AN ORDER FROM HEADQUARTERS
While Captain de Banyan and Lieutenant Somers were asleep, the commanding
general received the intelligence of a movement on our right by the
famous Stonewall Jackson. The position which had been gained by the
advance at Oak Grove was abandoned, and the troops returned to their old
line. The next day was heard the roar of the guns at Mechanicsville; and
on that succeeding was fought the battle of Gaines's Mills--the only
defeat in the field sustained by the Union army during that battle-week.
General McClellan then decided to change his base of operations; which,
rendered into plain English, meant that he had been flanked, and was
obliged to make the best move he could to save his army and material. The
troops fought all day, and ran all night, till they reached the James
River, where they were protected by the all-powerful gunboats. In the
battles of Savage's Station, Glendale and Malvern Hills, they were
victorious, and fought as no troops had ever fought before. As a retreat,
it was successful; but it was the sad and inglorious end of the
Peninsular campaign.
The whole brigade to which Lieutenant Somers belonged went on picket
every third day. While the tremendous operations to which we have briefly
alluded were taking place on the right, the soldiers on the left were
leading their ordinary military life. But they were thinking men, and,
while they were firm in their devotion to the good cause, they were
disturbed by doubts and fears. They knew not, as they listened to the
booming guns, whether they were in the midst of victory or defeat.
Occasionally, they were shelled behind their breastworks; apparently for
the purpose, on the part of the rebels, of keeping our forces from
interfering with the work on the right.
The brigade went on picket, and here the troops were face to face with
the enemy. Lieutenant Somers, by the illness of the captain and the
absence of the first lieutenant, was in command of his company. But there
was no chance to do anything to distinguish himself, except that steady
and patient attention to duty which is the constant opportunity of every
good officer.
"Well, captain, was there anything like this at Magenta?" asked Somers,
as he met De Banyan.
"This is tame, Somers. Magenta was a lively scene."
"I fancy it will not remain tame much longer. We shall either be in
Richmond as victors or prisoners within a few days."
"Don't croak, Somers. It will all come out right in the end."
"I have no doubt of that; but I feel just as though some big thing was
going to happen."
"So do I; and I felt so just before the battle of Solferino. By the way,
on the night before that battle, I captured a whole brigade with my
single company, while I was out on picket-duty."
"Indeed!" laughed Somers.
"I'll tell you how it was."
"Don't take that trouble, captain; for I shall not believe you if you
do."
"Do you mean to doubt my word, even before I utter it?" demanded the
captain, apparently much hurt by the insinuation.
"Captain de Banyan, I wish I could persuade you to speak the truth at all
times."
"Come, Somers, that's rather a grave charge; and, if it came from any
other man than yourself, I should challenge him on the spot," added the
captain, throwing back his head, and looking dignified enough to be the
commander-in-chief.
"You may challenge me if you please; but let us be serious for a moment."
"I am serious, and have been all the time."
"You are a first-rate fellow, captain; I like you almost as well as I do
my own brother."
"You are a sensible young man, Somers," replied De Banyan, slightly
relaxing the rigid muscles of his face.
"You are a brave man, and as brilliant as you are brave. I have only one
fault to find with you."
"What's that?"
"You will draw the long-bow."
"In other words, I will lie. Somers, you hurt my feelings. I took a fancy
to you the first time I ever saw you, and it pains me to hear you talk in
that manner. Do you think that I, an officer and a gentleman, would stoop
to the vice of lying?"
"You certainly do not expect any one to believe those wretched big
stories you tell?"
"Certainly I do," replied the captain with dignity.
"But they contradict themselves."
"Perhaps you don't believe there ever was such an event as the battle of
Magenta."
"Come, come, my friend; just slide off that high horse."
"Lieutenant Somers, my word has been doubted; my good faith maligned; my
character for truth and veracity questioned."
"Yes, I know all that very well; but answer me one question, captain.
Seriously and solemnly, were you at the battle of Magenta?"
