I had already slept for about six
hours. I woke up and went to the kitchen and munched on some crackers
and drank some milk and went back to bed, a sure combination. It
usually puts me back to sleep for 3-4 hours. Sometimes I have deep
and extended dreams during this time period.
I will set this down so that you can
see enough of it to understand what happened. This was a sequential
dream, coming and going but always moving in one direction and not
repeating itself. It probably took several hours to occur. For some
reason I can experience very dense dreams, that are very wide scaled
and detailed and realistic, occurring in steady streams accented by
outbursts of imagination, and then filled in with details as my
dreams continue and I try to make sense of what just happened. And
yes, I do correct my dreams while I sleep. I learned how to do this
during the Thirteen Year War at the Hideous Boston Horrid Zone, where
everyone's dreams are constantly attacked by the Satanic and Queer
Lying-Dead; now known as the Proudless Prideless Pervert Pretenders
(PPPP-) (Minus the many Humans they have already killed).
I can also dream and hear and see and
feel full scale theater-wide films never-before-existing in a matter
of twenty minutes. I always wake up after such a dream feeling as
though my skull was in a vice all night. I stay in bed and try to
relax my brain for hours afterwards. This was not one of
those. Those film dreams are so detailed it would take months to put
one on paper. This dream was much more lazy and casual, but still
quite detailed and emotional.
*************************
Chapter One:
There was a great deal of movement in a
forwards direction. I saw many feet and lower legs running in the
same direction as myself and I had a sharp impression of many
bayonets being used against a mass of confused and gnarled and
disjointed bodies, apparently the enemy. I could not seem to rise
above waist level with my vision, and I missed a lot of the action --
but perhaps I was a horse and this is what us horses always see
anyway.
I was somehow deaf to most of the
sounds around me. The roars of cannons came to my mind as muffled
bursts and what I heard most was the shuffle of pants and feet and
the clang and smash of steel against steel. Steel rifles against
steel swords and bayonets. I made a great effort to discharge my two
revolvers into as many enemies before us as I could, and then with a
greater effort I looked upwards and sideways. At an angle I could see
many of my men shouting and screaming as they plunged their weapons
into a resisting wave of blue enemies, most of which began to die on
impact, but I could not hear the shouting. For a brief moment I was
worried about that.
Then, there followed a time when I was
walking on corpses and trying not to fall over dead horses, and they
seemed endless. We stopped at a line of dense trees, in which I could
see blue uniforms running away into the thickness, and I felt happy
about that. We all just sort of stopped then, and cleaned up our grey
and dusty clothes as though we had to go to a church meeting soon.
Slowly, I walked back towards our own lines, carefully reloading my
revolvers. My hearing began to return and I was giving orders to
sergeants to get the battalion back into order. I told one sergeant
major to bring all of our camp forwards to this new location and I
arranged for the mass burial of the dead. I was hurried now, to claim
this new ground knowing that living possession was crucial.
It was our light artillery which had
turned the tide of battle, that and our limited supply of cavalry. I
was later to learn that I had lost fourteen men, killed one hundred
seventy-one enemies and captured two square miles of front line;
there were no prisoners. When I heard of that it made me curse. One
hundred and eighty-five men dead for two square miles of forests and
meadows of Tennessee.
By now, my regiment was reduced by the
war to 722 men, from the original complement of 1200. We had escaped
becoming involved at Gettysburg due to the nature of our missions,
but my regimental colonel had been killed in action months ago;
placing me in command as an acting major with a battalion before he
perished from his wounds. I only had enough men left alive to
comprise a battalion anyway; and these I guarded as though they were
sacred. Soon enough I was confirmed as a real major by letters from
the confederate powers that be. At that time, I promptly called all
of my officers and non-coms together and I read out a battery of
promotions. Quickly I sent two first lieutenants to the eastern
Tennessee command headquarters to beg or borrow or steal as many men
as they could find to join our intrepid band of marauders; for that
is what we were -- Confederate Marauders. Raiders. Mountebanks.
Incursionists. Tricksters. Guerrilla Fighters. Specialized Assault
Forces. Virginians all.
Sooner than I expected, I got some good
news two days later when my lieutenants returned with 180 men under
tow, all veterans and all from South Carolina. I had to ask how they
came to be here, and they replied with southern laxity that they had
taken a wrong left turn while advancing on Washington. Nonetheless, I
was pleased to have them and they were integrated into the battalion
immediately; spread out into groups of twenty each. What was more,
seven wagons full of medical supplies and food stocks arrived,
dragged and pushed into camp by the South Carolinians. I immediately
dispatched four sergeants to the low lands to find as many broken
horses as they could, and to return with them posthaste. I told them
specifically that no explanations were needed to any civilians.
Now -- four days followed our latest
charge against the enemy, in which we kept our camp secure and my
long range scouts reported great movements of troops, blue and grey,
to our west and north. I kept my own council and refused to break
camp on any news. We were raiders, waiting for orders. We were well
situated to cause havoc upon the enemy and soon enough we got such
orders the next morning. Seventy-one horses arrived with four
sergeants and thirty volunteer militia mounted on those horses,
bringing my total to 932 men in all.
Meanwhile, I was standing in front of
my tent, half shaven, receiving a dispatch from a sergeant courier
from general headquarters. The Yankees had moved into the county just
northeast of our own, now under our control, and we were to carry out
a dogleg to the east and north, then attack their forwards ammunition
dump from the northeast; thus destroying their supplies and causing
confusion to the enemy at the same time.
