Purgatory's Shore

by Taylor Anderson

  The guns had barely stopped moving before men seized their spokes to roll them back into battery. Others were clearing and thumbing the vents and bringing fresh charges and shot from the limbers. Lewis watched the 12pdr crews race each other through the motions of his modified, standardized drill. The Number Two men on the left dashed their sponges in water buckets before swabbing hot barrels, then handing their implements to the Number Five men, took the ammunition brought in a pouch and thrust it in the muzzle. The Number One men to the right of the guns had been waiting, rammer heads poised. Now they leaned in, driving the fixed charges down to the breeches in single smooth strokes. Both gave them quick taps to make sure they were seated (or just for luck) before withdrawing their rammers and standing away. All this time—six entire seconds—the Number Three men had been pressing leather thumbstalls hard on the vents. Now they raced to the handspikes inserted in the trails of the carriages as the gunners stepped forward. Placing their sights, gunners aimed through the smoke, adjusting elevation with the screws and windage by hand signals to the Threes on the handspikes, who shifted the guns side to side. Taking their sights, the gunners stood clear and signaled they were satisfied. The Threes then returned to their places and stabbed brass picks in the vents they’d tended, piercing the woolen powder bags in front of the breech faces before securing the brass hammers on the Hidden’s Patent locks. That’s when the Fours primed the guns with the large, strange-looking percussion caps that this day might also see the end of, forcing them to revert to linstocks and slow match. But now the Fours stretched lanyards to the sides, ensured their crews were clear, then signaled their gun was ready to fire.

  Both 12pdrs and most of the rest were ready in less than thirty seconds—very quick for inexperienced crews’ first action together. And few things satisfied Lewis as much as watching well-run guns; men performing carefully coordinated tasks and steps in perfect sequence without a word reminded him of a ballet. He remembered what seemed like just a few weeks before when words were necessary to train them, of course, and they’d “loaded by detail” with a command for each step. They learned their trade just like the infantry did, but infantrymen were only responsible for their own weapons and didn’t need to synchronize loading them with others once they knew how, except for show. Artillery required their crews to perform their intricate dance in silence—words were hard to hear in battle—to send each round downrange. Lewis had heard it called the “dance of death,” and that was very apt, but preferred to think of it as an example of absolute cooperation among disparate men who might not even like each other. It gave him hope that all men might cooperate as well if the cause was dear enough.

  “Fire!” bellowed Lieutenant Hudgens. Poom! Poom! Pppooom! Poom!

  CHAPTER 35

  Hammer your flints and clear your vents, lads,” called Sergeant Visser of the 3rd Pennsylvania. All 760 men of the regiment were waiting, fully formed, inside the trees a few hundred yards south-southeast of where Major Cayce’s little force had deployed in front of the whole Dom army.

  “Hammered to a sparkless nub is mine, Sergeant dear,” replied a nervous soldier.

  “Then replace it while you can,” Visser growled. “Our turn’s coming.” He looked at Hanny Cox and hissed, “Scared, son?”

  “My God, the Major’s tearing them up!” cried Captain Wagley, creeping back from the brushy edge of the woods, collapsing his telescope and mounting his horse. His tone had been gleeful but it held a hint of anxious overexcitement as he continued. “They’ve finally started their infantry moving—and there’s a godawful lot of them, widening their front as regiments shift from column into line. Prettily done, I must say. Looks like a parade. But every gun in Hudgens’s Battery is throwing the sweetest shot!” A muted cheer escaped the Americans and Uxmalos in the 3rd. They were conscious of the need to remain undetected, but the growing roar of artillery had made perfect silence superfluous. Besides, the Doms had indeed focused all their attention on Major Cayce’s tiny force—just as he’d planned—and twenty or more big guns were pounding back at him. Not even Wagley had seen how effective they were, but the din was tremendous.

  “No, Sergeant, I’m not afraid,” Cox denied determinedly, with a glance aside at Apo and back at Preacher Mac. He was absently rolling the trailing staff of the cased Stars and Stripes in his hands.

  “Liar,” Visser whispered with a grin. “I’m scared to death!”

  “You?”

