Michael Shaara - The Killer Angels

Pity the men out there. Very good men. Here they come. Whose?

The next charge struck the angle at the boulder, at the colors, lapped around it, ran into the new line, was enfiladed, collapsed. Chamberlain saw Tom come up, whirling through smoke, saw a rip in his coat, thought: no good to have a brother here. Weakens a man. He sent to the 83rd to tell them of his move to the left, asking if perhaps they couldn’t come a little this way and help him out. He sent Ruel Thomas back up the hill to find out how things were going there, to find Vincent to tell him that life was getting difficult and we need a little help.

He looked for Kilrain. The old Buster was sitting among some rocks, aiming the carbine, looking chipper. Hat was off. An old man, really. No business here. Kilrain said, “I’m not much good to you. Colonel.”

There was a momentary calm. Chamberlain sat.

”Buster, how are you?”

Grin. Stained crooked teeth. All the pores remarkably clear, red bulbous nose. Eyes of an old man. How old? I’ve never asked.

”How’s the ammunition?” Kilrain asked.

”I’ve sent back.”

”They’re in a mess on the other side.” He frowned, grinned, wiped his mouth with the good hand, the right arm folded across his chest, a bloody rag tucked in his armpit. “Half expect Rebs comin’ right over the top of the hill. Nothing much to do then. Be Jesus. Fight makes a thirst. And I’ve brought nothin’ a-tall, would you believe that? Not even my emergency ration against snakebite and bad dreams. Not even a spoonful of Save the Baby.”

Aimed fire now. He heard a man crying with pain. He looked down the hill. Darker down there. He saw a boy behind a thick tree, tears running down his face, ramming home a ball, crying, whimpering, aiming fire, Jolted shoulders, ball of smoke, then turning back, crying aloud, sobbing, biting the paper cartridge, tears all over his face, wiping his nose with a wet sleeve, ramming home another ball.

Kilrain said, “I can stand now, I think.”

Darker down the hill. Sunset soon. How long had this been going on? Longer pause then usual. But… the Rebel yell. A rush on the left. He stood up. Pain in the right foot; unmistakable squish of blood in the boot. Didn’t know it was bleeding. See them come, bounding up the rocks, hitting the left flank. Kilrain moved by him on the right, knelt, fired. Chamberlain pulled out the pistol. No damn good expect at very close range. You couldn’t hit anything.

He moved to the left flank. Much smoke. Smoke changing now, blowing this way, blinding. He was caught m it, a smothering shroud, hot, white, the bitter smell of burned powder. It broke. He saw a man swinging a black rifle, grunts and yells and weird thick sounds unlike anything he had ever heard before. A Reb came over a rock, bayonet fixed, black thin point forward and poised, face seemed blinded, head twitched. Chamberlain aimed the pistol, fired, hit the man dead center, down he went, folding; smoke swallowed him. Chamberlain moved forward He expected them to be everywhere, flood of brown bodies, gray bodies. But the smoke cleared and the line was firm.

Only a few Rebs had come up, a few come over the stones all were down. He ran forward to a boulder, ducked, looked out: dead men, ten, fifteen, lumps of gray blood spattering everywhere, dirty white skin, a claw-like hand, black sightless eyes. Burst of white smoke, again, again. Tom at his shoulder: “Lawrence?”

Chamberlain turned. All right? Boyish face. He smiled.

”They can’t send us no help from the Eighty-third. Woodward said they have got their troubles, but they can extend the line a little and help us out.”

”Good. Go tell Clarke to shift a bit, strengthen the center.”

Kilrain, on hands and knees, squinting: “They keep coming in on the flank.”

Chamberlain, grateful for the presence: “What do you think?”

”We’ve been shooting a lot of rounds.”

Chamberlain looked toward the crest of the hill. No Thomas anywhere. Looked down again toward the dark. Motion. They’re forming again. Must have made five or six tries already To Kilrain: “Don’t know what else to do.”

Looked down the line. Every few feet, a man down. Men sitting facing numbly to the rear. He thought: let’s pull back a ways. He gave the order to Spear. The Regiment bent back from the colors, from the boulder, swung back to a new line, tighter, almost a U. The next assault came against both flanks and the center all at once, worst of all.

Chamberlain dizzy in the smoke began to lose track of events, saw only blurred images of smoke and death, Tozier with the flag, great black gaps in the line, the left flank giving again, falling back, tightening. Now there was only a few yards between the line on the right and the line on the left, and Chamberlain walked the narrow corridor between, Kilrain at his side, always at a crouch.

Ruel Thomas came back. “Sir? Colonel Vincent is dead.”

Chamberlain swung to look him in the face. Thomas nodded jerkily.

”Yes, sir. Got hit a few moments after fight started. We’ve already been reinforced by Weed’s Brigade, up front, but now Weed is dead, and they moved Hazlett’s battery up top and Hazlett’s dead.”

Chamberlain listened, nodded, took a moment to let it come to focus.

”Can’t get no ammunition, sir. Everything’s a mess up there. But they’re holdin’ pretty good. Rebs having trouble coming up the hill. Pretty steep.”

”Got to have bullets,” Chamberlain said.

Spear came up from the left. “Colonel, half the men are down. If they come again…” He shrugged, annoyed, baffled as if by a problem he could not quite solve, yet ought to, certainly, easily. “Don’t know if we can stop ‘em.”

”Send out word,” Chamberlain said. “Take ammunition from the wounded. Make every round count.” Tom went off, along with Ruel Thomas. Reports began coming in.

Spear was right. But the right flank was better, not so many casualties there. Chamberlain moved, shifting men. And heard the assault coming, up the rocks, clawing up through the bushes, through the shattered trees, the peeked stone, the ripped and bloody earth. It struck the left flank.

Chamberlain shot another man, an officer. He fell inside me new rock wall, face a bloody rag. On the left two Maine men went down, side by side, at the same moment, and along that spot there was no one left, no one at all, and yet no Rebs coming, just one moment of emptiness in all the battle, as if in that spot the end had come and there were not enough men left now to fill the earth, that final death was beginning there and spreading like a stain. Chamberlain saw movements below, troops drawn toward the gap as toward a cool place in all the heat, and looking down, saw Tom’s face and yelled, but not being heard, pointed and pushed, but his hand stopped in mid-air, not my own brother, but Tom understood, hopped across to the vacant place and plugged it with his body so that there was no longer a hole but one terribly mortal exposed boy, and smoke cut him off, so that Chamberlain could no longer see, moving forward himself, had to shoot another man, shot him twice, the first ball taking him in the shoulder, and the man was trying to fire a musket with one hand when Chamberlain got him again, taking careful aim this time. Fought off this assault, thinking all the while coldly, calmly, perhaps now we are approaching the end. They can’t keep coming. We can’t keep stopping them.

Firing faded. Darker now. Old Tom. Where?

Familiar form in familiar position, aiming downhill, firing again. All right. God be praised.

Chamberlain thought: not right, not right at all. If he was hit, I sent him there. What would I tell Mother? What do I feel myself? His duty to go. No, no. Chamberlain blinked.