In Hostile Red

"We still hold 'em back; we've won our day's pay and perhaps a little more," remarked the new captain, rather in a tone of soliloquy than address.

The balance of pay was never collected. A whiff of grape exterminated him and the man who stood nearest him, and the gun had only four assistants in its work. Two of these four men were wounded, and they might have thought of retreat; but a shot struck the caisson, blew it up, and killed the drivers, and all the horses except two. It was no longer possible to carry away the gun, and the three men who were left would not abandon it to the enemy.

The surviving horses hovered near, turning about in a small circle.

The man who had been No. 5, a cannoneer, was the senior, and took command. He was wounded, but he lost little blood and concealed the hurt.

"Shall we run?" asked one of his comrades.

"One more shot for good count!" he replied.

They aimed with deliberation, though the balls and bullets rained around them. The cannoneer chose the densest red of the advancing mass, and sent the shot straight to the mark. Before the smoke from the discharge sank, three British shells burst, almost simultaneously, among the last defenders, and when the smoke cleared no one was standing there. The gun, blown from its wheels and torn open at the breech, was useless forever.

Chapter Thirty-one — A Battle and An Answered Question

The gun and its defenders were gone, but the heavy British force had been held off our flank long enough to suit our purpose. Our line, during the interval, had extended itself in such a manner that now it could not be surrounded, and we resumed our original place in the centre, where the battle was increasing.

The columns of smoke before us rose and broadened, the flashes of fire that shot through it, increased and twinkled in thousands. The shouting came more distinctly to our ears, and the drifting smoke made the dense tremulous heat more oppressive. I knew that Charles Lee commanded our engaged division, and, having in mind the talk at the council fire, I was uneasy. If only Wayne or Greene were there!

The cloud of fire and smoke suddenly began to move towards us, and the shouting grew louder. The battle was shifting its face, and approaching us. It had but one meaning, and that was the retreat of the Americans. A universal groan arose from our ranks.

"It can't be! It can't be!" shouted Marcel, and he swore.

But it was. Across the fields came our men in full flight, with Charles Lee himself, thrice-accursed traitor, at their head. All the world knows how he ordered his own men to flee, when they were winning the victory, and it need be told to no one what such a movement would mean to an army in the height of a battle. I could have wept for despair at this lost opportunity, at this useless flight which might mean our own destruction. On streamed the fugitives, and suddenly a great man on a great horse galloped forward to meet them. Everybody in our company knew that the rider was Washington, and we uttered a mighty shout. Then we were silent, while Washington rode directly in front of Charles Lee, and stopped his horse across his path.

We could not hear the words that were said, the words that must have burned into the man's soul; but we saw the red, wrathful face of Washington, and the white, scared face of Lee. Never was Washington so fiercely angry, and never with better cause. Branding the traitor with hot words, he sent him away under arrest, and then, among the stinging bullets, he reformed the men, who cheered their great commander, turned their faces to the enemy, and began anew the battle that had been all but lost.

"Leftenant," said the bare-waisted man, who had been so thirsty, and who had accompanied us with the skirmishers, "ain't it about time to let us have another drink? The inside of my throat's so dry it's scalin' off."

We had filled our canteens with water before this last march; but I had allowed my men to drink but sparingly, knowing how much they would need it later. Now I pitied them as well as myself, and I gave the word to turn up the canteens; but I ordered that the drink should be a very short one.

Up went the canteens as if they had been so many muskets raised to command. There was a deep grateful gurgle and cluck along the whole line as the water poured into the half-charred throats of the men. But Marcel and I had to draw our swords and threaten violence before they would take the canteens away from their lips.

"Leftenant," said the bare-waisted man, reproachfully, "I was right in heaven then, and you pulled me out by the legs."

"Then you may be sent back to heaven or the other place soon enough," I said, "for here come the British. Ready, men!"

"Confound the British!" growled the big man. "I don't mind them, but I hate to be baked afore my time."

The British opposite the orchard, who, like ourselves, had been waiting, were forming in line for an attack. The trumpets were blowing gayly, and the throbbing of the drums betokened the coming conflict. Presently across the fields they came, a long line of flashing bayonets and red coats, with the cavalry on either wing galloping down upon us. General Wayne himself passed along our line, and, like Putnam at Bunker Hill, told our men to be steady and hold their fire until the enemy were so close that they could not miss.

