Battle Flag

by Bernard Cornwell

  Galloway opened his watch. "Be another two hours before we leave, boys, so just be patient."

  The day darkened toward evening. The troopers' clothes were clammy with a greasy, sweaty dampness. Galloway had forbidden fires so that the smoke would not betray their presence, and thus they simply had to endure the cloying dank as the minutes ticked by. Men prepared themselves obsessively for battle, believing that every small degree of painstaking care counted toward survival. They used cloaks and saddlecloths to keep the rain from their repeating rifles and revolvers as they loaded the weapons' chambers with powder, wadding, and minié bullets. On top of each bullet they put a plug of grease that was intended to prevent the flame in the firing chamber communicating with the neigh­boring charges and so exploding the whole cylinder. They sharpened their sabers, the sound of the stones harsh on the curved steel. Those men whose blades rattled in their metal sheaths dented the scabbards so that the weapons were held tight and silent by the compressed metal. Cor­poral Harlan Kemp then led a score of men in prayer. He put one knee on the wet ground, one hand on the hilt of his sword, and raised his free hand toward God as he prayed that the Lord would bless this evening's work with a mighty suc­cess and keep His servants free from all harm from the enemy.

  Adam joined the circle of prayer. He felt very close to his men as he knelt with them, and the very act of praying imbued the night's action with a sacred quality that lifted it above mere adventure into the realm of duty. "I do not want to be here," Adam prayed silently, "but as I am here, Lord, then be here with me and let me help this war to a quick and just ending." When Harlan Kemp's blessing was finished, Adam climbed to his feet and saw Billy Blythe standing beside the mare Adam had taken from the Faulconer stud. Blythe ran his hand down the mare's legs, then slapped her rump. "You got yourself some good horses, Faulconer," Blythe said as Adam approached.

  "You're in my way," Adam said brusquely, then pushed the tall Blythe aside so he could throw a saddlecloth over the mare's back.

  "Real nice piece of horseflesh." Blythe peeled back the mare's lips to examine her teeth, then stood a pace away to give the horse an admiring look. "Bet she runs like a bitch in heat. Specially with a touch of the whip. Don't you find the whip tickles a female up real nice, Faulconer?" Blythe chuckled when Adam made no answer. "Reckon a horse like this would suit me real well," he went on.

  "She's not for sale," Adam said coldly. He heaved the saddle onto the mare's back, then stooped to gather the girth strap.

  "Wasn't reckoning on buying her from you," Blythe said, then spat a stream of tobacco spittle close to Adam's face, "because there ain't no point in buying things in war, not when they have a habit of dropping into a man's lap. That's what I like about war, Faulconer, the way things come with­out payment. That's real convenient to my way of thinking. I figure it takes the sweat out of a man's life." He smiled at the thought, then touched a finger to the dripping brim of his hat. "You sure mind yourself now," he said, then ambled away, grinning at his intimates and leaving Adam feeling tawdry.

  Major Galloway was the first to mount up. He settled his feet in his stirrups, pushed his repeating rifle into its saddle holster, eased his saber an inch or two from its scabbard, then made sure his two revolvers were in easy reach. "Smoke your last cigars and pipes now, boys," the Major said, "because once we're out of this wood there'll be no more lit tobacco till we wake the sumbitches." His incendiarists checked their supplies: lucifers, flints, steels, tinder, and fuses. Their job was to burn the ammunition, while others of his men carried axes to splinter wheel spokes and hammers and nails to spike the rebels' cannon.

  One by one the men pulled themselves into their saddles. A horse whinnied softly while another skittered nervously sideways. Water dripped from the leaves, but Adam sensed that above the darkening canopy of trees the rain had stopped. The evening was young, but the clouds made the sky seem like night.

  "For the Union, boys," Galloway said, and the more idealistic of the men repeated the phrase and added God's blessing. They were fighting for their beloved country, for God's country, for the best of all countries.

  "Forward, boys," Galloway said, and the column lurched on its way.

  To battle.

