Under the Stars and Bars (9 page)

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Making a tour of his party, Dusty checked that everything was ready. In passing he gave each man his orders.

‘When Billy Jack gives the “whip’s” call, count to ten slowly. Then set off the slow-match about half-an-inch from the knot. No closer, but not much farther away. Light up a smoke ready to get things going.’

One of the qualities that endeared Dusty to his men was that he gave orders, but did not add unnecessary warnings. Some officers would have emphasised that care must be taken to avoid letting the lighting-up process be seen by the Yankees. Knowing his party to be veterans and not in the least suicidally-inclined, Dusty figured he could count on them not to make foolish mistakes. On receiving his orders, each man turned his back to the tent lines, shielded the match’s flame in his hands, and lit either a cigarette or a cigar.

Pausing only long enough for the man he addressed to whisper a confirmatory ‘Yo!’, Dusty continued to the next member of his company and repeated his instructions. On rejoining Billy Jack, Dusty took one of the cigars lit by the sergeant major and blew its end to a rich, clear glow. From his place on the ground, Genaro saw ruddy glints like so many fire-flies as Dusty’s men crouched ready for the signal. At a nod from Dusty, Billy Jack once more sounded the call of a whip-poor-will.

‘One!’ Dusty counted.

‘Two!’ hissed the man by the tail-gate of the battery-wagon.

‘Three!’ timed the soldier in the centre of the third reserve caisson.

‘Four! Five!’ said the tall, slim, debonair Sergeant Lou Bixby, thinking of times when he had counted the fall of trump cards in a high-stake whist game, but concentrating on the fuse leading into the number four gun’s limber’s chest.

‘
Sei!
’ thought Genaro, having heard Dusty’s instructions and involuntarily counting off the seconds in his native Italian. ‘
Sette!
’

‘Eight!’ decided the corporal charged with the destruction of the travelling forge.

‘Nine!’ Billy Jack announced, in a whisper that held nothing of his usual dolorous tones.

‘Ten!’ Dusty concluded.

Laying the glowing tip of the borrowed cigar against the slow-match at the required distance from the knot connecting it to its faster-burning contemporary, Dusty watched it splutter into life. Once lit, only water, or smothering pressure, would halt the creeping fire. With an almost leisurely, yet deliberate spreading motion, the tiny red glow crept on its way.

Allowing for variations in the pace of each individual count and the fuses’ rate of consumption, Dusty estimated that his men had between five-and-a-half and six-and-a-half minutes in which to get clear of the danger area. Already the other members of his party were converging upon him.

In a muck-sweat of anxiety, Genaro tried to burst his bonds. If the stories he had heard were true, the Rebels would leave him to his fate. In which case, he could do nothing to save himself. The gag in his mouth even prevented him from pleading for his life.

‘Move out!’ Dusty ordered and pointed swiftly to some of his men. ‘You four, tote this
hombre
with you!’

To his amazement and relief, Genaro felt himself gripped and raised from the ground between four of the Texans. Big, strong men, they carried the dumpy Italian soldier without difficulty. Maybe their holds were not gentle, but to Genaro it felt as if he were riding on a feather-bed. Bearing the artilleryman between them, the quartet strode off at a fast pace on the heels of their companions,

‘You too,’ Dusty growled at Billy Jack.

‘Don’t be too long,’ the sergeant major answered and went reluctantly after the departing men.

Letting the others go, Dusty strolled along the line of cannon. He had not sufficient men for one to each fuse and had selected the Napoleons as the pieces to be left. Lighting one length of slow-match after another, he listened for some sound that would tell him their presence had been detected by the Yankees. With every passing second, the chances of the battery being saved grew slighter.

Even if one of the artillerymen should wake up, leave the tents, come over and find a burning fuse, the affair could still meet with success. There would be a delay while the man doused the fuse, more as he roused the camp. Further time would be required for the sleep-dulled Yankees to understand the danger, then search for and render innocuous the other lengths of slow- or quick-match. Most likely some would be overlooked, particularly those in the battery-wagon and travelling-forge. Although Dusty believed they were too far apart for it to happen, there was always the chance of sympathetic explosions should only one charge touch off.

At the worst, a little damage—or even if none happened—would demoralise the battery’s personnel. Certainly they would lose all their horses. Their fighting efficiency would suffer for some time to come.

