Ride Proud, Rebel! Page 8

  8

  _Happy Birthday, Soldier!_

  "No water here either." Boyd climbed up the bank of what might once havebeen a promising stream. Carrying three canteens, he ran the tip of histongue over his lips unhappily. "It sure is hot!"

  They had turned off the road, which was now filled with men, horses,men, artillery, and men, all slogging purposefully forward. Theycomposed an army roused out before daylight, on the move toward anotherarmy holed in behind a breastworks and waiting. And over all, theexhausting blanket of mid-July heat which pressed to squeeze all thevital juices out of both man and animal.

  Drew touched his aching arm soothingly. It still hurt, although therawness had healed during the weeks between that turbulent crossing ofthe Tennessee and this morning in Mississippi as they moved at the Unionposition on the ridge above the abandoned ghost town of Harrisburg. Theremnant of Morgan fugitives, some eighty strong, had fallen in withGeneral Bedford Forrest's ranging scouts at Corinth, and had riddenstill farther southward to join his main army just on the eve of whatpromised to be a big battle.

  "Hot!" echoed Kirby. "A man could git hisself killed today an' neverknow no difference."

  They were reluctant to re-enter the stream progressing along the road.The dust was ankle-deep there, choking thick when stirred by feet andhoof to a powdery cloud. In contrast, there were no clouds in the sky,and the sun promised to be a ball of brass very soon.

  Yesterday had been as punishing. Men wilted in the road, overcome byheat and lack of water. If there ever had been any moisture in thiscountry, it had long ago been boiled away. The very leaves were brittleand grayish-looking where they weren't inches deep in dust.

  As of last night, the Morgan men were an addition to Crossland'sKentuckians under General Buford. The speech of the blue grass wasfamiliar, but nothing yet had made them a part of this new army withwhich they marched.

  Drew reached for one of the canteens. His worry over Boyd, dulled by thepassing of time, stirred sluggishly. The other had kept up the gruelingpace which had brought the fugitives across half of Kentucky, all ofTennessee, and into this new eddy of war, making no complaint after hisfirst harsh introduction to action--which might be in part an adventure,but which was mostly something to be endured--with the doggedstubbornness of a seasoned veteran. And Boyd had manifestly toughened inthat process. After Drew's mishap in the river, Boyd had acceptedresponsibility, helping to keep the scout in the saddle and riding, evenwhen Drew had been bemused by a day or two of fever, unaware of eithertheir enforced pace or their destination.

  No, somewhere along the line of retreat Drew had stopped worrying aboutBoyd. And now, with the youngster already appointed horse holder for theday's battle, he need not think of him engulfed in action. Though anyfighting future was decided mainly by the capricious chance which struckone man down and allowed his neighbor to march on unscathed.

  "You men--over there--close up!" A officer, hardly to be distinguishedfrom the men he rode among, waved them back to the column. Then theywere dismounting. As Drew handed Hannibal over to Boyd's care, he wasglad again that the other was safely behind the battle line moving up inthe thin woods.

  During the night the enemy had thrown together the breastworks on theridge, weaving together axed trees, timbers torn out of the abandonedhouses of the village--anything the Union leader could commandeer forsuch use. And between that improvised fortification and the cover inwhich the Confederates now waited was a section of open ground, varyingin width with the wanderings of a now dry river. Where the Kentuckianswere stationed, there must have stretched about three hundred yards ofthat open, Drew estimated, and the woods bordering it on this side wereso thin that any charge would take them into plain sight for fivehundred yards of approach.

  Fieldpieces brought into line on the woods side, hidden above by thebreastworks, opened up in a dull _pom-pom_ duel. Drew saw a shell strikeearth not far away, bounce twice, still intact, and roll on toward theConfederate lines.

  The _zip-zip_ of the Minies had not yet begun. And this waiting was thehardest part of all. Drew tried to pin all his powers of concentrationon a study of the ground immediately before him, the slope up which theywould have to win in order to have it out with the now hidden enemy. Hemade himself calculate just which path to take when the orders to chargecame. Although his arm prevented his using a carbine or rifle, his twoColts were loaded, and one was in his hand. He glanced around.

  Kirby? There was a Morgan trooper next--Drew tried to remember his name.Laswell ... Townstead ... no, Clinton! Tom Clinton. He'd done picketduty with Drew. And beyond Clinton--there was Kirby, his lips pulledtight in what might have been a grin, but which Drew thought was not.Then ... Boyd! But Boyd was back with the horses; he had to be!

  Drew edged forward a little, trying to see better. If it were Boyd, hehad to wrench him out of that line and get the boy back. A hot emotionclose to panic boiled up in Drew.

