|
Virtue in WarIV
Lige awakened into a world obscured by blue fog. Somebody was gently shaking him. "Git up; we`re going to move." The regiment was buckling up itself. From the trail came the loud creak of a light battery moving ahead. The tones of all men were low; the faces of the officers were composed, serious. The regiment found itself moving along behind the battery before it had time to ask itself more than a hundred questions. The trail wound through a dense tall jungle, dark, heavy with dew.
The battle broke with a snap -- far ahead. Presently Lige heard from the air above him a faint low note as if somebody were blowing softly in the mouth of a bottle. It was a stray bullet which had wandered a mile to tell him that war was before him. He nearly broke his neck looking upward. "Did ye hear that?" But the men were fretting to get out of this gloomy jungle. They wanted to see something. The faint rup-rup-rrrrup-rup on in the front told them that the fight had begun; death was abroad, and so the mystery of this wilderness excited them. This wilderness was portentously still and dark.
They passed the battery aligned on a hill above the trail, and they had not gone far when the gruff guns began to roar and they could hear the rocket-like swish of the flying shells. Presently everybody must have called out for the assistance of the 307th. Aides and couriers came flying back to them.
"Is this the 307th? Hurry up your men, please, Colonel. You`re needed more every minute."
Oh, they were, were they? Then the regulars were not going to do all the fighting? The old 307th was bitterly proud or proudly bitter. They left their blanket rolls under the guard of God and pushed on, which is one of the reasons why the Cubans of that part of the country were, later, so well equipped. There began to appear fields, hot, golden-green in the sun. On some palm-dotted knolls before them they could see little lines of black dots -- the American advance. A few men fell, struck down by other men who, perhaps half a mile away, were aiming at somebody else. The loss was wholly in Carmony`s battalion, which immediately bunched and backed away, coming with a shock against Gates`s advance company. This shock sent a tremor through all of Gates`s battalion until men in the very last files cried out nervously, "Well, what in hell is up now?" There came an order to deploy and advance. An occasional hoarse yell from the regulars could be heard. The deploying made Gates`s heart bleed for the colonel. The old man stood there directing the movement, straight, fearless, sombrely defiant of -- everything. Carmony`s four companies were like four herds. And all the time the bullets from no living man knows where kept pecking at them and pecking at them. Gates, the excellent Gates, the highly educated and strictly military Gates, grew rankly insubordinate. He knew that the regiment was suffering from nothing but the deadly range and oversweep of the modern rifle, of which many proud and confident nations know nothing save that they have killed savages with it, which is the least of all informations.
Gates rushed upon Carmony.
"---- ---- it, man, if you can`t get your people to deploy, for ---- sake give me a chance! I`m stuck in the woods!"
Carmony gave nothing, but Gates took all he could get and his battalion deployed and advanced like men. The old colonel almost burst into tears, and he cast one quick glance of gratitude at Gates, which the younger officer wore on his heart like a secret decoration.
There was a wild scramble up hill, down dale, through thorny thickets. Death smote them with a kind of slow rhythm, leisurely taking a man now here, now there, but the cat-spit sound of the bullets was always. A large number of the men of Carmony`s battalion came on with Gates. They were willing to do anything, anything. They had no real fault, unless it was that early conclusion that any brave high-minded youth was necessarily a good soldier immediately, from the beginning. In them had been born a swift feeling that the unpopular Gates knew everything, and they followed the trained soldier.
If they followed him, he certainly took them into it. As they swung heavily up one steep hill, like so many wind-blown horses, they came suddenly out into the real advance. Little blue groups of men were making frantic rushes forward and then flopping down on their bellies to fire volleys while other groups made rushes. Ahead they could see a heavy house-like fort which was inadequate to explain from whence came the myriad bullets. The remainder of the scene was landscape. Pale men, yellow men, blue men came out of this landscape quiet and sad-eyed with wounds. Often they were grimly facetious. There is nothing in the American regulars so amazing as his conduct when he is wounded -- his apologetic limp, his deprecatory arm-sling, his embarrassed and ashamed shot-hole through the lungs. The men of the 307th looked at calm creatures who had divers punctures and they were made better. These men told them that it was only necessary to keep a-going. They of the 307th lay on their bellies, red, sweating and panting, and heeded the voice of the elder brother.
