You're in Command Now, Mr Fog

by J. T. Edson

  Things could, Goering admitted to himself, be worse, Although First Lieutenant Fog lacked experience, he had the makings of a very good officer. While small, he was anything but a puny weakling. He could wield a saber—mounted or on foot—with the best in the regiment and was the finest shot Goering had ever seen, being able to use a revolver equally well with either hand. When the occasion had demanded it, he had demonstrated barehanded fighting techniques—learned, it was said, from General Hardin’s Japanese servant—which rendered larger and stronger men helpless in his grasp.

  However, the sergeant major wondered if Mr. Fog would be able to cope with the great responsibility that had been thrust upon him by Captain von Hertz’s death?

  Fortunately, the Company’s line of action had already been decided by von Hertz when planning how to deal with the Lancers.

  “The captain’s dead!” Goering announced and came to his feet. Snapping into a brace as smartly as if he had been on a formal parade, he saluted and went on, “You’re in command now, Mr. Fog!”

  That was one detail of which Dusty did not require to be reminded. Not only had he reached a similar conclusion, he was considering all that being left in command entailed. Yet, on the face of it, there should have been no need for him to think about how to deal with the situation.

  When making arrangements to recapture the bridge, Colonel Harvey Barnett—commanding the 1st Arkansas Rifle Regiment and the assault force—had taken the danger of the Lancers’ intervention into consideration. Their duty would be to nullify any attempt to bring the Vandenburgs under counter-battery fire. So he had sent Company ‘C’ to take up a position from which they could dash out and defend the mountain howitzers if necessary, or participate in the main attack if the need to do so did not arise.

  When it had been pointed out that Company ‘C’ would be opposed by a force three times its size, von Hertz had declared that he was confident he could deal with the Lancers. He would offset the disparity in numbers by taking advantage of his men’s superior weapons and employ a caracole, preventing a head-on clash that would favor the larger party. Wishing to retain as many men as possible to be thrown against the “Wisconsins’” defenses, Barnett had given his consent to von Hertz’s arrangements.

  Looking at the battery, Dusty discovered that Captain Douglas St. John Staunce did not intend to rely solely upon the cavalry to protect his howitzers. He had reduced each piece’s crew to three men and formed up the remainder, under the command of Sergeant Major Smalley, in a fighting line between the battery and the Lancers. Even the horse-holders had been called upon to take part in the defensive duty, leaving the animals to fend for themselves.

  Dusty sucked in a deep breath as he noticed the latter point. Aware of how much depended upon his howitzers being able to silence the Vandenburgs, Staunce was leaving himself without the means of retreat. Once the fighting started, the horses were certain to stampede and he would not be able to use them to haul his little guns to safety. It was clearly a case of root, hog, or die, for the men of the battery—especially if Company ‘C’ should fail to halt their attackers.

  From examining the artillerymen and their howitzers, Dusty returned his gaze to the Lancers. They were already assembled in three waves as they emerged from concealment. Each line was formed of one company, with its officers at the front and in the centre of it. However, the waves were so close that the heads of the officers’ horses were almost touching the rumps of the preceding company’s mounts. Nor did they appear to be rectifying the situation.

  Studying the close proximity of the Lancers’ three companies, Dusty could visualize one major objection to attacking them in the manner suggested by his dead superior.

  The caracole was one of the earliest maneuvers to have been developed for use by cavalry carrying firearms. When charging to engage an approaching enemy, instead of meeting them head-on, the party performing the caracole would divide itself into two groups. Turning outwards, each section would gallop around their opponent’s flanks and attack from the rear.

  Under certain circumstances, a caracole iii could be a devastatingly effective tactic. It was especially useful when performed against men armed with swords or lances.

  “Shall I tell the men to move out, Mr. Fog?” Goering prompted.

  “Yes,” Dusty confirmed. “Column of twos.”

  “It might he as well if I warned them we’ll be doing a caracole, sir,” the sergeant major remarked, in polite, deferential tones.

  “Don’t tell them that!” Dusty snapped.

