Brave Enemies

by Robert Morgan

  I pointed the barrel at the man in front with the bayonet reaching out toward me. I brought the bead right on him.

  At the instant I touched the trigger and the rifle kicked and smoke boiled out of the barrel, the man wearing epaulets raised his head and stopped. A man behind him fell. I’d missed the officer and hit the other man. They all stopped and the row in front knelt down.

  The man that had fallen was screaming with pain, but nobody paid him any mind. He crawled a little way and stopped. He put his hands to his chest and it looked like worms of blood squeezed through his fingers. The man searched through his clothes. I didn’t know what he was looking for. The other soldiers were busy kneeling and aiming, and they didn’t pay him any mind.

  From the right I heard one of the officers yell, “No quarter!” It must have been Tarleton himself. “No quarter for traitors,” he said.

  The man on the grass raised himself so he was sitting. His coat was covered with wetness. His cap had fallen off and he didn’t look any bigger than us on the ground.

  “Tarleton’s quarter,” Gudger shouted, and shot the wounded man.

  I paused for an instant, watching the wounded man fall back into the grass and jerk. Then I grabbed up my ramrod and bag and rifle and started running back. But I looked back in time to see the whole line of redcoats fire a volley. All their ranks belched smoke and the air above my head and around my ears screamed with bullets. There was a terrible roar, like awful thunder. The sound of the volley scared me more than anything else had. The sky went crashing behind me and over me. The air broke apart and it sounded like a swarm of hornets dropped on my head. And then the drum started playing again.

  The whole field was covered with smoke, but when I looked back I saw the redcoats walking steady out of the fog. Their bayonets stuck out in front of them like they were pushing against the air. And out of the corner of my eye I saw something else. Between two companies of the redcoats I saw two little groups of men in blue-and-red coats carrying two cannons forward. They lifted them on rods and brought them ahead, then set them up to fire.

  The brass barrels shined like they were gold. First one blew out smoke and jumped back and then the other. They jumped in the air like they were on springs.

  “Watch out for the grasshoppers,” Captain Cox yelled, and I saw that he meant the little cannons. The shots hissed, going over my head.

  The men in blue and red worked fast around the right cannon like they were pieces of a clock. One poured in powder, one pushed in the wadding and ball, and one rammed it down with a pole. Another man stood there with a sparking match on a stick to touch it to the vent. But first he stuck a pin in the vent to make sure it wasn’t clogged up. As soon as the cannon jumped back they went through it all again. The shots went way over our heads.

  But even as I glanced back, I was running and stumbling. I was driven toward Pickens’s line like I’d been carried by a flash flood. The ground was tilted away and I was running up a hill toward the South Carolina volunteers. I was half falling and half climbing. I couldn’t believe I was there, and yet I was there, and I had fired at the enemy. I’d tried to kill a man.

  As I ran I put the ramrod in the same hand that held the rifle and reached for the powder horn. It was clumsy to try to run and pour powder into the barrel. I expected to be shot from behind. I tried to swerve and zigzag, the way Cox had told us to do, but it was all I could do to keep from falling.

  Pickens’s men were partly hidden by trees. But there weren’t enough trees for all of us to take cover behind. Some men knelt on the ground, and where there was a hickory log, ten men lay behind it with their rifles aimed straight ahead. They were older men than Cox’s company. Some were dressed like gentlemen and some were barefoot and wore linsey or buckskin.

  I got to their line and wheeled around. There was no cover, for every tree and bush was taken. I stood beside two big redheaded fellows that looked like twins. Gaither was already in the line, but I didn’t see T. R. I was so out of breath I could hardly stand up.

  A man on a white horse rode out in front of the line. He wore a light blue coat and he had the thinnest, longest face you ever saw, the saddest face in creation, and his eyes seemed to burn at you from under heavy brows. I thought it must be Col. Andrew Pickens whom we had heard so much about.

  “Hold your fire until they’re in killing distance,” the colonel shouted. His face was so thin it looked like it had been stretched. His whole body appeared to have been pulled out long. He sat tall on the white horse. It was a long-legged horse and he towered above us. The sun was behind the colonel and threw his shadow on us as he rode to and fro.

