March Toward the Thunder

by Joseph Bruchac

  Louis wolfed the final bite of his meager breakfast and washed it down with the last cup of coffee from the pot Merry had carried with him, tied with a spare shoelace to the back of his pack. Then he looked around at the other men in their mess.

  Mess, another one of those new words I’ve learned. But now I take it for granted as much as breathing.

  A mess was the smallest and the most informal of all the units in any army. And in some ways, Louis had learned, it was the most important, made up of those men who chose to take their meals together in the field.

  They all shared the duties of cooking, cleaning up, fetching water to fill the canteens and the coffee pot, and—when they could pry it out of Merry’s hands—carrying the iron skillet. Joker Kirk and Scarecrow Dedham, Possum Page (flat on his back and snoring, his hat over his chubby face, able to take a nap anywhere), Merry, Happy Smith with his perennial scowl, Songbird Devlin, Knapp, Ryan, Kinney, Bishop. One by one he found the familiar faces of the other ten men in their mess. One apostle short of twelve, as Joker put it.

  Not a one was missing. Men from other messes, like Wilson and O’Day, had died or become casualties. It was a small comfort that none of the men in their mess had been lost or even wounded in the hurly-burly of the previous day.

  Every one of them, though, had broken fingernails and black, blistered hands. A stack of shovels lay piled against the side of their rifle pit. Their faces looked like those of the men Louis had seen once in a minstrel show, although the charcoal smears were not from burnt cork but from powder and ashes and Southern dirt.

  And there—at the edge of the group—was one extra face. That face wore a look on it Louis had not seen before—a mix of uncertainty and hope.

  “Belaney’s asked to join us,” Devlin said. “Every man in his mess was kilt or wounded. We’ve chosen to wait on a vote till you arrived. Ready? All in favor?”

  It seemed Louis was not the only one who’d noticed how Bull Belaney had shown a new side to himself in the fight. Every man raised his hand. Even Possum, who woke up when the vote was called.

  “Thank ye all,” Bull said, his voice breaking. “T’ explain meself, you need t’ know that I was sending ta money back t’ my sick old mam in County Clare.”

  “Enough of that,” Kirk said, “or you’ll have us all crying in our beer. It seems that we’re now the twelve apostles.” He looked around the circle of unwashed faces with a grin. “And not a Judas among us.”

  “Or a Jonah,” Happy Smith added with a growl. You could always trust him to think of the dark side of things.

  A Jonah. Yet another new word I’ve learned.

  A Jonah was sort of hapless soldier who seemed to bring misfortune with him wherever he went. A man who would catch his toe on a tree root and fall in such a way that half the company would trip over him. Lose his gun or his pack. Be the man whose shot went awry and hit one of his own. When they were to keep quiet and not alert the enemy to their presence, it was always a Jonah who would sneeze or cough. Like the cursed seafarer in the Bible, his fellows would welcome the chance to be rid of him.

  Like poor O’Day, Louis thought. And what would I do if bad luck should settle next on my own shoulders?

  “Form up on the double,” a voice called from behind them. It was Sergeant Flynn. Behind Flynn were Bing and Bang, who’d been given yet another new duty. They were carrying a stretcher between them loaded with boxes of ammunition.

  “Yer tea party is over, m’boys,” the sergeant said. “Fill up yer cartridge boxes. See that yer well stocked with caps. When t’morrow comes it’ll likely be up and advance.”

  But what the next days brought was more like up and down than advancing.

  Shoot and shovel, Louis thought, wiping the dirt from his face and then raising his rifle. Shovel and shoot.

  Work on their entrenchments, move a stone’s throw forward and then dig again. Beyond their lines was a tangled landscape of brush and trees and smoke. The maze had been made even worse by fallen trees knocked down by minié balls that flew thick as swarms of giant bees. Some of those pines and cedars taken down neck high by countless .58-caliber rounds were as thick as a man’s waist.

  The Southern troops originally hadn’t prepared entrenchments. They’d counted on their ambush working, the Northern army retreating in disarray. But the surprised Union soldiers hadn’t given up or fallen back. Instead, they’d dug in.

