The sergeant nodded and walked through the center of the soldiers, dividing them into two groups of approximately the same number. "Let the horses go," he yelled against the din of gunfire. "Until this is over you're infantrymen."
"Not all of them," Hedges countermanded. "Three men, behind me."
He led his horse towards the comer of the building, with the animal between himself and the town. Five other troopers placed themselves in a similar position behind him and the remainder of the men in Hedges' group stood in back of their comrades. At an order from the sergeant three men crouched at the comer of the building and the others formed up behind them, rifles at the ready.
"Go!" Hedges yelled and jerked on the reins of his horse as he broke into a run. For a moment the gunfire ceased as an apparently loose horse appeared in the street. But then another one came into view and the legs of the Union troopers were spotted. Bullets were suddenly thick in the air from both attacking and covering rifles. Hedges' horse was killed instantly by a ball smashing through the mare's eye, but he and the three men behind him dashed unharmed into cover on the opposite side of the street, The next four men made it into safety with themselves and the horses unmarked but the third horse was panicked by the racket and bolted. One of the men flung himself down behind the dead horse but the other two stood rooted to the spot by the shock of their predicament.
"Cover them!" Hedges yelled and three of his men began to fire wildly along the street as three more under the sergeant's command also loosed off bullets.
One of the unshielded men recovered his senses and ducked behind the next horse in the line. The other dropped his rifle and raised his hands in the air.
"Don't shoot!" he cried pitifully. "Please don't shoot. I surrender."
"Cease fire!" Hedges ordered, and immediately countermanded it with: "Blast them."
For one of the defenseless man's arms was blown off at the shoulder by a concentration of rifle fire and as he watched it failing he died, taking one bullet in the eye and another in his stomach. The rest of the men selected to follow Hedges reached the safety of the building and there only remained the man behind the dead horse. He was curled up in a fetal position, trying to make himself into less of a target as bullets and ballshot ripped countless wounds into the flesh of the animal.
"What's his name?" Hedges demanded, his voice shaking as he tried to control a spasm that was causing his right arm to tremble.
"Phil Stowe, sir," one of the men supplied.
"Stowe!" Hedges yelled. "Make a run for it. We'll cover you."
The trooper looked up and all the men behind the building could see, the tears coursing white trails down his dusty face. "Help me, lieutenant," the man called, the words rasping out of an arid throat. "Please help me."
"Soon as you hear us firing, run."
"I can't. My legs won't move. I'm too scared."
Another fusillade of shots sprayed horse's blood on to the trooper's uniform and he yelled in terror and hid his head under his arms again.
"I'll go get him," a man said from behind Hedges and before the lieutenant could turn and order him to stay where he was, the trooper had sprung forward at the run.
"Fire, fire, fire!" Hedges yelled and both his men and those of the sergeant on the other side of the street brought up rifles and sent a hail of hot lead down the street. Hedges watched with bated breath as the rescuer went into a stoop with hands formed into claws which drove under the armpits of his terrified comrade and lifted him bodily from the ground. The man pulled up short, turned and started back, bullets whining past his head and kicking up spurts of dust around his feet. The man he was dragging began to sob like a frightened child, but the sound was halted abruptly as a bullet went through the back of his neck and up into his brain.
"Oh my God," Hedges breathed.
"Drop him, he's dead," a man screamed, but the trooper continued to grasp his burden, only letting go when he was hit in the side and pitched headlong, reaching out towards the waiting men.
"I tried," he said, the words almost a sigh as blood from a punctured lung dribbled out of the side of his mouth. His hands scrabbled at the ground as he endeavored to drag himself the final yard into cover, his wide, pain-filled eyes pleading for assistance. But a fresh spurt of gunfire exploded and a row of jagged, red-tinged holes travelled up the man's back from buttocks to neck. He lay still.
"Christ, they're murdering us!" a middle-aged trooper with a pocked skin protested. "We ain't got no chance."
The trembling had now advanced from Hedges' arm to his shoulder and as he glanced across the street and saw the sergeant leading his men around the rear of the building, he experienced a twitching in his neck. When he first opened his mouth, no words would issue, but then he looked into the faces of his men, half afraid, half angry, and was able to quell his own horror.
"Move out," he said, making a fast count and discovering he had thirteen men in the group with only three repeaters, including his own, among them. "You and you," he ordered, pointing to the men with the rapid fire rifles, "take four men into the first two houses. The rest come with me into the next one. Stay calm. They look to have Captain Leaman and his men pinned down in the livery stable halfway down the street. That's where we'll head for. But I don't want any rebels left alive between here and there. Let's go."
The shooting had started again in the area of the livery stable and as Hedges' group moved off there came the sound of other shots from across the street as the sergeant and his men began their raids on individual buildings. Hedges stayed close to the walls of the buildings, ducking low under window sills and dashing across doorways, indicating with hand signals that each group of men should hold their positions in silence until all were ready. The first two buildings were houses, the third a barber's shop with living accommodation on the upper story. There was an outside stairway slanting up at the back and Hedges led two men aloft while the other three stayed on the ground. He had climbed only half the steps when the door at the top cracked open and the muzzle of a rifle was thrust out. Two shots rang out from below, a man screamed and the door burst wide. A gray-uniformed figure staggered out, blood gushing from a shattered jaw. As the troopers at the other houses accepted the shots as a signal to attack and a volley of gunfire rang out, the Confederate soldier folded over the stairway rail and pitched down to the ground.
