Chapter 15

"That's the way we get turpentine. The sap begins to run and fill the boxes along in March, and when they are full we dip it out with ladles made on purpose, and put it into barrels."

"O, you needn't stop to explain!" cried Frank. "Push ahead!"

And the rebel pushed ahead.

It was a moment of unspeakable satisfaction to the drummer boy when he had brought his prisoner through all the difficulties of the way to the road. There he had him safe.

He was now in the midst of shocking and terrible scenes, but he heeded them not as much as he would have heeded the smallest accident to a fellow-creature a few hours before. Already he seemed familiar with battles and all their horrors. Men were hurrying by with medical stores. The wounded were passing, on stretchers, or in the arms of their friends, or limping painfully, ghastly, bleeding, but heroic still. They smiled as they showed their frightful hurts. One poor fellow had had his arm torn off by a cannon ball: the flesh hung in strings. Some lay by the roadside, faint from the loss of blood. And all the time the deadly, deafening tumult of the battle went on.

To guard his prisoner securely was Frank's first thought. But greater, more absorbing even than that, was the wild wish to see the enemies of his country defeated, and to share in the glorious victory.

"Frank Manly! what sort of a beast have you got there?" cried a soldier, returning from the action with a slight wound.

Frank recognized a member of another company in the same regiment to which he belonged.

"I've got a sharpshooter that I've taken prisoner." And he briefly related his adventure, every word of which the rebel, who rather admired his youthful captor, voluntarily confirmed.

"It's just as he tells you," he said, assuming a candid, reckless air. "I am well enough satisfied. If your men are equal to your boys, I shall have plenty of company before night."

"You think we shall have you all prisoners?" inquired Frank, eagerly.

"This island," replied the rebel, "is a perfect trap. I've known it from the beginning. You outnumber us two to one, and if the fight goes against us, we've no possible chance of escape. We've five thousand men on the island, and if we're whipped you'll make a pretty respectable bag. But you never can conquer us,"--he hastened to add, fearing lest he was conceding too much.

"Can't, eh?" laughed Frank. "Where's the last ditch?"

"Never mind about that," said the prisoner, with a peculiar grin.

By this time several other stragglers had gathered around them, eager to hear the story of the drummer boy's exploit.

The rebel had looked curiously at his youthful captor ever since he had heard him called by name. At length he said:--

"Have you got a brother in the confederate army?"

Frank changed color. "Why do you ask that?"

"Because we have a Captain Manly, from the north somewhere, who looks enough like you to be a pretty near relation."

Frank trembled with interest as he inquired, "What is his given name?"

"Captain--Captain _George_ Manly, I'm pretty sure."

"Yes, sir,"--and sorry tears came into Frank's eyes as he spoke,--"I suppose I must own he is my brother."

"Well, you've a smart chance of meeting him, I reckon,--if, as I said, your men are equal to your boys. For he's fighting against you to-day, and he's one of the pluckiest, and he won't run."

XXX.

THE BOYS MEET AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.

Frank was anxious to inquire further concerning his apostate brother; but at this moment one of Foster's aids came up, and saw the prisoner.

"Where did you find that fellow?" The story was quickly told. "Well," said the officer, "you've taken the first prisoner to-day."

He then turned to question the captive, who seemed inclined to talk freely about the position and force of the confederates.

"I'll take this fellow in charge," he said, perceiving that it was in his power to give valuable information. "Come, too, if you like."

"I thank you; I want to join my company," said Frank.

"You'd rather do that than come and see the general?"

"I can see him any time when he wants me, but we don't have a fight every day, sir."

"Well, he shall hear of you. Can I do any thing for you?"

"If you please, you may take this gun that I have captured; one is enough for me."

The officer took it, saying, as he turned to go,--

"A spirited boy, and as modest as he is brave!"

In the mean time Frank's comrades in the fight were cutting their way through a thick swampy jungle in the direction of the enemy's left flank.

Relieved of his prisoner, his ardor inflamed rather than quenched by the evil tidings he had heard of his brother, he followed in their track, passing directly across the fire of the battery.

