeons of hell.
The Union guns opened fire with canister. The storm of musket balls ripped into the column, cutting men down in droves, the leading ranks torn apart. The men behind charged on regardless. They roared their devilish cry as they stormed forward, their boots crushing those that had fallen. Jack went with them. He was yelling constantly now, the sound spewing out. He thought only of the fight to come, of the men he would kill.
The Union soldiers held their ground and now opened fire. More Confederates fell. Hightower went down, a Minié ball smashing his face into so much pulp. Others fell around him, their rebel yells transformed into despairing cries as Union bullets found a home in their flesh. The pitch of the yell changed, the sound now punctuated by the screams of the dying. Yet still the men pressed on, rushing into the face of the fire no matter how many of their number were cut down.
The treeline was just yards ahead now. These were the hard yards, the cruel yards. Men died in their dozens as the defenders poured on the fire. It was as if the air was under attack from a thousand deadly hornets. The passage of time slowed so that the ground crawled past under the boots of the men rushing the Union line. So many died, their bodies falling to stain ground that so far had been left untouched. Still the soldiers in the bloodied and battered column pressed on, their raw, desperate courage holding them to their task even as the Union fire butchered the men around them.
Jack pulled his rifle into his shoulder. He had been here before. He fell silent, no longer yelling like the men around him. He fought against the battle madness, refusing to let it take command of his being. It would have its time, but he knew how to tame the wild, searing emotion; how to use it so that he could be the killer he needed to be.
He fired, snapping off his first shot even as he ran forward. He cranked the handle then fired again, revelling in the power of the modern rifle. He saw a man dressed in blue directly in his path, crouched down as he reloaded his rifle. He looked up as Jack charged towards him. For a moment the two men locked eyes, then Jack aimed his repeater and fired. The bullet took the Union soldier between the eyes. He crumpled, his body falling over itself as he died in an instant.
Jack fired again and again at the enemy pressed tight into the trees and bushes that lined the farm track. A man raised a rifle. Jack saw the muzzle lift towards him, then the flash as it fired. The bullet snickered past so close that he felt the snap in the air an inch from his cheek. He twitched the repeater, cranked the handle and fired. The man with the rifle fell, Jack’s bullet taking him deep in the gut.
Jack had already looked away. He had slowed and so was behind the leading ranks of the column as they stormed into the Union line. It was a brutal impact. At such close range, even the outdated muskets the Confederates carried were horribly effective. For the first time, Union men died, the Southerners shooting down those who had killed so many of their friends.
Suddenly Martha was there. The Union fire had thinned the ranks ahead of her so that she was close to the front when the Confederate charge hit home. She plunged into the chaos, following the men ahead of her as they drove into the enemy line.
Jack ran hard, skirting past men rushing towards the Union soldiers so that he could get close to her. Already the sounds of the fight were changing. There was less rifle and musket fire now as the two sides engaged in brutal hand-to-hand fighting. In its place were the shouts, cries and shrieks of men fighting for their lives. He ducked under a low-hanging branch, then kicked his way through a bush and into the lane. He arrived to find chaos.
A soldier with the pale blue chevrons of a sergeant on his sleeve swung a musket at Jack’s head. He swayed back, nearly losing his balance but avoiding the blow. He fired a moment later, immediately cranking the handle on the rifle then firing again. Both bullets hit the sergeant, twin eruptions of blood spurting from his chest. He fell away, his despairing shout of horror lost in the storm of sound that filled the air.
‘Martha!’ Jack called. He fired once more, the bullet shattering the skull of a Union soldier raising his rifle ready to fire. ‘Martha!’
She spotted him then. She stood with her musket held out in front of her, staring at the scene that swirled around her. Jack saw her fear. Nothing prepared a man, or a woman, for this moment, not even being in a column flensed by enemy fire. The brutality of the struggle between men fighting for their lives was like nothing else on earth.
‘Behind me!’ Jack stepped forward. He fired as he moved, then cranked the handle again before snapping off more shots, gunning men down so that they died without ever knowing where the death had come from.
The confused melee swirled around them. A Union soldier reeled past, his throat torn open by a Confederate bowie knife. Another man, a Southerner, writhed on the ground, his guts ripped open by a Union bayonet.
Martha did as she was told, stepping sideways so that she was behind Jack just as a Union corporal rushed towards them, his lips pulled back in a snarl. Jack saw him coming. It was too easy. He raised the rifle and fired. The bullet hit the man in the centre of his face. His head snapped back and he fell backwards as if his legs had been whipped away from under him.
