“Yes.”
A few moments later the staff galloped off and the escort clattered behind, minus two troopers, who sat on the edge of the veranda in their blue-and-yellow shell jackets, carbines slung, poking at the grass with the edges of their battered steel scabbards.
The Special Messenger came out presently, and the two troopers rose to salute. All around her thundered the guns; sky and earth were trembling as she led the way through an orchard heavy with green fruit. A volunteer nurse was gathering the hard little apples for cooking; she turned, her apron full, as the Special Messenger passed, and the two women, both young, looked at one another through the sunshine—looked, and turned away, each to her appointed destiny.
Smoke, drifting back from the batteries, became thicker beyond the orchard. Not very far away the ruddy sparkle of exploding Confederate shells lighted the obscurity. Farther beyond the flames of the Union guns danced red through the cannon gloom.
Higher on the hill, however, the air became clearer; a man outlined in the void was swinging signal flags against the sky.
“Wait here,” said the Special Messenger to Troopers Burke and Campbell, and they unslung carbines, and leaned quietly against their feeding horses, watching her climb the crest.
The crest was bathed in early sunlight, an aërial island jutting up above a smoky sea. From the terrible, veiled maelstrom roaring below, battle thunder reverberated and the lightning of the guns flared incessantly.
For a moment, poised, she looked down into the inferno, striving to penetrate the hollow, then glanced out beyond, over fields and woods where sunlight patched the world beyond the edges of the dark pall.
Behind her Captain West, field glasses leveled, seemed to be intent upon his own business.
She sat down on the grassy acclivity. Below her, far below, Confederate shells were constantly striking the base of the hill. A mile away black squares checkered a slope; beyond the squares a wood was suddenly belted with smoke, and behind her she heard the swinging signal flags begin to whistle and snap in the hill wind. She had sat there a long while before Captain West spoke to her, standing tall and thin beside her; some half-serious, half-humorous pleasantry—nothing for her to answer. But she looked up into his face, and he became silent, and after a while he moved away.