They told her that Berkley had gone up the hill toward the firing line.
On the windy hill-top, hub deep in dry, dead grass, a section of a battery was in action, the violent light from the discharges lashing out through the rushing vapours which the wind flattened and drove, back into the hollow below so that the cannoneers seemed to be wading waist deep in fog.
The sick and wounded on their cots and stretchers were coughing and gasping in the hot mist; the partly erected tents had become full of it. And now the air in the hollow grew more suffocating as fragments of burning powder and wadding set the dead grass afire, and the thick, strangling blue smoke spread over everything.
Surgeons and assistants were working like beavers to house their patients; every now and then a bullet darted into the vale with an evil buzz, rewounding, sometimes killing, the crippled. To add to the complication and confusion, more wounded arrived from the firing line above and beyond to the westward; horses began to fall where they stood harnessed to the caissons; a fine, powerful gun-team galloping back to refill its chests suddenly reared straight up into annihilation, enveloped in the volcanic horror of a shell, so near that Ailsa, standing below in a clump of willows, saw the flash and smoke of the cataclysm and the flying disintegration of dark objects scattering through the smoke.
Far away on the hillside an artilleryman, making a funnel of his hands, shouted for stretchers; and Ailsa, repeating the call, managed to gather together half a dozen overworked bearers and start with them up through the smoke.
Deafened, blinded, her senses almost reeling under the nerve-shattering crash of the guns, she toiled on through the dry grass, pausing at the edge of charred spaces to beat out the low flames that leaped toward her skirts.
There was a leafy hollow ahead, filled with slender, willow-trees, many of them broken off, shot, torn, twisted, and splintered. Dead soldiers lay about under the smoke, their dirty shirts or naked skin visible between jacket and belt; to the left on a sparsely wooded elevation, the slope of which was scarred, showing dry red sand and gravel, a gun stood, firing obliquely across the gully into the woods. Long, wavering, irregular rings of smoke shot out, remaining intact and floating like the rings from a smoker\'s pipe, until another rush and blast of flame scattered them.
The other gun had been dismounted and lay on its side, one wheel in the air, helpless, like some monster sprawling with limbs stiffened in death. Behind it, crouched close, squatted some infantry soldiers, firing from the cover of the wreckage. Behind every tree, every stump, every inequality, lay infantry, dead, wounded, or alive and cautiously firing. Several took advantage of the fallen battery horses for shelter. Only one horse of that gun-team remained alive, and the gunners had lashed the prolonge to the trail of the overturned cannon and to the poor horse\'s collar, and were trying to drag the piece away with the hope of righting it.
This manoeuvre dislodged the group of infantry soldiers who had taken shelter there, and, on all fours, they began crawling and worming and scuffling about among the dead leaves, seeking another shelter from the pelting hail of lead.
There was nothing to be seen beyond the willow gully except smoke, set grotesquely with phantom trees, through which the enemy\'s fusillade sparkled and winked like a long level line of fire-flies in the mist.
The stretcher bearers crept about gathering up the wounded who called to them out of the smoke. Ailsa, on her knees, made her way toward a big cavalryman whose right leg was gone at the thigh.
She did what she could, called for a stretcher, then, crouching close under the bank of raw earth, set her canteen to his blackened lips and held it for him.
"Don\'t be discouraged," she said quietly, "they\'ll bring another stretcher in a few moments. I\'ll stay here close beside you until they come."
The cavalryman was dying; she saw it; he knew it. And his swollen lips moved.
"Don\'t waste time with me," he managed to say.
"Then—will you lie very still and not move?"
"Yes; only don\'t let the horse step on me."
She drew her little note-book and pencil from the pocket of her gown and gently lowered her head until one ear was close to his lips.
"What is your name and regiment?"
His voice became suddenly clear.
"John Casson—Egerton\'s Dragoons. . . . Mrs. Henry Casson, Islip, Long Island. My mother is a widow; I don\'t—think she—can—stand——"
Then he died—went out abruptly into eternity.
Beside him, in the grass, lay a zouave watching everything with great hollow eyes. His body was only a mass of bloody rags; he had been shot all to pieces, yet the bleeding heap was breathing, and the big sunken eyes patiently watched Ailsa\'s canteen until she encountered his unwinking gaze. But the first swallow he took killed him, horribly; and Ailsa, her arms drenched with blood, shrank back and crouched shuddering under the roots of a shattered tree, her consciousness almost deserting her in the roaring and jarring and splintering around her. She saw more stretcher bearers in the smoke, stooping, edging their way—unarmed heroes of many a field who fell unnoted, died unrecorded on the rolls of glory.
A lieutenant of artillery, powder-blackened, but jaunty, called down to her from the bank above:
"Look out, little lady. We\'re going to try to limber up, and we don\'t want to drop six horses and a perfectly good gun on top of you!"
Somebody seized her arm and dragged her across the leaves; and she struggled to her knees, to her feet, turned, and started to run.
"This way," said Berkley\'s voice in her ear; and his hand closed on hers.
"Phil—help me—I don\'t know where I am!"
"I do. Run this way, under the crest of the hill. . . . Dr. Connor told me that you had climbed up here. This isn\'t your place! Are you stark mad?"
They ran on westward, panting, sheltered by the grassy crest behind which soldiers lay firing over the top of the grass—long lines of them, belly flattened to the slope, dusty blue trousers hitched up showing naked ankles and big feet pendant. Behind them, swords drawn, stood or walked their officers, quietly encouraging them or coolly turning to look at Ailsa and Berkley as they hurried past.
In a vast tobacco field to their left, just beyond a wide cleft in the hills, a brigade of cavalry was continually changing station to avoid shell fire. The swallow-tailed national flags, the yellow guidons with their crossed sabres, the blue State colours, streamed above their shifting squadrons as they trotted hither and thither with the leisurely precision of a peaceful field day; but here and there from the trampled earth some fallen horse raised its head in agony; here and there the plain was dotted with dark heaps that never stirred.
The wailing flight of bullets streamed steadily overhead, but, as they descended, the whistling, rushing sound grew higher and fainter. They could see, on the plain where the cavalry was manoeuvring, the shells bursting in fountains of dirt, the ominous shrapnel cloud floating daintily above.
Far away through the grassy cleft, on wooded hillsides, delicately blue, they could see the puff of white smoke shoot out from among the trees where the Confederate batteries were planted, then hear the noise of the coming shell rushing nearer, quavering, whistling into a long-drawn howl as it raced through the gray clouds overhead.
While he guided her among the cedars at the base of the hill, one arm around her body to sustain her, he quietly but seriously berated her for her excursion to the firing line, telling her there was no need of it, no occasion for anybody except the bearers there; that Dr. Connor was furious at her and had said aloud that she had little common-sense.
Ailsa coloured painfully, but there was little spirit left in her, and she walked thankfully and humbly along beside him, resting her cheek, against his shoulder.
"Don\'t scold me; I really feel half sick, Phil. . . . From where did you come?" she added timidly.
"From the foot bridge. They wanted a guard set there. I found half a dozen wounded men who could handle a musket. Lord, but the rebels came close to us that time! When we heard those bullets they were charging the entire line of our works. I understand that we\'ve driven them all along the line. It must be so, judging from the sound of the firing."
"Did our hospital burn?"
"Only part of one wing. They\'re beginning to move back the wounded already. . . . Now, dear, will you please remain with your superiors and obey orders?" he added as they came out along the banks of the little stream and saw the endless procession of stretchers recrossing the foot bridge to the left.
"Yes. . . . I didn\'t know. I saw part of a battery blown up; and a soldier stood on the hill and shouted for stretchers. There was nobody e............