IX
IN THE HOUR OF DEFEAT
As the dusk fell Dan found himself on the road with a little company ofstragglers, flying from the pursuing cavalry that drew off slowly as thedarkness gathered. He had lost his regiment, and, as he went on, he begancalling out familiar names, listening with strained ears for an answer thatwould tell of a friend's escape. At last he caught the outlines of agigantic figure relieved on a hillock against the pale green west, and,with a shout, he hurried through the swarm of fugitives, and overtookPinetop, who had stooped to tie his shoe on with a leather strap.
"Thank God, old man!" he cried. "Where are the others?"
Pinetop, panting yet imperturbable, held out a steady hand.
"The Lord knows," he replied. "Some of 'em air here an' some ain't. I wasgoin' back agin to git the flag, when I saw you chased like a fox acrossthe creek with it hangin' on yo' back. Then I kinder thought it wouldn't dofor none of the regiment to answer when Marse Robert called, so I camealong right fast and kep' hopin' you would follow."
"Here I am," responded Dan, "and here are the colours." He twined the silkmore closely about his arm, gloating over his treasure in the twilight.
Pinetop stretched out his great rough hand and touched the flag as gentlyas if it were a woman.
"I've fought under this here thing goin' on four years now," he said, "andI reckon when they take it prisoner, they take me along with it."
"And me," added Dan; "poor Granger went down, you know, just as I took itfrom him. He fell fighting with the pole."
"Wall, it's a better way than most," Pinetop replied, "an' when the angelbegins to foot up my account on Jedgment Day, I shouldn't mind his cappin'the whole list with 'he lost his life, but he didn't lose his flag.' Tomake a blamed good fight is what the Lord wants of us, I reckon, or hewouldn't have made our hands itch so when they touch a musket."
Then they trudged on silently, weak from hunger, sickened by defeat. When,at last, the disorganized column halted, and the men fell to the groundupon their rifles, Dan kindled a fire and parched his corn above the coals.After it was eaten they lay down side by side and slept peacefully on theedge of an old field.
For three days they marched steadily onward, securing meagre rations in alittle town where they rested for a while, and pausing from time to time,to beat off a feigned attack. Pinetop, cheerful, strong, undaunted by anyhardship, set his face unflinchingly toward the battle that must clear aroad for them through Grant's lines. Had he met alone a squadron of cavalryin the field, he would, probably, have taken his stand against a pine, andaimed his musket as coolly as if a squirrel were the mark. With his sunnytemper, and his gloomy gospel of predestination, his heart could swell withhope even while he fought single-handed in the face of big battalions. Whatconcerned him, after all, was not so much the chance of an ultimate victoryfor the cause, as the determination in his own mind to fight it out as longas he had a cartridge remaining in his box. As his fathers had kept thefrontier, so he meant, on his own account, to keep Virginia.
On the afternoon of the third day, as the little company drew near toAppomattox Court House, it found the road blocked with abandoned guns, andlined by exhausted stragglers, who had gone down at the last halting place.As it filed into an open field beyond a wooded level, where a few campfiresglimmered, a group of Federal horsemen clattered across the front, and, asif by instinct, the column formed into battle line, and the hand of everyman was on the trigger of his musket.
"Don't fire, you fools!" called an officer behind them, in a voice sharpwith irritation. "The army has surrendered!"
"What! Grant surrendered?" thundered the line, with muskets at a trail asit rushed into the open.
"No, you blasted fools--we've surrendered," shouted the voice, risinghoarsely in a gasping indignation.
"Surrendered, the deuce!" scoffed the men, as they fell back into ranks."I'd like to know what General Lee will think of your surrender?"
A little Colonel, with his hand at his sword hilt, strutted up and downbefore a tangle of dead thistles.
"I don't know what he thinks of it, he did it," he shrieked, withoutpausing in his walk.
"It's a damn lie!" cried Dan, in a white heat. Then he threw his musket onthe ground, and fell to sobbing the dry tearless sobs of a man who feelshis heart crushed by a sudden blow.
There were tears on all the faces round him, and Pinetop was digging hisgreat fists into his eyes, as a child does who has been punished before hisplaymates. Beside him a man with an untrimmed shaggy beard hid hisdistorted features in shaking hands.
