The Battle Ground Part 46

"Jack wounded!--oh, he is not wounded," replied Virginia. She rose and stood wildly looking down upon him.

He saw his mistake and promptly retracted what he could.

"If you don't know of it, it can't be true," he urged kindly. "So many rumours are afloat that half of them are without foundation. However, I will make inquiries if you wish," and he pa.s.sed on with a promise to return at once.

For a time Virginia stood blankly gazing after him; then she turned steadily and took down her bonnet from the wardrobe. She even went to the bureau and carefully tied the pink ribbon strings beneath her chin.

"I am going out, Mammy Riah," she said when she had finished. "No, don't tell me I mustn't--I am going out, I say."

She stamped her foot impatiently, but Mammy Riah made no protest.

"Des let's go den," she returned, smoothing her head handkerchief as she prepared to follow.

The sun was already high above, and the breeze, which had blown for three days from the river, had dropped suddenly since dawn. Down the brick pavement the relentless glare flashed back into the sky which hung hot blue overhead. To Virginia, coming from the shade of her rooms, the city seemed a furnace and the steady murmur a great discord in which every note was one of pain.

Other women looking for their wounded hurried by her--one stopped to ask if she had been into the unused tobacco warehouse and if she had seen there a boy she knew by name? Another, with lint bandages in her hand, begged her to come into a church hard by and a.s.sist in ravelling linen for the surgeons. Then she looked down, saw the girl's figure, and grew nervous.

"You are not fit, my dear, go home," she urged, but Virginia shook her head and smiled.

"I am looking for my husband," she answered in a cold voice and pa.s.sed on.

Mammy Riah caught up with her, but she broke away. "Go home if you want to--oh, go back," she cried irritably. "I am looking for Jack, you know."

Into the rude hospitals, one after one, she went without shuddering, pa.s.sing up and down between the ghastly rows lying half clothed upon the bare plank floors. Her eyes were strained and eager, and more than one dying man turned to look after her as she went by, and carried the memory of her face with him to death. Once she stopped and folded a blanket under the head of a boy who moaned aloud, and then gave him water from a pitcher close at hand. "You're so cool--so cool," he sobbed, clutching at her dress, but she smiled like one asleep and pa.s.sed on rapidly.

When the long day had worn out at last, she came from an open store filled with stretchers, and started homeward over the burning pavement. Her search was useless, and the reaction from her terrible fear left her with a sudden tremor in her heart. As she walked she leaned heavily upon Mammy Riah, and her colour came and went in quick flashes. The heat had entered into her brain and with it the memory of open wounds and the red hands of surgeons.

Reaching the house at last, she flung herself all dressed upon the bed and fell into a sleep that was filled with changing dreams.

At midnight she cried out in agony, believing herself to be still in the street. When Mammy Riah bent over her she did not know her, but held out shaking hands and asked for her mother, calling the name aloud in the silent house, deserted for the sake of the hospitals lower down. She was walking again on and on over the hot bricks, and the deep wounds were opening before her eyes while the surgeons went by with dripping hands.

Once she started up and cried out that the terrible blue sky was crushing her down to the pavement which burned her feet. Then the odour of the magnolia filled her nostrils, and she talked of the scorching dust, of the noise that would not stop, and of the feeble breeze that blew toward her from the river. All night she wandered back and forth in the broad glare of the noon, and all night Mammy Riah pa.s.sed from the clinging hands to the window where she looked for help in the empty street. And then, as the gray dawn broke, Virginia put her simple services by, and spoke in a clear voice.

"Oh, how lovely," she said, as if well pleased. A moment more and she lay smiling like a child, her chin pressed deep in her open palm.

In the full sunrise a physician, who had run in at the old woman's cry, came from the house and stopped bareheaded in the breathless heat. For a moment he stared over the moving city and then up into the cloudless blue of the sky.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n war!" he said suddenly, and went back to his knife.

IX

THE MONTJOY BLOOD AGAIN

A month later Dan heard of Virginia's death when, at the end of the Seven Days, he was brought wounded into Richmond. As he lay upon church cushions on the floor of an old warehouse on Main Street, with Big Abel shaking a tattered palm-leaf fan at his side, a cavalryman came up to him and held out a hand that trembled slightly from fatigue.

"I heard you were here. Can I do anything for you, Beau?" he asked.

For an instant Dan hesitated; then the other smiled, and he recognized Jack Morson.

