The Sword of Antietam: A Story of the Nation's Crisis Part 16

"Maybe he will come in yet," he said. "We were mixed up a good deal when the darkness fell, and he may have trouble in finding our position."

"That's true. There are not so many of us left, and we do not cover any great area of ground. Lie still, d.i.c.k, and take a little rest. We don't know what's going to happen in the night. We may have to do more fighting yet, despite the darkness."

The colonel's figure disappeared in the shadow, and d.i.c.k, following his advice, lay quiet. All around him were other forms stretched upon the earth, motionless. But d.i.c.k knew they were not dead, merely sleeping.

His own nervous system was being restored by youth and the habit of courage. Yet he felt a personal grief, and it grew stronger with returning physical strength. Warner, his comrade, knitted to him by ties of hards.h.i.+p and danger, was missing, dead no doubt in the battle. For the moment he forgot about the defeat. All his thoughts were for the brave youth who lay out there somewhere, stretched on the dusty field.

d.i.c.k strained his eyes into the darkness, as if by straining he might see where Warner lay. He saw, indeed, dim fires here and there along a long line, marking where the Confederates now stood, or rather lay. Then a bitter pang came. It was ground upon which the Union army had stood in the morning.

The rifle fire, which had died down, began again in a fitful way. Far off, skirmishers, not satisfied with the slaughter of the day, were seeing what harm they could do in the dark. Somewhere the plumed and unresting Stuart was charging with his hors.e.m.e.n, driving back some portion of the Union army that the Confederate forces might be on their flank in the morning.

But d.i.c.k, as he lay quietly and felt his strength, mental and physical, returning, was taking a resolution. Down there in front of them and in the darkness was the wood upon which they had made five great a.s.saults, all to fail. In front of that mournful forest, and within its edge, more than ten thousand men had fallen. He had no doubt that Warner was among them.

His sense of direction was good, and, as his blurred faculties regained their normal keenness, he could mark the exact line by which they had advanced, and the exact line by which they had retreated. Warner unquestionably lay near the edge of the wood and he must seek him. Were it the other way, Warner would do the same.

d.i.c.k stood up. He was no longer dizzy, and every muscle felt steady and strong. He did not know what had become of Colonel Winchester, and his comrades still lay upon the ground in a deep stupor.

It could not be a night of order and precision, with every man numbered and in his place, as if they were going to begin a battle instead of just having finished one, and d.i.c.k, leaving his comrades, walked calmly toward the wood. He pa.s.sed one sentinel, but a few words satisfied him, and he continued to advance. Far to right and left he still heard the sound of firing and saw the flash of guns, but these facts did not disturb him. In front of him lay darkness and silence, with the horizon bounded by that saddest of all woods where the heaped dead lay.

d.i.c.k looked back toward the Henry Hill, on the slopes of which were the fragments of his own regiment. Lights were moving there, but they were so dim they showed nothing. Then he turned his face toward the enemy's position and did not look back again.

The character of the night was changing. It had come on dark and heavy.

Hot and breathless like the one before, he had taken no notice of the change save for the increased darkness. Now he felt a sudden damp touch on his face, as if a wet finger had been laid there. The faintest of winds had blown for a moment or two, and when d.i.c.k looked up, he saw that the sky was covered with black clouds. The saddest of woods had moved far away, but by some sort of optical illusion he could yet see it.

Save for the distant flash of random firing, the darkness was intense.

Every star was gone, and d.i.c.k moved without any guide. But he needed none. His course was fixed. He could not miss the mournful wood hanging there like a pall on the horizon.

His feet struck against something. It was a man, but he was past all feeling, and d.i.c.k went on, striking by and by against many more. It was impossible at the moment to see Warner's face, but he began to feel of the figures with his hands. There was none so long and slender as Warner's, and he continued his search, moving steadily toward the wood.

He saw presently a lantern moving over the field, and he walked toward it. Three men were with the lantern, and the one who carried it held it up as he approached. The beams fell directly upon d.i.c.k, revealing his pale face and torn and dusty uniform.

"What do you want, Yank?" called the man.

"I'm looking for a friend of mine who must have fallen somewhere near here."

The man laughed, but it was not a laugh of joy or irony. It was a laugh of pity and sadness.

"You've sh.o.r.ely got a big look comin'," he said. "They're scattered all around here, coverin' acres an' acres, just like dead leaves shook by a storm from the trees. But j'in us, Yank. You can't do nothin' in the darkness all by yourself. We're Johnny Rebs, good and true, and I may be shootin' straight at you to-morrow mornin', but I reckon I've got nothin' ag'in you now. We're lookin' for a brother o' mine."

d.i.c.k joined them, and the four, the three in gray and the one in blue, moved on. A friendly current had pa.s.sed between him and them, and there would be no thought of hostility until the morning, when it would come again. It was often so in this war, when men of the same blood met in the night between battles.

