The Long Roll
front. A hundred yards away the main herd went by, gigantic in the mist.
The three in the elder breathed deep. "All gone. Gone!--No. There's a
squad coming up here."
The three kneeling in the mire, watching through triangular spaces
between the branchy leaves, grew suddenly, amazingly calm. What was the
sense in being frightened? You couldn't get away. Was there anywhere to
go to one might feel agitation enough, but there wasn't! Coffin handled
his rifle with the deliberation of a woman smoothing her long hair. The
man next him--Jim Watts--even while he settled forward on his knees and
raised his musket, turned his head aside and spat. "Derned old fog
always gits in my throat!" A branch of elder was cutting Billy Maydew's
line of vision. He broke it off with noiseless care and raised to his
shoulder the Enfield rifle which he had acquired at Winchester. There
loomed, at thirty feet away, colossal beasts bestridden by giants.
Suddenly the mist thinned, lifted. The demon steeds and riders resolved
themselves into six formidable looking Federal troopers. From the main
street rang the Federal bugles, vehemently rallying, imperative.
Shouting, too, broke out, savage, triumphant, pointed with pistol
shots. The bugle called again, _Rally to the colours! Rally!_
"I calculate," said one of the six blue horsemen, "that the boys have
found Stonewall."
"Then they'll need us all!" swore the trooper leading. "If anybody's in
the cow-house they can wait."--_Right about face! Forward! Trot!_
The men within the elder settled down on the wet black earth. "Might as
well stay here, I suppose," said Coffin. Jim Watts began to shiver.
"It's awful damp and cold. I've got an awful pain in the pit of my
stomach." He rolled over and lay groaning. "Can't I go, sir?" asked
Billy. "I kind of feel more natural in the open."
Now Mathew Coffin had just been thinking that while this elder bush
springing from muddy earth, with a manure heap near, was damned
uncomfortable, it was better than being outside while those devils were
slashing and shooting. Perhaps they would ride away, or the army might
come over the bridge, and there would be final salvation. He had even
added a line to the letter he was writing, "An elder bush afforded me
some slight cover from which to fire--" And now Billy Maydew wanted to
go outside and be taken prisoner! Immediately he became angry again.
"You're no fonder of the open than I am!" he said, and his upper lip
twitched one side away from his white teeth.
Billy, his legs already out of the bush, looked at him with large, calm
grey eyes. "Kin I go?"
"Go where? You'll get killed."
"You wouldn't grieve if I did, would you? I kinder thought I might get
by a back street to the wagons. A cousin of mine's a wagon master and he
ain't going ter give up easy. I kinder thought I might help--"
"I'm just waiting," said Coffin, "until Jim here gets over his spasm.
Then I'll give the word."
Jim groaned. "I feel sicker'n a yaller dog after a fight--'n' you know I
didn't mind 'em at all when they were really here! You two go on, 'n'
I'll come after awhile."
Coffin and Billy found the back street. It lay clear, warm, sunny,
empty. "They're all down at the bridge," said Billy. "Bang! bang! bang!"
They came to a house, blinds all closed, shrinking behind its trees.
Houses, like everything else, had personality in this war. A town
occupied changed its mien according to the colour of the uniform in
possession. As the two hurrying grey figures approached, a woman,
starting from the window beside which she had been kneeling, watching
through a crevice, ran out of the house and through the yard to the
gate. "You two men, come right in here! Don't you know the Yankees are
in town?"
She was young and pretty. Coffin swept off his cap. "That's the reason
we're trying to get to the edge of town--to help the men with the wagon
train."
Her eyes grew luminous. "How brave you are! Go, and God bless you!"
The two ran on. Mathew Coffin added another line to his letter: "A lady
besought me to enter her house, saying that I would surely be killed,
and that she could conceal me until the enemy was gone. But I--"
They were nearly out of town--they could see the long train hurriedly
moving on the Staunton road. There was a sudden burst of musketry. A
voice reached them from the street below. "Halt, you two Confeds running
there! Come on over here! Rally to the colours!" There was a flash of
the stars and bars, waved vigorously. "Oh, ha, ha!" cried Billy, "thar
was some of us wasn't taken! Aren't you glad we didn't stay behind the
cowshed?"
It came into Coffin's head that Billy might tell that his sergeant had
wished to stay behind the cowshed. The blood rushed to his face; he saw
the difficulty of impressing men who knew about the cowshed with his
abilities in the way of storming batteries single-handed. He had really
a very considerable share of physical courage, and naturally he esteemed
it something larger than it was. He began to burn with the injustice of
Billy Maydew's thinking him backward in daring and so reporting him
around camp-fires. As he ran he grew angrier and angrier, and not far
from the shaken flag, in a little grassy hollow which hid them from
view, he called upon the other to halt. Billy's sense of discipline
brought him to a stop, but did not keep him from saying, "What for?"
They were only two soldiers, out of the presence of others and in a
pretty tight place together--Mathew Coffin but three years older than
he, and no great shakes anyhow. "What for?" asked Billy.
"I just want to say to you," said Coffin thickly, "that as to that
shed, it was my duty to protect my men; just as it is my duty as an
officer to report you for disobedience and bad language addressed to an
officer--"
Billy's brow clouded. "I had forgotten all about that. I was going along
very nicely with you. You were really behaving yourself--like a--like a
gentleman. The cow-house was all right. You are brave enough when it
comes to fighting. And now you're bringing it all up again--"
"'_Gentleman._'--Who are you to judge of a gentleman?"
