March Toward the Thunder Part 2

Friday, April 29, 1864

"Oleohneh Ktsi Nwaskw, Merci Beaucoup Bon Dieu." So Papa began the blessing before each of their meals, hands clasped together and head bowed. Then his father, his mother, and Louis would each raise a hand to touch forehead, chest, left shoulder and right, the sign of the cross where the Son of G.o.d suffered and died for all-even the Abenakis.

Those four points of the cross were also the four sacred directions, the dawn land that brings light to each new day, the summer land, the land of the sunset, and the winter land, whose white snows mark the wisdom of winter, just as white hairs crown the head of an elder. For every ritual of the Catholic Church, Louis had also learned from his parents some piece of the old wisdom, the way their ancestors understood the blessings and dangers of this world.

"Awasosis," his father said, speaking the nickname he'd used for him ever since Louis was two winters old and had proven that he could climb a tree as well as a bear cub, "hold tight to your paddle. Hard rapids ahead."

Louis looked up. Just a heartbeat ago they'd been about to share their morning meal. Now they were in a canoe? Himself in front, his mother in the middle, his father in the back, digging in his paddle. The roar of the Lachine Rapids was all around them. Papa was shouting. Louis could not make out his words.

Louis lifted his paddle. It was not wood, but hard steel. It had turned into a musket. As he drove it in, the weight of the gun pulled him out of the canoe and down into the water. The canoe sped past overhead. No longer in the water, it was flying across the sky. His parents looked down and waved. A wide-winged bird swooped down. A loon. As its feet touched the surface it began to call a series of notes as familiar now to Louis as the sounds of snoring from the five other men who slept an arm's length away. It was the high, piercing voice of . . . a bugle!

Reveille!

Louis sat up in his cot. The dream was still with him, but he knew where he was. It was their seventh and last day in Camp Meagher. They'd been rushed through training as swiftly as a canoe swept down a rough river. No inspection or drill today. They were marching out as soon as breakfast was over.

I am a soldier now. I have been trained for war. So why do I still dream of my parents and miss them as if I were a little child?

The five other men in the tent with him were yawning and scratching.

"My stars, Chief, why'd they let us sleep so late?" said a joking voice from behind him.

Timmy Kirk, of course. His bunk was next to Louis's. Though he said he was twenty years old some days and twenty-one on others, Kirk was another who looked younger than Louis. His wit as sharp as his hatchet-like features, he turned everything into a jest. He'd earned the nickname Joker.

Late? Louis thought, rubbing his chest. In a pig's eye.

That bugle call had sounded before the birds were awake. Five a.m.

Louis shoved his socked feet into the boots that looked so alike he only knew left from right by the position he placed them in beside his bed last night. They almost fit. Better than many another soldier could say. After yanking his brogans from the pile, Louis had quickly traded with other recruits around him. As a result, he had a pair of gunboats-as Joker called them-neither so huge he had to stuff in newspapers like Merry or so small he could barely wedge in his feet.

Being outfitted meant grabbing what was on the top of each pile. Heaps of light blouses, thick flannel pullover shirts, sky blue trousers. Those pants still itched like the d.i.c.kens, but that wasn't the worst of it. Even his underwear was wool! It couldn't have been scratchier if it had been sewn out of spruce needles. With the South's cotton out of reach, the North had no choice but to love wool. He adjusted his waistband. His pants were loose on him, but it was that way with everyone. Like the others in his company, he'd slept in his flannel shirt and wool trousers.

No one in the army ever seemed to take all their clothes off. Unless you went for a swim, you might go through the war without ever seeing another soldier naked, even the man you shared your two-person field tent with. The only bathing a soldier ever did, it seemed, was to splash a bit of water on his hands and face.

So it was that Louis, who'd always washed from head to toe every morning, now had an odor he recognized all too well.

I smell like a white man.

He shook his head, thinking of the old joke among the Abenakis. No one ever needed eyes to find a town of the Iglizmonak, the English. Just follow your nose. White men never bathed. You could smell them from miles away. Now he had that same stink of sweat and dirt and other body odors about himself.

As he b.u.t.toned up his flannel sack coat, something stabbed at his right thigh.

"Ding dang and blast it!" Louis yelled, slapping his leg hard.

