Gods and Generals - Jeff Shaara [177]
There was a break, a small gap in the flowing smoke, and he could see a wide depression in the ground and a shallow rise, men in blue crouching down, some with muskets, firing, reloading, vast numbers that were just . . . bodies. Beyond, he saw a stone wall, and he raised the pistol, his hand shaking with a boiling rage. He was not thinking, his mind did not tell him what to do. He began to yell, screaming now at the muskets pointing at him from behind the wall, the face of the enemy, and his voice blended with the great roar around him. There was a burst of flame from the wall, and around him men fell, and he aimed the pistol, fired, and fired again.
THERE WERE men all around him, voices and cries, and he lay without moving, staring up at the darkness, the night sky. What was left of the regiment, and of the brigade, was lying flat around him in the depression, out in front of the stone wall, and for today it was over.
He could feel the cold of the ground under his back, felt it creeping up, into his hands and arms and feet, and he thought, This is not good . . . we will freeze to death. They had heavier coats, of course, had left them in the town, had left everything in the town except what they would need to fight. But they were still out here, still facing the enemy, and would have to wait through a freezing night before anything else would happen, before there could be any relief.
He began to shiver, flexed his fingers, wrapped himself with his arms, and now shivered more. He raised his head just slightly and looked around him, saw a great field of black shapes. He began to move, slid along the hard ground, moved up alongside one of the shapes, said in a low, hoarse voice, “You, there. Are you wounded?” He waited, then reached out a hand, touched the blue cloth, prodded harder, poked the man’s stiff body, and he understood.
“Truly sorry, old fellow. But . . . I need to . . . ” He slid closer, pressed his body up against the mass, grabbed the man’s loose coat, unwrapped the body slightly, pulled a flap out over him and lay still again, but it was not enough. He rose up, saw another mass a few feet up the rise, pulled himself along, prodded again, and again, there was no reply. As he slid back down, he grabbed the man’s foot, pulled him down the hill, put the man on the other side of him, pulled another flap of coat out over him. Now he lay between them, thought, All right, so now you will be warm. He pushed up hard against one man, pulled the other closer still, then lay his head down, his hat for a pillow.
It had been dark for about an hour, and he began to hear new sounds, the numbness of the shock, the natural anesthetic of the wounded giving way to the raw pain. The sounds began to grow, spreading out over the entire field, soft cries broken by short screams, words and meaningless noises, curses and prayers. The sounds filled his mind, there was no shutting them out, and he stared up at the stars, tried to see beyond the sounds, but they pulled him back. There were other voices now as well, the men who were not wounded, who were scattered through the others, through the lifeless forms, as he was, and they began to shout, some of them yelling at the wounded to stop, to be quiet. Some were angry, loud hostile screams, others begged, pleaded. He kept staring up, distracting himself, trying not to hear, but the sounds were now filling every space, and his head began to throb . . . the sounds were coming from inside, louder now, no voices, no words, but a steady, high scream, and he felt his head would burst, his mind shattering, blowing into a thousand pieces, the pieces of the men around him. . . .
And then he was suddenly awake. The sound was gone, and he felt the cold again, felt the hard masses pressing on him from either side. Above him there was a face, a man crouching low over him, and the man pulled the flaps back, looked at him, and Chamberlain said,