March Toward the Thunder

by Joseph Bruchac

  It was no more than a hundred yards from their trench to the riverbank, but it seemed as if a hundred years passed before he smelled its warm waters and heard its rippling flow. He felt more than saw the shadowy shapes of the other men of his company close behind him. He reached back to pat the bony shoulder of Scarecrow, letting him know they’d reached their first objective, and should pass the signal back to Happy and from him to Merry and so on—a ripple of touch through their whole company.

  Louis took a deep breath. Can I do this?

  He wasn’t afraid of what would happen to him. His deepest dread was that he would lead those other men, who’d placed their trust in him, the wrong way. He’d rather die than do that.

  Nothing to do but go forward.

  Lifting his rifle in both hands up above his chest, Louis swung his feet around and lowered them in. The water that rose around his ankles and filled his boots was almost as warm as blood. His feet didn’t sink in so deeply that it mired him down, but the smell of rotting plants rose up as he waded deeper. Splashing sounds came from behind him. Hundreds of others were entering the river less quietly than he had. There was even the sound of what had to be someone falling in headfirst.

  Too loud. Dang!

  Louis gritted his teeth, waiting for the first volley of .58-caliber slugs to sweep through them like a scythe through grass. But no shouts or shots came from the Confederate lines that were surely only a few hundred feet from them. He reached back and tugged at the sleeve of whoever was behind him now.

  Keep moving.

  The water stayed shallow, no more than waist deep in the middle. Then only to his knees, to his ankles. Across the river now, moving up the bank in a crouch. Could he find the outline of the hill that was their objective? He looked up at the gray sky and then slowly down. There it was.

  Keep a straight line. Just keep them going straight on.

  He tugged again at the sleeve of the burly man in back of him now, who passed the signal to shadowed shapes of other men acting as scouts to either side just behind him. He shifted the rifle in his hands as he moved forward, a slow step at a time as the ground rose in front of him.

  Minutes passed.

  Or was it hours?

  Finally, a lifetime later, Louis stopped.

  We’re on a hilltop. But is this the high ground we wanted?

  A large hand grasped his shoulder from behind.

  “Fine, lad,” Flynn’s voice whispered in his ear, “’tis the exact spot. Above and t’ the right of their line. Now it’s dig in and wait till dawn.”

  There was no way to hide the sound of shovels chunking down into soil and stone. But still, to Louis’s amazement, no shots came their way.

  Dig and keep digging. Every shovel full of earth may be one less bullet getting through to you.

  His arms and his back ached, but he kept thrusting his short spade in to lever out more earth and gravel. At last he could dig no more.

  Deep enough, Louis thought. He put down his spade. I’ll close my eyes for just a moment.

  When he opened them he saw three things.

  The first was that the dawn light was breaking.

  The second was a mockingbird. Was it that same one he’d heard singing until dusk the day before? The bird was perched on a little branch that hung no more than a hand’s width from his nose. It cocked its head at him, then cheeped, spread its white-banded wings, and fluttered off down the hill.

  As his eyes followed the bird’s flight, Louis saw the third thing.

  A chill went down his back. He understood why there’d been no response from the enemy to the sounds of their digging.

  Those Rebs are so confident of their position, they didn’t think it worth their while to waste lead in the darkness.

  The fortifications below them were no simple rifle pits like the ones E Company had dug during the night. Rebel engineers had designed a massive earthwork, a great line of heavy logs backed up by tons of earth. Those fortress walls stretched for miles in both directions. Eight feet high with loopholes cut out near the bottom for riflemen to shoot from. And set back from that line Louis could see several gun batteries. Four twelve-pound Napoleons in each battery. When the battle began they’d be dropping four shells a minute on the heads of the attacking Sixth Corps.

  The two thousand men of the Union’s Second Corps might now be to the side and above this Rebel salient. But those Gray soldiers were so dug in you could hardly even get a sight of anything more than rifle barrels sticking out of loopholes.