I tossed and turned in bed for some
reason, or because of some detail. I then experienced a horizontal
dream blurring of time and space. Events moved past me and through me
quickly and I was running against the tide with both of my revolvers
uncased. Out of this I ran into another hot battle, shooting blue
uniforms and seeing my men rush past me with many torches afire and
held high. It was a night action and we were inside the enemy's
ranks, his prized ammunition was ours, his secured areas breached. We
shot everything in sight except ourselves and put the torch to it all
-- except for the ammunition. I turned around and called downhill for
the wagons. We had seized the dump and the opportunity to steal the
goodies. Twenty-four wagons we loaded with precious ammunition and
sent them south to our lines.
While this was underway, I spent a very
pleasant hour looking over a shipment of twenty twelve-pounder
cannons, which I decided would accompany us back to our side. They
were sorely needed, but I insisted on taking all of the related
wagons and supplies of gunpowder and shot as well; plus the many
horses needed for this, so it proved to be an arduous task. I was
rewarded by the thought that there would be many unhappy enemy
officers at this place tomorrow.
We were by no means new to the
pleasures of destroying enemy ammunition and supply depots. With
finesse and style we set off tons of explosives that in turn caused
the remainder of the dump to explode with great displays of
pyroclastic eruptions that soared high into the atmosphere, blowing
the place off the Tennessee map. Then, we quickly disappeared into
the deep Tennessee night becoming surrounded by forests so thick that
we could no longer see the inferno we had started behind us.
-----
It was a rescue mission that nearly
killed us all and almost ruined our effectiveness as a raiding force.
As the North steadily advanced on eastern Tennessee our forces became
intensely embroiled in counter actions and offensives against them in
central Tennessee. One such operation resulted in an entire division
being trapped in a large valley just north of the Blue Ridge
mountains by two Union divisions. Their retreat was cut off by a
brigade of northern infantry which held a vital pass through those
mountains. We should have used artillery to blast the Yankees out of
there, but instead I was ordered to attack and open the pass by the
brute force of small arms. I got about a third of the way into doing
this when my losses told me that it was useless, so I withdrew my
infantry and brought up my artillery instead. Using cannon barrages
and dynamite satchels and mortars I successfully wiped the pass clean
of Yankees, the survivors of which fled as usual into the wilderness.
Thereafter, we descended into the
valley and dislodged one of the Union divisions with identical
methods; causing widespread panic and sending many cowardly blue
asses running north; hopefully to Hell. Why they had few artillery
pieces of their own was never revealed to us, but we could guess.
This saved our southern division in
distress, but it displeased our area commander. He saw my actions as
a direct disobedience. Perhaps the news of our losses at Gettysburg
this last July had addled his brain. He stupidly accused me of
disobeying orders before a meeting of our division's officer corps.
Now, if you do not know anything about such meetings I will explain.
At officer corps meetings everyone is more-or-less equalized in rank.
The idea of such meetings is to reduce formality and increase
communications and comradery. It is much more social in intent than
formal and official. It is also, customarily, a place and time when
grievances can be aired and 'officer's fights' are allowed. Well, he
called me an 'insubordinate coward' and in reply I knocked him on his
butt with my right fist and challenged him to a duel of honor. With
dozens of officers watching he could not refuse. Two days later he
was buried with full honors and replaced by a more amiable fellow.
This commander wanted nothing to do with me and my raiders and we
were sent westwards into enemy territory and the worst fighting, to
be disposed of.
I figured two could play at that game
and I commandeered every scrap of ammunition and volunteers and
supplies and mules and wagons and artillery I could find until I was
beyond full brigade strength -- and -- on the first day of August I
set off for Texas. Without telling anyone where we were going.
We got about eighty miles before we
were swallowed up by the carnage and maelstrom of the war in central
Tennessee. I left the east with 7,892 men including myself. I had
been officially promoted to the rank of a full colonel by my new area
commander, but I never knew if the paperwork was actually forwarded
to Richmond for approval. Regardless, I had my own paperwork with
signatures and I dressed the part of a full colonel and acted the
part of a full colonel and I was addressed as such by everyone.
The nature of the fighting in western
Tennessee was more of a desperate mixture of chaos and insanity than
any semblance of a military order. Any unit of the Yankees that
thought another unit was Confederates just hauled off and attacked
them without checking their true identities; and most of the uniforms
in central Tennessee were so beaten and disheveled that they blended
together, neither grey nor blue. You could have three companies
standing at attention before you in a field and one could be northern
but you could not tell by their outward appearances which was which;
and so much weaponry exchanges and equipment scavenging had already
taken place that both sides were firing both side's weapons and
artillery. Consequently, we marched into death scenes where Union
Regiments had attacked each other, and the bodies all looked like us.
At other times we marched into death scenes of horrendous proportions
where the fighting had progressed (or digressed) into hand-to-hand
combats by the thousands. All dead. Farmlands were strewn with the
twisted and grimacing bodies of soldiers interlocked in frozen death,
having fought to beyond exhaustion.
The so-called 'fog of war' had
descended upon central Tennessee like a thick and smothering rug;
then I was wounded in my lower left leg during a forwards skirmish.
Soon thereafter, during our westwards march we were accosted by a
Union brigade that sought to impede our journey. We won an artillery
duel with them and they withdrew northwards across the farmlands.
It was the sight of their retreat that
gave me a plan. I still had more than seven thousand men left alive,
but about five hundred were walking wounded like myself. I decided to
attack the retreating Union brigade with a battalion of walking
wounded, led by myself. They were headed into hilly terrain with many
misty valleys and rising ridges around them and we could disguise as
a brigade ourselves and with the aid of two twelve-pounders (cannons)
we could put on a show of pursuit. Meanwhile, the real brigade
(6,500) would swing south and attempt to reach Texas through
Mississippi.
We were five hundred in all, and we set
off at a limping gallop, on foot of course, leading our horses.
