“No, sir,” said Caleb. “Not that I remember, anyway.”
“Well, you’d better get off that goddamned horse. I won’t have a sergeant presenting a better target than I do. It challenges my authority. Are all the troops on the line?”
“Yes, sir. And most of them seem to be pointing toward the enemy.”
“Praise the Lord!” said Alleyne. “It’s a miracle. Well, let’s see if we can inspire them a little.” He turned to his aide. “Smithers, haven’t you got a rifle somewhere?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, get it. I want you to shoot me if I look like I am going to do anything heroic. Now,” he said to Caleb, “you take the left side of our sector, and I’ll take the right. Those bastards shall not get through, right?”
“Right, sir,” said Caleb.
Back on the left side of the Third Platoon line, Caleb worked his way from dugout to dugout, checking ammunition, tapping canteens to see whether they were full, and trying to keep the troops from panicking. The new, barely trained volunteers were nervous. A shot was fired two dugouts away, and Caleb hurried over there in a rage. “What are you shooting at?” he demanded. He looked down the slope but could see nothing except the thin covering of trees hiding the creek.
“Nothing, sir,” said a very small private from New Hampshire. “My finger slipped.”
“Keep it on the trigger guard for now,” Caleb said. “You’ll want that cartridge in a little while when the rebs are charging.”
“Sergeant,” asked one of the soldiers, “is it true that you used to be a slave?”
“Yes,” said Caleb.
“What was it like?”
“Better than this,” Caleb said. Moving to the back of the line, he shouted, “Now hold steady, keep your eyes on those trees, and don’t fire until I give you the signal. When you start firing, don’t stop until you get an order or you’re out of ammunition. Aim low. Even if you only hit a man in the foot, that’s enough to stop him. If you can’t hit the men, shoot the horses; they’re a bigger target. Now, I want to hear some noise from you men— Hurrah!”
The men’s response was a feeble noise closer to a murmur than a shout.
“Damn it,” Caleb screamed. “Do it again, and this time mean it! On three: One! Two! Three! HURRAH!”
This time, the men’s response was more respectable.
“That’s better,” said Caleb, “now—”
The distant rifle fire was suddenly louder, and one of Caleb’s men shouted, “Here they come!” and another shot was fired.
“Hold your fire,” Caleb shouted. “You can’t hit anything at this distance!” Down the slope, tiny figures were just entering the woods. “Pick out a target,” said Caleb, “and when I give you the signal, hit it. Then choose another. Keep your eyes open and don’t waste a shot.”
The mounted figures got closer and closer, and Caleb could sense the tension building in his men. “Slowly, slowly,” he called out. “Plenty of time. Pick a target. Pick a target.”
When he found that he could begin to make out the features on the faces of the attackers, Caleb drew his saber and waved it over his head.
“Fire!”
The resulting volley was ragged, but down the slope some horsemen fell, and the advance seemed to waver a bit.
“Fire again!” Caleb shouted. “Fire at will!” He drew the .36 caliber Colt Navy revolver that Alleyne had found for him and leveled it at the oncoming horsemen more for the effect than in hopes of hitting anyone. One by one, he squeezed off the six rounds and was gratified to see a cavalryman fall from his horse with both hands to his throat. As the rebs grew closer, bullets began to thud into the earth in front of the dugouts and whip through the trees above.
The next volley from Caleb’s men was less ragged, and the men began to see its effect on the attackers. Staying low, Caleb worked his way behind the dugouts, both to encourage the men and check on casualties. By the time he got to the left end of the line, only three had been killed and another two wounded. Signaling to the orderlies, he had the wounded men pulled back behind the line. He urged the remaining riflemen to take their dead comrades’ ammunition and keep firing.
When the fire from the dugouts caused the charging cavalrymen to begin to turn back, Caleb told his corporal to keep the men firing. Then, he retrieved his horse from the copse behind the dugouts and rode toward the other half of the Third Platoon’s lines. Here, things weren’t going so well. Though the attackers had been unable to carry the dugouts, they’d lain down halfway down the slope and were riddling the line with deadly fire. Everywhere Caleb looked he saw dead soldiers slumped over the front of their dugouts. The noise was deafening.
“Where’s Lieutenant Alleyne?” Caleb shouted at a shocked-looking private, but the man just waved a hand toward the right of the line. Caleb soon found Alleyne lying on his face just in front of a dugout. Turning him over, he saw a neat round hole in the middle of Alleyne’s forehead. A trickle of blood ran from it into his right eye. Alleyne’s mouth was open wide, as if he’d been shouting when he was hit.
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Pulling the lieutenant’s body back into an empty gun pit, Caleb looked around and saw most of Alleyne’s surviving men lying on their bellies behind the dugouts. They’d clearly started to bolt for the rear and then discovered that this, too, was dangerous. Some had their hands over their heads, as if this would stop a bullet. Running over to them, Caleb began kicking wildly at the men and shouting.
“Get into those dugouts. Go! Go!”