"My G.o.d! You've been ill!" he exclaimed in horror. Jack laughed and let his hand fall. The boyish colour was gone from his face, and he wore an untrimmed beard which made him look twice his age.

"Never better in my life," he answered shortly. "Some men are made of india-rubber, Montjoy, and I'm one of them. I've managed to get into most of these blessed fights about Richmond, and yet I haven't so much as a pin p.r.i.c.k to show for it. But what's wrong with you? Not much, I hope. I've just seen Bland, and he told me he thought you were left at Malvern Hill during that hard rain on Tuesday night. How did you get knocked over, anyway?"

"A rifle ball went through my leg," replied Dan impatiently. "I say, Big Abel, can't you flirt that fan a little faster? These confounded flies stick like mola.s.ses." Then he held up his left hand and looked at it with a grim smile. "A nasty fragment of a sh.e.l.l took off a couple of my fingers,"

he added. "At first I thought they had begun throwing hornets' nests from their guns--it felt just like it. Yes, that's the worst with me so far; I've still got a bone to my leg, and I'll be on the field again before long, thank G.o.d."

"Well, the worst thing about getting wounded is being stuffed into a hole like this," returned Jack, glancing about contemptuously. "Whoever has had the charge of our hospital arrangements may congratulate himself that he has made a ghastly mess of them. Why, I found a man over there in the corner whose leg had mortified from sheer neglect, and he told me that the supplies for the sick had given out, and they'd offered him cornbread and bacon for breakfast."

Dan began to toss restlessly, grumbling beneath his breath. "If you ever see a ball making in your direction," he advised, "dodge it clean or take it square in the mouth; don't go in for any compromises with a gun, they aren't worth it." He lay silent for a moment, and then spoke proudly. "Big Abel hauled me off the field after I went down. How he found me, G.o.d only knows, but find me he did, and under fire, too."

"'Twuz des like pepper," remarked Big Abel, fanning briskly, "but soon es I heah dat Ma.r.s.e Dan wuz right flat on de groun', I know dat dar warn' n.o.body ter go atter 'im 'cep'n' me. Ma.r.s.e Bland he come crawlin' out er de bresh, wuckin' 'long on his stomick same es er mole, wid his face like a rabbit w'en de dawgs are 'mos' upon 'im, en he sez hard es flint, 'Beau he's down over yonder, en I tried ter pull 'im out, Big Abel, 'fo' de Lawd I did!'

Den he drap right ter de yerth, en I des stop long enough ter put a tin bucket on my haid 'fo' I began ter crawl atter Ma.r.s.e Dan. Whew! dat ar bucket hit sutney wuz a he'p, dat 'twuz, case I des hyeard de cawn a-poppin' all aroun' hit, en dey ain' never come thoo yit.

"Well, suh, w'en I h'ist dat bucket ter git a good look out dar dey wuz a-fittin' twel dey bus', a-dodgin' in en out er de shucks er wheat dat dey done pile 'mos' up ter de haids. I ain' teck but one good look, suh, den I drap de bucket down agin en keep a-crawlin' like Ma.r.s.e Bland tole me twel I git 'mos' ter de cawn fiel' dat run right spang up de hill whar de big guns wuz a-spittin' fire en smoke. En sho' 'nough dar wuz Ma.r.s.e Dan lyin' unner a pine log dat Ma.r.s.e Bland hed roll up ter 'im ter keep de Yankees f'om hittin' 'im; en w'en he ketch sight er me he des blink his eyes fur a minute en laugh right peart.

"'Wat dat you got on yo' haid, Big Abel?' he sez."

"Big Abel's a hero, there's no mistake," put in Dan, delighted. "Do you know he lifted me as if I were a baby and toted me out of that G.o.d-forsaken corn field in the hottest fire I ever felt--and I tipped the scales at a hundred and fifty pounds before I went to Romney."