  We’re to attack the middle of that?

  Not only did the Rebs have that awe-inspiring fortification and all those cannons, but in front of the wall was a deep ditch backed by a fearful obstacle. Countless trees had been laid down side by side and staked in place, their branches sharpened so they stuck out like daggers.

  If I’d led them wrong last night, we’d of blundered right into them pitchfork branches.

  A shiver went down Louis’s back

  Any minute they’ll be sending our boys to break that line. But how can any living thing bigger than a gnat get through?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THROUGH THE RAIN

  Thursday, May 12, 1864

  “Seems to me,” Devlin said, “that Chief here has granted your wish, Joker, me boy.” He pushed up the rubber ground cloth that had been fastened to the headlog at the top of the parapet so that it formed a slanting roof over his part of the trench. The rain that had pooled on it ran down into the ditch next to him. “Ain’t you going to thank him for this fine rain?”

  “Rain?” Timmy Kirk said. “This is Noah’s blessed flood. All I wanted was a few drops to cool my blistered feet. Possum, wouldn’t you say Louis overdid it with his rain dance?”

  Possum Page looked over, grinned, and nodded his round head.

  Louis didn’t say anything. It was just as he’d expected. He’d done nothing to encourage the rain pouring down from the sky with no sign of letup. He was not about to take credit for it, even jokingly. But if he denied it, the men with him might tease him even more or, worse, take it as a sign of modesty for his meteorological accomplishment.

  Much as he felt bonded to the men around him, as close to brothers as any men he’d ever known, he found himself wishing again that there was another Indian he could talk to. Someone who understood what it was like to be such a figure of fascination or fun—sometimes both at once—in the eyes of his friends.

  Because he was so quiet, his friends even seemed to think that nothing bothered him. They thought he was calm and didn’t share their fears about failing or dying. Because he never cracked a joke back at them they thought he was serious and deep. Not just another boy who had no other choice but to pretend he was a man.

  Louis wiped the rain off his face and readjusted his own ground cloth.

  If another Indian was here with me now, I probably would still be getting teased by him about this rain being my fault. But it would be different because we’d both know that it wasn’t.

  He ducked out from under the cover of the ground cloth and stepped up onto the tread, the earthen shelf that raised a man high enough to peer through his rifle notch cut in the headlog.

  “Any sign of anything out there?” Belaney said, leaning over toward him. Just like all the others in the company, Bull assumed that Louis’s eyes were better than anyone else’s.

  Just because I’m an Indian, Louis thought, they think I can see more than they do. Then he laughed at himself. Well, as a matter of fact, I can.

  It was the simple truth. For whatever reason, Louis’s eyes really were better than any of the others. But right now all he saw was that the steady shower had finally washed away the blood that had reddened the ground between the lines of Blue and Gray.

  A full day had passed since the first Union assault on the U-SHAPED salient that jutted out of the Rebel lines like a mule’s shoe. As planned, the men of Louis’s company and the rest of Second Corps had laid down a steady enfilading fire from
the right. Then the Sixth Corps had attacked head-on.

  Cannons roared from both sides. Smoke obscured the battlefield. The Union artillery tore a hole through the abatis. Abatis. Another new word for Louis. It meant that deadly tangle of sharpened tree limbs set up in front of the Confederate line.

  But the Reb cannons had been just as well-aimed. Shells poured down on the Union men as they tried to force their way through the breech. In the end, the fortified Gray line held. After a day of pitched battle, the Sixth fell back.

  Now it was quiet. Maybe too quiet.

  Louis wiped his eyes, shielding them from the rain with his hand as he tried to see a pattern of shapes back behind the salient.

  Someone moved up onto the tread next to him.

  “Something’s missing,” Louis said. A spyglass was placed in his hand.

  “Use this, lad,” Sergeant Flynn said.

  Louis took the spyglass and raised up to get a better angle, leaning his elbows on the headlog. Clear weather, it would have been a risky thing to do, but the rain was like a curtain between them and the eyes of anyone who lacked Louis’s keen eyes.

