Zeke, though gliding over the slippery ground with all the speed at
his command, had kept a watch on the further corner of the house.
He straightened himself now against the angle of the projecting,
weather-beaten chimney, and drew a long breath.
“He didn’t see us,” he whispered reassuringly to Linsky, who had also
drawn up as flatly as possible against the side of the house.
“Glory be to God!” the recruit ejaculated.
After a brief breathing spell, Zeke ventured out a few feet, and looked
the house over. There was a single window on his side, opening upon
the ground floor. Beckoning to Linsky to follow, lie stole over to the
window, and standing his gun against the clapboards, cautiously tested
the sash. It moved, and Zeke with infinite pains lifted it to the top,
and stuck his knife in to hold it up. Then, with a bound, he raised
himself on his arms, and crawled in over the sill.
It was at this moment, as Linsky for the first time stood alone, that
a clamorous outburst of artillery-fire made the earth quiver under his
feet. The crash of noises reverberated with so many echoes from hill
to hill that he had no notion whence they had proceeded, or from what
distance. The whole broad vailey before him, with its sodden meadows and
wet, mist-wrapped forests showed no sign of life or motion. But from
the crest of the ridge which they had quitted before daybreak there rose
now, and whitened the gray of the overhanging clouds, a faint film
of smoke--while suddenly the air above him was filled with a strange
confusion of unfamiliar sounds, like nothing so much as the hoarse
screams of a flock of giant wild-fowl; and then this affrighting babel
ceased as swiftly as it had arisen, and he heard the thud and swish of
splintered tree-tops and trunks falling in the woodland at the back of
the house. The Irishman reasoned it out that they were firing from the
hill he had left, over at the hill upon which he now stood, and was not
comforted by the discovery.
While he stared at the ascending smoke and listened to the din of the
cannonade, he felt himself sharply poked on the shoulder, and started
nervously, turning swiftly, gun in hand. It was Zeke, who stood at the
window, and had playfully attracted his attention with one of the long
sides of bacon which the army knew as “sow-bellies.” He had secured two
of these, which he now handed out to Linsky; then came a ham and a bag
of meal; and lastly, a twelve-quart pan of sorghum molasses. When the
Irishman had lifted down the last of these spoils, Zeke vaulted lightly
out.
“Guess we’ll have a whack at the ham,” he said cheerfully. “It’s good
raw.”
The two gnawed greedily at the smoked slices cut from the thick of the
ham, as became men who had been on short rations. Zeke listened to the
firing, and was visibly interested in noting all that was to be seen
and guessed of its effects and purpose, meanwhile, but the ham was an
effectual bar to conversation.
Suddenly the men paused, their mouths full, their senses alert. The
sound of voices rose distinctly, and close by, from the other side
of the house. Zeke took up his gun, cocked it, and crept noiselessly
forward to the corner. After a moment’s attentive listening here, and
one swift, cautious peep, he tiptoed back again.
“Take half the things,” he whispered, pointing to the provisions, “and
we’ll get back again to the fence. There’s too many of ’em for us to
try and hold the house. They’d burn us alive in there!”
The pan of sorghum fell to Linsky’s care, and Zeke, with both guns and
all the rest in some mysterious manner bestowed about him, made his way,
crouching and with long strides, toward the hedge. He got through the
hole undiscovered, dragging his burden after him. Then he took the
pan over the hedge, while Linsky should in turn crawl through. But the
burlier Irishman caught in the thorns, slipped, and clutched Zeke’s arm,
with the result that the whole contents of the pan were emptied upon
Linsky’s head.
Then Zeke did an unwise thing. He cast a single glance at the spectacle
his comrade presented--with the thick, dark molasses covering his
cap like an oilskin, soaking into his hair, and streaming down his
bewildered face in streaks like an Indian’s war-paint--and then burst
forth in a resounding peal of laughter.
On the instant two men in gray, with battered slouch hats and guns,
appeared at the corner of the house, looking eagerly up and down the
hedge for some sign of a hostile presence. Zeke had dropped to his knees
in time to prevent discovery. It seemed to be with a part of the same
swift movement that he lifted his gun, sighted it as it ran through the
thorns, and fired. While the smoke still curled among the branches and
spiked twigs, he had snatched up Linsky’s gun and fire a second shot.
The two men in gray lay sprawling and clutching at the wet grass, one on
top of the other.
[Illustration: 0039]
“Quick, Irish! We must make a break!” Zeke hissed at Linsky. “Grab what
you can and run!”
Linsky, his eyes and mouth full of molasses, and understanding nothing
at all of what had happened, found himself a moment later careering
blindly and in hot haste down the open slope, the ham and the bag of
meal under one arm, his gun in the other hand. A dozen minie-bullets
sang through the damp air about him as he tore along after Zeke, and he
heard vague volleys of cheering arise from the meadow to his right; but
neither stopped his course.
It was barely three minutes--though to Linsky, at least, it seemed an
interminable while--before the two came to a halt by a clump of trees
on the edge of the ravine. In the shelter of these broad hemlock trunks
they stood still, panting for breath. Then Zeke looked at Linsky again,
and roared with laughter till he choked and went into a fit of coughing.
The Irishman had thrown down his provisions and gun, and seated himself
on the roots of his tree. He ruefully combed the sticky fluid from his
hair and stubble beard with his fingers now, and strove to clean his
face on his sleeve. Between the native temptation to join in the other’s
merriment and the strain of the last few minutes’ deadly peril, he could
only blink at Zeke, and gasp for breath.
