Joseph A. Altsheler – The Complete Collection

Chapter 36

The dun clouds were still rolling up from both heavens toward the zenith, shot now and then with yellow streaks and scarlet gleams. Sometimes they threw back in a red glare the reflection of the burning forest, and then again the drifting clouds of smoke and ashes and dust turned the whole to a solid and dirty brown. It was now more than a battle to Harley. Within that cloud of smoke and flashing flame the fate of a nation hung--the South was a nation to him--and before the sun set the decree might be given. He was filled with woe to be sitting there looking on at so vast an event. Vain, selfish and superficial, depths in his nature were touched at last. This was no longer a scene set as at a theatre, upon which one might fight for the sake of ambition or a personal glory. Suddenly he sank into insignificance. The fortunes or the feelings of one man were lost in mightier issues.

"It's coming back!" exclaimed Mrs. Markham.

The battle again approached the old house, the clouds swept up denser and darker, the tumult of the rifles and the great guns grew louder; the voices, the cries and the commands were heard again, and the human figures, distorted and unreal, reappeared against the black or fiery background. To Helen's mind returned the simile of a huge flaming pit in which multitudes of little imps struggled and fought. She was yet unable to invest them with human attributes like her own, and the mystic and unreal quality in this battle which oppressed her from the first did not depart.

"It is all around us," said Mrs. Markham.

Helen looked up and saw that her words were true. The battle now made a complete circuit of the house, though yet distant, and from every point came the thunder of the cannon and the rifles, the low and almost rhythmic tread of great armies in mortal struggle, and the rising clouds of dust, ashes and smoke shot with the rapid flame of the guns, like incessant sheet-lightning.

The clouds had become so dense that the battle, though nearer, grew dimmer in many of its aspects; but the distorted and unreal human figures moved like shadows on a screen and were yet visible, springing about and crossing and recrossing in an infinite black tracery that the eye could not follow. But to neither of the three did the thought of fear yet come. They were still watchers of the arena, from high seats, and the battle was not to take them in its coils.

The flame, the red light from the guns, grew more vivid, and was so rapid and incessant that it became a steady glare, illuminating the vast scene on which the battle was outspread; the black stems of the oaks and pines, the guns--some wheelless and broken now, the charging lines, fallen horses scattered in the scrub, all the medley and strain of a titanic battle.

The sparks flew in vast showers. Bits of charred wood from the burning forest, caught up by the wind, began to fall on the thin roof of the old house, and kept up a steady, droning patter. The veil of gray ashes upon the floor and on the scanty furniture grew thicker. The coloured woman never ceased for a moment to cry drearily.

"It is still doubtful!" murmured Harley.

His keen, discerning eye began to see a method, an order in all this huge tumult--signs of a design, and of another design to defeat it--the human mind seeking to achieve an end. One side was the North and another the South--but which was his own he could not tell. For the present he knew not where to place his sympathies, and the fortunes of the battle were all unknown to him.

He looked again at his watch. Mid-afternoon. Hours and hours had passed and still the doubtful battle hung on the turning of a hair; but his study of it, his effort to trace its fortune through all the intricate maze of smoke and flame, did not cease. He sought to read the purposes of the two master minds which marshaled their forces against each other, to evolve order from chaos and to read what was written already.

Suddenly he uttered a low cry. He could detect now the colour of the uniforms. There on the right was the gray, his own side, and Harley's soul dropped like lead in water. The gray were yielding slowly, almost imperceptibly, but nevertheless were yielding. The blue masses were pouring upon them continually, heavier and heavier, always coming to the attack.

Harley glanced at the women. They, too, saw as he saw. He read it in the deathly pallor of their faces, their lips parted and trembling, the fallen look of their eyes. It was not a mere spectacle now--something to gaze at appalled, not because of the actors in it, but because of the spectacle itself. It was beginning now to have a human interest, vital and terrible--the interest of themselves, their friends and the South to which they belonged.

Helen suddenly remembered a splendid figure that had ridden away from her window that morning--the figure of the man who alone had come to bid her good-by, he who had seemed to her a very god of war himself; and she knew he must be there in that flaming pit with the other marionettes who reeled back and forth as the master minds hurled fresh legions anew to the attack. If not there, one thing alone had happened, and she refused to think of that, though she shuddered; but she would not picture him thus. No; he rode triumphant at the head of his famous brigade, sword in hand, bare and shining, and there was none who could stand before its edge. It was with pride that she thought of him, and a faint blush crept over her face, then passed quickly like a mist before sunshine.