The hurricane of destruction swept howling over him. The atmosphere was thick with smoke. Grape-shot whizzed through the bushes. The scream of rifled shot seemed to fill the very air with terror and shuddering. Right before him a shell struck a forest tree, shivering limbs and trunk in an instant, as if a bolt from heaven had fallen upon it. He felt that at any moment his tender body too might be torn in pieces; but he believed God's arm was about him, and that he would be preserved. Deep and solemn, happy even, was that conviction. A sense of the grand and terrible filled him; the whole soul of the boy was aroused. He was not afraid of any thing. He felt ready for any thing, even death, in his country's service.

The mud was deep, and savage the entanglement of bushes on every side. But the troops, breaking through, had made the way comparatively easy to follow, and Frank soon overtook the regiment.

Great was Captain Edney's surprise at sight of him, with a gun in his hand and with the glow of youthful heroism in his face.

"What are you here for?"

"To beg permission to take Winch's place in the ranks."

"Your place is with the ambulance corps."

"I got excused from that, sir. I am not strong enough to carry heavy men through the swamps," said Frank, with a smile.

"But strong enough to take a man's place in the ranks!" said Captain Edney.

"I would like to have you try me, sir."

You may know that Captain Edney loved the boy to whom he gave so many words and such serious thought at a time of action and peril. Perhaps he had heard of Winch's pusillanimity, and understood the spirit which prompted Frank to fill his place. Certain it is he saw in the lad's eye the guarantee that, if permitted, he would give no cowardly account of himself that day. So, reluctantly, dreading lest evil might happen to him, he granted his request; and with a thrill of joy, Frank sprang to Atwater's side.

"I'm here, old Abe!"

"I'm glad--and sorry!" said Abe.

The company had halted, awaiting the movement of the troops in front.

"We are getting into a splendid position!" said Gray, who had passed through the undergrowth to reconnoitre. "We're fairly on their flank, and not discovered yet!"

"How far did you go?" asked Captain Edney.

"To the clearing, which is just there where the woods look lighter. I could see the guns of the battery blazing away, and rebels in the woods supporting it. They're too busy to notice us."

"We're discovered, though!" said Captain Edney as a bullet came chipping its way among the twigs above them.

"The sharpshooters are after us!" said Gray, gayly. "And now we're after them!"

The order was given to advance. The men dashed forward through the bushes. They soon made the clearing, and marching along its edge, opened fire by file upon the battery and the rebels in the woods.

"You do well, Frank!" said Atwater, seeing his young companion coolly loading and firing at his side.

"It's a perfect surprise to them! they didn't think we could do it!" cried Gray, elated. "Lively, boys! lively."

The firing, regular at first, running along the line from right to left, soon became a continual rattling, each man loading at will, and firing whenever an enemy's head showed itself.

"There! I popped you over, you sneaking rebel!" cried Seth Tucket, watching the effect of his shot. "Take the fellow next to him there, Harris! behind that stump!"

"Let him put up his head a little higher!" said Harris, taking aim.

He fired. The rebel dropped, not behind the stump, but beside it.

"You've saved him!" shouted Tucket. "That'll pay for Ellis and Jack Winch!"

The fire of the enemy in the woods was soon concentrated on Captain Edney's company, which happened to be most exposed.

"Fire and load lying!" rang the captain's voice through the din.

Frank saw those next him throw themselves down behind a fallen tree. He did the same. The trunk presented an excellent rest for his musket, and he fired across it. But when he came to load, he found difficulty. He had been exercised in the manual of arms, yet the operation of ramming the cartridge while on his back was beyond his practice. Give him time, and he could do it. But he felt that time was precious, and that every shot told.

He glanced at Atwater, resting on his left side as he brought his gun back after discharging it; taking out his cartridge; then turning on his back, holding the piece with both hands and placing the butt between his feet; and in that position, with the barrel over his breast, charging cartridge, drawing rammer, and so forth.

All which the tall soldier performed scientifically and quickly. Yet Frank saw that it took even him much longer to load lying than standing. What, then, could he hope to do?

What he did was this. He deliberately got upon his feet, and with the balls singing around him, proceeded unconcernedly with his loading.

"Down!" called Atwater to him; "down! You're making a target of yourself!"

Frank resolutely went on with his loading.

