Altsheler Joseph Alexander
Before the Dawn: A Story of the Fall of Richmond
CHAPTER XXII
THE LONE SENTINEL
The desultory firing troubled the ears of Talbot as he trod to and fro on his self-imposed task, as he could not see the use of it. The day for fighting and the night for sleep and rest was the perfect division of a soldier's life.
The tail of the battle writhed on without regard for his feelings or theories, though its efforts became gradually feebler, and he hoped that by and by the decent part of both armies would settle into lethargy, leaving the night to the skirmishers, who never sleep and are without conscience.
He went back a little to an open spot where a detail of about twenty men were posted. But he did not remain with them long. Securing a rifle, he returned toward the enemy, resolved to watch on his own account—a voluntary picket.
Talbot was not troubled for his friends alone. The brigade had been beaten and driven back upon the river, and with the press of numbers against it he feared that the next day would bring its destruction. The coming of the night, covering friend and foe alike and making activity hazardous, was opportune, since it would give his comrades time to rest and gather their strength for the stand in the morning. He could hear behind him even now the heavy tread of the beaten companies as they sought their places in the darkness, the clank of gun wheels, and now and then the neigh of a tired horse.
The crash of a volley and another volley which answered came from his right, and then there was a spatter of musketry, stray shots following each other and quickly dying away. Talbot saw the flash of the guns, and the smell of burnt gunpowder came to his nostrils. He made a movement of impatience, for the powder poisoned the pure air. He heard the shouts of men, but they ceased in a few moments, and then farther away a cannon boomed. More volleys of rifle shots and the noise of the cheering or its echo came from his left; but unable to draw meaning from the tumult, he concluded at last it was only the smouldering embers of the battle and continued to walk his voluntary beat with steady step.
The night advanced and the rumbling in the encampment behind him did not cease at all, the sounds remaining the same as they were earlier in the evening—that is, the drum of many feet upon the earth, the rattle of metal and the hum of many voices. Talbot concluded that the men would never go to sleep, but presently a light shot up in the darkness behind him, rising eight or ten feet above the earth and tapering at the top to a blue-and-pink point. Presently another arose beside it, and then others and still others, until there were thirty, forty, fifty or more.
Talbot knew these were the campfires and he wondered why they had not been lighted before. At last the men would go to sleep beside the cheerful blaze. The fires comforted him, too, and he looked upon the rosy flame of each, shining there in the darkness, as he would have looked upon a personal friend. They took away much of his lonely feeling, and as they bent a little before the wind seemed to nod to him a kind of encouragement in the dangerous work upon which he had set himself. He could see only the tops of these rosy cones; all below was hidden by the bushes that grew between. He could not see even the dim figure of a soldier, but he knew that they were there, stretched out in long rows before the fires, asleep in their blankets, while others stood by on their arms, ready for defense should the pickets be driven in.
The troublesome skirmishers seemed to be resting just then, for no one fired at him and he could not hear them moving in the woods. The scattering shots down the creek ceased and the noises in the camp began to die. It seemed as if night were about to claim her own at last and put everybody to rest. The fires rose high and burned with a steady flame.
A stick broke under his feet with a crackling noise as he walked to and fro, and a bullet sang through the darkness past his ear. He fired at the flash of the rifle, and as he ran back and forth fired five or six times more, slipping in the bullets as quickly as he could, for he wished to create an illusion that the patrol consisted of at least a dozen men. The opposing skirmishers returned his fire with spirit, and Talbot heard their bullets clipping the twigs and pattering among the leaves, but he felt no great alarm, since the night covered him and only a chance ball could strike him.
His opponents were wary, and only two or three times did he see the shadows which he knew to be their moving figures. He fired at these but no answering cry came, and Talbot could not tell whether any of his bullets struck, though it did not matter. His lead served well enough as a warning, and the skirmishers must know that the nearer they came the better aim they would have to face. Presently their fire ceased and he was disappointed, as his blood had risen to fever heat and he was in fighting humour.
The night went on its slow way, and Talbot, stopping a moment to rest and listen for the skirmishers, calculated that it was not more than two hours until day. The long period through which he had watched began to press upon him. Weights dragged at his feet, and he noticed that his rifle when he shifted it from one shoulder to the other appeared many pounds heavier than before. His knees grew stiff and he felt like an old man; but he allowed himself no rest, continuing his walk back and forth at a slower pace, for he believed he could feel his joints grate as he stepped. He looked at the fires with longing and was tempted to go; but no, he must atone for the neglect of that chief of brigade.