Despite some of the comical comments spoken and doubts of our success
all around, the effort worked rather well; until we lost them in the
clouds. We followed them across the corn fields to many lesser hills,
popping away at their rear guards, until they lost us because we went
up a high hill crowned by ridges of granite, and on the other side
was a blanket of dense clouds. We got to the top and started back
down the far side, but the clouds were thicker than dense fog and so
thick you could cut them with your forearm. In there, only the dead
could win a fight, so I called for a halt. I was being carried on a
short wagon pulled by four soldiers with arm wounds at the time.
I intended to return by the path which
we had taken up the hill, and I ordered my wagon brought around, but
when we turned the clouds had blocked our exit and we heard close
sounds of heavy combats down below south. It couldn't be my brigade I
thought to myself. They should be a dozen miles south of here by now.
We listened and heard the unmistakable sounds of mass yelling and
shouting and volley fires and cannon shots that always attend a
ground battle. We saw nothing but heard it all, as often happens with
clouds. I heard no horses though. It could be the Yankees killing
each other, I thought. How they could see each other in those ground
clouds was beyond me, but I called for to make camp on the east side
of the road which went right over the hill dividing it into two
halves.
From my short-term memory (before the
clouds closed in) I remembered the hill to be about three miles on a
side at its base and one mile by such at the top, ringed with
semi-circles of granite at the top and probably twelve hundred feet
higher than its surroundings. In peacetime and clear visibility it
would have been a noticeable promontory, surely an outstanding
landmark. What lay around it I expected to be much lower hills
covered by hillside farmlands.
I called for a quick and silent camp.
While everyone went about that business I had one cannon crew
stationed looking down each of the road paths leading upwards to us,
and I had myself set down in my wagon looking down south. I sent four
scouts into the clouds on each pathway downwards with orders to go no
further than one hundred yards and stop. They took loaves of bread
and slabs of meat with them and disappeared into the vapors.
I listened. It was too bad I had not
known about this hill before I first saw it, there was room for the
entire brigade in the forests up here. The combat below had moved
westwards and only dying screamers were left behind in the clouds of
the valley below. Within an hour they were all dead and silence
covered us like molasses on pancakes. It was so god-damned quiet you
could hear it. The silence I mean.
I must have tossed and turned at this
time, readjusting myself in bed, for I thought more clearly and said
to myself “That is your brain you are hearing. Total silence never
exists if you are alive.”
I spent about three hours watching the
scene as the starlight became more faint and the night came on. The
clouds persisted all around us and if anything they became more
impenetrable. I called for two walkers (we had no one who could run)
and I sent one each down a side of the road to get reports. They came
back with requests for blankets and news that everyone is dead in the
valleys below.
My brigade sergeant major had checked
on me twice to see if I needed anything, and subsequently I was
wrapped in an overcoat and eating some hard tack while listening to
the silence and a mild but steady wind in the upper tree branches all
around me. He showed up again at sunset and I told him to start
chopping deadwood and get as many safe fires going as possible. No
one out there was going to see our campfires, they were either dead
or too busy killing each other. I had the road scouts changed and by
now it was fully dark. I decided to bed down on a mattress of leaves
and grasses next to the cannon that faced down northwards. The gun
crew there did likewise and we slept very heavily.
-----
Chapter Two:
I had given orders for two teams of
thirty men to walk down each decline of the road, north and south, at
first light. I wanted any and every farm that could be found to be
plundered for food. They were to take ten horses each and shoot any
livestock they could find; then to haul the bodies back up to the
camp. This was done with precision, waking me up in the process.
Eight cows, nine hogs and two deer resulted from this effort and I
immediately ordered them to turn around and go back down for more. I
then ordered the biggest portions to go to those of us who were both
the least wounded, could walk swiftly, and could still shoot a rifle
with accuracy. Tomorrow the 'Hunters' would venture further afield on
foot. I also gave them orders to mark and report the presence of any
herds of any kinds of animals that were edible.
Then the rains came. It began as and
remained a drizzle, but it was steady and soon it soaked into
everything and everyone. I retreated from the open spaces over the
road, wagon and all, to a makeshift wigwam made for me out of heavy
tree branches and mud where it was drier and much warmer inside and I
had my own fire.
By now we had a perimeter established
and I felt secure that no military units were going to be moving
about in this weather, so why not make some raids? A good idea, but
what was there to raid? My only map of the area was in my kit and
fortunately that was also in my wigwam and it showed a small town in
the valley down south and easterly. The fighting we had heard down
there in the clouds had swept from the east to the infinite west so
maybe the town was now deserted. It was after noon and the valley
clouds were darker than our own skies up here, which I figured when
combined with the tall corn fields would give twenty men on horses a
chance to move slowly and with secrecy upon the town. I was not
worried about their shooting at livestock. All day so far we had
heard sporadic and distant gunfire, once an entire volley somewhere
off to the far west. No one out there was keeping track of gunshots,
just making their own if they had to.
By three that afternoon the chosen
twenty left down the road on horseback and the camp went back to
their fires and sleeping. I slept heavily again catching myself
snoring twice, then someone kicked my boots and said “ers a report
for you ta hear kernal serr!” It was my own version of 'Deaf Smith'
except his name was Allowishious T. Wishbone (T for Terrible) and he
had the perfect set of a mule's manners with his superiors. He had
apparently been amongst the twenty dispatched into the southern
valley and now he was back and busting with the 'news'. But, before
he could speak again I heard the unmistakable sound of a herd of
cattle coming up the hill. “We done got that feller with all the
cattle with him that you wanted major!”
“What feller?!” “Well, what else
did you find Allowishious? And who sent you along?”
I got out of my wigwam and pulled
myself together while I heard the surprising news that only one
person was left in that town and he had two things that we needed ...
a herd of cattle and a lumber mill.
