The Bloody Ground - Starbuck 04

by Bernard Cornwell

  Except he had not lost. Two Indiana soldiers, a sergeant and a corporal, had finished pitching their tents and had wandered north out of their camp lines, across a dip in the pastureland, to a cleaner stretch of grass that was unsoiled by rebel litter. They planned to make a fire and boil some coffee away from the predatory gaze of their comrades and so they walked toward a rail fence that had miraculously remained unbroken during the rebels' stay. Rails made good firewood, and the coffee would help pass the long hot afternoon, but just before they reached the fence Corporal Barton Mitchell saw an envelope lying in the grass. It had a curiously bulky look and so he picked it up and shook out the contents. "Bless me, Johnny," he said as the three cigars appeared. He sniffed one. "Damn good too. You want one?"

  Sergeant Bloss took the offered cigar, and with it the sheet of paper that had served to wrap the precious find. As he nipped the cigar's end with his teeth he glanced at the paper and, after a few seconds, frowned. There were names here he recognized—Jackson, Longstreet, and Stuart—while at its foot the paper was signed by command of General R. E. Lee.

  The coffee was forgotten. Instead the two men took the paper to their company commander, who passed it up the chain of command until at last a prewar colleague of Colonel Chilton's recognized the handwriting. It seemed the order was genuine and it was hurried to General McClellan's tent.

  Thorne heard the excitement and, pulling on his blue coat, ducked out of his tent and strode across to where a throng of people was gathered about the General's headquarters. Many in the crowd were civilians come to gape at the Federal general who, convinced that the order was the real copper-bottomed thing, was exultant. McClellan saw Thorne and brandished the paper triumphantly. "Here's a paper with which I can whip Bobby Lee, Thorne! And if I can't I'll go home tomorrow!"

  Thorne, astonished at this sudden enthusiasm on McClellan's part, could only gape.

  "Tomorrow we'll pitch into his center!" McClellan boasted, "and in two days we'll have him trapped!"

  Thorne managed to secure the order. His astonishment grew as he read it, for here were written all Lee's dispositions and those dispositions revealed the enemy commander to be a consummate gambler. Lee must have known that McClellan's army was marching westward, but such was his contempt for his enemy that he had divided his army into five parts, then scattered them across western Maryland and northern Virginia. Most of the Confederate forces were besieging Harper's Ferry, others had gone north to prepare for the invasion of Pennsylvania, while smaller forces barred the hills that faced McClellan's troops. It was true that the order was now four days old, but the constant mutter of the distant guns confirmed that the rebels were still swarming about Harper's Ferry and that sound suggested that the dispositions detailed in the order were still in place, which meant that if McClellan really did march quickly then there was a genuine chance that the Northern army could be placed between the scattered units of Lee's army. Then they would be destroyed, one by one, slaughter by slaughter, surrender by surrender, page after page of history being made.

  "Rebellion's end, Thorne," McClellan said as he retrieved the paper.

  "Indeed, sir," Thorne said, and felt a pang of distaste for the short general whose hair was so carefully waved and whose mustaches so gleamingly brushed. A gelded cockerel, he thought, and was ashamed that he should so resent this gift of utter victory being given to such a creature.

  "You don't doubt the order's genuine?" McClellan inquired, unable to hide his nagging anxiety that the order might be a ruse, though the circumstances of its finding suggested gross carelessness rather than sly design. "Pittman vouches for the handwriting," the General went on. "It's Chilton's penmanship, right enough, or so Pittman says."

  "I trust Colonel Pittman's memory on the point, sir," Thorne admitted.

  "Then we've won!" McClellan crowed. The ape in the White House might take the credit for preserving the Union, but George Brinton McClellan was content that the voters at the next presidential election would know who was truly to thank. McClellan in '64! And '68, by God, and maybe forever once the voters realized that only one man in the country had the nerve, prudence, and wisdom to steer America! McClellan luxuriated in that vision for a moment, then clapped his hands. "Marching orders!" he announced, then shooed his visitors away so that he could work in peace.

