Kincaid's Battery

by George Washington Cable

  XII

  MANDEVILLE BLEEDS

  Two overflowing brigades! In the van came red-capped artillery. Not thenew battery, though happily known to Flora and the Callenders; theWashington Artillery. Illustrious command! platoons and platoons of theflower of the Crescent City's youth and worth! They, too, that dayreceived their battle-flag. They have the shot-torn rags of it yet.

  Ah, the clanging horns again, and oh, the thundering drums! Anotheruniform, on a mass of infantry, another band at its head braying anotherlover's song reduced to a military tramp, swing, and clangor--

  "I'd offer thee this hand of mine If I could love thee less--"

  Every soldier seemed to have become a swain. Hilary and Anna had latelysung this wail together, but not to its end, she had called it "soungenuine." How rakishly now it came ripping out. "My fortune is toohard for thee," it declared, "'twould chill thy dearest joy. I'd ratherweep to see thee free," and ended with "destroy"; but it had the swaggerof a bowling-alley.

  All the old organizations, some dating back to '12-'15, had lately grownto amazing numbers, while many new ones had been so perfectly uniformed,armed, accoutred and drilled six nights a week that the ladies, in theirunmilitary innocence, could not tell the new from the old. Except in twocases: Even Anna was aware that the "Continentals," in tasseledtop-boots, were of earlier times, although they had changed their buffknee-breeches and three-cornered hats for a smart uniform of blue andgray; while these red-and-blue-flannel Zouaves, drawing swarms of boysas dray-loads of sugar-hogsheads drew flies, were as modern as 1861itself. But oh, ah, one _knew_ so many young men! It was wave, bow,smile and bow, smile and wave, till the whole frame was gloriouslyweary.

  Near Anna prattled a Creole girl of sixteen with whom she now and thenenjoyed a word or so: Victorine Lafontaine, daughter of our friendMaxime.

  "Louisiana Foot-Rifles--ah! but their true name," she protested, "arethe Chasseurs-a-Pied! 'Twas to them my papa billong' biffo' he join'hisseff on the batt'rie of Captain Kincaid, and there he's now acorporeal!"

  What jaunty fellows they were! and as their faultless ranks came close,their glad, buskined feet beating as perfect music for the roaring drumsas the drums beat for them, Anna, in fond ardor, bent low over the railand waved, exhorting Miranda and Constance to wave with her. So marchedthe chasseurs by, but the wide applause persisted as yet other hosts,with deafening music and perfect step and with bayonets back-slantedlike the porcupine's, came on and on, and passed and passed, ignoring ingrand self-restraint their very loves who leaned from the banquettes'edges and from balustraded heights and laughed and boasted andworshipped.

  Finally artillery again! every man in it loved by some one--or dozen--inthese glad throngs. Clap! call! wave! Oh, gallant sight! These do notenter Royal Street. They keep Canal, obliquing to that side of the wayfarthest from the balconies--

  "To make room," cries Victorine, "to form line pritty soon off horses,in front those cannon'."

  At the head rides Kincaid. Then, each in his place, lieutenants,sergeants, drivers, the six-horse teams leaning on the firm traces, thebig wheels clucking, the long Napoleons shining like gold, and thecannoneers--oh, God bless the lads!--planted on limbers and caissons,with arms tight folded and backs as plumb as the meridian. Now three ofthe pieces, half the battery, have gone by and--

  "Well, well, if there isn't Sam Gibbs, sergeant of a gun! It is, I tellyou, it is! Sam Gibbs, made over new, as sure as a certain monosyllable!and what could be surer, for Sam Gibbs?"

  So laugh the sidewalks; but society, overhead, cares not for a made-overGibbs while round about him are sixty or seventy young heroes who needno making over. Anna, Anna! what a brave and happy half-and-half ofCreoles and "Americans" do your moist eyes beam down upon: here aCanonge and there an Ogden--a Zacherie--a Fontennette--WillieGeddes--Tom Norton--a Fusilier! Nat Frellsen--a Tramontana--aGrandissime!--and a Grandissime again! Percy Chilton--a Dudley--ArthurPuig y Puig--a De Armas--MacKnight--Violett--Avendano--Rob Rareshide--Guy Palfrey--a Morse, a Bien, a Fuentes--a Grandissme once more! AleckMoise--Ralph Fenner--Ned Ferry!--and lo! a Raoul Innerarity, image ofhis grandfather's portrait--and a Jules St. Ange! a Converse--JackEustis--two Frowenfelds! a Mossy! a Hennen--Bartie Sloo--McVey, McStea,a De Lavillebuevre--a Thorndyke-Smith and a Grandissime again!

  And ah! see yonder young cannoneer half-way between these two balconiesand the statue beyond; that foppish boy with his hair in a hundred curlsand his eyes wild with wayward ardor! "Ah, Charlie Valcour!" thinksAnna; "oh, your poor sister!" while the eyes of Victorine take him insecretly and her voice is still for a whole minute. Hark! From the headof the column is wafted back a bugle-note, and everything stands.

