by Oliver Optic
CHAPTER XXVI
THE ENEMY'S BATTLE WITH THE MUD
The sound of the volley did not come from the top of the hill, andCaptain Gordon would not have been so simple as to waste the powder andballs in the carbines of his men at an impracticable distance from theobject of his attack. Lieutenant Belthorpe must have seen his force assoon as he reached the top of the hill; and no doubt he had hurried tojoin in the attack at the right moment, so that it could be made in thefront and rear at the same time.
But plans do not always work precisely as they are arranged beforehand.Deck turned his steed as soon as he heard the volley, and hastened backto notify the sergeant; but Fronklyn had heard the discharge, andmarched on the instant. For a non-commissioned officer, he was decidedlya man of parts, though he had not been in a fight till that day.
"Hurry up, Sergeant! I think we shall have warm work over on the hillroad as soon as we can reach it. They are firing lively now on bothhills," said Deck, as he took his place by the side of the officer.
"We are all ready for it; and the men were as mad as a bull in a swarmof hornets as the recall was sounded back there a while ago, when theywere licking the enemy out of his boots," replied Fronklyn.
"They are likely to get enough of it now," added Deck, as they gallopedforward at the best speed they could get out of the horses.
But the firing suddenly ceased, and there was a noise ahead other thanthe sounds of battle, which attracted the attention of Deck and thesergeant. It was the clang of sabres and the rattle of accoutrements,and the sounds came from a less distance than to the hill road.
"What does this mean?" asked Deck, as he reined in his horse. "Halt yourmen here!" he added, as he obtained a full view ahead.
Fronklyn promptly accepted the suggestion, and gave the order; but hedid not understand the reason for making it. The cross-road extendedthrough the wild region over which the detachment had passed farther upthe hill. In this part of it the surface was more irregular than above;on the left was a meadow, through which flowed the brook that crossedthe main road. Just ahead of the force the road wound through a narrowpass, between lofty pinnacles of rock.
From a point in the road Deck had obtained a glance across the meadow atthe cross-road near the main highway. There he saw the Rangersretreating vigorously, and coming directly towards him. He could notquite understand this change in the programme, as laid down byLieutenant Belthorpe and himself. But it did not take him long toexplain the situation to his own satisfaction, whether correctly or not.
Captain Gordon's men had made the attack with a volley from thecarbines. As soon as Tom Belthorpe heard the report, he dashed down thehill to have a finger in the pie; for his men were eager for the affray.Captain Dingfield had seen them coming, and probably mistook the forcefor a much larger one, and ordered a retreat by the cross-road.Doubtless he had chosen to await the attack of Captain Gordon in thislocality on account of this convenient outlet. The enemy had not waitedfor a charge, and neither of the detachments from the two hills hadreached the brook.
Deck hurriedly stated the situation to Sergeant Fronklyn. Then hepointed out the narrow pass in the road, which would conceal the men fora few moments. He advised him to advance to it, and then fall upon thehead of the column as it entered the narrow passage. The officer gavethe order to advance, and with it a few ringing words of encouragement.Fronklyn placed himself at the head of his men, with Deck near him, andthey dashed into the pass at a breakneck speed. The enemy had not yetreached the narrow defile.
The troopers had their carbines all ready for use, and the sergeanthalted them at a point where they could see the Rangers as theyapproached. At the right moment he gave the command to fire, and thereport was the first intimation to Captain Dingfield that an enemy wasin front of him. As soon as the Union soldiers had discharged theirpieces, they were ordered to sling their carbines, and draw theirsabres.
"To the charge! March!" shouted Fronklyn.
The volley had been a surprise to the Rangers, and they were evidentlystaggered as some of their saddles were emptied. Captain Dingfield wasnot at the front of his company; for the danger was supposed to be inthe rear, and he was as brave a man as ever sat on a horse. Of course hecould form no idea of the strength of the force in front of him, and hemust have realized that he had fallen into a trap. If he had not beenprudent before, he was so now, for the bugler immediately sounded therecall.
Sergeant Fronklyn did not wait to see what Captain Dingfield would do,or where he would retreat. He led his men forward, and they chargedfuriously upon what had been the right of the column. The Rangersdefended themselves with vigor and determination for a few minutes, andthe accounts of three of them were closed for this world. The next thingthat Deck saw, for he made a business of knowing all that was going onaround him, was a column of cavalry fleeing across the meadow.
The captain of the Rangers, from his position near the rear, hadevidently found a means of escape. Deck fought with his sabre as long asthere was one of the enemy near him; but as fast as the Texans could getout of the _melee_ they fled to the rear. The pass was so narrow thatthe Union troopers, few as there were of them on the by-road, had notroom enough to do themselves justice. But Fronklyn urged them on, anddrove them before him, till he heard the clashing of arms in front ofhim.
Both Captain Gordon and Lieutenant Belthorpe dashed into the narrowroad, and followed up the enemy, till the last of them had taken to themeadow. When the ground was examined later, it was found that there wasonly one narrow causeway by which the descent to the low ground could bemade; and the Rangers covered and defended this pass till all of theirnumber had left the road. It was in vain that the fresh troopers pressedforward from the hill road, for the way was blocked against them. In theinability of the captain and the lieutenant to bring their numbers tobear, the combat was on equal terms.
