Crittenden Part 14

And not all of them pa.s.sed high. After that sweep of glistening steel rain along the edge of the woods rose the cry here, there, everywhere:

"Hospital man! hospital man!"

And here and there, in the steady pelt of bullets, went the quiet, brave fellows with red crosses on their sleeves; across the creek, Crittenden could see a tall, young doctor, bare-headed in the sun, stretching out limp figures on the sand under the bank--could see him and his a.s.sistants stripping off blouse and trousers and shirt, and wrapping and binding, and newly wounded being ever brought in.

And behind forged soldiers forward, a tall aide at the ford urging them across and stopping a panic among volunteers.

"Come back, you cowards--come back! Push 'em back, boys!"

A horse was crossing the stream. There was a hissing shriek in the air, a geyser spouting from the creek, the remnants of a horse thrown upward, and five men tossed in a swirl like straw: and, a moment later, a boy feebly paddling towards the sh.o.r.e--while the water ran past him red with blood. And, through it all, looking backward, Crittenden saw little Carter coming on horseback, calm of face, calm of manner, with his hands folded over his saddle, and his eyes looking upward--little Carter who had started out in an ambulance that morning with a temperature of one hundred and four, and, meeting wounded soldiers, gave up his wagon to them, mounted his horse, and rode into battle--to come out normal at dusk. And behind him--erect, proud, face aflame, eyes burning, but hardly less cool--rode Basil. Crittenden's eyes filled with love and pride for the boy.

"G.o.d bless him--G.o.d save him!"

A lull came--one of the curious lulls that come periodically in battle for the reason that after any violent effort men must have a breathing spell--and the mist of bullets swept on to the right like a swift pa.s.sing shower of rain.

There was a splash in the creek behind Crittenden, and someone fell on his face behind the low bank with a fervent:

"Thank G.o.d, I've got this far!" It was Grafton.

"That n.i.g.g.e.r of yours is coming on somewhere back there," he added, and presently he rose and calmly peered over the bank and at the line of yellow dirt on the crest of the hill. A bullet spat in the ground close by.

"That hit you?" he asked, without altering the tone of his voice--without even lowering his gla.s.ses.

Reynolds, on his right, had ducked quickly. Crittenden looked up in surprise. The South had no monopoly of nerve--nor, in that campaign, the soldier.

"Well, by G.o.d," said Reynolds, irritably--the bullet had gone through his sleeve. "This ain't no time to joke."

Grafton's face was still calm--he was still looking. Presently he turned and beckoned to somebody in the rear.

"There he is, now."

Looking behind, Crittenden had to laugh. There was Bob, in a cavalryman's hat, with a Krag-Jorgensen in his hand, and an ammunition belt buckled around him.

As he started toward Grafton, a Lieutenant halted him.

"Why aren't you with your regiment?" he demanded sharply.

"I ain't got no regiment. I'se looking fer Ole Captain."

"Get back into your regiment," said the officer, with an oath, and pointing behind to the Tenth Coloured Cavalry coming up.

"Huh!" he said, looking after the officer a moment, and then he came on to the edge of the creek.

"Go to the rear, Bob," shouted Crittenden, sharply, and the next moment Bob was crashing through the bushes to the edge of the creek.

"Foh Gawd, Ole Cap'n, I sutn'ly is glad to fine you. I wish you'd jes show me how to wuk this gun. I'se gwine to fight right side o' you--you heah me."

"Go back, Bob," said Crittenden, firmly.

"Silence in the ranks," roared a Lieutenant. Bob hesitated. Just then a company of the Tenth Cavalry filed down the road as they were deployed to the right. Crittenden's file of soldiers could see that the last man was a short, fat darky--evidently a recruit--and he was swinging along as jauntily as in a cake-walk. As he wheeled pompously, he dropped his gun, leaped into the air with a yell of amazed rage and pain, catching at the seat of his trousers with both hands. A bullet had gone through both b.u.t.tocks.

"Gawd, Ole Cap'n, did you see dat n.i.g.g.e.r?"

A roar of laughter went down the bed of the creek.

"Go back!" repeated Crittenden, threateningly, "and stop calling me Old Captain." Bob looked after the file of coloured troops, and then at Crittenden.

"All right, Ole Cap'n; I tol' you in ole Kentuck that I gwine to fight wid the n.i.g.g.e.rs ef you don't lemme fight wid you. I don't like disgracin' the family dis way, but 'tain't my fault, an' s'pose you git shot--" the slap of the flat side of a sword across Bob's back made him jump.

"What are you doing here?" thundered an angry officer." Get into line--get into line."

"I ain't no sojer."

"Get into line," and Bob ran after the disappearing file, shaking his head helplessly.

