Part 20 (1/2)

Langdon, who had been listening, whistled.

”It doesn't look like a picnic for the Invincibles,” he said. ”When I volunteered for this war I didn't volunteer to fight a pitched battle every day. What did you volunteer for, Harry?”

”I don't know.”

The three laughed. Jackson's famous order certainly fitted well there.

”And you don't know, either,” said Happy Tom, ”what all that thunder off there to the south and east means. It's the big guns, but who are fighting and where?”

”There's to be a general attack on McClellan along the line of the Chickahominy river,” said Harry, ”and our army is to be a part of the attacking force, but my knowledge goes no further.”

”Then I'm reckoning that some part of our army has attacked already,” said Happy Tom. ”Maybe they're ahead of time, or maybe the rest are behind time. But there they go! My eyes, how they're whooping it up!”

The cannonade was growing in intensity and volume. Despite the sunset they saw an almost continuous flare of red on the horizon. The three boys felt some awe as they sat there and listened and looked. Well they might! Battle on a far greater scale than anything witnessed before in America had begun already. Two hundred thousand men were about to meet in desperate conflict in the thickets and swamps along the Chickahominy.

Richmond had already heard the crash of McClellan's guns more than once, but apprehension was pa.s.sing away. Lee, whom they had learned so quickly to trust, stood with ninety thousand men between them and McClellan, and with him was the redoubtable Jackson and his veterans of the valley with their caps full of victories.

McClellan had the larger force, but Lee was on the defensive in his own country, a region which offered great difficulties to the invader.

Harry and his comrades wondered why Jackson did not move, but he remained in his place, and when Harry fell asleep he still heard the thudding of the guns across the vast reach of rivers and creeks, swamps and thickets. When he awoke in the morning they were already at work again, flaring at intervals down there on the eastern horizon. The whole wet, swampy country, so different from his own, seemed to be deserted by everything save the armies. No rabbits sprang up in the thickets and there were no birds. Everything had fled already in the presence of war.

But the army marched. After a brief breakfast the brigades moved down the road, and Harry saw clearly that these veterans of the valley were tremulous with excitement. Youthful, eager, and used to victory, they were anxious to be at the very center of affairs which were now on a gigantic scale. And the throbbing of the distant guns steadily drew them on.

”We'll get all we want before this is through,” said Dalton gravely to Harry.

”I think so, too. Listen to those big guns, George! And I think I can hear the crack of rifles, too. Our pickets and those of the enemy must be in contact in the forest there on our left.”

”I haven't a doubt of it, but if we rode that way like as not we'd strike first a swamp, or a creek twenty feet deep. I get all tangled up in this kind of a country.”

”So do I, but it doesn't make any difference. We just stick along with Old Jack.”

The army marched on a long time, always to the accompaniment of that sinister mutter in the southeast. Then they heard the note of a bugle in front of them and Jackson with his staff rode forward near a little church called Walnut Grove, where Lee and his staff sat on their horses waiting. Harry noticed with pride how all the members of Lee's staff crowded forward to see the renowned Jackson.

It was his general upon whom so many were looking, but there was curiosity among Stonewall's men, too, about Lee. As Harry drew back a little while the two generals talked, he found himself again with the officers of the Invincibles.

”He has grown gray since we were with him in Mexico, Hector,” he heard Colonel Leonidas Talbot say to Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire.

”Yes, Leonidas, grayer but stronger. What a brow and eye!”

St. Clair and Langdon, who had never seen Lee before, were eager.

”Is he the right man for Old Jack to follow, Harry?” asked Happy Tom.

”I don't think there's any doubt of it, Happy. I saw how they agreed the first time they met, and you can see it now. You'll find them working together as smooth as silk. Ah, here we go again!”

”Then if it's as you say I suppose it's all up with McClellan, and I needn't trouble my mind about the matter any more. Hereafter I'll just go ahead and obey orders.”

The words were light, but there was no frivolity in the minds of the three. Despite the many battles through which they had already gone their hearts were beating hard just then, while that roaring was going on on the horizon, and they knew that a great battle was at hand.

Lee and his staff rode toward the battle, and then, to the amazement of his men, Jackson led his army into the deep woods away from the sound of the thundering guns which had been calling to them so incessantly. Harry was mystified and the general vouchsafed no word, even to his own staff. They marched on through woods, across fields, along the edges of swamps, and that crash of battle grew fainter behind them, but never died out.

”What do you think it means?” Harry whispered to Dalton.

”Don't know. I'm not thinking. I'm not here to think at such times. All the thinking we need is going on under the old slouch hat there. Harry, didn't we go with him all through the valley? Can't we still trust him?”

”I can and will.”

”Same here.”

The army curved about again. Harry, wholly unfamiliar with the country, did not notice it until the roar of the battle began to rise again, showing that they were coming nearer. Then he divined the plan. Jackson was making this circuit through the woods to fall on the Northern flank. It was the first of the great turning movements which Lee and Jackson were to carry through to brilliant success so often.

”Look at the red blaze beyond those bushes,” said Dalton, ”and listen how rapidly the sound of the battle is growing in volume. I don't know where we are, but I do know now that Old Jack is leading us right into the thick of it.”

The general rode forward and stopped his horse on the crest of a low hill. Then Harry and Dalton, looking over the bushes and swamps, saw a great blue army stationed behind a creek and some low works.

”It's McClellan!” exclaimed Dalton.

”Or a part of him,” said Harry.

It was a wing of the Northern army. McClellan himself was not there, but many brave generals were, Porter, Sloc.u.m and the others. The batteries of this army were engaged in a heavy duel with the Southern batteries in front, and the sharpshooters in the woods and bushes kept up a continuous combat that crackled like the flames of a forest fire.