"Better stay here, and not go wanderin" off into that mob," remonstrated Shorty. "You"ll git lost entirely, and never find your way back."{85}
"I"ll not get lost," responded Si. "I"ve got the lay o" the ground in my mind. If I did," he continued proudly, "it"d be easy to find you agin.
Everybody knows where the 200th Ind. is."
He went only a little ways, and carefully, at first.
He was rewarded by kicking against an object which upon examination proved to be a well-filled haver sack, which someone had flung away in his hurry. He carried it back, rejoicing, to Shorty.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FINDING A GOOD THING 85]
"Finders is keepers," said Shorty, unbuckling the knapsack. "We"ll just call this fair exchange for what we"ve throwed away in to-day"s hustle.
Let"s open her up."
"Some new recruit"s," said Si, as they examined the inside. "Looks like the one I packed from Injianny. What"s this? I declare if it ain"t a pair o" new shoes, and about my size; and some socks. I tell you, Shorty, I"m in luck."
He pulled the muddy socks off his shoeless foot, and drew on one of the warm, homemade affairs, and then the shoe. Both fitted well. He put on the other sock and shoe, and life at once seemed brighter.
"Shorty," said he, "I shouldn"t wonder if I could find a blanket and an overcoat. You keep on holding that hole down, and I"ll go out agin.
I won"t be gone long, for I"m dead tired. Just as soon as I find an overcoat or a blanket to put between us and the mud, I"ll come back and we"ll lay down. Every joint in me aches."
He started off less carefully this time. His new shoes made him feel more like walking. He was some distance from the regiment before he knew it. He found an overcoat. It had been trampled into the mud by thousands of pa.s.sing feet, but still it was an overcoat, and it was not a time to be too nice about the condition of a garment. Presently he found a blanket in similar condition. He pulled on the overcoat, and threw the blanket over his {87}shoulders. He felt warmer, but they were very heavy. Still, he thought he would go on a little ways farther, and perhaps he would find another overcoat and blanket, which would fix out both him and his partner.
All this time men were sweeping by him in companies, regiments and squads; batteries were moving in all directions, and mounted officers were making their way to and fro. Filling up the s.p.a.ces between these were hundreds of men, single and in small groups, wandering about in search of their regiments, and inquiring of everyone who would stop to listen to them as to the whereabouts of regiments, brigades and divisions. No one could give any satisfactory information. Organizations which had formed a line two miles long in the morning had been driven back, frequently in tumult and disorder, for miles through the thickets and woods. Fragmentary organizations had been rallied from time to time.
A fragment of a regiment would rally at one point with fragments of other regiments and make a stand, while other regiments would rally at widely-separated places and renew the fight, only to be pushed back again toward the Nashville Pike. Regiments and brigades that had remained nearly intact had been rapidly shifted from one point to another, as they were needed, until the mind could not follow their changes, or where nightfall had found them, or whither they had been shifted to form the new line.
At last Si succeeded in picking up another over coat and blanket out of the mud, and started to go back to the regiment.{88}
But where was the regiment? He had long since lost all track of its direction. He had been so intent upon studying the ground for thrown-away clothing that he had not noticed the course he had taken.
It suddenly dawned on him that he was but one drop in that great ocean of 35,000 men, surging around on the square miles lying between the Nashville Pike and Stone River. He looked about, but could see nothing to guide him. His eyes rested everywhere on dark ma.s.ses of moving men.
Those immediately around him were inquiring weariedly for their own regiments; they had no patience to answer inquiries as to his own.
Discouraged, he determined to walk as straight ahead as possible in the direction which he had come, and see where that would bring him. He was so tired that he could scarcely drag one foot after another, but he plodded on. At length he drew out of the throng a little, and saw that he was approaching the banks of a large stream. This disheartened him, for they had not been within miles of Stone River during the day. He saw a group of men huddled around a larger fire than had been permitted near the front. This, too, was discouraging, for it showed that he had been forging toward the rear. But he went up to the group and inquired:
"Do any o" you know where the 200th Ind. is?"
The men had become wearied out answering similar questions, and were as cross as soldiers get to be under similar circ.u.mstances.
