Complete weird tales of.., p.1217
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 1217
“Now,” he said, “you can see the bend in the river. There are three pines on the bank above — see?”
“Yes.”
“Take the foot-path by those pines until you come to a burnt barn. Follow the river after that and if the iron bridge isn’t blown up yet you can get across; if it is blown up you can’t join Colonel Worth.”
“But — a — a boat—”
“A boat in that?”
They looked at the foaming torrent, thundering among the rocks. After a moment the staff-officer pointed to the shot-torn bridge below them.
“Oh,” said Cleymore, “you came that way, didn’t you? Well, miracles happen, and that was one of them, but if you try to get back that way, the performance won’t be encored, and you can bet your curly head on that, my son.”
“It’s the shortest way,” said the little staff-officer.
“Yes, the shortest way to Kingdom come,” said Cleymore, disgusted; “if you’re not shot, the Texans will catch you.”
They were crouching on the hot dried grass, side by side. The sweat poured down Cleymore’s forehead washing the powder grime into thick patches over his young face. He threw his blackened jacket open at the throat, rubbed his forehead with his sleeve and said, “Whew!”
“It’s the shortest way,” repeated the other, rising to his knees.
“You can’t go,” said Cleymore, sharply, “the bridge is mined and Murphy may blow it up any moment.”
The youth handed back the field-glass with a smile. For a moment their eyes met, then Cleymore’ s flushed face turned a bright crimson and he caught his breath, murmuring “I’m blest!”
“Captain Cleymore,” said the staff-officer coolly, “you are detaining me from my duty. Have I your permission to leave?”
They eyed each other steadily.
“You must not go,” said Cleymore in a curious, husky voice, “ let me send a man—”
“Have I your leave?”
“Come back,” cried Cleymore, “I won’t give it!” — but the youngster sprang to his feet, touched his curly head in quick salute, and started on a run toward the covered bridge, holding his sabre close to his thigh.
“Drop!” shouted Cleymore, and began to swear under his breath, but the youngster ran on, and to Cleymore’s amazement, the rifles of the fierce Texans on the other side of the river were silent.
On and still on ran the boy, until, with a sigh of astonishment and relief, Cleymore saw him push in among the handful of blue-clad engineers at the end of the bridge; but he went no further, for they stopped him with levelled bayonets, shaking their heads and gesticulating, and suddenly Cleymore noticed that the bridge was afire at the further end.
“Murphy’s fired the bridge!” he called out to Kellogg on the plateau above.
Kellogg’s head appeared over a shattered gun limber. “Then Longstreet’s coming, you bet!”
“I suppose so, can’t you see anything? Call Douglas.”
The Texas rifles cracked again. Kellogg did not answer. “Can’t you see any movement near the woods?” demanded Cleymore from his rock. Then he looked carefully at Kellogg’s head, appearing to rest between two bits of sod, and he saw, in the middle of the forehead, a round dark spot from which a darker line crept slowly down over the nose.
After a second or two he turned from the dead eyes staring fixedly at him, and looked across the river where the rifles were spitting death. The round white blotches of smoke hung along the river bank like shreds of cotton floating. Then he glanced toward the bridge again. There was a commotion there; a group of excited soldiers around a slender figure, bareheaded, gesticulating.
“What’s that hop o’ my thumb up to now?” he muttered excitedly, and raised his field-glass.
“By Jingo! Trying to cross the bridge, and it’s afire!”
For a moment he knelt, his eye glued to the field-glasses, then with an angry exclamation he turned toward the floating rifle-smoke along the opposite bank. The chances were that he’d be hit, and he knew it, but he only muttered pettishly; “Young fool,” and started, stooping low, toward the swaying knot of men at the bridge.
The chances were ten to one that he’d be hit, and he was, but he only straightened up and ran on. The minié-balls came whining about his head, the blood ran down into his boot, and filled it so that he slopped as he ran. And after all he was too late, for, as he panted up to the bridge, far down the covered way he saw the youngster speeding over the smoking rafters.
“Stop him!” he gasped.
A soldier raised his rifle, but Cleymore jerked it down.
