Part 3
“Tom,” said I, with some feeling, “you have saved my life.”
“There!” said he, triumphantly, “you spoke first.”
I saw that I had, and I was dreadfully provoked. However, he admitted that he was wrong; and so, under the circumstances, I decided that a reconciliation was advisable.
* * * * *
The Professor has been here to-day. He is the most delightful companion I know; and, what is his special charm, he really believes that he is hard and cynical, the tender-hearted old baby! I know that he fancies himself a second Diogenes. His liking for us boys is very queer to me. Tom is his pet, but he prefers to talk to me. He discusses Tom with me, and then he discusses me, just as if I were a third person. To-day he told me I was a mass of selfish pettinesses. I don’t think that was his word, but that was what he meant; “and yet,” said he, “you are capable of heroic generosity.” I always know that part of what the Professor says is said in earnest; but I am never quite sure what part it is. He doesn’t fatigue me, and doesn’t excite me, and it is well for me that he is here; still, I am impatient to get back again. He has told me about Tom’s staying with me, instead of going home. I don’t know what to say about it; I don’t know what to think. It makes me want to die for him; nothing else that I can do seems sufficient. When this war is over, I suppose Tom will marry and forget me. I never will go near his wife――I shall hate her. Now, that is a very silly thing for a lieutenant-colonel to write. I don’t care, it is true.
* * * * *
I wonder if I am so very selfish, after all. I like refinement and elegance, and I hate dirt; and I do like to have people care for me and do things to oblige me. But my first thought is not always of myself; and I don’t think I am unjust to others, because of myself. And, if I desire the sympathy and appreciation of others, I am sure it is not wrong.
“_C’est qu’un cœur bien atteint veut qu’on soit tout à lui._”
I can’t remember, though, just now, a single unselfish thing that I have ever done, unless it was giving some of the fruit and jelly that the Professor brought me yesterday to a poor fellow with hungry eyes, whom I saw glaring at them through the door. That wouldn’t have been generous, either, if he hadn’t been a rebel. Giving aid and comfort to the enemy is the only generous action that I can discover of mine, after all my self-analysis. Confound self-analysis, any way! It is only another form of selfishness, mingled with morbid conceit. If I did what I ought to do, without thinking about myself at all, it would be better for me; but I haven’t anything to do just now, except scribble away here, and it is dreadfully stupid.
How talking with the Professor has set me to thinking of Harvard again! Now that the lights are glimmering at intervals through the ward, I can see the yard, with Holworthy and Stoughton and Hollis beaming away from their windows at each other, and Massachusetts standing a little apart, as becomes its greater age, but benignant in its seclusion. I hear the voices of singing in the yard, on the steps, and under the trees; I can see fellows sitting round the tables in their rooms, studying and not studying; I can hear recitations made to the different professors and tutors; and just as the bell for morning prayers, which I still hate, begins to clang upon my memory, I remember that I am here in a hospital, while we are still fighting and killing each other for the sake of the country that has given us all we enjoy. I shall be out soon, I know. There is always good prospect of a battle when I feel this way; and yet I do horribly loathe the tint of blood which has seemed to rest on everything I have seen or dreamed of for a year past. How I hate war, and yet how wholly I am absorbed in it! I am getting feverish; I shall write no more to-day.
* * * * *
In looking over my note-book, I find something which, luckily for me, I had almost forgotten; and that is, the prediction of my friend Mooney. Poor idiot! he was shot the first time that we were under fire. How pleasant it would have been for me in all the work I have been through, if I had remembered that prophecy! How it would have aided my recovery in my sickness, if I had been haunted by those words! I am to meet a dishonorable death for a dishonorable action, am I? The only dishonorable action I can commit is to go over to Stonewall Jackson, and learn how to fight. By Jove! I do admire that man. He is what too few officers on either the Union or the Rebel sides are, unselfish and in earnest. But I don’t think that I shall join him, for all that; and, if I did, I should not be likely to meet with death,――his luck and his pluck would take me through.
