The Eternal War

CHAPTER 76

2001, New York

2001, New York

Devereau looked at the men huddled in the bottom of the borderline. An artillery bombardment like this on a defensive position was more successful at draining morale than it was at whittling down the enemy’s numbers. The shells were mostly pitting the sloping wasteland with new craters. One or two shells had got lucky and caved in a section of the trench — nothing that couldn’t be hastily dug out and repaired before a landing arrived.

No … it was the way it sapped the fighting spirit of the men that the bombardment’s damage was done. Left them feeling helpless, impotent, as the enemy pounded them from afar.

Down the trench he could see Sergeant Freeman bellowing encouragement to the men around him, a mixture of men from his own regiment and Wainwright’s Virginians. Devereau grinned; it was NCOs like Freeman that were the backbone of a regiment. Grim-faced veterans with a lifetime of scars and battlefield voices that carried over even the percussive thump of artillery shells landing. Men followed their generals and colonels, but it was their sergeants and corporals they turned to for a reassuring nod in the heat of battle.

He was about to glance over to the horseshoe to check whether the tank was still running when he suddenly found himself lying on his back at the bottom of the trench, watching a small avalanche of dark soil rain down on him. Instinctively he covered his face and closed his mouth as dirt began to cover him. Devereau tried to flail to get himself up, but his arms and legs felt leaden.

And it was all of a sudden so silent. The only noise was his heart thudding rhythmically. The rumble of the artillery bombardment sounded like it was going on a thousand miles away. A summer thunderstorm in another county.

He felt hands on him, digging him out of the dirt, pulling him up out of his temporary shallow grave. A face right above him — one of Wainwright’s Confederates — all beard and dirt-smeared skin beneath the brim of his helmet. The man was shouting something, but Devereau couldn’t hear what he was saying. All he could hear was his pumping heart and that distant rumble.

‘I am all right!’ he shouted back at the man. Not that he could hear himself. Not sure if he’d shouted it or whispered it. The man helped him on to his feet, and Devereau quickly patted himself down to make sure he hadn’t been nicked by shrapnel.

The arterial thumping in his ears had become a shrill ringing that he imagined would drive him very quickly insane if it was a permanent condition. He picked his forage cap out of the dark soil between his boots and put it back on. Straightening the peak, he saw a dozen faces down the trench looking warily at him.

They’re watching you … Show them some bravado.

He pulled his sabre — more a ceremonial addition than a practical one — from its scabbard and held the blade close to his face, using the polished surface as a mirror as he adjusted his cap and straightened his collar. He gave himself an approving nod before tucking the sabre back, knowing there’d be a ripple of grins among the men either side.

The ringing in his ears was beginning to diminish and this time he could just about hear the Confederate soldier’s voice.

‘… ir, the … arrage … opped!’

‘What?’ He cupped his ear.

The man nodded over the lip of the trench. ‘Stopped, sir! Barrage has stopped!’

Devereau took a step up on to an ammo box to give him a good clear view ahead.

Stopped … yes, they have! He could feel the sporadic vibrations of impact and shockwave had ceased. And now the cratered slope in front of them was bathed in a swirling mist of white smoke.

‘Smoke,’ he whispered. The last volley of artillery fire had been establishing a smokescreen. He turned to the Confederate beside him. ‘They’re coming!’

After the relentless noise of the bombardment the sudden calm was unsettling. His ears, the ringing diminished now to background hiss, struggled to pick out the noise of the approaching British. In that cloud of smoke, somewhere, they’d be crossing the East River now — God knows how many landing boats, sputtering across the water.

‘Ready yourselves, men!’ he shouted across the silence. ‘Check your weapons, check you have ammo supplies to hand! It goes far too quickly, gentlemen!’

He looked out again at the featureless wall of white drifting on the breeze. He cursed that today of all days the weather was so still. Any other time, a stiff Atlantic breeze would have already whisked away much of the smokescreen.

‘Sergeant Freeman!’

‘Sir!’ his voice returned from further up the trench.

‘Are you ready for a scrap?’

‘Ready, sir? Been ready all mornin’, Colonel. Now ah’m just gettin’ downright annoyed they takin’ so long.’

He heard a ripple of nervous battlefield laughter make its way along the men.

Devereau smiled. Good man, that Freeman.

Then he heard it … the faint droning put-put-put of a chorus of engines coming from somewhere out there on the river. He reached for his revolver, unclipping the holster and wrapping his gloved hand round its grip. He pulled it out a little too quickly. It caught and he nearly dropped it on the ground. But he didn’t.

The Confederate next to him made a face. He’d spotted the fumble and offered Devereau an understanding nod. Luckily none of the other lads had seen.

He sighed. Last thing his men needed to witness was just how scared their colonel felt.

He could hear the engines more clearly, and make out now, amid the swirling smokescreen, the faintest outline of a dozen flat-topped landing rafts approaching. He’d seen the South use these before: huge rafts with raised side-panels that dropped down as it beached. Each of these landing rafts was capable of transporting an entire company of men.

Good God … twelve hundred men, two whole regiments, in the very first wave?

He found himself momentarily robbed of breath.

Steady yourself, Colonel.

He filled his lungs. ‘Wait until they drop the ramps, men!’ he bellowed. ‘Then we’ll give ’em hell!’

A defiant cheer rippled down the trench.

Much closer now he could make out detail on the landing rafts, the fluttering of company colours above, the outline of an officer standing beside the helmsman at the back of each craft. He heard the pitch of the engines drop and then, finally, a clatter and hiss as one after the other the dozen large landing rafts rode up the shingle and out of the water, grinding to a halt.

He could hear the muffled voices of British officers barking orders behind their raised metal panels. Readying their men for the disembarking. Several nervous shots were fired from the trench, sending sparks flying off the panels.

‘Hold your goddamned fire!’ roared Sergeant Freeman.

Devereau’s mouth was dry.

Any second now.

He could hear the chorused voices of men down the slope. They huzzahed at something being said to them, a roar of confidence. The roar of veterans certain that this little skirmish was going to be over before the last of the swirling smokescreen had blown away.

Then he heard a bugle blowing.

Simultaneously all twelve landing rafts dropped their panels. They swung down heavily and crunched on to the shingle, forming ramps. Devereau found himself transfixed at the sight of so many of them — swarms of blood-red tunics and white helmets — surging down off their rafts.

‘FIRE!!!!’