Letty was still asleep, but Ailsa went up and waked her when the hour for her tour of duty approached.
"What do you think!" she said excitedly. "We are to pack up our valises and go aboard the Mary Lane to-morrow. She sails with hospital stores. What do you think of that?"
"Where are we going?" asked Letty, bewildered.
"You poor, sleepy little thing," said Ailsa, sitting down on the bed's shaky edge, "I'm sure I don't know where we're going, dear. Two Protestant nurses are coming here to superintend the removal of our sick boys—and Dr. West says they are old and ugly, and that Miss Dix won't have any more nurses who are not over thirty and who are not most unattractive to look at."
"I wonder what Miss Dix would do if she saw us," said Letty naively, and sat up in bed; rubbing her velvety eyes with the backs of her hands. Then she yawned, looked inquiringly at Ailsa, smiled, and swung her slender body out of bed.
While she was doing her hair Ailsa heard her singing to herself.
She was very happy; another letter from Dr. Benton had arrived.
Celia, who had gone to Washington three days before, to see Mr. Stanton, returned that evening with her passes and order for transportation; and to Ailsa's astonishment and delight she found that the designated boat was the Mary Lane.
But Celia was almost too nervous and too tired to talk over the prospects.
"My dear," she said wearily, "that drive from the Chain Bridge to Alexandria has mos'ly killed me. I vow and declare there was never one moment when one wheel was not in a mud hole. All my bones ache, Honey-bud, and I'm cross with talking to so many Yankees, and—do you believe me !—that ve'y horrid Stanton creature gave orders that I was to take the oath!"
"The—oath?" asked Ailsa, amazed.
"Certainly. And I took it," she added fiercely, "becose of my husband! If it had not been fo' Curt I'd have told Mr. Stanton what I thought of his old oath!"
"What kind of an oath was it, Celia?"
Celia repeated it haughtily:
"'I do solemnly swear, in the presence of Almighty God, to faithfully support the Constitution of the United States, and of the State of New York. So he'p me God.'"
"It is the oath of fealty," said Ailsa in a hushed voice.
"It was not necessa'y," said Celia coldly. "My husband is sufficient to keep me—harmless. . . . But I know what I feel in my heart, Honey-bud; and so does eve'y Southern woman—God help us all. . . . Is that little Miss Lynden going with us?"
"Letty? Yes, of course."
Celia began to undress. "She's a ve'y sweet little minx. . . . She is—odd, somehow. . . . So young—such a he'pless, cute little thing. . . Ailsa, in that child's eyes—or in her features somewhere, somehow, I see—I feel a—a sadness, somehow—like the gravity of expe'ience, the something that wisdom brings to the ve'y young too early. It is odd, isn't it."
"Letty is a strange, gentle little thing. I've often wondered——"
"What, Honey-bee?"
"I—don't know," said Ailsa vaguely. "It is not natural that a happy woman should be so solemnly affectionate to another. I've often thought that she must, sometime or other, have known deep unhappiness."
When Celia was ready to retire, Ailsa bade her good-night and wandered away down the stairs, Letty was still on duty; she glanced into the sick-diet kitchen as she passed and saw the girl bending over a stew-pan.
She did not disturb her. With evening a soft melancholy had begun to settle over Ailsa. It came in the evening, now, often—a sensation not entirely sad, not unwelcome, soothing her, composing her mind for serious thought, for the sweet sadness of memory.
Always she walked, now, companioned by memories of Berkley. Wherever she moved—in the quiet of the sick wards, in the silence of the moonlight, seated by smeared windows watching the beating rain, in the dead house, on duty in the kitchen contriving broths, or stretched among her pillows, always the memories came in troops to bear her company.
They were with her now as she paced the veranda to and fro, to and fro.
She heard Letty singing happily over her stew-pan in the kitchen; the stir and breathing of the vast army was audible all around her in the darkness. Presently she looked at her watch in the moonlight, returned it to her breast.
"I'm ready, dear," she said, going to the kitchen door.
And another night on duty was begun—the last she ever was to spend under the quiet roof of the Farm Hospital.
That night she sat beside the bed of a middle-aged man, a corporal in a Minnesota regiment whose eyes had been shot out on picket. Otherwise he was convalescent from dysentery. But Ailsa had seen the convalescent camp, and she would not let him go yet.
So she read to him in a low, soothing voice, glancing from time to time at the bandaged face. And, when she saw he was asleep, she sat silent, hands nervously clasped above the Bible on her knee. Then her lids closed for an instant as she recited a prayer for the man she loved, wherever he might be that moon-lit night.
A zouave, terribly wounded on Roanoke Island, began to fret; she rose and walked swiftly to him, and the big sunken eyes opened and he said, humbly:
"I am sorry to inconvenience you, Mrs. Paige. I'll try to keep quiet."
"You foolish fellow, you don't inconvenience me. What can I do for you?"
His gaze was wistful, but he said nothing, and she bent down tenderly, repeating her question.
A slight flush gathered under his gaunt cheek bones. "I guess I'm just contrary," he muttered. "Don't bother about me, ma'am."
"You are thinking of your wife; talk to me about her, Neil."
It was what he wanted; he could endure the bandages. So, her cool smooth hand resting lightly over his, where it lay on the sheets, she listened to the home-sick man until it was time to give another sufferer his swallow of lemonade.
Later she put on a gingham overgown, sprinkled it and her hands with camphor, and went into the outer wards where the isolated patients lay—where hospital gangrene and erysipelas were the horrors. And, farther on, she entered the outlying wing devoted to typhus. In spite of the open windows the atmosphere was heavy; everywhere the air seemed weighted with the odour of decay.
As always, in spite of herself, she hesitated at the door. But the steward on duty rose; and she took his candle and entered the place of death.
Toward morning a Rhode Island artilleryman, dying in great pain, relapsed into coma. Waiting beside him, she wrote to his parents, enclosing the little keepsakes he had designated when conscious, while his life flickered with the flickering candle. Her letter and his life ended together; dawn made the candle-light ghastly; a few moments later the rumble of the dead waggon sounded in the court below. The driver came early because there was a good deal of freight for his waggon that day. A few moments afterward the detail arrived with the stretchers, and Ailsa stood up, drew aside the screen, and went down into the gray obscurity of the court-yard.
Grave-diggers were at work on a near hillside; she could hear the clink clink of spade and pick; reveille was sounding from hill to hill; the muffled stirring became a dull, sustained clatter, never ceasing around her for one instant.
A laundress was boiling clothing over a fire near by; Ailsa slipped off her gingham overdress, unbound the white turban, and tossed them on the grass near the fire. Then, rolling back her sleeves, she plunged her arms into a basin of hot water in which a little powdered camphor was floating.
While busy with her ablutions the two new nurses arrived, seated on a battery limber; and, hastily drying her hands, she went to them and welcomed them, gave them tea and breakfast in Dr. West's office, and left them there while she went away to awake Celia and Letty, pack her valise for the voyage before her, and write to Berkley.
