Part 72 (1/2)

The private on his right was a learned man. Edward addressed him. ”Have you ever thought, doctor, how fearfully dramatic is this world?”

”Yes. It's one of those facts that are too colossal to be seen.

Shakespeare says all the world's a stage. That's only a half-truth. The world's a player, like the rest of us.”

Below this niche stretched the grey battle-lines; above it, on the hilltop, by the cannon and over half the slope beneath, spread the blue.

A forest stood behind the grey; out of it came the troops to the charge, the flags tossing in front. The upward reaching fingers of coppice and brush had their occupants, fragments of commands under cover, bands of sharpshooters. And everywhere over the open, raked by the guns, were dead and dying men. They lay thickly. Now and again the noise of the torment of the wounded made itself heard--a most doleful and ghostly sound coming up like a wail from the Inferno. There were, too, many dead or dying horses. Others, still unhurt, galloped from end to end of the field of death. In the wheat-field there were several of the old, four-footed warriors, who stood and ate of the shocked grain. There arrived a hush over the battlefield, one of those pauses which occur between exhaustion and renewed effort, effort at its height. The guns fell silent, the musketry died away, the gunboats ceased to throw those great sh.e.l.ls. By contrast with the clangour that had prevailed, the stillness seemed that of a desert waste, a dead world. Over toward a cross-road there could be made out three figures on horseback. The captain of Edward's company was an old college mate; lying down with his men, he now drew himself over the ground and loaned Cary his field-gla.s.s. ”It's General Lee and General Jackson and General D. H.

Hill.”

A body of grey troops came to occupy a finger of woods below the three captured guns. ”That's Cary's Legion,” said the captain. ”Here comes the colonel now!”

The two commands were but a few yards apart. Fauquier Cary, dismounting, walked up the sedgy slope and asked to speak to his nephew. The latter left the ranks, and the two found a trampled s.p.a.ce beside one of the great thirty-two pounders. A dead man or two lay in the parched gra.s.s, but there was nothing else to disturb. The quiet yet held over North and South and the earth that gave them standing room. ”I have but a moment,”

said the elder man. ”This is but the hush before the final storm. We came by Jackson's troops, and one of his officers whom I knew at the Point rode beside me a little way. They all crossed White Oak Swamp by starlight this morning, and apparently Jackson is again the Jackson of the Valley. It was a curious eclipse. The force of the man is such that, while his officers acknowledge the eclipse, it makes no difference to them. He is Stonewall Jackson--and that suffices. But that is not what I have to tell--”

”I saw father a moment this morning. He said there was a rumour about one of the Stonewall regiments--”

”Yes. It was the 65th.”

”Cut to pieces?”

”Yes.”

”Richard--Richard was not killed?”

”No. But many were. Hairston Breckinridge was killed--and some of the Thunder Run men--and very many others. Almost destroyed, Carlton said.

They crossed at sunset. There were a swamp and a wood and a hollow commanded by hills. The enemy was in force behind the hill, and there was beside a considerable command in ambush, concealed in the woods by the swamp. These had a gun or two. All opened on the 65th. It was cut to pieces in the swamp and in a little marshy meadow. Only a remnant got back to the northern side of the creek. Richard is under arrest.”

”He was acting under orders!”

”So Carlton says he says. But General Jackson says there was no such order; that he disobeyed the order that was given, and now tries to screen himself. Carlton says Jackson is more steel-like than usual, and we know how it fared with Garnett and with others. There will be a court-martial. I am very anxious.”

”I am not,” said Edward stoutly. ”There will be an honourable acquittal.

We must write and tell Judith that she's not to worry! Richard Cleave did nothing that he should not have done.”

”Of course, we know that. But Carlton says that, on the face of it, it's an ugly affair. And General Jackson--Well, we can only await developments.”

”Poor Judith!--and his sister and mother.... Poor women!”

The other made a gesture of a.s.sent and sorrow. ”Well, I must go back.

Take care of yourself, Edward. There will be the devil's own work presently.”

