Remembers
After being wounded in an engagement some weeks ago, Asa Sheppard has been assigned to guard Miss Wheeler's pots, property and person. He is told it is an easy assignment, and he can rest and recover his strength. Now he remembers how he came to be wounded.
The sound of firing rolls across the fields, muffled by the smoke to a continuous crackling, no more threatening than the sound of firecrackers on the Fourth of July. Smoke blooms in sporadic puffs, blowing acrid and burning across his eyes as he gazes down at the row of brass cannon before him. The charge took the gun crews unawares; he sees five undamaged cannon with their caissons and limbers. Rammers and sponges lie abandoned on the ground among the wreckage of one of the teams.
He loosens his reins and looks beyond the blue-coated troopers who have followed him across the valley and through the hail of bullets to this commanding spot. The approaching glitter of light beyond them makes his brows drive together in a sudden frown. No time to waste. He motions to the men around him and jumps from the saddle, but another voice, shrill with panic, sounds before he can speak.
They're coming back, Sarge! They're coming back!
Let 'em come, he says. We'll turn these guns and give them a bellyful of their own grapeshot. Get the rest of the boys here on the double, and heave!
The white-eyed trooper before him gapes at the guns and at the lines of gray- and butternut-clad men whooping and yelling toward him. For Chrissakes, Sarge! We'll be killed for sure!
He chokes back the irritation building within him. God almighty, Renquist! Is there ever a time you DON'T panic? Get your butt off that damned nag and help me turn this gun! And the rest of you jackasses in pants stop gawking like a pack of hicks and do the same! I can see that half these guns are loaded. We can send a volley into them right away and reload at our leisure! Now come on!
It works. Booted feet thud to the ground, hands reach out to grip the wheels and pivot the guns. Some of the men start loading the empty pieces.
He watches with satisfaction. That's it. Now sight them - look right along the barrel, like you would a gun. Fire!
The brazen-mouthed guns leap and bellow, belching flame. He peers through the thickening smoke and sees a swath of open field lying before them where the foe had stood thickest.
That's the way! he cries. Reload! Quickly now, quickly!
Hooves rattle on the ground, more felt than heard in the noise and the firing. The flash of a saber as it hisses into its sheath. What the devil are you doing, Sheppard?
He grins and wipes his forearm across his eyes and squints up at his regimental adjutant through the glare and the smoke. We captured this battery, Lieutenant, and now we're giving them a dose of their own medicine while we wait for the infantry to come up.
The Lieutenant nods and starts to speak. He flinches sharply sideways and sags as a flower of red blossoms at his side.
He moves forward to support the Lieutenant. Best get to the rear, sir! We'll hold them off! He nods to one of the troopers and watches the Lieutenant ride off, the man beside him. He turns his attention back to the guns.
The fight is heating up; minutes pass, endless in the glare and the noise. A bullet burns along his thigh; the wound bleeds sluggishly.
In the automatic motion of servicing the guns and shouting orders, some quiet, cool corner of his mind remembers warm summer evenings beside Seneca Lake in upstate New York, drilling with the militia and firing the city's three guns. Bands were playing then, drums providing a sort of thunder that is more than adequately supplied now by the rattle of musket fire.
Another bullet flattens itself on the barrel of his cannon. He flicks it off with a thumbnail and keeps shouting orders as his men move through the drill of the guns, each shot tearing holes through the enemy.
One of the new recruits turns to him. White teeth flash from his smoke-grimed face. By God, by God, they're putting up one hell of a scrap, Sarge!
He grins back, but then frowns at the field behind him. Never mind the scrap, Perkins! Where the hell's the infantry?
Here they come again!
He curses. We'll fire two of these guns. The rest of you, take cover and use your carbines. They don't have repeaters: we can keep up the rate of firing and mow 'em down. It'll be like shooting fish in a barrel. Move!
Forms surging toward them, wavering, melting into the earth before the force of their fire, and yet coming onward, as unstoppable as the tide.
He rams another charge home and takes the lanyard in his fist. If we can hold these guns, they won't be able to use them against the infantry -
A deep, booming cheer roars across the fields behind them. He looks and sees the blue ranks surging forward through the smoke, but the gray and butternut lines are closer. In the flash of a moment he sees the damage that could be wrought by the guns.
Hold tight! he shouts. Don't let them retake these! He turns to look at his own army; he hears hoofbeats behind him and the next moment a terrific blow sends him spinning to the ground.
Hooves thunder beside him; he rolls to his feet, shielding his head with his arms. He pulls at his pistol, bringing it up with his left hand as a bolt of curved, gleaming steel lances toward him.
He throws his arm up in an attempt to deflect the stroke and glimpses the face behind the blade, set mouth, cold, deadly eyes. Metal tears across cloth, clashes sickeningly against a button, and then drives deep into his chest.
The pistol falls from nerveless fingers. The lanyard's toggle grip is still in his right hand; he yanks it aside and down with the last of his strength. The cannon roars and leaps with the explosion, but he hears nothing as the world revolves with increasing slowness until it is still and dark.
Why, you're hurt, sir! It is a woman's soft voice that he hears, and when he struggles through the pain and the noise to gaze out through darkening eyes, he sees a woman's face bending over him: wide gray eyes behind spectacles, and a face framed by softly falling coils of mahogany hair; gentle fingertips are touching his bloody shoulder. I should have noticed it sooner. And you seem tired...
click here to Read Another Chapter