“Not that way,” he said, leaning back on his sword.
Along the dry timbered tunnel crept the boy, for the fire was all about him now. Once he fell but rose again.
“Has the mine been fired — the powder trail?” asked Cleymore, in a dull voice.
A soldier nodded and opened his mouth to speak, but a deafening roar drowned his voice and gave Cleymore his answer.
“Is that all?” asked Cleymore again, as the smoke rushed skyward, and the ground trembled and cracked beneath them.
“One more,” said a sergeant curtly, as Captain Murphy hurried up. The whole further section of the bridge had crumbled into the torrent below. The smoke swept through the tunnel, and when it lifted Cleymore caught a glimpse of a figure dragging itself back from the gulf ahead. The soldiers saw it too.
“He would go,” said one of them, as though speaking to himself.
Cleymore tore off his jacket and held it before his face.
“You can’t do it!” cried Murphy, horrified.
“Let go — I must,” said Cleymore quietly, “cut the match, if you can.”
“The other mines are on fire! In the name of God, Cleymore!” urged the engineer officer, holding him back by both shoulders.
“Damn you, Murphy, let me go!” cried Cleymore fiercely; “let go, I say.”
“I will not, Cleymore; we can’t lose you for a fool of a boy — —”
“But it’s a woman!” roared Cleymore, wrenching himself free.
II.
AS he ran through the smoke-choked bridge, bright little flames shot from the crackling timbers, and he felt the hot breath of the furnace underneath. And all the time he kept repeating as he ran, “I’m a fool, I’m a fool, it’s all up now”; but he hurried on, shielding his face with his braided jacket, feeling his way through the flurries of smoke and sparks until a whirl of flame blocked his way; and on the edge of the burning depths he found what he was looking for.
She was very slender and light, in her ragged uniform, and he lifted her and wrapped his jacket about her head. Then he started back, increasing his speed as the black smoke rolled up from the planks under foot, but it was easier than he had dared dream of, for she revived, and when Murphy loomed up in the gloom, and steadied them with an arm, he laughed aloud from sheer nervousness. Then a terrific explosion threw him on his face, but Murphy helped him up, and he seized his burden again and staggered toward the hill where Keenan’s guns were already thundering, and the crack — crack — crackle of rifles echoed and re-echoed from rock to cliff.
“You’re hit,” said Douglas, as he entered the entrenchment.
“I know it,” said Cleymore, hastily scanning the rifle-pits, “keep the men under cover, Douglas — what’s up? Wait, I’ll be there in a second. Here, Pillsbury, take this we — this officer to my burrow and stay there until I come!”
Douglas, lying close to the top of the breastworks, glasses levelled, began to speak in a monotonous voice: “The two batteries have returned and are unlimbering to the west; they seem to have cavalry too; a heavy column is moving parallel to the railroad — infantry and ammunition convoy; more infantry coming through the cemetery; I can see more on the hill beyond; the batteries have unlimbered — look out!”
“Down!” shouted Cleymore, but the shells sailed high overhead and plunged into the muddy torrent of the South Fork.
“Keenan,” he called, “do you want volunteers?”
“Not yet — damn the Texans!” bawled Keenan through the increasing din.
Douglas began, “Cleymore, they are—” and fell over stone dead.
Cleymore heard the miniê-balls’ thud! thud! as they struck the dead body, half flung across the breastwork, and Keenan, maddened by the bullets which searched his dwindling files, bellowed hoarsely, as one by one his guns flashed and roared, “Now! In the name of God, lads, to hell with them!”
Like red devils in the pit the cannoneers worked at their guns, looming through the infernal smoke pall stripped to their waists. Keenan, soaked with sweat and black from eyes to ankle, raged like a fiend from squad to squad while his guns crashed and the whole hill vomited flame.
Thicker and blacker rolled the smoke from the battery emplacement, until it shrouded the hill. Then out of the darkness reeled Keenan howling for volunteers and weeping over the loss of another gun.
“Three left?” motioned Cleymore faintly with his lips.