He went, and Edward returned to his fellows. The silence yet held over the field; the westering sun glowed dull red behind the smoke; the three figures rested still by the cross-roads; the ma.s.s of frowning metal topped Malvern Hill like a giant, smoke-wreathed _chevaux de frise_. Out of the brushwood to the left of the regiment, straight by it, upward towards the guns, and then at a tangent off through the fields to the woods, sped a rabbit. Legs to earth, it hurried with all its might. The regiment was glad of a diversion--the waiting was growing so intolerable. The men cheered the rabbit. ”Go it, Molly Cottontail!--Go it, Molly!--Go it, Molly!--Hi! Don't go that-away!

Them's Yankees! They'll cut your head off! Go t'other way--that's it! Go it, Molly! d.a.m.n! If't wasn't for my character, I'd go with you!”

The rabbit disappeared. The regiment settled back to waiting, a very intolerable employment. The sun dipped lower and lower. The hush grew portentous. The guns looked old, mailed, dead warriors; the gunboats sleeping forms; the grey troops battle-lines in a great war picture, the three hors.e.m.e.n by the cross-roads a significant group in the same; the dead and wounded over all the fields, upon the slope, in the woods, by the marshes, the jetsam, still and heavy, of war at its worst. For a moment longer the wide and dreary stretch rested so, then with a wild suddenness sound and furious motion rushed upon the scene. The gunboats recommenced with their long and horrible sh.e.l.ls. A grey battery opened on Berdan's sharpshooters strung in a line of trees below the great crown of guns. The crown flamed toward the battery, scorched and mangled it. By the cross-roads the three figures separated, going in different directions. Presently galloping horses--aides, couriers--crossed the plane of vision. They went from D. H. Hill in the centre to Jackson's brigades on the left and Magruder's on the right. They had a mile of open to cross, and the iron crown and the sharpshooters flamed against them. Some galloped on and gave the orders. Some threw up their arms and fell, or, cras.h.i.+ng to earth with a wounded horse, disentangled themselves and stumbled on through the iron rain. The sun drew close to the vast and melancholy forests across the river. Through a rift in the smoke, there came a long and crimson shaft. It reddened the river, then struck across the shallows to Malvern Hill, suffused with a b.l.o.o.d.y tinge wood and field and the marshes by the creeks, then splintered against the hilltop and made a hundred guns to gleam. The wind heightened, lifting the smoke and driving it northward. It bared to the last red light the wild and dreary battlefield.

From the centre rose the Confederate yell. Rodes's brigade, led by Gordon, charged. It had half a mile of open to cross, and it was caught at once in the storm that howled from the crest of Malvern Hill. Every regiment suffered great loss; the 3d Alabama saw half its number slain or wounded. The men yelled again, and sprang on in the teeth of the storm. They reached the slope, almost below the guns. Gordon looked behind for the supporting troops which Hill had promised. They were coming, that grim fighter leading them, but they were coming far off, under clanging difficulties, through a h.e.l.l of shrapnel. Rodes's brigade alone could not wrest that triple crown from the hilltop--no, not if the men had been giants, sons of Anak! They were halted; they lay down, put muskets to shoulder and fired steadily and fired again on the blue infantry.

It grew darker on the plain. Brigades were coming from the left, the right, the centre. There had been orders for a general advance. Perhaps the aides carrying them were among the slain, perhaps this, perhaps that. The event was that brigades charged singly--sometimes even regiments crossed, with a cry, the twilight, groaning plain and charged Malvern Hill unsupported. The place flamed death and destruction. Hill's ten thousand men pressed forward with the order of a review. The shot and sh.e.l.l met them like a tornado. The men fell by hundreds. The lines closed, rushed on. The Federal infantry joined the artillery. Musketry and cannon, the din became a prolonged and fearful roar of battle.

The sun disappeared. There sprang out in the western sky three long red bands of clouds. On the darkening slope and plain Hill was crushed back, before and among his lines a horror of exploding sh.e.l.ls. Jackson threw forward Lawton and Whiting, Winder and the Louisiana troops, while on the right, brigade after brigade, Magruder hurled across the plain nine brigades. After Hill, Magruder's troops bore the brunt of the last fearful fighting.