Part 12 (1/2)

I'm a target now for every Rebel sharpshooter.

Louis started to lift the flag higher.

Captain Blake was too quick for him. ”I'll take that, soldier,” Blake said with a smile.

Grasping the pole of the flag with both hands, Blake climbed to the highest point on the work and waved it back and forth.

”Come on, boys, and I will show you how to fight!” he called out in a clear voice that carried like a song.

Another sergeant, not Flynn, but a noncom from B Company, stepped forward to take the flag from the captain's hands as Blake made his way to the front, leading them toward the ma.s.s of gray-clad soldiers gathering before the entrenchments for a counterattack.

It seems as if the bullet's not been made that can strike him. His bravery's a suit of armor.

But as Louis thought those words, Captain Blake dropped down to one knee. Or rather he fell to the place where a knee had once been. A minie ball had struck, leaving a great wound that showed splintered bone for a heartbeat before it was covered by the gush of blood. A lieutenant leaped to Blake's side, tried to stop the bleeding with a tourniquet. A carrying party formed, but as they lifted the wounded captain onto a stretcher, one and then another of the bearers were struck down by the fire from the oncoming counterattack.

Blake propped himself up on the stretcher to wave one arm. ”Save yourselves,” he shouted, teeth gritted against the pain, face pale from loss of blood. ”The enemy's upon us!”

As so often happens in battle, the rush of men, the sound of guns, and the clouds of smoke washed over Louis then. Time pa.s.sed. Whether minutes or hours, no one could say. They drove back not just one counterattack, but too many to count. A field of fallen men lay between them and the Confederate ranks gathered behind the next line of trees, showing no sign of another a.s.sault.

Somehow, the sun had leaped across the sky. It was well past midday. A hand rose up in the no-man's-land between the two armies.

”Water,” a voice called out from among the dead and wounded.

”I know that voice,” someone who was standing next to Louis said.

He turned to look. It was Merry. He and Devlin, Kirk, and Belaney had all found their way to this same spot in the line where their sergeant stood, solid as an oak. Somehow, Flynn had gathered them the way a mother hen does her chicks.

”Water,” the man called again in a voice weakened by wounds. ”Will no one bring me a drink of water before I die?” The man lifted himself up on one elbow. His uniform showed him to be a Union captain.

”Tom O'Shea,” Merry called, his voice more high and shrill than Louis had heard before. ”Tom! Is it you?”

Merry grabbed the canteen that hung by Louis's side and pulled it free. Then, before anyone else could move or speak, Merry was over the embankment, down into the rifle pit, and then up and out of it as quickly as a young deer bounding through the forest. Rebel shots were being fired as Merry ran, but the little private paid them no mind and none struck home.

Louis tried to follow. Devlin and Kirk held him back.

”It's a fine heroic thing the lad is doing,” Devlin said, not letting go of Louis's arm, ”and it's worthy of a song. But there's no place for you in this ballad, Chief.”

”Tom,” Merry called. ”Tom.”

”Whose voice is that?” the injured man answered.

Somehow, though their words were not loud, a trick of the way the land lay or the clarity of the air made the two voices carry to all ears. There was pride on the one side for the bravery the young soldier was showing and respect on the other side for that same courage. Rebel marksmen were grounding their weapons and standing up to watch.

”Who are you?” the wounded captain said as Merry reached him. ”Am I dreaming?”

Merry dropped down on one knee, placing one hand behind the wounded captain's shoulders and holding the canteen to his lips with the other.

”It's me, Tom, drink this.”

The man drank and then jerked back. ”You?” he said, his voice startled. ”How can it be? In a uniform? And your hair? Where's your beautiful long hair?”

”Tom O'Shea.” The little private was weeping now in a most unmanly way. ”I did it to be close to you. Can you forgive me?”

”Mary,” Captain O'Shea said, his hand caressing her face. ”My Mary.”

Louis was not sure how many realized what they were seeing, but he knew.

How is it all of us was fooled for so long?

He looked over at Sergeant Flynn.

”Hold your fire!” the sergeant suddenly bellowed in a voice that echoed off the hills. ”That wee lad is a la.s.s. Put up your guns.”

Flynn was at the top of the parapet now, waving one arm in the air and pointing the other toward the stunned men in gray.

”D' ye not see 'tis the man's own wife?”

On the field before them Mary O'Shea had taken off her private's coat and unwound the roll of cloth she'd bound around her chest to hide the curve of her bosom. She began tearing the cloth into bandages.

By the time she'd bound her husband's wound, a party of stretcher bearers had reached her, Louis and Flynn among them. Not a shot came from either side as men stood and watched, guns by their sides. And who among them was not thinking of the dear ones they'd left behind? For one blessed moment, all thoughts of fighting left that field.

In the surgeon's tent, no one seemed to be able to say a word until Surgeon O'Meagher had finished his examination of the weak but still conscious man.

”No need for amputation of any limbs,” O'Meagher said to Captain O'Shea. ”Clean flesh wounds in both arms and legs. You would have, of course, exsanguinated had you been left to lie for another hour. With proper care you'll live a long life-though your career as a soldier is over.”

”I'll care for him,” Mary said.

How could I have ever thought her anything but a woman? Louis thought. Now that he knew she was a woman, she no longer looked so young. Much older than me, probably as old as twenty-four.

”Private Merry,” a deep Irish voice said. It was, of course, Flynn. ”I'm afraid ye'll no longer be able to be part of this man's army. Ye'll have to turn in yer weapon and kit and uniform, and forfeit what pay ye have comin', I'm sorry to say. Ye were a fine soldier.”

”Yes, sir,” Mary O'Shea said, coming to attention and snapping a salute as she did so and then breaking into a grin. ”I'll gladly give up this wool uniform, sir. But I shall miss my musket.”

Flynn turned to Captain O'Shea, who hardly seemed to have heard the sergeant's speech. His eyes were on his wife, a look on his face that combined love and awe.

”Sir,” Flynn said, ”I know it's out of place for me to speak this way to a superior officer and all, but I need to say it. Ye take care of yer wife and cherish her and ne'er say a hard word for what she's done or ye'll be hearing from Liam Flynn.”

”Sergeant,” Captain O'Shea said, ”it's less I'd be thinking of you had you not said that.” He weakly lifted one hand to shake Flynn's. ”You have my word as surely as my dear wife has my everlasting love.”

Mary O'Shea grasped Louis by the elbow and pulled him over. ”Tom, this is Louis. He's a fine lad. He has been my best friend these weeks and as good a friend as any soldier could have wanted.”

Captain O'Shea turned his eyes toward Louis. ”So you watched over my Mary in battle, boy?”