The Last, Long Night (#5 in the Bregdan Chronicles Historical Fiction Romance Series) (55 page)

Thomas turned to her as soon as he had closed the door firmly.  “I’m going to be broke, Carrie.”  He waved a hand at the sumptuously decorated bedroom with its high four-poster bed and elegant wardrobe.  Beautiful pictures adorned the light blue walls, and a soft breeze had the soft white curtains puffing back from the window.  As beautiful as it was, it still held a distinctly male feel that suited her father.  “All of this may be gone soon.  I will have no money.”

“You’ve spent it all?” Carrie asked faintly, wondering why this eventuality hadn’t dawned on her. 

“No, but all I have is worthless now.  I converted it all to Confederate currency when the war started.  It will have no value when the war is over.”

“I see,” Carrie murmured, her thoughts spinning.  “The plantation?”

“It belongs to us free and clear,” Thomas said firmly, then scowled.  “Assuming it’s still standing and the federal government doesn’t take it as retribution.”

Carrie stared at him with burning eyes.  Such a thought had never entered her mind.  She had been so worried about its burning; she had never stopped to think about what would happen after the war.  “You can’t go back home, Father?”

“I’ll be a man on the run,” he said shortly.  “I don’t know what will happen.”

“I’ll go back to the plantation and wait for you,” Carrie said instantly, knowing it was the right thing to do as soon as the words passed her lips.

Thomas smiled tenderly.  “Your husband may be eager to get back home to Oak Meadows,” he reminded her.

“His mother is there,” she insisted.  “He will not want you to lose the plantation, and I certainly don’t want to lose it.  We’ll wait for you, and then we’ll go to Oak Meadows.”  She wondered briefly when her plans would include medical school, but she knew the country would have to settle down first.

Thomas reached for her hand.  “Thank you.  No one knows what will happen, but I appreciate what you want to do.  I’m afraid there is nothing but darkness ahead for us.” 

“Perhaps,” Carrie acknowledged gently, “but the darkness always ends, and the light always shines again.”  Her eyes glittered with confidence. “This long, dark night will end.”

Thomas stared into her eyes and then shook his head.  “I wish I had your confidence.  I’ve leaned on you so much in the last four years since your mother died.  I don’t know how you have borne the weight.”

Carrie squeezed his hand tightly.  “There have been many more times you’ve been there to help
me
bear the weight,” she replied softly.  “It’s what family does.”

“Yes,” Thomas agreed, a catch in his voice as he gazed at her lovingly.  “I am indeed a lucky man… but I’m also a man running out of time.”  He walked over to the wardrobe and beckoned her to join him.

Carrie watched as he pushed a button hidden at the back of the wardrobe and then stared in astonishment as a small door swung slowly open to reveal a cavity in the wall.

Thomas smiled at the look on her face.  “Not nearly as impressive as the tunnel, but it’s come in handy.  I want you to know it’s here.”

“What’s here?” Carrie asked, still bemused as she stared into another hidden place she’d had no idea existed.

“Gold,” Thomas replied.  “It’s too heavy for me to take with me to Lynchburg, so I’m entrusting it to you.  I want you to know it’s here.  If you have a chance to get it out to the plantation and hide it in the tunnels, it might be enough to help me get started again. If something happens to me, it will be yours.”

“Gold?” Carrie echoed, choosing to block out the suggestion her father would not return.

“There’s not much;” Thomas admitted, “certainly nothing that would replace the fortune I’ve spent these last four years, but it might be enough to survive and start over.”

Carrie stared at the glistening bars and then nodded, tears shining brightly in her eyes.  “I’ll do the best I can, Father.  Your job is to stay safe and come home.  I will not go to Oak Meadows with Robert until I know you are safe.”

“And then?” Thomas asked, fixing her with his eyes.  “Your dream is not to be a plantation wife.  You’ve spent the last three years working as a doctor.  What are you going to do about that?”

Carrie looked at him as he asked the question that had been pounding in her heart and head for weeks, and then she shook her head.  “All we can do is take one day at a time and see what happens,” she said, the exhaustion completely swamping her as she faced a question she had no answer to. 

Thomas squeezed her hand, his eyes saying he understood the struggle she was enduring.  “He loves you, Carrie.  The two of you will find your way together.”

“All I care about is my two favorite men coming home to me safely,” Carrie said firmly, willing away the tears she knew would fall as soon as she was back in her room.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Matthew sipped hot coffee while he stared in the direction of Richmond, fog blanketing the ground and floating up into the cool air.  Heavy smoke from the night’s bombardment mixed with the fog and stung his lungs.  He nodded briefly as Peter strolled up to join him.  “I’ll be glad when this war is over and I don’t have to get up at two o’clock in the morning,” he grumbled, feeling the ache of sleeping on hard ground, “especially when all the bombing didn’t stop until midnight.”

Peter blinked his bleary eyes and reached for the coffee pot.  “You and me both,” he growled.   He stared out over the battle preparations happening in every direction.  “I wonder whether Lee knows what is about to happen?” he mused.

“I’d be surprised if he doesn’t,” Matthew murmured.  “The question is whether he is pragmatic enough to realize he doesn’t stand a chance, or if he is foolhardy enough to fight back and risk his entire army.”  He looked northward again.  “Quite a concert last night,” he commented, wanting to think about something other than war.

Peter smiled.  “I was thinking last night that it might be the last concert I hear on the battlefield.  These have been going on for the last four years – each band, Yankee and Rebel, trying to outdo the other with their renditions of
Dixie, Hail Columbia,
and
My Maryland

“Don’t forget
The Star-Spangled Banner
, our national anthem,” Matthew said, mesmerized as always that war could produce such moving music.  “My most vivid memory is a battle of the bands last winter on both sides of the Rapidan River that finally ended in both bands playing
Home Sweet Home
.  I watched Union men cry, and I’m quite sure there were tears on the Rebel side, as well.”

