March Toward the Thunder by Joseph Bruchac Read Free Book Online Page B

lost his pack and musket. Had his uniform been blue or gray? Half blinded by the smoke Louis couldn’t tell, didn’t want to know. He levered the wounded man up the bank without looking close, leaned him against a log. The man’s hand reached up to grasp his shoulder.
    â€œThankee.”
    â€œJust stay down. You’ll be safe here.”
    A familiar bellow.
    â€œT’ me, lads of E Company!”
    Flynn and no other.
    Louis followed the sergeant’s voice up to the road where the tatters of their company were rallying behind the flag bearer.
    Back again to shooting at muzzle flashes and phantoms.
    Just think about the task at hand. Keep up a steady fire. Make sure you’ve actually pulled the trigger and that your gun has been fired.
    Flynn had warned them about that during their first day of training, holding his rifle high in one hand and pointing at its barrel.
    â€œDon’t ye get so befuddled in battle that ye go ramming powder and ball into a loaded gun. Don’t be one of them poor fools who do it not two or three, but as many as eight or ten times until they can no longer drive the ramrod in. Though they do keep trying.”
    Flick off the expended cap from the nipple before seating a new one. Raise the piece. Fire at any sight of a gray uniform. Fire at any flash of flame. Fire in the direction of those chilling Rebel yells that tell us to expect another onslaught.
    Did any of his shots strike home? Likely not. Most shots fired in a fight went high. Some spend eight times an enemy soldier’s weight in lead before they actually hit a man. Flynn had said that too.
    The thrilling anticipation of his first battle, the wild excitement that surged through him when he fired his musket the first time were far behind him. As far behind as the eager boy going into battle he’d been.
    Louis shook his head as he saw it again in his mind.
    Men screaming from the woods where the fires were so hot that pines exploded into flame. Johnnies, most likely. The shots aimed at them had been coming from that direction. He and the others in his company had to run like the devil as another blaze swirled down on them, a red whirlwind.
    Exhausted by then. Dead tired even before the fight began after marching for seven hours. But they ran faster than any of them had ever run before. Death, hot as blue blazes, burned at their heels.
    Then, somehow, it had been night. Louis had found himself sitting on the ground, leaning back against another man for support. Both of them too tired to turn around.
    â€œGot any water?” the other soldier finally asked, voice cracking from dryness. “Lost me whole kit somewhere back dere.”
    Belaney, of all people.
    â€œHere you go, Bull.” Louis handed him his own half-filled canteen.
    â€œT’ank you, me friend,” Belaney replied gratefully before he drank. Not a trace of sarcasm in his weary voice.
    Belaney.
    That’s who the other sentry was out there to his left. Belaney had been put on the picket line and stayed all night without trying to skedaddle. Silent and watching. He turned in Louis’s direction as the smoke cleared.
    Louis raised a hand. Bull nodded and waved back.
    Now that Louis thought back on it, Belaney had actually acted like a soldier all through the fight. At one point he’d even grabbed hold of the flagpole and held it aloft when the flag bearer had stumbled.
    You never know what a man is made of until you put him to the test.
    Like little Merry over there. Halfway through the night they’d exchanged a few words.
    â€œYou all right?” Merry had asked.
    â€œGuess so,” Louis had answered.
    Then, out of nowhere, came the question that Louis had been asking himself.
    â€œWhy’d you join up?”
    Wanting to show I could put on a uniform and prove myself as good as any white man? To get money to make life better for M’mere and me? Because I was a fool boy looking for excitement?
    Too many