Hearing that, Dorking bolted to the door, pausing long enough to shout back, 'Slave-owning nigger-beating bastard. We'll stop you.' He shook the paper sack. '
'You all right, sir?' Maggie asked.
'Yes.' Cooper swallowed; shock set in. He couldn't believe he had seized Dudley's man so violently. It was the threat against his family that had provoked him — without thought or hesitation. The Confederate banners could sink to oblivion, Jeff Davis and all the rest could die and go to glory — he wouldn't care so long as nothing harmed the three human beings he held dear.
The incident left him shaken, and not solely because of the personal aspect. It showed him the hour was growing later, the stakes larger, the mood more desperate on both sides of the table. He finished his ale and drank a second, and still felt church-sober; no relief there.
Shadows heavied in the lane, and finally it was time to leave for the Church of St. Mary, Birkenhead. The church was situated near the Mersey, practically next door to Laird's and the ship he had never seen. 'Want Percy to tag after you for safety's sake?' Maggie whispered before he went out. He did, desperately, but he shook his head.
The walk to the church was tense. The narrow streets of the Birkenhead waterfront struck him as peculiarly empty for a fine early evening. He kept glancing behind but reached the church, a cruciform structure of Gothic design built early in the century, without incident.
A nondescript man stepped away from the side of the building. He offered an apology and brief explanation for the delay. Then, after both checked the surrounding area for possible observers once more and saw none, Cooper removed his hat and passed the folded message to the man, who walked quickly away, and that was all.
Cooper ran most of the way to the ferry stage but missed the boat by three minutes and had to wait an hour for the next. The terminal smelted of dust and sausages and the odors of a drunk snoring on the floor in a corner. The short trip in the gathering evening was far less sunny than the earlier, one. Cooper again leaned on the rail, seeing not the water or the city but the eyes and mustache and chomping teeth of Marcellus Dorking.
Into his mind there stole a question that, even a week ago, would have revolted him and brought derisive laughter. But now —
'Sir?'
'What's that?' He started, then showed embarrassment; the person who had stolen up behind him was a crewman.
'We've docked, sir. Everyone else has got off.'
'Oh. Thank you.'
And away he went, frowning in the spring dusk, silently repeating the question that was ludicrous no longer: Should I get a gun?
53
'Take the regiment, Colonel Bent.'
Over and over, he heard the command in his head. Heard it despite the crashing of artillery in the cool Sunday air. Heard it despite the clatter of guns and limbers wildly wheeling up to defend the line. Heard it despite the hurt or frightened cries of the untrained Ohioans he was to rally and hold in position. Heard it despite all the hell-noise of this April morning.
'
The division commander's eye had fallen on him at staff headquarters near the little Shiloh Meeting House, an hour after the first faint firing and the return of the first patrols to confirm its dire meaning. Albert Sidney Johnston's army was out there to the southwest and had caught them by surprise.
Bent was in this spot because the division commander disliked him. The commander could have ordered a junior officer to lead the Ohio regiment when its colonel, lieutenant colonel, and adjutant were all reported killed. Instead, he sent a staff colonel — one to whom he had been curt and unpleasant since their first meeting.
Had any officer ever served in worse circumstances? The general was a besotted incompetent, the division commander a little martinet, who last fall had been prostrated by an attack of nerves brought on by fear of Albert Sidney Johnston. Bent was convinced William Tecumseh Sherman was a madman. Vindictive, too. 'Take the regiment, Colonel Bent.'
After that, Sherman said something that made Bent hate him as he had never hated anyone except Orry Main and George Hazard: 'And don't let me hear of you standing behind a tree with your hand out, feeling for a furlough. I know about you and your Washington connections.'
Those connections had rescued Elkanah Bent. Or so he thought till this Sabbath morning. The day he boarded the westbound train with Elmsdale, he wrote and posted a polite, apologetic letter — a last appeal — to lawyer Dills. When he arrived in Kentucky, he found new orders, reassigning him from line command to staff duty with Anderson.
Then commands were shuffled, as they were endlessly shuffled. Anderson left, replaced by Sherman, whose brother was an influential Ohio senator. Had the little madman somehow gotten wind of wire-pulling? Bent didn't know, but he knew the division commander had been waiting for an opportunity to punish him.
Squinting into the smoke, Bent saw his fears made visible: a new assault wave forming down there in the woods. Hardee's men, a dirty rabble, many in shabby butternut-dyed uniforms. At the summit of the gentle slope the rebs would climb, Bent's green Ohioans lay behind trees or clumps of weeds. The Federals had been caught over their breakfast fires, no entrenching done, because General Grant had neglected to order any. Brains Halleck had good reason for distrusting Grant.
Trembling, Bent saw the rebel charge beginning. 'Hold your positions, boys,' he called, forcing himself to step clear of a thick oak and raise his field glasses. He wanted to crouch behind the tree and cover his head.
The first gray wave commenced firing. Bent winced and jumped back to the protection of the tree. The butternut rabble began to utter wild yells, the yells that had become a staple of Confederate charges, though no one quite knew when or why. To Bent they sounded like the howling of mad dogs.
He heard balls buzzing all around. To his left, a kneeling soldier stood suddenly, as if lifted under the arms. A slice of his right cheek sailed away behind him, then he toppled backward as the ball entered his brain.
On they came, up the hill in a wide line, the bank ranks firing when the men in front knelt to load and fire a second time from that position. Then the whole line swept forward again, bayonets fixed, officers screaming as loudly as enlisted men.
The rebs were within fifty yards, butternut and gray; beards and tatters; huge fierce eyes and huge open mouths. Shell bursts speckled the blue sky; smoke bannered from the treetops; the earth shook, and Bent heard an even louder scream.
'Oh, no, my God — no.'
The first rebs reached the Ohioans, who had never fought a battle — seen the elephant — until this morning. Clumsily, they fended off the stabbing bayonets of the attackers. Bent saw one length of steel bury in a blue coat and pierce through the other side, red. The scream sounded again.
'Oh, God,
With his saber he beat at the back of an Ohio soldier. He whacked and he flailed, lumbering through long grass, right on the heels of the fleeing private. The rebs were pouring along the hilltop, the Ohioans breaking and scattering, their position overrun. Bent beat at the private's blue coat until the man stumbled and dropped. Bent sped past, fleet now despite his bulk.
He threw away his field glasses and his sword. Hundreds were running through the trees in the direction of Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River. Regiment after regiment was crumbling. He had to save himself even if every other soldier in the command perished; he was worth all of them combined.
Those who had fled ahead of him had already trampled out a path. Following it made Bent's progress easier