"Down, there! down, Frank!" shouted Captain Edney.

Frank shouted back,--

"I can't load unless I stand up, sir!"

"Never mind that! Down!" repeated his captain, peremptorily.

"I've got my cartridge down, any way," said Frank, triumphantly, dropping again behind the log.

"Why don't you obey orders?" cried Gray.

"The orders were to load and fire, and I was bound to obey them before any others!" said Frank, preparing to prime.

Just then Atwater, who was again on his back, suddenly dropped his piece, which fell across his left arm, and brought his right hand to his breast. The movement was so abrupt and unusual it attracted Frank's attention.

"Are you hit, Abe?"

And in an instant he saw the answer to his hurried question in a gush of blood which crimsoned the poor, brave fellow's breast.

"It has come!" said Atwater.

"How could it--and you lying down so!" ejaculated Frank.

"I don't know--never mind me!" replied Abe, faintly.

Then Frank remembered the mysterious shots aimed at him and Sinjin in the woods, and the subsequent solution of the mystery. He looked up--all around--overhead.

"What's the trouble, Manly?" screamed Tucket. "What do you see?"

"There!" Frank shouted, pointing upwards; "there! the man that killed Atwater!"

And in the branches of a tree, which stood but a few paces in front of them, he showed, half hidden by the thick masses, the figure of a rebel.

The sharpshooter was loading his piece. Frank saw the movement, and would have hastened to avenge the death of his friend before the assassin could fire again. But he was out of caps, and must borrow. Tucket's gun was ready.

"'Die thou shalt, gray-headed ruffian!'"

Seth shouted the words up at the man in the tree, and lying on his back, brought the butt of his gun to his shoulder, aimed heavenward, and fired.

Scarce had flame shot from the muzzle, when down came the rebel's gun tumbling to the ground; pursued out of the tree by something that resembled a huge bird, with spread wings, swooping down terribly, and striking the ground with a jar heard even amid the thunder of battle.

It was the rebel himself.

"'Rattling, crashing, thrashing, thunder down!'" screamed Seth Tucket, his ruling passion, poetry, strong even in battle.

The man, pitching forwards in his fearful somerset, had fallen within a few feet of Frank. The boy recovering from his astonishment at the awful sight, felt a strange curiosity to see if he was dead.

He looked over the log. There lay the wretch, a hideous heap, the face of him upturned and recognizable.

Where had Frank seen that grim countenance, that short, stiff, iron-gray hair? Somewhere, surely. He looked again, trying to fix his memory.

"I swan to man, ef it ain't old Buckley!"

Seth was right. It was the Maryland secessionist whose turkeys the boys had stolen, and who, in consequence, had made haste to avenge his wrongs by joining the confederate army.

A strange, sickening sensation came over Frank at the discovery. Thus the evil he had done followed him. But for that wild freak of plundering the poor man's poultry-yard, he might be plodding now on his Maryland farm, and Atwater would not be lying there so white and still with a bullet in his breast.

XXXI.

"VICTORY OR DEATH."

Where all this time was the old drum-major? He too had disappeared from the ambulance corps to assume, like Frank, a position of still more arduous service and greater danger.

Shortly after Frank left him, word came that the battery of boat-howitzers, which, from a curve in the road that commanded the rebel works, had been doing splendid execution, was suffering terribly, and getting short of hands. It must soon withdraw unless reinforced. But who would volunteer to help work the guns?

The old man had been familiar with artillery practice. At the thought of the service and the peril his spirit grew proud within him. But his heart yearned for Frank.

"Where is Manly?" he inquired of Ellis.

"I believe he has gone into the fight with our company," said the wounded volunteer.

The truth flashed upon the veteran. Yes, the boy he loved had gone before him into danger. He no longer hesitated, or lost any time in getting leave to report himself to the commander of the battery.

"What can you do?" was the hurried question put to him, as he stood in the thick powder-smoke, calmly asking for work.

Just then, a gunner was taken off his feet by a cannon-ball.

"I can take this fellow's place, sir," said the old man, grimly.

"Take it!" replied the officer.

The wounded sailor was borne away, and the old drummer, springing to the howitzer, assisted in working it until, its ammunition exhausted, the battery was ordered to withdraw.