  “It would be better for them to know what we’re going to do,” Goering insisted, without waiting for the small Texan to continue with an explanation.

  “I’m not gainsaying it, sergeant major,” Dusty replied. “But we’re not using a caracole.”

  “Captain von Hertz said that was how—!” Goering reminded.

  “The captain’s dead,” Dusty interrupted. “And, like you said, I’m in command now. Is that understood, sergeant major?”

  “Yo!” affirmed Goering, stiffening even more into his rigid parade-ground brace. Holding his voice flatly emotionless, he went on, “May I ask the lieutenant’s intentions, sir?”

  “We’ll form into echelon as we leave the trees,” Dusty explained, watching the sergeant major’s face. “Then we’ll ride forward until we’re between the battery and the Lancers. When we’re there, I’ll give the order to turn right and we’ll charge straight at them.”

  Before swinging his gaze towards the mass of the Lancers, Goering’s features showed a mixture of surprise and alarm. Red Blaze displayed no such misgivings. Instead, he let out a low whoop of approval.

  “Yeeah! That’s what I wanted to hear, Cousin Dusty!”

  Neither Dusty nor Goering gave any indication that they had heard the redhead’s words. Instead, their eyes met and seemed to be locked in a struggle for domination. After a couple of seconds, Goering lowered his gaze.

  “They have us outnumbered, sir,” the sergeant major warned.

  “I know that,” Dusty conceded, “But my way is the only one that will stop them reaching the howitzers. “There’s no time to argue, or to hold a debate, sergeant major. Carry out my orders.”

  For a moment Goering seemed to be on the verge of continuing his protests. Instead, his eyes flickered to the Lancers and back in Dusty’s direction. Years of living under military discipline had their effect, backed by an instinctive feeling that the young officer was acting as he believed for the best. Certainly time was not available for a discussion on the matter.

  “Yo!” Goering said, saluting and turning to mount his horse.

  “You’ll take over my detail, Cousin Red,” Dusty ordered, as Goering rode towards the enlisted men.

  “Me!” Red yelped, realizing that to obey would cause him to miss out on what he figured would be a real good fight.

  “You,” Dusty agreed. “It has to be done and, way things’ve turned out, I can’t do it. So you’ll have to take my place.”

  “I don’t have a knife with me,” Red remarked hopefully.

  “Take mine,” Dusty offered, drawing the Russell-Barlow clasp knife from his breeches’ pocket and holding it out. “Company ‘A’s’ detail aren’t likely to get through, the woods’re too open on that side of the bridge. Happen you handle it the way I told you I aimed to, you’ll likely get by.”

  “I’ll give her a whirl anyways,” Red promised, sounding resigned, and pocketed the knife. “You figure you’re playing it right, going for them head-on?”

  “I figure I’m right,” Dusty declared. “If I am, you’ve got to stop them blowing up the bridge.”

  “Count on me to try,” Red grinned, deciding that his new assignment had possibilities of action and danger that would in some measure compensate for him missing the forthcoming battle with the Lancers. “Good luck, Cousin Dusty.”

  “And to you,” Dusty replied.

  “Likely we’ll both need it,” Red drawled. “See you on the bridge.�
��

  Watching Red join the corporal and six men of the special detail, Dusty could hear Goering passing on his orders to the remainder of the Company. So the small Texan turned his gaze once more to the open land. Everything he could see reaffirmed his belief that he had made the right decision. There was, he knew, one major objection to using the caracole in the prevailing conditions. So he had selected what he felt sure was the only way for his outnumbered force to give the mountain battery adequate protection.

  There were also, Dusty realized, desperate risks involved.

  He would be leading his men into a conflict with odds of at least three to one against them. What was more, he was disregarding the method by which his older, more experienced—now dead—superior officer had planned to deal with the situation. If Dusty was wrong and failed, the future of the Confederate States Army of Arkansas and North Texas would be placed in jeopardy.

  Everything depended upon how much faith the men of Company ‘C’ had in their new commanding officer.

  If they trusted his judgment, they would follow him.