“Three! Number four dismounted and all killed; send me some of your infantry!” and the artilleryman plunged into the blazing furnace again. Below them the grass and abatis caught fire and the smarting smoke of green wood almost blinded Cleymore. Murphy and his engineers were at work among the crackling logs, but after a while the dull blows of their axes died away and Cleymore knew they were dead.
“More men for the guns!” roared Keenan from the darkness, and a dozen Rhode Islanders tumbled out of their burrows and groped their way into the battery. In another moment Keenan came staggering out again, gasping like a fish and waving his arms blindly.
“They’ve got another gun, Cleymore, — only two now, — more men for the guns!”
Cleymore, half fainting from the loss of blood, motioned to his men for volunteers; and they came, cheering for old New York, and vanished, engulfed in the battery smoke.
The hill was swept by fierce cyclones of lead; bullets flew in streams, whistling, hurtling among the rocks, rebounding into the rifle-pits, carrying death to those below. Great shells tore through the clouds, bursting and shattering the cliff overhead. A whirlwind of flame from the burning bridge swept over the hillside, hiding the river and the heights opposite, and the burning abatis belched smoke and torrents of sparks. Cleymore sat down near the burrow, and picked the bits of cloth from the long tear which the bullet had made in his flesh above the knee. The last of the engineer company came toiling up from the railroad bridge, and the lieutenant nodded to his question, “Yes, the bridge is blown out of the water. Where can I put my men in, Captain?”
Cleymore pointed to the pits, and they went into them, cheering shrilly. A moment later a shell fell into one of the crowded pits and exploded, throwing out a column of sand and bodies torn limb from limb. Only one gun was firing now from Keenan’s battery, but from that one gun the lightning sped continuously, fed by a constantly renewed stream of volunteers. Cleymore, watching Keenan, thought that he had really gone mad. Perhaps he had, and perhaps that is why Heaven directed a bullet to his brain, before the loss of his last gun should kill him with grief. Then a shell smashed up the muzzle of the last gun, and the remnants of the servants dragged themselves away to lie panting like hounds on the scorched earth, or die inch by inch from some gaping wound.
“The jig is up,” said Cleymore aloud to himself.
For a quarter of an hour the enemy’s guns rained shells into the extinct crater — the tomb of Keenan and his cannon. Then, understanding that Keenan had been silenced forever, their fire died out, and Cleymore could hear bugles blowing clearly in the distance.
He staggered to his feet and called to his men, but of the 10th New York Rifles, only thirty came stumbling from the pits. Pillsbury also answered the call, sauntering unconcernedly from the burrow whither he had carried Cleymore’s charge.
All around them the wounded were shrieking for water, and Cleymore aided his men to carry them to the spring which flowed sparkling from the rocks above. It was out of the question to remove them, — it was useless to think of burying the dead. The three days’ struggle for the hill had ended, and now all the living would have to leave, — all except one.
“Pillsbury,” said Cleymore, “take my men, and strike for the turnpike due north. I can’t walk — I am too weak yet, but you have time to get out. March!”
The men refused, and Pillsbury called for a litter of rifles, but a volley whistled in among them and they reeled.
“Save thet there flag!” shouted Pillsbury, “I’ve got the guidon!”
Cleymore lay on the ground motionless, and when they lifted him his head fell back.
“Daid,” said Pillsbury, soberly, “poor cuss!” A rifleman threw his jacket over Cleymore’s face, and started running down the hill to where the colour-guard was closing around a bundle of flags, black and almost dropping from the staffs.
“Save the colours!” they cried, and staggered on toward the north.
III.
IT may have been thirst, it may have been the groans of the wounded that roused Cleymore. He was lying close by the rivulet that ran from the rock spring, and he plunged hands and head into it and soaked his fill.
The wound on his leg had stiffened, but to his surprise he found it neatly dressed and bandaged. Had aid arrived?
“Hello!” he called.
The deep sigh of a dying man was his only answer. He hardly dared to look around. The air was stifling with the scent of blood and powder and filthy clothing, and he rose painfully to his feet and tottered into the cool burrow among the rocks.
