"Andrew, I'm afraid," his brother whispered.
"I know, boy. I know."
"Make me go home to Ma," and now the voice was that of a little boy.
He could feel himself shaking, the field strangely out of focus as he came around behind his brother, placing both hands on John's shoulders.
He pushed the boy forward.
As if he were sliding down an icy slope, Johnnie slipped into the bloody field, even as he desperately tried to kick back away.
"Andrew!"
The blue uniform started to peel off his body, and as it did the flesh melted away, like ice disappearing beneath a July sun.
And then he turned to look back, but now it was only a skeleton, and, merciful God, it was a skeleton that still had eyes.
"Andrew, I want to go home!" the fleshless skull screamed, and then he fell away, his bones falling apart to mingle with the thousands of bloated bodies that now as one turned, and with ten thousand eyes gazed upon him.
"Johnnie!"
It's all right, it's all right."
"Johnnie, for God's sake!
Johnnie!" Andrew sat bolt ■
plight, the room now coming back into focus.
"John," he whispered, as gentle hands reached about him, rocking him slowly.
"It's all right, colonel."
Colonel.
Someone was with him, a woman. In an instant he felt the rigid control return, and looking straight ahead he stood up and the arms about him drew away.
"Just a bad dream, that's all," she whispered.
He turned and looked back down at the woman. Her eyes, dark-green eyes, were locked on him. She seemed to be about his age, in her late twenties or early thirties, with pale skin and high cheekbones. Her hair was drawn up under the bonnet of a Sanitation Commission nurse, but a thin strand hung down over her forehead, revealing a pleasing reddish-blond tint.
She stood up beside him, coming just to his shoulder.
"I was walking the deck and I thought I heard someone in here, so I came in and found you," she whispered, almost apologetically.
"It was nothing," Andrew said in a quiet, distant voice.
"Of
course,"
and she reached out and patted his hand in a friendly fashion. "Don't be embarrassed, colonel. I've been a nurse since the beginning of this war. I understand."
There was a moment of awkward silence.
For the first time he noticed the room was empty, except for the two of them.
"Where is everybody?"
"Oh, things ended here several hours ago. I heard your doctor telling everyone to leave you alone, that you needed your sleep. It's just another hour to dawn."
Andrew rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and with his right hand tugged his jacket to try to get out some of the wrinkles.
"I'd better get to work," Andrew said woodenly. "I shouldn't have slept like that without checking my men first. Anyhow, it's time for morning roll."
"Let the men sleep a bit longer, Colonel Keane. This is their first night out of the trenches in months."
Andrew looked again at her and smiled. She had made her comment gently enough, but there was a slight note of command to it as well.
He wanted to say something back as a retort, but her smile completely disarmed him.
"All right, then, for your sake, Miss ..."
"Kathleen O'Reilly," and she extended her hand, "and I already know that I have the honor of addressing Colonel Andrew Keane of the 35th."
Rather at a loss, Andrew awkwardly took her hand and then quickly let go.
"Well, now that we've been introduced," she continued, "shall we take a walk upon the deck? I know if my old supervisor were here, she would not consider this proper for us to be unchaperoned and alone in a room."
"I think, Miss O'Reilly, you can take care of yourself quite well."
"I most certainly can, colonel," and he noticed a slight edge to her voice.
Picking up his poncho and helping Kathleen with her wrap, Andrew led the way out onto the main deck. The sky was dark and threatening, with intermittent spits of rain and sleet lashing across the deck. Andrew took a deep breath, the chilled air clearing his head.
"Actually, it's kind of lovely," he said softly.
"Reminds me of home back in
Brunswick,
Maine
."
She was silent, leaning over the railing and watching the dark edge of the riverbank slip past.
"And where are you from, Miss O'Reilly?"
"
Boston. I can remember a night like this—walking home from church ..."
With Jason,
she continued to herself.
Suddenly curious, Andrew leaned against the railing beside her.
"A happy memory, I take it."
"Once," she replied softly. She dropped her head to hide her eyes.
"Care to talk about it?"
"No more than you do about John."