But it was not until she saw the sun low in the west from the deck of the Mary Lane, that she at last found a moment to write.
The place, the hour, her loneliness, moved depths in her that she had never sounded—moved her to a recklessness never dreamed of. It was an effort for her to restrain the passionate confessions trembling on her pen's tip; her lips whitened with the cry struggling for utterance.
"Dear, never before did I so completely know myself, never so absolutely trust myself to the imperious, almost ungovernable tide which has taken my destiny from the quiet harbour where it lay, and which is driving it headlong toward yours.
"You have left me alone, to wonder and to wonder. And while isolated, I stand trying to comprehend why it was that your words separated our destinies while your arms around me made them one. I am perfectly aware that the surge of life has caught me up, tossed me to its crest, and is driving me blindly out across the waste spaces of the world toward you—wherever you may be—whatever be the cost. I will not live without you.
"I am not yet quite sure what has so utterly changed me—what has so completely changed within me. But I am changed. Perhaps daily familiarity with death and pain and wretchedness, hourly contact with the paramount mystery of all, has broadened me, or benumbed me. I don't know. All I seem to see clearly—to clearly understand—is the dreadful brevity of life, the awful chances against living, the miracle of love in such a maelstrom, the insanity of one who dare not confess it, live for it, love to the uttermost with heart, soul, and body, while life endures,
"All my instincts, all principles inherent or inculcated; all knowledge spiritual and intellectual, acquired; all precepts, maxims, proverbs, axioms incorporated and lately a part of me, seem trivial, empty, meaningless in sound and in form compared to the plain truths of Death. For never until now did I understand that we walk always arm in arm with Death, that he squires us at every step, coolly joggles our elbow, touches our shoulder now and then, wakes us at dawn, puts out our night-light, and smooths the sheets we sleep under.
"I had thought of Death as something hiding very, very far away. Yet I had already seen him enter my own house. But now I understand how close he always is; and, somehow, it has changed—hardened, maybe—much that was vague and unformed in my character. And, maybe, the knowledge is distorting it; I don't know. All I know is that, before life ends, if there is a chance of fulfilment, I will take it. And fulfilment means you—my love for you, the giving of it, of myself, of all I am, all I desire, all I care for, all I believe, into your keeping—into your embrace. That, for me, is fulfilment of life.
"Even in your arms you tell me that there is to be no fulfilment. I have acquiesced, wondering, bewildered, confused. But, dear, you can never tell me so again—if we live—if I live to look into your eyes again—never, never. For I shall not believe it, nor shall I let you believe it, if only we can win through this deathly battle nightmare which is rising between us—if ever we can find each other again, touch each other through this red, unreal glare of war.
"Oh, Philip—Philip—only to have your arms around me! Only to touch you! You shall not tell me then that our destinies do not mingle. They shall mingle like two wines; they shall become utterly confused in one another; I was meant for that; I will not die, isolated by you, unknown to you, not belonging to you! I will not die alone this way in the world, with no deeper memory to take into the unknown than that you said you loved me.
"God alone knows what change misery and sorrow and love and death have accomplished in me; never have I stood so alone upon this earth; never have I cared so for life, never have I so desired to be a deathless part of yours.
"If you love me you will make me part of yours—somehow, some way. And, Philip, if there is no way, yet there is always one way if we both live. And I shall not complain—only, I cannot die—let life go out—so that you could ever forget that my life had been part of yours.
"Is it dreadful of me to think this? But the mighty domination of Death has dwarfed everything around me, dear; shrivelled the little man-made formulas and laws; the living mind and body seem more vital than the by-laws made to govern them. . . . God knows what I'm writing, but you have gone into battle leaving life unfulfilled for us both, and I assented—and my heart and soul are crying out to you, unreconciled—crying out my need of you across the smoke. . . .
"There is a battery at Cock-pit Point, firing, and the smoke of the guns drifts across the low-hanging sun. It must be only a salute, for our fleet of transports moves on, torrents of black smoke pouring out of every tall funnel, paddle-wheels churning steadily.
"When the fleet passed Mount Vernon the bells tolled aboard every boat; and we could see the green trees and a glimmer of white on shore, and the flag flying.
"What sadness! A people divided who both honour the sacredness of this spot made holy by a just man's grave—gathering to meet in battle—brother against brother.
"But Fate shall not longer array you and me against each other! I will not have it so! Neither my heart nor my soul could endure the cruelty of it, nor my reason its wickedness and insanity. From the first instant I met your eyes, Philip, somehow, within me, I knew I belonged to you. I do more hopelessly to-day than ever—and with each day, each hour, more and more until I die. You will not let me go to my end unclaimed, will you?—a poor ghost all alone, lost in the darkness somewhere among the stars—lacking that tie between you and it which even death does not know how to sever!
"I leave all to you, loving you, wishing what you wish, content with what you give—and take—so that you do give and take and keep and hold for life.
"It is very dusky; the lights, red and white, glimmer on every transport. We feel the sea-swell a little. Celia left us, going ashore at Acquia Creek. She takes the cars to Richmond and then to Paigecourt. Letty sits beside me on deck. There were two cases of fever aboard and we went down into a dreadfully ill-smelling cabin to do what we could. Now we are here on deck again. Some officers are talking very gaily with Letty. I am ending my letter to you—wherever you are, my darling, under these big, staring stars that look down at me out of space. I don't want my ghost to be blown about up there—unless it belongs to you. That is the only fear of death I ever have or ever had—that I might die before you had all of me there is to give."
CHAPTER XV
Toward the end of June, as Claymore's new provisional brigade of Sykes's division, Fitz John Porter's superb corps d'armee, neared the designated rendezvous, some particularly dirty veteran regiments, bivouacked along the fields, crowded to the roadside, fairly writhing in their scorn and derision.
"Fresh fish! Oh—h! Fresh fi—sh!" they shouted. "My God, boys, just see them pretty red pants! Mother! Come and look. Oh, papa, what are they? Sa—ay, would you gentlemen kindly tell us poor old sodgers what kind ov a hell ov a, dressmaker cut out them pantalettes? I wish I could go out to play with these nice, perlite little boys? Oh, children! why didn't you bring your nursemaids with you?"
The 3rd Zouaves marched past the jeering veterans, grinding their teeth, but making no effort at retort. They knew well enough by this time that any attempt to retort would be worse than useless.
As the head of the column of the 8th Lancers appeared from the West at the forks of the other road, the dingy veterans fairly danced in malicious delight:
"Excuse us," they simpered, kissing their dirty finger-tips to the horsemen, "ex-cuse us, please, but do tell us how you left dear old Fift' Avenoo. Them rocking hosses need a leetle new paint where they sit down, me lords. Hey, you ain't got any old red silk stockings we can use for guidons, have you? Oh, Alonzo darling! curl my hair an' wet me with expensive cologne!"
