CHAPTER XVII
The smoke and spiteful crackle of the pickets' fusilade had risen to one unbroken crash, solidly accented by the report of field guns.
Ambulances were everywhere driving to the rear at a gallop past the centre and left sections of McDunn's Battery, which, unlimbered, was standing in a cotton field, the guns pointed southward across the smoke rising below.
Claymore's staff, dismounted, stood near. The young general himself, jacket over one arm, was seated astride the trail of the sixth gun talking eagerly to McDunn, when across the rolling ground came a lancer at full speed, plunging and bucketing in his saddle, the scarlet rags of the lance pennon whipping the wind. The trooper reined in his excited horse beside Claymore, saluted, and handed him a message; and the youthful general, glancing at it, got onto his feet in a hurry, and tossed his yellow-edged jacket of a private to an orderly. Then he faced the lancer:
"Tell Colonel Craig to hold his position no matter what it costs!" he exclaimed sharply. "Tell Colonel Arran that I expect him to stand by the right section of the 10th battery until it is safely and properly brought off!" He swung around on Captain McDunn.
"Limber your battery to the rear, sir! Follow headquarters!" he snapped, and threw himself into his saddle, giving his mount rein and heel with a reckless nod to his staff.
McDunn, superbly mounted, scarcely raised his clear, penetrating voice: "Cannoneers mount gun-carriages; caissons follow; drivers, put spur and whip to horses—forward—march!" he said.
"Trot out!" rang the bugles; the horses broke into a swinging lope across the dry ridges of the cotton field, whips whistled, the cannoneers bounced about on the chests, guns, limbers and caissons thumped, leaped, jolted, rose up, all wheels in the air at once, swayed almost to overturning, and thundered on in a tornado of dust, leaders, swing team, wheel team straining into a frantic gallop.
The powerful horses bounded forward into a magnificent stride; general and staff tore on ahead toward the turnpike. Suddenly, right past them came a driving storm of stampeding cavalry, panic-stricken, riding like damned men, tearing off and hurling from them carbines, canteens, belts; and McDunn, white with rage, whipped out his revolver and fired into them as they rushed by in a torrent of red dust. From his distorted mouth vile epithets poured; he cursed and damned their cowardice, and, standing up in his stirrups, riding like a cossack at full speed, attempted to use his sabre on the fugitives from the front. But there was no stopping them, for the poor fellows had been sent into fire ignorant how to use the carbines issued the day before.
Into a sandy field all spouting with exploding shells and bullets the drivers galloped and steered the plunging guns. The driver of the lead team, fifth caisson, was shot clear out of his saddle, all the wheels going over him and grinding him to pulp; piece and limber whirled into a lane on a dead run, and Arthur Wye, driving the swing team, clinging to the harness and crawling out along the traces, gained the saddle of the lead-horse.
"Bully for you!" shouted McDunn. "I hope to God that cowardly monkey cavalry saw you!"
The left section swung on the centre to get its position; limber after limber dashed up, clashing and clanking, to drop its gun; caisson after caisson rounded to under partial cover in the farm lane to the right.
The roar of the conflict along the river had become terrific; to the east a New Jersey battery, obscured in flame-shot clouds, was retiring by its twenty-eight-foot prolonges, using cannister; the remains of a New Hampshire infantry regiment supported the retreat; between the two batteries Claymore in his shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, heavy revolver swinging in his blackened fist, was giving a tongue lashing to the stream of fugitives from the river woods.
"Where are you going! Hey! Scouting? Well scout to the front, damn you! . . . Where are you going, young man? For ammunition? Go back to the front or I'll shoot you! Get along there you malingerers! or, by God, I'll have a squadron of Arran's pig-stickers ride you down and punch your skins full of holes! Orderly! Ask Colonel Arran if he can spare me a squad of his lancers for a few minutes——"
The orderly saluted, coughed up a stream of blood, fell backward off his horse, scrambled to his feet, terror-stricken, both hands pressed convulsively over his stomach!
"Damn them! They've got me. General!" he gasped—"they've g-got me this time! There's a piece of shell inside me as big——"
He leaned weakly against his mild-eyed horse, nauseated; but it was only a spent ball on his belt plate after all, and a few moments later, swaying and sickly, he forced his horse into a trot across the hill.
A major of Claymore's staff galloped with orders to the Zouaves; but, as he opened his mouth to speak a shell burst behind him, and he pitched forward on his face, his shattered arm doubling under him.
"Drag me behind that tree. Colonel Craig!" he said coolly. "I'll finish my orders in a moment." Major Lent and Colonel Craig got him behind the tree; and the officer's superb will never faltered.
"Your new position must cover that bridge," he whispered faintly. "The left section of McDunn's battery is already ordered to your support. . . . How is it with you, Colonel? Speak louder——"
Colonel Craig, pallid and worn under the powder smears and sweat, wiped the glistening grime from his eye-glasses.
"We are holding on," he said. "It's all right, Major. I'll get word through to the General," and he signalled to some drummer boys lying quietly in the bushes to bring up a stretcher, just as the left section of McDunn's battery burst into view on a dead run, swung into action, and began to pour level sheets of flame into the woods, where, already, the high-pitched rebel yell was beginning again.
A solid shot struck No. 5 gun on the hub, killing Cannoneer No. 2, who was thumbing the vent, and filling No. 1 gunner with splinters of iron, whirling him into eternity amid a fountain of dirt and flying hub-tires. Then a shell blew a gun-team into fragments, plastering the men's faces with bloody shreds of flesh; and the boyish lieutenant, spitting out filth, coolly ordered up the limbers, and brought his section around into the road with a beautiful display of driving and horsemanship that drew raucous cheers from the Zouaves, where they lay, half stifled, firing at the gray line of battle gathering along the edges of the woods.
And now the shrill, startling battle cry swelled to the hysterical pack yell, and, gathering depth and volume, burst out into a frantic treble roar. A long gray line detached itself from the woods; mounted officers, sashed and debonaire, trotted jauntily out in front of it; the beautiful battle flags slanted forward; there came a superb, long, low-swinging gleam of steel; and the Southland was afoot once more, gallant, magnificent, sweeping recklessly on into the red gloom of the Northern guns.
Berkley, his face bandaged, covered with sweat and dust, sat his worn, cowhide saddle in the ranks, long lance couched, watching, expectant. Every trooper who could ride a horse was needed now; hospitals had given up their invalids; convalescents and sick men gathered bridle with shaking fingers; hollow-eyed youngsters tightened the cheek-straps of their forage caps and waited, lance in rest.