Billy looked at him calmly. "I air one of them.--I air a-judging from
that-a stand."
"You are going to the guardhouse for disobedience and bad language and
impertinence."
"It would be right hard," said Billy, "if I had to leave
su-pe-ri-or-i-ty outside with my musket. But I don't."
Coffin, red in the face, made at him. The Thunder Run man, supple as a
moccasin, swerved aside. "Air you finished speaking, sergeant? Fer if
you have, 'n' if you don't mind, I think I'll run along--I air only
fighting Yankees this mornin'!"
An aide of Jackson's, cut off from headquarters and taking shelter in
the upper part of the town, crept presently out of hiding, and finding
the invaders' eyes turned toward the bridge, proceeded with dispatch and
quietness to gather others from dark havens. When he had a score or more
he proceeded to bolder operations. In the field and on the Staunton road
all was commotion; wagons with their teams moving in double column up
the road, negro teamsters clamouring with ashen looks, "Dose damn Yanks!
Knowed we didn't see dat ghos' fer nothin' las' night!" Wagon masters
shouted, guards and sentries looked townward with anxious eyes. The aide
got a flag from the quartermaster's tent; found moreover a very few
artillery reserves and an old cranky howitzer. With all of these he
returned to the head of the main street, and about the moment the
cavalry at the bridge divided, succeeded in getting his forces admirably
placed in a strong defensive position: Coffin and Billy Maydew joined
just as an outpost brought a statement that about two hundred Yankee
cavalry were coming up the street.
The two guns, Federal Parrott, Confederate howitzer, belching smoke,
made in twenty minutes the head of the street all murk. In the first
charge Coffin received a sabre cut over the head. The blood blinded him
at first, and when he had wiped it away, and tied a beautiful new
handkerchief from a Broadway shop about the wound, he found it still
affected sight and hearing. He understood that their first musketry fire
had driven the cavalry back, indeed he saw two or three riderless horses
galloping away. He understood also that the Yankees had brought up a
gun, and that the captain was answering with the superannuated howitzer.
He was sure, too, that he himself was firing his musket with great
precision. _Fire!--load, fire!--load, fire! One, two,--one, two!_ but
his head, he was equally sure, was growing larger. It was now larger
than the globe pictured on the first page of the geography he had
studied at school. It was the globe, and he was Atlas holding it.
_Fire--load, fire--load!_ Now the head was everything, and all life was
within it. There was a handsome young man named Coffin, very brave, but
misunderstood by all save one. He was brave and handsome. He could take
a tower by himself--_Fire, load--Fire, load--One, two._ The enemy knew
his fame. They said, "Coffin! Which is Coffin?"--_Fire, load, one, two._
The grey armies knew this young hero. They cheered when he went by. They
cheered--they cheered--when he went by to take the tower. They wrote
home and lovely women envied the loveliest woman. "Coffin! Coffin!
Coffin's going to take the tower! Watch him! _Yaaaaih! Yaaaih!_"--He
struck the tower and looked to see it go down. Instead, with a roar, it
sprang, triple brass, height on height to the skies. The stars fell, and
suddenly, in the darkness, an ocean appeared and went over him. He lay
beneath the overturned Federal gun, and the grey rush that had silenced
the gunners and taken the piece went on.
For a long time he lay in a night without a star, then day began to
break. It broke curiously, palely light for an instant, then obscured by
thick clouds, then faint light again. Some part of his brain began to
think. His head was not now the world; the world was lying on his
shoulder and arm, crushing it. With one piece of his brain he began to
appeal to people; with another piece to answer the first. "Mother, take
this thing away! Mother, take this thing away! She's dead. She can't,
however much she wants to. Father! He's dead, too. Rob, Carter--Jack!
Grown up and moved away. Judge Allen, sir!--Mr. Boyd!--would you just
give a hand? Here I am, under Purgatory Mountain. Darling--take this
thing away! Darling--Darling! Men!--Colonel Cleave!--Boys--boys--" All
the brain began to think. "O God, send somebody!"
When Purgatory Mountain was lifted from his shoulder and arm he fainted.
Water, brought in a cap from a neighbouring puddle and dashed in his
face, brought him to. "Thar now!" said Billy, "I certainly air glad to
see that you air alive!" Coffin groaned. "It must ha' hurt awful! S'pose
you let me look before I move you?" He took out a knife and gently slit
the coat away. "Sho! I know that hurts! But you got first to the gun!
You ran like you was possessed, and you yelled, and you was the first to
touch the gun. Thar now! I air a-tying the han'kerchief from your head
around your arm, 'cause there's more blood--"
"They'll have to cut it off," moaned Coffin.
"No, they won't. Don't you let 'em! Now I air a-going to lift you and
carry you to the nearest house. All the boys have run on after the
Yanks."
He took up his sergeant and moved off with an easy step. Coffin uttered
a short and piteous moaning like a child. They presently met a number of
grey soldiers. "We've druv them--we've druv them! The 37th's down there.
Just listen to Rockbridge!--Who've you got there?"
"Sergeant Coffin," said Billy. "He air right badly hurt! He was the
first man at the gun. He fired, an' then he got hold of the sponge staff