Who goes there?

by B. K. Benson

I crawled up the further bank. Again I lent ear. Nothing. I crawled forward for fifty yards or more, hoping, rather than believing, that I was keeping halfway between the sides of the bend.

I rested a while, for such work is very hard. Before a minute had passed I heard a noise--and another: one at my right, the other at my left. The sounds were repeated. I knew what they meant--the vedette on either side of me was being relieved. My course had been right--I was midway between two sentinels.

How to get through the picket-line ahead of me? I reasoned that the pickets were not in the swamp, but on the edge of the hills. Lying there between the two vedettes I imagined a plan. I knew that a picket-line is relieved early in the day when troops are in position, as the armies were now. If I could see the relief coming, I would show myself just at the time it arrived, hoping that each party would take me to belong to the other.

But suppose I should not see the relieving company, or suppose any one of a thousand things should at the last moment make my plan impracticable, what then?

I saw that I must have some other plan to fall back on; I would make some other plan as I crawled forward.

At what moment should I strike the line of Confederate pickets? That the country outside was in their cavalry lines I well knew, and I hoped that for this reason their infantry would be less watchful; but this thought did not make me any the less prudent and slow in my advance. I had easily succeeded in passing the vedettes; to avoid the vedette reliefs might not be easy.

When I reached the edge of the swamp, daylight was just beginning to show. Could I hope to remain long between vedettes and pickets? Impossible. But impossible is a strong word, I thought. Why not climb? Trees were all around me; I might easily hide in the thick boughs of a cedar near by. But that would do me no good; at least, it could do no good unless in case of sudden necessity. I must get through the picket-line; outside I could do nothing. Once in rear of the Confederate pickets, I should have little or no trouble in remaining for days in the camps and in the main lines; getting through was the difficulty. Daylight was increasing.

Had it taken me two hours to crawl from the line of vedettes to this edge of the swamp? The question rose in my mind from seeing a relief come down the hill at my right; two men, supposably a non-commissioned officer and a private, were going to pass in fifty yards of me. I let them pass. They went into the swamp. Five minutes later two men returned by the same route, or almost so, but came a little nearer to me; I saw them coming and felt for my glass, but did not find it. I supposed that Dr. Khayme had forgotten to put it in my haversack. Yet the men--no doubt the same non-commissioned officer, with the private he had just relieved from duty as a vedette--passed so near me that I could distinctly see their dress, and could note its worn and bedraggled appearance. These men had seen hard service, evidently.

Five minutes more passed. The east was aglow with day. Two men at my left were now coming down the hill. They passed into the swamp. These men wore uniforms fresh and clean.

The thought came upon me at once that I had passed between two vedettes belonging to different regiments. I cast about for some way to take advantage of this circumstance, but racked my brains to no purpose. Finally, however, an odd idea was born. Could I not go back to the vedettes, and talk to either the right or the left man of the connecting line? He would probably think that I belonged to the command joining his. No doubt I could do this; but what should I gain? I should merely be losing time.