the first dawn they were at it again. Drew tried to remember how many
times he had made that trip, swimming or rowing, always with some mount
as his special charge. More than half the company had sworn they could
not swim, and so the burden of the transfer fell upon their fellows.
"Rennie--" That was Campbell climbing up from the raft after another
weary passage across. "There's trouble on the other side. You've been
using that mule of yours to get some of the horses over, haven't you?"
Drew was so tired that words were too much trouble to shape. He nodded
dully. Pryor had been right about Hannibal. The big mule had not only
taken his own passage across the Tennessee as a matter-of-course
proceeding, but had shouldered and urged along three horses as he went.
And twice since then Drew had taken him back and forth to bring in
skittish mounts causing trouble.
"That horse of mine's running wild; he broke out of the water twice."
The captain caught at Drew's bare arm so hard his nails cut. "Think you
could get him over with the mule's help?"
Drew wavered a little as he walked slowly to where he had picketed
Hannibal after their last trip. He was tired, and although he had eaten
earlier that morning, he was hungry again. It was warm and the sun was
climbing, but the air felt chill against his naked body and he shivered.
The one thing they were all getting out of this river business, Drew
decided, were much-needed baths.
Kirby, his body white save for tanned face and throat, sun-darkened
hands and wrists, crouched on the raft as Drew brought Hannibal down to
that unwieldy craft.
"Tryin' for the cap'n's hoss?"
"What's wrong with it?" Drew helped the Texan push off.
"Reaches no bottom, an' then it plain warps its backbone tryin' to paw
down the sky. Maybe that mule can git some sense into the loco critter.
But I'm not buyin' no chips on his doin' it."
Drew located Campbell's horse, a rangy, good-looking gray which reminded
him a little of the colt he had seen at Red Springs, snorting and
trotting back and forth along the path they had worn on the banks during
their efforts of the past twenty-four hours. One of the rear guard held
its lead rope and kept as far from the skittish animal as he could.
"He's plumb mean," the guardian informed Drew. "When he jumps, get out
from under--quick!"
Yet when Drew, mounted on Hannibal now, brought the horse down to the
water's edge, the horse appeared to go willingly enough. The scout
tossed the lead rope to Kirby, waiting until the raft pushed off with
its load of men and fringe of horses, then took to the river beside
Campbell's horse. When they reached the deeper section he saw the gray
go into action.
Rearing, the horse appeared about to try to climb onto the raft. And the
man holding its lead rope dropped it quickly. Drew, swimming, one hand
on Hannibal's powerful shoulder, tried to guide the mule toward the
horse that was still splashing up and down in a rocking-horse movement.
But the mule veered suddenly, and Drew saw those threatening hoofs loom
over his own head. He pushed away frantically, but too late to miss a
numbing blow as one hoof grazed his shoulder.
Somehow, with his other hand outflung, he caught Hannibal's rope tail
and held on with all the strength he had left, while the water washed in
and out of a long raw gouge in the skin and muscles of his upper arm.
8
_Happy Birthday, Soldier!_
"No water here either." Boyd climbed up the bank of what might once have
been a promising stream. Carrying three canteens, he ran the tip of his
tongue over his lips unhappily. "It sure is hot!"
They had turned off the road, which was now filled with men, horses,
men, artillery, and men, all slogging purposefully forward. They
composed an army roused out before daylight, on the move toward another
army holed in behind a breastworks and waiting. And over all, the
exhausting blanket of mid-July heat which pressed to squeeze all the
vital juices out of both man and animal.
Drew touched his aching arm soothingly. It still hurt, although the
rawness had healed during the weeks between that turbulent crossing of
the Tennessee and this morning in Mississippi as they moved at the Union
position on the ridge above the abandoned ghost town of Harrisburg. The
remnant of Morgan fugitives, some eighty strong, had fallen in with
General Bedford Forrest's ranging scouts at Corinth, and had ridden
still farther southward to join his main army just on the eve of what
promised to be a big battle.
"Hot!" echoed Kirby. "A man could git hisself killed today an' never
know no difference."
They were reluctant to re-enter the stream progressing along the road.
The dust was ankle-deep there, choking thick when stirred by feet and
hoof to a powdery cloud. In contrast, there were no clouds in the sky,
and the sun promised to be a ball of brass very soon.
