第30章

"By God, that's cannon!" said the Colonel."They're attacking our boys.Throw off everything, boys, and hurry forward!"Overcoats, blankets, haversacks and knapsacks were hastily pied, and the two most exhausted men in each company placed on guard over them.

Kent and Abe did not contribute their canteen to the company pile.

But then its weight was much less of an impediment than when they left Camp Dick Robinson.

They employed the very brief halt of the regiment in swabbing out the barrels of their muskets very carefully, and removing the last traces of moisture from the nipples and hammers.

"At last I stand a show of getting some return from this old piece of gas-tube for the trouble it's been to me," said Kent Edwards, as he ran a pin into the nipple to make assurance doubly sure that it was entirely free."Think of the transportation charges I have against it, for the time I have lugged it around over Ohio and Kentucky, to say nothing of the manual labor and the mental strain of learning and prectising 'present arms,' 'carry arms,' 'support arms,' and such military monkey-shines under the hot sun of last Summer!"He pulled off the woolen rag he had twisted around the head of the rammer for a swab, wiped the rammer clean and bright and dropped it into the gun.It fell with a clear ring.Another dextrous movement of the gun sent it flying into the air.Kent caught it as it came down and scrutinized its bright head.He found no smirch of dirt or dampness."Clean and clear as a whistle inside," he said, approvingly."She'll make music that our Secession friends will pay attention to, though it may not be as sweet to their ears as 'The Bonnie Blue Flag.'""More likely kick the whole northwest quarter section of your shoulder off when you try to shoot it," growled Abe, who had been paying similar close attention to his gun."If we'd had anybody but a lot of mullet-heads for officers we'd a'been sent up here last week, when the weather and the roads were good, and when we could've done something.Now our boys'll be licked before we can get where we can help 'em."Glen leaned on his musket, and listening to the deepening roar of battle, was shaken by the surge of emotions natural to the occasion.

It seemed as if no one could live through the incessant firing the sound of which rolled down to them.To go up into it was to deliberately venture into certain destruction.Memory made a vehement protest.He recalled all the pleasant things that life had in store for him; all that he could enjoy and accomplish; all that he might be to others; all that others might be to him.Every enjoyment of the past, every happy possibility of the future took on a more entrancing roseatenesss.

Could he give all this up, and die there on the mountain top, in this dull, brutal, unheroic fashion, in the filthy mud and dreary rain, with no one to note or care whether he acted courageously or otherwise?

It did not seem that he was expected to fling his life away like a dumb brute entering the reeking shambles.His youth and abilities had been given him for some other purpose.Again palsying fear and ignoble selfishness tugged at his heart-strings, and he felt all his carefully cultivated resolutions weakening.

"A Sergeant must be left in command of the men guarding this property," said the Colonel.The Captain of Company A will detail one for that duty."Captain Bennett glanced from one to another of his five Sergeants.

Harry's heart gave a swift leap, with hope that he might be ORDEREDto remain behind.Then the blood crimsoned his cheeks, for the first time since the sound of the firing struck his ears; he felt that every eye in the Company was upon him, and that his ignoble desire had been read by all in his look of expectancy.Shame came to spur up his faltering will.He set his teeth firmly, pulled the tompion out of his gun, and flung it away disdainfully as if he would never need it again, blew into the muzzle to see if the tube was clear, and wiped off the lock with a fine white handkerchief--one of the relics of his by-gone elegance--which he drew from the breast of his blouse.

"Sergeant Glan--Sergeant Glancey will remain," said the Captain peremptorily.Glancey, the Captain knew, was the only son and support of a widowed mother.

"Now, boys," said the Colonel in tones that rang like bugle notes, "the time has come for us to strike a blow for the Union, and for the fame of the dear old Buckeye State.I need not exhort you to do your duty like men; I know you too well to think that any such words of mine are at all necessary.Forward! QUICK TIME! MARCH!"The mountain sides rang with the answering cheers from a thousand throats.

The noise of the battle on the distant crest was at first in separate bursts of sound, as regiment after regiment came into position and opened fire.The intervals between these bursts had disappeared, and it had now become a steady roar.

A wild mob came rushing backward from the front.

"My God, our men are whipped!" exclaimed the young Adjutant in tones of Anguish.

"No, no," said Captain Bennett, with cheerful confidence."These are only the camp riff-raff, who run whenever so much as a cap is burst near them."So it proved to be.There were teamsters upon their wheel-mules, cooks, officers' servants, both black and white, and civilian employees, mingled with many men in uniform, skulking from their companies.Those were mounted who could seize a mule anywhere, and those who could not were endeavoring to keep up on foot with the panic-stricken riders.