Chapter XVI.

A sputtering of musketry was always to be heard. Later, the cannon had

entered the dispute. In the fog-filled air their voices made a thudding

sound. The reverberations were continual. This part of the world led a

strange, battleful existence.

The youth’s regiment was marched to relieve a command that had lain

long in some damp trenches. The men took positions behind a curving

line of rifle pits that had been turned up, like a large furrow, along

the line of woods. Before them was a level stretch, peopled with short,

deformed stumps. From the woods beyond came the dull popping of the

skirmishers and pickets, firing in the fog. From the right came the

noise of a terrific fracas.

The men cuddled behind the small embankment and sat in easy attitudes

awaiting their turn. Many had their backs to the firing. The youth’s

friend lay down, buried his face in his arms, and almost instantly, it

seemed, he was in a deep sleep.

The youth leaned his breast against the brown dirt and peered over at

the woods and up and down the line. Curtains of trees interfered with

his ways of vision. He could see the low line of trenches but for a

short distance. A few idle flags were perched on the dirt hills. Behind

them were rows of dark bodies with a few heads sticking curiously over

the top.

Always the noise of skirmishers came from the woods on the front and

left, and the din on the right had grown to frightful proportions. The

guns were roaring without an instant’s pause for breath. It seemed that

the cannon had come from all parts and were engaged in a stupendous

wrangle. It became impossible to make a sentence heard.

The youth wished to launch a joke—a quotation from newspapers. He

desired to say, “All quiet on the Rappahannock,” but the guns refused

to permit even a comment upon their uproar. He never successfully

concluded the sentence. But at last the guns stopped, and among the men

in the rifle pits rumors again flew, like birds, but they were now for

the most part black creatures who flapped their wings drearily near to

the ground and refused to rise on any wings of hope. The men’s faces

grew doleful from the interpreting of omens. Tales of hesitation and

uncertainty on the part of those high in place and responsibility came

to their ears. Stories of disaster were borne into their minds with

many proofs. This din of musketry on the right, growing like a released

genie of sound, expressed and emphasized the army’s plight.

The men were disheartened and began to mutter. They made gestures

expressive of the sentence: “Ah, what more can we do?” And it could

always be seen that they were bewildered by the alleged news and could

not fully comprehend a defeat.

Before the gray mists had been totally obliterated by the sun rays, the

regiment was marching in a spread column that was retiring carefully

through the woods. The disordered, hurrying lines of the enemy could

sometimes be seen down through the groves and little fields. They were

yelling, shrill and exultant.

At this sight the youth forgot many personal matters and became greatly

enraged. He exploded in loud sentences. “B’jiminey, we’re generaled by

a lot ’a lunkheads.”

“More than one feller has said that t’-day,” observed a man.

His friend, recently aroused, was still very drowsy. He looked behind

him until his mind took in the meaning of the movement. Then he sighed.

“Oh, well, I s’pose we got licked,” he remarked sadly.

The youth had a thought that it would not be handsome for him to freely

condemn other men. He made an attempt to restrain himself, but the

words upon his tongue were too bitter. He presently began a long and

intricate denunciation of the commander of the forces.

“Mebbe, it wa’n’t all his fault—not all together. He did th’ best he

knowed. It’s our luck t’ git licked often,” said his friend in a weary

tone. He was trudging along with stooped shoulders and shifting eyes

like a man who has been caned and kicked.

“Well, don’t we fight like the devil? Don’t we do all that men can?”

demanded the youth loudly.

He was secretly dumfounded at this sentiment when it came from his

lips. For a moment his face lost its valor and he looked guiltily about

him. But no one questioned his right to deal in such words, and

presently he recovered his air of courage. He went on to repeat a

statement he had heard going from group to group at the camp that

morning. “The brigadier said he never saw a new reg’ment fight the way

we fought yestirday, didn’t he? And we didn’t do better than many

another reg’ment, did we? Well, then, you can’t say it’s th’ army’s

fault, can you?”

In his reply, the friend’s voice was stern. “’A course not,” he said.

“No man dare say we don’t fight like th’ devil. No man will ever dare

say it. Th’ boys fight like hell-roosters. But still—still, we don’t

have no luck.”

“Well, then, if we fight like the devil an’ don’t ever whip, it must be

the general’s fault,” said the youth grandly and decisively. “And I

don’t see any sense in fighting and fighting and fighting, yet always

losing through some derned old lunkhead of a general.”

A sarcastic man who was tramping at the youth’s side, then spoke

lazily. “Mebbe yeh think yeh fit th’ hull battle yestirday, Fleming,”

he remarked.

