Part 48 (1/2)
”Will you listen,” said Stafford, ”to the wind in the pines? and did you ever see the automatic chess-player?”
Two days later, Fremont, having bridged the Shenandoah, crossed, and pushed his cavalry with an infantry support southward by the pike. About three in the afternoon of the sixth, Ashby's horses were grazing in the green fields south of Harrisonburg, on the Port Republic road. To the west stretched a belt of woodland, eastward rose a low ridge clad with beech and oak. The green valley lay between. The air, to-day, was soft and sweet, the long billows of the Blue Ridge seen dreamily, through an amethyst haze. The men lay among dandelions. Some watched the horses; others read letters from home, or, haversack for desk, wrote some vivid, short-sentenced scrawl. A number were engaged by the rim of the clear pool. Naked to the waist, they knelt like washerwomen, and rubbed the soapless linen against smooth stones, or wrung it wrathfully, or turning, spread it, grey-white, upon the gra.s.s to dry. Four played poker beneath a tree, one read a Greek New Testament, six had found a small turtle, and with the happy importance of boys were preparing a brushwood fire and the camp kettle. Others slept, head pillowed on arm, soft felt hat drawn over eyes. The rolling woodland toward Harrisonburg and Fremont was heavily picketed. A man rose from beside the pool, straightened himself, and holding up the s.h.i.+rt he had been was.h.i.+ng looked at it critically. Apparently it pa.s.sed muster, for he painstakingly stretched it upon the gra.s.s and taking a pair of cotton drawers turned again to the water. A blue-eyed Loudoun youth whistling ”Swanee River” brought a br.i.m.m.i.n.g bucket from the stream that made the pool and poured it gleefully into the kettle. A Prince Edward man, lying chest downward, blew the fire, another lifted the turtle. The horses moved toward what seemed lusher gra.s.s, one of the poker players said ”d.a.m.n!” the reader turned a leaf of the Greek Testament. One of the sleepers sat up. ”I thought I heard a shot--”
Perhaps he had heard one; at any rate he now heard many. Down the road and out from under the great trees of the forest in front burst the pickets driven in by a sudden, well-directed onslaught of blue cavalry--Fremont's advance with a brigade of infantry behind. In a moment all was haste and noise in the green vale. Men leaped to their feet, left their was.h.i.+ng, left the turtle simmering in the pot, the gay cards upon the greensward, put up the Greek Testament, the home letters, s.n.a.t.c.hed belt and carbine, caught the horses, saddled them with speed, swung themselves up, and trotted into line, eyes front--Ashby's men.
The pickets had their tale to tell. ”Burst out of the wood--the d.a.m.ned Briton again, sir, with his squadrons from New Jersey! Rode us down--John Ferrar killed--Gilbert captured--You can see from the hilltop there. They are forming for a charge. There's infantry behind--Blinker's Dutch from the looks of them!”
”Blinker's Dutch,” said the troopers. ”'Hooney,' 'Nix furstay,' 'Bag Jackson,' 'Kiss und steal,' 'Hide under bed,' 'Rifle bureau drawers,'
'Take lockets und rings'--Blinker's Dutch! We should have dog whips!”
To the rear was the little ridge clothed with beech and oak. The road wound up and over it. Ashby's bugle sounded. ”_Right face. Trot!
March!_” The road went gently up, gra.s.s on either side with here and there a clump of small pines. b.u.t.terflies fluttered; all was gay and sweet in the June suns.h.i.+ne. Ashby rode before on the bay stallion. The Horse Artillery came also from the meadow where it had been camped--Captain Chew, aged nineteen, and his three guns and his threescore men, four of them among the best gunners in the whole army.
All mounted the ridge, halted and deployed. The guns were posted advantageously, the 6th, the 7th, and the 2d Virginia Cavalry in two ranks along the ridge. Wide-spreading beech boughs, growing low, small oak scrub and branchy dogwood made a screen of the best; they looked down, hidden, upon a gentle slope and the Port Republic road. Ashby's post was in front of the silver bole of a great beech. With one gauntleted hand he held the bay stallion quiet, with the other he shaded his eyes and gazed at the westerly wood into which ran the road. Chew, to his right, touched the Blakeley lovingly. Gunner number 1 handed the powder. Number 2 rammed it home, took the sh.e.l.l from Number 1 and put it in. All along the ridge the hors.e.m.e.n handled their carbines, spoke each in a quiet, genial tone to his horse. Sound of the approaching force made itself heard and increased.
”About a thousand, shouldn't you think, sir?” asked an aide.
”No. Between seven and eight hundred. Do you remember in 'Ivanhoe'--”
Out of the western wood, in order of charge, issued a body of horse. It was yet a little distant, horses at a trot, the declining sun making a stirring picture. Rapidly crescent to eye and ear, they came on. Their colours flew, the sound of their bugles raised the blood. Their pace changed to a gallop. The thundering hoofs, the braying trumpets, shook the air. Colours and guidons grew large.
