Days Without End by Sebastian Barry
Guess the Rebs believe if they can wipe us off the bank they can hold the ford and stop the Federals pushing through. Now we know there be a huge force of them approaching up the right bank of the river. Ten miles off a blind man can see the dust and ruckus of men. Must be ten thousand. At least a division of those hole-in-the-trousers boys. We’re only four thousand but we’re dug in like prairie dogs. Rifle pits galore a mile wide and all set in devious vees and on each flank full batteries and we got so much shells they rival the pyramids of Egypt. We got a regiment to hold a line behind and we have a nice rabble of companies on the right flank. Starling Carlton says two to one only fair to the yellowlegs. Lige says Starling can’t count. Starling says Lige is a lying Tennessee traitor. What you saying now? says Lige. Ain’t you a Tennessee boy? I am. Well, why ain’t you fighting for the Rebs since you smell the same as them? My pa’d shoot you dead hear you talk like that, Starling, says Lige, guess you don’t know nothing so you can’t say nothing about Tennessee. I know a back-stabbing turncoat when I sees one. Then why don’t you step over here and say that to my face? says Lige. I am saying it to your face. Your face is two feet from my mouth. Goddamn it, Lige. Then the two burst out laughing as is their wonted manner. Just as well as up to that point they was looking like assassins.
Colonels lurking on the holding line behind and sergeants coming down with orders. Getting to be all business and here we go. Lige has a piece of paper with his name and farm wrote on it and he always pins it to his chest before battle. Don’t want his body going in a pit nameless and his pa never hearing. His pa is eighty-nine year old and must be teetering on the brink of life, who knows. Then Lige falls back and tends to the colour detail. Gets our flag up with the shamrock on it and the harp. Green as an April leaf but dusty and torn too. Takes the river wind and shows its shape. There’s a huge noise being made by the approaching Rebs and it must be allowed we is nervy now and sick even. The faces are turned to the south to see what it all looks like. There’s all these little humpy hills and stands of scrubby trees and then the full dark river pouring south on our left. Friendly, protecting river. Colonel Neale appears now on his horse and talks down a few moments to Captain Wilson but no one can hear what they saying. Sounds humorous anyhow. Then the colonel goes trotting along the ranks and he’s nodding to the men. We got a big company of cavalry on our right but they’re back in the trees and you can’t say if they’ll be used. Might have to rush down if the Rebs break through some place. We don’t intend to let that happen and we’re full of salt pork and hardtack and we ain’t wanting any story of defeat going north. These are little simple things that sit in your head. There is also that queer terror that begins to swell in your belly and men sometimes suddenly need a shit and the sinks are too far back. You’re belching and the food comes up your gullet like it wants to say hello to the world again. Let’s not forget the pissing into your trousers. It’s a soldier’s life. Now we can see the Reb troops better, we can see the regimental banners here and there and they got cavalry too coming up slowly with them, and now they are spreading their forces wide and you can imagine the colonels trying to keep a hold on all this. The first cousin of an order is chaos. Cousin chaos himself. We can nearly feel the ground under us trembling and poor Starling Carlton though he is making sure men are in the right position throws up his pork in a violent expectoration. He don’t lose a breath though and he don’t care much who sees it. He wipes his grimy mouth and don’t miss a beat if he can help it. Terror is just the cousin of courage too. I hope so because I feeling it. We are watching the Rebs and by God ten thousand might be a short sum. More like a goddamn full army. We can see the horses cantering the guns up on two sides and we can see the battery men getting range and then it don’t seem like two seconds later the first of the shells go whining like God’s screaming infant over our heads. They’re going to throw about four thousand infantry at us in a terrifying wodge of men at centre and here they come. Before we know what is going on we have range on them with our guns and off go a hornet cloud of shells towards the Rebs. Blooms and sudden trees of smoke and fire appear among the myriad troops coming on. We can hear above the din our gunners shouting orders and sergeants and captains are barking words and you can feel your whole corpse gathered up into one tight fist of fear and fright. Holy mother of the Jesus good-natured God. A rich black fog of blown ordnance drifts out across the river like a river fog. Starling Carlton since his breakfast is gone is standing laughing beside me. Why he is laughing not even he knows or he least of all. The captains give the order to fire and a thousand muskets give voice and fling their round shot towards those walking demons. Johnny Reb with his skinny legs and his butternut