  Thorne found Colonel Pittman, and from Colonel Pittman he traced the order's discovery back to Sergeant Bloss and Corporal Mitchell. From them he learned where the envelope had been found, and after that he rode into Frederick City and found a man who had helped retrieve Adam's body. To Thorne's delight he discovered that the body had been found only yards from where the envelope had lain, and that circumstance convinced Thorne that the copy of Special Order 191 was genuine, and not a subtle trap laid by an outnumbered enemy. "So it wasn't in vain," he told Adam in his grave. "You did well, Faulconer, you did well." He solemnly saluted the grave, then said a prayer of thanks. God, it seemed, had not abandoned His country. And well done, Delaney, Thorne added silently. The Richmond lawyer had earned a reward.

  For already the first Federal troops were preparing to march with new haste and sudden purpose; preparing to march west to where Lee's betrayed army was spread so carelessly across the summer-heated land. The Young Napoleon had been offered victory and now, with uncharacteristic verve, he sprang to take it.

  At dawn Harper's Ferry was shrouded in a mist that flowed like twin white rivers from the Shenandoah and the Potomac valleys to meld softly above the town. The mist flowed in utter silence, but it was an ominous silence, for by now the rebel troops commanded all the high ground about the river town and their great guns had been dragged forward to the crests so that their cold, dew-beaded barrels were pointing down to what lay hidden by the soft white vapor. The gunners had loaded and rammed their pieces, and their most distant cannon was scarcely a mile from the mist-concealed Federal defenses, a mere six and a half seconds of flight for the nineteen-pound shells that were nestled inside the barrels against the two-pound charges of coarse powder that would explode when Jackson gave the signal. There were guns to the north of the town, guns to the south, and guns to the west. A ring of guns, all silent now, all waiting for that shroud of mist to lift from the doomed town.

  General Thomas Jackson paced the rocky crest of the Bolivar Heights west of the town from where he scowled at the valley mist as though it were a devilish device planted to thwart his victory. His cadet cap was pulled low over his brooding eyes, but those eyes missed nothing as he walked up and down, up and down, sometimes dragging a cheap watch from his pocket and peering at its slow-moving hands. The gunners tried not to catch his gaze. Instead they busied themselves with unnecessary tasks like greasing already lubricated elevating screws or straightening the friction primers that came bent from the factory so that they would not accidentally ignite and cause an explosion. Shirt-sleeved infantry carried ammunition up the hill trails and stacked their loads beside the waiting guns.

  Most of the rebel infantry would be spectators of this battle and the hills were crowded with lines of gray and butternut uniforms waiting for Old Jack's firework display. Starbuck's battalion was close to a mixed battery of ten-and twenty-pounder Parrott guns, their trails all burned with the initials USA, evidence that Jackson had equipped his batteries with cannon taken from the Yankees. Captain Billy Blythe carried a cup of coffee as he joined Starbuck. "That's Old Jack?" he asked, nodding at the shabby, bearded figure who stumped in his huge square-toed boots up and down beside the guns.

  "That's Jackson," Starbuck confirmed.

  "Queer-looking fellow," Blythe said.

  "Frightening as hell," Starbuck said.

  "Specially to Yankees, eh?" Blythe said, then sipped at the coffee that was bitterly sour. He could not wait to get back to the North where the coffee was rich and fragrant, and not this adulterated dirt that the rebels drank. "You met him?"

  "I met him." Starbuck was never particularly communicative in the morning and spok
e curtly.

  Blythe did not mind. "You reckon he'd say howdy?" he asked Starbuck.

  "No."

  "Hell, Starbuck, I'd like to shake the man's hand."

  "Shake mine instead," Starbuck said, but instead of offering it he stole Tumlin's coffee and sipped it. "And if you swear in front of him, Tumlin, you'll wish you'd never met him."

  "Keep the coffee, Starbuck," Blythe said magnanimously, "ain't nothing but goober pea shit anyhow. Morning, General!" he called aloud as Jackson's pacing brought the General close to Starbuck's men. "Fine one for a victory, sir!"

  Jackson looked astonished at being addressed and stared at Blythe as though surprised to see a soldier on the hill, but he said nothing. Blythe, unfazed by this cold response, strode forward as if the General was his oldest friend. "Prayers are being answered, sir," Blythe said vigorously, "and the enemy will be crushed in the very nest where John Brown defied our legitimate aspirations." '

  "Amen," Jackson said, "amen. And you are, sir?"