Rather than be kicked to death, the men started crawling back into the dugouts. One soldier did not move, and Caleb found that he’d been kicking a dead corporal. Another cried out, too badly injured to move. “Sorry,” Caleb said, but he soon had all the survivors who were able to move back in their dugouts. Crawling along behind them, he ordered them to recover their rifles and recommence firing. Soon, they’d resumed firing, and the approach of the rebels ground to a halt.
Satisfied that he had done about all he could, Caleb was about to go back to check on the other end of the line, when a major rode up from the trees behind the dugouts and hurriedly dismounted.
“Where’s your officer?” he shouted, crouching beside Caleb.
“Dead, sir,” Caleb said, pointing to Alleyne’s body in the dugout.
“Who are you?”
“Sergeant Jardine, sir,” Caleb said. “Eleventh Mounted Rifles, now Lieutenant Alleyne’s platoon sergeant.”
“Are you in charge here?”
“I don’t see anybody else, sir,”
“Well, Sergeant,” the major said. “Things look bad. I don’t think we’re going to be able to hold this position much longer. How’s the other end of your line?”
“Last time I saw them they were doing better than this end,” said Caleb.
“How’s your ammunition?”
“Getting low.”
“I’ll try to get some up to you,” the major said. “In the meantime, you hold on here as long as you can. If we’re going to withdraw, I’ll send you a messenger. Be prepared either way.”
“Yes, sir.”
The major crawled toward his nervous horse, swung into the saddle heavily, and rode back into the trees.
Looking around at the soldiers in the dugouts, Caleb saw one, a thin, pale-faced man with a light growth of beard, who seemed to be firing more steadily and methodically than the others. Crawling over to him, Caleb asked, “What’s your name?”
“Crawford,” said the man, still firing.
“You’re in charge here, Crawford,” Caleb said. “Keep these men firing. I have to go check on the other end of the line. If a messenger comes, send someone to get me.”
“Okay, Sarge.”
Pausing to relieve Alleyne of his cartridge belt and sidearm, the twin of his own, Caleb strapped them on and began crawlin
g toward his horse.
Once his troop was safely across the creek, Boyd Jardine ordered them to dismount at a sheltered spot where the sharply uphill slope of the ground toward the Union positions offered some cover. Ordering his sergeant to keep the men there and check their ammunition and equipment, he and his corporal crept up the slope until they could see over to a less steep section of terrain. There, they saw the infantry unit that had preceded them pinned down by light-arms fire from the dugouts on the other side of the woods.
Continuing to creep toward the infantry unit, Jardine came upon a lieutenant who was directing fire at the dugouts and urging his men to move forward without much success.
“Where’s your captain?” Jardine asked the lieutenant.
“Dead, sir,” said the lieutenant, gesturing ahead. “Caught a bullet smack in the throat.”
“Can you take those dugouts?”
“Doesn’t look like it right now,” said the lieutenant, “but we’re trying.”
“Well,” said Jardine, “I’ve got a troop of cavalry down the slope that’s eager to give you a hand. Do you think you can keep the Yanks’ heads down and give us a chance to get close enough to do some good?”
“We’ll do our best, sir.”
“All right,” Jardine said. “I’m going to be bringing them up right quiet like in a few minutes. When you hear our bugles, we’d appreciate it if you’d give those bastards a bit of hell, and maybe between us we can get this one over.”
“Will do, sir,” said the lieutenant as Jardine and his corporal started crawling back down the slope.
Caleb was approaching the left side of the line from the trees at the rear when he heard a bugle call, and the volume of small-arms fire coming toward them suddenly increased. Spurring his horse, he rode out of the woods to see rebel cavalry charging up the slope some two hundred yards from the dugouts. They were closing rapidly and their sabers flashed in the sunlight. Several fired pistols as they rode through the infantry who were providing them with covering fire.
The rifle fire from the troops in the dugout, who had never before faced cavalry, faltered, and Caleb saw several of them half turn as if to scramble from the dugout. Digging his spurs into his mount’s sides, Caleb surged forward.
“Fire! Fire! Damn you! Hold the line! Shoot! Shoot!” As he rode, he put the reins into his mouth and drew both pistols, leveling them at the charging cavalry as his horse reached the dugout.
Caleb felt his horse rising under him as it soared over the dugout. It landed on the other side, caught its balance, and galloped toward the approaching line of gray-clad horsemen. Realizing that he had no other choice now, Caleb blazed away at the leading horseman, an officer, with both pistols until he was clicking on empty cylinders.
Caleb thought that he had missed, but the officer stiffened in the saddle, rocked back, half turned to the left, and tumbled to the ground headfirst. His mount, also hit, screamed and veered to the left, colliding with one side of the line of horsemen who had been following their officer. Momentum broken and suffering casualties, that side of the charge wobbled and then broke. Riders checked and half turned in their saddles to see where the others were. Some began to turn back. On the right side of the charge, three lone Confederate horsemen carried on toward the dugout, but at the last minute—finding themselves alone and exposed—they veered off under heavy fire.