rags and all he thinks about and thinks good carried under hats of all descriptions. South don’t got uniforms, grits, or oftentimes shoes. Half of these fierce-looking bastards in bare feet. Could be the denizens of a Sligo slum-house. God damn it, probably are, some of them. On they come. I can see the regimental banners now better and this damn one at centre coming on has shamrocks and harps just like ours. Usual crazy fucking war. There’s at least ten colour details I can see. That’s all the orders a simple soldier needs. Once you can see your banner you’ll go. Not going to leave that to the blasted foe. Other things I see are how thin these boys are, how strange, like ghosts and ghouls. Their eyes like twenty thousand dirty stones. River stones I’m thinking and I’m getting crazier by the second. I’m so frightened and crazy the piss runs down my army-issue trews freely. Bursts forth and floods my legs. God damn it. Like a mare staling in a field. Well, polish my boots. Our first round drops maybe two hundred men. Johnny Reb going to have plenty of burials. We see some cavalry come down east of our barricades and five hundred horse go running at the left flank of the Rebs. God knows whose guns are dropping some of them. Shells not finding range and so much smoke now and shouting and screaming the whole vista is erased. Goodbye Virginia and hello only ruckus and turmoil. We’re reloading as fast as our fingers can let us. Bet Starling Carlton wishes he had that nice Spencer now he wanted to kill Caught-His-Horse-First for. Wish I owned it myself. Takes two three minutes to ready your musket. God damn it. Fire again and make it count. Fire again and make it count. Now the advance is broken and the Rebs are pulling back. They can’t take fire just in that way from the breastworks and the redans. Can’t shoot enough of us and can’t get near enough to o’erwhelm us. Engulf us like a river flood and drown us in death. Can’t do it. The cavalry now veers to centre running at the retreating men. They’re slashing at backs and heads with their sabres and now their own cavalry is running at ours. Holy good Jesus. They come together like writhing devils, turning and raising the sabres, and firing off pistols into faces as freely as you please. Dozens and dozens falling. Such a blather of terrified runners and horses rearing up and throwing riders and God knows what else of perils. Then the cavalry galloping back and let the damn Rebels find the little hills. God damn it, no. They have another regiment of cavalry running up through the retreating men and they almost got to turn again because they’ll be trampled by their own. Here they come on again. We’re firing like lunatics possessed. Firing and firing. The whole sea of them turn again and you’d swear old Canute must be working the miracle he could not of old. The tide of men goes back. We seen them go for about a quarter hour and a cheer goes up among us and we are standing and kneeling, panting there like waterless cattle. God burn the world but Starling Carlton leans on the parapet and rests his big face wholesale on the earth like he was kissing it. But he is exhausted as a hunting dog been hunting for a day. He’s run his big form so heavy he’s fallen over like a killed man. I can hear him muttering into the earth, his mouth and face plastered in mud. The day is as dry as a furnace but his sweat makes mud enough to throw a pot. John Cole come over from his detail and kneels at my side. He leans his head against my right arm at the top and seems to sleep for a moment. Seems to fall into a sleep. Like he was a baby after a lullaby. Suddenly the whole body of men seems to be slee
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
TOWARDS TWILIGHT THE buggers come on again. The breeze has swung round to the east and now a million small waves appear on the river. Lace from a million seamstresses. The old heralds of the twilight are a slow blindness across the land and a long high colour the colour of apples seeps into the sky. The mountains that were faint blue in the distance darken and slowly blacken. The lead drops in the glass. Maybe we are not so ready as we were and afterwards hard words are spoken about the defences along where the sinks are and the field hospital. They must of been creeping up just like that red colour in the sky. Though the first thing that hits us is the cavalry again but they must of scoped out a weakness and through the right yards and supply dumps they pour and they are trying to throw the horses at the stronger rear line. Past the line is the damn colonels and the rest. All the same soldiers pour over against the invading horses. We can see all this while stupidly standing on the breastwork. The dimness of the evening makes us stupid. We can feel the approach of slaughter and in aiming to avoid it we put ourselves before it. The first cohorts of the darkness is a enemy too. The very world and its natures is against us. The hundreds of men repel the cavalry best they can and the horses wheel east again and pour away into the smudges of new night. The colonel must guess the next and we are ordered over the breastwork and down into the wild fields and are