04 - The Bloody Ground by Bernard Cornwell

Author:Bernard Cornwell [Bernard Cornwell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2012-05-28T12:34:43+00:00

Billy Blythe stood next to Captain Thomas Dennison and watched Starbuck. Neither man said a word, neither had to. They were both experiencing the same mix of envy and dislike, though in Dennison the dislike was nearer to hatred.

Starbuck was oblivious of their scrutiny. He was stripped to the waist, sheened with sweat, and hauling on a ten-pounder Parrott gun that needed to be taken to the final crest overlooking Harper’s Ferry. The route up the hill was too steep for horses or oxen, and so the gun had to be manhandled to the summit and the Yellowlegs had drawn the duty. A dozen other guns were being similarly dragged uphill and so far the Special Battalion had made the best time, but even with fifty men hauling on ropes and another half-dozen heaving at the gun’s wheels, their efforts were now blocked by a deep cleft in the rocks, and by a screen of tough undergrowth. “Son of a bitch,” Sergeant Rothwell cursed the heavy weapon, then chocked its wheels with rocks so that the gun would not roll back down the last few precious yards gained. There were only fifty paces to go, but those yards could prove to be the most difficult of the climb, and could also cost them the first place in the unofficial race to reach the crest.

Starbuck smeared sweat out of his eyes then pulled free his bayonet and tried to saw through the base of one of the tangling shrubs. “Cut them down,” he explained to the men around him, “and fill the gap.” He gestured at the fissure in the rock just beyond the clump of bushes, but when he stooped back to the bush he found that the bayonet would not do the job. The tough, fibrous trunk took a clean initial cut, then just stubbornly resisted the steel.

“We need saws and axes,” Rothwell said.

Lieutenant Potter, who had been offering encouragement rather than muscle, jerked his head northward. “There are some Georgian boys with saws over there,” he said.

Starbuck straightened up, winced at a sudden pain in his back, and wiped the bayonet clean against his pants. He sheathed the weapon. “Lucifer!” The boy clambered up the slope. “Mister Potter knows where there are some saws that need stealing,” Starbuck said.

“So much for the Sixth Commandment,” Potter said, raising a laugh among the exhausted men.

“Go,” Starbuck said, “both of you.”

Potter and Lucifer hurried away on their larcenous expedition while Starbuck went back down the slope to help the men hauling the gun’s limber. Halfway down he met Captain Peel, who was climbing up with two dozen full canteens of water for the gun’s hauliers. “Reckoned you’d be thirsty,” Peel panted.

“Well done. Thank you,” Starbuck said, pleasantly surprised. Peel, of the four original captains, was proving by far the most useful. He had transferred his allegiance from Dennison to Starbuck and if he was a weak ally, he was still a welcome one. Cartwright and Lippincott did their duties, but without enthusiasm, while Dennison was downright sullen.

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