Jubilance did not last long.
“Here come the dirty little …”
Out of the woods, back on the sunken road, the Rebels charged again, screaming, firing, dying. Caleb’s musket felt so hot it would melt. He checked the cartridge box he had picked up, withdrew the last load. When he had the musket loaded, he rolled over. A few Rebs had made it across the road. One stood only three rods in front of Caleb, his face a black horrifying mask with wide, red eyes. The musket roared. Face and man disappeared. Caleb rolled back over, looked at Sergeant Masterson, nonchalantly cleaning his nails.
“Sergeant!” He had to yell twice. At last, Harold Masterson studied Caleb. “Your cartridge box.” Caleb jutted his chin toward Masterson’s waist. “Do you have any ammunition?”
Masterson blinked. “I haven’t seen Boone. Have you?”
Swearing vilely, Caleb inched down, turned, crawled away from Sergeant Masterson. A ball blasted dirt and débris into his eyes. He cried out, almost released his viselike grip on the musket, almost ran through the brambles, fled for home. General Prentiss’ words stopped him.
“Boys, Grant says we must hold ’em. We must hold ’em here.”
Someone called back: “Where the devil’s Grant?”
A cannon blast silenced an officer’s condemnation. Caleb pressed his face deep into the leaves. At first, he thought the Confederates were shelling these woods. Cries, moans, shrieks, coughs, curses told him otherwise. Union artillery had opened up.
“Take that, you butchers!” That sounded like Lieutenant McEfee.
Caleb reached a dead man, pried open the cartridge box, pulled out the cartridges, and stuffed them into his own box. He looked up, saw a crucifix drenched in blood around the corpse’s neck. He almost reached for it, even though he was not Catholic, thinking that it couldn’t hurt. Still, he couldn’t do it. I’m no grave robber, he thought, but he took the dead man’s capper, and eased his way back toward Sergeant Masterson. Balls slammed into the woods. Another artillery shell exploded. His ears rang.
The sound of the charge he could not hear, but he still saw. More Secesh pouring out of the woods, crossing the road without touching the mud, a carpet of dead at their feet.
Once more, the Rebs retreated back across the road, into the woods.
A new sound reached him. Something screamed across the sky, clipping the treetops above him, exploding somewhere deep into the woods across the road.
“What’s that, Major?”
“Ironclads, boys. Gun ships back on the river.”
Another cheer, silenced by another shell. A section of an oak crashed next to Caleb, limbs tearing into his left arm and leg. He let out a groan, pulled his arm free, rolled over, kicking at the timber until his leg was no longer trapped. He started to keep on, make it to Sergeant Masterson, only to realize this bit of wood, dropped by a Union shell, would make better cover than the mound of dirt he hugged ten yards west.
“Hurlbut’s pulled out!” someone shouted. “Sherman’s turned tail. We’ve got to get out of here or we’ll all be massacred!”
“Stand your ground!” A cacophony of curses. “Stand your ground! We must hold!”
Caleb loaded the musket, heard that chilling scream, rose to a knee to see above the smoking treetop, aimed, fired.
“Save your powder and lead. Let them get closer. Fire. Fire, men, fire!”
“The Union forever!”
The ringing had left his ears, but he could not hear. Nothing. Smoke and sweat almost blinded him. Again he rammed powder and lead down the barrel. His fingers were thick with black dirt, powder, and blood that wasn’t his, as far as he could tell. He saw a flag, recognized it as the banner of Company E, the one he had last seen in the mud back in camp. It was being waved by someone—George Preston, he realized—being carted off on a litter, away from the battlefield, toward the Tennessee River.
A bullet clipped sweaty hair hanging over his ear. He faced the never-ending sea of gray and brown. Horse soldiers burst out of the forest, firing, spurring, turning down the road. A steady waterfall of horses and cavalry. One horse went down, spilling its rider. Caleb aimed, fired, missed. By the time he had reloaded, the Rebels had vanished, but he could hear those horses crashing down an animal path somewhere in the thicket. His hearing had returned.
“They’ll flank us!” a sergeant from Company G yelled.
“They’ve already got us flanked!” answered someone to the east.
