The heat, the sound in front, all things, made Coffin fretful. He rose from the fence corner. "Throw that stick away, or I'll put you in the guardhouse! This ain't Thunder Run—and you men have got to learn a thing or two! Come now!"
"I won't," said Billy. "An' if 't were Thunder Run, you wouldn't dar'—"
Allan Gold drew himself over the grass and touched the boy's arm. "Look here, Billy! We're going into battle in a minute, and you want to be there, don't you? The lieutenant's right—that oak tree surely will get in your way! Let's see how far you can throw it. There's plenty more saplings in the woods!"
"Let him alone, Gold," said the lieutenant sharply. "Do as I order you, Billy Maydew!"
Billy rose, eighteen years old, and six feet tall. "If it's jest the same to you, lieutenant," he said politely, "I'll break it into bits first. Thar are time when I jest hone to feel my hands on somethin' brittle!" He put the thick sapling across his knee like a sword, broke it in twain, broke in their turn the two halves, and tossed the four pieces over the fence. "Thar, now! It's did." Moving back to Allan's side, he threw himself down upon the grass. "When's this hell-fired fightin' goin' to begin? I don't ask anything better, jest at this minute, than to encounter a rattler!"
The sound ahead swelled suddenly into loud and continuous firing. Apparently Evans had met the turning column. Fall in, men, fall in!
The First Brigade rose to its feet, left the friendly fence, and found itself upon a stretch of road, in a dust cloud that neatly capped all previous ills. At some distance rose the low hill, covered, upon this side, by a second growth of pines. "That's the Henry Hill," said the guide with the 65th. "The house just this side is the Lewis house—'Portici,' they call it. The top of the hill is a kind of plateau, with deep gulleys across it. Nearly in the middle is the Widow Henry's house, and beyond it the house of the free negro Robinson. Chinn's house is on the other side, near Chinn's Branch. It's called the Henry Hill, and Mrs. Henry is old and bedridden. I don't know what she'll do, anyway! The hill's most level on top, as I said, but beyond the Henry House it falls right down, quite steep, to the Warrenton turnpike. Across that there's marshy ground, and Young's Branch, with the Stone House upon it, and beyond the branch there's Mathews Hill, just around the branch. Yes, sir, this back side's wooded, but you see the cleared ground when you get on top."
A bowshot from the wood, the head of the column was met by a second courier, a boy from the Alabama River, riding like Jehu, pale with excitement. "When you get to the top of the hill you'll see! They're thicker than bees from a sweet gum—they're thicker than bolls in a cotton-field! They've got three thousand Regulars, and fifteen thousand of the other kind, and they're cutting Evans to pieces!" He pulled himself together and saluted. "General Bee's compliments to General Jackson, and he is going into action."
"General Jackson's compliments, and I will support him."
The 65th entered the wood. The trees were small—bundles of hard, bright green needles aloft on slender trunks, out of which, in the strong sunshine, resin was oozing. They were set well apart, the grass beneath dry and slippery, strewn with cones. The sky was intensely blue, the air hot and without moisture, the scent of the pines strong in the nostril. Another step and the 65th came upon the wounded of Evans's brigade. An invisible line joined with suddenness the early morning picture, the torn and dying mule, the headless driver, to this. Breathless, heated, excited, the 65th swept on, yet it felt the cold air from the cavern. It had, of course, seen accidents, men injured in various ways, but never had it viewed so many, nor so much blood, and never before had it rushed past the helpless and the agonizing. There were surgeons and ambulances—there seemed to be a table of planks on which the worst cases were laid—the sufferers had help, of course, a little help. A Creole from Bayou Têche lay writhing, shot through the stomach, beneath a pine. He was raving. "Mélanie, Mélanie, donnez-moi de l'eau! Mélanie, Mélanie! donnez-moi de l'eau!"