The Tree of Appomattox Part 23

"All right. The belt buckle's barred, although it gave me a shock when the bullet met it. A small bullet went through the flesh of my left arm just above the elbow. It healed so fast that I've hardly noticed it, due, of course, to the very healthy and temperate life I've led. I suppose, George, it would have laid up a fellow of your habits for a week."

"Never mind about my habits, but go on with the list of your wounds. A great beauty of mathematics is that it compels you to keep to your subject. When you're solving one of those delightful problems in mathematics you can't digress and drag in irrelevant things. Algebra is the very thing for a confused mind like yours, Frank, one that doesn't coordinate. But get on with your list."

"When we were in pursuit my horse stumbled in a gully and fell so hard that I was thrown over his shoulder, giving my own shoulder a painful bruise that's just getting well."

"We'll allow that, since it happened in battle. What else now? Speak up!"

"That's all. Three good wounds, according to your own somewhat severe definition of a wound. I'm one behind d.i.c.k, but I believe that when I was thrown over my horse's head I was hurt worse than he was at any time."

"Frank Pennington, you're a good comrade, but you're a liar, an unmitigated liar."

"George, if I weren't so tired and so unwilling to be angry with anybody I'd get up and belt you on the left ear for that."

"But you're a liar, just the same. You're holding something back."

"What are you driving at, you chattering Green Mountaineer?"

"Why don't you tell something about the time the trooper fell from his horse wounded, and you, dismounting under the enemy's fire, helped him on your own horse, although you got two wounds in your body while doing it, and brought him off in safety? Didn't I say that you were a liar, a convicted liar from modesty?"

Pennington blushed.

"I didn't want to say anything about that," he muttered. "I had to do it."

"Lots of men wouldn't have had to do it. You go down for five good wounds, Frank Pennington."

"Now, then, what about yourself, George?" asked d.i.c.k.

"One in the arm, one on the shoulder and one across the ankle. I don't waste time in words, like you two, my verbose friends. That gives the three of us combined twelve wounds, a fair average of four apiece."

"And it's our great good luck that not one of the twelve is a disabling hurt," said d.i.c.k.

"But we get the credit for the full twelve, all the same," said Warner, "and we maintain our prestige in the army. Our consciences also are satisfied. But the last two or three weeks of battles and marches have fairly made me dizzy. I can't remember them or their sequence. All I know is that we've cleaned up the valley, and here we are ready at last to take a couple of minutes of well earned rest."

"Do you know," said Pennington, "there were times when I clear forgot to be hungry, and I've been renowned in our part of Nebraska for my appet.i.te. But nature always gets even. For all those periods of forgetfulness memory is now rushing upon me. I'm hungry not only for the present but from the past. It'll take a lot to satisfy me."

The briskness of the night also sharpened Pennington's appet.i.te. They were deep in autumn, and the winds from the mountains had an edge. The foliage had turned and it glowed in vivid reds and yellows on the slopes, although the intense colors were hidden now by the coming of night.

The wind was cold enough to make the fires feel good to their relaxed systems, and they spread out their hands to the welcome flames, as they had often done at home on wintry nights, when children. Beyond the trees the horses, under guard, were grazing on what was left of the late gra.s.s, but within the wood the men themselves, save those who were preparing food, were mostly lying down on the dry leaves or their blankets, and were talking of the things they had done, or the things they were going to do.

"I wonder what the bill of fare will be tonight," said Pennington, who was growing hungrier and hungrier.

"I had several engraved menus," said Warner, "but I lost them, and so we won't be able to order. We'll just have to take what they offer us."

"A month or so later they'll be having fresh sausage and spare ribs in old Kentucky," said d.i.c.k, "and I wish we had 'em here now."

"And a month later than that," said Pennington, "they'll be having a roasted bull buffalo weighing five thousand pounds for Christmas dinner in Nebraska."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Warner. "No buffalo ever weighed five thousand pounds."

Pennington looked at him pityingly.

"You have no romance or poetry after all, George," he said. "Why can't you let me put on an extra twenty-five hundred or three thousand pounds for the sake of effect?"

"Besides, you don't roast buffaloes whole and bring them in on a platter!"

"No, we don't, but that's no proof that we can't or won't. Now, what would you like to have, George?"

"After twelve or fifteen other things, I'd like to finish off with a whole pumpkin pie, and a few tin cups of cider would go along with it mighty well. That's the diet to make men, real men, I mean."

