"HOORAY for Injianny. Injianny gits there every time," roared Si,
joining the yelling, exultant throng crowding around the Colonel. "The
old 200th wuz the first to cross the works, and miles ahead o' any other
rejimint."
"Bully for the Wild Wanderers of the Wabash," Shorty joined in. "They're
the boss regiment in the army o' the Cumberland, and the Army o' the
Cumberland's the boss army on earth. Hooray for US Co. Le's have a
speech. Where's Monty Scruggs?"
"Yes, Where's Monty?" echoed Si, with a little chill at his heart, for
he had not remembered seeing the boy since they emerged from the abatis,
just before the final rush.
"Well, le's have a song, then," said Shorty, as Si was looking around.
"Where's Alf Russell?"
"Yes, Where's Alf Russell?" echoed Si, with a new pang clutching at his
heart, for he then recalled that he had not seen Alf since he had helped
him up the embankment, immediately after which Si's thoughts, had been
engrossed by the struggle for the flag. "Did any of you boys see either
Alf or Monty?" he asked nervously.
"And has anybody seen Pete Skidmore?" chimed in Shorty, his voice
suddenly changing from a tone of exultation to one of deepest concern.
"Why don't some o' you speak? Are you all dumb?"
Somehow everybody instinctively stopped cheering, and an awed hush
followed.
"All of Co. Q step this way," called out the Orderly-Sergeant. All of
the usual "rasp" had left the strong, rough voice. There was a mournful
tremor in it. "Fall in, Co. Q, over there by this pile of picks and
shovels."
Scarcely 20 of the 80 stalwart youths who had lined up at the foot
of the rugged palisades of Rocky Face two evenings before grouped
themselves together in response to the Orderly's call.
Capt. McGillicuddy, the Orderly, Si, and Shorty strained their eyes to
see more of the company disengaging themselves from the throng around
the Colonel.
The Orderlies of the other companies called to their men to fall in at
different places.
The Colonel looked at the muster with sad eyes.
"Didn't nobody see nothin' o' little Skidmore?" savagely repeated
Shorty, walking back to the works and scanning the country round. "Was
you all so blamed anxious lookin' out for yourselves that you didn't pay
no attention to that little boy? Nice gang, you are."
"Orderly, take the company back into the abatis, and look for the boys,"
ordered Capt. McGillicuddy.
"'Tention, company!" commanded the Orderly. "Stack arms! Right
face--Break ranks--March!"
"Hello, boys," said Monty Scruggs's voice, weak but unmistakably his,
as the company recrossed the works.
"Great heavens! he's bin shot through the bowels?" thought Si, turning
toward him with sickening apprehension of this most dreaded of wounds.
Then, aloud, with forced cheerfulness--"I hope you ain't hurt bad,
Monty."
"I was hurt bad enough, the Lord knows," answered the boy with a wan
smile. "I hain't been hurt so bad since I stubbed by sore toe last
Summer. But I'm getting over it pretty fast. Just as I started up the
bank a rebel threw a stone as big as my fist at me, and it took me
square where I live. I thought at first that whole battery over there in
the fort had shot at me all at once. Goodness, but it hurt! My, but that
fellow could throw a stone! Seemed to me that it went clear into me, and
bent my back-bone. I've been feeling to see if it wasn't bent. But we
got the works all right, didn't we?"
"You bet we did," Si answered exultantly. "Licked the stuffin' out of
'em. Awful glad you're no worse hurt, Monty. Make your way inside there,
and you'll find the Surgeon. He'll bring you around all right. We're
goin' to look for the other boys."
"Alf Russell caught a bullet," said Monty Scruggs. "I heard him yell,
and turned to look at him, when that rebel's bowlder gave me something
else to think about, so I don't know where he is."
"Gid Mackall's lying over there, somewhere," said Larry Joslyn, who was
all anxiety in regard to his old partner and antagonist. "Let me go and
find him."
"Go ahead," said Si, helping Monty to his feet. "I'll be right with
you."
