Jack was used to the walk and it didn’t bother him anymore since it got him away from the monotony of camp life. Captain Adair understood this need on the part of the men, having been a foot soldier himself. Some of the officers believed that discipline was the only way to keep the men in line. But Adair knew differently. Keep them happy, well fed and well sexed, and they would fight. So when they weren’t drilling, which wasn’t very often anymore, Jack and the rest frequented the whores.
Any guilt Jack felt over the visits soon faded in the face of hard reality: at any moment he might be killed. He had left mountains of corpses behind him on the long road to Winchester. Ginnie and the others could never understand what it felt like to live this way. So he went to the whores, trying to enjoy the moment while he could.
Billy tagged along with him, at first keeping his mouth shut. Finally, his curiosity got the better of him. “Did she throw you over, Jack?” Jack glared ahead, refusing to look at him. When he said nothing, Billy took his silence as an affirmative and Jack was too angry to tell him otherwise.
When they got to the shacks, Billy disappeared and Jack walked to the end of the row where the raven-haired Blanche worked. It was early enough so that there was no line outside. He didn’t even bother to knock but yanked on the wooden door, pulling it nearly off its ancient hinges. Blanche protested the interruption but Jack waved his money in her face and she quieted down. He took his time getting undressed, pulling his boots off while sitting on the end of the bed. Blanche stretched out on the dirty sheets, her dark hair contrasting with the vivid red of her lips and cheeks.
She might have been twenty five, but she had a used look that could have meant she was as much as forty. She rarely stepped into the light, and her rouged cheeks and the darkness of the hut hid any lines that might suggest her age. She paused to spray some cheap perfume into the air from an atomizer. Rather than covering the hut’s dank smells, the perfume merged with it to create a new fragrance that turned Jack’s stomach.
In her best seductive voice, she cooed, “Come to Blanche, sonny.”
Jack lay back, pulling her roughly to him. He kissed her hard, forcing his tongue into her mouth. Rather than resisting, she kissed him back with equal force. He thought of Ginnie and her prudish innocence, knowing how she would have reacted to such treatment. Pulling Blanche on top of him, he began to fumble with his pants. He had them only partly open when he heard the bugle.
“Shit,” he swore savagely under his breath, quickly redoing the catches.
“Where are you going, sweetie? You just got here.” Blanche looked genuinely disappointed, more from the loss of her fee than anything else. Jack flicked her a dime as he dashed out the door.
Billy was already outside in the mud pulling on his boots. Running the whole way back to the camp, they found the company at attention when they arrived and slipped into their allotted spaces. Will Culp gave them each an angry glare, but the verbal chewing out would have to wait until later.
Captain Adair came jogging down the street trying to strap his sword into place as he ran. His blue uniform was rumpled, the trousers splattered with mud. A corporal ran beside him trying to hand him orders. He stopped before the company, snatching the orders out of the courier’s hand.
As he scanned the lines, all eyes focused on him, trying to guess what he was about to tell them. A colonel rode by at the end of the row of barracks, reining in and calling for him. Adair went to his side and the two men conferred quietly. The captain saluted and came back to the men.
“We’re moving out,” he said in a voice that carried to the farthest man. “There’s a reb army on the move about five miles south of here. They’ll be here before sunset and we’re going to stop them.” Adair took a deep breath. “The report says that it’s an entire corps.”
Even the slightest movement in the ranks stopped at this announcement. Jack felt his stomach double up. An entire corps, twenty-thousand men. There were only five thousand Federals in the whole camp. And Hooker was hundreds of miles away with the main Federal body. There was nothing between the rebels and Pennsylvania. Except them.
“So get your gear and form up as fast as you can. Fall out.”
The men ran for their barracks. Jack pulled his knapsack from the corner and his rifle out from under his bed. Then, as a last thought before he dove back through the door, he grabbed Ginnie’s letter, balled up at the foot of the bed, and shoved it into his pocket.
Marching out of camp onto the road a few minutes later, they merged with the other companies of the regiment, moving southward, toward the oncoming rebels.
