“But a night battle?” Venable had more than one word at a time in him after all. “How do you propose to control a night battle, Sit?”
“I don’t propose to,” Lee answered. He almost laughed at the shocked look on Venable’s face. “Can we but come to close quarters with the enemy, I think we shall break through somewhere along the line. Once we do, the advantage will be ours—and with it, I hope, Washington City.”
“Yes, sir.” Venable did not sound convinced. Lee was not altogether convinced himself. He was convinced, however, that the Army of Northern Virginia would never have a better chance to take Washington. And if the Federal capital fell into Southern hands, how could Britain and France and the rest of the world continue to deny the Confederate States of America were as true and genuine a nation as the United States? The stakes made the risk worthwhile.
He dictated orders, sent them to his corps commanders. The army began to shift into a line that centered on the Seventh Street Road, from the earthworks of Fort Slocum in the east past Fort Stevens to Fort de Russy in the southwest. The sun slipped down the western sky. Lee watched the Federal lines and waited. He did his best to appear impassive, but his heart thudded in his chest, and with the thudding came pain. Absently, he slid one of the little white pills from Andries Rhoodie under his tongue. The pain went away.
Twilight was deepening when Walter Taylor came up and said, “Sir, Rhoodie requests permission to speak to you.”
The Rivington man had not been so formal before Lee defied him. At first Lee intended to say he was too busy. Then, remembering the nitroglycerine tablet, he softened. “Tell him he may, but to be quick.”
Taylor led Rhoodie up to Lee. “General,” Rhoodie said, politely dipping his head. Lee returned the gesture. Taking Lee’s warning literally, Rhoodie plunged ahead: “General Lee, if you intend to attack the Federal forts tomorrow, my men and I can help.”
“I intend to attack tonight, sir,” Lee answered, and had the somber satisfaction of watching Rhoodie’s jaw drop. The Rivington man muttered something in his own guttural language.
But he quickly recovered. “You’re as bold as you are said to be, that’s certain. We can still help you, maybe even more. Whatever the differences you and I have had, America: Will Break aims for the South to win this war.”
That was the gamble Lee had made when he defied the big man from the future. Now he said, “Thank you, Mr. Rhoodie, but you’ve already furnished us plenty of repeaters.” He pointed to the AK-47 slung on Rhoodie’s back. “The handful you and your comrades might add will make scant difference in the outcome of the fight.”
“But we have something you do not.” The Rivington man took from his knapsack a green—painted spheroid a little bigger than a baseball. A metal shaft stuck out from it. “This is a rifle grenade, General. The AK-47 can shoot one about three hundred yards. They should do nicely for spreading confusion in the Federal trenches and forts, wouldn’t you say?”
“A rifle grenade?” The Federals sometimes used hand grenades fused with percussion caps. They were, however, limited by the strength of a man’s arm. Shot from rifles…”It would almost be as if we were shelling them without employing artillery, wouldn’t it?”
“Exactly,” Rhoodie said.
“Any surprise we can effect will surely accrue to our advantage. Very well, Mr. Rhoodie, you and your men may proceed. I aim to move forward at ten tonight. You will, I presume, wish to obtain your firing positions somewhat before that time.”
“Yes, General. Let us move out a bit ahead of your forces so we can soften the way for them.”
“I sincerely appreciate your joining in our fight, sir.” Though he did not say so, Lee was also curious to see how the Rivington men would fare in combat. Konrad de Buys fought well enough on horseback to satisfy as exacting a critic of courage as Jeb Stuart. So far as Lee knew, though, none of the other men from America Will Break had gone into action. He thought of them more as military engineers than frontline troops. Of course, his own career had also begun in the engineers…”Good luck to you, Mr. Rhoodie.”
“Thank you, General. May we meet again tomorrow, inside Washington.” Rhoodie touched a finger to the brim of his mottled cap and hurried away. Lee watched till he was out of sight. However brutal some of the principles he espoused, he knew the right wish to make.