  Somewhere, through the pound of the artillery, a bugle blared. AndDrew's muscles obeyed that call, even as he still tried to see who wasfourth in line from him.

  Slowly at first, they were on the move. The sun was up, shining directlyinto their faces. But in spite of the glare, they could still see theUnion works and the flash of guns along it. They were moving faster,coming to a trot. Officers shouted here and there, trying to slow thatsteady advance--why?

  Then, drowning out the bugles, the mutter and roar of the artillery,came the Yell. Their shambling trot quickened. Men were running now,forming a great wave to lick up at the breastworks. Men in that line didnot know--or care--that they were moving without the promised support onright and left; they did not hear the disturbed orders of the officersstill striving to slow them, to wrench them back into a battle planalready too broken to mend. All they cared about now was the field clearfor running, the weapons in their hands, the enemy waiting under the hotmorning sun.

  Drew never remembered afterward that splendid useless charge except aschaos. He could not have told just when they were caught in a murderouscrossfire which poured canister at their undefended flanks. A man wentdown before him, stumbling. The scout caught his foot against thewrithing body, pitched head forward, and struck on his bad arm. For amoment or two the stabbing pain of that made the world red and black.Then Drew was up on one knee again, just in time to realize foggily thatthe Yankees were ripping at their flanks, that their charge was pocketedby lead and steel, being wiped out. He steadied his gun hand on thecrook of his injured arm, tried to find some target, then firedfeverishly without one, the gun's recoil sending shivers of pain throughhis whole shoulder and side.

  The first wave of men had great gaps torn in its length. But thoseremaining on their feet still ran up the slope, screaming theirdefiance. A handful reached the breastworks. Drew saw one man by somestrange fortune scramble to the top of that timber wall, stand balancedfor a moment in triumph to take aim at a target below as if he himselfwere invulnerable, and then plunge, as might a diver cleaving a pool,out of sight on the other side.

  Men faltered, the fire was breaking them, crumpling up the lines. Allthe Union might was concentrated in a lead-and-canister hail on theremnants of the brigade, making of the slope a holocaust in whichnothing human could continue to advance.

  But new lines of gray-brown came steadily from the woodland, racing,yelling, steadfast in their determination to storm that barricade andpluck out the Yankees with their hands. They were wild men, with nothought of personal safety. A color bearer went down. His standard wasseized by his right rank man before its red folds hit the churned,stained ground, the soldier flinging aside his rifle to take tight gripon the pole. The line came on at a run. Now broken squads of Kentuckiansre-formed; a battered lacework of what had been companies, regiments,joined the newcomers.

  Drew was on his feet. Where Kirby or any others of the small Morgancontingent had vanished--whether Boyd _had_ been with them--he did notknow. He jammed his now empty Colt into its holster, drew its twin,still not wholly aware that the bre
astworks were too far away for smallarms' fire to have any effect.

  Now the whole world was no larger than that stretch of open ground andthe breastworks, the men in blue behind them. Only the flanking firestill withered the gray lines, curling them up as the sun had witheredand curled the leaves on the shrubs by the dried stream bed. This waswalking stiff-legged through a bath of fire--sun fire, lead-deathfire--with no end except the hope of reaching the ridge top and thefight waiting there.

  But they could not reach that wall--except singly, or in twos andthrees, then only to fall. And the waves of men no longer broke from thewoods to lap up and recede sullenly down the slope. Out of nowhere, justas they fell back to the first fringe of trees, came an officer on atall gray horse. His coat was gone, he rode in his shirt sleeves, and abullet-torn tatter waved from one wide shoulder. Above prominentcheekbones, his eyes were hot and bright, his clipped beard pointedsharply from a jaw which must be grimly set, his face was flushed, andhis energy and will was like a cloud to engulf the disheartened men ashe bore down upon them.

  His galloping course threaded through the shattered groups ofKentuckians, men fast disintegrating into a mob as the realization oftheir failure on the slope began to strike home--no longer a portion ofan army believing in itself. But, sighting him, they followed his routewith a rising wave of cheers--cheers which even though they came fromdry throats rose in force and violence to that inarticulate Yell whichhad raised them past all fear up the hill.

  From his saddle, the officer leaned to grab at a standard, whirling theflag aloft and around his head so that its scarlet length, crossed withthe starred blue bands, made a tossing splotch of color, to hold anddraw men's eyes. And now he was shouting, too, somehow his wordscarrying through the uproar in the woods.

  "Rally! Rally on colors!"

  "Forrest!" A man beside Drew whooped, threw his hat into the air. "Theold man's here! Forrest!"

