Our line, as I have said, ran directly along the river's edge, up and down which Andy and I paced on our adjoining beats, each of us having to walk about a hundred yards, when we turned and walked back, with gun loaded and capped and at a right-shoulder-shift.
The night was beautiful. A full round moon shone out from among the fleecy clouds overhead. At my feet was the pleasant plashing of the river, ever gliding on, with the moonbeams dancing as if in sport on its rippling surface, while the opposite bank was hid in the deep, solemn shadows made by the overhanging trees. Yet the shadows were not so deep there but that occasionally I could catch glimpses of a picket silently pacing his beat on the south side of the river, as I was pacing mine on the north, with bayonet flashing in the patches of moonlight as he passed up and down. I fell to wondering, as I watched him, what sort of man he was? Young or old? Had he children at home, may be, in the far-off South? Or a father and mother? Did he wish this cruel war was over? In the next fight may be he'd be killed! Then I fell to wondering who had lived in that house up yonder, and what kind of people they were. Were the sons in the war? And the daughters, where were they? and would they ever come back again and set up their household gods in the good old place once more? My imagination was busy trying to picture the scenes that had enlivened the old plantation, the darkies at work in the fields, and the—
"Hello, Yank! We can lick you!"
"Beautiful night, Johnny, isn't it?"
"Y-e-s, lovely!"
But our orders are to hold as little conversation with the pickets on the other side of the river as necessary, and so, declining any further civilities, I resume my beat.
"Harry, I'm going to lie down here at the upper end of your beat," says the sergeant who has charge of our relief. "I ain't a-going to sleep, but I'm tired. Every time you come up to this end of your beat, speak to me, will you? for I might fall asleep."
"Certainly, sergeant."
The first time I speak to him, the second, and the third, he answers readily enough, "All right, Harry;" but at the fourth summons he is sound asleep. Sleep on, sergeant, sleep on! Your slumbers shall not be broken by me, unless the "Grand Rounds" come along, for whom I must keep a sharp lookout, lest they catch you napping and give you a pretty court-martial! But Grand Rounds or no, you shall have a little sleep. One of these days you, and many more of us besides, will sleep the last long sleep that knows no waking. But hark! I hear the challenge up the line! I must rouse you, after all.
"Sergeant! Sergeant! Get up—Grand Rounds!"