“Pin that on there good for me, Nate,” Alsie Hopkins said. Caudell made sure the scrap of paper was securely attached to the back of Hopkins’s shirt. As he stepped away, the private went on, “Thanks for writin’ it for me, too.”
“I hope you don’t need it, that’s all, Alsie,” Caudell said. He’d written names and home towns or counties for several soldies already tonight. If they died assaulting the fortifications ahead—which seemed only too likely—their loved ones might eventually learn they had fallen. For that matter, he’d had Edwin Powell pin his own name on the back of his shirt.
He saw Mollie Bean checking her rifle by firelight. He knew she had trouble with her letters; he’d taught her a little out of a primer every so often. But when he asked her if she wanted him to write her name for her, she shook her head. “Only people who care a damn whether I live or die are right here in the company with me.”
Captain Lewis strode from fire to fire. “Into formation,” he said quietly. “It’s time.” No drums or bugles announced the rebels’ assembly, the better to keep the Federals from learning what Lee intended.
The sky was gray and overcast as Caudell came to the edge of the strip the Yankees had denuded of standing trees. The Federal forts and trenches that lay on the high ground ahead were deeper darknesses against the night. Caudell was grateful no moonlight betrayed his comrades to the bluecoats with field glasses and telescopes who were surely peering out at their foes.
“We advance in skirmisher order,” Captain Lewis said. “They’ll hurt us less with their artillery that way, and the repeaters should let us fight through their trenches once we get up to them. God bless every one of you, and may you all come through safe.”
“You too, Cap’n,” several soldiers called to him. Caudell said nothing aloud, but the thought was in his mind.
Lewis held his watch close to his face, waited, swung his arm forward. Caudell and the company’s other proper skirmishers moved out ahead of the rest of the men. He felt horribly exposed to the Yankee guns, as if he were going into battle naked. He quivered every time he stepped on a dry leaf or broke a twig with his foot.
Like flowing shadows, the Confederates moved forward all along the line. It seemed impossible the Federals could not see them, could not hear the beat of their feet against the soil, the jingle of cartridges in their pockets. But stride after cautious stride brought Caudell closer to the enemy works without the slightest sign the men inside them guessed he and his fellows were coming.
The ground was so bad a tight battle line could not have held together in any case, not even in daylight. The Federals had left on the ground most of the trees they’d felled. Caudell was constantly on the dodge and fell several times when branches he hadn’t seen tripped him.
He’d advanced perhaps a third of the way when the Federals woke up. Drums began to pound within their lines, beating out the same long roll that called the Confederates to action. A flash of light from an opening in the embrasure of Fort Stevens, a boom—a louder, deeper boom than any he’d heard from a cannon before—and a shell screamed through the night to crash down somewhere behind Caudell. Men screamed back there. Another blast came, and another, and another, as all the fort’s eight-inch howitzers and thirty-pounder Parrott rifles opened up.
Sparks of light blinked on and off in the rifle pits in front of the main Federal trench. They reminded Caudell of the fireflies he’d always loved. He would not think of fireflies in the same way again. Still, pickets shooting into the night at the range of a mile could hit someone only by luck.
More explosions came from Fort Stevens. Not all of them, though, seemed to accompany shots f
rom the big siege guns—some sounded more like shells landing than cannon going off. But Lee’s field artillery was only now starting to go into action. It had had to move up with the infantry so its guns could reach the forts.
Whatever the explosions were, they disrupted the smooth firing Caudell had seen from the Federal artillerymen outside Bealeton. That was a blessing—every Northern shell not fired meant Southern men not dead.
Some of the flashes from the Yankee rifle pits were not aimed at the oncoming Confederates, but at each other, or perhaps at a space between two of them. No sooner had Caudell made that guess than a chatter of AK-47 fire confirmed it. Somehow, Lee had snuck somebody up close to the Federal line before the main attack got rolling. Caudell wondered if those advance scouts were somehow responsible for the troubles the Federal cannoneers were having. He hoped so.
He tramped on toward the waiting Federals. Here and there, soldiers in the rebels’ leading ranks began to shoot. He knew those bullets were probably wasted, but sometimes a man had to answer the enemies who were trying to lay him low.