Gates walked back of his line, very white of face, but hard and stern past anything his men knew of him. After they had violently adjured him to lie down and he had given weak backs a cold, stiff touch, the 307th charged by rushes. The hatless colonel made frenzied speech, but the man of the time was Gates. The men seemed to feel that this was his business. Some of the regular officers said afterward that the advance of the 307th was very respectable indeed. They were rather surprised, they said. At least five of the crack regiments of the regular army were in this division, and the 307th could win no more than a feeling of kindly appreciation.
Yes, it was very good, very good indeed, but did you notice what was being done at the same moment by the 12th, the 17th, the 7th, the 8th, the 25th, the ----
Gates felt that his charge was being a success. He was carrying out a successful function. Two captains fell bang on the grass and a lieutenant slumped quietly down with a death wound. Many men sprawled suddenly. Gates was keeping his men almost even with the regulars, who were charging on his flanks. Suddenly he thought that he must have come close to the fort and that a Spaniard had tumbled a great stone block down upon his leg. Twelve hands reached out to help him, but he cried:
"No -- d---- your souls -- go on -- go on!"
He closed his eyes for a moment, and it really was only for a moment. When he opened them he found himself alone with Lige Wigram, who lay on the ground near him.
"Maje," said Lige, "yer a good man. I`ve been a-follerin` ye all day an` I want to say yer a good man."
The major turned a coldly scornful eye upon the private.
"Where are you wounded? Can you walk? Well, if you can, go to the rear and leave me alone. I`m bleeding to death, and you bother me."
Lige, despite the pain in his wounded shoulder, grew indignant.
"Well," he mumbled, "you and me have been on th` outs fer a long time, an` I only wanted to tell ye that what I seen of ye t`day has made me feel mighty different."
"Go to the rear -- if you can walk," said the major.
"Now, Maje, look here. A little thing like that ----"
"Go to the rear."
Lige gulped with sobs.
"Maje, I know I didn`t understand ye at first, but ruther`n let a little thing like that come between us, I`d -- I`d ----"
"Go to the rear."
In this reiteration Lige discovered a resemblance to that first old offensive phrase, "Come to attention and salute." He pondered over the resemblance and he saw that nothing had changed. The man bleeding to death was the same man to whom he had once paid a friendly visit with unfriendly results. He thought now that he perceived a certain hopeless gulf, a gulf which is real or unreal, according to circumstances. Sometimes all men are equal; occasionally they are not. If Gates had ever criticised Lige`s manipulation of a hay fork on the farm at home, Lige would have furiously disdained his hate or blame. He saw now that he must not openly approve the major`s conduct in war. The major`s pride was in his business, and his, Lige`s congratulations, were beyond all enduring.
The place where they were lying suddenly fell under a new heavy rain of bullets. They sputtered about the men, making the noise of large grasshoppers.
"Major! " cried Lige. "Major Gates! It won`t do for ye to be left here, sir. Ye`ll be killed."
"But you can`t help it, lad. You take care of yourself."
"I`m damned if I do," said the private, vehemently. "If I can`t git you out, I`ll stay and wait."
The officer gazed at his man with that same icy, contemptuous gaze.
"I`m -- I`m a dead man anyhow. You go to the rear, do you hear?"
"No."
The dying major drew his revolver, cocked it and aimed it unsteadily at Lige`s head.
"Will you obey orders?"
"No."
"One?``
"No."
"Two?``
"No."
Gates weakly dropped his revolver.
"Go to the devil, then. You`re no soldier, but ----" He tried to add something, "But ----" He heaved a long moan. "But -- you -- -- you -- oh, I`m so-o-o tired."
|
