“Our men can’t get on another inch,” he ventured to say to his commander. “Wouldn’t it be well for me to ride up and say a cheering word?”
“Every battle consists largely in waiting,” replied Waldron thoughtfully. “They have undoubtedly brought up a reserve to face Thomas. But when Gahogan strikes the flank of the reserve, we shall win.”
“I wish you would take shelter,” begged Fitz Hugh. “Everything depends on your life.”
“My life has been both a help and a hurt to my fellow-creatures,” sighed the brigade commander. “Let come what will to it.”
He glanced upward with an expression of profound emotion; he was evidently fighting two battles, an outward and an inward one.
Presently he added, “I think the musketry is increasing on the left. Does it strike you so?”
He was all eagerness again, leaning forward with an air of earnest listening, his face deeply flushed and his eye brilliant. Of a sudden the combat above rose and swelled into higher violence. There was a clamor far away—it seemed nearly a mile away—over the hill. Then the nearer musketry, first Thomas’ on the shoulder of the ridge, next Gildersleeve’s in front, caught fire and raged with new fury.
Waldron laughed outright. “Gahogan has reached them,” he said to one of his staff who had just rejoined him. “We shall all be up there in five minutes. Tell Colburn to bring on his regiment slowly.”
Then, turning to Fitz Hugh, he added, “Captain, we will ride forward.”
They set off at a walk, now watching the smoking brow of the eminence, now picking their way among dead and wounded. Suddenly there was a shout above them and a sudden diminution of the firing; and looking upward, they saw the men of the Fourteenth running confusedly toward the summit. Without a word the brigade commander struck spurs into his horse and dashed up the long slope at a run, closely followed by his enemy and aid. What they saw when they overtook the straggling, running, panting, screaming pell-mell of the Fourteenth was victory!