Part 10

The old Sergeant motioned toward the valley below, and Crittenden opened his lips to explain, but just then the sudden impression came to him that some one had struck him from behind with the butt of a musket, and he tried to wheel around--his face amazed and wondering. Then he dropped. He wondered, too, why he couldn't get around, and then he wondered how it was that he happened to be falling to the earth. Darkness came then, and through it ran one bitter thought--he had been shot in the back. He did think of his mother and of Judith--but it was a fleeting vision of both, and his main thought was a dull wonder whether there would be anybody to explain how it was that his wound was not in front. And then, as he felt himself lifted, it flashed that he would at least be found on top of the hill, and beyond the Spaniard's trench, and he saw Blackford's face above him. Then he was dropped heavily to the ground again and Blackford pitched across his body. There was one glimpse of Abe Long's anxious face above him, another vision of Judith, and then quiet, painless darkness.

* * * * *

It was fiercer firing now than ever. The Spaniards were in the second line of trenches and were making a sortie. Under the hill sat Grafton and another correspondent while the storm of bullets swept over them. Grafton was without glasses--a Mauser had furrowed the skin on the bridge of his nose, breaking his spectacle-frame so that one glass dropped on one side of his nose and the other on the other. The other man had several narrow squeaks, as he called them, and, even as they sat, a bullet cut a leaf over his head and it dropped between the pages of his note-book. He closed the book and looked up.

"Thanks," he said. "That's just what I want--I'll keep that."

"I observe," said Grafton, "that the way one of these infernal bullets sounds depends entirely on where you happen to be when you hear it. When a sharpshooter has picked you out and is plugging at you, they are intelligent and vindictive. Coming through that bottom, they were for all the world like a lot of nasty little insects. And listen to 'em now." The other man listened. "Hear 'em as they pass over and go out of hearing. That is for all the world like the last long note of a meadow lark's song when you hear him afar off and at sunset. But I notice that simile didn't occur to me until I got under the lee of this hill." He looked around. "This hill will be famous, I suppose. Let's go up higher." They went up higher, passing a crowd of skulkers, or men in reserve--Grafton could not tell which--and as they went by a soldier said:

"Well, if I didn't have to be here, I be damned if I wouldn't like to see anybody get me here. What them fellers come fer, I can't see."

The firing was still hot when the two men got up to the danger line, and there they lay down. A wounded man lay at Grafton's elbow. Once his throat rattled and Grafton turned curiously.

"That's the death-rattle," he said to himself, and he had never heard a death-rattle before. The poor fellow's throat rattled again, and again Grafton turned.

"I never knew before," he said to himself, "that a dying man's throat rattled but once." Then it flashed on him with horror that he should have so little feeling, and he knew it at once as the curious callousness that comes quickly to toughen the heart for the sights of war. A man killed in battle was not an ordinary dead man at all--he stirred no sensation at all--no more than a dead animal. Already he had heard officers remarking calmly to one another, and apparently without feeling:

"Well, So and So was killed to-day." And he looked back to the disembarkation, when the army was simply in a hurry. Two negro troopers were drowned trying to get off on the little pier. They were fished up; a rope was tied about the neck of each, and they were lashed to the pier and left to be beaten against the wooden pillars by the waves for four hours before four comrades came and took them out and buried them. Such was the dreadful callousness that sweeps through the human heart when war begins, and he was under its influence himself, and long afterward he remembered with shame his idle and half-scientific and useless curiosity about the wounded man at his elbow. As he turned his head, the soldier gave a long, deep, peaceful sigh, as though he had gone to sleep. With pity now Grafton turned to him--and he had gone to sleep, but it was his last sleep.

"Look," said the other man. Grafton looked upward. Along the trenches, and under a hot fire, moved little Jerry Carter, with figure bent, hands clasped behind him--with the manner, for all the world, of a deacon in a country graveyard looking for inscriptions on tombstones.

Now and then a bullet would have a hoarse sound--that meant that it had ricochetted. At intervals of three or four minutes a huge, old-fashioned projectile would labour through the air, visible all the time, and crash harmlessly into the woods. The Americans called it the "long yellow feller," and sometimes a negro trooper would turn and with a yell shoot at it as it passed over. A little way off, a squad of the Tenth Cavalry was digging a trench--close to the top of the hill. Now and then one would duck--particularly the one on the end. He had his tongue in the corner of his mouth, was twirling his pick over his shoulder like a railroad hand, and grunting with every stroke. Grafton could hear him.

"Foh Gawd (huh!) never thought (huh!) I'd git to love (huh!) a pick befoh!" Grafton broke into a laugh.

"You see the charge?"

"Part of it."

"That tall fellow with the blue handkerchief around his throat, bare-headed, long hair?"

