Heart Of A Soldier
By Josh Isaacs
Copyright 2012 Josh Isaacs
Smashwords Edition
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June The Twenty-Third
Year Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-Three
Seven Ante Meridiem
Shrieks of fear escaped from his mouth, filling the air with an ear-piercing pitch. Twenty-three year old Lucas Burkette lie paralyzed on the battlefield with a half-inch minié ball lodged against his spine. How he'd been shot in the back escaped him at the moment; how he'd gotten onto a battlefield was another mystery. One he'd have to save for later, if there was going to be a 'later'.
He reached behind his back and felt for the wound just above the small of his back. His finger entered the wound to the first knuckle as he winced in anticipation of the pain, but the pain didn't come. He'd apparently gone into shock and lost feeling in the nerves.
He tried turning onto his back, but he could not. He shoved the ground with his left arm, trying as hard as he could to get off his stomach, but still he was unable. The last of his physical strength now drained from him he let out another shout; it was drowned out by the sounds of a volley of musket fire from the far side of the battlefield. Sucking in again once the blast fell silent, he let out another cry, this time of desperation, an attempt to be heard by anyone near him, but again his voice was silent in comparison to the volley of muskets, this time coming from the opposite side of the field as before. He let his neck rest as his head fell against the cold, moist, copper-colored Kentucky soil underneath the blades of bluegrass, the blades of which felt like razors digging into his chest. It was unnaturally short for so early in summer, an oddity explained by a simple fact he'd forgotten; the ground he lie on, fought on, where he and so many others were perishing, was once a privately owned pasture, the owners had driven themselves from their home for fear of an ensuing battle. A fear that tragically came to fruition. The paths their livestock walked daily still appeared as ruts cut in the dirt, making winding paths through the grass. Apparently no more than days had passed since they'd fled.
His breaths became short, uneven and coarse. Each inhale was laced with wet, heavy soil that caught in his throat, choking him slowly. He felt as though the moisture had been drained from the air around him, despite the particularly heavy fog this morning. He tried to turn his face away from the ground to avoid sucking in dirt as he inhaled, but the effort tired him even faster. Loose, heavy, sharp -or so they seemed to be at the moment- particles of dirt flooded his throat. He gagged on the dirt, tried to breathe in to cough but his breath was cut short by another load of dirt forcing its way into his esophagus. He would have preferred to have choked to death since it would have been quicker, he decided, but he was unable to convince himself to give up in such a way. He wouldn't let his twenty-three years of existence be brought to a meaningless end by giving up. His parents didn't raise him to give in but to fight. They were the reason he chose to fight for this country, his country, the Confederate States of America. Desmond, his older brother, disagreed; Lucas just prayed they wouldn't meet on the battlefield. Desmond's enlistment in the Union army had caused his parents to forbid Lucas' joining the war. Desmond's choice went against everything he stood for. State secession, Lucas believed, was a right, even if all the laws weren't right. His older brother believed that he was fighting against slavery alone, but overlooked the political differences to focus on the moral. The worst part about the war was that it was dividing families; brother against brother, child against parent. When mere children, twenty-three and twenty-eight, meet each other at opposite ends of a battlefield, aiming muskets at one another, that was the most tragic result of war.
He wasn't going to go out like this; this was much too pointless and vain a death for someone like him. Death had always been present in his mind, but this isn't how he planned on meeting it; helpless and alone.
Alone, misguided and foolish, he lie there in the essence of pain, not from the wound but from fear; fear of admitting mortality to himself. Deep down, he knew what was soon to overtake him, yet he gave not an inch towards believing it.
His world was fading quickly. He tried to keep his eyes open, but his efforts failed. Each second that passed added another pound to the weight of his eyelids. At first, he could not -would not- accept what had happened. He was too young for his life to be cut short now, especially by a small, seemingly meaningless piece of lead.
“Not yet. . .” he whispered as the last shred of light faded from his sight.
Three Post Meridiem
Pain washed over him. That cold, bitter pain he felt in his soul, ravaging his very being. He hated it. It tore at him, tempting him to curse the very life that was now fading from him. Unimaginable pain. Loneliness. A hollow, aching feeling of a wasted life was scratching at the edge of his consciousness. And the one responsible still stands on the far side of the field. So long as a single man in blue was still on his feet, the one responsible hadn't paid. It was the last standing Union soldier that he blamed.
