He began to wonder vaguely if he had lost his cook forever. Julius should have found the regiment before this. It was just before day that he came on him working with might and main at a job that was the last one on earth he would have selected.
He had been seized by a burying squad and put to work dragging corpses to the trenches from the great piles where the wagons had dumped them.
The black man rolled his eyes in piteous appeal to his master:
"For Gawd's sake, Marse John, save me—dese here men won't lemme go. I been er throwin' corpses inter dem trenches since dark. I'se most dead frum work, let 'lone bein' scared ter death."
"Sorry, Julius," was the quick answer, "we've all got to work at a time like this. There's no help for it."
Julius bent again to his horrible task. The thing that appalled him was the way the dead men kept looking at him out of their eyes wide and staring in the flickering light of the lanterns.
John stood watching him thoughtfully. He had finished one pile of bodies, dragging them by the heels one by one, and throwing them into the trenches. He was just about to begin on the last stack when he saw that he had left one lying a little further back in the shadows.
Julius looked at it dubiously and scratched his head. He didn't like the idea of going so far back in the dark, away from the light, but there was no help for it. The guard stood with his musket scowling:
"Get a move on you—damn you, don't stand there!" he growled.
Julius walled his eyes at his tormentor and ran for the body. It happened to be the sleeping form of a tired guard who had been up three nights. The negro grabbed his legs and rushed toward the lights and the trenches.