"Go way, Ma.r.s.e Dan, you ain' nuttin' but a rail," protested Big Abel, and continued his story. "Atter I done tote him outer de cawn fiel' en thoo de bresh, den I begin ter peer roun' fer one er dese yer ambushes, but dere warn' nairy one un um dat warn' a-bulgin' a'ready. I d'clar dey des bulged twel dey sides 'mos' split. I seed a hack drive long by wid two gemmen a-settin' up in hit, en one un em des es well es I is,--but w'en I helt Ma.r.s.e Dan up right high, he shake his haid en pint ter de udder like he kinder skeered. 'Dis yer's my young brudder,' he sez, speakin' sof'; 'en dis yer's my young Marster,' I holler back, but he shake his haid agin en drive right on. Lawd, Lawd, my time's 'mos' up, I 'low den--yes, suh, I do--but w'en I tu'n roun' squintin' my eyes caze de sun so hot--de sun he wuz kinder shinin' thoo his back like he do w'en he hu't yo' eyes en you cyan' see 'im--dar came a dump cyart a-joltin' up de road wid a speckled mule hitch ter it. A lot er yuther w'ite folks made a bee line fer dat ar dump cyart, but dey warn' 'fo' me, caze w'en dey git dar, dar I wuz a-settin' wid Ma.r.s.e Dan laid out across my knees. Well, dey lemme go--dey bleeged ter caze I 'uz gwine anyway--en de speckled mule she des laid back 'er years en let fly fer Richmon'. Yes, suh, I ain' never seed sech a mule es dat. She 'uz des es full er sperit es a colt, en her name wuz Sally."

"The worst of it was after getting here," finished Dan, who had lain regarding Big Abel with a proud paternal eye, "they kept us trundling round in that cart for three mortal hours, because they couldn't find a hole to put us into. An uncovered wagon was just in front of us, filled with poor fellows who had been half the day in the sweltering heat, and we made the procession up and down the city, until at last some women rushed up with their servants and cleared out this warehouse. One was not over sixteen and as pretty as a picture. 'Don't talk to me about the proper authorities,'

she said, stamping her foot, 'I'll hang the proper authorities when they turn up--and in the meantime we'll go to work!' By Jove, she was a trump, that girl! If she didn't save my life, she did still better and saved my leg."

"Well, I'll try to get you moved by to-morrow," said Jack rea.s.suringly.

"Every home in the city is filled with the wounded, they tell me, but I know a little woman who had two funerals from her house to-day, so she may be able to find room for you. This heat is something awful, isn't it?"

"d.a.m.nable. I hope, by the way, that Virginia is out of it by now."

Jack flinched as if the words struck him between the eyes. For a moment he stood staring at the straw pallets along the wall; then he spoke in a queer voice.

"Yes, Virginia's out of it by now; Virginia's dead, you know."

"Dead!" cried Dan, and raised himself upon his cushion. The room went black before him, and he steadied himself by clutching at Big Abel's arm. At the instant the horrors of the battle-field, where he had seen men fall like gra.s.s before the scythe, became as nothing to the death of this one young girl. He thought of her living beauty, of the bright glow of her flesh, and it seemed to him that the earth could not hide a thing so fair.

"I left her in Richmond in the spring," explained Jack, gripping himself hard. "I was off with Stuart, you know, and I thought her mother would get to her, but she couldn't pa.s.s the lines and then the fight came--the one at Seven Pines and--well, she died and the child with her."

Dan's eyes grew very tender; a look crept into them which only Betty and his mother had seen there before.

"I would have died for her if I could, Jack, you know that," he said slowly.

Jack walked off a few paces and then came back again. "I remember the Governor's telling me once," he went on in the same hard voice, "that if a man only rode boldly enough at death it would always get out of the way. I didn't believe it at the time, but, by G.o.d, it's true. Why, I've gone straight into the enemy's lines and heard the bullets whistling in my ears, but I've always come out whole. When I rode with Stuart round McClellan's army, I was side by side with poor Latane when he fell in the skirmish at Old Church, and I sat stock still on my horse and waited for a fellow to club me with his sabre, but he wouldn't; he looked at me as if he thought I had gone crazy, and actually shook his head. Some men can't die, confound it, and I'm one of them."

He went out, his spurs striking the stone steps as he pa.s.sed into the street, and Dan fell back upon the narrow cushions to toss with fever and the memory of Virginia--of Virginia in the days when she wore her rose-pink gown and he believed he loved her.

At the door an ambulance drew up and a stretcher was brought into the building, and let down in one corner. The man on it was lying very still, and when he was lifted off and placed upon the blood-soaked top of the long pine table, he made no sound, either of fear or of pain. The close odours of the place suddenly sickened Dan and he asked Big Abel to draw him nearer the open window, where he might catch the least breeze from the river; but outside the July sunlight lay white and hot upon the bricks, and when he struggled up the reflected heat struck him down again. On the sidewalk he saw several prisoners going by amid a hooting crowd, and with his old instinct to fight upon the weaker side, he hurled an oath at the tormenters of his enemies.