* * * * *
The Professor has confided to me a plan of his, which delights me. He says that he will go North, and bring Tom’s mother on to Washington, if her health permits. As Tom’s father is in Europe at present, and as it would be highly unpleasant, to use the mildest term, for a lady to travel alone to Washington, knowing nothing of the place and its peculiarities, it is very thoughtful and very kind, and something more, in the Professor to do this. Then Tom can run up to Washington for a day or two to see her, poor fellow! and all, or rather part, of his great generosity will be rewarded. The Professor is a brick to think of it; and I have made him promise to start to-morrow. And when he goes, I shall go too, only in the other direction. How happy this will make Tom!
* * * * *
I don’t know what makes me think of our class-day now, but I do wonder who had the rooms which Tom and I engaged for our spread. Perhaps it’s the contrast between salad and strawberries, and hardtack and corned-beef; though now everything seems to me to be saturated with gruel. I wonder if Tiny Snow was at class-day this year! She was an object of awe to me in Freshman year; then I despised the sex when I was a Sophomore; and then in Junior year I saw a good deal of her. She had a way of drooping her head a little; and then, with a sort of shy little gulp, raising it, and making her eyes childlike and plaintive. It was quite pleasant, even after familiarity with it had destroyed its novelty. I wrote some verses to her once, and sent them to “The Harvard Magazine;” but they came into the hands of an editor who was gone on her himself, and he very properly rejected them. Once I showed Tiny, quite by accident, the Etruscan locket which I got abroad, and which Tom admired so much that I had his initials cut on it to give to him.
“Oh, how lovely!” said Tiny. “Who is it for?”
“Don’t you see the initials?” said I.
“T. S.,” said she, innocently; “who can it be?”
I thought there seemed something like a blush upon her cheek as she spoke; but I told her that T. S. was some one I cared a great deal about.
“Is she pretty?” asked Tiny.
“She!” I answered; “it isn’t any girl; it’s my chum, Tom, you know.”
Then she really colored; and a little while afterward I remembered that those were her initials. How she must have hated me,――perhaps!
* * * * *
I have eaten a real breakfast at last, and am upon my feet again. The Professor has gone, and I am going at once. How curious it will be to come out of this dream, and go back again to work! The doctor begs me not to get excited, and yet tells me that in three days I shall be as well as ever. I have been excited for a year now, and I go to the front this very afternoon. I am rather thin, and my shirt feels something like an air-box; but I shall get over all that soon. We are to make an attack before long, I understand.
* * * * *
I am back in camp. This is the last entry that I shall make in this note-book for some time to come. I am alarmed a little about Tom. I think he is going to be sick; he seems excited and feverish, and yet dull. However, he has brightened up wonderfully since I told him about the Professor’s intention; and I am not sure but that it was a dreadful homesickness that oppressed him when I first met him. He won’t see a doctor; he laughs the idea to scorn, and says he is only tired and overworked, and that, if I can manage to secure him a little rest, he will soon be all right. But he is dying to see his mother, he confesses to me, and I am not surprised to hear it.
I said that this is the last entry I shall make here. I am not sure now but that these are the last words which I shall ever write. I take charge of a small expedition to-night, with men whom I have personally selected for the purpose; and we are to destroy the bridge above here. It must be done at once. Jackson is near there, and we expect and fear an attack from him. The work is delicate rather than difficult; but it is sufficiently dangerous for me to commend my soul to God before I start upon it. Good-by, little note-book, perhaps forever. If Tom and I return safe,――and Tom will, I am sure,――why, then, perhaps, I may tell you all about this coming night’s work; but, if not, you will be destroyed, unread; and so farewell.
VIII.
MIDNIGHT.
“Then came a blinding flash, a deafening roar, And dissonant cries of terror and dismay; Blood trickled down the river’s reedy shore, And with the dead he lay.”
A starlit sky, dead silence all around, only the river’s murmur breaking it. The moonbeams shining on the forest-path mark all the shadows with a dazzling light, bringing weird and fantastic outlines forth, where brush and hedges line the dusty road, and making the parched fields, almost destitute of vegetation, shine like burnished sheets of dead white light. And along this road came slowly, with muffled tramp, a little body of men, their dark figures darker by contrast with the gleaming barrels of their rifles, which the moonlight seemed to tinge with silvery fire. They came along so quietly, so noiselessly, now hidden from view in a curve of the road, and now appearing again. And still all was quiet.