The sun was now beating down on his back, sweat, frigid sweat ran down his cheek and puddled in the ground below his face, creating an irritating, muddy mixture caking against his face and beard like plaster. The trail it followed down his face left an irritating itch that he'd have given his rifled musket to be able to scratch. His musket, something he'd forgotten about had fallen no more than two feet away from his right hand. He had the strength to turn his head—that much had returned to him. He saw it, sitting there, within his arm's length. His eyes widened with excitement. All he had to do was reach over and grab it. He silently promised himself he'd make the blue coat who incapacitated him pay. Equally and dearly.
The sun had moved from the last time he'd been conscious, it was a couple hours past mid-day now. That blue coat couldn't be alive still. He'd make ten others pay, he decided. From his mid-field vantage point, he figured he'd be able to maintain enough accuracy to take half that number without much trouble.
He reached for his musket. . . He reached, but nothing happened. He struggled as hard as he could, and watched as his hand refused to move. He focused on his hand, trying to regain some measure of control over it, but it didn't work. Tears welled in his eyes again; this time like hot drops of pure rage. There was a second wound, this one going clean through his shoulder. He'd not felt the wound before. He cursed himself for being so helpless and useless. He hadn't even managed to get a single shot off with his gun, his pouch still holding all fourteen of his musket rounds. Years of preparation to fight for his ideals, for his country, for Marble Man Lee, led to nothing. Fizzled out like the open end of a great dream, cut short and forgotten in the moment after its passing. A pointless endeavor that now was his life. Short, anti-climactic and wasted. He was furious at himself.
He heard volleys of shots being traded—a flash of smoke and lead from in front of him followed by an exacting response behind him. He let out a loud, furious growl as he rolled himself onto his back. Gasping for air, he began to pant. His hands shaking from his lack of strength, balanced by an equal will to bring revenge to his enemy. He was able to reach his musket with his left hand now. He felt relief now, he felt alive now, and now he could do what he'd dreamed of. He was not going to die for his country; not before making someone else die for it first. With one hand, he rested the musket against himself, running the length of his body. He bit one end of his cartridge packet and ripped it open. His convulsing hand poured a paper sleeve of gunpowder on the end of the muzzle, most of it ending up on his chest and stomach. He grabbed another cap of power and took extra care to pour it in the barrel this time. He placed the minié in the end and forced it down with the ramrod. He spun the weapon around, using his foot as a stand to keep him steady, pulling the lock back, his face twisted into a wry kind of smile. It was happening, he was serving as he saw fit and proper. Closing his right eye to see down the irons was past the point of being awkward to him. He made out a blue figure and pulled the trigger. The excessive backfire ignited the power on his chest.
He screeched as his shirt caught fire and seared his skin. For all of twenty seconds he let out an unending cry of pain before he ran out of breath, by which time he had been able to extinguish the flare by beating himself with his left arm. His body was now charred with second and third degree burns, his eyes were burning and crusting from the dryness and the heat, his arm stinging from exertion. His last conscious moments were spent whimpering and in pain, wishing he could choke on the dirt instead, but the fact that he'd not be able to turn himself over again wasn't too hard for him to deduct.
Uncaring of whether or not his shot had met its target, he fell into the darkness, this time embracing the release it would bring.
Eleven Post Meridiem
Burkette awoke to something new; silence. Complete and utter silence. Though campfires illuminated opposite horizons, he couldn't see them, but he knew they were there. He felt them there, even over the hundreds of yards between them. The sky had grown to a moonless, cloudless twilight, lit by the stars that glimmered and twinkled brightly. It was a sight that reminded him of when he was younger. Peaceful, carefree years, no enemies, no blue coats or gray coats, no muskets and no pain. Just contentment. He'd have given anything to relive those times, if only for a minute.
“Anything”, he whispered, “Anything at all.”
There was no response. He slowed his breathing and listened as intently as he could, but the silence still pervaded the stillness. He began to cry. The loneliness had overtaken him and he couldn't bear it anymore. He wished for a way to end it.
“Can You hear me?” he cried as loudly as he could, “I'm begging You! Just answer me!” but the silence still surrounded him. No shooting star, no bright flash of light, no chariot of fire. . . Just silence and darkness. He felt absolutely alone.