Chapter 17
MAKING PEACE
South of Winchester, Virginia
June 14, 1863
The roads were familiar to Wes. How many times had they marched along them before? Fifteen? Twenty? As they neared the town, all was quiet. The farms were empty, the crops unplanted. A ghost town with ghostly fields. Such a waste. Such a dismal way to live.
Wes heard the men discussing the Federal troops who were awaiting them in Winchester. Three young boys nearby, as ignorant as they were innocent, talked excitedly about getting into their first battle. Where they had come from Wes could not imagine. He thought the Confederacy had exhausted its resource of men, that all those not presently in uniform were either too old or too crippled to be of service. But here were three young boys, untouched as yet by the hell of war. They still believed in what they were fighting for.
As they marched, the three boys kept looking at Wes, their expressions carrying a wide-eyed look that Wes finally recognized as awe. These boys, walking next to him, saw Wes as a wise and experienced veteran. He nearly laughed out loud at the thought. Being a veteran meant knowing something these boys had yet to learn, if they lived long enough. As a veteran, he knew that each battle you survived, each bullet that missed your head by a hair, was one battle closer to the one that would take you away forever. Wes no longer seemed to care; he had lost his fear of death, and that, more than anything, made him a veteran.
Winchester came into sight as the army moved over a hill, appearing as it had after so many other marches. They had captured it time after time, but it never seemed to stay captured. Someone told him that the town had changed hands over sixty times, that on one memorable day alone it had switched sides thirteen times. All he knew was that he had lost count. Now, they had been ordered to take it again. Looking around, Wes saw no sign of the Yankees. He strolled on, pretending to ignore his admirers.
Suddenly, they heard a deep thud in the distance followed by a high whine that grew rapidly louder. Wes instinctively jumped into a ditch by the side of the road, landing hard in the mud. The explosion ripped the air around him, slamming him further down into the ground. His back was singed by blazing heat that flared for a moment, then subsided. Waiting until the rocks and dirt quit raining down, he crawled back up onto the road. Without emotion, he glanced momentarily at the bloody remains of three boys who had never before heard a shell coming toward them, and who would never hear one again. The area was strewn with torn flesh that bore no resemblance to the naïve faces he had seen a few seconds ago. His only thought was: that’s one more shell that missed me; now I’m one shell closer to the big one.
The battle did not last long. Wes and the others reformed and attacked. They fired at the lead group of Yankees and watched as they turned and ran. Running in pursuit down the same streets in which they had fought so many times before, Wes dove behind a rail fence for protection. Waiting out a volley from up front, he rose quickly to fire, then ducked again to reload. His arms worked rapidly and without conscious thought, his body becoming an extension of his weapon, efficient, cold, impersonal, firing every thirty seconds or so. Others lying near him were firing rapidly at any target that presented itself. Wes could hear the Yankee bullets whizzing past him, smacking the brick building a few feet away. Wood splinters from the rail in front of him peppered his face as the enemy fire increased.
Suddenl
y, Wes realized that their line was being flanked, that he was in danger of being trapped. He looked around, searching for the best route by which to escape. Waiting for the right moment to retreat, he fired steadily over the fence rail at the blue-coated men approaching down the road. He reloaded again and laid the barrel of his gun back on the fence rail. Raising his head, he could just make out a thin line of blue clad Federals directly to his front. Behind this row and to the right, Wes saw a man yelling orders, his chevrons marking him as the company sergeant. Wes carefully drew a bead on the man, waiting for the smoke to lift enough to give him a clear shot. Bullets slammed into the fence with new intensity as his head attracted the attention of enemy sharpshooters.
He looked at the Federal sergeant, caught in his sights, realizing that the slow movement of his trigger finger was measuring the final seconds of this man’s life. He waited, waited, for the right moment. But his finger would not move that last fraction of an inch. The hairs slowly rose on Wes’ neck. He stared at the man, pulling his eye away from the gunsight to study him more carefully. In a split second of clarity, amid the utter chaos of the battle, he realized that it was his brother, Will.