"I ain't blubberin' fur myself," he said defiantly, "but--O Lord, boys--I'mcryin' fur Marse Robert."
Over the field the beaten soldiers, in ragged gray uniforms, were lyingbeneath little bushes of sassafras and sumach, and to the right a fewcampfires were burning in a shady thicket. The struggle was over, and eachman had fallen where he stood, hopeless for the first time in four longyears. Up and down the road groups of Federal horsemen trotted withcheerful unconcern, and now and then a private paused to make a remark infriendly tones; but the men beneath the bushes only stared with hollow eyesin answer--the blank stare of the defeated who have put their wholestrength into the fight.
Taking out his jack-knife, Dan unfastened the flag from the hickory pole onwhich he had placed it, and began cutting it into little pieces, which hepassed to each man who had fought beneath its folds. The last bit he putinto his own pocket, and trembling like one gone suddenly palsied, passedfrom the midst of his silent comrades to a pine stump on the border of thewoods. Here he sat down and looked hopelessly upon the scene beforehim--upon the littered roads and the great blue lines encircling thehorizon.
So this was the end, he told himself, with a bitterness that choked himlike a grip upon the throat, this the end of his boyish ardour, his dreamof fame upon the battle-field, his four years of daily sacrifice andsuffering. This was the end of the flag for which he was ready to give hislife three days ago. With his youth, his strength, his very bread throwninto the scale, he sat now with wrecked body and blighted mind, and saw hisfuture turn to decay before his manhood was well begun. Where was the oldbuoyant spirit he had brought with him into the fight? Gone forever, and inits place he found his maimed and trembling hands, and limbs weakened bystarvation as by long fever. His virile youth was wasted in the slowstruggle, his energy was sapped drop by drop; and at the last he sawhimself burned out like the battle-fields, where the armies had closed andopened, leaving an impoverished and ruined soil. He had given himself forfour years, and yet when the end came he had not earned so much as an emptytitle to take home for his reward. The consciousness of a hard-fought fightwas but the common portion of them all, from the greatest to the humbleston either side. As for him he had but done his duty like his comrades inthe ranks, and by what right of merit should he have raised himself abovetheir heads? Yes, this was the end, and he meant to face it standing withhis back against the wall.
Down the road a line of Federal privates came driving an ox before them,and he eyed them gravely, wondering in a dazed way if the taste of victoryhad gone to their heads. Then he turned slowly, for a voice was speaking athis side, and a tall man in a long blue coat was building a little firehard by.
"Your stomach's pretty empty, ain't it, Johnny?" he inquired, as he laidthe sticks crosswise with precise movements, as if he had measured thelength of each separate piece of wood. He was lean and rawboned, with ashaggy red moustache and a wart on his left cheek. When he spoke he showedan even row of strong white teeth.
Dan looked at him with a kind of exhausted indignation.
"Well, it's been emptier," he returned shortly.
The man in blue struck a match and held it carefully to a dried pinebranch, watching, with a serious face, as the flame licked the rosin fromthe crossed sticks. Then he placed a quart pot full of water on the coals,and turned to meet Dan's eyes, which had grown ravenous as he caught thescent of beef.
"You see we somehow thought you Joh
nnies would be hard up," he said in anoffhand manner, "so we made up our minds we'd ask you to dinner and cut ourrations square. Some of us are driving over an ox from camp, but as I washanging round and saw you all by yourself on this old stump, I had afeeling that you were in need of a cup of coffee. You haven't tasted realcoffee for some time, I guess."
The water was bubbling over and he measured out the coffee and poured itslowly into the quart cup. As the aroma filled the air, he opened hishaversack and drew out a generous supply of raw beef which he broiled onlittle sticks, and laid on a spread of army biscuits. The larger share heoffered to Dan with the steaming pot of coffee.
"I declare it'll do me downright good to see you eat," he said, with ahospitable gesture.
Dan sat down beside the bread and beef, and, for the next ten minutes, atelike a famished wolf, while the man in blue placidly regarded him. When hehad finished he took out a little bag of Virginian tobacco and they smokedtogether beside the waning fire. A natural light returned gradually toDan's eyes, and while the clouds of smoke rose high above the bushes, theytalked of the last great battles as quietly as of the Punic Wars. It wasall dead now, as dead as history, and the men who fought had left thebitterness to the camp followers or to the ones who stayed at home.