And then a little tongue of flame ran quickly and noiselessly up into the black darkness; and in a moment more all was blaze and smoke. The work was done,――the bridge was destroyed.
Down in the road around the bridge the men were grouped,――the fire giving them a ruddy coloring,――a tint of blood. Two figures were especially prominent, and seemed to be directing their movements.
“Well, Tom,” said Ned, “does this remind you of bonfires in the yard at Cambridge?”
“Not much,” said Tom, dispiritedly.
“Why, Tom, what is the matter with you?” asked Ned, anxiously.
“I don’t know,” said Tom. “I feel nervous and apprehensive.”
“I ought not to have let you come with me,” said Ned. “It was weak and selfish in me to consent. You are feverish and excited, Tom; and you ought to have rested.”
“Just as if I was going to let you go off into danger without me!” said Tom.
“I am much obliged to you for the care you take of me,” said Ned; “but you see the work has been done without any trouble. The rebs are two miles away; and this will prevent them from making a detour, and getting in our rear if we advance.”
“Ned,” said Tom, “do you think that the Professor will bring my mother on to Washington with him?”
“Think!” said Ned. “I am sure he will, and that, when we return to camp, we shall find a message from her to you. Perhaps he’ll charter a train, and bring on a host of your female admirers, victorious masher of female hearts!”
“Don’t rough me, Ned,” said Tom.
“Well, now I know that you are going to be sick, Tom,” said Ned, “when you take that piteous tone, instead of answering me back. By Jove, there goes a beam, crash; and look, the fire has entirely died out of the other. We can’t leave the work half done in this way, we must hurry and finish it. The rebel pickets are probably back in camp by this time. Tom, order four men, and row that boat over to the other side for me.”
“Why, Ned!” asked Tom, “what are you going to do?”
“The fire has died out over there,” said Ned, “and the other beam is left. Here, O’Brien, I want that axe. I am going to cross on it, and cut it off where it is charred. Get the boat ready at once, captain.”
“But, Ned, that is very dangerous,” interposed Tom.
“Obey orders!” said Ned, impatiently and angrily; and Tom, with a reproachful glance, left him at once.
Only a slender beam now hung over the flood. On this Ned started to cross, balancing himself with the axe, the group of men watching him eagerly. An inch to the right or to the left, and all was lost. The flames were decreasing now, yet still the beam stood. Then the boat started out slowly across the river. The attention of all was turned towards it for an instant; and, in the mean time, Ned had almost gained the other side. One, two, three blows on the charred part of the beam, and it wavered and fell with a crash as Ned leaped lightly upon the bank. He waved his hand triumphantly, and ran down to meet the boat, which, more than half way across, was now struggling with the powerful current, and yet was visibly nearing the shore. He waved his cap, and started down the river-bank into the copse to meet it. Only two steps, two little steps down the bank, and from the tangled foliage a powerful hand grasped his throat, the cold barrel of a pistol was pressed to his cheek, and a voice fairly hissed the whisper into his ears:――
“Silence! or you are a dead man!”
And for reply, with one mighty effort, he threw off the hand; and, as the pistol-shot resounded through the air, his voice rang out, clear and strong on the still night:――
“BACK TO THE CAMP, FOR YOUR LIVES! THE ENEMY IS UPON US!”
In an instant more he was seized; and one of the men who had crept upon him said:――
“Damn you, you hound! you have spoiled all our plans.”
Then Ned smiled serenely, and looked calmly at the man.
“But we shall bag four or five of them, any way, lieutenant,” said one of the men,――“those in the boat down there.”
And then Ned started and turned pale; but it was too late. Tom and two others had already landed, and were in the hands of two or three of the rebel pickets.
“O Tom, Tom!” cried Ned, “why did you not turn back?”
But Tom did not answer, and only stared vacantly and stupidly at Ned.
“The captain’s sick, sir,” said one of the men who had been captured.
“Drunk, more likely,” said the rebel lieutenant, with an oath.
“He was taken in the boat,” continued the man.
“It is as I feared,” said Ned; “he is in a high fever, as I was.” At this the rebel lieutenant drew back. “Oh! it is not contagious,” said Ned, with a world of scorn in his voice; and the rebel lieutenant resumed his former position.
