March Toward the Thunder Part 15

"No, ye ignorant savage," the scar-faced soldier answered in just as friendly a voice.

Francis O'Grady. That's the man's name.

Artis had introduced him to Louis as one of his best buddies and a faithful mess mate. Part of being friends with Artis meant enduring the sort of teasing that Indians often only reserved for each other. The two traded insults with each other the way other companions might pa.s.s the time of day or remark upon the weather. From what Artis had told Louis, O'Grady was always ready to share a spare blanket or whatever food was sent him from home, and to watch out for his mess mates on the battlefield. Though Louis could tell that O'Grady's singing was nowhere as sweet as Devlin's, he was quick to raise his voice in a song.

Francis O'Grady was the old man in Artis's company, having joined up a full two years before his Mohawk protege. The scar that drew a puckered line from his right forehead down to his jaw line was the result of a wound the sardonic Irishman had suffered during the Virginia Campaign of 1863. O'Grady, Artis had explained, helped his Mohawk friend learn the little tricks of survival a rookie soldier needed to learn.

The fact that O'Grady was with them now was evidence of that. When the two of them had gone to search out a level place to play their game, O'Grady had come with them. Not to play, but to sit with his rifle in his arms on a fallen log. Although he looked relaxed, Louis noticed how O'Grady's eyes were never still. Even when he seemed to just be stretching he was actually looking around behind him. This close to the Rebel lines they might be taken unaware. So O'Grady was keeping guard.

"Where you been before, aside from dodging duty?" Artis said, taking aim at the red agate marble to the left.

Click!

Both his shooter and the red marble spun out of the circle.

O'Grady slapped the trunk of the oak tree beside him. "Here!" he said.

Artis nodded. "Oh, I see. So that's the tree that you and your other little monkey brothers and sisters was born in?"

Louis had a hard time keeping a straight face at that one. O'Grady's shoulders shook a bit as he lowered his head to cover the fact that he'd been tickled by Artis's barb. Apparently, Artis even amused himself with that one. His aim was off as he shot at the brown clay marble to the right.

It was Louis's turn now, but he waited to hear if O'Grady could match his Mohawk friend.

O'Grady shook his head sadly. "And here I thought I was talking to an eagle-eyed son of the forest and not a blind man." He c.o.c.ked his head to stare at a spot on the tree's wide trunk.

"Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle," Artis said.

"No relative of mine." O'Grady grinned.

Louis walked over to look at the marks on the trunk he'd a.s.sumed to be nothing more than scars made by errant bits of iron or lead. Where battles had been fought it was hard to find a tree untouched by flying metal.

Louis traced the letters with his little finger.

"Francis Xavier O'Grady," Artis's mess mate said. "We took this very ground last year and then gave it up again. Most don't know we got this far, but there's me initials in the trunk to prove me claim."

O'Grady sighed.

"Go back to yer game, lads. I'm itching to see at least one clear-cut victory that doesn't end in a tactical withdrawal or a stalemate."

Stalemate. Both sides dug in and facing each other like two snapping turtles with their heads pulled into their cracked sh.e.l.ls.

Although no shots came from the other side, Louis kept low as he walked back toward his own company. He did stop for a moment, though, where a merlon, a raised battlement with embrasures, gave a view of the no-man's-land between the two armies.

Free of the dead and dying for now, he thought, looking through the open s.p.a.ces for shooting.

During the three days of battle, parts of the bloodied ground had been piled six deep with bodies. That many of them were not yet dead but only wounded had been no cause for hope. Anyone who ventured out on that field, whether for mercy or not, was a target. The fourth of June brought a halt to battle, but no truce.

Some said Lee himself refused a cease-fire for Union doctors to go out and minister to those men who were dying slowly, moaning and calling for water. Others said Grant wouldn't agree to the terms. Men in gray uniforms were also out there among the wounded, though nowhere near so many as blue-clad soldiers. Leaving them out there to die cut the diminis.h.i.+ng Confederate forces just that much more.

Because generals refused to help the wounded didn't mean that the common soldiers couldn't try. When the dark of the first night came, Louis was among those who volunteered to crawl out and bring in the nearest of those so desperately hurt, they couldn't crawl to safety on their own.

It was hard work disentangling the living from the dead, but it was worth it to hear the two men Louis dragged back one after another weakly whisper their thanks. Whether they survived or not, he never knew, though their chances were slim. Both had so many grave wounds that likely more of their blood had soaked into the soil than still flowed through their veins.

June 5 pa.s.sed and then June 6.