Yesterday had been as punishing. Men wilted in the road, overcome by
heat and lack of water. If there ever had been any moisture in this
country, it had long ago been boiled away. The very leaves were brittle
and grayish-looking where they weren't inches deep in dust.
As of last night, the Morgan men were an addition to Crossland's
Kentuckians under General Buford. The speech of the blue grass was
familiar, but nothing yet had made them a part of this new army with
which they marched.
Drew reached for one of the canteens. His worry over Boyd, dulled by the
passing of time, stirred sluggishly. The other had kept up the grueling
pace which had brought the fugitives across half of Kentucky, all of
Tennessee, and into this new eddy of war, making no complaint after his
first harsh introduction to action--which might be in part an adventure,
but which was mostly something to be endured--with the dogged
stubbornness of a seasoned veteran. And Boyd had manifestly toughened in
that process. After Drew's mishap in the river, Boyd had accepted
responsibility, helping to keep the scout in the saddle and riding, even
when Drew had been bemused by a day or two of fever, unaware of either
their enforced pace or their destination.
No, somewhere along the line of retreat Drew had stopped worrying about
Boyd. And now, with the youngster already appointed horse holder for the
day's battle, he need not think of him engulfed in action. Though any
fighting future was decided mainly by the capricious chance which struck
one man down and allowed his neighbor to march on unscathed.
"You men--over there--close up!" A officer, hardly to be distinguished
from the men he rode among, waved them back to the column. Then they
were dismounting. As Drew handed Hannibal over to Boyd's care, he was
glad again that the other was safely behind the battle line moving up in
the thin woods.
During the night the enemy had thrown together the breastworks on the
ridge, weaving together axed trees, timbers torn out of the abandoned
houses of the village--anything the Union leader could commandeer for
such use. And between that improvised fortification and the cover in
which the Confederates now waited was a section of open ground, varying
in width with the wanderings of a now dry river. Where the Kentuckians
were stationed, there must have stretched about three hundred yards of
that open, Drew estimated, and the woods bordering it on this side were
so thin that any charge would take them into plain sight for five
hundred yards of approach.
Fieldpieces brought into line on the woods side, hidden above by the
breastworks, opened up in a dull _pom-pom_ duel. Drew saw a shell strike
earth not far away, bounce twice, still intact, and roll on toward the
Confederate lines.
The _zip-zip_ of the Minies had not yet begun. And this waiting was the
hardest part of all. Drew tried to pin all his powers of concentration
on a study of the ground immediately before him, the slope up which they
would have to win in order to have it out with the now hidden enemy. He
made himself calculate just which path to take when the orders to charge
came. Although his arm prevented his using a carbine or rifle, his two
Colts were loaded, and one was in his hand. He glanced around.
Kirby? There was a Morgan trooper next--Drew tried to remember his name.
Laswell ... Townstead ... no, Clinton! Tom Clinton. He'd done picket
duty with Drew. And beyond Clinton--there was Kirby, his lips pulled
tight in what might have been a grin, but which Drew thought was not.
Then ... Boyd! But Boyd was back with the horses; he had to be!
Drew edged forward a little, trying to see better. If it were Boyd, he
had to wrench him out of that line and get the boy back. A hot emotion
close to panic boiled up in Drew.
Somewhere, through the pound of the artillery, a bugle blared. And
Drew's muscles obeyed that call, even as he still tried to see who was
fourth in line from him.
Slowly at first, they were on the move. The sun was up, shining directly
into their faces. But in spite of the glare, they could still see the
Union works and the flash of guns along it. They were moving faster,
coming to a trot. Officers shouted here and there, trying to slow that
steady advance--why?
Then, drowning out the bugles, the mutter and roar of the artillery,
came the Yell. Their shambling trot quickened. Men were running now,
forming a great wave to lick up at the breastworks. Men in that line did
not know--or care--that they were moving without the promised support on
right and left; they did not hear the disturbed orders of the officers
still striving to slow them, to wrench them back into a battle plan
already too broken to mend. All they cared about now was the field clear
for running, the weapons in their hands, the enemy waiting under the hot
morning sun.
