The Killer Angels (40 page)

Chamberlain said, “How is he?”

“Well, Lawrence, he died.”

“Oh,” Chamberlain said. He blinked. The world came into focus. He could see leaves of the trees dark and sharp against the blue sky. He could smell the dead horses.

“He died this morning, ’fore I got there. Couple of the boys was with him. He said to tell you goodbye and that he was sorry.”

Chamberlain nodded.

“It wasn’t the wounds. They say his heart give out.”

Chamberlain had stopped wrapping his bloody foot. Now he went on. But he could see the weary Irish face, the red-nosed leprechaun. Just one small drink, one wee pint of the cruel …

Tom said, “I tell you, Lawrence, I sure was fond of the man.”

“Yes,” Chamberlain said.

Tom said nothing more. He sat plucking grass. Chamberlain wrapped the foot. The moment was very quiet. He sat looking down at his bloody leg, feeling the gentle wind, the heat from the south, seeing Kilrain dead on a litter, no more the steady presence. Sometimes he believed
in a Heaven, mostly he believed in a Heaven; there ought to be a Heaven for young soldiers, especially young soldiers, but just as surely for the old soldier; there ought to be more than just that metallic end, and then silence, then the worms, and sometimes he believed, mostly he believed, but just this moment he did not believe at all, knew Kilrain was dead and gone forever, that the grin had died and would not reappear, never, there was nothing beyond the sound of the guns but the vast dark, the huge nothing, not even silence, just an end …

One sharp report, one single cannon. His head turned unconsciously to listen. A long flutter; the ball passed over, exploded on the far side of the road, along the edge of the hospitals there. He saw white smoke, splintered wood. He sat up.

Another gun. One single shot. And then the long roar as of the whole vast rumbling earth beginning to open. Chamberlain twitched around to see shells beginning to come over, falling first on the left, then almost instantly on the center, then to the right, then overhead, air bursts and ground bursts and solid shot. There was a blaze in the air obliterating his sight, hot breath of death, huge noise. He was rolled over in dirt, came out on his knees, face down. Very, very close. He looked down, around, amazed. Tom was near, flat on the ground. All right, all right. He saw other troops behind boulders, molded into depressions in the earth. The world was blowing up. Had been under artillery fire before but never like this. Am I all right? Sat up to probe, found self intact. Looked out over the wall, saw no one moving anywhere. Moment ago there had been men moving all along the crest, men sitting and wandering and riding horses, artillery moving here and there, a wagon, a caisson. Now they were all gone, as men vanish from a busy street when rain comes. There was burst after burst in the dirty air, yellow lightning shattering the ground, splintering rock, ripping limbs off the great trees and sending them twisting swirling dancing along the ground, along the ridge. But no man anywhere, no man at all, as if the whole army had suddenly sunk into the earth. There was a horse moving riderless; another came out of the smoke. Blowing smoke was … another shell very close shook the ground, shook his vision. He hid behind the stone wall, stared very hard for a
moment at a circle of greenish dried moss, the fine gray grain of the rock the most vivid thing he had ever seen, what marvelous eyesight one has now, and he thought: must tell the men to keep down, but of course that’s stupid, they’re down, any fool knows that. Peeked up along the rock, saw down to where shells were bursting along the road, saw cooks and bakers scrambling to escape, horses and wagons wobbling away down the road. A shell hit a caisson; it blew up in a great black tower of smoke, small black fragments whirling up into the air, fine dust sifting down everywhere, settling on the lips, into the eyes. More sound now. Chamberlain turned, saw the Union guns beginning to open up, to give it back, saw forms moving in the smoke, saw a whole line fire at once, wondered if an attack was coming, thought: how can you form to repel an attack? You can’t even stand. But it went on and on, all the guns in all the world firing, and the dust drifted down and the smoke began to envelop him, and he lay finally face down against the dust, the grass, thinking, well, I’ll just wait a bit and look out again, and then gradually the world softened and the sound was a great lullaby, thunderous, madly, liquidly soothing, and he fell asleep.

