William Forstchen - The Final Day

He hoped that whoever had helped them had survived and that he was perhaps peering out with envy at the eight Black Hawks and six Apaches racing by, just barely above the pavement.

Time stretched out, John nodding off as well after the tension of the last few days. As he was stirring awake, he saw Grace and Kevin sharing a joke and laughing, leaning in close against each other. The way they looked at each other, he wondered if something was developing between the two. If so, good; they’d make a fine match.

John dozed off again, to be awakened by Bob talking to the pilot and then looking back to John.

“We just lost one of our Apaches. Turbine overheating. They’re landing on the highway, see if they figure it out, but we’re pushing on.”

“Where are we?” John asked.

“Near Winchester, Virginia. It really is nap of the earth now, so you’d all better hang on for this last part.”

Winchester?

If so, John knew that Bluemont was just fifteen or so miles to the east, dug into the slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which too many mistakenly called the Shenandoahs. If they continued on the current heading, it really did mean Bob was not heading there after all.

“How far to wherever it is we are going?” John asked.

“Fifteen minutes by air at most, but if Robert E. Lee was leading us as infantry,” he said, smiling, “it’d be about two days’ forced march.”

It took a minute to decipher that, and John smiled. His last remaining doubts had just been set aside.

The helicopter flared fifteen minutes later as Bob predicted, nose high, coming in to land, snow swirling up around it, nearly blinding the view. John looked out eagerly. He recognized the terrain as if it were darn near his own hometown. The chopper, nose into the wind, thumped down a bit hard, bounced, and then finally settled. Bob, unstrapped from his safety harness, was already up. He hunched over, went to the side door, slid it open, and then leaped out. Typical Bob, John thought. First one in with boots on the ground. John eagerly followed him. Bob shaded his eyes against the rotor blasts as one helicopter after another settled down along the road, doors sliding open, troops leaping out with weapons raised.

John looked over at Bob. “Why land here?” he shouted.

Bob grinned at him. “Because I miss the place.”

John could only shake his head in wonder.

Bob called over one of his captains and shouted some orders. The captain nodded and turned to issue a command, and nearly all the troops dismounted, spreading out to form a defensive perimeter—except for one squad, two of the men toting sniper rifles, another what looked to be a ground-to-air missile, and two others backpacking heavy loads that John could not identify.

“Care to come along?” Bob shouted to John.

“You’re damn straight I’m coming along. Mind if my friends join in?”

Bob looked back at the Black Hawk they had been on, John’s people tentatively climbing out, all of them with looks of confusion, Lee obviously unhappy until he looked around, eyes going wide before he ran a dozen yards forward to look up at a road sign.

“My God!” Lee cried. “Taneytown Road and Wheatfield Road! You have got to be kidding me!”

“No joke,” Bob replied. “Care to follow me?”

“You’re damn straight, sir!” Lee shouted, and it was he who eagerly broke the trail with his towering bulk, heading up the Wheatfield Road, plowing through the snow, which at places was drifted nearly two feet deep, clearing the way. Behind him, the two snipers—both men nearly as big as Lee—followed, kicking snow aside, obviously laboring to clear a path for General Scales, who, though obviously enthusiastic and eager to go, nevertheless was a man well into his sixties, and after five minutes of uphill ascent, it was apparent the hike was beginning to take its toll.

They reached the intersection with Sykes Avenue, where Lee had paused, looking back almost like an eager child ready to push on whether the adults were following or not. Bob nodded and pointed south, a steep ascent even on days when the road and hiking path beside it were cleared of snow. John paused at the intersection, waiting for General Scales to come up, the man bending double for a moment to catch his breath. While waiting for him to continue, John took in the view, limited for a moment as a snow squall swirled around them and then opening back up again. It truly did take his breath away, and he felt a surge of emotion.

“Let’s go,” Bob announced between hard gasps for air.

“Maybe wait a few minutes, sir, catch your breath,” John offered.

“Go to hell, Matherson. I can still hack it,” the general replied. “General Warren and a lot of others did it on the run with full gear. Then there was that artillery battery manhandling their guns up this slope as well.”

“And they were in their teens and twenties,” John replied cautiously.

Bob smiled at him and then without another word pushed forward. John noticed that the two snipers had held back a bit and were obviously working hard to tramp down the snow to form a path, as was Sergeant Major Bentley, who came along, invited or not—he had to be by his general’s side. None spoke to the general or dared to offer a hand, but it was obvious they were keeping a sharp eye on him as they climbed the last few hundred yards up the steep slope.

John, walking by his side, found even he was breathing hard, a memory flooding back of when he was a boy and had actually run up this hill in his eagerness to reach the crest.

And indeed there was the crest just ahead, crowned by an iconic statue.

Bob was breathing so hard it started to worry John as they came nearly to the crest and turned off on to a walking path that wove its way through the heavy boulders.

Lee was already up atop one of the boulders, shading his eyes against the wind, looking west. “Down there, straight down there, one of my great-great-grandfathers came in with Hood’s division.” Then he swung his arm to the northwest. “Another one of my great-great-granddads was in the thick of it up there by the Seminary on the first day.”

Lee’s voice thickened. “My God, on the third day, he went in with Pettigrew and lost his arm. Oh my God.” He turned away and tears flowed. “Why did you bring us here?” Lee asked of Bob, who smiled.

John was brimming with the same question, having recognized where they were within seconds of touching down. They had landed behind Little Round Top on the battlefield of Gettysburg.

Bob motioned for all to gather round, unable to speak for a moment, still breathing hard, coughing and spitting. “It sucks to get old, gentlemen. My first time here, I was twelve and ran my parents into the ground.”

John was smiling and nodding as his mentor spoke.

“Colonel Matherson and I must have hiked—or should I admit driven it—a dozen or more times together for staff rides while we were at the War College up in Carlisle, which is only thirty or so miles off that way.” He pointed to the north.

“I’m not getting it, sir,” Kevin Malady said. “I’ve always wanted to visit this place, but why now?”

Bob turned and pointed out toward the west. “Site R is over there,” he announced. “That is why we are here, gentlemen.”

“Site R?” Lee asked, but it all came to John in a stunning rush of realization.

When Linda had first mentioned it, that they were monitoring some personal traffic back and forth from a Site R, it had not registered with John since he had assumed it was some government site out west. It wasn’t until he saw the lines drawn on Bob’s map that it finally had clicked. It explained why Bob had put a full clampdown on everyone in his command as to their destination and why he had made some obvious choices to leave certain personnel behind, while letting it appear he was personally delivering John to Bluemont and asking some of John’s team to come along as well. To throw off anyone within his own command who might squeal to Bluemont after he lifted off, the game of luring in some of John’s top people to be handed over as well hopefully worked.