  Corporal Hayes came duckwalking down the trench, keeping his head low.

  “No retreat!” he said, pausing by one man after another in the rifle trench, patting their shoulders, squeezing their arms. “Those were the orders sent down by Grant, and by the nails we’re not about to go against them.”

  A hundred feet away the Rebs were digging in too now. Whenever he dared raise his head to look, Louis saw dirt flying into the air. They were piling more logs too. The barricade of logs piled breast high that was now a good three feet higher.

  If there were military maneuvers going on, Louis was not aware of them. Later reports might speak of how Hancock’s gallant Second Corps engaged the Rebel corps of General Ambrose Powell Hill, how they drove the enemy back a mile and a half all through that day, holding off every attempt to outflank them or pierce their lines. But nothing as clear as that was what Louis experienced. It was just claw forward and dig in. Shovel and shoot.

  CHAPTER NINE

  FISHING

  Monday, May 9, 1864

  Late morning. The Wilderness was now three days and ten miles behind them—though it felt to Louis as if they’d marched a thousand. The road had been clogged with ambulances carrying the wounded in one direction, supply wagons creeping along in the other. The men of E Company had shuffled on through the night, never stopping to sleep, never moving faster than a snail’s crawl. It had been more exhausting than striding forward at a brisk pace.

  “What’s holding us up?” Sergeant Flynn called out to a courier coming back from the head of the line of march. About two in the morning that had been.

  “Cavalry,” the man yelled. “Sheridan’s on our side and Jeb Stuart’s on theirs.”

  “Cavalry.” Flynn sniffed. “I should have known.”

  It had taken till dawn for Sheridan’s cavalry to move aside. The sun was coming up when they were told they’d reached their objective. No rest, though. Out with the shovels and up with the entrenchments. Shuffling forward and shoveling. Aside from drawing their rations, cleaning their guns, and praying for an hour or two of rest, that was about all they’d done for the last several days.

  Louis took off his hat, but didn’t peek up over the top of the trench. It was hardly worth the risk just to see a patchwork of woods and fields and low hills. Their objective, the Spotsylvania Court House and the crucial crossroads that led to the Rebels’ main railway line, was a good five miles farther.

  From where Louis knelt behind the walls of piled earth, the nearest Southern soldier might be half a mile or more away. But everyone in the army knew, especially after yesterday, how accurate the Southern snipers could be with their British Enfield rifles.

  The Fourth and Fifth Corps, farther forward, had been led by Major General Sedgwick. “Uncle John,” as everyone called him, was one of those rare, well-liked men who was also competent at his job. Grant always trusted his judgment. But yesterday, a clear bright Sunday, General Sedgwick’s judgment had been less than perfect. As he inspected the forward line, he’d climbed up the entrenchment to look out on the field.

  “Sir,” an aide warned. “The Johnnies can see you there.”

  Sedgwick paid no attention, even though the bars on his shoulders marked him as an important target. Puffs of smoke appeared on the distant hill as Rebel snipers 800 yards away began to fire. The aide dropped to his belly.

  “Why, what are you dodging for?” Sedgwick asked. “They could not hit an elephant at this distance.”

  Those were his final words. A Rebel ball struck the general square in the left cheek, killing him instantly.r />
  Louis picked up the stick that he had found the day before. It looked as if someone might have been making it into a cane. He picked up his hat and balanced it on top of the stick. Then he raised it up above the top of the trench, counting under his breath in Abenaki.

  “Nis, nas . . .”

  Thwack! The stick was jolted out of his hand by the impact of the bullet. A second later he heard the distant pop from the gun half a mile away that had let loose that well-aimed shot. It proved what Corporal Hayes had said to him earlier that day, after telling him the story of Sedgwick’s demise.

  “When our boy Johnny Reb is that far away, you never hear the shot that kills you.”

  Louis picked up his hat. Untouched. The stick, though, had been split by the ball.

