No Spot of Ground Read Online Free PDF

breast of a man as faithless as he.
    *
    The Starker house on its small eminence stood hard-edged and black against a background of shifting mist, like an isolated tor rising above the clouds. It was a little after four. The sun had not yet risen, but already the eastern horizon was beginning to turn gray. The ravens, coming awake, cackled and muttered to one another as they shook dew from their feathers.
    Poe leaned on his stick before a half-circle of his brigadiers and their mingled staffs. Hugin and Munin sat on their perch behind him. Poe was in his uniform of somber gray, a new paper collar, a black cravat, the black doeskin gloves. Over his shoulders he wore a red-lined black cloak with a high collar, an old gift from Jeb Stuart who had said it made him look like a proper raven.
    Most of his life Poe had dressed all in black. The uniform was a concession to his new profession, but for sake of consistency with his earlier mode of dress he had chosen the darkest possible gray fabric, so dark it was almost blue.
    There was the sound of galloping; riders rose out of the mist. Poe recognized the man in the lead; Fitzhugh Lee, Robert Lee’s nephew and the commander of the cavalry division on his right. He was a short man, about Poe’s height, a bandy-legged cavalryman with a huge spade-shaped beard and bright, twinkling eyes. Poe was surprised to see him—— he had asked only that Lee send him a staff officer.
    He and Poe exchanged salutes. “Decided to come myself, General.” He dropped from his horse. “Your messenger made it seem mighty important.”
    “I thank you, sir.”
    Fitz Lee, Poe realized, outranked him. He could take command here if he so desired.
    He would not dare , Poe thought. A cold anger burned through him for a moment before he recollected that Fitz Lee had as yet done nothing to make him angry.
    Still, Poe was uneasy. He could be superseded so easily.
    “I think the Yankees are moving across my front,” he said. He straightened his stiff leg, felt a twinge of pain. “I think Grant is moving to his left again.”
    The cavalryman considered this. “If he wants Richmond,” he said, “he’ll go to his right. The distance is shorter.”
    “I would like to submit, apropos , that Grant may not want Richmond so much as to defeat us in the field.”
    Fitz Lee puzzled his way through this. “He’s been fighting us nonstop, that’s the truth. Hasn’t broken off so much as a day.”
    “Nevermore,” said one of the ravens. Fitz Lee looked startled. Poe’s men, used to it, shared grins. Poe’s train of thought continued uninterrupted.
    “Moreover, if Grant takes Hanover Junction, he will be astride both the Virginia Central and the Richmond and Fredericksburg. That will cut us off from the capital and our sources of supply. We’ll have to either attack him there or fall back on Richmond.”
    “Mebbe that’s so.”
    “All that, of course, is speculation− a mere exercise of the intuition, if you like. Nevertheless, whatever his intent, it is still an observed fact that Grant is moving across my front. Quad erat demonstrandum .”
    Lee’s eyes twinkled. “ Quod libet , I think, rather.” Not quite convinced.
    “I have heard their horses. They are well south of where they are supposed to be.”
    Lee smiled through his big beard and dug a heel into the turf. “If he’s moving past you, he’ll run into my two brigades. I’m planted right in his path.”
    There was a saying in the army, Who ever saw a dead cavalryman ? Poe thought of it as he looked at Lee. “Can you hold him?” he asked.
    “Nevermore,” said a raven.
    Lee’s smile turned to steel. “With all respect to your pets, General, I held Grant at Spotsylvania.”
    Gravely, Poe gave the cavalryman an elaborate, complimentary bow, and Lee returned it. Poe straightened and hobbled to face his brigade commanders.
    Perhaps he had Fitz Lee convinced, perhaps not. But he knew—— and the knowledge grated on his bones—— that