Some Damned Burg, Part Five
He hadn’t looked at the watch since it started, a long while now, but he began to notice their own gunnery slackening. Now the aides were galloping up and down the lines. The order came: up, up.
Generals were making speeches up front, too far away to see who they were or hear what they said. First Atkinson, then Charlie, ordered “arms, at will, forward.”
They were off. Griffith kept an eye on his three walking wounded. This was a bayonet charge, so he didn’t have to worry whether Harper would be able to reload. His questions were whether Green, with his game leg, could keep up even with a steady pace, and whether Private Private would march off to the music of his own broken head. Harper and Green had Private marching between them, and he seemed to fall into the rhythm of the advance.
He looked around him, and the lines looked smarter than he could ever remember, then he glanced toward the ridge, disappearing in the smoke. The boys were busy trying to stay formed, so he said, “Lads, we’re looking damn near irresistible today. The Federals will piss their pants and run away. Mind the cadence, don’t trip.”
There was plenty to trip over: shell holes, pieces of dead horses, broken artillery carts. Soon they were up to the guns, and with them broken gun carriages, dead gunners, wounded gunners rolling and moaning, with bloody wounds, and wide eyes.
The boys began to gawk, so he shut that down. “Mind what you’re doing. You can’t help these lads except by winning, so eyes on that ridge.” But we can’t see the ridge any more.
They were all catching it from shellfire now, especially the brigade’s front-most companies. Explosions left holes in the lines, almost before his brain registered the sound. Fragments were zipping among them now. Damn, Hodges was down, lying still.
He turned in time to see his three walking wounded go down at once, perforated by the fragments of a shell that blew up directly atop the three men in the next line forward. Oh Jesus, now Byrd was down. He turned, saw Byrd on his knees, staring at his severed left foot a yard away.
Byrd saw Griffith turn to help and shook his head: No, no, keep them together. There was too much to think about to see what had happened to Byrd after that. “Keep going; close it up, close it up,” a calm voice was saying. Griffith suddenly realized the voice was his.
A sudden gust, a rush of air and sound, passed in front of him. Goddamn it, that was round shot. He didn’t think they were in range, but now there were more. Then there were more shells, from the front, but worse, from the right, spinning down the lines, dropping and exploding in different places. That shouldn’t be. He recalled something he’d overheard officers say: enfilade fire, deadly to infantry. It must be from the hills that Longstreet had failed to take. We’ve got Federal fire on two sides. Jesus Christ.
For a moment, the powder fog parted, and he could see that they had been flanked on the left as well. The regiments there were in range of enfilade musket fire. Men and flags were falling everywhere. He looked to the front of the company, and there was Charlie, waving that fool sword and either shouting or swearing: no way to tell which. Another cannonade, and the front line was down. As he stepped through the mess, that voice that was his yelled to the uninjured to get up and join them. Some did.
Get Bryn Eliot Evans’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
There was less room now. The brigade to the left was crowding into them and coming apart. Griffith could see that this wouldn’t do. He began to run back and forth, trying to keep the line together. They were right behind Charlie now, then suddenly there was no Charlie: just the sword spiraling in the air, his new boots still in step formation, and battle fog that had turned pink.
Now it seemed as if the whole division was coming apart and running to the rear. The voice that was his tried foolishly to rally them, but these were men far beyond rallying. Charlie’s platoon stayed together with their diminishing regiment. Brave? Stupid? Numbed by Charlie’s instant death? It was hard to say. They went forward, a shrinking clump of men. We’re a target: no good, but what do I do? All the officers in front were down now. He turned, and the major was down. Byrd’s back there somewhere. No one to ask.
Griffith remembered a gunner once telling him that you could see the shell that was coming for you. Something small and black was surely headed his way. No time to think or react, then the shell exploded, one skull-splitting noise in a universe of noise. He flew.
He got to his feet, unsteady, unsure of his direction, unsure where he was. There were no Confederates standing where he was. Was everyone dead? It seemed so, but it can’t be: it can’t. There seemed to be mist everywhere but right in front of him. He picked up a musket, then three or four minies came zipping by. Better to drop it and not invite attention. The shooting helped him focus a little. Not going that way: not with malevolent musket fire trying to kill me.
Which way was back? Ah, that way, but a voice began to form in his mind, Da’s voice from those talks they had months ago. “Get out of it, boy. I can’t help you now.” Griffith tried to focus on that voice, although concentrating hurt as much as aimlessness. Out of it, then. No better time, here in Pennsylvania, on Federal soil. He shouldered the haversack and stumbled off the field. He felt like the only one alive, and maybe he was.
After a while, a southern voice called out, “Sergeant! Sergeant!” He looked around for a familiar face, saw no one but a small backwoods corporal, barefoot, with a ratty slouch hat, staring at him. He made himself focus.
“Sergeant, y’all look like hell. Kin I help?” He tried to shake his head, but the pounding just got worse. Words finally came.
“No, no, thank you. Just point me to the doctors. If you want to help, there’s a lot of folk out there worse hurt than me.” There was blood on the corporal’s left foot. He’d be needing help himself pretty soon.
“All right, just go on as y’all are goin’, the doctors are at the edge of the town, in the houses mostly. What outfit are y’all with?”
“77th Virginia, Pettigrew’s division. Do you know where I can find them?”
The friendly face saddened. “There ain’t much left of Pettigrew’s division, I hear. Half the ones alive will be in the hospitals. The other half probably ain’t stopped runnin’.”
“Thank you, Corporal,” was all Griffith could manage. His head wouldn’t let him feel much grief: just another source of pain. Despite the pain, he looked down and guessed the corporal had a point: The front of his trousers, and that new sergeant’s jacket, were peppered with holes. Under his beard, he could feel blood trickling. He felt no pain: maybe the damage was dirt and spent shell fragments. The jacket was bloody, but whose blood?
It seemed to be getting dark. How long had he been down? Was it dark because night was close, or was rain coming? He tried looking skyward, but his head pounded so much that he gave it up. Griffith just kept walking. His canteen was sieved, so when he saw one loose, he crouched carefully down to pick it up. It had some water in it, enough to take the edge off his thirst. Get out of it, boy, said Da in his ear. I can’t help you. He and the family had been lucky to get out. There was a well up ahead, near a farmhouse that seemed to have soldiers in it. There were soldiers headed the way he had come, no one in a hurry. He stayed under the edge of the woods as the dark turned out to be rain clouds.
[This story goes on, but I’ve learned my lesson about publishing on Medium. I write nothing beyond draft stage unless it has a good home.]
