Bernard Cornwell – Battle Flag (страница 1)
Bernard Cornwell
BATTLE FLAG
THE NATHANIEL STARBUCK CHRONICLES
BOOK THREE
Copyright
Published by HarperCollins
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The right of Bernard Cornwell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
BATTLE FLAG. Copyright © 2006 by Bernard Cornwell. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © JULY 2009 ISBN: 9780007339495
06 07 08 09 10
Version: 2017-05-08
Praise for Bernard Cornwell’s THE NATHANIEL STARBUCK CHRONICLES
“The most entertaining military historical novels…. Always based on fact, always interesting…always entertaining.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“[A] wonderful series…believable, three-dimensional characters…. A rollicking treat for Cornwell’s many fans.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Highly successful.”
—The Times (London)
“Fast-paced and exciting…. Cornwell—and Starbuck—don’t disappoint.”
—Birmingham News
“A top-class read by a master of historical drama. Nate Starbuck is on the march, and on his way to fame.”
—Irish Press
Battle Flag is for my father, with love
CONTENTS
COPYRIGHT
PRAISE
MAP
PART ONE
CAPTAIN NATHANIEL STARBUCK FIRST SAW HIS NEW
THE YANKEE CAVALRY PATROL REACHED GENERAL
IT’S GOD’S WILL, BANKS! GOD’S WILL!” THE REVEREND
SATURDAY MORNING, THE DAY AFTER BATTLE, AGAIN
PART TWO
JACKSON, LIKE A SNAKE THAT HAD STRUCK, HURT, BUT
THERE WERE TIMES WHEN GENERAL WASHINGTON
THE YANKEES’ SPRING OFFENSIVE MIGHT HAVE FAILED,
GENERAL STUART’S AIDE REACHED LEE’S HEADQUARTERS
THEY MARCHED LIKE THEY HAD NEVER MARCHED IN
THE LEGION MARCHED INTO BRISTOE JUST AS THE TRAIN
ALL DAY THE YANKEES TRIED TO MAKE SENSE OF
AT MANASSAS, ON FRIDAY AUGUST 29, 1862, THE
THE LAST NORTHERN ATTACK OF THE DAY WAS BY FAR
THE FIRST ATTACK OF THE SATURDAY MORNING WAS AN
HISTORICAL NOTE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
OTHER BOOKS BY BERNARD CORNWELL
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
Map
CAPTAIN NATHANIEL STARBUCK FIRST SAW HIS NEW commanding general when the Faulconer Legion forded the Rapidan. Thomas Jackson was on the river’s northern bank, where he appeared to be in a trance, for he was motionless in his saddle with his left hand held high in the air while his eyes, blue and resentful, stared into the river’s vacant and murky depths. His glum stillness was so uncanny that the marching column edged to the far margin of the ford rather than pass near a man whose stance so presaged death. The General’s physical appearance was equally disturbing. Jackson had a ragged beard, a plain coat, and a dirty cap, while his horse looked as if it should have been taken to a slaughterhouse long before. It was hard to credit that this was the South’s most controversial general, the man who gave the North sleepless nights and nervous days, but Lieutenant Franklin Coffman, sixteen years old and newly arrived in the Faulconer Legion, asserted that the odd-looking figure was indeed the famous Stonewall Jackson. Coffman had once been taught by Professor Thomas Jackson. “Mind you,” Lieutenant Coffman confided in Starbuck, “I don’t believe generals make any real difference to battles.”
“Such wisdom in one so young,” said Starbuck, who was twenty-two years old.
“It’s the men who win battles, not generals,” Coffman said, ignoring his Captain’s sarcasm. Lieutenant Coffman had received one year’s schooling at the Virginia Military Institute, where Thomas Jackson had ineffectively lectured him in artillery drill and Natural Philosophy. Now Coffman looked at the rigid figure sitting motionless in the shabby saddle. “I can’t imagine old Square Box as a general,” Coffman said scornfully. “He couldn’t keep a schoolroom in order, let alone an army.”
“Square Box?” Starbuck asked. General Jackson had many nicknames. The newspapers called him Stonewall, his soldiers called him Old Jack or even Old Mad Jack, while many of Old Jack’s former students liked to refer to him as Tom Fool Jack, but Square Box was a name new to Starbuck.
“He’s got the biggest feet in the world,” Coffman explained. “Really huge! And the only shoes that ever fitted him were like boxes.”
“What a fount of useful information you are, Lieutenant,” Starbuck said casually. The Legion was still too far from the river for Starbuck to see the General’s feet, but he made a mental note to look at these prodigies when he did finally reach the Rapidan. The Legion was presently not moving at all, its progress halted by the reluctance of the men ahead to march straight through the ford without first removing their tattered boots. Mad Jack Stonewall Square Box Jackson was reputed to detest such delays, but he seemed oblivious to this holdup. Instead he just sat, hand in the air and eyes on the river, while right in front of him the column bunched and halted. The men behind the obstruction were grateful for the enforced halt, for the day was blistering hot, the air motionless, and the heat as damp as steam. “You were remarking, Coffman, on the ineffectiveness of generals?” Starbuck prompted his new junior officer.
“If you think about it, sir,” Coffman said with a youthful passion, “we haven’t got any real generals, not like the Yankees, but we still win battles. I reckon that’s because the Southerner is unbeatable.”
“What about Robert Lee?” Starbuck asked. “Isn’t he a real general?”
“Lee’s old! He’s antediluvian!” Coffman said, shocked that Starbuck should even have suggested the name of the new commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. “He must be fifty-five, at least!”
“Jackson’s not old,” Starbuck pointed out. “He isn’t even forty yet.”
“But he’s mad, sir. Honest! We used to call him Tom Fool.”
“He must be mad then,” Starbuck teased Coffman. “So why do we win battles despite having mad generals, ancient generals, or no generals at all?”
“Because fighting is in the Southern blood, sir. It really is.” Coffman was an eager young man who was determined to be a hero. His father had died of consumption, leaving his mother with four young sons and two small daughters. His father’s death had forced Coffman to leave the Virginia Military Institute after his first year, but that one year’s military schooling had equipped him with a wealth of martial theories. “Northerners,” he now explained to Starbuck, “have diluted blood. There are too many immigrants in the North, sir. But the South has pure blood, sir. Real American blood.”