Edward Cary found beside him a man from another regiment, a small, slight fellow, young and simple. A shock of wheat gave both a moment's protection. "Hot work!" said Edward, with his fine camaraderie. "You made a beautiful charge. We almost thought you would take them."
The other looked at him vacantly. "I added up figures in the old warehouse," he said, in a high, thin voice. "I added up figures in the old warehouse, and when I went home at night I used to read plays. I added up figures in the old warehouse—Don't you remember Hotspur? I always liked him, and that part—
| 'To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon; Or dive into the bottom of the deep—'" |
He stood up. Edward rose to his knees and put out a hand to draw him down. "It's enough to make you crazy, I'll confess—but you mustn't stand up like that!"
The downward drawing hand was too late. There were blue sharpshooters in a wood in front. A ball entered the clerk's breast and he sank down behind the wheat. "I added up figures in the old warehouse," he again told Cary, "and when I went home at night I read plays—"
The figure stiffened in Edward's grasp. He laid it down, and from behind the wheat shock watched a grey battery in process of being knocked to pieces. It had arrived in this quarter of the field in a wild gallop, and with a happy insouciance had unlimbered and run up the guns back of a little crest topped with sumach, taking pains meanwhile to assure the infantry that now it was safe. The infantry had grinned. "Like you first-rate, artillery! Willing to bet on the gunners, but the guns are a leetle small and few. Don't know that we feel so awful safe!"
The grey began. Four shells flew up the long slope and burst among the iron rows that made a great triple crown for Malvern Hill. The grey gunners cheered, and the appreciative infantry cheered, and the first began to reload while the second, flat in scrub and behind the wheat, condescended to praise. "Artillery does just about as well as can be expected! Awful old-fashioned arm—but well-meaning.... Look out—look ... Eeehhh!"
The iron crown that had been blazing toward other points of the compass now blazed toward this. Adversity came to the insouciant grey battery, adversity quickening to disaster. The first thunder blast thickened to a howling storm of shrapnel, grape, and canister.
At the first gun gunner No. 1, ramming home a charge, was blown into fragments; at the second the arm holding the sponge staff was severed from gunner No. 3's shoulder. A great shell, bursting directly over the third, killed two men and horribly mangled others; the carriage of the fourth was crushed and set on fire. This in the beginning of the storm; as it swelled, total destruction threatened from the murk. The captain went up and down. "Try it a little longer, men. Try it a little longer, men. We've got to make up in quality, you know. We've got to make up in quality, you know. Marse Robert's looking—I see him over there! Try it a little longer—try it a little longer."
An aide arrived. "For God's sake, take what you've got left away! Yes, it's an order. Your being massacred won't help. Look out—Look—"