The dark uniforms of the men were so coated with dust from the incessant
wrestling of the two armies that the regiment almost seemed a part of
the clay bank which shielded them from the shells. On the top of the
hill a battery was arguing in tremendous roars with some other guns, and
to the eye of the infantry, the artillerymen, the guns, the caissons,
the horses, were distinctly outlined upon the blue sky. When a piece was
fired, a red streak as round as a log flashed low in the heavens, like a
monstrous bolt of lightning. The men of the battery wore white duck
trousers, which somehow emphasized their legs; and when they ran and
crowded in little groups at the bidding of the shouting officers, it was
more impressive than usual to the infantry.
Fred Collins, of A Company, was saying: "Thunder! I wisht I had a drink.
Ain't there any water round here?" Then somebody yelled, "There goes th'
bugler!"
As the eyes of half the regiment swept in one machinelike movement there
was an instant's picture of a horse in a great convulsive leap of a
death wound and a rider leaning back with a crooked arm and spread
fingers before his face. On the ground was the crimson terror of an
exploding shell, with fibres of flame that seemed like lances. A
glittering bugle swung clear of the rider's back as fell headlong the
horse and the man. In the air was an odour as from a conflagration.
Sometimes they of the infantry looked down at a fair little meadow which
spread at their feet. Its long, green grass was rippling gently in a
breeze. Beyond it was the gray form of a house half torn to pieces by
shells and by the busy axes of soldiers who had pursued firewood. The
line of an old fence was now dimly marked by long weeds and by an
occasional post. A shell had blown the well-house to fragments. Little
lines of gray smoke ribboning upward from some embers indicated the
place where had stood the barn.
From beyond a curtain of green woods there came the sound of some
stupendous scuffle, as if two animals of the size of islands were
fighting. At a distance there were occasional appearances of
swift-moving men, horses, batteries, flags, and, with the crashing of
infantry volleys were heard, often, wild and frenzied cheers. In the
midst of it all Smith and Ferguson, two privates of A Company, were
engaged in a heated discussion, which involved the greatest questions of
the national existence.
The battery on the hill presently engaged in a frightful duel. The white
legs of the gunners scampered this way and that way, and the officers
redoubled their shouts. The guns, with their demeanours of stolidity and
courage, were typical of something infinitely self-possessed in this
clamour of death that swirled around the hill.
One of a "swing" team was suddenly smitten quivering to the ground, and
his maddened brethren dragged his torn body in their struggle to escape
from this turmoil and danger. A young soldier astride one of the leaders
swore and fumed in his saddle, and furiously jerked at the bridle. An
officer screamed out an order so violently that his voice broke and
ended the sentence in a falsetto shriek.
The leading company of the infantry regiment was somewhat exposed, and
the colonel ordered it moved more fully under the shelter of the hill.
There was the clank of steel against steel.
A lieutenant of the battery rode down and passed them, holding his right
arm carefully in his left hand. And it was as if this arm was not at all
a part of him, but belonged to another man. His sober and reflective
charger went slowly. The officer's face was grimy and perspiring, and
his uniform was tousled as if he had been in direct grapple with an
enemy. He smiled grimly when the men stared at him. He turned his horse
toward the meadow.
Collins, of A Company, said: "I wisht I had a drink. I bet there's water
in that there ol' well yonder!"
"Yes; but how you goin' to git it?"
For the little meadow which intervened was now suffering a terrible
onslaught of shells. Its green and beautiful calm had vanished utterly.
Brown earth was being flung in monstrous handfuls. And there was a
massacre of the young blades of grass. They were being torn, burned,
obliterated. Some curious fortune of the battle had made this gentle
little meadow the object of the red hate of the shells, and each one as
it exploded seemed like an imprecation in the face of a maiden.
The wounded officer who was riding across this expanse said to himself,
"Why, they couldn't shoot any harder if the whole army was massed here!"
A shell struck the gray ruins of the house, and as, after the roar, the
shattered wall fell in fragments, there was a noise which resembled the
flapping of shutters during a wild gale of winter. Indeed, the infantry
paused in the shelter of the bank appeared as men standing upon a shore
contemplating a madness of the sea. The angel of calamity had under its
glance the battery upon the hill. Fewer white-legged men laboured about
the guns. A shell had smitten one of the pieces, and after the flare,
the smoke, the dust, the wrath of this blow were gone, it was possible
to see white legs stretched horizontally upon the ground. And at that
interval to the rear, where it is the business of battery horses to
stand with their noses to the fight awaiting the command to drag their
guns out of the destruction or into it or wheresoever these
incomprehensible humans demanded with whip and spur--in this line of
passive and dumb spectators, whose fluttering hearts yet would not let
them forget the iron laws of man's control of them--in this rank of
brute-soldiers there had been relentless and hideous carnage. From the
ruck of bleeding and prostrate horses, the men of the infantry could see
one animal raising its stricken body with its fore legs, and turning its
nose with mystic and profound eloquence toward the sky.
Some comrades joked Collins about his thirst. "Well, if yeh want a drink
so bad, why don't yeh go git it!"
"Well, I will in a minnet, if yeh don't shut up!"
A lieutenant of artillery floundered his horse straight down the hill
with as great concern as if it were level ground. As he galloped past
the colonel of the infantry, he threw up his hand in swift salute.
"We've got to get out of that," he roared angrily. He was a
black-bearded officer, and his eyes, which resembled beads, sparkled
like those of an insane man. His jumping horse sped along the column of
infantry.
The fat major, standing carelessly with his sword held horizontally
behind him and with his legs far apart, looked after the receding
horseman and laughed. "He wants to get back with orders pretty quick, or
there'll be no batt'ry left," he observed.
The wise young captain of the second company hazarded to the lieutenant
colonel that the enemy's infantry would probably soon attack the hill,
and the lieutenant colonel snubbed him.
A private in one of the rear companies looked out over the meadow, and
then turned to a companion and said, "Look there, Jim!" It was the
wounded officer from the battery, who some time before had started to
ride across the meadow, supporting his right arm carefully with his left
hand. This man had encountered a shell apparently at a time when no one
perceived him, and he could now be seen lying face downward with a
stirruped foot stretched across the body of his dead horse. A leg of the
charger extended slantingly upward precisely as stiff as a stake. Around
this motionless pair the shells still howled.
There was a quarrel in A Company. Collins was shaking his fist in the
faces of some laughing comrades. "Dern yeh! I ain't afraid t' go. If yeh
say much, I will go!"
"Of course, yeh will! You'll run through that there medder, won't yeh?"
Collins said, in a terrible voice, "You see now!" At this ominous threat
his comrades broke into renewed jeers.
Collins gave them a dark scowl and went to find his captain. The latter
was conversing with the colonel of the regiment.
"Captain," said Collins, saluting and standing at attention--in those
days all trousers bagged at the knees--"captain, I want t' get
permission to go git some water from that there well over yonder!"
The colonel and the captain swung about simultaneously and stared across
the meadow. The captain laughed. "You must be pretty thirsty, Collins?"
"Yes, sir, I am."
"Well--ah," said the captain. After a moment, he asked, "Can't you
wait?"
"No, sir."
The colonel was watching Collins's face. "Look here, my lad," he said,
in a pious sort of a voice--"look here, my lad"--Collins was not a
lad--"don't you think that's taking pretty big risks for a little drink
of water?"
"I dunno," said Collins uncomfortably. Some of the resentment toward his
companions, which perhaps had forced him into this affair, was beginning
to fade. "I dunno wether 'tis."
The colonel and the captain contemplated him for a time.
"Well," said the captain finally.
"Well," said the colonel, "if you want to go, why, go."