March Toward the Thunder Part 14

wishing for the war to cease.

Many are the hearts that are looking to the right

to see the dawn of Peace.

Tenting tonight, tenting tonight,

tenting on the old camp ground."

The second time around, Bull, then Kirk, then Louis, then even more of the other men who had been working in the darkness to each side of them joined in. Louis was never sure just how many voices finally raised together. A hundred? A thousand? But when they stopped, he heard what seemed to be an echo. Then he recognized it for what it was. Other voices from farther off had taken up the tune-Rebel soldiers whose minds and hearts and bodies were just as weary of war.

And as they sang, voices uniting the darkness, rain began to fall.

Not rain. Tears. Tears from our Great Creator's eyes. He knows what we are all soon to do.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

AFTER COLD HARBOR.

Sat.u.r.day, June 4, 1864

Louis gritted his teeth as he tried to lever the log into place. An arrow of pain stabbed into the bruised small of his back. He wiped the moisture from his eyes with his other sleeve. His arm rustled against a sheet of paper stuck to his chest. He looked down at it in momentary confusion, read the words upside down.

Who put that there?

He did. He'd printed those letters, pinned that paper in place a full day ago.

He pictured the scene again. Hundreds of other blue-coated soldiers carefully lettering their ident.i.ties onto white sheets with a calmness that belied their fears. From the greenest private to the oldest veteran, they'd all known what would happen when the bugles blew the advance.

Cold Harbor. Not a port where ships might come in, although the sluggish Pamunkey River ran behind them. Cold Harbor had been the name of a white-framed tavern in a nearby grove. Now, though, it was the name of the nearby field of battle. Cold Harbor. A place that gave cold comfort, for sure.

Louis closed his eyes. He didn't want to see it, but the images came to him just the same.

Rain before dawn. After a night so hot that the downpour was a blessed relief to some. But Louis had another thought as heavy drops fell from thick clouds, obscuring all signs of sunrise.

Great Creator knows what is going to happen. He's closed the eyes of the sky so He doesn't have to watch.

"All-out a.s.sault?" Hayes said, gesturing at the steep hill ahead.

Too steep. Too much open ground to cross.

"Break through that line?" the corporal continued in the questioning monotone that had become his voice.

A short month ago Sergeant Flynn's right-hand man had been one of those neat, precise men who did as he was told and never felt the need to think deeply. Well-groomed as Flynn was rumpled, Hayes always had his hair combed, his red mustache exactly trimmed. But though he'd leap to Flynn's every command, he'd never seemed weak.

Now something's missing in Hayes. Still does as ordered. But there's a dark edge of doubt.

But who wouldn't have doubts, seeing those giant earthworks stretching all the way from the Chicahominy River to Totopotomoy Creek?

Every time we break through, their next fortification is just that much stronger.

"We far outnumber the forces left to Lee. Prisoners have told us that the ranks are so short of food, they're boiling their shoes to eat-if they're lucky enough to still have shoes. They'll crumble like a piece of day-old corn bread at our first attack. The whole war could be over by the weekend."

That was what Colonel Byrnes, their new commander, said.

Then the bugles sounded.

The Irish Brigade and all the rest, a full 50,000 men, surged forward.

"Huzzah!" men shouted. "Huzzah!"

Their shouts and thudding feet in quick step, flap of brigade and battalion flags in the winds, the occasional pop of a musket from their own ranks as some overeager soldier pulled a trigger out of sheer nervousness. But no enemy fire. Yet.

His breath burning because his throat was so tense, Louis trotted beside his friends.

Farther up the hill.

Farther still.

Were the Rebs truly there behind those earth walls? Or had they retreated in fear of the great ma.s.s of determined men coming up the hill against them?

Less than fifty yards till we reach the works. We might . . .

Hundreds of black hats suddenly appeared above the dark earthworks. Like a shudder of lightning, the wall burst into flame. So many Southern rifles fired at once that it seemed more a volcanic blast than a volley. Then, less than a heartbeat later, the Southern artillery barrage began. Unlike other battles where Confederate gunners had a hard time finding the range, their aim was brutally accurate.

How long did it just take for 12,000 men in blue to be killed or wounded?

Things seemed to move around him in slow motion, but Louis knew it was all happening at a breathtaking pace. So many Rebel guns fired that men were struck not by one shot or two, but by half a dozen b.a.l.l.s all at once.

Out of the corner of his eye, Louis saw the puffs of dust fogging out from uniforms as men were mowed down like wheat to either side. He tripped over a fallen body, lurched sideways, then was driven to his knees by two sledgehammer blows that struck low in the middle of his back.