There was no rebuke in her voice, only an infinite sadness.
For long silent minutes they stood together, watching the lights along the shore drift by.
"We were engaged," she said softly. "He was killed at First Bull Run."
"I'm so sorry."
"Yes, and so am I," she replied evenly. "So that's how I became a nurse instead of a wife, my good colonel. And
your
John?"
"My younger
brother,"
and he fell silent again and finally broke it with a single word.
"
Gettysburg."
"So we both have our sorrow from this war," she stated in nearly a whisper.
"Any other brothers?"
"No."
"So at least you will not have that pain again. And believe me, colonel, I shall never bear the pain of losing a loved one again, at least that much I have learned."
She looked up at him, and in the first faint light of dawn he could see the hard set to her features.
"I'd best be going now, colonel. I do have my duties to attend to. Good morning to you, sir."
"And to you," Andrew replied softly, extending his hand to hers.
Barely touching his hand in response, she nodded primly and, turning, walked back toward the stern of the ship.
Alone, Andrew continued to lean against the rail, watching the white wake of the ship plowing out as it slowly made its way down the river, cautiously running between the channel markers.
The rain started to lash down harder, cutting into him with icy needles. Having lived along the coast of Maine his entire life, he felt he knew something of the weather, and a chilly feeling inside told him that before the day was out there'd most likely be a real blow rolling up from the south. He could only hope their damn headstrong captain would be smart enough to anchor in the shelter of
Norfolk and wait it out, schedule or no schedule.
January 6, 1865
Four hundred miles southwest of
Bermuda
For the first time in three days, Andrew realized, the seasickness had left him. He paused for a moment in wonder; was there nothing left in him to get sick with, or was it the simple stark terror of what was happening?
Tobias, insisting that the growing storm would not interfere with his schedule, had passed out of the
Chesapeake and on into the
Atlantic, even as the wind gust picked up to thirty knots. From there it had simply gotten worse, and by the end of the day they were racing before a southwesterly gale of near-hurricane proportions. The boilers had long since been damped down, and now they were running bare-poled before the wind.
Hanging on to a railing next to the wheel, Andrew watched as Tobias struggled to keep them afloat.
"Here
comes
another!" came the cry from the stern lookout.
Wide-eyed, Tobias turned to look aft.
"Merciful God!" he cried.
Andrew followed his gaze. It seemed as if a mountain of water was rushing toward them. A wave towered thirty or more feet above the deck.
"A couple of points to starboard!"
Tobias roared.
Mesmerized, Andrew watched as the mountain rushed down upon them and the stern rose up at a terrifying angle. Looking forward, he felt that somehow the ship could never recover, that it would simply be driven like an arrow straight to the bottom.
The wall of water crashed over them, and desperately he clung to the rope which kept him lashed to the mizzenmast. The ship yawed violently, broaching into the wind. As the wave passed over them, he saw both wheelmen had been swept off their feet, one of them lying unconscious with an ugly gash to the head, the wheel spinning madly above them.
Tobias and several sailors leaped to the wheel, desperate to bring the ship back around.
"Here comes another!"
Rising off the starboard beam, Andrew saw another wave towering above them.
"Pull, goddammit,
pull
!" Tobias roared.
Ever so slowly the ship started to respond, but Andrew could see that they would not come about in time. For the first time in years he found himself praying. The premonition that had held for him and the regiment, that they were damned, was most likely true after all, even if the end did not come on a battlefield.
The wave was directly above him, its top cresting in a wild explosion of foam. The mountain crashed down.
He thought surely the rope about his waist would cut him in two. For one wild moment it appeared as if the ship was rolling completely over. His lungs felt afire as they were pushed beyond the bursting point. But still he hung on, not yet ready to give in and take the breath of liquid death.
The wave passed, and Andrew, gasping for air, popped to the surface. They had foundered, the vessel now resting on its portside railing. Helpless at the end of the rope, he looked about, cursing that his fate was in the hands of a captain who had killed them all for the sake of his foolish pride.
"Damn you!" Andrew roared. "Damn you, you've killed us all!"