Colonel Egerton's 20th Dragoons, being in blue and orange, got off easier, though the freshness of their uniforms was tremendously resented; but McDunn's 10th Flying Battery, in brand new uniforms, ran the full fierce fire of chaff; the indignant cannoneers were begged to disclose the name of the stage line which had supplied their battery horses; and Arthur Wye, driving the showy swing team of No. 6, Left Section, shouted back in his penetrating voice:
"If you want to know who sells broken-down nags to suckers, it's Simon Cameron!—you Dutch-faced, barrel-bellied, Pennsylvania scuts!"
A bull-like bellow of laughter burst from the battery; even Captain McDunn's grin neutralised the scowling visage he turned to conceal it. And the fury of the Pennsylvanians knew no bounds; for, from general to drummer boy, the troops of that great State were horribly sensitive to any comment on the Hon. Mr. Cameron's horse transactions.
Warren's matchless brigade followed; but the 6th Lancers had seen
service and they were not jeered; nor were the 5th and 10th
Zouaves, the 1st Connecticut Heavy Artillery and the Rhode Island
Battery.
Berkley, riding with his troop, bridle loose in both gauntleted hands, lance swinging wide from stirrup and elbow loop, looked to the left and noticed Warren's regiments swinging out across the breezy uplands. Half an hour later he saw the 3rd Zouaves enter a wheat field to the left of the road, form on their colour front, unsling knapsacks, and stack arms. McDunn's battery found a gap in the fence and followed, the guns bumping and bouncing out over a potato field; and presently Egerton's Dragoons turned sharply to the right and entered a cool road that ran along a bushy hollow.
The 8th Lancers kept straight on for five or six hundred yards, until they encountered their regimental quartermaster and camping party. Then they wheeled to the right, passed through a thin belt of shade trees, across a splendid marl drive and a vast unkempt lawn. Beyond this they skirted a typical planter's house of the better class, with its white galleries, green blinds, quarters, smoke houses, barns, and outhouses innumerable; and halted, each troop moving to a point a little in the rear of where its horses were to be secured, and forming one rank. The bugles sounded "Dismount!" Eight hundred sun-burned riders set foot to sod, details were made to hold the horses, lances were stacked, picket ropes fixed, shelter tents erected, sabre and bridle hung on the twelve weapons of the troop-carbineers, and the standard carried to Colonel Arran's tent.
Directly to the right was a gentle declivity with a clear, rapid stream splashing the bottom grasses. Beyond the stream a low green hill rose, concealing the landscape and the river beyond.
And here, on the breezy meadow slope, Egerton's Dragoons went into camp and sent out their fatigue parties and grand guards.
Company and squadron streets were laid out, sinks dug, shelter tents pitched, firewood brought, horses picketed. Twenty paces in front of each pile of tents the kitchens were established; all the regimental cavalry waggons came up promptly and were parked in the rear of the picket line for sick horses; the belated and hated sutler of the 8th Lancers drove hastily in, deaf to the blandishments of veterans along the roadside, who eyed him malevolently and with every desire to work him substantial harm.
Late in the afternoon there was much visiting along the lines and between distant camps; the day was cloudless and perfect; magnolia and china-berry scented the winds which furrowed every grassy hillside; flags fluttered, breezy gusts of bugle music incited the birds to rivalry. Peace and sunshine lay over all, and there was nothing sinister to offend save, far along the horizon, the low, unbroken monotone of cannon, never louder, never lower, steady, dull, interminable; and on the southern horizon a single tall cloud, slanting a trifle to the east, like a silver pillar out of plumb.
Berkley's attention was directed to it by a suspicious comrade; they both gazed at it curiously, listening to the low mutter of the cannonade; then Berkley frowned, folded both gauntlets, placed them in his belt, passed his hand over his freshly shaven chin, and, pocketing his cob pipe, sauntered forth to visit and gossip with those he knew in other camps.
"Hello, Burgess," he said humorously; "how are you making out?"
His late valet's arm twitched instinctively toward the salute he dared not offer; he glanced stealthily right and left before answering:
"I am doing very well, sir, thank you."
"I told you to cut out the 'sir,' didn't I?"
"Yes, sir—beg pardon——"
Berkley eyed him. "You've got your chance," he said. "Your rank and mine are equal. Do you take pleasure in continually reminding yourself of your recent position of servitude?"
"Sir?—beg pardon——"
"Can't you help it? Is it born in you?"
Burgess stood silent, considering, then he lifted his ugly face and looked hard at Berkley.
"I am not ashamed of having served you. I am more comfortable under orders. . . . I liked to dress you up . . . I wish to God it was that way now."
"Don't you want your independence?"
"My independence," repeated Burgess, "I had it—more of it when I was looking out for you, sir, than I have now in this damn regiment——"
"Well, what did you enlist for?"
"You've asked me that many times, sir, and I don't know. . . . I'd rather be around, handy like——"
"You'll get killed some day, don't you know it?"
"No, sir. I guess you'll look out for me. You always did."
"How the devil can I prevent one of those big shells from knocking you off your horse!"
Burgess, patient, undisturbed, let the, question go with a slight smile.
"What a jackass you are!" said Berkley irritably; "here's a dollar to get some pie. And if you can cheat that cursed sutler, do it!"
He himself purchased two big pies from the sutler after an angry haggle in which he was easily worsted; and he munched away contentedly as he walked toward the lines of the 3rd Zouaves, his spurs and sabre jingling, Burgess following respectfully at heel.
"Hello, Steve!" he called out to a sun-burnt young zouave who was drying his freshly washed turban in the hill breeze. "I always heard you fellows wore infant's underclothes, but I never believed it before!"
"That's my turban, you idiot!" retorted Stephen, turning red as several of McDunn's artillerymen began to laugh. But he came over and shook hands and accepted a big piece of pie without further resentment. "Hello, Burgess," he added.
"How do you do, sir."
"That damned Dutch sutler of ours," commented Berkley, "puts clay in his pie-erust. We'll certainly have to fix him before long. How are you, Steve, anyway?"
"Both socks full of tallow; otherwise I'm feeling fine," said the boy. "Did you hear those dirty Bucktail veterans back there poking fun at us? Well, we never answer 'em nowadays; but the Zouaves are getting fearfully sick of it; and if we don't go into battle pretty soon there'll be a private war on—" he winked—"with those Pennsylvanians, you bet. And I guess the Lancers will be in it, too."
Berkley cast an evil eye on a pair of Pennsylvania soldiers who had come to see how the Zou-zous made camp; then he shrugged his shoulders, watching Burgess, who had started away to roam hungrily around the sutler's camp again.
"After all," he said, "these veterans have a right to jeer at us. They've seen war; and now they know whether they'll fight or run away. It's more than we know, so far."
"Well, I tell you," said Stephen candidly, "there's no chance of my running away. A fellow can't skedaddle when his father's looking at him. Besides, Phil, I don't know how it is, but I'm not very much afraid, not as much as I thought I'd be."
Berkley looked at him curiously. "Have you been much under fire?"
"Only that affair at the Blue Bridge—you know yourself how it was. After the first shell had made me rather sick at my stomach I was all right—except that I hated to see father sitting up there on his horse while we were all lying snug in the wheat. . . . How did you feel when the big shells came over?"
