Then the General put down his cup, went over and glanced at the man. He stepped back quickly and hastily drained the tin cup: “Nasty fix, Solomon—sorry—but we’ll do what we can for him. When did you see him last?”
“Nurver seed him befo’—but thar’s hund’erds of ’em—all our brothers, ’specially when we’ve shot ’em an’ they’re helpless an’ dyin’.”
The General winced and turned quickly to the fire. The staff went after another drink. Solomon’s eye fell on the mess table—the supper set forth and waiting; then Solomon fell on the supper. Between mouthfuls he growled out:
“You fellers orter be ashamed o’ yerselves to shoot a man’s innards out like that. I found him three miles beyant the mount’in whar you-uns fit thar this mornin’ an’ I fetch’t him over on my back.”
That reminded him. He picked up some hardtack and bacon and started toward the groaning man. Then he stopped, disappointed: “Whut’s the use—he’s got no whur to put it. You-uns done shot his innards out. The fust lickin’ Dad gin me was fur shootin’ a b’ar in ther innards.”
He sat down again and ate everything in sight. The General and staff got busy at something else. Solomon gave the dying man another drink and began looking around like a huge bear-dog for a spot to roll up on, and sleep. He found it in the General’s blanket, his huge feet sticking out, bunion covered and black. They thought he was asleep and coming quietly back one by one, sat down, and were eating in silence when a shock of hair blurred up out of the blanket:
“Say, Mister-men, but ain’t war hell sho’ nuff? But tell the boys not to shoot ther Innards out—’taint fair.” Then he slept.
The General waited till he heard him snoring: “Major, if you happen to lose him to-morrow in the first skirmish—really, I don’t think we need him, Major?” The Major was sure they did not—so were the others.
They made the dying man as comfortable as they could, the General sparing his own warm rain-coat for the limbs now rapidly chilling. But his groans kept them awake: “Water—water—oh, God—water and death—kill me, somebody!”
The cry fell out of the silence with the starlight, mingling strangely with the shivering wail of a screech owl—so uncannily mingling that they seemed as one.