Just when the night seemed to be darkest the skirmishers made another attack, rushing forward in a body, firing with great vigour and shouting, though hitherto they had fought chiefly in silence. Talbot considered it an attempt to demoralize him and was ready for it. He retreated a little, sheltered himself behind a tree and opened fire, skipping between shots from one tree to another in order that he might protect the whole of his battle line and keep his apparent numbers at their height.
His assailants were so near now that he could see some of them springing about, and one of his shots was followed by a cry of pain and the disappearance of the figure. After that the fire of his antagonists diminished and soon ceased. They had shown much courage, but seemed to think that the defenders were in superior numbers and a further advance would mean their own destruction.
Again silence came, save for the hum of the camp. The fires burnt brightly behind him, and far off in front he saw the flickering fires of the enemy. As the wind increased the lights wavered and the cones split into many streams of flame before it. The leaves and boughs whistled in the rush of air and the waters of the creek sang a minor chord on the shallows. Talbot had heard these sounds a hundred times when a boy in the wilderness of the deep woods, and it was easy enough for him to carry himself back there, with no army or soldier near. But he quickly dismissed such thoughts as would lull him only into neglect of his watch. After having kept it so long and so well it would be the height of weakness to fail now, when day could not be much more than two hours distant.
The silence remained unbroken. An hour passed and then another, and in the east he saw a faint shade of dark gray showing through the black as if through a veil.
The gray tint brightened and the black veil became thinner. Soon it parted and a bar of light shot across the eastern horizon, broadening rapidly till the world of hills, fields and forests rose up from the darkness. A trumpet sounded in the hostile camp.
Skirmishers filled the woods in front of Talbot and pressed toward him in a swarm.
"Surrender!" cried out one of them, an officer. "It is useless for you to resist! We are a hundred and you are one! Don't you see?"
Talbot turned and looked back at the fires burning in the empty camp of his comrades. The light of the morning showed everything, even to the last boat-load of the beaten brigade landing on the farther shore; he understood all.
"Yes, I will surrender," he said, as his eyes gleamed with sudden comprehension of his great triumph, "but I've held you back till the last company of our division has passed the river and is safe."
CHAPTER XXIII
OUT OF THE FOREST
The retreating brigade, the river behind it and the pursuit seemingly lost on the farther shore, passed on in the golden sunshine of the morning through, a country of gentle hills, green fields and scattered forest.
It was joined three hours after sunrise by no less a person than Mr. Sefton himself, fresh, immaculate and with no trace of discomposure on his face. He was on horseback, and told them he had just come across the fields from another division of the army not more than three miles away. He gave the news in a quiet tone, without any special emphasis upon the more important passages. The South had been compelled to give ground; Grant had lost more than fifty thousand men, but he was coming through the Wilderness and would not be denied. He was still fighting as if he had just begun, and reinforcements were constantly pouring forward to take the places of the fallen in his ranks.
Prompted by a motive which even his own analytical mind could not define, the Secretary sought Lucia Catherwood. He admired her height, her strength and resolved beauty—knew that she was of a type as admirable as it was rare, and wondered once or twice why he did not love her instead of Helen Harley. Here was a woman with a mind akin to his own—bold, keen and penetrating. And that face and figure! He wished he could see her in a drawing-room, dressed as she should be, and with the lights burning softly overhead. Then she would be indeed a princess, if there were any such beings, in the true meaning of the word, on this earth. She would be a fit wife for a great man—the greater half of himself.
But he did not love her; he loved Helen Harley—the Secretary confessed it to himself with a smothered half-sigh. At times he was pleased with this sole and recently discovered weak spot in his nature, because it brought to him some fresh and pleasing emotions, not at all akin to any that he had ever felt before; but again it troubled him, as a flaw in his armour. His love for Helen Harley might interfere with his progress—in fact, was doing so already, but he said to himself he could not help it. Now he was moved to talk to Lucia Catherwood. Dismounting from his horse, he took a place by her side.
She was walking near the rear of the column and there were others not many feet away, but she was alone in the truest sense, having a feeling of personal detachment and aloofness. These people were kind to her, and yet there was a slight difference in their manner toward her and toward one another—a difference almost imperceptible and perhaps not intended, but sufficient to show her that she was not of them. Just now it gave her such a sense of loneliness and exclusion that she almost welcomed the smile of the Secretary when he spoke to her. As ready to recognize the power in him as he was to note her own strong and keen mind, she waited guardedly to hear what he had to say.
"Miss Catherwood," he said, "I was glad to assist you in your plan of returning to Richmond, but I have wondered why you should wish to return. If I may use a simile, Richmond is the heart of the storm, and having escaped from such a place, it seems strange that you should go back to it."