  He scanned the slopes. Yesterday there’d been no fewer than five Rebel batteries of four guns there, each with the usual gun crew complement of dozens of officers and men for each field piece—officers, drivers, cannoneers. Twenty cannons roaring out their dragon’s breath of fire and shot. But now there were none. Even the horses that pulled the batteries—six per gun and twice that number more to draw the battery wagon and the field forge—and the ordnance wagons of ammunition were nowhere in sight.

  “The guns are gone, sir,” Louis said.

  “Excellent, me boy! Yer eagle eyes are a blessing to us.” Sergeant Flynn slapped him on the back with such enthusiasm that Louis almost fell forward over the headlog.

  “Corporal,” Flynn called over his shoulder, “take the word back. It’s just as we hoped. Dear old General Lee thinks we’ve given up here and called a retreat. He’s moved his bleeding Napoleons to another part of the field.”

  Sergeant Flynn looked down from the tread at the men of the company who had begun to assemble below.

  “’Tis no time now for any fine, flowery speeches, lads. I’m not about to be like King Henry on Crispin’s Day or to boast of what the Brigade did in years past when they broke the infantry of the Prince of Hesse and decided the fortune of the day. Nor will I remind you of the glory which the men before you achieved upon the plains of Ramillies, at the gate of Cremona, or on the plains of Fontenoy. I’ll just point out to you that those examples of our Irish valor, regulated by discipline, are ones ye fine brave lads may at least try to imitate today.”

  Flynn paused to look at the rapt faces around him and nodded. “Sure and good men among us may go to a soldier’s grave today,” he said in a softer tone. “But we’ll not let down the green flag nor the stars and stripes of this nation we’ve chosen to defend.”

  The sergeant stood up straighter and took off his cap in a wide gesture, ignoring the rain that ran down across his broad cheeks. “Our orders have been given to us. We’re joining in the attack with the whole of the Second Corps.”

  Louis thought Flynn had forgotten he was standing next to him, but he was wrong. Flynn reached out an arm and wrapped it around Louis’s shoulders in a hug so strong that Louis thought his ribs would crack.

  “And thanks to the sharp eyes of me lad Private Nolette, I’ve some good news for ye all. The Rebels below us have drawn back their cannons, so there’ll be no artillery pounding us as we head into the fray!”

  “Huzzah!” someone shouted from the group of men below.

  It was Scarecrow, of course. When it came to eagerness, he always took the cake. But his cheer was quickly echoed by the whole group.

  Have they forgotten, Louis thought, that there’s still a thousand or more Rebs with rifles down there?

  But he too felt the excitement that was sweeping through them, saw the light in the eyes of Corporal Hayes as he stroked his thin red mustache.

  This time, this time we might break through.

  Flynn turned, letting go his grip on Louis’s shoulders, and pointed down.

  “Twenty thousand men will be joining us, me boys. We are going to take that Bloody Angle down there. Our own brave General Hancock is leading the main force that will be striking this very dawn.”

  Flynn paused, then raised both hands toward the rainy sky.

  “God willing,” the sergeant said, his voice growing louder, “the enemy won’t know what’s hit them till it’s too late. Now shoulder your arms and make ready! For when the shots and shouts rise to tell us the battle’s begun, it’s up and over the top again for us all.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE MULE SHOE AND THE BONNIE BLUE FLAG

  Thursday, May 12, 1864

  Louis listened. He was soaking wet, the water dripping off his cap as he leaned forward. He no longer had his rubber blanket over his head, nor did any of the other men in the company. They had taken them down, rolled them, and tied them to their packs. They’d soon enough be leaving this trench. Once they went over the parapet there’d be no chance of coming back to claim any possessions left behind.

  Possum Page was at Louis’s left, his head nodding up and down.

  “Hey Chief?” Possum whispered.

  “Yup,” Louis said.

  “Could you pinch me and wake me if you see I’ve gone and fell asleep?”

