“He wouldn't listen to us,” Leaming said, which only confirmed Bradford's fears. His adjutant went on, “Sir, the clock is ticking. You've got to tell the damn Rebs something. “
“I can't surrender the fort!” Bradford's voice went high and shrill, even though Leaming hadn't come out and suggested that. It was on the major's mind. He didn't see how it could help being on his mind. If he didn't think the garrison could hold the place, didn't he have a duty to the men-and especially to the colored soldiers, who'd fought better than he'd dreamt they could-to yield it and avoid the horrors of a sack?
But he still held hope. Even if the Confederates forced their way inside the earthworks warding Fort Pillow, his men could still drop down to the base of the bluff and keep up the fight there. They had plenty of cartridges waiting for them now, and the New Era could sweep the enemy with canister. The gunboat wouldn't be firing blind there. Her men would be able to see exactly what they were aiming at.
“We can hold,” Bradford said, as if challenging his adjutant to disagree with him.
Lieutenant Leaming didn't-not directly, anyhow. “If we can, sir, you'd better tell Bedford Forrest that we aim to try. And you'd better do it soon, or he'll just up and break off the truce on his own.”
No sooner had the words crossed his lips than a couple of shots rang out in the distance. “What's that?” Major Bradford's voice rose in alarm again.
“Sir, the Rebs just fired warning shots at the steamer,” answered a soldier by the edge of the bluff who could see down to the Mississippi. A moment later, he added, “She's sheering off. Looks like she's going to head on up the river.”
“Damn!” Bradford said feelingly.
“Forrest's men could slaughter the soldiers on her if she tried to land them,” Leaming said. “I got a look at her when I was parleying with the Rebs. The way the men are packed on her deck, they can't answer back, or not hardly.”
“Damn!” Bradford said again. He knew his adjutant was right; he'd looked at the Olive Branch himself. But what a man-even a lawyer-knows to be true and what he wishes were true can often be two very different things. If the steamboat hadn't appeared at all, that would have been bad. To have her appear in what seemed the nick of time, hold out the hope of rescue, and then cruelly yank it away.. that was ten times, a hundred times, worse. A melodrama with such a scene in it would have been hissed off the stage.
And Lieutenant Leaming wouldn't leave him alone. “Sir, the reply to General Forrest? Whatever you say, you'd better say it fast. The time he gave us has to be almost up.”
Bradford didn't like the sound of that. The only ploy he had left was buying a little more time. “Give me a paper and pencil, then,” he told Leaming.
“Yes, sir.” Leaming handed them to him.
The paper was dirty. There was no envelope. Major Bradford had to make do without them. Your demand does not produce the desired effect, he scribbled, and handed the scrap back to Leaming. “There!”
His adjutant read it, frowning because it was none too legible and maybe for other reasons as well. “What does it mean, sir?”
“Exactly what it says,” Bradford snapped. “Now take it out to Bedford Forrest! “
For a wonder, Leaming realized he'd finally pushed too far. With a salute, he said the one thing an adjutant could say that was never wrong: “Yes, sir.”
Jack Jenkins stood by the bank of Coal Creek, watching the Olive Branch steam up the Mississippi. He breathed a silent sigh of relief. If the Yankees tried landing troops nearby, repelling them would have been rugged work. But they didn't have the nerve. He had no idea where the bluebellies on that steamer were going. They could go wherever it was or straight to hell, and welcome. As long as they didn't stop here, everything was fine.
“Look at those egg-sucking yellow dogs show us their backs,” somebody not far away said. “They haven't got the balls to try and stand up against us.”
“Damn good thing, too,” somebody else said. “Ain't we got enough trouble with the sons of bitches in that there fort already?”
“Well done, men!” Colonel Barteau said. In the watery afternoon sunlight, the three stars on either side of his collar glittered. “Our show of force has successfully deterred the enemy.”
“Damn straight,” Jenkins said. “We made sure he didn't land here, too.”
Clark Barteau smiled. Jenkins assumed that was because he'd agreed with the regimental commander. “Now some of you better hustle back up toward the fort,” Barteau said. “If the Federals don't give in, Bedford Forrest'll order the assault, sure as I'm standing here beside you.”
“Some of us, sir? Not all of us?” Jenkins asked.
“No, not all of us, Corporal,” Colonel Barteau answered. “I'll want some men to stay down here by the water. If we start overrunning the enemy position up on the bluff, what do you reckon the enemy there'll do? What would you do in a fix like that?”
“Try and get down by the river, I expect.” Jenkins saw nothing out of the ordinary in a corporal and a colonel discussing tactics. By European standards, both the U.S. Army and the C.S. Army were loose-jointed creatures. The Confederates had less in the way of spit and polish than the Federals did, and Forrest's troopers less than most C.S. outfits. They fought better than most, though, which was all that really mattered. Jenkins added, “That damn gunboat isn't going away, worse luck.” He pointed to a crater in the dirt by Coal Creek that marked where a shell from the New Era had burst.
“Wish it would,” Barteau agreed. “But if it doesn't, I reckon we'll make it sorry. And I think you're right. I think that whole swarm of niggers and Tennessee Tories'll come pelting down to the Mississippi once we get inside their works. And when they do…”
“I see, sir!” Jenkins wasn't a man to admire officers just because they were officers. When they showed they were on the ball, that was a different story. “You thought that through real pretty.”
“Glad you approve,” Barteau said dryly. “If you do see what I mean, perhaps you'll want to stay here.” Quite a few troopers were already moving away from Coal Creek along the ravine to get in position to swarm up the bluff against Fort Pillow.
“Reckon I will. It'll be just like coon-hunting back home.” Jenkins laughed at his joke, even if he'd made it by accident. “Be just like coon-hunting back home.”
Colonel Barteau rewarded him with a thin smile. “All right, Jenkins. Maybe you'll have some coons to hunt. You'd best remember one thing, though.”
“What's that, sir?”
“These coons can fight back.”
“Sir, any coon'll fight back. Bastards are all teeth and claws and mean. A coon dog's a lot bigger'n any coon ever born, but sometimes they'll come out of a hunt lookin' like they been through a meat grinder. Haven't you seen that yourself?”
“More times than I wish I had. I've lost some good dogs that way, who hasn't? — and I've had to doctor plenty more. But I would've had a lot more to worry about if the ordinary kind of coon carried rifle muskets like the ones in there.” Barteau pointed up toward Fort Pillow. “I'll leave doctoring bullet wounds to a real sawbones.”
Jenkins shivered. Sawbones was a name that held too much truth. Too often, amputation gave the only hope of saving a wounded man's life. He clutched his own rifle musket. It is better to give than to receive, he thought.
Ben Robinson stared out toward the Confederate officers gathered under the flag of truce. The rest of the colored soldiers in the gun crew were doing the same thing. Some of the Negroes inside Fort Pillow went on jeering at the ragged, skinny white men in butternut outside. Others grew more serious as the gravity of the situation sank in.
Pointing to one officer in particular, Robinson asked, “You reckon that there fella's really and truly Forrest?”