  “Good on you, Nolette,” Corporal Hayes said, patting Louis’s shoulder as he shuffled up to him. “One less piece of Rebel lead to take the life of our boys.”

  Louis nodded. What he’d done hadn’t just been idle play, but suggested to the men of Company E by their noncoms. Use your caps to fish for snipers.

  Most, except for Possum Page, who had his slouch hat over his round-faced head and was snoring, were doing just that.

  It was common knowledge that the Southern side was getting short of everything from men and horses to shoes and shot. Their factories had never been able to produce as much as the North. And the naval blockade was now keeping out just about all the supplies from England that the secessionists had been depending on. Whole companies of Rebel soldiers were said to be barefoot now.

  Louis picked up the two pieces of the peeled tree limb that would never be a walking stick now. He didn’t know what sort of tree it had come from. Trees were different here. But the stick had split clean down the middle along the grain, almost like ash wood.

  You could make baskets from this, Louis thought, bending one of the pieces in his hand. He pushed that thought to the back of his mind. No time for basket-making now or for thinking of my mother’s voice calling me to come to the fire for supper.

  There was moisture in his eyes. He bent over to wipe them out. When he lifted his head again he saw Merry peering over at him. The tender expression on the little man’s face made Louis think again of his mother.

  How many times have I seen that same look of concern on M’mere’s face?

  A gentle, caring expression far out of place for where they were now.

  “You all right, Louis?” Merry asked.

  “Sweat,” Louis said, wiping his cheeks again. “Hot today.”

  Merry nodded, but kept looking at him.

  “Do you have a sweetheart?” Merry asked.

  As soon as Merry asked that unexpected question the image of a certain girl came into Louis’s mind. And even though he’d never thought of her as his sweetheart before, he almost said her name out loud. Azonis. But he didn’t.

  “Here,” Louis said, holding up half of the stick and then tossing it over. “Try doing some fishing of your own.”

  Merry caught the stick and pulled off his hat. Merry’s hair was chestnut brown and thick with curls. Its ends were as uneven as if it had been chopped off quick with scissors. Far different from Louis’s own straight black hair, neatly cut at the nape of his neck.

  “You need a better barber,” Louis said, trying to make a joke.

  “Pardon?” Merry said. “What did you say?”

  “Nothing.” Louis shook his head. “The Sixty-third isn’t far from here. Maybe you’ll see that brother of yours.”

  Merry’s eyes lit up. “You really think so? I just long to see him, to . . . take him by the hand. That would be so wonderful.”

  “Might be,” Louis replied. “There’s always a chance.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  ACROSS THE PO

  Monday, May 9, 1864

  “Lee’s army now occupies a semicircular line three miles in length along this ridge here between the Po River and the Nye.”

  The lieutenant from the 155th knelt to draw with a stick on the earth. Louis wasn’t quite sure of the man’s name.

  The lieutenant’s words, of course, were not for common soldiers like him. They were directed at the officers and noncoms gathered in a tight circle to hear the order of battle. That they’d chosen to do this only fifty feet from Louis’s position in the trench, though, meant that he was able to hear every word.

  It helped that it was so quiet right now. There was just the occasional pop of a rifle now and then. With your eyes shut, you might forget for a moment where you were and imagine it to be a firecracker going off. Louis closed his eyes and listened. No firecrackers. But a mockingbird was singing from somewhere down in the brush that lay just beyond their trenches.

  That bird, Louis thought, will likely be glad once we’ve passed through. It’s calm enough now. But the air feels like it does just before a big storm breaks.

  “The prisoners we’ve taken”—the young lieutenant dug his stick into the soft ground—“have told us that there are numerous weaknesses in that line. Especially this salient, here, near the center. Second Corps will advance to this side, occupy this small hill. Then we shall be able to enfilade the enemy’s right.”

  He looked up from his rough map to smile enthusiastically at the intent circle of faces around him.

  Louis scratched his stomach.

  Louse or a flea this time? Could be either or both. Seems as if those two different sorts of critters have formed armies of their own along a line between my chest and my belly button. Us bugs propose to fight it out for control of this human’s blood.