"Hey, we killed one of the bastards!" a trooper yelled in delight as Hedges bounded up the remaining steps and went through the open, blood-spattered doorway, fighting once more to control the quaking which had now spread to both arms and both shoulders.
He was in a hallway with three doors leading off it and an inside staircase slanting off at an angle at the far end. He used the heel of his boot to kick open the first door and aimed the Spencer through it as the room came into view. The two troopers pushed past him towards the other doors as Hedges looked at the terrified faces of an elderly man and woman who were sitting up in bed, still dressed in night attire.
"Don't shoot!" the woman pleaded, holding up her hands as if she thought they would stop a bullet. "It's not our war."
There was a shot and a scream from downstairs, then the shattering of glass.
"Broke their way in," the man croaked.
"How many?" Hedges demanded as the troopers down the hallway kicked open the other doors and entered the rooms with guns blazing.
A woman screamed and a man cursed. The old crone in the bed closed her eyes and fell sideways in a faint.
"Only saw the one," her husband answered, holding her limp head to his chest. "Honest, mister. Just the one up here. He told us to stay in bed. We don't want no trouble. Don't hurt us or Sarah or John."
Hedges shook his head, reached for the handle and slammed the door closed before he moved down the hallway. There was nobody in the next room, but the bed was littered with glass where flying bullets had shattered a religious painting hung on the wall above. More gunfire exploded from below as the two troopers came out of th
e third upstairs room, both looking pale and sick.
"I heard a noise, lieutenant," one of the men whined. "I seen what happened out on the streets. I didn't want to take no chances."
Hedges looked over their shoulders. The woman was in her mid-twenties and had never been pretty. The bullet had smashed up into her skull after entering through her nose to make her very ugly. The boy—probably her son—was no more than six years old. He had taken it in the head, too, through his small right ear. Both wounds were still pumping out blood to spread stains on the sheets.
"Christ, he looks like my son," the second trooper exclaimed, his face twisted into a bitter grimace.
"Lieutenant?" a voice whispered from below. "You okay up there?"
Hedges was glad to be able to turn away from the horrible tableau of senseless death. "Yeah," he called and started down the stairs, beckoning for the two troopers to follow him. The stairway gave directly on to the barber's shop which was fitted out with two chairs before washbasins with wall mirrors above, and a bench for customers who had to wait their turn. Now the bench was overturned and two uniformed figures were sprawled across it, one in blue and one in grey. Another Confederate soldier was folded across one of the chairs. Through a doorway which gave on to a back room Hedges could see one of his troopers doubled over a window sill.
"Weren't easy, sir," the survivor reported, his lower lip trembling. "Christ, war is a stinking business."
Hedges thought about the dead mother and son upstairs and nodded. Then his expression hardened. "But we're in it. Let's go."
He led the way through into the back room and gently removed the body of the dead Union soldier from the window before climbing out. A bullet smashed into the frame and he went headlong to the ground.
"Hell, I thought you was a reb," somebody called.
He looked up and saw four men running towards him, all in blue uniforms. The one with a smoking Colt helped Hedges get to his feet. The lieutenant shook free of his grasp angrily.
"I told you to keep calm!" he bellowed.
The expression of another man changed suddenly from fear to rage and he sprayed spittle as he yelled at Hedges. "There was eight of us went in there. My best friend had gone to meet his maker without a face and the other three are just as dead. This ain't no hunting party. I'm gonna shoot at anything that moves before it has a chance to shoot at me."
Hedges held the other man's blazing glare. "What's your name, trooper?" he demanded when the man paused to draw breath.
"Morgan. Why!"
"Ninety day volunteer?"
The cold tone and impassive expression of Hedges were beginning to get through to the thin-faced, sandy-haired youngster, driving back his rage and replacing it with anxiety. The man nodded.
Hedges spat against the wall of the building he had just left. "I got a feeling this war's going to last a lot longer than ninety days, Morgan. But you won't if you don't get a hold of yourself. So cut out the yakking and let's get on with doing what we came here for."
With this he spun on his heels and headed across the alley separating the barber's shop from the stage depot. He had not taken four paces before a man loomed up on the roof of the building and loosed off a shot. Hedges felt a searing pain in his right hip and started to fall as his head snapped up. He saw the man who had, shot him, then heard a volley of gunshots from behind him. He hit the ground and rolled on to his back. He had a crazy, upside-down view of the Confederate soldier throwing his rifle into the air before pitching forward off the edge of the roof.
"That calm enough for you?" somebody said as Hedges was lifted and carried hastily into shelter at the rear of the stage depot.
Hedges put a hand under his tunic and grimaced as he withdrew it, coated with blood.
"Can you stand, sir?"
He tried, using the wall and helping hands from two of the men. His side felt as if it were on fire, but his legs could support his weight.
"Morgan?" He didn't know the names of any of the other men.