  Ever since Dusty had joined Company ‘C’, he had worked to earn the respect and confidence of its members. The next few minutes would show whether or not he had succeeded. Dusty thought of some of the events which, he hoped, would have helped him to gain the approbation of the men fate had placed under his command.

  Part Two

  THE MAKING OF A LEADER

  Chapter Three

  Despite Sergeant Billy Jack’s gloomy predictions on being given the assignment, he had reached Arkadelphia—seat of Clark County, Arkansas—without having been waylaid, captured, or killed by marauding Yankees. His horse had failed to throw and roll on him, there had been no lightning to strike him, nor had any of the numerous other disasters occurred that he had envisaged when discussing his mission before leaving the headquarters of the Texas Light Cavalry. Of course, he told himself with doleful satisfaction, he still had to locate the two replacement officers and twenty-four volunteers whom he had been sent to find and deliver to the regiment.

  Slouching on the saddle of his powerful dun gelding, Billy Jack looked like a dejected and ill-used stork. A kepi, bearing the silver star-in-a-circle badge of the Texas Light Cavalry, perched at what—in almost any other person—would have been a jaunty angle on the back of his head. A prominent Adam’s apple combined with a receding chin and thin face to give him almost miserable, careworn aspect. Tall, lanky, his rawboned, angular frame did little to set off a uniform that showed signs of the journey which he was making. He had on a waist-long tunic, yet the three chevrons on the sleeves seemed almost out of place, taken with his general appearance. About his waist hung a Western-style gunbelt, with 1860 Army Colts in the tied-down, open topped holsters. Yellow-striped riding breeches and Hessian boots served to emphasize the thinness of his legs. All in all, he did not appear to be the kind of man to hold rank of sergeant in a tough, fighting cavalry regiment.

  With his horse ambling leisurely along the main street, Billy Jack wondered what kind of officers Lieutenants Fog and Blaze would develop into. He had a strong personal interest in the matter. Recently graduated from Judge Blaze’s small military academy—down at Polveroso City, Rio Hondo County, Texas—they were coming to his Company and one of them was sure to become his immediate superior. So he hoped that they would prove to be satisfactory. On the face of it, there had originally seemed a better than fair chance that they might.

  If the former youngster was anything like his father, Major Hondo Fog, he ought to turn into a damned good fighting cavalry leader and should be an asset to Company ‘C’. Mr. Blaze already had two older brothers in the Texas Light Cavalry and they were rapidly carving names for themselves as courageous, capable and efficient officers. Billy Jack hoped that the latest arrival from the Blaze family would come up to his brothers’ standards.

  Trouble was that they might not come up to the high standards set by their kinsmen. Events certainly appeared to be pointing in that direction. They had been expected to arrive in Little Rock, with the twenty-four volunteers they were escorting, a week back. Needing the men, and wanting to train them before sending them into action, Colonel Blaze had dispatched Billy Jack with orders to locate them. Taking the route over which they were supposed to be travelling, Billy Jack had arrived at Arkadelphia without finding any trace of them.

  Most of the evidence pointed to the two young officers having lost their way. Which did not say much for their abilities, All they had had to do was follow the route taken by Colonel Jubal Early’s herders when delivering herds of cattle to help feed the Army of Arkansas and North Texas. That would have brought them to Arkadelphia and, once they had crossed the Ouachita River, there was a well-defined trail to Little Rock.

  If Mr. Fog and Mr. Blaze could not follow such an obvious line of march, they would be of little use to Company ‘C’.

  Thinking somberly about the two young officers. Billy Jack found himself approaching the Clinton Hotel. There were, he noticed, eight horses standing hitched to the rail outside the building. Six carried McClellan saddles and had Enfield single-shot carbines in their boots. The other pair, a big, blaze-faced bay and an equally large brown gelding were much finer animals. Each bore a good quality Texas range rig, like the one on Billy Jack’s dun, with a bedroll lashed to the cantle. More significantly, each of them had a coiled rope and a saber dangling on either side of its saddle’s low horn.