  “Of course I am, boy.” Visser nodded out at the washboard glade, quickly becoming a battlefield. “We’re next. You and I and some of the lads’re the only ones who already faced this enemy.” He glanced at Hanny’s friend Apo, the new color-bearer for the cased Pennsylvania flag. They’d recovered it after all the lancers that overran them were killed. Hanny was glad to have Apo beside him, but was worried about him too. Visser raised his voice. “Any man unafraid to step out there and face those devils has lost his intellects. But fear don’t make you a coward; it makes you a goddamn hero! It’s how you use your fear that counts, how you overcome it and do what needs doin’ in spite of it, hear?” He smiled back at Hanny. “Now tell me the truth.”

  “I’m terrified!” Apo admitted with a shaky grin.

  Hanny nodded. “Well . . . I suppose I am a little afraid—and though I’m sensible to the honor, I’d prefer a musket to this flag staff. But the funny thing is, I wasn’t afraid when we fought the lancers. Not like this. It must be because it all happened so fast. This . . .” He nodded at the smoky field. “Marching here in the dark with monsters all around us—I heard the Jaguar Warriors fighting a large one with their bows and was sure it—or another one—would get me. . . .” He shivered in spite of the heat. “But then we were here, making ready, and waiting so long with the enemy so close. . . . It’s the ponderousness of it all that makes me so apprehensive.”

  “ ‘Ponderous’ means ‘slow’?” Apo asked. Visser nodded, then patted his and Hanny’s shoulders before gesturing out to the west. Though the Americans remained invisible under the trees, the long yellow-and-black lines of the Dom infantry pressing into the storm of Hudgens’s shot under their bloodred flags could now be clearly seen.

  “Well,” Visser said, “while the enemy’s certainly ponderous in his movements, we’re about to step off quick. Not much of anything’ll seem ‘slow’ after that.”

  * * *

  A man fell screaming, rammer staff twirling, as dark earth and grass rocketed in the air by one of Hudgens’s 6pdrs, a Dom roundshot bounding up and away to crack into the trees behind them.

  “They’re getting better, sir,” Hudgens shouted at Lewis. The enemy cannonade had been furious from the start but had very little effect—mostly striking short and skating over its target or splintering trees in the woods—and Lewis’s artillery had largely ignored it, focusing on shredding densely packed men instead. He wouldn’t be surprised if his few guns alone hadn’t already killed or wounded hundreds of the enemy. But the Doms figured this out and began laboriously advancing their guns by hand with their infantry. One reason the infantry approach was so slow. Repositioned at five hundred yards, the enemy gunners were firing everything they had at their counterparts. This preserved Lewis’s tiny force of infantry and dismounted troopers, but was starting to take a toll on his cannoneers. None of his precious weapons had been seriously damaged yet—a few shattered spokes on one—but more than a dozen of Hudgens’s men had been killed or injured.

  “Leave the twelve pounders in place and keep pouring in the solid shot. Switch to canister at three hundred yards,” Lewis told him. “Get your six pounders moving from flank to flank to spoil the enemy’s aim and target their guns.” He hesitated. He’d hoped to save his exploding case for “later,” but there might not be a “later” if he held back now. “They can use case to kill the crews.”

  A roundshot gouged the earth right between Arete’s feet, spraying long grass blades around in a cloud. She merel
y walked in a circle and returned to her place and Lewis patted her neck affectionately. Leonor, Barca, and Willis, still on their horses as well, looked at him with mixed expressions.

  “A fine, fine animal,” Varaa observed, walking up. Nearly everyone else had dismounted, even Captain Anson up on the line, where he commanded the “skirmishers” and kept relaying Lieutenant Meder’s request for permission to open fire with his riflemen. Lewis would let them momentarily, also at three hundred yards, and other things would begin to happen then as well. Observers in the trees and especially messengers from the south had reported the enemy was fully committed: six entire Dom regiments of roughly two thousand men apiece and all their guns except the monstrous siege pieces. Only three regiments and the lancers—about eight thousand total—were being kept as a distant reserve or to guard their camp. Considering the almost mile-long gap that had formed, only the lancers might still be an immediate additional concern.