”By G.o.d, sir, Wyndham is coming to eat you up! This time he knows he's caught the hare.”
”Do all John Bulls ride like that? Shades of the Revolution! did we all ride like that before we came to Virginia?”
”G.o.d! what a noise!”
Ashby spoke. ”Don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes.”
The charge began to swallow up the gentle slope, the sunny road, the green gra.s.s to either hand. The bugles blew at height, the sabres gleamed, the tall man in front rode rising in his stirrups, his sabre overhead. ”Huzzah! huzzah! huzzah!” shouted the blue cavalry.
”Are you ready, Captain Chew?” demanded Ashby. ”Very well, then, let them have it!”
The Blakeley and the two Parrott guns spoke in one breath. While the echoes were yet thundering, burst a fierce volley from all the Confederate short rifles. Down went the Federal colour-bearer, down went other troopers in the front rank, down went the great gaunt horse beneath the Englishman! Those behind could not at once check their headlong gallop; they surged upon and over the fallen. The Blakeley blazed again and the grey carbines rang. The Englishman was on his feet, had a trooper's horse and was shouting like a savage, urging the squadrons on and up. For the third time the woods flamed and rang. The blue lines wavered. Some hors.e.m.e.n turned. ”d.a.m.n you! On!” raged Wyndham.
Ashby put his bugle to his lips. Clear and sweet rose the notes, a silver tempest. ”_Ashby! Ashby!_” shouted the grey lines and charged.
”_Ashby! Ashby!_” Out of the woods and down the hill they came like und.y.k.ed waters. The two tides met and clashed. There followed a wild melee, a shouting, an unconscious putting forth of great muscular energy, a seeing as through red gla.s.ses besmirched with powder smoke, a poisonous odour, a sense of cotton in the mouth, a feeling as of struggle on a turret, far, far up, with empty s.p.a.ce around and below.
The grey prevailed, the blue turned and fled. For a moment it seemed as though they were flying through the air, falling, falling! the grey had a sense of dizziness as they struck spur in flank and pursued headlong.
All seemed to be sinking through the air, then, suddenly, they felt ground, exhaled breath, and went thundering up the Port Republic road, toward Harrisonburg. In front strained the blue, presently reaching the wood. A gun boomed from a slope beyond. Ashby checked the pursuit and listened to the report of a vedette. ”Fremont pus.h.i.+ng forward. Horse and guns and the German division. Hm!” He sat the bay stallion, looking about him, then, ”Cuninghame, you go back to General Ewell. Rear guard can't be more than three miles away. Tell General Ewell about the Germans and ask him to give me a little infantry. Hurry now, and if he gives them, bring them up quickly!”
The vedette galloped eastward. Ashby and his men rode back to the ridge, the Horse Artillery, the dead, the wounded, and the prisoners. The latter numbered four officers and forty men. They were all in a group in the suns.h.i.+ne, which lay with softness upon the short gra.s.s and the little pine trees. The dead lay huddled, while over them flitted the b.u.t.terflies. Ashby's surgeons were busy with the wounded. A man with a shattered jaw was making signs, deliberately talking in the deaf-and-dumb alphabet, which perhaps he had learned for some friend or relative's sake. A younger man, his hand clenched over a wound in the breast, said monotonously, over and over again, ”I am from Trenton, New Jersey, I am from Trenton, New Jersey.” A third with glazing eyes made the sign of the cross, drew himself out of the sun, under one of the little pine trees, and died. Some of the prisoners were silent. Others talked with bravado to their captors. ”Salisbury, North Carolina! That's not far. Five hundred miles not far--Besides, Fremont will make a rescue presently. And if he doesn't, s.h.i.+elds will to-morrow! Then off you fellows go to Johnson's Island!” The officer who had led the charge sat on a bank above the road. In the onset he had raged like a Berserker, now he sat imperturbable, ruddy and stolid, an English philosopher on a fallen pine. Ashby came back to the road, dismounting, and leading the bay stallion, advanced. ”Good-day, Colonel Wyndham.”
”Good-day, General Ashby. War's a game. Somebody's got to lose. Only way to stop loss is to stop war. You held the trumps--d.a.m.n me! You played them well, too.” His sword lay across his knees. He took it up and held it out. Ashby made a gesture of refusal. ”No. I don't want it. I am about to send you to the rear. If there is anything I can do for you--”
”Thank you, general, there is nothing. Soldier of fortune. Fortune of war. Bad place for a charge. Ought to have been more wary. Served me right. You've got Bob Wheat with you? Know Bob Wheat. Find him in the rear?”
”Yes. With General Ewell. And now as I am somewhat in haste--”
”You must bid me good-day! See you are caring for my wounded. Much obliged. Dead will take care of themselves. Pretty little place!
Flowers, b.u.t.terflies--large bronze one on your hat.--This our escort?