  They were pulled together about that rider and his waving standard.Lines tightened, death-made gaps closed. They steadied, again a fightingcommand and not a crowd of men facing defeat. And having welded thatforce, Forrest did not demand a second charge. He was furiouslyangry--not with them, Drew sensed--but with someone or something beyondthe men crowding about him. It was not until afterward that rumor seepedout through the ranks; it had not been Forrest's kind of battle, not hisplan. And he now had five hundred empty saddles to weight the scalesafter a battle which was not his.

  Drew leaned against a bullet-clipped tree. Men were at work with some ofthe same will as had taken them to attack, building a barricade of theirown, expecting a counterthrust from the enemy. He wiped his sweaty facewith the back of his hand. His throat was one long dry ache; nowhere hadhe seen a familiar face.

  Somewhere among this collection of broken units and scrambled companiesof survivors he must find his own. He stood away from the tree, fightingthirst, weariness, and the shaking reaction from the past few hours, tomove through the badly mauled force, afraid to allow himself to thinkwhat--or who--might still lie out on the ridge under the white heat ofthe sun.

  "Rennie!"

  Drew rounded a fieldpiece which had been manhandled off the firing line,one wheel shattered. He steadied himself against its caisson and turnedhis head with caution, fearing to be downed by the vertigo which seemedto strike in waves ever since he had retreated to the cover of thewoods. He wanted to find the horse lines, to make sure that he had notseen Boyd on the field just before the bugle had lifted them all intothat abortive charge.

  It was Driscoll who hailed him. He had a red-stained rag tied about hisforearm and carried his hand tucked into the half-open front of hisshirt. Drew walked toward him slowly, feeling oddly detached. He notedthat the trooper's weathered face had a greenish shade, that his mouthwas working as if he were trying to shape soundless words.

  "Where're the rest?" Drew asked.

  Driscoll's good hand motioned to the left. "Four ... five ... somethere. Standish--he got it with a shell--no head ... not any more--" Hegave a sound like a giggle, and then his hand went hastily to his mouthas he retched dryly.

  Drew caught the other's shoulder, shaking him.

  "The others!" he demanded more loudly, trying to pierce the curtain ofshock to Driscoll's thinking mind.

  "Four ... five ... some--" Driscoll repeated. "Standish, he's dead. DidI tell you about Standish? A shell came along and--"

  "Yes, you told me about Standish. Now show me where the others are!"Still keeping his shoulder grip, Drew edged Driscoll about until thetrooper was pointed in the general direction to which he had gestured.Now Drew gave the man a push and followed.

  "Rennie!" That was Captain Campbell. He was kneeling by a man on theground, a canteen in his hand.

  Drew lurched forward. He was so sure that that inert casualty was Boyd,and that Boyd was dead.

  "Boyd--" he murmured stupidly, refusing to believe his eyes. The manlying there had a brush of grayish beard on his chin, a mat of hairwhich moved up and down as he breathed in heavy, panting gasps.

  "Boyd?" This time the scout made a question of it.

  One of the men in that little group moved. "He got it--out there."

  Drew shifted his weight. He felt as if he were striving to move a bodyas heavy and as inert as that of an unconscious man. It took so longeven to raise his hand. Before he could question the trooper further,another was before him.

  Kirby, his powder-blackened face only inches away from that of the manhe had seized by a handful of shirt front, demanded: "How do you know?"

  The man pulled back but not out of Kirby's clutch. "He was right besideme. Went down on the slope before we fell back--"

  So--Drew's thinking process was as slow as his weary body--he had beenright back there on the field! Boyd had been in the first line, and hewas still out there.

  Again, Drew made one of those careful turns to keep his unsteadinessunder control. If Boyd was out there, he must be brought back--now!Hands closed on Drew's shoulders, jerking him back so that he collidedwith another body, and was held pinned against his captor.

  "You can't go theah now!" Kirby spoke so closely to his ear that thewords were a roaring in his head. But they did not make sense. Drewtried to wrench loose of that hold, the pain in his half-healed armanswering. Then there was a period he could not account for at all, andsuddenly the sun was fading and it was evening. Somebody pushed acanteen into his hand, then lifted both hand and canteen for him so thathe could drink some liquid which was not clear water but thick andbrackish, evil-tasting, but which moistened his dry mouth and swollentongue.

  Through the gathering dusk he could see distant splotches of red andyellow--were they fires? And shells screamed somewhere. Drew held hishead between his hands and cowered under that beat of noise whichcombined with the pulsation of pain just over his eyes. Men were movingaround him, and horses. He heard tags of speech, but none of them wereintelligible.

  Was the army pulling out? Drew tried to think coherently. He hadsomething to do. It was important! Not here--where? The boom of thefield artillery, the flickering of those fires, they confused him,making it difficult to sort out his memories.

