If only night would come!
They were pouring down upon us and around us in overwhelming masses.
They had turned our left, and were raking Gordon’s flank and rear. It
was a question of a few minutes only.
In our front was a narrow field. Beyond that, a wood. Through this the
enemy were driving our skirmishers back upon the main line. One by one
these brave men emerged from the wood and trotted briskly across the
field, targets, every one of them, for a dozen rifles.
There come two more! They are the last. But they do not trot, as the
rest did and as skirmishers should.
Upon those two, convergent rifles from all along the line of the wood
poured a rain of lead. Still they refused to hurry. And one was tall and
bearded, and the other slender, and with a face as smooth as a girl’s.
The boy, as fast as he loaded his rifle, wheeled and fired; the man
carried a pistol in his hand. Weeds fell about them, mowed down by the
bullets; spurts of dust leaped from under their very feet.
The few men left in our line stood, under cover of a thin curtain of
trees, fascinated by the sight of these two, leisurely stalking along,
under that murderous fire.[1]
“Run, run!” we shouted.
“Run!” cried Captain Smith, giving the shoulder of his companion a push.
“And leave my commander!” replied Edmund.
“Stoop, then!”
“Show me how, captain!”
“Obey me!” thundered he.
The boy lowered his head, as he rammed a bullet home; then turned, and,
cocking his rifle, scanned the opposite wood narrowly. Presently he
raised his rifle; but before he could fire we heard that terrible sound
which old soldiers know so well.
“Oh!” cried the boy, falling upon his face.
“My God! my God!” ejaculated the captain of the Myrmidons, with a
woman’s tenderness in his voice and the despair of Laocoön in his
corrugated brow.
Hearing that cry, the boy turned quickly and smiled in his captain’s
face. “It is only a flesh-wound, through the thigh,” said he; “I can
walk, I think.”
He was attempting to rise, when his captain, placing his strong arms
beneath him, lifted him high in the air. He ran, then; and his face was
full of terror, as the thick-flying bullets whistled past him and his
burden. The two were within a few paces of where I stood, when again
that terrific sound was heard; and they both fell heavily at my very
feet.
A bullet, coming from our flank and rear, had struck Captain Smith in
the right breast.
It was a wound in front, at any rate.
There was but one ambulance-wagon in sight, and that was retreating. A
skirmisher ran to overtake it. Others placed the captain and Edmund on
stretchers and hurried after it.
“Jack, old boy; good-by. I am done for; but I particularly desire to get
within our lines; so hold them in check as long as you can. Say farewell
to Charley.”
A few of his own men held their ground till they saw their captain and
Edmund disappear, in the wagon, over the hill, when they fell back,
loading and firing as they went. When the wagon reached the bridge
beyond Strasburg, it was found broken down; but the men with the
stretchers managed to get our two wounded friends across the stream, and
to find another wagon; so, the pursuit slackening at this juncture, they
were not captured.
Late in the night, I found them by the road-side. Edmund was asleep. The
captain lay awake, watched by one of his brave skirmishers. He gave
messages to my grandfather, to Charley and Alice, to the Poythresses.
“And now, good-night,” said he. “You need rest. Throw yourself down by
that fire and go to sleep. Don’t bother about me. I shall set out for
Harrisonburg at daybreak.”
“The ride will kill you.”
He smiled faintly. “I must get well within our lines.
Remember—Harrisonburg—good-night!” And he closed his eyes and wearily
turned his lace away. “Shelton!”
The skirmisher bent tenderly over his captain.
“Lie down by the fire and sleep. You cannot help me. God alone can do
that, and he will release me from my sufferings before many days.
Shelton, give me your hand. Tell your little boy, when he grows up, that
I said you were as brave as a lion in battle; and tell your wife that
you could be as gentle as a woman to a suffering comrade. And now lie
down and rest. Good-night!”
“Presently, captain.”
“What are you crying about, man? Such things will happen. Good-night!”
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[1] Meis ipsius vidi oculis.