Fear began to choke him; he'd always found faith, even in the darkest of days there was still faith to guide him like a light by his feet. His faith was beginning to crumble, and he apologized for that. When his faith felt week, he'd had hope, but his hope had abandoned him moments after he was struck by the projectile that was still lodged in his back.
He brought his arm over his heart in a subconscious attempt at showing desperation and earnestness, “I'll do anything. Anything you ask, no matter what it is, I'll do it. Just give me the chance to.”
Loneliness. The absolute absence of presence. The despair of crying out with no response. The fear of having nobody to hold his hand as he left this world. The hollow void in one's self that stabs at the emotions. Loneliness. He had never felt it so strongly as this moment. Before, he'd at least had the sounds of orders being barked by each companies' respective commanding officer, of muskets being shot, of searing hot balls of lead whipping through the air around him at unimaginable speeds. Now, loneliness was drowning him, mercilessly. The stillness and quiet became his greatest fear. He desperately wanted to hear the sounds of muskets once more, if only to kill the quietness.
Terror of loneliness and silence. It was the feeling of falling through the thin shelf of ice over a pond in winter. The sheer terror of swimming to the top, seeing the surface, reaching the surface, but not being able to do a thing to help oneself. Of standing on the edge of a hundred and something feet cliff face and looking over the side as a gust of wind hits you from the back. Taking a step back to catch yourself but only losing your footing altogether. Terror of loneliness and silence. The loneliness by itself was bearable—it was the fear of it that hurt the most.
His parents had forbade him from joining the war, especially opposite his brother. After months of trying to convince them, they finally decided that it was his choice to make. His choice. This lonely misery was his choice. He'd have given anything to see his parents' faces one more time. His sister's face, his brother's face. Desmond and he had been very close when they were younger. With each passing year, they became more distant but brothers, and nothing could change that, not even the color of their jackets. They were Burkettes. They were soldiers, sure, but below that, underneath the pale colors of their clothes, behind their heavy muskets, they were brothers. Sons. Children. His parents' children. He knew their parents would never see either of them as anything but their kids, though they were grown adults now, years older than their parents had been when he or either of his siblings were born.
He wanted to be with them one more time, like before; no wars, no guns, no uniforms—just them as a family once more to say that he loved them, to see their smiling faces, to hear their voices. It would never happen, he knew, but still wouldn't admit. Somehow, he'd be saved, he told himself over and over again. He didn't know, or care for that matter, how or by whom, but he repeated it to himself, regardless.
He couldn't help it—he cried out to God again. His faith, as diminished as it was, still held its ground, “I just want to know. . .” he began to sob, “I-I just want-I just want to know You're there.”
His eyes were streaming tears; “I just want to see them for a moment. One more time. I'll do anything. I'll never fight again. I'll never get mad and yell at them again,” his pleas growing more desperate.
A moment passed, no response. “Anything!!” he shouted, but still the silence was all he heard.
He was losing his grip on reality; never had life seemed so limited. It couldn't be this miniscule, seemingly insignificant moment that passes as quickly as it comes, he convinced himself. A flash in the pan in the grand scheme of things; a scripture he'd read as a child but never taken to heart came to his mind.
“Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.”
Yesterday would have been a good time to remember that, he told himself.
Yesterday would have been a good time to remember a lot of things.
The lonely silence was a poor excuse of a distraction from his predicament. Before drifting off into yet another exhausted loss of consciousness, memories of his past rushed into his mind and brought with them a certain comfort while bringing about a painful unrest. . .
June The Twenty-Fourth
Eight Ante Meridiem
“Susie Sue. . .” he laughed, “Where are you?”
The midday Georgia sun was scorching the open field, so they'd taken a recess from harvesting the crop and decided upon a game of hide-and-seek. He found himself running in circles around the little tool shed under the shade of the old oak tree, trying to tag his younger sister.
“Over here,” she giggled, peeking around at him from behind the mighty live oak.
He ran to the side she was looking around from and sprinted several circles around it in an attempt to catch her.
“Over here,” she said again, her head poking around the corner of the shed.
He'd long since tired of the game, but he chased her nonetheless. It was her favorite game so he found enough enjoyment out of it to continue as long as she cared to, even if it meant hours on end. It was a welcome break from the blazing heat of the field.