  Again, a canteen appeared before him, but now he pushed it petulantlyaside. He didn't want a drink; he wanted to think--to recall what it washe had to do.

  "Drew--!" There was a figure, outlined in part by one of those fires,squatting beside him. "Can you ride?"

  Ride? Where? Why? He had a mule, didn't he? Back in the horse lines.Boyd--he had left the mule with Boyd. Boyd! _Now_ he knew what had to bedone!

  He moved away from the outstretched hand of the man beside him, got tohis feet, saw the blot of a mount the other was holding. And he caughtat reins, dragged them from the other's hand before he could resist.

  "Boyd!" He didn't know whether he called that name aloud, or whether itwas one with the beat in his head. Boyd was out on that littered field,and Drew was going to bring him in.

  Towing the half-seen animal by the reins, Drew star
ted for the fires andthe boom of the guns.

  "All right!" The words came to him hollowly. "But not that way, you'reloco! This way! The Yankees are burnin' up what's left of the town; thatain't the battlefield!"

  Drew was ready to resist, but now his own eyes confirmed that. Fire wasraging among the few remaining buildings of the ghost town, and shellswere striking at targets pinned in that light, shells from Confederatebatteries, taking sullen return payment for that disastrous July day.

  A lantern bobbed by his side, swinging to the tread of the man carryingit. And, as they turned away from the inferno which was consumingHarrisburg, Drew saw other such lights in the night, threading along theslope. This was the heartbreaking search, among the dead, for theliving, who might yet be brought back to the agony of the fieldhospitals. He was not the only one hunting through the human wreckagetonight.

  "I've talked to Johnson," Kirby said. "It'll be like huntin' for a steerin the big brush, but we can only try."

  They could only try ... Drew thought he was hardened to sights, sounds.He had helped bring wounded away from other fields, but somehow this wasdifferent. Yet, oddly enough, the thought that Boyd could be--_must_be--lying somewhere on that slope stiffened Drew, quickened his musclesback into obedience, kept him going at a steady pace as he led Hannibalcarefully through the tangle of the dead. Twice they found and freed thestill living, saw them carried away by search parties. And they wereworking their way closer to the breastworks.

  "Ho--there--Johnny!"

  The call came out of the dark, out of the wall hiding the Yankee forces.

  Drew straightened from a sickening closer look at three who had fallentogether.

  "Johnny!" The call was louder, rising over the din from the burningtown. "One, one of yours--he's been callin' out some ... to your leftnow."

  Kirby held up the lantern. The circle of light spread, catching on aspurred boot. That tiny glint of metal moved, or was it the booted footwhich had twitched?

  Drew strode forward as Kirby swung the lantern in a wider arc. The manon the ground lay on his back, his hands moving feebly to tear at thealready rent shirt across his chest. There was a congealed mass of bloodon one leg just above the boot top. Drew knew that flushed and swollenface in spite of its distortion; they had found what they had beensearching for.

  Kirby pulled those frantic hands away from the strips of calico, thescratched flesh beneath, but there was no wound there. The leg injuryDrew learned by quick examination was not too bad a one. And they coulddiscover no other hurt; only the delirium, the flushed face, and thefast breathing suggested worse trouble.

  "Sun, maybe." Kirby transferred his hold to the rolling head, vising itstill between his hands while Drew dripped a scanty stream of theunpalatable water from the Texan's canteen onto Boyd's crusted, gapinglips.

  "I'll mount Hannibal. You hold him!" Drew said. "He can't stay in thesaddle by himself."

  Somehow they managed. Boyd's head, still rolling back and forth, movednow against Drew's sound shoulder. Kirby steadied his trailing legs,then went ahead with the lantern. Before they moved off, Drew turned hishead to the breastworks.

  "Thanks, Yankee!" He called as loudly and clearly as his thirst-driedthroat allowed. There was no answer from the hidden picket or sentry--ifhe were still there. Then Hannibal paced down the slope.

  "The Calhoun place?" Kirby asked.

  Hannibal stumbled, and Boyd cried out, the cry becoming a moan.

  "Yes. Anse ..." Drew added dully, "do you know ... this was hisbirthday--today. I just remembered."

  Sixteen today.... Maybe somewhere he could find the surgeon to whom lastnight he had turned over the drugs in his saddlebags. The doctor'sgratitude had been incredulous then. But that was before the battle,before a red tide of broken men had flowed into the dressing station atthe Calhoun house. The leg wound was not too bad, but the sun hadaffected the boy who had lain in its full glare most of the day. He musthave help.

  The saddlebags of drugs, Boyd needing help--one should balance theother. Those facts seesawed back and forth in Drew's aching head, and heheld his muttering burden close as Kirby found them a path away from therending guns and the blaze of the fires.