"The 200th Ind.," snapped one; "better go back to the rear-guard and inquire. The straggler-ketchers "ve got "em."{89}
"No," said another; "they skipped out before the rear-guard was formed, and were all drowned trying to swim the c.u.mberland."
"They say the Colonel went on foot," said a third, "and was the first man in the regiment to reach Nashville. Made the best long-distance run on record."
"You infernal liars," roared Si; "if I wasn"t so tired I"d lick the whole caboodle of you. But I"ll say this: Any man who says that the 200th Ind. run, or that our brave Colonel run, or that any man in it run, is a low-down, measly liar, and hain"t a grain a" truth in him, and he daresn"t take it up."
It was a comprehensive challenge, that would have met with instantaneous response at any other time, but now the men were too exhausted for such vanities as fisticuffs.
"O, go off and find your rattled, lousy Hoosiers," they shouted in chorus. "Go talk to the Provost-Marshal about "em. He"s got the most of "em. The rest are breaking for the Wabash as fast as their legs can carry them. Don"t be bothering us about that corn-cracking, agery crowd."
"Where"d you leave your regiment, you chuckle-headed straggler?"
"You were so rattled you couldn"t tell which way they went."
"Where"s your gun?"
"Where"s your cartridge-box and haversack?"
"Where"s your cap?"
"You were so scared you"d "a" throwed away your head if it"d been loose!"
"Clear out from here, you dead-beat."{90}
[Ill.u.s.tration: SI"S CHALLENGE 90]
Si was too sick at heart to more than resolve that he would remember each one of them, and pay them off at some more convenient time. He turned and walked back as nearly as possible in the direction in which he had come. He knew that his regiment was at the front, and he had been forging toward the rear. He knew vaguely that the front was some where near the Nashville Pike, and as he wearily wound around and through the bewildering ma.s.ses, he inquired only for the Nashville Pike.
He reached the Pike, at last, just as he was sinking with fatigue. The dreary rain had set in again, and he had determined to give the thing up, and sit down, and wait for morning. He saw a feeble glimmer of light at a distance, and decided to make one more effort to reach it, and inquire for his regiment.
"Partner, have you any idee where the 200th Ind. is?" he said meekly to the man who was crouching over the fire in the hole.
"h.e.l.lo, Si," said Shorty. "I had given you up long ago. Of course, you went off and got lost in that mob, as I told you you would. Next time you"ll have sense enough to mind what I say."
"O, Shorty," groaned Si, "don"t say nothing. I"ve nigh walked my legs offen me. I think I"ve tramped over every foot of ground betwixt here and Overall"s Crick. But I"ve brought back two overcoats and two blankets."
"That"s bully," answered Shorty, much mollified. "Say, I"ve got an idee.
D"you see that white thing over there? That"s a wagon. The mules "ve been taken away, and it"s been standing there for an hour. I"ve seen the Lieutenants and the Orderly-Sergeant sneak back there, and I know what they"re up to. They"re goin" to sleep in the wagon. Of course, they"re officers, and got the first pick. But we kin{92} lay down under it, and get out of the rain. Be sides, it looks as if the ground was drier up there than it is down here."
They slipped quietly back to the wagon, and were lucky enough to find a little hay in the feed-box, which they could lay down to spread their blankets upon. They pulled the tail-gate off and set it up on the side from which the rain was coming.
"There," said Shorty, as they crawled in. "Si, what"d you do without me?
Ain"t I a comfort to you every minute of your life?"
"You certainly are, Shorty," said Si, as he fell asleep.
CHAPTER VIII. A GLOOMY NEW YEAR"S DAY
THE TWO ARMIES LIE FROWNING AT EACH OTHER.
SI WAS awakened the next morning by the rain dashing down squarely on his upturned face. He was lying on the flat of his back, sleeping the sleep of the utterly outworn, and he got the full force of the shower.
"Plague take it, Shorty," said he, kicking his snoring partner, "you"re at your old tricks again scrougin" me out o" the tent while I"m asleep.
Why can"t you lay still, like a white man?"
"It"s you, dod rot you," grumbled Shorty, half-awakening. "You"re at your old tricks o" kickin" the tent down. You need a 10-acre lot to sleep in, and then you"d damage the fence-corners."