The Guns of Bull Run Part 12

"The moonlight is good," replied Harry, "but I don't see any ship. It must be a signal of some kind."

"Hush!" said Langdon, "there it goes again!"

Another cannon thundered, and the echoes, as before, came back from sea and sh.o.r.e, followed, as the echoes died, by that strange, heavy silence. But, straining their eyes to the utmost, the three boys could see nothing on the sea. It swayed gently like a vast ma.s.s of molten silver in the starshine, and lapped softly against the sh.o.r.e. The report of a third heavy gun came, and then the reports of several more. After that the silence was complete. It had seemed to Harry, his brain surcharged with excitement, like the tolling of great bells. Langdon and St. Clair whispered together, but he said nothing.

It was permitted to the three to lie down in their blankets in the earthwork and sleep, but they did not think of trying it. They wished to know the meaning of those cannon shots and they waited, tense with excitement. It was nearly midnight when Colonel Leonidas Talbot came.

"We have learned that the Northern vessels will appear before Charleston tomorrow," he said, "and the shots were a signal to all our people to be ready. The attack on Sumter will begin in the morning. Now you three boys must go to sleep. We shall need tomorrow soldiers who are fresh and strong, not those who are worn and weak from loss of sleep."

They tried it and found it easier now because they knew the mystery of the shots. Harry became conscious that the night was crisp and cold, and, wrapped in his blanket, he lay with his back against an inner wall of the earthwork. The blood, the result of his tension and excitement, pounded in his ears for some time, but, at last, his pulses became quiet, and his heavy eyes closed.

He was awakened at the first shoot of dawn by Colonel Leonidas Talbot.

"Up, boys!" he said, "s.n.a.t.c.h a bite of food and a drink of coffee, and make yourselves as neat as possible. General Beauregard is coming to this very battery."

His voice was quick and sharp, and the boys obeyed with the lightning speed of youth. It was a pale dawn. Gray clouds drifted along the sea's far rim, and a sharp wind came out of the Northwest. Heavy waves rolled into the mouths of the narrow and difficult pa.s.ses that led into the bay.

"The Lord Himself fights for us," Harry heard Colonel Leonidas Talbot murmur. "No ships on such a sea would dare the pa.s.ses in the face of our guns."

The pale light widened. Sumter was black and threatening again, and the flag waved there before it.

General Beauregard, his staff and a body of civilians arrived, and almost overflowed the battery. Harry noticed among the civilians an old man, seventy-five at least, with long hair, snow white. Despite his years, his face was as keen and eager as that of any boy.

"Who is he?" Harry whispered to St. Clair, who knew everybody.

"His name's Ruffin, but he's not a South Carolinian. He's a Virginian, but he has come to join us, and he's heart and soul with us. He's ready to fight at the drop of a hat."

Harry-their battery stood on Coming's Point-glanced toward the city and uttered a low cry of surprise.

"Look!" he said to his friends, "all Charleston is here."

"Yes, and a lot more of South Carolina, too," said St. Clair.

The people, learning the meaning of those signal guns in the night, were packed in every open s.p.a.ce, and the very roofs were black with them. Forty or fifty thousand, men, women and children, were looking on, but nothing more than a murmur ran through the great ma.s.s. Harry knew that every heart in the fifty thousand beat, like his own, with strained expectancy.

A great gun in the battery was trained upon Sumter, and the gunner stood ready at the lanyard, but the old man with the long white hair and the keen, eager face, stepping forward, begged General Beauregard to allow him the honor of firing the first shot. The General consented at once, and the old man pulled the lanyard.

There was a terrific crash that almost deafened Harry, a gush of flame, followed by smoke, and a sh.e.l.l, screaming in a curve, dropped upon Sumter. For a few moments no one spoke, and Harry could hear the blood pounding in his ears. In a sudden flash of insight he saw a long and terrible road that they must tread. But neither he nor any other present realized to the full what had happened. The first real shot in the mightiest war of history had been fired, and the years of promises, kept or broken, of mutual jealousies and mutual abuse had ended at the cannon's mouth.

The silence was broken by a shout like the roar of a storm, that came from the people in the town. A puff of smoke rose from Sumter and the fort sent its answering shot, but it struck no enemy and again the shout came from the town, now a cry of derision.

Then all the batteries in the wide curve about Sumter leaped into fiery life. Cannon after cannon poured shot and sh.e.l.l against the black walls. The fort was ringed with fire. It seemed to Harry that the earth rocked. He tried to speak to his comrades, but he could not hear his own voice. He thought he was about to be deafened for his whole life, but Langdon handed him pieces of cotton which he quickly stuffed in his ears. Langdon and St. Clair had already taken the precaution. Happy Tom had proved himself the most forethoughtful of them all. And yet Langdon, careless and easy, was aflame with the fire of battle. It seemed to Harry that he thought little of consequences.

"Listen to it!" he shouted in excited tones to Harry and St. Clair. "Hark to the thudding of the great guns! It's war, the greatest of all games!"

Harry felt an intense excitement also. These were his people. He was of their bone and sinew, and he was with them, heart and soul. He did his part at the guns, and, although his excitement grew, he said nothing. He saw that the return fire from the fort was far inferior to that of the South Carolinians, and that it was doing no damage.

"Using their light guns only," he heard Colonel Talbot say during a momentary lull. "They must be short of ammunition."

