V
After the battle, three correspondents happened to meet on the trail.
They were hot, dusty, weary, hungry and thirsty, and they repaired to
the shade of a mango tree and sprawled luxuriously. Among them they
mustered twoscore friends who on that day had gone to the far shore of
the hereafter, but their senses were no longer resonant. Shackles was
babbling plaintively about mint-juleps, and the others were bidding him
to have done.
"By-the-way," said one, at last, "it's too bad about poor old Gates of
the 307th. He bled to death. His men were crazy. They were blubbering
and cursing around there like wild people. It seems that when they got
back there to look for him they found him just about gone, and another
wounded man was trying to stop the flow with his hat! His hat, mind
you. Poor old Gatesie!"
"Oh, no, Shackles!" said the third man of the party. "Oh, no, you're
wrong. The best mint-juleps in the world are made right in New York,
Philadelphia or Boston. That Kentucky idea is only a tradition."
A wounded man approached them. He had been shot through the shoulder
and his shirt had been diagonally cut away, leaving much bare skin.
Over the bullet's point of entry there was a kind of a white spider,
shaped from pieces of adhesive plaster. Over the point of departure
there was a bloody bulb of cotton strapped to the flesh by other pieces
of adhesive plaster. His eyes were dreamy, wistful, sad. "Say, gents,
have any of ye got a bottle?" he asked.
A correspondent raised himself suddenly and looked with bright eyes at
the soldier.
"Well, you have got a nerve," he said grinning. "Have we got a bottle,
eh! Who in h---- do you think we are? If we had a bottle of good
licker, do you suppose we could let the whole army drink out of it? You
have too much faith in the generosity of men, my friend!"