Drew never remembered afterward that splendid useless charge except as
chaos. He could not have told just when they were caught in a murderous
crossfire which poured canister at their undefended flanks. A man went
down before him, stumbling. The scout caught his foot against the
writhing body, pitched head forward, and struck on his bad arm. For a
moment or two the stabbing pain of that made the world red and black.
Then Drew was up on one knee again, just in time to realize foggily that
the Yankees were ripping at their flanks, that their charge was pocketed
by lead and steel, being wiped out. He steadied his gun hand on the
crook of his injured arm, tried to find some target, then fired
feverishly without one, the gun's recoil sending shivers of pain through
his whole shoulder and side.
The first wave of men had great gaps torn in its length. But those
remaining on their feet still ran up the slope, screaming their
defiance. A handful reached the breastworks. Drew saw one man by some
strange fortune scramble to the top of that timber wall, stand balanced
for a moment in triumph to take aim at a target below as if he himself
were invulnerable, and then plunge, as might a diver cleaving a pool,
out of sight on the other side.
Men faltered, the fire was breaking them, crumpling up the lines. All
the Union might was concentrated in a lead-and-canister hail on the
remnants of the brigade, making of the slope a holocaust in which
nothing human could continue to advance.
But new lines of gray-brown came steadily from the woodland, racing,
yelling, steadfast in their determination to storm that barricade and
pluck out the Yankees with their hands. They were wild men, with no
thought of personal safety. A color bearer went down. His standard was
seized by his right rank man before its red folds hit the churned,
stained ground, the soldier flinging aside his rifle to take tight grip
on the pole. The line came on at a run. Now broken squads of Kentuckians
re-formed; a battered lacework of what had been companies, regiments,
joined the newcomers.
Drew was on his feet. Where Kirby or any others of the small Morgan
contingent had vanished--whether Boyd _had_ been with them--he did not
know. He jammed his now empty Colt into its holster, drew its twin,
still not wholly aware that the breastworks were too far away for small
arms' fire to have any effect.
Now the whole world was no larger than that stretch of open ground and
the breastworks, the men in blue behind them. Only the flanking fire
still withered the gray lines, curling them up as the sun had withered
and curled the leaves on the shrubs by the dried stream bed. This was
walking stiff-legged through a bath of fire--sun fire, lead-death
fire--with no end except the hope of reaching the ridge top and the
fight waiting there.
But they could not reach that wall--except singly, or in twos and
threes, then only to fall. And the waves of men no longer broke from the
woods to lap up and recede sullenly down the slope. Out of nowhere, just
as they fell back to the first fringe of trees, came an officer on a
tall gray horse. His coat was gone, he rode in his shirt sleeves, and a
bullet-torn tatter waved from one wide shoulder. Above prominent
cheekbones, his eyes were hot and bright, his clipped beard pointed
sharply from a jaw which must be grimly set, his face was flushed, and
his energy and will was like a cloud to engulf the disheartened men as
he bore down upon them.
His galloping course threaded through the shattered groups of
Kentuckians, men fast disintegrating into a mob as the realization of
their failure on the slope began to strike home--no longer a portion of
an army believing in itself. But, sighting him, they followed his route
with a rising wave of cheers--cheers which even though they came from
dry throats rose in force and violence to that inarticulate Yell which
had raised them past all fear up the hill.
From his saddle, the officer leaned to grab at a standard, whirling the
flag aloft and around his head so that its scarlet length, crossed with
the starred blue bands, made a tossing splotch of color, to hold and
draw men's eyes. And now he was shouting, too, somehow his words
carrying through the uproar in the woods.
"Rally! Rally on colors!"
"Forrest!" A man beside Drew whooped, threw his hat into the air. "The
old man's here! Forrest!"
They were pulled together about that rider and his waving standard.
Lines tightened, death-made gaps closed. They steadied, again a fighting
command and not a crowd of men facing defeat. And having welded that
force, Forrest did not demand a second charge. He was furiously
angry--not with them, Drew sensed--but with someone or something beyond
the men crowding about him. It was not until afterward that rumor seeped
out through the ranks; it had not been Forrest's kind of battle, not his
plan. And he now had five hundred empty saddles to weight the scales
after a battle which was not his.