“Tight squeak--eh, Irish?” said Zeke at last, between dying-away
chuckles.
“And tell me, now,” Linsky began, still panting heavily, his besmeared
face red with the heat of the chase, “fwat the divil were we doin’ up
there, anny-way? No Linsky or Lynch--’tis the same name--was ever
called coward yet--but goin’ out and defoyin’ whole armies single-handed
is no fit worrk for solicitors’ clarks. Spacheless and sinseless though
I was with the dhrink, sure, if they told me I was to putt down the
Rebellion be meself, I’d a’ had the wit to decloine.”
“That was a vidette post we were on,” explained Zeke.
“There’s a shorter name for it--God save us both from goin’ there. But
fwat was the intintion? ’Tis that that bothers me entoirely.”
“Look there!” was Zeke’s response. He waved his hand comprehensively
over the field they had just quitted, and the Irishman rose to his feet
and stepped aside from his tree to see.
The little red farm-house was half hidden in a vail of smoke. Dim
shadows of men could be seen flitting about its sides, and from these
shadows shot forth tongues of momentary flame. The upper end of the
meadow was covered thick with smoke, and through this were visible dark
masses of men and the same spark-like flashing of fiery streaks. Along
the line of the hedge, closer to the house, still another wall of smoke
arose, and Linsky could discern a fringe of blue-coated men lying
flat under the cover of the thorn-bushes, whom he guessed to be
sharp-shooters.
“That’s what we went up there for--to start that thing a-goin’,” said
Zeke, not without pride. “See the guide--that little flag there by the
bushes? That’s our regiment. They was comin’ up as we skedaddled out.
Didn’t yeh hear ’em cheer? They was cheerin’ for us, Irish--that is,
some for us and a good deal for the sow-bellies and ham.”
No answer came, and Zeke stood for a moment longer, taking in with his
practiced gaze the details of the fight that was raging before him.
Half-spent bullets were singing all about him, but he seemed to give
them no more thought than in his old Adirondack home he had wasted
on mosquitoes. The din and deafening rattle of this musketry war had
kindled a sparkle in his gray eyes.
“There they go, Irish! Gad! we’ve got ’em on the run! We kin scoot
across now and jine our men.”
Still no answer. Zeke turned, and, to his amazement, saw no Linsky
at his side. Puzzled, he looked vaguely about among the trees for an
instant. Then his wandering glance fell, and the gleam of battle died
out of his eyes as he saw the Irishman lying prone at his very feet, his
face flat in the wet moss and rotting leaves, an arm and leg bent
under the prostrate body. So wrapt had Zeke’s senses been in the noisy
struggle outside, he had not heard his comrade’s fall.
The veteran knelt, and gently turned Linsky over on his back. A
wandering ball had struck him in the throat. The lips were already
colorless, and from their corners a thin line of bright blood had oozed
to mingle grotesquely with the molasses on the unshaven jaw. To
Zeke’s skilled glance it was apparent that the man was mortally
wounded--perhaps already dead, for no trace of pulse or heartbeat
could be found. He softly closed the Irishman’s eyes, and put the
sorghum-stained cap over his face.
Zeke rose and looked forth again upon the scene of battle. His regiment
had crossed the fence and gained possession of the farm-house, from
which they were firing into the woods beyond. Further to the left,
through the mist of smoke which hung upon the meadow, he could see that
large masses of troops in blue were being pushed forward. He thought he
would go and join his company. He would tell the fellows how well Linsky
had behaved. Perhaps, after the fight was all over, he would lick Hugh
O’Mahony for having spoken so churlishly to him.
He turned at this and looked down again upon the insensible Linsky.
“Well, Irish, you had sand in your gizzard, anyway,” he said, aloud.
“I’ll whale the head off ’m O’Mahony, jest on your account.”
Then, musing upon some new ideas which these words seem to have
suggested, he knelt once more, and, unbuttoning Linsky’s jacket, felt
through his pockets.
He drew forth a leather wallet and a long linen-lined envelope
containing many papers. The wallet had in it a comfortable looking
roll of green, backs, but Zeke’s attention was bestowed rather upon the
papers.
“So these would give O’Mahony an estate, eh?” he pondered, half aloud,
turning them over. “It ’ud be a tolerable good bet that he never lays
eyes on ’em. We’ll fix that right now, for fear of accidents.”
He began to kick about in the leaves, as he rose a second time, thinking
hard upon the problem of what to do with the papers. He had no matches.
He might cut down a cartridge, and get a fire by percussion--but that
would take time. So, for that matter, would digging a hole to bury the
papers.
All at once his abstracted face lost its lines of labor, and brightened
radiantly. He thrust wallet and envelope into his own pocket, and
smilingly stepped forward once more to see what the field of battle was
like. The farm-house had become the headquarters of a general and
his staff, and the noise of fighting had passed away to the furthest
confines of the woods.
“This darned old campaign won’t last up’ard of another week,” he said,
in satisfied reverie. “I reckon I’ve done my share in it, and somethin’
to lap over on the next. Nobody ’ll be a cent the wuss off if I turn
up missin’ now.”
Gathering up the provisions and his gun, Zeke turned abruptly, and
made his way down the steep side-hill into the forest, each long stride
bearing him further from Company F’s headquarters.