*This second part is for those who found laughter even in hunger, and courage even in fear.*

“WAR IS THE GREAT REVEALER OF MEN — STRIPPING AWAY LAUGHTER, LEAVING ONLY COURAGE OR DESPAIR.”

— FROM THE DIARY OF A UNION SOLDIER, 1863

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III.

“Chow time boys.  Come and get it while its-a-hot!” Cookie bellowed while looking up from over a hot caldron of gruel bubbling over a small bonfire.  “Eat hearty me boys, I made extra this morn, since I ain’t cookin’ again till this little fracas is over.”

Most of the grizzled old warriors whipped out their mess tins and went running as though they were lemmings, unphased in the least by the repulsive odor of the bubbling, brewing gruel.

“I don’t know which is more ugly here Cookie, you or this here poor excuse for food!” a war-wearied white-haired sergeant yelled, a hint of the brogue in his gravely voice.  He pushed his rusty mess tin forward, eager for his ration.

“I sure don’t see you walkin’ away from it now O’Malley!  In fact, I’ll bet ya half my next pay that you’ll be runnin’ back here fer seconds, maybe thirds before the action starts!”

“The only runnin’ I’ll be doin’ Cookie, is running for the bushes when this here curd mush works its way through me belly in ‘bout fifteen minutes.  I say we send a big portion over to our rebel comrades up the hill a ways.  That’ll sure put an end to whatever they are plannin’ today!  What do you say to that, boy-oh?”

As for the boy, he’d just as soon throw up the butterflies that were buzzing around in his gut than eat anything.  Instead of gruel, he haphazardly reached into his haversack and pulled out an aged slab of hard tack.

“Hey Caleb, now shouldn’t good hardtack, if there is such a thing, be light brown, have small holes in it like soda crackers?”

“Yeah kid, why?”

“’Cause this here tack is dark, stale, and so hard that when I try to bite it, I can’t get it to break!  I figure I’m gonna bust a tooth if I bite down any harder.  If there is anything I fear worse than facing them Rebs in a fight to the death, it’s a torturous toothache.  I ain’t about to take any chances.”

Holding a chunk of tack in the palm of his right hand, he strikes it with his left fist, but only accomplishes severely skinning his knuckles.  He tries to bang it against his knee.  All that he succeeds in doing is badly bruising himself. Grumbling irately, he is about to give up and go hungry when he decides to toss the lump of tack into his mess tin and pour hot coffee over it. 

“Good idea there lad.” Caleb snickers, “I figured you’d end up killen yerself ‘fore them Rebs got the chance ta try.  Besides, if’n ya can stand the heat of that there mud Cookie calls coffee, ya can at least soften yer tack up and hide its flat taste so’s it’ll be edible fer ya.”

“And the taste of the tack will cover the bitter taste of Cookies potent brew!” bellows the sergeant.

The reb on top the bluff wasn’t up for eating much that morning either.  He was going about whittling his own chuck of tack. 

“Ya know,” he says to know one in particular, “I always thought it was pure stupid that the army checks our teeth like we was horses when we first join up, then they issue us this here hardtack and make us eat it!  This tack is like tryin’ ta chaw away at a hardened cemet brick.  The army shoulda issued us steel teeth along with every ration of tack!”

He scratches off only a small sliver of tack then hesitates, stares at it blankly, and tosses it at a curious crow peeking out from behind a near-by boulder.  The crow scoops up the scrap in its beak, ponders what to do with it, then immediately spits it out! 

The bird’s action brings a moment of humor to the war-weary young man.  “Ya ain’t no dumb bird after all, is ya ol’ black bird?  You’re smarter than most of us here who have ta eat that garbage for days on end.  Yep, you is smarter than most of us!”

His focus changes; he becomes aware of a heightened buzz in the activity down the bluff and across the field.  He can’t make out much, but what he sees gives him chills.  He knows the action is quickening in the opposing camp.  He had never before experienced close-quarter combat, but the heightened activity can only mean one thing; the serenity of his surroundings would change to savagery, and all too soon. 

“This can’t be happening, it can’t be real.” he imagines to himself.

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IV.

Atop the bluff, the boy in gray is brought back to reality by the blaring of a distance bugle.  Immediately he snaps out of his hazy thoughts.  His heart quickens. Adrenaline rushes through his young body.  Hair on the nape of his neck thickens and stands straight as he realizes the bugle cry is a call to arms.  It is coming from somewhere below, below in the unseen midst of the enemy encampment.  It is the adversary’s call to arms.  They are preparing for battle. 

“I always figured it would be us that would be the one to move to action first!” he yells out to ol’ Rufus.

“You’d figure that way sonny, what with our position away up here ‘bove them Yanks.  But, as you’ll learn soon ‘nuff, in war the logical things don’t always happen the way you expect.”

Both the old and wise Rebel warrior and the young, wet behind the ears kid observe the scene unfolding below from a protective outcropping of boulders.  Their vantagepoint allows them to look down with relative safety to watch the enemy preparing for the contest to come.

In short order men of all ages, strangers to one another, would come face-to-face in a savage battle to the death.  Images of lying mortally wounded, down on the field below, race through the young Rebel’s mind; images no young lad should have to imagine. 

Little did he consider that old Rufus, who was focusing on the forest of armed men, bayonets and barrels glistening below, had similar thoughts racing through his mind. 