During the severest part of the action Mr. Sinjin had observed a person in citizen's dress, with his coat off, briskly handling the cannon-balls. Their work done, he turned to speak with him.

"You are a friend of my young drummer boy, I believe," said the old man.

"Yes, and a friend of all his friends!" cordially answered the white-sleeved civilian.

"You can preach well, and fight well," said the veteran, his eyes gleaming with stern pride.

"I prefer to preach, but I believe in fighting too, when duty points that way," said Mr. Egglestone,--for it was he, flushed and begrimed with his toil at the deadly guns.

Even as they were speaking, a cannon-ball passed between them. Mr. Egglestone was thrown back by the shock of the wind it carried, but recovered instantly to find himself unhurt. But where was the old drummer? He was not there. And it was some seconds before the bewildered clergyman perceived him, several paces distant, lying on his face by the road.

* * * *

The howitzers silenced, it was determined to storm the enemy's works.

Frank afterwards had the satisfaction of knowing that it was in part the information gained from the prisoner he had taken that decided the commanding general to order a charge.

Frank was with his company, where we left him, when suddenly yells rent the air; and, looking, he saw the Zouaves of Parke's brigade dashing down the causeway in front of the rebel redoubt.

They were met by a murderous fire. They returned it as they charged. As their comrades fell, they passed over them unheedingly, and still kept on--a sublime sight to look upon, in their wild Arab costumes, shouting, "Zou! zou!" bounding like tigers, clearing obstructions, and sweeping straight to the breastwork with their deadly bayonets.

"What is it?" asked Atwater, faintly.

"Victory!" answered Frank; for the firing ceased--the enemy were flying.

"That's enough!" And the still pallid face of the soldier smiled.

Victory! None but those who have fought a stern foe to the bloody close, and seen his ranks break and fly, and the charging columns pursue, ranks of bristling steel rushing in through clouds of battle smoke, know what pride and exultation are in that word.

Victory! Reno's column, that had outflanked the rebels on the west side, fighting valiantly, charged simultaneously with the Zouaves. The whole line followed the example, and went in with colors flying, and shouts of joy filling the welkin which had been shaken so lately with the jar of battle. Over fallen trees, over pits and ditches, through brush, and bog, and water, the conquering hosts poured in; Frank's regiment with the rest, and himself among the foremost that planted their standard on the breastwork.

There were the abandoned cannon, still warm and smoking. There lay a deserted flag, bearing the Latin inscription "_Aut vincere aut mori_,"--Victory or death,--flung down in the precipitate flight.

"They couldn't conquer, and they didn't want to die; so they split the difference, and run," observed Seth Tucket.

There too lay the dead and dying, whom the boastful enemy had forsaken where they fell. One of these who had _not_ run was an officer--handsome and young. He was not yet dead. A strange light was in his eyes as he looked on the forms of the foemen thronging around him, saw the faces of the victors, and heard the cheering. Success and glory were for them--for him defeat and death.

"Lift me up," he said, "and let me look at you once."

They raised him to a sitting posture, supported partly by a gun-carriage, and partly by the arms of his conquerors. And they pressed around him, their voices hushed, their triumphant brows saddened with respect for the dying.

"Though we have been fighting each other," he said, solemnly, "we are still brothers. God forgive me if I have done wrong! I too am a northern man,--I too----"

As he spoke, a figure in the uniform of his foes sprang through the crowd to his feet.

"O, my brother! O, my brother George!"

It was Frank Manly, who knelt, and with passionate grief clasped the hand that had clasped his in fondness and merry sport so often in the happy days of his childhood, when neither ever dreamed of their unnatural separation and this still more unnatural meeting.

"Frank! my little brother! so grown! is it you?" said the wounded captive, with dreamy surprise.

"O George! how could you?" Frank began, with anguish in his voice. But he checked himself; he would not reproach his dying brother.

"My wife, you know!" was all the unhappy young man could murmur. He looked at Frank with a faint and ever fainter smile of love, till his eyes grew dim. "I am going, Frank. It is all wrong--I know now--but it is too late. Tell mother----"

His words became inaudible, and he sank, swooning, in Captain Edney's arms.