Drew leaned against a bullet-clipped tree. Men were at work with some of
the same will as had taken them to attack, building a barricade of their
own, expecting a counterthrust from the enemy. He wiped his sweaty face
with the back of his hand. His throat was one long dry ache; nowhere had
he seen a familiar face.
Somewhere among this collection of broken units and scrambled companies
of survivors he must find his own. He stood away from the tree, fighting
thirst, weariness, and the shaking reaction from the past few hours, to
move through the badly mauled force, afraid to allow himself to think
what--or who--might still lie out on the ridge under the white heat of
the sun.
"Rennie!"
Drew rounded a fieldpiece which had been manhandled off the firing line,
one wheel shattered. He steadied himself against its caisson and turned
his head with caution, fearing to be downed by the vertigo which seemed
to strike in waves ever since he had retreated to the cover of the
woods. He wanted to find the horse lines, to make sure that he had not
seen Boyd on the field just before the bugle had lifted them all into
that abortive charge.
It was Driscoll who hailed him. He had a red-stained rag tied about his
forearm and carried his hand tucked into the half-open front of his
shirt. Drew walked toward him slowly, feeling oddly detached. He noted
that the trooper's weathered face had a greenish shade, that his mouth
was working as if he were trying to shape soundless words.
"Where're the rest?" Drew asked.
Driscoll's good hand motioned to the left. "Four ... five ... some
there. Standish--he got it with a shell--no head ... not any more--" He
gave a sound like a giggle, and then his hand went hastily to his mouth
as he retched dryly.
Drew caught the other's shoulder, shaking him.
"The others!" he demanded more loudly, trying to pierce the curtain of
shock to Driscoll's thinking mind.
"Four ... five ... some--" Driscoll repeated. "Standish, he's dead. Did
I tell you about Standish? A shell came along and--"
"Yes, you told me about Standish. Now show me where the others are!"
Still keeping his shoulder grip, Drew edged Driscoll about until the
trooper was pointed in the general direction to which he had gestured.
Now Drew gave the man a push and followed.
"Rennie!" That was Captain Campbell. He was kneeling by a man on the
ground, a canteen in his hand.
Drew lurched forward. He was so sure that that inert casualty was Boyd,
and that Boyd was dead.
"Boyd--" he murmured stupidly, refusing to believe his eyes. The man
lying there had a brush of grayish beard on his chin, a mat of hair
which moved up and down as he breathed in heavy, panting gasps.
"Boyd?" This time the scout made a question of it.
One of the men in that little group moved. "He got it--out there."
Drew shifted his weight. He felt as if he were striving to move a body
as heavy and as inert as that of an unconscious man. It took so long
even to raise his hand. Before he could question the trooper further,
another was before him.
Kirby, his powder-blackened face only inches away from that of the man
he had seized by a handful of shirt front, demanded: "How do you know?"
The man pulled back but not out of Kirby's clutch. "He was right beside
me. Went down on the slope before we fell back--"
So--Drew's thinking process was as slow as his weary body--he had been
right back there on the field! Boyd had been in the first line, and he
was still out there.
Again, Drew made one of those careful turns to keep his unsteadiness
under control. If Boyd was out there, he must be brought back--now!
Hands closed on Drew's shoulders, jerking him back so that he collided
with another body, and was held pinned against his captor.
"You can't go theah now!" Kirby spoke so closely to his ear that the
words were a roaring in his head. But they did not make sense. Drew
tried to wrench loose of that hold, the pain in his half-healed arm
answering. Then there was a period he could not account for at all, and
suddenly the sun was fading and it was evening. Somebody pushed a
canteen into his hand, then lifted both hand and canteen for him so that
he could drink some liquid which was not clear water but thick and
brackish, evil-tasting, but which moistened his dry mouth and swollen
tongue.
Through the gathering dusk he could see distant splotches of red and
yellow--were they fires? And shells screamed somewhere. Drew held his
head between his hands and cowered under that beat of noise which
combined with the pulsation of pain just over his eyes. Men were moving
around him, and horses. He heard tags of speech, but none of them were
intelligible.
Was the army pulling out? Drew tried to think coherently. He had
something to do. It was important! Not here--where? The boom of the
field artillery, the flickering of those fires, they confused him,
making it difficult to sort out his memories.
