The half dozen Louisianans with whom they had been conversing watched with interest to see if this might be true.
Balthazar found a small mortar in his saddle bag. He handed it to the American telling him to fill it with beans from the copper “shoe” lying in the hot coals. With the mortar in hand the Frenchman began to beat the beans into powder. The ringing bell-like sound brought more soldiers to their fire.
Soon several small brass coffee pots lay in the coals. Balthazar sat cross legged in front of them, chatting with the men and fussing with the pots. He sniffed one and poured its contents into another. He added a pinch of something from a small leather bag. Finally, he produced a stack of thimble size china cups. They had no handles. Holding them in one hand, he went around the circle of soldiers pouring a half inch of jet black, steaming liquid in each and waiting for the recipient to take it off the top of the stack. When each had his, Balthazar waited proudly, pot in hand.
They all stood motionless, watching him. He frowned. "But, my friends, you must drink it, a little at a time. It is quite strong." He made encouraging motions with the pot and his free hand. "Please!"
A swarthy captain held up his little cup in a hand missing two of the fingers. "Votre santé, mon commandant." He then tasted the brew. A smile creased his weathered features. "Mais, c'est merveilleux! Il faut boire, mes enfants! You must drink boys! My gran' maman she do'nt make coffee so good! You learn this from the Arabs?"
Balthazar nodded happily as he watched the diminutive cups empty before his eyes. He stepped forward to fill them again, but Smoot took the pot from his hand and made the rounds himself. Balthazar's saddle and other belongings were on the grass a few steps from the fire. The Sharps carbine that he had inherited from Henry was propped up on them.
A gaunt sergeant with three faded blue stripes on his jacket sleeves picked up the weapon, hefting it in his hand. "Where'd you get this, major?" he wanted to know.
"From a friend...”
"It's the latest model. I've only seen one other like it. That was off a fellah we caught up near Bristoe last month. You shot this yet?"
"No." Balthazar found the bandolier that Henry had worn. He held it out. "Show me, please."
The sergeant opened the chamber by levering the trigger guard down. Opening a pouch, he extracted a cloth covered cartridge. The lead bullet showed at one end. He slid this into the exposed opening of the chamber and raised the trigger guard to its original place. "When you pull it up like this the block comes up, closes the breech and cuts off the end of the bag." He looked at Balthazar to see if the foreigner understood.
"The bag burns when it is fired?"
"Yes, altogether," the Creole captain answered joining in. He watched as the sergeant examined the small pouches attached to the bandolier. "What are you doing, Roarke?"
The sergeant had opened another, smaller pouch, fishing in it with his large fingers. "That what's new about these, Cap'n. They use these caps now, not those dam' paper tapes. He held out a copper pellet, flat on the edges and rounded in the middle.
Balthazar rolled it between thumb and forefinger.
The sergeant cocked the carbine, pointing with a cracked fingernail to a small opening behind the nipple. "There's a magazine of those beneath. When the hammer drops, one goes on the nipple, and that's it." He lowered the hammer to the half cocked position and gave the gun back. "That's a sweet piece, Major, real sweet."
Balthazar held it at the balance. With his free hand he raised the leaf sight. It was marked for ranges up to a thousand yards. He looked off across the sloping grassy meadow at the Union skirmish line, visible in the distance to either side of the group of trees.
The Rebel cavalry had left the copse an hour before, riding back down the road to the pontoon bridge and the river.
Behind him, Balthazar heard Smoot curse. Looking back he watched the Virginian carefully pour the remains of one batch of coffee into a pot with a new brew underway.
Smoot was sucking the ends of several singed fingers of his left hand.
"But, you have learned so quickly, my friend,” Balthazar said. “Soon I will be unnecessary. If someone could hold our horses it would be helpful." With this, he strode away from the fire, searching for something on the ground. Some distance off, he found a place to his satisfaction. It was flatter than most of the hillside. Holding the Sharps in one hand and bracing himself with one hand behind, he carefully lowered his massive torso to the ground.
