House Divided (33 page)

“I wouldn't, if you didn't always provoke me so.”

After supper, he lost himself in plans to take supplies to the force at Bethel. The simple mathematics involved: how much corn, how much pork, how many wagons, how many mules, how many miles to travel, how long to cover the distance—these absorbed him. He listed the plantations along the way which would contribute wagons loaded with provender, prepared quotas for each to meet; and next day he wrote notes which he sent off by hand to the neighbors upon whom he meant to levy. When they answered, he tallied their replies and was sure there would be enough and to spare.

From the stores at Great Oak, he loaded two huge wagons. They were high, long-bodied vehicles with canvas covers stretched on arching bows, made years ago by Mr. Wells of Halifax Street in Petersburg and designed to carry three hogsheads of tobacco or an equivalent load. Six mules were required to draw each one. Before nightfall, the wagons were filled. He set trusted Negroes to stand guard on them through the night, and early next morning they took the road.

They picked up others on the way, and the caravan grew. The black drivers were in picnic humor, singing, laughing, calling to and fro; but each pause meant delay, and they covered only some twenty miles that day, and stopped the night at Lebanon Church. Trav heard at the tavern that there had already been some skirmishing, and that already the soldiers were short of provisions, so next day he would have preferred to push on; but the Sunday peace was not to be disturbed and he surrendered to firm custom. Monday morning, before full day, he set the wagon train in motion.

Not since his boyhood had Trav seen the lower Peninsula. The
roads were strange to him; he had more than once to inquire the way, and regretted he had not asked Colonel Hill to furnish him a guide. The low rolling hills which gave variety to the turnpike from Richmond to Williamsburg here flattened out into a plain with no landmarks by which to set a course, level and without character. He led his train of wagons through Cockletown and on to Halfway House and found there some men of the Howitzers, their gun mounted on a farm wagon drawn by two horses. Go straight ahead, they told him, pointing down the road; and they bade him hurry lest he miss the fun! So he told the drivers to press forward without another halt, and he rode on at a trot. He met men on foot, white men, small farmers, hurrying northward away from the approaching fight; he met an old Negro on a laden cart, sweating with haste and with his own exertions as he belabored his philosophical mule. Fear emanated from them all alike. When Trav tried to question them they answered shortly and without pausing in their flight.

The sandy road, following the border of a wood with tilled land on his left, brought him suddenly in sight of a wall of fresh-dug earth squarely across the road, and he saw men moving to and fro beyond it. He rode on at a foot pace toward where a church stood by the road, and saw many men in uniform, and a few cannon, and then someone hailed him and Brett came vaulting over the low bank of dirt to meet him and to shake his hand.

“Trav! Where did you come from?”

Trav looked back over his shoulder along the road by which he had ridden. “Why, we've got together some supplies, corn and pork and coffee. The wagons aren't far behind me, a mile or two.”

“Good man! We'll be hungry presently!” Trav felt the high excitement in the other. “We've been at it already, Trav!” Brett said. “The officers routed us out in the middle of the night, marched us off down the New Market road till a woman—Mrs. Tunnell, her name was—met us and said the Yankees were out in force and had come to her house and captured her husband; so we fell back here to our works to wait for them.”

“Where's Tony?”

“His company's posted ahead, beyond the creek.” Trav's eyes looked where Brett pointed. “Julian's with the cadets down in the angle opposite
the church. Leave your horse here. I'll put you where you can see the whole thing!”

Trav obeyed, having no longer any will of his own. He was rather stupefied than excited, seeing all clearly yet not believing what he saw. This was some absurd make-believe. Here were a thousand men and boys grouped in a roughly oval enclosure, surrounded by banks of fresh dug earth. The road, including a fork above the church, was within the enclosure. Except for the church and a few trees beside it, the oval was all open ground; but forest walled it on the west. Below the church the road dipped into a wooded ravine, and over the tops of the trees Trav saw a bridge. Beyond, the road ascended a low plateau toward scattered houses and small buildings some distance off.

