The Littlest Rebel Part 24

"Look, Virgie, look!" her father cried, holding her head a little way above the wall. "See those bayonets s.h.i.+ning back there across the road.

A whole regiment of infantry. And they're going up against our _men across an open field!_ By Jiminy, but those Yanks will get a mustard bath. Ah-hah!" he chortled, as a roar of musketry broke out. "I told you so! Our boys are after them. Good work! Good work!"

But again a sh.e.l.l pa.s.sed over them and again the world was filled with that awful whining, shrieking sound.

"Daddy," the child cried, with quivering lips, but still dry eyed. "I don't _like_ those things. I don't _like_'em."

"There, there, darling," he comforted as they shrank closer under the protection of the wall. "Keep down under my arm and they won't bother you."

As he spoke a twig with a fresh yellow break in it fell from a tree and struck his upturned face. He winced at the thought that the bullet might have flown a few feet lower. And meanwhile the sound of the firing came steadily closer.

"By Jove!" he murmured to himself, "it's a bigger rumpus than I thought."

This indeed was true. What had at first promised to be only a skirmish between the outposts of the two entrenched armies, now developed into a general engagement covering a s.p.a.ce of half a mile along the line. A reconnoitering force of Federal cavalry had ridden too close to the rifle pits of the Confederates, and, as Morrison himself expressed it, "the hornets came out and began to sting."

Major Foster, commanding a larger force of cavalry, rode out in support of his reconnoitering party, and found himself opposed, not by a straggling line of Rebel pickets, but by a moving wall of tattered gray, the units of which advanced on a low-bent run, crouching behind some bush or stone, to fire, reload and advance again.

An aide raced back to the Union lines to ask for help in support of Foster's slender force of cavalry; and thus the order came to Morrison to join the detachment and hold the enemy until reinforcements could be formed and pushed to the firing line.

The delay, however, was well nigh fatal for Morrison and Major Foster, and from the point where Cary and little Virgie watched, the case of the Union hors.e.m.e.n seemed an evil one. True, that infantry and guns were soon advancing to their aid on a "double-quick"; yet all the advantage seemed to lie with the ragged, sharp-shooting Southerners.

The crackle of musketry increased; the dust rolled up and intermingled with the wreathes of drifting smoke, and through it came the vicious whine of leaden messengers of death.

Then, borne on the wind, came a sound that he would know till his dying day--_the rebel yell_. An exultant scream,--a cry of unending hate, defiance, _victory_!

He sprang to his feet. Off came the battered old campaign hat and unmindful that he stood there hidden in the woods and that his voice could carry only a few yards against the roar of battle, he swung it over his head: and shouted out his encouragement.

"Look! We're whipping 'em. Virgie, do you hear? We're getting them on the run. Come on, boys! Come on!"

He felt her clutch on his sleeve. With wide eyes grown darker than ever with excitement, she asked her piteous question.

"Daddy! _Will they kill the Colonel?_"

For a moment he could not answer. Then, with a groan he gave back his answer: "I _hope_ not, darling. I hope not!"

Down the road a riderless horse was coming, head up and stirrups flying.

As it galloped past Cary scrutinized it closely and was glad he did not recognize it. In its wake came soldiers, infantry and dismounted cavalry, firing, retreating, loading and firing again, but always retreating.

"Here come the stragglers," he cried. "We're whipping 'em! Close, darling, _close_. Lie down against the wall."

He crouched above her, s.h.i.+elding her as best he could with his body.

Then, suddenly, a man in blue leaped on the wall not ten feet away. He had meant to seize the wall as a breastwork and fight from behind it, but before he dropped down he would fire one last shot. His gun came up to his shoulder--he aimed at some unseen foe and fired. But from somewhere, out of the crash of sound and the rolling powder smoke, a singing missile came and found its mark. The man in blue bent over suddenly, wavered, then toppled down inside the wall, his gun ringing on the stones as he fell.

"Daddy!" the child whispered, with ashen face, "it's the biscuit man.

It's HARRY!"

Her father's hand went out instinctively to cover her eyes. "Don't look, dear! Don't look!"

The road was choked now. Cavalry and infantry, all in a mad rush for the rear, were tearing by while the two field pieces which but a moment ago had gone into action with such a deadly whirl came limping back with slashed traces and splintered wheels. With fascinated eyes the Rebel officer watched from behind his wall, while everything, even his child, was forgotten in the l.u.s.t for victory. And so he did not hear the faint voice behind him that cried out in an agony of thirst and pain.

"Water! Water! Help! Someone--give water!"