In the furious smoke below them they could see the Zouaves running about like red devils in the pit; McDunn's guns continued to pour solid columns of flame across the creek; far away to the west the unseen Union line of battle had buried itself in smoke. Through it the Southern battle flags still advanced, halted, tossed wildly, moved forward in jerks, swung to the fierce cheering, moved on haltingly, went down, up again, wavered, disappeared in the cannon fog.
Colonel Arran, his naked sabre point lowered, sat his saddle, gray and erect. The Major never stirred in his saddle; only the troop captains from time to time turned their heads as some stricken horse lashed out, or the unmistakable sound of a bullet hitting living flesh broke the intense silence of the ranks.
Hallam, at the head of his troop, stroked his handsome moustache continually, and at moments spoke angrily to his restive horse. He was beginning to have a good deal of trouble with his horse, which apparently wished to bolt, and he had just managed to drag the fretting animal back into position, when, without warning, the volunteer infantry posted on the right delivered a ragged volley, sagged back, broke, and began running. Almost on their very heels a dust-covered Confederate flying battery dropped its blackened guns and sent charge after charge ripping through them, while out of the fringing woods trotted the gray infantry, driving in skirmishers, leaping fences, brush piles, and ditches, like lean hounds on the trail.
Instantly a squadron of the Lancers trampled forward, facing to the west; but down on their unprotected flank thundered the Confederate cavalry, and from the beginning it had been too late for a counter-charge.
A whirlwind of lancers and gray riders drove madly down the slope, inextricably mixed, shooting, sabering, stabbing with tip and ferrule.
A sabre stroke severed Berkley's cheek-strap, sheering through visor and button; and he swung his lance and drove it backward into a man's face.
In the terrible confusion and tangle of men and horses he could scarcely use his lance at all, or avoid the twirling lances of his comrades, or understand what his officers were shouting. It was all a nightmare—a horror of snorting horses, panting, sweating riders, the swift downward glitter of sabre strokes, thickening like sheeted rain.
His horse's feet were now entangled in brush heaps; a crowding, cursing mass of cavalrymen floundered into a half demolished snake fence, which fell outward, rolling mounts and riders into a wet gully, where they continued fighting like wild cats in a pit.
Yelling exultantly, the bulk of Confederate riders passed through the Lancers, leaving them to the infantry to finish, and rode at the flying Federal infantry. Everywhere bayonets began to glimmer through the smoke and dust, as the disorganised squadrons rallied and galloped eastward, seeking vainly for shelter to reform.
Down in the hollow an entire troop of Lancers, fairly intact, had become entangled among the brush and young saplings, and the Confederate infantry, springing over the fence, began to bayonet them and pull them from their horses, while the half-stunned cavalrymen scattered through the bushes, riding hither and thither looking vainly for some road to lead them out of the bushy trap. They could not go back; the fence was too solid to ride down, too high to leap; the carbineers faced about, trying to make a stand, firing from their saddles; Colonel Arran, confused but cool, turned his brier-torn horse and rode forward, swinging his heavy sabre, just as Hallam and Berkley galloped up through the bushes, followed by forty or more bewildered troopers, and halted fo'r orders. But there was no way out.
Then Berkley leaned from his saddle, touched the visor of his cap, and, looking Arran straight in the eyes, said quietly:
"With your permission, sir, I think I can tear down enough of that fence to let you and the others through! May I try?"
Colonel Arran said, quietly: "No man can ride to that fence and live. Their infantry hold it."
"Two men may get there." He turned and looked at Hallam. "We're not going to surrender; we'll all die here anyway. Shall we try the fence together?"
For a second the silence resounded with the racket of the Confederate rifles; three men dropped from their saddles; then Hallam turned ghastly white, opened his jaws to speak; but no sound came. Suddenly he swung his horse, and spurred straight toward the open brush in the rear, whipping out his handkerchief and holding it fluttering above his head.
Colonel Arran shouted at him, jerked his revolver free, and fired at him. A carbineer also fired after him from the saddle, but Hallam rode on unscathed in his half-crazed night, leaving his deserted men gazing after him, astounded. In the smoke of another volley, two more cavalrymen pitched out of their saddles.
Then Berkley drove his horse blindly into the powder fog ahead; a dozen brilliant little jets of flame pricked the gloom; his horse reared, and went down in a piteous heap, but Berkley landed on all fours, crawled hurriedly up under the smoke, jerked a board loose, tore another free, rose to his knees and ripped away board after board, shouting to his comrades to come on and cut their way out.
They came, cheering, spurring their jaded horses through the gap, crowding out across the road, striking wildly with their sabres, forcing their way up the bank, into a stubble field, and forward at a stiff trot toward the swirling smoke of a Union battery behind which they could see shattered squadrons reforming.
Berkley ran with them on foot, one hand grasping a friendly stirrup, until the horse he clung to halted abruptly, quivering all over; then sank down by the buttocks with a shuddering scream. And Berkley saw Colonel Arran rising from the ground, saw him glance at his horse, turn and look behind him where the Confederate skirmishers were following on a run, kneeling to fire occasionally, then springing to their feet and trotting forward, rifles glittering in the sun.
A horse with an empty saddle, its off foreleg entangled in its bridle, was hobbling around in circles, stumbling, neighing, tripping, scrambling to its feet again, and trying frantically to go on. Berkley caught the bridle, freed it, and hanging to the terrified animal's head, shouted to Colonel Arran:
"You had better hurry, sir. Their skirmishers are coming up fast!"
Colonel Arran stood quietly gazing at him. Suddenly he reeled and stumbled forward against the horse's flank, catching at the mane.
"Are you badly hurt, sir?"
The Colonel turned his dazed eyes on him, then slid forward along the horse's flank. His hands relaxed their hold on the mane, and he fell flat on his face; and, Berkley, still hanging to the bit, dragged the prostrate man over on his back and stared into his deathly features.
"Where did they hit you, sir?"
"Through the liver," he gasped. "It's all right, Berkley. . . .
Don't wait any longer——-"
"I'm not going to leave you."
"You must . . . I'm ended. . . . You haven't a—moment—to lose——"
"Can you put your arms around my neck?"
"There's no time to waste! I tell you to mount and run for it! . . . And—thank you——"
"Put both arms around my neck. . . . Quick! . . . Can you lock your fingers? . . . This damned horse won't stand! Hold fast to me. I'll raise you easily. . . . Get the other leg over the saddle. Lean forward. Now I'll walk him at first—hold tight! . . . Can you hang on, Colonel?"
"Yes—my son"
A wild thrill ran through the boy's veins, stopping breath and pulse for a second. Then the hot blood rushed stinging into his face; he threw one arm around the drooping figure in the saddle, and, controlling the bridle with a grip of steel, started the horse off across the field.
