The Long Roll Part 20

"I am sorry," said Cleave gravely. "But when you have been with him longer you will understand him better."

"I think that he is really mad."

The other shook his head. "He is not mad. Don't get that idea, Stafford.

It _is_ hard on the troops, poor fellows! How the snow falls! We had better turn out and let the guns pa.s.s."

They moved into the untrodden snow lying in the fence corners and watched the guns, the horses, and men strain past with a sombre noise.

Officers and men knew Richard Cleave, and several hailed him. "Where in h.e.l.l are we going, Cleave? Old Jack likes you! Tell him, won't you, that it's d.a.m.ned hard on the horses, and we haven't much to eat ourselves?

Tell him even the guns are complaining! Tell him--Yes, sir! Get up there, Selim! Pull, Flora, pull!--Whoa!--d.a.m.nation! Come lay a hand to this gun, boys! Where's Hetterich! Hetterich, this d.a.m.ned wheel's off again!"

The delay threatening to be considerable, the two men rode on, picking their way, keeping to the low bank, or using the verge of the crowded road. At last they left the artillery, and found themselves again upon a lonely way. "I love that arm," said Cleave. "There isn't a gun there that isn't alive to me." He turned in his saddle and looked back at the last caisson vanishing over the hill.

"Shall you remain with the staff?"

"No. Only through this campaign. I prefer the line."

The snow fell so fast that the trampled and discoloured road was again whitening beneath it. Half a mile ahead was visible the Stonewall Brigade, coming very slowly, beaten by the wind, blinded by the snow, a spectral grey serpent upon the winding road.

Stafford spoke abruptly. "I am in your debt for the arrangements I found made for me in Winchester. I have had no opportunity to thank you. You were extremely good so to trouble yourself--"

"It was no trouble. As I told you once before, I am anxious to serve you."

They met the brigade, Garnett riding at the head. "Good-day, Richard Cleave," he said. "We are all bound for Siberia, I think!" Company by company the regiments staggered by, in the whirling snow, the colours gripped by stiffening hands. There were blood stains on the frozen ground. Oh, the shoes, the shoes that a non-manufacturing country with closed ports had to make in haste and send its soldiers! Oh, the muskets, heavy, dull, ungleaming, weighting the fiercely aching shoulders! Oh, the snow, mounded on cap, on cartridge box, on rolled blanket and haversack. Oh, the northwest wind like a lash, the pinched stomach, the dry lips, the wavering sight, the weariness excessive! The strong men were breathing hard, their brows drawn together and upward.

The weaker soldiers had a ghastly look, as of life shrunk to a point.

_Close up, men! Close up--close up!_

Farther down the line, on the white bank to which they tried to keep, the column almost filling the narrow road, Cleave checked his horse. "I have a brother in this regiment, and he has been ill--"

A company came stumbling by, heads bent before the bitter wind. He spoke to its captain, the captain spoke to a lieutenant, the lieutenant to a private in the colour guard, who at once fell out of line and sprang somewhat stiffly across the wayside depression to the two hors.e.m.e.n drawn up upon the bank. "Well, Richard! It's snowing."

"Have you had anything to eat, Will?"

"Loads. I had a pone of cornbread and a Mr. Rat in my file had a piece of bacon. We added them and then divided them, and it was lovely, so far as it went!" He laughed ruefully. "Only I've still that typhoid fever appet.i.te--"

His brother took from under the cape of his coat a small parcel. "Here are some slices of bread and meat. I hoped I would see you, and so I saved them. Where is that comforter Miriam knitted you?"

The boy's eyes glistened as he put out a gaunt young hand and took the parcel. "Won't Mr. Rat and I have a feast! We were just talking of old Judge at the Inst.i.tute, and of how good his warm loaves used to taste!

Seems like an answer to prayer. Thank you, Richard! Miriam's comforter?

There's a fellow, a clerk from the store at Balcony Falls, who hasn't much stamina and no shoes at all. They were bad when he started, and one fell to pieces yesterday, and he left most of the other on that bad piece of road this morning. So at the last halt we cut my comforter in two and tied up his feet with it--I didn't need it, anyway." He looked over his shoulder. "Well, I'd better be catching up!"

Richard put a hand upon his arm. "Don't give away any more clothing. You have your blanket, I see."