He started to stand, forgetting where he was, when a bullet smashed the post in front of him, shooting jagged pieces of wood into his face. He fell to the ground, wiping frantically at the wounds. When he looked at his hand, it was covered with blood, his blood. He waited for the intense pain to hit. But it did not come.
A yell went up from beyond the fence and Wes stood to see a large group of rebels crashing into the flank of the Yankees who had, until that moment, been firing at him. Now they were running, fleeing so fast that they were stumbling over one another. Wes looked for Will, but could see only a few Yankees running for the woods beyond the road.
Then they were gone. Wes wiped at his face again. This time there was less blood and only a little pain. His fingertips felt for the splinters of wood embedded in his cheek and, gingerly, he pulled them free.
Moving down the street which was now filled with Confederates, Wes thought about the man who resembled Will. There had been several times in the past when Wes was certain he had seen his older brother, but the chance of actually running across him in battle was very slim. It made him chuckle, now, to think how he had been fooled again, and how his momentary confusion had bought some northern sergeant a few more days of life.
Wes walked over to look at a group of captured Federals being led back through the town. There seemed to be hundreds of them and they badly outnumbered their guards.
A frantic Confederate officer rode up to Wes. “Well, boy, don’t just stand there. Help with the escort here. We need every man.” He galloped off to search for more men. Wes despised guard duty which was usually assigned to the dregs of the regiment, those too frightened to do anything else. But today he was tired of fighting. He had survived again. With a grimace, he fell into line beside the beaten bluecoats.
Most of the men marched with their heads slumped, exhausted, frightened. The rebel guards marched beside them every ten paces or so. Ahead of Wes, a wounded Yankee stumbled over a rock and landed heavily on the road. The guard nearest the fallen soldier kicked the man in the ribs, yelling, “Get up!” Too exhausted to move, the Federal simply curled into a ball, driving the guard to kick him again and again.
Images flashed through Wes’ mind, memories of the way he had been treated as a prisoner. Suddenly, he could not bear to see this man abused, Yankee or no. He shoved the guard away, using the barrel of his musket as a lever against the man’s chest. The rebel lost his balance and fell, his face a mask of rage. Wes stood over the Yankee, his musket at the ready, prepared to fend off another attack by the irate guard. At that moment, however, the mounted officer returned and quieted the outburst. The Confederate guard glowered at Wes, then moved to catch up with the prisoners.
Wes knelt to help the Yankee. The man uncoiled painfully, allowing Wes to assist him to his feet. Looking at Wes for a moment, his filthy face softened into a smile. “Thanks,” he said. Then, gasping, he peered at him more closely. “Culp?”
Wes squinted at the man, trying to place him. The stranger’s face gradually transformed itself into one from his childhood. “Billy Holtzworth? Is it you?” The man nodded. He bore only the slightest resemblance to the boy Wes had known in Gettysburg. The two stood grinning at each other in amazement. Back in Gettysburg, Wes had despised Billy. Now, all of that seemed distant and childish. The surprise of seeing someone from his other life made him wonder who else might be here. What about the officer who looked like Will?
“The others?” Wes asked, searching Billy’s face.
“Warren got away. And I saw your brother running off just before the line caved in.” Wes drew a sudden breath, realizing how near he had come to killing his own brother. Billy continued, unaware of Wes’ inner turmoil. “Jack Skelly and I tried to run, but they got him in the shoulder and I stayed by him until they dragged me off.”
“Skelly? Where is he?” Wes said carefully.
“I left him with some other wounded men back up the road, under a clump of trees off to the right. Wes, do me one favor, will ya?”
Wes’ mind was in a whirl, thinking about his brother and Skelly both being here. But Billy grabbed his arm. “Look after Jack, will you? I think he’s hurt pretty bad. Maybe you can find a doctor for him.”
Wes stared at Billy for a moment, frowning in an effort to comprehend all of this. He had suddenly been pulled back among people he thought were out of his life forever. Billy, Jack, Will had been mere shadowy memories until a moment ago, until this quirk of fate had thrown them together again.
