Complete weird tales of.., p.1252
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 1252
Ashley’s dissipated face emerged from the bedcovers. Fear stamped every feature with a grimace that amused Smull.
“What did you say about Moseby’s men?” stammered Ashley.
“They’re in the hills across the river,” repeated Smull: “I seen smoke on Painted Rock.”
“It’s a blockade still,” suggested Ashley.
“No it ain’t,” retorted Smull; “it’s green wood burnin’ — don’t I know a still, hey? It’s Confederate cavalry, an’ they’ve ridden around the Yankee army, that’s what they’ve done.”
Ashley protruded his long pallid neck, looked around like an alarmed turkey, in a weed patch, and finally stared at Smull.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
The fat cunning on Smull’s face was indescribable.
“Do?” repeated Smull.
“Yes, do! Didn’t Moseby tell you to ring the church bell on Sunday as many times as there was Yankee companies in Slow-River? Didn’t he tell you to hang out your washing according to code, — a shirt, ‘come,’ two shirts ‘run,’ a red undershirt, ‘run like the devil’ — say, didn’t he and you fix up the code?”
Smull’s small eyes rested on the door, then on Ashley.
“The Yankee Battery Captain came to look at the bell. I threw the clapper out into the bushes,” he said.
After a moment he added: “He came near falling through the plank floor. Frightened me to death — most.”
Ashley’s eyes met his; Smull raised a fat white hand to conceal the expression of his mouth.
“That’s all very well,” said Ashley petulantly, “but I reckon you’d better go. If I’m caught I’m toted out to a shootin’ match — and I’ll be the target too.”
This observation appeared to start a new train of thought in Smull’s mind. And, as he cogitated, his expression changed from sly malice to complacence, and then to that sanctimonious smirk with which, in the garden below, he had greeted Mrs. Ashley.
“Ashley,” he said gravely, “I can’t give no signals to Moseby, nohow. I regret,” he continued piously, “I regret and see the error that the South has made in this here unchristian war.”
Ashley started and fixed his bloodshot eyes on Smull, who immediately raised his own to the ceiling and addressed it unctuously: “This here unchristian war to disrupt the sacred union of the States is a offence against God and man, my young friend, and I now am brought to see, by God’s grace, the sin of secession an’ slavery, an’ Jefferson Davis an’ his wicked ways. Surely the wicked shall perish and be cut down like the grass; in the morning it flourisheth and groweth up, in the evenin’ it is cut down an’ withereth, my young fren’.”
Ashley had grown paler and paler; his fingers clutched at the bedclothes, and he watched Smull’s increasing exaltation with a horror that pinched every feature in his face.
“No!” bawled Smull: “no! no! I have took the oath of allegiance to these here United States! Blessed is the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy!”
“Shut up!” gasped Ashley, “do you want to have the Yankee provost here?”
Smull raised his hands and wept on; “Behold I am utterly enlightened! Blessed are the meek for they” —
“Stop!” shrieked Ashley, starting up in bed.
Smull glanced sharply at him, then sat down with a sigh.
“Are you going to give me up to the provost-marshal because you took the oath?” quavered Ashley, beside himself with fright and fury.
“No,” said Smull wagging his double chin and ‘meeting Ashley’s glance squarely; “no, I will not bring the centurions for fear they utterly destroy thee with the sword.”
Ashley, sweating with terror, looked at the reverend gentleman and wondered whether he could kill him without undue disturbance. That fat neck could not be strangled with Ashley’s slender fingers; the revolver under the pillow was surer — and surer still to bring the Yankee soldiers pell-mell into the house. He had been jealous of Smull when that gentleman made his weekly call on Mrs. Ashley. He, besotted as he was, noticed the expression of Smull’s small eyes when Mrs. Ashley entered the room, her innocent heart filled with plans for charities suggested by the minister. Would the Reverend Laomi like to see Mrs. Ashley a real widow? Would he even aid fate toward the accomplishment of her widowhood?
“What the hell made you holler like that!” stammered Ashley fiercely. “Damn you,” he added, “if the Yankees had come into this room, you would have left it feet first an’ fit for a hole in the ground?”
