Part 62 (1/2)
The cannonade was furious, and though not many of the grey soldiers suffered, the grey trees did. Great and small branches were lopped off.
In the dim light they came tumbling down. They were borne sideways, tearing through the groves and coverts, or, caught by an exploding sh.e.l.l and torn twig from twig, they fell in a shower of slivers, or, chopped clean from the trunk, down they crashed from leafy level to level till they reached the forest floor. Beneath them rose shouts of warning, came a scattering of grey mortals. Younger trees were cut short off. Their woodland race was run; down they rushed with their festoons of vines, crus.h.i.+ng the undergrowth of laurel and hazel. Other sh.e.l.ls struck the red brown resinous bodies of pines, set loose dangerous mists of bark and splinter. As by a whirlwind the air was filled with torn and flying growth, with the dull crash and leafy fall of the forest non-combatants.
The light was no longer pure; it was murky here as elsewhere. The violet fields and the vermeil gardens were blotted out, and in the shrieking of the sh.e.l.ls the birds could not have been heard to sing even were they there. They were not there; they were all flown far away. It was dark in the wood, dark and full of sound and of moving bodies charged with danger. The whirlwind swept it, the treetops snapped off. ”_Attention!_”
The grey soldiers were glad to hear the word. ”_Forward! March!_” They were blithe to hear the order and to leave the wood.
They moved out into old fields, grown with sedge and sa.s.safras, here and there dwarf pines. Apparently the cannon had lost them; at any rate for a time the firing ceased. The east was now pink, the air here very pure and cool and still, each feather of broom sedge holding its row of diamond dewdrops. The earth was much cut up. ”Batteries been along here,” said the men. ”Ours, too. Know the wheel marks. h.e.l.lo! What you got, Carter?”
”Somebody's dropped his photograph alb.u.m.”
The man in front and the man behind and the man on the other side all looked. ”One of those folding things! Pretty children! one, two, three, four, and their mother.--Keep it for him, Henry. Think the Crenshaw battery, or Braxton's, or the King William, or the Dixie was over this way.”
Beyond the poisoned field were more woods, dipping to one of the innumerable sluggish creeks of the region. There was a bridge--weak and shaken, but still a bridge. This crossed at last, the troops climbed a slippery bank, beneath a wild tangle of shrub and vine, and came suddenly into view of a line of breastworks, three hundred yards away.
There was a halt; skirmishers were thrown forward. These returned without a trigger having been pulled. ”Deserted, sir. They've fallen back, guns and all. But there's a meadow between us and the earthworks, sir, that--that--that--”
The column began to move across the meadow--not a wide meadow, a little green, boggy place commanded by the breastworks. Apparently grey troops had made a charge here, the evening before. The trees that fringed the small, irregular oval, and the great birds that sat in the trees, and the column whose coming had made the birds to rise, looked upon a meadow set as thick with dead men as it should have been with daisies. They lay thick, thick, two hundred and fifty of them, perhaps, heart pierced, temple pierced by minie b.a.l.l.s, or all the body shockingly torn by grape and canister. The wounded had been taken away. Only the dead were here, watched by the great birds, the treetops and the dawn. They lay fantastically, some rounded into a ball, some spread eagle, some with their arms over their eyes, some in the posture of easy sleep. At one side was a swampy place, and on the edge of this a man, sunk to the thigh, kept upright. The living men thought him living, too. More than one started out of line toward him, but then they saw that half his head was blown away.
They left the meadow and took a road that skirted another great piece of forest. The sun came up, drank off the vagrant wreaths of mist and dried the dew from the sedge. There was promise of a hot, fierce, dazzling day. Another halt. ”What's the matter this time?” asked the men. ”G.o.d! I want to march on--into something happening!” Rumour came back. ”Woods in front of us full of something. Don't know yet whether it's buzzards or Yankees. Get ready to open fire, anyway.” All ready, the men waited until she came again. ”It's men, anyhow. Woods just full of bayonets gleaming. Better throw your muskets forward.”
The column moved on, but cautiously, with a strong feeling that it, in its turn, was being watched--with muskets thrown forward. Then suddenly came recognition. ”Grey--grey!--See the flag! They're ours! See--”
Rumour broke into jubilant shouting. ”It's the head of Jackson's column!