"Sir."
"If 1 can't make it, you take over."
"Me, sir?"
"You."
"Jesus."
Hedges shook free of the hands and snaked around the corner and along the side of the building. Down at the end of the alley and across the street he could see a house with its windows smashed and through them the flashes of exploding powder as rifles and revolvers were fired at close range. He gritted his teeth against the pain and stopped short at a window. He peered through and saw the office of the depot with six Confederate soldiers inside—three at each of two open windows—firing in turn.
"Morgan, take three men and get in from the back," he ordered.
The young trooper, still uncertain of himself in his new position of authority, waved his Colt at the nearest trio of soldiers and started back down the alley. Hedges looked at the other, three and drew back from, the window, indicating that they should take up position there.
"As soon as the rebs look like they know Morgan and the others are breaking in, blast them."
"Lieutenant?" The speaker was the soldier who had mistakenly shot the young boy and his mother. Hedges looked at the back of the man's head. He was concentrating his attention through the window.
"Something you want?" He winced at a new stab of pain from his side.
"Answer to a question, sir."
There was a sudden, violent increase in the rate of rifle fire out on the street and from the soldiers at the front windows of the stage depot offices, and then a lull.
Hedges spoke in a whisper. "What?"
"I'd much prefer a repeater to this old Springfield rifle I got, sir," the man said, his own voice low. "And since you don't appear to want, to use that there Spencer, I'd be obliged to exchange mine for it."
Hedges was grateful that all three troopers were concentrating their attention on the side of the office, for he knew that the flush of shame and anger was sending a deep redness across his face, generating almost as much heat as the bullet wound in his hip.
"Attend to your duty, soldier," he hissed.
"Yes, sir!" the man said derisively.
"Ought to know better," one of his companions muttered. "You're an enlisted man and he's an officer. Officers give the orders and enlisted men fight."
Hedges struggled to form an answer, but at that moment one of the Confederate soldiers fell, the life blood draining from a wound in the back of his neck. The other five turned with terror-stricken faces and the side window shattered as the three men kneeling outside squeezed their rifle triggers. Inside, Morgan and his men opened up. The stench of burnt powder wafted out through the broken window to the accompaniment of the screams of the dying. The men at the window drew revolvers and showered the office with rapid fire.
"Hold it," a man called from inside. "They're all dead."
The three troopers scrambled in, not offering to help Hedges, who felt fresh blood pumping out of his wound with each movement as he hauled himself through the window.
"Any casualties?" he demanded, peering through the layers of grey gunsmoke, seeing the sprawled bodies of the gray uniformed men.
"Not a one, sir," Morgan said with a note of pride. "We blasted them Rebs good."
"So let's not push our luck," somebody said. "McClellan must get here soon. Let's hole up and wait. What d'you say, lieutenant?"
"Hedges! Can you hear me Lieutenant Hedges?"
The voice was faint, almost every word separated from the next by a gunshot. Hedges went to one of the front windows and pressed his back against the wall to peer out. There were more bodies on the street now, obscene in the stillness of death. But nothing else had changed out there since he had first seen it—except perhaps that the shadows had shortened as the sun inched up the eastward wall of the cloudless sky.
"Captain?" he yelled and ducked back as a bullet splintered wood from the window frame.
"Did Mitchell get to you?" All shooting ceased.
"Who's Mitchell?" The q
uestion to his own men.
"One of the troopers who the Captain took with him," Morgan answered.
"Hey, Yankees?" The voice came from the far side of the street, further down than the sergeant or his group could have reached. "Here comes Mitchell."
There was the sound of a slap and a horse whinnied, then bolted out from between two buildings, dragging something on the end of a rope tied to the saddle horn. It was a man, stripped naked, the stark whiteness of his flesh turning red as his body scraped along the street surface, each yard of the journey ripping off another area of skin. A burst of laughter sounded from each side of the street and was drowned in gunfire as bullets were pumped into the speeding body of the screaming man. He was dead before he passed in front of Hedges' horror-filled eyes.
"That make you feel like blasting those no-good southerners, sir?" the familiar, taunting voice inquired, spitting out the courtesy title as if it were a curse.
In those few moments, as he watched the brutal slaughter of the trooper and listened to the sardonic accusation from behind him, Hedges experienced a vital adjustment taking place within his mind. He felt it physically in a dulling of the pain in his side, as mental anguish became too powerful to accommodate outside influence, and in a sudden cessation of the nervous tics which had been causing his body to quake ever since the attack on Philippi was launched. It was visible to the troopers as he turned to look at them, in a face that seemed to age as they stared at Hedges. The narrowed eyes, ever cold, were now icy enough to chill the very air that had been humid in the fetid room. And the flesh of the face seemed to be stretched more taut over the high cheekbones, emphasizing the natural leanness, giving the man an almost animalistic look. Hedges, who a few moments before had been a disillusioned farm boy scared by a war that contained none of the glory he had been seeking, was suddenly a man who had recognized the reality of a situation he had chosen to become involved in. Not one of the men who met his steady gaze understood what was happening, but they did recognize the flicker of fear that flared in themselves.
Killer's Breed (Edge series Book 4) Page 4