"You have fine tobacco down this way," observed the Union soldier, as herefilled his pipe, and lighted it with an ember. Then his gaze followedDan's, which was resting on the long blue lines that stretched across thelandscape.
"You're feeling right bad about us now," he pursued, as he crossed his legsand leaned back against a pine, "and I guess it's natural, but the timewill come when you'll know that we weren't the worst you had to face."
Dan held out his hand with something of a smile.
"It was a fair fight and I can shake hands," he responded.
"Well, I don't mean that," said the other thoughtfully. "What I mean isjust this, you mark my words--after the battle comes the vultures. Afterthe army of fighters comes the army of those who haven't smelled thepowder. And in time you'll learn that it isn't the man with the rifle thatdoes the most of the mischief. The damned coffee boilers will get theirhands in now--I know 'em."
"Well, there's nothing left, I suppose, but to swallow it down without anyfuss," said Dan wearily, looking over the field where the slaughtered oxwas roasting on a hundred bayonets at a hundred fires.
"You're right, that's the only thing," agreed the man in blue; then hiskeen gray eyes were on Dan's face.
"Have you got a wife?" he asked bluntly.
Dan shook his head as he stared gravely at the embers.
"A sweetheart, I guess? I never met a Johnnie who didn't have asweetheart."
"Yes, I've a sweetheart--God bless her!"
"Well, you take my advice and go home and tell her to cure you, now she'sgot the chance. I like your face, young man, but if I ever saw ahalf-starved and sickly one, it is yours. Why, I shouldn't have thought youhad the strength to raise your rifle."
"Oh, it doesn't take much strength for that; and besides the coffee did megood, I was only hungry."
"Hungry, hump!" grunted the Union soldier. "It takes more than hunger togive a man that blue look about the lips; it takes downright starvation."He dived into his haversack and drew out a quinine pill and a little bottleof whiskey.
"If you'll just chuck this down it won't do you any harm," he went on, "andif I were you, I'd find a shelter before I went to sleep to-night; youcan't trust April weather. Get into that cow shed over there or under awagon."
Dan swallowed the quinine and the whiskey, and as the strong spirit firedhis veins, the utter hopelessness of his outlook muffled him into silence.Dropping his head into his open palms, he sat dully staring at thewhitening ashes.
After a moment the man in blue rose to his feet and fastened his haversack.
"I live up by Bethlehem, New Hampshire," he remarked, "and if you ever comethat way, I hope you'll look me up; my name's Moriarty."
"Your name's Moriarty, I shall remember," repeated Dan, trying, with aterrible effort, to steady his quivering limbs.
"Jim Moriarty, don't you forget it. Anybody at Bethlehem can tell you aboutme; I keep the biggest store around there." He went off a few steps andthen came back to hold out an awkward hand in which there was a little heapof silver.
"You'd just better take this to start you on your way," he said, "it ain'tbut ninety-five cents--I couldn't make out the dollar--and when you get itin again you can send it to Jim Moriarty at Bethlehem, New Hampshire.Good-by, and good luck to you this time."
He strode off across the field, and Dan, with the silver held close in hispalm, flung himself back upon the ground and slept until Pinetop woke himwith a grasp upon his shoulder.
"Marse Robert's passin' along the road," he said. "You'd better hurry."
Struggling to his feet Dan rushed from the woods across the deserted field,to the lines of conquered soldiers standing in battle ranks upon theroadside. Between them the Commander had passed slowly on his dapple grayhorse, and when Dan joined the ranks it was only in time to see him rideonward at a walk, with the bearded soldiers clinging like children to hisstirrups. A group of Federal cavalrymen, drawn up beneath a persimmon tree,uncovered as he went by, and he returned the salute with a simple gesture.Lonely, patient, confirmed in courtesy, he passed on his way, and hislittle army returned to camp in the strip of pines.
"'I've done my best for you,' that's what he said," sobbed Pinetop. "'I'vedone my best for you,'--and I kissed old Traveller's mane."
Without replying, Dan went back into the woods and flung himself down onthe spread of tags. Now that the fight was over all the exhaustion of thelast four years, the weakness after many battles, the weariness after thelong marches, had gathered with accumulated strength for the finaloverthrow.
