The Long Roll Part 72

The private on his right was a learned man. Edward addressed him. "Have you ever thought, doctor, how fearfully dramatic is this world?"

"Yes. It's one of those facts that are too colossal to be seen.

Shakespeare says all the world's a stage. That's only a half-truth. The world's a player, like the rest of us."

Below this niche stretched the grey battle-lines; above it, on the hilltop, by the cannon and over half the slope beneath, spread the blue.

A forest stood behind the grey; out of it came the troops to the charge, the flags tossing in front. The upward reaching fingers of coppice and brush had their occupants, fragments of commands under cover, bands of sharpshooters. And everywhere over the open, raked by the guns, were dead and dying men. They lay thickly. Now and again the noise of the torment of the wounded made itself heard--a most doleful and ghostly sound coming up like a wail from the Inferno. There were, too, many dead or dying horses. Others, still unhurt, galloped from end to end of the field of death. In the wheat-field there were several of the old, four-footed warriors, who stood and ate of the shocked grain. There arrived a hush over the battlefield, one of those pauses which occur between exhaustion and renewed effort, effort at its height. The guns fell silent, the musketry died away, the gunboats ceased to throw those great sh.e.l.ls. By contrast with the clangour that had prevailed, the stillness seemed that of a desert waste, a dead world. Over toward a cross-road there could be made out three figures on horseback. The captain of Edward's company was an old college mate; lying down with his men, he now drew himself over the ground and loaned Cary his field-gla.s.s. "It's General Lee and General Jackson and General D. H.

Hill."

A body of grey troops came to occupy a finger of woods below the three captured guns. "That's Cary's Legion," said the captain. "Here comes the colonel now!"

The two commands were but a few yards apart. Fauquier Cary, dismounting, walked up the sedgy slope and asked to speak to his nephew. The latter left the ranks, and the two found a trampled s.p.a.ce beside one of the great thirty-two pounders. A dead man or two lay in the parched gra.s.s, but there was nothing else to disturb. The quiet yet held over North and South and the earth that gave them standing room. "I have but a moment,"

said the elder man. "This is but the hush before the final storm. We came by Jackson's troops, and one of his officers whom I knew at the Point rode beside me a little way. They all crossed White Oak Swamp by starlight this morning, and apparently Jackson is again the Jackson of the Valley. It was a curious eclipse. The force of the man is such that, while his officers acknowledge the eclipse, it makes no difference to them. He is Stonewall Jackson--and that suffices. But that is not what I have to tell--"

"I saw father a moment this morning. He said there was a rumour about one of the Stonewall regiments--"

"Yes. It was the 65th."

"Cut to pieces?"

"Yes."

"Richard--Richard was not killed?"

"No. But many were. Hairston Breckinridge was killed--and some of the Thunder Run men--and very many others. Almost destroyed, Carlton said.

They crossed at sunset. There were a swamp and a wood and a hollow commanded by hills. The enemy was in force behind the hill, and there was beside a considerable command in ambush, concealed in the woods by the swamp. These had a gun or two. All opened on the 65th. It was cut to pieces in the swamp and in a little marshy meadow. Only a remnant got back to the northern side of the creek. Richard is under arrest."

"He was acting under orders!"

"So Carlton says he says. But General Jackson says there was no such order; that he disobeyed the order that was given, and now tries to screen himself. Carlton says Jackson is more steel-like than usual, and we know how it fared with Garnett and with others. There will be a court-martial. I am very anxious."

"I am not," said Edward stoutly. "There will be an honourable acquittal.

We must write and tell Judith that she's not to worry! Richard Cleave did nothing that he should not have done."

"Of course, we know that. But Carlton says that, on the face of it, it's an ugly affair. And General Jackson--Well, we can only await developments."

"Poor Judith!--and his sister and mother.... Poor women!"

The other made a gesture of a.s.sent and sorrow. "Well, I must go back.

Take care of yourself, Edward. There will be the devil's own work presently."

He went, and Edward returned to his fellows. The silence yet held over the field; the westering sun glowed dull red behind the smoke; the three figures rested still by the cross-roads; the ma.s.s of frowning metal topped Malvern Hill like a giant, smoke-wreathed _chevaux de frise_. Out of the brushwood to the left of the regiment, straight by it, upward towards the guns, and then at a tangent off through the fields to the woods, sped a rabbit. Legs to earth, it hurried with all its might. The regiment was glad of a diversion--the waiting was growing so intolerable. The men cheered the rabbit. "Go it, Molly Cottontail!--Go it, Molly!--Go it, Molly!--Hi! Don't go that-away!