  The sun was above Thicketty Mountain now and in my left eye, when I turned toward the colonel. He spoke calmer than the general. “Fire twice and pull back around the Maryland line,” he said.

  He sounded so calm and dignified. He pointed at the advancing British and then rode behind our line.

  I looked around to see where the Old Wagoner was. Our line stretched way across the field to the woods on the other side of the Green River Road. There were officers on horses riding along behind us talking to the men. But I didn’t see the general. Way behind us stretched the line of the Maryland and Delaware regulars and the Virginia militia. They had a flag and the little boy was playing his drum. Their uniforms looked bright in the sun. Their officers held long sticks that looked like spears, called spontoons I’d heard. The sticks had blades at the end shaped like fish that sparkled in the sun. Old Morgan was talking to the leaders back there. I guess he was talking to Colonel Howard. He waved his arms and pointed to us, and swung around and pointed to the left.

  I followed where the general was pointing and saw the cavalry of Colonel Washington. There were dozens of men on horses hidden mostly by the hill and the clump of pine trees. I wondered if they’d let us take the brunt of the fighting and come out when it was all over. The general pointed toward the horsemen and he pointed toward us. I couldn’t tell a thing from the way he was pointing.

  I cocked my rifle and turned back toward the front. My hands weren’t shaking so much like they had been. The enemy drums beat fast as my heart. It was hard to see their fancy uniforms through all the smoke. Way off to the right I saw the Highlanders with their plaid capes and their white pants coming down to their boots.

  “Steady on,” a voice among the Tories kept hollering. “Steady on.”

  The little cannons between the legions fired, and after every puff of smoke you could hear the shot go over like a flock of pigeons. They must have fired grapeshot or buckshot. But they shot way over us, and I looked back and saw dirt kick up and a man fall in the Maryland line. Maybe the grasshoppers were just aimed at the Continentals. The artillerymen didn’t think the volunteers were worth bothering with. Or maybe they thought the bayonets would take care of us.

  As the Tories came closer, I saw something move in the grass ahead of them. Was it some animal trapped between the lines? The broom sedge shook and then a head raised up. It was a soldier that was wounded and crawling back to Pickens’s line. He was hurt so he couldn’t use his legs, but pulled himself by his elbows. He looked at the British getting closer and then heaved himself toward us. I thought it was a man from our company.

  “Come on,” several hollered to him from our line. I yelled too.

  He held his rifle and worked himself forward on his elbows. His face looked white as a lace handkerchief, but his hunting shirt was covered with blood and dirt. The redcoats stepped forward like they didn’t even see him. They were coming up behind him. Their bayonets pointed right at us. There were so many it was like a row of corn.

  “Come on, Roberts,” somebody yelled.

  Roberts pulled himself forward like a worm inching itself through the grass. He strained and heaved. I saw he wasn’t going to make it and there was nothing we could do.

  The British drums beat like the rattle of doom. “Steady on, steady on,” the officer called out.

  “Take aim,” C
olonel Pickens called, “but let them get in killing distance.”

  My hands were shaking again so I could hardly hold the rifle. There wasn’t any tree to lean on. Only thing to steady the barrel was my left hand. The redcoats kept moving and the end of my rifle jerked back and forth. It didn’t seem like I could get it aimed.

  Roberts dug his elbows into the grass and peavines like he was swimming. I could see the sweat streaming down his face, or maybe it was tears.

  “Don’t shoot till they’re closer,” Colonel Pickens yelled.

  It looked as if the British were going to step right over Roberts. They walked all together to the drumbeat, and didn’t seem to notice him. When the redcoats were right over him Roberts rolled around and tried to point his rifle at the closest soldier. But before he could raise the long barrel a redcoat lowered his own gun and drove the bayonet through Roberts’s chest. It all happened in a second, but I saw the look on Roberts’s face as the blade went in. It was like he was surprised, and then blood leapt from his mouth in a red tongue.

  I lowered my gun to the left and shot the redcoat that had killed Roberts. Several others fired at the same time.

  “Wait!” Colonel Pickens snapped. But it was too late. Boys all along the line started firing. “Pop pop pop,” went the guns. It sounded like the top of the sky was blowing off.

