by Tony Roberts
Case nodded. “Okay Taylor, go get the pickets from the Lynchburg road. I’ll get Munz and Wendell.” He ran out of the back and whistled hard. In the distance, by a copse of trees, Wendell twisted round and saw Case waving urgently. He waved back and came loping over the fields, making a slight detour to fetch Munz. Within five minutes all were inside the house and the doors bolted and blocked by furniture. Windows had been opened and men crouched by the edges of them, guns ready. There weren’t enough men to man every window and this worried Case. He had four men upstairs, two at the front and two at the back. He was in the kitchen, the weak spot. The approach was covered by the barn and fencing and the back door was damaged anyhow after Case had crashed through the other day. Added to that it was partly of glass and you had an easy way in.
Case had arranged a barricade at the kitchen door that led to the rest of the house made up of the table and chairs but it wouldn’t hold anyone up for long. After that they had just the stairs and the landing as cover. Two men covered the front approach on the ground floor inside the living room and the front door was reinforced with a dresser that had been uprooted from its place in the living room.
That meant that two others were with Case covering the rear on the ground floor. One was in Case’s old bedroom, a sort of annex, the other was with Case in the kitchen. Case peered out of the solitary window next to the door and turned to Passmore, the man with him. “Don’t get too close to the window or door. I expect a bullet would pass through these without too much trouble – and the glass will go everywhere.”
“Okay Sarge,” Passmore gripped his gun tight. He knelt to one side of the door and looked out through the lace curtained window to the yard. Nothing moved yet. He kept a careful watch though, the warning Case had given him that they would strike fast was imprinted on his mind. Case slid to the rear of the room and craned his head round the exit to the corridor. “Any sign of them yet?”
“Naw,” Munz’s voice echoed from the stairwell. Buckley’s negative from the living room came straight afterwards. Case grunted and leaned through the doorway to the annex. “Taylor?”
“Not yet,” Taylor’s muffled voice responded. He sounded nervous.
“Okay everyone, quiet now. It won’t be long.”
Tension gripped them all and they became not so much men as statues, carved from stone as they crouched motionlessly in the house, only their eyes moving, ears strained to pick up the slightest noise.
A disturbed stone alerted Buckley and he jabbed Billy who was with him. Billy nodded and swallowed, pressed tightly against the wall of the room he’d grown up in. It seemed cold and unfamiliar now to him. A shadow passed and then the door shook to the knocking, breaking the silence in the house. Upstairs, Munz peered over the bottom edge of the bedroom window and saw the front lawn full of Confederate figures. He hesitated, but then caught sight of the Colonel on horseback, smoking a cheroot. So they had swapped the blue of the North for the grey and butternut yellow of the South. Munz didn’t have to guess how these men had come by them.
Outside, the Colonel frowned. This was the address, he was sure of it. He jerked his head at the sergeant who waved men round to left and right. Suddenly the men on the lawn snapped to a more alert posture and they reached for cartridges in their pouches. Munz had seen enough. He leaned forward, slid the gun through the open window and aimed at the Colonel.
Something alerted the Colonel and he looked up to see the weapon aiming at him evilly. He sucked in a deep breath and yelled, hauling on the horse’s reins. Munz’s shot, intended for his chest hammered instead into his shoulder, the force of the blow sending him flying off the saddle and onto the grassy expanse. The men with him crouched or dived for what cover there was, but Buckley’s shot, made a second after Munz had fired, smashed into another’s chest, causing the man to drop to his knees, a stupefied expression on his face, before he fell onto his face to lie still.
Billy fired as Buckley ducked away from the window, narrowly missing another. The Colonel rolled onto his good shoulder, pistol in his fist, and snarled as he saw his horse bolt for cover. “Sergeant, surround the house and find a way in!”
“Sir!” the sergeant replied and jabbed a firm finger at a group of four men to his right. He motioned them to go round the rear. Now the others began pouring shot into the house, sending the four men there ducking for cover. Windows shattered and bullets spat into the rooms, smashing themselves to destruction against walls or furniture.