Them's Yankees! They'll cut your head off! Go t'other way--that's it! Go it, Molly! d.a.m.n! If't wasn't for my character, I'd go with you!"

The rabbit disappeared. The regiment settled back to waiting, a very intolerable employment. The sun dipped lower and lower. The hush grew portentous. The guns looked old, mailed, dead warriors; the gunboats sleeping forms; the grey troops battle-lines in a great war picture, the three hors.e.m.e.n by the cross-roads a significant group in the same; the dead and wounded over all the fields, upon the slope, in the woods, by the marshes, the jetsam, still and heavy, of war at its worst. For a moment longer the wide and dreary stretch rested so, then with a wild suddenness sound and furious motion rushed upon the scene. The gunboats recommenced with their long and horrible sh.e.l.ls. A grey battery opened on Berdan's sharpshooters strung in a line of trees below the great crown of guns. The crown flamed toward the battery, scorched and mangled it. By the cross-roads the three figures separated, going in different directions. Presently galloping horses--aides, couriers--crossed the plane of vision. They went from D. H. Hill in the centre to Jackson's brigades on the left and Magruder's on the right. They had a mile of open to cross, and the iron crown and the sharpshooters flamed against them. Some galloped on and gave the orders. Some threw up their arms and fell, or, crashing to earth with a wounded horse, disentangled themselves and stumbled on through the iron rain. The sun drew close to the vast and melancholy forests across the river. Through a rift in the smoke, there came a long and crimson shaft. It reddened the river, then struck across the shallows to Malvern Hill, suffused with a b.l.o.o.d.y tinge wood and field and the marshes by the creeks, then splintered against the hilltop and made a hundred guns to gleam. The wind heightened, lifting the smoke and driving it northward. It bared to the last red light the wild and dreary battlefield.

From the centre rose the Confederate yell. Rodes's brigade, led by Gordon, charged. It had half a mile of open to cross, and it was caught at once in the storm that howled from the crest of Malvern Hill. Every regiment suffered great loss; the 3d Alabama saw half its number slain or wounded. The men yelled again, and sprang on in the teeth of the storm. They reached the slope, almost below the guns. Gordon looked behind for the supporting troops which Hill had promised. They were coming, that grim fighter leading them, but they were coming far off, under clanging difficulties, through a h.e.l.l of shrapnel. Rodes's brigade alone could not wrest that triple crown from the hilltop--no, not if the men had been giants, sons of Anak! They were halted; they lay down, put muskets to shoulder and fired steadily and fired again on the blue infantry.

It grew darker on the plain. Brigades were coming from the left, the right, the centre. There had been orders for a general advance. Perhaps the aides carrying them were among the slain, perhaps this, perhaps that. The event was that brigades charged singly--sometimes even regiments crossed, with a cry, the twilight, groaning plain and charged Malvern Hill unsupported. The place flamed death and destruction. Hill's ten thousand men pressed forward with the order of a review. The shot and sh.e.l.l met them like a tornado. The men fell by hundreds. The lines closed, rushed on. The Federal infantry joined the artillery. Musketry and cannon, the din became a prolonged and fearful roar of battle.

The sun disappeared. There sprang out in the western sky three long red bands of clouds. On the darkening slope and plain Hill was crushed back, before and among his lines a horror of exploding sh.e.l.ls. Jackson threw forward Lawton and Whiting, Winder and the Louisiana troops, while on the right, brigade after brigade, Magruder hurled across the plain nine brigades. After Hill, Magruder's troops bore the brunt of the last fearful fighting.

They stormed across the plain in twilight that was lit by the red flashes from the guns. The clouds of smoke were red-bosomed; the red bars stayed in the west. The guns never ceased their thundering, the musketry to roll. Death swung a wide scythe in the twilight of that first day of July. Anderson and Armistead, Barksdale, Semmes and Kershaw, Wright and Toombs and Mahone, rushed along the slope of Malvern Hill, as Ripley and Garland and Gordon and all the brigadiers of D. H. Hill had rushed before them. Death, issuing from that great power of artillery, laid the soldiers in swathes. The ranks closed, again and again the ranks closed; with diminished numbers but no slackening of courage, the grey soldiers again dashed themselves against Malvern Hill.