  Captain Medlicott and Captain Moxey sat on the veranda of the farmhouse that served as General Washington Faulconer's headquarters and stared at the evening rain. On the western horizon, Medlicott noted, where it should have been darkest at this time of day, the sky was showing a pale strip of lighter cloud where the rainstorm had stalled, but that evidence of dry weather showed no sign of wanting to move east. "But it'll be a fine day tomorrow," Medlicott grunted. The sweat dripped off his beard. "I know these summer storms." He twisted in his chair and looked through the open parlor door to where the General was sitting at the claw-footed table. "It'll be a fine day tomorrow, General!"

  Faulconer did not respond to Medlicott's optimism. The evening was sweltering, and the General was in his shirt­sleeves. His uniform coat with its heavy epaulets and expen­sive braid trimming was hanging in the farmhouse hall along with his fine English revolver and the elegant saber that General Lafayette had presented to his grandfather. The General was staring at some papers on the table. He had been contemplating these papers for much of the day, and now, instead of signing them, he pushed them to one side. "I must be sure to do the right thing," Faulconer said, by which he meant that he must be sure not to make a mistake that could recoil onto his own career. "Goddamn it, but they should be court-martialed!"

  Captain Moxey spat tobacco juice over the veranda's railing. "They should be in prison for disobeying orders, sir," Moxey said, emboldened by the privilege of being asked to give advice about the fate of Colonel Swynyard and Captain Starbuck.

  "But they'll plead they were merely doing their duty," Faulconer said, worrying at the problem like a dog at a bone. "Our orders are to guard the river crossings, aren't they? And what were they doing? Just guarding a ford. How do we persuade a court otherwise?"

  Captain Medlicott waved the objection away. "It ain't a proper ford, sir, not really. Not on the maps, anyway. It's just that the river's running uncommon shallow this year." He sounded very unconvincing, even to himself.

  "But if I just dismiss them"—Faulconer now contem­plated the alternative to a court-martial—"what's to stop them appealing? My God, you know their facilities for telling lies!"

  "Who'd believe them?" Moxey asked. "One pious drunk and a Yankee troublemaker?"

  Too many people would believe them, Faulconer thought, that was the trouble. Swynyard's cousin was influential, and Starbuck had friends, and consequently Faulconer felt as trapped as a man who has made a wonder­ful attack deep into enemy lines only to find that he cannot extricate his forces. Last night he had been triumphant, but a single day's reflection on the night's achievements had thrown up a score of obstacles to the completion of that triumph, not the least of which was that Swynyard had obstinately refused to get drunk. A drunken colonel would have been much easier to court-martial than a sober and repentant colonel, and it was Faulconer's deepest wish to see both Swynyard and Starbuck dragged in front of a court-martial, then marched at rifle point to the Con­federate army prison in Richmond, but he did not see how he could make the prosecution case irrefutable. "The trouble is," he said, changing his argument yet again, "that there are too many people in this Brigade who'll give evidence on Starbuck's side."

  Medlicott sipped brandy. "Popularity comes and goes," he said vaguely. "Get rid of the sons of bitches and everyone'll forget what they looked like in a couple of weeks." In truth Medlicott was wondering why Faulconer did not simply march the two men down to the river and put a pair of bullets into their heads.

  "Rain's slackening," Moxey said.

  Medlicott turned to look at the General. He was even more aware than Moxey of the privileges of being one of the General's advisers. Moxey, after all, had pretensions of gen­tility; his family kept horses and hunted with Faulconer's hounds, but M
edlicott had never been anything except a hired man, albeit a skilled one, and he liked being in the General's confidence and wanted to keep the privilege by making sure the General did indeed rid himself of the troublemakers. "Why don't you just return the two sons of bitches to Richmond," he suggested, "with a report saying they're unfit for field duty? Then recommend that they're sent to the coast defenses in South Carolina?"

  Faulconer smoothed the papers on his table. "South Carolina?"

  "Because by this time next year," Medlicott said grimly, "they'll both be dead of malaria."

  Faulconer unscrewed the silver cap of his traveling inkwell. "Unfit for field duty?" he asked tentatively.

  "One's a drunk, the other's a Northerner! Hell, I'd say they were unfit." Medlicott had been emboldened by the General's fine brandy and now, somewhat obliquely, offered his preferred solution. "But why be formal at all, sir? Why not just get rid of the bastards? Shoot them."