Case cocked the hammer on his loaded rifle and made his way to the door. “Won’t be long now,” he said to Passmore. Even as he said it, figures could be seen reaching the fencing of the yard. A shot blasted out from above as Gatscombe, guarding the rear bedroom, fired. He missed but the four Brotherhood men scattered and began firing up to keep Gatscombe occupied.
Taylor, in the frail looking annex, waited until the men in the yard had fired before standing up and aiming through the window at one, no more than ten feet away. The man turned in instinct just as Taylor fired. The man’s head exploded all over the barn wall behind him and he fell lifelessly back, hitting the now red wall. Taylor ducked back and saw the three survivors loading fast and looking in his direction. He scuttled back to the door and dived out just as the shots plowed into the room, shattering the plaster on the wall. Taylor knelt by the door and reloaded. He was covered there and if anyone tried to get in through the window he’d get them, but he was now unable to shoot anyone outside.
The front door shuddered as shot after shot struck it, splintering the wood, riddling it as though it had some kind of giant woodworm. Daylight began showing through it and bullets began traversing the length of the house into the kitchen. Case ducked as a shot passed close to his head. “Watch that,” he warned Passmore.
At the front, Billy and Buckley took turns to shoot, covering the other while they reloaded. Above them, Munz kept on shooting but the fire from the Brotherhood men kept him ducking so that he could only fire blindly. Along the passage to the next room Furlong fired at an angle, causing more problems for the Colonel. The Colonel, fed up with the situation, sent another group round the other side and the two groups met by the barn.
“Okay, Passmore, here they come. Go get Taylor.” Case prepared himself as the shadows gathered. There came a volley and the window and door blew in, both shattered beyond repair. Bodies rushed the gaps and Case leveled his piece. He really didn’t have to aim. His shot hit the first man at the window and he sank back, his chest a red smear, but the two others smashed the remaining glass out of the way and began climbing in.
At the same time the door was kicked back, the blocking furniture pushed with it, and the five men there forced their way in. Taylor appeared with Passmore and they made for the passageway, climbing over the table and chairs. Case jabbed forward with his bayoneted gun, forcing one man to hastily block it as he got into the house, but he had to back off as those who had come through the door now came at him.
“Sarge!” Taylor shouted and fired at one man who came at him. The bullet passed through the man’s lower jaw and exited out of his neck, splattering the white sink with his gore. The man toppled to the stained floor but his place was taken by his angry colleagues and Case vaulted the barricade and landed in the passageway. “Come on!” he urged, leading them towards the staircase. “Buckley, Billy, upstairs now!”
The barricade was being kicked aside as the defending men scrambled upstairs. Case took cover at the top and reloaded. Taylor went past him and slid to his knees, pressed against the other side of the landing. The other three made it before the first Brotherhood man appeared, and he hauled the blocking furniture aside from the front door and was unbolting it when Case’s shot took him in the spine. He slumped down the door, face sliding down the surface, and lay blocking it as effectively as the furniture had done.
Others took cover in the living room and began shooting up. Five men at the top now had enough firepower to keep anyone at bay but they couldn’t recover the l
ost portions of the house. With the capture of the downstairs part, the Colonel led the rest of the group around the back and in. He sat at the replaced table and got one of his men to tend the wound. “Sergeant, you are to take the landing at all costs. You have enough men; they don’t have the numbers to stop you. They have at the most nine shots; you have twenty men. The numbers favor you. I don’t want a failure. Kill all of them. Longinus will survive, but if he is shot so much the better. Shoot to kill. Go!”
The sergeant saluted and waved the large group through the doorway into the passageway. “When you get to the bottom of the stairs, shoot up and then charge. Don’t stop, go in the name of Izram and you will be successful.”
Case heard the order and beckoned his group together. “We’ve got to stop this attack. Kill enough of them and they won’t be able to get up here, but if they do make it, we’re finished. All of you loaded up?”
His men all nodded, faces strained and blackened. “Okay, get ready.”
They prepared themselves, waiting for the final attack.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Memories often came to Case in battle conditions. Memories of past conflicts, situations he’d been in similar to those he found himself in again. The number of wars he’d taken part in was countless, but the knowledge and experience he’d gained always remained in his mind and he found, for a moment, his mind wandering back across the ages to another time and place where he’d been in a similar position.