He knew it was a dream, or at least a hallucination, but he didn't care; he was on his feet, young and running. It felt real enough to him to be an adequate escape from lying on his back, helpless, broken and dying.
As that memory began to dissolve, another took its place -another welcome distraction- this time of he and the neighbor. A colored boy about his own age. His name was Jeremiah, Lucas called him Jeremy, but he had no surname to be speak of. It wasn't until his later years that he learned why Jeremy had no surname; the owners of the plantation he worked on had not given him one. His parents had been very adamant that he not play with Jeremy but, despite that, Luke, as Jeremy called him, didn't see a difference between himself and his friend.
They were diving into the cold, muddy lake between the two farms. Luke would go under, and as he came up to the surface, it rarely failed that Jeremy would splash his face, making Luke swallow a gulp of water and getting it in his eyes. That inevitable started a splash battle. Neither ever won or lost, nor conceded or forfeit. Lucas' parents had told him the day before that they were moving to Tennessee in mere weeks. It only made him treasure the times spent with Jeremy even more. He knew the chances of ever seeing Jeremy again were beyond slim, but odds have a way of being beaten.
This memory, like the other, began to disappear.
He was coming to, albeit slower than he had before. The lead in the minié was taking its dreadful effect. Near-molten balls of lead zipped with eery whistles above him. He didn't care. He tried escaping back into his dream, but he couldn't. It was gone now, again just a distant memory with few surviving details.
The sun had burnt his skin and it was starting to slough off in flakes, each one revealing a burning, sore blister. He didn't care. He closed his eyes and tried again to return to his dream. He could not.
Tears welled and made cold, wet lines on his muddy face. He just wanted to leave. If it was for but a minute, he'd have been ecstatic. He knew he would never see the face of his sister again, nor his friend, or his parents. He knew the last thing he would see is what he saw now: a clear, blue sky with narrow blades of grass protruding into his peripheral vision. A bland, boring, unremarkable sight.
His tears were met with all-out sobs; sharp, sudden inhales, mucous running from his nostrils and a throbbing ache in his temples tried to keep his attention, but he couldn't focus on them. His focus always returned to his past. A painful reminder of what was and what would never be again. A reminder of solitude, loneliness, loss, pain and anguish; unresolved vengeance and mindless, unbridled rage that would seethe and boil, but it would not evaporate.
Eleven Ante Meridiem
The blinding light of the sun, the green of the grass that waved back-and-forth into his field of view, the billowing clouds floating across the bright blue sky—his bright blue sky. If he was to die here, at least he could claim the little that he could see; the blue of the sky, the white of the clouds, the yellow of the sun. These were his. For now. For a short while. Until the end.
He was able to see these things. And smile. For the last time, perhaps, but he could smile. He could be thankful for these seemingly meaningless signs, but to him they were hope. Hope of light. Hope of comfort. Hope of escape. Hope of life. Not life that he'd known for twenty-three years, but life he'd come to know for much longer. Life away from this death.
He remembered the times he spent with his best friend, and he was thankful.
He remembered the endless games of tag with his sister, and he was thankful.
He remembered his parents' love, and he was thankful.
An epiphany occurred to him when he claimed what he could see; his life was not his own anymore than the sky was truly his. He couldn't lay claim to what was not his. He couldn't say 'this is unfair' when his very life, no matter how short, was a gift, just as the sun, the clouds, the grass and the sky were. All gifts he'd not asked for, but had been given to him and to everyone else at the expense of so much more. In this time of grief, sorrow, anger and all kinds of emotional and physical pain, he was able to find gratitude inside himself.
How he'd been shot in the back still escaped him. How he had been drawn into the battle also refused to let itself be known. He didn't care anymore. He didn't care. All he cared about was that he'd served, though unsuccessfully in his terms, he was able to look beyond that point. He had served as well as he could, and that's what mattered to him right now. His weakness was ever-increasing, and he didn't know how he could become weaker than he was in his current state. Still, the weakness escalated.
The longer he lay there, the less he was regretful of his situation. He was becoming grateful that he were dying in such a manner, for it gave him the opportunity to reflect on his life. If he had been wounded in such a way as to offer a quick, sudden, painless death, he'd have not come to have known the true glory that there was to find in his past. For that, again, he was grateful.