Quitting the area after lighting the last fuse, Dusty loped swiftly after the other Texans. Bringing up the rear, Billy Jack paused to let his commanding officer catch up with him.

‘You’ve cut it fine, Cap’n Dusty,’ the sergeant major warned chidingly. ‘If one of them charges’d’ve gone off—’

‘They didn’t,’ Dusty pointed out, although that thought had occurred to him.

‘Bet all them fuses’ve gone out,’ Billy Jack said as they walked on and seemed surprised to learn that they had not. ‘Anyways, I figured you’d fall down ‘n’ bust a leg. Was getting set to call for volunteers to come back ‘n’ see.’

‘Thanks,’ Dusty grinned. ‘Only that kind of thing’d be more likely to happen to you than me.’

‘I ain’t that lucky,’ Billy Jack protested. ‘If it’d’ve happened to you, it’d be me’s had to go back ‘n’ tell Ole Devil and Major Hondo how come you went to taking such fool chan—’

The sound of the first explosion chopped off the sergeant major’s complaints. Going by its slight volume, it must have been caused by a single round detonating under the barrel of a Napoleon. However, it gave a warning that could not—must not—be ignored.

‘Down!’ Dusty barked, raising his voice loud and disregarding as unnecessary the need for further silence.

Dropping Genaro, the men assigned to carry him to safety joined him on the ground. Responding with equal, or even greater speed, the remainder of Dusty’s party prostrated themselves on the dew-sprinkled grama grass. All offered up silent prayers, or what passed for prayers in their eyes, that the less than half a mile separating them from the battery would be sufficient for safety.

On hearing Billy Jack’s signal to light the fuses, Kiowa’s section had swung afork the bare backs of their selected mounts. When the first explosion sounded, the already restless horses let out startled snorts and began to bolt.

‘Yeeah! Texas Light!’ Kiowa screeched, slamming his heels against the flanks of his mount and using its lead rope in lieu of reins.

‘Yeeah! Texas Light!’ echoed Vern Hassle, urging forward the horse that had been Captain Luxton’s pride and joy.

Controlling the animals they sat with the skill gained during a life-long experience in matters equine, the Texans told off to help Kiowa and Hassle started moving. They gathered about the fleeing horses and endeavoured to direct them to where the rest of the Company waited. Ignoring the commotion that arose behind them, they concentrated on keeping the horses bunched and held together. They needed all their ability, for the animals grew increasingly more terrified as a result of what was going on to their rear.

Following close behind the first, other explosions took apart the silence of the night. The flat bangs caused by the single rounds were swamped beneath the deeper roars as limbers disintegrated, or drowned by triple crashes as the caissons’ outer chests erupted in sympathy with the central containers’ ignitions. Blasted apart by the discharge of eighty-five pounds of gun-powder, the travelling-forge sprayed nails and ruined horseshoes to the consternation of the battery’s personnel as they tried to escape from their bedrolls or collapsing tents. Instead of solid shot, the battery-wagon held thirty-two rounds of shell. The half-pound burster charges added to the thirty-four cartridges’s power and aided in the obliteration of the load.

Sudden, brilliant red flashes lit up the scene and briefly exposed the pandemonium that raged in the tent lines. Across the Arkansas River, an alarm bell boomed solemnly in Little Rock and was followed by urgent bugle calls to arouse the garrison. Members of the Confederate spy ring that operated from the town, and who had informed Dusty of the battery’s arrival, heard the explosions and cut the telegraph wires leading from Buller’s headquarters. That would delay news of the raid being spread to other Yankee troops.

Silence returned, or something near to it, after the final explosion. The darkness closed down again, except where an occasional small flicker of flames told that a portfire, grease-bucket, or can of paint had escaped being blown to fragments only to be reduced to ashes. Coming to their feet, the Texans stared in fascination and almost disbelief towards the havoc they had caused.

‘Now that was something you don’t see every day,’ commented Sergeant Bixby with masterly understatement.

The whole material of a field artillery battery had been completely destroyed, without loss of life to either its personnel or the raiders. It had been a remarkably well-handled affair.

‘Damned if I wasn’t certain-sure we’d all get blowed up, being so close,’ Billy Jack wailed and, in further expression of his delight, continued, ‘I dropped on to a rock ‘n’ must’ve caved my ribs in. Likely I’ll be dead from my hurts comes morning.’

