4.

CHAMBERLAIN

 … heard the cannon begin. Sat up. Kilrain sat up. Tom Chamberlain went on sleeping, mouth open, saintly young, at peace.

Chamberlain said, “That’s mostly in the west.”

Kilrain cocked his head, listening. “I thought the Rebs were all up at Gettysburg.” He looked at Chamberlain, eyes dark. “You don’t suppose they’re flanking us again.”

The cannons were blossoming, filling the air with thunder, far enough away to soften and roll, not angry yet, but growing.

“At Chancellorsville they came in on the right. This time they could be on the left.”

“Do you think they’ll ever learn, our goddamn generals?”

Chamberlain shook his head. “Wait.”

The men in the field were stirring. Some of the newer men were pulling the tent halves down, but the others, professionals, had rolled over and were staring in the direction of the firing. The corn popper remained asleep.

Chamberlain thought: Alert the men? Some of them were looking to him. One stood up, yawned, stretched, glanced unconcernedly in his direction. Not yet. Chamberlain put the novel away.

Kilrain said, “That’s a whole division.”

Chamberlain nodded.

“Good thing their artillery aint very good.”

A rider had come over the crest of the hill, was loping down through the tall grass among the boulders. Chamberlain stood up. The courier saluted.

“Colonel Vincent’s compliments, sir. You are instructed to form your regiment.”

Chamberlain did not ask what was going on. He felt a coolness spreading all the way through him. He began buttoning his shirt as the courier rode off—no hurry, why hurry?—and began slipping on the belt and saber. When he was done with that he began smoothing his hair, yawned, grinned, turned to Tozier.

“Sergeant, have the regiment fall in.”

He looked down on Tom, sleeping Tom. Mom’s favorite. He’ll be all right. Did not want to wake him. Delayed a moment, buttoned his collar. Hot day for that. Shadows growing longer. Cool soon. He nudged Tom with his foot. Tom groaned, licked his lips, groaned again, opened his eyes.

“Hey, Lawrence.” He blinked and sat up, heard the thunder. “What’s happening?”

“Let’s go,” Chamberlain said.

“Right.” He jumped to his feet. Chamberlain walked out into the sun. Some of the men were in line, forming by companies. The regiment was bigger now; Chamberlain was glad of the new men. Ellis Spear had come sleepily up, disarranged, eyes wide. Chamberlain told him to bring everybody, cooks and prisoners, sick-call people. Chamberlain took a deep breath, smelled wet grass, hay, felt his heart beating, looked up into God’s broad sky, shivered as a thrill passed through him. He looked down through the woods. The whole brigade was forming.

And nothing happened. The guns thundered beyond the hill. They were in line, waiting. Chamberlain looked at his watch. Not quite four. The men were remarkably quiet, most of them still sleepy. Sergeant Ruel Thomas, an orderly, reported from sick call. Chamberlain nodded formally. Meade had ordered every soldier to action, even the provost guards. This was it, the last great effort. Don’t think now: rest.

Here, at last, was Vincent, riding at a gallop down the long slope. He reined up, the horse rising and kicking the air. All the faces watched him.

“Colonel, column of fours. Follow me.”

Chamberlain gave the order, mounted, feeling weak. No strength in his arms. Vincent gave orders to aides; they galloped away. Vincent said, “They’re attacking the left flank. Sickles has got us in one hell of a jam.”

They began moving up the slope. The 20th Maine came after them, four abreast. Vincent was shaking his handsome head.

“Damn fool. Unbelievable. But I must say, remarkably beautiful thing to see.”

They moved up between rocks. The artillery fire was growing, becoming massive. They found a narrow road leading upward: high ground ahead. Vincent spurred his horse, waved to Chamberlain to come on. They galloped across a wooden bridge, a dark creek, then up a narrow farm road. The firing was louder. A shell tore through the trees ahead, smashed a limb, blasted rock. Fragments spattered the air.

Chamberlain turned, saw Tom’s white grinning face, saw him flick rock dust from his uniform, blinking it out of his eyes, grinning bleakly. Chamberlain grimaced, gestured. Tom said, “Whee.”

Chamberlain said, “Listen, another one a bit closer and it will be a hard day for Mother. You get back to the rear and watch for stragglers. Keep your distance from me.”

“Right, fine.” Tom touched his cap, a thing he rarely did, and moved off thoughtfully. Chamberlain felt an easing in his chest, a small weight lifted. Vincent trotted coolly into the open, reined his horse. Chamberlain saw through a break in the trees, blue hills very far away, hazy ridges miles to the west, not ridges, mountains; he was on high ground. Vincent paused, looked back, saw the regiment coming up the road, shook his head violently.

“That damn fool Sickles, you know him?”

“Know of him.”

Another shell passed close, fifty yards to the left, clipped a limb, ricocheted up through the leaves. Vincent glanced that way, then back, went on.

“The Bully Boy. You know the one. The politician from New York. Fella shot his wife’s lover. The Barton Key affair. You’ve heard of it?”

Chamberlain nodded.

“Well, the damn fool was supposed to fall in on the left of Hancock, right there.” Vincent pointed up the ridge to the right. “He should be right here, as a matter of fact, where we’re standing. But he didn’t like the ground.” Vincent shook his head, amazed. “He didn’t like the ground. So he just up and moved his whole corps forward, hour or so ago. I saw them go. Amazing. Beautiful. Full marching line forward, as if they were going to pass in review. Moved right on out to the road down there. Leaving this hill uncovered. Isn’t that amazing?” Vincent grimaced. “Politicians. Well, let’s go.”

The road turned upward, into dark woods. Shells were falling up there. Chamberlain heard the wicked hum of shrapnel in leaves.

Vincent said, “Don’t mean to rush you people, but perhaps we better double-time.”

The men began to move, running upward into the dark. Chamberlain followed Vincent up the rise. The artillery was firing at nothing; there was no one ahead at all. They passed massive boulders, the stumps of newly sawed trees, splinters of shattered ones. Chamberlain could begin to see out across the valley: mass of milky smoke below, yellow flashes. Vincent said, raising his voice to be heard, “Whole damn Rebel army hitting Sickles down there, coming up around his flank. Be here any minute. Got to hold this place. This way.”

He pointed. They crossed the crown of the hill, had a brief glimpse all the way out across Pennsylvania, woods far away, a line of batteries massed and firing, men moving in the smoke and rocks below. Chamberlain thought: Bet you could see Gettysburg from here. Look at those rocks, marvelous position.