The speech pierced the youth. Inwardly he was reduced to an abject pulp

by these chance words. His legs quaked privately. He cast a frightened

glance at the sarcastic man.

“Why, no,” he hastened to say in a conciliating voice “I don’t think I

fought the whole battle yesterday.”

But the other seemed innocent of any deeper meaning. Apparently, he had

no information. It was merely his habit. “Oh!” he replied in the same

tone of calm derision.

The youth, nevertheless, felt a threat. His mind shrank from going near

to the danger, and thereafter he was silent. The significance of the

sarcastic man’s words took from him all loud moods that would make him

appear prominent. He became suddenly a modest person.

There was low-toned talk among the troops. The officers were impatient

and snappy, their countenances clouded with the tales of misfortune.

The troops, sifting through the forest, were sullen. In the youth’s

company once a man’s laugh rang out. A dozen soldiers turned their

faces quickly toward him and frowned with vague displeasure.

The noise of firing dogged their footsteps. Sometimes, it seemed to be

driven a little way, but it always returned again with increased

insolence. The men muttered and cursed, throwing black looks in its

direction.

In a clear space the troops were at last halted. Regiments and

brigades, broken and detached through their encounters with thickets,

grew together again and lines were faced toward the pursuing bark of

the enemy’s infantry.

This noise, following like the yelpings of eager, metallic hounds,

increased to a loud and joyous burst, and then, as the sun went

serenely up the sky, throwing illuminating rays into the gloomy

thickets, it broke forth into prolonged pealings. The woods began to

crackle as if afire.

“Whoop-a-dadee,” said a man, “here we are! Everybody fightin’. Blood

an’ destruction.”

“I was willin’ t’ bet they’d attack as soon as th’ sun got fairly up,”

savagely asserted the lieutenant who commanded the youth’s company. He

jerked without mercy at his little mustache. He strode to and fro with

dark dignity in the rear of his men, who were lying down behind

whatever protection they had collected.

A battery had trundled into position in the rear and was thoughtfully

shelling the distance. The regiment, unmolested as yet, awaited the

moment when the gray shadows of the woods before them should be slashed

by the lines of flame. There was much growling and swearing.

“Good Gawd,” the youth grumbled, “we’re always being chased around like

rats! It makes me sick. Nobody seems to know where we go or why we go.

We just get fired around from pillar to post and get licked here and

get licked there, and nobody knows what it’s done for. It makes a man

feel like a damn’ kitten in a bag. Now, I’d like to know what the

eternal thunders we was marched into these woods for anyhow, unless it

was to give the rebs a regular pot shot at us. We came in here and got

our legs all tangled up in these cussed briers, and then we begin to

fight and the rebs had an easy time of it. Don’t tell me it’s just

luck! I know better. It’s this derned old—”

The friend seemed jaded, but he interrupted his comrade with a voice of

calm confidence. “It’ll turn out all right in th’ end,” he said.

“Oh, the devil it will! You always talk like a dog-hanged parson. Don’t

tell me! I know—”

At this time there was an interposition by the savage-minded

lieutenant, who was obliged to vent some of his inward dissatisfaction

upon his men. “You boys shut right up! There no need ’a your wastin’

your breath in long-winded arguments about this an’ that an’ th’ other.

You’ve been jawin’ like a lot ’a old hens. All you’ve got t’ do is to

fight, an’ you’ll get plenty ’a that t’ do in about ten minutes. Less

talkin’ an’ more fightin’ is what’s best for you boys. I never saw sech

gabbling jackasses.”

He paused, ready to pounce upon any man who might have the temerity to

reply. No words being said, he resumed his dignified pacing.

“There’s too much chin music an’ too little fightin’ in this war,

anyhow,” he said to them, turning his head for a final remark.

The day had grown more white, until the sun shed his full radiance upon

the thronged forest. A sort of a gust of battle came sweeping toward

that part of the line where lay the youth’s regiment. The front shifted

a trifle to meet it squarely. There was a wait. In this part of the

field there passed slowly the intense moments that precede the tempest.

A single rifle flashed in a thicket before the regiment. In an instant

it was joined by many others. There was a mighty song of clashes and

crashes that went sweeping through the woods. The guns in the rear,

aroused and enraged by shells that had been thrown burr-like at them,

suddenly involved themselves in a hideous altercation with another band

of guns. The battle roar settled to a rolling thunder, which was a

single, long explosion.

In the regiment there was a peculiar kind of hesitation denoted in the

attitudes of the men. They were worn, exhausted, having slept but

little and labored much. They rolled their eyes toward the advancing

battle as they stood awaiting the shock. Some shrank and flinched. They

stood as men tied to stakes.