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

“So am I,” said Warner, who overheard him, “and so are all who are left in this regiment. If they see the flash of water nothing can hold them back, not even Bragg's whole army. How those skirmishers hang on to us! Whizz-z! there went their bullets right over our head!”

The Winchesters turned, delivered a heavy volley into a thicket, whence the bullets had come, and marched on, looking eagerly now for water. They began to talk about it. They spoke of the cool brooks, “branches” they called them, that they had known at home, and they told how, when they found one, they would first drink of it, and then lie down in its bed and let its water flow over them.

But Dick's thirst could not wholly take his mind from the tremendous scenes accompanying that sullen and defiant retreat. Hills and mountains were in deepest gloom, save when the signal lights of the Southern armies flashed back and forth. The clouded moon touched everything nearer by with somber gray. The fire of cannon rolled through the forest and gorges with redoubled echoes.

A shout suddenly came from the head of the Winchester column.

“Water! Water!” they cried. A young boy had caught a glimpse of silver through some bushes, and he knew that it was made by the swift current of a brook. In an instant the regiment broke into a run for the water. Colonel Winchester could not have stopped them if he had tried, and he did not try. He knew how great was their need.

“We're off!” cried Pennington.

“I see it! The water!” shouted Dick.

“I do, too!” exclaimed Warner, “and it's the most beautiful water that ever flowed!”

But they stopped in their rush and dropped down in the thickets. Sergeant Whitley had given the warning shout, and fortunately most of a volley from a point about a hundred yards beyond the stream swept over their heads. A few men were wounded, and they not badly.

Dick crawled to the head of the column. The sergeant was already there, whispering to Colonel Winchester.

“They've taken to cover, too, sir,” said the sergeant.

“How many do you suppose they are?” asked the colonel.

“Not more than we are, sir.”

“They run a great risk when they attack us in this manner.”

“Maybe, sir,” said Dick, “they, too, were coming for the water.”

Colonel Winchester looked at Sergeant Whitley.

“I'm of the opinion, sir,” said the sergeant, “that Mr. Mason is right.”

“I think so, too,” said Colonel Winchester. “It's a pity that men should kill each other over a drink of water when there's enough for all. Has any man a handkerchief?”

“Here, sir,” said Warner; “it's ragged and not very clean, but I hope it will do.”

The Colonel raised the handkerchief on the point of his sword and gave a hail. The bulk of the two armies had passed on, and now there was silence in the woods as the two little forces confronted each other across the stream.

Dick saw a tall form in Confederate gray rise up from the bushes on the other side of the brook.

“Are you wanting to surrender?” the man called in a long, soft drawl.

“Not by any means. We want a drink of water, and we're just bound to have it.”

“You don't want it any more than we do, and you're not any more bound to have it than we are.”

The colonel hesitated a moment, and then, influenced by a generous impulse, said:

“If you won't fire, we won't.”

The tall, elderly Southerner, evidently a colonel, also said:

“It's a fair proposition, sir. My men have been working so hard the last two days licking you Yanks that they're plum' burnt up with thirst.”

“I don't admit the licking, although it's obvious that you've gained the advantage so far, but is it agreed that we shall have a truce for a quarter of an hour?”

“It is, sir; the truce of the water, and may we drink well! Come on, boys!”

Colonel Winchester gave a similar order to his men, and each side rose from the thickets, and made a rush for the brook. It was a beautiful little stream, the most beautiful in the world just then to Dick and his friends. Clear and cold, the color of silver in the moonlight, it rushed down from the mountains. On one side knelt the men in blue, and on the other the men in gray, and the pure water was like the elixir of heaven to their parched and burning throats.

Dick drank long, and then as he raised his face from the stream he saw opposite him a tall, lean youth, evidently from the far South, Louisiana perhaps, a lad with a tanned face and a wide mouth stretched in a friendly grin.

“Tastes good, doesn't it, Yank?” he said.

“Yes, it does, Reb,” replied Dick. “I felt that I was drying up and just crumbling away like old dead wood. As soon as the gallon that I've drunk has percolated thoroughly through my system I intend to hoist aboard another gallon.”

“I don't know what percolate means, but I reckon it has something to do with travelin' about through your system. I think I need a couple of gallons myself. Say, will you give a fair answer to a fair question?”

“Yes, go ahead.”

“Don't you Yanks feel powerful bad over the thrashing we've given you?”

“Not so bad. Besides I wouldn't call it a thrashing. It's just a temporary advantage. And you wait. We'll take it away from you.”

“I don't know about that, but I can't argue with you now. I'm due for my second gallon.”

“So am I.”

Each bent down and drank again a long, life-giving draught from the rushing stream. For a distance of a hundred yards or more heads black, brown and sometimes yellow were bent over the brook. Far off, both to east and west, the cannon thundered in the darkness, but with the drinkers it was a peaceful interlude of a quarter of an hour. Such moments often occurred in this war when the men on both sides were blood brethren.

Colonel Winchester stood up, and the grizzled Confederate colonel stood up on the other side of the stream, facing him. Their hands rose in a simultaneous salute of respect.

“Sir,” said Colonel Winchester, “I'm happy to have met you in this manner.”

“Sir,” said the Southern colonel ornately, “we are happy to have drunk from the same stream with such brave foes, and now, sir, I propose