But they moved down off the hill, down into dark woods. Shells were passing over them, exploding in the dark far away. Vincent led them down and to the left, stopped in the middle of nowhere, rocks and small trees, said to Chamberlain, “All right, I place you here.” Chamberlain looked, saw a dark slope before him, rock behind him, ridges of rock to both sides. Vincent said, “You’ll hold here. The rest of the brigade will form on your right. Look’s like you’re the flank, Colonel.”

“Right,” Chamberlain said. He looked left and right, taking it all in. A quiet place in the woods. Strange place to fight. Can’t see very far. The regiment was moving up. Chamberlain called in the company commanders, gave them the position. Right by file into line. Vincent walked down into the woods, came back up. An aide found him with a message. He sent to the rest of the brigade to form around the hill to the right, below the crown. Too much artillery on the crown. Rebs liked to shoot high. Chamberlain strode back and forth, watching the regiment form along the ridge in the dark. The sun was behind the hill, on the other side of the mountain. Here it was dark, but he had no sense of temperature; he felt neither hot nor cold. He heard Vincent say, “Colonel?”

“Yes.” Chamberlain was busy.

Vincent said, “You are the extreme left of the Union line. Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” Chamberlain said.

“The line runs from here all the way back to Gettysburg. But it stops here. You know what that means.”

“Of course.”

“You cannot withdraw. Under any conditions. If you go, the line is flanked. If you go, they’ll go right up the hilltop and take us in the rear. You must defend this place to the last.”

“Yes,” Chamberlain said absently.

Vincent was staring at him.

“I’ve got to go now.”

“Right,” Chamberlain said, wishing him gone.

“Now we’ll see how professors fight,” Vincent said. “I’m a Harvard man myself.”

Chamberlain nodded patiently, noting that the artillery fire had slackened. Could mean troops coming this way. Vincent’s hand was out. Chamberlain took it, did not notice Vincent’s departure. He turned, saw Ruel Thomas standing there with his horse. Chamberlain said, “Take that animal back and tie it some place, Sergeant, then come back.”

“You mean leave it, sir?”

“I mean leave it.”

Chamberlain turned back. The men were digging in, piling rocks to make a stone wall. The position was more than a hundred yards long, Chamberlain could see the end of it, saw the 83rd Pennsylvania forming on his right. On his left there was nothing, nothing at all. Chamberlain called Kilrain, told him to check the flank, to see that the joint between regiments was secure. Chamberlain took a short walk. Hold to the last. To the last what? Exercise in rhetoric. Last man? Last shell? Last foot of ground? Last Reb?

The hill was shaped like a comma, large and round with a spur leading out and down:

The 20th Maine was positioned along the spur, the other regiments curved around to the right. At the end of the spur was a massive boulder. Chamberlain placed the colors there, backed off. To the left of his line there was nothing. Empty ground. Bare rocks. He peered off into the darkness. He was used to fighting with men on each side of him. He felt the emptiness to his left like a pressure, a coolness, the coming of winter. He did not like it.

He moved out in front of his line. Through the trees to his right he could see the dark bulk of a larger hill. If the Rebs get a battery there. What a mess. This could be messy indeed. He kept turning to look to the vacant left, the dark emptiness. No good at all. Morrill’s B Company was moving up. Chamberlain signaled. Morrill came up. He was a stocky man with an angular mustache, like a messy inverted U. Sleepy-eyed, he saluted.

“Captain, I want you to take your company out there.” Chamberlain pointed to the left. “Go out a ways, but stay within supporting distance. Build up a wall, dig in. I want you there in case somebody tries to flank us. If I hear you fire I’ll know the Rebs are trying to get round. Go out a good distance. I have no idea what’s out there. Keep me informed.”

Company B was fifty men. Alone out in the woods. Chamberlain was sorry. They’d all rather be with the regiment. Messy detail. Well, he thought philosophically, so it goes. He moved on back up the hill, saw Morrill’s men melt into the trees. Have I done all I can? Not yet, not yet.

Artillery was coming in again behind him. All down the line, in front of him, the men were digging, piling rocks. He thought of the stone wall at Fredericksburg. Never, forever. This could be a good place to fight. Spirits rose. Left flank of the whole line. Something to tell the grandchildren.

Nothing happening here. He hopped up the rocks, drawn toward the summit for a better look, saw an officer: Colonel Rice of the 44th New York, with the same idea.

Rice grinned happily. “What a view!”

He gestured. Chamberlain moved forward. Now he could see: masses of gray rock wreathed in smoke, gray men moving. If Sickles had a line down there it had already been flanked. He saw a Union battery firing to the south, saw sprays of men rush out of the woods, the smoke, and envelop it, dying, and then the smoke drifted over it. But now more masses were coming, in clots, broken lines, red battle flags plowing through the smoke, moving this way, drifting to the left, toward the base of the hill.

Rice said, glasses to his eyes, “My God, I can see all of it. Sickles is being overrun.” He put the glasses down and smiled a foolish smile. “You know, there are an awful lot of people headin’ this way.”

Chamberlain saw gleams in the woods to the south. Bayonets? Must get back to the regiment. Rice moved off, calling a thoughtful “good luck.” Chamberlain walked down back into the dark. Awful lot of people coming this way. Sixty rounds per man. Ought to be enough.

“Colonel?”

At his elbow: Glazier Estabrook. Incapable of standing up straight; he listed, like a sinking ship. He was chewing a huge plug of tobacco. Chamberlain grinned, happy to see him.

“Colonel, what about these here prisoners?”

Chamberlain looked: six dark forms squatting in the rocks. The hard cases from the Second Maine. He had completely forgotten them.

Glazier said slowly, around the wet plug, “Now I wouldn’t complain normal, Colonel, only if there’s goin’ to be a fight I got to keep an eye on my cousin. You understand, Colonel.”

What he meant was that he would under no circumstances tend these prisoners during the coming engagement, and he was saying it as politely as possible. Chamberlain nodded. He strode to the prisoners.

“Any of you fellas care to join us?”

“The Rebs really coming?” The man said it wistfully, cautiously, not quite convinced.

“They’re really comin’.”

One man, bearded, stretched and yawned. “Well, be kind of dull sittin’ up here just a-watchin’.”

He stood. The others watched. At that moment a solid shot passed through the trees above them, tore through the leaves, ripped away a branch, caromed out into the dark over the line. A shower of granite dust drifted down. The ball must have grazed a ledge above. Granite dust had salt in it. Or perhaps the salt was from your own lips.

Chamberlain said, “Any man that joins us now, there’ll be no charges.”

