Free The Battle of the Crater: A Novel by William R. Forstchen, Newt Gingrich, Albert S. Hanser

said,” Stan gasped, mouth bloody from the drubbing dealt out by his brother.
    “Sorry ’bout that, Yank. It was them damn South Carolina boys off to our left. They’re meaner than snakes,” a cry echoed from the other side.
    “Tell ’em the next one of ’em I see they’re dead. They damn near killed my brother!” Johann cried.
    Silence from the other side.
    “He must be a fresh fish standing up like that,” and there was a chorus of chuckles.
    Johann did not reply, holding his brother tight.
    “I promised father I’d bring you back safe,” Johann snarled, delivering an angry punch to his brother’s side. “Don’t stand up like that, ever.”
    Obviously shaken, Stan did not reply.
    “Still safer here than some of the mines we worked in back in Pottsville,” Michael announced, sitting against the wall of the trench, working a patch down his rifle to clean it out before reloading.
    “Ya, that it is, that it is,” Hans Lubbeck, a corporal with the company, replied, biting off a chew of tobacco and handing the thick, dark block of cured tobacco over to Johann, who, still a bit shaken, sat back against the red clay wall of the trench.
    Johann bit off a chaw, offering it to his brother, who, ashen faced, shook his head, and then gave it back to Hans.
    “Found it on a dead Reb last week when we took their first line,” he sighed. “Doubt if we’ll get any more for a long time to come. We stuck in this damn hole forever now.”
    A chorus of agreement greeted his words, the men falling into casual complaining about the war, the trenches, everything.
    “That Reb was right,” one of them offered. “If we all stood up, met in the middle, and talked it out decent like, we’d be going home by the end of the day.”
    “Home to what?” Hans replied. “The coal mines? Jesus, I don’t know about you men, but I say, it is safer here.”
    “Cave in, it’s quick and you already got your grave, just need a priest then to consecrate it,” one of them replied. “Think about the poor bastards shot at Cold Harbor. No cease-fire, them screaming and begging for water under that hot sun. No thank ye, I’ll take the mines.”
    The debate went back and forth, pausing as a watering party crawled out of the communications trench, lugging canteens refilled from the swampy creek a couple of hundred yards to the rear.
    The temperature in the narrow confines of the trench, dug into the brick-red Virginia clay, was near 100 degrees or more; the noonday sun beating down on the sweating, suffering men.
    “To hell with going back to the mines,” Michael announced, finished with cleaning his rifle, reloading it, and cautiously venturing a peek through the inch-wide aperture of his spider hole. “That damn Rebel fort up there will be the death of us anyhow. Some lunkhead general will get frustrated and finally order a charge, and then, me laddies, no more worries.”
    A minié ball buzzed over Michael’s head. He stuck his hand up for a second to wave and then ducked back down. Several seconds later there was a dull thump.
    “Mortar,” Johann announced.
    All eyes turned heavenward and a couple of seconds later they could see the shell arcing heavenward.
    “Two bits say it’s short and to the left,” one of the men announced.
    “I’ll take that, long and to the left by twenty yards, is where my money is,” Michael replied.
    The round reached apogee, started its descent, and seconds later Michael was grumbling as he handed a quarter over.
    He sagged back against the trench wall.
    “Boys, I know how to get us the hell out of here.”
    “Don’t start that desertion talk again, Michael O’Shay,” Johann snapped. “I won’t stand for it.”
    Michael grinned.
    “No, seriously, Sergeant. I was a blaster in the mines; you all know that. Hell, after the war I’m going out west, make good money blowing tunnels when they build that railroad to California.”
    “If they build it,” one of the men grumbled.
    “So how