to meet the coming Rebs if they are coming. There ain’t a heart among us wants to leave the breastwork. Didn’t we dig the damn thing and why leave it now. The bundles and wastes of shadow do not beckon us. Dan FitzGerald looks at me for orders and I say nothing. Are we to go or what? he says. I’d rather not, I say. But maybe we ought, I say. For the honour of Bundorragha, he says, laughing. What did Bundorragha ever do for you, Dan? I says. Not a thing, he says. So, I says. Then we scramble over the ditch, then we all scramble, let’s say a thousand men, and luckily enough the Rebs ain’t sent their army this time but only a scattering of companies. Maybe feeling out the way. Maybe all they could hide along the little hills. So we are ten steps out on the fresh grasses of Virginia and the river goes along in its silent majesty all fringed with its little waves and by chance the company coming straight to meet us is that rabble of Irish we spotted before. Just by chance in that chancy way of war. Lige Magan has our banner raised and comes along in the centre of our companies. We are walking down the grasses at a steady pace and our bayonets are fixed and our guns sloped. We won’t do nothing till the other crowd comes quicker. We see a new canter in their step. Captain Wilson orders us on and we break into a run. No one wants to do it and everyone does it. Now we hear the first crackles of the Rebs firing and in an instant the field is aflame with noise and returning fire. No time to be reloading now and on we rush with bayonets borne forward. A small cry begins in my throat and seems to grow and then this same roar alights in the other throats and now the roar is the roar of a thousand and the captain is roaring the worst. It would scare the Archangel. The roar is bigger than any wind we know and in it is a sort of queer lust and something akin to cruelty. The Rebels before us have expended their guns and they throw down their muskets and unlatch their bayonets and now they come on against us with a bayonet in one hand and a knife in another. We ain’t never heard of this. Now in the further darkness comes rushing a streaming confusion of horses and we pray it is our cavalry. The slashing and hacking of sabres and firing of pistols. Horsemen stoop down to cut away tendons and muscles. All this in the gathering darkness. Was it madness to attack at twilight or genius? The Irish Rebs are shouting too, shouting filthy things in Gaelic. Then we reach each other and it is all wrestling, punching, and stabbing. These boys are big and afterwards we learn they are railway workers and dockers from New Orleans. Big boys and used to murder and mayhem. They don’t run over this darkness to love us. They want our lives and to cut out our hearts and murder us and still us and stop us. I have a big sergeant trying to get his Bowie into me and I am obliged to run his stomach with the bayonet. The noble adversaries fight on for ten minutes and in that time hundreds are tumbled on the ground. Dozens are groaning and calling for assistance. The darkness is nearly complete and the Rebs turn again to withdraw and the cavalry lets them go because you can’t see a damn thing now in the soupy night. Reb and Federal alike lie bleeding in the blackness.
Then there is a curious lull. The wounded are making the noises of ill-butchered cattle. Throats have been slit but not entirely. There are gurgles and limbs held in agony and many have stomach wounds that presage God-awful deaths. Then the moon rises quietly and throws down her long fingers of nearly useless light. We trudge back to the breastworks and we get the details into action and the wounded are carried up into camp on the new ambulances. The dressing station has survived the Reb cavalry and the surgeon is inside with his saws and bandages. There are more bullet wounds than expected and though in all truth I heard no shells throughout our charge many have missing arms and arms hanging and legs. The helpers light the big oil lamps and the sawing begins. There’s no hospital yet further up the country so it’s now or never. Anything that can be bandaged is wrapped tightly. At the end of the surgeon’s table the pile of arms and legs grows. Like the offered wares of some filthy butcher. The fires have been stoked and the irons is pushed against the wounds and the screaming men are held down. We know in our hearts they can’t survive. The old rot will set in and though we may bump them back north they won’t see another Christmas. First the vile black spot and then all hell to pay. We seen it a hundred times. Still the surgeon works on just in case. He’s sweating like Starling Carlton. Too many, too many. Some may be lucky, we pray. Here’s Lige Magan with a knife in his neck. He must of been knocked clear into Monday because his body is loose and sleeping. Maybe they gave the bugger ether. The blood-soaked surgeon wraps Lige’s sloppy wound and then he’s laid aside. Bring on the next, bring on the next. Aye, but Doc, save old Lige. He the best. Clear this fool out, says the surgeon. Can’t blame him. He’ll work another seven hours. God guide his bloody hand. Our comrades. Poor ruined lengths of paltry men.