“Well,” another one said. He was the youngest; his beard was only a fuzz. “No man will call me a coward,” he said. He rose. Then a third, a man with fat on him. The other three sat mute. Two looked away from his eyes; the last looked back in hate. Chamberlain turned away. He did not understand a man who would pass by this chance. He did not want to be with him. He turned back.

“I’ll waste no man to guard you. I’ll expect to find you here when this is over.”

He walked down the hill with the three men, forgetting the incomprehensible three who would not come. He gave the three volunteers to Ruel Thomas, to post along the line. There were no rifles available. Chamberlain said, “You men wait just a bit. Rifles will be available after a while.”

And now the softer roar of musketry began opening up behind him; the popping wave of an infantry volley came down from above, from the other side of the hill. The Rebs were pressing the front, against Rice’s New York boys, the rest of the brigade. Now there was sharper fire, closer to home; the 83rd was opening up. The battle moved this way, like a wall of rain moving through the trees. Chamberlain strode down along the line. Tom came up behind him, Kilrain above. Private Foss was on his knees, praying. Chamberlain asked that he put in a kind word. Amos Long was sweating.

“ ’Tis a hell of a spot to be in, Colonel. I cannot see fifty yards.”

Chamberlain laid a hand on his shoulder. “Amos, they’ll be a lot closer than that.”

Jim and Bill Merrill, two brothers, were standing next to a sapling. Chamberlain frowned.

“Boys, why aren’t you dug in?”

Jim, the older, grinned widely, tightly, scared but proud.

“Sir, I can’t shoot worth a damn lying down. Never could. Nor Bill either. Like to fight standin’, with the Colonel’s permission.”

“Then I suggest you find a thicker tree.”

He moved on. Private George Washington Buck, former sergeant, had a place to himself, wedged between two rocks. His face was cold and gray. Chamberlain asked him how it was going. Buck said, “Keep an eye on me, sir. I’m about to get them stripes back.”

A weird sound, a wail, a ghost, high and thin. For a vague second he thought it was the sound of a man in awful pain, many men. Then he knew: the Rebel yell. Here they come.

He drifted back to the center. To Tom he said, “You stay by me. But get down, keep down.” Kilrain was sitting calmly, chewing away. He was carrying a cavalry carbine. A great roar of musketry from behind the hill. Full battle now. They must be swarming Sickles under. Kilrain was right. Flank attack. Whole Reb army coming right this way. Wonder who? Longstreet? He it was behind the stone wall at Fredericksburg. Now we have our own stone wall. Chamberlain hopped down along the line, telling men to keep good cover, pile rocks higher, fire slowly and carefully, take their time. Have to keep your eye on some of them; they loaded and loaded and never fired, just went on loading, and some of them came out of a fight with seven or eight bullets rammed home in a barrel, unfired. He looked again to the left, saw the bleak silence, felt a crawling uneasiness. Into his mind came the delayed knowledge: You are the left of the Union. The Army of the Potomac ends here.

He stopped, sat down on a rock.

A flank attack.

Never to withdraw.

He took a deep breath, smelled more granite dust. Never to withdraw. Had never heard the order, nor thought. Never really thought it possible. He looked around at the dark trees, the boulders, the men hunched before him in blue mounds, waiting. Don’t like to wait. Let’s get on, get on. But his mind said cheerily, coldly: Be patient, friend, be patient. You are not leaving here. Possibly not forever, except, as they say, trailing clouds of glory, if that theory really is true after all and they do send some sort of chariot, possibly presently you will be on it. My, how the mind does chatter at times like this. Stop thinking. Depart in a chariot of fire. I suppose it’s possible. That He is waiting. Well. May well find out.

The 83rd engaged. Chamberlain moved to the right. He had been hoping to face a solid charge, unleash a full volley, but the Rebs seemed to be coming on like a lapping wave, rolling up the beach. He told the right to fire at will. He remained on the right while the firing began. A man down in E Company began it, but there was nothing there; he had fired at a falling branch, and Chamberlain heard a sergeant swearing, then a flurry of fire broke out to the right and spread down the line and the white smoke bloomed in his eyes. Bullets zipped in the leaves, cracked the rocks. Chamberlain moved down closer to the line. Far to the left he could see Tozier standing by the great boulder, with the colors.

Then he saw the Rebs.

Gray-green-yellow uniforms, rolling up in a mass. His heart seized him. Several companies. More and more. At least a hundred men. More. Coming up out of the green, out of the dark. They seemed to be rising out of the ground. Suddenly the terrible scream, the ripply crawly sound in your skull. A whole regiment. Dissolving in smoke and thunder. They came on. Chamberlain could see nothing but smoke, the blue mounds bobbing in front of him, clang of ramrods, grunts, a high gaunt wail. A bullet thunked into a tree near him. Chamberlain turned, saw white splintered wood. He ducked suddenly, then stood up, moved forward, crouched behind a boulder, looking.

A new wave of firing. A hole in the smoke. Chamberlain saw a man on his knees before him, facing the enemy, arms clutching his stomach. A man was yelling an obscene word. Chamberlain looked, could not see who it was. But the fire from his boys was steady and heavy and they were behind trees and under rocks and pouring it in, and Chamberlain saw gray-yellow forms go down, saw a man come bounding up a rock waving his arms wide like a crazy Indian and take a bullet that doubled him right over so that he fell forward over the rocks and out of sight, and then a whole flood to the right, ten or twelve in a pack, suddenly stopping to kneel and fire, one man in fringed clothes, like buckskin, stopping to prop his rifle against a tree, and then to go down, punched backward, coming all loose and to rubbery pieces and flipping back so one bare foot stood up above a bloody rock. A blast of fire at Chamberlain’s ear. He turned: Kilrain reloading the carbine. Said something. Noise too great to hear. Screams and yells of joy and pain and rage. He saw bloodstains spatter against a tree. Turned. Fire slowing. They were moving back. Thought: We’ve stopped ’em. By God and by Mary, we’ve stopped ’em.

The firing went on, much slower. Smoke was drifting away. But the din from the right was unceasing; the noise from the other side of the hill was one long huge roar, like the ground opening. Kilrain looked that way.

“Half expect ’em to come in from behind.”

Chamberlain said, “Did you hear Morrill’s company?”

“No, sir. Couldn’t hear nothing in that mess.”

“Tom?”

Tom shook his head. He had the look of a man who has just heard a very loud noise and has not yet regained his hearing. Chamberlain felt a sudden moment of wonderful delight. He put out a hand and touched his brother’s cheek.

“You stay down, boy.”

Tom nodded, wide-eyed. “Damn right,” he said.