"Bad," said Berkley briefly.
"Sick?"
"Worse."
"I don't see why you should feel queer, Phil—after that bully thing you did with the escort——"
"Oh, hell!" cut in Berkley savagely, "I'm sick of hearing about it. If you all knew that I was too scared to realise what I was doing you'd let up on that episode."
Stephen laughed. "I hope our boys get scared in the same way. . . . Hello, here's a friend of yours I believe——"
They turned to encounter Casson, the big dragoon, arm in arm with the artilleryman, Arthur Wye.
"Give us some pie, you son of a gun!" they suggested unceremoniously; and when supplied and munching, they all locked arms and strolled out across the grass toward the hill, where already, dark against the blinding blue, hundreds of idle soldiers had gathered to sit on the turf and stare at the tall cloud on the horizon, or watch the signal officer on the higher hill beyond, seated at his telescope, while, beside him, a soldier swung dirty square flags in the wind,
As they arrived on the crest a quick exclamation escaped them; for there, beyond, mile on mile, lay the armed host of which their regiments were tiny portions.
"Lord!" said Stephen in a low, surprised voice, "did you fellows know that the whole army was near here?"
"Not I," said Berkley, gazing spellbound out across the rolling panorama of river, swamp, woods, and fields. "I don't believe it occurs very often, either—the chance to see an entire army all at once, encamped right at your feet. What a lot of people and animals!"
They sat down, cross-legged, enjoying their pie, eyes wandering wonderingly over the magic landscape. Here and there a marquee marked some general's headquarters, but except for these there were no tents save shelter tents in sight, and not so many of these, because many divisions had bivouacked, and others were in cantonments where the white cupola of some house glimmered, or the thin spire of a church pierced green trees.
Here and there they noted and pointed out to each other roads over which cavalry moved or long waggon trains crept. Down along the swamps that edged the river they could see soldiers building corduroy, repairing bridges, digging ditches, and, in one spot, erecting a fort.
"Oh, hell," said Casson, whose regiment, dismounted, had served muddy apprenticeship along the York River, "if they're going to begin that kind of thing again I'd rather be at home laying gas pipes on Broadway!"
"What kind of thing?" demanded Stephen.
"That road making, swamp digging—all that fixing up forts for big guns that nobody has a chance to fire because the Johnnies get out just when everything's ready to blow 'em into the Union again. A—h!" he added in disgust, "didn't we have a dose of that at Yorktown and Williamsburg? Why doesn't Little Mac start us hell-bent for Richmond and let us catch 'em on the jump?"
For a while, their mouths full of pie, the soldiers, with the exception of Berkley, criticised their commander-in-chief, freely—their corps commanders, and every officer down to their particular corporals. That lasted for ten minutes. Then one and all began comparing these same maligned officers most favourably with other officers of other corps; and they ended, as usual, by endorsing their commander-in-chief with enthusiasm, and by praising every officer under whom they served.
Then they boasted of their individual regiments—all except Berkley—extolling their discipline, their marching, their foraging efficiency, their martyr-like endurance.
"What's your Colonel like, anyway?" inquired Casson, turning to
Berkley.
"He's a good officer," said the latter indifferently.
"Do you like him?"
"He has—merit."
"Jerusalem!" laughed Wye, "if that isn't a kick in the seat of his pants!"
Berkley reddened. "You're mistaken, Arthur."
"Didn't you tell me at Alexandria that you hated him?"
"I said that—yes. I was disappointed because the Westchester Horse was not attached to John Casson's regiment. . . . I don't—dislike Colonel Arran."
Berkley was still red; he lay in the grass on his stomach, watching the big cloud pile on the horizon.
"You know," said Casson, "that part of our army stretches as far as that smoke. We're the rear-guard."
"Listen to the guns," said Wye, pretending technical familiarity even at that distance. "They're big fellows—those Dahlgrens and Columbiads——"
"Oh, bosh!" snapped Casson, "you can't tell a howitzer from a rocket!"
Wye sat up, thoroughly offended. "To prove your dense ignorance, you yellow-bellied dragoon, let me ask you a simple question: When a shell is fired toward you can you see it coming?"
"Certainly. Didn't we see the big shells at Yorktown——"
"Wait! When a solid shot is fired, can you see it when it is coming toward you?"
"Certainly——"
"No you can't, you ignoramus! You can see a shell coming or going; you can see a solid shot going—never coming from the enemy's guns. Aw! go soak that bull head of yours and wear a lady-like havelock!"
The bickering discussion became general for a moment, then, still disputing, Casson and Wye walked off toward camp, and Stephen and Berkley followed.
"Have you heard from your mother?" asked the latter, as they sauntered along over the grass.
"Yes, twice. Father was worried half to death because she hadn't yet left Paigecourt. Isn't it strange, Phil, that after all we're so near mother's old home? And father was all against her going, I tell you, I'm worried."
"She has probably gone by this time," observed Berkley.
The boy nodded doubtfully; then: "I had a fine letter from Ailsa. She sent me twenty dollars," he added naively, "but our sutler has got it all."
"What did Ailsa say?" asked Berkley casually.
"Oh, she enquired about father and me—and you, too, I believe. Oh, yes; she wanted me to say to you that she was well—-and so is that other girl—what's her name?"
"Letty Lynden?"
"Oh, yes—Letty Lynden. They're in a horrible kind of a temporary hospital down on the York River along with the Sisters of Charity; and she said she had just received orders to pack up and start west with the ambulances."
"West?"
"I believe so."
After a silence Berkley said:
"I heard from her yesterday."
"You did!"
"Yes. Unless your father already knows, it might be well to say to him that Ailsa's ambulance train is ordered to rendezvous in the rear of the 5th Provisional Corps head-quarters."
"Our corps!"
"That looks like it, doesn't it? The 5th Provisional Corps is
Porter's." He turned and looked back, out across the country.
"She may be somewhere out yonder, at this very moment, Steve." He made a vague gesture toward the west, stood looking for a while, then turned and walked slowly on with head lowered.
"I wish my mother and Ailsa were back in New York," said the boy fretfully. "I don't see why the whole family should get into hot water at the same time."
"It wouldn't surprise me very much if Ailsa's ambulance landed beside your mother's door at Paigecourt," said Berkley. "The head-quarters of the 5th Corps cannot be very far from Paigecourt." At the cavalry lines he offered his hand to Stephen in farewell.
"Good-bye," said the boy. "I wish you the luck of the 6th Lancers. Since Hanover Court-House nobody calls 'em 'fresh fish'—just because they charged a few Johnnies with the lance and took a few prisoners and lost thirty horses."
Berkley laughed. "Thanks; and I wish you the luck of the 5th
Zouaves. They're into everything, I hear, particularly hen-coops
and pigpens. Casson says they live high in the 5th Zouaves. . .
Good-bye, old fellow . . . will you remember me to your father?"
"I will when he lets me talk to him," grinned Stephen. "We're a disciplined regiment—I found that out right away—and there's nothing soft for me to expect just because my father is colonel and Josiah Lent happens to be major."