"There are many other women in Richmond," she replied, "and as they will not be in any greater danger than I, should I be less brave than they?"
"But they have no other choice."
"Perhaps I have none either. Moreover, a time is coming when it is not physical courage alone that will be needed. Look back, Mr. Sefton."
She pointed to the Wilderness behind them, where they saw the crimson glow of flames against the blue sky, and long, trailing clouds of black smoke. The low mutter of guns, a continuous sound since sunrise, still came to their ears.
"The flames and the smoke," she said, "are nearer to Richmond than they were yesterday, just as they were nearer yesterday than they were the day before."
"It is yet a long road to Richmond."
"But it is being shortened. I shall be there at the end. The nearest and dearest of all my relatives is in Richmond and I wish to be with her. There are other reasons, too, but the end of which I spoke is surely coming and you know it as well as I. Perhaps you have long known it. As for myself, I have never doubted, despite great defeats."
"It is not given to men to have the faith of women."
"Perhaps not; but in this case it does not require faith: reason alone is sufficient. What chance did the South ever have? The North, after all these years, is just beginning to be aroused. Until the present you have been fighting only her vanguard. Sometimes it seems to me that men argue only from passion and sentiment, not from reason. If reason alone had been applied this war would never have been begun."
"Nor any other. It is a true saying that neither men nor women are ever guided wholly for any long period by reason. That is where philosophers,—idealogists, Napoleon called them—make their mistake, and it is why the science of government is so uncertain—in fact, it is not a question of science at all, but of tact."
The Secretary was silent for awhile, but he still walked beside Miss Catherwood, leading his horse by the bridle. Prescott presently glancing back, beheld the two together and set his teeth. He did not like to see Lucia with that man and he wondered what had put them side by side. He knew that she had a pass from Mr. Sefton, and this fresh fact added to his uneasiness. Was it possible those two had a secret in common?
The Secretary saw the frown on Prescott's face and was pleased, though he spoke of him and his great services. "He has more than courage—he has sense allied with it. Sometimes I think that courage is one of the commonest of qualities, but it is not often that it is supported by coolness, discrimination and the ability to endure. A fine young man, Robert Prescott, and one destined to high honours. If he survive the war, I should say that he will become the Governor of his State or rise high in Congress."
He watched the girl closely out of the corner of his eye as he spoke, for he was forming various plans and, as Lucia Catherwood was included in his comprehensive schemes, he wished to see the effect upon her of what he said, but she betrayed nothing. So far as her expression was concerned Prescott might have been no more to her than any other chance acquaintance. She walked on, the free, easy stride of her long limbs carrying her over the ground swiftly. Every movement showed physical and mental strength. Under the tight sleeve of her dress the muscle rippled slightly, but the arm was none the less rounded and feminine. Her chin, though the skin upon it was white and smooth like silk, was set firmly and marked an indomitable will.
Curious thoughts again flowed through the frank mind of the Secretary. Much of his success in life was due to his ability to recognize facts when he saw them. If he made failures he never sought to persuade himself that they were successes or even partial successes; thus he always went upon the battlefield with exact knowledge of his resources. He wondered again why he did not fall in love with Lucia Catherwood. Here was the exact complement of himself, a woman with a mind a fit mate to his own. He had come far already, but with her to aid him there were no heights to which he—no, they—might not climb. And she was beautiful—beautiful, with a grace, a stateliness and dignity beyond compare.
Mr. Sefton glanced down the column and saw there a head upon which the brown hair curled slightly. The eyes were turned away, but the Secretary knew they were blue and that there was something in the face which appealed to strong men for protection. He shook his head slowly. The tricky little god was making sport of him, James Sefton, the invincible, and he did not like it.
A sense of irritation against Lucia Catherwood rose in Mr. Sefton's mind. As he could not stir her in any obvious manner by speaking of Prescott, he felt a desire to move her in some way, to show his power over her, to compel from her an appeal for mercy. It would be a triumph to bring a woman at once so strong and so proud to her knees. He would not proceed to extreme measures, and would halt at the delicate moment, but she must be made to feel that he was master of the situation.
So he spoke again of her return to Richmond, suggesting plans for her pleasant stay while there, mentioning acquaintances of his whom he would like her to know, and making suggestions to which he thought she would be compelled to return answers that would betray more or less her position in Richmond.
She listened at first with a flush on her face, giving way soon to paleness as her jaw hardened and her lips closed firmly. The perception of Lucia Catherwood was not inferior to that of the Secretary, and she took her resolve.
"Mr. Sefton," she said at length, "I am firmly convinced of one thing."
"And what is that?"
"That you know I am the alleged spy for whom you were so long looking in Richmond."