As the soldiery drifted up behind him, they saw that he had seated himself at an angle of forty-five degrees to the Union line. Elbows braced against the inside of the knees, cheek against the stock, he peered at the blue line through the aperture of the tall sight.
A sandy haired private knelt beside him. "You gonna shoot sumbuddy or jus' scar'em?"
Balthazar did not reply.
"I never saw nobody sit like that to shoot," the soldier said, "an' I been shootin' all my life."
Balthazar did not raise his head from its place with a cheek alongside the stock. "I was taught that a comfortable seat is essential for long work. Bone to bone support between elbow and knee makes for steadiness. What do you suppose the range to be out to their line?"
A motion to his right made the Gascon look up.
The sergeant with black hair, three stripes and a full beard laid his own rifle down on the grass a few feet away. It was the man named Roarke. A telescopic sight ran almost the length of the rifle’s heavy barrel. Roarke produced a small brass device from a vest pocket. It was made of two parts that slid together. Etched lines and numbers ran along one side. He held the tool up so as to look through an aperture in the center between the two sliding halves. He made a sound of discontent and removed his round, high crowned felt hat, finding it to be a problem. He then adjusted the opening until a blue soldier just filled it from his boots to the top of his forage cap. He looked down at the scale on the range finder, and smiling through his black beard said, “nine hundred yards, sor!"
Balthazar turned back to contemplate the Northern host. He ran the muzzle of the Sharps across their ranks, searching. He found a group close together. They must be officers. Even at that distance their posture proclaimed their rank. He chose the tallest. The knob on top moved the slide of the sight up to "900".
Placing the Union officer in the notch of the sight, he took a breath, held half of it, and squeezed, thinking of Victoria Devereux, thinking of the texture of the skin of her arms, thinking... The carbine jumped in his arms. You could almost see the heavy bullet in flight, the long, arching, ballistic curve, the descending angle.
The group of Federals prostrated themselves on the ground. The soldiers in ranks to either side leapt back, some joining the officers flat down and others shaking their fists across the distance.
"Merde! I have missed!"
"Where'd you aim?" the sharpshooter demanded with professional curiosity.
"But, at the knees! I was certain that this would place the bullet somewhere in the chest...
"Should have...”
Behind the lines of enemy infantry, the trees shook with the coming of the guns. Out of the forest in a thunder of iron shod wheels and hooves, a dozen batteries charged.
Balthazar watched with admiration.
The columns of artillery advanced at the gallop through the gaps between brigades of foot. A hundred yards to the front they spun in the lethal dance which would bring them into "battery", each with its six guns in line, prepared to fire.
"My, my!" the sharpshooter muttered.
Balthazar followed his pointing finger.
The federal infantry, frightened momentarily by Balthazar’s shot had taken heart from the presence of their artillery friends, and resumed their places in the ranks. Behind the lines two men knelt beside a still, dark figure.
With a grimace, Balthazar returned to watching the gun drill unfold each battery into a line of pieces behind which stood limber and caisson at precise intervals. The separate columns o
f equipment and animals extended back away from the trail of each gun. Cannoneers and drivers took their places. The horses waited patiently, mercifully unknowing of what might come.
The right hand gun in one of the center batteries fired a solid shot. It sailed across the meadow, striking the hill a hundred yards away and bounding over the crest to smash and shatter the small trees beyond in its downhill progress to the river.
Patrick's mare reared and shook her head in alarm at the sounds.
The Louisiana infantry turned as one man and walked calmly up the gentle slope toward the trench line above.
Smoot began to gather their belongings into a pile through which he sorted quickly.
Balthazar took his saddle bags from the pile, stuffing the pockets with the speed of long practice. "Sergeant, will you take the horses and our equipment back to our bivouac, and wait for me?"
"The hell I will!"
The French officer looked at him with interest. "No?"
"No!" Smoot returned his scrutiny defiantly, continuing his hurried preparations without turning away.