“Complete with hammers and nails?”
“Why yes serr ... and he done got a
hardwares storr down there!” Allowishiuos pointed past me and
southwards. What luck! But now I was faced with another decision.
Stay or try to get back east to our lines. Then I decided that if we
went anywhere it would be south to our lines. I would not be welcome
on an eastwards course.
-----
I hobbled about for a while after
sending Allowishious back down the road and the herd of cattle was
absorbed by the camp, the rain had slackened off and it was time (and
a chance) for me to slack off this war. We would stay here for as
many weeks as we could before having to move south to our own lines
for the winter; but down there starvation was starting to set in.
Something occurred to me then; I remembered a report that I had seen
at corp headquarters saying that last January, Abraham Lincoln had
issued a pardon for all Confederate troops that would surrender and
join the western service to fight the savage Indians and Mexico under
the invading Frenchies. I just remembered it, and then quickly
ignored it. But my thoughts did go back to our lines to the south
where our armies were beginning to suffer from starvation.
I had 498 wounded and hungry men and
Allowishiuos (unwounded) to think of. The war would have to wait or
scream on without us. Here, we would bring up lumber and build
shelters, starting for the worst wounded cases. There was a fresh
water well up here protected by an old well house, and firewood was
everywhere abundant, and now fresh meat and corn! Corn! August corn
is grown enough to eat, ain't it! When do they plant around here?
April! Then the corn is grown enough to mash and digest. I quickly
sent twenty more men hobbling down the south pathway with empty packs
on a mission to pick the biggest corn ears they could find in the
center of those cornfields. Now, I was feeling better with myself. I
was getting things done and soon we would have full bellies again;
but I forgot the cooking utensils so I had twenty again men on horses
ride down to the town and bring back every cooking pot and eating
utensil they could carry. The men could use their canteen cups as
food dishes.
'Boil the water' I said as I went back
to sleep with my boots on.
-----
Eighteen days passed and they were
peaceful for us. The war seemed to disperse away from our locality,
and we were able to heal up somewhat considerable. I now had five
classifications for my men ...
1. Defenders/Scouts
2. Foragers/Helpers
3. Sitters/Makers
4. Prone Wounded
and I had a special cadre of thirty
hunters; men who were able to properly aim a rifle and hit something
with it, plus get to somewhere where hitting something meant bringing
in food. Nevertheless, I had them hunt in teams of fours as they were
all shoulder wounds or hip and thigh injuries. I soon discovered that
they were more successful if they went in teams of six with two
horses. Two men would stay with the horses while out ahead four
others would hunt, and the smell of the horses masked a lot of the
smell of the hunters from their intended prey. The supply of fresh
game kept rolling in from five teams of six hunters each, but they
had to stretch farther outwards with each excursion as we were
depleting the nearby sources.
We were in the month of September now,
and on the night of the first Sunday of the month (the sixth) our
regular routine was bothered by the appearance of a great fire
somewhere to the west of our hill. We could not see the fire itself
for the trees, from our camp, but the hellish glow of it filled the
western night horizon. Defender Scouts reported that it was a town
about six miles from the hill, and brigands had put the torch to it.
The brigands were described as a pack of deserters and criminals and
opportunists, about forty of them. This became the first challenge to
our security on top of our newfound home, and we prepared to defend
ourselves. If they attacked us, or even learned of our whereabouts, I
wanted them all captured. No word of our existence must escape to the
world at war.
This could best be achieved by the
wounded duck routine. If, they rode north and kept on riding they
would certainly never see us up here. But, if they tried to come up
the road we would have to capture them or annihilate them if they
refused to surrender. That meant getting all of them to accommodate
our plans by riding together up the road and into the canyon-like
sections that were lined with granite cliffs on each side. In there,
they would have only two ways out, and if those ways were blocked
they would be trapped. I certainly had enough Defender Scouts to get
the job done. Three hunter teams were out foraging, but I had two
here and they would be our wounded ducks. Twelve men on foot would
walk down to the lowest part of the northern pathway where the
granite cliff walls came to an end. They would wait and watch, and if
the brigands came up the hill they would act frightened and hopeless
and run up the hill in a disordered manner. Being savages the
brigands would follow them, hoping to cut them down and strip them of
everything.
All of this came to pass (no pun
intended) about one hour before sunset. The next day we buried them
in a mass grave down in the northern valley and we went through their
papers and equipment and possibles. They had apparently gone through
several towns recently, burning as they went. Their saddlebags were
filled with both Yankee and Confederate paper monies and gold coins
and newspapers. Also, they carried the 'Records of Births and Deaths'
with them from three towns in Tennessee, for what reason we never
learned, but we kept them anyway.
I was especially interested in the
newspapers, which I devoured all the next night. Of course the
viewpoints expressed were biased, but it appeared (at least in print)
that the South was slowly losing Tennessee and I knew why. Poor
military leadership on our side.
Another six days came and went with
slightly colder temperatures setting in at night, each night. Those
clouds that had bothered us so much on our arrival had departed
within a few days, but our night fires were situated such that they
could not be seen anywhere else in Tennessee. We stayed warm and fed
and repaired ourselves as much as possible, then the clouds returned.
Thick rolling clouds, churning and tempestuous and not willing to
blanket the ground. Ground winds whipped across the lower farmlands
creating a bottom layer of cloudless visibility that was good for
about two miles in any direction, but right over that clearness the
dense blanket of clouds hovered above and mixed and moved in great
patterns that only Nature can achieve. Then, at a height of about one
hundred fifty feet they too dissipated to endless clear air above.
Thus, our visibility from the hill top was unlimited, except
downwards through the clouds.