Out of the woods, the Rebels moved again, screaming, firing, the rug of dead men even higher now. Caleb fired, knew he was out of cartridges again. He scrambled from the felled treetop, crawled and dragged himself to Sergeant Masterson. This time, he didn’t bother to ask for ammunition. Frantically he opened the cartridge box, only to find it empty, too.
Lifting his head, Masterson roared in anguish: “I can’t find Boone …!”
“He’s dead! Boone’s dead. And so are we!” Caleb wanted to run, but he crawled over Masterson’s legs, clawing, digging, finding at last another dead soldier. As he was ramming down a load, he heard Prentiss’ shouting.
“We must stop this slaughter! Company commanders, stack your arms! Stack your arms!”
Caleb capped the musket, rolled over, fired.
“Stack your arms!”
He looked to the east, the west. A bullet tore into the ground beside him. This shot came from behind him. They were surrounded. Spinning, he looked into the woods, saw nothing but trees torn apart by Rebel lead, as if God had swung a scythe four to five feet off the ground.
“Surrender! We surrender!”
“Will they shoot us, Lieutenant?”
“No!”
A white flag fluttered. Another.
Caleb swore again. All of this. All those dead. Boone Masterson. Folker. “For nothing!” He spit out the words, heard footsteps coming from that sunken road, and bitterly pitched his rifle to the north. It took a moment before he could make his arms work after that. Reaching out, he used the trunk of a tree to pull himself to his feet, although he wasn’t sure his legs would be able to support his weight.
He was right. He slipped, felt himself falling, but long arms reached around his chest, stopped his plummet. He felt himself being turned around, expected to find himself staring into the treacherous face of a Southern demon.
“You all right, Caleb?” Sergeant Masterson asked. He seemed to have regained his faculties, and offered a reassuring smile.
Caleb started to answer, but a gunshot stopped him. Harold Masterson, one-time barber from Pennville, Missouri, staggered against Caleb, a soft moan escaping through his lips, and they crashed onto scattered limbs and leaves. Masterson’s head slammed into Caleb’s forehead, and the world turned black.
Chapter Nineteen
April 6, 1862
Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee
He woke, clutching his mother, burying his head against her breasts while trying not to cry. Shuddering, he squeezed her tightly, but she did not return the hug. She didn’t even stroke his hair or soothe him with her sweet Kentucky drawl, and when a cannon cut loose in the gloaming, rifling the woods with grapeshot, Caleb Cole knew why.
Releasing his bear grip, he pulled his arms underneath the body atop him and, grunting, pushed it off. That took some doing, even for the biggest farm-bred boy in Company E. Caleb sat up, lungs working feverishly, and touched his tunic, sticky, soaked with blood. Shaking, he reached inside, feeling for some hole in his chest made by ball or bayonet. Nothing. Then he remembered, and looked down at the dead man who had fallen atop him.
“Oh, Sergeant Masterson,” he said softly, and quickly turned away. Tears welled in his eyes, but none rolled down his cheeks. He blinked, shaking his head, and leaned against an oak tree. Or, rather, what once had been an oak tree.
Rebel and Federal lead had served as an axe, toppling the tree about four feet above its roots
. A canteen draped over the fallen timber next to Caleb’s left shoulder, and Caleb realized just how thirsty he was. His mouth was coated with a mixture of powder and Tennessee mud and grass. Desperately he reached up and grabbed the gray-wool-wrapped tin container by its canvas strap. Only then did he realize that a hand gripped the canteen. The hand of a dead Confederate soldier.
He fell, pulling the canteen with him, backing away, but stopping quickly when he realized that that direction would bring him next to Sergeant Masterson.
“It’s Sunday,” he remembered telling the sergeant that morning, and recalled Sergeant Masterson’s reply: “It sure won’t be like any Sabbath you’ve ever seen, boy.”
Like always, the sergeant had been right.
Caleb squeezed his eyelids tightly, shaking his head, trying to block out the image of the sergeant’s lifeless green eyes staring up at him.
“Water,” someone moaned, and his plea echoed all across the battlefield from other wounded soldiers, Northern and Southern.