"What sort of a fellow is it that you're lookin' for?" asked the man with the lantern.

"About my age. Very tall and thin. You could mark him by his height."

"It takes different kinds of people to make the world. My brother ain't like him a-tall. Sam's short, an' thick as a buffalo. Weighs two twenty with no fat on him. What crowd do you belong to, youngster?"

"The division on our right. We attacked the wood there."

"Well, you're a bully boy. Give me your hand, if you are a Yank. You sh.o.r.ely came right up there and looked us in the eyes. How often did you charge us?"

"Five times, I think. But I may be mistaken. You know it wasn't a day when a fellow could be very particular about his count."

"Guess you're right there. I made it five. What do you say, Jim?"

"Five she was."

"That settles it. Jim kin always count up to five an' never make a mistake. What you fellers goin' to do in the mornin'?"

"I don't know."

"Pope ain't asked you yet what to do. Well, Bobby Lee and Old Stonewall ain't been lookin' for me either to get my advice, but, Yank, you fellers do just what I tell you."

"What's that?"

"Pack up your clothes before daylight, say good-bye, and go back to Was.h.i.+ngton. You needn't think you kin ever lick Ma.r.s.e Bobby an'

Stonewall Jackson."

"But what if we do think it? We've got a big army back there yet, and more are always coming to us. We'll beat you yet."

"There seems to be a pow'ful wide difference in our opinions, an'

I can't persuade you an' you can't persuade me. We'll just let the question rip. I'm glad, after all, Yank, it's so dark. I don't want to see ten thousand dead men stretched out in rows."

"We're going to get a wettin'," said the man to Jim. "The air's already damp on my face. Thar, do you hear that thunder growlin' in the southwest? Tremenjously like cannon far away, but it's thunder all the same."

"What do we care 'bout a wettin', Jim? Fur the last few days this young Yank here an' his comrades have shot at me 'bout a million cannon b.a.l.l.s an' sh.e.l.ls, an' more 'n a hundred million rifle bullets. Leastways I felt as if they was all aimed at me, which is just as bad. After bein'

drenched fur two days with a storm of steel an' lead an' fire, what do you think I care for a summer shower of rain, just drops of rain?"

"But I don't like to get wet after havin' fit so hard. It's unhealthy, likely to give me a cold."

"Never min' 'bout ketchin' cold. You're goin' to get wet, sh.o.r.e.

Thunder, but I thought fur a second that was the flash of a hull battery aimed at me. Fellers, if you wasn't with me I'd be plumb scared, prowlin' 'roun' here in a big storm on the biggest graveyard in the world. Keep close, Yank, we don't want to lose you in the dark."

A tremendous flash of lightning had cut the sky down the middle, as if it intended to divide the world in two halves, but after its pa.s.sage the darkness closed in thicker and heavier than ever. The sinister sound of thunder muttering on the horizon now went on without ceasing.

d.i.c.k was awed. Like many another his brain exposed to such tremendous pressure for two or three days, was not quite normal. It was quickly heated and excited by fancies, and time and place alone were enough to weigh down even the coolest and most seasoned. He pressed close to his Confederate friends, whose names he never knew, and who never knew his, and they, feeling the same influence, never for an instant left the man who held the lantern.

The muttering thunder now came closer and broke in terrible crashes. The lightning flashed again and again so vividly that d.i.c.k, with involuntary motion, threw up his hands to shelter his eyes. But he could see before him the mournful forest, where so many good men had fallen, and, turned red in the gleam of the lightning, it was more terrifying than it had been in the mere black of the night. The wind, too, was now blowing, and the forest gave forth what d.i.c.k's ears turned into a long despairing wail.

"She's about to bust," said the lantern bearer, looking up at the menacing sky. "Jim, you'll have to take your wettin' as it comes."

A moment later the storm burst in fact. The rain rushed down on them, soaking them through in an instant, but d.i.c.k, so far from caring, liked it. It cooled his heated body and brain, and he knew that it was more likely to help than hurt the wounded who yet lay on the ground.

The lightning ceased before the sweep of the rain, but the lantern was well protected by its gla.s.s cover, and they still searched. The lantern bearer suddenly uttered a low cry.

"Boys!" he said, "Here's Sam!"

A thick and uncommonly powerful man lay doubled up against a bush. His face was white. d.i.c.k saw that blood had just been washed from it by the rain. But he could see no rising and falling of the chest, and he concluded that he was dead.