Who goes there?

by B. K. Benson

I looked at them for two minutes. They were still as death. The line was perfect. If it was a Confederate line, there might be men nearer to me,--officers, or men going and returning in its rear,--but the line seemed straight and perfect. The spots did not seem tall enough for standing men. No doubt they were sitting in the wheat with their guns in their laps. I heard no word--not a sound except the noises coming from the crest of the hill beyond them, where was the Federal line of battle. I looked back. Seminary Ridge seemed very far. I crawled back to my gun, picked it up, rose, and looked again toward the cemetery. I could no longer see the spots. I walked back down the hill, moving off to my right in order to strike the left of Company A. The battalion had not budged.

I reported. The lieutenant was chagrined. I told him that I felt almost sure that the men I had seen were Yankees. What to do? We ought to have sent a man back to the brigade, but we did not. Why we did not, I do not know, unless it was that we felt it our duty to solve the difficulty ourselves. The left of the battalion was unprotected; this would not do. Something must be done.

I suggested that the left platoon of Company A extend intervals to ten paces and cover more ground. The lieutenant approved. The left platoon extended intervals to ten paces, moving silently from centre to left. This filled perhaps sixty yards of the unknown gap. Still no pickets could be seen. I made a semicircle far to my left and returned.

Captain Haskell was not there. He would have sent ten men to the left until something was found. He would have filled the interval, even had it required the whole battalion to stretch to twenty steps apart, at least until he could report to Colonel Perrin, or General Pender. Lieutenant Sharpe, in command of the battalion, was far to the right--perhaps four hundred yards from us. We should have sent word to him down the line, but we did not do it. The night was growing. How wide was the gap? Why did not the pickets on the other side of this gap search for us? If the enemy knew our condition, a brigade or more might creep through the gap; still the lieutenant did not propose anything.

At last I said that although the picket-line in front looked like a Yankee line, it was yet possible that it was ours, and that I thought I could get nearer to it than I had been before, and speak to the men without great danger. Truth is, that I had begun to fear sarcasm. What if, to-morrow morning, we should see a line of gray pickets in our front? Should I ever hear the last of it?

Again the lieutenant approved. He would have approved of anything. He was a brave officer. I verily believe that if I had proposed an advance of Company A up the hill, he would have approved, and would have led the advance.

The company stood still, and I started again. I reached the place where I had been before, and crawled on a few yards farther. Again the thought came that there would have been some communicating between that line and ours if that were Confederate. If they were our men, we had been in their rear for three hours. Impossible to suppose that nobody in that time should have come back to the rear. Clearly it was a Federal line, and I was in its front. Then it occurred to me that it was possible they had a man or two in the fence-row between me and their line. There could be no need for that, yet the idea made me shiver. At every yard of my progress I raised my head, and the black spots were larger--and not less black. They were very silent and very motionless--the sombre night-picture of skirmishers on extreme duty; whoever they were, they felt strongly the presence of the enemy.

Ten yards in front, and ten feet to the right, I saw a post--a gate-post, I supposed. There was no gate. This fence-row, along which I was crawling, indicated a fence rotted down or removed. There had once been a gate hanging to that post and closing against another post now concealed by the bushes of the fence-row. I would crawl to that post out there, and speak to the men in front. They would suppose that I was in the fence-row, and, if they fired, would shoot into the bushes, while I should be safe behind the post--such was my thought.

I reached the post. It was a hewn post of large size--post-oak, I thought. I lay down behind it; I raised my head and looked. The black spots were very near--perhaps thirty or forty yards in front. The line stretched on to my right. I could not now see toward the left--through the fence-row.

It was not necessary to speak very loud.