Part 15 (2/2)

”Show me where your men are,” said Sam. ”Who have you got there?”

”We've got our own regiment, the 43d, and six or eight companies of the 72d--I don't know where they came from; and then there's a battery, and perhaps some others.”

They hastened along the road together, urging the stragglers to join them, which many of them did. The way became more and more enc.u.mbered with men, and the bullets came thicker. Sam was thoroughly scared. He could feel his legs waver at the knee, and it seemed as if a giant hand had grasped him by the spine. They pa.s.sed several musicians of the band.

”Start up a tune!” cried Sam. ”Play something and follow us.” At the same time he instinctively thrust his hand into his breast pocket and felt for his traveling Lares and Penates, namely, his tin soldier, his photographs of East Point, one of Marian, and her last letter.

Meanwhile the band began to play and the ba.s.s-drummer wielded his huge drumstick with all his might. Sam began to feel happier, and so did the men about him. One of the musicians suddenly fell, struck dead by a bullet, and just then a sh.e.l.l burst over them and two or three men went down. With one accord the soldiers began to curse and swear in the most frightful manner and to insist on speedy vengeance. Sam was surprised to find himself enjoying the oaths. They just expressed his feelings, and he hurried on to the edge of the woods. In front of them they saw a line of their own men lying on the ground behind stones and logs, shooting at the enemy, whose line could be distinguished hardly more than a third of a mile away.

”They're nearer than they were,” whispered the captain. ”We must push them back or they'll have us. The men on the firing line are getting scared.”

”We must scare them behind more than the enemy does in front,” said Sam, drawing his revolver. ”Here you, sir, get back into your place.”

A man in the ranks, who was beginning to creep back, saw the revolver and dropped back in his position with an oath.

”Forward!” cried Sam, now thoroughly in the spirit of the occasion.

”Come up to the front, all of you, and extend our line there to the right. Lie down and take careful aim with every shot.”

The men did as they were told, and Sam took up his position behind the line with the captain, both of them standing in a perfect gale of bullets, while all the rest were lying down.

”Lie down,” said Sam to the captain. ”You've no business to risk your life like that.”

”How about yours, sir?” said the captain, as he obeyed.

”I'll take care of myself, if you'll be good enough to let me,”

answered Sam.

The presence of a staff officer gave new courage to the men, and their marksmans.h.i.+p began to have effect on the enemy, who were seen to be gradually falling back. Sam took this opportunity to move his line forward, and he sent a lieutenant to direct the battery to cover his men when they should charge on the enemy's line. He moved his line forward in this way successively three or four times, and the troops were now thoroughly encouraged, and some of them even asked to be allowed to charge. Sam, however, postponed this final act as long as he could. It was not until he saw the captain whom he had met in the woods mangled and instantly killed by a piece of sh.e.l.l that he became so angry that he could restrain himself no longer. He gave the order to fix bayonets, and with a yell the men rose from their lairs and rushed over the intervening ground to the enemy's position. The Cubapinos did not wait for them, but turned and ran precipitously. Sam and his men followed them for at least a mile, when they made a stand again.

”They're in the trenches now that they were in this morning,” explained a lieutenant.

Here the same tactics were renewed, and in another half-hour Sam ordered his men to charge again. This time the enemy waited longer, and many of the attacking party fell, but before they reached the trenches the Cubapinos took flight, and Sam saw his soldiers bayonet the last two or three of them in the back. There were a good many dead in the trenches, all of them shot through the head. It was a proud moment for Sam when he stood on the edge of the trench and planted Old Gory there while the men cheered. A wounded Cubapino lay just before him, and one of the soldiers kicked him in the head and killed him. Sam noticed it, and was a little startled to find that it seemed all right to him.

”I've half a mind to kick the next wounded man I see,” he thought. ”It must be rather good sport”; but he did not do it.

The rest of the fight was in the nature of a procession. They pursued the flying Cubapinos as fast as they could, but were unable to come up with them. In a native village through which they pa.s.sed, Sam asked an old man, who had been too weak to get away, how far off San Diego was, and learned that it was five miles away to the left. He could not understand this, but still he kept on in that direction. As they left the village it burst into flames, for the last soldiers had set it on fire. Sam thought of the old man peris.h.i.+ng in his hut, and it seemed to him a fine thing and quite natural. On their way they came across other bodies of troops who joined them, and it so happened that no one came forward of superior rank to Sam, and consequently he retained the command. Before they came in sight of San Diego he had quite a brigade under him. He halted them in front of the town and sent out a scouting party. There was no sound of firing now except in the distance. In an hour the scouting party came back and reported that the place had been vacated by the enemy, who for some reason had been seized by a panic.

Sam ordered the advance to be resumed, and late in the afternoon found himself in possession of San Diego. He began to take measures at once to fortify the place, when the brigadier-general whom he had seen in the morning marched in with his brigade and took over the command from him, congratulating him on his success, which was already the talk of the army. Sam turned over the command to him with much grace and dignity, and, borrowing a horse, set off for the old headquarters which he had left in the morning, for he learned that, altho the enemy were completely defeated and scattered, still the general would not move his headquarters forward to the front till the following day.

The general received him with great cordiality.

”Everything turned out just as I planned it,” he said, ”but, Captain, you helped us out at a critical point there on the right. I shall mention you in despatches. You may depend on being promoted and given a good post. You ought to have a regiment at least.”

Sam was taking his supper when Cleary came in, hot and grimy.

”Well, you're a great fellow,” he said, ”to get away from me the way you did this morning. But didn't I tell you, you were the stuff? Why, you won the battle. Do you know that you turned their left flank?”

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