“Water …”
“Water …”
“Water …”
In an eerie, out-of-tune harmony came sporadic musketry, but mostly other calls. For mothers. For wives. For mercy. For death.
“Oh, please, God, Mama, just give me one drop of water.”
Caleb’s eyes shot open. He still held the canteen, and savagely brought it to his mouth, feeling the tin slice through his palm. The canteen dropped into his lap, and he stared at his bleeding hand, then at the canteen. A Minié ball had punctured the bottom, emptying its contents hours earlier. He looked away from the canteen, his bleeding hand, and, blinking back sweat and surprise, watched what appeared to be a ghost, crawling through the brambles. Again, Caleb blinked, but the ghost kept coming, and, after one horrifying moment, Caleb understood. It wasn’t some apparition, but a Rebel soldier in a white uniform, once brand-new but now covered with soot, powder, and blood.
The Reb moved around a broken gun carriage, and over Masterson’s body. He crawled right past Caleb, never noticing him, just moving with intense purpose, underneath the shattered oak.
“That’s right, Matt, there might be some frogs in that pond,” the Reb said. “Maybe even some big ones, and I pity them fool frogs. I do indeed, my friend. Because we will drink that pond dry.”
As the Secesh disappeared underneath the oak, Caleb stared at the soiled white trousers, the left leg soaked with blood.
“Water!” another voice cried from afar.
Caleb rolled over, hearing the canteen spin away, and crawled after those fast-moving legs.
He moved over guns, some broken apart, some dropped, others probably never even fired. Crawled over knapsacks, brogans, kepis, and bedrolls. Crawled over a wagon wheel, underneath a caisson. Crawled through mud. Crawled over dead men. Followed the blackened, shoeless feet of the man in front of him.
“Don’t be a dunderpate, Matt,” the Reb said. “We saw that pond. I know where I’m going, bunkie. It’s this way. I know it. My nose smells that water. My tongue tastes it.”
Twice, Caleb turned, glancing behind him, looking for Matt. Behind him, he saw nothing but a battlefield littered with the dead, the wounded, the dying. “The wormwood and gall,” Sergeant Masterson had said.
He stopped, images of the battle hitting him in a rush, and trembled.
“There! Just a few rods more, Matt, and we’ll slake our thirsts!”
Caleb turned, moving with a fury, did not want that Secesh to get out of his sight. Soon he felt others crawling or staggering near him. Wobbly legs carried one soldier who could still not only walk, but run. Only then did Caleb stop, thinking: I can walk, too. Can’t I?
He reached out, found the broken wheel and axle from a wagon, and pulled himself up. Caught his breath. Took a tentative step. A man rushed past him, almost knocked him to the ground. Caleb started to say something, but his mouth felt too dry. He stumbled on, still following the wounded Reb. His shoes sloshed through damp grass. The Secesh crawled over the dead. Caleb walked over them, until he could no longer avoid stepping on them.
“Here we go, Matt,” the shoeless Reb said as he pulled himself to the edge of a pond. He cupped his hands, drank, and fell headfirst into the water.
Caleb knelt beside him, started to drink, but saw the bubbles rising from the Reb’s submerged head.
“Gee willikins, Reb.” He reached over, gripped the soldier’s blouse, and pulled him out of the pond. The Secesh gagged, snorted, rolled over on the bank, and vomited.
Ignoring him, Caleb returned to the water. He knelt, bathed his wounded hand in the water, then with his good hand, cupped a handful of the cold water, and drank. He drank again. Then he removed his hat, soaking it in the water, and put it on his head to cool off.
Behind him, the Rebel moaned.
“Gee willikins,” he said again, and dipped the hat in the pond, letting it fill like a gourd this time, crawled a few rods, and lifted the hat toward the Reb’s face. To his surprise, he found most of the water leaking from holes in the crown. Holes that hadn’t been in his black hat that morning.
“Here,” he said, and tilted the hat to the young soldier’s mouth.
Soldier, Caleb thought with a snort. Caleb was sixteen. The Secesh couldn’t be much older.
Much water rolled down the boy’s cheeks, splattering the grass and rotting leaves, but some must have made its way into the Reb’s gullet. He smacked his lips and said: “Thanks, Matt.”