All around them the dry soil was bursting into little dusty fountains where the bullets were striking; ahead, dark smoke hung heavily. Farther on some blue-capped soldiers shouted to them from their shallow rifle pits.
Farther on still they passed an entire battalion of regular infantry, calmly seated on the grass in line of battle; and behind these troops Berkley saw a stretcher on the grass and two men of the hospital corps squatted beside it, chewing grass stems.
They came readily enough when they learned the name and rank of the wounded officer. Berkley, almost exhausted, walked beside the stretcher, leading the horse and looking down at the stricken man who lay with eyes closed and clothing disordered where a hasty search for the wound had disclosed the small round blue hole just over the seat of the liver.
They turned into a road which had been terribly cut up by the wheels of artillery. It was already thronged with the debris of the battle, skulkers, wounded men hobbling, pallid malingerers edging their furtive way out of fire. Then ahead arose a terrible clamour, the wailing of wounded, frightened cries, the angry shouts of cavalrymen, where a Provost Guard of the 20th Dragoons was riding, recklessly into the fugitives, roughly sorting the goats from the sheep, and keeping the way clear for the ambulances now arriving along a cross-road at a gallop.
Berkley heard his name called out, and, looking up, saw Casson, astride a huge horse, signalling him eagerly from his saddle.
"Who in hell have you got there?" he asked, pushing his horse up to the litter. "By God, it's Colonel Arran," he added in a modified voice. "Is he very bad, Berkley?"
"I don't know. Can't you stop one of those ambulances, Jack? I want to get him to the surgeons as soon as possible——"
"You bet!" said Casson, wheeling his horse and displaying the new chevrons of a sergeant. "Hey, you black offspring of a yellow whippet!" he bellowed to a driver, "back out there and be damn quick about it!" And he leaned from his saddle, and seizing the leaders by the head, swung them around with a volley of profanity. Then, grinning amiably at Berkley, he motioned the stretcher bearers forward and sat on his horse, garrulously superintending the transfer of the injured man.
"There's an emergency hospital just beyond that clump of trees," he said. "You'd better take him there. Golly! but he's hard hit. I guess that bullet found its billet. There's not much hope when it's a belly-whopper. Too bad, ain't it? He was a bully old boy of a colonel; we all said so in the dragoons. Only—to hell with those lances of yours, Berkley! What cursed good are they alongside a gun? And I notice your regiment has its carbineers, too—which proves that your lances are no good or you wouldn't have twelve carbines to the troop. Eh? Oh, you bet your boots, sonny. Don't talk lance to me! It's all on account of those Frenchmen on Little Mac's staff——"
"For God's sake shut up!" said Berkley nervously. "I can't stand any more just now."
"Oh!" said Casson, taken aback, "I didn't know you were such cronies with your Colonel. Sorry, my dear fellow; didn't mean to seem indifferent. Poor old gentleman. I guess he will pull through. There are nurses at the front—nice little things. God bless 'em! Say, don't you want to climb up with the driver?"
Berkley hesitated. "Do you know where my regiment is? I ought to go back—if there's anybody to look after Colonel Arran——"
"Is that your horse?"
"No—some staff officer's, I guess."
"Where's yours?"
"Dead," said Berkley briefly. He thought a moment, then tied his horse to the tail-board and climbed up beside the driver.
"Go on," he said; "drive carefully", and he nodded his thanks to
Casson as the team swung north.
The Provost Guard, filing along, carbines on thigh, opened to let him through; and he saw them turning in their saddles to peer curiously into the straw as the ambulance passed.
It was slow going, for the road was blocked with artillery and infantry and other ambulances, but the driver found a lane between guns and caissons and through the dusty blue columns plodding forward toward the firing line; and at last a white hospital tent glimmered under the trees, and the slow mule team turned into a leafy lane and halted in the rear of a line of ambulances which were all busily discharging their mangled burdens. The cries of the wounded were terrible.
Operating tables stood under the trees in the open air; assistants sponged the blood from them continually; the overworked surgeons, stripped to their undershirts, smeared with blood, worked coolly and rapidly in the shade of the oak-trees, seldom raising their voices, never impatient. Orderlies brought water in artillery buckets; ward-masters passed swiftly to and fro; a soldier stood by a pile of severed limbs passing out bandages to assistants who swarmed around, scurrying hither and thither under the quiet orders of the medical directors.
A stretcher was brought; Colonel Arran opened his heavy lids as they placed him in it. His eyes summoned Berkley.
"It's all right," he said in the ghost of a voice. "Whichever way it turns put, it's all right. . . I've tried to live lawfully. . . . It is better to live mercifully. I think—she—would forgive. . . . Will you?"
"Yes."
He bent and took the wounded man's hand, in his.
"If I knew—if I knew—" he said, and his burning eyes searched the bloodless face beneath him.
"God?" he whispered—"if it were true——"
A surgeon shouldered him aside, glanced sharply at the patient, motioned the bearers forward.
Berkley sat down by the roadside, bridle in hand, head bowed in his arms. Beside him his horse fed quietly on the weeds. In his ears rang the cries of the wounded; all around him he was conscious of people passing to and fro; and he sat there, face covered, deadly tired, already exhausted to a stolidity that verged on stupor.
He must have slept, too, because when he sat up and opened his eyes again it was nearly sundown, and somebody had stolen his horse.
A zouave with a badly sprained ankle, lying on a blanket near him, offered him bread and meat that stank; and Berkley ate it, striving to collect his deadened thoughts. After he had eaten he filled the zouave's canteen at a little rivulet where hundreds of soldiers were kneeling to drink or dip up the cool, clear water.
"What's your reg'ment, friend?" asked the man.
"Eighth New York Lancers."
"Lord A'mighty! You boys did get cut up some, didn't you?"
"I guess so. Are you Colonel Craig's regiment?"
"Yes. We got it, too. Holy Mother—we got it f'r fair!"
"Is your Colonel all right?"
"Yes. Steve—his son—corporal, 10th Company—was hit."
"What!"
"Yes, sir. Plumb through the collar-bone. He was one of the first to get it. I was turrible sorry for his father—fine old boy!—and he looked like he'd drop dead hisself—but, by gosh, friend, when the stretcher took Steve to the rear the old man jest sot them clean-cut jaws o' his'n, an' kep' his gold-wired gig-lamps to the front. An' when the time come, he sez in his ca'm, pleasant way: 'Boys,' sez he, 'we're agoin' in. It's a part of the job,' sez he, 'that has got to be done thorough. So,' sez he, 'we'll jest mosey along kind o' quick steppin' now, and we'll do our part like we al'us does do it. For'rd—mar-r-rch!'"
