"You don't mean that there's no hope for him?"
"No, no. All right. I mean he'll get his legs and be about. No fear for that sort. Pluck enough to pull half a dozen men through. Those devil-may-care boys make capital soldiers, they get well so quick. This fellow will be stealing chickens in three weeks. I wouldn't bet that I could kill him."
Thus in the very tolerable comfort of St. Stephen's Colburne escaped the six weeks of trying siege duty which his regiment had to perform before Port Hudson. The Tenth occupied a little hollow about one hundred and fifty yards from the rebel fortifications, protected in front by a high knoll, but exposed on the left to a fire which hit one or more every day. The men cut a terrace on their own side of the knoll, and then topped the crest with a double line of logs pierced for musketry, thus forming a solid and convenient breastwork. On both sides the sharpshooting began at daybreak and lasted till nightfall. On both sides the marksmanship grew to be fatally accurate. Men were shot dead through the loopholes as they took aim. If the crown of a hat or cap showed above the breast-work, it was pierced by a bullet. After the siege was over, a rebel officer, who had been stationed on this front, stated that most of his killed and wounded men had been hit just above the line of the forehead. Every morning at dawn, Carter, who had his quarters in the midst of the Tenth, was awakened by a spattering of musketry and the singing of Minie-balls through the branches above his head, and even through the dry foliage of his own sylvan shanty. Now and then a shriek or oath indicated that a bullet had done its brutal work on some human frame. No crowd collected; the men were hardened to such tragedies; four or five bore the victim away; the rest asked, "Who is it?" One death which Carter witnessed was of so remarkable a character that he wrote an account of it to his wife, although not given to noting with much interest the minor and personal incidents of war.
"I had just finished breakfast, and was lying on my back smoking. A bullet whistled so unusually low as to attract my attention and struck with a loud smash in a tree about twenty feet from me. Between me and the tree a soldier, with his great coat rolled under his head for a pillow, lay on his back reading a newspaper which he held in both hands. I remember smiling to myself to see this man start as the bullet passed. Some of his comrades left off playing cards and looked for it. The man who was reading remained perfectly still, his eyes fixed on the paper with a steadiness which I thought curious, considering the bustle around him. Presently I noticed that there were a few drops of blood on his neck, and that his face was paling. Calling to the card-players, who had resumed their game, I said, 'See to that man with the paper.' They went to him, spoke to him, touched him, and found him perfectly dead. The ball had struck him under the chin, traversed the neck, and cut the spinal column where it joins the brain, making a fearful hole through which the blood had already soaked his great-coat. It was this man's head, and not the tree, which had been struck with such a report. There he lay, still holding the New York Independent, with his eyes fixed on a sermon by Henry Ward Beecher. It was really quite a remarkable circumstance.
"By the way, you must not suppose, my dear little girl, that bullets often come so near me. I am as careful of myself as you exhort me to be."
Not quite true, this soothing story; and the Colonel knew it to be false as he wrote it. He knew that he was in danger of death at any moment, but he had not the heart to tell his wife so, and make her unhappy.
CHAPTER XXII. CAPTAIN COLBURNE REINFORCES THE RAVENELS IN TIME TO AID THEM IN RUNNING AWAY.
Colburne had been two or three weeks in the hospital when he was startled by seeing Doctor Ravenel advancing eagerly upon him with a face full of trouble. The Doctor had heard of the young man's hurt, and as his sensitive sympathy invariably exaggerated danger and suffering, especially if they concerned any one whom he loved, he had imagined the worst, and taken the first boat for New Orleans. On the other hand, Colburne surmised from that concerned countenance that the Doctor brought evil tidings of his daughter. Was she unhappy in her marriage, or widowed, or dead? He laughed outright, with a sense of relief equivalent to positive pleasure, when he learned that he alone was the cause of Ravenel's worry.
"I am getting along famously," said he. "Ask Doctor Jackson here. I am not sick at all above my left elbow. Below the elbow the arm seems to belong to some other man."