His blanket and flask lay there, but before he raised the flask to his lips he lifted the corner of the blanket nervously. Underneath stood a small oblong box, into which was screwed an electric button. Two insulated wires entered the ground directly in front of the box, which was marked in black letters, “Watson’s Excelsior Soap.”
Cleymore replaced the blanket, swallowed a mouthful of whiskey and lay down, utterly exhausted. It was late in the afternoon when he awoke from the pain in his leg, but somebody had bandaged it again while he slept, and he was able to move out into the intrenchments. Most of the wounded were dead — the rest were dying in silence. He did what he could for Cunningham who joked feebly and watched Morris with quiet eyes. Morris died first, and Cunningham, hearing the death-rattle in his comrade’s throat, murmured: “Phin he lived he bate me, but oi’ll give him a race to the Saints fur his money! Is Dick Morris dead now?”
“Dead,” said Cleymore.
“Thin, good-bye, Captain dear,” whispered Cunningham.
At first Cleymore thought he was sleeping.
The evening fell over the hilltop, and the last of the wounded shivered and died with drawn face upturned to the driving clouds. Cleymore covered the boy’s face — he was scarcely sixteen — and sat down with his back against a rock.
The wreck of Keenan’s battery rose before him in the twilight, stark and mute, silhouetted against the western horizon. Lights began to sparkle along the opposite river bank, and now, from the heights, torches swung in semi-circles signalling victory for the army of the South, death and disaster to the North. Far away over the wooded hills dull sounds came floating on the breeze, the distant rhythmic cadence of volley firing. There were fires too, faint flares of light on the horizon where Thomas was “standing like a rock.” On a nearer slope a house and barn were burning, lighting up the stumps and rocks in the clearing, and casting strange shadows over the black woods. In the gathering twilight someone came down the cliffs at his back, treading carefully among the shellsplit fragments, and Cleymore saw it was the little staff-officer. She did not see him until he called her.
“I want to thank you for dressing that scratch of mine,” he said, rising.
“You are very welcome,” she said, “is it better?”
“Yes — and you?”
“You saved my life,” she said.
“But are you burnt — you must have been—”
“No — only stifled. Are the wounded alive? I did what I could.”
“They are dead,” said Cleymore. She unhooked her sabre, and sat down beside him looking off over the valley.
After a silence he said: “I suppose you are one of our spies — I have heard of the women spies, and I once saw Belle Boyd. How did you happen to take the place of an aide-de-camp?”
“Am I to tell all my secrets to an infantry captain?” she said, with a trace of a smile in her blue eyes.
“Oh, I suppose not,” he answered, and relapsed into silence.
Presently she drew a bit of bacon and hard-tack from her pouch and quietly divided it. They both drank from the rivulet after the meal was finished. She brushed the water from her lips with a sun-tanned hand, and looking straight at Cleymore, said: “The hill below the abatis is mined, is it not?”
“Now, really,” said Cleymore, “am I to tell all my secrets to a girl spy?” She stared at him for a moment, and then smiled.
“I know it already,” she said.
“Oh,” said Cleymore, “and do you know where the wires are buttoned?”
“Wires?” she exclaimed.
“Of course. Be thankful that poor Murphy’s mines at the bridge were old-fashioned. If there had been wires there, you would not be sitting here.”
“And you have stayed to fire this mine?” she said at length.
“Yes.”
“The bridges are gone, and the river is impassable. It will be days before Longstreet’s men can cross.”
“I know it,” said Cleymore, “but when they come, I’ll be here — and so will the mine.”
The spy dropped her clasped hands into her lap.
“I’ll blow them to hell!” said Cleymore savagely, glaring at the silent dead around him. Then he begged her pardon for forgetting himself, and leaned against the rock to adjust his eyeglasses.
“That would be useless butchery,” said the girl, earnestly.
“That will do,” said Cleymore, in a quiet voice.
The girl shrank away as though she had been struck. Cleymore noticed it, and said: “If you are a Government spy, you are subject to army regulations. I would rather treat you as a woman, but I cannot while you wear that uniform or hold a commission. How, in Heaven’s name, did you come to enter the service? You can’t be eighteen — you are of gentle breeding?”