"I decline to answer one who doubts my veracity. If I answered you in the
affirmative, you would not believe me."
"I don't think I should; but, if you should answer me in the negative, I
should have full faith in your reply."
"I cannot answer on those terms. Somers, I am offended. I don't know but
that I am in duty bound to challenge you. Just after the battle of
Magenta, I felt compelled to challenge a young officer who cast an
imputation upon my word. We fought, and he fell. His brother challenged
me then, and I had to put a bullet through his head. The family were
Corsicans, I believe; and one after another challenged me, till they got
down to fifth cousins; and I laid out fifteen of them--I think it was
fifteen; I don't remember the exact number, but I could tell by referring
to my diary. You are so precise and particular, that I want to give you
the facts just as they are."
"You haven't the diary with you, I suppose?"
"Of course not; I couldn't carry a volume like that around with me. I
only mention this circumstance to show you the sad results which
sometimes follow in the wake of a duel."
"But I'm not a Corsican; and I don't think you need fear any such results
in my case, if you should conclude to challenge me," answered Somers with
abundant good nature.
"Now, seriously and solemnly, Somers, this doubting a comrade's word is a
vicious habit. It shows that you have no confidence in what I say."
"That is precisely the truth; but I think you are responsible for the
fact, not I. If you would only tell the truth----"
"Tell the truth! My dear fellow, you keep making the matter worse,
instead of better."
"So do you; for, instead of abandoning your bad habit, you tell me an
absurd story about killing fifteen men in a series of duels!"
"I told you I couldn't fix the exact number. You are too critical by
half."
"I am not particular about the number; for I don't believe you killed
even a single person in a duel. You are too good a fellow to do anything
of the sort."
"Somers, I have been laboring to keep my temper; but I am afraid you will
make me mad, if you keep on. I think we had better suspend this
conversation before it leads to any unhappy results;" and the captain
rose from the ground, and glanced in the direction of the enemy's
pickets.
"The most unhappy result I could conceive of would be your continuing
this bad practice of telling big stories," replied Somers, standing up by
the side of his companion.
"No more; you add insult to injury, Somers."
"Really, captain, you injure yourself by this habit, and----"
Captain de Banyan, at this point of the conversation, suddenly turned
round, and sprang upon the lieutenant, bearing him to the ground before
the latter could even make a movement in self-defense. Together they
rolled upon the earth, at the foot of the tree whose sheltering branches
had protected them from the intense heat of the sun. Somers, as the
reader already knows, was bold and belligerent before an attack; and, on
the impulse of the moment, he proceeded to repel the sharp assault of his
companion.
"If you fight a duel in that way, I am ready to take part in it," said
he, his face red with anger. "Let go of me!"
"With pleasure, my dear boy," replied De Banyan, edging away from him.
"What do you mean by pitching into me in that way?" demanded Somers
angrily.
"I have been trying this half hour to teach you a useful lesson; but you
don't know who your best friends are."
"I think I do. Some of them tell the truth sometimes."
"Somers!" said the captain sternly.
"Captain de Banyan!" replied the lieutenant firmly.
"Do you see that hole in the tree?" continued Captain de Banyan, pointing
to a fresh bullet-mark.
"I do."
"I only pulled you down to keep that rifle-ball from going through your
head. I saw a rebel picket through the trees, ready to fire at us. The
ball struck the tree before we struck the ground."
"Forgive me, captain. I did not understand the movement," replied Somers,
extending his hand.
"With all my heart," replied the captain, taking the proffered hand. "We
don't always know who our best friends are."
"Perhaps not; but I know that you are one of my best friends. You have
just given me another reason for wishing you did not----" Somers
hesitated, not thinking it exactly fair to reproach his companion for his
vile habit, after he had rendered him such a signal service.
"Lie," added De Banyan, finishing the sentence.
"Perhaps it isn't exactly lying; you don't mean to deceive any one. At
the worst, they are only white lies. Now, captain, don't you think you
exaggerate sometimes?"
