The Battle Below by Bridget Goldschmidt.

In the third year of the Sectarian War, Colonel Childress’ party arrived early to get the best possible position on the rocky outcropping above the weed-choked field. The battle was due to begin at 10 o’clock sharp, according to the colonel’s sources; although retired, he still retained his military contacts. He checked his large silver fob watch.

“I see it’s nearly time …” he said, looking off to see the opposing armies, who were stirring up clouds of dust as they approached from their respective directions.

The members of his party all craned their necks to watch. There were pretty young Miss Haverstraw, with her pleasing embonpoint, along with her dour, black-garbed chaperone; Taylor, an owlish, bespectacled engineer — something to do with earthworks, the colonel thought — and Lucas, a jovial, rubicund wine merchant. They were all his fellow guests at the hotel in town. All had responded with enthusiasm — save the chaperone — to his suggestion that they make a picnic of it while viewing the battle from an advantageous spot. The location he selected was based on information received yesterday evening by messenger.

The escarpment chosen by the colonel was indeed the perfect place for them to observe the engagement unfolding below. They had brought along camp stools for the less limber members of the party and a hamper of cold chicken and sparkling wine packed by the hotel staff to ward off any hunger pangs. The colonel graciously shared his spyglass with the others as the battle got under way in earnest.

The two sides drew up in lines facing one another, their uniforms resplendent in the sun, brass buttons glinting on the coats of the Unitary and Sectarian forces. Orders were called and the lines advanced, little puffs of smoke emanating from their shooting sticks as they moved forward, some soldiers dropping to the ground while others kept going.

The members of the party watched, barely making a sound, as the colonel discussed the strengths and weaknesses of each side and the tactical advantage to be gained by the victor. He was still a fine figure of a man, even if he was now on half pay, with all of his teeth and most of his hair, and he hoped that his form-fitting new waistcoat displayed his physique at its best for the benefit of a certain young lady. She was occupied by what was going on below, however, and did not look at him except to accept the spyglass from him when it was her turn to use it.

In the end, the battle turned out to be indecisive, a draw. The opposing sides carried their wounded from the field. Taylor and Lucas fell upon the cold chicken and Champagne, discussing loudly among themselves what they imagined to be the finer points of warfare, while the chaperone perched on the edge of her camp stool like a great roosting crow and tutted her disapproval of the whole bloody enterprise. The field remained littered with the bodies of the fallen, which would be retrieved under a flag of truce once the mass graves had been dug. Some had been quite torn apart by ammunition, glistening inner organs exposed to the air, blood seeping from mangled bodies into the thirsty ground, heads and limbs in unnatural positions.

Miss Haverstraw held her parasol at a sharp angle to shield herself from the noonday sun. “Are they really dead?” she asked, somewhat in a daze, as though she weren’t sure whether she hadn’t just been watching a particularly gruesome pantomime.

The colonel peered through his spyglass at the scattered corpses below and smiled, glad to impart his expertise on a subject that he knew better than anyone else in the party.

“Most assuredly,” he said.

Bridget Goldschmidt

Image: Viewpoint on a rock outcrop from Pixabay.com