Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “From the foot bridge. They wanted a guard set there. I found half a dozen wounded men who could handle a musket. Lord, but the rebels came close to us that time! When we heard those bullets they were charging the entire line of our works. I understand that we’ve driven them all along the line. It must be so, judging from the sound of the firing.”

  “Did our hospital burn?”

  “Only part of one wing. They’re beginning to move back the wounded already. . . . Now, dear, will you please remain with your superiors and obey orders?” he added as they came out along the banks of the little stream and saw the endless procession of stretchers recrossing the foot bridge to the left.

  “Yes. . . . I didn’t know. I saw part of a battery blown up; and a soldier stood on the hill and shouted for stretchers. There was nobody else to start them off, so I did it.”

  He nodded. “Wait here, dear. I will run over and ask Dr. Connor whether they have moved Colonel Arran — —”

  “Colonel Arran! Oh, Philip! I forgot to tell you—” She clutched his arm in her excitement, and he halted, alarmed.

  “Has anything happened to him?” he demanded.

  “He asked for you.”

  “Is he worse?”

  “I fear so.”

  “Dying?”

  “Phil — I am afraid so. He — he — thinks that you are his son!”

  “W-what are you saying!” he stammered: “What are you trying to tell me, Ailsa?”

  “Phil — my darling! — don’t look that way!” she exclaimed, frightened.

  “What way?” He laughed as though crazed. “Where is he? Do you know? I want to see him. You better let me see him.”

  “I’ll go with you, Phil; I’ll be close beside you. You mustn’t become so terribly excited; I didn’t know what I was saying; I think he is delirious — —”

  “Where is he? I can’t endure this much longer,” he kept repeating in a vacant way as they forced a path among the litters and ambulances, and came out through the smoke blowing from a pile of debris that lay where the east wing of the seminary had once stood. Charred and battered, every window smashed, and the blackened rafters of the roof still smouldering, the east wing rose before them, surrounded by the wounded.

  A surgeon told them that Colonel Arran had been carried out of the barn, but to what place he did not know. Letty with Dr. Benton passed them by the stables, but they knew only that Colonel Arran, lying on a litter, had been placed in an ambulance which had started for Azalea Court House.

  This was confirmed by Dr. Connor, who came hurrying by and who halted to scowl heartily at Ailsa.

  “No more of that!” he said roughly. “When I want a nurse on the firing line I’ll detail her. I’ve sent two hundred invalids to the landing, and I wanted you to go with them and when I looked around for you I saw you kiting for the line of battle! That’s all wrong, Mrs. Paige! That’s all wrong! You look sick anyway. Are you?”

  “No. I’ll go now, if you’ll let me, Dr. Connor.”

  “How are you going to get there? I haven’t another ambulance to send — not a horse or a mule — —”

  “I — I’ll walk,” she said with a sob in her throat. “I am fearfully sorry — and ashamed — —”

  “There, there,” muttered Dr. Connor, “I didn’t mean all I said. It was a brave thing to do — not that your pluck mitigates the offence! Be a little more considerate; think a little faster; don’t take to your legs on the first impulse. Some fool told me you’d been killed — and that made — made me — most damnably angry!” he burst out with a roar to cover the emotion working at his mouth and eyes.

  He seized Ailsa’s hand and shook it vigorously.

  “Excuse my profanity. I can’t avoid it when I think of you — dead! There, there. I’m an old fool and you’re a — younger one. See if you can find somebody to take you to Azalea. I want that batch of invalids carefully watched. Besides, there’s a furlough there for you. Don’t say one word! You’re not well, I tell you. I had to send those invalids back; the place here is atrociously crowded. Try to find some way of getting to the landing. And take care of your pretty little self for God’s sake!”

  She promised, shook hands with him again, disengaged herself from the crowd around her, turned about to search for Berkley, and caught sight of him near the stables, saddling his horse. He buckled the last strap as she came up; turned a blank gaze on her, and did not appear to comprehend her question for a moment. Then, nodding in a dazed way, he lifted her to the saddle in front, swung up behind her, passed one arm around her waist, gathered bridle, and edged his way carefully through the crowd out into the road.