Berkley sat still, hands clasped over his knees, thinking of Stephen, and of Celia, and of the father out yonder somewhere amid the smoke.
"Gawd," said the zouave, "you got a dirty jab on your cocanut, didn't you?"
The bandage had slipped, displaying the black scab of the scarcely healed wound; and Berkley absently replaced it.
"That'll ketch the girls," observed the zouave with conviction.
"Damn it, I've only got a sprained ankle to show my girl."
"The war's not over," said Berkley indifferently. Then he got up, painfully, from the grass, exchanged adieux with the zouave, and wandered off toward the hospital to seek for news of Colonel Arran.
It appeared that the surgeons had operated, and had sent the Colonel a mile farther to the rear, where a temporary hospital had been established in a young ladies' seminary. And toward this Berkley set out across the fields, the sound of the battle dinning heavily in his aching cars.
As he walked he kept a sullen eye out for his stolen horse, never expecting to see him, and it was with a savage mixture of surprise and satisfaction that he beheld him, bestridden by two dirty malingerers from a New York infantry regiment who rode on the snaffle with difficulty and objurgations and reproached each other for their mutual discomfort.
How they had escaped the Provost he did not know; how they escaped absolute annihilation they did not comprehend; for Berkley seized the bridle, swung the horse sharply, turning them both out of the saddle; then, delivering a swift kick apiece, as they lay cursing, he mounted and rode forward amid enthusiastic approval from the drivers of passing army waggons.
Long since the towering smoke in the west had veiled the sun; and now the sky had become gray and thick, and already a fine drizzling rain was falling, turning the red dust to grease.
Slipping, floundering, his horse bore him on under darkening skies; rain fell heavily now; he bared his hot head to it; raised his face, masked with grime, and let the drops fall on the dark scar that burned under the shifting bandage.
In the gathering gloom eastward he saw the horizon redden and darken and redden with the cannon flashes; the immense battle rumour filled his ears and brain, throbbing, throbbing.
"Which way, friend?" demanded a patrol, carelessly throwing his horse across Berkley's path.
"Orderly to Colonel Arran, 8th New York Lancers, wounded. Is that the hospital, yonder?"
"Them school buildin's," nodded the patrol. "Say, is your colonel very bad? I'm 20th New York, doin' provost. We seen you fellers at White Oak. Jesus! what a wallop they did give us——"
He broke off grimly, turned his horse, and rode out into a soggy field where some men were dodging behind a row of shaggy hedge bushes. And far behind Berkley heard his loud, bullying voice:
"Git! you duck-legged, egg-suckin', skunk-backed loafers! Go on, there! Aw, don't yer talk back to me 'r I'll let m' horse bite yer pants off! Back yer go! Forrard! Hump! Hump! Scoot!"
Through the heavily falling rain he saw the lighted school buildings looming among the trees; turned into the drive, accounted for himself, gave his horse to a negro with orders to care for it, and followed a ward-master into an open-faced shed where a kettle was boiling over a sheet-iron stove.
The ward-master returned presently, threading his way through a mass of parked ambulances to the shed where Berkley sat on a broken cracker box.
"Colonel Arran is very low. I guess you'd better not bother him to-night."
"Is he—mortally hurt?"
"I've seen worse."
"He may get well?"
"I've seen 'em get well," said the non-committal ward-master. Then, looking Berkley over: "You're pretty dirty, ain't you? Are you—" he raised his eyebrows significantly.
"I'm clean," said Berkley with the indifference habituated to filth.
"All right. They'll fix you up a cot somewhere. If Colonel Arran comes out all right I'll call you. He's full of opium now."
"Did they get the bullet?"
"Oh, yes. I ain't a surgeon, my friend, but I hear a lot of surgeon talk. It's the shock—in a man of his age. The wound's clean, so far—not a thread in it, I hear. Shock—and gangrene—that's what we look out for. . . . What's the news down by the river?"
"I don't know," said Berkley.
"Don't you know if you got licked?"
"I don't think we did. You'd hear the firing out here much plainer."
"You're the 8th Cavalry, ain't you?"
"Yes."
"They say you got cut up."
"Some."
"And how about the Zouaves?"
"Oh, they're there yet," said Berkley listlessly. Fatigue was overpowering him; he was aware, presently, that a negro, carrying a lantern, was guiding his stumbling steps into a small building where, amid piles of boxes, an army cot stood covered by a blanket. Berkley gave him a crumpled mess of paper money, and he almost expired.
Later the same negro rolled a wooden tub into the room, half filled it with steaming water, and stood in profound admiration of his work, grinning at Berkley.
"Is you-all gwine bresh up, suh?" he inquired.
Berkley straightened his shoulders with an effort, unbuckled his belt, and slowly began to take off his wet uniform.
The negro aided him respectfully; that wet wad of dollars had done its work profoundly.
"Yo' is de adjetant ob dis here Gin'ral ob de Lancers, suh? De po' ole Gin'ral! He done git shot dreffle bad, suh. . . . Jess you lay on de flo', suh, t'will I gits yo' boots off'n yo' laigs! Dar! Now jess set down in de tub, suh. I gwine scrub you wif de saddle-soap—Lor', Gord-a-mighty! Who done bang you on de haid dat-a-way?"—scrubbing vigorously with the saddle-soap all the while. "Spec' you is lame an' so' all over, is you? Now I'se gwine rub you haid, suh; an' now I'se gwine dry you haid." He chuckled and rubbed and manipulated, yet became tender as a woman in drying the clipped hair and the scarred temple. And, before Berkley was aware of what he was about, the negro lifted him and laid him on the cot.
"Now," he chuckled, "I'se gwine shave you." And he fished out a razor from the rear pocket of his striped drill overalls, rubbed the weapon of his race with a proud thumb, spread more soap over Berkley's upturned face, and fell deftly to work, wiping off the accumulated lather on the seat of his own trousers.
Berkley remembered seeing him do it twice; then remembered no more. A blessed sense of rest soothed every bone; in the heavenly stillness and surcease from noise he drifted gently into slumber, into a deep dreamless sleep.
The old negro looked at him, aged face wrinkled in compassion.
"Po' li'l sodger boy," he muttered. "Done gib me fo' dollahs.
Lor' Gor' a'mighty! Spec' Mars Linkum's men is all richer'n ole
Miss."
He cast another glance at the sleeping man, then picked up the worn, muddy boots, threw the soiled jacket and breeches over his arm, and shuffled off, shaking his grizzled head.
CHAPTER XVIII
It was still dark when he awoke with a violent start, dreaming of loud trumpets, and found himself sitting upright on his cot, staring into obscurity.