"That's the ticket, Chief, get them tigers!" Mickey Devlin trilled from the bunk to his left. Devlin's brogue, pug nose, and red hair marked him Irish for sure.

"Like many another st.u.r.dy son of the Shamrock," Devlin said when they first met, "enlisting in the army was me best bet for a job and a bit of respect."

Louis enjoyed hearing Devlin talk. His new friend's voice was so lilting that everything he said seemed like a melody, justifying his nickname of Songbird.

"Between eatin' with your mess mates and gettin' et by lice and fleas, we'll have you cussin' like a true son of the Fightin' Sixty-ninth before this war is over," Joker cracked, looking up from spitting on his shoes and wiping them with a cloth. "I overheard them bugs gettin' together and drawin' straws last night to decide who they was to eat first for breakfast."

And I was the short straw, Louis thought, squeezing the thick wool fabric between his fingers in the hopes of hearing the crunch of an insect's sh.e.l.l. As usual, his attacker escaped. One more tiger gone back into the jungle.

Tigers, graybacks, Rebels. Only a few of the words for the lice that were more numerous in their tents than enemies on the battlefield. Along with ticks, fleas, and chiggers, those biting nuisances had been waiting for them at Camp Meagher, drawn by the presence of so much easy prey. No matter how many you killed there were always two more to take their place.

What had Sergeant Flynn said about them? Sergeant Flynn, who seemed to know everything and was practically worshipped by Corporal Hayes, the broad-mustached noncom who followed him everywhere?

And no wonder. Their sergeant seemed more a force of nature than a man. A lifetime soldier, First Sergeant Liam Michael Flynn was solid as a block of oak never sanded smooth. Thick, grizzled hair framed a wide bulldog face that looked to have absorbed more than a few blows-likely at the expense of any knuckles that hit him. He had a pugilist's stance and the heavy mitts to match, more like bear paws than hands. The deep voice that rumbled out of his chest made the air vibrate as if a ba.s.s drum had been struck.

"Lice?" Flynn boomed, when his recruits complained of being beset in their beds. "There's but three ways t' get rid of the wee beasties. First is by getting yerself a whole new uniform-which is impossible. Second's by bathing yerself and boiling your clothes- which is unlikely. Third's death-always a happy possibility."

Louis rubbed his leg, then fitted the slouch cap on his head. Their military hats were all one size, but since his head was one of the bigger ones, his bonnet fit snug and almost looked sharp. It didn't come down over his eyes like Merry's.

Not that Merry complained. Will Merry was almost as taciturn as Louis himself. The little recruit only uttered a few words now and then-in a gruff tone meant to cover up how high and boyish his normal voice was. But despite his shyness, Merry was the most helpful person in their company-even if he was also physically the weakest. Louis wondered if Merry had some sort of sickness like consumption that made him seem so frail. Though he didn't have the cough.

If he'd been looked at close, I doubt he would have gotten into this army.

Louis shook his head at the thought of the exam he and the others had gotten. The doctor had been more interested in the dime novel he was reading than the men brought before him in rapid succession. Every soldier was supposed to get a complete physical. For Louis and all the rest it checked just three things.

"Hold out your hands and take off your shoes."

To prove you've fingers enough to pull a trigger and two feet for marching.

"Stick out your tongue."

To make sure you can answer "Yes, sir."

Get tapped on your collarbone.

As to what purpose that tap served, Louis had no idea.

"Fit to serve. Next."

Louis made sure all four b.u.t.tons of his sack coat were fastened, strapped on his belt, grabbed his musket, and scrambled out of the tent.

"Line up!"

And there they stood at attention, him and the nineteen other privates in his section in two ranks. Two corporals in front. Ready for the sergeant to call the roll.

The first day they'd tried it, they'd looked like a troop of clowns. The clumsy farm boy that Louis thought was named either Ike or Jake fell on his face as he tried to pull on the pants he'd been foolish enough to take off during the night. Kirk had but one shoe. Three of the others were without hats. Louis's coat was b.u.t.toned up wrong and Devlin had his musket upside down. Little Will Merry, who'd had the presence of mind to sleep fully clad, would have been the first to line up if he hadn't kept tripping on his pants legs.

Now, after two weeks of constant practice, their whole squad managed the lineup with ease. One after another, men responded smartly to the calling of their names by Corporal Hayes.

"Smith?"

"Here, sir!"

