A Soldier of Virginia Part 22

"Lieutenant Stewart," he said to me, "I place you in charge of the sentries for the night. Will you make the rounds and see that all is well? I know the men are weary, but I need hardly tell you that our safety will depend upon their vigilance. Guard especially against a surprise from the direction of the river."

I saluted, and started away to make the round. The sun had long since sunk behind the trees in a cloud of blood-red vapor, which seemed to me significant of the day. All about us through the forest arose the chorus of night sounds, and afar off through the trees I could catch the glinting of the river. What was happening beyond it, I dared not think.

And then I came to a sudden stop, for I had reached the spot where the first sentry had been posted, but there was none in sight.

I thought for a moment that in the darkness I must have missed the place, but as I looked about me more attentively, I saw that could not be. I walked up and down, but could find no trace of him. Could it be that the Indians had stolen upon him and killed him with a blow of knife or tomahawk before he could cry out? Yet if that had happened, where was the body?

I hurried on toward the spot where the next sentry had been posted, and as I neared it, strained my eyes through the gloom, but could see no trace of him. I told myself that I was yet too far away, and hurried forward, but in a moment I had reached the place. There was no sentry there. With the perspiration starting from my forehead, I peered among the trees and asked myself what mysterious and terrible disaster threatened us. The third sentry was missing like the others--the fourth had disappeared--I made the whole round of the camp. Not a single sentry remained. And then, of a sudden, the meaning of their absence burst upon me.

I hurried back to the camp, pa.s.sing the spot where we had quartered the men whom we had rallied, but who were not placed on sentry duty.

As I expected, not one was there.

"All is well, I trust, Lieutenant Stewart?" asked Colonel Burton, as I approached. Then something in my face must have startled him, for he asked me sharply what had happened.

"I fear we cannot remain here, sir," I said, as calmly as I could. "All of our men have deserted us. There is not a single sentry at his post;"

and I told him what I had found.

He listened without a word till I had finished.

"You will get the tumbrel ready for the general, lieutenant," he said quietly. "I will report this sad news to him. It seems that our defeat is to become dishonor."

I put the horses into harness again, and led them to the place where the general lay. He seemed dazed by the tidings of his men's desertion, and made no protest nor uttered any sound as we lifted him again into the cart and set off through the night. We soon reached the second ford, and on the other side found Colonel Gage, who had contrived to rally about eighty men and hold them there with him. But there seemed no hope of keeping them through the night, so we set forward again, and plunged into the gloomy forest.

An hour later, as I was plodding wearily along beside the cart, thinking over the events of this tragic day, I was startled by a white face peering from beneath the upraised curtain out into the darkness. It was the stricken man within, who was surveying the remnant of that gallant army which, a few short hours before, had pa.s.sed along this road so gayly, thinking itself invincible. He held himself a moment so, then let the curtain drop and fell back upon his couch.

CHAPTER XIX

ALLEN AND I SHAKE HANDS

Of the horrors of the night which followed, my pen can paint no adequate picture. Fugitives panted past us in the darkness, pursued by phantoms of their own imagining, thinking only of one thing--to leave that scene of awful slaughter far behind. The wounded toiled on, groaning and cursing, for to drop to the rear or to wander from the way was to die, if not by knife or tomahawk, none the less surely by hunger. Here and there some poor wretch who could win no farther sat groaning by the roadside or rolled in delirium upon the ground. The vast, impenetrable darkness of the forest overshadowed us, full of threatening suggestion and peopled with nameless terrors.

Colonel Gage remained with us with such of his men as he could hold together, and among them I saw Lieutenant Allen. He had been wounded in the shoulder, and at the suggestion of Captain Orme mounted the tumbrel and drove the horses, while I walked beside it. What agonies the stricken man within endured, tossed from side to side as the cart b.u.mped along the rough road, through ruts and over rocks and stumps of trees, must have been beyond description, but not once during all that long night did I hear a groan or complaint from him. Once he asked for water, and as Orme and I stooped over him I heard him murmur as though to himself, "Who would have thought it?" and again, "Who would have thought it?" Then he drank the water mechanically and lay back, and said no more.

The disaster had been too sudden, too unexpected, too complete, for any of us to fully realize. It seemed impossible that this handful of terror-stricken fugitives should be all that remained of the proud army to which we had belonged, and that this army had been defeated by a few hundred Indians. Few of us had seen above a dozen of the enemy,--we of Waggoner's company were the only ones who had looked down upon that yelling mob in the ravine,--and scarce knew by whom we had been slaughtered. It was incredible that two regiments of the best troops in England should have been utterly routed by so contemptible a foe. The reason refused to acknowledge such a thing.

I was plodding along, wearily enough, thinking of all this, when I heard my name called, and glancing up, saw Allen looking round the corner of the wagon cover.

"Won't you come up here, Lieutenant Stewart?" he asked. "There is ample room for two, and 't is no use to tire yourself needlessly."

