With Sully into the Sioux Land Part 26

Wallace followed him and they ran south toward the bridge on the Boonville road across Gregg's Creek, by which they had come in an hour or so before. At a street corner they encountered three companies of infantry going on the double-quick to the same point, with canteens rattling against their bayonet scabbards. The boys fell in behind the first company and kept on, until the column deployed into line along the creek bank and the men threw themselves on the ground behind bushes or whatever other cover offered. The bridge had been stripped of its plank flooring by the picket guard, and only the bare stringers now remained, offering no footing for an attacking column.

"My, but that's hard work, runnin' that way," panted a stout man beside Al. "Wonder what the rebs are doin'?" He raised himself on his elbows and peered ahead.

On the crest of the hill across the narrow valley two field guns frowned on the bridge, the cannoneers standing motionless at their posts, seeming to wait only the command to open fire. In front of them, long lines of dismounted cavalry were reaching out, like slowly unfolding ribbons, against the brown face of the hill. Al and Wallace watched them curiously. Would they never cease to extend? All at once an officer on a black horse darted up to the two field guns as if shot out of the woods behind. They could see him point his arm toward the bridge, gesturing emphatically. Then the cannoneers sprang to life, two vivid streaks of fire spurted from the muzzles of the guns and Al felt, rather than heard, a terrific explosion which seemed to take place all around him at once. Following it came a sensation of intense, numbing silence that was at length pierced by the thin, liquid vibration of a bugle, blowing somewhere far off, "the charge." Then gradually other sounds came to his reviving ear-drums, and he realized that a sh.e.l.l had burst directly over his head, though he was unhurt. He glanced at Wallace, whose eyes looked dazed.

"Wasn't that awful?" whispered Al.

"Awful, yes. Awful," repeated Wallace. He seemed almost beyond words.

But he suddenly hitched up on his knees, exclaiming,

"There, look! They're coming!"

Al turned his eyes to the front. The long, ribbon-like line of Confederates was pitching forward down the hill and out across the floor of the valley toward them. Two flags, fluttering blotches of red and blue, tilted forward above it. Little ripples ran back and forth along the line, like the wind ripples in growing wheat, as the men strained to keep alignment; and ahead of them whirled a shrill, ear-piercing wave of sound more united, more defiant and more formidable than any Indian war-whoop the boys had ever heard. It came to their senses that they were listening for the first time to that heart-chilling "rebel yell" of which they had so often been told.

An officer walked rapidly along behind their own line, his voice, high-keyed with excitement, striving vainly to be rea.s.suring.

"Now, boys, now, don't get scared," he kept repeating. "Hang it all, hold your fire, men! Hold your fire!"

All at once the volume of yells ceased. Al and Wallace looked to the front and saw that the whole line of the enemy had stopped, rigid as a fence. Even as they looked, a volley blazed along the line as if fired from one gun. The fat man beside Al dropped his musket and began to cry, frantically,

"Oh, oh, oh, my shoulder! Oh, oh, oh, my shoulder!"

There was no time to heed him. Through the wall of smoke before them, created by the volley, again broke the Confederates on the run, their dreadful yell preceding them, the two frayed battle flags eddying above the smoke like the masts of catboats in a seaway.

"Lord, Al, they don't fight like Indians!" gasped Wallace, hoa.r.s.ely.

As a photograph on the brain there came to Al a flashing recollection of the broad plain fronting Tahkahokuty, bathed in the sunlight, with the Sioux swooping and circling before the steadily advancing troops.

"No," said he, briefly.

The officer came behind them again, running, and bellowing above the uproar,

"Company, rise! Fire by company! Ready! Aim! Fire!"

A volley as steady as that of the enemy flamed along the front of the company. Al was conscious of a vague surprise that in such chaos the men could maintain a discipline so machine-like. But the enemy's charging line did not appear even to waver.

"Load! Fire at will! Commence firing!" howled the officer, jumping into the air to look over the heads of his men at the enemy beyond the creek. "Fast, boys! Fer Gawd's sake, put it into 'em fast!"

The muskets began to rattle in a disjointed way, Al's among the rest, while Wallace's revolver popped viciously. Everything in front was veiled in thin white vapors, and the men in the charging line resembled shadows, dancing upon a curtain. But the Confederates, like a stampede of buffalo, held to their headlong course. Shortly the officer bawled, in a voice almost tearful,

"No use, boys! They're flankin' us. They're across the creek, up and down. Come back; back to the buildings!"

Most soldiers fear being flanked more than death itself in front. The men cast terrified glances toward the enemy, streaming past beyond their wings, and broke like sheep for the rear, where the outlying houses of the town looked down a gentle slope toward them. They were not panic-stricken, but, as in one man, the instinct awoke in them to cover their flanks and save themselves from the dreaded attack in rear. With the enemy hard behind them and filling the air with exultant yells, they swarmed into the buildings, like bees into their hives, smashing through doors and windows in their haste and from these new havens of refuge they resumed their interrupted fire desperately.