The morning wore slowly on. From every battery along the mainland and on the islands, the storm of projectiles yet beat upon Sumter, and, at intervals, the fort replied, still using the light guns. Once Harry heard the whistle of a sh.e.l.l over his head, and he ducked automatically, while the others laughed. Another time, a solid shot sent the dirt flying in all their faces, stinging like driven sand, but that was the nearest any missile ever came to them.

Beauregard, after a while, gave an order for the firing to cease, and the city and harbor rose again, clear and distinct, in the pale sunlight. The great crowd of people was still there, all watching and waiting, The fort was battered and torn, but above it still hung the defiant flag, and there was no offer of surrender.

"Look! Look!" Langdon cried suddenly, reckless of all discipline, as he pointed a forefinger toward the sea.

Harry saw a column of smoke rising, and defining itself clearly against the pale blue sky.

"The Yankee fleet!" cried one of the officers, as he put his gla.s.ses to his eyes.

General Beauregard, General Ripley, and officers in every other battery, also were watching that new column of smoke through gla.s.ses. The dark spire in truth rose from the Baltic, the chief ship of the Union, having on board the energetic Fox himself, and two hundred soldiers. But chance and the elements seemed to have conspired against the secretary. One of his strongest ships had gone to the relief of another fort further south, others had been scattered by a storm, and the Baltic had only two sister vessels as she approached, over a rolling gray sea, the fiery volcano that was once the peaceful harbor of Charleston.

Harry saw the first column of smoke increase to three, and they knew then that the number of the Union vessels was far less than had been expected.

"Will they undertake to force the harbor and reach Sumter?" he asked of Colonel Talbot, who was then in the battery.

"If they do," replied the Colonel, "it will be a case of the most reckless folly. They would be sunk in short order, as they come right into the teeth of our guns. The sea itself, is against them. The waves are rolling worse than ever."

Colonel Talbot knew what he was saying. Vainly the men in Sumter looked for relief by sea. They, too, had seen the three ships off the harbor, and they knew whence they came and for what purpose. But they had reached the end of their journey, and had fallen short with the object of it in sight. They were compelled to swing back and forth, while they watched the circle of batteries pour a continuous fire upon the crumbling fort.

After the Southern officers had taken a long look at the Union ships, and had seen that they could do nothing, the fire on Sumter was renewed with increased volume. It lasted all through the day and the vast crowd of spectators did not diminish in numbers. Many of the wealthier were in carriages. If one went away for food or refreshment another took his place.

When the wind at times lifted the smoke, Harry saw that the wooden buildings standing on the esplanade of the fort were burning fiercely, set on fire by the bursting sh.e.l.ls. The iron cisterns, too, although he did not know it until later, were smashed, and columns of smoke from the flaming buildings were pouring into the fort, threatening its defenders with destruction.

Night came on, and most of the people, lining the harbor, were compelled to go to their homes, but the fire of the Southern batteries continued, always converging upon the scarred and blackened walls of Sumter, from which came an occasional shot in return. Harry had now grown used to this incessant, rolling crash. He could hear his comrades speak, their voices coming in an under note, and now and then they discussed the result. They agreed that Sumter was bound to fall. The Union fleet could bring it no relief, and such a continuous rain of b.a.l.l.s and sh.e.l.ls must eventually pound it to pieces.

They ate and drank after dark. They had food in abundance and delicacies of many kinds from which to choose. Charleston poured forth its plenty for its heroes, and in those days of fresh young enthusiasm there was no lack of anything.

"The Yankees hold out well," said Langdon, "but I'm willing to bet a hundred to one that n.o.body sleeps in that fort tonight. You can't see the smoke of the ships any more. I suppose that for safety in the night they've had to go further out to sea. I'm glad I'm not on one of them, rolling and tumbling in those high waves. Well, everything is for the best, and if Sumter doesn't fall into our laps tonight she'll fall tomorrow, and if she doesn't fall tomorrow she'll fall the next day. What do you say to that, old Wait-and-See?"

"Wait and see," replied Harry so naturally that the others laughed.

The bombardment went on all through the night. Harry continually breathed smoke and the odor of burned gunpowder, which seemed to keep his nerves keyed to a great pitch, and to maintain the heat of his blood. Yet, after a while, he lay down, when his turn at the guns ceased, and slept through sheer exhaustion. His eyes closed to the thunder of cannon and they awoke at dawn to the same heavy thudding.

The fire had not ceased at any time in the course of the night, and Sumter looked like a ruin, but the flag still floated over it. St. Clair and Langdon were awakened a few minutes later, and they also stood up, rubbed their eyes, stared at the fort and listened to the firing. Harry laughed at their appearance.

"You fellows are certainly grimy," he said. "You look as if you hadn't seen water for a month."

"We can't see ourselves, old Wait-and-See," retorted Langdon, "but I guess we're beauties alongside of you. If I didn't have the honor of your acquaintance, I wouldn't know whether you came from the Indian Territory, Ashantee or the Cannibal Islands."

"And the music goes merrily on," said St. Clair. "I went to sleep with the cannon firing, and I wake up with them still at it. I suppose a fellow will get used to it after a while."

"You can get used to anything," said an officer who heard them. "Now, you boys eat your breakfasts. Your turn at the guns will come again soon."

They took breakfast willingly, although they found a strong flavor of smoke, sand, and burned gunpowder in everything they ate and drank. Then they went to their guns, but, when a few more shots were fired, a trumpet blew a signal, and it was echoed from battery to battery. Every cannon ceased, and, in the silence and under the lifting smoke, Harry saw a white flag going up on the fort.

Sumter was about to yield.