As soon as the bombardment stopped, Martin and Andersen popped up like a couple of jack-in-the-boxes. Sure as hell, here came the Rebs, dashing forward through the ruins of Big Lick. They ran low and bent over, not wanting to expose themselves any more than they had to. Veteran troops, Martin thought; new fish had less sense.
He was a veteran, too. The more you let the other guys take advantage of a bombardment, the worse off you'd be. The time to smash them was as soon as they jumped out of their holes. If you could pot a couple then, the rest lost enthusiasm for the work they'd been assigned.
He squeezed the trigger. The Springfield slammed against his shoulder. A Reb pitched over on his face. Martin worked the bolt and fired again. Another Confederate soldier fell, this one grabbing at his arm. Martin seemed to have all the time in the world to swing his rifle toward a third figure clad in butternut, to squeeze the trigger, to watch the fellow topple.
Beside him, Paul Andersen was also banging away. Somewhere not far off, a machine gun started hammering. A lot of Rebels went down. But a lot of them kept coming, too. They pitched improvised grenades at the U.S. soldiers. Martin didn't like the idea of carrying those damn things around-if a bullet hit one, it would blow a hole in you they could throw a dog through. But he didn't like being on the receiving end of grenades, either. It was as if the infantry started having its own artillery.
Shouts of alarm from the left made him whip his head around. The Confederates were in among the U.S. trenches and foxholes, trying to drive the Americans back to White Sulphur Springs without benefit of leave.
Martin ran toward the battling, cursing men. In a fight like that, you used anything you had: rifle, bayonet, knife, the sawed-off spade you carried to dig yourself in. The question was brutally simple: would enough Rebs get past the U.S. rifle and machine-gun fire to overwhelm the defenders and make this wrecked stretch of suburb their own once more, or would the men who were in place and whatever reinforcements who could get forward blunt the attack and throw it back?
Butternut smeared with mud and grass stains didn't look much different from similarly dirty green-gray. Being sure of who was who was anything but easy. You didn't want to go after the wrong man by mistake, but you didn't want to hesitate and get yourself killed, either.
An unmistakable Rebel leaped out from behind a pile of rubble and swung one of those short-handled shovels at Chester Martin's head. He threw up his rifle just in time to fend off the blow. The force of it staggered him even so. The Confederate, intent on his work, drew back the shovel for another blow. Before he could deliver it, a bullet-from a U.S. soldier or a Rebel, Martin never knew-caught him in the shoulder. The spade spun from his hands. "Ahh, shit," he said loudly. "You got me now, Yank."
Martin dashed past him. If he'd stayed there an instant longer, he would have shot the wounded Rebel in the head. Accepting the surrender of a man who'd been doing his best to kill you till he got hurt himself felt fiercely unnatural. A lot of such attempted surrenders never got made. Machine gunners, in particular, had a way of dying heroically at their posts.
Yells from the rear told of fresh U.S. troops coming up. The Confederates still battling in among their foes weren't getting reinforcements; their barrage hadn't made the U.S. defenders say uncle. "Give up!" Martin shouted to the Rebs. "We got you outnumbered, and you ain't gonna make it back to your own lines. You want to keep breathin', throw down what you got."
For a few seconds, he thought that call would do no good. The Rebs were stubborn bastards; he'd seen them die in place before. But then a sergeant in butternut said, "Hell with it," and threw up his hands. His example was enough for his comrades, who dropped their rifles and whatever other lethal hardware they were holding.
The U.S. soldiers stripped their prisoners of ammunition, grenades, and knives, and of their pocket watches and cash, too. None of the Confederates said a word about that. Several of them had U.S. coins and bills in their pockets, which argued they'd stripped a prisoner or two themselves.
"Hammerschmitt, Peterson, take the Rebs back to where they can deal with 'em," Martin said. The rest of the U.S. soldiers looked enviously at the two men their sergeant had chosen: they'd get away from the front and the righting, if only for a little while.
"Hear tell the food in Yankee prisoner camps ain't too bad," the Confederate sergeant who'd been first to throw down his Tredegar said hopefully.
As Specs Peterson and Joe Hammerschmitt gestured with their bayoneted rifles to get the prisoners of war moving, Chester Martin answered, "Listen, Rebs, I'll give you one warning: whatever you do, don't let 'em ship you to White Sulphur Springs."
The sergeant nodded, grateful for the advice, then looked puzzled when the U.S. soldiers started laughing. "Come on, you lugs," Peterson said, sounding as fierce as any man with glasses could. Hands still high, the Confederates shuffled off into captivity.
"You're a regular devil, Sarge, you are," Paul Andersen said as the U.S. soldiers shared out the weapons and other loot they'd got from the Rebels. Four men all wanted a knife with a brass handle made as a knuckle-duster; they had to go down on their knees and roll dice to decide who got to keep it.
"Who, me?" Martin said. "Listen, how much difference is there really between a prisoner camp and where they sent us? You can't do what you want either place, now can you?"
"Hadn't looked at it like that," the corporal admitted after a little thought.
"And I'll tell you another thing," Martin said, warming to his theme: "we can joke however goddamn much we want, but they're both better than being at the front." This time, Paul Andersen nodded at once.
XIII
Usually, Scipio or one of the lesser servants looked out from the front windows to see who was coming. This time, Anne Colleton did the job herself. It would not give the Negroes any wrong ideas about her place and theirs in the Marshlands scheme of things, not when the motorcar she was waiting for had her brother in it.
She wondered whether she ought to give Tom a sisterly hug and a kiss or box his foolish ears for him. The first clue she'd had that he was anywhere but up in Virginia was a telephone call from Columbia less than an hour before. He'd just got off the train, he'd said, and was on his way.
Scipio came up to her, tall, imposing, perfectly formal. "Have you any special suggestions on how we may make your brother's stay as comfortable and pleasant as possible?" he asked in his pipe-organ voice.
Anne waved him away. "I leave it in your hands, Scipio. I can't think now. Maybe I'll have some ideas later. If I do, I'll tell you." The butler bowed and withdrew. Since the start of the war, he'd pulled back even further than usual into the shell of service he wore around himself like armour. He'd always been a private person, even before his training for high service, but now it was as if he didn't want anyone having the slightest inkling of what he was thinking or feeling.
Stinking war — it oppresses everyone, she thought. Sometimes I wish I were a simple field nigger, so I wouldn't have to think about it. But even the plantation hands were thinking about the war, thinking how they could make money from it by going to work in the factories instead of staying here where they belonged and raising cotton. Anne sighed. Even for a field nigger, life wasn't simple any more.
She drew herself straighten All right. Life wasn't simple. Up till now, she'd always revelled in complication, and profited from it, too. Nostalgia belonged to the last century. If you didn't look ahead, you were in trouble.