CHAPTER XVI.
A sputtering of musketry was always to be heard. Later, the cannon hadentered the dispute. In the fog-filled air their voices made athudding sound. The reverberations were continued. This part of theworld led a strange, battleful existence.
The youth's regiment was marched to relieve a command that had lainlong in some damp trenches. The men took positions behind a curvingline of rifle pits that had been turned up, like a large furrow, alongthe line of woods. Before them was a level stretch, peopled withshort, deformed stumps. From the woods beyond came the dull popping ofthe skirmishers and pickets, firing in the fog. From the right camethe noise of a terrific fracas.
The men cuddled behind the small embankment and sat in easy attitudesawaiting their turn. Many had their backs to the firing. The youth'sfriend lay down, buried his face in his arms, and almost instantly, itseemed, he was in a deep sleep.
The youth leaned his breast against the brown dirt and peered over atthe woods and up and down the line. Curtains of trees interfered withhis ways of vision. He could see the low line of trenches but for ashort distance. A few idle flags were perched on the dirt hills.Behind them were rows of dark bodies with a few heads stickingcuriously over the top.
Always the noise of skirmishers came from the woods on the front andleft, and the din on the right had grown to frightful proportions. Theguns were roaring without an instant's pause for breath. It seemedthat the cannon had come from all parts and were engaged in astupendous wrangle. It became impossible to make a sentence heard.
The youth wished to launch a joke--a quotation from newspapers. Hedesired to say, "All quiet on the Rappahannock," but the guns refusedto permit even a comment upon their uproar. He never successfullyconcluded the sentence. But at last the guns stopped, and among the menin the rifle pits rumors again flew, like birds, but they were now forthe most part black creatures who flapped their wings drearily near tothe ground and refused to rise on any wings of hope. The men's facesgrew doleful from the interpreting of omens. Tales of hesitation anduncertainty on the part of those high in place and responsibility cameto their ears. Stories of disaster were borne into their minds withmany proofs. This din of musketry on the right, growing like areleased genie of sound, expressed and emphasized the army's plight.
The men were disheartened and began to mutter. They made gesturesexpressive of the sentence: "Ah, what more can we do?" And it couldalways be seen that they were bewildered by the alleged news and couldnot fully comprehend a defeat.
Before the gray mists had been totally obliterated by the sun rays, theregiment was marching in a spread column that was retiring carefullythrough the woods. The disordered, hurrying lines of the enemy couldsometimes be seen down through the groves and little fields. They wereyelling, shrill and exultant.
At this sight the youth forgot many personal matters and became greatlyenraged. He exploded in loud sentences. "B'jiminey, we're generaledby 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 behindhim until his mind took in the meaning of the movement. Then hesighed. "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 freelycondemn other men. He made an attempt to restrain himself, but thewords upon his tongue were too bitter. He presently began a long andintricate denunciation of the commander of the forces.
"Mebbe, it wa'n't all his fault--not all together. He did th' best heknowed. It's our luck t' git licked often," said his friend in a wearytone. He was trudging along with stooped shoulders and shifting eyeslike 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 hislips. For a moment his face lost its valor and he looked guiltilyabout him. But no one questioned his right to deal in such words, andpresently he recovered his air of courage. He went on to repeat astatement he had heard going from group to group at the camp thatmorning. "The brigadier said he never saw a new reg'ment fight the waywe fought yestirday, didn't he? And we didn't do better than manyanother reg'ment, did we? Well, then, you can't say it's th' army'sfault, 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 daresay it. Th' boys fight like hell-roosters. But still--still, we don'thave no luck."
"Well, then, if we fight like the devil an' don't ever whip, it must bethe general's fault," said the youth grandly and decisively. "And Idon't see any sense in fighting and fighting and fighting, yet alwayslosing through some derned old lunkhead of a general."
A sarcastic man who was tramping at the youth's side, then spokelazily. "Mebbe yeh think yeh fit th' hull battle yestirday, Fleming,"he remarked.
