Michael Shaara - The Killer Angels

by The Killer Angels(Lit)

  He almost dozed. Came awake. Need someone to talk to. Sky all thick and gray. Rain? I hope so. But no, another scorcher. They don't know about this kind of weather back in Maine.

  "Colonel?" At the foot of the tree: Tom. Chamberlain smiled.

  "Hey, Colonel, I got you some coffee."

  He held aloft a steaming cup. Chamberlain's stomach twinged in anticipation. Tom clambered up, reaching.

  Chamberlain took the hot cup, held it lovingly. "Oh, that's fine. Where did you find that?"

  "Well..." Tom grinned. "Gee, you sure can see a ways from up here." He squinted. "Golly, that's the whole damn Reb army."

  "Don't swear," Chamberlain said automatically. He thought of yesterday. I used him to plug a hole. My brother.

  Did it automatically, as if he was expendable. Reached out and put him there, as you move a chess piece.

  "We sent out a detail," Tom said cheerily, yawning, "and found some poor departed souls down there and they were carrying coffee for which they had no more use, so we took it."

  Chamberlain grimaced. "Ghoul," he said. But he drank, and the coffee was sweet with brown sugar, and strength boiled into him.

  "How you feel. Colonel, sir? You notice I don't say 'Lawrence.'"

  "I feel fine."

  "You know, I bet we're higher than anybody in the whole army. In both blame armies." Tom was pleased. "Now there's a thing to tell your children. My, what a view."

  Chamberlain drank. After a moment he said, without thinking, "I miss old Buster."

  "Kilrain? Yep. But he'll be all right."

  The vacancy was there, a hole in the air, a special kind of loneliness. You wanted to have Buster to talk to when it was all over, to go over it, to learn, to understand, to see what you should have done.

  Tom said, "You know, Lawrence? I close my eyes, I fall asleep."

  "Better get down off the tree."

  "You know what?"

  "What?"

  "I don't like bayonets." He squinted at Chamberlain, shrugged foolishly, blinked and yawned. "One thing about war I just don't like. Different, you know? Not like guns and cannon. Other men feel same way. You know what I mean?"

  Chamberlain nodded.

  "I couldn't use mine," Tom said ashamedly. "Yesterday. Just couldn't. Ran down the hill, yelling, screamed my head off. Hit one man with the rifle barrel. Bent the rifle all to hell, pardon me. But couldn't stick nobody. Didn't see much of that, either. Am glad to say. Most men won't stick people. When I was going back and looking at the dead, weren't many killed by bayonet."

  Chamberlain said, "Nothing to be ashamed of."

  "Lawrence?"

  Chamberlain turned. Tom was gazing at him, owl-eyed.

  "You weren't afraid, much, yesterday."

  "Too busy," Chamberlain said.

  "No." Tom shook his head. "I shoot and run around and all the time I'm scared green. But you weren't scared at all. Not at all. But at Fredericksburg you were scared."

  Chamberlain said, "I was too busy. Had things to do. Couldn't think about getting hurt." But he remembered: There was more to it than that. There was an exultation, a huge delight: I was alive.

  "Well," Tom said stubbornly, "you did real good." It was the old family expression, used by one brother to another, down the years. Did I do good? You did real good.

  Chamberlain grinned.

  "You know what?" Tom said. He grabbed a branch, swung himself into a better position. "I think we're going to win this war." He looked to Chamberlain for confirmation.

  Chamberlain nodded, but he was too tired to think about it, all those noble ideals, all true, all high and golden in the mind, but he was just too tired, and he had no need to talk about it. He would hang onto these rocks, all right, of that he was certain. But he didn't know about another charge.

  He looked down on the men, the line running down the hill.

  A little ammunition, a little food. We'll hang onto these rocks, all right. Now if I could just get a little sleep...

  "Lawrence? The way them Rebs kept coming yesterday... You got to admire 'em."

  "Um," Chamberlain said.

  "You think they'll come again today?"

  Chamberlain looked out across the open air, gazed at the miles of campfires.

  "Doesn't look like they're planning to depart."

  "You think they'll come again?"

  "They'll come again," he said. He stirred himself on the branch. They'll come again, for sure. Must get more ammunition up here. What in God's name is keeping Rice?

  "We only got about two hundred men," Tom said thoughtfully. Not with worry but with calculation, a new realist, assessing the cold truth.

  "But the position is very good," Chamberlain said.

  "I guess so," Tom admitted. Rumble of cannon. At first he thought it was thunder, out of the dark sky to the north.

