The Brigade Commander
Page 4
which alone of all things nearappeared able to rule the coming crisis, began to dominate him, in spiteof his sense of injury. A thought crossed him to the effect that thegreat among men are too valuable to be punished for their evil deeds.He turned to the absorbed brigade commander, now not only his ruler,but even his protector, with a feeling that he must accord him a wordof peace, a proffer in some form of possible forgiveness and friendship.But the man's face was clouded and stern with responsibility andauthority. He seemed at that moment too lofty to be approached with amessage of pardon. Fitz Hugh gazed at him with a mixture of prof oundrespect and smothered hate. He gazed, turned away, and remained silent.
Minutes more passed. Then a mounted orderly dashed up at full speed,with the words, "Colonel, Major Gahogan has fronted."
"Has he?" answered Waldron, with a smile which thanked the trooper andmade him happy. "Ride on through the thicket here, my man, and tellColonel Gildersleeve to push up his skirmishers."
With a thud of hoofs and a rustling of parting foliage the cavalrymandisappeared amid the underwood. A minute or two later a thin, droppingrattle of musketry, five hundred yards or so to the front, announcedthat the sharpshooters of the Fourteenth were at work. Almostimmediately there was an angry response, full of the threatenings andexecution of death. Through the lofty leafage tore the screech of ashell, bursting with a sharp crash as it passed overhead, and scatteringin humming slivers. Then came another, and another, and many more,chasing each other with hoarse hissings through the trembling air, asuccession of flying serpents. The enemy doubtless believed that nearlythe whole attacking force was massed in the wood around the road, andthey had brought at least four guns to bear upon that point, and wereworking them with the utmost possible rapidity. Presently a largechestnut, not fifty yards from Fitz Hugh, was struck by a shot. Thesolid trunk, nearly three feet in diameter, parted asunder as if it werethe brittlest of vegetable matter. The upper portion started aside witha monstrous groan, dropped in a standing posture to the earth, and thentoppled slowly, sublimely prostrate, its branches crashing and all itsleaves wailing. Ere long, a little further to the front, another Anak ofthe forest went down; and, mingled with the noise of its sylvan agony,there arose sharp cries of human suffering. Then Colonel Colburn, abroad-chested and ruddy man of thirty-five, with a look of indignantanxiety in his iron-gray eyes, rode up to the brigade commander.
"This is very annoying, Colonel," he said. "I am losing my men withoutusing them. That last tree fell into my command."
"Are they firing toward our left?" asked Waldron.
"Not a shot."
"Very good," said the chief, with a sigh of contentment. "If we can onlykeep them occupied in this direction! By the way, let your men lie downunder the fallen tree, as far as it will go. It will protect them fromothers."
Colburn rode back to his regiment. Waldron looked impatiently at hiswatch. At that moment a fierce burst of line firing arose in front,followed and almost overborne by a long-drawn yell, the scream ofcharging men. Waldron put up his watch, glanced excitedly at Fitz Hugh,and smiled.
"I must forgive or forget," the latter could not help saying to himself."All the rest of life is nothing compared with this."
"Captain," said Waldron, "ride off to the left at full speed. As soon asyou hear firing at the shoulder of the ridge, return instantly and letme know."
Fitz Hugh dashed away. Three minutes carried him into perfect peace,beyond the whistling of ball or the screeching of shell. On the rightwas a tranquil, wide waving of foliage, and on the left a serenelandscape of cultivated fields, with here and there an emboweredfarm-house. Only for the clamor of artillery and musketry far behindhim, he could not have believed in the near presence of battle, of bloodand suffering and triumphant death. But suddenly he heard to his right,assaulting and slaughtering the tranquillity of nature, a tumultuousoutbreak of file firing, mingled with savage yells. He wheeled, drovespurs into his horse, and flew back to Waldron. As he re-entered thewood he met wounded men streaming through it, a few marching alertlyupright, many more crouching and groaning, some clinging to their lessinjured comrades, but all haggard in face and ghastly.
"Are we winning?" he hastily asked of one man who held up a hand withthree fingers gone and the bones projecting in sharp spikes throughmangled flesh.
"All right, sir; sailing in," was the answer.