“That’s both the most beautiful and the most frightful sight I ever seen.” says the old man in an emotionless voice.  Feeling faint and fearful, both soldiers sit down and recline against the boulder.  The youngster, wishing to be whisked back to a time before the war, back to the safety of his mother’s bosom, buries his head in his hands and sobs.

The boy in blue doesn’t have the luxury of sitting down to cry.  Although his heart is rapidly pumping, his movements are automatic.  Becoming keenly aware of his surrounding, he notices everything he looks at is brighter, crisper, clearer, and sharper!  The slightest sounds are louder.  He can feel his skin breath and realizes all of his senses are heightened!  Nervously he buffs the brass “U.S.” letters on his cartridge box and the eagles on his buttons with a discarded scrap of fabric.

Both boys, one in blue and one in gray, look up into the still rising sun as if it is the last glimpse they will ever get.  In their hearts they know they may never see another sunrise.  There is a terrible responsibility about to rest on these young children.

Orders echoing down the line of blue slices through the tension of the moment.  “Let’s go boys!  Heave to me lads!”

“Get ready boys!  They is preparing below!”  A barbarous Rebel yell is let loose up and down the gray clad ranks and resonates in the dell below assaulting the ears of the blue coats preparing for battle. 

“Let’s show ‘em what ol’ Jeff Davis’s boys kin do to a Yank!” cries ‘ol Rufus.  “Give ‘em some good ol’ Southern hospitality!!”

Down below Sergeant O’Malley, his deep tenor voice with its brogue more pronounce due to his excitement, roars out, “C’mon boys, you crawled through your entire life wasting away and doing nothing till now.  This is the day you lived for since you stopped kickin’ inside yer mothers!  We fight for a noble cause, me boys, and to day we will fight it nobly!  Muster up and let’s roll!”

“Ouch!”  The Yankee lad absent-mindedly bites into, and bloodies, his lower lip.  His breath is cut short.  Muscles spasm in his stomach.  His chest tightens as he nervously checks, rechecks and triple checks his cartridge pouch.  Sliding his bayonet out of its scabbard without thought, he locks it to the barrel.  A heavy metallic click is heard from the business end of his old ‘53 Enfield musket.

“As Adam fit Eve.” he thinks to himself, proudly looking at the weapon now ready for service.

Keeping an eye on the hill he is half expecting to see a hoard of Johnny Reb’s a whoopin’ and a hollerin’ their devilish yell as they come rushing down the hill into Hell itself.  There is nothing but empty hillside before him, however, which adds to his suspense.  His stomach convulses.  He immediately doubles over and explosively expels his early morning coffee and tack upon the worn, square-toed brogans ol’ Caleb is wearing on his blistered, pigeon-toed feet.

Turning to apologize he hears, “Don’t ya worry none ‘bout that kid, some Reb will probably be wearin’ ‘em by tomorrow morn anyways.  Ya see, I ain’t gonna be needin’ ‘em long.”

“Don’t you go talkin’ that way old man.  It’s creepy!” the kid says wiping a regurgitated, coffee stained lump of mush from of his pimpled chin.  “Besides, yer gonna make it, we all is gonna make it.  Ya gotta think that ways or it’ll happen to ya just the way ya say it will!”

“Either ways kid, If’n I makes it through the day, I won’t need these ol’ mudscows anyways.”

“How ya figure ol’ man?”

“Well, I make it out this way, kid.  If I does make it through today, I’ll grab me a pair of some dead Reb’s shoes.  I hear tell that they have some fine English brogans, some with fastenin’ buckles and even hobnailed pegs in the bottom.  Can ya fancy that?  Marchin’ off ta war in fancy gunboats like them.  Why, they must cost near three whole dollar, and them is Yankee dollars they have ta pay them English crackers!  Ain’t that a hoot!  Not that the Rebs gots ta buy their clothes ‘stead of makin’ ‘em.  It’s havin’ ta pay fer everything in Yankee money!”  Caleb gives out a loud roar helping to break the uneasiness of the moment.  He continues, “So see kid, I ain’t got a thing ta worry ‘bout either way ya look at it!”

“Seein’ it that way, ol’ man, I guess ya got the problem licked.  If I have my druthers though, and since were just-a-wisin’, I want ta see ya at the end of the day wearing some Johnny-Reb’s fancy high top boots.”

“Not today, boy.  Thems usually only gonna be found on a well-to-do horse soldier, not the farmers and country boys we is fixin’ ta mess with today, sonny.  Naw, I’ll settle fer them English made hobnailed gunboats just fine, I will.”

While this cordial banter is going on at the bottom of the bluff the Rebel lad, hunkered down behind his boulder, stops sobbing.  Ol’ Rufus has comforted him with his presence.  The kid is still, however, anticipating the certain assault of the invading forces gathering below.  Silently praying, he is totally unaware that he is biting his fingernails until a sharp pain shoots through the quick of his grimy left ring finger. 

Eyeing his hands, he notices a bright crimson crescent on nine of his digits.  While his mind was so intently concentrating on the rush of activity in the field below, he had mutilated all but one of his fingers. 

“War is the great revealer of men — stripping away laughter, leaving only courage or despair.” — From the diary of a Union soldier, 1863

*The next section of Brothers in Arms will arrive shortly — watch your email for its posting.*

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