The battle shifted again and the faces of the three who watched at the window reflected the change in a complete and absolute manner. The North was thrust back, the South gained--a few feet perhaps, but a gain nevertheless, and joy shone on the faces where pallor and fear had been before. To the two women this change would be permanent. They could see no other result. The North would be thrown back farther and farther, overwhelmed in rout and ruin. They looked forward to it eagerly and in fancy saw it already. The splendid legions of the South could not be beaten.

But no such thoughts came to Harley. He felt all the joy of a momentary triumph, but he knew that the fortune of the battle still hung in doubt. Strain eye and ear as he would, he could see no decrease in the tumult nor any decline in the energy of the figures that fought there, an intricate tracery against the background of red and black. The afternoon was waning, and his ears had grown so used to the sounds without that he could hear everything within the house. The low, monotonous crying of the coloured woman was as distinct as if there were no battle a half-mile away.

The dense fine ashes crept into their throats and all three coughed repeatedly, but did not notice it, having no thought for anything save for what was passing before them. They were powdered with it, face, hair and shoulders, until it lay over them like a veil, but they did not know nor care.

The battle suddenly changed again and the South was pressed back anew. Once more their faces fell, and the hearts of the women, raised to such heights, sank to the depths. It was coming nearer, too. There was a fierce hiss, a shrill scream and something went by.

"A shell passed near us then," said Harley, "and there's another. The battle is swinging close."

Still the element of fear did not enter into the minds of any of the three, not even into those of the women, although another shell passed by and then others, all with a sharp, screaming note, full of malignant ferocity. Then they ceased to come and the battle again hovered in the distance, growing redder and redder than ever against a black background as the day darkened and the twilight approached. Its sound now was a roar and a hum--many varying notes blending into a steady clamour, which was not without a certain rhythm and music--like the simultaneous beating of a million mighty bass drums.

"They still press us back," murmured Harley; "the battle is wavering."

With the coming of the twilight the light in the forest of scrub oaks and pines, the light from so many cannon and rifles, assumed vivid and unearthly hues, tinged at the edges with a yellow glare and shot through now and then with blue and purple streaks. Over it hung the dark and sullen sky.

"It comes our way again," said Harley.

It seemed now to converge upon them from all sides, to contract its coils like a python, but still the house was untouched, save by the drifting smoke and ashes. Darker and darker the night came down, a black cap over all this red struggle, but with its contrast deepening the vivid colours of the combat that went on below.

Nearer it came, and suddenly some horsemen shot from the flame-cloud and stood for a moment in a huddled group, as if they knew not which way to turn. They were outlined vividly against the red battle and their uniforms were gray. Even Helen could see why they hesitated and doubted. Riderless horses galloped out of the smoke and, with the curious attraction that horses have for the battlefield, hovered near, their empty saddles on their backs.

A groan burst from Harley.

"My God," he cried, "those cavalrymen are going to retreat!"

Then he saw something that struck him with a deeper pang, though he was silent for the moment. He knew those men. Even at the distance many of the figures were familiar.

"My own troop!" he gasped. "Who could have thought it?"

Then he added, in sad apology: "They need a leader."

The horsemen were still in doubt, although they seemed to drift backward and away from the field of battle. A fierce passion lay hold of Harley and inflamed his brain. He saw his own men retreating when the fate of the South hung before them. He thought neither of his wounds nor of the two women beside him, one his sister. Springing to his feet while they tried in vain to hold him back, he cried out that he had lingered there long enough. He threw off their clinging hands, ran to the door, blood from his own wounds streaking his clothes, and they saw him rush across the open space toward the edge of the forest where the horsemen yet lingered. They saw him, borne on by excitement, seize one of the riderless horses, leap into the saddle and turn his face toward the battle. They almost fancied that they could hear his shout to his troops: "Come on, men; the way is here, not there!"

The horse he had seized was that of a slain bugler, and the bugle, tied by a string to the horn of the saddle, still hung there. Harley lifted it to his lips, blew a note that rose, mellow and inspiring, above all the roar of the cannon and the rifles, and then, at the head of his men, rode into the heart of the battle.

CHAPTER XIX

NIGHT IN THE WILDERNESS

The two women clasped hands again and looked at each other as Harley disappeared amid the smoke.

"He has left us," said Mrs. Markham.

"Yes, but he has gone to his country's need," said his sister proudly.

Then they were silent again. Night, smoky, cloudy and dark, thick with vapours and mists, and ashes and odours that repelled, was coming down upon the Wilderness. Afar in the east the fire in the forest still burned, sending up tongues of scarlet and crimson over which sparks flew in myriads. Nearer by, the combat went on, its fury undimmed by the darkness, its thunder as steady, as persistent and terrible as before.