Holstering his pistols, Caleb drew his saber and rode directly toward the hesitating left side of the charge, screaming at the top of his lungs. The apparition of a giant black man brandishing a saber further confounded the hesitant horsemen, and soon the charge was totally broken. Its remnants were riding back down the slope, abandoning their casualties and some riderless horses. The infantry, at first slowly and then more rapidly, began to join the rout. A cheer went up from the dugout behind Caleb.
Realizing both that he was in command of the field and that it could not last forever, Caleb loaded his pistols and checked the fallen horsemen to make sure that none were shamming and still dangerous. Then he rode over to where the fallen officer’s mount, bleeding from a flesh wound, was grazing quietly by the body of his rider lying face down in the short grass. Caleb dismounted and stood looking down at the body. There was a bloody hole in the back of the dead man’s long gray jacket where Caleb’s shot had gone clear through his body.
Kneeling down, Caleb turned the body over and found himself looking at Boyd Jardine’s unmarked and expressionless face. The first words he had ever spoken to Jardine suddenly flashed into Caleb’s mind: “You don’t want to buy me. I’ll kill the man who buys me.” That seemed a lifetime ago.
Caleb felt a sharp stab of regret. “I’m sorry,” he told the man who had been his master, his enemy, and finally, his friend. He reached down and closed Jardine’s eyes.
Caleb was staring down at the face of his dead former master when he heard shouting from the dugouts. He looked up to see a lieutenant standing on top of a dugout and shouting at him, “Sergeant! We’ve got to get out of here. Big attack coming. We can’t hold out. Come on!” The lieutenant turned to the troops and began to shoo them from the dugouts as if they were a flock of chickens.
Caleb started to mount his horse. But then he stopped and turned back to Jardine’s body. Kneeling again, he wrapped his arms around Jardine and rose to his feet.
“Steady, steady,” he murmured and, with great effort, laid the body across the saddle of Jardine’s horse. He then mounted his own horse and led Jardine’s burdened animal toward the nearly empty dugouts. As Caleb threaded his way through the retreating Union troops, some looked with curiosity at the black sergeant leading a horse with a dead body on it, but none questioned him.
Half an hour later, when they crossed the strong Union line near Centreville, Captain Lockhart, trying to organize and account for the remnants of Company B, spotted Caleb.
“Sergeant Jardine!”
Caleb stopped and turned toward the captain, who was coming at him with hand extended. “It’s a relief to see you, Sergeant,” Lockhart said, shaking his hand. “I thought that you’d stopped one, like poor Alleyne. I’m glad to see you haven’t. Unscratched, eh?”
“Yes, sir,” said Caleb.
“The lucky survive,” said the captain, “and sometimes the brave. I’ve heard what you did with Alleyne’s platoon, Sergeant, and it won’t be forgotten.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Lockhart suddenly seemed to notice the load on the horse Caleb was leading. “If you don’t mind me asking, what have you got there?”
“Prisoner, sir,” said Caleb. “But he died on me.”
“An officer?” asked Lockhart.
“Yes, sir,” Caleb said. “He was.”
“There’s a wagon somewhere around here,” Lockhart said vaguely, “picking up the dead.”
“I’ll find it, sir,” said Caleb.
“All right, Sergeant,” Lockhart said. “And after you do, report to Lieutenant Fergus over by that red barn. He’s got the Third Platoon now, and he’ll be glad to see you.”
“Yes, sir,” Caleb said, saluting and beginning to lead his horse away.
But instead of looking for the wagon for the dead, Caleb borrowed a spade from a puzzled corporal. Beside a small brook he stopped at a spot that he thought he could find again. Caleb tied both horses to a tree, lowered Jardine’s body to the ground, and began to dig a grave. Two days later, a report appeared on the front page of the New York Times.
“Union Suffers Another Defeat at Second Battle of Bull Run,” the headline read. “Stanton vows command changes as Confederates repeat victory in northeast Virginia.”
Toward the end of the report were two brief paragraphs. One, headed “Among the Slain,” listed Boyd Jardine: Captain, CSA, Kershaw County Dragoons.
The other, under the heading “Conspicuous During the Action,” reported that Sergeant Caleb Jardin
e of the Eleventh Mounted Rifles had been mentioned in dispatches for conspicuous gallantry and was brevetted Second Lieutenant of Volunteers (Colored), effective immediately.
About the Author
Photo © 2014 Patricia Andjelkovic
Charles Alverson was born in California and, after living in England and Wales, now lives as a confirmed expatriate in Serbia. He has been writing novels since 1971 across a range of genres: thriller, detective, young adult, humor, and popular fiction. He has also written children’s books, short plays, and nonfiction, and he worked as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and Rolling Stone. Alverson also cowrote the screenplays for the films Jabberwocky and Brazil. Caleb is his first historical novel, but not his last.
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