Killer Angels, The - Michael Shaara [130]
He rested and took off his boot. Nothing to wrap it with. He tore off a bit of his shirt, was working away diligently, saw Tom coming.
Tom was losing the chipper edge. Chamberlain thought: Be all right in a bit.
The young recover quickly. Must think on the theology of that: plugging a hole in the line with a brother. Except for that, it would all have been fine. An almost perfect fight, but the memory of that is a jar, is wrong. Some things a man cannot be asked to do. Killing of brothers. This whole war is concerned with the killing of brothers. Not my family. He thought of Gibbon. Praise be to God. Must send Tom somewhere else. In that moment, Chamberlain made up his mind: Tom would have to go. Tell him soon. Not now.
Tom sat. Lines in the face. Something wrong. Chamberlain saw: Kilrain?
"Lawrence, I been down to the hospital. Godawful mess. No shade, no room. They lying everywhere, out in the sun. They cuttin' off arms and legs right out in the open, front of everybody, like they did at Fredericksburg. God, they ought to know better, they ought not do that in public. Some of them people die. Man ought to have privacy at a time like that. You got to yell sometimes, you know? Lord..."
"Did you see Kilrain?" Tom nodded. He sat with his back against the wall; the small stone wall this side of the dead horses, plucking grass. He sighed.
Chamberlain said, "How is he?"
"Well, Lawrence, he died."
"Oh," Chamberlain said. He blinked. The world came into focus. He could see leaves of the trees dark and sharp against the blue sky. He could smell the dead horses.
"He died this morning, 'fore I got there. Couple of the boys was with him. He said to tell you goodbye and that he was sorry." Chamberlain nodded.
"It wasn't the wounds. They say his heart give out." Chamberlain had stopped wrapping his bloody foot. Now he went on. But he could see the weary Irish face, the red-nose leprechaun. Just one small drink, one wee pint of the cruel...
Tom said, "I tell you, Lawrence, I sure was fond of that man."
"Yes," Chamberlain said.
Tom said nothing more. He sat plucking grass. Chamberlain wrapped the foot.
The moment was very quiet. He sat looking down at his bloody leg, feeling the gentle wind, the heat from the south, seeing Kilrain dead on a litter, no more the steady presence. Sometimes he believed in a Heaven, mostly he believed in a Heaven; there ought to be a Heaven for young soldiers, especially young soldiers, but just as surely for the old soldier; there ought to be more than just that metallic end, and then silence, then the worms, and sometimes he believed, mostly he believed, but just this moment he did not believe at all, knew Kilrain was dead and gone forever, that the grin had died and would not reappear, never, there was nothing beyond the sound of the guns but the vast dark, the huge nothing, not even silence, just an end...
One sharp report, one single cannon. His head turned unconsciously to listen.
A long nutter; the ball passed over, exploded on the far side of the road, along the edge of the hospitals there. He saw white smoke, splintered wood. He sat up.
Another gun. One single shot. And then the long roar as of the whole vast rumbling earth beginning to open. Chamberlain twitched around to see shells beginning to come over, falling first on the left, then almost instantly on the center, then to the right, then overhead, air bursts and ground bursts and solid shot. There was a blaze in the air obliterating his sight, hot breath of death, huge noise. He was rolled over in the dirt, came out on his knees, facedown. Very, very close. He looked down, around, amazed. Tom was near, flat on the ground. All right, all right. He saw other troops behind boulders,