Balthazar smiled at him. "You are a good man, Isaac Smoot, but I would not lose my cousin's mare. I might not be forgiven... I ask you to accommodate me in this, please. I am not your commander. I can not order you...” He knew that these words would compel obedience in someone like Isaac Smoot.
Smoot handed him the Sharps, the bandolier of ammunition and tools that accompanied it and then, while the stocky officer watched, he saddled the two horses.
The single cannon coughed again. A round shot grew spectacularly from a black point to something resembling a billiard ball. It arched across the sky, struck the ground below them and bounded up the slope, spinning and turning as it came.
Smoot stepped back out of the space it would occupy.
They watched the thing bounce once between them.
The horses threw back their heads in terror of the hissing black death. "Go now!" Balthazar demanded. "They have no one but us to shoot at!"
Smoot swung up into the saddle, took the mare's reins from Balthazar's hand and kicked his mount into a trot, headed for the high ground and the bridge beyond.
Balthazar looked once more at the blue army below.
A tiny figure mounted on a tall, black horse waved his kepi across the distance.
Balthazar took off his wide brimmed hat. With the hat held to one side, he bowed deeply. Then, with his back to the enemy, he plodded up the long green slope with the carbine reversed and held on a shoulder and the muzzle in one hand. As he walked, the ammunition belt settled more comfortably across his chest.
At the top of the hill, the Rebel infantry watched him come. Several smiled at his gesture to the Yankee officer.
"Armand!" cried the Creole captain who had so enjoyed the coffee.
"Oui, chef!" said a man standing beside the soldier who had been helpful to Balthazar in knowing the range.
"You must shoot me that officer, the one who made the bow! The noble Jackson, you remember his words to us at Kernstown?"
"But, yes, mon capitaine! He said that we should always kill the brave, that they must die that we may live to welcome the rest as visitors to our country. Roarke!"
The big Irishman held the heavy, telescoped rifle in his arms as a musician holds his instrument. "Yes, First Sergeant!"
"Come! We shall slaughter this gallant gentleman...”
Together they walked to one side, climbing out of the trench to find a comfortable spot.
Balthazar saw them go. "Go, mon vieux... Go now!" he said in his inner heart.
As he came to the red lip of the entrenchments, he looked down to see friendly faces upturned.
A corporal reached up for the Sharps with a brown-sleeved arm. "Let me he'p yeh, majuh.."
The sniper rifle banged.
Balthazar tried to remember the last time he had seen artillery deployed with such perfection of formation and drill. He thought he remembered that the Russian guns on the Alma had looked something like this
If we had a few more guns of our own, they would not escape... he thought. They could not then stand before us so boldly in all their glory. As if in response to his thought, the four rifled “Parrots” of the Louisiana Guard Light Artillery spoke from within the redoubts, the shells bursting over the gun line, bringing down men and animals in sprawled disorder.
The Grand Battery below then opened fire from right to left in one long, rippling wave of smoke and fire, the guns jumping in recoil before their report could be heard, the smoke hiding each piece in turn. Shells shrieked over the ridge. The crash and flash of the explosions in the river valley below rolled back over the crest.
Balthazar looked at the men around him.
A few inspected him, watching for a reaction to the barrage. A number leaned on the parapet of the trench, elbows spread, chewing slowly, contemplating the enemy. Most sat in the bottom, lining the sides, knees almost touching. Several seemed to be asleep. Most of the rest managed to look bored.
Balthazar smiled, knowing that he was among his own kind.
The bombardment continued for an hour. Most of the projectiles went over the top, clearing the crown of the hill by less than six feet. After a while, the men began to show the effect of the strain of the close passage of so much death. The whispering, sibilant sound of solid shot and shells seemed the very voice of the devil, of Satan himself.
Soldiers gathered in little knots in the places where communications trenches and traverses came together. Occasionally, a shell burst somewhere above spewed hot metal into the huddled bodies.
In the midst of the shelling, word was passed from man to man that help had come.
