Battle Flag

tone than the blood-chilling yelp of attacking rebels. The cannon smoke had thinned sufficiently to let Starbuck see a belt of woodland a half-mile ahead, and then to see a sight he had. never dreamed of witnessing on one of Thomas Jackson's battlefields.

He saw panic.

Ahead and to the left of Starbuck a horde of Southern soldiers were pouring out of the woodland and fleeing southward across the shallow valley. All discipline was gone. Shells exploded among the gray-jacketed soldiers, adding to their desperation. A rebel flag went down, was snatched up again, then disappeared in another flame- filled burst of shell smoke. Horsemen were galloping through the fleeing mass in an attempt to turn the men around, and here and there among the panic a few men did try to form a line, but such small groups stood no chance against the flood of fear that swept the majority away.

Swynyard might be a drunkard and a foul-tempered brute, but he had been a professional soldier long enough to recognize disaster. He turned to see that Captain Medlicott's G Company had formed alongside Starbuck's men. 'Medlicott!' Swynyard shouted. 'Take these two companies forward! You're in charge!' Medlicott, though much older than Starbuck, had less seniority as a captain, but Swynyard had given him the command of the two companies as a way of insulting Starbuck. 'See that broken limber?' The Colonel pointed toward a shattered vehicle that lay two hundred paces ahead, where a strip of grass marked a divide between a patch of harvested corn and a wider field of wheat. 'Form your skirmish line there! I'll bring the Legion up in support.' Swynyard turned back to Starbuck. 'Take this,' he said and leaned down from the saddle to hold out a folded scrap of paper.

Starbuck snatched the piece of paper, then shouted at his men to advance alongside G Company. A shell screamed overhead. It was odd, Starbuck thought, how the debilitating nervousness that afflicted a man before battle could be banished by the proximity of danger. Even the day's stifling heat seemed bearable now that he was under fire. He licked his lips, then unfolded the scrap of paper that Swynyard had given him. He had supposed it would be written orders, but instead he saw it was a label for a dead man. Starbuck, the paper read, Boston, Massachusetts. Starbuck threw it angrily away. Behind, where the rest of the Legion hurried into ranks, Swynyard saw the gesture and cackled.

'This is madness!' Truslow protested to Starbuck. Two companies of skirmishers could not stand against the tide of fear that was retreating from the Yankee guns.

'The rest of the Legion will help,' Starbuck said.

'They'd better,' Truslow said, 'or we're vulture meat.'

Company G was advancing to Starbuck's right. Medlicott seemed unworried by the odds, but just stumped ahead of his men with a rifle in his hands. Or maybe, Starbuck thought, the miller just did not display his fear. 'Keep the ranks straight!' Starbuck called to Coffman. 'I want them steady.' He felt in his pocket and found the stub of a cigar he had been saving for battle. He borrowed a lit cigar from a man in the ranks, lit his own, and drew the bitter smoke deep into his lungs.

Lieutenant Coffman had drawn ahead of H Company and was holding a brass-handled bayonet like a sword.

'Get back, Mr. Coffman!' Starbuck called.

'But, sir—'

'Your place is behind the company, Lieutenant! Go there! And throw away that toy sword!'

The first Northern soldiers suddenly appeared at the tree line on the valley's far crest, which blossomed with the small puffs of white rifle smoke. A shell exploded ahead of Starbuck, and pieces of its casing whipped past him. To his left the field had been partly harvested, so that some of the wheat was standing but most was drying in stooks. Small fires flickered where the shell fire had set the dry crops alight. There were patches of corn stubble among the wheat and two rows of standing corn, where a group of rebel soldiers had taken cover. The tasseled corn shivered whenever a bullet or shell whipped through the stalks. A Northern flag appeared at the far trees. The standard-bearer was waving it to and fro, making the stripes flutter brightly. A bugle was sounding, and off to the west the rebel infantry was still running. Rebel officers still galloped among the fugitives, trying to stem their flight and turn them round. General Jackson was among them, flailing with his scabbarded saber at the panicked men. More Northerners were at the tree line, some of them directly ahead of Starbuck now.