Tobias looked over at Andrew, wide-eyed with fear, unable to respond.
Tobias's gaze suddenly shifted, and with an inarticulate cry he raised his hand and pointed.
Andrew turned to look and saw that yet another mountain was rushing toward them, this one even higher than the last, the final strike to finish their doom.
But there was something else. Ahead of the wave a blinding maelstrom of light that appeared almost liquid in form was spreading out atop the wave like a shimmering cloud of white-hot heat.
The cloud swirled and boiled, coiling in upon
itself
, then bursting out to twice its size. It coiled in for a moment,
then
doubled yet again.
"What in the name of heaven--?" Andrew whispered, awestruck by the apparition. The intensity of the light was now so dazzling that he held up his hand to shield his eyes from the glare.
There seemed to be an unearthly calm, as if all sound, all wind and rain, were being drained off and they were now lost in a vacuum.
But still the wave continued to rise behind it, and then, to Andrew's amazement and terror, the wave simply disappeared as if it had fallen off the edge of the world. Where a million tons of water had been but seconds before, now there was nothing but a gaping hole, filled by the strange pulsing light.
Suddenly the light started to coil in yet again, then in a blinding explosion it burst back out, washing over the ship.
The deck gave way beneath Andrew's feet, and there was nothing but the falling, a falling away into the core of light as if they were being cast down from the highest summit.
There was no wind, no sound, only the falling and the pulsebeat of the light about them. As his thoughts slipped away, he could only wonder if this was death after all.
He awoke to the glare of the sun in his eyes. Groaning from the bruises that covered his body, Andrew sat up and looked around.
Were they dead? Was this the afterworld? Or had they somehow survived? He came to his feet, and from the way the protest of bruised muscles coursed to his brain, he somehow felt he must be alive after all.
But how?
Was the light a dream, the falling a wild hallucination? All he could recall was that endless falling, the light pulsing and flaring. He struggled with the memory. He seemed to recall awakening at some point, and still they were falling in silence, the light about them shaped like a funnel, spiraling downward and dragging the ship with it.
Improbable, he thought. The wave must have knocked him unconscious and somehow that damned captain had managed to save them after all.
The deck of the ship was a shambles. All three masts were down, with rigging, spars, and canvas littering the deck from stem to stern. In more than one place Andrew could see a lifeless form tangled in the wreckage. He'd have to get the men moving to start cleaning this up and disposing of the dead.
But where were they? He raised his eyes. They were aground, the shore a scant fifty yards away. The sandy beach before them quickly gave way to brush and low trees, and beyond he could see a series of low-lying hills.
Fumbling with his one hand, he managed to untie the rope about his waist.
It was hot, nearly summerlike, and he could feel the beads of sweat coursing down his back, trapped by the still-damp wool of his salt-encrusted uniform jacket.
Rubbing the back of his neck, which felt sunburned, he turned and saw a dull red orb already halfway up the sky. It didn't look quite right, he thought, somehow bigger. Not thinking any more of it, he turned away.
They were alive, but where? Had they run all the way to
Bermuda, or were they now wrecked somewhere along the coast? It had to be somewhere in the south. It could never be this warm in the north at this time of year.
Could it be the
Carolinas? But no, he remembered that the hills didn't come this close to the sea. Perhaps he was mistaken, but best not to take any chances—they'd have to assume they were in rebel territory till it was proved different.
"Colonel, you all right?"
Hans popped his head up from an open hatchway, and for the first time in memory, Andrew could see that his old sergeant had a look of total bewilderment on his face.
"All right, Hans.
Yourself?"
"Damned if I know, sir," and the sergeant pulled himself up onto the deck. "I thought we'd gone under, and then there was this light. For a moment there I thought, Hans, old boy, it's the light of heaven and those damned stupid angels have made a mistake. And the next thing I know I wake up still alive."
"What's it like below?" Andrew asked.
"Six hundred men puking their guts out.
Ain't very pleasant, sir. Couple of the boys got killed from the battering, a number of broken limbs, and everyone with bruises. They're just starting to come to now."
