Chapter 65
"Old d.i.c.k" squatted by a camp-fire, was broiling a bit of bacon, head on one side, as he looked up with bright round eyes at Cleave, whom he liked. "That you, Richard Cleave? By G.o.d, sir, if I were as excellent a major-general as I am a cook!--Have a bit?--Well, we wolloped them! They fought like men, and we fought like men, and by G.o.d, I can't get the cannon out of my ears! General Jackson?--I thought he was in front with D. H. Hill. Going to do anything more to-night? It's pretty late, but I'm ready."
"Nothing--without General Jackson," said Cleave. "Thank you, general--if I might have a mouthful of coffee? I haven't the least idea when I have eaten."
Ewell handed him the tin cup. He drank hastily and went on. Now it was by a field hospital, ghastly sights and ghastly sounds, pine boughs set for torches. He shut his eyes in a moment's faintness. It looked a demoniac place, a smoke-wreathed platform in some Inferno circle. He met a staff officer coming up from the plain. "General Lee has ridden to the right. He is watching for McClellan's next move. There's a rumour that everything's in motion toward the James. If it's true, there's a chase before us to-morrow, eh?--A. P. Hill suffered dreadfully. 'Prince John'
kept McClellan beautifully amused.--General Jackson? On the slope of the hill by the breastworks."
A red light proclaimed the place as Cleave approached it. It seemed a solitary flame, night around it and a sweep of scarped earth. Cleave, coming into the glow, found only the old negro Jim, squat beside it like a gnome, his eyes upon the jewelled hollows, his lips working. Jim rose.
"De gineral, sah? De gineral done sont de staff away ter res'. Fo' de Lawd, de gineral bettah follah dat 'zample! Yaas, sah,--ober dar in de big woods."
Cleave descended the embankment and entered a heavy wood. A voice spoke--Jackson's--very curtly. "Who is it, and what is your business?"
"It is the colonel of the 65th Virginia, sir. General Winder sends me, with the approval of General D. H. Hill, from the advance by the McGehee house."
A part of the shadow detached itself and came forward as Jackson. It stalked past Cleave out of the belt of trees and over the bare red earth to the fire. The other man followed, and in the glare faced the general again. The leaping flame showed Jackson's bronzed face, with the brows drawn down, the eyes looking inward, and the lips closed as though no force could part them. Cleave knew the look, and inwardly set his own lips. At last the other spoke. "Well, sir?"
"The enemy is cramped between us and the Chickahominy, sir. Our pickets are almost in touch of theirs. If we are scattered and disorganized, they are more so,--confused--distressed. We are the victors, and the troops still feel the glow of victory."
"Well?"
"There might be a completer victory. We need only you to lead us, sir."
"You are mistaken. The men are wearied. They worked very hard in the Valley. They need not do it all."
"They are not so wearied, sir. There is comment, I think, on what the Army of the Valley has not done in the last two days. We have our chance to refute it all to-night."
"General Lee is the commander-in-chief. General Lee will give orders."
"General Lee has said to himself: 'He did so wonderfully in the Valley, I do not doubt he will do as wonderfully here. I leave him free. He'll strike when it is time.'--It is time now, sir."
"Sir, you are forgetting yourself."
"Sir, I wish to rouse you."
Jackson walked past the fire to a fallen tree, sat himself down and looked across to the other man. The low flame more deeply bronzed his face. His eyes looked preternaturally sunken. He sat, characteristically rigid, a figure in grey stone. There was about him a momentary air of an Indian, he looked so ruthless. If it was not that, thought Cleave, then it was that he looked fanatic. Whichever it might be, he perceived that he himself stood in arctic air. He had been liked, he knew; now he saw the mist of disfavour rise. Jackson's voice came gratingly. "Who sent you?"
"General Winder and General D. H. Hill."
"You will tell General Hill that I shall make no further attack to-night. I have other important duties to perform."
"I know what I risk," said Cleave, "and I do not risk it lightly. Have you thought of how you fell on them at Front Royal and at Winchester?
Here, too, they are confused, retreating--a greater force to strike, a greater result to win, a greater service to do for the country, a greater name to make for yourself. To-morrow morning all the world may say, 'So struck Napoleon--'"
"Napoleon's confidence
"And the man who accepts opportunity--is he not His servant? May we not, sir, may we not make the attack?"
"No, sir; not to-night. We have marred too many Sundays--"
"It is not Sunday!"
Jackson looked across with an iron countenance. "So little the fighter knows! See, what war does! But I will keep, in part at least, the Sabbath. You may go, sir."
"General Jackson, this is Friday evening."
"Colonel Cleave, did you hear my order? Go, sir!--and think yourself fortunate that you do not go under arrest."
"Sir--Sir--"
Jackson rose. "One other word, and I take your sword. It occurs to me that I have indulged you in a freedom that--Go!"
Cleave turned with sharp precision and obeyed. Three paces took him out of the firelight into the overhanging shadow. He made a gesture of sorrow and anger. "Who says that magic's dead? Now, how long will that potion hold him?" He stumbled in the loose, bare earth, swamp and creek below him. He looked down into that trough of death. "I gained nothing, and I have done for myself! If I know him--Ugh!"
He shook himself, went on through the sultry, smoky night, alternate lantern-slides of glare and darkness, to the eastern face of the plateau. Here he found Winder, reported, and with him encountered D. H.
Hill coming with Fauquier Cary from the McGehee house. "What's that?"
said Hill. "He won't pursue to-night? Very well, that settles it! Maybe they'll be there in the morning, maybe not. Look here, Winder!
Reynolds's taken--you remember Reynolds?"