Chamberlain looked out into the smoke. Morrill might have run into them already, might already be wiped out. He saw: a red flag, down in the smoke and dark. Battle flag. A new burst of firing. He moved down the line, Kilrain following, crouched. Men were down. He saw the first dead: Willard Buxton of K. Neat hole in the forehead. Instantaneous. Merciful. First Sergeant Noyes was with him. Chamberlain touched the dead hand, moved on. He was thinking: With Morrill gone, I have perhaps three hundred men. Few more, few less. What do I do if they flank me?

The emptiness to the left was a vacuum, drawing him back that way. Men were drinking water. He warned them to save it. The new attack broke before he could get to the left.

The attack came all down the line, a full, wild, leaping charge. Three men came inside the low stone wall the boys had built. Two died; the other lay badly wounded, unable to speak. Chamberlain called for a surgeon to treat him. A few feet away he saw a man lying dead, half his face shot away. Vaguely familiar. He turned away, turned back. Half the right jawbone visible, above the bloody leer: face of one of the Second Maine prisoners who had volunteered just a few moments past—the fat one. Never had time to know his name. He turned to Kilrain. “That was one of the Maine prisoners. Don’t let me forget.”

Kilrain nodded. Odd look on his face. Chamberlain felt a cool wind. He put a hand out.

“Buster? You all right?”

Bleak gray look. Holding his side.

“Fine, Colonel. Hardly touched me.”

He turned, showed his side. Tear just under the right shoulder, blood filling the armpit. Kilrain stuffed white cloth into the hole. “Be fine in a moment. But plays hell with me target practice. Would you care for the carbine?”

He sat down abruptly. Weak from loss of blood. But not a bad wound, surely not a bad wound.

“You stay there,” Chamberlain said. Another attack was coming. New firing blossomed around them. Chamberlain knelt.

Kilrain grinned widely. “Hell, Colonel, I feel saintly.”

“Tom’ll get a surgeon.”

“Just a bit of bandage is all I’ll be needin’. And a few minutes off me feet. Me brogans are killin’ me.” Lapse into brogue.

Tom moved off into the smoke. Chamberlain lost him. He stood. Whine of bullets, whisking murder. Leaves were falling around him. Face in the smoke. Chamberlain stepped forward.

Jim Nichols, K Company: “Colonel, something goin’ on in our front. Better come see.”

Nichols: a good man. Chamberlain hopped forward, slipped on a rock, nearly fell, hopped to another boulder, felt an explosion under his right foot, blow knocked his leg away, twirled, fell, caught by Nichols. Damned undignified. Hurt? Damn!

How are you, sir?

Looked at his foot. Hole in the boot? Blood? No. Numb. Oh my, begins to hurt now. But no hole, thank God. He stood up.

Nichols pointed. Chamberlain clambered up on a high boulder. Going to get killed, give ’em a good high target. Saw: they were coming in groups, from rock to rock, tree to tree, not charging wildly as before, firing as they came, going down, killing us. But there, back there: masses of men, flags, two flags, flanking, moving down the line. They’re going to turn us. They’re going to that hole in the left …

He was knocked clean off the rock. Blow in the side like lightning bolt. Must be what it feels like. Dirt and leaves in his mouth. Rolling over. This is ridiculous. Hands pulled him up. He looked down. His scabbard rippled like a spider’s leg, stuck out at a ridiculous angle. Blood? No. But the hip, oh my. Damn, damn. He stood up. Becoming quite a target. What was that now? He steadied his mind. Remembered: They’re flanking us.

He moved back behind the boulder from which he had just been knocked. His hands were skinned; he was licking blood out of his mouth. His mind, temporarily sidetracked, oiled itself and ticked and turned and woke up, functioning. To Nichols: “Find my brother. Send all company commanders. Hold your positions.”

Extend the line? No.

He brooded. Stood up. Stared to the left, then mounted the rock again, aware of pain but concentrating. To the left the regiment ended, a high boulder there. Chamberlain thought: What was the phrase in the manual? Muddled brain. Oh yes: Re-fuse the line.

The commanders were arriving. Chamberlain, for the first time, raised his voice. “You men! MOVE!”

The other commanders came in a hurry. Chamberlain said, “We’re about to be flanked. Now here’s what we do. Keep up a good hot masking fire, you understand? Now let’s just make sure the Rebs keep their heads down. And let’s keep a tight hold on the Eighty-third, on old Pennsylvania over there. I want no breaks in the line. That’s you, Captain Clark, understand? No breaks.”

Clark nodded. Bullets chipped the tree above him.

“Now here’s the move. Keeping up the fire, and keeping a tight hold on the Eighty-third, we re-fuse the line. Men will sidestep to the left, thinning out to twice the present distance. See that boulder? When we reach that point we’ll re-fuse the line, form a new line at right angles. That boulder will be the salient. Let’s place the colors there, right? Fine. Now you go on back and move your men in sidestep and form a new line to the boulder, and then back from the boulder like a swinging door. I assume that, ah, F Company will take the point. Clear? Any questions?”

They moved. It was very well done. Chamberlain limped to the boulder, to stand at the colors with Tozier. He grinned at Tozier.

“How are you, Andrew?”

“Fine, sir. And you?”

“Worn.” Chamberlain grinned. “A bit worn.”

“I tell you this, Colonel. The boys are making a hell of a fight.”

“They are indeed.”

The fire increased. The Rebs moved up close and began aimed fire, trying to mask their own movement. In a few moments several men died near where Chamberlain was standing. One boy was hit in the head and the wound seemed so bloody it had to be fatal, but the boy sat up and shook his head and bound up the wound himself with a handkerchief and went back to firing. Chamberlain noted: Most of our wounds are in the head or hands, bodies protected. Bless the stone wall. Pleasure to be behind it. Pity the men out there. Very good men. Here they come. Whose?

The next charge struck the angle at the boulder, at the colors, lapped around it, ran into the new line, was enfiladed, collapsed. Chamberlain saw Tom come up, whirling through smoke, saw a rip in his coat, thought: no good to have a brother here. Weakens a man. He sent to the 83rd to tell them of his move to the left, asking if perhaps they couldn’t come a little this way and help him out. He sent Ruel Thomas back up the hill to find out how things were going there, to find Vincent, to tell him that life was getting difficult and we need a little help.

He looked for Kilrain. The old Buster was sitting among some rocks, aiming the carbine, looking chipper. Hat was off. An old man, really. No business here. Kilrain said, “I’m not much good to you, Colonel.”

There was a momentary calm. Chamberlain sat.

“Buster, how are you?”

