"With all due pomp and circumstance we marched into and through Ashford Four Corners, and took up a position about half a mile beyond the straggling collection of tumble-down buildings composing that metropolis; and there we prepared to 'sit down,' as per orders, and 'keep our eyes open' to see that nothing came along over a sandy road running off, in a southeasterly direction, into the dense woods in our front."
"Wal, 'twarnt sich a bad idee, havin' ye thar," observed Sam, between puffs, "an' I guess ye seen th' reason for't, finally."
"Oh, yes, the reason made itself unpleasantly obvious later," assented the colonel; "but along at the first we were rather pleased at being sent off and—as we thought—side-tracked, for we hadn't the slightest expectation of seeing or hearing anything from the enemy. No, we certainly weren't grumbling much over the detail, for we'd had a hot and trying time of it for ten days hand-running, and the prospect of even a few hours of rest and quiet seemed attractive.
"But though we weren't looking for trouble, we'd 'been in the business' too long to take anything for granted, and so we had a turn at pick-and-shovel drill, and threw up a very workmanlike line of breastworks, neatly topped-off with logs; and after the earth had been heaped up and patted down we surveyed the result of our labors, called it good, and waited patiently to see if anybody would blunder along that way to help us in a house-warming.
"In billiards 'position is everything,'" the colonel observed, after a short pause to obtain necessary restoratives, "and the same rule applies in war. Our position, as we lay at ease in our hastily constructed works, was fairly good. If I had the blackboard here I could show you, in ten strokes of the chalk, just how the land lay; but the blackboard isn't here, and, moreover, I should be too lazy to lift the chalk if it were here; and therefore I'll state that our line was established across the tapering end of a fan-shaped clearing, and in such a manner that both flanks were protected by dense woods, while on our left an impenetrable swamp afforded us additional security. The open ground in our front stretched away for a distance of about five hundred yards, ending at the edge of the unbroken forest. Do I make clear the situation?"
"Perfectly, sir," said the adjutant, rattling the ice in the pitcher, by way of serving notice that he stood ready to fill any or all depleted glasses.
"'Twas a good 'nough lay-out for inf'ntry," commented Sam, "but thar warn't quite th' right slope t' git th' best work out o' guns."
"I daresay not," said the colonel, in reply to this bit of criticism, "but your guns were able to accomplish all that we asked, eh? By the way, did you ever get a position that suited your exacting taste?"
"Wal, yis," remarked Sam, after an instant of meditation, "seems like we did once—at Malvern Hill. We hed jest th' right drop, thar, an' our plungin' fire cut out work thet warn't far from bein' plain butchery."
"After we'd got settled," resumed the colonel, "we began to look about for amusement; but the 'Four Corners' didn't seem to afford much in that line, and so most of us put in our time at making up lost sleep, and we certainly might have found less profitable employment. Of course we sent out foraging parties, but the few unhappy hens that fell into their hands didn't go far towards making chicken salad for four hundred hungry men, and so we fell back upon our usual healthful diet of hard-tack and 'salt horse.' Lord! what wouldn't I have given for a bottle of cold beer, or a pitcher of this blessed mixture," and the chief, moved by the recollection of past privations, emptied his half-filled glass at a single swallow.