The Reverend Laomi Smull looked sadly at the young man. There were tears on his fat cheeks.
“Yes, I tote a gun,” sneered Ashley, tapping the pillow under his head. “Don’t be a fool. Hang out your shirt and let Moseby come and clean out these Yankees, for God’s sake, before they shoot me and hang you on my evidence.”
“Moseby’s men can’t face cannon,” observed Smull with sudden alacrity.
“Then lock the cannoniers in the church when Moseby signals. You can do ‘it; you’ve got the keys, haven’t you?”
Smull nodded.
“They’ll come at night, of course; you can go and whine hymns in the church by special permit, and lock the door when the first carbine goes off.”
“And the bell on Sunday?” inquired Smull: “the clapper’s gone, the rope’s are cut, and the Yankee Battery Captain wouldn’t let me ring it nohow.” —
“Never mind the bell. If Moseby sees the shirt he’ll attack by night, unless he’s in force. If the whole Confederate cavalry has ridden around Wilson, then he’ll come by day and send the Yankees packing, battery or no battery. All you’ve got to do is to hang out that shirt. Now go away, d’you hear?”
Smull rose and walked softly to the door.
“And,” added Ashley, “if you play tricks on me you’ll hang on my evidence.”
Smull opened the door.
“And you’ll not get my wife anyway, damn you!” finished Ashley triumphantly from the bed.
Smull turned and looked at him, then went out, quietly closing the door behind him.
At the foot of the stairs he met Mrs. Ashley, and he smirked and opened his thick moist lips to speak, but the young wife’s face startled him and he closed his mouth with a snap of surprise.
“You intend to betray my husband,” she said breathlessly.
“You have been listening at your husband’s door,” he retorted savagely.
She clenched her small hands: “What of it! With cowards and traitors and hypocrites as guests, honest people need be forewarned! Shame on you! Shame on your cloth! Shame on your oath of allegiance! You’ll sell my husband to steal his wife! You’ll break your oath to bring the rebel cavalry down on us!”
She brushed the tears from her eyes with both trembling hands.
“God knows,” she said, “I thought I was right to hide my husband, and I think so now. Yet, if he or you betray these soldiers I shall denounce you both to the first picket!”
“Madame,” began Smull in thick persuasive tones, “you wrong me—”
“Leave this house!” she said, trembling.
The Reverend Laomi bowed low, raised his eyes to the sky, sighed, and stepped out into the garden. There, before he could rearrange his expressive features, Smith met him face to face and returned the clergyman’s disconcerted salute gravely.
“One moment, my dear young friend,” stammered Smull.
Smith wheeled squarely in his tracks and stood rigid. Smull hesitated, passed a fat tongue over his lips, and weighed the chances. The next moment he made up his mind, glanced at the door, saw Mrs. Ashley entering the house, then leaned swiftly toward Smith and whispered.
Smith drew himself up sharply; the Reverend Laomi Smull turned and left the garden, head bowed on his breast as though in anguish of spirit. A few minutes later he brought a wash basket out of his house and pinned a single shirt to the line with a wooden clothespin. Then he ran to the woods, as fast as he could, and squatted under a rock where a tangle of brambles fell like a curtain to screen him from the eyes of the impious, indiscreet, and importunate.
IV.
Smith, holding his sabre very stiffly, raised the bronze knocker on Mrs. Ashley’s door and rapped three times. Then he loosened the chin-strap of his forage-cap; drew off both gauntlets, folded them, and placed them in his belt.
As he waited for admittance he saw the flag over the porch, motionless in the still air; he heard the wild bees’ harmony overhead, he heard the rustle of a summer gown behind the door. But the door did not open. He waited. A burr stuck to the crimson stripe on his riding breeches; he flicked it off with his middle finger. Presently he knocked again, once; the door opened, and Mrs. Ashley came out, smiling faintly.
“I hope you want another cup of tea,” she said with the slightest gesture toward the table under the magnolias where the two chairs still stood as they had left them in the morning.