Grin. Stained crooked teeth. All the pores remarkably clear, red bulbous nose. Eyes of an old man. How old? I’ve never asked.

“How’s the ammunition?” Kilrain asked.

“I’ve sent back.”

“They’re in a mess on the other side.” He frowned, grinned, wiped his mouth with the good hand, the right arm folded across his chest, a bloody rag tucked in his armpit. “Half expect Rebs comin’ right over the top of the hill. Nothing much to do then. Be Jesus. Fight makes a thirst. And I’ve brought nothin’ a-tall, would you believe that? Not even my emergency ration against snakebite and bad dreams. Not even a spoonful of Save the Baby.”

Aimed fire now. He heard a man crying with pain. He looked down the hill. Darker down there. He saw a boy behind a thick tree, tears running down his face, ramming home a ball, crying, whimpering, aiming fire, jolted shoulders, ball of smoke, then turning back, crying aloud, sobbing, biting the paper cartridge, tears all over his face, wiping his nose with a wet sleeve, ramming home another ball.

Kilrain said, “I can stand now, I think.”

Darker down the hill. Sunset soon. How long had this been going on? Longer pause than usual. But … the Rebel yell. A rush on the left. He stood up. Pain in the right foot, unmistakable squish of blood in the boot. Didn’t know it was bleeding. See them come, bounding up the rocks, hitting the left flank. Kilrain moved by him on the right, knelt, fired. Chamberlain pulled out the pistol. No damn good except at very close range. You couldn’t hit anything. He moved to the left flank. Much smoke. Smoke changing now, blowing this way, blinding. He was caught in it, a smothering shroud, hot, white, the bitter smell of burned powder. It broke. He saw a man swinging a black rifle, grunts and yells and weird thick sounds unlike anything he had ever heard before. A Reb came over a rock, bayonet fixed, black thin point forward and poised, face seemed blinded, head twitched. Chamberlain aimed the pistol, fired, hit the man dead center, down he went, folding; smoke swallowed him. Chamberlain moved forward. He expected them to be everywhere, flood of brown bodies, gray bodies. But the smoke cleared and the line was firm. Only a few Rebs had come up, a few come over the stones, all were down. He ran forward to a boulder, ducked, looked out: dead men, ten, fifteen, lumps of gray, blood spattering everywhere, dirty white skin, a clawlike hand, black sightless eyes. Burst of white smoke, again, again. Tom at his shoulder: “Lawrence?”

Chamberlain turned. All right? Boyish face. He smiled.

“They can’t send us no help from the Eighty-third. Woodward said they have got their troubles, but they can extend the line a little and help us out.”

“Good. Go tell Clarke to shift a bit, strengthen the center.”

Kilrain, on hands and knees, squinting: “They keep coming in on the flank.”

Chamberlain, grateful for the presence: “What do you think?”

“We’ve been shooting a lot of rounds.”

Chamberlain looked toward the crest of the hill. No Thomas anywhere. Looked down again toward the dark. Motion. They’re forming again. Must have made five or six tries already. To Kilrain: “Don’t know what else to do.”

Looked down the line. Every few feet, a man down. Men sitting facing numbly to the rear. He thought: Let’s pull back a ways. He gave the order to Spear. The Regiment bent back from the colors, from the boulder, swung back to a new line, tighter, almost a U. The next assault came against both flanks and the center all at once, worst of all. Chamberlain dizzy in the smoke began to lose track of events, saw only blurred images of smoke and death, Tozier with the flag, great black gaps in the line, the left flank giving again, falling back, tightening. Now there was only a few yards between the line on the right and the line on the left, and Chamberlain walked the narrow corridor between, Kilrain at his side, always at a crouch.

Ruel Thomas came back. “Sir? Colonel Vincent is dead.”

Chamberlain swung to look him in the face. Thomas nodded jerkily.

“Yes, sir. Got hit a few moments after fight started. We’ve already been reinforced by Weed’s Brigade, up front, but now Weed is dead, and they moved Hazlett’s Battery in up top and Hazlett’s dead.”

Chamberlain listened, nodded, took a moment to let it come to focus.

“Can’t get no ammunition, sir. Everything’s a mess up there. But they’re holdin’ pretty good. Rebs having trouble coming up the hill. Pretty steep.”

“Got to have bullets,” Chamberlain said.

Spear came up from the left. “Colonel, half the men are down. If they come again …” He shrugged, annoyed, baffled, as if by a problem he could not quite solve, yet ought to, certainly, easily. “Don’t know if we can stop ’em.”

“Send out word,” Chamberlain said. “Take ammunition from the wounded. Make every round count.” Tom went off, along with Ruel Thomas. Reports began coming in. Spear was right. But the right flank was better, not so many casualties there. Chamberlain moved, shifting men. And heard the assault coming, up the rocks, clawing up through the bushes, through the shattered trees, the pocked stone, the ripped and bloody earth. It struck the left flank. Chamberlain shot another man, an officer. He fell inside the new rock wall, face a bloody rag. On the left two Maine men went down, side by side, at the same moment, and along that spot there was no one left, no one at all, and yet no Rebs coming, just one moment of emptiness in all the battle, as if in that spot the end had come and there were not enough men left now to fill the earth, that final death was beginning there and spreading like a stain. Chamberlain saw movement below, troops drawn toward the gap as toward a cool place in all the heat, and looking down, saw Tom’s face and yelled, but not being heard, pointed and pushed, but his hand stopped in mid-air, not my own brother, but Tom understood, hopped across to the vacant place and plugged it with his body so that there was no longer a hole but one terribly mortal exposed boy, and smoke cut him off, so that Chamberlain could no longer see, moving forward himself, had to shoot another man, shot him twice, the first ball taking him in the shoulder, and the man was trying to fire a musket with one hand when Chamberlain got him again, taking careful aim this time. Fought off this assault, thinking all the while coldly, calmly, perhaps now we are approaching the end. They can’t keep coming. We can’t keep stopping them.

Firing faded. Darker now. Old Tom. Where?

Familiar form in familiar position, aiming downhill, firing again. All right. God be praised.

Chamberlain thought: Not right, not right at all. If he was hit, I sent him there. What would I tell Mother? What do I feel myself? His duty to go. No, no. Chamberlain blinked. He was becoming tired. Think on all that later, the theology of it.

He limped along the line. Signs of exhaustion. Men down, everywhere. He thought: we cannot hold.

Looked up toward the crest. Fire still hot there, still hot everywhere. Down into the dark. They are damned good men, those Rebs. Rebs, I salute you. I don’t think we can hold you.

