Every fifteen minutes, new men were added to the link so that those at the far end would continue the work as the others slowly clawed their way back to the bank. Philip and Mule found themselves struggling to keep footing and having to relash what had been ruined by one violent twist of the pontoons, as one rose while its neighbor wrenched to the right. The rush of the water was deafening; a whooshing, raging force that pushed and dragged at the men’s legs as they leaned against the current.
Major Woolsey steadied himself with both arms on the pontoon bridge as his men struggled to hang on and feed ropes between the pylons and pontoons. Less than fifty yards away from the pontoon bridge, the older bridge Woolsey had repaired after the Confederates burned it in their retreat from Shiloh was rocking as the banks became flooded, and the lift and erosion of the water broke against each end. The pontoons were rising to the level of the water, but without the center pylons, it could not hold its position for long.
With clenched teeth and straining arms, the infantrymen struggled to hold steady, but one violent churn sent several from the bridge into the water, sweeping them downstream. Another line of men stretched as far as they could stand without going under to catch those who’d been tossed from the pontoon bridge near the proper bridge.
“Pass this under!” shouted Woolsey.
Philip dunked his head to reach the rope underneath the pontoons, but the current swept his feet downstream, and he passed under the bridge and bobbed up on the other side clinging to the rope.
“Drag yourself back! Hand me the end!” Woolsey shouted to Philip.
The rope was slippery and rough, biting into his hands as Philip pulled himself toward the major. Handing the coiled end to the man, Philip dragged himself back under, clawing his way to the other side.
“You all right?” Mule shouted.
“Yes.” Philip blew water from his lips and gulped air.
The bridge heaved as a large volume of water surged past, knocking the major back down to the deck. The pontoon section Philip was clinging to dropped suddenly as it crested the wave, and anyone left hanging on fell with it. Captain Bacon, in the water helping form the human chain, was sent crashing into the wooden deck with a sickening thud, along with the men to his right and left. The three men broke the chain, sending anyone not anchored crashing into the pontoons. Several heads washed under in the current and could be seen bobbing up on the other side as they raced toward the safety net downstream.
Philip came up for air and gripped the sides of the pontoon. Ten men were missing from the human chain, and only four of those men were still visible clinging to the bridge. Water slapped Philip in the face, and the current tried to drag him under. His hands, already cold and shriveled, tried to claw their way up the pontoon, but they were becoming useless.
More men were trying to extend the chain, and all were shouting something. Woolsey was knocked to the deck. Clinging for life, Philip was oblivious to anything else going on around him. A hand reached out from above him, and Philip stared at it a moment, too confused to do anything. A voice was shouting nearby, but he couldn’t distinguish the words from what was coming out of everyone else’s mouths, including his own.
Faintly, the sound of his name reached through the roar of water. “Parson, take … nd!”
Losing his grip a little, he felt his legs drag further under the pontoon, and he dug his fingers in tightly but not before swallowing a gulp of rancid water.
“Par … grab … !”
To let go was suicide, but he was losing his grip. With one last effort, Philip pulled with his left arm and swung his right to a better, higher grip on the pontoon, just managing to pull himself further out of the current. The hand waved in his face again, and Philip suddenly understood.
He’d have to let go of something if he was to grab on. His arms were losing strength, and the bridge was bobbing violently. The other men clinging to the bridge side were struggling to keep hold, and the human chain, re-forming now, was slow in making it to them. Another lift and another fall emptied the bridge of another two men clinging for dear life. Philip fell with another crash and a bounce as the pontoon slapped back into the water and dug under.
Gasping for air, Philip felt the rush of air and water flying off his face and tried to regain his lift. The water level was up to his chin. His left arm was losing strength. He was going to drown, drown in a rainstorm trying to save a stupid pontoon bridge! The hand appeared once again. Philip let go of the pontoon and slapped at the hand as his head dunked under. The hand fought with his to take a grip, and then suddenly it had succeeded, and with an uncomfortable heave he was lifted out of the water far enough to reach for the deck with his free hand. Another heave, and he was rolling with the deck.
Major Woolsey’s face appeared in front of his and mouthed words Philip couldn’t hear. Other men were dog-walking their way along on all fours to those still clinging to the sides, the human chain having been given up. Chilled and shaking, Philip clung to the twisting surface of the bridge, unable to let himself relax. Mule was one of those still clinging to the sides of the bridge and struggling to lift himself out of the water. Woolsey tried to turn about on the waving deck but each time was knocked down by the uneven lift as the current pushed the lee side upward and bent the bridge’s sections into an elongated U. Spray from the water rushing against the bridge coated everything in a mist. Philip looked up to see the men coming from the shore struggling against gravity as one side lifted higher and higher, dragging the opposite side into the water and pushing those still in the water under.
Another strong rush of water slammed into the bridge as if by broadside, and with a thunderous crack, the center pontoons holding the whole structure together snapped under the strain. The bridge broke in half, the two halves again lifting off the turbulent surface, finally freed from resisting the water’s pressure and slapped back into the water. Bodies were sent into the air. One moment Philip was watching five soldiers gingerly make their way toward him, and the next moment he was facing the deck, his body lifted and suspended in midair and then crashing back down.