The British fired a volley at us as they rushed across the fields, and then, with many an old score to settle, we rose and poured into them, at short range, a fire that swept away their front ranks and staggered the column. But they recovered, and charged us with the bayonets, and we met them with clubbed rifles, for few of us had bayonets.

In a moment we were in a fierce turmoil of cracking guns, flashing swords, and streaming blood and sweat. The grass was trampled into the earth; the dust arose and clogged our throats and blinded our eyes. Over us the sun, as if rejoicing in the strife and seeking to add to it, poured his fiercest rays upon us, and men fell dead without a wound upon them. A British sergeant rushed at me with drawn sword when I was engaged with another man, and I thought the road to another world was opening before me; but when the Englishman raised his sword to strike, the weapon dropped from his limp fingers to the ground, and he fell over, slain by the sun.

Had the cavalry been lucky enough to get in among us with their sabres, they might have broken our lines and thrust us out of the orchard; but we had emptied many a saddle before they could come up, and the horses that galloped about without riders did as much harm to the enemy as to us. The British showed most obstinate courage, and their leader, a fine man, Colonel Monckton, I afterwards learned his name to be, encouraged them with shouts and the waving of his sword, until a bullet killed him, and he fell between the struggling lines.

"Come on!" I shouted, under the impulse of the moment, to the men near me. "We will take off his body!"

Then we rushed upon the British column. Some of our men seized the body of their fallen leader, and they made a fierce effort to regain it. But the British did not have raw militia to deal with this time, and, however stern they were in the charge, equally stern were we in resisting it. The colonel's body became the prize for which both of us fought; and we retained our hold upon it.

The clamor increased, and the reek of blood and sweat thickened. The pitiless sun beat upon us, and rejoiced as we slew each other. But, however they strove against us, we held fast to the colonel's body; nay, more, we gained ground. Twice the British charged us with all their strength, and each time we hurled them back. Then they gave up the struggle, as well they might, and with honor too, and fell back, leaving us our apple orchard and their colonel's body. We had no intent but to give suitable burial to the fallen chief, and a guard was formed to escort his remains to the rear.

As the broken red line gave ground, some of their men turned and fired a few farewell shots at us. I felt a smart blow on my skull, as if some one had suddenly tapped me there with a hammer. As I threw up my hands with involuntary motion to see what ailed me, black clouds passed of a sudden before my eyes, and the earth began to reel beneath me. Marcel, who was standing near, turned towards me with a look of alarm upon his face. Then the earth slid away from me, and I fell. Ere I touched the ground my senses were gone.

When I opened my eyes again, I thought that only a few minutes had passed since I fell; for above me waved the boughs of one of the very apple-trees beneath which we had fought. Moreover, there were soldiers about, and the signs of fierce contention with arms were still visible. But when I put one of my hands to my head, which felt heavy and dull, I found that it was swathed in many bandages.

"Lie still," said a friendly voice, and the next moment the face of Marcel was bending over me. "You should thank your stars that your skull is so thick and hard, for that British bullet glanced off it and inflicted but a scalp-wound. As it is, you have nothing but good luck. The commander-in-chief himself has been to see you, and has called you a most gallant youth. Also, you have the best nurse in America, who, moreover, takes a special interest in your case."

"But the army! The battle!" I said.

"Disturb not your mighty mind about them," said Marcel. "We failed to destroy the enemy, having to leave that for a later day; but we won the battle, and the British army is retreating towards New York. I imitate it, and now retreat before your nurse."

He went away, and then Mary Desmond stood beside me. But her face was no longer haughty and cold.

"You here!" I cried. "How did this happen?"

"When the American army followed the retreating British, we knew there would be a battle," she said. "So I came with other women to nurse the wounded, and one of them I have watched over a whole night."

She smiled most divinely.

"Then, Mary," I cried, with an energy that no wound could lessen, "will you not marry an American?"

Her answer?

It was not in words, but I saw in her eyes the light that shines for only one, and I asked no more.

THE END