The speech pierced the youth. Inwardly he was reduced to an abjectpulp by these chance words. His legs quaked privately. He cast afrightened glance at the sarcastic man.
"Why, no," he hastened to say in a conciliating voice, "I don't think Ifought the whole battle yesterday."
But the other seemed innocent of any deeper meaning. Apparently, hehad no information. It was merely his habit. "Oh!" he replied in thesame tone of calm derision.
The youth, nevertheless, felt a threat. His mind shrank from goingnear to the danger, and thereafter he was silent. The significance ofthe sarcastic man's words took from him all loud moods that would makehim appear prominent. He became suddenly a modest person.
There was low-toned talk among the troops. The officers were impatientand snappy, their countenances clouded with the tales of misfortune.The troops, sifting through the forest, were sullen. In the youth'scompany once a man's laugh rang out. A dozen soldiers turned theirfaces quickly toward him and frowned with vague displeasure.
The noise of firing dogged their footsteps. Sometimes, it seemed to bedriven a little way, but it always returned again with increasedinsolence. The men muttered and cursed, throwing black looks in itsdirection.
In a clear space the troops were at last halted. Regiments andbrigades, broken and detached through their encounters with thickets,grew together again and lines were faced toward the pursuing bark ofthe enemy's infantry.
This noise, following like the yellings of eager, metallic hounds,increased to a loud and joyous burst, and then, as the sun wentserenely up the sky, throwing illuminating rays into the gloomythickets, it broke forth into prolonged pealings. The woods began tocrackle as if afire.
"Whoop-a-dadee," said a man, "here we are! Everybody fightin'. Bloodan' 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. Hejerked without mercy at his little mustache. He strode to and fro withdark dignity in the rear of his men, who were lying down behindwhatever protection they had collected.
A battery had trundled into position in the rear and was thoughtfullyshelling the distance. The regiment, unmolested as yet, awaited themoment when the gray shadows of the woods before them should be slashedby the lines of flame. There was much growling and swearing.
"Good Gawd," the youth grumbled, "we're always being chased around likerats! It makes me sick. Nobody seems to know where we go or why wego. We just get fired around from pillar to post and get licked hereand get licked there, and nobody knows what it's done for. It makes aman feel like a damn' kitten in a bag. Now, I'd like to know what theeternal thunders we was marched into these woods for anyhow, unless itwas to give the rebs a regular pot shot at us. We came in here and gotour legs all tangled up in these cussed briers, and then we begin tofight and the rebs had an easy time of it. Don't tell me it's justluck! I know better. It's this derned old--"
The friend seemed jaded, but he interrupted his comrade with a voice ofcalm
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-mindedlieutenant, who was obliged to vent some of his inward dissatisfactionupon 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 tofight, an' you'll get plenty 'a that t' do in about ten minutes. Lesstalkin' an' more fightin' is what's best for you boys. I never sawsech gabbling jackasses."
He paused, ready to pounce upon any man who might have the temerity toreply. 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 uponthe thronged forest. A sort of a gust of battle came sweeping towardthat part of the line where lay the youth's regiment. The frontshifted a trifle to meet it squarely. There was a wait. In this partof the field there passed slowly the intense moments that precede thetempest.
A single rifle flashed in a thicket before the regiment. In an instantit was joined by many others. There was a mighty song of clashes andcrashes that went sweeping through the woods. The guns in the rear,aroused and enraged by shells that had been thrown burlike at them,suddenly involved themselves in a hideous altercation with another bandof guns. The battle roar settled to a rolling thunder, which was asingle, long explosion.
In the regiment there was a peculiar kind of hesitation denoted in theattitudes of the men. They were worn, exhausted, having slept butlittle and labored much. They rolled their eyes toward the advancingbattle as they stood awaiting the shock. Some shrank and flinched.They stood as men tied to stakes.