  Moxey frowned at the suggestion while Faulconer chose to ignore it, not because he disapproved, but because he could not imagine getting away with murder. "You don't think I need to give a reason for their dismissal?" the General asked.

  "What reason do you need beyond general unfitness for duty? Hell, add indiscipline and dereliction." Medlicott waved each word into the night with a careless gesture. "The War Department must be desperate to find men for the swamp stations in the Carolinas."

  Faulconer dipped his pen into the ink, then carefully drained the surplus off the nib onto the inkwell's rim. He hesitated for a second, still worried whether his action might have unforeseen repercussions, then summoned his courage and signed the two papers that simply dismissed Swynyard and Starbuck from the Brigade. He regretted not recom­mending them for courts-martial, but expedience and good sense dictated the lesser punishment. The weather had made everything clammy, so that the ink ran thick in the paper's fibers as Faulconer scratched his name. He noted his rank beneath his name, then laid down the pen, capped the inkwell, and blew on the wet signatures to dry them. "Fetch Hinton," he ordered Moxey.

  Moxey grimaced at the thought of walking a quarter-mile through the mud, but then pulled himself out of his chair and set off through the dusk toward the Legion's lines. The rain had stopped, and campfires pricked the gloom as men emerged from their shelters and blew kindling into life.

  Faulconer admired the two dismissal orders. "And I give them passes for Richmond?"

  "Good for tomorrow only," Medlicott suggested slyly. "That way if the bastards linger you can have them arrested again."

  Faulconer filled in the two passes, then, his work done, walked across the veranda and down to the stretch of muddy grass that lay between the house and a peach orchard. He stretched his cramped arms. The clouds had made the dusk premature, casting night's pall over what should have been a sweet summer evening. "You'd have thought the rain would have broken this humidity," Medlicott said as he followed Faulconer down the steps.

  "Another storm might do it," Faulconer said. He offered Medlicott a cigar, and for a few moments the two men smoked in silence. It was hardly a companionable silence, but Medlicott had nothing to say, and the General was evi­dently thinking hard. Faulconer finally cleared his throat. "You know, of course, that I've friends in Richmond?"

  "Of course," Medlicott said gruffly.

  Faulconer was silent for a few seconds more. "I've been thinking, you see," he eventually said, "and it occurs to me that we've done more than our fair share of fighting since the war began. Wouldn't you agree?"

  "Hell, yes," Medlicott said fervently.

  "So I was hoping we could have the Brigade assigned to Richmond," Faulconer said. "Maybe we could become the experts on the city's defenses ?"

  Medlicott nodded gravely. He was not sure just how expert a brigade needed to be in order to garrison the star forts and trenches that ringed Richmond, but anything that took a man away from the slaughterfields of open battle and closer to hot baths, decent food, and regular hours seemed pretty inviting. "Experts," Medlicott said, "indeed."

  "And some of my friends in the capital are convinced it's a good idea," Faulconer said. "You think the men will like it?" He added the question disingenuously.

  "I'm sure, I'm sure," Medlicott said.

  Faulconer examined the glowing tip of his cigar. "Politically, of course, we mustn't look too eager. We can't have people saying we shirked the burden, which means I'll probably have to make a show of refusing the job, but it would help me if my regimental commanders pressed me to accept."

  "Of course, of course," Medlicott said. The miller did not really understand the prevarication but was quite happy to agree to anything that might get the Brigade back to the comparative comforts of the Richmond defenses.

  "And I was thinking that I might make Paul Hinton my second-in-command," Faulconer went on, "which means that the Legion will need a new commanding officer."

  Medlicott's heart gave a leap of anticipation, but he had the sense to show neither surprise nor delight. "Surely your brother-in-law will be back soon?" he said instead.

  "Pecker might not want to return," Faulconer said, mean­ing that he hoped he could persuade Bird not to return, "but even if he does it won't be for a long time and the Legion can't manage without a new commanding officer, can it?"

  "Indeed not, sir," Medlicott said.

  "Some people, of course, would say the job ought to go to a professional soldier," Faulconer said, teasing the eager Medlicott, "but I think this war needs fresh eyes and ideas."

