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Page 49
The noise of firing dogged their footsteps. Sometimes, it seemed to be
driven a little way, but it always returned again with increased insolence.
The men muttered and cursed, throwing black looks in its direction.
In a clear space the troops were at last halted. Regiments and brigades,
broken and detached through their encounters with thickets, grew together
again and lines were faced toward the pursuing bark of the enemy's infantry.
This noise, following like the yelpings of eager, metallic hounds,
increased to a loud and joyous burst, and then, as the sun
went serenely up the sky, throwing illuminating rays into
the gloomy thickets, it broke forth into prolonged pealings.
The woods began to crackle as if afire.
"Whoop-a-dadee," said a man, "here we are! Everybody fightin'.
Blood an' destruction."
"I was willin' t' bet they'd attack as soon as th' sun got fairly up,"
savagely asserted the lieutenant who commanded the youth's company.
He jerked without mercy at his little mustache. He strode to and fro
with dark dignity in the rear of his men, who were lying down behind
whatever protection they had collected.
A battery had trundled into position in the rear and was thoughtfully
shelling the distance. The regiment, unmolested as yet, awaited the
moment when the gray shadows of the woods before them should be
slashed by the lines of flame. There was much growling and swearing.
"Good Gawd," the youth grumbled, "we're always being chased
around like rats! It makes me sick. Nobody seems to know where
we go or why we go. We just get fired around from pillar to post
and get licked here and get licked there, and nobody knows what
it's done for. It makes a man feel like a damn' kitten in a bag.
Now, I'd like to know what the eternal thunders we was marched
into these woods for anyhow, unless it was to give the rebs a
regular pot shot at us. We came in here and got our legs all
tangled up in these cussed briers, and then we begin to fight and
the rebs had an easy time of it. Don't tell me it's just luck!
I know better. It's this derned old--"
The friend seemed jaded, but he interrupted his comrade with a
voice of calm confidence. "It'll turn out all right in th' end,"
he said.
"Oh, the devil it will! You always talk like a dog-hanged parson.
Don't tell me! I know--"
At this time there was an interposition by the savage-minded lieutenant,
who was obliged to vent some of his inward dissatisfaction upon his men.
"You boys shut right up! There no need 'a your wastin' your breath in
long-winded arguments about this an' that an' th' other. You've been
jawin' like a lot 'a old hens. All you've got t' do is to fight,
an' you'll get plenty 'a that t' do in about ten minutes. Less talkin'
an' more fightin' is what's best for you boys. I never saw sech
gabbling jackasses."
He paused, ready to pounce upon any man who might have the temerity
to reply. No words being said, he resumed his dignified pacing.
"There's too much chin music an' too little fightin' in this war,
anyhow," he said to them, turning his head for a final remark.
The day had grown more white, until the sun shed his full
radiance upon the thronged forest. A sort of a gust of battle
came sweeping toward that part of the line where lay the youth's
regiment. The front shifted a trifle to meet it squarely.
There was a wait. In this part of the field there passed slowly
the intense moments that precede the tempest.
A single rifle flashed in a thicket before the regiment. In an
instant it was joined by many others. There was a mighty song
of clashes and crashes that went sweeping through the woods.
The guns in the rear, aroused and enraged by shells that had been
thrown burr-like at them, suddenly involved themselves in a hideous
altercation with another band of guns. The battle roar settled
to a rolling thunder, which was a single, long explosion.
In the regiment there was a peculiar kind of hesitation denoted in the
attitudes of the men. They were worn, exhausted, having slept but
little and labored much. They rolled their eyes toward the advancing
battle as they stood awaiting the shock. Some shrank and flinched.
They stood as men tied to stakes.
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