Crossing the Deadline by Michael Shoulders Page B

gunpowder mixed with dried cornstalks across the field. It floats up the hill and over the fort’s walls. So the elephant is getting closer, and this is what it smells like.
    * * *
    Full daylight arrives slowly. Sergeant Survant calls for Colonel Lathrop to come to the northeastern wall and lookout a tiny window called the embrasure. To protect the cannon and men, only the barrel sticks out the embrasure. When the colonel reaches the spot, two men pick up the handspike, while four others roll the cannon back until its barrel is fully inside the fort. One private points to the top of the hill across the ravine.
    Colonel Lathrop removes his hat and sticks his head through the opening. He turns and yells toward the center of the fort. “Colonel Minnis, two ten-pound Parrott guns on the eastern hill!”
    â€œTroop movement approaching from the south!” William Peacock yells from the wall near where Henry and I are crouched, our backs against the fort.
    Private Dorman grabs his gun and nuzzles against the fort. “I’m scared, Stephen,” he whispers.
    â€œThat’s okay, pard. You’re not alone. Everybody is.”
    Colonel Lathrop walks away from the cannon and toward Colonel Minnis to discuss the situation. At exactly the same time, a shell sails over the eastern wall and strikes the ground inside the fort. Timbers, bricks, and earth fly into the air and rain down upon soldiers. The explosion is so powerful, debris reaches my area. I have to turn toward the ground and cover my head with my arms. Whenrocks stop falling, I can see that a jagged hole, large enough for a pair of horses to run through, has appeared in the northern wall. There are five, maybe six, men lying on the ground, motionless.
    Uninjured men nearer the explosion dive closer to the eastern side of the fort to use the wall for protection. One man scampers behind the wall of the hospital. Another hops to safety, dragging what appears to be a useless, mangled foot behind him, like a sack of horse feed.
    A soldier lies on the ground, writhing silently in pain. I throw down my gun and bugle and rush to help him. Blood trickles from his left ear and he snorts red bubbles out both nostrils. It’s Colonel Lathrop. “Nurse!” I yell. Several Negro soldiers sprint to help drag him into the hospital. He’s conscious, but barely.
    Colonel Lathrop grabs the sleeve of a black soldier and pleads, “Don’t surrender the fort.” As he utters his last words, Colonel Lathrop’s hands and arms go limp, and the smells of gunpowder, dirt, and gardenias swirl through the air.
    I hurry out the hospital door and back to the southern wall. “Was that the colonel?” Henry asks.
    â€œYeah,” I say.
    â€œHow is he, Stephen?” Peacock yells over to me.
    I shake my head. “He’s gone. I was holding him when he died.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” Henry whispers.
    Henry begins rocking back and forth, clutching his bugle. “We don’t stand a chance against cannons firing down on us from higher ground.”
    â€œI know,” I say. “It’s one thing to be brave in a fair fight, but it’s lunacy to fight a useless battle.”
    â€œNo. And they won’t storm the fort with infantry,” Henry says. “They’ll use big guns to do as much damage as they can from afar. Wear us down like boot heels.”
    * * *
    I hear the squad in the cornfield retreating in full gallop back toward the fort. Because of the huge gap in the wall, I can hear when they race under the trestle and to the corral.
    â€œThey’re safer in the cornfield,” Henry says. A minute later they’re running back inside the fort.
    â€œCaleb Rule!” Colonel Minnis yells. “Take nine men back down into that ravine and guard those horses,” he orders. The soldier called Caleb, a farrier from Tennessee, hastily gathers a team of men. They crouch low along the eastern wall