Brett introduced Trav to Major Randolph, standing by his guns below the church; and the Major, his small, narrowed eyes fixed on the road beyond the creek which his guns here commanded, acknowledged the introduction without turning his head. “Mr. Currain! Servant, sir.”

Brett bade Trav stay here. “My place is over yonder. You'll be able to see everything.” He hurried toward the bridge, and Trav felt himself lost and strange in these surroundings. Then Colonel Hill, mounted, coming to speak to Major Randolph, recognized Trav, and asked sharply:

“What are you doing here?”

“I've a few wagonloads of food coming along behind me, sir. I rode ahead to tell you, but if I'm in the way . . .”

“Good! No, stay.” Colonel Hill seemed distracted, his eyes resting on the church near which they stood; and he was silent so long that Trav felt upon himself the burden of speech.

“It's a good many years since I've been this far down the Peninsula,” he remarked.

The Colonel smiled faintly. “Yes, I too.” He added: “This was my mother's church, Mr. Currain. I was baotized in it, worshiooed here till I was a boy of sixteen.”

Before Trav could reply, a distant shout drew their eyes, and on the low knoll across the creek Trav saw a man wave and point along the road. He looked that way and caught his breath. The road ran in the deep shade of trees that lined its eastern side; some small buildings
obscured it on the right. In the shade Trav saw movement, and small gleaming shafts of light, and Major Randolph turned and spoke to Colonel Hill:

“There they are, sir.”

The Colonel nodded. The men at their guns began to talk together in sharp tones; and one of them called: “What time is it, please sir, Colonel Hill?”

“Nine o'clock.”

“Thank you kindly, Colonel.”

Colonel Hill said, half to himself: “There's a cool lad!”

Trav tried to speak his agreement, but his lips were dry, his throat full. He was trembling with a ridiculous violence, and when he sought to speak, his teeth chattered so loudly that he was afraid someone would hear. He tried to cut a bit of tobacco from his twist, but his hands shook so that he could not open his knife; he gnawed off a piece instead.

Major Randolph spoke. “They've halted there, Colonel.”

“That's the advanced post,” Colonel Hill decided. “They've sighted us, but they'll wait for the main column to come up to them.”

“Shall I scatter them? The Parrott gun will reach.”

“Not yet.” The Colonel spoke with a grim humor. “Wait till they lay a few more necks on the block.”

“You will give me the word?” the Major asked. Colonel Hill nodded, and Major Randolph went himself to lay the gun. It seemed to Trav an endless time they waited. His eyes glazed with staring at those bright things yonder.

“What is it we see, Colonel?” he asked. “Those shining things.”

“Their bayonets,” the Colonel told him curtly. “The blades flash, even in that deep shade.”

There was more waiting, till Trav felt himself suffocating, and filled his lungs, and realized that he had forgotten to breathe. Even to draw breath became at this moment a conscious act, so completely were all his functions paralyzed. Was this fear? Perhaps. His mind was not afraid, but his hands shook, his knees knocked together, his teeth were chattering. He could not even spit! The tobacco in his mouth was hardly moist, a shredded ball. He expelled it with an outblown breath, and suddenly he realized that there were many more bright
blades in the shade yonder, the steel catching the morning sun. So the main column had come up to the advance.

Beside him, Colonel Hill said calmly: “Fire.”

 

With the discharge of the Parrott gun that opened the action, Trav's senses were at once sharpened and confused. He was conscious of tremendous noises, but they merged and overlapped and lost all meaning. He saw the gunners a few paces off active at their pieces, heard their gleeful shouts; he saw the flashes and the smoke; through the smoke now and then he saw men in motion. His attention fixed itself on small things, things that were comprehensible, welcome little things which since they fitted into the world he knew brought this fantastic scene nearer reality.

It was this hunger for the familiar that led him to watch one of the cannoneers who was trying to lead down from behind the church a mule attached to a caisson which had been made by securing ammunition chests on the running gear of a common farm wagon. The chest seemed to be loaded with cannon balls, for a rolling and thumping in it alarmed the mule; the beast set stubborn heels and refused to move, and the man tugged and swore and then abandoned the struggle and tied the reins to a tree.

