The Killer Angels - Michael Shaara [91]
“I’ll waste no man to guard you. I’ll expect to find you here when this is over.”
He walked down the hill with the three men, forgetting the incomprehensible three who would not come. He gave the three volunteers to Ruel Thomas, to post along the line. There were no rifles available. Chamberlain said, “You men wait just a bit. Rifles will be available after a while.”
And now the softer roar of musketry began opening up behind him; the popping wave of an infantry volley came down from above, from the other side of the hill. The Rebs were pressing the front, against Rice’s New York boys, the rest of the brigade. Now there was sharper fire, closer to home; the 83rd was opening up. The battle moved this way, like a wall of rain moving through the trees. Chamberlain strode down along the line. Tom came up behind him, Kilrain above. Private Foss was on his knees, praying. Chamberlain asked that he put in a kind word. Amos Long was sweating.
“ ’Tis a hell of a spot to be in, Colonel. I cannot see fifty yards.”
Chamberlain laid a hand on his shoulder. “Amos, they’ll be a lot closer than that.”
Jim and Bill Merrill, two brothers, were standing next to a sapling. Chamberlain frowned.
“Boys, why aren’t you dug in?”
Jim, the older, grinned widely, tightly, scared but proud.
“Sir, I can’t shoot worth a damn lying down. Never could. Nor Bill either. Like to fight standin’, with the Colonel’s permission.”
“Then I suggest you find a thicker tree.”
He moved on. Private George Washington Buck, former sergeant, had a place to himself, wedged between two rocks. His face was cold and gray. Chamberlain asked him how it was going. Buck said, “Keep an eye on me, sir. I’m about to get them stripes back.”
A weird sound, a wail, a ghost, high and thin. For a vague second he thought it was the sound of a man in awful pain, many men. Then he knew: the Rebel yell. Here they come.
He drifted back to the center. To Tom he said, “You stay by me. But get down, keep down.” Kilrain was sitting calmly, chewing away. He was carrying a cavalry carbine. A great roar of musketry from behind the hill. Full battle now. They must be swarming Sickles under. Kilrain was right. Flank attack. Whole Reb army coming right this way. Wonder who? Longstreet? He it was behind the stone wall at Fredericksburg. Now we have our own stone wall. Chamberlain hopped down along the line, telling men to keep good cover, pile rocks higher, fire slowly and carefully, take their time. Have to keep your eye on some of them; they loaded and loaded and never fired, just went on loading, and some of them came out of a fight with seven or eight bullets rammed home in a barrel, unfired. He looked again to the left, saw the bleak silence, felt a crawling uneasiness. Into his mind came the delayed knowledge: You are the left of the Union. The Army of the Potomac ends here.
He stopped, sat down on a rock.
A flank attack.
Never to withdraw.
He took a deep breath, smelled more granite dust. Never to withdraw. Had never heard the order, nor thought. Never really thought it possible. He looked around at the dark trees, the boulders, the men hunched before him in blue mounds, waiting. Don’t like to wait. Let’s get on, get on. But his mind said cheerily, coldly: Be patient, friend, be patient. You are not leaving here. Possibly not forever, except, as they say, trailing clouds of glory, if that theory really is true after all and they do send some sort of chariot, possibly presently you will be on it. My, how the mind does chatter at times like this. Stop thinking. Depart in a chariot of fire. I suppose it’s possible. That He is waiting. Well. May well find out.
The 83rd engaged. Chamberlain moved to the right. He had been hoping to face a solid charge, unleash a full volley, but the Rebs seemed to be coming on like a lapping wave, rolling up the beach. He told the right to fire at will. He remained on the right while the firing