Peter nodded.  “I remember.   I also remember wondering how many of the men on either side of the river were related, and whether they would kill their brother or father the next day.”

Matthew tightened his lips as he stared at the Confederate lines.  He was certain Robert was standing in one of those trenches right now - if he had lived through the night.  He was grateful, as he had been throughout the war, that he would never have to shoot a gun at his friend.  Now he just hoped Robert would live through what was coming.  “I’m wondering whether there are any Rebels left after the bombardment last night.” 

“It was after midnight before the shelling stopped,” Peter said grimly.  “I’m sure it was the heaviest exchange of artillery since the battle for Petersburg began.  Grant is serious about taking Richmond.”

“It felt like an earthquake from all the explosions.  I don’t know how there can be any Rebels left to fight us.”  He glanced back at the masses of men taking their position in the early morning darkness and then stared toward Richmond and thought of Carrie.

“The Rebels are there,” Peter replied as he took Matthew’s arm.  “Time for us to get behind the lines,” he said.  “The battle should start soon.  I’d rather be
behind
the bullets instead of in front of them.”

              Robert woke up coughing, his lungs burning from heavy smoke as he struggled to take deep breaths.  It had been after midnight before the barrage of artillery shells had finally stopped.  He had no idea how many had been killed;  but he was certain it had been only the prelude to a much bigger battle.  Every quivering nerve, still exhausted after just a couple hours of sleep broken by coughing fits, told him this would be the day.    A mist combined with darkness completed a curtain that Robert felt separated his position from the rest of the world.

“They’re coming ain’t they, Captain?”

Robert glanced at Alex staring over the top of the trench.  “I believe they are,” he agreed quietly. 

“I’ve been watching the last few days,” Alex said nervously.  “They’ve sure been getting a lot of reinforcements.”  He squatted down beside Robert.  “We don’t stand a chance.”

Robert wanted to deny that statement, but he opted for honesty.  “I believe you’re right.”

Alex took a deep breath.  When he spoke, his voice was both hard and vulnerable.  “I heard Pickett’s boys took a mighty beating yesterday from that Yankee Sheridan.”

Robert hesitated; he wasn’t sure truth was the best option this time.  “There was a battle,” he agreed, searching for words.

“You can tell me how bad it was, Captain,” Alex said quietly.  “I was sure hoping our boys could whup Sheridan and make up for everything he did up in the Shenandoah, but I’m thinking that didn’t happen.”

Robert could hear a maturity in the battle-hardened youth that demanded his respect.  “It was a complete rout,” he admitted.  “Close to five thousand prisoners were taken.”

A long silence gripped the night.  “You really think them Yankees can get past all our fortifications?” Alex finally asked. 

Robert knew every inch of the ground in front of their trenches.  He could envision the layers of wooden barricades that protected them, but he knew the brute force of far superior numbers could overwhelm them.  He remained silent.

Alex interpreted his silence and swallowed hard.  “You reckon we gonna live through this one?”

Robert laid his hand on Alex’s thin, muscular shoulder.  “That’s the plan,” he said confidently.  “Lee will try to hold them off, but his bigger plan is to allow all of us to evacuate and move out of these trenches.”

“We’re getting out of here?” Alex asked with almost pathetic hope in his voice.

Robert nodded.  “Yep.  We tried that with Fort Stedman.  Since we couldn’t break through, we’re going to swing around them and go down to join General Johnston in North Carolina.  Lee has supplies stockpiled for us southwest of here.  The general figures once we’re out of these trenches our superior fighting ability will turn the tide.”

Alex brightened, his shoulders squaring back as his eyes flashed with pride.  “General Lee has that right!  Get us out of this mud, and it won’t matter how many Yankee soldiers come after us.  We’ll handle them with no problem,” he boasted.

Robert smiled, knowing Alex needed confidence more than anything, but he knew exactly what bad shape the Confederate army was in.  He was terrified to evacuate and leave Carrie, along with Thomas, to Union occupation, but he knew desertion was not an option for him.  He would continue with Lee’s army for as long as there was an army, but his heart would remain in Richmond.

Alex read his mind.  “It’s going to be right hard to leave your pretty wife isn’t it, Captain?”

Robert merely nodded, staring into the darkness beyond the trench.  The tightening in his gut said something would happen soon.  He’d learned to sense battle before the first shot was ever fired. 

Boom!

The first shot of the battle sounded at close to half past four o’clock in the morning.  All around him his men stood to their feet, aimed over the trench tops, and began to fire.  The rain of artillery shells that descended on them was like nothing they had ever experienced. The whole sky pulsed and shuddered with great sheets of light.  Jagged flames lit the horizon as the Confederate guns replied.  The battle smoke piled up in monstrous thunderheads, fitfully visible in the flash of exploding shell – a dark canopy of impending doom.

Robert gritted his teeth and sank down to the bottom of the trench as he motioned his men to join him, knowing none of them could fire into that kind of barrage and also certain the Federals wouldn’t advance under that kind of fire.

He didn’t know how long the firing continued before silence finally swallowed them again.  Robert looked down his line, the gray sky of dawn giving him enough light to see most of his men staring back at him.  The shells, for the most part, had gone over their trenches.  He would mourn the dead later.

He was suddenly alerted by another mysterious sound.  He raised his hand to keep his men silent and strained his ears to determine what it was.  It sounded like a deep distant rustling; like a strong breeze blowing through the swaying boughs and dense foliage of some great forest. 

Curiosity got the best of him.  When Robert peeked over the top of the trenches, his blood froze.  The sound of rustling was the noise made by thousands of Federal soldiers tramping toward their position over soft, damp ground.