The Iron Game Part 9

While they are hailing him exultantly he sinks out of sight; an awful anguish almost stops the others, but Barney, flinging his musket and impediments off as he runs, leaps far into the stream, and when the rest reach the spot he has Jack by the hair, dragging him to the bank. He is fairly worn out by the stress, and the others loosen his coat, stretch him on the brown sward and rub his hands, his body. It is ten minutes, it seemed an hour, before he is able to get up, and the rest insist on carrying his accoutrements. Then the wild race is begun again, every instant bringing them nearer the pandemonium of battle. Suddenly the sharp commands of officers are heard in front and to the left. Is it the enemy, or is it friends? The group halts in an agony of doubt. How can they find out? Barney takes out his handkerchief and puts it on his gun, which he was careful to go back and recover when Jack was on the bank. A ray of bright red suddenly flits above the thick tops of the scrub-oaks.

Yes, G.o.d be praised, there is the flag of stars, and there are blue uniforms! With a wild hurrah, drowned in the musketry to the left, they rush forward, are halted by a picket guard, exhibit Sherman's order, and are directed to the commanding-officer. That personage has no knowledge of General Hunter's whereabouts, but Colonel Andrew Porter is just beyond, commanding the brigade. To him Jack makes known Sherman's message, and is directed farther to the southwest, the Union right now facing nearly to the east in the execution of McDowell's admirable flank manoeuvre.

Now among their own, Sherman's couriers run more peril than when skirting the edge of the battle, for the sh.e.l.ls are directed at the line they are pursuing. They push to the rear and continue southeastward, where Hunter's headquarters are supposed to be. But Jack is easy on the score of his mission, since the general, who is nearest the stone bridge, has been apprised, and well knows that the fire which has been coming near his left flank is Sherman's. Until, however, he has executed his orders literally Jack won't be satisfied, and plunges on, the others following, nothing loath. But it is a way of pain for the lads now.

Every step they come upon the dead and dying. The air is filled with moaning men, whinnying horses, the hurried movement of stretchers, the solemn solicitude of the hospital corps. The line of foremost battle is less terrifying, less trying than this inner way of Golgotha, and the four are well-nigh unnerved when they reach a group where the commanding officer has been pointed out.

"General Hunter?" Jack says, addressing an officer with a star.

"My name is Franklin. General Hunter was wounded an hour ago. What's the matter?"

Jack gave his message, and Franklin said, cheerfully: "That's good news.

You're a very brave fellow. Go a few yards in the rear yonder and you'll find General McDowell. He'll enjoy your message."

On the hill they halt electrified.

Thick copses of scrub-pine dot the gently sloping sward. Here and there clumps of tall pines stand in the bare, brown sod as if to guard the young outshoots cl.u.s.tering about them in wanton dispersion. Cow-paths, marked only by the worn edges of the bushes, run in zigzags across the hillside and up to the plateau. The remnants of rail fences strew the ground here and there. The low roof of the farm-house can be seen far back even from the depression, where the lines of blue are now resting a brief, deadly half-hour.

The sun is now behind the halted line of blue; the bayonets, catching the light, make a sea of liquid, mirror-like rivulets hovering in the air, with the bushy branches of pine rising like green isles in the shimmering tide. The men are filling their cartridge-boxes; new regiments are gliding into the gaps where death has cut the widest swath. From the woods, cries, groans, commands, clashing steel as the men hustle against each other in the rush into line, prelude the Vulcan clamor soon to begin. Men, bent, sometimes crawling, with stretchers on their shoulders, glide through the maimed and shrieking fragments of bodies, picking out here and there those seeming capable of carriage.

Other men, p.r.o.ne on their faces, hold canteens of tepid, muddy water--but ah! a draught to the feverish lips which seems G.o.dlike nectar. Against the stout bodies of the trees, armless men, legless trunks, the maimed in every condition of death's fantastic sport, hold themselves limply erect, to gain succor or save some of the vital stream pouring from their gaping wounds.

