Kincaid's Battery

by George Washington Cable

  XXX

  GOOD-BY, KINCAID'S BATTERY

  At one end of a St. Charles Hotel parlor a group of natty officers stoodlightly chatting while they covertly listened. At the other end, withIrby and Mandeville at his two elbows, General Brodnax conversed withKincaid and Bartleson, the weather-faded red and gray of whose uniformsshowed in odd contrast to the smartness all about them.

  Now he gave their words a frowning attention, and now answered abruptly:"Humph! That looks tremendously modest in you, gentlemen,--what?...Well, then, in your whole command if it's their notion. But it's vanityat last, sirs, pure vanity. Kincaid's Battery 'doesn't want to paradeits dinginess till it's done something'--pure vanity! 'Shortestway'--nonsense! The shortest way to the train isn't the point! The pointis to make so inspiring a show of you as to shame the damnedstay-at-homes!"

  "You'll par-ade," broke in the flaming Mandeville. "worse' dress thanpresently, when you rit-urn conqueror'!" But that wearied the Generalmore.

  "Oh, hell," he mumbled. "Captain Kincaid, eh--" He led that officeralone to a window and spoke low: "About my girl, Hilary,--and me. I'dlike to decide that matter before you show your heels. You,eh,--default, I suppose?"

  "No, uncle, she does that. I do only the hopeless loving."

  "The wha-at? Great Lord! You don't tell me you--?"

  "Yes, I caved in last night; told her I loved her. Oh, I didn't do itjust in this ashes-of-roses tone of voice, but"--the nephew smiled--theGeneral scowled--"you should have seen me, uncle. You'd have thought itwas Mandeville. I made a gorgeous botch of it."

  "You don't mean she--?"

  "Yes, sir, adjourned me _sine die_. Oh, it's no use to look at me." Helaughed. "The calf's run over me. My fat's in the fire."

  The General softly swore and continued his gaze. "I believe," he slowlysaid, "that's why you wanted to slink out of town the back way."

  "Oh, no, it's not. Or at least--well, anyhow, uncle, now you can decidein favor of Adolphe."

  The uncle swore so audibly that the staff heard and exchanged smiles: "Ineither can nor will decide--for either of you--yet! You understand? I_don't do it_. Go, bring your battery."

  The city was taken by surprise. Congo Square was void of soldiers beforehalf Canal street's new red-white-and-red bunting could be thrown to theair. In column of fours--escort leading and the giant in the bearskinhat leading it--they came up Rampart street. On their right hardly didtime suffice for boys to climb the trees that in four rows shaded itsnoisome canal; on their left not a second too many was there for thepeople to crowd the doorsteps, fill windows and garden gates, line thebanquettes and silently gather breath and ardor while the escort movedby, before the moment was come in which to cheer and cheer and cheer, aswith a hundred flashing sabres at shoulder the dismounted,heavy-knapsacked, camp-worn battery, Kincaid's Battery--you could readthe name on the flag--Kincaid's Battery! came and came and passed. InCanal street and in St. Charles there showed a fierceness of pain in thecheers, and the march was by platoons. At the hotel General Brodnax andstaff joined and led it--up St. Charles, around Tivoli Circle, and so atlast into Calliope street.

  Meantime far away and sadly belated, with the Valcours cunningly toblame and their confiding hostesses generously making light of it, upLove street hurried the Callenders' carriage. Up the way of Love andathwart the oddest tangle of streets in New Orleans,--Frenchmen andCasacalvo, Greatmen, History, Victory, Peace, Arts, Poet, Music,Bagatelle, Craps, and Mysterious--across Elysian Fields not too Elysian,past the green, high-fenced gardens of Esplanade and Rampart fleckedred-white-and-red with the oleander, the magnolia, and the rose, spunthe wheels, spanked the high-trotters. The sun was high and hot, shadowswere scant and sharp, here a fence and there a wall were as blindingwhite as the towering fair-weather clouds, gowns were gauze and theparasols were six, for up beside the old coachman sat Victorine. She itwas who first saw that Congo Square was empty and then that the crowdswere gone from Canal street. It was she who first suggested Dryadsstreet for a short cut and at Triton Walk was first to hear, on before,the music,--ah, those horn-bursting Dutchmen! could they never, neverhit it right?--

  "When other lips and other hearts Their tale of love shall tell--"

  and it was she who, as they crossed Calliope street, first espied therear of the procession, in column of fours again, it was she who flashedtears of joy as they whirled into Erato street to overtake the van andshe was first to alight at the station.

