(Not) NANOWRIMO – The Courthouse, Chapter Twelve

April 6, 4:00am

We turned out of our tents before the sun rose. Fires lit for a rushed meal and a cup of poorly brewed coffee; a quick sup of something to put fire into the spirit; feet stamping in the cold as a mob of sullen men, their passion now ebbing low, waited for discipline to take hold and get them on the move.

The word was everywhere; we were marching on Lee’s position, we’re he’d been waiting to resupply his army just a ways up the rail line. Though, after yesterday’s action, that didn’t seem to be working so well. The horses and men that had come into our lines were from a sharp fight to protect a baggage train – that’s what had been burned. Wagons, supplies, the whole lot, gone to ashes rather than rebel bellies.

So we would march, north, but I did not expect to find Lee. He’d be gone, again, looking for some desperate way out of the trap slowly drawing around him.

(Not) NANOWRIMO: The Courthouse, Chapter Eleven

April 5

I woke slowly, wondering at… something. It took me a moment to realise that someone had allowed me to sleep through revile. The sun was up, and I could feel it warming my blanket. It was a rare luxury, and I wondered who to thank. I lay there, eyes closed, just enjoying the fact that no one was yelling at me, cussing me into line or column of march, or shooting at me. I saw a hand pointing at the sky, pale skin dotted with dark blood. I took a deep breath, tasted smoke, smelt coffee, and I opened my eyes.

I started with a yelp. Someone was kneeling over me, a dark shape outlined in fire by the morning sun. I scrambled back on my haunches, blanket trailing and tangling my legs, and I fell on my back. I yelped again, and…

(Not) NANOWRIMO: The Courthouse, Chapter 10

April 4, 3pm

We found the brigade long gone, a pall of dust to the west as they marched on Jetersville. Back east, in the silence of the empty Namozine Road, we could just spy another column approaching, the rest of the division, leading the bulk of the Corps itself.

But here, the wind just sighed through the trees, broken only by scattered firing to the north and east. And even that was quieting down as the afternoon wore on.

“Did you get a shot at the rebel,” Abraham said. He’d had a strange look on his face the entire walk back to the main road. I hadn’t said anything; I was sure that Enoch and Boytz knew what must have happened, but Abraham just couldn’t see that kind of wrong in a man.

(not) NANOWRIMO: The Courthouse, Chapter Nine

April 4, 4am

Bugles dragged us from sleep, well before sunup, and well before 6am, the usual time of our rousting. All around was the taut silence of sleeping men at war, and then, like a lantern un-shuttered, all was motion.

I felt my blanket crackle as I moved – a late frost speckled it with diamond-like points of chilled light. I coughed – as did a thousand other men – and felt something wet shift in my lungs. Sleeping on damp ground, waking to a blanket slick and wet, will do in a man almost as fast as a limb rotten with gangrene. I could hear some deeper sounds from the camp, men whose lungs had seen too many open fields and cold mornings, and hoped that this would all be over soon.

NANOWRIMO: The Courthouse, Chapter Eight

April 2 and 3

We camped not far from the road, men slowly coming together from points all over the field through the night. Among the trees campfires were lit, and as stars dotted the night sky, we had our first real chance at rest in days.

I slept, and had not a single dream – least, none that I could recall upon waking. I slept so deeply, awoke so refreshed – like I was born again – that it was a sore shock to remember that Israel was gone.

Boytz was quietly fussing about Abraham, pouring him a cup of coffee, and putting some food in front of him when I left my tent. I listened for Hendersen’s fiddle, but I would never hear that again, I remembered. Miller was hard at work brushing his coat, trying to get now mostly dry blood out of it. Hendersen’s blood. I grabbed some coffee for myself and sat with Sergeant Derr.

Well, that was… a thing

So, regular readers, you may have noticed a slowing down on Nanowrimo. The book’s still going, but I had a little… anxiety relapse over the weekend, and… Yeah. Here’s what I wrote about it on Facebook:

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Some thoughts on the weekend’s anxiety.

