Stafford looked behind him, then down again. "Do what? Quick! They're coming."
The hand would not relax its clasp, but its fellow fumbled at the grey jacket. "It's my letter. They won't know if they don't get it. My side hurts, but it don't hurt like knowing they won't know ... that I was sorry." The face worked. "It's here but I can't—Please get it—"
"You must let me go," said Stafford, and tried to unclasp the hand. "Stay any longer and I will be killed or taken."
The hand closed desperately, both hands now. "For God's sake! I don't believe you've got so hard a heart. Take it and stamp it and mail it. If they don't know they'll never understand and I'll die knowing they'll never understand. For God's sake!"
Stafford knelt beside him, opened the grey jacket, and took out the letter. Blood was upon it, but the address was legible. "Die easy. I'll stamp and mail it. I will send a word with it, too, if you like."
A light came into the boy's face. "Tell them that I was like the prodigal son, but that I'm going home—I'm going home—"
The arms fell, the breast ceased to heave, the head drew backward. Death came and stamped the light upon the face. Before Stafford could get to his feet, the blue wave had plunged into the trough. He remembered using his pistol, and he remembered a dizziness of being borne backward. He remembered that a phrase had gone through his mind "the instability of all material things." Then came a blank. He did not assume that he had lost consciousness, but simply he could not remember. He had been wrecked in a turbulent, hostile ocean. It had made him and others captives, and now they were together at a place which he remembered was called the Roulette House. An hour might have passed, two hours; he really could not tell. There were a number of prisoners, most of them badly wounded. They lay in the back yard of the place, on the steps of out-houses, with blue soldiers for guards. A surgeon came through the yard, and helped a little the more agonizedly hurt. He glanced at Stafford's star and sash, came across and offered to bind up the cut across his forehead. "An awful field," he said. "This war is getting horrible. You're a Virginian, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"Used to know a lot of Virginia doctors. Liked them first rate! Now we are enemies, and it seems to me a pity. Guess it's as Shakespeare says, 'What fools these mortals be!' I know war's getting to seem to me an awful foolishness. That cornfield out there is sickening—Now! that bleeding's stopped—"
On the left, around and before the Dunkard church, the very fury of the storm brought about at last a sudden failing, a stillness and cessation that seemed like those of death. Sound enough there was undoubtedly, and in the centre the battle yet roared, but by comparison there seemed a dark and sultry calm. Far and near lay the fallen. It was now noon, and since dawn twelve thousand men had been killed or wounded on this left, attacked by Fighting Joe Hooker, held by Stonewall Jackson. Fifteen general officers were dead or disabled. Hardly a brigade, not many regiments, were officered as they had been when the sun rose. There was an exhaustion. Franklin had entered on the field, and one might have thought that the grey would yet be overpowered. But all the blue forces were broken, disorganized; there came an exhaustion, a lassitude. McClellan sent an order forbidding another attack. Cornfield and wood lay heavy, hot, and dark, and by comparison, still.