The Maid-At-Arms Part 53

I looked ahead into the darkening woods; the Caughnawaga men were falling back, taking station behind trees; Mount stepped to the shelter of a big oak; Elerson leaped to cover under a pine; a Caughnawaga bateaux-man darted past me, stationing himself on my right behind the trunk of a dapple beech. Suddenly an Indian showed himself close in front; the Caughnawaga man fired and missed; and, quicker than I can write it, the savage was on him before he could reload and had brained him with a single castete-stroke. I fired, but the Mohawk was too quick for me, and a moment later he bounded back into the brush while the forest rang with his triumphant scalp-yell.

"That's what they're doing in front!" shouted Elerson. "When a soldier fires they're on him before he can reload!"

"Two men to a tree!" roared Jack Mount. "Double up there, you Caughnawaga men!"

Elerson glided cautiously to the oak which sheltered Mount; Murphy crept forward to my tree.

"Bedad!" he muttered, "let the ondacent divils dhraw ye're fire an'

welcome. I've a pill to purge 'em now. Luk at that, sorr! Shteady!

Shteady an' cool does it!"

A savage, with his face painted half white and half red, stepped out from the thicket and dropped just as I fired. The next instant he came leaping straight for our tree, castete poised.

Murphy fired. The effect of the shot was amazing; the savage stopped short in mid-career as though he had come into collision with a stone wall; then Elerson fired, knocking him flat, head doubled under his naked shoulders, feet trailing across a rotting log.

"Save ye're powther, Dave!" sang out Murphy. "Sure he was clean kilt as he shtood there. Lave a dead man take his own time to fall!"

I had reloaded, and Murphy was coolly priming, when on our right the rifles began speaking faster and faster, and I heard the sound of men running hard over the dry leaves, and the thudding gallop of horses.

"A charge!" said Murphy. "There do be horses comin', too. Have they dhragoons?--I dunnoa. Ha! There they go! 'Tis McCraw's outlaws or I'm a Dootchman!"

A shrill c.o.c.k-crow rang out in the forest.

"'Tis the chanticleer scalp-yell of that d.a.m.ned loon, Francy McCraw!" he cried, fiercely. "Give it to 'em, b'ys! Shoot h.e.l.l into the dommed Tories!"

The Caughnawaga rifles rang out from every tree; a white man came running through the wood, and I instinctively held my fire.

"Shoot the dhirrty son of a shlut!" yelled Murphy; and Elerson shot him and knocked him down, but the man staggered to his feet again, clutching at his wounded throat, and reeled towards us. He fell again, got on his knees, crawled across the dead leaves until he was scarce fifteen yards away, then fell over and lay there, coughing.

"A dead wan,"' said Murphy, calmly; "lave him."

McCraw's onset pa.s.sed along our extreme left; the volleys grew furious; the ghastly c.o.c.k-crow rang out shrill and piercing, and we fired at long range where the horses were pa.s.sing through the rifle-smoke.

Then, in the roar of the fusillade, a bright flash lighted up the forest; a thundering crash followed, and the storm burst, deluging the woods with rain. Trees rocked and groaned, dashing their tops together; the wind rose to a hurricane; the rain poured down, beating the leaves from the trees, driving friend and foe to shelter. The reports of the rifles ceased; the war-yelp died away. Peal on peal of thunder shook the earth; the roar of the tempest rose to a steady shriek through which the terrific smashing of falling trees echoed above the clash of branches.

Soaked, stunned, blinded by the awful glare of the lightning, I crouched under the great oak, which rocked and groaned, convulsed to its bedded roots, so that the ground heaved under me as I lay.

I could not see ten feet ahead of me, so thick was the gloom with rain and flying leaves and twigs. The thunder culminated in a series of fearful crashes; bolt after bolt fell, illuminating the flying chaos of the tempest; then came a stunning silence, slowly filled with the steady roar of the rain.

A gray pallor grew in the woods. I looked down into the ravine and saw a muddy lake there full of dead men and horses.

The wounded Tory near us was still choking and coughing, dying hard out there in the rain. Mount and Elerson crept over to where we lay, and, after a moment's conference, Murphy led us in a long circle, swinging gradually northward until we stumbled into the drenched Palatine regiment, which was still holding its ground. There was no firing on either side; the guns were too wet.

On a wooded knoll to the left a group of dripping men had gathered.

Somebody said that the old General lay there, smoking and directing the defence, his left leg shattered by a ball. I saw the blue smoke of his pipe curling up under the tree, but I did not see him.

The wind had died out; the thunder rolled off to the northward, muttering among the hills; rain fell less heavily; and I saw wounded men tearing strips from their soaking shirts to bind their hurts. Details from the Canajoharie regiment pa.s.sed us searching the underbrush for their dead.

I also noticed with a shudder that Elerson and Murphy carried two fresh scalps apiece, tied to the belts of their hunting-shirts; but I said nothing, having been warned by Jack Mount that they considered it their prerogative to take the scalps of those who had failed to take theirs.

How they could do it I cannot understand, for I had once seen the body of a scalped man, with the skin, released from the muscles of the forehead, hanging all loose and wrinkled over the face.

