"What work?" the old man cried, his white tuft twitching in the twilight breeze. "What work?"
He knew. Ashamed to look him in the eye, Billy bobbed his head at Spinnington. "Get them to work, Corporal. Take the barn first, and maybe we'll get enough to fill the wagon. Maybe we can leave the chicken house alone."
"It's taken me all my life to build this place," the old man said, clutching the porch post, angry tears squeezing from the corners of his eyes. "Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
"I'm sorry, sir. Truly sorry."
A nail squealed, a raw, screaming sound. Two volunteers pried off the first piece of siding. Another ran it to the wagon.
The old farmer lurched off the porch. Billy drew his side arm. The farmer hesitated, sat down on the steps, and gave Billy a look he would never forget. Then the farmer stared at his shoes as the engineer volunteers tore the barn apart. They brought out crosscut saws for the pillars and beams. They had it all down by dark, leaving the unpenned milk cows and plow horses wandering around the chicken house. Billy sat on the seat of the wagon as it rolled away and didn't permit himself to look back.
An entry in his journal, made sometime between sunset that evening and dawn on April 30, read:
I hate what I am becoming because of this war.
"It's the Dutchmen," Spinnington snarled. "The fucking Dutchmen caved in."
"Shut up," Billy said, naked to the waist, swinging the ax two-handed and bracing for the shock when it bit into the five-inch trunk of the elm.
It was just daylight. An hour ago, while the Wilderness burned, set afire by shells, Billy's detachment had been rushed from Slocum's Twelfth Corps to the relatively clear ground at the Chancellorsville crossing. To judge from the heavy presence of headquarters guards and all the couriers riding up and galloping away again, General Hooker was holed up inside the white manor house. No one professed to know what he was doing, but one thing appeared certain: Fighting Joe's great scheme had come to nothing.
Hooker had gained his planned position in the Wilderness, been poised to smash Lee from the rear — and had thrown away the advantage. Why? Billy thought, timing the ax blows to reinforce the raging repetition of the question. Why?
Yesterday Fighting Joe had started his men forward to a more advantageous offensive position — higher and more open ground beyond the edge of the Wilderness. When his men encountered enemy fire, he called off the advance. Corps commanders had not concealed their fury. Billy had heard what General Meade said; it had spread everywhere, like the fire in the woods: "If he can't hold the top of a hill, how can he expect to hold the bottom?"
But now they were preparing for precisely that. Swing; why? Swing back; why?
"Stand back," Billy yelled, pushing men as the elm swayed and tilted. The men scattered, the tree crashed, the volunteers leaped forward, stirring the raw, smarting smoke that came partly from the unseen cannon, partly from the fiery forest.
Yesterday, while Hooker shilly-shallied and lost his chance at a superior position, Bob Lee and Old Jack had been busy outfoxing him. Jackson had led his men on one of their famous lightning marches, this one a damnably risky flanking movement. But he had pulled it off without discovery and by nightfall stood ready to savage the Union right. Howard's Dutchmen were at ease there, enjoying their supper. Old Jack's whooping, screaming farm boys took them totally by surprise.
That was the start of the end of Hooker's great plan. Now the rebs were on the offensive throughout the second-growth forest. God knew where they would appear next — which was the reason Union soldiers were frantically preparing rifle pits to defend the open ground at the crossroads, while axmen, including Billy and his detachment, felled trees in front of the lines.
They slashed off branches, bound others together with ropes and vines, sharpened still others and fixed them to point toward the smoke where the rebs might be lurking. The abatis was a defensive fortification, not one employed by troops who meant to march ahead and win. Perhaps Fighting Joe had lost the advantage at the same mysterious spot where he had misplaced his nerve. Even rumors that a stray reb ball had wounded or killed Old Jack last night didn't lift the army's gloom, any more than daylight had lifted the choking smoke.
Chop and chop. Spinnington worked on Billy's left, Lije just beyond. On his right, bent over so as to minimize exposure in case of a sniper attack, was a volunteer whose name he didn't know. The man's posture didn't permit much work. Billy had an impulse to split the coward's head with his ax, but he supposed Lije would object.
White beard gleaming with sweat drops, Lije lifted his heavy ax with his right hand, as if it weighed no more than a straw. He pointed the ax at a tree larger than most, an oak about a foot in diameter.
"That one next, lads. She will fall to the right if we cut her properly. We may then turn her ninety degrees and fix points on some of those topmost branches to torment the enemy." Billy managed an exhausted laugh. What a rock Lije was. Every remark to his men was round and complete as a sermon sentence.
Lije also spoke loudly, which was necessary because of the continual noise: drumming and bugling, men shouting, small arms crackling, strays from the beef herd mooing as they ran down the narrow turnpike or got snared in the forest vines and bled from thorn pricks. Catching a nap at three in the morning, Billy had had his stomach stepped on by a wandering cow.
Now, renewed artillery fire increased the din. The firing came from south of Chancellorsville. Inexplicably, Sickles had been withdrawn from another piece of high ground, a place called Hazel Grove. Had the rebs moved fieldpieces into that favorable position?
Billy and Lije attacked the oak from opposite sides. Lije met his eye, smiled in a weary, fatherly way. Chop and chop. Billy wished he had the older man's faith. If God stood with the Union, why did Old Jack surprise and whip them every time?
They had notched a white vee into the trunk when, above the noise of men, horses, wheels, guns, Billy picked up a more ominous one: the scream of a shell. "Put your heads down," he shouted to those nearby. "That one's coming in mighty —"
The earth blew up around him, hurling him off his feet in a cloud of dirt and grass. He landed on his back, dazed. He breathed the heavy smoke, then coughed. Something lay on his bare chest: a large yellow-white wedge of heartwood blown from the trunk of the oak.
Blinking, he focused on the tree as it started to topple, stirring the smoke. Men as dazed as he struggled to their feet. Lije stood well beyond the tree, and he, too, saw it coming down, directly on Spinnington. Knuckling his eyes, the corporal failed to hear the creak; the bombardment was too loud.
''Spinnington, get out of there," Billy yelled. Spinnington turned, dull-faced, still not comprehending. The rest happened very fast. Lije bowled forward and hit the corporal with his shoulder, intending to push him to safety and fall on top of him. Lije's left boot tangled in a vine. He slammed on his chest, raised his head, clutched handfuls of weedy earth, and said, "Oh," an instant before the oak fell on the small of his back.
"Oh, Lord," Spinnington whispered, standing unhurt a yard beyond Lije's open mouth, closed eyes, fists clenching grass. Billy ran forward, shouting Lije's name. Men hit the ground again; another shell struck twenty yards away. The concussion threw Billy on his rump and hurled bits of earth and stone into his face. Something grazed his left eyeball. Something else cut his cheek.
Up again, he staggered to the fallen oak. Slowly, Lije's eyes opened. Another shell hit to the left and well behind them. Pieces of a man rose up and fell back to the unfinished rifle pits. Cries and moans added to the other noise. Billy knew the pain Lije must be feeling, but only a slight moisture in the older man's eyes betrayed it.