‘Don’t you die on us, that’s an order!’ Dusty put in. ‘Turn our Yankee
amigo
loose, Sergeant Bixby.’

‘Yo!’ the non-corn answered.

While his captors had been speaking, Genaro had become aware of the rapidly approaching rumble of hoof-beats. His emotions on the matter were mingled. Owing the Texans his life, he did not wish to see them attacked, captured or killed. Yet he would like to see the destruction of his battery avenged. Then he realised that, despite their interest in the damage, the Texans must also hear the riders. Going by their lack of concern, the men about him had reason to believe that the newcomers were friends.

Set free and with the gag removed, Genaro could do little more than sit up, stifle his moans and the pain of the restored circulation to his limbs and try to work life into his aching jaws. He looked around at the riders, each leading at least one spare horse, swept to a halt before his captors’ rescuers.

The Company’s guidon-carrier, a tall, well-built, sandy-haired young corporal, brought a fine, large black stallion to his commanding officer. Taking the white ‘Jefferson Davis’ campaign hat that dangled from the hilt of the sabre strapped to the low horn of his double-girthed range saddle, Dusty donned it. Genaro could see the badge on the front of the hat’s crown and guessed at its shape. A silver, five-pointed star, with the letters T.L.C. across its centre, set in a laurel-wreath decorated circle, being modelled on the Sovereign State of Texas’ coat-of-arms, It was an insignia all too well-known to the Yankee troops in Arkansas, but Genaro felt curious.

‘Who—Who’s that officer?’ the artilleryman inquired of Bixby, as Dusty swung astride the stallion.

‘That, sir,’ the sergeant answered, a ring of pride in his voice, ‘is Captain Dustine Edward Marsden Fog, commandng Company ‘C’ of the Texas Light Cavalry. You can tell it to your battery’s officer, if he asks.’

‘Sure, I’ll remember,’ Genaro muttered; but he had no intention of passing on his information.

If he could not be found in the morning, it would be assumed that the Rebels had carried him off; or that he had been left behind and perished in the destruction of the battery’s material. Either way, the means to desert in comparative safety lay open before him. After watching the Texans ride off to the west, Genaro turned and started walking in what he believed to be an easterly direction.

Ten men, led by Dusty’s second-in-command, joined Kiowa’s hard-pressed section and helped them bring the terrified Yankee horses under control. With exclamations of satisfaction, the sergeant’s party exchanged their bare-backed borrowed mounts for the comfort and greater safety of their own saddled horses.

Slightly over six foot in height, 1st Lieutenant Charles William Henry Blaze had wide shoulders and a strongly-made frame. He was Dusty’s cousin, also eighteen, and they had grown up together in the Rio Hondo country. Under his campaign hat, a fiery thatch of ever-untidy hair gave him his commonly-used sobriquet ‘Red’ and matched the pugnacious aspect of his freckled, good-looking face. Adopting Dusty’s lead in matters sartorial, his collar sported only two bars and his ‘chicken guts’ were formed of a single strand of braid. Two walnut-handled Army Colts rode butts-forward in his holster and he drew them cavalry-fashion instead of copying Dusty’s cross-hand technique.

Like his smaller cousin, Red was building a name; but it was for hot-headed, quick-tempered, reckless audacity and an almost unrivalled ability to become involved in any fight that took place in his vicinity. There had been some comment among the senior officers of the Regiment when Dusty had taken Red as his subordinate in Company ‘C’. However, Dusty recognised one prime virtue in his cousin that older men tended to overlook. Given a job to do, Red accepted his responsibility, handled it competently, and let nothing swerve him before its completion.

Coming together with the rest of the Company about a mile from the ruined battery, Red gave his delighted congratulations to his cousin. Then Kiowa rode up to make his report.

‘Couldn’t hold ‘em all, Cap’n Dusty,’ The Indian-featured sergeant-scout apologised, with a respectful tone that he did not use to every officer. ‘We lost us a few.’

Very few, Dusty concluded as he studied the riderless mass of horses. Counting six per team for each limber, caisson, the battery-wagon and the travelling-forge, with at least a dozen saddle-mounts, they had made a fine haul. Dusty was willing to bet that Kiowa’s men had not lost twenty of the animals during the wild stampede through the darkness.

‘You’ve kept plenty,’ the small Texan praised. ‘Let’s go. I want some miles between us and Little Rock comes morning.’