As was the case here, he’d been inside a place he’d called home, defending it against unwelcome visitors. Then it had been Helsfjord and he had been Lord, the ruler of a chunk of land belonging to barbaric Northmen somewhere in what today was known as Denmark. Then, it was what the civilized world at that time knew as ‘barbarian’ land. He’d fought against a band of brigands that had broken in and had been defending a staircase such as this. He’d used archers and burning oil then to defeat the foul, disgusting brutes that had invaded his home. Now? No oil to hand and archers with him to shoot down on the knot of victims.
No, he’d have to use something different. Tactics. “Munz,” he snapped, breaking the memory. “Form two lines, quickly!”
Munz pulled Passmore, Wendell, Taylor and Billy into a line behind him, against the back wall that faced the top of the stairs. Case nodded and indicated to Munz to join them, leaving Buckley, Furlong and Gatscombe as the front line with Case. “Kneel,” he said softly to those with him. Now they formed a solid block, nine guns aimed down. “When I order to shoot, only the front line do so. You at the back wait until they break through the confusion, and from Munz on the right pick off one at a time. Hopefully that might give us here in the front time to reload.”
He’d only just finished speaking when there came a shout from the hallway and a knot of men suddenly burst out into view, rifles raised. “DOWN!” Case yelled, pulling Furlong who was next to him, down on top of his diving body. A fusillade of ragged shots crashed into the walls around them, sending chips of plaster and splinters of ripped wood flying across the landing. The squad looked up, all unhurt, to see the Brotherhood men racing up the stairs. Case, still getting to his knees, fired one-handed. The bullet took out the leading man through the chest, sending him back into his comrades behind, slowing their progress. Buckley yelled in fright and fired at point blank range, his victim being drilled clean through the throat. Arterial blood sprayed out, blinding Buckley and he fell to the right as a second man jabbed forward with his bayonet, missing the corporal narrowly. So much for the planned volley!
Furlong blasted that man aside and kept low as he sensed the men behind him aiming. Smoke filled the narrow area and Gatscombe pulled his trigger. The gun misfired and the private swore in desperation. Now Munz and his men began firing into the milling Brotherhood men, sending blood and flesh splattering over the walls and banister. Four more fell but more came on, bayonets leading desperate and grim-faced men and they began pressing hard on the squad.
Case got to his feet, pushing against the sergeant. The ugly man had gone for Case, realizing that if he disabled the Eternal Mercenary, then the fight would be half won. His bulk pushed hard and until Case had got to his feet, he’d been prevailing. Now the two men stood locked at the edge of the stairs. Furlong jabbed again at another man who looked lean and tough, trying to stop him from skewering Buckley who was being forced back by a third man. Bodies littered the staircase but more men were forcing their way up and even though Munz and his men added their strength, it was clear the nine men were going to be pushed away from the narrow space and split left and right.
A high-pitched yell from outside broke through the grunting and clashing of weapons. More shouts, then a shot or two came to them. Case grinned fiercely at the sergeant. “That’s the reinforcements, you ugly swine. Proper Confederate soldiers, unlike your lot.”
The Colonel, sitting in the kitchen, shot up out of his chair and staggered to the back door and looked out in shock at the sight of mounted Rebels pouring round the corner to the yard. He caught sight of Patrick McGuire who saw him at the same time. “There, Major,” Patrick pointed, “that man’s no colonel. His men are killing good Confederate soldiers in the house.”
The Major with him waved gauntleted hands at his men who pulled out pistols and brandished them. The Colonel, seeing his men were outnumbered raised his own gun and pointed it full in Patrick’s direction. “Fool farmer,” he muttered, “You should have kept out of soldiers’ business.” He fired, catching Patrick square in the chest, lifting him off the saddle and onto the dusty ground. Immediately ten Confederate cavalrymen poured repeated pistol shots into the Colonel, sending him spinning round to crash against the house, multiple bullet wounds spreading over his chest, back, arms and sides. He slumped lifelessly to the yard, at least twenty shots having hit him.