For three days he remained in camp in the pine woods, and on the third,after waiting six hours in a hard rain outside his General's tent, hesecured the little printed slip which signified to all whom it mightconcern that he had become a prisoner upon his parole. Then, after asympathetic word to the rest of the division, shivering beneath thesassafras bushes before the tent, he shook hands with his comrades underarms, and started with Pinetop down the muddy road. The war was over, andfootsore, in rags and with aching limbs, he was returning to the littlevalley where he had hoped to trail his glory.
Down the long road the gray rain fell straight as a curtain, and on eitherside tramped the lines of beaten soldiers who were marching, on their wordof honour, to their distant homes. The abandoned guns sunk deep in the mud,the shivering men lying in rags beneath the bushes, and the charred remainsof campfires among the trees were the last memories Dan carried from thefour years' war.
Some miles farther on, when the pickets had been passed, a man on a blackhorse rode suddenly from a little thicket and stopped across their path.
"You fellows haven't been such darn fools as to give your parole, haveyou?" he asked in an angry voice, his hand on his horse's neck. "The fightisn't over yet and we want your muskets on our side. I belong to thepartisan rangers, and we'll cut through to Johnston's army before daylight.If not, we'll take to the mountains and keep up the war forever. Thecountry is ours, what's to hinder us?"
He spoke passionately, and at each sharp exclamation the black horse roseon his haunches and pawed the air.
Dan shook his head.
"I'm out on parole," he replied, "but as soon as I'm exchanged, I'll fightif Virginia wants me. How about you, Pinetop?"
The mountaineer shuffled his feet in the mud and stood solemnly surveyingthe landscape.
"Wall, I don't understand much about this here parole business," hereplied. "It seems to me that a slip of paper with printed words on it thatI have to spell out as I go, is a mighty poor way to keep a man fromfightin' if he can find a musket. I ain't steddyin' about this parole, butMarse Robert told me to go home to plant my crop, and I am goin' home toplant it."
"It is all over, I think," said Dan with a qu
ivering lip, as he stared atthe ruined meadows. The smart was still fresh, and it was too soon for himto add, with the knowledge that would come to him from years,--"it isbetter so." Despite the grim struggle and the wasted strength, despite theimpoverished land and the nameless graves that filled it, despite even hisown wrecked youth and the hard-fought fields where he had laid itdown--despite all these a shadow was lifted from his people and it wasworth the price.
They passed on, while the black horse pawed the dust, and the rider hurledoaths at their retreating figures. At a little house a few yards down theroad they stopped to ask for food, and found a woman weeping at the kitchentable, with three small children clinging to her skirts. Her husband hadfallen at Five Forks, she said, the safe was empty, and the children werecrying for bread. Then Dan slipped into her hand the silver he had borrowedfrom the Union soldier, and the two returned penniless to the road.
"At least we are men," he said almost apologetically to Pinetop, and thenext instant turned squarely in the mud, for a voice from the other sidehad called out shrilly:--
"Hi, Marse Dan, whar you gwine now?"
"Bless my soul, it's Big Abel," he exclaimed.
Black as a spade and beaming with delight, the negro emerged from the swarmupon the roadside and grasped Dan's outstretched hands.
"Whar you gwine dis away, Marse Dan?" he inquired again.
"I'm going home, Big Abel," responded Dan, as they walked on in a row ofthree. "No, don't shout, you scamp; I'd rather lie down and die upon theroadside than go home like this."
"Well, you ain' much to look at, dat's sho'," replied Big Abel, his faceshining like polished ebony, "en I ain' much to look at needer, but dey'llhave ter recollect de way we all wuz befo' we runned away; dey'll have terrecollect you in yo' fine shuts en fancy waistcoats, en dey'll have terrecollect me in yo' ole uns. Sakes alive! I kin see dat one er yourn wid delittle bit er flow'rs all over hit des es plain es ef 'twuz yestiddy."
"The waistcoats are all gone now," said Dan gravely, "and so are theshirts. The war is over and you are your own master, Big Abel. You don'tbelong to me from this time on."
Big Abel shook his head grinning.
"I reckon hit's all de same," he remarked cheerfully, "en I reckon we'd eswell be gwine on home, Marse Dan."
"I reckon we would," said Dan, and they pushed on in silence.