I accepted gratefully, though somewhat astonished at his courtesy, and in a moment was on the seat beside him. He fell silent for a time, nor was I in any mood for talk, for Spiltdorph's fate and young Harry Marsh's sudden end weighed upon me heavily.

"Lieutenant Stewart," he said at last, "I feel that I did you and the Virginia troops a grave injustice when I chose to question their courage.

What I saw to-day has opened my eyes to many things. In all the army, the Virginia troops were the only ones who kept their wits about them and proved themselves men. I wish to withdraw the expressions I used that night, and to apologize for them most sincerely."

My hand was in his in an instant.

"With all my heart," I said. "I have thought more than once since then that we were both too hasty."

He laughed,--a short laugh, in which there was no mirth.

"I think there are many of us who have been too hasty in this campaign,"

he said. "It is easy enough to see now that regulars are worth little in this frontier warfare, where their manoeuvres count for nothing, and that the provincials should have been left to fight in their own fashion. It is not a pleasant thought that all my work in drilling them was worse than wasted, and that every new manoeuvre I taught them impaired their efficiency by just so much."

"'Twas not quite so bad as that," I protested. "The Virginia troops have much to thank you for, and we shall know better how to deal with the enemy next time."

"Next time?" he repeated despondently. "But when will next time be, think you?"

"Why, at once, to be sure!" I cried. "We have still, with Colonel Dunbar's companies, over a thousand men. So soon as we join with him, and get our accoutrement in order, we can march back against the enemy, and we shall not be caught twice in the same trap."

He did not answer, and there was a moment's silence. I glanced at his face and saw that it was very grave.

"You do not mean," I asked, with a great fear at my heart, "that you think it possible we shall retreat without striking another blow?"

"I fear it is only too possible," he answered gloomily. "If the general lives, he may order another advance; indeed, I am sure he will, in the hope of saving some fragment of his reputation. But if he dies, as seems most likely, Colonel Dunbar, who succeeds to the command, is not the man to imperil his prestige by taking such a risk."

"Risk?" I cried. "How is this any greater than the risk we took at the outset?"

"You forget, lieutenant," said Allen, "that all of our equipment was left on the field. The men flung away their arms, many of them even the clothes upon their backs. Everything was abandoned,--the general's private papers, and even the military chest, with 10,000 in it. These losses will not be easily repaired."

I could not but admit the truth of this, and said as much.

"And then," continued Allen, still more gloomily, "we have suffered another loss which can never be made good. The morale of the men is gone. They have no longer the confidence in themselves which a winning army must have. I doubt if many of them could be got to cross the Monongahela a second time."

Yes, that was also true, and we fell silent, each busy with his own thoughts. It seemed too horrible, too utterly fantastic. At last came the dawn, and the light of the morning disclosed us to each other. As I looked about me, I wondered if these scarecrows, these phantoms of men, could be the same who had gone into battle in all the pride of manhood and pageantry of arms the day before. Orme was ghastly, with his bandaged head and torn, mud-stained uniform, and as I looked at him, I recalled sadly the gallant figure I had met at Fort Necessity. Nor were the others better. Haggard faces, bloodshot eyes, lips drawn with suffering, hair matted with blood,--all the grim and revolting realities of defeat were there before us, and no longer to be denied. And I realized that I was ghastly as any. A bullet had cut open my forehead, leaving a livid gash, from which the blood had dried about my face. I had lost my hat, and my uniform was in tatters and stained with blood.

We soon met the men who had gone forward with Waggoner to secure us some supplies, and halted by a little brook to wash our injuries. Captain Orme and some others attended as well as they were able to the general, and gave him a little food, which was all too scarce, barely sufficient for a single meal. Fortunately, Doctor Craik, who had learned that the general was wounded, came up soon after, and made a careful examination of the injury. He came away, when he had finished, with grave face, and told us there was little hope, as the wound was already much inflamed and fevered, and the general was able to breathe only with great agony. He said there could be no question that the ball had entered the lung. The general fancied that he would be easier on horseback, so when the march was begun again, he was mounted on the horse Orme had been riding, but after half an hour his pain grew so intense that he had to be taken down.

It was evident that he could not endure the jolting of the cart, and we finally rigged up a sort of litter out of a portion of the tumbrel top, and the men took turns in bearing him on this between them.

Daylight banished much of the terror of the night, and as we toiled onward, we began to talk a little, each to tell what part he had seen of the battle. It was here that I heard the story of Harry Gordon, the engineer who had been marking out the road in advance of the column, and who had first seen the enemy. They had appeared suddenly, coming through the wood at a run, as though hurrying from the fort, and led by a man whose silver gorget and gayly fringed hunting-shirt at once bespoke the chief. So soon as he saw Gordon, he halted and waved his hat above his head, and the rabble of savages at his heels had dispersed to right and left and disappeared as if by magic. An instant later came a tremendous rifle fire from either flank, which cut Gage's troops to pieces. They had rallied and returned the fire with spirit, so that for a time the issue hung in the balance; but the terrible fire to which they were subjected was too much for any discipline to withstand, and they had finally given way in confusion, just as Burton was forming to support them.

