“ ‘General-I will not surrender.' “ Forrest read it aloud. He slowly nodded a couple of times. Major Booth obliged him on one point: he could not doubt the other man's meaning. “Well, we gave them a chance. If they're such blockheads that they won't take it, it's their hard luck, not ours.” Even to himself, he sounded like a judge passing sentence.
“It's their funeral, is what it is,” Waiter Goodman said. “I tried to tell that to Leaming, but he didn't want to hear it. Reckon he's got his orders, and that's that.” He shrugged. “That'll be that, all right. “
“I thought they would give up. I really did,” Forrest said. “Everybody knows we don't mistreat people who surrender to us. The way our men feel about those damned Federal Tennesseans, and about niggers with guns in their hands… Well, Booth'll find out he's made a worse bargain than the one I tried to give him.”
Captain Anderson pointed out toward the Mississippi. “What about the gunboat, sir? If the enemy goes down by the river, it's in good position to rake our boys hard.”
“We've handled gunboats before. I expect we'll deal with this one the same way,” Bedford Forrest answered. “She has to open her gunports to use her cannon. If we've got men blazing away at 'em every time they do open up, she'll lose gunners too quick to stay in the fight for long. Shoot everything blue betwixt wind and water until their flag comes down.”
“All right, sir. I'll tend to it,” Anderson said. “Colonel Barteau ought to have the same order, in case the gunboat shifts so her guns bear on his men.”
“Well, Captain, I can't very well tell you you're wrong, on account of you're right.” Forrest called for a runner. He gave the man oral orders to deliver to Barteau over by Coal Creek. When the runner had them straight, he saluted and loped away.
What would the U.S. soldiers be doing, up inside Fort Pillow? Pontius Pilate might have shrugged the shrug Forrest shrugged then. He washed his hands of the Federals. He didn't see what they could do to hold him out except what they were already doing-and that wouldn't be enough.
“General Chalmers!” Forrest said.
Chalmers was talking with Captain Goodman a few feet away. He broke off and nodded to his superior. “Yes, sir? What do you need?”
“Your men ready?”
“Oh, yes, sir. No doubt about it,” Chalmers said. “When Gaus blows his bugle, they'll go forward as if it were Gabriel's trumpet.”
Jacob Gaus looked at the beat-up instrument he held in his right hand. “God can afford to issue Gabriel something better than this,” he said, which set all the officers around him laughing. The bugler added, “Or if He can't, then I am afraid Satan is ahead in the race.”
Bedford Forrest was a steadfast believer. That didn't stop him from laughing his head off now; the words, and Gaus's guttural accent, were too funny to resist. Aiming a forefinger at the German, he said, “You are a blasphemous toad, Jacob.”
“Ja,” Gaus agreed placidly. “But I am your blasphemous toad, General. “
“That you are-who else would have you?” Forrest needed a moment to bring his mind back to the business at hand. But when he did, he pointed toward the high ground the Confederates had won early in the fight. “You still have plenty of sharpshooters on those little knolls, General? “
“Oh, yes, sir,” Chalmers said. “I wouldn't move men off 'em, not when they're up higher than the Federals' position. They can shoot right into the fort, and the troops inside can't do a thing to stop 'em.”
“I know. That's why I want 'em there. That's why only a damn fool would reckon he could hang on to Fort Pillow unless he had a big enough garrison for the outer line.” Now Forrest pointed ahead, to the ditch in front of the earthwork the U.S. soldiers still held. “And that's why only a damn fool would reckon a no-account trench like that one would keep our boys out of his works, too.”
“Easier fighting a damn fool than someone who knows what he's doing,” Chalmers observed.
“That's a fact,” Forrest said. “All the same, even a galvanized Yankee ought to have eyes to see this. By God, Chalmers, even a nigger ought to have eyes to see this. Your sharpshooters over yonder can fire at that stretch of the Federal works so they're shooting along the Yankee's firing line instead of straight at it, and the sharpshooters over there can do the same to the other stretch.”
“The technical term is enfilading fire, sir,” Chalmers said.
Was he slyly poking fun at Forrest or really trying to teach him something? Chalmers was not a West Point man, but he'd been to college; he was a lawyer in Mississippi when secession came, and helped lead his state out of the Union. He doubtless looked down his nose at an unschooled nigger-trader like Forrest-he might, but he'd better not show it, not when that un schooled nigger-trader outranked him.
“I don't care much about the technical term, Jim,” Forrest said. “I know what I want to do, and I can get it done just fine without fancy talk.” He snorted, thinking of the evasive answer the Federals in Fort Pillow tried to palm off on him. Well, they wouldn't get away with it, by God.
“We've all seen that, sir,” Chalmers said.
There wasn't-there couldn't possibly be-any mockery in those words. Education or no, fancy talk or no, Bedford Forrest knew without false modesty that he'd done more for the Confederate cause in the West than just about anybody else. When the war was young, he saved a large part of the Confederate garrison in Fort Donelson when his superiors, after breaking out, idiotically marched back in and had to surrender to the Yankees.
He fought hard at Pittsburg Landing, and took a wound that almost killed him; that bullet still lay somewhere near his spine, and still pained him. His first set of cavalry raids up into Tennessee and Kentucky at the end of 1862 did such a good job of wrecking U. S. Grant's supply line that they delayed his attack on Vicksburg by months. He fought at Chickamauga, and still wished Braxton Bragg would have listened to him and pushed the pursuit. That Federal army would be extinct now; the Confederates would hold Chattanooga. Instead..
Forrest's hands tightened on the reins. If only they were tightening on Braxton Bragg's scrawny neck. Bragg couldn't win. And when, in spite of himself, he did win at Chickamauga, he frittered away the victory. But he was Jefferson Davis's particular friend, and so his malign influence in the C.S.A. seemed to go on forever.
I should have killed him, Forrest thought. I should have challenged him. Not even a spineless wretch like that could have wriggled off the hook. He shook his head. Too late now. Too late for a lot of things in the West.
General Chalmers said something. Lost in his own dark thoughts, Forrest heard his voice without noting the words. “I'm sorry, General,” he said, shaking his head again. “That went right on by me.”
“I said, will you go forward with the men when they storm the fort?” “Oh.” The question spawned more dark thoughts. Slowly, Forrest answered, “Matter of fact, I wasn't planning to.”
“I see.” By Chalmers's tone, and by his raised eyebrow, he didn't.
Were Chalmers speaking of some other man, the two-word response might have been an accusation of cowardice. Not with Bedford Forrest. Some gushing Southern newspaper wrote that he'd killed more men in close combat than any general since medieval days. He had no idea if that was so. But he was large and strong and fast, and he usually went straight for the hottest action.
Cautiously, Chalmers said, “Do you mind my asking why, sir?” “Yes, dammit.” Forrest's voice was rough, even harsh. He disliked being put on the spot.
“Very well, sir.” By Chalmers's tone, he didn't like it, but he knew he couldn't do anything about it.
Forrest was just as well pleased to keep his mouth shut. If he said he had no stomach for what lay ahead, Chalmers would think him soft. If he said he was afraid he couldn't stop it, Chalmers would think him weak. If he said nothing at all, Chalmers could think whatever he damn well pleased.