The regimental bands played the next day; the distant cannonade had ceased; sunshine fell from a cloudless sky, and the army watched a military balloon, the "Intrepid," high glistening above the river, its cables trailing in gracious curves earthward.
Porter's 5th Corps now formed the rear-guard of the army; entire regiments went on picket, even the two regiments of Lancers took their turn, though not armed for that duty. During the day there had been some unusually brisk firing along the river, near enough to cause regiments that had never been under fire to prick up a thousand pairs of ears and listen. As the day lengthened toward evening, picket firing became incessant, and the occasional solid report of a cannon from the shore opposite disclosed the presence of Confederate batteries, the nearness of which surprised many an untried soldier.
Toward sundown Berkley saw a business-like cavalry officer ride into camp with an escort of the 5th Regulars. Men around him said that the officer was General Philip St. George Cooke, and that the chances were that the regiments of the reserve were going into action pretty soon.
About 3 o'clock the next morning boots and saddles sounded from the head-quarters of the Cavalry Reserve brigade and the 5th and 6th United States Cavalry, followed by Colonel Rush's Lancers, rode out of their camp grounds and were presently followed by the 1st United States and a squadron of Pennsylvania carbineers.
The troopers of the 8th Lancers watched them ride away in the dawn; but mo orders came to follow them, and, discontented, muttering, they went sullenly about their duties, wondering why they, also, had not been called on.
That nobody had caught the great Confederate cavalryman did not console them; they had to listen to the jeers of the infantry, blaming them for Stuart's great raid around the entire Union army; in sickening reiteration came the question: "Who ever saw a dead cavalryman?" And, besides, one morning in a road near camp, some of the 8th Lancers heard comments from a group of general officers which were not at all flattering to their own cavalry.
"You see," said a burly colonel of engineers, "that this army doesn't know what real cavalry looks like—except when it gets a glimpse of Jeb Stuart's command."
An infantry colonel coincided with him, profanely:
"That damned rebel cavalry chases ours with a regularity and persistence that makes me ill. Did the world ever see the like of it? You send out one of our mounted regiments to look for a mounted rebel regiment, and the moment it finds what it's lookin' for the rebs give a pleased sort of yell, and ours turn tail. Because it's become a habit: that's why our cavalry runs! And then the fun begins! Lord God Almighty! what's the matter with our cavalry?"
"You can't make cavalry in a few months," observed a colonel of heavy artillery, stretching his fat, scarlet-striped legs in his stirrups. "What do you expect? Every man, woman, and child south of Mason and Dixon's Line knows how to ride. The Southerners are born horsemen. We in the North are not. That's the difference. We've got to learn to be. Take a raw soldier and send him forth mounted on an animal with which he has only a most formal acquaintance, and his terrors are increased twofold. When you give him a sabre, pistol, and carbine, to take care of when he has all he can do to take care of himself, those terrors increase in proportion. Then show him the enemy and send him into battle—and what is the result? Skedaddle!
"Don't make any mistake; we haven't any cavalry yet. Some day we will, when our men learn to ride faster than a walk."
"God!" muttered a brigadier-general under his white moustache; "it's been a bitter pill to swallow—this raid around our entire army by fifteen hundred of Jeb Stuart's riders and two iron guns!"
The half dozen lancers, lying on their bellies in the grass on the bank above the road where this discussion took place remained crimson, mute, paralysed with mortification. Was that what the army thought of them?
But they had little time for nursing their mortification that morning; the firing along the river was breaking out in patches with a viciousness and volume heretofore unheard; and a six-gun Confederate field battery had joined in, arousing the entire camp of Claymore's brigade. Louder and louder grew the uproar along the river; smoke rose and took silvery-edged shape in the sunshine; bugles were calling to the colours regiments encamped on the right; a light battery trotted out across a distant meadow, unlimbered and went smartly into action.
About noon the bugles summoned the 3rd Zouaves. As they were forming, the camps of the 8th Lancers and the 10th Light Battery rang with bugle music. Berkley, standing to horse, saw the Zouaves leaving the hill at a jog-trot, their red legs twinkling; but half way down the slope they were halted to dress ranks; and the Lancers, cantering ahead, turned westward and moved off along the edge of the river swamp toward the piled-up cloud of smoke down stream.
After them trotted the 10th New York Flying Battery as though on parade, their guidons standing straight out behind the red-and-white guidons of the Lancers.
The Zouaves had now reached wet land, where a staff officer met Colonel Craig and piloted him through a field of brush and wild grass, and under the parapets of an emplacement for big guns, on which men were nonchalantly working, to the beginning of a newly laid road of logs. The noise of musketry and the smoke had become prodigious. On the logs of the road lay the first big pool of blood that many of them had ever seen. What it had come from they could not determine; there was nothing dead or dying there.
The men glanced askance at the swamp where the black shining water had risen almost level with the edges of the road; but the Colonel and his staff, still mounted, rode coolly over it, and the regiment followed.
The corduroy road through the heavily wooded swamp which the 3rd Zouaves now followed was the only inlet to the noisy scene of local action, and the only outlet, too.
Except for watching the shells at Blue Bridge, the regiment had never been in battle, had never seen or heard a real battle; many had never even seen a wounded man. They understood that they were going into battle now; and now the regiment caught sight of its first wounded men. Stretchers passed close to them on which soldiers lay naked to the waist, some with breasts glistening red and wet from unstopped haemorrhage, some with white bodies marked only by the little round blue hole with its darker centre. Soldiers passed them, limping, bloody rags dripping from thigh or knee; others staggered along with faces the colour of clay, leaning on the arms of comrades, still others were carried out feet first, sagging, a dead-weight in the arms of those who bore them. One man with half his fingers gone, the raw stumps spread, hurried out, screaming, and scattering blood as he ran.
The regiment passed an artilleryman lying in the water whose head, except for the lower jaw, was entirely missing; and another on his back in the ooze whose bowels were protruding between his fingers; and he was trying very feebly to force them back, while two comrades strove in vain to lift him.
The regiment sickened as it looked; here and there a young zouave turned deathly pale, reeled out of the ranks, leaned against a tree, nauseated, only to lurch forward again at the summons of the provost guard; here and there a soldier disengaged his white turban from his fez and dropped it to form a sort of Havelock; for the vertical sun was turning the men dizzy, and the sights they saw were rapidly unnerving them.
They heard the tremendous thunder and felt the concussion of big guns; the steady raining rattle of musketry, the bark of howitzers, the sharp, clean crack of rifled field guns dismayed them. Sometimes, far away, they could distinguish the full deep cheering of a Union regiment; and once they caught the distant treble battle cry of the South. There were moments when a sudden lull in the noise startled the entire regiment. Even their officers looked up sharply at such times. But ahead they could still see Colonel Craig riding calmly forward, his big horse picking its leisurely way over the endless road of logs; they could see the clipped gray head of Major Lent under its red forage-cap, steady, immovable, as he controlled his nervous mount with practised indifference.
