The field of trampled clover looked as if a windstorm had swept over it, strewing the contents of a dozen dismantled houses. There were stacks of arms and piles of cooking utensils, knapsacks, half emptied, lay beside the charred remains of fires, and loose fence rails showed red and white glimpses of playing cards, hidden, before the fight, by superstitious soldiers.
Groups of men were scattered in dark spots over the field, and about them stragglers drifted slowly back from the road to Centreville. There was no discipline, no order—regiment was mixed with regiment, and each man was hopelessly inquiring for his lost company.
As Dan stepped over the fallen fence upon the crushed pink heads of the clover, he came upon a circle of privates making merry over a lunch basket they had picked up on the turnpike—a basket brought by one of the Washington parties who had gayly driven out to watch the battle. A broken fence rail was ablaze in the centre of the group, and as the red light fell on each soiled and unshaven face, it stood out grotesquely from the surrounding gloom. Some were slightly wounded, some had merely scented the battle from behind the hill—all were drinking rare wine in honour of the early ending of the war. As Dan looked past them over the darkening meadow, where the returning soldiers drifted aimlessly across the patches of red light, he asked himself almost impatiently if this were the pure and patriotic army that held in its ranks the best born of the South? To him, standing there, it seemed but a loosened mass, without strength and without cohesion, a mob of schoolboys come back from a sham battle on the college green. It was his first fight, and he did not know that what he looked upon was but the sure result of an easy victory upon the undisciplined ardour of raw troops—that the sinews of an army are wrought not by a single trial, but by the strain of prolonged and strenuous endeavour.
“I say, do you reckon they'll lemme go home ter-morrow?” inquired a slightly wounded man in the group before him. “Thar's my terbaccy needs lookin' arter or the worms 'ull eat it clean up 'fo' I git thar.” He shook the shaggy hair from his face, and straightened the white cotton bandage about his chin. On the right side, where the wound was, his thick sandy beard had been cut away, and the outstanding tuft on his left cheek gave him a peculiarly ill-proportioned look.
“Lordy! I tell you we gave it ter 'em!” exclaimed another in excited jerks. “Fight! Wall, that's what I call fightin', leastways it's put. I declar' I reckon I hit six Yankees plum on the head with the butt of this here musket.”
He paused to knock the head off a champagne bottle, and lifting the broken neck to his lips drained the foaming wine, which spilled in white froth upon his clothes. His face was red in the firelight, and when he spoke his words rolled like marbles from his tongue. Dan, looking at him, felt a curious conviction that the man had not gone near enough to the guns to smell the powder.
“Wall, it may be so, but I ain't seed you,” returned the first speaker, contemptuously, as he stroked his bandage. “I was thar all day and I ain't seed you raise no special dust.”
“Oh, I ain't claimin' nothin' special,” put in the other, discomfited.
“Six is a good many, I reckon,” drawled the wounded man, reflectively, “and I ain't sayin' I settled six on 'em hand to hand—I ain't sayin' that.” He spoke with conscious modesty, as if the smallness of his assertion was equalled only by the greatness of his achievements. “I ain't sayin' I settled more'n three on 'em, I reckon.”
Dan left the group and went on slowly across the field, now and then stumbling upon a sleeper who lay prone upon the trodden clover, obscured by the heavy dusk. The mass of the army was still somewhere on the long road—only the exhausted, the sickened, or the unambitious drifted back to fall asleep upon the uncovered ground.
As Dan crossed the meadow he drew near to a knot of men from a Kentucky regiment, gathered in the light of a small wood fire, and recognizing one of them, he stopped to inquire for news of his missing friends.
“Oh, you wouldn't know your sweetheart on a night like this,” replied the man he knew—a big handsome fellow, with a peculiar richness of voice. “Find a hole, Montjoy, and go to sleep in it, that's my advice. Were you much cut up?”
“I don't know,” answered Dan, uneasily. “I'm trying to make sure that we were not. I lost the others somewhere on the road—a horse knocked me down.”
“Well, if this is to be the last battle, I shouldn't mind a scratch myself,” put in a voice from the darkness, “even if it's nothing more than a bruise from a horse's hoof. By the bye, Montjoy, did you see the way Stuart rode down the Zouaves? I declare the slope looked like a field of poppies in full bloom. Your cousin was in that charge, I believe, and he came out whole. I saw him afterwards.”
“Oh, the cavalry gets the best of everything,” said Dan, with a sigh, and he was passing on, when Jack Powell, coming out of the darkness, stumbled against him, and broke into a delighted laugh.