I felt a foreboding about this, and
from it I resolved that our time here was coming to an end. I ordered
the making of all sorts of crutches and wagons and aids for moving
the men out of here. My only other choice was to dig in and wait for
the world at war to find us. If the South lost Tennessee it would
mean one last fight on this hill top, against overwhelming numbers.
Probably 20 to 1 odds. That was unlikely however. The Yankees could
just sit back and blast us off this hill with cannon barrages. Why
waste men taking a hill that could be pulverized and burnt to the
ground by artillery?
I decided that in the event of being
surrounded and overrun by Yankees, I would send the worst wounded
cases down to the enemy by the north pathway. The rest of us would
descend the hill directly to the east and, staying together, we would
try to get as far south as we could before we ran into a fight. It
was as far as my thinking had progressed when the morning came that a
great battle broke out in the clouds and fields to the north of our
hill. It began at daybreak at the far northern reaches of that
valley, and it swept like a flood towards our hill. It was a bizarre
sight. The sounds were tremendous and the shouting and screams and
cannon shots told us it was at least two opposing divisions locked in
a death grip with each other. The larger explosions broke through the
cloud banks and flew upwards, but as the fires grew below the clouds
themselves turned into a blend of smoky grey and fire red, the red
changing in intensity everywhere and always. I quickly had both of
our cannons aimed down the northern pathway through the granite cliff
sides, but the tide of battle reversed its course and moved away from
us and then eastwards.
Then it faded out, the customary
silence returned. I sent a hunter team down both pathways, and to
east and west; but they only found masses of fresh dead to the north
and hopeless wounded from both sides wandering and crawling in the
corn fields to the east. For two days we ransacked the battlefield in
the northern valley until we were almost exhausted. After some work
we refit four more cannons out of the ruins of perhaps a dozen that
had been left in the valley. We hauled up enough shot and powder to
put up a prolonged defense, but my mind was working at cross
purposes. I now had six cannons and I was preparing for a last stand
battle on the hill, but my instincts told me to get moving south, and
my caution told me the south was a deathtrap. In fact, very little in
the way of a battle had taken place to the south -- possibly an
indication that there was no one left alive down there.
The following morning was much clearer
than the previous week had been and only a blue ground mist rose from
the fields all around the hill as the star rose over the eastern
horizon. From the mists to the north Yankee soldiers began to appear,
very slowly and very poorly. I was immediately notified by the
sentries at the northern approaches, and my haste to see what was
happening drew a lot of attention from my fellows. They ran to the
tops of the cliffs there, which were quickly covered by curious
onlookers.
Slowly, dragging themselves and each
other and some little donkeys with them, there appeared hundreds of
disheveled and wounded and exhausted Yankees. They staggered as much
as tried to walk and many just walked in place for minutes at a time
getting nowhere until others behind them bumped into them and the
bunch would move ahead with a start. The idea of them walking the
distance from the valley floor down there to our summit up here was
not imaginable, but they began to squeeze into the roadway and totter
upwards as though drawn by some unseen force. Somewhere in my mind I
realized that they were being pushed by an unseen force, certain
death behind them.
The sentries down there walked amongst
them checking them for weapons and they had none, nor could they
speak. Many of them walked with heads down or dropped to their
chests, all were the walking wounded at best, all were shell shocked
(we knew the look of that very well). They slowly formed into a human
chain about eight bodies wide and perhaps sixty long. They were
utterly hopeless, as I had tested. I ordered a random sample of them
to be knocked over. Those that were, were unable to rise again by
themselves. I wondered how many hundreds or even thousands of them
lay dying in the fields to the north because they had fallen over
while trying to walk out of there.
Faced with this ghastly reality I
ordered the pathway to the north to be opened. The Yankee death march
continued slowly up the hill with our help. They were no good for
walking up any incline and they sporadically would falter and fall
backwards tumbling a dozen at a time. By the time they made it to the
summit all of our walking wounded were down there between the granite
cliffs helping the Yankees make it to the top. We put them right
across from our own camp on the west side of the road.
They had officers amongst them who were
as beaten down as the rest were, and they all lay on the ground
wherever they came to a stop, often lying over each others arms and
legs. Starvation was in their eyes. Their fingernails were all yellow
from poor health. Their wounds refused to stop weeping. No wounds had
been stitched no matter how dangerous. I ordered them to be sorted
out by ranks if that was possible, but they could not answer our
questions. I limped back to our side and sat on my wagon and looked
at the mess of them. I despise Yankees. I loathe the sight of them.
Killing them is a pleasure. They are just rats to me.
[[As if reminded by the seriousness of
the dream I was having, I suddenly saw visions of the horrific
'Abomination of Boston' with its little Tin Drum. It was lying and
intimidating and killing innocent People as it always does. It was
throwing innocent People to the Horrids, crowds of Horrids that were
the basis for the monstrosities shown in the film 'Omega Man';
except they were real and far worse. The crowds of Horrids were
screaming for Human blood and gnashing their teeth and slashing
themselves with leathermen whips and screaming hatred and obscenities
against all real life in the Universe -- and -- they were standing in
the senate chamber inside the Golden Pimple at the Hideous Boston
Horrid Zone -- home of the queer government of Massaturds -- a place
they now own. Their hatred and their venom rose and rose and rose
until they were shrieking at their worst volumes ...]]
-----
Chapter Three:
And I remembered the Prime Directive
... 'Humans Shall Help Humans Always'.
The seriousness of the dream began to
become more material and corporeal to me, I could genuinely feel the
pain that was coming from the Yankees-near-Death. I limped back to
their scattered masses and tried to sort out which one was the
highest ranking officer. I found a major, with an open skull on top
of his head. I began to speak to him ...
“That will not do. That is atrocious.
