Part 21 (1/2)

”John, if you were given enough guns, and I had me enough men, we could whip old Sherm clean off the face of the earth!”

And then the scout caught Kirby's whisper of a.s.sent to that. ”The old man ain't foolin'; he could jus' do it!”

”Maybe he could,” Drew agreed. He wished fiercely that Morton did have his guns and Forrest all the men who had been wasted, who had melted away from his ranks--or were buried. A man had to have tools before he could build, but their tools were getting mighty few, mighty old, and.... He tried to close his mind to that line of thought. They were on the move again, and Forrest had certainly proven here that though Atlanta might be gone, there was still an effective Confederate Army in the field, ready and able to twist the tail of any Yankee!

11

_The Road to Nashville_

Sleet drove at the earth with an oblique, knife-edged whip. The half-ice, half-rain struck under water-logged hat brims, found the neck opening where the body covering, improvised from a square of appropriated Yankee oilcloth, lay about the shoulders.

”I'm thinkin' we sure have struck a stream lengthwise.” Kirby's Tejano crowded up beside Hannibal. ”Can't otherwise be so many bog holes in any stretch of country. An' if we ever do come across those dang-blasted ordnance wagons, we won't know 'em from a side of 'dobe anyway.”

They had reined in on the edge of a mud hole in which men sweated--in spite of the sleet which plastered thin clothing to their gaunt bodies--swore, and put dogged endurance to the test as they labored with drag ropes and behind wheels encrusted with pendulous pounds of mud, to propel a supply wagon out of the bog into which it had sunk when the frozen crust of the rutted road had broken apart. The Army of the Tennessee, now fighting storms, winter rains, snow and hail, was also fighting men as valiantly, engaged in General Hood's great gamble of an all-out attack on Nashville. They had a hope--and a slim chance--to sweep through the Union lines back up into Tennessee and Kentucky, and perhaps to wall off Sherman in the south and repair the loss of Atlanta.

Hannibal brayed, s.h.i.+fting his weary feet in the churned-up muck of the field edge. The ground, covered with a sc.u.m of ice at night, was a trap for animals as well as vehicles. Breaking through that gla.s.sy surface to the glutinous stuff beneath, they suffered cuts deep enough to draw blood above hoof level.

Drew called to the men laboring at the stalled wagon.

”Ordnance? Buford's division?”

He didn't really expect any sort of a promising answer. This was worse than trying to hunt a needle in a stack of hay, this tracing--through the fast darkening night--the lost ordnance wagons, caught somewhere in or behind the infantry train. But ahead, where Forrest's cavalry was thrusting into the Union lines at Spring Hill, men were going into battle with three rounds or less to feed their carbines and rifles.

Somehow the horse soldiers had pushed into a hot, full-sized fight and the scouts had to locate those lost wagons and get them up to the front lines.

A living figure of mud spat out a mouthful of that viscous substance in order to answer.

”This heah ain't no ordnance--not from Buford's neither! Put your backs into it now, yo' wagon-dogs! Git to it an' pus.h.!.+”

Under that roar the excavation squad went into straining action. Oxen, their eyes bulbous in their skulls from effort, set brute energy against yokes along with the men. The mud eventually gave grip, and the wagon moved.

Drew rode on, the two half-seen shapes which were Boyd and Kirby in his wake. A dripping branch flicked bits of ice into his face. The dusk was a thickening murk, and with the coming of the November dark, their already pitiful chance of locating the wagons dwindled fast.

There was a distant crackle of carbine and rifle fire. The struggle must still be in progress back there. At least the stragglers about them were still moving up. No retreat from Spring Hill, unless the Yankees were making that. All Drew's party could do was to continue on down the road, asking their question at each wagon, stalled in the mud or traveling at a snail's pace.

”D'you see?” Boyd cried out. ”Those men were barefoot!” Involuntarily he swung one of his own booted feet out of the stirrup as if to a.s.sure himself that he still had adequate covering for his cold toes.

”It ain't the first time in this heah war,” Kirby remarked. ”They'll ketch 'em a Yankee. The blue bellies, they're mighty obligin' 'bout wearin' good shoes an' such, an' lettin' themselves be roped with all their plunder on. Some o' 'em, who I had the pleasure of surveyin'

through Sarge's gla.s.ses this mornin', have overcoats--good warm ones.

Now that's what'd pleasure a poor cold Texas boy, makin' him forgit his troubles. You keep your eyes sighted for one of them theah overcoats, Boyd. I'll be right beholden to you for it.”

Hannibal brayed again and switched his rope tail. His usual stolid temperament showed signs of wear.

”Airin' th' lungs that way sounds like a critter gittin' set to make war medicine. A hardtail don't need no hardware but his hoofs to make a man regret knowin' him familiar-like--”

Drew had reached another wagon.

”Ordnance? Buford's?” He repeated the well-worn question without hope.

”Yeah, what about it?”