It was bedlam. Death came from every angle as the two groups fought hard. Yet there was no doubt that the Confederates were gaining ground. More and more Union men were falling, the defenders starting to lose the fight.
Despite their casualties, though, the men in blue refused to break. Two Union men attacked a Confederate soldier, driving him towards Jack. The Southerner tried to counter the bayonets that were thrust towards him, battering them away with his musket, beating them back time and time again. But still they came for him, the men in blue uniforms screaming abuse at him with every strike.
Jack stepped to one side. One of the Union men saw him. There was time for him to stare before Jack fired. The bullet hit him in the chest with enough force to knock him from his feet. The second soldier’s head twisted to look at Jack in horror as his comrade tumbled to the ground. Jack stepped forward and drove the brass-hilted butt of his rifle into the man’s neck. It was a cruel blow, and it crushed the man’s throat. He dropped his weapon, his hands scrabbling around his ruined windpipe. Jack gave him no quarter. He pulled back the rifle then smashed the butt into the centre of the man’s face, bludgeoning him to the ground.
‘God bless you,’ the Confederate soldier gasped. He drove his bayonet into the man Jack had knocked down, stabbing the blade into the man’s heart and finishing what Jack had started.
‘Oh my Lord! Here they come!’
The man Jack had saved shouted the warning. Around them men still fought, the soldiers of both armies sticking to their ferocious task. The violent struggle was chaotic, but there was no doubt now that the Union soldiers were losing. There were too few left on their feet to hold the position for much longer, and those still fighting were backing away, surrendering the ground they had held for so long.
Yet the fight was far from done. Jack saw blue-coated reinforcements rushing towards the track. The Union commanders would not let the position go.
He saw what had to be done. ‘Stay here. Do not follow.’ He hissed the terse command at Martha, then handed her his now empty rifle.
‘To me!’ He gave the command to the men around him as he started to move. The last vestiges of his control fell away and the wild madness of battle seared through his veins. He let it have its head, forgetting Martha, forgetting everything.
He drew his sword and revolver as he began to run. The feel of the weapons gave him power. It was how he had always fought. The memories of those fights flooded through him, feeding his fury. No man could stand against him. No man could match his skills.
‘Charge!’ He released the madness. Nothing mattered now save the need to kill. ‘Come on, you bastards! Charge!’
Men came with him. The bloodied and battered remnant of the Confederate column charged at the fresh Union men. It was bravely done. These men had endured the destruction wrought by the Union volleys. They had fought their way into the Union line, driving the defenders back. Now they would fight to hold what they had so nearly won.
‘Kill them!’ Jack gave his final bitter instruction, then raised his revolver and fired at one of the men leading the Union soldiers forward, before changing his aim and shooting down an officer in mid stride.
Around him, Confederate soldiers ploughed into the fight, yelling as they charged, the cry even more inhuman than before.
A Union soldier ran at Jack. The man died with the revolver’s third bullet buried in his brain. Another came at him with a bayonet, but he battered the musket away with his sword with contempt. It was too easy. He laughed then, the sound loud even amidst the screams and yells. He raised his left hand, the barrel of the revolver just inches from the Union soldier’s face. The heavy bullet blasted the man’s skull apart.
A Union captain came at him with a sword. The officer thrust with the sabre, aiming the tip at Jack’s gut. Jack saw the blow coming. It was easy to parry it, the power in his counter sending the Union officer’s blade wide. It left the man open. Jack barked another short laugh, then rammed his sword forward, stepping into the blow so that his full weight was behind it. He drove the sabre’s steel tip deep into the Union captain’s chest, then twisted the blade so that it would not get stuck in the suction of flesh. He was close enough to feel the rush of air on his face as the man’s last breath left his mouth, and to smell the blood that followed.
He stepped back, tearing his sabre free. The Union captain stayed on his feet, his eyes locked onto Jack’s face. Then he fell, his sword tumbling to the ground as his hands scrabbled at the hideous wound torn in his flesh.
Jack threw back his head and laughed. He felt invincible. He was a killer, and there was no one alive who could stand against him. For here, in the bloody hell of battle, he alone was master.
The Confederates fighting for the lane battled hard, but the Union men came on with grim determination. No quarter was given and dozens died in the vicious, deadly melee filled with screams and the stink of blood and torn flesh.