Cary and Cleave had a moment apart. "All well, Fauquier? The general?--Edward?"
"I think so. I saw Warwick for a moment. A minie had hurt his hand--not serious, he said. Edward I have not seen."
"I had a glimpse of him this morning.--This morning!"
"Yes--long ago, is it not? You'll get your brigade after this."
The other looked at him oddly. "Will I? I strongly doubt it. Well, it seems not a large thing to-night."
Beyond the main battlefield where A. P. Hill's and Longstreet's shattered brigades lay on their arms, beyond the small farmhouse where Lee waked and watched, beyond the Chickahominy and its swamps, beyond forest and farm land, lay Richmond under the stars. Eastwardly, within and without its girdling earthworks, that brilliant and histrionic general, John Bankhead Magruder, El Capitan Colorado, with a lisping tongue, a blade like Bayard's, and a talent for drama and strategy, kept General McClellan under the impression, confirmed by the whole Pinkerton force, that "at least eighty thousand men" had remained to guard Richmond, when Lee with "at least eighty thousand men" had crossed the Chickahominy. Richmond knew better, but Richmond was stoically calm as to the possibility of a storming. What it had been hard to be calm over was the sound, this Friday, of the guns beyond the Chickahominy.
Mechanicsville, yesterday, was bad enough, but this was frightful.
Heavy, continuous, it took away the breath and held the heart in an iron grip. All the loved ones there--all the loved ones there!--and heavier and heavier toward night grew the fearful sound.... Then began the coming of the wounded. In the long dusk of the summer evening, the cannonading ceased. A little after nine arrived couriers, announcing the victory. The church bells of Richmond, not yet melted into cannon, began to ring. "It was a victory--it was a victory," said the people to one another.... But the wounded continued to come in, ambulance, cart, and wagon rolling like tumbrels over the stones. To many a mother was brought tidings of the death of her son, and many a wife must say, "I am widowed," and many children cried that night for their father. The heat was frightful. The city tossed and moaned, without sleep, or nursed, or watched, or wandered fevered through the streets. The noise of the James around its rocky islands was like the groaning of the distant battlefield. The odour of the June flowers made the city like a chamber of death. All windows were open wide to the air, most houses lighted.
Sometimes from these there came forth a sharp cry; sometimes womens'
forms, restless in the night, searching again the hospitals. "He might be here."--"He might be at this one." Sometimes, before such or such a house, cart or carriage or wagon stopped. "Oh, G.o.d! wounded or--?" All night long fared the processions from the field of Gaines's Mill to the hospitals. Toward dawn it began to be "No room. Try Robinson's--try the De Sales."--"Impossible here! We can hardly step between the rows. The beds gave out long ago. Take him to Miss Sally Tompkins."--"No room. Oh, the pity of it! Take him to the St. Charles or into the first private house. They are all thrown open."
Judith, kept at the Stonewall all the night before, had gone home, bathed, drawn the shutters of her small room, lain down and resolutely closed her eyes. She must sleep, she knew,--must gather strength for the afternoon and night. The house was quiet. Last night the eldest son had been brought in wounded. The mother, her cousin, had him in her chamber; she and his mammy and the old family doctor. His sister, a young wife, was possessed by the idea that her husband might be in one of the hospitals, delirious, unable to tell where he belonged, calling upon her, and no one understanding. She was gone, in the feverish heat, upon her search. There came no sounds from below. After the thunder which had been in the ear, after the sounds of the hospital, all the world seemed as silent as a cavern or as the depth of the sea. Judith closed her eyes, determinedly stilled her heart, drew regular breath, put herself out of Richmond back in a certain cool and green forest recess which she loved, and there wooed sleep. It came at last, with a not unhappy dream.
She thought she was walking on the hills back of Greenwood with her Aunt Lucy. The two said they were tired and would rest, and entered the graveyard and sat down upon the bank of ivy beside Ludwell Cary's grave.
That was all natural enough; a thing they had done many times. They were taught at Greenwood that there was nothing mournful there. Sh.e.l.ls lay about them, beneath the earth, but the beneficent activities had escaped, and were active still, beneficent still.... The word "sh.e.l.ls"
in the dream turned the page. She was upon a great sea beach and quite alone. She sat and looked at the waves coming rolling in, and presently one laid Richard at her feet. She bandaged the cut upon his forehead, and called him by his name, and he looked at her and smiled. "Out of the ocean, into the ocean," he said. "All of us. A going forth and a returning." She felt herself, in the dream, in his arms, and found it sweet. The waves were beneath them; they lay now on the crests, now in the hollows, and there seemed no port. This endured a long while, until she thought she heard the sea-fairies singing. Then there came a booming sound, and she thought, "This is the port, or perhaps it is an island that we are pa.s.sing." She asked Richard which it was, but he did not answer, and she turned upon the wave and found that he was not there....
It was seaweed about her arms. The booming grew louder, rattled the window-gla.s.s. She opened her eyes, pushed her dark loosened hair from her arms and bosom, and sat up. "The cannon again!"
She looked at her watch. It was two o'clock. Rising, she put on her dark, thin muslin, and took her shady hat. The room seemed to throb to the booming guns. All the birds had flown from the tulip tree outside.
She went downstairs and tapped at her cousin's door. "How is he?"--"Conscious now, thank G.o.d, my dear! The doctor says he will be spared. How the house shakes! And Walter and Ronald out there. You are going back?"
"Yes. Do not look for me to-night. There will be so much to be done--"
"Yes, yes, my dear. Louder and louder! And Ronald is so reckless! You must have something to eat."
"s.h.i.+rley will give me a gla.s.s of milk. Tell Rob to get well. Good-bye."