The Sea is a Thief (29 page)

He had seen little serious action during his time at sea.
 
The Battle of Cockle Creek hadn't been much of a fight.  The ‘Teaguers were impressed, but the men of the
Louisiana
were unevenly matched against a ragtag force of ill-trained Confederates who expected no opposition.  The first battle at Drewry's Bluff was very different—an embarrassment to say the least.  
Galena
and her sister ships were routed in a scant three hours, shamefully so, by a very small force that outsmarted the Union captains.  Looking back on it, their preparations were the exact opposite of what they should have been.  The ships themselves didn't stand a chance against the cannon dug into the top of the bluff; had they carried a landing force with them, Richmond might have fallen that very day.  From the moment he heard the order to retreat two years ago, Sam Dreher had wrestled with the thought of what might have been.  Now he had been given a second chance.  This time he would play a part himself.  Another man might have waited out the campaign in the relative safety of a gunboat.  Sam, for better or for worse, was not another man.  

When they reached a point just out of sight of Drewry's Bluff but beyond the reach of its cannon, Butler's army took up positions across a wide span of woods and fields, with the river on their left hand.  Sam knew the marching had ended.  Each step would now be gained at the price of blood.  Raiding parties were sent out in the dim light.  Sam kept his distance from them; they were hard men with steely eyes who moved silently.  They carried short rifles and long knives for close combat.  They brought back encouraging news: the forward positions around the fort were lightly defended.  After that, companies of soldiers joined them, and they went ahead together to engage the rebels.  Sam heard the crack of rifles at a distance, and his pulse quickened.  When they returned, the men clustered around them to hear their reports, and their spirits rose.  They had met with good success.  The fort would surely fall.  As he lay beneath his blanket Sam awaited the command to assemble at dawn for the final push to Richmond.  He slept poorly, his body chilled and weary.  When dreams came, they were dreams of Assateague and the days that lay just out of reach, beyond tomorrow's victory.

 

No command was given the first night, or the day that followed it.  Each man asked his comrades why.  No one knew.   Again they slept, the rain soaking the earth around them, and a second night, then a third, passed without a word.  

On the fourth morning the rain paused and the dawn glowed more brightly through its veil of low clouds.  The fog lay thickly all around, shrouding the trees.  

Suddenly, in the midst of its waking routine, the whole camp paused as one.  Each soldier had heard the same sound.   Sam could not place it, never having heard it before, but the men around him knew it, and flew to arms.  In the space of ten seconds it sent the sleepiest among them running for their packs, some half-dressed, loading their rifles and fixing bayonets with all the speed they could muster.  

It reminded him at first of a dog, then a fox, pursuing prey in the field; a high, sharp call, staccato and irregular, tinged with a shrill, lonely madness.  It swelled and multiplied quickly, not one sound but many, each following close on the other like a cascade of demonic bells.

Their weapons ready, the soldiers formed ranks, shouting urgently to Sam to do the same.  They surged forward as one, the morning's business forgotten.  

The sound was the Rebel Yell.  The Confederates had grown tired of waiting; the fight was on.

 

The Union infantrymen charged through a grove of willow trees fed by a running stream.  Had they visited the little grove on a summer day in the company of a lady, they would have found it a pleasant place.  As it was, they took no notice.  Each man ran at the limit of his legs, lungs burning.  Their eyes were fixed on the brush that lay ahead, alert for the first sign of the greycoats.  They burst through the low scrub that ringed that little hollow and found themselves on clear ground, a flat place a hundred yards wide that ended in a stand of tall pines.  In the center of it, closing the distance as fast as they could, were the Confederates.  

The southerners fired the first volley, as was their habit, born of confidence in their marksmanship.  Their rifles were old and worn, but their eyes were keen.   Some distance separated them, but the Union line was well within the range of their best marksmen.  Their front line stopped, took aim, and fired.  A soldier just to Sam Dreher's left fell dead with a Minié ball in his chest.  To his right, a boy barely sixteen stumbled over the remains of a rotten log, hidden behind a thick tuft of grass.  A ball ricocheted from the log and struck him in the eye.  Partly blinded, he cried out in pain but reloaded twice and killed two Confederates in quick succession.  The men around him, inspired, charged ahead, pausing only to fire and load their Springfield rifles.