When his wound heals they try to return poor Lige to the ranks. But turns out he can’t turn his head. That New Orleans Irish Bowie knife was a spanner in his works rightly. Anyhow since he ain’t no spring chicken he gets an honourable discharge in the midst of war and he tells us he will likely go back to Tennessee to tend his pa. Says they can be two old bastards together. His pa still runs three hundred acres so he might be needing fresh hands for that. Lige looks excited saying all this but also in me there is a natural sorrow. John Cole holds Lige in great affection and so do many. Only Starling Carlton looks scowling and says hard things but that’s just the same as him saying good things. Starling won’t be half of what he is without Lige, we know. I guess folk become joined at the hip over time. Can’t have a thought about Starling without Lige being in it like a squirrel in a tree. Big sweaty Starling going to have to find another buddy. That ain’t going to be easy in prospect. What Starling says to me is he’s worried that if Lige can’t turn his head he won’t see robbers creeping up on him. Seems to bother Starling mightily. Also he says Tennessee ain’t a peaceful country now. How can a bluecoat go back to Tennessee? Good question. Only, he won’t be wearing a blue coat. They give him some weary civilian clothing for himself as Lige goes off. Don’t look like no three-hundred-acre farmer in them. Looks like the robber Starling fears. We shake hands with Lige and he goes off and he has to walk to Tennessee more or less. Says he guesses there must be a road across the Blue Ridge. Must be. No one knows. Off he goes anyhow. Write us a letter when you can, says John Cole. Don’t forget now. I’ll keep in touch, says Lige, ain’t going to let you go. This makes John Cole very quiet. John is a tall man and thin and maybe he don’t have much painted on his face. He like to m
That Reb army has made an awful mess of us and we are relieved and moved back a ways north. Colonel mighty pleased though that the Rebs was repulsed as he calls it. Guess they were, at a cost. At a spot called Edwards Ferry we crossed over and it were a strange and excellent feeling to reach Union land again. Shoes a terror though and John Cole got a raw underfoot from the mud and gravel living in his boots. I take ten moments to pull them off and wash his feet in the river. We never seen farmers all the trail up through Virginia. They flee away and hide every scrap. Now the farmers ain’t so chary and we get fresh food as we pass such as we ain’t pleased our gobs with for a long time. Pies still warm from the oven. If in heaven this be the cooking I’m game. We go into camp with a main army and there must be twenty thousand men shitting in the same bowl. Like a great strange city rose among the little hills and farms. If Maryland ain’t pretty country God’s a girl. We’re tired in our marrows and Captain Wilson wants to hone us back up. Draws the line when Starling Carlton finds a cherry orchard three hills over and thinks he’ll be best living there. We got to go over with a rope to bring him back. Find him sitting up in a cherry tree. What the hell you doing? says the captain’s orderly Joe Ling. I ain’t talking to you, says Starling, you just a private. So Joe Ling goes back to camp and the captain come out himself and he’s standing under the branches picking cherries almost by accident and chewing them and spitting out the stones. Good cherries, he says. Well got, Sergeant Carlton. Thank you kindly, says Starling, climbing down, I tries to do my best. You want me to tie him? says Private Ling. Tie him up? says the captain, no, I want you to take off your caps and fill them with cherries. So back we wend well laden. Starling Carlton very easy and go-free then, walking along beside me. There’s said to be storms coming over Maryland but just this day the day is one of those given to the earth as a reminder to what it can be. Pleasant and steeped in a kinda heat you can’t take against. And the fields and narrow roads verdant and pleasing and the cherry trees laden with those little red planets and then the promise of the apples and pears later if the storms don’t destroy them. Makes a soldier want to farm and stay in one place the rest of his given days. In plenitude and peacefulness. We’re going along well and Starling is talking about the country round Detroit in the summer and how as a small boy he wanted to be a bishop. Then Starling stops on the dry road and is staring down at the dryness and I think he won’t move again and maybe it is best to fetch the rope after all. I guess Starling Carlton is as mad as two puppies. I guess you’re a good friend to me, he says then, real quiet. Then the captain just a few yards ahead calls back, you coming on now or what? We coming on now, I say.