"Any way," said d.i.c.k, raising a tin cup of hot coffee, "here's to food. You may sleep without beds, and, in tropical climates, you may go without clothes, but in whatever part of the world you may be, you must have food. And it's best when you've ridden hard all day, and, in the cool of an October evening, to sit down by a roaring fire in the woods with the dry leaves beneath you, and the clear sky above you."

"Hear! hear!" said Warner. "Who's dithyrambic now? But you're right, d.i.c.k. War is a terrible thing. Besides being a ruthless slaughter it's an economic waste,-did you ever think of that, you reckless youngsters?- but it has a few minor compensations, and one of them is an evening like this. Why, everything tastes good to us. Nothing could taste bad. Our twelve wounds don't pain us in the least, and they'll heal absolutely in a few days, our blood being so healthy. The air we breathe is absolutely pure and the sky over our heads is all blue and silver, spangled with stars, a canopy stretched for our especial benefit, and upon which we have as much claim of ownership as anybody else has. We've lived out of doors so much and we've been through so much hard exercise that our bodies are now pretty nearly tempered steel. I doubt whether I'll ever be able to live indoors again, except in winter."

"I'm the luckiest of all," said Pennington. "Out on the plains we don't have to live indoors much anyway. I've lived mostly in the saddle since I was seven or eight years old, but the war has toughened me just the same. I'll be able to sleep out any time, except in the blizzards."

"As soon as you finish devouring the government stores," said a voice behind them, "it would be well for all of you to seek the sleep you're telling so much about."

It was Colonel Winchester who spoke, and they looked at him, inquiringly.

"Can I ask, sir, which way we ride?" said d.i.c.k.

"Northward with General Sheridan," replied the Colonel.

"But there is no enemy to the north, sir!"

"That's true, but we go that way, nevertheless. Although you're discreet young officers I'm not going to tell you any more. Now, as you've eaten enough food and drunk enough coffee, be off to your blankets. I want all of you to be fresh and strong in the morning."

Fresh and strong they were, and promptly General Sheridan rode away, taking with him all the cavalry, his course taking him toward Front Royal. The news soon spread among the hors.e.m.e.n that from Front Royal the general would go on to Washington for a conference with the War Department, while the cavalry would turn through a gap in the mountains, and then destroy railroads in order to cut off General Early's communications with Richmond.

"We're to be an escort and then a fighting and destroying force," said d.i.c.k. "But it's quite sure that we'll meet no enemy until we go through the gap. Meanwhile we'll enjoy a saunter along the valley."

But when they reached Front Royal a courier, riding hard, overtook them. He demanded to be taken at once to the presence of General Sheridan, and then he presented a copy of a dispatch which read:

To Lieutenant-General Early:

Be ready to move as soon as my forces join you, and we will crush Sheridan.

Longstreet, Lieutenant-General.

Sheridan read the dispatch over and over again, and pondered it gravely. The courier informed him that it was the copy of a signal made by the Confederate flags on Three Top Mountain, and deciphered by Union officers who had obtained the secret of the Confederate code. General Wright, whom he had left in command, had sent it to him in all haste for what it was worth.

The young general not only pondered the message gravely, but he pondered it long. Finally he called his chief officers around him and consulted with them. If the grim and bearded Longstreet were really coming into the valley with a formidable force, then indeed it would be the dance of death. Longstreet, although he did not have the genius of Stonewall Jackson, was a fierce and dangerous fighter. All of them knew how he had come upon the field of Chickamauga with his veterans from Virginia, and had turned the tide of battle. His presence in the valley might quickly turn all of Sheridan's great triumphs into withered laurels.

But Sheridan had a great doubt in his mind. The Confederate signal from Three Top Mountain that his own officers had read might not be real. It might have been intended to deceive, Early's signalmen learning that the Union signalmen had deciphered their code, or it might be some sort of a grim joke. He did not believe that the Army of Northern Virginia could spare Longstreet and a large force, as it would be weakened so greatly that it could no longer stand before Grant, even with the aid of the trenches.

His belief that this dispatch, upon which so much turned, as they were to learn afterward, was false, became a conviction and most of his officers agreed with him. He decided at last that the coming of Longstreet with an army into the valley was an impossibility, and he would go on to Washington. But Sheridan made a reservation, and this, too, as the event showed, was highly important. He ordered all the cavalry back to General Wright, while he proceeded with a small escort to the capital.

It was d.i.c.k who first learned what had happened, and soon all knew. They discussed it fully as they rode back on their own tracks, and on the whole they were glad they were to return.

"I don't think I'd like to be tearing up railroads and destroying property," said d.i.c.k. "I prefer anyhow for the valley to be my home at present, although I believe that dispatch means nothing. Why, the Confederates can't possibly rally enough men to attack us!"