Outside on the veranda a multitude of heavy steps echoed and re-echoed over the creaking boards; spurs clinked, sabres dragged and clanked; a man's harsh, nasal voice sounded irritably at intervals:
"We're not an army—we're not yet an army; that's what's the matter. You can't erect an army by uniforming and drilling a few hundred thousand clerks and farmers. You can't manufacture an army by brigading regiments—by creating divisions and forming army corps. There is only one thing on God's long-enduring earth that can transform this mob of State troops into a National army—discipline!—and that takes time; and we've got to take it and let experience kick us out of one battle into another. And some day we'll wake up to find ourselves a real army, with real departments, really controlled and in actual and practical working order. Now it's every department for itself and God help General McClellan! He has my sympathy! He has a dirty job on his hands half done, and they won't let him finish it!"
And again the same impatient voice broke out contemptuously:
"War? These two years haven't been two years of war! They've been two years of a noisy, gaudy, rough and tumble! Bull Run was opera bouffe! The rest of it has been one fantastic and bloody carnival! Did anybody ever before see such a grandmother's rag bag of uniforms in an American army! What in hell do we want of zouaves in French uniforms, cavalry, armed with Austrian lances, ridiculous rocket-batteries, Polish riders, Hungarian hussars, grenadiers, mounted rifles, militia and volunteers in every garb, carrying every arm ever created by foreign armourers and military tailors! . . . But I rather guess that the fancy-dress-ball era is just about over. I've a notion that we're coming down to the old-fashioned army blue again. And the sooner the better. I want no more red fezzes and breeches in my commands for the enemy to blaze at a mile away! I want no more picturesque lances. I want plain blue pants and Springfield rifles, by God! And I guess I'll get them, if I make noise enough in North America!"
Who this impassioned military critic was, shouting opinions to the sky, Berkley never learned; for presently there was a great jingling and clatter and trample of horses brought around, and the officers, whoever they were, mounted and departed as they had arrived, in darkness, leaving Berkley on his cot in the storehouse to stretch his limbs, and yawn and stretch again, and draw the warm folds of the blanket closer, and lie blinking at the dark, through which, now, a bird had begun to twitter a sweet, fitful salute to the coming dawn.
Across the foot of his couch lay folded an invalid's red hospital wrapper; beside his bed stood the slippers. After a few moments he rose, stepped into the slippers, and, drawing on the woolen robe, belted it in about his thin waist. Then he limped out to the veranda.
In the dusk the bird sang timidly. Berkley could just make out the outlines of the nearer buildings, and of tall trees around. Here and there lights burned behind closed windows; but, except for these, the world was black and still; stiller for the deadened stamping of horses in distant unseen stalls.
An unmistakable taint of the hospital hung in the fresh morning air—a vague hint of anaesthetics, of cooking—the flat odour of sickness and open wounds.
Lanterns passed in the darkness toward the stables; unseen shapes moved hither and thither, their footsteps sharply audible. He listened and peered about him for a while, then went back to the store-room, picked his way among the medical supplies, and sat down on the edge of his bed.
A few moments later he became aware of somebody moving on the veranda, and of a light outside; heard his door open, lifted his dazzled eyes in the candle rays.
"Are you here, Philip?" came a quiet, tired voice. "You must wake, now, and dress. Colonel Arran is conscious and wishes to see you."
"Ailsa! Good God!"
She stood looking at him placidly, the burning candle steady in her hand, her; face very white and thin.
He had risen, standing there motionless in his belted invalid's robe with the stencilled S. C. on the shoulder. And now he would have gone to her, hands outstretched, haggard face joyously illumined; but she stepped back with a swift gesture that halted him; and in her calm, unfriendly gaze he hesitated, bewildered, doubting his senses.
"Ailsa, dear, is anything wrong?"
"I think," she said quietly, "that we had better not let Colonel Arran see how wrong matters have gone between us. He is very badly hurt. I have talked a little with him. I came here because he asked for you and for no other reason."
"Did you know I was here?"
"I saw you arrive last night—from the infirmary window. . . . I hope your wound is healed," she added in a strained voice.
"Ailsa! What has happened?"
She shuddered slightly, looked at, him without a shadow of expression.
"Let us understand one another now. I haven't the slightest atom of—regard—left for you. I have no desire to see you, to hear of you again while I am alive. That is final."
"Will you tell me why?"
She had turned to go; now she hesitated, silent, irresolute.
"Will you tell me, Ailsa?"
She said, wearily: "If you insist, I can make it plainer, some time. But this is not the time. . . And you had better not ask me at all, Philip."
"I do ask you."
"I warn you to accept your dismissal without seeking an explanation. It would spare—us both."
"I will spare neither of us. What has changed you?"
"I shall choose my own convenience to answer you," she replied haughtily.
"Choose it, then, and tell me when to expect your explanation."
"When I send for you; not before."
"Are you going to let me go away with that for my answer?"
"Perhaps."
He hooked his thumbs in his girdle and looked down, considering; then, quietly raising his head:
"I don't know what you have found out—what has been told you. I have done plenty of things in my life unworthy of you, but I thought you knew that."
"I know it now."
"You knew it before. I never attempted to conceal anything."
A sudden blue glimmer made her eyes brilliant. "That is a falsehood!" she said deliberately. The colour faded from his cheeks, then he said with ashy composure:
"I lie much less than the average man, Ailsa. It is nothing to boast of, but it happens to be true. I don't lie."
"You keep silent and act a lie!"
He reflected for a moment; then:
"Hadn't you better tell me?"
"No."
Then his colour returned, surging, making the scar on his face hideous; he turned, walked to the window, and stood looking into the darkness while the departing glimmer of her candle faded on the wall behind him.
Presently, scraping, ducking, chuckling, the old darky appeared with his boots and uniform, everything dry and fairly clean; and he dressed by lantern light, buckled his belt, drew on his gloves, settled his forage cap, and followed the old man out into the graying dawn.
They gave him some fresh light bread and a basin of coffee; he finished and waited, teeth biting the stem of his empty pipe for which he had no tobacco.
Surgeons, assistant surgeons, contract physicians, ward-masters, nurses, passed and re-passed; stretchers filed into the dead house; coffins were being unloaded and piled under a shed; a constant stream of people entered and left the apothecary's office; the Division Medical Director's premises were besieged. Ambulances continually drove up or departed; files of sick and wounded, able to move without assistance, stood in line, patient, uncomplaining men, bloody, ragged, coughing, burning with fever, weakened for lack of nourishment; many crusted with filth and sometimes with vermin, humbly awaiting the disposition of their battered, half-dead bodies. . . .
