An Undecided Fate

Chapter 18

A few days later...

A sound of blast thundered in the air. 

In a matter of seconds, hundreds of soldiers came running out of their tents and began to fire into the air.  Back and forth cannons were released, and soon it wasn't only cannons that were in the air, but bullets as well. Sounds of yell and pain could be heard from miles away.

The Confederate army had come to attack.

Among the men fighting against the ambush was Alexander.

"Henry! George! Fernando! Over here!" he signaled them to come to his spot, as well as several other soldiers.

"Alex, are you sure that hiding behind a mere bush will protect us?" Fernando questioned.

"Fernando, I know what I'm doing. And this isn't to protect us, but to ambush them back."

"Aaaahhh clever!" Fernando applauded his hands quietly, "how do these ideas bubble into your head Alex?"

"Fernando! Now is not the time fo-"

A bullet shot right past them.

Luckily, all of the soldiers were behind the bush escaped it. 

"Alex? When do we fire?" George asked a bit anxiously.

"When I tell you to."

"And that is?" Henry asked.

"NOW!"

Dozens of bullets came flying out of the guns of the twenty soldiers hiding behind the bush. Within every ten bullets, ten soldiers from the confederate army were shot to their death.

What perfect aim!

Each shot in the head of a Confederate soldier brought Alexander an internal happiness of success, as dark as that may sound. One of Alexander's bullet, in fact, shot two in one. 

"Yes!" he whispered with excitement. 

"How do those soldiers still not know that we are here?" Henry asked perplexed, and all the other soldiers were equally confused. 

"If you noticed, " Alexander began, "we've only been shooting the fellows who have their backs turned towards us, and since all of our shots successfully brought them dead to the grounds, there's no way they can warn the others of us."

"I see," George replied with realization, "but how do the others confederates not know we are here? The ones that are not directly in front of us?"

"Them?" Alexander answered, "they are distracted by the other union solders attacking them. Let's hope they can distract them for long enough."

***

At the sounds of bullets and cannons firing in the air, all the army nurses jumped off their beds, alarmed. 

Tears immediately began to flow out of several of them, in fear and confusion.

Cassandra felt as though her heart would jump out from her mouth. 

"Everything was so calm yesterday," Cassandra said perplexed, "what could have happened so suddenly?"

Caroline, the woman that Cassandra met on the way to the training, ran outside the tent.

"Oh lord!" she cried, "Cannons! Bullets! Everywhere!"

Meredith ran to her side, "I believe it's the confederate soldiers from the south! They've come to attack."

"Ladies!" Caroline gathered the attention of all the nurses.

"We must set up the beds and medical instruments at once! By the end of the day, it's quite likely that more than half of the men would be wounded!"