"O'Day?"

"Here, sir!"

And that's a wonder, Louis thought. Over the past week William O'Day had cut himself twice with his own bayonet, almost shot himself in the foot with his rifle, and stumbled at least twice over every stone on the drill field. Bad Luck Bill.

"Nolette?"

"Here, sir!"

"Wilson?"

"He-he-here, sir."

Shaky, indeed, Louis thought. That was the nickname the company had bestowed upon Kevin Wilson, a nervous, big-bellied Albany boy who often stammered. Joker was taking wagers on which man would be the first to run from battle. The only one with more bets on him than Shaky Wilson was . . .

"Belaney?"

"Here, sir."

Only the undertone of a sneer in his voice today.

"Kirk?"

"Here, sir!"

"Devlin?"

"Here, sir!"

"Dedham?"

There was a pause. Louis held his breath.

Jake Dedham was a rail-thin, good-natured farm boy. His lanky frame and the way his reddish blond hair stuck up at all angles from under his cap were the reasons the company settled his nickname the first day they were together.

"Scarecrow?" Jake had said with a grin. "Well, I guess that'll do."

Louis had never met anyone as pleased with everything around him.

"Soldierin'," Scarecrow said to Louis one day as they stood in the mess line, "is a sight easier than farmin'. I have took to it like a duck to a pond."

Day after day, though, at roll call Scarecrow persisted in raising a hand to the sky and declaring in a pleased voice, "Wull, that's me, for sure!"

He'd done so with such innocent eagerness that even Sergeant Flynn found it hard not to crack a smile. But it hadn't kept Flynn from taking corrective measures. Day after day Scarecrow was pulled out of his bunk early by their determined sergeant to practice the proper response.

Come on! Say it!

"Here, sir!" Scarecrow piped in.

Then, in a voice so soft that only Louis could hear it, Scarecrow added under his breath: "Me, for sure."

"All present and accounted for," Corporal Hayes concluded, turning toward Sergeant Flynn. "Even Belaney, sir."

Flynn nodded. "Corporal Hayes," he said in a gentle voice, "would ye be so kind as to run the lads through the drill our own beloved Brigadier General Silas Casey wrote down so well in his Infantry Tactics?"

"Yes, sir," Corporal Hayes replied, snapping a salute.

Louis had been taught by his father how to shoot a musket when he was six, but the army's detailed firing routine had been as foreign to him as the lilting Gaelic language the Irishmen of the brigade sometimes spoke to each other. Now, though, he knew the drill.

"Load!" Corporal Hayes barked, stepping to the side.

Louis stood his rifle barrel-up between his feet. His left hand held the muzzle eight inches from his body. His right hand reached into the cartridge box, its bra.s.s oval plate stamped U.S., that hung from his belt.

"Handle cartridge!"

Louis pulled out a paper-wrapped .58-caliber cartridge and stuck the powder end between his teeth.

"Tear cartridge!"

Rip the paper from the end with my teeth. Spit the paper out. Bring the cartridge down in front of the muzzle.

"Charge cartridge!"

Empty the powder into the barrel. Disengage the minie ball from the paper with my right hand and the first two fingers of my left. Insert the ball, pointed side toward the sky, press it down with my right thumb.

"Draw rammer!"

Louis grasped the end of the rammer and pulled the long metal rod from its carrying groove by extending his arm. Keeping the back of his hand toward the front, Louis placed the head of the rammer on the minie ball.

"Ram cartridge!"

Louis pressed the ball home, remembering to hold his elbows near his body as he did so. There was a satisfying thunk as the minie ball seated itself against the black powder.

"Return rammer!"

Draw the rammer halfway out, Louis said to himself, his hands taking action before his thought. Grasp it near the muzzle with my right hand. Extend my arm to clear the barrel. Turn it, insert it in the carrying groove. Force it home by placing the little finger of my right hand on its head.

"Prime!"

With his left hand, Louis raised his rifle until his wrist was at eye level. He was standing half-face now, his right foot at a right angle to his left. He half c.o.c.ked the hammer with the thumb of his right hand, reached without looking into the cap pouch at his side, pulled out a percussion cap, placed it on the nipple where the hammer would strike, pressed it down with his thumb.

"Shoulder!"

Louis swung the rifle to his right shoulder, feeling his heartbeat quicken a little as he did so.