The incipient stages of many diseases were plainly apparent among them. Man after man was placed on a stretcher, and hurried off to the contagious wards; some were turned away and directed to other hospitals, and they went without protest, dragging their gaunt legs, even attempting some feeble jest as they passed their wretched comrades whose turns had not yet come.
Presently a hospital servant came and took Berkley away to another
building. The wards were where the schoolrooms had been.
Blackboards still decorated the wall; a half-erased exercise in
Latin remained plainly visible over the rows of cots.
Ailsa and the apothecary stood together in low-voiced conversation by a window. She merely raised her eyes when Berkley entered; then, without giving him a second glance, continued her conversation.
In the heavy, ether-laden atmosphere flies swarmed horribly, and men detailed as nurses from regimental companies were fanning them from helpless patients. A civilian physician, coming down the aisle, exchanged a few words with the ward-master and then turned to Berkley.
"You are trooper Ormond, orderly to Colonel Arran?"
"Yes."
"Colonel Arran desires you to remain here at his orders for the present."
"Is Colonel Arran likely to recover, doctor?"
"He is in no immediate danger."
"May I see him?"
"Certainly. He sent for you. Step this way."
They entered another and much smaller ward in which there were very few cots, and from which many of the flies had been driven.
Colonel Arran lay very white and still on his cot; only his eyes turned as Berkley came up and stood at salute.
"Sit down," he said feebly. And, after a long silence:
"Berkley, the world seems to be coming right. I am grateful that
I—lie here—with you beside me."
Berkley's throat closed; he could not speak; nor did he know what he might have said could he have spoken, for within him all had seemed to crash softly into chaos, and he had no mind, no will, no vigour, only a confused understanding of emotion and pain, and a fierce longing.
Colonel Arran's sunken eyes never left his, watching, wistful, patient. And at last the boy bent forward and rested his elbows on his knees and dropped his face in both hands. Time ebbed away in silence; there was no sound in the ward save the blue flies' buzz or the slight movement of some wounded man easing his tortured body.
"Philip!"
The boy lifted his face from his hands.
"Can you forgive me?"
"Yes, I have. . . . There was only one thing to forgive. I don't count—myself."
"I count it—bitterly."
"You need not. . . . It was only—my mother——"
"I know, my boy. The blade of justice is double-edged. No mortal can wield it safely; only He who forged it. . . . I have never ceased to love—your mother."
Berkley's face became ashen.
Colonel Arran said: "Is there punishment more terrible than that for any man?"
Presently Berkley drew his chair closer.
"I wish you to know how mother died," he said simply. "It is your right to know. . . . Because, there will come a time when she and—you will be together again . . . if you believe such things."
"I believe."
For a while the murmur of Berkley's voice alone broke the silence. Colonel Arran lay with eyes closed, a slight flush on his sunken cheeks; and, before long, Berkley's hand lay over his and remained there.
The brilliant, ominous flies whirled overhead or drove headlong against the window-panes, falling on their backs to kick and buzz and scramble over the sill; slippered attendants moved softly along the aisle with medicines; once the ward-master came and looked down at Colonel Arran, touched the skin of his face, his pulse, and walked noiselessly away. Berkley's story had already ended.
After a while he said: "If you will get well—whatever I am—we two men have in common a memory that can never die. If there were nothing else—God knows whether there is—that memory is enough, to make us live at peace with one another. . . . I do not entirely understand how it is with me, but I know that some things have been washed out of my heart—leaving little of the bitterness—nothing now of anger. It has all been too sad for such things—a tragedy too deep for the lesser passions to meddle with. . . . Let us forgive each other. . . . She will know it, somehow."
Their hands slowly closed together and remained.
"Philip!"
"Sir?"
"Ailsa is here."
"Yes, sir."
"Will you say to her that I would like to see her?"
For a moment Berkley hesitated, then rose quietly and walked into the adjoining ward.
Ailsa was bending over a sick man, fanning away the flies that clustered around the edge of the bowl from which he was drinking. And Berkley waited until the patient had finished the broth.
"Ailsa, may I speak to you a moment?"
She had been aware of his entrance, and was not startled. She handed the bowl and fan to an attendant, turned leisurely, and came out into the aisle.
"What is it?"
"Colonel Arran wishes to see you. Can you come?"
"Certainly."
She led the way; and as she walked he noticed that all the lithe grace, all the youth and spring to her step had vanished. She moved wearily; her body under the gray garb was thin; blue veins showed faintly in temple and wrist; only her superb hair and eyes had suffered no change.
Colonel Arran's eyes opened as she stooped at his bedside and laid her lips lightly on his forehead.
"Is there another chair?" he asked wearily.
Ailsa's glance just rested on Berkley, measuring him in expressionless disdain. Then, as he brought another chair, she seated herself.
"You, too, Philip," murmured the wounded man.
Ailsa's violet eyes opened in surprise at the implied intimacy between these men whom she had vaguely understood were anything but friends. But she remained coldly aloof, controlling even a shiver of astonishment when Colonel Arran's hand, which held hers, groped also for Berkley's, and found it.
Then with an effort he turned his head and looked at them.
"I have long known that you loved each other," he whispered. "It is a happiness that God sends me as well as you. If it be His will that I—do not recover, this makes it easy for me. If He wills it that I live, then, in His infinite mercy, He also gives me the reason for living."
Icy cold, Ailsa's hand lay there, limply touching Berkley's; the sick man's eyes were upon them.
"Philip!"
"Sir?"
"My watch is hanging from a nail on the wall. There is a chamois bag hanging with it. Give—it—to me."
And when it lay in his hand he picked at the string, forced it open, drew out a key, and laid it in Berkley's hand with a faint smile.
"You remember, Philip?"
"Yes, sir."
The wounded man looked at Ailsa wistfully.
"It is the key to my house, dear. One day, please God, you and Philip will live there." . . . He closed his eyes, groping for both their hands, and retaining them, lay silent as though asleep.
Berkley's palm burned against hers; she never stirred, never moved a muscle, sitting there as though turned to stone. But when the wounded man's frail grasp relaxed, cautiously, silently, she freed her fingers, rose, looked down, listening to his breathing, then, without a glance at Berkley, moved quietly toward the door.
He was behind her a second later, and she turned to confront him in the corridor lighted by a single window.
"Will you tell me what has changed you?" he said.
"Something which that ghastly farce cannot influence!" she said, hot faced, eyes brilliant with anger. "I loved Colonel Arran enough to endure it—endure your touch—which shames—defiles—which—which outrages every instinct in me!"
Breathless, scornful, she drew back, still facing him.