He was within a couple of hundred yards of the abatis of downed trees that protected the trenches ahead when one of the guns from Fort Stevens let go with a blast of canister. He threw himself flat when he heard the deadly hiss of the lead balls. Canister fire from a Napoleon was dreadful enough. Canister fire from an eight-inch gun…When he turned his head, he saw that a gap had been blown in the line to his right, as neatly and thoroughly as if the men had been swept away by a broom.
By then the Yankees were shooting from their main line. Caudell stayed low, trying to find a swell of ground behind which to shelter before he scuttled forward again. The abatis loomed ahead. Already rebels were pulling saplings out of the way to make paths for their comrades to reach the trenches. The bluecoats shot them down as they worked. More men took their places.
Others answered the Federal fire. Had they had only rifle muskets, their task would have been hopeless, for they were exposed while their enemies enjoyed good shelter. But the AK-47s fired enough faster than Springfields to redress the balance. As more and more Confederates got up to and through the abatis, they began to beat down the defenders’ fire.
Sharp branches tore at Caudell’s clothes as he pushed toward the trench line. For a moment, he thought he was back in the Wilderness; some of the undergrowth there had been about as thick as this deliberately made obstruction. The Federal fire was worse here, though. He saw the glint of a rifle barrel as it swung to point straight at him. He fired first, then ducked low—the muzzle flash would have drawn Yankees’ notice to him. Sure enough, two bullets cracked through the space where he had been standing a moment before.
He crawled forward. There was already fighting in the trenches, Confederates and Federals shooting and shouting and cursing as hard and fast as they could. He recognized Springfields by their reports. and by the clouds of smoke that rose like swirling fog when they were fired. He shot into the fogbank once, twice, heard a man cry out. He thought the cry carried a Northern accent. He hoped it did. He slid down into the trench on his backside.
“Keep moving!” a Southern voice cried, authority behind it. “We don’t want to stay stuck in these damned trenches. It’s the city we want, Washington City. Keep moving!”
That was easier said than done. The Federals fought desperately. Their numbers made their single-shot muzzle-loaders almost a match for the rebels’ repeaters. Every new corner in the earthworks brought deadly danger. In hand-to-hand combat, the bayonets that tipped Yankee Springfields were actually of use.
A shell landed in a Federal-held section of trench. Caudell yowled like a catamount. Then another shell exploded, and another, and another, the blasts spaced much too close together to come from even the quickest-firing gun. “What the hell is that?” somebody shouted.
“I don’t rightly know, but I think it’s on our side,” Caudell shouted back. Anything less than a shout went unnoticed in the din. He howled out a rebel yell, as much to tell himself he was still alive and fighting as for any other reason.
Yet another of those mysterious shells crashed down among the Yankees. Behind Caudell, somebody yelled, “Go on, you lazy buggers. I’ve put the fear of God in them for you.” The shouter did not sound like a Southern man, but Caudell recognized his voice all the same: it was Benny Lang.
He turned around. For a moment, he thought the Rivington man had the trick of invisibility. Not only were his clothes splotchy, but he’d also painted his face in dark, jagged stripes. Only his fierce grin told where he was. Instead of his usual cap, he wore on his head what looked like a mottled pot. “What the devil’s that?” Caudell asked, pointing.
“A helmet,” Lang answered. “You bloody bastards can do just as you please, but I don’t fancy getting shot in the head—or anywhere else, come to that.” He had an AK-47 in his hands and another on his back. He stuffed something fair-sized and roundish into the muzzle of the rifle he was holding. When he fired, the report sounded strange, almost metallic. An instant later, another crash went up from the trenches. Lang must have seen Caudell’s flabbergasted expression. His voice was smug: “Rifle grenade.”
“Whatever you say.” Without thinking, Caudell grabbed the Rivington man by the arm and yanked him toward the fighting. “Come on. Let’s take ‘em out.” Only later did he remember that Lang could have thrown him through the air if he didn’t care to come along. But Lang just shrugged and followed.