  The 3rd Zouaves in heavy marching order filled the road with their scarlet column, moving steadily southward; and Ailsa, from her perch on the saddle, called to Colonel Craig and Major Lent, stretching out her hot little hand to them as she passed.

  Engineers blocked their progress farther on, then Wisconsin infantry, young giants in blue, swinging forward in their long loose-limbered stride; then an interminable column of artillery, jolting slowly along, the grimy gunners swaying drowsily on their seats, officers nodding half asleep in their saddles.

  “Philip,” she ventured timidly.

  “Yes.”

  “Is there — anything — you wish to tell me? Anything that

  I — perhaps — have a faint shadow of a right to know?”

  For a long time they rode in silence, her question unanswered. A narrow cart road — less of a road than a lane — led east. He turned his horse into it.

  For a moment no sound broke the silence save the monotonous clank of his sabre and the creak of girth and saddle.

  “Ailsa!”

  “Yes, Phil.”

  “Move closer; hold very tight to me; clasp both arms around my neck. . . . Are you seated firmly?”

  “Yes, Phil.”

  He encircled her slender body with his right arm and, shaking out the bridle, launched his horse at a gallop down the sandy lane. Her breath and his mingled as they sped forward; the wind rushed by, waving the foliage on either hand; a steady storm of sand and gravel rained rattling through the bushes as the spurred horse bounded forward, breaking into a grander stride, thundering on through the gathering dusk.

  Swaying, cradled in his embrace, her lips murmured his name, or, parted breathless, touched his, as the exquisitely confused sense of headlong speed dimmed her senses to a happy madness.

  Trees, bushes, fences flew past and fled away behind in the dusk. It seemed to her as though she was being tossed through space locked in his arms; infinite depths of shadow whirled and eddied around her; limitless reaches, vistas unfathomable stretched toward outer chaos into which they were hurled, unseeing, her arms around his neck, her soft face on his breast.

  Then a lantern flashed; voices sounded in far-off confusion; more lanterns twinkled and glimmered; more voices broke in on their heavenly isolation.

  Was the divine flight ended?

  Somebody said: “Colonel Arran is here, and is still alive, but his mind is clouding. He says he is waiting for his son to come.”

  Dizzy, burning hot, half blinded, she felt herself swung out of space onto the earth again, through a glare of brightness in which Celia’s face seemed to be framed, edged with infernal light. . . . And another face, Camilla’s, was there in the confusing brilliancy; and she reeled a little, embraced, held hot and close; and in her dulled ears drummed Celia’s voice, murmuring, pitying, complaining, adoring:

  “Honey-bell — Oh, my little Honey-bud! I have you back in my a’ms, and I have my boy, and I’m ve’y thankful to my Heavenly Master — I certainly am, Honey-bee! — fo’ His goodness and His mercy which He is showing eve’y day to me and mine.”

  And Camilla’s pale face was pressed against her hot cheeks and the girl’s black sleeve of crape encircled her neck.

  She whispered: “I — I try to think it reconciles me to losing Jimmy.

  . . . War gave me Stephen. . . . Yet —
oh, I cannot understand why

  God’s way must sometimes be the way of battle!”

  Ailsa saw and heard and understood, yet, all around her fell an unreal light — a terrible fiery radiance, making voices the voices, of phantoms, forms the outlines of ghosts.

  Through an open door she saw a lamp-lit room where her lover knelt beside a bed — saw a man’s arm reach feebly toward him — and saw no more. Everything wavered and dazzled and brightened into rainbow tints around her, then to scarlet; then velvety darkness sprang up, through which she fell into swift unconsciousness.

  One of the doctors, looking at her as she lay on the hospital cot, dropped his hand gravely on her thin wrist.

  “You cannot tell me anything that I don’t know about Mrs. Paige,” he said wearily. “This is a complete breakdown. It’s come just in time, too, that girl has been trying to kill herself. I understand that her furlough has arrived. You’d better get her North on the next transport. I guess that our angels are more popular in our hospitals just now than they would be tuning little gilt harps aloft. We can’t spare ‘em, Mrs. Craig, and I guess the Most High can wait a little longer.”

