William Monk 11 - Slaves of Obsession

dust.
    Monk stiffened. “Our best chance of getting Breeland is if we can find him in the battlefield and take him by force, as if we were Confederates capturing a Union officer. No one will think anything odd of it, and from the fancy dress party of uniforms you’ve got, no one will know who anybody else is anyway! You could probably be joined by ancient Greeks and Romans without causing a stir, from what I’ve seen. You’ve already got Scots with kilts, French Zouaves in every color of the rainbow, not to mention sashes around the waist and everything on their heads from a turban to a fez!”
    “They were supposed to be in gray,” Trace said with a shake of his head. “And the Union in blue. God! What a mess! We’ll be shooting friends and foes alike.”
    Monk wished desperately that he could offer any comfort.If it had been England fighting its own he would not know how to bear it. There was nothing good or hopeful to say, nothing to ease the terrible truth. To try would be to show that he did not understand—or worse, that he did not care.
    They took horses—there were no more carts or carriages to be hired—and rode through the night towards Manassas, stopping only for a short while to rest. The knowledge of what lay ahead prevented anything but the most fitful sleep.
    By early Sunday morning just before dawn they passed columns of troops marching at double speed, others at a full run. Monk was horrified to see their sweating bodies stumbling along, some with haggard faces, gasping for breath in air already hot and clinging in the throat, thick with tiny flies.
    Some men even threw away their blankets and haversacks, and the roadside was strewn with dropped equipment. Later, as the sky paled in the east and they got closer to the little river known as Bull Run, there were exhausted men tripped or fallen and simply lying, trying to regather some strength before they should be called upon to load their weapons and charge the enemy. Many of them had taken off their boots and socks, and their feet were rubbed raw and bleeding. Monk had heard at least one officer trying to get the men to slow down, but they were constantly pressed forward by those behind and had no choice but to keep moving. He could see disaster closing in on them as inevitably as the heat of the coming day.
    Monk started as he heard the sharp report of a thirty-pounder gun firing three rounds, and he judged it to be on the side of the river he was on and aimed across to the other, close to a beautiful double-arched stone bridge which took the main turnpike over the Bull Run. It was the signal for the battle to begin.
    He looked at Trace beside him, sitting half slumped in the saddle, his legs covered with dust, his horse’s flanks sweating. This would be the first pitched battle between the Union and the Confederacy; the die was cast forever, no more skirmishes—this was war irrevocable.
    Monk searched Trace’s features and saw no anger, no hatred, no excitement, only an inner exhaustion of the emotions and a sense that somehow he had failed to grasp the vital thing which could have prevented this, and now it was too late.
    Again Monk tried to imagine how he would feel if this were England, if these rolling hills and valleys dotted with copses of trees and small settlements were the older, greener hillsides he was familiar with. It was Northumberland he saw in his mind, the sweep of the high, bare moors, heather-covered in late summer, the wind-driven clouds, the farms huddled in the lea, stone walls dividing the fields, stone bridges like the one crossing the creek below them, the long line of the coast and the bright water beyond.
    If it were his own land at war with itself it would wound him so the pain would never heal.
    Behind them more men were drawing up and being mustered into formation, ready to attack. There were carts and wagons rigged up as ambulances. They had passed pointed-roofed tents that would serve as field hospitals, and seen men and women, white-faced, trying to think of anything more they could do to be ready for the wounded. To Monk it had an air of farce about it. Could these tens of thousands of men really be waiting to slaughter each other, men who were of the same blood and the same language, who had created a country out of the wilderness, founded on the same ideals?
    The tension was gathering. Men were on the move, as they had been since reveille had been sounded at two in the morning, but in the dark few