"What, George? what shall I tell mother?" pleaded Frank, in an agony.

"And father too," said the dying lips, in a moment of reviving recollection. "And my sisters----" But the message was never uttered.

"George! O, George! I am here! Don't you see me?"

The dim eyes opened; but they saw not.

"Carry me up stairs! Let me die in the old room--our room, Frank."

It was evident his mind was wandering; he fancied himself once more at home, and wished to be laid in the little chamber where he used to sleep with Frank, as Frank had slept with Willie in later days.

"Kiss me, mother!" The ashen face smiled; then the light faded from it; and the lips, grown cold and numb, murmured softly, "It is growing dark--Good night!"

And he slept--the sleep of eternity.

When Frank rose up from the corpse he had mastered himself. Then Captain Edney saw, what none had noticed before, that blood was streaming down his arm--the same arm that had been grazed before; this time it had been shot through.

"You are wounded!"

"Yes--but not much. I must go--let me go and take care of Atwater!"

"But you need taking care of yourself!"--for he was deadly pale.

"No, sir--I--Abe, there----"

Even as the boy was speaking he grew dizzy and fell fainting in his captain's arms.

XXXII.

AFTER THE BATTLE.

It is over. The battle is ended, the victory won. The sun goes down upon conquerors and conquered, upon the living and the dead. And the evening comes, melancholy. The winds sigh in the pine-tops, the sullen waves dash upon the shore, the gloom of the cypresses lies dismal and dark on Roanoke Island.

Buildings suitable for the purpose, taken from the enemy, have been converted into hospitals, and the wounded are brought in.

There is Frank with his bandaged arm, and Ellis with his stump of a hand bound up, and others worse off than they. There is the surgeon of their regiment, active, skilful, kind. There, too, is Mr. Eggleston, the minister, proving his claim to that high title, ministering in the truest sense to all who need him, holding to fevered lips the cup of medicine or soothing drink, and holding to fevered souls the still more precious drink.

There is Corporal Gray, assisting to arrange the hospital, and cheering his comrades with an account of the victory.

"The rebels ran like herds of deer after we got the battery. We tracked 'em by the traps they threw away. Guns, knapsacks, coats,--they flung off every thing, and skedaddled for dear life! We met an old negro woman, who told us where their camp was; but some of 'em had taken another direction, by a road that goes to the east side of the island. Our boys followed, and found 'em embarking in boats. We fired on 'em, and brought back two of their boats. In one we got Jennings Wise, of the Wise Legion, that we had the bloody fight with flanking the battery. He was wounded and dying.

"But our greatest haul was the camp the old negress pointed out The rebels rallied, and as we moved up, fired upon us, doing no damage. We returned the compliment, and dropped eight men. Then more running, of the same chivalrous sort, our boys after them; when out comes a flag of truce from the camp.

"'What terms will be granted us?' says the rebel officer.

"'No terms, but unconditional surrender,' says General Foster.

"'How long a time will be granted us to consider?'

"'Just time enough for you to go to your camp to convey the terms and return.'

"Off went the rebel. We waited fifteen minutes. Then we pushed on again. That movement quickened their deliberations; and out came Colonel Shaw, the commander, and says to General Foster,--

"'I give up my sword, and surrender five thousand men!' For he didn't know some two thousand of his force had escaped. What we have got is about three thousand prisoners, and all their forts and quarters, which we call a pretty good bag."

The boys forgot their wounds, they forgot their dead and dying comrades, listening to this recital. But short-lived was the enthusiasm of one, at least. Scarce was Gray gone, when Frank saw four men with a stretcher, bringing upon it a grizzled, pallid old man.

"O, Mr. Sinjin! O, my dear, dear friend! You too!"

"Is it my boy?" said the veteran, with a wan smile. "Yes, I too! They have done for me, I fear."

"But nobody told me. How--where----" The boy's grief choked his voice.

"An impertinent cannon-ball interrupted my conversation with Mr. Egglestone," said the old man, stifling his agony as the men removed him to a cot. "And took a--" he groaned in spite of himself--"a greedy mouthful out of my side--that's all."

Frank knew not what to say or what to do, he was so overcome.