The loose sections of pontoon and the bridge’s halves vanished. He was being pulled along now, floating freely in the current with the section of pontoon he’d been on as its surface planking began to rattle off. Looking up, he watched as the bridge—or what was left of it—passed overhead. The wooden supports were missing from the middle, having been carried away by the pontoon sections crashing into them. The river, for that was what it now was, was littered with debris that rushed along with him.
Exhausted, Philip struggled to get back out of the water and ride on what was left of the pontoon section rushing sideways in the current. No one else was about, not even on the far banks, and looking behind him, he saw the bridges engulfed in a cloud of mist and rainfall.
Glad to get out of the water, it hit him that he had no idea what direction the creek was taking him—toward the enemy or into the friendly hands of his own. Regardless of whose territory he was nearing, he didn’t want to end up in the Tennessee. There was no steering the pontoons in the swift current, and each moment took him further and further downstream. Leaping back into the water, Philip swam for the nearest bank, pushed along by the rush.
Philip reached the bank and lay there for some time, catching his breath. The darkened sky continued to pour down its rain, and the water swept past him with the debris of fallen trunks and the planks of the washed-out bridges. What was worse, he could see the telltale signs of bodies, facedown, being carried along past him. He was too tired to do anything about them. They had to be from his regiment or from the engineers, but he did not think he had strength enough to pull them out and prevent himself from being emptied out into the river as well. But what if one of those bodies was Mule’s? Mule had been with him in the water, and then everything went topsy-turvy. He cursed himself for not trying. Major Woolsey and anyone else who had been on the bridge when it broke might have been drowned or knocked unco
nscious.
A perverse thought came to him. Woosley was probably on his way to the Tennessee. He and his precious bridge had come to ruin. No more abuse from a small man. Then a counterthought hit him: the major had pulled him from the water and possibly saved his life. One good deed to cover the days of wicked behavior? Did one sin deserve another? Wasn’t that what had heaped the proverbial coals on his own head about the feud with Lee Harper? One angry word for another until nothing but hard feelings was to be had? He was alive, thank God; if one of those bodies was Woolsey’s, who was he to judge another’s servant? To take joy in another’s ruin? Philip sat a moment and confessed his weakness to God.
Gaining his feet, Philip trudged along the bank, keeping close to the creek’s course. He’d strike the road eventually. He’d been carried downstream further than he thought, for two hours by his reckoning elapsed before he came upon familiar-looking territory. When he did, the paths were unrecognizable. He was on the wrong side of the creek, with no bridge left to get across. Where the pontoon and the old bridge used to be, soldiers were still milling about on the opposite bank.
“Hallo! Hallo!” Philip shouted. The creek was still rushing madly by.
“Hallo!” came a reply. “Downstream, go downstream!” a man yelled and pointed.
“What’s downstream?”
“Intact bridge! Go downstream!”
Philip’s heart sank. He was exhausted, and another walk of however many miles was not lifting his spirits. If not for the rain, he might have just given up and found a place to sleep. Then another thought. What if he was shot by his own pickets? A man wandering around in the open alone was not necessarily going to be recognized as a friendly. Philip started in the direction the man had indicated.
He didn’t know how much time had passed when a figure standing beside a tree startled him. The man was devoid of anything that would remark of his side, civilian or soldier. He was soaked through, just as Philip was, and a few more steps forward revealed a sight for his tired eyes.
“Sam!” Philip called out, a feeling of joy and relief he was not sure he’d ever felt for another human bubbling out.
“Philip!” Sammy said and ran the remaining steps toward him, embracing him with a big hug.
“I didn’t even know you were in the water!” Philip exclaimed.
“Weren’t; was on the bridge trying to help the others out of the water. Have you seen Mule?” Sammy let go of Philip. He was as dirty brown and mud caked as his pard.
“Mule? No, I didn’t see him get out of the water.”
“I was working my way to him when I found myself in the water and being carried downstream. I couldn’t get to the bank right away.”
“Did someone at the old bridge site tell you to head this way too, to find some other bridge? We should run into someone if we keep going this way. Did you see what happened to the others?”
“No. Major Woolsey was tossed over me, and I saw him fall into the water, but I din’t see anyone after that. I suspect I was carried downstream pretty quickly. By the time I got out I must have gone a mile or two. Serves that little cuss right, no?”
Sam’s words cut. He’d wished Lee dead more times than he wanted to admit; finding that Lee had not answered roll after the fighting ended at Shiloh made his heart leap, same as with Woolsey. Philip took a deep breath and lowered his head, feeling the shame of the thought like a rebounding rock. “The major? Yes, some little justice in that perhaps. He did pull me out.”
“I’ve known some who could paint pictures with their profanity, almost like an art. I’ve seen some respectable men let loose a torrent of invective, but I’ve never seen someone so foulmouthed as that major, an’ abusive too,” Sammy said.
“From the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks,” Philip replied more to himself than Sammy.
“That St. Paul?”
“Christ; telling us that we can’t hide hate in our hearts and not let it out even if we try to hide it.”