  But he saw the flashes sparkle on Cemetery Hill and knew it was too early for thunder, and as he looked northward he could see sunlight breaking through the overcast, to the north and west, and shells falling on the far side of the cemetery. He put his glasses to his eyes and looked, but all he could see was smoke and mist, an occasional yellow flash. Below him, on the hilltop, the heads of the men turned north. Chamberlain thought: diversion. To Tom he said, "You go down and alert the pickets. May be a diversion on that flank. They may be coming this way again. Send Ruel Thomas to me, tell him to send another call to Rice for ammunition."

  Tom started down the tree. He scratched himself, swore feebly.

  "Lawrence, we're going to need another runner, sir, old brother. I go up and down this hill much more my legs going to fall off."

  Chamberlain said, "Yes. Tell Ellis Spear to pick a man, send him to me."

  Tom moved down into the dark. Chamberlain waited in the tree. It was a very good position. The hill was flat across the top, about thirty yards of flat rock, an occasional tree, but the ascent on all sides was steep. The ground facing the enemy was rocky and steep and heavy with trees, and the ground behind him fell away abruptly, a sheer drop of at least a hundred feet, no worry about assault from that side.

  The men had built another rock wall, and now, with enough ammunition, he could hold there for a long time. The end of the line. Overlooking all the world. They'll come again. Let 'em come.

  He half expected another assault. But there was no sound from below. The sky was brighter now, breaks in the overcast; light streamed down in blinding rays. He shaded sleep-filled eyes, gazed out across the Southern lines to the blue hills to the east. Lovely country. If I close my eyes, you know, I'll go to sleep. If they come again, could use some rest first.

  He heard a man snoring loudly just below his tree. He saw a round face, bearded, mouth open, flat on his back on a rock ledge, hands folded on his chest. Chamberlain smiled in envy He thought: guess I better get down from here, look around.

  But now he had sat for a long time and his leg had stiffened, there was a brutal pain in his foot. He limped along the rock, trying to work out the stiffness. Thirty-four years old, laddie, not the man you used to be. He walked painfully past the sleeping man. A tall thin boy grinned happily upward, touched his cap. Chamberlain said, "Good morning."

  "Colonel, sir."

  "How you getting along?"

  "Hungry, sir." The boy started to get up. Chamberlain held out a hand.

  "Never mind that. Take it easy." He looked down on the round-faced sleeper, smiled.

  "Jonas can sleep anywhere," the boy said proudly.

  Chamberlain moved on down the line. The battle in the north was growing. No diversion. Well. He felt oddly disappointed. Then a trace of pride. They tried this flank yesterday and couldn't move us. Now they're trying the other flank. He wondered who his opposite number was, the colonel on the far right, the last man on the right of the Union line. What troops did he lead? What was he thinking now? Good luck to you. Colonel, Chamberlain said silently, saluting in his mind. But you don't have soldiers like these.

  He limpe
d among the men, passing each one like a warming fire. He shared with them all the memory of yesterday. He had been with them to that other world; they were in it now, the high clear world of the last man in line, and all the enemy coming. Tozier on the rock with the flag in his hand, Tom plugging the gap, bayonets lifted, that last wild charge. He looked down smiling as he passed, patting shoulders, concerned with small wounds. One boy lay behind a rock. He had been shot through the cheek yesterday but had not gone to the rear, had charged, had come all this way to the top of the hill. Now he was down with a fever, and the wound in the face was inflamed.

  Chamberlain ordered him to the field hospital. There were several signs of sickness, one possible case of typhoid.

  Nothing to do but detail the men down the hill. But none of them wanted to go, some deathly afraid of the hospital itself, some not wanting to be away from men they knew, men they could trust, the Regiment of Home.

  Chamberlain began to grow restless for food. He thought: we're forgotten up here. Nobody knows what these men did yesterday. They saved the whole line, God knows, and now I can't even feed them. He was becoming angry. He clambered back up the hill and tore open the wound inside his boot, which began again to bleed. He sat down at the top of the hill, listening to the cannon fire and musketry raging in the north, momentarily grateful that it was over there, and took off the boot, bound the foot, wished he could get something to wash it down with, but what water there was was dirty and bloody. There was a creek down below: Plum Run. Choked with yesterday's dead. Good to be high up here; the smells of death don't seem to be rising. Wind still from the south, blowing it away. You know, the Regiment is weary.

  That thought had taken a while to form, had formed slowly as he moved up and down the line. Just so far you can push a man.

  He thought: a little food. A little rest. They'll be right again in a bit. Fewer than two hundred now. And there on the rock, sitting staring down at the long line of dark men shapeless under dark trees, he felt for the first time the sense of the coming end. They were dwindling away like sands in a glass. How long does it go on? Each one becoming more precious. What's left now is the best, each man a rock. But now there are so few. We began with a thousand and so whittled down, polishing, pruning, until what we had yesterday was superb, absolutely superb, and now only about two hundred, and. God, had it not been for those boys from the Second Maine... but the end is in sight.

