Part 6 (2/2)
”I've got a bad pain in the bowels,” replied Phineas, as he placed himself on the right side of a tree, and glanced uneasily in the direction of the rebel skirmish line. ”I'm subject to sich turns, but allus git over 'em if I have a chance to lay down for a few hours.”
”Oh, well, you can lie down here!” added Somers, who understood the case pretty well.
”What! down here in the mud and water? Wal, that would be rather steep for a sick man,” said Phineas, with a ghastly smile, as he glanced again towards the enemy.
”I will get some medicine for you. Here, uncle, let me have one of your powders,” continued the lieutenant, addressing old Hapgood.
”Sartin; they've done me heaps of good, and I'm sure they're just the thing for that man.”
Somers took one of the powders, and opened the paper.
”Now, my man, open your mouth, and let me give you this medicine,” he added.
”What kind of medicine is it?”
”It'll make you kinder sick to the stomach; but it'll cure you in less'n half an hour.”
”Well, lieutenant, I don't know as I want to take any medicine,” answered poor Phineas, who was not prepared for this active treatment; though he would have taken it quick enough if he could be sent to the rear. ”I guess I don't keer about takin' on it.”
”You needn't, if you don't want to get well.”
”I only want to go back to camp, and lay down for a spell.”
”We can't spare you just yet, Phineas; but, if you don't stir yourself, you will lie down here somewhere, and never get up again,” added Somers, as a shower of bullets pa.s.sed over their heads. ”Forward, boys!”
The captain detailed a couple of men to conduct the prisoners to the rear, and the company pressed forward. The rebel sharpshooters were dislodged from the trees; a few prisoners were captured; but the heavy fighting and the heavy losses fell upon other portions of the line. The rebels had been forced back, and the movement seemed to be a success.
Half the regiment moved out of the woods, while the rest remained under the trees; when a halt was ordered. Somers found himself near an old house, behind which a number of rebel sharpshooters had concealed themselves for the purpose of picking off the Union soldiers.
The firing in the immediate vicinity had diminished, though the din of battle resounded on both sides. The boys were rather nervous, as men are when standing idle under fire; but it was the nervousness of restrained enthusiasm, not of fear, unless it was in the case of invalid Phineas, and a very few others whose physical health had not been completely established.
”Well, Somers, my dear boy, how do you get on?” asked Captain de Banyan, as he sauntered leisurely up to the lieutenant, whose command stood next to his own.
”First-rate; only I should like to have something a little more active than standing here.”
”It takes considerable experience to enable a man to stand still under fire. When I was at the battle of Alma, I learned that lesson to a charm.
We stood up for forty-two hours under a fierce fire of grape and canister, to say nothing of musketry.”
”Forty-two hours!” exclaimed Somers. ”I should think you would all have been killed off before that time.”
”In our regiment, only one man was killed; and he got asleep, and walked in his dreams over towards the enemy's line.”
”Captain, you can tell a bigger story than any other man in the army,”
said Somers, laughing.
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