“My name isn’t Matt,” Caleb said, surprised at the fury in his voice. “It’s Caleb. Caleb Cole. Eighteenth Missouri.”
The Reb’s piercing blue eyes came into focus. He suddenly remembered his leg, and, grimacing, sat up, and bent over to tighten the filthy, rolled-up bandanna around his thigh.
Cursing underneath his breath, Caleb returned to the pond, but this time had to wait until another soldier, this one from some Union artillery regiment, had his fill. When that man stumbled away, Caleb plunged the hat into the water, and hurried back to the Reb before the water spilled from his sieve of a hat, dumping the water onto the bloody thigh.
“Thanks.”
Their eyes met, but only briefly, because Caleb returned to the pond. This time he drank until he noticed that the water smelled funny. He straightened, cupped another handful, and brought it closer to his face.
Caleb looked again at the red-tinted water dripping between his fingers. Then he looked into the pond. Bodies floated in the middle. One hung on a caisson’s wheel. Corpses lined the banks. Caleb’s gut roiled. He shuddered as the skies darkened.
Grass rustled around him, and he saw the Secesh crawling to the edge. When the Rebel splashed water over his face, and drank greedily, Caleb wretched. Water came out, and he vomited again, but he had nothing in his stomach. There had been no breakfast that morning. He gagged and spat until he thought he’d throw up his own innards, then desperately fell to the bank and made himself drink the bloody water again.
When he lifted his head, he saw the Reb beside him bathing the bandanna in the pond, then retying it over his thigh.
Again, their eyes met.
“You seen Matt?” the Reb asked.
Caleb couldn’t talk. His head barely shook.
The young face turned ashen, and stiffened. “Oh.” The Secesh’s voice sounded a thousand miles away. “No … I guess you haven’t.”
Caleb felt a sudden panic. He was here with the enemy, but didn’t have his rifle. Not even a knife. Then again, neither did the Reb.
“You hit bad?”
Caleb looked at the Reb. “I wasn’t even hit at all.” A mirthless chuckle escaped, and he held out his right hand. “Got this from a shot-up canteen.”
“Lucky.” The Reb drank again.
“Don’t feel lucky.”
“You’re alive.”
Caleb shrugged.
“I thought we’d drive them Yanks all the way across the river. Didn’t you?”
Another humorless laugh. Odd, Caleb thought, earlier that day he had thought he would never laugh again for as long as he lived. Shaking his head, he turned to the young Secesh. “I thought you Rebs were going to make us swim across the river.”
The boy tensed, straightened. “You’re a Yank?”
Caleb nodded.
“But I thought you said you hailed from Missouri?”
“I did. I do.” The Secesh, Caleb knew, didn’t understand. “Missouri’s been sending troops to the Confederate cause and to the Union. And some …” His head shook.
“Seems like we ought to be fighting one another. Or me taking you prisoner or the other way around.” The Secesh made no move, though. Instead, he drank again, then, noticing the color of the liquid, spit it out.
“I’m all fought out,” Caleb said. “Most of the Eighteenth …” His head dropped.
“Yeah.” The Reb rubbed his leg. “What’s Missouri like?”
Caleb smiled. “It’s home.”
“Yeah. Know what you mean. Home for me’s Cedar Bayou, Texas.”
“Can’t say I’ve heard of that,” Caleb said.
“It’s on Galveston Bay.”
“I think I’ve heard of Galveston.”
“Yeah. Where you from? In Missouri, I mean.”
“Just a farm. Outside Unionville. In Putnam County.”
The Reb laughed, harder this time. “Well, I never heard of any of those places.”
“You’re not alone. Even some boys in the Eighteenth had never heard of Unionville. It’s near nothing.”
They sniggered again, this time full of mirth.
“Water …” someone groaned from the woods. A horse screamed to the west. And from behind them: “George. Kill me, George. My guts is on fire. I can’t take this no more.”
Silence. Except for the moans, groans, death rattles, the splashing of water, the gurgles of drinking men, and the wind in the trees.
“Reckon we’ll go at it again tomorrow?” Caleb asked.
And There I’ll Be a Soldier Page 16