The crash started again, and the hum of bees and the soft snap of the leaves when bullets clipped them like blows with a rattan cane, and the rattling sputter of the machine guns, and once more came that long, long wait that tries the soldier's heart, nerve, and brain.

"Why was not something done--why?"

And again rose the cry for the hospital men, and again the limp figures were brought in from the jungle, and he could see the tall doctor with the bare head helping the men who had been dressed with a first-aid bandage to the protecting bank of the creek farther up, to make room for the fresh victims. And as he stood up once, Crittenden saw him throw his hand quickly up to his temple and sink to the blood-stained sand. The a.s.sistant, who bent over him, looked up quickly and shook his head to another, who was binding a wounded leg and looking anxiously to know the fatal truth.

"I've got it," said a soldier to Crittenden's left; joyously, he said it, for the bullet had merely gone through his right shoulder. He could fight no more, he had a wound and he could wear a scar to his grave.

"So have I," said another, with a groan. And then next him there was a sudden, soft thud:

"T-h-u-p!" It was the sound of a bullet going into thick flesh, and the soldier sprang to his feet--the impulse seemed uncontrollable for the wounded to spring to their feet--and dropped with a groan--dead.

Crittenden straightened him out sadly--putting his hat over his face and drawing his arms to his sides. Above, he saw with sudden nausea, buzzards circling--little cared they whether the dead were American or Spaniard, as long as there were eyes to pluck and lips to tear away, and then straightway, tragedy merged into comedy as swiftly as on a stage.

Out of the woods across the way emerged a detail of negro troopers--sent to clear the woods behind of sharpshooters--and last came Bob. The detail, pa.s.sing along the creek on the other bank from them, scattered, and with Bob next the creek. Bob shook his gun aloft.

"I can wuk her now!"

Another lull came, and from the thicket arose the cry of a thin, high, foreign voice:

"Americano--Americano!"

"Whut regiment you b'long to?" the voice was a negro's and was Bob's, and Grafton and Crittenden listened keenly. Bob had evidently got a sharpshooter up a tree, and caught him loading his gun.

"Tenth Cav'rly--Tenth!" was the answer. Bob laughed long and loud.

"Well, you jus the man I been lookin' fer--the fust white man I ever seed whut 'longed to a n.i.g.g.e.r regiment. Come down, honey." There was the sharp, clean crack of a Krag-Jorgensen, and a yell of savage triumph.

"That n.i.g.g.e.r's a bird," said Grafton.

Something serious was going to be done now--the intuition of it ran down the line in that mysterious fashion by which information pa.s.ses down a line of waiting men. The line rose, advanced, and dropped again.

Companies deployed to the left and behind--fighting their way through the chaparral as a swimmer buffets his way through choppy waves. Every man saw now that the brigade was trying to form in line of battle for a charge on that curving, smokeless flame of fire that ran to and fro around the top of the hill--blazing fiercely and steadily here and there. For half an hour the officers struggled to form the scattering men. Forward a little way; slipping from one bush and tree to another; through the thickets and bayonet gra.s.s; now creeping; now a dash through an open spot; now flat on the stomach, until Crittenden saw a wire fence stretching ahead. Followed another wait. And then a squad of negro troopers crossed the road, going to the right, and diagonally. The bullets rained about them, and they scuttled swiftly into the brush. The hindmost one dropped; the rest kept on, unseeing; but Crittenden saw a Lieutenant--it was Sharpe, whom he had met at home and at Chickamauga--look back at the soldier, who was trying to raise himself on his elbow--while the bullets seemed literally to be mowing down the tall gra.s.s about him. Then Crittenden heard a familiar grunt behind him, and the next minute Bob's figure sprang out into the open--making for the wounded man by the sympathy of race. As he stooped, to Crittenden's horror, Bob pitched to the ground--threshing around like an animal that has received a blow on the head. Without a thought, without consciousness of his own motive or his act, Crittenden sprang to his feet and dashed for Bob. Within ten feet of the boy, his toe caught in a root and he fell headlong. As he scrambled to his feet, he saw Sharpe making for him--thinking that he had been shot down--and, as he turned, with Bob in his arms, half a dozen men, including Grafton and his own Lieutenant, were retreating back into cover--all under the same impulse and with the same motive having started for him, too. Behind a tree, Crittenden laid Bob down, still turning his head from side to side helplessly. There was a trail of blood across his temple, and, wiping it away, he saw that the bullet had merely sc.r.a.ped along the skull without penetrating it. In a moment, Bob groaned, opened his eyes, sat up, looked around with rolling eyes, grunted once or twice, straightened out, and reached for his gun, shaking his head.

"Gimme drink, Ole Cap'n, please, suh."