  Another day like yesterday... and the Regiment will be gone. In the Union Army that was the way it was: they fought a unit until it bled to death. There were no replacements.

  He shook his head, trying to shake away the thought. He could not imagine them gone. He would go with them. But if the war went on much longer... if there was one more fight like yesterday...

  The sound of the battle in the north grew steadily in intensity. Chamberlain, alone, wished he knew anything at all about what was happening. He could not even talk to Ellis Spear, who was down in the woods with the other flank of the Regiment, where it joined the 83rd. He waited, alone, staying awake, listening. After a while there was a courier from Rice. He was a puffing lieutenant staggering up among the rocks.

  "Colonel Chamberlain? Sir, that's some climb." The lieutenant paused to gasp for air, leaned upon a tree.

  "My men need rations, Lieutenant," Chamberlain said.

  He stood up on his bloody foot, boot in hand.

  "Sir, Colonel Rice instructs me to tell you that you are relieved, sir."

  "Relieved?" Men were gathering around him. Sergeant Tozier had come up, that big-nosed man, towered over the lieutenant, gloomed down at him.

  "Colonel Fisher's people are coming up, sir, and will take over here. Colonel Rice informs me that he wishes to compliment you on a job well done and give your people a rest, so he wants you to fall back, and I'm to show you the way."

  "Fall back." Chamberlain turned, looked around the hilltop. He did not want to go. You could defend this place against an army. Well. He looked at his tree, from which he had watched the dawn.

  He gave the words to Tozier. The Twentieth Maine would stay in position until Fisher's brigade came up, but in a few moments he heard them coming-extraordinary, he had not expected anything quick to happen in this army. The lieutenant sat against a tree while Chamberlain moved among the troops, getting them ready to move. Chamberlain came back for one last look around. For a moment, at least, we were the flank of the army. From this point you could see the whole battlefield. Now they were going down, to blend into the mass below. He looked around. He would remember the spot. He would be back here, some day, after the war.

  The men were in line, all down the hill. Tom and Ellis Spear were waiting down below.

  "You'll guide us, Lieutenant."

  "Yes, sir."

  The lieutenant moved off, downward into the dark.

  Chamberlain said, "I'll be wanting to go back to Little Round Top as soon as possible. The Regiment will bury its own dead."

  "Yes, sir, but I'm to lead you to your new position first, sir, if you don't mind."

  Chamberlain said, "Where are we going?"

  "Oh, sir-" the lieutenant grinned-"a lovely spot. Safest place on the battlefield. Right smack dab in the center of the line. Very quiet there."

  2. LONGSTREET.

  Goree was back in the gray dawn. The move to the south was still possible; the road to Washington was still open. But Union cavalry was closing in around Longstreet's flank. He sent orders to extend Hood's division. He sat in the gray light studying Goree's map, smelling rain, thinking that a little rain now would be marvelous, cool them, cool the battle fever, settle the dust. Wet mist flowed softly by; dew dripped from the leaves, pattered in the woods, but the morning was already warm. The heat would come again.

  He drank coffee alone, dreaming. Scheibert, the Prussian, chatted with him about the Battle of Solferino. Longstreet could hear the laughter from Pickett's boys; some of them had been up all night. They were moving into line in the fields behind Seminary Ridge, out of sight of the Union guns. He was curt with Scheibert. The Prussian was not a fool; he bowed, departed. Longstreet studied the map. Rain would be a great blessing. Rain would screen our movements.

  Lee came out of the mists. He was tall and gray on that marvelous horse, riding majestically forward in the gray light of morning outlined against the sky, the staff all around him and behind him, Lee alone in the center, larger than them all, erect, soldierly, gazing eastward toward the enemy line. He rode up, saluted grandly. Longstreet rose. Lee rested both hands on the pommel of his saddle. The mist thickened and blew between them; there was a ghostly quality in the look of him, of all his staff, ghost riders out of the past, sabers clanking, horses breathing thick and heavy in thick dank air.

  Lee said, "General, good morning."

  Longstreet offered him coffee. Lee declined. He said, "If you will mount up, General, I would like to ride over in that direction-" he gestured eastward-"some little way."

  Longstreet called for his horse, mounted. He said, "I've had scouts out all night, General. I know the terrain now."

  Lee said nothing. They rode toward the high ground, an opening in the trees. Longstreet looked out across a flat field of mist, fenceposts, a ridge of stone black against the softwhite flow mist, then across the road and up the long rise toward the Union defenses, high out of the mist, fires burning, black cannon in plain view.