"Go to the court house and ask the ordnance officer," said the Colonel. "There are thousands of stands of arms there. Good luck to you."
He turned and went out and the boys followed immediately, turning however, toward the court house. They were provided, Al with a musket and Wallace with a revolver, as he could use only his right hand. The silence of early morning was brooding over the town as they emerged from the court house, for the watchful troops around could do nothing but wait for the enemy's blow to fall. But as they paused on the sidewalk, the deep boom of a cannon resounded across the river, echoing back from the bluffs, and a second later a shell crashed into the side of a building about half a block away. They could hear the window glass spatter on the ground in a jingling shower.
"There goes Joe Shelby's opening gun, if that reb corporal was right," exclaimed Al. "Come on!"
Wallace followed him and they ran south toward the bridge on the Boonville road across Gregg's Creek, by which they had come in an hour or so before. At a street corner they encountered three companies of infantry going on the double-quick to the same point, with canteens rattling against their bayonet scabbards. The boys fell in behind the first company and kept on, until the column deployed into line along the creek bank and the men threw themselves on the ground behind bushes or whatever other cover offered. The bridge had been stripped of its plank flooring by the picket guard, and only the bare stringers now remained, offering no footing for an attacking column.
"My, but that's hard work, runnin' that way," panted a stout man beside Al. "Wonder what the rebs are doin'?" He raised himself on his elbows and peered ahead.
On the crest of the hill across the narrow valley two field guns frowned on the bridge, the cannoneers standing motionless at their posts, seeming to wait only the command to open fire. In front of them, long lines of dismounted cavalry were reaching out, like slowly unfolding ribbons, against the brown face of the hill. Al and Wallace watched them curiously. Would they never cease to extend? All at once an officer on a black horse darted up to the two field guns as if shot out of the woods behind. They could see him point his arm toward the bridge, gesturing emphatically. Then the cannoneers sprang to life, two vivid streaks of fire spurted from the muzzles of the guns and Al felt, rather than heard, a terrific explosion which seemed to take place all around him at once. Following it came a sensation of intense, numbing silence that was at length pierced by the thin, liquid vibration of a bugle, blowing somewhere far off, "the charge." Then gradually other sounds came to his reviving ear-drums, and he realized that a shell had burst directly over his head, though he was unhurt. He glanced at Wallace, whose eyes looked dazed.
"Wasn't that awful?" whispered Al.
"Awful, yes. Awful," repeated Wallace. He seemed almost beyond words. But he suddenly hitched up on his knees, exclaiming,
"There, look! They're coming!"
Al turned his eyes to the front. The long, ribbon-like line of Confederates was pitching forward down the hill and out across the floor of the valley toward them. Two flags, fluttering blotches of red and blue, tilted forward above it. Little ripples ran back and forth along the line, like the wind ripples in growing wheat, as the men strained to keep alignment; and ahead of them whirled a shrill, ear-piercing wave of sound more united, more defiant and more formidable than any Indian war-whoop the boys had ever heard. It came to their senses that they were listening for the first time to that heart-chilling "rebel yell" of which they had so often been told.