  Doctor, ward-master, apothecary, and nurses stood looking down at the slim, fever-flushed shape moving restlessly on the cot — babbling soft inconsequences, staring out of brilliant eyes at nothing.

  The doctor whispered to the apothecary, and his gesture dismissed those who stood around her waiting in silence.

  CHAPTER XXI

  Early in October the Union Cavalry began their favourite pastime of “chasing” Stuart. General Pleasanton with a small force and a horse battery began it, marching seventy-eight miles in twenty-four hours; but Stuart marched ninety in the same time. He had to.

  About ten o’clock in the morning of October tenth, General Buford, chief of cavalry, set the 6th Pennsylvania Lancers galloping after Stuart. Part of the 1st Maine Cavalry joined the chase; but Stuart flourished his heels and cantered gaily into Pennsylvania to the amazement and horror of that great State, and to the unbounded mortification of the Union army. He had with him the 1st, 3d, 4th, 5th and 9th Virginia Cavalry; the 7th and 9th North Carolina, and two Legions; and after him went pelting the handful that McClellan could mount. A few tired troopers galloped up to Whitens Ford just as Stuart crossed in safety; and the gain of “chasing” Stuart was over. Never had the efficiency of the Union Cavalry been at such a low ebb; but it was low-water mark, indeed, and matters were destined to mend after a history of nearly two years of neglect, disorganisation, and misuse.

  Bayard took over the cavalry south of Washington; Pleasanton collected the 6th Regulars, the 3d Indiana, the 8th New York, the 8th Pennsylvania, and the 8th Illinois, and started in to do mischief with brigade head-quarters in the saddle.

  The 8th New York went with him, but the 8th New York Lancers, reorganising at Orange Hill, were ordered to recruit the depleted regiment to twelve companies.

  In August, Berkley’s ragged blue and yellow jacket had been gaily embellished with brand-new sergeant’s chevrons; at the Stone Bridge where the infantry recoiled his troop passed over at a gallop.

  The War Department, much edified, looked at the cavalry and began to like it. And it was ordered that every cavalry regiment be increased by two troops, L and M. Which liberality, in combination with Colonel Arran’s early reports concerning Berkley’s conduct, enabled the company tailor to sew a pair of lieutenant’s shoulder-straps on Berkley’s soiled jacket.

  But there was more than that in store for him; it was all very well to authorise two new troops to a regiment, but another matter to recruit them.

  Colonel Arran, from his convalescent couch in the North, wrote to

  Governor Morgan; and Berkley got his troop, and his orders to go to

  New York and recruit it. And by the same mail came the first

  letter Ailsa had been well enough to write him since her transfer

  North on the transport Long Branch.

  He read it a great many times; it was his only diversion while awaiting transportation at the old Hygeia Hotel, where, in company with hundreds of furloughed officers, he slept on the floors in his blanket; he read it on deck, as the paddle-wheeled transport weighed anchor, swung churning under the guns of the great Fortress — so close that the artillerymen on the water-battery could have tossed a biscuit aboard — and, heading north-east, passed out between the capes, where, seaward, the towering black sides of a sloop of war rose, bright work aglitter, smoke blowing fitfully from her single funnel.

  At Alexandria he telegraphed her: “Your letter received, I am on my way North,” and signed it with a thrill of boyish pride: “Philip O. Berkley-Arran, Capt. Cavalry, U. S. V.”

  To his father he sent a similar telegram from the Willard in Washington; wasted two days at the State, War, and Navy for an audience with Mr. Stanton, and finally found himself, valise in hand, waiting among throngs of officers of all grades, all arms of the service, for a chance to board his train.

  And, as he stood there, he felt cotton-gloved fingers fumbling for the handle of his valise, and wheeled sharply, and began to laugh.

  “Where the devil did you come from, Burgess? Did they give you a furlough?”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Well, you got more than I. What’s the matter; do you want to carry my bag?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “No, Captain. . . . If you don’t object, sir, I’ll carry it.”

