III.
Ultimately the night deepened to the tone of black velvet. The outlinesof the fireless camp were like the faint drawings upon ancient tapestry.The glint of a rifle, the shine of a button, might have been of threadsof silver and gold sewn upon the fabric of the night. There was littlepresented to the vision, but to a sense more subtle there wasdiscernible in the atmosphere something like a pulse; a mystic beatingwhich would have told a stranger of the presence of a giant thing--theslumbering mass of regiments and batteries.
With fires forbidden, the floor of a dry old kitchen was thought to be agood exchange for the cold earth of December, even if a shell hadexploded in it and knocked it so out of shape that when a man lay curledin his blanket his last waking thought was likely to be of the wall thatbellied out above him as if strongly anxious to topple upon the score ofsoldiers.
Billie looked at the bricks ever about to descend in a shower upon hisface, listened to the industrious pickets plying their rifles on theborder of the town, imagined some measure of the din of the comingbattle, thought of Dan and Dan's chagrin, and rolling over in hisblanket went to sleep with satisfaction.
At an unknown hour he was aroused by the creaking of boards. Liftinghimself upon his elbow, he saw a sergeant prowling among the sleepingforms. The sergeant carried a candle in an old brass candle-stick. Hewould have resembled some old farmer on an unusual midnight tour if itwere not for the significance of his gleaming buttons and stripedsleeves.
Billie blinked stupidly at the light until his mind returned from thejourneys of slumber. The sergeant stooped among the unconscioussoldiers, holding the candle close, and peering into each face.
"Hello, Haines," said Billie. "Relief?"
"Hello, Billie," said the sergeant. "Special duty."
"Dan got to go?"
"Jameson, Hunter, McCormack, D. Dempster. Yes. Where is he?"
"Over there by the winder," said Billie, gesturing. "What is it for,Haines?"
"You don't think I know, do you?" demanded the sergeant. He began topipe sharply but cheerily at men upon the floor. "Come, Mac, get uphere. Here's a special for you. Wake up, Jameson. Come along, Dannie, meboy."
Each man at once took this call to duty as a personal affront. Theypulled themselves out of their blankets, rubbed their eyes, and swore atwhoever was responsible. "Them's orders," cried the sergeant. "Come! Getout of here." An undetailed head with dishevelled hair thrust out from ablanket, and a sleepy voice said: "Shut up, Haines, and go home."
When the detail clanked out of the kitchen, all but one of the remainingmen seemed to be again asleep. Billie, leaning on his elbow, was gazinginto darkness. When the footsteps died to silence, he curled himselfinto his blanket.
At the first cool lavender lights of daybreak he aroused again, andscanned his recumbent companions. Seeing a wakeful one he asked: "Is Danback yet?"
The man said: "Hain't seen 'im."
Billie put both hands behind his head, and scowled into the air. "Can'tsee the use of these cussed details in the night-time," he muttered inhis most unreasonable tones. "Darn nuisances. Why can't they--" Hegrumbled at length and graphically.
When Dan entered with the squad, however, Billie was convincinglyasleep.
The Little Regiment, and Other Episodes of the American Civil War Page 3
