Michael Shaara - The Killer Angels

Reynolds should be awake by now. They will have eaten their breakfast now, the infantry, and maybe they’re on the march.

There was a silence. He climbed down out of the cupola.

The staff waited whitefaced under dripping trees. Buford asked for coffee. He went back inside the Seminary and waited for the firing to begin again before sending his first word to Reynolds. It took longer than he expected. If whoever was out there attacking him had any brains he would probe this position first and find out what he was attacking. Buford listened for the scattered fire of patrols coming in, moving along his flanks, outlining him, but there was nothing. A long silence, then a massed assault.

Buford grinned, baring fangs. Damn fool. He’s got a brigade in position, that’s all. He’s hitting me with one brigade, and I’m dug in. Lovely, lovely He wrote to Reynolds: “Rebel infantry attacked at dawn.

Am holding west of Gettysburg, expecting relief. John Buford.”

The fire was hotting up. He heard the first cannon: Calef’s Battery opening up down the road, grinned again. No Reb cannon to reply: not yet. He sent the messenger off into the mist, climbed again into the cupola.

The light was much clearer. He saw speckles of yellow fire through the mist: winking guns. The road ran black through misty fields. He saw one black cannon spout red fire at the limits of his vision. On the far side of the road there was a deep railroad cut-an unfinished railroad; he had not noticed it before. He saw horsemen moving behind the line. Then he heard that ripply sound that raised the hair, that high thin scream from far away coming out of the mist unbodied and terrible, inhuman. It got inside him for a suspended second. The scream of a flood of charging men: the Rebel yell.

It died in massive fire. There was still no cannon on the other side. Calef’s Battery blasted the mist, thunder among the lighter fire. The assault began to die away The wounded were beginning to come back off the line.

Buford went down from the cupola, restless, found Bill Gamble in the field by Calef’s Battery, checking ammunition. There was blood on his left sleeve. His nose was still running. He grinned wetly at Buford.

”Hey, General. That was quite a scrap.”

”How are your losses?”

”Not bad. Not bad at all. We were dug in pretty good.

We got ‘em right out in the open. Really got a twist on ‘em.

Arrogant people, you know that? Came right at us. Listen, we got some prisoners. I talked to ‘em. They’re Harry Heth’s Division, of Hill’s Corps. That’s what I’ve got in front of me.”

Buford nodded. Gamble was talking very quickly, head moving in jerky twitches.

”Sir, as I remember, Heth’s got near ten thousand men.

They’re all within sound of the fight, back that road, between here and Cashtown.”

Buford squinted. The rain had quit but the sky was still low and gray. He could see a long way off through the trees, and there were ragged bodies in the fields, groups of men digging, cutting trees for cover.

Gamble said, “Sir, he’ll be back with all ten thousand.”

”It’ll take him a while to deploy,” Buford said.

”Yes, but he’s got Hill’s whole Corps behind him. Maybe twenty-five thousand. And Longstreet behind that. And Ewell in the north.”

”I know.”

”Thing is this. When John Reynolds gets here, he won’t have the whole army with him, only a part of it. Point is-“ he sniffled, wiped his nose-“as I see it, the Rebs will be here this afternoon with everything they’ve got.”

Buford said nothing. Gamble sniffed cheerily.

”Just thought I’d mention it. Now, what you want me to do here?”

Buford thought: if it was a mistake. God help us.

”Heth will be back in a bit,” Buford said. “If he’s got any brains at all, and he’s not stupid, he’ll know by now that he’s got a brigade in front of him. Don’t think he’ll wait to get his whole Division in line. That would take half the morning.”

”He doesn’t need his whole Division.”

”Right. Does Devin report any activity on his front?”

”Not a thing.”

”All right. I’ll have Devin pull some of his people out and leave a cover in the north and have him dig in alongside, lengthening your line. When Heth comes back he’ll run into two brigades. That should hold him until Reynolds gets here.”

”Right,” Gamble said. He peered up at the sky. “Glad the rain is gone. Don’t want anything to slow up Reynolds”

”Take care of yourself.”

”You know me: the soul of caution.”

Buford moved off toward the north. He sent a second message to Reynolds. He pulled Devin out of line in the north and brought him in alongside Gamble: two thousand men facing west. All that while whenever he came near the line he could see enemy troops moving in the fields across the way, spreading out as they came down the road, like a gray river spreading where it reaches the sea. If Heth was efficient and deliberate he had the power to come straight through like an avalanche. Buford could hear the artillery coming into place on the far side, heard the spattering of rifle fire from probing patrols. He looked at his watch; it was after eight. Reynolds had to be on the road. The infantry had to be coming. He rode back and forth along the line, watched Devin’s men digging in, heard bullets clip leaves above him as snipers crawled closer. We cannot hold ten thousand. Not for very long. If Heth attacks in force he will roll right over us, and we lose the two brigades and the high ground too, and it will have been my fault. And the road in the north is open; they can come in there and they’ll be behind us, on our flank.

There was nothing he could do about that; he had no more troops. But he pulled a squad out of Devin’s line and put the young Lieutenant with com-silk hair in charge and gave him orders.

”Son, you ride on out that road to the north about five miles. You squat across some high ground, where you can see. First sign you get of enemy coming down that road, you ride like hell this way and tell me. Understand?”

The squad galloped off. A cannon shell burst in the air nearby, raining fragments in the wet leaves around him. The first Reb cannon were in position, limbering up easily, casually, getting the range. Now Buford had a little time to think. It all depends on how fast Reynolds comes. It all depends on how many men he’s got with him and how fast Lee is moving this way. Nothing to do but fight now and hold this line. But he kept looking at his watch. There ought to be some word. He galloped back to the Seminary and climbed the cupola and gazed back to that southern road, but there was nothing there. A short while after that he saw the enemy come out in the open, line after line, heard the guns open up, dozens of guns, watched his own line disappear in smoke. The big attack had come.

Gamble was down. The first report was very bad, and Buford rode over and took command, but it was only concussion and Gamble was back on his feet in a few moments, ragged and dirty. There was a breakthrough on the right but some junior officers patched it. Lone infantry began bending around the right flank. Buford mounted some men and drove them off. There were moments in smoke when he could not see and thought the line was going; one time when a shell burst very close and left him deaf and still and floating, like a bloody cloud.

On the right there was another breakthrough, hand-to-hand fighting. He rode that way, leaping wounded, but it had been repulsed when he got there. One by one Calef’s guns were being silenced. No one had yet broken away, no one was running, but Buford could feel them giving, like a dam. He rode back to the Seminary, looked down the road.