Jack fought like a man possessed. He emptied the bullets in his revolver, firing blindly into the mass of bodies rushing towards him. He barely noticed the men he killed.
A Union soldier came at him, bayonet thrust forward just as the manual dictated. Jack blocked the blow then sliced the front edge of his blade across the man’s face, taking his eyes. Another man filled his place, rifle lifting to fire. Jack ducked low then pushed up fast, coming up under the man’s rifle, his sword taking the man in the groin.
The red mist drove him on. He backhanded the sword, slashing it deep into a man’s neck then thrusting it forward so that it ripped through another man’s throat. He made not a sound as he fought. He was a killing machine; an automaton that delivered death. Everything he had done, everything he had been had led to this point, to this fight. And there was no man alive who could stand against him.
A Union officer fired at him with a revolver. The bullet snapped past, stinging the air. Jack singled the man out, his first thought to close with him. Yet the Union men were swarming forward now, overwhelming the last Confederates still on their feet and blocking his path to the man who had so nearly killed him.
‘Run for your lives!’ A Confederate soldier sprinted past, his face a mask of blood from a wound to his forehead.
He was not alone. Everywhere Jack looked, Confederates turned to run. Many died as they went, the men in blue cutting them down without thought of mercy.
‘Stand!’ Jack shouted the command, demanding obedience. He hacked at a Union corporal, cutting his sabre deep into the junction between neck and shoulder. The man fell away, but three more elbowed one another as they tried to take his place. Jack swept his sword across the bayonets coming at him, then punched his left hand forward, using his empty revolver to club a man to the ground. The wild mania was beginning to fade, the futility of the fight overwhelming the madness that had driven him to this point.
Two more bayonets came at him. He battered one aside, but the other thrust past his parry and sliced across his hip, scoring through the flesh. He barely felt the pain. He slashed his sword back, slicing it down the man’s face, ripping away a great chunk of cheek. Yet already more men were coming forward and another bayonet jabbed at his side, missing him by no more than an inch.
‘No!’ The cry was torn from his lips. He fought on, no longer attacking but just battering away the bayonets that came for him. He gave ground, stepping backwards, unable to turn for fear of getting a bayonet in the back. There was no escape. He stepped back again. His heels caught a corpse and he stumbled. Bayonets reached for him the moment his sword dropped. He recovered his balance, then beat them back with a desperate, hurried parry, but not before one had gouged a deep crevice in the back of his left hand.
The last of the madness left him. He no longer fought to kill. He fought just to stay alive. Yet there was no respite from the men coming against him.
Around him, a handful of Confederates still fought on, but they were dying fast, the sheer numbers of Union troops sealing their fate.
Jack saw his death coming. He hacked at the men seeking to kill him, his sword knocking away their bayonet-tipped rifles for a moment longer. He would not allow himself to die here. Not this day. Not after so long. Not after so many battles.
A Union sergeant was shouting at his men, goading them with insults, calling them children for not finishing the lone Confederate officer. Jack heard every word.
The men tried to obey. They thrust their bayonets forward, faces twisted with hatred. Jack hammered them back. The blood running from the wound to his hand made his grip loosen on the revolver and it fell away, leaving him just his pitted and notched sabre.
He knew what was to come. He knew the end was in sight. There were just too many of them.
And then, at last, he saw the truth.
He was no god of war. He was just a man with a sword. His fate was to be no different to that which befell all such men.
He was just a soldier.
And soldiers died.
‘Fire!’
The command came from behind him. He could not turn, even as he heard the cough of half a dozen muskets firing as one. The storm of musket balls seared past him. They hit the men he was fighting, knocking two from their feet.
‘Come on!’ Hands plucked at him, pulling him back.
He needed no more urging. He turned, the short-range volley buying him the time he needed. He saw Martha immediately. She was the one tugging at his clothing. A handful of other Confederates were with her. They were her comrades, the men he had seen huddled around her in the treeline, the same men she had fought alongside all day. They were the men who now saved his life.
‘Run!’
One of them, a thick-bellied man with a wild grey beard, shouted the command. Together the small group ran past the heaps of shattered bodies. Jack reached out to Martha as they raced across the blackened, bloodstained ground. He held her arm with his free left hand, his fingers leaving bloody stains on her sleeve, and they ran together, tired legs threatening to buckle at any moment, backs twitching in expectation of a rifle bullet in the spine.
THE REBEL KILLER Page 31