He attended her, cap in hand, to the table; when she was seated, he stood beside her.
“Is it tea, Captain Smith?” she asked, looking up at him.
He grew suddenly red, but did not reply.
“What is it then?” she repeated, smiling: “not the mere honour of my poor presence I am sure. But, as a gallant officer, you must contradict me, Captain Smith.”
Fear whitened her lips that the smile had not left; she faced him with the coquetry of desperation; and the pathos of it turned him sick at heart.
“I brought the Bible to you,” he said; “it is the one you swore on — the oath of allegiance. You kissed it.”
She inclined her throbbing head and took it.
“Open it,” he said.
She obeyed. The wet bit of folded paper caught her eyes and she held it out to Smith, saying: “This is yours.”
“No!” he said, “it is yours.”
She glanced swiftly up at him, caught her breath; and sat motionless, the paper clutched nervously in her fingers.
“Read it,” he said in a scarcely audible voice.
She opened it; one glance was enough. Then she dropped it on the grass at her feet. Presently he stooped and recovered it.
“Yes,” she said, obeying his eyes’ command, “my husband is not dead. What of it?”
“Where is he?”
She was silent.
“A deserter.”
“Yes.”
“A traitor.”
“Yes.”
Smith walked to the gate, looked down the road toward the church where the artillery pickets paraded, naked sabres drawn. Then he came back.
“You are under arrest,” he said, looking at the ground.
She turned a bloodless face to his, and raised one slender hand to her forehead.
“Do you doubt my loyalty?” she stammered.
He turned his back sharply.
“My loyalty?” she repeated as though dazed.
He was silent.
“But — but you administered the oath — you saw me kiss the Book,” she persisted with childlike insistence.
“And your husband?” he asked, turning abruptly.
“What of him!” she cried, revolted; “I am myself! — I have a brain and a body and a soul of my own! Do you think I would damn my soul with a kiss on that Book! Do you think if I were a Rebel I would deny it to save my body?”
“You have denied it,” he said. He took the Bible from her hand and opened it at a marked page:
“By their acts ye shall know them,” he read steadily, then closed the Book and laid it on the table. Their eyes met; the anguish in his bore a message to her that pleaded for forgiveness for what he was about to do.
“Not that!—” she stammered, half rising from the chair.
He turned, drew out a handkerchief, and signalled the artillery picket, flag-fashion. Then, before he could prevent it, she was on her knees to him, there on the grass, her white face lifted, speechless with horror.
“For God’s sake don’t do that,” he said, trying to raise her, but she clung to him and pushed him toward the gate murmuring, “Go! Go!”
Furious at the agony he was causing her, tortured by the agony it cost him, he held her firmly and told her to be silent.
“Your husband is hidden in that house,” he said: “he is attempting to add to his treason by communicating with the Rebel cavalry. He tried to force your own pastor, at the point of a pistol, to hang a red shirt on his clothesline, which means ‘attack!’ The pastor is a good man; he had taken the oath; such villainy horrified him. To save his life in the room above he consented to hang out a signal, but the signal he hung out is a white shirt which means ‘retreat.’ There it is!’
He pointed angrily at the white shirt hanging on the minister’s clothes-line down the road.
“Now,” he said, “let me do my duty.”
He took her by the wrists, and looked straight into her eyes, adding:
“I’d rather be lying dead at your feet than doing what I’ve got to do.”
“But,” she cried, struggling to free herself, “but the signal! Can’t you understand? The man lied! He lied! He lied! The white rag means ‘attack!’”
Stupefied, he dropped her wrists and stepped back.
“Run to your battery!” she wailed, “run! run! Can’t you understand! They’re coming! They’ll kill you!”
Scarcely had she spoken when a rifle-shot rang out from the race-track, another, another, then a scattered volley.
An artillery guard approached the garden, halted, turned, then scattered pell mell toward the church. The next moment Smith was running for his battery and shouting to Steele, who, mounted, cantered among the grave-stones, and hurried the panic-stricken cannoniers to their stations.