Al and Wallace, with five or six soldiers, made for a brick residence standing back in a shady garden. By main force they tore a pair of blinds from a shuttered window, crushed in the gla.s.s and sash with flailing musket b.u.t.ts, and leaped through, landing upon the plush carpet of a handsome parlor. The men swept up a polished mahogany table and three or four rosewood chairs and jammed them into the vacant window, then opened fire feverishly upon the enemy, who were already tearing down the fence pickets in front of the house or leaping over them. The Confederate line of battle had dissolved into groups during the impetuous pursuit and the men, so dauntless in their advance across the open fields, looked doubtfully at the yawning windows and doors of the houses, each spitting fire, upon which they had now come. They discharged a patter of harmless shots, then began to seek cover behind trees, fences, or stones.

There was a sergeant among the men with Al and Wallace. He peered through the rosewood chair-legs cluttered in the window, and cried,

"They're takin' cover, boys. We can hold 'em now. Here, Jones, Throckmorton, Schmidt,--get upstairs. Shoot down at 'em;--drive 'em back."

Al raised his voice. "This is the house of Doctor Falkner," he said. "I know him well; he is a Union man. Treat the house as well as you can, boys." To Wallace he added, "My father sold him all this furniture and these carpets."

The soldiers glanced at him curiously. This regard for property in the midst of battle was unusual. But the Sergeant answered, as he thrust his musket barrel through the chair legs,

"Sure, we'll treat it as well as we can."

The Confederates beyond the front fence seemed all at once to have become tired. They declined to be coaxed or urged forward by their officers, but from behind their hiding-places they kept up a constant pop-popping of muskets and carbines which gradually reduced all the doors and windows on that side of the house to kindlings. Framed pictures on the opposite walls were punctured, and here and there light from the adjoining rooms shone through holes in the plastering. A soldier in the parlor was desperately wounded and lay in a stupor on a spot of the plush carpet which was sopping wet with blood, his head pillowed on a gay silk sofa cushion. Now and then other soldiers dodged into or out of the house through doorways on the side opposite to the enemy, and once the officer who had directed the fight at the creek came in, but finding the Sergeant in charge, left immediately. Time seemed to stand still. The little garrison, wrapped in the absorbing occupation of pumping lead at the almost invisible enemy in front, took no note of its pa.s.sage.

Outside, a steady, rattling roar seemed to envelop the whole town and country around, pierced constantly by human voices, shouting, pleading or commanding, now near and again distant. Once Al, his throat parched with the choking fumes of confined powder smoke, darted back to the kitchen in search of water. While he was drinking he heard a slight creak and rustle, audible in the uproar by reason of its very lightness, and, looking around, he saw a woman standing on the top step of the cellar stairs, her hand on the door k.n.o.b. He had to look twice before he knew her, for when he had last seen her, her hair, now iron gray, was brown, and her face, now wrinkled, was smooth and youthful.

"Why, Mrs. Falkner!" he stammered. "Why, are you here?"

She peered at him. "Al Briscoe!" she exclaimed, in a trembling voice.

"What on earth--why, how you've grown!"

She uttered the commonplace remark almost mechanically. She seemed hardly to know what she was doing.

"Mrs. Falkner, you are in great danger here," cried Al.

"No, no; I am down cellar. I am safe if the house doesn't burn. Is it on fire?"

"No, but it is being riddled with bullets."

"That is not so bad as fire," she answered, putting her hand weakly to her head. "You will try to keep it from burning, won't you, Al?"

"I will do all I can, Mrs. Falkner," he answered, and before he could say more she pulled the cellar door shut and disappeared.

He ran back to the front of the house. The Sergeant was peeping excitedly past the edge of the parlor window. Directly he drew back, crying,

"They're tryin' to get between us an' the next house!" He jabbed a commanding forefinger at Al and Wallace. "Here, you--you; jump upstairs.

Shoot at 'em from the back windows. Stop 'em!"

The boys leaped up the broad, easy front stairway, three steps at a time, wrenched open a bedroom door at the top and ran to a window looking out over the back porch. Down along the side fence they could see a dozen or more Confederates running, crouching low. They were making for the porch. The boys fired simultaneously and they saw one man drop, then wriggle off through the gra.s.s. Wallace's revolver continued to bark while Al was reloading his musket, but the Confederates cast frightened glances up at their window, and before he was ready to fire again they had run back to the other side of the house once more. The boys looked over the back yard and the town behind it, and their eyes caught the roof of the court house, rising above the trees. A column of black smoke was pouring from it, with a dull glare of flames through and below it. Al caught Wallace by the arm.

"See! The court house is on fire!" he cried. "And all those thousands of arms are in it."

Wallace looked at the burning building, then apprehensively back at Al.

"I wonder if a sh.e.l.l did it, or if it's Colonel Harding's orders?"

"There's no telling," answered Al. "If it's orders, it means that we're whipped and the court house is being burned to keep the rebs from getting the arms. Listen! Isn't the fire slacking up?"

It was true. The deep boom of the Confederate artillery had died out from among the confused noises of the battle; and as the boys hearkened, the continuous rattle of musketry diminished until only scattered, individual shots could be heard. Then these ceased and a silence followed, almost painful to the ears after the uproar.

"What can it mean?" asked Wallace, in an uneasy tone. Then he went on, hopefully, "Perhaps the Johnnies have given up the attack."

They walked to the stairway and, as they went down, saw that the Sergeant had opened the shattered front door and was standing on the porch outside, while a Confederate officer, with a bit of dirty white rag tied to the point of his sabre, was advancing up the walk toward him. Something seemed to warn Al to keep out of sight and he stepped into a corner where he could hear but could not be seen.