  They found seats together; Philip, amused, tried to extract from Burgess something besides the trite and obvious servant’s patter — something that might signify some possibility of a latent independence — the germ of aspiration. And extracted nothing. Burgess had not changed, had not developed. His ways were Philip’s ways; his loftier flights mounted no higher toward infinity than the fashions prevailing in the year 1862, and their suitability to his master’s ultimate requirements.

  For his regiment, for its welfare, its hopes, its glory, he apparently cared nothing; nor did he appear to consider the part he had borne in its fluctuating fortunes anything to be proud of.

  Penned with the others in the brush field, he had done stolidly what his superiors demanded of him; and it presently came out that the only anxiety that assailed him was when, in the smoke of the tangled thickets, he missed his late master.

  “Well, what do you propose to do after the regiment is mustered out?” inquired Philip curiously.

  “Wait on you, sir.”

  “Don’t you want to do anything else?”

  “No, sir.”’

  Philip looked at him, smiling.

  “I suppose you like my cigars, and my brandy and my linen?”

  The ghost of .a grin touched the man’s features.

  “Yes, sir,” he said with an impudence that captivated Philip.

  “All right, my friend; I can stand it as long as you can. . . . And kindly feel in my overcoat for a cigar wrapped in paper. I’ll go forward and smoke for a while.”

  “Sir?”

  “The cigar — I put it in my overcoat pocket wrapped in a bit of paper. . . . You — you don’t mean to tell me that it’s not there!”

  Burgess searched the pockets with a perfectly grave face.

  “It ain’t here; no, sir.”

  Philip flung himself into the corner of his seat, making no effort to control his laughter:

  “Burgess,” he managed to say, “the dear old days are returning already. I’ll stay here and read; you go forward and smoke that cigar. Do you hear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Again, just as he had done every day since leaving camp, he reread Ailsa’s letter, settling down in his corner by the dirty, rattling window-pane:

  “Everybody writes to you except myself. I know they have told you that it is taking a little longer for me to get well than anybody expected. I was terribly tired. Your father has been so sweet; everybody has been good to me — Celia, poor little Camilla, an
d Stephen. I know that they all write to you; and somehow I have been listlessly contented to let them tell you about home matters, and wait until my strength returned. But you must not doubt where every waking memory of mine has centred; my thoughts have circled always around that central vortex from which, since I first laid eyes on you, they have never strayed.

  “Home news is what all good soldiers want; I write for you all I know:

  “The city is the same hot, noisy, dirty, dusty, muddy, gridiron, changed in nowise except that everywhere one sees invalid soldiers; and there are far too many officers lounging about, presumably on furlough — too many Captain Dash’s, twirling black moustaches in front of fashionable hotels. There are no powder stains on their uniforms, no sun-burn on their cheeks. They throng the city; and it is a sinister phenomenon.

  “I think Broadway was never as lively, never quite as licentious. Those vivid cafes, saloons, concert halls, have sprung up everywhere; theatres, museums, gardens are in full blast; shops are crowded, hotels, street cars, stages overflowing with careless, noisy, overdressed people. The city is en fete; and somehow when I think of that Dance of Death thundering ceaselessly just south of us, it appalls me to encounter such gaiety and irresponsibility in the streets.

  “Yet, after all, it may be the safety-valve of a brave people. Those whirling daily in the Dance of Death have, at least, the excitement to sustain them. Here the tension is constant and terrible; and the human mind cannot endure too much tragedy.

  “. . . They say our President fits a witticism to the tragedy of every battle-field; but it may be to preserve his own reason through these infernal years. He has the saddest eyes of any man since the last Martyr died.

  “England behaves badly. It was her God-given opportunity to stand by us. She has had chance after chance since the last patriot died from lack of food and air in this sad old city of New York. . . . The Prince Consort is kind; his wife is inclined to be what he is. Napoleon is the sinister shape behind the arras; and the Tory government licks his patent-leather boots. Vile is the attitude of England, vile her threats, her sneers, her wicked contempt of a great people in agony. Her murderous government, bludgeon in hand, stands snarling at us in Mexico; her ministers glare at us from every war port; her press mocks in infamous caricature our unhappy President; only her poor are with us — the poor of England whom our war is starving. Again and again we have forgiven her. But now, standing on our blood-wet battle-fields, can we ever again forgive?