Killer Angels, The - Michael Shaara [10]
2. CHAMBERLAIN.
He dreamed of Maine and ice black water; he awoke to a murderous sun. A voice calling: "Colonel, darlin'." He squinted: the whiskery face of Buster Kilrain.
"Colonel, darlin', I hate to be a-wakin' ye, but there's a message here ye ought to be seein'."
Chamberlain had slept on the ground; he rolled to a sitting position. Light boiled in through the tent flap.
Chamberlain closed his eyes.
"And how are ye feelin' this momin'. Colonel, me lad?"
Chamberlain ran his tongue around his mouth. He said briefly, dryly, "Ak."
"We're about to be havin' guests, sir, or I wouldn't be wakin' ye."
Chamberlain looked up through bleary eyes. He had walked eighty miles in four days through the hottest weather he had ever known and he had gone down with sunstroke.
He felt eerie fragility, like a piece of thin glass in a high hot wind. He saw a wooden canteen, held in the big hand of Kilrain, cold drops of water on varnished sides. He drank.
The world focused.
"... one hundred and twenty men," Kilrain said.
Chamberlain peered at him.
"They should be arriving any moment," Kilrain said. He was squatting easily, comfortably, in the opening of the tent, the light flaming behind him.
"Who?" Chamberlain said.
"They are sending us some mutineers," Kilrain said with fatherly patience.
"One hundred and twenty men from the old Second Maine, which has been disbanded."
"Mutineers?"
"Ay. What happened was that the enlistment of the old Second ran out and they were all sent home except one hundred and twenty, which had foolishly signed three-year papers, and so they all had one year to go, only they all thought they was signing to fight with the Second, and Second only, and so they mutinied. One hundred and twenty. Are you all right. Colonel?"
Chamberlain nodded vaguely.
"Well, these poor fellers did not want to fight no more, naturally, being Maine men of a certain intelligence, and refused, only nobody will send them home, and nobody knew what to do with them, until they thought of us, being as we are the other Maine regiment here in the army. There's a message here signed by Meade himself. That's the new General we got now, sir, if you can keep track as they go by. The message says they'll be sent here this morning and they are to fight, and if they don't fight you can feel free to shoot them."
"Shoot?"
"Ay."
"Let me see." Chamberlain read painfully. His head felt very strange indeed, but he was coming awake into the morning as from a long way away and he could begin to hear the bugles out across the fields. Late to get moving today.
Thank God. Somebody gave us an extra hour. Bless him. He read:... you are therefore authorized to shoot any man who refuses to do his duty. Shoot?
He said, "These are all Maine men?"
"Yes, sir. Fine big fellers. I've seen them. Loggin' men.
You may remember there was a bit of a brawl some months back, during the mud march? These fellers were famous for their fists."
Chamberlain said, "One hundred and twenty."
"Yes, sir."
"Somebody's crazy."
"Yes, sir."
"How many men do we now have in this Regiment?"
"Ah, somewhat less than two hundred and fifty, sir, as of yesterday. Countin'
the officers."
"How do I take care of a hundred and twenty mutinous men?"
"Yes, sir," Kilrain sympathized. "Well, you'll have to talk to them, sir."
Chamberlain sat for a long moment silently trying to function. He was thirty-four years old, and on this day one year ago he had been a professor of rhetoric at Bowdoin College. He had no idea what to do. But it was time to go out into the sun. He crawled forward through the tent flap and stood up, blinking, swaying, one hand against the bole of a tree. He was a tall man, somewhat