Free Soldier of the Queen by Max Hennessy Page A

bullets started flying in every direction. Shouts were going up on all sides now and the whole area seemed to be shaken by the pounding of hooves as a swarm of ragged riders, difficult to see in the darkness, exploded across the camp. A tent went down and a fire was kicked to sparks and flying embers as a horseman crashed across it.
    The colonel of the Maine regiment appeared out of the darkness. He was riding a horse in front of a small group of blue-coated soldiers who were firing raggedly at the flitting shadows. But they were silhouetted by the fires and as a solid volley crashed into them from the trees, the colonel fell to the ground and the few men still on their feet bolted.
    An officer in a grey coat with a yellow sash wheeled his mount and, slipping from the saddle, bent over the sprawled figure.
    ‘That’s not him,’ he said.
    Alongside him a trooper, gaunt, hairy and barefooted, was dragging the boots and socks from the colonel’s feet. Stuffing them under his arm, he let the naked foot flop back to the ground and held up the boots, grinning gleefully. The colonel was clearly dead and his worries would bother him no more.
    Carbines were still snapping among the trees and yells of delight came as food and whisky were unearthed. The Federals had vanished into the woods down the slope and were keeping up a smart rattling fire, but it all seemed to be going too high.
    Flames were leaping into the air, and an ammunition wagon exploded in a crimson flower, sending showers of sparks and rocket-like trails in every direction, to scatter the grey-coated soldiers.
    The blast bowled Colby over and, as he scrambled to his knees, he saw a running fight going on. Giving Ackroyd a shove, they half-fell into a clump of mountain laurel, and raising their heads, they saw Cluseret’s French aides trying to make a dash for safety. One of them succeeded and vanished into the shadows, but a shot brought down the second so that he fell on his face, his body skidding inertly across the ground until it was stopped by a shrub.
    The officer with the yellow sash was just about to dismount again when Cluseret himself appeared, wearing only a shirt and trousers. The young officer hauled his horse around.
    ‘Cluseret!’ he yelled. ‘You two-timing sonofabitch!’
    As he spurred forward, Cluseret’s arm lifted. His revolver jerked, and the young officer dropped the sword and rolled over the tail of his horse. His eyes flickering from side to side, Cluseret plunged into the clump of laurel alongside Colby just as the Confederates swarmed round them.
    ‘You bastards was supposed to be attackin’ the other end of the line,’ a captured Federal corporal was yelling disgustedly.
    ‘That’s why we attacked this end,’ one of the Confederates said. ‘Who’s your commandin’ officer?’
    The man he addressed jerked a hand. ‘That’s him, lying there. You bastards shot him.’
    ‘Not him, ’ the Confederate snapped. ‘The general. Who’s the general?’
    ‘Cluseret? He’s a Frenchman.’
    ‘The treacherous dog was fightin’ for us until he went north with our goddam plans. How the hell did you think you whipped us at Pegler’s Mill? It warn’t skill, I can tell you!’
    The camp was clearing rapidly and the Confederates were moving out already, stumbling under their loot. Two or three wagons lurched away and a man on a horse went past dragging at the halters of half a dozen led animals.
    As the last of them vanished among the trees, the camp became still. A rifle popped occasionally and there was shouting among the trees, then suddenly it was silent except for the movement of shadows and the crackle of flames.
    Rising to his feet, Colby glanced round. Cluseret was still hugging the ground among the laurels, and Colby stared at him, unimpressed.
    ‘Let’s see if we can find our nags,’ he said to Ackroyd. ‘Perhaps they’ve escaped.’
    As they stepped from the clump of bushes, there was the click of a weapon being cocked