"Is the brigade commander all right?" he inquired of another who waswinding a bloody handkerchief around his arm.
"Straight ahead, sir; hurrah for Waldron!" responded the soldier, andalmost in the same instant fell lifeless with a fresh ball through hishead.
"Hurrah for him!" Fitz Hugh answered frantically, plunging on throughthe underwood. He found Waldron with Colburn, the two conversingtranquilly in their saddles amid hissing bullets and dropping branches.
"Move your regiment forward now," the brigade commander was saying; "buthalt it in the edge of the wood."
"Shan't I relieve Gildersleeve if he gets beaten?" asked the subordinateofficer eagerly.
"No. The regiments on the left will help him out. I want your men andPeck's for the fight on top of the hill. Of course the rebels will tryto retake it; then I shall call for you."
Fitz Hugh now approached and said, "Colonel, the Seventh has attacked inforce."
"Good!" answered Waldron, with that sweet smile of his which thankedpeople who brought him pleasant news. "I thought I heard his fire.Gahogan will be on their right rear in ten minutes. Then we shall getthe ridge. Ride back now to Major Bradley, and tell him to bring hisNapoleons through the wood, and set two of them to shelling the enemy'scentre. Tell him my idea is to amuse them, and keep them from changingfront."
Again Fitz Hugh galloped off as before on a comfortably safe errand,safer at all events than many errands of that day. "This man is sparingmy life," he said to himself. "Would to God I knew how to spare his!"
He found Bradley lunching on a gun caisson, and delivered his orders."Something to do at last, eh?" laughed the rosy-cheeked youngster. "Thesmallest favors thankfully received. Won't you take a bite of rebelchicken, Captain? This rebellion must be put down. No? Well, tell theColonel I am moving on, and John Brown's soul not far ahead."
When Fitz Hugh returned to Waldron he found him outside of the wood, atthe base of the long incline which rose into the rebel position. Aboutthe slope were scattered prostrate forms, most numerous near the bottom,some crawling slowly rearward, some quiescent. Under the brow of theridge, decimated and broken into a mere skirmish line sheltered in knotsand singly, behind rocks and knolls, and bushes, lay the FourteenthRegiment, keeping up a steady, slow fire. From the edge above, smokilydim against a pure, blue heaven, answered another rattle of musketry,incessant, obstinate, and spiteful. The combatants on both sides werelying down; otherwise neither party could have lasted ten minutes. FromFitz Hugh's point of view not a Confederate uniform could be seen. Butthe smoke of their rifles made a long gray line, which was disagreeablyvisible and permanent; and the sharp _whit! whit!_ of their bulletscontinually passed him, and cheeped away in the leafage behind.
"Our men can't get on another inch," he ventured to say to hiscommander. "Wouldn't it be well for me to ride up and say a cheeringword?"
"Every battle consists largely in waiting," replied Waldronthoughtfully. "They have undoubtedly brought up a reserve to faceThomas. But when Gahogan strikes the flank of the reserve, we shallwin."
"I wish you would take shelter," begged Fitz Hugh. "Everything dependson your life."
"My life has been both a help and a hurt to my fellow-creatures," sighedthe brigade commander. "Let come what will to it."
He glanced upward with an expression of profound emotion; he wasevidently fighting two battles, an outward and an inward one.
Presently he added, "I think the musketry is increasing on the left.Does it strike you so?"
He was all eagerness again, leaning forward with an air of earnestlistening, his face deeply flushed and his eye brilliant. Of a suddenthe combat a
bove rose and swelled into higher violence. There was aclamor far away--it seemed nearly a mile away--over the hill. Thenthe nearer musketry--first Thomas's on the shoulder of the ridge, nextGildersleeve's in front--caught fire and raged with new fury.
Waldron laughed outright. "Gahogan has reached them," he said to one ofhis staff who had just rejoined him. "We shall all be up there in fiveminutes. Tell Colburn to bring on his regiment slowly."
Then, turning to Fitz Hugh, he added, "Captain, we will ride forward."
They set off at a walk, now watching the smoking brow of the eminence,now picking their way among dead and wounded. Suddenly there was a shoutabove them and a