The Rock of Chickamauga: A Story of the Western Crisis, Joseph A. Altsheler [free children's ebooks online .txt] 📗

a witness, while Colonel Winchester, Warner, Pennington, the sergeant, Colonel Hertford, all whom he knew and the tens of thousands whom he did not know, fought the battle.

A tremendous sound, distant and steady, would not blot out much smaller sounds nearby, and now he heard noises in the larger chamber. The voice of Colonel Woodville was raised in sharp command.

“Lift me up!” he said, “I must see! Must I lie here, eating my soul out, when a great battle is going on! Help me up, I say! Wound or no wound, I will go to the door!”

Then the voice of Miss Woodville attempting to soothe was heard, but the colonel broke forth more furiously than ever, not at her, but at his unhappy fate.

Dick, spurred by impulse, left his alcove and entered the room.

“Sir,” he said respectfully to Colonel Woodville, “you are eager to see, and so am I. May I help you?”

Colonel Woodville turned a red eye upon him.

“Young man,” he said, “you have shown before a sense of fitness, and your appearance now is most welcome. You shall help me to the door, and I will lean upon you. Together we will see what is going to happen, although I wish for one result, and you for another. No, Margaret, it is not worth while to protest any further. My young Yankee and I will manage it very well between us.”

Miss Woodville stepped aside and smiled wanly.

“I think it is best, Miss Woodville,” Dick said in a low tone.

“Perhaps,” she replied.

Colonel Woodville impatiently threw off the cover. He wore a long purple dressing gown, and his wound was in the leg, but it was partly healed. Dick helped him out of the bed and then supported him with his arm under his shoulder. Within that singular abode the roar of the guns was a steady and sinister mutter, but beneath it now appeared another note.

Colonel Woodville had begun to swear. It was not the torrent of loud imprecation that Dick had heard in Jackson, but subdued, and all the more fierce because it was so like the ferocious whine of a powerful and hurt wild animal. Swearing was common enough among the older men of the South, even among the educated, but Colonel Woodville now surpassed them all.

Dick heard oaths, ripe and rich, entirely new to him, and he heard the old ones in new arrangements and with new inflections. And yet there was no blasphemy about it. It seemed a part of time and place, and, what was more, it seemed natural coming from the lips of the old colonel.

They reached the door, the cut in the side of the ravine, and at once a wide portion of the battlefield sprang into the light, while the roar of the guns was redoubled. Dick would have stepped back now, but Colonel Woodville's hand rested on his shoulder and his support was needed.

“My glasses, Margaret!” said the colonel. “I must see! I will see! If I am but an old hound, lying here while the pack is in full cry, I will nevertheless see the chase! And even if I am an old hound I could run with the best of them if that infernal Yankee bullet had not taken me in the leg!”

Miss Woodville brought him the glasses, a powerful pair, and he glued them instantly to his eyes. Dick saw only the field of battle, dark lines and blurs, the red flare of cannon and rifle fire, and towers and banks of smoke, but the colonel saw individual human beings, and, with his trained military eye, he knew what the movements meant. Dick felt the hand upon his shoulder trembling with excitement. He was excited himself. Miss Woodville stood just behind them, and a faint tinge of color appeared in her pale face.

“The Yankees are getting ready to charge,” said the colonel. “At the point we see they will not yet rush forward. They will, of course, wait for a preconcerted signal, and then their whole army will attack at once. But the woods and ravines are filled with their skirmishers, trying to clear the way. I can see them in hundreds and hundreds, and their rifles make sheets of flame. All the time the cannon are firing over their heads. Heavens, what a bombardment! I've never before listened to its like!”

“What are our troops doing, father?” asked Miss Woodville.

“Very little yet, and they should do little. Pemberton is showing more judgment than I expected of him. The defense should hold its fire until the enemy is well within range and that's what we're doing!”

The colonel leaned a little more heavily upon him, but Dick steadied himself. The old man still kept the glasses to his eyes, and swept them back and forth in as wide an arc as their position permitted. The hills shook with the thunder of the cannon, and the brilliant sun, piercing through the smoke, lighted up the vast battle line.

“The attack of the skirmishers grows hotter,” said the old man. “The thickets blaze with the fire of their rifles. Heavy masses of infantry are moving forward. Now they stop and lie on their arms. They are awaiting the word from other parts of the field, and it shows with certainty that a grand attack is coming. Two batteries of eight guns each have come nearer. I did not think it possible for the fire of their cannon to increase, but it has done so. Young sir, would you care to look through the glasses?”

“I believe not, Colonel. I will trust to the naked eye and your report.”

It was an odd feeling that made Dick decline the glasses. If he looked he must tell to the others what he saw, and he wished to show neither exultation nor depression. The colonel, the duty of courtesy discharged, resumed his own position of witness and herald.

“The columns of infantry are getting up again,” he said. “I see a man in what I take to be a general's uniform riding along their front. He must be making a speech. No doubt he knows the desperate nature of the attack, and would inspire them. Now he is gone and other officers, colonels and majors are moving about.”

“What are the skirmishers doing, Colonel?”

“Their fire is not so hot. They must be drawing back. They have made the prelude, and the importance of their role has passed. The masses of infantry are drawing together again. Now I see men on horseback with trumpets to their lips. Yes, the charge is coming. Ah-h! That burnt them!”

There was a terrific crash much nearer, and Dick knew that it was the Southern batteries opening fire. The shoulder upon which the colonel's hand rested shook a little, but it was from excitement. He said nothing and Colonel Woodville continued:

“The smoke is so heavy I can't see what damage was done! Now it has cleared away! There are gaps in the Yankee lines, but the men have closed up, and they come on at the double quick with their cannon still firing over their heads!”

In his excitement he took his hand off Dick's shoulder and leaned forward a little farther, supporting himself now against the earthen wall. Dick stood just behind