Virgie, with dilated eyes and heaving breast, crouched low as long as she could and then gave up everything to the pitiful appeal ringing in her ears. Quick as a flash, she sped away on bare feet over rocks and sharp, pointed branches of fallen trees to the spring, where she caught up a cup and filled it to the brim. Another swift rush and she reached the fallen man in blue and had the cup at his lips, while her arm went under his head to lift it.

"Virgie!" her father cried, frantic at the sight. With a great leap he was at her side, forcing her down to the ground and covering her with his body.

The trooper's head sank back and his eyes began to dull.

"May G.o.d bless ye, little one," he murmured. "Heaven--_Mary_--_!_" His lips gave out one long, shuddering sigh. His body grew slack and his chin fell. Trooper Harry O'Connell had fought his last fight--had pa.s.sed to his final review.

One look at the boyish face so suddenly gone gray and bloodless and Gary caught Virgie up in his arms. "Come dear, you can't help him any more,"

and with a crouching run they were back once more in the shelter of the wall.

And now the shriek of the sh.e.l.ls and the whine of the bullets came shriller than before. All around them the twigs were dropping, while the acrid powder smoke rolled in through the trees and burnt their eyes and throats. Again came men in blue retreating and among them an officer on horseback, wheeling his animal madly around among them and shouting encouragement as he tried to face them to the front. "Keep at it, men,"

Morrison was crying, half mad with rage. "One decent stand and we can hold them. Give it to them hard. Stand, I tell you. _Stand!_"

All around him, however, men were falling and those who were left began to waver. "Steady, men! Don't flinch," came the shout again. "Ah-hah, you _would_, would you? _Coward!_"

Morrison's sword held flatwise, thudded down on the back of a man who had flung away his gun. "Get back in the fight, you dog! Get back!"

He whipped out his revolver and pointed it till the gun had been s.n.a.t.c.hed up, then fired all its chambers at the oncoming hordes in gray.

"One more stand," he yelled. "One more--"

Beside him the color sergeant gave a moan and bent in the middle like a hinge. Another slackening of his body and the stricken bearer of the flag plunged from his saddle, the colors trailing in the dust.

Morrison spurred his mount toward the fallen man, bending to grasp the colors from the tight gripped hand; but even as he bent, his horse went down. He leaped to save himself, then turned once more, s.n.a.t.c.hed at the flag of his routed regiment and waved it above his head.

"_Stand, boys, and give it to 'em!_"

A shout went up--not from the men he sought to rally to his flag, but from those who would win it at a cost of blood, for his troopers were running on a backward road, and Morrison fought alone. The "gray devils"

were all around him now, and he backed against the wall, fighting till his sword was sent spinning from his fist by the blow of a musket b.u.t.t; then, grasping the color-pole in both his hands, he parried bayonet thrusts and saber strokes, panting, breathing in hot, labored gasps, and cursing his enemies from a hoa.r.s.e, parched throat.

A hideous, unequal fight it was, and soon Lieutenant-Colonel Morrison must fall as his colors fell and be trampled in the dust; yet now through an eddying drift of smoke came another ragged Southerner, a grim, gaunt man whose voice was as hoa.r.s.e as Morrison's, who had grasped a saber from the blood stained rocks and waved it above his head.

"Back, boys! Don't kill that man!"

Among them he plunged till he reached the side of Morrison, then turned and faced the brothers of his country and his State. With a downward stroke he arrested a saber thrusts and then struck upward at a rifle's mouth as it spit its deadly flame.

"Don't kill him! Do you hear?" he cried, as he beat at the bayonet points. "I'm Cary! Herbert Cary!--_on the staff of General Lee!_"

For an instant the attacking Southerners stood aghast at the sight of this raging man in gray who defended a Yankee officer; and yet he had made no saber stroke to wound or kill; instead, his weapon had come between their own and the life of a well-nigh helpless foe. For a moment more they paused and looked with wondering eyes, and in that moment their victory was changed to rout.

A bugle blared. A thundering rush of hoof beats sounded on the road, and the Union reenforcements swept around the curve. Six abreast they came, a regiment of strong, straight riders, hungry for battle, hot to retrieve the losing fortune of the day. The road was too narrow for a concentrated rush, so they streamed into the fields on either side, re-formed, and swept like an avalanche of blue upon their prey. The guns in the woods now thundered forth afresh, their echoes rolling out across the hills, and the attacking Rebels turned and fled, like leaves before a storm.

On one side of the road, Morrison and Cary shrank down beside the wall to let the Union riders pa.s.s; on the other, all that was left of the Rebel force ran helter-skelter for a screen of protecting trees. But before the last one disappeared he threw up his gun and fired, haphazard, in the direction whence he had come.

As if in reply came the sound of a saber falling from a man's hand and striking on a stone. Under his very eyes and just as he was putting out his hand to grip the others Morrison saw Herbert Cary sinking slowly to the ground.