  “A fine animal,” Varaa repeated, “certainly worth preserving. I might say the same for her rider and those around him,” she added pointedly, flicking her ears at Leonor as if hoping she might persuade him. No help there. Leonor and Barca seemed utterly unfazed, faces set in determination to remain with Lewis no matter what. Willis alone looked profoundly unhappy, but Varaa had noted a change in him, especially since last night. She wasn’t sure if he wanted away from his commander or just off the horse he hated. She sighed. “If you won’t withdraw to safety and direct your battle like a rational being, at least step down and make yourselves less conspicuous!”

  “Worried about me, Varaa?” Lewis asked with a grin as the first section of 6pdrs, secured and limbered within seconds of the command, thundered past behind them headed for the flank closest to the sea. Lewis watched them go, then raised his gaze to the sea itself.

  “I’m worried about you all, of course,” Varaa retorted. “Us all, if you fall.”

  Lewis shook his head. “I need to see.”

  “Then climb a tree!”

  “Don’t worry,” Lewis said, “you could finish this battle without me, or Captain Anson or Major Reed could.”

  “You’re too confident,” Varaa scolded. “And what of the next battle? And the next? Even if we win, do you think this will be the end of it?”

  “Of course not,” Lewis denied, nodding toward the enemy as the other section of 6pdrs wheeled out to the right. The first pair of guns had already unlimbered, loaded, and belched their first sputtering case shot over the enemy. Ragged white puffs of smoke appeared in the sky, and musket balls and shards of hot iron slashed down on a Dom gun crew. “They’re too confident—they always have been, and it’s about to cost them. Commence firing your rifles, Lieutenant Meder!” he shouted, the command repeated. A rapid crackle immediately ensued when Felix’s impatient troops opened up with their excellent M1817s. Surprised, shrieking Doms started dropping from the advancing front rank from farther than they could effectively reply with muskets. Their examination of enemy weapons captured the night before confirmed what they’d already seen: they were mechanically sound and reliable, but fired a .70 caliber ball from rolled and forge-welded barrels with bore diameters ranging from .74 to .80 caliber. They might be lethal at this range, but probably couldn’t hit a specific target much past forty yards. “Still, they’ll reply soon, distance or not,” Lewis thought aloud. “And with their numbers, accuracy isn’t as important.”

  “Put enough lead in the air, they’re bound to hit somethin’,” Leonor agreed. “An’ they’ll charge us soon, I bet. Gotta be hard on ’em, just takin’ it this long.”

  “Exactly.” Lewis nodded. “Private Willis, my respects to Colonel De Russy, and ask if he’d be so good as to bring his infantry forward, just behind the skirmish line. We’ll be needing their pikes.”

  “With pleasure, sir—if I can get off this savage beast when I deliver the message,” Willis said tightly.

  “Of course. And stay with the colonel, since I have Barca with me.”

  “Oh, no sir, I’ll be back directly,” Willis hastily assured.

  Barca pursed his lips. “I should go to the colonel, sir. I should’ve been with him all along, and he might need me.”

  Lewis looked significantly at Varaa. “Certainly. He might need others as well.”

  Varaa blinked an objection and whipped her tail but jumped up behind Barca, and the trio galloped the short distance back to where the guards nervously stood in their extended ranks. A few had been hit by enemy shot—their first taste of such a thing and traumatic to those who saw it—but hadn’t sustained anything like the enemy casualties.

  Though surrounded by their little force and the growing noise of battle, for the moment, Lewis and Leonor were alone in a sense.

  “It’s shapin’ into a rare fight, Major Cayce,” Leonor said, almost shyly, “but I enjoyed our earlier dance together even more. Just . . . had to say that.”

  Lewis looked at her, astonished, suddenly snatched from the detached sphere that had apparently formed around him. It was a different plane of focus and concentration that seemed to enfold him at times like this, when, though keenly aware of his surroundings, he was living the battle, wading through it, even—God help him—loving it. Varaa had seen it, probably knew what it was like herself, but with the battle raging as much in his head as it was around him, the meaning behind her warning that as long as he paraded around on his horse, Leonor—not just other soldiers—would do the same, hadn’t really penetrated. Only Leonor’s utterly unexpected admission did that.

  Not trusting himself to reply, he looked to the front. Sure enough, the Doms had stopped, and at nearly two hundred and fifty yards, the first and second ranks of three regiments—probably three thousand men—leveled their long muskets to aim.