He gathered with Spear and Kilrain back behind the line. He saw another long gap, sent Ruel Thomas to this one. Spear made a count.

“We’ve lost a third of the men, Colonel. Over a hundred down. The left is too thin.”

“How’s the ammunition?”

“I’m checking.”

A new face, dirt-stained, bloody: Homan Melcher, lieutenant, Company F, a gaunt boy with buck teeth.

“Colonel? Request permission to go pick up some of our wounded. We left a few boys out there.”

“Wait,” Chamberlain said.

Spear came back, shaking his head. “We’re out.” Alarm stained his face, a grayness in his cheeks.

“Some of the boys have nothing at all.”

“Nothing,” Chamberlain said.

Officers were coming from the right. Down to a round or two per man. And now there was a silence around him. No man spoke. They stood and looked at him, and then looked down into the dark and then looked back at Chamberlain. One man said, “Sir, I guess we ought to pull out.”

Chamberlain said, “Can’t do that.”

Spear: “We won’t hold ’em again. Colonel, you know we can’t hold ’em again.”

Chamberlain: “If we don’t hold, they go right on by and over the hill and the whole flank caves in.”

He looked from face to face. The enormity of it, the weight of the line, was a mass too great to express. But he could see it as clearly as in a broad wide vision, a Biblical dream: If the line broke here, then the hill was gone, all these boys from Pennsylvania, New York, hit from behind, above. Once the hill went, the flank of the army went. Good God! He could see troops running; he could see the blue flood, the bloody tide.

Kilrain: “Colonel, they’re coming.”

Chamberlain marveled. But we’re not so bad ourselves. One recourse: Can’t go back. Can’t stay where we are. Result: inevitable.

The idea formed.

“Let’s fix bayonets,” Chamberlain said.

For a moment no one moved.

“We’ll have the advantage of moving downhill,” he said.

Spear understood. His eyes saw; he nodded automatically. The men coming up the hill stopped to volley; weak fire came in return. Chamberlain said, “They’ve got to be tired, those Rebs. They’ve got to be close to the end. Fix bayonets. Wait. Ellis, you take the left wing. I want a right wheel forward of the whole regiment.”

Lieutenant Melcher said, perplexed, “Sir, excuse me, but what’s a ‘right wheel forward’?”

Ellis Spear said, “He means ‘charge,’ Lieutenant, ‘charge.’ ”

Chamberlain nodded. “Not quite. We charge, swinging down to the right. We straighten out our line. Clarke hangs onto the Eighty-third, and we swing like a door, sweeping them down the hill. Understand? Everybody understand? Ellis, you take the wing, and when I yell you go to it, the whole regiment goes forward, swinging to the right.”

“Well,” Ellis Spear said. He shook his head. “Well.”

“Let’s go.” Chamberlain raised his saber, bawled at the top of his voice, “Fix bayonets!”

He was thinking: We don’t have two hundred men left. Not two hundred. More than that coming at us. He saw Melcher bounding away toward his company, yelling, waving. Bayonets were coming out, clinking, clattering. He heard men beginning to shout, Maine men, strange shouts, hoarse, wordless, animal. He limped to the front, toward the great boulder where Tozier stood with the colors, Kilrain at his side. The Rebs were in plain view, moving, firing. Chamberlain saw clearly a tall man aiming a rifle at him. At me. Saw the smoke, the flash, but did not hear the bullet go by. Missed. Ha! He stepped out into the open, balanced on the gray rock. Tozier had lifted the colors into the clear. The Rebs were thirty yards off. Chamberlain raised his saber, let loose the shout that was the greatest sound he could make, boiling the yell up from his chest: Fix bayonets! Charge! Fix bayonets! Charge! Fix bayonets! Charge! He leaped down from the boulder, still screaming, his voice beginning to crack and give, and all around him his men were roaring animal screams, and he saw the whole regiment rising and pouring over the wall and beginning to bound down through the dark bushes, over the dead and dying and wounded, hats coming off, hair flying, mouths making sounds, one man firing as he ran, the last bullet, last round. Chamberlain saw gray men below stop, freeze, crouch, then quickly turn. The move was so quick he could not believe it. Men were turning and running. Some were stopping to fire. There was the yellow flash and then they turned. Chamberlain saw a man drop a rifle and run. Another. A bullet plucked at Chamberlain’s coat, a hard pluck so that he thought he had caught a thorn but looked down and saw the huge gash. But he was not hit. He saw an officer: handsome full-bearded man in gray, sword and revolver. Chamberlain ran toward him, stumbled, cursed the bad foot, looked up and aimed and fired and missed, then held aloft the saber. The officer turned, saw him coming, raised a pistol, and Chamberlain ran toward it downhill, unable to stop, stumbling downhill seeing the black hole of the pistol turning toward him, not anything else but the small hole yards away, feet away, the officer’s face a blur behind it and no thought, a moment of gray suspension rushing silently, soundlessly toward the black hole … and the gun did not fire; the hammer clicked down on an empty shell, and Chamberlain was at the man’s throat with the saber and the man was handing him his sword, all in one motion, and Chamberlain stopped.

“The pistol too,” he said.

The officer handed him the gun: a cavalry revolver, Colt.

“Your prisoner, sir.” The face of the officer was very white, like old paper. Chamberlain nodded.

He looked up to see an open space. The Rebs had begun to fall back; now they were running. He had never seen them run; he stared, began limping forward to see. Great cries, incredible sounds, firing and yelling. The regiment was driving in a line, swinging to the fight, into the dark valley. Men were surrendering. He saw masses of gray coats, a hundred or more, moving back up the slope to his front, in good order, the only ones not running, and thought: If they form again we’re in trouble, desperate trouble, and he began moving that way, ignoring the officer he had just captured. At that moment a new wave of firing broke out on the other side of the gray mass. He saw a line of white smoke erupt, the gray troops waver and move back this way, stop, rifles begin to fall, men begin to run to the right, trying to get away. Another line of fire—Morrill. B Company. Chamberlain moved that way. A soldier grabbed his Reb officer, grinning, by the arm. Chamberlain passed a man sitting on a rock, holding his stomach. He had been bayoneted. Blood coming from his mouth. Stepped on a dead body, wedged between rocks. Came upon Ellis Spear, grinning crazily, foolishly, face stretched and glowing with a wondrous light.

“By God, Colonel, by God, by God,” Spear said. He pointed. Men were running off down the valley. The regiment was moving across the front of the 83rd Pennsylvania. He looked up the hill and saw them waving and cheering. Chamberlain said, aloud, “I’ll be damned.”