“Woolsey was a worthless cuss, but I don’t s’pose I’m right glad he might have drowned,” Sammy said. “You come across anyone else?”
“I’ve been walking for hours and haven’t seen anyone else at all. I suspect we just keep going this way. Maybe we run into Mule?”
“I hope to the Lord so, or maybe he made it out on the right side of the creek and is already gettin’ warm and eatin’ our rations,” Sammy quipped with a halfhearted smile that quickly faded.
Philip looked down and sighed. “I saw some bodies go by, but I couldn’t get to them. They’re in the Tennessee by now. I didn’t want to think about who they might be. Was Johnny in the water or on the bridge?”
“Don’t know … I didn’t see him after we got to work,” Sammy replied bitterly.
Philip nodded. “We paid a high price for that bridge, an’ it was still destroyed.”
Sammy nodded and screwed his face into a grimace. The two men walked and dodged trees and bushes as they kept to the creek’s bank. The water was still coursing quickly and lapping the banks, and they found themselves moving further and further away to keep on dry land.
Hours more, it seemed, they stumbled upon a Federal work party laboring to repair another bridge further west as Seven Mile Creek crossed the Hamburg road. The soldiers, though soaked themselves and weary, regarded them with some surprise and curiosity. They were brown and muddied, with barely any blue from the Kersey blue trousers visible. There was a tent erected some feet from the road, which had corduroy logs that were still intact, and the road traffic was still flowing, though slowly, across the bridge. Philip and Sammy reported to a lieutenant in charge of the fatigue crew and was surprised to discover they were from Pope’s Army of the Mississippi. Philip and Sammy had wandered some twelve miles. Taking some sympathy for the men standing in front of him looking like something dredged out of the river and propped up on unsteady feet, the officer offered them each a mug of coffee.
Philip took the offered cup with unsteady hands and stared at it for some moments. His fingers were numb and wrinkled, but the warmth of the tin cup was heavenly.
“You a long way from your army,” the lieutenant said, regarding the men in front of him with a measure of distrust. “Several other groups come this way from your army.”
“Sir, yes, long way,” Philip replied testily.
Sammy only nodded.
“You look like someone fished you out of the creek.”
“Yes … yes sir, out of the creek. Bridges across the Pittsburg Road destroyed by rising water.” If the officer was trying to be friendly, the attempt was lost on Philip. If Woolsey and Mule were lost, it was nothing he felt light about.
“An’ you tried to save the bridges?” the lieutenant said incredulously.
Sammy glanced at Philip to read his reaction and regarded the lieutenant angrily.
“Yes, sir; tried to save a pontoon bridge. Got swept into the creek and downstream. Both bridges destroyed. We lost some men when the pontoon bridge broke apart—swept downstream to the Tennessee.” Philip took a gulp of hot coffee. He let the aroma and the drink slip down his throat
“I see. We saw the same here, but the pontoons held, an’ now the water is lowering some. Bridge held up fine,” the lieutenant said smugly.
Philip didn’t care whose bridge had survived intact, and though he was grateful for the coffee, the lieutenant’s attitude was starting to grate on him.
The lieutenant attempted a few more minutes of idle conversation, but Philip’s short, evasive answers conveyed the impression that he wanted to be left alone. Fortified with coffee, Philip and Sammy thanked the lieutenant and took their leave, crossing over to the north side of the creek.
After they were some distance away, Sammy blurted, “That damned, smug grin of his! If I were a civilian I’d have knocked the little cuss on his arse! Maybe Mule got stuck on this side of the creek too an’ is already crossed?”
“That would be some welcome news indeed.”
“I
suspect we have a few miles to cover to get back to the Pittsburg road,” Sammy said after a few moments of silent walking. He was quiet another moment and then choked out, “But, what … what if Mule didn’t make it? What if he drowned? We know someone’s going to die every time we shoulder the musket, but not drowning trying to save some fool bridge.”
Philip just nodded. There was no accounting for loss and when it might happen.
“We know of two that didn’t for sure, from what you seen.”
Philip nodded wearily. “Two. We pray that Mule is in camp or picking his way back that way. Johnny too, and Captain Bacon.”
“Pray? That we won’t be disappointed, or that God’ll change his mind?” Sammy said, throwing his arms into the air with an exasperated grunt.
“No, pray they are still alive and can be guided back. If they are dead, they are dead. But you’re right. We can’t expect God to bend to our wants.”
“Well, I’m not prepared to accept they are gone until I see they are gone, so I might as well pray that they are not gone as for anything,” Sammy said. “That fool papist better not be dead!”
Philip smiled, a peculiar sensation that was welcomed after the ordeal in the water.
“You think Catholics get to go to heaven?” Sammy asked finally.
“Why not? Faith is the hope in what is not seen, not in some practice or other,” Philip replied.
“I suppose so,” Sammy answered.
The day had been dark as the storm continued to unleash winds and rain, but now it was turning dark with the fading of the daylight hours, such as they had been. Darkness descended quickly, the perpetual twilight of the last few hours quickly becoming pitch-black. Guided by the rushing noise of the creek, the two pushed on, willing their tired legs to take one more step.
The Shiloh Series: Books 1-3 Page 44