With nothing in their bellies they would be going into battle.
So it was the Irishman crossed himself and started mouthing the words that came back to him despite all the intervening years. Words taught him long, long ago by that village priest back in County Kilkenny. The sort of catechism one never forgot. Here on the brink of battle asking God to watch over and protect, to hold him in the Almighty’s hand.
After all these years wherein he had never darkened the door of a church—to discover that he was still steeped in that faith a fighting man never really lost.
Chapter 37
8-9 September 1876
If John Bourke had learned anything at all during his years with George Crook, it was that the general could surprise his men with a sudden change of his mind.
And he did just that at dawn on the morning of the eighth.
It was raining again, raining still. With every man in that bivouac expecting that they would be laying over for the day, just as Crook had promised, no one saw much sense in getting up and moving about. The news shot through their forlorn camp like a galvanic shock wave.
“Boots and saddles, boys!” the old sergeants bellowed.
One of those most surprised growled, “What the hell for?”
“What for, you ask?” sneered an old file. “Why, the general’s issued marching orders, me fine young fellers. So you’ll be dancing a merry tune soon enough, you will.”
Crook did indeed have them up and out of the mud, and marching off that Friday morning—the general’s very own forty-eighth birthday. It hadn’t taken long for the men to finish what crumbs of hard bread they could scrape from the bottom of their packs and haversacks, richer yet if they still possessed a sliver of the rancid bacon tucked away in one of their pockets. All most could do for themselves was to carve a stringy steak from one of the nearby carcasses. And if a half dozen of them could scrape together enough for a shared cup of coffee, they felt all the more royal for it—even close to human as the infantry set out on the flanks of the plodding cavalry, moving across that inland sea of mud and fog, wispy sheets of rain driven on the back of a biting wind.
No matter what was on the menu that morning, it had been more of the milky, bitter water for all, and a matter of tightening one’s belt another notch.
After no more than an hour the gaunt animals again began to falter, and the troopers went afoot. On either side of the straggling cavalry, foot soldiers plodded by in their gummy brogans, as cheerful as any man could be, calling out to their comrades in the cavalry.
“Say, yez boys! You want us give you a tow!”
“Yeah,” cried another footslogger, “for a small fee, why—we’ll be happy to tow you and your bag-of-bones horse there all the way to the Black Hills!”
For most of that morning the horse soldiers struggled to keep their animals going. But by noon the shooting began once more, and soon the backtrail was littered with carcasses, the bony dead over which the men clustered like predatory scarecrows, like flocks of robber jays, each with his own knife, hacking free a choice flank steak he would suck and chew on as he trudged forward in the wake of George Crook, doggedly making for the Black Hills.
They put twenty-four miles behind them that day, through the fog, across the muddy wilderness, dragging their weapons and what horses did not fall, what carcasses were not left behind to mark the passing of the Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition. That day at least the wind pummeled them from behind—not straight into their faces.
When the advance reached a tributary of the South Fork of the Grand River, they went into camp. It was a blessing to find that here there was wood, albeit wet wood. But the first firewood they had run across in something on the order of ninety miles. In no time hundreds of smoky fires smudged the twilit sky as the commissary officers selected the three poorest animals from each company to be shot, butchered, and fed to the men. For tonight Crook’s soldiers would not have to haunt the backtrail like thieves and shammers, butchering the fallen horses for the best steaks after the column had marched on.
Horse tenderloin wasn’t on the menu for Surgeon Clements’s sick cases that evening. At sundown the scouts brought in five antelope. There were plenty of plums as well as bullberries to be found with a little hunting along the banks.
Once some of the deadfall in that riverside camp began to dry out near the fires despite the continuing rains, and once the men started cooking their stringy meat on the end of sharpened tree limbs, John Bourke saw the spirits of most lift a few notches. He had never thought he would see morale sink as low as it had the past two days. What more they would have to face before Mills got back from Deadwood, he dared not consider.
For most it was impossible to sleep again that night, forced to hunker close to the fires they would keep feeding with damp, smoky wood until dawn. Amazing, John thought sometime after ten o’clock that night, how a little warmth could give a man a bit of pluck.
“Happy birthday, General!”
Coming up out of the dark was Wesley Merritt, along with Eugene Carr and William Royall, Alexander Chambers and ten more battalion officers.
“Gendemen,” Crook called out. “Come in out of the rain.”
Bourke and the general scooted shoulder to shoulder to allow the others room under the overhanging shelf of rock they had located along the riverbank.
“No birthday feast tonight, General?” Carr asked with a great smile.
“No, but a man won’t have a problem quenching his thirst!” Crook roared.
“I’m a hippophagist at last!” Carr said, then rocked with laughter.
“What’s that, sir?” Bourke asked. “I’ve never heard the term.”
“It means he eats horses,” Merritt answered grimly. Carr nodded and said, “I’ve become a real connoisseur.”
“I expect we won’t have to eat our horses too much longer,” Crook explained. “If our scouts are correct in the distance remaining to Deadwood City, we should expect to meet Bubb’s pack-train coming back sometime on the eleventh.”
Royall said, “Tonight let’s just be thankful we found some wood for the men.”
“That truly is a blessing,” Crook replied as he stuffed a hand inside his worn wool coat to pull out a sixteen-ounce German silver flask.
“Is … is that what I think it is, General?” Carr asked, flushed with anticipation.
Twisting loose the cap, Crook held it beneath his nose, then said, “Yes, gentlemen. A man’s due on his birthday, don’t you think? Especially when he’s celebrated as many birthdays as I have.”
“I’m afraid I forgot my cup,” Royall whined.
“No matter,” Crook cheered. “We’ll pass the flask until it’s empty!”
“Hear, hear!” some of them cried as Crook put the flask to his lips and drank.
“A happy birthday to you again, General!” Merritt added when he was handed the flask.
“And a joyful round of thanks for sharing your liquor with us!” Carr said. “You’ve been keeping this quite a secret, eh?”
“I knew there’d come a day to celebrate,” Crook replied. “If I hadn’t caught the Sioux by the time my birthday rolled around, then I figured I’d have myself one happy little celebration anyway.”
Sitting there that night in the glow of the firelight reflected from the rock shelf, watching the warmth flickering on those beaming faces, John again marveled at George Crook. He willingly suffered everything the most common soldier suffered. He ate no better, slept no warmer. Perhaps because he had never considered himself above the privations he asked of his men, General Crook never failed to silence most all the criticism leveled at him for making just this sort of rugged, grueling march.