There seemed to be no end to him, anyway; up and down the valley, mile beyond mile, the same line of wooded heights and drifting smoke.
And the regiment found itself crossing a shaky pontoon bridge on a Saturday morning in the mist and climbing the bank into a most battered and tired-looking little town, which was smoldering sulkily with burned buildings and thrilling with enormous noise. There they waited for something else to happen. The deacon felt a lump in his throat, stopping his breath.
“Git out o' me tracks!” snickered Dinkey Cott behind him. “I'll step on yer.”
Dinkey had never seemed more impish, unholy and incongruous. They seemed to stand there a long time. The shells kept howling and whizzing around; they howled till they burst, and then they whizzed. And now and then some one would cry out and fall. It was bad for the nerves. The men were growling.
“Aw, cap, give us a chance!”
“It ain't my fault, boys. I got to wait for orders, same as you.”
Dinkey poked the deacon's legs with the butt of his rifle.
“Say, it's rotten, ain't it? Say, cully, my ma don't like me full o' holes. How's yours?”
The other gripped his rifle tight and thought of nothing in particular.
Was it five hours that passed, or twenty, or one? Then they started, and the town was gone behind their hurrying feet. Over a stretch of broken level, rush and tramp and gasping for breath; fences and rocks ahead, clumps of trees and gorges; ground growing rougher and steeper, but that was nothing. If there was anything in the way you went at it and left it behind. You plunged up a hill, and didn't notice it. You dove into a gully, and it wasn't there. Time was a liar, obstacles were scared and ran away. But half-way up the last pitch ran a turnpike, with a stone wall in front that spit fire and came nearer and nearer. It seemed creeping down viciously to meet you. Up, up, till the powder of the guns almost burned the deacon's face, and the smoke was so thick he could only see the red flashes.