Читать книгу The Call of the South - Robert Lee Durham - Страница 9

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The two small armies were separated by the valley of a small stream which ran in a broad circle around the low wooded hills or range of hills upon which the Germans were entrenched. This valley was from a mile to a mile and a half wide, and the water-course was much nearer the outer or American side. The bed of this stream would furnish an excellent breastwork or entrenchment for the American troops if they should see fit to use it, but it was not tenable by the Germans because it was at most all points subject to an enfilading fire from the American position. The surface of the valley was slightly broken and undulating on the German side, but clear of timber and covered only with grass, while on the American side the rise was more precipitous and covered with a scattering growth of trees and bush.

On arriving and looking over the ground General Bell ordered that during the night his artillery should be placed and concealed on the commanding heights which his position afforded; and that his fighting-line, composed of the 5th and 15th Cavalry as his left wing, the 1st X—— as his centre, and the 4th and 11th Infantry as his right wing, be moved forward down the slope and into the bed of the stream, leaving as a reserve the 71st Ohio and the 10th Cavalry located approximately in rear of the centre of his line of battle. The 7th Cavalry he had sent out toward Puerto Cabello to hold in check any possible German troops that might appear from that quarter.

Corporal Hayward Graham, back at the 10th's corral, had recovered his spirits as the day dragged along without any sound of battle, and he began to congratulate himself that he would finish up in good time all details that would keep him out of the fighting. When he walked over to the line late in the afternoon, however, and learned that the whole regiment was to be held out of the fight as a reserve, he immediately surmised that the 10th was kept out of it because they were negroes, and that the others from the general down wanted to scoop all the glory for the white soldiery,—and again he sat down and cursed the negro blood in his veins. The only salve to his outraged spirit was the information that those high and mighty prigs of the 71st were also to miss the glory. He even chuckled when he thought of the chagrin of Lieutenant Morgan and pictured to himself the scene of the lieutenant's meeting with Miss Elise Phillips if he should have to go back and explain to her how he came not to be under fire. Then he remembered Helen Phillips and the crimson pennant locked up in his trunk, and he felt that the whole war would count for naught if he had no chance to do something worthy of that pennant and of her. He wandered listlessly along the lines and tried to forget his troubles in listening to the talk of the fortunates who were going in.

He came to where a crowd of 1st X—— men were chaffing a squad of the 71st for "taking a gallery-seat at the show." Corporal Billie Catling of the 71st replied that they took the "gallery-seat" under orders and were put behind the 1st X—— to see that they didn't dodge a fight again like they did in Cuba.

"That's a damn lie!" came the 1st X——'s rejoinder in chorus; to which one of them added, "The 1st X—— never ran out of any fight in Cuba, and you gallery-gods can go to sleep or go to the devil, for we'll stay here till hell freezes over so thick you can skate on the ice."

"Well, you may not have run out of any fight in Cuba, but it's blamed certain you didn't run into one," retorted the 71st's spokesman.

"Now, sonny," yelled the X—— man, "don't get sassy because you're not permitted to sit down along with your betters. Run along and wait for the second table with the niggers!"

The 71st's contingent could not find a suitable retort to this sally, and, as fighting was out of the question, they walked away muttering imprecations amid the jeers of the men from X——.

Graham enjoyed the discomfiture of the 71st; but he was more than ever convinced that the colour of the 10th accounted for its being robbed of a chance for fame in this campaign: and he went back to his duty in a mutinous mood. He could not know that General Bell had held this veteran negro regiment in reserve because of its proved steadiness and valour; nor that he had placed the untried 1st X—— in his centre because it would thus be in the easiest supporting distance of his reserves.

The battle opened on April 3d the moment it became light enough for the gunners to locate the half-hidden German lines and artillery. For awhile the cannoneers had it all between themselves; and in this duel the advantage was with the Americans, for their position gave them better protection—the fighting-line being sheltered by the stream-bed and the guns and reserves by the hill. The Germans were entrenched on a hill as high as the Americans, but it was much flatter and afforded less natural cover.

After two or three hours of pounding the Germans with his artillery, which was evidently inflicting great damage, General Bell ordered his line forward to carry the German position by assault. Then the battle began in earnest. The German machine-guns opened on the American line as it rose out of the stream-bed and began its slow and terrible journey across the open valley by short rushes. The first breath of lead and iron that dashed in the faces of the American troops as they stood up began the work of death; and it came so promptly and so viciously that it overwhelmed the raw discipline and untempered metal of the 1st X——; for before advancing thirty paces the line wavered and broke and retreated ignobly to the sheltering bank of the stream. Not all the regiment broke at once; but the break and stampede of one company quickly spread along the entire regimental front, and back into the ditch they dived. Some of the officers cursed and commanded and entreated; but to no purpose. The wings of the American line were advancing steadily but slowly, standing up for a few moments to dash forward a dozen yards, and then lying as close to the ground as possible while returning the terrible fire from the hills in front of them.