Couriers dash up to the impa.s.sive chief, calm-eyed, keen, alert, surveying the line, dispatching brief commands, receiving reports. It is Franklin. With the air of a marshal on a civic pageant, perplexed only by some geometrical problem denying the possibility of two right lines on the same plane, he glances upward toward the brow of the plateau. The four flags had been increased by half a dozen. Ah, they have received aid! A tremendous crash comes from the left. That must be Sherman. He is on the rebel rear. One strong pull, and the two bodies will be united, his left arm reaching Sherman's right. The shining mirage of steel above the green isle sinks. The clash of hurtling accoutrements comes up musically, tranquilly from the low ground. The blue ma.s.s, first deliberately, then in a quiet, regular run, pa.s.ses like a moving barricade up the sloping hillside. Then from one end of the long wall to the other white puffs as of some monster breathing spasmodically.

The air is a blur of sulphurous blackness. The bullets are as thick as if a swarm of leaden locusts had been routed from the foliage, and taken wing hillward. Then behind, through the gaps in the trees, big, whining, screeching swarms of another caliber sh.e.l.ls fly over the wall of blue.

In a moment the ground of the plateau is torn, the red clay flying far into the air. But now the blue wall is girdling the very crest of the hill; it stops, shrivels. Long gaps are cut in its broken surface. The hillside is dotted with sprawling figures. The crest is a ragged edge of writhing bodies and struggling limbs. Forward! The wall is advancing, but shorter. It is within reach of the shining guns--spouting flame and iron in the very face of the dauntless wall. Then there is a pause. The smoke hides everything but the maimed and quivering heaps that strive to crawl backward, back to the crest, back to the deeps that are not rest nor security. The hillside is like a field, covered with sheaved grain--with a thousand mangled bodies that had been men.

Then to these wrestling specters--for in the dim smoke and Tartarean atmosphere the actions of loading and aiming take the shape of huge writhing, convulsing, monstrous, grappling--come quick-moving lines of help. They rush through them, over them. The thirteen cannon behind the struggling hydra of gray seem one vortex--sulphurous, flaming, spitting, as from one vast mouth, scorching fire, huge mouthfuls of granite venom.

Back--back, the gray ma.s.ses break in sinuous, definite, slow-yielding disruption.

Then a sudden inrush from the left of the broken gray, where smoke and s.p.a.ce play fantastic tricks with the sunshine. Miraculously a dark ma.s.s is projected on the shimmering spectrum, and a ringing voice is heard:

"We are saved; we are re-enforced. We will die here!" Then high above the din, in the exultant tumult of the deadly won ground, the nearest in blue hear a stentorian voice--grim, deliberate, exultant:

"Look where Jackson stands like a stone-wall! At them, men! Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer."

Die he did, when the yelling horde in the sudden outrush grazed the edge of the Union besom sweeping over the plain in a rush of death. Then behind these spectral shapes came others--thousands--with wild, fierce shouts. The blue ma.s.s is thinned to a single line. Men in command look anxiously to the rear. Where is Burnside? Where are the twelve thousand men whom Hunter and Heintzelman deployed in these woods two hours since?

Back, slowly, fiercely, but backward, the slender wall of blue is forced; not defeated, but not victorious. All this Jack sees, and he turns heartsick from the sight.

When the straggling couriers reached the point designated as McDowell's headquarters, he had gone to the eastward of the line, and, faithful to the command given him, Jack set out with Barney, leaving the others to deliver the message in case he missed the general. They emerged presently on the edge of a plateau, whence nearly the whole battle could be seen. Jack climbed a tall oak to reconnoitre the ground for McDowell, but, as his gla.s.s revealed the battling lines, he shouted to Barney to climb for a moment, to impress the frightful yet grandiose spectacle upon his mind. Far off toward the stone bridge, now a mile or more northeast of them, they could see the Union flags waving, and mark the white puffs of smoke that preceded the booming of the cannon. Every instant the clouds of smoke came southward, where the rebel lines were concealed by the thick copses. But they were breaking--always breaking back anew. In twenty minutes more, at the same rate, the hill upon which the rebel lines nearest the tree held the Union right at bay would be surrounded on two sides.

This, for the moment, was a sulphurous crater, the fire-belching demons, invisible in the smoke. Through the gla.s.s Jack could see the lines clearly--or the smoke arising above them. The enemy had been pushed back nearly two miles since he had left Colonel Sherman a few rods above the stone bridge. The Union force, as marked by the veil of smoke, curved, about the foemen, a vast crescent, seven miles or more from tip to tip.