  In passing, then turning alongside the two horses, Billy Jack observed that there was a Henry rifle in the bay’s saddle boot and the brown carried a Spencer carbine. He found the weapons less interesting than the animals’ brands. The bay was marked with the letters ‘O’ and ‘D’, placed so close together that their edges touched. On the rump of the brown had been burned a pair of ‘B’s’.

  “OD Connected and Double B,” the sergeant translated, swinging to the ground and securing the dun’s reins to the hitching rail. “Must be them, but where’re the enlisted men at? Likely they’ve all deserted ’n’ I’ll get blamed for it.

  With that mournful sentiment concluded, Billy Jack crossed the sidewalk. Passing through the hotel’s open front doors, he found its lobby deserted. He was strolling towards the reception desk, meaning to see if he could obtain information about the owners of the two homes, when he heard voices from the barroom.

  “I’ve come to fetch you bunch out to the herd,” a young-sounding, well-educated Texas drawl was declaring. “And I’m not about to go back without you.”

  “That’s the way of it, huh?” demanded a set of harsh, rasping tones which Billy Jack believed he recognized. “Well, Eli, Trug, Japhet, Lou ’n’ Toby here’s all of a mind with me, sonny. We don’t take kind to no frying-size civilian delivering such messages from officer-boys.”

  “We don’t even take no notice when he sends corporals to fetch us,” stated a second familiar voice. “But we’ll not hold you coming again’ you, happen you shows you’re sorry by setting up the drinks.”

  “That’s what’s knows as an old Army custom, half-portion,” continued a third speaker, making the sergeant even more certain he knew some of the men in the barroom. “in times of war, all civilians has to buy us fighting soldiers drinks when we asks for ’em.”

  “Are you bunch fighting soldiers?” inquired the Texas drawl, every word suggesting that such a thing was highly unlikely.

  “Just what do you reckon we are?” demanded the first of the familiar voices, throbbing with menace.

  Having an idea of what might be happening, or likely to happen in the near future, Billy Jack approached the barroom. It’s door was wide open and allowed him an excellent all-round view of the interior. What he saw confirmed that he did know some of the occupants and was correct in his assumptions of what they were planning to do.

  Watched by the fat, bald-headed, grinning, elderly bartender, half a dozen soldiers were moving to form a loose circle around a civilian. Clad in kepis, with tunics that were unbuttoned
to display dirty undershirts, riding breeches and boots, the soldiers were longhaired, unshaven and disheveled. The bands around their hats, the stand-up collars and cuffs of their tunics and the stripes on the legs of their breeches were buff in color. Although all wore weapon belts, only the burly corporal, who was standing directly in front of the civilian, had a holstered revolver.

  Recognizing Corporal “Bully” Chatswen and the five enlisted men, Billy Jack could see that they were going to indulge in a favorite pastime. It was called “jostling”. Gathering around a potential victim, they would taunt and harass him in the hope that he would be goaded into attacking one of them. Once that happened, the rest would watch and enjoy the fight—or help if it seemed likely that their companion was getting beaten.

  There had been an occasion, in this same barroom, when Chatswen and is companions had selected Billy Jack for their victim. He doubted whether they would have forgotten how their “jostling” had been turned into a painful disaster, due to his unexpected ability to defend himself and the fortuitous arrival of four more members of Company ‘C’.

  Possibly Chatswen’s party had profited from that unfortunate and painful experience. While they had apparently not given up “jostling”, they had at least grown more discriminating in their selection of a victim. From all appearances, their current potential recipient hardly seemed capable of producing any serious or dangerous resistance.

  Standing with his back to Billy Jack, confronted and almost dwarfed by the bulky, black-haired Corporal Chatswen, the civilian was no more than five foot six inches in height. He had no hat and his hair was a dusty blond color. The scarlet silk bandana, tight rolled and knotted about his throat, black and white calfskin vest, grey shirt, brown trousers with their cuffs turned back and hanging outside high-heeled boots, were the working clothes of a Texas cowhand.