While Si was going back the way he had come Shorty was tearing through
the tangled brush, turning over the tree-tops by main strength,
searching for Pete Skidmore. The rest of the company were seeking out
the fallen ones hither and thither, and calling to one another, as they
made discoveries, but Shorty only looked for Pete Skidmore. Si and Harry
presently came to Gid Mackall's body, lying motionless in a pool of
blood that dyed crimson the brown leaves thickly covering the ground.
His cap had fallen off, and his head had crushed down into a bunch of
slender oak twigs; his eyes were closed, and his callow face white as
paper.
"O, he's dead! He's stone dead," wailed Harry Joslyn. "And just think
how I quarreled and fought with him this morning."
"Mebbe not," said Si, to whom such sights were more familiar, "That
bullet hole in his blouse is too low down and too fur out to've hit
either his heart or his lungs, seems to me. Mebbe he's only fainted from
loss o' blood. Ketch hold o' his feet. I'll take his head, and we'll
carry him back to the Surgeon. Likely he kin bring him to."
The rough motion roused Gid, and as they clambered back over the works,
Harry was thrilled to see him open his eyes a little ways.
"Apparently," said the busy Surgeon, stopping for a minute, with knife
and bullet-forceps in his bloodstained hands, to give a brief glance
and two or three swift touches to Gid, "the ball has struck his side and
broke a rib or two. He's swooned from loss of blood. The blood's stopped
flowing now, and he'll come around all right. Lay him over there in
the shade of those trees. Put something under his head, and make him
as comfortable as possible. I'll attend to him as soon as I can get
through with these men who are much worse off than he is."
And the over-worked Surgeon hurried away to where loud groans were
imperatively calling for his helpful ministrations.
Si and Harry broke down a thick layer of cedar branches to make a
comfortable bed for Gid, placed a chunk under his head, and hurried away
again to search for Alf Russell. They went over carefully that part of
the works they had crossed, and the abatis in front, but could find no
trace of him. They feared that after he had been shot he had crawled
back under the shelter of some tree-tops, to protect him from the flying
bullets, and died there. They turned over and pulled apart the branches
for a wide space, but did not succeed in finding him, or any trace. But
they found Bob Willis, stark in death, lying prone in the top of a young
hickory, into which he had crashed, when the fatal bullet found him
pressing courageously forward. Him they carried pitifully forward, and
added to the lengthening row of the regiment's dead, which was being
gathered up.
Then they went reluctantly back--shuddering with the certainty of what
they should find, to bring in Jim Humphreys's body.
Harry Joslyn was so agitated by the sight of Humphreys's mangled head
and staring eyes that Si made him turn his back, place himself between
the feet, one of which he took in each hand, and go before in carrying
the body back. Si stripped the blouse up so as to cover the head, and
took the shoulders between his hands, and so another body was added to
the row of the regimental dead.
Si himself was so sick at heart that he had little inclination to
continue the search farther than to look over the wounded, as they were
brought in, in hopes of finding some of his squad there.
"There are three of us yet missing," he said. "Mebbe they've got mixed
up with the Kankakee boys on our left, and'll come in all right after
awhile. Mebbe they're out with Shorty somewhere. I'll wait till he comes
in. Harry, I expect me and you'd better dig poor Jim's grave. There's
no tellin' how long we'll stay here. Jim 'd rather we put him under than
strangers what don't know and care for him. It's all we kin do for the
poor feller; I'll git a pick and you take a shovel. We'll make the grave
right here, where the Colonel lit when he jumped over the works with the
flag. That'll tickle Jim, if he's lookin' down from the clouds. Too bad,
he couldn't have lived long enough to see us go over the embankment,
with the Colonel in the lead, wavin' the flag."
"The best thing," said Harry, forgetting his sorrow in the exciting
memories of the fight, "was to see the Orderly sock his bayonet up to
the shank in the rebel, and you blow off that officer's head--"
"Hush, Harry. Never speak o' that," Si admonished him.
"And see you," continued Harry, "stand off all three of them rebels,
who was tryin' to bayonet you, until Corp'l Elliott came raring down,
swinging his gun like a flail. Great Scott! didn't he lay 'em out,
though! I saw it all, as I was loading my gun in nine times to shoot
one of the rebels attacking you, I'd just got the cap on, when Corp'l
Elliott loped in."