  Louis turned and stared.

  “What?”

  Possum nodded his round head even harder. “I cain’t help it,” he said. “When I get scared, all I want to do is just close my eyes and pretend it’s all just a dream. But I guess it doesn’t do much good ’cuz when I wake up I’m still here. I’m not back home with my ma and pa and my two little sisters. Y’know, I never got further than five miles away from home afore. I just miss them all dreadful much.”

  Louis reached over and put his hand on Possum’s quivering shoulder.

  “All right,” he replied. “I’ll do just that.”

  “I’m not like you,” Possum said, his voice low and intense. “Seems there’s nothing can scare you. I guess you got spirits or something that is protecting you. Could you maybe talk some more with me when this fight is over? I’m thinking that it might help me some. I’d like not to be afraid so much.”

  It was the longest speech he’d ever heard Possum make. It made Louis realize that, in a way, Possum was like himself, a scared boy whose friends didn’t see what was going on inside him. To them he was just Possum, who could sleep through the Final Judgment.

  Louis turned toward Possum, reached out and grasped his right hand. “Shake on it,” Louis said. “We’ll talk after the battle’s over.”

  Possum grinned. His shoulders relaxed and he let out a deep breath.

  Somehow, Louis thought, those few words I just said meant something to him.

  “I sure do appreciate that, Chief.”

  Louis let go of Possum’s hand and cocked his head.

  What was that soft thumping noise? Even through the rain Louis began to hear a muffled sound with a familiar rhythm to it. It came from off to their left.

  Louder now.

  Thump-thump.

  Thump-thump.

  Thump-thump.

  Thump-thump.

  I know what that is. Even wet earth could not hide the metronomic thud of thousands of feet of men in blue approaching across the rain-curtained land.

  Hancock for sure, his whole corps trying to march silent.

  But even with no sound of drums to keep them in step they’d fallen into step. No enemy ears seemed to have noticed their approach, even though the surface of the water in the rain puddle at his feet was now quivering in time to the thuds. Soon they’d be right on top of the Rebel pickets watching halfheartedly for a Yankee attack they doubted would come.

  In all the battles before this, that had been the Union pattern—fall back if the first hard assault fails. Lee and h
is boys hadn’t learned yet that General Grant was not one to turn tail. He had sent orders all the way down the chain of command that they were to fight it out on this line even if it took all summer.

  “Hear that?” Louis whispered to the man who’d come up on his right in the half darkness.

  “Hear what?” Merry said.

  Louis shook his head. He wasn’t sure. It might have been the muffled sounds of a Confederate sentry being overpowered— his mouth stopped by a hand clamped over it or the thrust of a bayonet. Desperate deeds were being done down there under the cloak of the pouring rain.

  Louis found himself thinking, as he always did now before fighting began, about the men on the other side. Louis hadn’t been able to stop such thoughts since that night when the Rebel sentry spoke to him out of the darkness.

  “Do you find it hard to hate them, Louis?” Merry asked.

  It surprised Louis how close that question was to what he’d been thinking.

  “I do,” he answered.

  “I too find it very difficult,” Merry said. “But the thought that one of them might kill my . . . my brother makes me determined to stand against them. If my Tom should fall to Rebel guns I would hate them. I would hate the South forever.”

  Louis started to reply that he understood. But his words went unspoken as what had first started as a single shout from a Union soldier was taken up by one man after another until it became a great cheer. Thousands of voices lifted from below as Hancock’s men, having overpowered the sentries, reached that jutting salient, and poured through the Mule Shoe.

  Who was it who then shouted the order for E Company to stand, climb over their own parapets, and charge down into the fight below?

  Corporal Hayes? Sergeant Flynn? Young Lieutenant Finley waving his sword? Or was it all of them at once?

  In the sound of the shouting, the steady wash of the rain, and the pounding of his own heart, Louis could not remember. All he knew was that he and the others had taken up that cry and were running headlong downhill.