Retrograde March

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"Sarge ..."

"Sarge!"

The medic had to grab the Sergeant's shoulder to get his attention. The man was sitting on a dead log, staring in the direction of where the last militia attack had come from, not ten paces to his front was the body of the Captain.

The Sergeant seemed to snap back into the present and turned to look at the medic. "Yeah, what is it, Doc?"

"You okay, Sarge?" Many of the troops were experiencing the adrenalin let down of what he liked to call the "after battle fog."

"Yeah, just, well, you know ..." The Sergeant was still trying to gather his thoughts, to get his act together. Staring at his dead Captain was delaying that. So he got up.

"Sarge?"

The Sergeant held up one finger, as he walked over to the body. He knelt down, stared for a long moment at the Captain's ruined features, then tugged the man's poncho over his head. He placed a hand on the body's shoulder, closed his eyes for a moment, then got up and walked back to the medic.

"So Doc, I take it this ain't a social call."

"No, the Major is dead, the Sergeant Major is a mess, complete breakdown, your Captain is dead, and the Senior Lieutenant is badly wounded."

"What about the Ensign, he was in the middle, right?" The Sergeant had a look of concern on his face, he was not looking forward to what Doc had to say.

"The kid's missing, Sarge. The fighting in the middle was confused and pretty intense, there's a lotta bodies all over the place. One of his guys thinks he saw the Ensign leading a charge down the hill. He's probably out there, somewhere." Doc gestured vaguely towards where the militia's first attack had hit their lines.

"So I guess that makes me the man ... Shit. All right Doc, I need a list of what we've got left and ..."

Doc handed the Sergeant a piece of paper. "That's the bill for this mess, Sarge."

As the militia straggled into camp, the elderly and the children were ready to go. Everyone who could fight had been up on the hill. Everything was packed on the wagons, everyone who could was ready to head into the mountains. The commander was looking for his leaders, without any luck.

"Commander, where are the others?" Moses' wife asked him. "Where is my husband?"

He thought of that moment when Moses was trying to convince him to leave the field.

"Sir, ain't nothin' for it, we got our asses kicked, but we bought time for the families to pack up. Now we need to get the heck out of here. We hurt the regulars, real bad, I've seen the bodies. They ain't gonna chase us, that's for sure."

An instant later, a stray bullet had hit the man he had known his entire life. He had sat with Moses as he died, the medic tried to save him, but to no avail,

"Sir, in my left breast pocket is an etching of my dear wife, I have carried it for years. Please see that she gets it."

"Now look old friend, you can give it to her yourself ..."

He had felt Moses' grip go slack, he took a deep breath, then he had looked up to see one of his sergeants standing there.

"He's gone, Sir. You need to git too."

He had found the etching, tucked it into a pocket, then headed down to where he stood now, with Moses' wife.

"He's gone, Sarah. A stray bullet took him. He's still up there, with the others we lost. There is no time to mourn, we must be away. Those people up there won't follow, we hurt them too bad, but others will come. Now let's be on our way."

The commander waved his hat in the air and the long column began to move out. Deeper into the mountains, hopefully before any more snow fell. The peaks were already white, he hoped the passes were still clear.

The Sergeant was organizing what was left of the battalion. The 297 they'd started with now numbered less than a hundred and fifty. From what the medic had reported, of the survivors at least half were wounded, some critically.

"Can they be moved?" he had asked.

"No Sir, and with the weather being the way it is, most of them will be dead by nightfall."

The snow had stopped, but the temperature was dropping. Off in the direction of the plains, a long line of dark cloud was on the horizon. The Sergeant knew the battalion was finished, they would be withdrawn and perhaps built back up to strength, or perhaps be disbanded, the soldiers going to other units.

"Corporal."

"Sarge?"

"Find any surviving non-coms, have them report here. Looks like I'm the head guy for now."

"Roger that, Sarge."

As she hustled off, the Sergeant watched her. She moved like a deer and fought like a panther. He wouldn't want to make her angry. Perhaps, someday ...

"Sarge?"

He turned, it was one of his men, a lance corporal, he had fought well. "What's up, Solomon?"

"Found this amongst the dead militia ..." he handed over a cloth bundle.

The Sergeant's senses tingled as he unwrapped it.

"It's the colors. What sort of fool takes that into battle?"

"Probably the guy who took it. But I figured you'd want that."

"Keep it Solomon, keep it safe. We'll give it to the regimental commander if we get out of here."

"If?"

The Sergeant nodded, "Okay, when we get out of here."

They had recovered their regimental colors, as the senior surviving battalion, it was their right to carry it. For whatever it was worth, it would at least cheer the survivors.

The regulars found Nemo's body as they checked the dead and wounded. The wounded militia they killed, no one had ordered them to do it, it just seemed logical. After all, they didn't have enough to treat their own wounded ...

"Why worry about these damned rebels?" one of the men had said upon finding a wounded militiaman. So he had bayoneted the man.

The regulars stripped Nemo of his possessions. The improvised camouflage suit they discarded. The bow and the arrows they snapped into many pieces. When they had found the rifle underneath the corpse, they dug into the man's rucksack and found the scout/sniper's camo suit.

The three men and one woman then headed back down towards the fighting positions. The remnants of the battalion were gathering, it was time to move off.

One other sergeant had survived, along with seven corporals, and twelve lance corporals. The medic volunteered to stay with the wounded. The Sergeant had shaken his head. No healthy soldier would stay behind, other than those wounded who could still march, the rest would stay.

The Sergeant looked around, "Where's the Sergeant Major?"

A lance corporal answered, "He's burying the Major, says he's making a hole big enough for two."

"What ...?"

A shot rang out up the hill, where the battalion command post had been.

"Damn it."

The Sergeant Major had elected to stay with his commanding officer.

As the column moved off, the farm buildings behind them blazed in the gathering gloom. The storm would be here soon.

A number of surviving militia joined the column, those who were wounded were loaded onto the carts, if there was room. Many fell out and were left on the trail.

Of the eight hundred and eighty five militiamen who had gone up the hill, five hundred and twelve had come back down. Of those, fifty six were wounded, of them, thirteen would survive to see the spring.

Into the mountains they went, leaving their dead, and their hopes, behind.

Six weeks later ...

The Sergeant stood to attention as the regimental commander presented him with the colors.

"Major, I trust you will guard there colors with your life. Your predecessors all failed. I am assured that should you come through the spring campaign with honor, the regiment will be allowed to return home. Until then, you stay in the field."

It was taking some time to get used to being called Major. There had been a captain at headquarters who had desperately wanted command of this battalion, until his father-in-law, a general, had pointed out that the battalion was disgraced.

"Not a good career move, son," the old man had said.

So the Sergeant had been jumped up to Major, a temporary promotion he was assured. It was expected that he would take the battalion into the field in the spring. They had been reinforced with over three hundred raw recruits, most of them only semi-trained.

The Sergeant - now the Major, he had to remind himself again - figured that most of the recruits had been offered a trip to prison, or a trip to the front. He doubted that any of them had the stomach for what was to come.

Time would tell.

He looked out the window of the small building at the edge of the encampment, the snow was falling fiercely now. He would have to get the troops out to clear the parade ground and all the pathways around the encampment. The battalion was in semi-disgrace, they would get all the shit jobs this winter.

Come spring, we'll go back out, the Major thought.

Come spring.