White Doves at Morning: A Dave Robicheaux Novel by James Lee Burke Page A
Authors: James Lee Burke
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are. They're down here. We didn't go up there."
A young lieutenant strolled through the enlisted men sitting on the ground. He wore a goatee that looked like corn silk, and a wide-brimmed cavalry officer's hat, with a gold cord strung around the crown, a bared sword carried casually on his shoulder. Blood had drained from inside his coat onto the leather flap of his pistol holster.
"Our cannoneers are about to start banging doors again, gentlemen. Then we're going to have another run at it," he said.
"We been out there eleven times, suh," a private on the ground said.
"Twelve's a charm. Stuff your fingers in your ears," the lieutenant said, just as over twenty cannons fired in sequence, almost point-blank, into the sunken road and the woods beyond.
Then the cannon crews began to fire at will, the barrels and gun carriages lurching off the ground, the crews turning in a half-crouch from the explosion, their hands clamped over their ears. They swabbed out the barrels, then reloaded with more caseshot, canister, and grape. They snipped the fuses on explosive shells so they detonated as airbursts immediately on the other side of the sunken road. When they ran short of conventional ordnance, they loaded with lengths of chain, chopped-up horseshoes, chunks of angle iron and buckets of railroad spikes.
Through the smoke Willie and Jim could see bits of trees flying in the air, the staff of an American flag lopped in half, blue-clad men climbing out of their rifle pits, running for the rear, sometimes with a wounded comrade supported between them.
The barrage went on for thirty minutes. When it lifted, the sun looked like a broken egg yoke inside the smoke, the acrid smell of gunpowder so dense they could hardly breathe.
Willie and Jim advanced across the clearing with the others, once again the cry of the fox hunt rising hoarsely from their throats. They
crossed the sunken road and stepped over the Federal dead who lay there and entered a woods wheretrees were split in two, as though divided by lightning, the bark on the southern side of the trunks hanging in white strips.
The ground was littered with Springfield rifle muskets, boxes of percussion caps, ramrods, haversacks, canteens, torn cartridge papers, entrenching shovels, kepis, bloody bandages, bayonets, cloth that had been scissored away from wounds, boots and shoes, newspaper and magazine pages that men had used to clean themselves.
Inside the smoke and broken trees and the fallen leaves that were matted together with blood was the pervasive buzzing of bottle flies. In the distance, over the heads of the Confederates who were out in front of him, Willie saw a white flag being waved by a Union officer in front of a silenced battery.
The firing ended as it had started, but in inverse fashion, like a string of Chinese firecrackers that pops with murderous intensity, then simply exhausts itself.
Willie and Jim slumped against a stone fence that was speckled with lichen and damp and cool-smelling in the shade. Even the sunlight seemed filtered through green water. Jim's eyes were bloodshot, his face like that of a coal miner who has just emerged from a mine shaft, his teeth startling white when he grinned.
The tall man, with the concave face, from the 6th Mississippi, walked past them, his body bent forward. A huge barrel was mounted on his back with leather straps that were looped around his shoulders. The barrel had been hit in four places across the middle with either grapeshot or minie balls, and four jets of water were spraying from the holes, crisscrossing one another as the man labored with his burden back toward the sunken road.
"How about a drink, pard?" Jim said.
"What's that you say?" the man asked. His jaws were slack, unshaved, his peculiar, smoke-blackened, indented face like that of a simian creature from an earlier time.
"You're leaking. Give us a cup before it's all gone," Willie said.
"Take the whole shithouse," the man said.
He slipped the
A young lieutenant strolled through the enlisted men sitting on the ground. He wore a goatee that looked like corn silk, and a wide-brimmed cavalry officer's hat, with a gold cord strung around the crown, a bared sword carried casually on his shoulder. Blood had drained from inside his coat onto the leather flap of his pistol holster.
"Our cannoneers are about to start banging doors again, gentlemen. Then we're going to have another run at it," he said.
"We been out there eleven times, suh," a private on the ground said.
"Twelve's a charm. Stuff your fingers in your ears," the lieutenant said, just as over twenty cannons fired in sequence, almost point-blank, into the sunken road and the woods beyond.
Then the cannon crews began to fire at will, the barrels and gun carriages lurching off the ground, the crews turning in a half-crouch from the explosion, their hands clamped over their ears. They swabbed out the barrels, then reloaded with more caseshot, canister, and grape. They snipped the fuses on explosive shells so they detonated as airbursts immediately on the other side of the sunken road. When they ran short of conventional ordnance, they loaded with lengths of chain, chopped-up horseshoes, chunks of angle iron and buckets of railroad spikes.
Through the smoke Willie and Jim could see bits of trees flying in the air, the staff of an American flag lopped in half, blue-clad men climbing out of their rifle pits, running for the rear, sometimes with a wounded comrade supported between them.
The barrage went on for thirty minutes. When it lifted, the sun looked like a broken egg yoke inside the smoke, the acrid smell of gunpowder so dense they could hardly breathe.
Willie and Jim advanced across the clearing with the others, once again the cry of the fox hunt rising hoarsely from their throats. They
crossed the sunken road and stepped over the Federal dead who lay there and entered a woods wheretrees were split in two, as though divided by lightning, the bark on the southern side of the trunks hanging in white strips.
The ground was littered with Springfield rifle muskets, boxes of percussion caps, ramrods, haversacks, canteens, torn cartridge papers, entrenching shovels, kepis, bloody bandages, bayonets, cloth that had been scissored away from wounds, boots and shoes, newspaper and magazine pages that men had used to clean themselves.
Inside the smoke and broken trees and the fallen leaves that were matted together with blood was the pervasive buzzing of bottle flies. In the distance, over the heads of the Confederates who were out in front of him, Willie saw a white flag being waved by a Union officer in front of a silenced battery.
The firing ended as it had started, but in inverse fashion, like a string of Chinese firecrackers that pops with murderous intensity, then simply exhausts itself.
Willie and Jim slumped against a stone fence that was speckled with lichen and damp and cool-smelling in the shade. Even the sunlight seemed filtered through green water. Jim's eyes were bloodshot, his face like that of a coal miner who has just emerged from a mine shaft, his teeth startling white when he grinned.
The tall man, with the concave face, from the 6th Mississippi, walked past them, his body bent forward. A huge barrel was mounted on his back with leather straps that were looped around his shoulders. The barrel had been hit in four places across the middle with either grapeshot or minie balls, and four jets of water were spraying from the holes, crisscrossing one another as the man labored with his burden back toward the sunken road.
"How about a drink, pard?" Jim said.
"What's that you say?" the man asked. His jaws were slack, unshaved, his peculiar, smoke-blackened, indented face like that of a simian creature from an earlier time.
"You're leaking. Give us a cup before it's all gone," Willie said.
"Take the whole shithouse," the man said.
He slipped the
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