  The General and his staff were just reaching it. Far down behind themshone the armed host. The march ceased, the music--"then you'llrememb'"--broke off short. The column rested. "Mon Dieu!" said even theOrleans Guards, "quel chaleur! Is it not a terrib', thad sun!" Hundredsof their blue kepis, hundreds of gray shakos in the Confederate Guards,were lifted to wipe streaming necks and throats, while away down beyondour ladies' ken all the drummers of the double escort, forty by count,silently came back and moved in between the battery and its band to makethe last music the very bravest. Was that Kincaid, the crowd asked, oneof another; he of the thick black locks, tired cheek and brow, and eyesthat danced now as he smiled and talked? "Phew! me, I shou'n' love to betall like that, going to be shot at, no! ha, ha! But thad's no wonderthey are call' the ladies' man batt'rie!"

  "Hah! they are not call' so because him, but because themse'v's! Everyone he is that, and they didn' got the name in Circus street neither,ha, ha!--although--Hello, Chahlie Valcour. Good-by, Chahlie. Don't gedshoot in the back--ha, ha!--"

  A command! How eternally different from the voice of prattle. The crowdhuddled back to either sidewalk, forced by the opening lines of theescort backed against it, till the long, shelled wagon-way gleamed whiteand bare. Oh, Heaven! oh, home! oh, love! oh, war! For hundreds,hundreds--beat Anna's heart--the awful hour had come, had come! She andher five companions could see clear down both bayonet-crested livingwalls--blue half the sun-tortured way, gray the other half--to where inred kepis and with shimmering sabres, behind their tall captain,stretched the dense platoons and came and came, to the crash of horns,the boys, the boys, the dear, dear boys who with him, with him must go,must go!

  "Don't cry, Connie dear," she whispered, though stubborn drops weresalting her own lips, "it will make it harder for Steve."

  "Harder!" moaned the doting bride, "you don't know him!"

  "Oh, let any woman cry who can," laughed Flora, "I wish I could!" andverily spoke the truth. Anna meltingly pressed her hand but gave her noglance. All eyes, dry or wet, were fixed on the nearing mass, all earsdrank the rising peal and roar of its horns and drums. How superblyrigorous its single, two-hundred-footed step. With what splendidrigidity the escorts' burnished lines walled in its oncome.

  But suddenly there was a change. Whether it began in the music, whichturned into a tune every Tom, Dick, and Harry now had by heart, orwhether a moment before among the blue-caps or gray-shakos, neitherAnna nor the crowd could tell. Some father in those side ranks lawlesslycried out to his red-capped boy as the passing lad brushed close againsthim, "Good-by, my son!" and as the son gave him only a sidelong glancehe seized and shook the sabre arm, and all that long, bristling lane ofbayonets went out of plumb, out of shape and order, and a thousandbrass-buttoned throats shouted good-by and hurrah. Shakos waved,shoulders were snatched and hugged, blue kepis and red were knockedawry, beards were kissed and mad tears let flow. And still, with a rigorthe superbest yet because the new tune was so perfect to march by, fellthe unshaken tread of the cannoneers, and every onlooker laughed andwept and cheered as the brass rent out to the deafening drums, and thedrums roared back to the piercing brass,--

  De black-snake love' de blackbird' nes', De baby love' his mamy's bres', An' raggy-tag, aw spick-an'-span, De ladies loves de ladies' man. I loves to roll my eyes to de ladies! I loves to sympathize wid de ladies! As long as eveh I knows sugah f'om san' I's bound to be a ladies' man.

  So the black-hatted giant with the silver staff strode into the wideshed, the puffy-cheeked band readin
g their music and feeling forfoothold as they followed, and just yonder behind them, in the middle ofthe white way, untouched by all those fathers, unhailed by any brotherof his own, came Hilary Kincaid with all the battery at his neat heels,its files tightly serried but its platoons in open order, each flashingits sabres to a "present" on nearing the General and back to a "carry"when he was passed, and then lengthening into column of files to enterthe blessed shade of the station.

  In beside them surged a privileged throng of near kin, every one callingover every one's head, "Good-by!" "Good-by!" "Here's your mother,Johnnie!" and, "Here's your wife, Achille!" Midmost went the Callenders,the Valcours, and Victorine, willy-nilly, topsy-turvy, swept away,smothering, twisting, laughing, stumbling, staggering, yet saved aliveby that man of the moment Mandeville, until half-way down the shed andthe long box-car train they brought up on a pile of ordnance stores andclung like drift in a flood. And at every twist and stagger Anna said inher heart a speech she had been saying over and over ever since thestart from Callender House; a poor commonplace speech that must bespoken though she perished for shame of it; that must be darted out justat the right last instant if such an instant Heaven would only send: "Itake back what I said last night and I'm glad you spoke as you did!"