Anyone who tried to lift a head above the fortifications was soon driven back by fire from the other side. As the pitiless sun beat down, the cries of the wounded faded.

I'll hear those cries in my dreams. And then, even worse, I'll hear that silence.

On the fourth day, the seventh of June, an agreement was reached. Parties of stretcher bearers dashed into the field from North and South alike. Hundreds had been crying for aid just after the battle, but only two were found still living. Scant work for the doctors, but more than enough for those like Louis who volunteered to dig graves.

Louis turned from the vantage point over the deadly ground between the armies.

And now, to top it all off, our leaders are fighting each other.

Joker had pa.s.sed on the latest gossip to him just that morning. Their own Union generals were now at bitter odds with each other.

It wasn't Grant's meat-grinder approach, using up men like cattle sent to the slaughter, that had stirred up opposition from the other top generals. b.l.o.o.d.y Grant was getting more praise in the press than the rest of them. Getting good publicity meant almost as much as winning battles.

As Louis pa.s.sed men who knew him, some raised a hand in tired greeting, but none said a howdy-do.

Too worn out to even talk.

Not just from the work, but from the blasted heat and the constant uncertainty.

No one ever knows what to expect next. And thinking of that, what the Sam Hill is happening now?

Ahead, men were standing up and pointing.

"Oh my Lord!" someone shouted from down the length of the trench, standing up and waving to Louis. It was Joker. Songbird and Bull were by his side. "Come see the circus what's come into town."

Louis quickened his pace to join them.

What's that heading our way? Oh my Lord, indeed!

A man seated backward on a mule was being led their way. A large placard was fastened to his chest. A drummer walking in front beat out the "Rogue's March" as the unfortunate rider was paraded through camp. Men were hooting and hollering. Some tossed clods of mud as the unfortunate man pa.s.sed them.

"What's them signs say?" Bull asked. "I ain't got me spectacles."

Louis read the sign aloud.

"Libeler of the press."

"And what might that mean?" Songbird mused.

The officer holding the reins of the mule lifted his hand. The crowd quieted as he brandished a piece of paper.

"General Meade's proclamation. It reads, 'This reporter, one Edward c.r.a.psey, the Philadelphia Inquirer correspondent, is to be put without the lines of this camp and not allowed to return for repeating base and wicked lies to the effect that only General Grant wanted to keep moving south and that General Meade was on the point of committing a blunder unwittingly.'"

The officer lowered his hand, the drummer began to beat out the march again, and the little procession continued on.

"Now there's the reason why General Meade will never be the president of this land," Kirk said.

"How's that?" Louis said.

Kirk pointed a finger toward the sky. "While we're fighting it out on these lines, Chief, our generals up there are already looking to what they'll do when the war is over. Every bit of fine publicity Grant gets puts him closer to that highest office. Being the winning general at Gettysburg, for a time the Old Snapping Turtle was the man of the hour. Now his star is falling while b.l.o.o.d.y Grant's goes ever higher."

How, in the middle of a war, could a general think about becoming president?

Louis shook his own head to try to clear it.

"Now Meade's a gone goose for sure," Kirk continued, dropping his hand.

"How's that?" Devlin asked.

Kirk grinned. "Songbird, if your family was involved in politics like mine is back home in Albany, you'd understand that there's one enemy no one can ever defeat, even a major general who's been a hero of the republic. That enemy's not Robert E. Lee, but one a good deal nastier. The press. Mark my words, from this day on you'll never again read a good word about the old Snapping Turtle in any paper."

The procession was a good fifty yards away and had stopped once more for the proclamation to be read. Even at that distance, Louis could see the look on the mud-spattered reporter's face was more angry than humiliated.

"War is b.l.o.o.d.y," Kirk concluded, "but politics and reporters is worse."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

THE INDIAN GENERAL.

Thursday, June 9, 1864

What day is this? The ninth? Maybe the tenth?

When they weren't fighting, a day could drag on as if it were a week. Then there'd be a battle and nights and days would streak past fast as falling stars across the sky.

One thing for sure, it was near time to eat. Louis's stomach was telling him that. Back down the trench the cooking fire was going-fed by the rails they'd pulled from a fence back a hundred yards behind the fortifications. But first he was going to take his letter to the mail wagon.

One of the men by that cooking fire cleared his throat and started to sing. Songbird, of course. As always, the tune he chose was one that fit what they all felt.

"Just before the battle, Mother,

I am thinking most of you.

While upon the field we're watching,

with the enemy in view.

Comrades brave are round me lying,

filled with thoughts of home and G.o.d;

For well they know that on the morrow,

some will sleep beneath the sod."