  Now the trim lads relax, the balcony dames in the rear rows sit down,there are nods and becks and wafted whispers to a Calder and an Avery,to tall Numa, Dolhonde and short Eugene Chopin, to George Wood and DickPenn and Fenner and Bouligny and Pilcher and L'Hommedieu; and Charliesends up bows and smiles, and wipes the beautiful brow he so openly andwilfully loves best on earth. Anna smiles back, but Constance bids herlook at Maxime, Victorine's father, whom neither his long whitemoustaches nor weight of years nor the lawless past revealed in hisdaring eyes can rob of his youth. So Anna looks, and when she turnsagain to Charlie she finds him sending a glance rife with conquest--nothis first--up to Victorine, who, without meeting it, replies--as she hasdone to each one before it--with a dreamy smile into vacancy, and afaint narrowing of her almond eyes.

  Captain Kincaid comes ambling back, and right here in the throat ofRoyal Street faces the command. The matter is explained to MadameValcour by a stranger:

  "Now at the captain's word all the cannoneers will spring down, leavingonly guns, teams and drivers at their back, and line up facing us. Thecaptain will dismount and ascend to the balcony, and there he and theyoung lady, whoever she is--" He waits, hoping Madame will say who theyoung lady is, but Madame only smiles for him to proceed--"The captainand she will confront each other, she will present the colors, he,replying, will receive them, and--ah, after all!" The thing had beendone without their seeing it, and there stood the whole magnificentdouble line. Captain Kincaid dismounted and had just turned from hishorse when there galloped up Royal Street from the vanishedprocession--Mandeville. Slipping and clattering, he reined up andsaluted: "How soon can Kincaid's Battery be completely ready to go intocamp?"

  "Now, if necessary."

  "It will receive orders to move at seven to-morrow morning!" TheCreole's fervor amuses the rabble, and when Hilary smiles hisearnestness waxes to a frown. Kincaid replies lightly and the riderbends the rein to wheel away, but the slippery stones have their victimat last. The horse's feet spread and scrabble, his haunches go low.Constance snatches both Anna's hands. Ah! by good luck the beast is upagain! Yet again the hoofs slip, the rider reels, and Charlie and acomrade dart out to catch him, but he recovers. Then the horse makesanother plunge and goes clear down with a slam and a slide that hurl hismaster to the very sidewalk and make a hundred pale women cry out.

  Constance and her two companions bend wildly from the balustrade, asight for a painter. Across the way Flora, holding back her grandmother,silently leans out, another picture. In the ranks near Charlie adisarray continues even after Kincaid has got the battered Mandevilleagain into the saddle, and while Mandeville is rejecting sympathy with abegrimed yet haughty smile.

  "Keep back, ladies!" pleads Madame's late informant, holding off two orthree bodily. "Ladies, sit down! Will you please to keep back!" Florastill leans out. Some one is melodiously calling:

  "Captain Kincaid!" It is Mrs. Callender. "Captain!" she repeats.

  He smiles up and at last meets Anna's eyes. Flora sees theirglances--angels ascending and descending--and a wee loop of ribbon thatpeeps from his tightly buttoned breast. Otherwise another sight,elsewhere, could not have escaped her, though it still escapes many.

  "Poor boy!" it causes two women behind her to exclaim, "poor boy!" butFlora pays no heed, for Hilary is speaking to
the Callenders.

  "Nothing broken but his watch," he gayly comforts them as to Mandeville.

  "He's bleeding!" moans Constance, very white. But Kincaid softlyexplains in his hollowed hands:

  "Only his nose!"

  The nose's owner casts no upward look. Not his to accept pity, even froma fiancee. His handkerchief dampened "to wibe the faze," two bits of wetpaper "to plug the noztril',"--he could allow no more!

  "First blood of the war!" said Hilary.

  "Yez! But"--the flashing warrior tapped his sword--"nod the last!" andwas off at a gallop, while Kincaid turned hurriedly to find thatCharlie, struck by the floundering horse, had twice fainted away.

  In the balconies the press grew dangerous. An urchin intercepted Kincaidto show him the Callenders, who, with distressed eyes, pointed him totheir carriage hurrying across Canal Street.

  "For Charlie and Flora!" called Anna. They could not stir "themselves"for the crush; but yonder, on Moody's side, the same kind citizennoticed before had taken matters in hand:

  "Keep back, ladies! Make room! Let these two ladies out!" He squeezedthrough the pack, holding aloft the furled colors, which all this timehad been lying at Flora's feet. Her anxious eyes were on them at everysecond step as she pressed after him with the grandmother dangling fromher elbow.

  The open carriage spun round the battery's right and up its front towhere a knot of comrades hid the prostrate Charlie; the surgeon,Kincaid, and Flora crouching at his side, the citizen from the balconystill protecting grandmamma, and the gilded eagle of the unpresentedstandard hovering over all. With tender ease Hilary lifted the suffererand laid him on the carriage's front seat, the surgeon passed Madame inand sat next to her, but to Kincaid Flora exclaimed with a glow ofheroic distress:

  "Let me go later--with Anna!" Her eyes overflowed--she bit her lip--"Imust present the flag!"

  A note of applause started, a protest hushed it, and the overbendingCallenders and the distracted Victorine heard Hilary admiringly say:

  "Come! Go! You belong with your brother!"

  He pressed her in. For an instant she stood while the carriage turned, ahand outstretched toward the standard, saying to Hilary something thatwas drowned by huzzas; then despairingly she sank into her seat and wasgone down Royal Street.

  "Attention!" called a lieutenant, and the ranks were in order. To theholder of the flag Hilary pointed out Anna, lingered for a word withhis subaltern, and then followed the standard to the Callenders' balcony.