The lines closed in seconds.  Gaps opened on both sides as the dead fell in their places, but they vanished quickly as others came up to fill them.  The hail of fire continued.  The choking blue smoke of gunpowder clouded the damp morning air, blocking Sam's vision ahead.  He saw the grey column stretching far to his right and left.  The attack was unexpected; for their daring, the rebels had gained the advantage of surprise, at least for a time.   Once the whole force came forward to repel them, the Union's superior numbers would surely win the day—unless the Confederate army was larger than the generals believed.  They had been given nearly a week to bring reinforcements.  How many had come?  

In front of Sam and his companions, the onslaught was fierce.  Their attackers held nothing back.  He knelt behind the poor shelter of a blueberry bush, seeking a target.  A little distance ahead of him the blade of a saber flashed; perhaps it was an officer, or a cavalryman dismounted.  He traced the bright steel arc to the man that held it.  His eyes locked on the front sight of his rifle, and all went still and quiet for a moment as he squeezed the trigger.  The Springfield roared, spitting flame, smoke billowing upwards.  There was no time for him to think about whether he had taken a man's life.  If he had, it would be the first.

A bugle sounded to the rear as others came up to join their company.  For now, their line had held.  Cannon thundered from behind him, and a shot whistled over his head to strike somewhere in the ranks of the rebels.  The artillerymen were firing blindly at this point, but soon they would find their range and do real damage.  In moments he heard the drum-like booming of artillery ahead of him; now that the Confederate surprise attack was well underway, the other side was free to unleash its guns.  The shot sailed far to his right, but did not explode.  The next one would, and the one that followed. He heard the cries of men as the screaming shot tore into them.    

The center of their line stayed rooted to its position.  The fight ebbed and surged around them, Sam in the midst of it with ten others.  As rebel fire would take one, another would replace him.  They returned worse than they got.  Yard by yard they made progress across the wide grassy field, driving the Confederates backwards.  After two hours, or perhaps three, they stumbled into a broad, waist-high ditch, water trickling through it towards the distant river.  They crouched down for a moment, resting their backs against its muddy wall as they loaded their rifles and drank deeply from their canteens, refilling them with the rainwater that ran at their feet. Clouds still hid the sun, and more rain threatened overhead. A boy came running up with bags of shot and powder; Sam took his share.  Fighting was fierce to both sides, but somehow, just around them, it was still.

Without warning, a trio of grey-clad soldiers leapt the ditch ten yards to their left, oblivious to their presence.  One was hatless, his long, tangled brown hair streaming out behind him like a shotgun blast.  Two wore no shoes.  The ragged cuffs of their grey trousers were sodden with mud.  Sam's company took aim as one; their quick gunfire formed a single long note like the rolling of a kettledrum.  Two of the soldiers pitched forward, face-first, not knowing what had felled them.  The third, a shoeless one, spun towards them, hands clasped over his chest.  He dropped his rifle and took four or five pitching steps, finally collapsing almost at Sam's feet.  Sam stepped quickly aside as he fell.  His open eyes stared blankly at heaven.   He took a last sharp breath and his head rolled backwards into the water in the bottom of the ditch.

The Union soldiers clambered up the low mud bank, ready for a wave of Confederates to follow the three that had already come.  To their amazement, none appeared; rifle fire crackled to their right and their left, but they moved in a narrow corridor of shelter. They ran forward at full speed, covering the remainder of the open field where the attack had begun at sunrise. They passed small cedar trees, then taller pines, the trees dividing one man from the other as they moved among them.  Fallen needles crunched underfoot. A tree limb, struck by a cannonball, smoldered overhead.  The ground grew rough, chunks of white rock slowing their pace.  Low, rocky slabs stretched out ahead of them. Evergreens clung with widespread roots to the crevices between.  Sam turned, eyes searching for fellow soldiers coming up behind him.  He saw none.  

The company ascended a short, steep upgrade of flat stone.  They could not see what lay beyond.  

