"That's the colonel."
"Yep."
"Draw them off, now. Steady. Close up."
"Belts, boys—look for belts."
They went back slowly, stripping the cartridge-belts from men fallen between the corn-hills, and firing at the smoke; into the grass, at length, and at length to a halt in cover of broken fence and line of weeds, hard by the woods they had left at dawn. The enemy spread over the cornfield. One seemed to resent it on account of owning that cornfield with a more than ancestral heritage. There were fresh columns coming up on the right. The broken brigades in the grass watched them pass. Their line mounted and stood still on the ridge, outlined against the woods and volleying evenly. Gaps opened and closed. Some one said, "They're old troops." They went into the corn with a rush. Whatever happened, it sounded like an explosion of a half-hour's length, and after it the cornfield and ploughed land were empty, except for the smoke, and the wounded and dead, some hidden in the corn, some seen against the brown fallow.
The mouth of the black woods gaped; there were its black teeth and drifting breath. Fragments of the columns were drawing off to the covert of a bulge of woods on the right. That part of the battle stood still. The sun was half-way up the sky.
"I fought, cap'n! I wasn't afraid!"
He had red, downy cheeks, an indistinct nose, and white eyelashes.
"Terrible warrior you are, Jimmie. Your fingers are dripping."