The regiment had not stopped, was chasing the Rebs down the long valley between the hills. Rebs had stopped everywhere, surrendering. Chamberlain said to Spear, “Go on up and stop the boys. They’ve gone far enough.”

“Yes, sir. But they’re on their way to Richmond.”

“Not today,” Chamberlain said. “They’ve done enough today.”

He stopped, took a deep breath, stood still, then turned to look for Tom. Saw Morrill, of Company B, wandering toward him through thick brush.

“Hey, Colonel, glad to see you. I was beginning to wonder.”

Chamberlain stared. “You were beginning to wonder?”

“I tell you, Colonel, I keep thinking I better come back and help you, but you said stay out there and guard that flank, so I did, and I guess it come out all right, thank the Lord. Nobody came nowhere near me until just a few minutes ago. Then they come backin’my way, which I didn’t expect. So we opened up, and they all turned around and quit, just like that. Damnedest thing you ever saw.” He shook his head, amazed. “Easiest fight I was ever in.”

Chamberlain sighed. “Captain,” he said, “next time I tell you to go out a ways, please don’t go quite so far.”

“Well, Colonel, we looked around, and there was this here stone wall, and it was comfortin’, you know?”

Tom was here, well, untouched. Chamberlain opened up into a smile. Tom had a Reb officer in tow, a weary gentleman with a face of grime and sadness, of exhausted despair.

“Hey, Lawrence, want you to meet this fella from Alabama. Cap’n Hawkins, want you to meet my brother. This here’s Colonel Chamberlain.”

Chamberlain put out a hand. “Sir,” he said. The Alabama man nodded slightly. His voice was so low Chamberlain could hardly hear it. “Do you have some water?”

“Certainly.” Chamberlain offered his own canteen. Off to the right a huge mass of prisoners: two hundred, maybe more. Most of them sitting, exhausted, heads down. Only a few men of the regiment here, mostly Morrill’s company. Ironic. Chamberlain thought: Well, he’s the only one with ammunition.

Firing was slacking beyond the hill. The charge of the 20th Maine had cleared the ground in front of the 83rd Pennsylvania; they were beginning to move down the hill, rounding up prisoners. As the Reb flank on this side fell apart and running men began to appear on the other side of the hill the attack there would break up. Yes, firing was less. He heard whoops and hollers, felt a grin break out as if stepping into lovely sunshine. We did it, by God.

The Alabama man was sitting down. Chamberlain let him alone. Kilrain. Looked. Where? He moved painfully back up the rocks toward the position from which they had charged. Hip stiffening badly. Old Kilrain. Unhurtable.

He saw Kilrain from a distance. He was sitting on a rock, head back against a tree, arm black with streaked blood. But all right, all right, head bobbing bareheaded like a lively mossy white rock. Ruel Thomas was with him, and Tozier, working on the arm. Chamberlain bounded and slipped on wet rocks, forgetting his hurts, his throat stuffed. He knelt. They had peeled back the shirt and the arm was whitely soft where they had cleaned it and there was a mess around the shoulder. Great round muscle: strong old man. Chamberlain grinned, giggled, wiped his face.

“Buster? How you doin’? You old mick.”

Kilrain peered at him vaguely cheerily. His face had a linen softness.

“They couldn’t seem hardly to miss,” he said regretfully, apologizing. “Twice, would you believe. For the love of Mary. Twicet.”

He snorted, gloomed, looked up into Chamberlain’s eyes and blinked.

“And how are you, Colonel darlin’? This fine day?”

Chamberlain nodded, grinning foolishly. There was a tight long silent moment. Chamberlain felt a thickness all through his chest. It was like coming back to your father, having done something fine, and your father knows it, and you can see the knowledge in his eyes, and you are both too proud to speak of it. But he knows. Kilrain looked away. He tried to move bloody fingers.

“In the armpit,” he gloomed forlornly. “For the love of God. He died of his wounds. In the bloody bleedin’ armpit. Ak.”

To Tozier, Chamberlain said, “How is that?”

Tozier shrugged. “It’s an arm.”

“By God,” Chamberlain said. “I think you’ll live.”

Kilrain blinked hazily. “Only an arm. Got to lose something, might’s well be an arm. Can part with that easier than the other mechanics of nature, an thass the truth.” He was blurring; he stretched his eyes. “Used to worry about that, you know? Only thing ever worried, really. Losing wrong part.” His eyes closed; his voice was plaintive. “I could do with a nip right now.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“You do pretty good.” Kilrain blinked, peered, looking for him.

“Colonel?”

“Right here.”

“The army was blessed …” But he ran out of breath, closed his eyes.

“You take it easy.”

“Want you to know. Just in case. That I have never served …” He paused to breathe, put out the bloody hand, looked into Chamberlain’s eyes. “Never served under a better man. Want you to know. Want to thank you, sir.”

Chamberlain nodded. Kilrain closed his eyes. His face began to relax; his skin was very pale. Chamberlain held the great cold hand. Chamberlain said, “Let me go round up something medicinal.”

“I’d be eternal grateful.”

“You rest.” Chamberlain was feeling alarm.

Tozier said, “I’ve sent off.”

“Well I’ve seen them run,” Kilrain said dreamily. “Glory be. Thanks to you, Colonel darlin’. Lived long enough to see the Rebs run. Come the Millennium. Did you see them run, Colonel darlin’?”

“I did.”

“I got one fella. Raggedy fella. Beautiful offhand shot, if I say so mesel’.”

“I’ve got to go, Buster.”

“He was drawin’ a bead on you, Colonel. I got him with one quick shot offhand. Oh lovely.” Kilrain sighed. “Loveliest shot I ever made.”

“You stay with him, Sergeant,” Chamberlain said.

Thomas nodded.

“Be back in a while, Buster.”

Kilrain opened his eyes, but he was drifting off toward sleep, and he nodded but did not see. Chamberlain backed away. There were some men around him from the old Second Maine and he talked to them automatically, not knowing what he was saying, thanking them for the fight, looking on strange young bloody faces. He moved back down the slope.

He went back along the low stone wall. The dead were mostly covered now with blankets and shelter halves, but some of them were still dying and there were groups of men clustered here and there. There were dead bodies and wounded bodies all down the wall and all down through the trees and blood was streaked on the trees and rocks and rich wet wood splinters were everywhere. He patted shoulders, noted faces. It was very quiet and dark down among the trees. Night was coming. He began to feel tired. He went on talking. A boy was dying. He had made a good fight and he wanted to be promoted before he died and Chamberlain promoted him. He spoke to a man who had been clubbed over the head with a musket and who could not seem to say what he wanted to say, and another man who was crying because both of the Merrill boys were dead, both brothers, and he would be the one who would have to tell their mother. Chamberlain reached the foot of the hill and came out into the last light.