It's the Valley men! Hurrah! Hurrah! Stonewall! Stonewall Jackson!
Yaaaih! Yaaaaaihhhh!--'h.e.l.lo, boys! You've been doing pretty well up there in the blessed old Valley!' 'h.e.l.lo, boys! If you don't look out you'll be getting your names in the papers!' 'h.e.l.lo, boys! come to help us kill mosquitoes? Haven't got any quinine handy, have you?' 'h.e.l.lo, boys! h.e.l.lo Kernstown, McDowell, Front Royal, Winchester, Harper's Ferry, Cross Keys, Port Republic! Yaaaih! Yaaaaaihh!' 'h.e.l.lo, you d.a.m.ned Cohees! Are you the foot cavalry?'--65th Virginia, Stonewall Brigade?
Glad to see you, 65th! Welcome to these here parts. What made you late?
We surely did hone for you yesterday evening. Oh, shucks! the best gun'll miss fire once in a lifetime. Who's your colonel? Richard Cleave?
Oh, yes, I remember! read his name in the reports. We've got a good one, too,--real proud of him. Well, we surely are glad to see you fellows in the fles.h.!.+--Oh, we're going to halt. You halted, too?--Regular love feast, by jiminy! Got any tobacco?”
A particularly ragged private, having gained permission from his officer, came up to the sycamore beneath which his own colonel and the colonel of the 65th were exchanging courtesies. The former glanced his way. ”Oh, Cary! Oh, yes, you two are kin--I remember. Well, colonel, I'm waiting for orders, as you are. Morally sure we're in for an awful sc.r.a.p. Got a real respect for Fitz John Porter. McClellan's got this army trained, too, till it isn't any more like the rabble at Mana.s.sas than a grub's like a b.u.t.terfly! Mighty fine fighting machine now. Fitz John's got our old friend Sykes and the Regulars. That doesn't mean what it did at Mana.s.sas--eh? We're all Regulars now, ourselves.--Yes, Cold Harbour, I reckon, or maybe a little this way--Gaines's Mill. That's their second line. Wonderful breastworks. Mac's a master engineer!--Now I'll clear out and let you and Cary talk.”
The two cousins sat down on the gra.s.s beneath the sycamore. For a little they eyed each other in silence. Edward Cary was more beautiful than ever, and apparently happy, though one of his shoes was nothing more than a sandal, and he was innocent of a collar, and his sleeve demanded a patch. He was thin, bright-eyed, and bronzed, and he handled his rifle with lazy expertness, and he looked at his cousin with a genuine respect and liking. ”Richard, I heard about Will. I know you were like a father to the boy. I am very sorry.”
”I know that you are, Edward. I would rather not talk about it, please.
When the country bleeds, one must put away private grief.”
He sat in the shade of the tree, thin and bronzed and bright-eyed like his cousin, though not ragged. Dundee grazed at hand, and scattered upon the edge of the wood, beneath the little dogwood trees, lay like acorns his men, fraternizing with the ”Tuckahoe” regiment. ”Your father and Fauquier--?”
”Both somewhere in this No-man's Land. What a wilderness of creeks and woods it is! I slept last night in a swamp, and at reveille a beautiful moccasin lay on a log and looked at me. I don't think either father or Fauquier were engaged last evening. Pender and Ripley bore the brunt of it. Judith is in Richmond.”
”Yes. I had a letter from her before we left the Valley.”
”I am glad, Richard, it is you. We were all strangely at sea, somehow--She is a n.o.ble woman. When I look at her I always feel rea.s.sured as to the meaning and goal of humanity.”
”I know--I love her dearly, dearly. If I outlive this battle I will try to get to see her--”
Off somewhere, on the left, a solitary cannon boomed. The grey soldiers turned their heads. ”A signal somewhere! We're spread over all creation.
Crossing here and crossing there, and every half-hour losing your way!
It's like the maze we used to read about--this bottomless, mountainless, creeky, swampy, feverish, d.a.m.ned lowland--”
The two beneath the sycamore smiled. ”'Back to our mountains,' eh?” said Edward. Cleave regarded the forest somewhat frowningly. ”We are not,” he said, ”in a very good humour this morning. Yesterday was a day in which things went wrong.”