"Well, go below and start getting them up on deck. There's work to be done."
"Right
sir,"
and the sergeant disappeared back down the ladder.
"So you finally decided to get up."
Andrew groaned. He knew he shouldn't think it, but he found himself wishing that Tobias had been swept overboard.
"Where the hell are we?" Andrew asked, turning to face the captain, who was strolling down the deck toward him.
"
South Carolina
, I reckon. I'll shoot an angle on the sun and soon have it figured out."
"How did we get here?" Andrew asked, unable to hide his bewilderment.
Tobias hesitated for only a second.
"Good piloting, that's all," he replied, but Andrew could sense the doubt in his voice.
"And that strange light?"
"St. Elmo's fire, but I reckon a landlubber like you never heard of it."
"That wasn't St. Elmo's, Captain Tobias. It knocked all of us out and we woke up here, and I daresay you can't explain it any more than I can."
Tobias looked at him, trying to keep up the front,
then
turned away with a mumbled curse.
"We've been hulled. I'm going below to check the damage. I suggest we get started straightening this ship out, and I expect your men to help where need be."
Without waiting for a response, Tobias headed for the nearest hatchway and disappeared below.
Within minutes the deck was aswarm with men staggering up from below, most of them looking rather the worse for wear. As quickly as they came up, the various company commanders tried to sort them out and run a roll. Spotting
Kathleen coming out from the captain's cabin, he hurried to her side.
"You all right, Miss O'Reilly?"
She looked up at him and smiled bleakly.
"Long as I live I'll never set foot on a ship again." The two of them laughed softly.
"Sergeant Schuder told me there've been some casualties. I'd deeply appreciate it if you would find Dr. Weiss and give him your assistance."
He continued to look at her closely, not wanting to admit that he had been concerned for her.
"Colonel, sir!"
Andrew looked up to a private standing atop the ship's railing and pointing off to shore. He came up to his side and looked at the boy, trying to remember his name. The boy was nothing more than a mere slip of a lad, standing several inches below five and a half feet in height. His red hair, freckled face, and cheerful open expression gave him an innocent, almost childlike look. Andrew fished for his name, wondering how this lad had ever gotten past the recruiting sergeant. Then again, army recruiters were simply interested in warm bodies, nothing more. Suddenly the name came back to him.
"What is it,
Hawthorne?"
Vincent looked at him for a moment, swelling a little with the fact that the colonel knew his name.
That was another thing learned from Hans—always know
their names, even though too often the knowing in the end would cause pain.
The boy was silent, still looking at him.
"Go on, son. What is it?"
"Oh, yes, sir. Sir, look over there, near that cut in the dunes a couple of hundred yards up the beach. Seems like a cavalryman."
Andrew shaded his eyes and looked to where the boy was pointing.
Damn big horse.
Looked to be a Clydesdale.
"Strange thing, colonel—it seems he's carrying a lance or spear."
Andrew looked around for Tobias, hoping he could get a | spyglass, but the captain had yet to reappear.
"Son, do you know where my quarters are?"
"I think so, sir."
"Well, run
quick—
there's a single chest there. My name's on the top. Inside you'll find my field glasses. My sword's there as well. Now fetch them quick, lad."
"Yes sir!"
Obviously impressed with the responsibility given to him, Vincent jumped off the railing and raced below.
Andrew leaned over, still shading his eyes, and tried to get a better look at the lone horseman.
"Stay where you are, dammit," Andrew whispered. "Just don't move."
"Got something, colonel?"
Andrew turned to see Pat O'Donald coming up to join him.
He pointed to where the lone cavalryman sat, half concealed.
"How'd your men take the storm?" Andrew ventured, while waiting for Vincent to return.
"It's not the man, it's the horses," O'Donald said sadly. "We brought along enough for two guns and a caisson—the rest went on another ship. Most of them will have to be destroyed, or are already dead. I checked your horse, sir—he made it through all right."
The tearful remorse in the major's voice was rather a strange paradox coming from a man with his reputation.
"Your field glasses, sir,"
Hawthorne cried, near breathless as he raced up to Andrew's side.