He was finally able to accept the fact he was dying. He was able to look beyond death and find comfort. Throughout his entire life, he'd often found himself paying excessive attention to what would happen when he died. He'd spent hours lying awake at night, dreading the fact that he would someday die and his existence here would end; what all that entailed had been unknown to him, as it still was. He'd always imagined himself growing old with a spouse and fathering several children, something that would not happen. Countless hours, months' worth of time, he'd obsessed over the idea of an 'end'--consciousness, existence, knowledge, everything he perceived. . . Gone.
'What would it be like?' he had wondered. He tried remembering the time before his birth as a reference, but it simply 'was not'. There was, to his perception, nothing. After the end, he wondered if there would be something to continue, a part of him to live on in some manner. There was a start to existence, so there would be an end. But like time, if there was a time before it, and a time after it, then the absence created a sort of eternity in which there was nothing and another in which there was everything. His life, he'd compared to his hypothesis but he couldn't know for sure until it came. When it did, he didn't know if he'd be able to know.
Now the world faded from him, and he knew it would be the last time. . .
But he didn't care. . .
Six Ante Meridiem
His eyes opened. Sweat drenched his face and his clothes. A white canvas stretched out before him. He didn't know if he'd been found or if this was what happened after death. He reached around his back effortlessly, without pain or struggle or fatigue.
He smiled as he realized he'd awakened from a dream; a nightmare. The worst he'd had. It explained why he didn't know how he'd been shot in his back, or how he'd gotten onto the battlefield. Tears, this time of joy, dripped down his face. He ran to Jeremy who, against all odds, he'd not only met again but was now serving alongside in the same regiment. Odds always have a way of being beaten. He told Jeremy about everything he'd gone through in the dream, and all he'd learned from it.
The dream had felt too real to him, so waking had been that much more of a release. He'd no longer lie, paralytic on the ground, absolutely helpless in every way.
Not long after waking, the trumpet sounded. Battle was nigh. They formed ranks, marched onto the foggy field. He was in the third battalion's second company for this battle, one that would last for days. Jeremy had been assigned to the first company of the same battalion.
Shots rang out all at once. A paused followed. Another simultaneous blast of musket-fire. Another pause. Lucas didn't know if it had been one minute or one hour, but it felt like forever. He clenched his musket as the colonel ordered the next company to advance to the front line. As they marched forward, several men fell, reaching and crying out to the others walking past, ignoring their dying comrades. Lucas' stomach tightened as he forced himself, as he was trained, to ignore those falling around him and had already fallen before. The first line knelt in unison and fired in the pause between the hail of lead from the enemy. They stood again, took a couple more steps and knelt as the line behind them fired from a standing position, the blasts so close to the ears of those in the first line, which included Lucas, was temporarily deafening. The ringing was louder than the blast of his own musket being fired.
Once they reached the optimum distance, the advance halted and they continued to fire from their positions. This continued several times; it felt like a thousand to Lucas. Emphasizing his mortality was that the men on either side of him had fallen. One died immediately, the other cried out to him, loud enough to be heard over the ringing in his ears.
He looked at the row of corpses and what would soon be corpses in front of him, the soldiers from the first line that had been felled. Among them, he saw Jeremy. He clenched his eyes shut and began repeating to himself, “No. No. No.”
He opened his eyes and saw him struggling to claw his way towards the encampment. Without thought, he lunged and ran the couple dozen feet forward, grabbed Jeremy's hand and began dragging him towards their allies. He was counting the yards in rough estimates until they would be safe.
Thirty yards. Doubt consumed him. He was certain he'd not be able to return to safety. If he did, he'd be reprimanded if not face a court-martial.
Twenty-five yards. He was closing, though doubt still plagued him.
Twenty yards. He was going to make it. He was close. Fifteen more steps and they'd be safe. Hope overwhelmed him. Hope that he wouldn't have believed he could have had just seconds ago.
Before he counted to fifteen, he tripped, falling face first to the ground.
He reached his hand around his back to feel the wound. His finger entered the wound to the first knuckle as he winced in anticipation of the pain, but the pain didn't come.
Shrieks of fear escaped from his mouth, filling the air with an ear-piercing pitch. Twenty-three year old Lucas Burkette lie paralyzed on the battlefield, with a half-inch minié ball lodged against his spine.
How he'd been shot in the back was now painfully clear to him. . .
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