Soldier's Heart by Gary Paulsen Read Free Book Online Page A

horses. The result was devastating.
    Charley held high and took a trooper full in the chest, but most of the other men held on the horses and not one animal came through unhit. In a great cloud they went down, somersaulting, rolling over the troopers on theirbacks, breaking themselves and the men; and the screams—the screams of the wounded horses hit by soft, large-caliber expanding bullets, horses with heads blown open, horses with jaws shot away, horses with eyes shot out or with intestines tangling in their hooves, horses torn and dying—screamed louder than a thousand, louder than a million men.
    â€œReload and fire at will!”
    Charley automatically loaded, raised and fired, but there were few targets. Those horses back on their feet were quickly shot down and any man who stood was hit ten, twenty times.
    â€œCease fire!”
    Silence except for the screaming horses and the groaning of wounded men. Charley reloaded, capped his rifle and kneeled, resting. He was thirsty and took a sip from his canteen. He did not look at the horses stumbling and kicking and falling.
    Was that it? he wondered—just the onecharge? It was nearly dark now—a soft dusk—and he looked to the rear to see where they might camp for the night and get fires going for coffee and heat. He loved coffee, though it tore his guts and gave him a constant stomachache, and he thought of going to the shattered Confederate charge to see if they had any sugar in their saddlebags. There was good sugar in the South and he might find some for his coffee. He salivated, thinking of coffee with sugar in it.
    â€œOn the left! Form line-of-battle and wheel left!”
    He turned and his heart nearly stopped. Coming from their left oblique, walking toward them in the gathering twilight, seemed to be the whole Rebel army.
    Two thousand, Charley thought. Maybe three thousand of them. Marching straight at Charley in a head-on attack.
    â€œRange four hundred!” the sergeants called.“Set sights for four hundred. Fire when ready.”
    Charley thought it more like three hundred yards but he flipped up the rear sight for four hundred and raised and fired. He didn’t hear his rifle because everybody around him fired at the same time.
    Some of the Rebels fell. Not many, not nearly enough. Charley reloaded and fired, then again and again, and each time the Union soldiers fired more of the Rebels fell—jerking backward and down, spinning forward, sitting back with the shock of being hit.
    The Rebels had not fired yet but had started to trot. They were down to two hundred and fifty yards and Charley and the men around him kept up a steady rate of fire. Charley fired fifteen rounds and hit perhaps seven or eight Rebels, but most of the men shot high—a common failing when firing on advancing infantry.
    They were only seventy-five yards away now.It was nearly dark and the flash from the rifles momentarily blinded Charley.
    At fifty yards the Rebels fired and at least fifteen hundred bullets tore into the Union line. Men went down in droves—twenty around Charley alone. His own clothing was hit four times, the brim on his cap sliced off, wood knocked off the stock of his rifle and one of his shoe heels creased.
    â€œFix bayonets!”
    It was to be steel, Charley saw. The men from Minnesota could have run but didn’t; they held their ground, and Charley held with them. With his bayonet locked onto his muzzle, he loaded one last time just as the Rebels hit the Union line.
    Oh, he thought, this is nasty work. This is right
nasty
work. It was nearly dark and hard to tell uniforms apart in the bad light and the smoke from firing, and Charley did not know where to turn, where to fight. The decisionwasn’t his. In the murk a man suddenly appeared, his bayoneted rifle aimed at Charley’s chest. Charley parried with his own rifle and took the Rebel soldier just below the breastbone with his bayonet. The man had been