“Tom, don’t you know me?” asked Ned. “Oh, what will be the end of this, I wonder!”
“Libby Prison,” sneered the lieutenant.
“Tell my mother to come and see me at Libby,” said Tom, half stupidly. Upon this the chorus naturally raised an insulting shout, and one poor brute indulged in some ribald remark. In an instant, Tom had struck him across the face; in another instant, Tom himself lay on the ground senseless and stunned by a blow from the butt of one of the rebel rifles. It was at this instant, while Ned in anguish and desperation was struggling with his captors, that the sound of horses’ hoofs was heard coming nearer and nearer, and three or four officers rode quickly up. The central figure of the group was a compact, sinewy man, of medium height, with a full, untrimmed beard, and a face, as Ned could see by the dim light of the fire which some of the men were now lighting a little distance off, furrowed with the lines of thought, of care, and anxiety. The eyes were large and expressive, the features clearly cut, and the mouth, even though partially hidden by a thin mustache, showed indomitable firmness. A grand head in many respects, and one which made it evident to Ned that he was in the presence of the dreaded Stonewall Jackson.
“What is the matter here?” he asked briefly.
“They have destroyed the bridge, general,” was the reply.
Stonewall Jackson turned, and whispered to one of his companions who rode away. Then he continued:――
“Are these prisoners?”
“Yes, general,” said the lieutenant,――“these four.”
“A lieutenant-colonel, I see?” said Stonewall Jackson.
Ned simply bowed in reply. Then Stonewall Jackson looked at Tom, and said:――
“And who is this here?”
At this, Tom half raised himself, and then fell back again.
“May I tell you?” asked Ned.
“Certainly,” said Jackson; “what is it?”
“He is in a high fever, which has been coming on for some time,” said Ned; “and one of these men struck him with the butt of his rifle.”
“After he had surrendered?” asked Jackson.
“After he was taken prisoner,” said Ned.
“He shall be taken to camp and attended to,” said Stonewall Jackson. But, when they touched Tom, he uttered a sharp cry of pain; and the men drew back.
“We will let him remain here, then,” said Jackson, after a word or two more with his companions. “Lieutenant, you will keep watch here, and down the river’s bank, until daybreak, and then report at head-quarters to me with the prisoners. As for you, sir,” he continued, addressing Ned, “you can remain here through the night with your friend,――under parole, of course, not to break your bonds. Do you accept?”
“Most thankfully,” said Ned, with a gratitude in his voice and accent far beyond what his words expressed.
“He is a handsome boy,” said Jackson, looking again at the still unconscious Tom. “Keep the other prisoners under strict guard, lieutenant; but treat this gentleman who is under parole with all possible respect. Hark! what is that? Midnight!”
And, as he paused to listen, the distant sound of bells rang faintly out upon the air. Midnight; and for an instant utter stillness upon air and earth and water. And then Tom groaned painfully; and, as Ned bent anxiously over him, Stonewall Jackson said:――
“I shall see you in the morning, Colonel.” And Ned thanked him once again; and the noise of the horses’ hoofs came more and more faintly, and at last died away entirely.
Then Ned knelt down beside Tom, and looked steadily at him. Tom half opened his eyes, and then closed them again with a weary moan that went to Ned’s very heart. “Don’t you know me, Tom?” he said.
“I shall see my mother to-morrow,” said Tom, “after waiting two years. I couldn’t go before,――I couldn’t leave Ned when he was sick.”
Ned hid his face in his hands, and groaned. Tom closed his eyes again, and seemed to pass into a fitful slumber. The men had built a great fire a little way apart; and its gleams fell upon Tom’s face, just as the firelight had done in the Professor’s room, five years before, when Ned first met him. How well he remembered that night! He laid his hand on Tom’s hot brow, and smoothed back his tangled hair. How lovely his face was in this fitful, ruddy glow! How much he had sacrificed for Ned, and now Ned had ruined him! It was dreadful to Ned. He threw himself on the grass beside Tom, and put his face on Tom’s shoulder.
“I am going to cut recitation to-day,” muttered Tom. “Hang that old Ned! He is always vexed about something or other. I’m going to enlist, mother; I must, you see,――oh, I must, I must, I must! Good-by!”
“Oh, don’t, Tom!” groaned Ned.
