This morning it is pleasant and windless, as I wait for the order to start.
An instance of the change of orders under which we labor. (As I recall the Civil War memoirs that I have read, it seems to me that conditions are much the same.) We were assembled in line at 5.25, reported, stacked arms, and were ordered (remember that we are to camp on this same ground tonight) “Strike tents and make packs. Make up blanket rolls and squad bags, and bring them to the head of the street.” Oh, the disgust! The orders were proper for the first battalion, which marches on to Altona today; but for us it seemed needless. But the promptest fell to work, took down their tents, and began to make up the packs. Then the word came travelling down the street, “Leave tents standing!” Luckily Bann and I had not got to the work of striking the tent, and so we jubilated while some others cussed. But we went on with making up the rolls and bags. Then the order was transmitted, “Leave blankets and extra kits in tents!” Perhaps someone blundered in the first place, and we got the order intended for the first battalion. And I do not complain, for today we travel light, with many things not in our packs.
The call has come, “Squad leaders to the head of the street.” That means a talk preparatory to setting out. So I have put on my pack, so as to wait without worry. Having marched very dry yesterday, and a pebble which I hastily scooped up proving large and rough, I have provided myself (per one buzzard) with a package of chewing gum. Oh for the old-fashioned spruce, with no sweetness or artificial flavor!—The first battalion, having packed entirely, is assembling for the march. My map is buttoned in my shirt, for consultation at halts. The day is warm, with the wind from the west; but there are gathering clouds, and I am going to use the time which is left in digging with my bayonet a ditch around the tent.
(In West Sciota? At any rate, an inhabited crossroads.) I am lying on my back in the wet grass, while the captain explains that the sound at a little distance, as of a lot of carpenters nailing at the boarding of a new house, is our patrols firing at a party of cavalry that is opposing our advance.
We left our tents buttoned, and started out in gray weather. I was glad that I had, with bayonet and fingers, dug a shallow ditch along the upper side of our pup and across the front, when this light rain began. It is not bad, and so long as I have my pack between me and the ground I cannot get chilled. Again and again I have used it so, and have seen fellows at halts napping all around me. Truly the pack is a life saver.—“Fall in!”
(North of Sciota, on the road to Mooers, near crossroads 79, the weather now dry.) We are resting after a skirmish, and as my position is somewhat more comfortable, since I am lolling in a ditch instead of lying on my back, perhaps these jottings will be more legible than the last. The skirmish went thus.
We left our resting-place at crossroads 72, and followed the popping of our advance guard, I company, while at the same time we heard at a greater distance the heavy firing of the first battalion as it fought its way westward toward Altona, we ourselves going north. As we advanced beyond a corner, suddenly fire from the left broke out upon the column behind us. At once we were halted, and Captain Kirby, ranging down the line of the company, picked out our squad and sent us at the double over the fence and into the field north of the road that we had passed, our enemy being in a thick wood to the south of it. Here we streamed along, poor Corder as usual soon being pumped and dropping behind, while eager David was only kept from outdistancing the rest by a sharp word from Knudsen. We scrambled through a wire fence, then in a pasture with scattered heavy cedars we assembled behind a tree to survey the ground, all of us pouring out our advice upon poor Bann—to go to the road, to go further west, to plunge into the woods and attack the enemy by ourselves. This last from David, who is keen at every fight. Someone urging to send a message back to the captain, Bann got out the brand-new despatch book and pencil which since the conference this morning had been sticking out of his pocket, but put them up again for lack of something definite to say. So he took us across the road and into the field behind the enemy’s wood, where it being evident that the foe had no reserves, Bann began once more to write.
Now we heard Kirby’s voice, who having led the company along the road, and finding himself plainly behind the enemy’s fire, was putting the men, in squad columns, into the wood to search them out. We climbed the wire fence and followed through the densest undergrowth, where poor Corder, stumbling behind and having to protect his glasses, often found himself quite out of sight of the man in front. But we were too late. We heard shouts ahead, the firing ceased, and when we desperately broke through the last of the thicket and found ourselves in the open, there stood a line of men with white bands on their hats (the sign of the opposing forces) quietly regarding us. Rumor said that they were captured, and Squad 9, being first on the ground, was feeling proud of their work. Then the rumor ran that not only was the enemy not captured, but we were killed. Squad 9 was cursing, “not loud but deep,” when the captain came along and was passionately appealed to. “We got them,” he assured us. “They were firing away from us when we broke through the wood. A single picket on that flank, firing a single shot on seeing us, would have saved them. And besides, we have their horses. Sergeant Barker has just come in reporting that he has the bunch.” Satisfied, we marched out to our present resting-place.
The cavalry has just emerged from their unsuccessful ambush, with the two machine guns, and have started northward in a hurry, an umpire warning them, “You have only five minutes before we start after you.” The men around me are laughing and talking, well content, and I have just seen the major congratulating the captain on a brisk piece of work.
(In camp again, and settled for the night at our old tents, the weather having cleared.)