The cavalrymen jumped off their steeds and ran into the house, pistols in front of them, yelling wildly. The Brotherhood men turned on the stairs to meet the new threat but as they came down the passageway a hail of bullets tore into them, sending them staggering and falling like broken marionettes.
Screams of wounded and dying men added to the sharp, flat reports of the pistols and the sergeant bared his teeth. “A curse on you,” he said in Magyar.
“I’m already cursed,” Case replied in the same tongue, not having spoken it for some time. He always wondered if his Curse gave him the ability to pick up languages and then to remember them, or if it was just a natural talent. Whatever it was, he always dreamed in Latin, his first tongue. Case shoved hard, sending the sergeant staggering back to teeter on the top step, and as the man’s arms flapped for balance, Case rammed his bayonet deep into the man’s chest. The sergeant groaned and toppled down the stairs, sliding off the fallen already lying there, coming to a rest at the bottom where a pile of his men lay in the shapeless form of the dead.
The silence after the gunfight was deafening. White smoke still drifted along the body-strewn passage, stairwell and landing, and the nine Confederate soldiers slowly got to their feet, amazed they had survived unscathed.
“You okay up there?” a Texan voice called up.
“Yes,” Case replied. “Nine of us, coming down.” He led his stunned men down, picking their way over the bloodied corpses of the enemy, and along into the kitchen. The Major was standing by the table, and upon it was the silent form of Patrick. Case sucked in his breath and came forward. “Pat!”
“I’m afraid he’s dead, Sergeant,” the Major said sadly. “Told me you’d sent for us. Took a bullet clean through the heart from that colonel out there.”
Case squeezed his eyes shut and bowed his head. Patrick McGuire. He’d known him since Pat’d been a mere boy. Seen him grow up into a fine young man. Now gone, like most of his family. Case’s fingers closed around Pat’s lifeless wrist, then he looked up. “And the colonel?”
“More holes in him than my men’s shoes,” the Major nodded out into the yard. Case pushed himself up and went out into
the yard. He stared down at the bloodied man for a few moments, then knelt and searched the body. Nothing. He had expected no more. He left the dead man and returned to the house. I’ll take care of Pat,” he said to the Major. “Those others we’ll burn. Murderers and thieves all of them. Leave no trace of them.”
The Major looked dubious. “But their next of kin?”
“Check their bodies, Major. You won’t find anything on them at all. No letters, identification or anything.”
The Major hesitated, then nodded to those of his men in the room. They began checking and after the first three one of the cavalrymen looked up and shrugged. “Ain’t nuthin’ on them, sir.”
“As you say, best to burn them,” the Major said woodenly. “And my report?”
Case shrugged. “You drove off brigands, deserters. Saved the farmsteads from their marauding and raping. Best to leave it at that.”
Billy came to Case later that day. “I’m sick of this war,” he said. “I want to go back to farming.”
Case nodded. “I know what you mean. The way things are I doubt the war will go on too much longer. How we’re hanging on beats me. The news from the west is awful. It won’t be long before sheer numbers decide things here as well. What worries me is what comes after the war is over. People will want to settle things. When you got families fighting each other, hatred lasts that much longer.”
“I just want peace. If we win or lose, I’ll want to return here to farm. And bring Rosie here. I want to start my own family, and I’ll teach them never to go to war!”
“You got that right, Billy,” Case agreed. “Look what it’s done to your life; turned it upside down. I’ve seen it do that to hundreds of people and they’re never the same again.”
“What will you do then?”
“See this to the bitter end. I signed up to fight for a free Virginia. It seems the politicians have made it more than just that now, but I won’t desert halfway through just because things turn bad. I’m a professional soldier, unlike most of you lot. You’re free to do what you think is best.” Case got up and left the house, carrying a spade. He was to put Patrick in the ground but first had to go tell Lucy, his wife. It wasn’t going to be something to look forward to but it had to be done. Pat’s wagon and horse was still out there and Case made sure the horse was fed and watered before carrying Pat’s body off to the neighboring farm.