And then Tom sat up, and gazed wildly and vacantly at Ned, without a trace of recognition in his face.
“Why, Professor,” said he. “I couldn’t leave Ned possibly! We’ve been through everything together; and he might not be cared for properly, if I were to leave him sick and alone. Mother says that I am right; and I shall see her to-morrow,――I shall see her to-morrow.”
“It is as I feared,” said Ned, half to himself; “he is in a high fever. If I can only get him down to the river-bank there, where I can bathe his head.”
And, putting Tom’s limp arm around his own neck, Ned managed with some difficulty to carry him a few steps to the river’s brink.
“There, Tom,” he said, “I’ll bathe your head for you, poor fellow!”
“Here is the river,” said Tom; “and we are going to see mother in a boat. It’s a dangerous thing, Ned, to cross on that beam. OBEY ORDERS! And now it is too late, too late! God only knows whether I shall ever see my mother again.” And now, as Tom became quiet once more, Ned sat there, and bathed his head; and the river continued the noise of its rushing waters, and the wavelets splashed gently upon the shore, and against the wooden sides of the boat,――the boat! And now for the first time Ned saw the means of deliverance within his power. The idea fairly swept over his mind. To put Tom into the boat, and gain the other side, would be the work of a few moments only: and it could be done; for the rebel squad was dispersed along the shore, and the one man who sat by the fire a few yards off seemed fast asleep. But then, even as the thought of a possibility of freedom for Tom made him exultant, there came the recollection of his parole. He still sat by Tom’s side, and mechanically now smoothed back the hair from his forehead, and as mechanically repeated to himself, “word of honor, word of honor, word of honor,” until the very leaves upon the trees seemed to rustle in rhythm with the cadence; and then, with this dull, heavy oppression on his mind, the words seemed to turn into French and Latin and Greek, and to make new and fantastic combinations in his brain. “God help me!” he groaned. “I am going mad.” And then he knelt and prayed; and still the river rushed along, and still that one black figure sat there by the fire, as if half asleep. Then Ned saw him move slowly, and heard him whisper hoarsely, “Colonel! Colonel!”
“Do you mean me?” asked Ned.
“Yes. Speak softer, and come up here.”
Wondering and confused, Ned obeyed. The man turned a rough, unshaven face to him, and said:――
“You don’t know me, I see?”
“No,” said Ned.
“I know you, though. Mighty peart you be now; but you wasn’t so three weeks ago. You was took pretty sick then, and lying in a hospittle.”
“Well, what of it?” said Ned.
“Well, you’re a stoutish kind of man now, ain’t you? But, Lord!” and the fellow laughed to himself, “I could just chaw you up in no time. I should kinder like to have a gouge at you, anyway.”
“Thank you,” said Ned; “but if that is all you have to say, I shall have to leave you, and attend to my friend.”
“You’re a real perlite man,” said the man, in a wondering sort of way; “and yet you’re a Yank. You must attend to your friend. That’s fair; and why? Because when you was sick, he took care of you. I see it; I was in the hospittle likewise at the time. I had just got up as you was took down. Don’t yer remember me?”
“No,” said Ned, impatiently.
“Well, you give me some fruit and jelly that was sent me one day. I never had such a good time in my life as eating them things. The nurse, she says, ‘Don’t waste ’em on him; he’s a rebel,’ she says; and what did you say? You says, ‘Don’t let’s think nothing about Rebs and Feds here,’ says you, ‘but let’s forget all about it; and then I liked you. I like you now.”
“I am glad to hear it,” said Ned; “but I must see to my friend.”
“You care for him about as you would for a gal, don’t you?” said this Virginia barbarian then. “Well, he’s pootier than any gal I ever see anywhar. Look here, this is jest what I want to say to you. Ef you should put him and you in that thar boat, and float down the river, you’d come to your own lines. Ef I should see you do it, I’d stop you; but I’m going to take a snooze by the fire here, for I’m powerful tired. Ef I should wake up, I should fire on you, ef I saw you; and so would others. But I can’t allus aim straight in the dark; and, whar one aims, others is likely to. Now I have done you a good turn for what you’ve did to me; and ef ever we meet again, by God, I’ll kill you.”
“But I can’t in honor escape,” said Ned.