"Well--" the other man stopped for a moment. His eye had caught sight of a figure on the ground--on the top of the trench, and with the profile of his face between him and the afterglow, and his tone changed--"there he is!"

Grafton pressed closer. "What, that the fellow?" There was the handkerchief, the head was bare, the hair long and dark. The man's eyes were closed, but he was breathing. Below them at that moment they heard the surgeon say:

"Up there." And two hospital men, with a litter, came toward them and took up the body. As they passed, Grafton recoiled.

"Good God!" It was Crittenden.

And, sitting on the edge of the trench, with Sharpe lying with his face on his arm a few feet away, and the tall Cuban outstretched beside him, and the dead Spaniards, Americans, and Cubans about them, Grafton told the story of Crittenden. And at the end the other man gave a low whistle and smote the back of one hand into the palm of the other softly.

Dusk fell quickly. The full moon rose. The stars came out, and under them, at the foot of the big mountains, a red fire burned sharply out in the mist rising over captured Caney, from which tireless Chaffee was already starting his worn-out soldiers on an all-night march by the rear and to the trenches at San Juan. And along the stormed hill-side camp-fires were glowing out where the lucky soldiers who had rations to cook were cheerily frying bacon and hardtack. Grafton moved down to watch one squad and, as he stood on the edge of the firelight, wondering at the cheery talk and joking laughter, somebody behind him said sharply:

"Watch out, there," and he turned to find himself on the edge of a grave which a detail was digging not ten yards away from the fire--digging for a dead comrade. Never had he seen a more peaceful moonlit night than the night that closed over the battlefield. It was hard for him to realize that the day had not been a terrible dream, and yet, as the moon rose, its rich light, he knew, was stealing into the guerilla-haunted jungles, stealing through guava-bush and mango-tree, down through clumps of Spanish bayonet, on stiff figures that would rise no more; on white, set faces with the peace of painless death upon them or the agony of silent torture, fought out under fierce heat and in the silence of the jungle alone.

Looking toward Caney he could even see the hill from which he had witnessed the flight of the first shell that had been the storm centre of the hurricane of death that had swept all through the white, cloudless day. It burst harmlessly--that shell--and meant no more than a signal to fire to the soldiers closing in on Caney, the Cubans lurking around a block-house at a safe artillery distance in the woods and to the impatient battery before San Juan. Retrospectively now, it meant the death-knell of brave men, the quick cry and long groaning of the wounded, the pained breathing of sick and fever-stricken, the quickened heart-beats of the waiting and anxious at home--the low sobbing of the women to whom fatal news came. It meant Cervera's gallant dash, Sampson and Schley's great victory, the fall of Santiago; freedom for Cuba, a quieter sleep for the _Maine_ dead, and peace with Spain. Once more, as he rose, he looked at the dark woods, the dead-haunted jungles which the moon was draping with a more than mortal beauty, and he knew that in them, as in the long grass of the orchard-like valley below him, comrade was looking for dead comrade. And among the searchers was the faithful Bob, looking for his Old Captain, Crittenden, his honest heart nigh to bursting, for already he had found Raincrow torn with a shell and he had borne a body back to the horror-haunted little hospital under the creek bank at the Bloody Ford--a body from which the head hung over his shoulder--limp, with a bullet-hole through the neck--the body of his Young Captain, Basil.

XII

Grafton sat, sobered and saddened, where he was awhile. The moon swung upward white and peaceful, toward mild-eyed stars. Crickets chirped in the grass around him, and nature's low night-music started in the wood and the valley below, as though the earth had never known the hell of fire and human passion that had rocked it through that day. Was there so much difference between the creatures of the earth and the creatures of his own proud estate? Had they not both been on the same brute level that day? And, save for the wounded and the men who had comrades wounded and dead, were not the unharmed as careless, almost as indifferent as cricket and tree-toad to the tragedies of their sphere? Had there been any inner change in any man who had fought that day that was not for the worse? Would he himself get normal again, he wondered? Was there one sensitive soul who fully realized the horror of that day? If so, he would better have been at home. The one fact that stood above every thought that had come to him that day was the utter, the startling insignificance of death. Could that mean much more than a startlingly sudden lowering of the estimate put upon human life? Across the hollow behind him and from a tall palm over the Spanish trenches, rose, loud and clear, the night-song of a mocking-bird. Over there the little men in blue were toiling, toiling, toiling at their trenches; and along the crest of the hill the big men in blue were toiling, toiling, toiling at theirs. All through the night anxious eyes would be strained for Chaffee, and at dawn the slaughter would begin again. Wherever he looked, he could see with his mind's eye stark faces in the long grass of the valley and the Spanish-bayonet clumps in the woods. All day he had seen them there--dying of thirst, bleeding to death--alone. As he went down the hill, lights were moving along the creek bed. A row of muffled dead lay along the bed of the creek. Yet they were still bringing in dead and wounded--a dead officer with his will and a letter to his wife clasped in his hand. He had lived long enough to write them. Hollow-eyed surgeons were moving here and there. Up the bank of the creek, a voice rose:

"Come on, boys"--appealingly--"you're not going back on me. Come on, you cursed cowards! Good! Good! I take it back, boys. _Now_ we've got 'em!"