So, I had a good long think (and it’s gone, so yay), about where it all came from, and I think my best answer is… a lotta stuff. Nothing too big, and all relatively easily handled, but there’s enough of it, with some unique twists, that I think I know what happened.

NANOWRIMO: The Courthouse, Chapter Seven

April 1, 6:00pm

We never got to bury poor Israel.

After a while of standing by his body a horse came up through the thinning smoke. We heard it, its hooves striking fallen wood, and the skittish sound a horse makes when it can smell blood. It was only yards away, but we paid it no mind. I had no sense for the passage of time, but when I heard the sounds of a rider dismounting, I turned at last.

It was General Chamberlain, and I had never been so close to the man. I must have made some noise, or a sudden, clumsy move to salute, for then Boytz turned, his musket level at his hip. Enoch looked up and wiped a hand across his face, but remained kneeling. Only Abraham couldn’t take his eyes off Israel.

“Don’t salute,” the General said. He stepped down hard out of the saddle, his mount shying away, and he stamped one foot, working the feeling back into it. “There’s been enough of that today.”

NANOWRIMO: The Courthouse, Chapter Six

April 1, 1pm

It’s a wonder we made it to the farm.

It was a fine collection of buildings – a big, red barn, a white-panelled house, white-fenced yard. Nothing grand; not a palatial residence, but comfortable, and set in acres of good farming land. Some shade trees, flowers in a turned bed of earth. Kind of place you’d have and be proud for the having.

All that ruined it was the 12,000 men now arrayed about its fields, under hastily thrown up tents, hunching wearily over pots of coffee and half-cooked rations. There were some animals, in the barn – I could hear the lowing of cattle – and I feared they would not last our occupation. Tents stretched to the very edges of the fields, and smoke from numerous fires turned the sky a dirty brown below a cloud-streaked sky.

The farm, I had learned soon after pitching my tent as the sun had come up this morning, belonged to one Mr Boisseau. We’d been ordered here by General Sheridan – whose army we were now a part of, though many in the ranks did not approve of this shift – and it was as good place as any, putting us hard on the right flank of his cavalry. It was very likely we would move north and west to the crossroads known as Five Forks – five roads all leading around various points into and out of the Confederate rear.

NANOWRIMO: The Courthouse, Chapter Five

April 1, 4am

“But the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud,” Enoch said.

He was quoting scripture, as he was often want to do in extremes, but in this case he was correcting me. Though we had taken a huge bite out of the Confederate line, taken not inconsiderable casualties in the execution of which, and despite most of our Corps having broke, run, and reformed, and fought significant action, we were given no rest.

Instead, we had the particular joy of breaking contact with the enemy to our front, who we had soundly licked just hours ago, and marching away.

The ground was not to be given up, though, and it wasn’t as if we were fleeing. Rather, as one unit about-faced, and marched from the field, another swung in behind. If you could have looked at the thing from the air like a hawk, or on a well-drawn map, it may look like a piece of very fine military precision. In the dark, muddy fields, however, it was only a whisker from chaos at all times.

NANOWRIMO: The Courthouse, Chapter Four

March 31, 6:00am

The rain had let up at some point during the night. I had only a vague memory of the exact moment, for I was awake one second, and dead asleep the next for the silence. To wake up in a tent that was merely muddy and sodden, and not situated in a swift rushing stream, was quite the luxury.

That I was alone, in Corporal Anderson’s old tent, was… I don’t know how to describe it. For about half a year I had lived cheek by jowl with anywhere between one other private, and ten, back when we were initially formed, in these big, rotten, bell shaped tents that must have been old when the Mexican War was still a going concern. Even at home, I had shared a room with two brothers.

It was odd, is the best way to put. Not good, nor bad. Peculiar, so to say. But it was nice to have room to dress properly, to brush my coat, which was all muddy and riddled with burrs; to have a care with my boots, which were in sore repair, and well beyond polishing by now. I was looking forlornly at the mirror I had hung on one of tent poles the night before, and wishing for a pot of hot water to go with my razor.