The Secretary hesitated for an answer. Her sudden frankness surprised him. It was so different from his own methods in dealing with others that he had not taken it into account.
"Yes, you know it," she continued, "and it may be used against me, not to inflict on me a punishment—that I do not dread—but to injure the character and reputation that a woman loves—things that are to her the breath of life. But I say that if you choose to use your power you can do so."
The Secretary glanced at her in admiration, the old wonder concerning himself returning to him.
"Miss Catherwood," he said, "I cannot speak in too high praise of your courage. I have never before seen a woman show so much. Your surmise is correct. You were the spy or alleged spy, as you prefer to say, for whom I was looking. As for the morality of your act, I do not consider that; it never entered into my calculations; but in going back to Richmond you realize that you will be wholly in the power of the Confederate Government. Whenever it wants you you will have to come, and in very truth you will have to walk in the straight and narrow path."
"I am not afraid," she said, with a proud lifting of her head. "I will take the risks, and if you, Mr. Sefton, for some reason unknown to me, force me to match my wits with yours, I shall do the best I can."
The haughty uplift of her neck and the flash of her eye showed that she thought her "best" would be no mean effort, but this attitude appealed to the Secretary more than a humble submission ever would have done. Here was one with whom it would be a pleasure to make a test of skill and force. Certainly steel would be striking sparks from steel.
"I am not making any threats, Miss Catherwood," he said. "That would be unworthy, I merely wish you to understand the situation. I am a frank man, I trust, and, like most other men, I seek my own advancement; it would further no interest of mine for me to denounce you at present, and I trust that you will not at any time make it otherwise."
"That is, I am to serve you if you call upon me."
"Let us not put it so bluntly."
"I shall not do anything that I do not wish to do," she said, with the old proud uplift of her head. "And listen! there is something which may soon shatter all your plans, Mr. Sefton."
She pointed backward, where the purplish clouds hung over the Wilderness, whence came the low, sullen mutter, almost as faint as the distant beat of waves on a coast.
The Secretary smiled deprecatingly.
"After all, you are like other women, Miss Catherwood. You suppose, of course, that I stake my whole fortune upon a single issue, but it is not so. I wish to live on after the war, whatever its result may be, and the tide of fortune in that forest may shift and change, but mine may not shift and change with it."
"You are at least frank."
"The South may lose, but if she loses the world will not end on that account. I shall still wish to play my part. Ah, here comes Captain Prescott."
Prescott liked little this long talk between Lucia and the Secretary and the deep interest each seemed to show in what the other said. He bore it with patience for a time, but it seemed to him, though the thought was not so framed in his mind, that he had a certain proprietary interest in her because he had saved her at great risk.
The Secretary received him with a pleasant smile, made some slight remark about duty elsewhere and dropped easily away. Prescott waited until he was out of hearing before he said:
"Do you like that man, Miss Catherwood?"
"I do not know. Why?"
"You were in such close and long conversation that you seemed to be old friends."
"There were reasons for what we said."
She looked at him so frankly that he was ashamed, but she, recognizing his tone and the sharpness of it, was not displeased. On the contrary, she felt a warm glow, and the woman in her urged her to go further. She spoke well of the Secretary, his penetrating foresight and his knowledge of the world and its people—men, women and children. Prescott listened in a somewhat sulky mood, and she, regarding him with covert glances, was roused to a singular lightness that she had not known for many days. Then she changed, showing him her softer side, for she could be as feminine as any other woman, not less so than Helen Harley, and she would prove it to him. Becoming all sunshine with just enough shadow to deepen the colours, she spoke of a time when the war should have passed—when the glory of this world with the green of spring and the pink of summer should return. Her moods were so many and so variable, but all so gay, that Prescott began to share her spirits, and although they were retreating from a lost field and the cannon still muttered behind them, he forgot the war and remembered only this girl beside him, who walked with such easy grace and saw so bright an outlook.
Thus the retreat continued. The able-bodied soldiers of the brigade were drafted away, but the women and wounded men went on. Grant never ceased his hammer strokes, and it was necessary for the Southern leaders to get rid of all superfluous baggage. Prescott, singularly enough, found himself in command of this little column that marched southward, taking the place of his friend Talbot, lost in a mysterious way to the regret of all.