Slept, but did not know how long. Woke to the sound of the continuing guns. No difference. Looked out across the rock, smoke everywhere, Union guns firing, men moving among the guns, hunched, a bloody horse running eerily by, three-legged, horrible sight, running toward the road. Another horse down with no head, like a broken toy. Man nearby, lying on his back, one hand groping upward, oddly reaching for the sky. Chamberlain closed his eyes, slept again. Opened them and lost all sense of time, had been sleeping since Noah in the sound of the guns, had slept through the mud and the ooze and thousands of days since Creation, the guns going on forever, like the endless rains of dawn. The earth was actually shuddering. It was as if you were a baby and your mother was shuddering with cold. More of the shells seemed to be passing overhead. He looked: there was a rider moving along in the smoke. Unbelievable. Familiar: Hancock. Chamberlain rose for a better look. It was Hancock all right. General Hancock had mounted his horse and was riding slowly along that ripped
and thundering crest, chatting through puffs of smoke and showers of dirt to the men behind the wall, the men crouched in holes. There was an orderly behind him, carrying the flag of the corps. The two horses moved slowly, unconcernedly along, an incredible sight, a dreamlike sight. They moved on up the line, ethereal, untouched. But the shells were definitely beginning to pass overhead. The Rebs were lengthening their aim, beginning to fire high, too long. Chamberlain saw a solid shot furrow the earth, an instant hole, almost a tunnel, black, spitting, and the shot rebounded a hundred feet into the air, spinning off across the road. Another caisson went; the hospital was pooled in smoke, as in the morning mist. Chamberlain rolled over onto his back and lay for a while longer, hands clasped on his chest, gazing at the sky, trying to see the balls as they passed. He became aware for the first time of the incredible variety of sound. The great roar was composed of a thousand different rips and whispers, most incredible noise he had ever heard or imagined, like a great orchestra of death, all the sounds of myriad death: the
whicker whicker
of certain shells, the weird thin scream of others, the truly frightful sound made by one strange species that came every few moments, an indescribable keening, like old Death as a woman gone mad and a-hunting you, screaming, that would be the Whitworth, new English cannon the Rebs had. Then there were the sounds of the bursts, flat splats in the air, deeper bursts in ground, brutal smash and crack of shot into rock, shot splattering dirt and whining off, whispers of rock fragments and dirt fragments and small bits of metal and horse and man rippling the air, spraying the ground, humming the air, and the Union cannon braying away one after another, and an occasional scream, sometimes even joy, some of the cannoneers screaming with joy at hitting something as when they saw a caisson blow up across the way. They could see the explosion from here, above the smoke, but not much else, too much smoke; possibly that’s why the Reb shells were going overhead. Reb artillery never very accurate. Thank the Lord. Elevation too high now. And
we
ought to conserve our long-range stuff. They’ll be coming now in a few moments, once the guns stop. God knows how many of them will come this time. Right in the path, Joshuway, aren’t you? Well, we ought to
save our artillery then, damn it, and let them get out in the open. But they’ll be coming again. Please God, let’s stop ’em. I have this one small regiment …

He thought: must form the regiment, face the crest. Enough ammunition? Send Tom to the rear. Poor old Kilrain. We’ll miss you. We’re right in the path. Would not have missed this for anything, not anything in the world. Will rest now. Dreamyly.

He put his face down. The shells fell all down the line, all over the crest, down in the road and back in the woods and on the hospital and in the artillery park. Chamberlain went to sleep.

 … saw it all begin, saw the guns go off one by one, each one a split second after the last, so that there was one long continuing blossoming explosion beginning on the right, erupting down through the grove and up the ridge to the left like one gigantic fuse sputtering up the ridge. Armistead looked at his watch: 1:07. He could see shells bursting on top of the ridge, on the Union lines, saw a caisson blow up in a fireball of yellow smoke, heard wild cheering amid the great sound of the cannon, but then the smoke came boiling up the ridge and he began to lose sight. Pickett was in front of him, out in the open, waving his hat and yelling wildly. Longstreet sat on a fence rail, motionless, crouched forward. There was too much smoke to see anything at all, just Longstreet’s back, black, unmoving, and Pickett turning back through the smoke with joy in his face, and then the Union artillery opened up. The first shells came down in the trees beyond them. Longstreet turned slowly and looked. Then they began coming down in the field back there, where the division was. Armistead turned and ran back through the trees across the ridge.