From the mouth of a trench leading down to the river a steady stream of "Butternuts" began to emerge. They turned right to pass just beyond Balthazar's toes.
"Who're y'all?" a man beside him inquired of the newcomers.
"54th North Carolina," a soldier rasped in passing. "You fellahs got enough Yankees up here?" he asked and was gone.
The Louisianan scratched the side of his face, glanced up at the sound of rushing metal above, and back at the French officer. "Hoke's Brigade, good fighters. We'll be all right now...” He looked confident.
At the tail end of the column of Carolinians, Jubal Early appeared at the mouth of the ditch which ran up from the river bank. He stopped at the trench junction, straightening his back and peering about.
A solid shot struck the earth and bounded over them.
Early crouched slightly for a moment; a look of annoyance crossed his face.
Balthazar raised his hat in greeting from his seat in the bottom of the entrenchment a dozen feet away.
Early came to squat beside him. "Whut d'yuh think?" he asked without ceremony.
The Frenchman grinned back at him. "I think you should not put any more troops into this bridgehead...”
"No?"
Balthazar shook his head. "I do believe we are about to be overrun. You should leave, my general. Now!"
"What about you? A foreign fellah like you, no need for you...”
Balthazar laughed aloud. He was looking down the length of trench to the next traverse.
Four riflemen were peering back at him with interest.
"How many friends have you brought us, sir?"
"About five hundred. They're filling holes in the line over on the left... It isn't enough, and I can't pull you out." Misery showed in the big man's eyes.
"No," Balthazar replied. "The river looks to be too deep, and there is only the pontoon bridge. This appears to have been a miscalculation."
Early nodded. "They're across the river at Kelly's Ford. General Lee won't let me withdraw. You'll have to fight it out. Have you seen young Penn lately?"
"He's down 'round this tr'verse, Gen'rul", one of the four riflemen sang out.
The general lurched to his feet.
Balthazar grasped him by the sleeve. "Do not be so foolish as to stay, my general!"
&n
bsp; Early looked down at him.
"You must not!"
The bearded figure nodded once, and walked away, disappearing around the corner.
The sun slid toward the far horizon. It guttered orange and red to the West.
After an eternity of dissonance, the cannonade stopped abruptly.
The Confederates hesitated a few seconds, crouched in upon themselves, and waiting for it to start again.
Balthazar was among the first to raise his head. He felt his way up the trench wall with his fingertips until he could see over the top.
A solid wall of blue filled the grassy space below.
He rubbed his eyes to get the grit out of them. He had tried to keep them covered during the shelling but, nevertheless, tiny, hard edged objects had found spaces between his fingers.
"Damn you! Damn you! Damn you!"
The man beside him had climbed up on the parapet, and stood shaking his fist at the advancing multitude.
"God will curse you, you Yankee bast'ids! And, if he don't we're gonna do you right here!"
"Get down, William, you damned fool!" an officer bawled, “and start in on sendin' 'em to hell where they belong!"
The Second Corps of the Army of the Potomac marched to the bottom of the slope and started up the long incline.
Guns of the Louisiana artillery opened fire with canister from the redan to Balthazar's right.
Considerable holes opened in the blue mass, torn by the well sighted fire of the four guns. The gaps closed with a terrible constancy as the mass of federal troops pressed on up the hill.
"At will! Commence firing!" a bearded young man wearing the two stars of a lieutenant colonel yelled from nearby.
One rifle fired, then two or three, and then many rifles fired all at once with the ripping, ragged noise that meant everyone was shooting. Ramrods rattled for reloading while those late in the first volley shot at specific people in whom they had developed an interest.
Balthazar got the Sharps up onto the parapet and flipped up the sight. He looked at the marksman, Roarke, a few feet away.
"Three-fifty," the Creole sergeant, Armand said from behind. "I will give you the ranges, mon commandant. I suggest the one mounted so well on a grey behind the center division...”
Death Piled Hard: A Tale of the Confederate Secret Services Page 9