The red bars in the west faded slowly to a deep purple; above them, in a clear s.p.a.ce of sky, showed the silver Venus. Upon her cooling globe, in a day to come, intelligent life might rend itself as here--the old horror, the old tragedy, the old stained sublimity over again! All the drifting smoke was now red lit, and beneath it lay in their blood elderly men, and men in their prime, and young men--very many, oh, very many young men! As the night deepened there sprang, beneath the thunder, over all the field a sound like wind in reeds. It was a sighing sound, a low and grievous sound. The blue lost heavily, for the charges were wildly heroic; but the guns were never disabled, and the loss of the grey was the heaviest. Brigade by brigade, the grey faced the storm and were beaten back, only again to reel forward upon the slope where Death stood and swung his scythe. The last light dwelt on their colours, on the deep red of their battle-flags; then the western sky became no warmer than the eastern. The stars were out in troops; the battle stopped.

D. H. Hill, an iron fighter with a mania for personal valour, standing where he had been standing for an hour, in a pleasantly exposed spot, clapped on his hat and beckoned for his horse. The ground about him showed furrowed as for planting, and a neighbouring oak tree was so riddled with bullets that the weight of a man might have sent it crashing down. D. H. Hill, drawing long breath, spoke half to his staff, half to the stars: "Give me Federal artillery and Confederate infantry, and I'd whip the world!"

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

A WOMAN

Allan Gold, lying in a corner of the Stonewall Hospital, turned his head toward the high window. It showed him little, merely a long strip of blue sky above housetops. The window was open, and the noises of the street came in. He knew them, checked them off in his mind. He was doing well. A body, superbly healthful, might stand out boldly against a minie ball or two, just as calm nerves, courage and serene judgement were of service in a war hospital such as this. If he was restless now, it was because he was wondering about Christianna. It was an hour past her time for coming.

The ward was fearfully crowded. This, however, was the end by the stair, and he had a little cut-off place to himself. Many in the ward yet lay on the floor, on a blanket as he had done that first morning. In the afternoon of that day a wide bench had been brought into his corner, a thin flock mattress laid upon it, and he himself lifted from the floor.

He had protested that others needed a bed much more, that he was used to lying on the earth--but Christianna had been firm. He wondered why she did not come.

Chickahominy, Gaines's Mill, Garnett's and Golding's farms, Peach Orchard, Savage Station, White Oak Swamp, Frayser's Farm, Malvern Hill--dire echoes of the Seven Days' fighting had thronged into this hospital as into all others, as into the houses of citizens and the public buildings and the streets! All manner of wounded soldiers told the story--ever so many soldiers and ever so many variants of the story.

The dead bore witness, and the wailing of women which was now and then heard in the streets; not often, for the women were mostly silent, with pressed lips. And the ambulances jolting by--and the sound of funerals--and the church bells tolling, tolling--all these bore witness.

And day and night there was the thunder of the cannon. From Mechanicsville and Gaines's Mill it had rolled near and loud, from Savage Station somewhat less so; White Oak Swamp and Frayser's Farm had carried the sound yet further off, and from Malvern Hill it came but distantly. But loud or low, near or far, day by day and into each night, Richmond heard the cannon. At first the vibration played on the town's heart, like a giant hand on giant strings. But at last the tune grew old and the town went about its business. There was so much to do! One could not stop to listen to cannon. Richmond was a vast hospital; pain and fever in all places, and, around, the shadow of death. Hardly a house but mourned a kinsman or kinsmen; early and late the dirges wailed through the streets. So breathlessly filled were the days, that often the dead were buried at night. The weather was hot--days and nights hot, close and still. Men and women went swiftly through them, swift and direct as weavers' shuttles. Privation, early comrade of the South, was here; scant room, scant supplies, not too much of wholesome food for the crowded town, few medicines or alleviatives, much to be done and done at once with the inadequatest means. There was little time in which to think in general terms; all effort must go toward getting done the immediate thing. The lift and tension of the time sloughed off the immaterial weak act or thought. There were present a heroic simplicity, a naked verity, a full cup of service, a high and n.o.ble altruism. The plane was epic, and the people did well.

The sky within Allan's range of vision was deep blue; the old brick gable-ends of houses, mellow and old, against it. A soldier with a broken leg and a great sabre cut over the head, just brought into the ward, brought with him the latest news. He talked loudly, and all down the long room, crowded to suffocation, the less desperately wounded raised themselves on their elbows to hear. Others, shot through stomach or bowels, or fearfully torn by sh.e.l.ls, or with the stumps of amputated limbs not doing well, raved on in delirium or kept up their pitiful moaning. The soldier raised his voice higher, and those leaning on elbows listened with avidity. "Evelington Heights? Where's Evelington Heights?"--"Between Westover and Rawling's millpond, near Malvern Hill!"--"Malvern Hill! That was ghastly!"--"Go on, sergeant-major! We're been pining for a newspaper."

"Were any of you boys at Malvern Hill?"