It was not until long afterward that I heard the French story of the fight, but I deem it best to set it down here. As our army had approached through the wilderness, the Indians who lurked upon our flanks had carried greatly exaggerated stories of our strength to Fort Duquesne, and M. de Contrecoeur prepared to surrender on terms of honorable capitulation, deeming it mere madness to oppose a force so overwhelming in strength and so well disciplined. To the French the reputation of General Braddock and of the Forty-Fourth and Forty-Eighth regiments of the line was well known and commanded the greatest respect. On the eighth of July, it was reported that the English were only a few miles from the fort, which they would probably invest the next day, and M. de Beaujeu, a captain of the regulars, asked the commandant for permission to prepare an ambuscade and contest the second pa.s.sage of the Monongahela.

Contrecoeur granted the request with great reluctance, and only on condition that Beaujeu obtain the a.s.sistance of the Indians, of whom there were near a thousand camped about the fort. Accordingly. Beaujeu at once called the warriors to a council, and urged that they accompany him against the English on the morrow. They received his proposition with marked coldness, and according to the Indian custom, asked until morning to consider their reply. In the morning, the council was called together again, and the Indians refused to take part in the expedition. At that moment a runner burst in upon them and announced that the enemy was at hand. Beaujeu, who knew well the inflammable nature of his hearers, was on his feet in an instant.

"I," he cried, "am determined to go out against the enemy. I am certain of victory. What! Will you suffer your father to depart alone?"

It was the one spark needed to set the Indians on fire. They were frantic with excitement. Barrels of bullets and casks of powder were rolled from the fort, and their heads knocked out, so that each Indian could take what he needed. War paint was donned, and in an hour the band, nine hundred strong, of whom near seven hundred were Indians and the remainder Canadians and regulars, set off silently through the forest. Beaujeu calculated, at the most, on giving us a severe check as we crossed the second ford, but long ere he reached the river, the beating of the drums and the tramp of the approaching army told him that he was too late, and that we had already crossed. Quickening their pace to a run, in a moment they came upon our vanguard, and as Beaujeu gave the signal, the Indians threw themselves into two ravines on our flanks, while the Canadians and French held the centre. The first volley of Gage's troops killed Beaujeu, and was so tremendous that it frightened the Indians, who turned to flee. But they were rallied by a few subalterns, and finding that the volleys of the regulars did little damage except to the trees, returned to the attack, and during the whole engagement were perfectly sheltered in the ravines, rifle and artillery fire alike sweeping above them. They lost altogether but twenty-five or thirty men, and most of these fell before the volley which we of Waggoner's company had fired into the ravine.

After our retreat, no pursuit was attempted, the Indians busying themselves killing and scalping the wounded and gathering up the rich booty which the army had left behind. They decked themselves in British uniforms, stuck the tall caps of the grenadiers above their painted faces, wound neck, wrist, and ankle with gold lace, made the wood to echo with the dreadful scalp-halloo. Such an orgy of blood they never had before; not another such will they ever have.

One other horror must I record, which chokes me even yet to think of. A score of regulars, surrounded by savages and cut off in their retreat from the remainder of the army, yielded themselves captive to the victors, thinking to be treated as prisoners of war have ever been in Christian nations. But the Indians knew only their own bloodthirsty customs. Half of the captives were tomahawked on the spot. The others were stripped of clothing, their faces blackened, their hands bound behind them, and were driven forward to the Allegheny, where, just across from Fort Duquesne, a stake had been set in the river's bank.

Arrived there, the prisoners began to understand the fate prepared for them, yet they could not believe. A hundred yards away across the river stood the walls of the fort, crowded with soldiers, the fair lilies of France waving lazily above their heads. Calmly they watched the terrible preparations,--Contrecoeur, Dumas, and all the others,--and not one raised a hand to rescue those unhappy men, or uttered a word to mitigate their torture. From dark to dawn the flames shimmered across the water,--for the English went to their fate singly,--and things were done to turn one sick with horror; yet did the French look tranquilly from their bastions and joke one to another. Our flag, thank G.o.d, has never been sullied by a deed like that!

Early the next morning, the Indians started westward to their homes, laden with booty, sated with slaughter, leaving the French to take care of themselves as best they might. The latter remained for a week in great fear of another attack, which they would have been quite unable to withstand, little thinking that our army was fleeing back to the settlements with feet winged by an unreasoning terror.

We reached Gist's plantation at ten o'clock on the night of the tenth, and here we were compelled to stop because of our own exhaustion and the great suffering of the general. And here, early the next morning, came Colonel Washington, sitting his cushioned saddle like some gaunt spectre, and bringing with him wagons loaded with provision. The general still persisted in the exercise of his duties, despite his suffering, and he at once detailed a party to proceed toward the Monongahela with a supply of food, for the succor of the stragglers and the wounded who had been left behind,--a duty which was ill fulfilled because of the cowardice of those to whom it was intrusted. Meanwhile we pushed on, and reached Dunbar's camp that night.