“Why, bless my soul, Beau, I thought you'd run after the fleshpots of Washington!” His face was flushed with excitement and the soft curls upon his forehead were wet and dark. Around his mouth there was a black stain from bitten cartridges. “By George, it was a jolly day, wasn't it, old man?” he added warmly.
“Where are the others?” asked Dan, grasping his arm in an almost frantic pressure.
“The others? they're all right—all except poor Welch, who got a ball in his thigh, you know. Did you see him when he was taken off the field? He laughed as he passed me and shouted back that he 'was always willing to spare a leg or two to the cause!'”
“Where are you off to?” inquired Dan, still grasping his arm.
“I? oh, I'm on the scent of water. I haven't learned to sleep dirty yet, which Bland says is a sign I'm no soldier. By the way, your darky, Big Abel, has a coffee-boiler over yonder in the fence corner. He's been tearing his wool out over your absence; you'd better ease his mind.” With a laugh and a wave of his hand, he plunged into the darkness, and Dan made his way slowly to the campfire, which twinkled from the old rail fence. As he groped toward it curses sprang up like mustard from the earth beneath. “Get off my leg, and be damned,” growled a voice under his feet. “Oh, this here ain't no pesky jedgment day,” exclaimed another just ahead. Without answering he stepped over the dark bodies, and, ten minutes later, came upon Big Abel waiting patiently beside the dying fire.
At sight of him the negro leaped, with a shout, to his feet; then, recovering himself, hid his joy beneath an accusing mask.
“Dis yer coffee hit's done 'mos' bile away,” he remarked gloomily. “En ef'n it don' tase like hit oughter tase, 'tain' no use ter tu'n up yo' nose, caze 'tain' de faul' er de coffee, ner de faul' er me nurr.”
“How are you, old man?” asked Bland, turning over in the shadow.
“Who's there?” responded Dan, as he peered from the light into the obscurity.
“All the mess except Welch, poor devil. Baker got his hair singed by our rear line, and he says he thinks it's safer to mix with the Yankees next time. Somebody behind him shot his cowlick clean off.”
“Cowlick, the mischief!” retorted Baker, witheringly. “Why, my scalp is as bald as your hand. The fool shaved me like a barber.”
“It's a pity he didn't aim at your whiskers,” was Dan's rejoinder. “The chief thing I've got against this war is that when it's over there won't be a smooth-shaven man in the South.”
“Oh, we'll stand them up before our rear line,” suggested Baker, moodily. “You may laugh, Bland, but you wouldn't like it yourself, and if they keep up their precious marksmanship your turn will come yet. We'll be a regiment of baldheads before Christmas.”
Dan sat down upon the blanket Big Abel had spread and leaned heavily upon his knapsack, which the negro had picked up on the roadside. A nervous chill had come over him and he was shaking with icy starts from head to foot. Big Abel brought a cup of coffee, and as he took it from him, his hand quivered so that he set the cup upon the ground; then he lifted it and drank the hot coffee in long draughts.
“I should have lost my very identity but for you, Big Abel,” he observed gratefully, as he glanced round at the property the negro had protected.
Big Abel leaned forward and stirred the ashes with a small stick.
“En I done fit fer 'em, suh,” he replied. “I des tell you all de fittin' ain' been over yonder on dat ar hill caze I'se done fit right yer in dis yer fence conder, en I ain' fit de Yankees nurr. Lawd, Lawd, dese yer folks es is been a-sniffin' roun' my pile all day, ain' de kinder folks I'se used ter, caze my folks dey don' steal w'at don' b'long ter 'em, en dese yer folks dey do. Ole Marster steal? Huh! he 'ouldn't even tech a chicken dat 'uz roos'in in his own yard. But dese yer sodgers!—Why, you cyarn tu'n yo' eye a splinter off de vittles fo' dey's done got 'em. Dey poke dey han's right spang in de fire en eat de ashes en all.”
He went off grumbling to lie down at a little distance, and Dan sat thoughtfully looking into the smouldering fire. Bland and Baker, having heatedly discussed the details of the victory, had at last drifted into silence; only Pinetop was awake—this he learned from the odour of the corncob pipe which floated from a sheltered corner.
“Come over, Pinetop,” called Dan, cordially, “and let's make ready for the pursuit to-morrow. Why, to-morrow we may eat a civilized dinner in Washington—think of that!”
He spoke excitedly, for he was still quivering from the tumult of his thoughts. There was no sleep possible for him just now; his limbs twitched restlessly, and he felt the prick of strong emotion in his blood.