That is all wrong. I have a surgeon.” and I looked at the top of
his head which had been shaved bald by some faltering hand. From a
wide bare spot of flesh there appeared a crack in the flesh and the
skull. It was about four inches long and someone had tried to nail it
shut. Thin nails were jammed into the skull on either side of the
gash and then the nails were tied together by heavy black thread.
This had the effect of closing the skull back together, at least
mostly, and probably accounted for his still being alive. I paused
for a moment and wondered if we had any means of keeping the skull
plate together like this until it healed. But, if we kept it this way
and the skull and flesh knitted back together how would we remove the
nails? Probably with a steam pipe cutter and then we would file them
down to skin level. I was not happy with any of that, and I picked
him up bodily across my arms and began to limp over to our side
carrying him and saying to him that it would be alright.
“Do Yankees speak English?” I
thought. I really loath Yankees.
Now there was no question of leaving
the hill. I was the commanding officer and the Yankees were
technically my prisoners, putting them as my responsibility. Even the
Yankees had some kinds of Gods that would search for me forever if I
let these Yankees die as my prisoners. Everything about us changed,
perforced. As a unit we had come together on the hill, and by the
hill, as a single force. Albeit we were wounded in many places, but
our confederate wounds were slight and trivial compared to the
condition of the Yankee prisoners -- and did I mention? They all came
up the hill covered in blue dust. From the tops of their heads to
their boots they were smothered in blue dust, a fine blue dirt
powder. That took a lot of washing to get rid of and in a strange way
the dust had insulated them from further damage, keeping out
infections and insects; which by now were swarming over the dead on
the battlefield by the millions. Every available bug within twenty
miles was down there feasting. But not on these Yankees because of
the blue dust. Of course, whenever we washed it off really bad wounds
were revealed underneath.
Our emphasis changed universally. We
were now jailers with hundreds of responsibilities, 491 to be exact,
and our own wounds became much more tolerable. The rains returned
now, more heavy than before and we began the laborious process of
hauling lumber up the hill again, to make more lean-to's and wigwams
to put the worst Yankee wounded into. Many fires continued to blaze
in the night across our expanded camp, and I rode down to the
farmlands that night, to the west of the hill, and turning around I
could see a dull red glow over the entire hill top in the rain; but
it could not be helped. Every ten yards I rode over another dead
soldier, no longer distinguishable as a Yankee or a Confederate. Who
was alive to see? Sooner or later the winners, either or, would reach
this area to lay claim to it permanently, and then they would find
us. Until then, the Hell with all of them.
[[Then I was taken back to a hellish
place inside the Hideous Boston Horrid Zone and I heard the vile
screeching voice of a Killer Queer that had come to the nest of
perverts next door. It was demanding the death of myself and Queen
Barbara. It was saying that the population at the HBHZ was nothing
but cowards and self-interested cattle. It said they had an inside
agent that was telling them everything. It mentioned the Nulf
Monster, which I already knew about. It demanded death. It threatened
the perverts next door and said they would be de-funded if 'those
two' are not killed. Then one faggot shouted it wanted nothing to do
with killing and it ran out into River Street and jumped into a jeep
and sped away quickly ...]]
And I remembered the Prime Directive
... 'Humans Shall Help Humans Always'.
I urged my horse back up the hill and
personally inspected every soldier on either side, with sergeant
majors as guides. I gave personal orders and they wrote them down. I
wanted zero fatalities. So far we had been lucky with no casualties
from wounds, but I wanted more than luck.
After this, I dropped into my wigwam. I
fell to sleep immediately. Within twelve more days we had reset all
of our defenses, knocked together another four twelve-pounder cannons
from the wrecks on the battlefield to the north, blocked the road
pathways with artillery and long riflemen, built rain proof shelters
for all of the worst wounded, scavenged and then cleaned many canvas
and burlap items from the battlefield to make tents out of for
everyone, constructed wigwams at the sentry posts (north and south)
and started to send out long patrols of six men each, on foot. I gave
each patrol a destination because better maps had come to me from the
battlefield. Each patrol was to reach a one day destination and camp
overnight. They were to listen intently and watch all night for
anything and everything, then return in the morning. This brought
stories of horrendous wastage and burnt towns and destroyed railroads
and crushed bridges and burnt forests and decimated croplands in all
directions. We were an island of survivors, in a sea of blood.
As soon as I realized this I ordered a
complete and total roster to be made of both forces, jailers and
prisoners. From this, I promoted five sergeants to become second
lieutenants in their respective armies. I imagined that there might
be some clause or paragraph in the military regulations of both sides
that allowed a prison warden to make such promotions, and if there
was none, there should be so I started the tradition myself. The
Yankee major was one of our worst bed cases, so he had nothing to say
about it except when I showed him the roster he pointed (very slowly)
to the name that he wanted for his replacement; a lieutenant Collin
Andrew. I thanked the major and gave him some of our newest moonshine
corn whiskey, aged eight days, and he nodded his thanks. It was
potent stuff. If you have never had any -- try it.
I found Andrew and he was an arm
injury, a Sitter/Maker. I promoted Andrew to the rank of Yankee
Captain while thinking to myself that any Confederate Sergeant was
twice the officer of any Yankee Captain, but I needed a command
figure for the Yankees who were slowly recuperating at their own
pace. Not that we mistreated them, we gave them plenty of whatever we
had to give; and I now had eight hunting teams out because so many
dead corpses in the vicinity was bringing in predators from far and
wide. Here, we ate predators too.
I reckoned that by now there wasn't a
herd of livestock left within eight miles of the hill, and even
though our smokehouse was full of meat we still had a dismal prospect
ahead of us -- Winter. I was now in the position (predicament) of
hoping that one side or the other would find us before November.
