Venable came up and saluted.
'He said you can get me what I need.'
'Yes.'
'There must be some engineering troops mixed into this mess. Have someone ask around for anybody who's built one of these damn bridges before and get them down to me.'
'I've already done that. We have fifty or so who claimed to have worked on the bridge across the Potomac when the campaign started.'
'Fine, then. Also a bottle of whiskey.'
Venable reached into his haversack and pulled one out.
'The general said you can have one good slug now, the rest when the bridge is done.'
Cruickshank made sure it was a damn big slug before he handed the bottle back.
The first wagon passed, crossing over the roughly made pontoon bridge across the canal, the boats underneath bobbing and swaying. The hard part now was getting down the side of the canal embankment, the driver lashing hard, the wagon skidding sideways and nearly lurching over. Then across the muddy flats and finally to the edge of the river.
Cruickshank rode alongside the wagon till it reached the river, and he dismounted, looking around.
Now what in hell do I do? Men were standing about. He eyeballed the crossing point. Maybe a couple hundred yards to the island where he could see men already at work, cutting a path. Hard to tell how far from the other side to the Virginia shore, maybe a hundred yards. We should have enough.
'Get the wagon into the river, back it in, and float the boat off. The stringers and cross ties, off-load here on shore first.'
Men set to work pulling off the heavy lumber and stacking it up, the driver then urging the team to turn in a half circle, the wagon sinking deep into the mud as soon as it ran off the corduroy approach. There it stalled, sinking halfway to its axles.
'God damn it,' Cruickshank cried. 'Alright, get men to push the damn thing off, gently now, and into the water. I want fifty of you to start building a corduroy turnaround here so we can swing the wagons around.'
The second wagon was coming down the canal embankment, barely making it, and Cruickshank ran back to it, yelling for them to stop and wait. The work crew around the first wagon, with much pushing and cursing, finally slid the pontoon boat off the back of the wagon. Cruickshank winced as they pushed it across the rough corduroy of logs, half expecting the bottom would be torn out. At last, the forward end was in the water, the load lightened, and the boat floated.
'Anchor lines should be in the boat,' a sergeant announced and he waded out to the boat and jumped in.
The sergeant seemed to know what he was doing, so Cruickshank left him to his work as the sergeant tossed out two cables, anchors on the end of them, and directed men to wade upstream and set them in place. The boat was jockeyed parallel to the shore about twenty feet out, and two more anchor lines were run out downstream and dropped into place.
The sergeant jumped out of the boat and waded back to shore, shaking his head, coming up to Cruickshank.
'Assume you're in charge here, sir?' the sergeant asked.
'That's what they tell me.'
'Ever lay a bridge before.'
'No.'
'Well, sir, the setup here is all wrong. You have just this one approach down to the river. You need a second one alongside it and upstream. That's where the boats should be hauled up to, backed around, and then pushed in. Once we get three or four boats out, it's gonna get tricky with this current maneuvering the following boats in place. You just can't run the following boats onto the bridge and dump them off the end.'
Cruickshank nodded. This man knew the job; he didn't, and he realized he had better listen.
'Sir, let me go back and get my regiment. Some of us helped with the pontoon crossing back in the spring. We'll need at least two hundred men to cut the second approach.'
'Go get them.'
Venable, who was still by Cruickshank's side, rode off, the sergeant jogging alongside him.
The first stringers were laid in place and run out to the anchored boat. Within a couple of minutes he saw another problem. The stringers had been set into the mud on the bank, and, as the crosspieces were laid atop them, the whole thing started to sink.
'God damn it, take it apart,' Cruickshank shouted. 'We need supports, gravel, logs, something under here. Take it apart!'
He heard shouting and cursing behind him and then a rendering crash, Turning, he looked back. The third wagon had tried to negotiate the steep drop-off from the canal and rolled over on its side, mules tangled up in the mess, kicking and thrashing.
He struggled through the mud, men running toward the wreck. The driver, damn him, was dead, tangled up with his mules and kicked to death. The pontoon was completely staved in on one side.
'Get this wreck cleared,' Cruickshank shouted, and then looked at the embankment.
They couldn't cut it down to level it, that would breech the canal. Men would have to be set to work. There wasn't enough time to extend the grade out, that would take hours and hundreds of men with shovels. He'd have to post a hundred here, rig up some cables with men hanging onto them to ease the load as it slid down the embankment.
Venable was coming back, Longstreet by his side. He could see that a regiment was moving behind them, the men obviously not too happy with their sergeant volunteering them for heavy labor.
Longstreet crossed the short bridge over the canal and nearly lost his mount sliding down the embankment slope.
'You've got to straighten this out,' Longstreet snapped angrily.
'I'm trying, sir.'
'The entire army will start passing through here tonight. This embankment, the grade has to be extended out, paved over with logs, better yet, gravel. We'll lose every artillery piece trying to negotiate it. We need a good approach to the bridge, well paved as well, otherwise the entire army will just flounder into this mud. Now get to it. I don't know how long we can hold this position, so get to it, Cruickshank.'
Cruickshank just lowered his head.
'God damn it, sir, I'd like you to accept my resignation,' he said wearily.
'What?'
'I'm resigning from this goddamn army. I'm a mule skinner, sir. First you gave me these damn bridges, which I don't know a damn thing about. Then you give me the goddamn railroad, which I definitely knew nothing about, and then you give me these sons of bitches again. Now you're screaming at me to build a goddamn road and a goddamn bridge, which I definitely know goddamn nothing about, goddamnit. I quit.'
Longstreet looked down at him and actually smiled.
'You know, Cruickshank, if I wasn't so desperate, I think I'd shoot you.'
There was no malice in his voice, just a sad weariness.
'I'd consider it a favor, General.'
He dismounted and motioned for Cruickshank to follow him. The two walked off, Longstreet pulling out two cigars, lighting his own and handing the other to Cruickshank.
'We're trapped,' Longstreet said softly. 'The army is a shambles. I got men from two other corps mixed in with mine right now. My supply train is abandoned. Except for Scales, every one of my division commanders and over half my brigade commanders are down.
'If you don't get that bridge across and damn quick, we are lost, and with us gone, the cause is lost. Do you understand that?'
Cruickshank could not reply. Strange his feelings for this man. There had been times in the past, if given the chance, he'd have kicked his brains out, not even giving him a chance to duel, and then other times, like now, when he couldn't help but like him.
'I'll see what I can do,' Cruickshank replied.
'Good, then, damn you. Part of it is my fault. I was too focused on the fight to take this place. I already