  'Tumlin, General," Blythe said, "Captain Billy Tumlin, and proud to meet you, sir. I prayed for you these many months and am grateful that the Lord has seen fit to hear me."

  ""Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,'" Jackson said, turning to look at the mist through which the topmost part of the town and the pinnacle of a church in the lower quarter was now showing. The vapor was thinning, promising to lay bare the Yankee defenses. "You're saved in the Lord, Captain?" Jackson asked Blythe.

  "Praise His name, yes," Blythe lied glibly.

  "I didn't hear," Jackson snapped and cupped a hand to his ear. Years of artillery work had deadened the General's hearing.

  "Praise His name, yes!" Blythe shouted.

  "We are a Godly nation, Captain, and a righteous army," Jackson growled. "We cannot be defeated. Fight with that assurance in your heart."

  "I shall, sir, and amen," Blythe responded, then held out his hand, which the General, with some surprise at the gesture, finally clasped. "God bless you, sir," Blythe said as he shook Jackson's hand, then he turned and walked back to Starbuck. "See?" Blythe chuckled. "Easy as feeding crumbs to a bird."

  "So what did you say to him?"

  "I told him I was one of God's anointed, told him I prayed for him daily, and offered him God's blessing."

  "You ain't a saved Christian, Billy Tumlin," Starbuck said sourly. "You're nothing but a miserable sinner."

  "We have all sinned, Starbuck," Blythe said earnestly, "and fallen short of the glory of God."

  "Don't preach to me, for Christ's sake, I've had my bellyful of preaching."

  Blythe laughed. He was pleased with himself for having shaken the great Jackson's hand, and the tale would be a good boast in the comfortable days after he had crossed the lines. He was pleased, too, for having fooled Jackson into thinking he was with a fellow Christian. Be all things to all men, that was Billy Blythe's belief, but make sure you profit from the deceptions. "So what happens now?" he asked Starbuck.

  "What do you think? We shoot the hell out of those poor sons of bitches, they surrender, then we go and shoot the hell out of the rest of the sorry bastards." Starbuck checked suddenly, arrested by the distant sound of gunfire. It was very distant, much too muted and far away to be the guns on Harper's Ferry's farther side. The same distant grumbling had trembled across the sky the previous evening, just before the sun had set in a blaze of western scarlet, and Starbuck had climbed to the ridge top to see a small billow of whiteness on the far north-eastern skyline. That far whiteness, which had been touched pink by the dying day, could have been an errant wisp of cloud, except that the noise had betrayed what it truly was—gunfire. A skirmish or battle was being waged deep inside Maryland. Starbuck shuddered and was glad he was here and not there.

  The last mist shredded from the valleys to reveal the small town of Harper's Ferry huddled at the point between the merging rivers. The fame of the place had somehow persuaded Starbuck that it would prove a large town, almost the size of Richmond maybe, but in truth it was a tiny place. It must have once been a pleasant, tree-shaded village built on a spur of hill that dropped to the banks of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, though now many of the buildings were charred ruins out of which brick chimney stacks reared gaunt. An undamaged church flew a flag that, when Starbuck borrowed a gunner's binoculars, he saw to be the British flag. "I thought those bastards were on our side," he told the gunner officer.

  "Who cares? Kill 'em anyway," the gunner laughed, reveling in the wealth of targets that the lifting mist had revealed. There were federal earthworks on the edge of the town and naked batteries waiting to be shelled. The two rivers were edged by a sprawl of industrial buildings that had once been the Federal Arsenal and a rifle factory but which were now nothing but scorched roofless walls, while the massive bridge that had once carried the Ohio and Baltimore's rails over the Potomac had been reduced to a series of stone piers like the stepping stones of a giant. The only passage across the wide Potomac now was a pontoon bridge erected by Northern engineers, but as Starbuck watched a great fountain of water exploded out of the river beside the bridge, making the pontoons tug on their chains. A few seconds later there came the sound of the rebel gun that had fired the shell from the distant hills.

