The Debatable Land Part 14

"Going to celebrate it all right."

Several laughed in high, strained cackles.

"What we waiting for, cap'n?"

"Don't know. Here. Where's your cartridge-belt? Stay where you are.

Who's that down? Hand up his belt."

A shout came up the line, like the ripple of a shaken rope. They were suddenly in the woods. Men jumped from the ground and joined. They were in another field of gra.s.s. One heard nothing more but the thump of his own feet and the singing blood in his ears; not the throb of the artillery; not the cry of the man who threw up his arms and fell against him; not the discharge of his own rifle, though he saw the smoke, and with the next stride his face went through the smoke.

It was easy running in the gra.s.s, the long, level fields, a fence now and then, a stone wall; but then came a slope and ploughed ground, where one stumbled and fell with his face in the brown dirt, and fancied himself hit in the pit of the stomach--only, why not dead?--saw the lines gone on; got up, and ran after to the edge of a field of standing corn. A fenced road was beyond, a white building with a central, squat chimney, overhung by heavy woods full of smoke. The lower part of the smoke bellied forward, jumped, and trembled at the edge.

There seemed to be singularly few in the running line now. One seemed, in fact, to be running back unaccountably, down the slope and the ploughed ground, into another triple line, a surf of guns, caps, hot faces, and innumerable legs. One seemed to be caught up and rushed back, ploughed ground and slope, and lined up at the top, there loading and firing across the corn. Comparatively it was restful, mechanical. To find one's cartridge-belt empty at last was a disappointment. It seemed to imply the need of doing something else, something new and untried.

The smoke in the woods ahead was thinner.

"I guess Johnnie's belt's empty, too."

"I guess we're going in to see. Here we go!"

They ran into the corn. One did not feel military--rather, happy-go-lucky. The enemy behind the fence and in the road all ran away to the woods, where there seemed nothing much going on. It looked like a gaping mouth, the tree-trunks like black teeth, and the smoke from the blacker throat drifted between the teeth. It seemed to have sucked in its hot breath and red tongue--to be waiting. The fence was nearly reached when it let go a thousand red tongues, a voice that crashed, a breath that was hot and smoky, that jumped and trembled. One dropped behind the fence and felt for cartridges.

"Hi, Jimmie! Going to get out o' this."

"Close up, men. Steady there."

"That's the colonel."

"Yep."

"Draw them off, now. Steady. Close up."

"Belts, boys--look for belts."

They went back slowly, stripping the cartridge-belts from men fallen between the corn-hills, and firing at the smoke; into the gra.s.s, at length, and at length to a halt in cover of broken fence and line of weeds, hard by the woods they had left at dawn. The enemy spread over the cornfield. One seemed to resent it on account of owning that cornfield with a more than ancestral heritage. There were fresh columns coming up on the right. The broken brigades in the gra.s.s watched them pa.s.s. Their line mounted and stood still on the ridge, outlined against the woods and volleying evenly. Gaps opened and closed. Some one said, "They're old troops." They went into the corn with a rush. Whatever happened, it sounded like an explosion of a half-hour's length, and after it the cornfield and ploughed land were empty, except for the smoke, and the wounded and dead, some hidden in the corn, some seen against the brown fallow.

The mouth of the black woods gaped; there were its black teeth and drifting breath. Fragments of the columns were drawing off to the covert of a bulge of woods on the right. That part of the battle stood still.

The sun was half-way up the sky.

"I fought, cap'n! I wasn't afraid!"

He had red, downy cheeks, an indistinct nose, and white eyelashes.

"Terrible warrior you are, Jimmie. Your fingers are dripping."

Jimmie looked at his hand. A little red brook ran down the palm. He turned white and sick.

"Scratched, Jimmie. Tie it up for him."

"I never seen it," in an awed voice.

The officer went on.

"Get your breath. See your guns are all right. What's that?"

The man sat staring at his wrecked and twisted rifle. Another man laughed hoa.r.s.ely.

"Sc.r.a.p-iron he picked up."

"'Tain't, either"--angrily. "It's my rifle. Been holding it all day.

What's gone with it? Something hit it."

It had been shattered in his hands by a flying missile.

Some one rode up whom the captain saluted.

"How many left here?"

"About forty."

"Colonel Morley?"

"In the cornfield."

"Major Cutting?"

"All right, sir, over there."

"How are your men?"

"Pretty fair, sir. They'll go in again."

A mile down the valley the fight was growing hotter; a ravine was full of smoke, a jam around a bridge, a line of blue hills beyond; up nearer, columns were ma.s.sing by a sunken road, under batteries playing from opposite hills across the creek; a village lay to the west. The sun made another jump up the sky. The fields around were empty, except for the lines in covert behind the fences, and here and there a horseman galloping, here and there a horse but no horseman. The enemy were in the corn again, shooting intermittently. Smoke drifted up and turned white against the glistening blue. The batteries beyond the woods on the right broke out again. New clouds of smoke floated overhead and dimmed the sun. In the gra.s.s-fields still the crouched lines waited in covert of weeds and fences. Hours that had shot past in the charge, the struggle and retreat, now stretched like sleepless nights. Company B muttered and swore.

"What's the use of waiting?"

"Le's go in!"

The captain and lieutenant lay at a distance on the gra.s.s. Neither of them answered. Jimmie felt around his belt.

"I got fifteen cartridges."

"How's your scratch, Jimmie?"

"Ho, I don' care for that. Why don' we fight some more?"

The captain said, "Do you hear those minie-b.a.l.l.s?"