Killer Angels, The - Michael Shaara [42]
Much too good a man. Buford wandered slowly back out into the light. It was very hot now; he could feel sweat all down his face.
A detail from a New York regiment carried Reynolds away, under a blanket.
Buford's aides came to him, back to the shepherd. There were no orders to give.
The battle went on without a commander. The men fought where Reynolds had placed them. Buford slowly withdrew his cavalry, as Reynolds had ordered. All the rest of that morning gray Rebel troops came pouring down that narrow road.
No messages came. The line continued to hold. There did not seem to be anyone in command, but the line held. After a while Buford mounted what was left of his cavalry and rode slowly out that road to the north. He could not hold for long, but he could hold for a little while, and the yellow-haired lieutenant was out there alone.
3. LEE.
They had stripped the rails from both sides of the road, to widen the passage, and some of the men were marching in the fields.
The road was already going to dust and the dust was rising, and there was nothing to see ahead but troops in the dust toiling upward toward the crest of a divide. The bands played as he went by. He nodded, touching his cap, head cocked, listening, searching beyond the music and the noise of rolling wagons and steely clinking of sabers and guns for the distant roll of artillery which was always there, beyond the hills. They came to a narrow pass: rocky country, dark gorges, heavily wooded. He thought: if there is a repulse, this will be good country to defend. Longstreet could bring up his people and hold this place and we would shelter the army back in the mountains.
He began almost to expect it. He had seen retreat. There would be clots of men out in the fields, out far from the road, moving back the other way, men with gray stubborn faces who would not listen. Then there would be the wounded. But here they would block the road. No room to maneuver. If Longstreet's spy was right and there had been masses of cavalry ahead, what the blue cavalry could do to his packed troops...
Lee knew that he was worrying too much, recognized it, put a stop to it. He bowed his head and prayed once quickly, then was able to relax and compose himself. He rode up into the pass and the country began to flatten out, to go down toward Cashtown. The day was hazy and he could not see far ahead. He began to pass empty houses, dark doors, dark windows. The people had fled. He entered Cashtown and there at the crossroads, mounted, watching the troops pass, was Powell Hill.
Hill was sitting with his hat down over his eyes, slouching in the saddle, a pasty illness in his face. He smiled a ghostly smile, drew himself up, saluted, waved toward a brick house just off the road.
Lee said, "General, you don't look well."
"Momentary indisposition." Hill grinned weakly.
"Touch of the Old Soldier's Disease. Would you like to go indoors, sir?"
Lee turned to Taylor. "We will establish temporary headquarters here. All dispatches to this place." To Hill he said, "What artillery is that?"
Hill shook his head, looked away from Lee's eyes. "I don't know, sir. I sent forward for information a while back.
Harry Heth is ahead. He has instructions not to force a major action. I told him myself, this morning."
"You have no word from him?"
"No, sir." Hill was not comfortable. Lee said nothing.
They went to the brick house. There was a woman at the gate to whom Lee was introduced. Near her stood a small boy in very short pants, sucking his thumb.
Lee was offered coffee.
Lee said to Hill, "I must know what's happening ahead."
"Sir, I'll go myself."
Hill was up abruptly, giving instructions to aides. Lee started to object, said nothing. Hill was a nervous, volatile, brilliant man. He had been a superb division commander, but now he commanded a corps, and it was a brutal military truth that there were men