Otherwise, we would have to winter here and that meant losing at
least a hundred men to starvation. In an attempt to prevent that I
took two steps: First, to send very long range couriers to find our
own lines and report our situation to the nearest Confederate
General. Second, to prepare long range recon patrols to travel on
horseback to find distant towns to check for plunder and/or herds of
livestock to bring back to our area.
[[Then, with contempt I saw the
continuing misadventures of 'Nulf and Natt'. The things were driving
in a lavender Impala with no roof. I saw the memories of their
grinning skulls of death without faces. I heard Nulf say -- “Ya, I
used to pretend that Drof never existed too!” and they both
laughed, and their laughter sounded like a circular saw blade cutting
through little naked legs. I could see Natt the Bodysnatcher, it was
driving erratically and grinning as much as Nulf was. They were on
top of their world. Between them was the little black bag full of
dead baby parts and Natt and Nulf laughed and drank raw chicken blood
(with satanic ingredients); and Nulf called Natt the 'Great Thief of
Babylon'! Yes! And, they grinned wider and squirmed with pleasure,
and Nulf took something out of the little black bag and chewed on it
with pleasure and said -- “Ya know! I used to pretend that your
kind does not exist!” And they both laughed louder and their
laughter sounded like a circular saw blade cutting through little
arms; and Natt swerved the vehicle and changed lanes and they scared
cowards that were driving in that lane. And yes, they do have
chiseled teeth like saw blades!]]
And I remembered the Prime Directive
... 'Humans Shall Help Humans Always'.
I again made a personal inspection of
all personnel and all preparations, with sergeant majors again, and
out of nowhere I came up with the idea to have the surrounding
farmlands searched for survivors of any kind, including domesticated
animals. I designated the most fit and able one hundred soldiers to
this task. They would start tomorrow morning.
With the Couriers I sent the following
message to ...
Whomever Confederate General This May Concern:
I am Colonel Markel Peters of the Second Virginia Special Forces
Regiment. I have been dispatched by Area Commander Eastern Tennessee
to reach Texas as reinforcements with 7,892 regulars and cavalry and
militia, with artillery. I have been forced to split my force with
the majority traveling southwesterly through Mississippi. I have
stayed on in Central Tennessee with 500 wounded and I now possess a
height of advantage. I am wounded in lower left leg. I have encamped
in a highly defensible position on top of a prominent height and I
have now come into the possession of 491 Union prisoners. My force is
recuperating, but the Union prisoners are in very poor shape
physically. We are surrounded by many miles of carnage and ruination
in all directions. The war has burnt out this area and passed it by,
leaving us stranded as survivors. I do not have enough supplies for
the upcoming winter. I request any and all possible aid and
assistance, and orders. I have been forced by circumstances and
necessity to make the following promotions within both rankings. This
is mandatory for discipline and morale. I am now the jailer and
warden of 491 Yankees.
List follows:
My Couriers will show you the way. Please advise.
Colonel Markel Peters
2nd VSF
I used two hunting teams combined to
deliver this message, their mission to reach the nearest Confederate
General available, and no one less than a General. Surely, this would
be a surprise; as I assumed myself to be listed as 'Missing Believed
Dead' by now.
I sent the Couriers out in the second
week of October and they returned during the fourth week with a
Confederate General. For this account he will remain nameless except
that his initials were S.T.B. (T for Tiberius); and he brought a
large wagon train of medical units and food supplies with him. He
also said there had been a great victory for us in northwestern
Georgia at a battle called Chickamauga, but overall the War was lost
to the south. This was his last gesture to Tennessee. As soon as he
returned to his headquarters he was pulling up stakes and leaving
with his army for Savanna, Georgia. He promoted me to Brigadier on
the spot, signed the paperwork and said it would reach Confederate
Headquarters at Richmond, Virginia. Before he went I explained to him
that this left me no other recourse than to combine the two units
into one command and invoke Lincoln's proclamation of full pardon for
any and all forces that serve in the West against the Apaches and the
Mexicans. He agreed heartily and wished me Good Luck. He was quite
amiable considering that he was caught in the position of a mortician
talking to a future customer/subject/commodity.
I limped over to the pathway leading
down south and I waved goodbye as his small company left for distant
places and more fighting. For a long time I watched them go, until
they had blended into the landscape.
-----
At the time I could not see it, but the
skies overhead gave me an impression, so I walked through the Union
side of the camp to the far west edge of the hill top, and there it
was -- a golden sunset. Surely, I took this for a good omen and I sat
down on some granite boulders and watched the west until it was very
dark and many stars were overhead in the night. I had picked up a
rag-tag bunch of Union walking wounded as I went through their camp.
They were curious to see where I was going, and they were sitting on
the ground near me. Most Unioners had regained their speech by this
time, and when I turned to go to my wigwam we all had a conversation
about our future. Some wanted to go home, but not like they were now.
They were scarred and torn and maimed, and they doubted they could
get home alive. Others wanted to go to a hospital as soon as
possible. Others wanted to go west. I replied that we might be able
to do all three things by volunteering for western service under
Abraham Lincoln, even though us southerners would be treated poorly
and with no respect. It would give everyone time to heal their wounds
before we were shipped west.
At some kind of Union camp for those
heading west we could regain weight, and forget the many atrocities
we had seen, and plan for a new life after the hostilities in the
west had ceased. Then, eventually, we would be returned to our
original homes from whence we came before the war. I would make that
a condition of our enlistment. Some of us would not come back alive,
but those that did would have real status in the only real army left
in the country.