It was broiling hot in the swamp; the Zouaves stood bathed in perspiration as the regiment halted for a few minutes, then they moved forward again toward a hard ridge of grass which glimmered green beyond the tangled thicket's edges.
Here the regiment was formed in line of battle, and ordered to lie down.
Stephen wiped his sweaty hands on his jacket and, lifting his head from the grass, looked cautiously around. Already there had been fighting here; a section of a dismantled battery stood in the road ahead; dead men lay around it; smoke still hung blue in the woods. The air reeked.
The Zouaves lay in long scarlet rows on the grass; their officers stood leaning on their naked swords, peering ahead where the Colonel, Major, and a mounted bugler were intently watching something—the two officers using field glasses. In a few moments both officers dismounted, flung their bridles to an orderly, and came back, walking rather quickly. Major Lent drawing his bright, heavy sword and tucking up his gold-embroidered sleeves as he came on.
"Now, boys," said Colonel Craig cheerfully, "we are going in. All you've got to do can be done quickly and thoroughly with the bayonet. Don't cock your muskets, don't fire unless you're told to. Perhaps you won't have to fire at all. All I want of you is to keep straight on after me—right through those dry woods, there. Try to keep your intervals and alignment; don't yell until you sight the enemy, don't lose your heads, trust your officers. Where they go you are safest."
He dropped his eye-glasses into his slashed pocket, drew out and put on a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. The soldiers saw him smile and say something to Major Lent, saw him bare his handsome sword, saw the buglers setting the shining bugles to their lips.
"Now, charge, you red-legged rascals!" shouted Major Lent; and up from the grass rose a wave of scarlet and flashing steel.
Charge! Charge! echoed the bugles; a wailing storm, high among the tree tops, passed over them as they entered the dry woods on a run; branches crashed earthward, twig's and limbs crackled down in whirling confusion. But there was nothing in the woods except smoke—and the streaming storm shrilling overhead, raining down on them leaves and boughs and splintered sticks.
The belt of woodland was very narrow; already the men could see sunlight on the farther edge, and catch glimpses of fields; and still they ran forward, keeping their alignment as best they might among the trees; and came, very soon, to the wood's edge. Here they were halted and ordered to lie down again; and they lay there, close to the ground among the dead leaves, while from above living leaves rained on them in never-ending showers, and the wild tempest sped overhead unchecked.
Far out across the fields in the sunshine, looking diminutive as toys in the distance, four cannon puffed smoke toward them. The Zouaves could see the guns—see even the limbers and caissons behind, and the harnessed teams, and the cannoneers very busily at work in the sunshine. Then a long low wall of white smoke suddenly appeared along a rail fence in front of the guns, and at the same time the air thickened with bullets storming in all about them.
The Colonel and the Major had run hastily out into the field. "Get
up! Get up!" shouted the company officers. "Left dress, there!
Forward! Don't cock your rifles; don't fire until you're told to.
Steady there on the left. Forward! Forward!"
"Now yell, you red-legs! Yell!"
As they started running, their regimental colours fell, man and nag sprawling in the grass; and the entire line halted, bewildered. The next instant a zouave had lifted the colours, and was running forward; and: "Get on there! Continue the movement! What in hell's the matter with you Zouaves!" shouted their lieutenant-colonel. And the sagging scarlet line bellied out, straightened as the flanks caught up, and swept out into the sunshine with a cheer—the peculiar Zouave cheer—not very full yet, for they had not yet lost the troubled wonder of things.
Stephen, running with shouldered musket, saw close ahead a long line of blue smoke and flame, but instead of the enemy there was nothing hidden behind the smoke except a long field-ditch in which dry brush was burning.
Into the ditch tumbled the regiment, and lay panting, coughing, kicking out the embers, and hugging the ground closely, because now the storm that had swept the tree tops was shaving the weeds and grass around them; and the drone of bullets streaming over the ditch rose to a loud, fierce whine.
Up in the blue sky little white clouds suddenly unfolded themselves with light reports, and disappeared, leaving jagged streamers of vapour afloat here and there; the near jarring discharge of artillery shook the ground till bits of sod fell in particles, crumbling from the ditch's edge; the outrageous racket of musketry never slackened.
Lying there, they heard a sudden burst of cheering, and far to the left saw another regiment come tumbling into the ditch and crouch, huddled there in a blue line stretching as far away as they could see. And again the firing increased to a stunning roar, and there were more cheers; and, to their right, another regiment came running and rolling into the ditch.
Officers, recklessly erect, stood here and there along the interior of the ditch; then from the lair of each regiment flags emerged, bugles blew clear and impatient; there came an upheaval of bayonets, and the three regiments scrambled to their feet, over the ditch's edge, and surged forward into the sunshine.
Across the fields Stephen saw guns being limbered up; and drivers lashing their horses to a gallop across a bridge. The regiment on their left was firing by wings as it advanced, the regiment on the right had broken into a heavy run, yelling: "Hey! We want them guns! Wait a second, will yer? Where you takin' them guns to?"
There was a new rail fence close in front of the Zouaves, barring their way to the bridge; and suddenly, from behind it, men arose with levelled muskets; and the Zouaves dropped flat to the volley that buried the fence in smoke.
"Now, boys!" cried Colonel Craig, "we've got to have that bridge! So we'll finish this business right here with the bayonet. Come on and let's end it now!"
Major Lent ran forward and started to climb the smoky fence; everywhere the Zouaves were swarming along the newly split rails or driving their bayonets through the smoke at the gray phantoms clustering behind. Shots rang out, the crack of stock against stock, the ringing clamour and click of steel filled the air.
The zouave next to Stephen lurched up against him spouting blood from the neck; on the other side of him another, a sergeant, too, had gone stark mad, apparently, and was swinging his terrible sabre bayonet without regard to friend or foe; and still another man of his squad, swearing horridly, had clutched a ghostly enemy in the smoke across the fence and was trying to strangle him with his bare hands.
Stephen, bewildered by a blow which glanced from his head to his left shoulder, clung to his musket and tried to stagger forward, but a bayonet seared his right temple, tearing the scalp and letting down a rush of blood all over his face and eyes. Blinded, the boy called instinctively: "Father! I'm hurt! Could you help me!"
Colonel Craig turned white under his tan, and looked back.
"I can't help you, my boy. Sergeant, will you look after my son?" And he ran forward into the infernal network of bayonets, calling out: "Get through there, boys. We might as well clean up this mess while we're about it. Pull down that fence! Never mind those men behind it!—rush it! Kick it over! Now come on! I don't ask you to do anything that I don't do. Major Lent and I will take you through. Come on and take that bridge!"
A captain, fighting back the bayonets with his sword, suddenly floundered to the fence top and clung, balanced on his belly, shouting hysterically:
"Look at the Lancers! Look at 'em coming! Now, Zouaves! Pull down the fence and give them a chance to charge the bridge!"
