“Young kettle-drums, he don’t love his vittles,” observed a trooper, picking up the cap that had been jerked from his head by a whirring fragment.
“Rich feedin’ is the sp’ilin’ o’ this here hoss band,” added the farrier, stanching the flow of blood from his scalp; “quit quar’lin’ with your rations, kettle-drums!”
“Y’orter swaller them cinders,” insisted another; “they don’t cost nothin’!”
The band, accustomed to chaffing, prepared to retire to the ambulance, where heretofore their fate had always left them among luggage, surgeons, and scared camp niggers during an engagement.
The Rhode Island battery, placed just north of the church, had opened; the cavalry in the meadow could see them—see the whirl of smoke, the cannoneers moving with quick precision amidst obscurity—the flash, the recoil as gun after gun jumped back, buried in smoke.
It lasted only a few minutes; no more shells came whistling down among the cavalry; and presently the battery grew silent, and the steaming hill, belted with vapor, cleared slowly in the breezy sunshine.
The cavalry had mounted and leisurely filed off to the shelter of a grassy hollow; the band, dismounted, were drawn up to be told off in squads as stretcher-bearers; the bandmaster was sauntering past, buried in meditation, his sabre trailing a furrow through the dust, when a clatter of hoofs broke out along the village street, and a general officer, followed by a plunging knot of horsemen, tore up and drew bridle.
The colonel of the cavalry regiment, followed by the chief trumpeter, trotted out to meet them, saluting sharply; there was a quick exchange of words; the general officer waved his hand toward the south, wheeled his horse, hesitated, and pointed at the band.
“How many sabres?” he asked.
“Twenty-seven,” replied the colonel—“no carbines.”