The Warriors Read Online Free Page A

strength.
    Gideon’s panic became almost overwhelming. The Confederacy couldn’t afford to lose Stonewall Jackson. General Lee couldn’t afford to lose him. The survivors on the road had to save him!
    Even if they died doing it.
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    The Yank bombardment became almost continuous. Shells were being lobbed in every few seconds. Exploding shot spattered the turnpike like metal rain. Gideon reached the group of men around Jackson and began to jab the two branches into the sleeves of Hill’s gray overcoat. He worked with desperate haste, driven by the conviction that Jackson was the only man who could execute Lee’s most daring strategies and win victories that textbooks said were impossible.
    “He’s not that badly hurt,” Morrison breathed. Whether it was true or only a prayer, Gideon didn’t know. But he tended to believe Morrison was right. The greatest danger to Jackson at the moment was the shelling.
    An eighth of a mile east, another charge blew a huge pit in the turnpike, raising a cloud of dirt that sifted down on the men a moment later.
    Captain Wilbourn leaned over Jackson’s head to shield him from the falling earth. As the upper limbs of a nearby tree caught fire, he jumped to his feet. “Get that litter up and carry it out of here!”
    Gideon and three other men grabbed the cut limbs with the coat stretched between. The men at the bottom end had the hardest job—holding the branches and the skirt of the coat to keep it taut. Jackson was lifted onto the litter, then cautiously raised.
    Gideon tried to walk steadily—ignoring the detonations, the glaring lights, the flaming trees, the hissing grapeshot. Through the woods on both sides of the highway, bugles pealed, officers bellowed orders, men crashed through the thickets. Occasionally a piercing scream signaled the killing or wounding of one of those men by artillery fire. Gideon breathed hard, the dispatch from Stuart entirely forgotten as he concentrated on one simple but immensely important task.
    Getting Jackson to the rear. Out of the shell zone. Getting him to a place where he could be treated. Saved.
    He’s only wounded in the forearm, Gideon thought. If he doesn’t bleed to death — if we can reach the surgeon in time without all of us getting blown up — he’ll be all right.
    He ducked his head as another shell burst. A flaming limb just missed his left side, the heat scorching for a moment. He tried not to think about how desperately the Army of Northern Virginia needed this peculiar, unkempt man who had once taught at the Military Institute in Lexington, where Gideon had been raised. He just kept walking, lifting one foot carefully after the other, trying not to jostle the litter.
    Steadily, they bore Jackson westward. The cannonading never stopped. One litter bearer went down, hit by a piece of shot. A major from Hill’s staff reached out to catch the branch as the wounded man let go.
    But the major wasn’t quick enough. The litter tilted. Jackson rolled off. When he struck the ground, he uttered no sound.
    The general’s brother-in-law, Morrison, knelt beside him, tears in his eyes. “Oh, Lord, General, I’m sorry.”
    Smoke drifted away. The moon appeared again, lighting the bearded face. Jackson’s tongue probed his lips, as if he were thirsty. His eyes looked bright, fierce.
    “We’ll be on our way again within a minute—” Morrison began.
    “Never mind,” Jackson whispered. “Never mind about me.”
    “Come on!” Morrison exclaimed. “Lift him!”
    They carried the general for another eight or ten minutes, until they reached the ambulance that had been summoned. Once Jackson had been laid inside and the vehicle turned around, Gideon trotted along behind—it moved slowly to avoid sudden jolts—and presently the ambulance and the men accompanying it reached a hospital tent in a dark field out of range of the Union artillery.
    Without his horse—God only knew what the messenger had done with Sport—Gideon had little