Another voice: "Kill me, somebody--kill me. For God's sake, kill me. Won't somebody give me a pistol? God--God...."

Once Grafton started into a tent. On the first cot lay a handsome boy, with a white, frank face and a bullet hole through his neck, and he recognized the dashing little fellow whom he had seen splashing through the Bloody Ford at a gallop, dropping from his horse at a barbed-wire fence, and dashing on afoot with the Rough Riders. The face bore a strong likeness to the face he had seen on the hill--of the Kentuckian, Crittenden--the Kentucky regular, as Grafton always mentally characterized him--and he wondered if the boy were not the brother of whom he had heard. The lad was still alive--but how could he live with that wound in his throat? Grafton's eyes filled with tears: it was horror--horror--all horror.

Here and there along the shadowed road lay a lifeless mule or horse or a dead man. It was curious, but a man killed in battle was not like an ordinary dead man--he was no more than he was--a lump of clay. It was more curious still that one's pity seemed less acute for man than for horse: it was the man's choice to take the risk--the horse had no choice.

Here and there by the roadside was a grave. Comrades had halted there long enough to save a comrade from the birds of prey. Every now and then he would meet a pack-train loaded with ammunition and ration boxes; or a wagon drawn by six mules and driven by a swearing, fearless, tireless teamster. The forest was ringing with the noise of wheels, the creaking of harness, the shouts of teamsters and the guards with them and the officer in charge--all on the way to the working beavers on top of the conquered hill.

Going the other way were the poor wounded, on foot, in little groups of slowly moving twos and threes, and in jolting, springless army wagons--on their way of torture to more torture in the rear. His heart bled for them. And the way those men took their suffering! Sometimes the jolting wagons were too much for human endurance, and soldiers would pray for the driver, when he stopped, not to start again. In one ambulance that he overtook, a man groaned. "Grit your teeth," said another, an old Irish sergeant, sternly--"Grit your teeth; there's others that's hurt worse'n you." The Sergeant lifted his head, and a bandage showed that he was shot through the face, and Grafton heard not another sound. But it was the slightly hurt--the men shot in the leg or arm--who made the most noise. He had seen three men brought into the hospital from San Juan. The surgeon took the one who was groaning. He had a mere scratch on one leg. Another was dressed, and while the third sat silently on a stool, still another was attended, and another, before the surgeon turned to the man who was so patiently awaiting his turn.

"Where are you hurt?"

The man pointed to his left side.

"Through?"

"Yes, sir."

That day he had seen a soldier stagger out from the firing-line with half his face shot away and go staggering to the rear without aid. On the way he met a mounted staff officer, and he raised his hand to his hatless, bleeding forehead, in a stern salute and, without a gesture for aid, staggered on. The officer's eyes filled with tears.

"Lieutenant," said a trooper, just after the charge on the trenches, "I think I'm wounded."

"Can you get to the rear without help?"

"I think I can, sir," and he started. After twenty paces he pitched forward--dead. His wound was through the heart.

At the divisional hospital were more lights, tents, surgeons, stripped figures on the tables under the lights; rows of figures in darkness outside the tents; and rows of muffled shapes behind; the smell of anæsthetics and cleansing fluids; heavy breathing, heavy groaning, and an occasional curse on the night air.

Beyond him was a stretch of moonlit road and coming toward him was a soldier, his arm in a sling, and staggering weakly from side to side. With a start of pure gladness he saw that it was Crittenden, and he advanced with his hand outstretched.

"Are you badly hurt?"

"Oh, no," said Crittenden, pointing to his hand and arm, but not mentioning the bullet through his chest.

"Oh, but I'm glad. I thought you were gone sure when I saw you laid out on the hill."

"Oh, I am all right," he said, and his manner was as courteous as though he had been in a drawing-room; but, in spite of his nonchalance, Grafton saw him stagger when he moved off.

"I say, you oughtn't to be walking," he called. "Let me help you," but Crittenden waved him off.

"Oh, I'm all right," he repeated, and then he stopped. "Do you know where the hospital is?"

"God!" said Grafton softly, and he ran back and put his arm around the soldier--Crittenden laughing weakly:

"I missed it somehow."