The division lay in the open fields beyond the ridge. They had been there all morning, out in the open, through the growing heat. There was no protection: knee-high grass, low stone walls, off to the left a low
field of rye. The shells began to come in on them and there was nothing to do but lie flat and hold the ground. Armistead walked out into the open, saw the men lying in long clumped rows, as if plowed up out of the earth, here and there an officer standing, a color sergeant, the flags erect in the earth and limp, no wind at all, and the shells bursting in sharp puffs everywhere, all down the line. Armistead walked among them. There was nothing he could do, no order to give. He saw the first bloody dead, heard the first agony. Men were telling him angrily to get down, get down, but he went on wandering. Off in the distance he could see Garnett doing the same, on horseback. After a while it was not really so bad. The shells were not so thick. They came down, and here and there a shock and a scream, but the masses of men lay in rows in the grass, and in the distance a band was playing. Armistead walked slowly back toward the trees, hoping to find out what was going on. His chest was very tight. He looked at his watch: 1:35.

He wanted some moments to himself. The firing would stop and then they would line up for the assault. Between that time and this there ought to be a private moment. He came in under the trees and saw Longstreet writing a note, sending it with a galloping aide. There was Pickett, writing too, sitting on a camp stool lost in thought, pen to his lips and staring off into space, as if composing a poem. Armistead smiled. He was closer to the guns now and the sound of the cannonade was enormous, like a beating of great wings, and all around him the air was fluttering and leaves were falling and the ground was shaking, and there was Pickett writing a poem, face furrowed with mighty thought, old George, never much of a thinker, and all that while in the back of Armistead’s mind he could see Mary at the spinet:
it may be for years, it may be forever
. He could see the lips move, see tears on all the faces, but he could not hear that sound, the sound of the cannon was too great. He moved up closer to Pickett. Abruptly, not knowing beforehand that he would do it, he plucked the small ring from his little finger. Pickett looked up; his eyes glazed with concentration, focused, blinked.

“Here, George, send her this. My compliments.” He handed Pickett the ring. Pickett took it, looked at it, a sentimental man; he reached
out and took Armistead’s hand and pumped it wordlessly, then flung an arm wildly out toward the guns, the noise, the hill to the east.

“Oh God, Lo, isn’t it something? Isn’t it marvelous? How does a man find words? Tell me something to say, Lo, you’re good at that. Lord, I thought we’d missed it all. But do you know, this may be the last great fight of the war? Do you realize that? Isn’t that marvelous?”

There was a long series of explosions; a tree limb burst. Armistead could hardly hear. But Pickett was profoundly moved. He was one of those, like Stuart, who looked on war as God’s greatest game. At this moment Armistead seemed to be looking down from a long way away, from a long, sleepy, hazy distance. George was grinning, clapping him on the arm. He said something about Sallie having the ring mounted. Armistead moved away.

He saw Longstreet sitting alone in the same place, on the same rail, drew comfort from the solid presence. Some officers had that gift. He did not. Hancock had it. Superb soldier.
It may be for years, it may be forever
 … don’t think on that. He looked at his watch: 1:47. Cannot go on much longer.

But he did not want to think about the attack right now. All the plans were laid, the thing was set, the others had planned it, Longstreet and Lee and Pickett, now he would carry it out, but for these last few moments at least, the old soldier knows enough not to think about it. Shut the mind off and think on better days, remember things to be grateful for. Perhaps, like Pickett, you should write a letter. No. Would say the wrong things.

He went back toward his men, sat with his back against a tree, facing the open. He closed his eyes for a moment and he could see her again, Mary,
it may be for years, it may be forever
, and Hancock’s face in tears, may God strike me dead. He opened his eyes, looked a question at Heaven, felt himself in the grip of these great forces, powerless, sliding down the long afternoon toward the end, as if it was all arranged somewhere, nothing he could have done to avoid it, not he or any Virginian. And he had said it and meant it: “If I lift a hand against you, friend, may God strike me dead.” Well, it is all in His hands. Armistead took off his black hat and ran his hands through the gray
hair, his forehead wet with perspiration, the hair wet and glistening in the light.