The bodies opposing were scattered like a gigantic staircase, with the angles of the steps confronting each other step by step. But now the Union ranks at Jack's feet rush forward; a group of riders are coming to the tree, and Jack descends hastily to meet the general. He is again disappointed. It is not McDowell. At a loss what to do, he salutes one of the officers and states his case, recognizing, as he turns, General Franklin.

"I don't see that you can do better than remain where you are, or, still better, push to the brow of that hill yonder and act as a picket. In case you see any force approaching from this side, which is not likely, give warning. Our cavalry ought to be here, but it isn't. If you are called to account when the battle is done, give me as your authority. I take it your brigade will be around here pretty soon, if they make as rapid work all the way as they have made since eleven o'clock. If the cavalry come, you can report to the nearest officer for a.s.signment."

CHAPTER XI.

THE LEGIONS OF VARUS.

The two free lances set out now, relieved of all responsibility, and determined to watch the open fields and woods to see that this part of the field was not surprised. The hill to which the general had directed them was farther from the battle than they had yet been, but the work going on to the northeast showed that this would soon be the western edge of the combat if Sherman continued advancing. They are soon on the hill, and Jack posts himself in a tree with his gla.s.s. There is a lull in the quarter they have just quit. The smoke rolls away, and now he can see streams of gray-coats hurrying to the edge of the plateau, where, two hours before, he had encountered Porter's brigade. Can it be possible that Porter's troops do not see these on-rushing hordes? They are moving on the right point of the crescent, and unless the Union commander is alert they will break in on the back of the point; for Jack, without knowing it, was virtually in the rebel lines--that is, he was nearer the rebel left flank, the foot of the long, bow-shaped staircase, than he was to the tip of the Union crescent.

But no! The Stars and Stripes fly forward; they are on the very crest whence the defiant guns spat upon them. But now the smoke covers everything. Then there is a calm. The ground is clear again. The gray ma.s.ses are pouring up to the crest in still greater numbers; a large body of them march down the hill in the rear of the Union line concealed by the woods; they march right up to the ranks where the red-barred flag is flying! What can it mean? Neither side fires. There must surely be some mistake. Hark! now the blue line discovers--too late--that the ma.s.s is the enemy, and half the line withers in the point-blank discharge.

They are swept from the ground. Jack is trembling--demoniac. The gray ma.s.s springs forward; they have seized the guns--four of them--and turn them upon the disappearing blue. Then a hoa.r.s.e shout of delirious triumph. The guns are lost; the day is lost, for now there are no blue-coats in sight. But no! A still wilder shout--electrifying, stentorian--comes across the plateau. The blue ma.s.s reappears; they come with a wild rush in well-ordered array; they are the regulars, Jack can tell by their movements. It must be the famous Rickett's battery he saw at Centreville in the morning. In five minutes the tale was retold, and the guns, s.n.a.t.c.hed from the worsted gray-coats, are safe in the hands of their masters. Again the smoke obscures the picture; again it clears away, and now the gray are in greater force than before, and the horseless batteries are again the prize of this rapacious grapple.

Swarming in from three sides, the gray again hold the contested pieces.

The blue vanish into the thick bushes. Another irruption, another pall of smoke, and Jack's heart bounds in exultant joy, for he sees the New York flag in the van. Sherman has reached the point of dispute. But alas! the guns are run back, and as the gray lines sway rearward in billowy, regular measure, they retain the t.i.tanically contested trophies.

The sun is now far beyond the meridian. The Union lines are closing up compactly. One more such grapple as the last and the broad plateau where the rebel artillery is ma.s.sed, pointing westward, northward, eastward, will be won. But a palsy seems to have settled on the lines of blue.

They are motionless, while their adversaries are hurrying men from some secret place, where they seem to be inexhaustible. The whole battle is now within the compa.s.s of a mile. But where can these hordes come from?

Surely, General McDowell has never been mad enough to leave them disengaged along the fords! No; they do not come from that direction.