"The part you have played in my life!" she said bitterly—"think it over. Remember what you have been toward me from the first—a living insult! And when you remember—all—remember that in spite of all I—I loved you—stood before you in the rags of my pride—all that you had left me to clothe myself!—stood upright, unashamed, and acknowledged that I loved you!"
She made a hopeless gesture.
"Oh, you had all there was of my heart! I gave it; I laid it beside my pride, under your feet. God knows what madness was upon me—and you had flung my innocence into my face! And you had held me in your embrace, and looked me in the eyes, and said you would not marry me. And I still loved you!"
Her hands flew to her breast, higher, clasped against the full, white throat.
"Now, have I not dragged my very soul naked under your eyes? Have I not confessed enough. What more do you want of me before you consent to keep your distance and trouble me no more?"
"I want to know what has angered you against me," he said quietly.
She set her teeth and stared at him, with beautiful resolute eyes.
"Before I answer that," she said, "I demand to know why you refused to marry me."
"I cannot tell you, Ailsa."
In a white rage she whispered:
"No, you dare not tell me!—you coward! I had to learn the degrading reason from others!"
He grew deathly white, caught her arms in a grasp of steel, held her twisting wrists imprisoned.
"Do you know what you are saying?" he stammered.
"Yes, I know! Your cruelty—your shame——"
"Be silent!" he said between his teeth. "My shame is my pride! Do you understand!"
Outraged, quivering all over, she twisted out of his grasp.
"Then go to her!" she whispered. "Why don't you go to her?"
And, as his angry eyes became blank:
"Don't you understand? She is there—just across the road!" She flung open the window and pointed with shaking anger.
"Didn't anybody tell you she is there? Then I'll tell you. Now go to her! You are—worthy—of one another!"
"Of whom are you speaking—in God's name!" he breathed.
Panting, flushed, flat against the wall, she looked back out of eyes that had become dark and wide, fumbling in the bosom of her gray garb. And, just where the scarlet heart was stitched across her breast, she drew out a letter, and, her fascinated gaze still fixed on him, extended her arm.
He took the crumpled sheets from her in a dazed sort of way, but did not look at them.
"Who is there—across the road?" he repeated stupidly.
"Ask—Miss—Lynden."
"Letty!"
But she suddenly turned and slipped swiftly past him, leaving him there in the corridor by the open window, holding the letter in his hand.
For a while he remained there, leaning against the wall. Sounds from the other ward came indistinctly—a stifled cry, a deep groan, the hurried tread of feet, the opening or closing of windows. Once a dreadful scream rang out from a neighbouring ward, where a man had suddenly gone insane; and he could hear the sounds of the struggle, the startled orders, the shrieks, the crash of a cot; then the dreadful uproar grew fainter, receding. He roused himself, passed an unsteady hand across his eyes, looked blindly at the letter, saw only a white blurr, and, crushing it in his clenched fist, he went down the kitchen stairs and out across the road.
A hospital guard stopped him, but on learning who he was and that he had business with Miss Lynden, directed him toward a low, one-storied, stone structure, where, under the trees, a figure wrapped in a shawl lay asleep in a chair.
"She's been on duty all night," observed the guard. "If you've got to speak to her, go ahead."
"Yes," said Berkley in a dull voice, "I've got to speak to her."
And he walked toward her across the dead brown grass.
Letty's head lay on a rough pine table; her slim body, supported by a broken chair, was covered by a faded shawl; and, as he looked down at her, somehow into his memory came the recollection of the first time he ever saw her so—asleep in Casson's rooms, her childish face on the table, the room reeking with tobacco smoke and the stale odour of wine and dying flowers.
He stood for a long while beside her, looking down at the thin, pale face. Then, in pity, he turned away; and at the same moment she stirred, sat up, confused, and saw him.
"Letty, dear," he said, coming back, both hands held out to her, "I did not mean to rob you of your sleep."
"Oh—it doesn't matter! I am so glad—" She sat up suddenly, staring at him. The next moment the tears rushed to her eyes.
"O—h," she whispered, "I wished so to see you. I am so thankful you are here. There is—there has been such—a terrible change—something has happened——"
She rose unsteadily; laid her trembling hand on his arm.
"I don't know what it is," she said piteously, "but
Ailsa—something dreadful has angered her against me——"
"Against you!"
"Oh, yes. I don't know all of it; I know—partly."
Sleep and fatigue still confused her mind; she pressed both frail hands to her eyes, her forehead:
"It was the day I returned from seeing you at Paigecourt. . . . I was deadly tired when the ambulance drove into Azalea; and when it arrived here I had fallen asleep. . . . I woke up when it stopped. Ailsa was sitting here—in this same chair, I think—and I remember as I sat up in the ambulance that an officer was just leaving her—Captain Hallam."
She looked piteously at Berkley.
"He was one of the men I have avoided. Do you understand?"
"No. . . . Was he——"
"Yes, he often came to the—Canterbury. He had never spoken to me there, but Ione Carew knew him; and I was certain he would recognise me. . . . I thought I had succeeded in avoiding him, but he must have seen me when I was not conscious of his presence—he must have recognised me."
She looked down at her worn shoes; the tears fell silently; she smoothed her gray gown for lack of employment for her restless hands.
"Dear," he said, "do you believe he went to Ailsa with his story about you?"
"Oh, yes, yes, I am sure. What else could it be that has angered her—that drives me away from her—that burns me with the dreadful gaze she turns on me—chills me with her more dreadful silence? . . . Why did he do it? I don't know—oh, I don't know. . . . Because I had never even spoken to him—in those days that I have tried so hard—so hard to forget——"
He said slowly: "He is a coward. I have known that for a long time. But most men are. The disgrace lies in acting like one. . . And I—that is why I didn't run in battle. . . . Because, that first day, when they fired on our waggons, I saw him riding in the road behind us. Nobody else suspected him to be within miles. I saw him. And—he galloped the wrong way. And that is why I—did what I did! He shocked me into doing it. . . . But I never before have told a soul. I would not tell even you—but the man, yesterday, put himself beyond the pale. And it can make no difference now, for he carries the mark into his grave."
He shuddered slightly. "God forbid I hold him up to scorn. I might, this very moment, be what he is now. No man may know—no man can foretell how he will bear himself in time of stress. I have a sorry record of my own. Battle is not the only conflict that makes men or cowards."
He stood silent, gazing into space. Letty's tears dried as she watched him.
"Have you seen—her?" she asked tremulously.
"Yes."
The girl sighed and looked down.
"I am so sorry about Colonel Arran . . . . I believe, somehow, he will get well."
"Do you really believe it, Letty?"
"Yes. The wound is clean. I have seen many recover who were far more dangerously hurt. . . . His age is against him, but I do truly believe he will get well."
He thought a moment. "Have you heard about Stephen Craig?"