Over a low swell of land some horsemen trotted into view; behind them the horizon was suddenly filled with the swimming scarlet pennons of the Lancers. A thousand horses' heads shot up against the sky line, manes tossing; a thousand lance points fell to a glittering level.
They were cheering shrilly as they came on; the Zouaves heard them, the gray infantry regiment gave way, turned, filed off, retreating toward the bridge at a slow trot like some baffled but dangerous animal; and after it ran the Zouaves, firing, screaming, maddened to hysteria by their first engagement, until their panting officers and their bugles together barely managed to halt them short of the edges of utter annihilation just as a full Confederate brigade rose grimly from the wood's edge across the stream, ready to end their hysterical yelling for ever.
Stephen, sitting on the grass among the dead and stricken, tied his bloody turban, pulled the red fez close over it, smeared the blood from his eyes, and, clutching his musket, stood up unsteadily.
He could see the charge of the 8th Lancers—see the horsemen wheel and veer wildly as they received the fire of the Confederate troops from the woods across the stream, squadron after squadron sheering off at a gallop and driving past the infantry, pell-mell, a wild riot of maddened horses, yelling riders, and streaming scarlet pennons descending in one vivid, headlong torrent to the bridge. But the structure was already hopelessly afire; and the baffled carbineers of the advance reined up at the edge of the burning timbers and sent an angry volley after the gray infantry now jogging back into the woods beyond. Then, suddenly, the Zouaves heard the Lancers cheering wildly in the smoke of the burning structure, but did not know what it meant.
It meant—Berkley.
Fear had squired him that day. When the bugles sounded through the cannon thunder and his squadron trotted out, Fear, on a paler horse than Death bestrides, cantered with him, knee to knee. Fear's startled eyes looked into his through the jetted smoke of musketry, through the tumult of the horses and the trumpets; Fear made his voice light and thin, so that he scarcely heard it amid the fierce cheering of his comrades, the pounding of hoofs, the futile clattering of equipments.
It was all a swift and terrible nightmare to him—the squadrons breaking into a gallop, the woods suddenly belted with smoke, the thud and thwack of bullets pelting leather and living flesh, the frantic plunging of stricken horses, the lightning down-crash of riders hurled earthward at full speed, the brief glimpses of scarlet streaks under foot—of a horse's belly and agonised iron-shod feet, of a white face battered instantly into obliteration, of the ruddy smoke flowing with sparks amid which bugles rang above the clashing halt of maddened squadrons.
Then, through the rolling ocean of smoke, he saw officers and men trying to hack away and beat out the burning timbers—saw a reckless carbineer—his own tent-mate—dismount and run out across the planking which was already afire, saw him stumble and roll over as a bullet hit him, get to his knees blindly, trip and fall flat in the smoke. Then Fear bellowed in Berkley's ear; but he had already clapped spurs to his horse, cantering out across the burning planking and straight into the smoke pall.
"Where are you, Burgess?" he shouted. The Fear of Death stiffened his lips as he reined up in the whirling spark-shot obscurity. "Burgess—damn you—answer me, can't you!" he stammered, half strangled in the smoke, trying to master his terrified mount with rein and knee and heel.
Vaguely he heard comrades shouting for him to come back, heard shells exploding amid the smoke, wheeled his staggering horse, bent swiftly and grasped at an inanimate form in the smoke, missed, dismounted and clutched the senseless carbineer—his comrade—and once his valet.
[Illustration: "He dismounted and clutched the senseless carbineer."]
Out of the fiery tunnel came tearing his terrified horse, riderless; out of the billowing, ruddy vapours reeled Berkley, dragging the carbineer.
It was the regiment cheering him that the Zouaves heard.
The fields were now swimming in bluish smoke; through it the Zouaves were reforming as they marched. Little heaps of brilliant colour dotting the meadow were being lifted and carried off the field by comrades; a few dismounted carbineers ran hither and thither, shooting hopelessly crippled horses. Here and there a dead lancer lay flat in the grass, his scarlet pennon a vivid spot beside him.
The hill road to the burning bridge was now choked with Colonel Arran's regiment, returning to the crest of the hill; through the blackish and rolling smoke from the bridge infantry were creeping swiftly forward toward the river bank, and very soon the intermittent picket firing began again, running up and down the creek bank and out across the swamp lands, noisily increasing as it woke up vicious volleys from the woods on the opposite bank, and finally aroused the cannon to thunderous anger.
Berkley, standing to horse with his regiment on the sparsely wooded hill crest, could see the crowding convolutions of smoke rising from the thickets, as each gun spoke from the Confederate batteries. But to him their thunder was like the thunder in a dream.
Hour after hour the regiment stood to horse; hour after hour the battle roared west and south of them. An irregular cloud, slender at the base, spreading on top, towered to mid zenith above the forest. Otherwise, save for the fleecy explosion of shells in the quivering blue vault above, nothing troubled the sunshine that lay over hill and valley, wood and river and meadowland.
McDunn's battery was not firing; the Zouaves lay dozing awake in the young clover, the Lancers, standing to horse, looked out across the world of trees and saw nothing stirring save a bird or two winging hastily northward.
Berkley could distinguish a portion of the road that ran down to the burning bridge, where part of McDunn's battery was in position. Across the hills to the left a scarlet windrow undulating on either flank of the battery marked the line of battle where the Zouaves lay in a clover-field, within supporting distance of the guns.
Except for these, and a glimpse of Lowe's balloon overhead, Berkley could not see anything whatever even remotely connected with the uproar which continued steadily in the west and south. Nobody seemed to know whose troops were engaged, where they came from, whither they were trying to force a fiery road through a land in arms against their progress.
At times, to Berkley, it seemed as though every tree, every hill, every thicket was watching him with sombre intent; as if Nature herself were hostile, stealthy, sinister, screening terrors yet unloosed, silently storing up violence in dim woods, aiding and abetting ambush with all her clustering foliage; and that every river, every swamp, every sunny vista concealed some hidden path to death.
He stood rigid at his horse's head, lance in hand, dirty, smoke-blackened, his ears deafened by the cannonade, his eyes cool and alert, warily scanning hill and hollow and thicket.
Dead men of his regiment were borne past him; he glanced furtively at them, not yet certain that the lower form of fear had left him, not yet quite realising that he had blundered into manhood—that for the first time in his life he was ready to take his chance with life.
But, little by little, as the hours passed, there in the trodden grass he began to understand something of the unformulated decision that had been slowly growing in him—of the determination, taking shape, to deal more nobly with himself—with this harmless self which had accepted unworthiness and all its attributes, and which riven pride would have flung back at the civilisation which branded him as base.
It came—this knowledge—like a slowly increasing flare of light; and at last he said under his breath, to himself:
"Nothing is unworthily born that is born of God's own law. I have been what I chose. I can be what I will."
A gracious phantom grew under his eyes taking exquisite shape before him; and dim-eyed, he stared at it till it dwindled, faded, dissolved into empty air and sunshine.
No; he could never marry without revealing what he was; and that he would never do because of loyalty to that tender ghost which he must shield for ever even as he would have shielded her in life.