  Jackson looked startled, for he had not yet ordered his signalers to wigwag the order to begin the bombardment, but someone in the rebel lines on the north side of the Potomac had tired of waiting and suddenly all the guns on all the hills about the town crashed back on their trails and pumped smoke and shells toward the trapped garrison. The watching infantry cheered as the wispy smoke trails of the shells' burning fuses arced down to the battered town where the Yankees waited.

  And where they now died. The rebel gunners worked like fiends to sponge out, reload, and ram their guns, and shell after shell screamed down the slopes to explode in gusting swathes of smoke, flame, and dirt. The Yankee earthworks outside the town seemed to disappear in blasts of smoke, and when the smoke drifted clear the watching rebels could see their enemies running back toward the town's war-scarred buildings. A few Yankee guns tried to answer the destructive barrage, but the Northern batteries were swiftly battered into silence by the rebel artillery. To the watchers on the hills it seemed as though the river town was being turned into a pit of hell. Flames leaped up from burning limbers, smoke drifted thick, and huge trees shivered like saplings as the shells blasted the leaves away. Sweat poured down the gunners' faces and bare chests. Each recoil slammed the guns violently back so that their trails gouged deep troughs in the dirt. The wet sponges that extinguished any trace of red-hot explosive remaining in a barrel after each shot hissed and steamed as they were rammed down to the breach, then, the second that the sponge was withdrawn to be thrust into a bucket of dirty water, the loader would shove the next round into the muzzle to be rammed hard down while the rest of the team maneuvered the gun back to its proper aim. "Ready!" the gunner would shout and the team would duck aside with hands over their ears as the command to fire was shouted. The gunner yanked the lanyard that scraped the friction primer over its incendiary tube and a heartbeat later the gun would crash back behind its billow of smoke and another shell, its fuse smoking, screamed toward the town.

  "I was there once," Billy Blythe said to Starbuck.

  "You were?"

  "Saw Mister Brown hung," Blythe said contentedly. "Smug son of a bitch."

  "What were you doing there?"

  "Buying horses," Blythe said. "That was my trade, see? And once in a while we came north to find a nag or two. Stayed at Wager's Hotel." He stared at the town and shook his head. "Burned to a cinder, by the look of things. A pity. I was hoping to renew my acquaintance with a girl there. Sweet as honey, she was, only a lot cheaper," he laughed. "Hell, she and I were watching out of a bedroom window when they hung that smug son of a bitch. Hung him higher than an angel. Kicked like a mule, he did, and all the time I was making that sweet little honey moan for pleasure."

  Starbuck felt a flicker of
distaste for his second in command. "I met John Brown," he said.

  "You did?"

  "He came to Boston wanting funds," Starbuck explained, "but he didn't get none from us." At the time he had been puzzled that his father had refused to help the famous abolitionist, but now, looking back, he wondered if the Reverend Elial Starbuck had been jealous of the stern, ravaged-faced Brown. The two men had been very alike. Had his father feared such a formidable rival in the abolition movement? But Brown was dead now, and in the wake of his hopeless rebellion there was a plague of death across America. "He told me I'd be a warrior against the slavocracy," Starbuck recalled the meeting in his father's parlor, "guess he got that wrong."

  "You're fighting to keep the slaves, is that it?" Blythe asked.

  "Hell, no. I'm fighting because I've nothing better to do." "Slaves won't be freed anyway," Blythe said confidently. "They won't?"

  "Not this side of heaven, and if God's got any sense, not there neither. Hell, who's going to pay the lazy sons of bitches wages?"

  "Maybe they're only lazy because they don't get wages," Starbuck said.

  "Sound like your pa, Major."

  Starbuck bit back an angry retort. He was surprised at his sudden suspicions of Billy Tumlin and wondered if he was being unfair to the man, but he sensed that Tumlin's glibness concealed a sly dishonesty. Billy Tumlin lied too easily, and Starbuck had seen proof of that when Tumlin talked with Jackson, and now he wondered how many other lies Tumlin had told. There was something that did not ring true about Tumlin, and Starbuck found himself wondering why a man who had ostensibly escaped from a Yankee prison was so well fed and so handsomely equipped with a money belt. "I'm going to get myself a map in Harper's Ferry," he said just after the nearest gun had thumped back on its trail.