"Yes, and Mr. Rat has an oilcloth. Oh, we'll sleep. I could sleep now--"

he spoke dreamily; "right in that fence corner. Doesn't it look soft and white?--like a feather bed with lovely clean sheets. The fence rails make it look like my old crib at home--" He pulled himself together with a jerk. "You take care of yourself, Richard! I'm all right. Mr. Rat and I were soldiers before the war broke out!" He was gone, stumbling stiffly across to the road, running stiffly to overtake his company. His brother looked after him with troubled eyes, then with a sigh picked up the reins and followed Stafford toward the darkening east.

The two going one way, the haggard regiments another, the line that seemed interminable came at last toward its end. The 65th held the rear.

There were greetings from many throats, and from Company A a cheer.

Hairston Breckinridge, now its captain, came across. "_Judge Allen's Resolutions_--hey, Richard! The world has moved since then! I wish Fincastle could see us now--or rather I don't wish it! Oh, we're holding out all right! The men are trumps." Mathew Coffin, too, came up. "It doesn't look much, Major Cleave, like the day we marched away! All the serenading and the flowers--we never thought war could be ugly." He glanced disconsolately down at a torn cuff and a great smear of frozen mire adorning his coat. "I'm rather glad the ladies can't see us."

The Stonewall Brigade went by. There was again a stretch of horribly cut road, empty save for here and there poor stragglers, sitting dismally huddled together beneath a cedar, or limping on painful feet, hoping somewhere to overtake "the boys." A horse had fallen dead and had been dragged out of the road and through a gap in the fencing into a narrow field. Beyond this, on the farther boundary of grey rails, three buzzards were sitting, seen like hobgoblins through the veiling snow.

The afternoon was closing in; it could only be said that the world was a dreary one.

The Army of the Kanawha, Loring's three brigades, with the batteries attached, came into view a long way off, grey streaks upon the road.

Before the two hors.e.m.e.n reached it it had halted for the night, broken ranks, and flowed into the desolate fields. There was yet an hour of daylight, but discontent had grown marked, the murmuring loud, and the halt was made. A few of the wagons were up, and a dark and heavy wood filling a ravine gave f.a.gots for the gathering. The two aides found Loring himself, middle-aged and imposing, old Indian fighter, hero of Contreras, Churubusco, Chapultepec, and Garita de Belen, commander, since the transference of General Robert E. Lee to South Carolina, of the Army of the Kanawha, gallant and dashing, with an arm left in Mexico, with a gift for picturesque phrases, with a past full of variety and a future of a like composition, with a genuine tenderness and care for his men, and an entire conviction that both he and his troops were at present in the convoy of a madman--they found Loring seated on a log beside a small fire and engaged in cooling in the snow a too-hot tin cup of coffee. His negro servant busily toasted hardtack; a brigadier seated on an opposite log was detailing, half fiercely, half plaintively, the conditions under which his brigade was travelling. The two from Jackson dismounted, crunched their way over the snow and saluted. The general looked up. "Good-evening, gentlemen! Is that you, Stafford? Well, did you do your prettiest--and did he respond?"

"Yes, sir, he responded," replied Stafford, with grimness. "But not by me.--Major Cleave, sir, of his staff."

Cleave came forward, out of the whirling snow, and gave Jackson's missive. It was so dull and dark a late afternoon that all things were indistinct. "Give me a light here, Jupiter!" said Loring, and the negro by the fire lit a great sliver of pine and held it like a torch above the page. Loring read, and his face grew purple. With a suppressed oath he sat a moment, staring at the paper, then with his one hand folded it against his knee. His fingers shook, not with cold, but with rage. "Very good, very good! That's what he says, isn't it, all the time? 'Very good!' or is it 'Good, good!'" He felt himself growing incoherent, pulled himself sharply together, and with his one hand thrust the paper into his breast pocket. "It's all right, Stafford. Major Cleave, the Army of the Kanawha welcomes you. Will you stay with us to-night, or have you fifty miles to make ere dawn?"

Cleave, it appeared, had not fifty miles to make, but four. He must report at the appointed bivouac. Loring tore with his one hand a leaf from his pocket-book, found his pencil, and using a booted knee for a table, wrote a line, folded and superscribed it. "This for General Jackson. Ugh, what freezing weather! Sit down and drink a cup of coffee before you go. You, too, Maury. Here, Jupiter! hot coffee. Major Cleave, do you remember Aesop's fables?"

"Yes, sir,--a number of them."

"A deal of knowledge there of d.a.m.ned human nature! The frog that swelled and swelled and thought himself an ox. Curious how your boyhood books come back into your mind! Sit down, gentlemen, sit down! Reardon's got a box of cigars tucked away somewhere or he isn't Reardon--"

Along the edge of the not-distant ravine other small fires had been built. From the circle about one of these arose a quavering voice--a soldier trying to sing cheer into company.