  “Reload!” Colonel Pickens shouted. I saw the ramrod was gone from my rifle. The rings under the barrel were empty. I’d lost it after reloading while running back. And then I saw the Tory line had stopped in front of us. Smoke from our guns made it hard to see them. They threw shadows on the drifting smoke, like an army of dark ghosts reaching toward us.

  “Fire!” a voice barked.

  And from the line in front of us, all the way across the field, white smoke puffed from the muskets. It looked like smoke was coming from their bayonets. The field itself, and the air too, turned to fire. And soon as I saw the smoke whoosh out, a terrible noise came at us. It was the worst racket I’d ever heard. All the thunder in the world put together wouldn’t equal the roar of muskets in our faces. I was hit in the eyes by the roar and felt like crying. The bullets were so close on every side I didn’t know which way to run. The musket smoke rose in a wall of white and rolled across the field blotting the sun. It was a storm covering us.

  “Reload!” Colonel Pickens shouted.

  I looked around and saw Captain Cox running up and down the line behind us. “Give them one more shot!” he yelled. “Damn it, fire again!”

  But I couldn’t find my ramrod. The big redheaded twin on my right had been shot and his brother had thrown down his rifle and was bent over him. “Jamie, are you hurt?” he cried.

  Jamie’s rifle lay on the ground with a ramrod tossed beside it. I guess he’d been trying to reload when he was shot. I grabbed the rod and started to reload my rifle.

  “Wake up, Jamie,” the brother said, “and we’ll go home and have some grits and butter.”

  I poured in a charge of powder and tried to get a shot out of my bag. But it was like reaching into a bag of jelly. The balls slipped through my fingers, and when I finally did get hold of one it dropped in the grass before I could put it in the barrel. Wasn’t any hope of finding it in the broom sedge. That’s why some soldiers carried bullets in their mouths, so they’d have one ready. Of course they had to wipe the spit off so it wouldn’t wet the powder.

  When I reached to get another shot I looked up and saw the British coming out of the smoke. They looked like a legion of ten thousand. Their bayonets stuck out like horns and fangs. They came out of the smoke like demon shadows pointing their blades at us.

  Through the smoke I saw the artillerymen loading their cannons and pointing them. They worked all together like the legs of a spider, pouring in powder, ramming in a cannister of shot, touching the vent on the barrel with the match called a linstock. The cannon jumped in the air and spurted out smoke, and the shot went overhead like forty hawks swooping.

  I would just have time to reload before the British line reached us. I might shoot one man just as they stuck me with their bayonets. I’d lost too much time looking for the ramrod.

  “Give them another shot,” Colonel Pickens yelled, running down the line.

  But all around me men started dropping back. They saw just as I did there wasn’t time to reload before the bayonets reached us. A few did fire again, and I saw a British officer go down clutching his sword. But our line began to crumble and melt back. Wasn’t anything could hold it firm before the coming bayonets.

  I backed away a few feet and tried to get another shot in the barrel. The big redheaded brother tried to pull Jamie back in the smoke. But Jamie just stared up straight at the sky.

  It was like I was in the middle of a brushfire, and there was smoke and popping trees and bursting roots all around me. I couldn’t see where to go.

  “Fire again, you bastards,” somebody shouted. It was Major McDowell riding by.

  But our line was broken and backing away and starting to run. I looked around and didn’t see anybody I knew. A boy with half his face shot off lay on the ground. And somebody with his legs broken was trying to crawl backward. Splinters of bone came through his blood-soaked pants. Blood was so thick on his boots it looked like jelly. Snot ran out of his nose and mixed with tears and spit on his chin.

  I was all confused. I couldn’t think of anything and I didn’t know anything. Smoke burned my eyes and nose. There wasn’t anybody between me and the Tories, and their blades were coming at me. The drums kept thumping and the pipes whistling. You have no business being here, I said to myself.

  “Steady on, now steady on,” the British officer said.

  I finally did get the ball and patch in the barrel of the rifle. But I was walking backward from the advancing line. I wasn’t going to run, but kept walking as I raised the ramrod and stuck it in the barrel.