"Well, perhaps I do; my memory is rather poor. I don't carry my diary
with me."
"Don't you think it would be better if you could confine yourself to the
exact truth?" added Somers, who really felt a deep interest in his
associate.
"I think it very likely it would; but things get a little mixed up in my
mind. My memory is poor on details. Just after the battle of Magenta,
while I was lying wounded on the ground, one of the emperor's staff rode
up to me, and asked how many cannon my regiment had captured. To save my
life, I couldn't tell whether it was two hundred or three hundred. My
memory is very treacherous on details."
"I believe you are hopeless, captain," laughed Somers.
"Hopeless?"
"Why, you have told the biggest story that has passed your lips to-day."
"What, about the cannon?"
"Two hundred or three hundred! Why, your regiment captured all the guns
the Austrians had!"
"Didn't I tell you I couldn't remember whether it was two hundred or
three hundred? You are the most critical young man I ever met in the
whole course of my life!"
"But two hundred would be an abominable exaggeration. Perhaps you meant
muskets?"
"No; cannon."
"But, my dear captain, just consider for one moment. Of course the
batteries were supported?"
"To be sure they were."
"Six guns to a battery would have made fifty batteries; and----"
"Oh, confound your statistics!" exclaimed the captain impatiently.
"But statistics enable us to see the truth. Now, captain, at the battle
of Bunker Hill, I saw a man----"
"You?" demanded Captain de Banyan.
"I said so."
"Were you at the battle of Bunker Hill?"
"Didn't you see me there?"
"Come, come, Somers; you shouldn't trifle with the truth. I was not at
the battle you speak of."
"But I was----"
"You! You were not born till sixty years after the battle of Bunker
Hill."
"But I was--only illustrating your case."
"Here comes an orderly with something from headquarters," said Captain de
Banyan, apparently as much rejoiced to change the conversation as the
reader will be to have it changed.
The orderly proceeded to the position occupied by the field and staff
officers of the regiment; and, a few moments later, came an order for
Lieutenant Somers, with twenty of his men, selected for special duty, to
report at the division headquarters.
"You are in luck, Somers; you will have a glorious opportunity to
distinguish yourself," said Captain de Banyan, whose second lieutenant
was ordered to the command of Somers's company.
"I don't know what it means," replied our lieutenant.
"Don't you, indeed?" added the captain with a smile. "Don't you know what
special duty means? On the night before the battle of Solferino----"
"Excuse me, Captain de Banyan; but I am ordered to report forthwith,"
interrupted Somers, who had no desire to hear another "whopper."
The young lieutenant marched off, with his little force, to report as he
had been directed. He knew his men well enough to enable him to make a
good selection; and he was confident that they would stand by him to the
last.
"Do you know Senator Guilford?" demanded the general, after Somers had
passed through all the forms of reporting.
"I do, general," replied the lieutenant, with a fearful blush, and with a
wish in his heart that the distinguished Senator had minded his own
business.
"He speaks well of you, Lieutenant Somers," added the general.
"I am very much obliged to him for his kindness; but I never saw him but
once in my life."
"He asks a favor for you."
"I am very much obliged to him; but I don't ask any for myself, and I
hope you will not grant it. If any favors are bestowed upon me, I prefer
to earn them myself."
"Good!" exclaimed the general. "But I assure you and Senator Guilford
that no man in this division of the army will get a position he does not
deserve. I assure you, Lieutenant Somers, I should have thrown the
Senator's letter among the waste paper, if I had not known you before. I
remember you at Williamsburg; and you did a pretty thing in the
wheat-field yesterday. You are just the man I want."
"Thank you, sir; I should be very glad to prove that your good opinion is
well founded."
Apart from others, and in a low tone, the general gave his orders to
Lieutenant Somers to undertake a very difficult and dangerous scouting
expedition.
"Before sundown you will be a prisoner in Richmond, or a first
lieutenant," added the general as Somers withdrew.