"Orderly," said Si a little later, "we've got Jim Humphreys's grave dug.
Will you take the things out of his pockets to send to his folks? and
then we'll bury him."
"Better wait till the Captain comes back and gives the orders," said
the Orderly. "I don't want to touch his pockets without the Captain's
orders. Then, we ought to have his blanket to bury him in. You go ahead
and dig Bob Willis's grave, and I'll take a detail back and bring up the
blankets and things."
Shorty had pushed his unavailing search for little Pete far past the
point where he remembered to have seen the boy, in the midst of the
fighting. He had torn his hands and worn out his strength in tearing
aside the brush to expose every possible place that the dying boy or
his dead body might be concealed. He had reached the further side of the
obstruction, and sat down on a stump, in despair of heart and exhaustion
of body.
Those with him, more intent on getting something to eat, had pushed on
back to where their haversacks and canteens and blankets had been left.
Presently Shorty heard a call across the little valley:
"Cor--po--ral Ell--iott. Cor--po--ral Ell--iott!"
"Well, what is it?" Shorty called back, crustily.
"Lit--tle--Pete--and--Sandy--Ba--ker--is--o--ver--here," came back upon
the bright Spring air.
Shorty sprang up electrified, and tore across the intervening space
at the double-quick. He found Pete and Sandy Baker standing soberly on
guard over the line of the company's blankets and belongings.
"Great Jehosephat, you little brats, how did you git here?" he
exclaimed, snatching little Pete up and hugging him.
"Why shouldn't we be here?" asked Pete, as soon as he could get breath.
"Didn't the Captain order us to stay here? Me and Sandy follered you
fellers until you jumped inside the works, and the rebels was a runnin'.
We stood on top o' the bank and shot at the rebels as fast as we could
load our guns. We kept shootin' at 'em till they got clean down to the
road. Then we saw the Captain lookin' over our way, and we thought he
was comin' over there to skin us alive for leaving the things, and we
ducked down behind the bank and run back here as fast as we could fetch
it. You ain't goin' to tell the Captain on us, and have us tied up by
the thumbs, are you, Corporal? Everything's safe. Nothing's gone. You
won't tell, will you?"
"O, you worthless little scamp," said Shorty, with tears of joy in his
eyes. "You ain't worth the powder that'd blow you up. I could pound you
for the worry you've given me in the last hour. But you ain't hurt a
bit, are you?"
"Nope," answered Pete. "But we both got awfully scratched runnin'
through that brush. Say, wasn't the way the boys jumped the works and
waded into them sardines just grand?"
The Orderly-Sergeant and his detail came back for the things, and Shorty
and the boys, picking up those belonging to the squad, made their way to
the company.
By the time they got back everybody's emotions had subsided sufficiently
to allow him to remember that he was terribly hungry, and that the next
business in order should be the cooking of the first warm meal they had
had for more than a day. Fires were soon blazing in every direction, and
the air was fragrant with the smell of hot coffee and cooking meat. Even
Monty Scruggs felt that the kink had gone out of his backbone, and the
disturbance in his dietetic department had sufficiently subsided to
allow him to enjoy a cup of coffee and piece of toasted meat on a
hardtack. The Surgeon had reached Gid Mackall, and had put him in
comfortable shape.
The bodies of Bob Willis and Jim Humphreys were wrapped in their
blankets, and mournfully consigned to the earth. A cedar bush was stuck
in the head of each grave, and Si, finding a piece of smooth board and
a chunk of soft charcoal from a fire, sat down on the bank, and begun
laboriously composing the following inscription:
JAMES HUMFRI
CO. Q.
200th injianny VolunTer Infantry
KiLD may, 15th 1864
He dide For His country
The lord luvs a
Braiv man
"That's all right. Si," said Shorty coming up with his mouthful of
hardtack and meat, and inspecting Si's work with critical approval.
"You kin lay away over me and all the rest when it comes to writin' and
composin'. And you know how to spell, too. I wish I had your education.