Mr. Sefton left them the day after his talk with Lucia, and Prescott was not sorry to see him go, for some of his uneasiness departed with him. Harley, vain, fretful and complaining, gave much trouble, yielding only to the influence of Mrs. Markham, with whom Prescott did not like to see him, but was helpless in the matter. Helen and Lucia were the most obedient of soldiers and gave no trouble at all. Helen, a warm partisan, seemed to think little of the great campaign that was going on behind her, and to concern herself more about something else. Yet she was not unhappy—even Prescott could see it—and the bond between her and Lucia was growing strong daily. Usually they were together, and once when Mrs. Markham spoke slightingly of the "Northern woman," as she called Lucia, Helen replied with a sharpness very remarkable for her—a sharpness that contributed to the growing coldness between them, which had begun with the power Mrs. Markham exercised over Helen's brother.
Prescott noticed these things more or less and sometimes they pained him; but clearly they were outside his province, and in order to give them no room in his mind he applied himself more diligently than ever to his duties, his wound now permitting him to do almost a man's work.
They marched slowly and it gave promise of being a long journey. The days grew very hot; the sun burned the grass, and over them hung clouds of steamy vapour. For the sake of the badly wounded who had fever they traveled often by night and rested by day in the shade. But that cloud of war never left them.
The days passed and distant battles still hung on their skirts. The mutter of the guns was seldom absent, and they yet saw, now and then, on the horizon, flashes like heat-lightning. One morning there was a rapid beat of hoofs, a glitter of sabers issuing from a wood, and in a moment the little convoy was surrounded by a troop of cavalry in blue.
"Only wounded men and women," said their leader, a young colonel with a fine, open face. "Bah, we have no time to waste with them!"
He bowed contritely, touching his hat to the ladies and saying that he did not mean to be ungallant. Then in a moment he and his men were gone at gallop in a cloud of dust, disappearing in a whirlwind across the plain, leaving the little convoy to proceed at its leisure.
Prescott gazed after them, shading his eyes with his hands. "There must be some great movement at hand," he said, "or they would have asked us questions, at least."
The day grew close and sultry. Columns of steamy vapour moved back and forth and enclosed them, and the sun set in a red mist. At night it rained, but early the next morning the mutter of the cannon grew to a rumble and then a storm. The hot day came and all the east was filled with flashes of fire. The crash of the cannon was incessant, and in fancy every one in that little convoy heard the tramping of brigades and the clatter of hoofs as the horsemen rushed on the guns.
"They have met again!" said Lucia.
"Yes," replied Prescott. "It's Grant and Lee. How many great battles is this since they met first in the Wilderness?"
Nobody could tell; they had lost count.
The tumult lasted about an hour and then died away, to be succeeded by a stillness intense and painful. The sun shone with a white glare. No wind stirred. The leaves and the grass drooped. The fields were deserted; there was not a sign of life in them, either human or animal. The road lay before them, a dusty streak.
None came to tell of the battle, and, oppressed by anxiety, Prescott moved on. Some horsemen appeared on the hills the next morning, and as they approached, Prescott, with indescribable joy, recognized in the lead the figure of Talbot, whose unknown fate they had mourned. Talbot delightedly shook hands with them all, not neglecting Lucia Catherwood. His honest face glowed with emotion.
"I am on a scout around our army now," he said, "and I thought I should find you near here somewhere. I wanted to tell you what had become of me. I was captured that night we were crossing the river—some of my blundering—but I escaped the next night. It was easy enough to do it. There was so much fighting and so much of everything going on that I just rose up and walked out of the Yankee camp. Nobody had time to pay any attention to me. I got back to Lee—somehow I knew I must do it, as he could never win the war without me—and here I am."
"There was a battle yesterday morning; we heard it," said Prescott.
Talbot's face clouded and the corners of his mouth drooped.
"We have won a great victory," he said, "but it doesn't pay us. The Yankees lost twelve or fifteen thousand men, but we haven't gained anything. That firing you heard was at Cold Harbour. It was a great battle, an awful one. I hope to God I shall never see its like again. I saw fifteen thousand men stretched out on the bloody ground in rows. I don't believe that so many men ever before fell in so short a time. I have heard of a whirlwind of death, but I never saw one till then.
"We had gone into intrenchments and Grant moved against us with his whole army. They came on; you could hear 'em, the tramp of regiments and brigades, scores of thousands, and the sun rising up and turning to gold over their heads. Our cannon began. What a crash! It was like twenty thunderbolts all at once. We swept that field with tons and tons of metal. Then our rifles opened and the whistling of the bullets was like the screaming of a wind on a plain. You could see the men of that army shoot up into the air before such a sheet of metal, and you heard the cracking of bones like the breaking up of ice. After awhile those that lived had to turn back; human beings could not stand more, and we were glad when it was all over."
Talbot stayed a little while with them. Then he and his men, like the Northern cavalry, whirled off in a cloud of dust, and the little convoy resumed its solemn march southward, reaching Richmond in safety.