Ellis Spear came up. There were tears in the corners of his eyes. He nodded jerkily, a habit of Maine men, a greeting.

“Well,” he said. He did not know what to say. After a moment he pulled out an impressively ornamented silver flask, dented, lustrous.

“Colonel? Ah, I have a beverage here which I have been saving for an, ah, appropriate moment. I think this is—well, would the Colonel honor me by joining me in a, ah, swallow?”

Chamberlain thought: Kilrain. But he could not hurt Spear’s feelings. And his mouth was gritty and dry. Spear handed it over solemnly, gravely, with the air of a man taking part in a ceremony. Chamberlain drank. Oh, good. Very, very good. He saw one small flicker of sadness pass over Spear’s face, took the bottle from his lips.

“Sorry, Ellis. ‘Swallow’ is a flighty word. An indiscriminate word. But thank you. Very much. And now.”

Spear bowed formally. “Colonel, it has been my pleasure.”

Here through the rocks was a grinning Tom. Young Tom. Only a boy. Chamberlain felt a shattering rush of emotion, restrained it. Behind Tom were troops of the 83rd Pennsylvania: Captain Woodward, Colonel Rice of the 44th New York. Chamberlain thought: Rice must be the new commander of the whole brigade.

Tom said with vast delight, ticking them off, “Lawrence, we got prisoners from the Fifteenth Alabama, the Forty-seventh Alabama, the Fourth and Fifth Texas. Man, we fought four Reb regiments!”

Four regiments would be perhaps two thousand men. Chamberlain was impressed.

“We got five hundred prisoners,” Tom insisted.

The figure seemed high. Chamberlain: “What are our casualties?”

Tom’s face lost its light. “Well, I’ll go check.”

Colonel Rice came up. Much darker now. He put out a hand.

“Colonel Chamberlain, may I shake your hand?”

“Sir.”

“Colonel, I watched that from above. Colonel, that was the damnedest thing I ever saw.”

“Well,” Chamberlain said. A private popped up, saluted, whispered in Chamberlain’s ear: “Colonel, sir, I’m guardin’ these here Rebs with an empty rifle.”

Chamberlain grinned. “Not so loud. Colonel Rice, we sure could use some ammunition.”

Rice was clucking like a chicken. “Amazing. They ran like sheep.”

Woodward said, “It was getting a bit tight there, Colonel, I’ll say.”

Rice wandered about, stared at the prisoners, wandered back, hands behind him, peered at Chamberlain, shook his head.

“You’re not Regular Army?”

“No, sir.”

“Oh yes. You’re the professor. Um. What did you teach?”

“Rhetoric, sir.”

“Really?” Rice grimaced. “Amazing.” After a moment: “Where’d you get the idea to charge?”

Chamberlain said, “We were out of ammunition.”

Rice nodded. “So. You fixed bayonets.”

Chamberlain nodded. It seemed logical enough. It was beginning to dawn on him that what he had done might be considered unusual. He said, “There didn’t seem to be any alternative.”

Rice shook his head, chuckled, grunted.

Chamberlain said, “I heard about Colonel Vincent.”

“Yes. Damn shame. They think he won’t make it.”

“He’s still alive?”

“Not by much.”

“Well. But there’s always hope.”

Rice looked at him. “Of course,” Rice said.

Chamberlain wandered among his men. Ought to put them in some kind of order. He was beginning to feel an elation in him, like a bubble blowing up in his chest. A few moments later, Rice was back.

“Colonel, I have to ask your help. You see the big hill there, the wooded hill? There’s nobody there. I think. General Warren wants that hill occupied. Could you do that?”

“Well,” Chamberlain said. “If we had some ammunition.”

“I’ll move a train up. That hill’s been unoccupied all day. If the Rebs get a battery there … it’s the extreme flank of the Union line. Highest ground. Warren sends you his compliments and says to tell you he would prefer to have your regiment there.”

Chamberlain said, “Well of course, sir. But the boys are tired. May take a while. And I sure need that ammunition.”

“Right. I’ll tell the general you’ll be up soon as possible.”

Chamberlain squinted. A wall of trees, thick brush. He sighed.

Tom was back. “I count about one hundred and thirty men, Lawrence. Forty to fifty already dead, about ninety wounded. Lot of boys walking around with minor stuff, one hundred thirty for the hospital.”

Chamberlain thought: one hundred thirty down. We had three hundred in line. Almost half the regiment. Kilrain is gone.

He told Spear of the move. He was becoming very tired. But along with the weariness he felt spasms of pure joy. Spear formed the company, Rice took over the prisoners. Rice came by to watch them go.

“Colonel,” Chamberlain said. “One thing. What’s the name of this place? This hill. Has it got a name?”

“Little Round Top,” Rice said. “Name of the hill you defended. The one you’re going to is Big Round Top.”

Little Round Top. Battle of Little Round Top. Well. I guess we’ll remember it.

“Move ’em out, Ellis.”

He went back to say goodbye to Kilrain. The white head was visible from a long way off, sitting stumplike, motionless in the dark of the trees. He had leaned back and was staring at the sky, his eyes closed. He had welcomed Chamberlain to the regiment and there had never been a day without him. He would be going back to the hospital now, and Chamberlain did not know what to say, did not know how to express it. Blue eyes opened in a weary face. Kilrain smiled.

“I’ll be going, Buster,” Chamberlain said.

Kilrain grumbled, looked sourly, accusingly at his bloody wound.

“Damn.”

“Well, you take care. I’ll send Tom back with word.”

“Sure.”

“We’ll miss you. Probably get into all kinds of trouble without you.”

“No,” Kilrain said. “You’ll do all right.”

“Well, I have to go.”

“Right. Goodbye, Colonel.”

He put out a hand, formally. Chamberlain took it.

“It was a hell of a day, wasn’t it, Buster?”

Kilrain grinned, his eyes glistened.

“I’ll come down and see you tomorrow.” Chamberlain backed off.

“Sure.” Kilrain was blinking, trying to keep his eyes open. Chamberlain walked away, stopped, looked back, saw the eyes already closed, turned his back for the last time, moved off into the gathering dark.

He moved forward and began to climb the big hill in the dark. As he walked he forgot his pain; his heart began to beat quickly, and he felt an incredible joy. He looked at himself, wonderingly, at the beloved men around him, and he said to himself: Lawrence, old son, treasure this moment. Because you feel as good as a man can feel.