White Doves at Morning by James Lee Burke Page B

the slope.
    He turned his head and
pretended to spit in order to show his lack of fear, even rubbing his
shoe at a dry place in the leaves, then walked off, the weight of his
scoped rifle balanced horizontally inside his cupped palm, rehearsing a
scowling look of disdain for the next enlisted man who should wander
into his ken.
    Willie crunched through the
leaves toward the place where Colonel Mouton and his staff were
talking. Mouton wore a thick beard and a wide hat with a plum-colored
plume in it and a long coat and knee-length calvary boots outside his
pants. His coat was stiff on one side with dried mud splatter, one eye
watery where a shaft of sunlight cut across his face. He stopped in
mid-sentence. "What is it you want, Private?" he asked.
    "We were in the Hornet's
Nest, sir. The sunken road, over to the east. They surrendered,"
Willie said.
    " We're aware of that.
But thank you for coming
forward," Mouton said.
    "Sir?" Willie said.
    "Yes?" Mouton said, distracted
now, his eyes lifting for a second time from the map.
    "They're whipped. We went at
them twelve times and whipped them," Willie said.
    "You need to go rejoin your
comrades, Private," Mouton said.
    Willie turned and walked away
without saluting, glancing up the slope at the artillery pieces that
waited for them inside the shadows and the cooling of the day,
twenty-four-pounders loaded with the same ordnance Willie had seen used
at the sunken road. He stopped behind a tree and leaned over, then slid
down his rifle onto his knees, shutting his eyes, clasping the holy
medal that hung from his neck.
    The sun was low on the western
horizon now, the sky freckled with birds. Colonel Mouton rode his horse
out onto the green slope in front of the ravine and waited for his
regiment to move out of the trees and join him in the failing light. A
hawk glided over the glade, its shadow racing behind it, and seemed to
disappear into the redness of the sun.
    Mouton spoke first in French,
then in English, repeating the same statements three times in three
different positions so all would hear his words.
    "The 16th Louisiana and the
Orleans Guards were supposed to be on our flanks, gentlemen.
Unfortunately they have not arrived. That means we have to kick the
Yankees off that hill by ourselves. You are brave and fine men and it
is my great honor to serve with you. Our cause is just and God will not
desert us. In that spirit I ask you to come with me up that hill and
show the invaders of our homeland what true courage is."
    "God bless and love every one
of you."
    Then he raised his saber in
the air, turned his horse northward, and began the long walk up the
slope into an enfiladed box where they would be outnumbered three to
one and fired upon from the front and both flanks simultaneously.
    As Willie marched up the slope
with Jim, his heart thudding in his chest, he kept waiting for
the crack of the first rifle shot, the one that would i gnite the firestorm for
which no soldier could ever adequately prepare
himself. His own stink rose from his shirt, and there was a creaking
sound inside his head, as though he were deep underwater, beyond all
the physical laws of tolerance, and the pressure was about to rupture
his eardrums.
    The standard bearer was in
front of him, the white stars and crossed blue bars on a red field
rippling and popping in the wind, the standard bearer tripping over a
rock, righting himself, his kepi falling to the ground, stepped on by
the man behind him.
    But it was not a rifle shot
that began the battle. A cannon lurched and burst with flame against
the darkness of the trees, and suddenly there was sound and light in
the midst of the 18th Louisiana that was like the earth-rending force
inside a hurricane, like a wind that could tear arms and legs out of
sockets, rip heads from torsos, disembowel the viscera, blow the body
lifelessly across the ground, all of it with such a grinding
inevitability that one simply surrendered to it, as he might to a
libidinous