With the ceasing of the rain came the renewed crack of the rifles and the whiz of bullets. We took post on the extreme left, firing deliberately at McCraw's renegades; and I do not know whether I hit any or not, but five men did I see fall under the murderous aim of Murphy; and I know that Elerson shot two savages, for he went down into the ravine after them and returned with the wet, red trophies.

The sun was now shining again with a heat so fierce and intense that the earth smoked vapor all around us. It was at this time that I, personally, experienced the only close fighting of the day, which brought a sudden end to this most amazing and b.l.o.o.d.y skirmish.

I had been lying full length behind a bush in the lines of the Palatine regiment, eating a crust of bread; for that strange battle-hunger had been gnawing at my vitals for an hour. Some of the men were eating, some firing; the steaming heat almost suffocated me as I lay there, yet I munched on, ravenous as a December wolf.

I heard somebody shout: "Here they come!" and, filling my mouth with bread, I rose to my knees to see.

A body of troops in green uniforms came marching steadily towards us, led by a red-coated officer on horseback; and all around me the Palatines were springing to their feet, uttering cries of rage, cursing the oncoming troops, and calling out to them by name.

For the detachment of Royal Greens which now advanced to the a.s.sault was, it appeared, composed of old acquaintances and neighbors of the Palatines, who had fled to join the Tories and Indians and now returned to devastate their own county.

Lashed to ungovernable fury by the sight of these hated renegades, the entire regiment leaped forward with a roar and rushed on the advancing detachment, stabbing, shooting, clubbing, throttling. Mutual hatred made the contest terrible beyond words; no quarter was given on either side. I saw men strangle each other with naked hands; kick each other to death, fighting like dogs, tooth and nail, rolling over the wet ground.

The tide had not yet struck us; we fired at their mounted officer, whom Elerson declared he recognized as Major Watts, brother-in-law to Sir John Johnson; and presently, as usual, Murphy hit him, so that the young fellow dropped forward on his saddle and his horse ran away, flinging him against a tree with a crash, doubtless breaking every bone in his body.

Then, above the tumult, out of the north came booming three cannon-shots, the signal from the fort that Herkimer had desired to wait for.

A detachment from the Canajoharie regiment surged out of the woods with a ringing cheer, pointing northward, where, across a clearing, a body of troops were rapidly advancing from the direction of the fort.

"The sortie! The sortie!" shouted the soldiers, frantic with joy. Murphy and I ran towards them; Elerson yelled: "Be careful! Look at their uniforms! Don't go too close to them!"

"They're coming from the north!" bawled Mount. "They're our own people, Dave! Come on!"

Captain Jacob Gardinier, with a dozen Caughnawaga men, had already reached the advancing troops, when Murphy seized my arm and halted me, crying out, "Those men are wearing their coats turned inside out!

They're Johnson's Greens!"

At the same instant I recognized Colonel John Butler as the officer leading them; and he knew me and, without a word, fired his pistol at me. We were so near them now that a Tory caught hold of Murphy and tried to stab him, but the big Irishman kicked him headlong and rushed into the mob, swinging his long hatchet, followed by Gardinier and his Caughnawaga men, whom the treachery had transformed into demons.

In an instant all around me men were swaying, striking, shooting, panting, locked in a deadly embrace. A sweating, red-faced soldier closed with me; chin to chin, breast to breast we wrestled; and I shall never forget the stifling struggle--every detail remains, his sunburned face, wet with sweat and powder-smeared; his irregular teeth showing when I got him by the throat, and the awful change that came over his visage when Jack Mount shoved the muzzle of his rifle against the struggling fellow and shot him through the stomach.

Freed from his death-grip, I stood breathing convulsively, hands clinched, one foot on my fallen rifle. An Indian ran past me, chased by Elerson and Murphy, but the savage dodged into the underbrush, shrieking, "Oonah! Oonah! Oonah!" and Elerson came back, waving his deer-hide cap.

Everywhere Tories, Royal Greens, and Indians were running into the woods; the wailing cry, "Oonah! Oonah!" rose on all sides now.

Gardinier's Caughnawaga men were shooting rapidly; the Palatines, master of their reeking brush-field, poured a heavy fire into the detachment of retreating Greens, who finally broke and ran, dropping sack and rifle in their flight, and leaving thirty of their dead under the feet of the Palatines.

The soldiers of the Canajoharie regiment came up, swarming over a wooded knoll on the right, only to halt and stand, silently leaning on their rifles.

For the battle of Oriskany was over.

There was no cheering from the men of Tryon County. Their victory had been too dearly bought; their losses too terrible; their triumph sterile, for they could not now advance the crippled fragments of their regiments and raise the siege in the face of St. Leger's regulars and Walter Butler's Rangers.

Their combat with Johnson's Greens and Brant's Mohawks had been fought; and, though masters of the field, they could do no more than hold their ground. Perhaps the bitter knowledge that they must leave Stanwix to its fate, and that, too, through their own disobedience, made the better soldiers of them in time. But it was a hard and dreadful lesson; and I saw men crying, faces hidden in their powder-blackened hands, as the dying General was borne through the ranks, lying gray and motionless on his hemlock litter.

And this is all that I myself witnessed of that shameful ambuscade and murderous combat, fought some two miles north of the dirty camp, and now known as the Battle of Oriskany.