The grenade bombardment cleared a long stretch of trench; Caudell stepped on and over bodies, some still, others thrashing in torment. Not only that, the rain of explosives seemingly from nowhere had set a good many unhurt Yankees running. Not all, though. A bluecoat raised himself up on one knee, fired from the hip. The bullet caught Benny Lang in the belly. “Oof!” he said.
Caudell cut the Federal down with a short burst of fire. Then he turned to see how Lang was. Actually, he was already sure. Belly wounds always killed, if not from loss of blood, then from fever.
But Lang was not down and screaming, was not, in fact, down at all. He hurried past Caudell, calling back over his shoulder, “Come on, damn it. They’re wavering. We can break them.”
“Wait a minute.” Caudell reached out and took Lang’s shoulder, this time to hold him back. “I saw you shot,” he shouted in the Rivington man’s face. “Why aren’t you dead?” Put that way, the question sounded stupid, but Caudell didn’t care. He didn’t think he believed in ghosts, either, but he would hardly have been surprised to feel his fingers sink straight through what should have been Benny Lang’s flesh.
But Lang remained solid. Under the brim of his helmet, his thin face bore a smirk. “Yes, I was shot. My belly’ll have a bruise tomorrow, too, I should expect. As for why I’m not dead—” He took Caudell’s hand, set it where the Minié ball had struck. Under his tunic, he wore something with flat, hard scales. “Flak jacket.”
“What’s a flapjack?” Caudell asked, wondering if he’d heard straight.
“It’s body armor. Now get moving, damn you. We’ve wasted too bloody much time here already.”
Caudell got moving, his mind awhirl. No one wore armor—armor thick enough to stop a rifle bullet would have put enough steel on a soldier to double his weight. But there went Benny Lang, moving lightly down the length of trench he’d cleared, the trench where his guts and his life hadn’t spilled into the dirt. Caudell wanted to shake the Rivington man like a terrier shaking a rat, to shake from him the secret of where he’d found that impossible armor.
The same place he found his rifle grenades, the first sergeant thought, and then, a moment later, the same place the Rivington men found these AK-47s. The only trouble was, Caudell could not imagine where in the world that place might be.
He did not dwell on it for long. The Federals tried to counterattack, but by then enough rebels had come forward to chew their assault to bloody rags. And then, without warning, a blast like the end of the world came from Fort Stevens. Caudell stag
gered. He dropped his rifle to clap both hands to his ears. Bursting shells filled the sky, a thousand Fourths of July an boiled down into an instant. Night turned to noon.
He saw Benny Lang’s lips move as that unnatural light faded, but his hearing was still stunned. He shook his head. As he stooped to recover his repeater, Lang put his mouth against his ear and screamed, “The magazine’s gone up!”
He heard the Rivington man as if from many miles away, but he heard him. Maybe he wouldn’t be deaf forever after an. And certainly, he thought as the ability to think slowly returned, Fort Stevens wouldn’t work any more murder against the men in gray.
A little later another magazine, this one from a fort farther away, also blew up. “Fort de Russy,” Lang shouted—he didn’t quite have to scream anymore for Caudell to hear him. “Or maybe that was Battery Sill, between Stevens and de Russy.” Caudell didn’t care which magazine it was. He was just glad it was gone.
He heard a roar ahead. That he heard it meant it was loud. Wondering what had gone wrong, he hurried toward the noise, his AK-47 at the ready. By the fickle light of explosions behind him, he scrambled up onto high ground. A good many Confederates were already there, all of them yelling like madmen. He stared, wondering what had taken possession of them. Then he started yelling himself. He and his comrades had fought their way through the Federal trenches. Now no set defenses remained between them and Washington City.
Which did not mean the untaken Yankee forts had quit fighting. He threw himself flat when a big shell came down far too close for comfort. “Keep moving!” an officer cried—a sensible command which Caudell had grown thoroughly tired of tonight. The officer went on, “The farther inside their lines we get, the fewer of those cannon will bear on us.” Suddenly given a good, sensible reason to move, Caudell scrambled to his feet and ran south as fast as he could go.
The Guns of the South Page 22