They come at the very center of the rebel rear. Can it be that troops are arriving from Richmond? The Southern lines are longer than the Northern, but they have been since the first moment Jack got a glimpse of them. He could see, too, that they were thinner: that on the spur of the plateau in front of the ma.s.sed rebel artillery a single brigade was holding the Union ma.s.s at bay. He can almost hear the rebel commands as the re-enforcements pour in. But now the thunder breaks out anew, rolls in vengeful fury around the western and northern base of the plateau.

The gray lines stagger; the falling men block the steps of the living.

Surely now McDowell is going to do or die. Yes. The iron game goes on; the blue lines jostle and crush forward. They are at the last wall of resistance. But what is the sound at his very feet? As Jack looks down in the narrow way between the hill he is on and the plateau on the very edge of the Union line--in fact, behind it now, for it has moved forward since he took post--a rushing ma.s.s of gray-clad soldiery is moving forward on the dead run. In one instant the head of the column is where General Franklin rode but an hour or two before. He looks for Barney. He can see him nowhere. He climbs down in haste and discovers his comrade soundly sleeping against the base of the tree.

"Barney, the army is ruined!"

"Is the battle over?"

"Oh, no, no, but it will be in a moment. Hark, hear that!"

A roar of musketry--it seemed at their very feet. Then an outbreak of yells, so sharp, so piercing, so devilish the sound, that the marrow froze in their veins, arose, as if from the whole thicket about them.

"Is it too late to warn General Franklin?" Barney asked, trembling.

"Ah, Barney, we are as bad as traitors; we ought to have seen these rebels before they got near. If we had done our duty this would never have happened. Perhaps it is not too late to get back. Let me go up and see where we can find a way without running into the enemy."

Reaching his perch again, Jack cast his despairing eyes toward the fatal hill. It was now clear of smoke, and there wasn't a regiment left on it.

His heart leaped for an instant, the next it was lead, for the ranks that had disappeared were down on the brow of the hill--in the valley-- rushing forward, unresisted, the red and blue of the Union, mixed with the stars and bars of the rebellion; but, worse than all, the ranks of gray were sweeping in overwhelming ma.s.ses quite behind the lines of blue, cutting them down as a scythe when near the end of the furrow. To the eastward Sherman still clung desperately to the crests he had won, but Jack saw with agony that, slipping between him and the river, a great wedge of gray was hurrying forward. His last despairing glance caught a body of jet black horses galloping wildly into the dispersing ranks of blue. He came down from the tree limp, nerveless, unmanned.

"Well?" Barney asked.

"It's all over--we are ruined!"

"The army, you mean?"

"Ah, yes! the army and we too."

"But what's going to become of us?"

"I don't much care what becomes of us--at least I don't care what becomes of me!"

"But if we don't get back to our regiment, they'll think we're deserters."

"Good G.o.d, yes! I forgot that; I think I can find the way back. But we'll have to be careful, the enemy are all around us. I can hear them plainly, very near. Follow me, and don't speak above a whisper."

Then, with swift movement, always as near the thick bushes as they could push, they fled faster and faster, as fear fell more and more heavily upon their quickened fancies. The thought of the repute of deserters lent them endurance, or they must have broken down before the weary shiftings of that dreadful flight. They are now near the spot where they had met Porter's pickets in the morning. The sounds of battle had died out at intervals, renewed now and again by an outcry of cheers, a quick fusillade, then more cheers, and then an ominous silence. But now there is a continuous roll of musketry near the knoll, back of the Warrenton road. The two wanderers, breathless, with torn uniforms, swollen faces, halt, gasping, to take their bearings. They can see the turnpike far beyond the stone bridge half-way to Centreville: they see crowds fleeing in zigzag lines over the open fields, see horses plunging wildly, laden down by two and even three men on their backs; they see vehicles overturned at the roadside, whence the horses have been cut or killed by the rebel sh.e.l.ls; they see an army, in every sense a mob, swarming behind the deserted rebel forts; they see orderly ranks of shining black horses this side the stone bridge charging the fleeing lines of blue; they see sh.e.l.ls whirling like huge blackbirds in the sky, suddenly falling among the skurrying thousands; they see a sh.e.l.l finally burst on the bridge, shiver a caisson to fragments, and then all sign of organized flight comes to an end.