Billy thought he understood Wes’ hesitation. “Listen, I don’t care much for this war and I’ll wager you don’t either. What matters now is getting home. Jack needs help. Please.”
“Yeah, o’ course I’ll look after him,” Wes mumbled. Billy nodded his thanks, then put out his hand. Wes took it and, for a long moment, held it warmly. Billy was pushed back into line by a guard and, with a final look over his shoulder, disappeared into the distance.
Wes left the guard detail and set off in search of Jack, feeling oddly light-headed. He had expected hatred and rejection from his former friends but, instead, Billy had seemed glad to see him. He wondered whether the present course of the war would change the feelings of some of the others, too. The South seemed to be winning. The rebels had shown such persistence that it was only a matter of time before the politicians put a stop to all the killing.
At the top of the hill, he saw a clump of trees with a group of wounded soldiers lying beneath it, just as Billy had said. Wes walked closer, looking at each face. Then a voice broke the quiet. “Culp!”
Away from the others, Jack Skelly lay against a tree, a bloody bandage wrapped around his right shoulder. Wes steeled himself for a hostile confrontation, expecting to feel a rush of anger against this man who had taken so much from him. But Wes saw only another sorry bluecoat, wounded and hurting. It could well have been his brother.
He walked slowly toward him, kneeling so that their faces were on the same level. “Hey, Jack.”
“I sure never expected to see you again.” Jack’s pained voice was filled with amazement.
Wes tried to think of something to say. “It’s been a long time.”
“Yeah. You’ve changed. You look older. I hardly recognized you. But you’re still short, aren’t you?”
Wes laughed in spite of himself. In that other life, he might have lost his temper and punched someone for saying as much. But here, surrounded on all sides by the enormous issues which drove the war, the matter of his stature seemed laughable. Rather, it was more like a joke that now linked them. “How’s that arm?” he asked Jack.
“It hurts pretty bad, but I think I got most of the bleeding stopped.”
“We’ve got to get you to a doctor.”
Jack nodded, the movement making him wince in pain. Wes stood, looking back toward the tow
n, and searched for the red banner which would signify a hospital. He saw one on the far side of the road three or four hundred yards distant. Turning back to Skelly he asked, “Can you walk?”
“I don’t know.”
Wes bent, lifted under Jack’s good arm, and helped him to his feet. Jack, obviously in great pain, sagged against Wes’ body, his usable arm around Wes’ shoulder. Wes led him off toward the hospital.
It seemed to take forever. Several Union prisoners stared at this unlikely duo, a man in gray assisting one in blue. Several times they had to stop when Jack fainted, and Wes ended by practically carrying him. Still, it was the better part of twenty minutes before they arrived at the hospital. The sound and the stench inside were nearly overpowering, and Jack, suddenly terrified, pulled back and tried to get away.
“Don’t take me in there,” he begged, his eyes wild, pleading. “I’ve seen what they do to you. I don’t want to go in there.”
Wes tried to soothe him. “They can help you. You have to see them. You’ll die if they don’t take care of you.” In the end, it was only faintness and loss of blood that kept Jack from fleeing. He sagged limply against Wes as his legs gave out.
Sitting him against the wall outside the front door, Wes hurried inside to find a doctor. Two men were hunched over a table on which lay a young officer, writhing in pain. They were examining his left leg. It was obvious, even in the dimly lit room, that the man had caught a minie ball in the knee. The pulpy red flesh was peeled back to reveal white bone and ligament. Wes was used to seeing all manner of ghastly wounds on the battlefield, but his skin crawled as he looked at the man’s knee. The doctor straightened, nodding to his companion. As the assistant took the officer’s shoulders to hold him down, the man began to panic, yelling for heavenly intervention. He screamed at the doctors to leave him alone, to let him die rather than put him through this torture. But the doctor grabbed a bloody rag and, after soaking it with the solution from a brown bottle, placed the rag over the man’s mouth. He quieted almost immediately.
The Calm and the Strife Page 22