Hedges saw a rifle muzzle pushed out from a clump of shrubbery and aimed an inch above it as he squeezed the trigger of the Spencer. The man yelled and stood up in full view, showing the surprised Union men a bloody wound in his cheek. Five guns exploded and the wounded man's chest was dissolved in a sea of blood.
"Kill them!" Hedges roared. "You don't have to blow them to bits."
He and the rest flattened themselves into the ground as a hail of answering fire was thrown at them. Hedges spotted a powder flash from halfway up a beech tree and was preparing to loose off a shot when the trooper closest to him fired. The sniper died without a sound and crashed through the tree's branches.
"Like that, sir?"
"You're learning," Hedges answered, and pulled himself along on his elbows, then got to his feet behind a tree trunk, grimacing as a half dozen bullets thudded into the bark on the other side.
There was a renewed barrage of gunfire out in the open ground and he glanced that way and saw Leaman leading an advance up the slope, running, diving to the ground, firing and running again. He moved then, emerging from behind the tree and drawing fire. He and the men returned it and threw themselves to the ground after a half dozen yards.
"We gotta have a guardian angel," one of the troopers hissed, then made a croaking sound.
Hedges looked in his direction and saw the man begin to rise as his hands went to his face. Another bullet hit him in the chest and he dropped his hands. His jaw had been blown away.
"Called tempting providence," Hedges muttered, throwing himself up into a crouch and charging forward, firing the Spencer from the hip as he ran.
He saw a gray uniform in front of him and spotted the swinging butt of a musket. He shot the man in the shoulder and fell down behind his crumpled body as a half dozen rebel bullets tore into the injured man's body. He rolled quickly away, into the more substantial cover of an indentation in the ground. Bullets kicked up earth close to him and he loosed off three shots into the tree tops. A man screamed and fell.
"Get the bastards!" a voice called, followed by an outbreak of screamed obscenities and a fresh fusillade of shots. A man crashed through the undergrowth to dive into the dip beside Hedges and the lieutenant almost blasted him in flight before he saw the soldier was wearing a blue uniform.
"This where the action is?" the man asked, as he loosed off a shot from one of the two Colts he held.
Hedges glanced at him and didn't recognize the cruel lines of the man's face. It wasn't one (If the troopers he had selected for the diversionary raid. The man fired again and a rebel threw his rifle in the air and pitched out from behind a tree, streaming blood from a hole where his right eye had been.
"Damn gun pulls to the left," the man said with disgust. "Aimed for his snout."
"They broken through?" Hedges asked.
"I did," came the response. He grinned. "No disrespect, sir, but I been looking at the yellow streak down Jordan's back for too long since the shooting started. Me and my buddies been itching for some action."
"You found it," Hedges answered, ducking his head as bullets whined across the dip. There were several thudding sounds close to him, accompanied by a series of shots so close together they merged into one sound. He looked up and around and saw five other troopers had successfully made the run into the trees and were blasting into the rebel line at close quarters.
"I'm Frank Forrest, lieutenant," the cruel faced man announced. "My buddies Hal Douglas, Billy Seward, John Scott, Roger Bell and Bob Rhett."
Hedges had time only for a quick glance over the newcomers, noting that Douglas wore corporal's chevrons, before another burst of gunfire forced his attention back to the fight. He and the men returned the fire, Seward laughing uproariously as he loosed off each shot from his Spencer repeater. Hedges glanced to his right and saw that only three of his original seven men were actively engaged in the fight.
"I figure a charge, lieutenant," Forrest said coldly as he surveyed the ground ahead.
"Not me," the man named Rhett disagreed.
"Ignore him," Forrest told Hedges. "He's like Jordan. They're only here for the fear. He'll follow wherever I go."
Hedges fixed Forrest with a cold eye. "You want to give the orders, soldier, you should have stayed down the hill."
Forrest seemed on the point of taking up the challenge to argue, but suddenly dropped his eyes and shrugged. "Just trying to help," he muttered.
"Frank done a lot of fighting down in the Arizona Territory," Seward put in as he continued to fire into the trees. "He knows about fighting."
"This ain't no bar-room brawl," Rhett said. "I heard what Lieutenant Hedges did at Philippi. I reckon we ought to do like he says."
Scott spat. "Bet he didn't take Phillipi by sitting on his ass in a hole in the ground." He ducked low as a bullet whined over his head. "Jesus, this ain't a healthy place to be."
"Charge!"
The call to action came from beyond the screen of trees and was followed by the crackle of snapping twigs.
"Shit, they want to die," Roger Bell yelled as a group of ten rebel soldiers burst from the undergrowth, firing as they came. Scott, Bell and Douglas were reloading their weapons, but Hedges, Forrest, Seward and Rhett took out four of the attackers before the group reached the edge of the dip and leapt into it.
Hedges laid the hot barrel of the Spencer across the skull of one attacker, as he worked the action, and shot into the throat of another. Forrest drew a knife and thrust it into the open mouth of a rebel and then had to struggle to pull it free of the man's clenched teeth. Two attacked Seward, using their expended muskets as clubs. He fired his Colt at point blank range into the lower stomach of one man and reeled away as the other caught him a stunning blow on the temple with the musket stock. Rhett was cowering on the ground, covering his head with his hands and screaming. The man who had dazed Seward turned to the terrified Rhett and began to bring down the musket again.
Hedges turned at the crouch and squeezed the trigger of the Spencer. The bullet drilled into the attacker's neck and blood from the severed jugular vein poured down on to the cowering Rhett, causing him to scream louder as he saw the spray and thought he had been hit himself. One man of the attacking force remained unscathed and he abruptly dropped his musket and revolver and thrust his hands into the air. He was a good looking youngster of no more than sixteen. Hedges covered him with the Spencer and took a step towards the man.
"I've had enough," he stammered, his teeth clattering his fear.
"Almost," Forrest countered from behind Hedges and released his blood-stained knife. The power of the throw sank the blade deep into the youngster's chest. He fell to his knees and then pitched forward across the writhing body of the man Seward had shot in the stomach. As Hedges spun around, rage turning his face almost purple, Douglas finished reloading his gun and sent a bullet smashing through the forehead of the wounded man.
As gunfire on the hillside rose to a violent crescendo, with warcries mingling among the screams of the wounded, the dip with its litter of bloodstained bodies and panting victors became an oasis of tense silence.
"You fools!" Hedges hissed as he looked from Forrest to Douglas, forcing each to look away from his angry, hard-eyed stare. "You two know something I don't?"
"What's that, lieutenant?" Forrest drawled, trying to match the toughness of the other's tone.
"Like how many rebels are deployed on this mountain, where they are and what they plan to do under attack? One of those guys might have been able to tell us!"
Rhett got up from his defensive position and began to scrub with his sleeve at the blood of the dead rebel. Seward giggled insanely.
"Figure there's a hell of a lot of them all over the slope and I reckon they'll shoot at us," Forrest answered laconically.