Another shell landed close to Company H, and Starbuck wondered why Medlicott did not order the two companies into skirmish order. Then he decided to hell with military etiquette and shouted the order himself. Medlicott echoed the order, thus shaking the two companies into a loose and scattered formation. Their job now was to fight the enemy skirmishers who would be advancing ahead of the main Yankee attack. 'Make sure you're loaded!' Starbuck called. The Northern line had halted momentarily, perhaps to align itself after advancing through the trees. The Southern fugitives had disappeared behind Starbuck's left flank, and it suddenly seemed very quiet and lonely on the battlefield.

It also seemed very dangerous. Captain Medlicott crossed to Starbuck. 'Is this right, do you think?' he asked, gesturing at the scatter of isolated skirmishers who were alone in the wide field. Medlicott had never liked Starbuck, and the red crescent patch on the shoulder of his uniform coat marked him for a loyal supporter of General Faulconer, but nervousness now made Medlicott seek reassurance from Faulconer's bitterest enemy. Close to, Starbuck could see that Medlicott was not hiding his fear at all; one cheek was quivering uncontrollably, and the sweat was pouring off his face and dripping from his beard. He took off his brimmed hat to fan his face, and Starbuck saw that even the miller's smooth, bald, chalk white pate was beaded with sweat. 'We shouldn't be here!' Medlicott exclaimed petulantly.

'God knows what's happening,' Starbuck said. A Northern battery had appeared where the road vanished among the farther trees. Starbuck saw the guns slew round in a shower of dirt. In a moment, he thought, that artillery will have us in their open sights. Dear God, he thought, but let it be a clean death, quick as a thought, with no agonized lingering under a surgeon's knife or dying of the sweated fever in some rat-infested hospital. He turned to look behind and saw the Faulconer Brigade streaming off the road and forming into ranks. 'Swynyard's coming soon,' he tried to reassure Medlicott.

The Northern infantry started forward again. A half-dozen flags showed above the dark ranks. Three of the flags were Old Glories, the others were regimental flags carrying state badges or martial insignias. Six flags translated into three regiments that were now attacking two light companies. Captain Medlicott went back to his own men, and Sergeant Truslow joined Starbuck. 'Just us and them?' he asked, nodding at the Yankees.

'Swynyard's bringing the rest of the Brigade forward,' Starbuck said. Shells from the newly deployed battery screeched overhead, aimed at the Faulconer Brigade. 'Better them than us, eh?' Starbuck said with the callous indifference of a man spared the gunners' attentions. He saw George Finney aim his rifle. 'Hold your fire, George! Wait till the bastards are in range.'

The Northern skirmishers ran ahead of the attacking line. Their job was to brush Starbuck's men aside, but soon, Starbuck thought, the rest of the Faulconer Brigade's skirmishers would advance to reinforce him. Another salvo of shells thundered above him, the cracks of their explosions sounding a second after the percussive thump of the guns themselves. Starbuck began looking for enemy officers among the approaching skirmishers. Yankee officers seemed more reluctant than Southerners to abandon their swords and glinting rank badges and bright epaulettes.

A second Northern battery on the crest opened fire. A shell screamed just inches over Starbuck's head. For what we are about to receive, he thought, may the Lord make us truly thankful. He could hear the beat of drums sounding from the Yankee infantry. Was this to be the breakthrough battle for the North? Were they at last to batter the Confederacy into surrender? Most of the rebel forces in Virginia were seventy miles away on the far side of Richmond with Robert Lee, but it was here that the Northerners were attacking, and if they broke through here, then what was to stop them marching south, ever south, until Richmond was cut off and the whole upper South split from the Confederacy? 'Hold still now!' Starbuck called to his men as he walked slowly along his scattered skirmish line. Another minute, he thought, and the Yankee skirmishers would be in range. 'You see that red-haired son of a bitch with the hooked sword, Will?' Starbuck called to Tolby, one of the Legion's finest marksmen. 'He's yours. Kill the bastard.'

'I'll take care of him, Captain!' Tolby eased back the hammer of his rifle.

Starbuck saw the enemy cannons disappear behind a blossom of gray-white smoke, and he anticipated another flight of shells overhead, but instead the missiles slammed into the field all around Starbuck's men. One of Medlicott's sergeants was flung backward, his blood momentarily misting the hot air. A shell splinter whipped into the broken limber, which carried a stenciled legend announcing that the vehicle belonged to the 4th U.S. Artillery,