“I say, Pinetop, what do you think of the fight?” he asked with an embarrassed boyish eagerness. In the faint light of the fire his eyes burned like coals and there was a thick black stain around his mouth. The hand in which he had held his ramrod was of a dark rust colour, as if the stain of the battle had seared into the skin. A smell of hot powder still hung about his clothes.
The mountaineer left the shadow of the fence corner and slowly dragged himself into the little glow, where he sat puffing at his corncob pipe. He gave an easy, sociable nod and stared silently at the embers.
“Was it just what you imagined it would be?” went on Dan, curiously.
Pinetop took his pipe from his mouth and nodded again. “Wall, 'twas and 'twan't,” he answered pleasantly.
“I must say it made me sick,” admitted Dan, leaning his head in his hand. “I've always been a fool about the smell of blood; and it made me downright sick.”
“Wall, I ain't got much of a stomach for a fight myself,” returned Pinetop, reflectively. “You see I ain't never fought anythin' bigger'n a skunk until to-day; and when I stood out thar with them bullets sizzlin' like fryin' pans round my head, I kind of says to myself: 'Look here, what's all this fuss about anyhow? If these here folks have come arter the niggers, let 'em take 'em off and welcome.' I ain't never owned a nigger in my life, and, what's more, I ain't never seen one that's worth owning. 'Let 'em take 'em and welcome,' that's what I said. Bless your life, as I stood out thar I didn't see how I was goin' to fire my musket, till all of a jiffy a thought jest jumped into my head and sent me bangin' down that hill. 'Them folks have set thar feet on ole Virginny,' was what I thought 'They've set thar feet on ole Virginny, and they've got to take 'em off damn quick!'”
His teeth closed over his pipe as if it were a cartridge; then, after a silent moment, he opened his mouth and spoke again.
“What I can't make out for the life of me,” he said, “is how those boys from the other states gave thar licks so sharp. If I'd been born across the line in Tennessee, I wouldn't have fired my musket off to-day. They wan't a-settin' thar feet on Tennessee. But ole Virginny—wall, I've got a powerful fancy for ole Virginny, and they ain't goin' to project with her dust, if I can stand between.” He turned away, and, emptying his pipe, rolled over upon the ground.
Dan lay down upon the blanket, and, with his hand upon his knapsack, gazed at the small red ember burning amid the ashes. When the last spark faded into blackness it was as if his thoughts went groping for a light. Sleep came fitfully in flights and pauses, in broken dreams and brief awakenings. Losing himself at last it was only to return to the woods at Chericoke and to see Betty coming to him among the dim blue bodies of the trees. He saw the faint sunshine falling upon her head and the stir of the young leaves above her as a light wind passed. Under her feet the grass was studded with violets, and the bonnet swinging from her arm was filled with purple blossoms. She came on steadily over the path of grass and violets, but when he reached out to touch her a great shame fell over him for there was blood upon his hand.
There was something cold in his face, and he emerged slowly from his sleep into the consciousness of dawn and a heavy rain. The swollen clouds hung close above the hills, and the distance was obscured by the gray sheets of water which fell like a curtain from heaven to earth. Near by a wagon had drawn up in the night, and he saw that a group of half-drenched privates had already taken shelter between the wheels. Gathering up his oilcloth, he hastily formed a tent with the aid of a deep fence corner, and, when he had drawn his blanket across the opening, sat partly protected from the shower. As the damp air blew into his face, he became quickly and clearly awake, and it was with the glimmer of a smile that he looked over the wet meadow and the sleeping regiments. Then a shudder followed, for he saw in the lines of gray men stretched beneath the rain some likeness to that other field beyond the hill where the dead were still lying, row on row. He saw them stark and cold on the scorched grass beside the guns, or in the thin ridges of trampled corn, where the gay young tassels were now storm-beaten upon the ripped-up earth. He saw them as he had seen them the evening before—not in the glow of battle, but with the acuteness of a brooding sympathy—saw them frowning, smiling, and with features which death had twisted into a ghastly grin. They were all there—each man with open eyes and stiff hands grasping the clothes above his wound.
But to Dan, sitting in the gray dawn in the fence corner, the first horror faded quickly into an emotion almost triumphant. The great field was silent, reproachful, filled with accusing eyes—but was it not filled with glory, too? He was young, and his weakened pulses quickened at the thought. Since men must die, where was a brighter death than to fall beneath the flutter of the colours, with the thunder of the cannon in one's ears? He knew now why his fathers had loved a fight, had loved the glitter of the bayonets and the savage smell of the discoloured earth.
For a moment the old racial spirit flashed above the peculiar sensitiveness which had come to him from his childhood and his suffering through the falling rain in the deserted field.
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