Dere was an old n.i.g.g.ah, dey called him Uncle Ned-- He's dead long ago, long ago!

He had no wool on de top ob his head, De place whar de wool ought to grow.

Den lay down de shubble an de hoe, Hang up de fiddle an de bow--

CHAPTER XIII

FOOL TOM JACKSON

The Reverend Mr. Corbin Wood, chaplain to one of Loring's regiments, coming down from the hillside where he had spent the night, very literally like a shepherd, found the little stream at its foot frozen to the bottom. No morning bath for a lover of cleanliness! There had been little water, indeed, to expend on any toilet since leaving Winchester.

Corbin Wood tried snow for his face and hands, but the snow was no longer soft, as it had fallen the day before. It was frozen and harsh.

"And the holy hermits and the saints on pillars never had a bath--apparently never wanted one!"

Reveille sounded drearily enough from the surrounding mountains. The fires sprang up, but they did not burn brightly in the livid day. The little there was to eat was warmed and eaten. When, afterwards, the rolls were called, there were silences. Mr. Ready-to-halt, Mr. Faint Heart, Mr. Fearing, and also Mr. Honesty, really too ill to march, were somewhere on the backward road to Winchester. Length by length, like a serpent grey and cold, sluggish, unburnished, dull, and bewildered, the column took the road. Deeply cut the day before by the cavalry, by Garnett's brigade, and by the artillery, the road was horrible. What had been ridged snow was now ridged ice.

Corbin Wood and his old grey horse were loved by their regiment. The chaplain was not, physically, a strong man, and his ways were those of a scholar, but the regiment found them lovable. Pluto the horse was very wise, very old, very strong and gentle. Upon the march he was of use to many beside his master. The regiment had grown accustomed to the sight of the chaplain walking through dust or mud at the bridle of the grey, saying now and then a word in a sober and cheerful fashion to the half-sick or wholly weary private seated in his saddle. He was forever giving some one a lift along the road. Certain things that have had small place in the armies of the world were commonplaces in the Confederate service. The man on horseback was a more fortunate, but not a better man--not even a better born or educated man--than he on foot.

The long grey lines saw nothing strange in a dismounted officer giving a cast of the road to a comrade in the ranks. So, to-day, the chaplain's horse was rather for everybody than for the chaplain himself. An old college mate slipping stiffly to earth after five inestimable minutes, remonstrated. "I'd like to see you riding, Corbin! Just give yourself a lift, won't you? Look at Pluto looking at that rent in your shoe! You'll never be a bishop if you go on this way."

The sleet fell and fell, and it was intensely cold. The wagons were invisible. It was rumoured that they had taken another road. The country was almost a wilderness. At long intervals the troops came upon a lonely farmhouse, or a wayside cabin, a mill, a smithy. Loring sent ahead a foraging party, with orders to purchase all supplies. Hardly anything was gotten. Little had been made this year and little stored.

Moreover, latterly, the Yankees at Bath had taken all the stock and poultry and corn--and without paying for it either. "Yes, sir, there are Yankees at Bath. More'n you can shake a stick at!"

The foragers brought back the news. "There are Yankees at Bath--eight miles away! Any number of them. Just as certain as it's sleeting, that's where Old Jack's going!"

The news running along the column awoke a small flare of interest. But it filled no empty stomachs, nor dissipated the numbing cold. The momentary enthusiasm pa.s.sed. "Eight miles! Have we got to go eight miles to-day? We haven't made three miles since dawn. If George Washington, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Julius Caesar were here they couldn't get this army eight miles to-day!"

The cavalry, the artillery, the Stonewall Brigade, Meems and Carson's Militia, the three brigades of Loring--on wound the sick and sluggish column. The hills were now grey gla.s.s, and all the horses smooth-shod.

In advance a corps of pioneers broke with pickaxes the solid and treacherous surface, roughening the road so that the poor brutes might gain foothold. The vanguard, stumbling around a bend of the road, stumbled upon a Federal ambush, horse and foot. To either side a wood of cedars blazed and rang. A lieutenant of the 21st Virginia threw up his arms and pitched forward, dead. A private was badly wounded. The company charged, but the blue outposts fired another volley and got away, crashing through the woods to some by-road. It was impossible to follow; chase could not be given over grey gla.s.s.