“Stay there, then!” he shouted furiously. “You long-eared son of a jackass! I hope the first shot takes your cranky head off!”

He began to pass the cannon balls by hand, carrying them the dozen paces to his gun; and Trav watched the mule, now calmly content, jerk at the reins till it got slack enough so that it could reach the weeds at its feet and begin serenely to graze. About that time the Yankee guns came into action, and Trav saw men fling themselves down to avoid the cannon balls, and then spring up again; and he felt rather than heard a sudden, thumping sound and turned to look.

A shot, a solid shot, striking the mule fair and full just behind the fore legs, low down, had passed clear through its body. When Trav turned, the beast was trying to rear; and from its wound poured a cascade of blood, a stream as thick as a man's leg, bright crimson, a torrent. Then the mule fell on its side and lay feebly kicking. It was incredible that so much blood could come out of one mule! Why, that mule was a barrel of blood, a bag of blood, draining and emptying
now. Trav took one uncertain step toward the dying mule, and slipped and looked down and saw a brook of blood running across his boots.

A convulsion shook him. Instinctively he ran as far as the corner of the church. There he fell on his knees, and opened his mouth and saw helplessly another torrent pour like a cataract out of his open mouth. Not blood, this! It came again, but it was less; again, again, till there was only a thin bitter trickle which he tried to spit away. But it clung stickily to his lips and would not let go, hanging in nasty strings. He crawled aside and collapsed on his face there by the church, his body still tormented by fruitless retching, till all the strength went out of him, and exhaustion drugged him, and the world receded and was gone. He lay insensible, knowing neither place nor time.

It was Brett who roused him, shaking him, turning him over, lifting him into a sitting position. “Trav! Trav! What's the matter, man? Trav! Trav, wake up!” So Trav came slowly back to full consciousness again, to consciousness of jubilant voices all around him, of the smell of burned powder, of the smell of blood. His stomach again revolted; but Brett said quickly: “Here!” Raw liquor found his mouth, he spat it out; yet enough of the fire of it still stung him so that his senses cleared. “Are you hurt, Trav? What happened?”

“That mule!”

“What mule? Did it kick you?”

“It was so full of blood!”

Brett said: “Stand up! Get on your feet. You'll feel better.” With Brett helping, Trav managed it. The world around him swayed and whirled and then steadied slowly into place again.

“What happened?” he mumbled.

“We licked them, sent them skedaddling!” Brett's voice rang; he laughed aloud. “They ran like sheep!” he cried. “The cavalry's chasing them now.”

“Is it over?”

“All over! We licked them, sent them off with their tails between their legs! You should have seen Tony, Trav! He was grand. And Julian, the cadets, they were the steadiest men on the field!”

“I saw the blood come out of that mule, and it just scared the dog-water out of me.”

Brett laughed aloud. “You weren't scared! Why, even some of the regular Numbers at one gun got sick. The blood turned your stomach, that's all.”

“I didn't feel scared,” Trav admitted. “But it certainly cleaned me out.”

“You were excited! So was I!” Brett said honestly: “I made the worst mistake of anyone. I was Number Three on the howitzer over across the creek. My job was to puncture the powder cartridge with a priming wire—through the vent, you know. I got in too much of a hurry, stuck the primer in before the cartridge was in place, and the rammer bent the wire so I couldn't get it out. That spiked the gun and put it out of action. Oh, everyone was excited! I saw more than one of them vomiting, too. That's not being scared!”

Trav grinned weakly. “Well, if that wasn't being scared, I don't ever want to be.”

“You're all right. Where are those wagons of yours? Everybody's hungry!”

“Why, they can't be far off. I'll ride back up the road, see if I can hurry them.” To have something definite to do was reassuring. “I left my horse somewhere.” His world was still a great confusion.

“I'll borrow a mount, go along with you,” Brett decided. “Wait till I speak to Major Randolph.”

 

They had not half a mile to go before they met the wagons. Trav wished Brett to take charge of them, proposed himself to ride homeward; but Brett insisted that he return. “You've thanks coming to you,” he promised. “Colonel Hill will want to see you.”