A frightful tumult arose from the race-track, where the “Dead Rabbits,” taken utterly unprepared by a cloud of Confederate cavalry, ran like rabbits very much alive. Through them galloped the Confederate riders, heavy sabres dripping to the hilt. The Union cavalry at the water-tank was overwhelmed; the gray-jacketed troopers, shouting their “Hi! yi! yi! yi!” wheeled into the village, shaking a thousand glittering sabres; but here they met a blast of cannister from the churchyard that sent them reeling and tumbling back to the race-track, now swarming with the entire Confederate division.
Smith’s battery, limbered up, filed out of the churchyard, while Smith, looking annihilation in the face, saw the last of the “Dead-Rabbits” legging it for the woods. He turned with a groan to Steele, and Steele said, “Ride for it, if we’re to save the guns! The whole rebel cavalry is here!”
Bullets began to sing into the bewildered column; the cannoniers struggled with the horses and swore. Suddenly a shell fell squarely on the church tower and burst.
“They’ve got artillery; we’re goners!” shouted a teamster.
Smith drew his sabre and raised it high above his head: “Battery forward!” he cried: “by the left flank! Gallop!”
“God help us,” gasped Steele.
Team after team dashed into position, dropped their guns, and wheeled into station behind. Smith dismounted and, standing by gun No. 1, began to make calculations, pad and pencil in hand. Presently he gave his orders; a shrapnel shell was rammed home, the screw twisted to the elevation, then:
“Fire!”
A lance of flame pierced the white cloud, the shell soared away toward the race-track and burst beyond it.
Before gun No. 2 could be fired, a roar broke from the wooded heights close to the left, and a flight of shells struck Smith’s battery amidships. For a moment it was horrible; teams were butchered, guns dismounted, cannoniers torn to shreds.
“Steele, bring that limber up!” shouted Smith; “they shan’t have every gun!”
Steele seized the bridle; the terrified animals lashed out right and left, threatening to kick the traces to bits. A cannonier tried to hook up the gun but fell dead under the limber. A caisson blew up, hurling a dozen men into the air and stunning as many more. With blackened face and jacket, Steele reeled toward the gun again but fell on his face in the long grass.
“Bring off that gun!” shouted Smith, standing straight up in his stirrups. Crack! went the wheel, and the gun sank to its axle. Then Smith sprang from his horse and helped the gunners take the spare wheel from the caisson, roll it up over the grass, and mount it on the broken pieces. Smith hammered it on the axle, then drove home the linchpin, brushed the sweat from his half-blinded eyes, and looked around.
What he saw was the wreck of three guns and caissons, the blackened fragments of gunners and horses, and a mess of trampled grass; and beyond, between his single gun and the race-track, a long gray line, glittering with naked steel, sweeping straight upon him.
Of his battery there remained three men with him; the others were lying dead around Steele or stunned and mangled somewhere in the rank grass.
Scarcely conscious of what he did, he helped his three gunners hook the gun to the limber, then mounted and followed the gun back into the village through a constantly increasing rain of bullets. One of his men fell to the earth.
“I guess the whole Rebel army’s here,” he said, as though speaking to himself: “I guess I’d better get this gun to the Junction damn quick.”
In front of Mrs. Ashley’s cottage, as the cannon passed, Ashley, in his shirt-sleeves, fired from the window point-blank at a cannonier and shot him out of his saddle. The dead man’s clutch on the team’s bridle brought the gun to a halt, and the remaining gunner sprang from his saddle with an oath and dashed into the house, sabre unsheathed.
“Come back!” shouted Smith, reining in; “man! man! we’ve got to save the gun! Come back!” He climbed from his own saddle into the saddle of the nigh battery horse and seized the heavy rawhide. A bullet broke his wrist as he lifted it.
There was a struggle going on in the room from which Ashley had fired, but Smith did not see it; his head swam and he looked at his gun with sick eyes. For a second all round grew black, then he found himself rising from his horse’s neck, and, in the road beside him, he saw Mrs. Ashley and ‘Biah, holding the bridles he had dropped.