About this, they ruminated and jawed as
expected, while I limped back to my wigwam and went to sleep. My only
concern about going west was how to keep us all together as much as
possible. I thought I had a good chance at it because of the general
overall decrepitude and disorganization of this area and the events
of the war itself. It was a bloody and useless and senseless
conflict, caused by competing big businesses, to see who or what
would have hegemony over this continent. Never mind the cost in
lives, business progress and domination had to be won by one side or
the other, that was the northern business viewpoint; and while they
were directed towards the war in the east a thousand of us might be
able to wrangle a pass to the west.
We waited again, for two weeks and one
day, then a Union major appeared out of nowhere. He was just there in
the morning light in the valley on the south side of the hill,
sitting at a campfire by himself and trying to make coffee. He and
his horse were barely noticeable a mile out in a sea of unharvested
broken corn. He did get a fire started and that gave him away. Of
course, he got a dozen confederate bayonets in his coffee and soon
thereafter I was being woken up with a great rush of bare feet and
untied boots; as seen through the open doorway. It reminded me of
what I had seen when this dream sequence began.
They hauled him before me as I got out
of my wigwam, and it was Richard Carlson. I should have expected
something like this. Carlson was always a very versatile actor, and
here he was as a beleaguered and lost Union major. I took it all in
stride and told him of our predicament as he gave our tailor his
tattered coat to be mended and we gave him some boots; he was missing
one. His horse dropped dead on the way up the hill, and he himself
passed out as I was about to make a suggestion. So, we put him in a
wigwam, ate the horse, and I added him to our total. He would take
command of the Unionists, if he was able.
“Anymore like you out there?” I
said to myself as I brought the total up to 992 soldiers and militia.
To this had to be added 18 runaway slaves (all men) from Mississippi,
seven wounded farmers (men), twenty-one women of various backgrounds,
six more horses, nine dogs (all mutts), five cats (with the women)
and sixteen children (five boys, eleven girls). This was the result
of my previous order for a search for survivors. To my amazement they
all wanted to go west with us.
The next morning was brisk and more
chilly than yesterday. I was sitting on a stump in front of my
wigwam, the day was bright with a few white clouds overhead. I was
ruminating over the information that we had gathered from our new
civilian members about events in Tennessee. I knew on a day like this
visibility 'out there' was large and the need to move about before
the rains set in was huge -- so -- whoever could move out
there was moving out there -- so -- we would have to make our
move very soon before we were discovered. To Memphis if possible,
using a white flag if necessary. With Murfreesboro taken by the Union
and the city of Chattanooga as their next goal I would have to cut
directly through their lines of march to reach Memphis, but I wanted
to get as far west as possible before surrendering. I figured this
would make the idea of our joining the western service of Abraham
Lincoln more feasible, being in Memphis rather than in Murfreesboro.
I put down my paperwork and looked
around the camp at the activities. Everyone was starting to break
camp. I had given the order for our departure at mid-morning
tomorrow. What would the future bring, I wondered? To those of us who
were trying so hard.
*************************
*************************
and i beheld satan
it was sitting in a booth at a diner
a booth with its back against the wall
i sat across from the thing and watched
closely
it was dirty pink and happy and
gloating
it was eating babies from a big dish
before it
i thought i recognized it but as
several evils slapped together
it had a big head a fat head a bloated
head
it was grinning and slurping baby
juices
it looked at me and smiled
i was close to it i could smell the
death
i looked about for a public/political
school nearby
where did it come from i wondered just
briefly
and from the creation force i brought
forth
a circular saw blade of great size and
shining and sharp
with this i cut off the head of satan
with such force that
the blade remained in the wall where
the head had been
the head disappeared and satan was not
renewed
and throughout the universe the forrid
abominations did die
they ran into walls exploding
they ran into telephone poles screaming
their axles melted into roadways and
they twisted and died
into the pavement
and from the burning wrecks walked
headless owners and operators
searching blindly for satan's orders
all falling and crying mutely into
gutters on the left sides of the roads
shaking and thrashing like dying fish
and they were not renewed
and the lesie-turds did melt into their
shoes screaming curses
to the failure of lies
and they were not renewed
and the politicians did burst into
flames and die as infernos
cursing the people and the truth
and they were not renewed
and it was good
and on the following day did i rest and
sharpen my brain
*************************
*************************
Markel Peters
https://voices-of-iowa.blogspot.com/
https://voices-of-iowa-concise.blogspot.com/
*************************
*************************
*************************
For those of you who may be new to life
and literature and Reality, and particularly to the usage of Fiction
in the service of Non-Fiction, I will explain the Forrids to you.
During the beginning phase of this war against genocide, the Forrid
Corporation openly and deliberately attacked the Human Species with
the intent to kill. At the time, all of the imbeciles and fools and
retards that owned Forrids (but were not part of the attack against
us) failed to curtail and stop the attacks. Instead of
reprimanding Forrid and taking all Forrid Abominations off of the
highways and roads as required, they laughed and expected to see the
poor and disgraced and overwhelmed Human Species grovel and squirm
before the Queer God of the Forrids -- Drof -- while begging for
mercy. In other words, they were total cowards and sick-sick-sick
with the Queerism mental disease.
Now, they are all paying for that
indiscretion and stupidity and cowardice. Forridism is a tool of the
hideous Queerism Disease and as such it must be blunted and broken
and destroyed if the Human Species is to avoid Genocide by
Replacement, by the PPPP(-). That is being done today and will
continue. Already, we Humans have made it forever obvious that no
Human will ever own or operate Forrid Abominations (artificial pickup
trucks). To see a Forrid Abomination is to see a worst-case pervert
with seething hatred of all Humans. Now, everyone knows what we knew
back then, when the Queer Forrids were ordered to attack Humanity.
The process of removal continues. No perverts are going to pretend to
be Humans and infiltrate our ranks. No highway or road of any
description is safe with Forrid Abominations on it. That too is now
obvious, even to the most brainless TV Watchers and Idiot Voters.