"They have telegraphed to his affianced—a Miss Lent. You probably know her. Her brother was killed a day or two ago. Poor little thing! I believe that Miss Lent is coming. Mrs. Craig wishes to take her boy North as soon as he can be moved. And, unless the wound becomes infected, I don't believe he is going to die."
"Where is he?"
"At Paigecourt. Many transports are waiting at the landing. . . . They say that there was another severe engagement near there yesterday, and that our army is victorious. I have heard, also, that we were driven in, and that your regiment lost a great many men and horses . . . I don't know which is true," she added, listlessly picking at her frayed gown; "only, as we haven't heard the guns to-day, it seems to me that if we had lost the battle we'd have Confederate cannon thundering all around us."
"That seems reasonable," he admitted absently. . . . "Is Dr.
Benton here still?"
"No," she said softly.
"Where is he?"
"At Paigecourt. I asked him to go because he is the best doctor I ever knew. He came down here to see me; he is not detailed for duty under contract. I asked him to go and see Stephen Craig. He grumbled—and went."
She looked up shyly at Berkley, smiled for the first time, then her pale young face grew beautiful and solemn.
"You dear girl," he said impulsively, taking both her hands and kissing them. "I am so glad for you—and for him. I knew it would come true."
"Yes. But I had to tell him—I started to tell him—and—oh, would you believe how splendid he is! He knew already! He stopped me short—and I never can forget the look in his face. And he said: 'Child—child! You can tell me nothing I am not already aware of. And I am aware of nothing except your goodness.'"
"I thought I knew Phineas Benton," said Berkley, warmly. "He was too upright a character for me to enjoy with any comfort—a few years back. . . . I'm trying harder than you ever had to, Letty. You always desired to be decent; I didn't." He shook both her hands heartily.
"You deserve every atom of your happiness, you dear, sweet girl! I only wish you were safely out of here and back in the North!"
Letty began to cry softly:
"Forgive me, please; I'm not naturally as tearful as this. I am just tired. I've done too much—seen too much—and it hasn't hardened me; it has made me like a silly child, ready to sniffle at anything."
Berkley laughed gently.
"Why are you crying now, Letty?"
"B-because they have offered me a furlough. I didn't apply. But Dr. Benton has made me take it. And it almost kills me to go North and leave Ailsa—alone—and so strangely changed toward me——"
She straightened her shoulders resolutely; brushed the tears from her lashes; strove to smile at him.
"Shall we walk a little? I am not on duty, you know; and I've had enough sleep. There's such a pretty lane along the creek behind the chapel. . . . What are you doing here, anyway? I suppose you are acting orderly to poor Colonel Arran? How splendidly the Lancers have behaved! . . . And those darling Zouaves!—oh, we are just bursting with pride over our Zou-zous——"
They had turned away together, walking slowly through the grove toward a little cart road deep in golden seeded grass which wound down a hollow all moist with ferns and brambles and young trees in heavy leaf.
Her hand, unconsciously, had sought his nestling into it with a confidence that touched him; her pale, happy face turned continually to meet his as she chatted innocently of the things which went to make up the days of life for her, never conscious of herself, or that the artless chatter disclosed anything admirable in her own character. She prattled on at random, sometimes naive, sometimes wistful, sometimes faintly humourous—a brave, clean spirit that was content to take the consequence of duty done—a tender, gentle soul, undeformed amid the sordid horrors that hardened or crippled souls less innocent.
Calm, resourceful, patient, undismayed amid conditions that sickened mature experience to the verge of despair, she went about her business day after day, meeting all requisitions upon her slender endurance without faltering, without even supposing there was anything unusual or praiseworthy in what she did.
She was only one of many women who did full duty through the darkest days the nation ever knew—saints in homespun, martyrs uncanonised save in the hearts of the stricken.
There was a small wooden foot-bridge spanning the brook, with a rough seat nailed against the rail.
"One of my convalescents made it for me," she said proudly. "He could use only one arm, and he had such a hard time sawing and hammering! and the foolish boy wouldn't let anybody help him."
She seated herself in the cool shade of a water oak, retaining his hand in hers and making room for him beside her.
"I wonder," she said, "if you know how good you have been to me.
You changed all my life. Do you realise it?"
"You changed it yourself, Letty."
She sighed, leaned back, dreamy eyed, watching the sun spots glow and wane on the weather-beaten footbridge.
"In war time—here in the wards—men seem gentler to women—kinder—than in times of peace. I have stood beside many thousands; not one has been unkind—lacking in deference. . . ." A slight smile grew on her lips; she coloured a little, looked up at Berkley, humorously.
"It would surprise you to know how many have asked me to marry them. . . . Such funny boys. . . . I scolded some of them and made them write immediately to their sweethearts. . . . The older men were more difficult to manage—men from the West—such fine, simple-natured fellows—just sick and lonely enough to fall in love with any woman who fanned them and brought them lemonade. . . . I loved them all dearly. They have been very sweet to me. . . . Men are good. . . . If a woman desires it. . . . The world is so full of people who don't mean to do wrong."
She bent her head, considering, lost in the retrospection of her naive philosophy.
Berkley, secretly amused, was aware of several cadaverous convalescents haunting the bushes above, dodging the eyes of this pretty nurse whom one and all adored, and whom they now beheld, with jealous misgivings, in intimate and unwarrantable tete-a-tete with a common and disgustingly healthy cavalryman.
Then his weather-tanned features grew serious.
The sunny moments slipped away as the sunlit waters slipped under the bridge; a bird or two, shy and songless in their moulting fever, came to the stream to drink, looking up, bright eyed, at the two who sat there in the mid-day silence. One, a cardinal, ruffled his crimson crest, startled, as Berkley moved slightly.
"The Red Birds," he said, half aloud. "To me they are the sweetest singers of all. I remember them as a child, Letty."
After a while Letty rose; her thin hand lingered, on his shoulder as she stood beside him, and he got to his feet and adjusted belt and sabre.
"I love to be with you," she said wistfully. "It's only because I do need a little more sleep that I am going back."
"Of course," he nodded. And they retraced their steps together.
He left her at the door of the quaint, one-storied stone building where, she explained, she had a cot.
"You will come to see me again before you go back to your regiment, won't you?" she pleaded, keeping one hand in both of hers.
"Of course I will. Try to get some sleep, Letty. You're tremendously pretty when you've had plenty of sleep."
They both laughed; then she went indoors and he turned away across the road, under the windows of the ward where Ailsa was on duty, and so around to his store-room dwelling-place, where he sat down on the cot amid the piles of boxes and drew from his pocket the crumpled sheets of the letter that Ailsa had given him.