  "Any questions?” Lieutenant O’Connell asked in a bright voice. Louis knew that was his name now. He’d just caught a glimpse of it on the piece of paper the young officer had pinned to his chest.

  Lieutenant Michael O’Connell, Corcoran Legion, it read in a bold hand.

  Just three days ago he would have wondered why a man would do a thing such as that. Now, though, he knew.

  Print your name and your unit on a piece of paper and fasten it to your uniform. That way if you get killed, those who pick up your body’ll know who you belonged to.

  Louis rubbed his chest. He couldn’t bring himself to pin a sign on himself that way. He hadn’t even written the sort of letter a good many men always carried into battle in their pocket addressed To My Dear Wife or For My Mother.

  "Well,” Lieutenant O’Connell said again, “no questions?”

  None at all.

  Must be, Louis thought, they know what salient and enfilade mean. Unlike me. Louis leaned his back against the earth of the trench. Then again, he considered, though I might not be able to parse out such fine military words, I know the meaning of it all. Tomorrow morning me and the others in Company E are getting sent out again to get shot at.

  He was only partially right. They didn’t wait until the morning. Sergeant Flynn lined them up before nightfall. Corporal Hayes stood at his sergeant’s left shoulder. As was always the case when Hayes was paying special attention and expecting every man to do the same, the corporal’s right hand was on his chin, his thumb stroking his well-trimmed red mustache.

  “Pack up yer gear, lads,” Flynn said. “We’re to take a bit of a walk in the dark. And, for the love of all the powers of heaven, be as silent as little mice. Nolette, seeing as how ye have the eyes and ears of an owl, ye’ll be leading us out.”

  The sergeant paused to scratch his left forearm. Then he cursed and swatted his shoulder.

  Fleas, Louis thought. Lice don’t move that fast.

  “And where might we be going, you ask? Well, we and the rest of the Irish Brigade will wade across the lovely river there,” Flynn pointed, his index and middle finger held together like the barrel of a pistol, “and then make our way on up to that hilltop to the right of the bulge in the enemy lines. The whole of Second Corps behind us. Sure and if the luck of the Irish is with us, we’ll have a few thousand rifles pouring lead into the Rebels from the side when the Sixth Corps attacks their middle at
dawn.”

  The sergeant lifted up his beefy hand as if in benediction, though his sausagy fingers were quite unlike the delicate digits of the company chaplain. “Saints preserve ye.”

  Then he was off. Corporal Hayes nodded at them once, stroked his mustache, and followed Flynn.

  Scarecrow Dedham took off his cap to scratch the straw yellow cowlick that always stood up like a rooster’s comb when he was bareheaded.

  “I swan. What’d all that mean?” the lanky farm boy said, a confused look on his face. Scarecrow was always the one who had the hardest time figuring out Flynn’s flowery speeches.

  “It means,” Happy Smith growled, “we’re going out to get our heads blown off in the dark.”

  Scarecrow grinned over at him. “You are a right caution, Happy,” he said, poking his friend in the ribs.

  For some reason, though their personalities were like night and day, Dedham and Smith were almost always together now. Louis had no doubt that would be true tonight. Like David and Jonathan in the Bible, Scarecrow and Happy would be side by side, watching each other’s back, even in the darkest dark.

  And the night that settled in proved to be just that dark. No moon or stars could be seen, blocked out by the clouds that had begun gathering at dusk.

  Rain coming, Louis thought.

  Despite Flynn’s admonition, the men around him were far from being as silent as mice as they climbed over the top of the trench. Brush cracked, boots thumped. All in all, though, they were quieter than Louis had expected. Every man had remembered to tie down his canteen and shovel and whatever else might clank or clatter as they made their way down to the river. And no voices were heard—aside from the occasional soft curse as a man banged against something or stumbled over a hesitant comrade’s feet.

  Can I do this? Louis thought. Then he remembered his father’s words. You climb a mountain one step at a time. He nodded. First step, find the river. He began crawling forward.