  “Section! Load canister!” Hudgens roared at the crews of his 12pdrs.

  “Stand by the signal,” Lewis told the bugler Lieutenant Burton left him, now belatedly, desperately, wanting the young woman beside him off her horse and lying on the ground. It would be pointless to order her. He’d have to throw her down, and there wasn’t time. “Thank you,” he told her, and the Dom muskets fired.

  They survived the first volley, and the second, though they had to be the primary targets of an awful lot of men and the air around them literally screamed with the flight of balls. One of Lewis’s reins was cut, as was his left sleeve from cuff to elbow. His hat whipped off his head and a shoulder board spiraled away while clippings of Arete’s fur and mane drifted downwind like mown hay. Leonor and her horse were equally charmed because aside from some holes in her loose-fitting jacket, some blood trickling from a graze on her left ear, and one of her stirrups and a boot heel shot away, she seemed little the worse for it and actually laughed!

  Both 12pdrs, some of their crewmen scattered or stumbling as others ran up from the limber to help or replace them, roared and leaped back, spewing great clouds of smoke touched by the yellowish tinge of canister, and great swathes of Doms went down, disappearing entirely in grass as tall as their knees. Smoldering chunks of sabots landed among them as well, and smoke started rising in several patches.

  “Bugler!” Lewis shouted, “sound the signal!”

  But the bugler was down, writhing on the ground. A lot of men were down, it seemed, but more were firing at the Doms, even the men with carbines. The guards were coming up resolutely, stepping in time with the thundering drums, expressions a study in contrasts between terror, determination, and fury. Lewis saw De Russy, naked sword blade resting on his shoulder, joined by Barca, marching beside the streaming flag of Uxmal. Varaa was exhorting the others bearing the Stars and Stripes forward as well. Willis was back, looking around in quick, jerky motions, eyes wide. “Let’s step down and join your father,” Lewis told Leonor. “Private Willis, take our horses to the rear, if you please.”

  “Which I will if I must, sir,” he anxiously chirped, reaching for the
reins they handed him. In an instant, he was gone, just as a third massive Dom volley sheeted through the defenders, sending more of them sprawling. A small number of the front rank of Uxmalo guards had their own firearms, and they’d double-timed forward to join the Rangers, dragoons, and musketoon-armed lancers, shooting as fast as they could. The gunsmoke was thick, but so was the darker smoke of little fires the sabots had ignited. Even as Lewis shouted for Hudgens’s bugler, he wondered how grass so green could burn. Probably some kind of resin in it, he decided, like the cordgrass at Palo Alto.

  The bleeding bugler was beside him now, eyes disoriented. “Do you know the signal for Captain Wagley?” he demanded.

  “I do, sir,” he managed strongly, sounding very Irish.

  “Then sound it now!”

  * * *

  “We can’t go yet; we ain’t heard the signal!” one of the men in the 3rd Pennsylvania cried.

  “They must’a sounded it. We just never heard it over all them goddamn guns. Look how close they are, goin’ at it hammer an’ tongs, an’ the Doms so bloody ripe! Their right flank’s there in front of us, swingin’ in the breeze!”

  Captain Wagley apparently agreed, and, his urgent request for permission from Major Reed now granted, he gave the order to advance.

  “Forward, lads, through that tangly brush, then dress your ranks,” the recently elected Lieutenant Ulrich cried, his fine singing voice projecting well. “Forward, march!”

  No command was given for the men to shoulder their arms, and many were surprised by that, even though the brush at the edge of the woods was so thick. Then again, their newest officers came from the ranks and hadn’t yet lost all practical understanding. No matter how well the Ocelomeh cleared these woods, no one could clear everything, and a surprising number of very strange creatures—many quite frightening, but more frightened of the noise and mass of men now pushing them—leaped from their brushy lairs and bolted into the clearing. Trailing their arms or carrying them at the ready even though NCOs had warned of brutal punishments if any were loaded, the troops at least had their fixed bayonets to probe hiding places as they went. This gave them confidence to advance in something like an orderly formation. And just as the whole 3rd Pennsylvania finally cleared the brush and quickly dressed its ranks, they did hear the tinny sound of a bugle, muted by the clatter of independent fire and the crash of volleys.