Again, a canteen appeared before him, but now he pushed it petulantly
aside. He didn't want a drink; he wanted to think--to recall what it was
he had to do.
"Drew--!" There was a figure, outlined in part by one of those fires,
squatting beside him. "Can you ride?"
Ride? Where? Why? He had a mule, didn't he? Back in the horse lines.
Boyd--he had left the mule with Boyd. Boyd! _Now_ he knew what had to be
done!
He moved away from the outstretched hand of the man beside him, got to
his feet, saw the blot of a mount the other was holding. And he caught
at reins, dragged them from the other's hand before he could resist.
"Boyd!" He didn't know whether he called that name aloud, or whether it
was one with the beat in his head. Boyd was out on that littered field,
and Drew was going to bring him in.
Towing the half-seen animal by the reins, Drew started for the fires and
the boom of the guns.
"All right!" The words came to him hollowly. "But not that way, you're
loco! This way! The Yankees are burnin' up what's left of the town; that
ain't the battlefield!"
Drew was ready to resist, but now his own eyes confirmed that. Fire was
raging among the few remaining buildings of the ghost town, and shells
were striking at targets pinned in that light, shells from Confederate
batteries, taking sullen return payment for that disastrous July day.
A lantern bobbed by his side, swinging to the tread of the man carrying
it. And, as they turned away from the inferno which was consuming
Harrisburg, Drew saw other such lights in the night, threading along the
slope. This was the heartbreaking search, among the dead, for the
living, who might yet be brought back to the agony of the field
hospitals. He was not the only one hunting through the human wreckage
tonight.
"I've talked to Johnson," Kirby said. "It'll be like huntin' for a steer
in the big brush, but we can only try."
They could only try ... Drew thought he was hardened to sights, sounds.
He had helped bring wounded away from other fields, but somehow this was
different. Yet, oddly enough, the thought that Boyd could be--_must_
be--lying somewhere on that slope stiffened Drew, quickened his muscles
back into obedience, kept him going at a steady pace as he led Hannibal
carefully through the tangle of the dead. Twice they found and freed the
still living, saw them carried away by search parties. And they were
working their way closer to the breastworks.
"Ho--there--Johnny!"
The call came out of the dark, out of the wall hiding the Yankee forces.
Drew straightened from a sickening closer look at three who had fallen
together.
"Johnny!" The call was louder, rising over the din from the burning
town. "One, one of yours--he's been callin' out some ... to your left
now."
Kirby held up the lantern. The circle of light spread, catching on a
spurred boot. That tiny glint of metal moved, or was it the booted foot
which had twitched?
Drew strode forward as Kirby swung the lantern in a wider arc. The man
on the ground lay on his back, his hands moving feebly to tear at the
already rent shirt across his chest. There was a congealed mass of blood
on one leg just above the boot top. Drew knew that flushed and swollen
face in spite of its distortion; they had found what they had been
searching for.
Kirby pulled those frantic hands away from the strips of calico, the
scratched flesh beneath, but there was no wound there. The leg injury
Drew learned by quick examination was not too bad a one. And they could
discover no other hurt; only the delirium, the flushed face, and the
fast breathing suggested worse trouble.
"Sun, maybe." Kirby transferred his hold to the rolling head, vising it
still between his hands while Drew dripped a scanty stream of the
unpalatable water from the Texan's canteen onto Boyd's crusted, gaping
lips.
"I'll mount Hannibal. You hold him!" Drew said. "He can't stay in the
saddle by himself."
Somehow they managed. Boyd's head, still rolling back and forth, moved
now against Drew's sound shoulder. Kirby steadied his trailing legs,
then went ahead with the lantern. Before they moved off, Drew turned his
head to the breastworks.
"Thanks, Yankee!" He called as loudly and clearly as his thirst-dried
throat allowed. There was no answer from the hidden picket or sentry--if
he were still there. Then Hannibal paced down the slope.
"The Calhoun place?" Kirby asked.
Hannibal stumbled, and Boyd cried out, the cry becoming a moan.
"Yes. Anse ..." Drew added dully, "do you know ... this was his
birthday--today. I just remembered."