No living soul had any right to know. No love of his for any woman could ever justify betrayal of what alone concerned the dead.
The shells, which, short fused, had been bursting high above the swamp to the right, suddenly began to fall nearer the cavalry, and after a while a shell exploded among them, killing a horse.
They retired by squadrons, leisurely, and in good order; but the shells followed them, searching them out and now and then finding them with a deafening racket and cloud of smoke, out of which mangled horses reared, staggered, and rolled over screaming; out of which a rider, here and there was hurled sideways, head first, or sent spinning and headless among his white-faced comrades.
McDunn's guns had opened now, attempting to extinguish the fire of the troublesome Confederate battery. Berkley, teeth set, pallid, kept his place in the ranks, and hung to his horse's head until he got the animal calmed again. One of his sleeves was covered with blood from a comrade's horse, blown into fragments beside him.
He could see McDunn's gunners working methodically amid the vapours steaming back from the battery as it fired by sections; saw the guns jump, buried in smoke; saw the long flames flicker, flicker, flicker through the cannon mist; felt the solid air strike him in the face at each discharge.
Hallam, white as a sheet, stood motionless at the head of his troop; a shell had just burst, but it was as though he dared not look back until Colonel Arran rode slowly over to the stricken company—and saw Berkley still standing at his horse's head, and gave him a look that the younger man never forgot.
Again, by troops, the Lancers retired; and again the yelling shells found them, and they retired to the base of a hill. And came upon a division in full panic.
Over a culvert and down a wooded road troops of all arms were riotously retreating, cavalry, baggage-waggons, battered fragments of infantry regiments, ambulances, all mixed and huddled pell-mell into a headlong retreat that stretched to the rear as far as the eye could see.
Astonished, the Lancers looked on, not understanding, fearful of some tremendous disaster. A regiment of regular cavalry of the Provost Guard was riding through the fugitives, turning, checking, cutting out, driving, separating the disorganised mob; but it was hard work, and many got away, and teamsters began to cut traces, and skulking cavalrymen clapped spurs and rode over screeching deserters who blocked their path. It was a squalid sight; the Lancers looked on appalled.
Colonel Arran rode his horse slowly along the front of his regiment, talking quietly to his men.
"It's only one or two of the raw brigades and a few teamsters and frightened sutlers—that's all. Better that the Provost Guard should let them through; better to sift out that kind of soldier." . . . He calmly turned his horse's head and rode back along the lines of horses and dismounted troopers, commenting reassuringly on what was taking place around them.
"There is never any safety in running away unless your officers order you to run. The discipline of a regiment is the only security for the individual. There is every chance of safety as long as a regiment holds together; no chance at all if it disintegrates.
"The regulars understand that; it is what makes them formidable; it is what preserves them individually, and every man knows it. The regulars don't run; it happens to be contrary to their traditions; but those traditions originated less in sentiment than in plain common-sense."
He turned his horse and walked the animal slowly along the lines.
"I am exceedingly gratified by the conduct of this regiment," he said. "You have done all that has been asked of you. To do more than is asked of you is not commendable in a soldier, though it may display individual courage. . . . The carbineer, Burgess, 10th troop, Captain Hallam, was foolhardy to attempt the bridge without orders. . . . The lancer, Ormond, 10th troop, Captain Hallam, however, did his full duty—admirably—when he faced death to rescue a wounded comrade from the flames. . . . In England a Victoria Cross is given for deeds of this kind. The regiment respects him—and respects itself. . . . I care to believe that there is not one officer or trooper in my command who is not ready to lay down his life for a friend. . . . I am happy in the consciousness that it is not courage which is lacking in this command; it is only experience. And that will come; it came with the shells on the slope yonder. There is no more severe test of a regiment's discipline than to endure the enemy's fire without being able to retaliate."
The regiment's eyes were fastened on their colonel's tall heavy figure as he walked his powerful horse slowly to and fro along their front, talking to them in his calm, passionless manner. Strained muscles and tense nerves relaxed; breath came more regularly and naturally; men ventured to look about them more freely, to loosen the spasmodic grip on curb and snaffle, to speak to comrades in low tones, inquiring what damage other troops had sustained.
The regular cavalry of the Provost Guard had turned the tide of stragglers now, letting through only the wounded and the teams. But across the open fields wreckage from the battle was streaming in every direction; and so stupid and bewildered with fear were some of the fugitives that McDunn's battery had to cease its fire for a time, while the officers ran forward through the smoke, shouting and gesticulating to warn the mass of skulkers out of the way.
And now a fearful uproar of artillery arose immediately to the west, shells began to rain in the river woods, then shrapnel, then, in long clattering cadence, volley succeeded volley, faster, faster, till the outcrash became one solid, rippling roar.
Far to the west across the country the Lancers saw regiments passing forward through the trees at a quick-step; saw batteries galloping hither and thither, aides-de-camp and staff-officers racing to and fro at full speed.
The 3rd Zouaves rose from the clover, shouldered muskets, and moved forward on a run; a staff-officer wheeled out of the road, jumped his horse over the culvert, and galloped up to Colonel Arran. And the next moment the Lancers were in the saddle and moving at a trot out toward the left of McDunn's battery.
They stood facing the woods, lances poised, for about ten minutes, when a general officer with dragoon escort came galloping down the road and through the meadow toward McDunn's battery. It was Claymore, their general of brigade.
"Retire by prolonge!" he shouted to the battery commander, pulling in his sweating horse. "We've got to get out of this!" And to Colonel Arran, who had ridden up, flushed and astonished: "We've got to leave this place," he repeated shortly. "They're driving the Zouaves in on us."
All along the edge of the woods the red breeches of the Zouaves were reappearing, slowly retreating in excellent order before something as yet unseen. The men turned every few paces to fire by companies, only to wheel again, jog-trot toward the rear, halt, load, swing to deliver their fire, then resume their jogging retreat.
Back they fell, farther, farther, while McDunn's battery continued to fire and retire by prolonge, and the Lancers, long weapons disengaged, accompanied them, ready to support the guns in an emergency.
The emergency seemed very near. Farther to the left a blue regiment appeared enveloped in spouting smoke, fairly hurled bodily from the woods; Egerton's 20th Dragoons came out of a concealed valley on a trot, looking behind them, their rear squadron firing from the saddle in orderly retreat; the Zouaves, powder soiled, drenched in sweat, bloody, dishevelled, passed to the left of the battery and lay down.
Then, from far along the stretch of woods, arose a sound, incessant, high-pitched—a sustained treble cadence, nearer, nearer, louder, shriller, like the excited cry of a hunting pack, bursting into a paroxysm of hysterical chorus as a long line of gray men leaped from the wood's edge and swept headlong toward the guns.
Berkley felt every nerve in his body leap as his lance fell to a level with eight hundred other lances; he saw the battery bury itself in smoke as gun after gun drove its cannister into obscurity or ripped the smoke with sheets of grape; he saw the Zouaves rise from the grass, deliver their fire, sink back, rise again while their front spouted smoke and flame.