"Yes,--only those who were there ain't in a fix to tell about it! That man over there--and that one--and that one--oh, a middling lot! They're pretty badly off--poor boys!"

From a pallet came a hollow voice. "I was at Malvern Hill, and I ain't never going there again--I ain't never going there again--I ain't never.... Who's that singing? I kin sing, too--

'The years creep slowly by, Lorena; The snow is on the gra.s.s again; The sun's low down the sky, Lorena; The frost gleams where the flowers have been--'"

"Don't mind him," said the soldiers on elbows. "Poor fellow! he ain't got any voice anyhow. We know about Malvern Hill. Malvern Hill was pretty bad. And we heard there'd been a cavalry rumpus--Jeb Stuart and Sweeney playing their tricks! We didn't know the name of the place.

Evelington Heights! Pretty name."

The sergeant-major would not be cheated of Malvern Hill. "'Pretty bad!'

I should say 'twas pretty bad! Malvern Hill was _awful_. If anything could induce me to be a d.a.m.n Yankee 'twould be them guns of their'n!

Yes, sirree, bob! we fought and fought, and ten o'clock came and there wasn't any moon, and we stopped. And in the night-time the d.a.m.n Yankees continued to retreat away. There was an awful noise of gun-wheels all the night long--so the sentries said, and the surgeons and the wounded and, I reckon, the generals. The rest of us, we were asleep. I don't reckon there ever was men any more tired. Malvern Hill was--I can't swear because there are ladies nursing us, but Malvern Hill was--Well, dawn blew at reveille--No, doctor, I ain't getting light-headed. I just get my words a little twisted. Reveille blew at dawn, and there were sheets of cold pouring rain, and everywhere there were dead men, dead men, dead men lying there in the wet, and the ambulances were wandering round like ghosts of wagons, and the wood was too dripping to make a fire, and three men out of my mess were killed, and one was a boy that we'd all adopted, and it was awful discouraging. Yes, we were right tired, d.a.m.n Yankees and all of us.... Doctor, if I was you I wouldn't bother about that leg. It's all right as it is, and you might hurt me.... Oh, all right! Kin I smoke?... Yuugh! Well, boys, the d.a.m.n Yankees continued their retreat to Harrison's Landing, where their h.e.l.l-fire gunboats could stand picket for them.... Say, ma'am, would you kindly tell me why that four-post bed over there is all hung with wreaths of roses?--'Isn't any bed there?' But there is! I see it....

Evelington Heights--and Stuart dropping sh.e.l.ls into the d.a.m.n Yankees'

camp.... They _are_ roses, the old Giants of Battle by the beehive....

Evelington Heights. Eveling--Well, the d.a.m.n Yankees dragged their guns up there, too.... If the beehive's there, then the apple tree's here--Grandma, if you'll ask him not to whip me I'll never take them again, and I'll hold your yarn every time you want me to--"

The ward heard no more about Evelington Heights. It knew, however, that it had been no great affair; it knew that McClellan with his exhausted army, less many thousand dead, wounded, and prisoners, less fifty-two guns and thirty-five thousand small arms, less enormous stores captured or destroyed, less some confidence at Washington, rested down the James by Westover, in the shadow of gunboats. The ward guessed that, for a time at least, Richmond was freed from the Northern embrace. It knew that Lee and his exhausted army, less even more of dead and wounded than had fallen on the other side, rested between that enemy and Richmond.

Lee was watching; the enemy would come no nearer for this while. For all its pain, for all the heat, the blood, the fever, thirst and woe, the ward, the hospital, all the hospitals, experienced to-day a sense of triumph. It was so with the whole city. Allan knew this, lying, looking with sea-blue eyes at the blue summer sky and the old and mellow roofs.

The city mourned, but also it rejoiced. There stretched the black thread, but twisted with it was the gold. A paean sounded as well as a dirge. Seven days and nights of smoke and glare upon the horizon, of the heart-shaking cannon roar, of the pouring in of the wounded, of processions to Hollywood, of anguish, ceaseless labour, sick waiting, dizzy hope, descending despair.... Now, at last, above it all the bells rang for victory. A young girl, coming through the ward, had an armful of flowers,--white lilies, citron aloes, mignonette, and phlox--She gave her posies to all who stretched out a hand, and went out with her smiling face. Allan held a great stalk of garden phlox, white and sweet.

It carried him back to the tollgate and to the log schoolhouse by Thunder Run.... Twelve o'clock. Was not Christianna coming at all?

This was not Judith Cary's ward, but now she entered it. Allan, watching the narrow path between the wounded, saw her coming from the far door.