But I never had a chance to go to school."
"Then you think it'll do, Shorty," said Si, much flattered by his
partner's approval.
"Yes, it's just bully. But I think you ought to say something about
Jim's good character. That's usual on tombstones. You might say of him
that he had in him the makin' of the finest poker player in the Army of
the Cumberland. I never see a sleepyheaded boy pick up the fine pints o'
the game like he did, and he had nerve, too, along with his science."
"No, it wouldn't do at all to put anything o' that kind on," answered
Si, going to the grave, and driving the board down with a pick. "Mustn't
let Jim's folks know for the world that he gambled. It'd be the last
straw on his poor old mother, who's a strict Baptist. She may stand
hearing that he's killed, but never could that he played cards. What in
the world's become of Alf Russell, do you s'pose?"
"Who in Jeff Davis's dominions is that comin' up?" said Shorty, scanning
an approaching figure. "Looks as if he'd had his head busted and then
tied up agin with strings."
The figure certainly looked like Alf Russell and wore Alf Russell's
clothes, but the head was unrecognizable. A broad white bandage
encircled the face, going from the top of the forehead around under the
chin, and there were several folds of it. Then it ran around the head
transversely, covering the nose and the cheeks, and only allowing the
mouth and the eyes to show.
"Hello, boys," said a weak voice, which was unmistakably Alf Russell's.
"Hello, Alf," said Si delightedly. "I'm so glad to see you. I've bin
huntin' everywhere for you. What's happened to you? Badly hurt?"
"Nothing, only the left side o' my head tore out," said Alf feebly.
"Something struck me, probably a bomb-shell, just as I was going up
the bank after you. I went down to our Surgeon, but he was too busy to
attend to me. I then found the brigade hospital, but the Surgeons there
were too busy, too. They gave me a roll of bandages, and told me to fix
it up myself. I did it with the help of one of the men who was waiting
to have his leg dressed. I fancy I did quite a neat piece of bandaging,
as well as the Surgeons themselves could've done it. Don't you think
so?"
"Great Scott!" gasped Si, "you couldn't be walkin' around with the side
of your head knocked out. I'm astonished at you."
"So'm I," returned Alf placidly. "I'm surprised that I'm doing as well
as I am. But I gave myself good attendance, and that's a great thing.
I'm awful hungry. Got anything to eat? Where's my haversack?"
"Here it is," said Si, readily. "And here's a cup o' hot coffee. I'll
brile you a piece o' meat. But really, I don't think you ought to eat
anything before the Surgeon sees you. Mebbe it won't be good for you."
"I'll chance it," said Alf desperately, reaching for the cup of coffee.
"I'm sure it'll be better for me to eat something."
"Le's go down and see the Surgeon," insisted Si.
"No," protested Alf, "it ain't hurting me much now, and he's awful busy
with other men, so we hadn't better interrupt him."
"The Surgeon ought to see you at once, Alf," interjected Shorty. "Here
comes one of 'em now. Doctor, will you please look at this boy."
"Certainly," said the Surgeon, stopping on his way. "I guess I can spare
a minute. Take off that bandage, my boy."
"Don't mind me. Doctor," said Alf. "'Taint hurting me now, at all,
scarcely. I did it up very carefully."
"Take off the bandage at once, I tell you," said the Surgeon
imperatively. "I haven't any time to waste. Let me see your wound."
Alf set down his cup of coffee, and began laboriously unwinding the long
bandage, while the rest stood around in anxious expectation. Yards of
folds came off from around his forehead and chin, and then he reached
that around his nose and the back of his head. Still the ghastly edges
of the terrible wound did not develop. Finally the blood-soaked last
layer came off, and revealed where a bullet had made a shallow but
ugly-looking furrow across the cheek and made a nick in the ear.
"Alf, that rebel come dumbed nigh missin' you," said the greatly
relieved Si.
"If you should happen to ketch cold in that it wouldn't git well for a
week," added Shorty.
"Give me that bandage," said the Surgeon just before he hurried away.
"Take this sticking-plaster and draw the lips of the wound together, and
if you keep the dirt out it may heal without a scar."