The Rangers defended themselves bravely and skilfully. There were anumber of hand-to-hand struggles with which there was no space for theinterference of others. But it looked as though the Texans had leapedfrom the frying-pan into the fire; for they had gone out but a shortdistance from the by-road before their horses began to mire; for theground proved to be very soft. Several of the Texans were obliged todismount, and pull their steeds out of the mud.
Captain Gordon had pressed forward, and engaged the rear of theretreating column; and he was about to order a pursuit, when hediscovered the enemy was sinking in the mire, and that the meadow was noplace for horses. It was located all along the wild region; and,doubtless, some of those sink-holes and caverns which abound in thispart of the State existed in this section of wild land. But the captainwas not willing to permit the escape of the enemy.
Deck Lyon was reasonable enough to abandon the idea of "bagging thegame;" for the Rangers could now hardly be regarded as an organizedmilitary company. The meadow proved to be nothing but a quagmire, thoughthe farmer appeared to get the hay from it, as there were two stacks ofit on the field; but he had to take the occasion when the ground wasfrozen to obtain his crop. By this time the Texans were scattered allover the meadow, wandering about in search of more solid ground.
It would have been easy enough to shoot down the whole of them; butCaptain Gordon was too chivalrous a man to murder the defencelessfellows. A few of them had crossed the brook, and were ascending thehill on the other side. A number of them were making a road of thebottom of the little stream, which seemed to be composed of sand washedin from the hills.
The first company were at ease all along the by-road, watching themovements and the struggles of the enemy; and no doubt Captain Dingfieldwished he had fought it out, or surrendered on the hard ground. Thenight was coming on; and even if the Texans extricated themselves fromtheir pitiable condition, they must be so demoralized that they could dono further mischief till they had rested and recruited from the effectsof their battle with the mud.
"What are them men doin' in there?" asked the farmer, who wandered asfar as the causeway, when it was saf
e to do so, and there encounteredDeck, whom he had met before.
"They are trying to get out," replied Private Lyon.
"They can't do it!" exclaimed the native, who indulged in much profanespeech. "They'll make a cemetry of the whole medder. It's nothin' butmuck in there till you git to the bottom on't, and that's where themfellers will go. I had a colt git in there, and all on us couldn't githim out; and I reckon his carcass is lyin' on the bottom now. They'vesp'ilt my medder," continued the farmer; and he heaped curses on theunfortunate troopers, who were tearing up the soft sod at a fearfulrate.
The native had picked up the three horses of the troopers who had beenkilled in the affray, and they were some compensation for the damagedone him in the meadow, which looked as though it had been ploughed up.
"Isn't there any way for those men to get out of that quagmire?" askedCaptain Gordon, as he encountered the farmer.
"I don't know o' none," replied the man in a surly tone, "If they wasonly Yankees, I'd like it better."
"I like it better as it is," replied the captain.
He knew of no way to extricate the troopers from their plight. It wasthe dry season of the year, and probably there was less water and lessmud than in the wet season. The bodies of the horses seemed to beresting on the sod, with their legs wholly plunged in the soft soil. Theriders had dismounted, and attacked two stacks of hay on the field, andwere placing it in front of their animals. It afforded a betterfoundation for them than the oozy turf; and a couple of them werealready standing on their legs.
The darkness was gathering rapidly, and Captain Gordon gave the orderfor his men to form in column; and then he marched them out to the hillroad. He was satisfied that the Texans would escape from their miserableplight, though it might require many hours for them to accomplish it.They had already begun to build a sort of causeway of the hay, toconnect with the solid one by which they had fled from the fight. Thehay was of a coarse quality, abundantly mixed with weeds and bushes, andit appeared to be substantial enough to support the horses.
It was evident to the captain that the entire force of the enemy couldbe easily captured as they came off the meadow; but it might require thewhole night to secure them. The first company, now united, marched tothe hill road, and halted in a field which had been selected before forthe camping-ground. The men proceeded to feed themselves and theirhorses. A half-dozen scouts were left on the by-road to watch the miredTexans. They had built a great fire to afford them light, and continuedtheir labors.
A portion of the field where they had encamped consisted of a grove ofbig trees, such as the company had frequently seen. The baggage-trainhad been left at the bridge, and the men had no tents, but they wereprovided with overcoats and blankets; and thus protected from the coldof the chill night, it was not accounted a hardship to sleep on theground. Sentinels surrounded the camp, and two scouts had been sent outin each direction on the hill road.
"Scouts coming in from both ways!" shouted the sentinels in the road;and the word was carried to the guard quarters.
The captain was immediately informed. As Deck happened to be in thedetail for guard duty, he had been stationed in the road, and it was hisvoice which first announced the return of the scouts. Captain Gordon,who had stretched himself under a tree for a nap, hastened to the roadto ascertain the cause of the alarm.
"Where are the scouts, Deck?" he asked, as he confronted the sentinel inthe road.
"They have not got here yet," replied Deck, as he saluted the captain."I saw them at the top of the hills, coming in at full speed."
"But there is no enemy in this vicinity, except the Texans in thequagmire," added the captain.
"I know of none, Captain."
The two scouts came in almost at the same moment, before the captain andthe private could discuss the situation, and reported a detachment ofcavalry approaching from either direction.