His face pressing into the earth, dirt in his mouth, his arms flung out in front of himself.

Am I dead?

Somehow breath came back to his lungs. Hands tugged him up, lifted him to his feet, thrust the rifle back into his hands. Joker. Kirk. Bull.

Move, he told his feet. Thud of artillery. Ducking under the banshee screams of sh.e.l.ls. Stumbling as the ground shakes like a badly laid board floor.

I'm alive. But how?

Hours later he'd discover that the tight-rolled rubber poncho on his back had stopped two minie b.a.l.l.s.

Eight minutes. That was how long it took for most of the Union offensive to be stopped in its tracks. Those not hit by enemy fire went to their bellies, trying to sc.r.a.pe out rifle pits with hands, drinking cups, bayonets. Pinned down, desperate, unable to move forward or back. Bullets and sh.e.l.ls thick as burning hail.

Not all stopped. The Brigade and the Legion pushed forward without pause. Though their ranks thinned, they pushed on, step by step up that endless hill.

A Gray soldier rose and raised a rifle. Louis hurled his body against the Reb, who fell back into the trench and was lost in the smoke.

"Brave work, boy," someone shouted at Louis.

Colonel James McMahon, 164th New York.

The colonel was holding the flag in both hands, planting it atop the entrenchment.

Should I salute, him being a superior officer?

A fool thought in the midst of battle, but before Louis could do anything-foolish or not-the smile on McMahon's face faded. His eyes rolled up, his legs folded beneath him.

Louis reached for the colonel as a spinning piece of hot metal from an exploding sh.e.l.l whistled by his ear. He found himself holding not the man, but the pole of that flag that had been planted. The colonel's torn body slumped at his feet. Someone took the flag from Louis's hand. Time to load and fire again and again.

How did we do it? Not only took that hill but held it two hours against one counterattack after another?

Only after the artillery was trained on them did they retreat. Eyes half-blind with sweat and smoke, blood and tears. Never running. Never turning their backs. Step by step, they fought their way back to rifle pits fifty yards from the enemy lines uphill.

There they stayed. Then "b.l.o.o.d.y Grant," as some called him now, sent orders down for another a.s.sault. And a sort of miracle happened.

"Our own General Hanc.o.c.k, may the Saints preserve him," said Sergeant Flynn, lifting up the cross that hung around his neck to kiss it, "did not even relay those orders t' his officers. General Smith of the Eighteenth Corps said that he plain refused to obey. Every living soul left among the tatters of our three corps knew 'twas impossible. So, after issuing that madman's order two more times with not a man movin' forward so much as an inch, b.l.o.o.d.y Grant saw 'twas either court-martial the whole army or pretend he'd never said such a thing. So here we are building better earthworks than those we sc.r.a.ped out with our blessed fingernails in that G.o.dforsaken attack. Here lads, let me put me shoulder t' that."

The sergeant stepped forward to help lift the log that Louis and Devlin had been trying to wedge into place atop their fortification. Flynn stepped back, dusted his hands, and nodded.

"Now take a moment t' catch yer breath, lads. Lord knows ye earned a bit of rest for all ye've been through."

Louis slumped down onto the ground.

Alive. And isn't that a miracle?

No less a miracle than that, though 3,000 had just died, not another man of his small circle had fallen. Others had died or were missing, men whose names and faces he had just begun to know. Better to try to forget them. In battle he'd stand shoulder to shoulder, even risk his life for any man in his company, but best not to hold the names of the new ones too close to his heart. Best not to make more friends. Better just to think of those remaining few who had begun this with him. Tired, worn out as old dishrags, but among the living. Sergeant Flynn and Corporal Hayes with their heads together talking. Songbird and Joker, Bull sitting across from him.

Louis met the eyes of each of his friends in turn, mouthing the words. Thank you.

Songbird nodded. Joker gave him a wry grin. Bull rolled his eyes up toward the sky as if to say only heaven knew how they'd made it this far.

Louis rested his face in his dirty, blistered hands. The six of us might make it through this terrible war alive.

For some reason, that thought brought tears to his eyes.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

STALEMATE.

Wednesday, June 8, 1864

"Sure and I've been here before."

Louis and Artis looked up from the circle they'd drawn in the dirt between them. Only three aggies remained inside. Each of the boys-for that was exactly how both of them had felt for the last half hour of their game, like boys again and not grim fighting men-had won exactly the same number of marbles. Each had managed to knock twenty of those little b.a.l.l.s of chipped clay or agate out of the ring with their shooters.

"Where's that, you dumb Irishman?" Artis said in a pleasant voice. "At a cutthroat game of marbles?"