  “One more shot!” the colonel yelled. “Give them one more shot!”

  There were rifles lying on the ground, and hats and shot bags. Somebody had lost a boot as he ran away. Coats were scattered in the broom sedge. An arm lay on the ground in a bloody sleeve. I didn’t see Captain Cox or any of his men.

  I kept walking after the others, and when I got the bullet packed down I turned to see the redcoats right where I’d stood before. Two Tories stabbed their bayonets into Jamie’s body. Driving the blades into the chest, they made sideways twists, like they were cutting out the heart.

  “Steady on,” the British officer yelled.

  In the smoke I couldn’t tell who had epaulets and who didn’t. I raised my gun and somebody ran in front of me. It was Gudger. “Don’t shoot at me, you idiot,” he yelled. His face was bloody and swollen. I didn’t see T. R. or Gaither.

  “Fire one more time,” somebody called. It was Major McDowell, turning his horse this way and that way among the running boys. In the smoke I couldn’t see anything clearly. People ran sideways all around me. Crows called somewhere up in the air, like they were riled by all the battle noise.

  I raised the rifle in the smoke, trying to see epaulets. But all I could tell in the fog was the British were getting close. They all looked alike in their big hats, holding bayonets out in front of them. The drums kept throbbing and it sounded like somebody beating their own belly. It was such a scary sound, of somebody thumping on their stomach, and it was getting louder.

  I squeezed the trigger, but couldn’t see if anybody went down, for even more smoke blew across the field. Please, Lord, I prayed, let me live through this. Guns popped all around, but the redcoats didn’t fire. They just kept coming on with their bayonets stuck out in front like ghosts marching through a wall. I saw they never did fire when they were moving. And they all fired at the same time. It was only when they started sticking in their bayonets that everyone went for their own target.

  I started backing away again, and was going to run to the right as we had been told to do. But my feet caught on something and I fell right on a
body lying in the broom sedge. When I tried to get up my face mashed right against the face of the dead man. His eyes stared straight up, but his skin wasn’t cold. He must have just been hit. Something was running out of his mouth, and at first I thought it was blood, but then smelled tobacco juice. I was looking right into his eyes, and then I rolled away.

  When I staggered to my feet, still holding the gun in one hand and the ramrod in the other, there was blood all down the front of my coat. It looked like I’d been stabbed by a bayonet, but I didn’t feel any wound. I stepped over a body with the guts blown out by a cannonball. There was a boy with his leg shot off dragging himself back toward the Maryland line. “Oh Jesus,” he yelled.

  There was the smell of blood in the air, like where you’re butchering hogs.

  I was swirling in a flood of human bodies. Was I going to be drowned, or trampled and left behind? I started running. But ahead there were bayonets pointing through the smoke. Had I gotten turned around and was running back toward the redcoats? They stood in perfect ranks with their bayonets thrust out. I was lost in the thick smoke and couldn’t think.

  “Fall back to the left, to the left,” somebody yelled. Everybody started running to the right, and I saw I’d gotten turned around toward the Maryland line. I had gotten separated from McDowell’s North Carolina men. I started running as hard as I could. The Continental regulars had blue uniforms with red stripes, but except for the colors they looked just like the British line. Their drummer boy was making his box thump and rattle.

  Bullets whined and sang all around me. Tufts of broom sedge kicked up in front of me. It was the cannons firing. A soldier in the Maryland line was hit in the chest and fell.

  Dodging zigzag, I dashed to the side like everybody else did. I ran like I was trying to miss the bullets, past a hickory tree and then a sassafras bush. I didn’t see anybody I knew. I thought maybe there was cover ahead.

  Just then I heard another sound, like shots fired one after another, or a drum beating louder and louder. The sound of a bugle tore the air like a scarf ripped in two. I turned and saw horses bearing down on us out of the smoke. It was the Green Dragoons. With their sabers raised high, they looked like giants on horses. With the sun bright on smoke behind them, they seemed to come out of the sky shooting shadows at us. Ba-ba-ba-boom, ba-ba-ba-boom, ba-ba-ba-boom, they sounded as they galloped closer.