The Killer Angels - Michael Shaara [90]
“Captain, I want you to take your company out there.” Chamberlain pointed to the left. “Go out a ways, but stay within supporting distance. Build up a wall, dig in. I want you there in case somebody tries to flank us. If I hear you fire I’ll know the Rebs are trying to get round. Go out a good distance. I have no idea what’s out there. Keep me informed.”
Company B was fifty men. Alone out in the woods. Chamberlain was sorry. They’d all rather be with the regiment. Messy detail. Well, he thought philosophically, so it goes. He moved on back up the hill, saw Morrill’s men melt into the trees. Have I done all I can? Not yet, not yet.
Artillery was coming in again behind him. All down the line, in front of him, the men were digging, piling rocks. He thought of the stone wall at Fredericksburg. Never, forever. This could be a good place to fight. Spirits rose. Left flank of the whole line. Something to tell the grandchildren.
Nothing happening here. He hopped up the rocks, drawn toward the summit for a better look, saw an officer: Colonel Rice of the 44th New York, with the same idea.
Rice grinned happily. “What a view!”
He gestured. Chamberlain moved forward. Now he could see: masses of gray rock wreathed in smoke, gray men moving. If Sickles had a line down there it had already been flanked. He saw a Union battery firing to the south, saw sprays of men rush out of the woods, the smoke, and envelop it, dying, and then the smoke drifted over it. But now more masses were coming, in clots, broken lines, red battle flags plowing through the smoke, moving this way, drifting to the left, toward the base of the hill.
Rice said, glasses to his eyes, “My God, I can see all of it. Sickles is being overrun.” He put the glasses down and smiled a foolish smile. “You know, there are an awful lot of people headin’ this way.”
Chamberlain saw gleams in the woods to the south. Bayonets? Must get back to the regiment. Rice moved off, calling a thoughtful “good luck.” Chamberlain walked down back into the dark. Awful lot of people coming this way. Sixty rounds per man. Ought to be enough.
“Colonel?”
At his elbow: Glazier Estabrook. Incapable of standing up straight; he listed, like a sinking ship. He was chewing a huge plug of tobacco. Chamberlain grinned, happy to see him.
“Colonel, what about these here prisoners?”
Chamberlain looked: six dark forms squatting in the rocks. The hard cases from the Second Maine. He had completely forgotten them.
Glazier said slowly, around the wet plug, “Now I wouldn’t complain normal, Colonel, only if there’s goin’ to be a fight I got to keep an eye on my cousin. You understand, Colonel.”
What he meant was that he would under no circumstances tend these prisoners during the coming engagement, and he was saying it as politely as possible. Chamberlain nodded. He strode to the prisoners.
“Any of you fellas care to join us?”
“The Rebs really coming?” The man said it wistfully, cautiously, not quite convinced.
“They’re really comin’.”
One man, bearded, stretched and yawned. “Well, be kind of dull sittin’ up here just a-watchin’.”
He stood. The others watched. At that moment a solid shot passed through the trees above them, tore through the leaves, ripped away a branch, caromed out into the dark over the line. A shower of granite dust drifted down. The ball must have grazed a ledge above. Granite dust had salt in it. Or perhaps the salt was from your own lips.
Chamberlain said, “Any man that joins us now, there’ll be no charges.”
“Well,” another one said. He was the youngest; his beard was only a fuzz. “No man will call me a coward,” he said. He rose. Then a third, a man with fat on him. The other three sat mute. Two looked away from his eyes;