"Yes, it's back here," said Grafton gently, and he saw now that the soldier's eyes were dazed and that he breathed heavily and leaned on him, laughing and apologizing now and then with a curious shame at his weakness. As they turned from the road at the hospital entrance, Crittenden dropped to the ground.

"Thank you, but I'm afraid I'll have to rest a little while now. I'm all right now--don't bother--don't--bother. I'm all right. I feel kind o' sleepy--somehow--very kind--thank--" and he closed his eyes. A surgeon was passing and Grafton called him.

"He's all right," said the surgeon, with a swift look, adding shortly, "but he must take his turn."

Grafton passed on--sick. On along the muddy road--through more pack-trains, wagons, shouts, creakings, cursings. On through the beautiful moonlight night and through the beautiful tropical forest, under tall cocoanut and taller palm; on past the one long grave of the Rough Riders--along the battle-line of the first little fight--through the ghastly, many-coloured masses of hideous land-crabs shuffling sidewise into the cactus and shuffling on with an unearthly rustling of dead twig and fallen leaf: along the crest of the foothills and down to the little town of Siboney, lighted, bustling with preparation for the wounded in the tents; bustling at the beach with the unloading of rations, the transports moving here and there far out on the moonlighted sea. Down there were straggler, wounded soldier, teamster, mule-packer, refugee Cuban, correspondent, nurse, doctor, surgeon--the flotsam and jetsam of the battle of the day.

* * * * *

The moon rose.

"Water! water! water!"

Crittenden could not move. He could see the lights in the tents; the half-naked figures stretched on tables; and doctors with bloody arms about them--cutting and bandaging--one with his hands inside a man's stomach, working and kneading the bowels as though they were dough. Now and then four negro troopers would appear with something in a blanket, would walk around the tent where there was a long trench, and, standing at the head of this, two would lift up their ends of the blanket and the other two would let go, and a shapeless shape would drop into the trench. Up and down near by strolled two young Lieutenants, smoking cigarettes--calmly, carelessly. He could see all this, but that was all right; that was all right! Everything was all right except that long, black shape in the shadow near him gasping:

"Water! water! water!"

He could not stand that hoarse, rasping whisper much longer. His canteen he had clung to--the regular had taught him that--and he tried again to move. A thousand needles shot through him--every one, it seemed, passing through a nerve-centre and back the same path again. He heard his own teeth crunch as he had often heard the teeth of a drunken man crunch, and then he became unconscious. When he came to, the man was still muttering; but this time it was a woman's name, and Crittenden lay still. Good God!

"Judith--Judith--Judith!" each time more faintly still. There were other Judiths in the world, but the voice--he knew the voice--somewhere he had heard it. The moon was coming; it had crossed the other man's feet and was creeping up his twisted body. It would reach his face in time, and, if he could keep from fainting again, he would see.

"Water! water! water!"

Why did not some one answer? Crittenden called and called and called; but he could little more than whisper. The man would die and be thrown into that trench; or _he_ might, and never know! He raised himself on one elbow again and dragged his quivering body after it; he clinched his teeth; he could hear them crunching again; he was near him now; he would not faint; and then the blood gushed from his mouth and he felt the darkness coming again, and again he heard:

"Judith--Judith!"

Then there were footsteps near him and a voice--a careless voice:

"He's gone."

He felt himself caught, and turned over; a hand was put to his heart for a moment and the same voice:

"Bring in that other man; no use fooling with this one."

When the light came back to him again, he turned his head feebly. The shape was still there, but the moonlight had risen to the dead man's breast and glittered on the edge of something that was clinched in his right hand. It was a miniature, and Crittenden stared at it--unwinking--stared and stared while it slowly came into the strong, white light. It looked like the face of Judith. It wasn't, of course, but he dragged himself slowly, slowly closer. It was Judith--Judith as he had known her years ago. He must see now; he _must_ see _now_, and he dragged himself on and up until his eyes bent over the dead man's face. He fell back then, and painfully edged himself away, shuddering.

"Blackford! Judith! Blackford!"

He was face to face with the man he had longed so many years to see; he was face to face at last with him--dead.

As he lay there, his mood changed and softened and a curious pity filled him through and through. And presently he reached out with his left hand and closed the dead man's eyes and drew his right arm to his side, and with his left foot he straightened the dead man's right leg. The face was in clear view presently--the handsome, dare-devil face--strangely shorn of its evil lines now by the master-sculptor of the spirit--Death. Peace was come to the face now; peace to the turbulent spirit; peace to the man whose heart was pure and whose blood was tainted; who had lived ever in the light of a baleful star. He had loved, and he had been faithful to the end; and such a fate might have been his--as justly--God knew.

Footsteps approached again and Crittenden turned his head.

"Why, he isn't dead!"