  "Very true, sir, very true."

  "And you managed a fair number of men at the mill, didn't you?"

  Medlicott's gristmill had never employed more than two free men at any one time, and one of those was usually a half-wit, but the miller now nodded sagely as though he was accustomed to giving orders to hundreds of employees. "A good few," he said cautiously, then frowned because Captain Moxey, muddied to his knees, was returning. Just a few sec­onds more, Medlicott thought, and he would have been the Legion's new commanding officer, but now an excited Moxey was demanding Faulconer's attention.

  "Moxey?" Faulconer turned to greet his aide.

  "Major Hinton's not here, sir. Not in the lines," Moxey said eagerly.

  "What do you mean, not in the lines?"

  Moxey was clearly enjoying making his revelations. "He's gone to McComb's Tavern, sir," he said. "It seems it's his fiftieth birthday, sir, and most of the Legion's officers went with him."

  "God damn them!" Faulconer said. They were plotting. That was what they were doing, plotting! He did not believe the story about a birthday for one moment; they were con­spiring behind his back! "Don't they know the tavern's off limits?"

  "They know it's off limits," Captain Medlicott inter­vened. "Of course they know. It's downright disobedience, sir," he added to Faulconer, wondering whether he might not end up second-in-command to the whole Brigade after all.

  "Fetch them, Captain," Faulconer ordered Moxey. Goddamn it, Faulconer thought, but Major Hinton would have to learn that there was a new tight discipline in the Faulconer Brigade. "Tell them to come here immediately," Faulconer said, then paused because Captain Medlicott had raised a warning hand, and the General turned to see a horseman approaching. The General recognized the rider as Captain Talliser, one of Stonewall Jackson's aides.

  Talliser saluted Faulconer by touching a gloved hand to his hat brim, then fetched a packet of papers from his saddlebag. "Marching orders, General. Reckon you'll be busy packing up tonight."

  "Marching orders?" Faulconer repeated the words as though he did not understand their meaning.

  Talliser held on to the orders, offering a scrap of paper and a pencil instead. "I need your signature first, General. Or someone's signature."

  Faulconer took the proffered paper and scribbled his name to confirm that General Jackson's orders had indeed been received. "Where are we going?" he asked as he took the orders.

  "North, sir, over the river," Talliser said, tucking t
he receipt into a pouch on his belt.

  "You'll eat with us, Talliser?" Faulconer asked, gesturing toward the farmhouse, where his cooks were busy preparing supper.

  "Real kind of you, General," Talliser said, "but I should be getting back."

  "You'll surely take a glass of something before you go?"

  "A glass of water would be real kind." Talliser was not one of Jackson's favorite aides for nothing. He swung himself out of his saddle and winced at the soreness in his legs. "Been a long day, sir, a real long day."

  Faulconer turned and was about to shout for Nelson, his servant, then remembered that the wretched man had not yet returned from his errand to Faulconer Court House.

  "Moxey," he said instead, "before you go to McComb's Tavern, be kind enough to fetch a glass of water for Captain Talliser."

  But Moxey was no longer paying attention. Moxey was instead staring slack-jawed and wide-eyed past the farm­house. Slowly Moxey's hand began to point; then he tried to speak, but the only sound he could make was an incoherent stammer.

  "What the hell?" Medlicott frowned at Moxey's pathetic display; then he, too, turned and looked south. "Oh, dear Christ!" he blasphemed; then he began to run away.

  Just as the Yankees opened fire.

  It all started so much more easily than Major Galloway had dared to hope. The raiders, riding in column of pairs, stole through the dank twilight to the empty road that stretched between the rebel encampment and the crossroads, where dim candlelights gleamed behind the tavern's windows. No one saw the cavalrymen move through the half-light, and no one challenged them as they urged their horses up the small embankment that edged the road. Galloway chuckled as he heard singing coming from the tavern. "Someone's sure having a good time," the Major said, then turned to Captain Blythe. "Billy? Take your men south a little. Just make sure no one from the tavern interferes with us. And listen for our bugle."

  Blythe touched his hat and turned his horse southward. "You take care now, Major," he called softly as he led his men away.