When they heard the thunder of many hooves, they shouldered their rifles.  They fired as the Confederate cavalrymen came into view, their leader raising his saber to order the charge.  Two horses skidded to earth, their legs flailing wildly, and a rider was plucked from his horse by a bullet.  The rest continued, closing the distance faster than the Union troops could reload.  They were upon them in a hail of gunfire.  Most fired pistols, some carrying one in each hand, the reins held in the crooks of their arms.  The small group of blue-jacketed infantry made an easy target.  Sam's companion to his left fell, then, with a loud cry, the man to his right.  Sam knelt, raising his empty rifle, its fixed bayonet angled upwards towards the charging grey horse just ahead of him.  Its rider hauled back on the reins to leap the crouching Union soldier, but too late; the long blade plunged home into the shoulder of the horse.  Its powerful momentum pivoted Sam onto his back as the rifle was ripped from his grasp.  Kicking backwards as it came to earth, the wounded animal's rear hoof found Sam's leg and shattered it.  

For a few moments he was blind, his eyes shut tightly, his breath coming in ragged gasps.  He rolled onto his uninjured side.  His left leg was useless.  His mind exploded with scarlet bursts of pain.  Facing towards the way he had come, he saw the Confederate cavalry that had swept over them galloping onto the open field that he had fought all morning to gain.  In the near distance, Union troops met them, and they exchanged fire.  His ears were deaf to it.  Recovering his wits, he thought to move away from the path of battle; more riders might follow the first wave, and they would kill him.  He searched for his fellow soldiers.  None were ahead of him; craning his neck over his shoulder, he saw none behind.  He tried to stand, but could not.  He tried to crawl, but when he lifted himself onto his knees his leg collapsed, and the pain caused his breath to catch in his chest.  He panted, and gritted his teeth together, and began to drag himself forwards by his elbows.  Two of his companions lay in his path.  They were dead.

He saw a little overhang in the rock outcropping ahead, a shelf of rock only a foot or two from the ground that extended outwards, forming a sort of roof.  Tall grass grew in front of it and the limb of a tree had fallen against it. There he might find temporary safety until the rest of his forces reached him.  He had lost his rifle and was useless for fighting.  His best hope was to stay alive until help arrived.  He headed towards the opening, inches at a time, his elbows digging into the pine needles beneath him, his leg throbbing and burning.  Long, painful minutes passed before he reached it.  

When he did he took his haversack from his shoulders and found that he could slide on his back underneath the rock ledge with a little room to spare.  It was dry there.  The wind had blown a carpet of pine needles into the tiny space.  With his right hand he took hold of the fallen pine bough that lay in front of the ledge and pulled it close so that it covered the opening.  It was large, branching into many smaller limbs.  Tufts of pine needles still clung to it.  Turning his head, he could see out.  It would be difficult to see in.  For the moment, it seemed the best place to wait for the rest of Butler's army.  

His eyes fixed on the smooth rock just overhead.  His vision began to spin, then to blur.  Quickly, mercifully, he slipped into darkness.  

 

It was not the noise of battle that awakened Sam Dreher, but the strange silence that followed.  Raising his hand to touch the stone roof above his face, he remembered where he was, and turned his head to peer outside his makeshift shelter.  All was quiet.  He had no sense of the time of day; the clouds had lifted to a high overcast, but the sun still hid behind them.  He listened intently for the sounds of battle.  Where was Butler's army?   Had they passed him on their way to Richmond, while he lay unconscious?  He scanned the pine woods around him, leading downwards to the field of battle, but saw no one.  

He was desperately thirsty and his mouth tasted of bitter metal.  Reaching for the haversack beside him, he opened his canteen, grateful now that he had filled it earlier.  He drank, spilling a little water on his hand and wiping it on his eyes.  There was hardtack and a piece of dried beef in his pack as well, but he felt no hunger.  His stomach was uneasy.  His leg throbbed; he was certain that the fleeing horse had broken it.  He had been kicked by horses and cattle before, but always as he leapt out of the way, and never with such power.  This time, pinned as he was behind the animal, its strong hind leg had caught him with its full force.  He felt his thigh.  It was swollen far larger in size than his right leg. The skin was painful and tight.  He pressed his heel against the floor of the cave to test the strength of his leg.  Even that small effort made him wince in pain, bright lights flashing in his closed eyes.  There would be no return to the battle for him.  He hoped that the siege of Richmond was underway.  He would splint up his leg as best he could and seek out the rear guard.  He raised himself up on his elbows so that he could leave his shelter.