  Here now the moment seemed at hand. For here was the officers' box-carand here with sword in sheath Kincaid also had stopped, in conferencewith the conductor, while his lieutenants marched the column on, nowhalted it along the train's full length, now faced it against the opencars and now gave final command to break ranks. In comic confusion thefellows clambered aboard stormed by their friends' fond laughter at theawkwardness of loaded knapsacks, and their retorting mirth drowned in anew flood of good-bys and adieus, fresh waving of hats andhandkerchiefs, and made-over smiles from eyes that had wept themselvesdry. The tear-dimmed Victorine called gay injunctions to her father, theundimmed Flora to her brother, and Anna laughed and laughed and waved hiall directions save one. There Mandeville had joined Kincaid and theconductor and amid the wide downpour and swirl of words and cries wasdebating with them whether it were safer to leave the shed slowly orswiftly; and there every now and then Anna's glance flitted near enoughfor Hilary to have caught it as easily as did Bartleson, Tracy, everylieutenant and sergeant of the command, busy as they were warning thethrong back from the cars; yet by him it was never caught.

  The debate had ended. He gave the conductor a dismissing nod that senthim, with a signalling hand thrown high, smartly away toward thelocomotive. The universal clatter and flutter redoubled. The bell wassounding and Mandeville was hotly shaking hands with Flora, Miranda,all. The train stirred, groaned, crept, faltered, crept on--on--one'sbrain tingled to the cheers, and women were crying again.

  Kincaid's eyes ran far and near in final summing up. The reluctant traingave a dogged joggle and jerk, hung back, dragged on, moved a triflequicker; and still the only proof that he knew she was here--here withinthree steps of him--was the careful failure of those eyes ever to lighton her. Oh, heart, heart, heart! would it be so to the very end andvanishment of all?

  "I take back--I take--" was there going to be no chance to begin it? Washe grief blind? or was he scorn blind? No matter! what she had sown shewould reap if she had to do it under the very thundercloud of his frown.All or any, the blame of estrangement should be his, not hers! Oh,Connie, Connie! Mandeville had clutched Constance and was kissing her onlips and head and cheeks. He wheeled, caught a hand from the nearestcar, and sprang in. Kincaid stood alone. The conductor made him an eagersign. The wheels of the train clicked briskly. He glanced up and downit, then sprang to Miranda, seized her hand, cried "Good-by!" snatchedMadame's, Flora's, Victorine's, Connie's,--"Good-by--Good-by!"--and cameto Anna.

  And did she instantly begin, "I take--?" Not at all! She gave her hand,both hands, but her lips stood helplessly apart. Flora, Madame,Victorine, Constance, Miranda, Charlie from a car's top, the threelieutenants, the battery's whole hundred, saw Hilary's gaze pour intohers, hers into his. Only the eyes of the tumultuous crowd stillfollowed the train and its living freight. A woman darted to a car'sopen door and gleaned one last wild kiss. Two, ten, twenty others, whilethe conductor ran waving, ordering, thrusting them away, repeated thesplendid theft, and who last of all and with a double booty butConstance! Anna beheld the action, though with eyes still captive. Withcaptive eyes, and with lips now shut and now apart again as she vainlystrove for speech, she saw still plainer his speech fail also. His handstightened on hers, hers in his.

  "Good-by!" they cried together and were dumb again; but in their mutualgaze--more vehement than their voices joined--louder than all the dinabout them--confession so answered worship that he snatched her to hisbreast; yet when he dared bend to lay a kiss upon her brow he failedonce more, for she leaped and caught it on her lips.

  Dishevelled, liberated, and burning with blushes, she watched the end ofthe train shrink away. On its last iron ladder the conductor swung asideto make room for Kincaid's stalwart spring. So! It gained one handhold,one foothold. But the foot slipped, the soldier's cap tumbled to theground, and every onlooker drew a gasp. No, the conductor held him, anderect and secure, with bare locks ruffling in the wind of the train, helooked back, waved, and so passed from sight.

  Archly, in fond Spanish, "How do you feel now?" asked Madame of herscintillant granddaughter as with their friends and the dissolvingthrong they moved to the carriage; and in the same tongue Flora, with acaressing smile, rejoined, "I feel like swinging you round by the hair."

  Anna, inwardly frantic, chattered and laughed. "I don't know whatpossessed me!" she cried.

  But Constance was all earnestness: "Nan, you did it for the Cause--theflag--the battery--anything but him personally. _He_ knows it. Everybodysaw that. Its very publicity--"

  "Yes?" soothingly interposed Madame, "'t was a so verrie pewblic that--"

  "Why, Flora," continued the well-meaning sister, "Steve says when hecame back into Charleston from Fort Sumter the ladies--"

  "Of course!" said Flora, sparkling afresh. "Even Steve understandsthat, grandma." Her foot was on a step of the carriage. A child pluckedher flowing sleeve:

  "Misses! Mom-a say'"--he pressed into her grasp something made ofbroadcloth, very red and golden--"here yo' husband's cap."