General Bell from his position of vantage saw the failure of the 1st X—— to advance, and waited a few moments in hope that a half-dozen officers who were recklessly exposing themselves in their attempts to urge the men forward might succeed in their efforts. As it became evident that the regiment would not face the deadly fire of the Germans, however, and as the wings of the battle-line were diverging as they advanced because of the formation of the ground in their front, General Bell waited no longer, but ordered forward both the 10th Cavalry and the 71st Ohio. These came over the hill on the run and dropped down the slope into the water-course, where the heroic handful of officers were still making frantic efforts to have the 1st X—— go forward. A captain was violently berating his men for their cowardice and imploring them to advance, while his first lieutenant squeezed down behind the bank was yelling at them not to move. A major of one battalion was standing up straight and fully exposed, waving his sword and appealing to his men by every token of courage, while another major was lying as close to the bottom of the ditch as a spreading-adder. At places the men seemed to want to move, while the officers crouched in fear; while at others officers by no amount of commands or entreaties could get a man out of the ditch. A panic of terror seemed to be upon the regiment which the few untouched spirits were not able to overcome by any power of sharp commands, or violent pleading, or reckless examples of courage.

The boys of the 71st and the negro troopers of the 10th did not treat the X—— men tenderly as they passed over them. They jumped down upon them as they lay in the ditch and tramped upon them or kicked them out of the way contemptuously, while the fear-smitten creatures were as unresentful as hounds. Corporal Graham, near the left flank of the 10th, heard an officer of the 71st yell as they passed over the ditch, "Why don't you go forward? What the devil are you waiting for?" to which Billie Catling, as he knocked a cowering X—— man from his path, cried out in answer, "It's too hot for 'em, captain. They are going to stay here till this hell freezes over!"

As many perhaps as a fourth of the 1st X——, officers and men, fell in with the 71st and the 10th and bravely charged with them up the long slope. The remainder waited till the battle was so far ahead of them that their belated advance could not wipe out the black shame of cowardice.

In the hurry of their rush into the breach the adjoining flanks of the 10th and the 71st overlapped and were confused; but it was well that the two regiments were sent to replace the one, for the loss was appalling as they surged forward toward the German lines, and they were not long in being thinned out to an uncrowded basis.

The first sight of a man struck and falling to the ground shook Corporal Graham's nerves, and he had to pull himself together sharply to save himself from the weakening horror death always had for him. He turned his eyes resolutely away from the first half-dozen, that were knocked down, and applied himself religiously and consciously to the prescribed method of advancing by rushes; but all his faculties were alert to the dangers of the situation, and he could not shake off his keen sense of peril and of the tragedies around him. Not for long did he suffer thus, however, for as he rose up from the grass for one rush forward a bullet grazed his shin—and changed his whole nature in a twinkling. It did him no real damage and little blood came from the wound, but the pain was intense. He dropped on the earth and grabbed his leg to see what the harm was, and was surprised to find himself uninjured save for the burning, stinging sensation. Then he forgot everything but his pain, and became as pettishly angry in a moment as if he had collided with a rocking-chair in the dark. In that moment he conceived a personal enmity and grudge against the whole German army, and proceeded to avenge his injury on a personal basis. He became as cool and collected as if he were playing a game of checkers, and went in a business-like way about reducing the distance between himself and the gentlemen who had hurt his shin. His anger had dissolved his confusion and neutralized the horrors that were at first upon him. He was more than ever conscious of the falling men about him; but he had his debt to pay,—let them look after their own scores. He saw Lieutenant Wagner stagger and fall and raise up and drag himself into a protecting depression in the ground; he saw the colonel of the 1st X——, fighting with a carbine in his hand right alongside the black troopers of the 10th, drop in a heap and lie so still he knew he was dead; he saw Corporal Billie Catling straighten up and pitch his gun from him as a bullet hit him in the face and carried away the whole back of his head;—yet Graham stopped not to help or to think. He had only one purpose—to reach the man who hit his shin. He saw man after man, many of his own troop, drop in death or blood or agony—and his purpose did not change. Then, a little distance to his left and somewhat to his rear, he saw Colonel Phillips of the 71st go down in the grass; he saw him try to gain his feet, and fail; and then try to drag himself from his very exposed position, and fail. Then Corporal Graham forgot his personal grievance, and thought of the girl and the pennant. He ran across to Colonel Phillips and, finding him shot through both legs, picked him up and carried him for forty yards or more through the hurricane of lead to where the Valencia road made a cut in the long slope; and in this cut, down behind a sheltering curve, he placed him. Not a moment too promptly had the trooper acted, for of all the unfortunates who had fallen anywhere near Colonel Phillips not one but was found riddled with the bullets of the machine-guns when the battle was ended. Graham's own hat was shot away from his head and the officer in his arms received another wound as he bore him out of harm's way.... At the Colonel's request the negro tried to remove the boot from the bleeding right leg, which was broken below the knee. As this was so painful Colonel Phillips handed him a pearl-handled pocket-knife and asked him to cut the boot-top away. Graham did so, and bound a handkerchief around the leg to stop the flow of blood. Having made every other disposition for the officer's comfort which his situation permitted, he looked out in the direction of the battle so wistfully that the Colonel told him he might return to the fight. He did so with a rush, absent-mindedly pocketing the pearl-handled knife as he ran.