Round about in the stifling1 thicket2 a score of men were doing so. Lieutenant3 Quinn stood by, and at his side Sergeant4 Jim seemed to have just come among us. The place was pathless; only in two directions could one see farther than a few yards. Through one narrow opening came an intolerable glare of sunlight from a broad sheet of gliding5 water, while by another break in the motionless foliage7 could be seen in milder light, filling nearly the whole northern view, the tawny8 flood of the Mississippi. A stretch of the farther shore was open fields lying very low and hidden by a levee.
As we noiselessly fell into line, counting off in a whisper and rubbing from ourselves and our tortured horses the flies we were forbidden to slap, I noticed rising from close under that farther levee and some two miles upstream, a small cloud of dust coming rapidly down the hidden levee road. It seemed to be raised entirely9 by one or two vehicles. Behind us our own main shore was wholly concealed10 by this mass of cottonwoods on the sands between it and the stream, on a spit of which we stood ambushed12. On the water, a hundred and fifty yards or so from the jungle, pointed13 obliquely14 across the vast current, was a large skiff with six men in it. Four were rowing with all their power, a fifth sat in the bow and the other in the stern. Quinn, in the saddle, watched through his glass the cottonwoods from which the skiff had emerged at the bottom of a sheltered bay. Now he shifted his gaze to the little whirl of dust across the river, and now he turned to smile at Jim, but his eye lighted on me instead. I risked a knowing look and motioned with my lips, "Just in time!"
"No," he murmured, "they're late; we've been waiting for them."
The sergeant's low order broke the platoon into column by file, Quinn rode toward its head with his blade drawn15, and as he passed me he handed me his glass. "Here, you with no carbine, stay and watch that boat till I send for you. If there's firing, look sharp to see if any one there is hit, and who, and how hard. Watch the boat, nothing else."
He moved straight landward through the cottonwoods, followed by the men in single file, but halted them while the rear was still discernible in the green tangle16. Presently they unslung carbines, and I distinctly heard galloping17. It was not far beyond the cottonwoods. The Yankees were after us. Suddenly it ceased. Over yonder, shoreward in the thicket, came a sharp command and then a second, and then, right on the front of the jungle, at the water's edge, the shots began to puff18 and crack, and the yellow river out here around the boat to spit!--spit!--in wicked white splashes. Every second their number grew. Behind me Quinn and his men stole away. But orders are orders and I had no choice but to watch the boat. The man in the stern had his back to me, and no face among the other five did I know. They were fast getting away, but the splashes came thick and close and presently one ball found its mark. The man at the stern hurriedly changed places with an oarsman; and as the relieved rower took his new seat he turned slowly upon his face as if in mortal pain, and I saw that the fresh hand at the oar19 was the brother of Major Harper. Just as I made the discovery "Boom!" said my small dust-cloud across the river, and "hurry-hurry-hurry-hurry-hurry-hurry-hurry--" like a train on a trestle-work--"boom!"--a shell left its gray track in the still air over the skiff and burst in the tops of the cottonwoods. The green thicket grew pale with the bomb's white smoke, yet "crack! crack!" and "spit! spit!" persisted the blue-coats' rifles. "Boom!" said again the field-piece on yonder side the water. Its shell came rattling20 through the air to burst on this side, out of the flashing and cracking of rifles and the sulphurous bomb smoke arose cries of men getting mangled21, and I whimpered and gnawed22 my lips for joy, and I watched the boat, but no second shot came aboard, and--"Boom!--hurry-hurry-hurry- hurry"--ah! the frightful23 skill of it! A third shell tore the cottonwoods, its smoke slowly broadened out, a Federal bugle24 beyond the thicket sounded the Rally, and the cracking of carbines ceased.
Now Major Harper's brother passes a word to the man at the boat's bow, whereupon this man springs up and a Confederate officer's braids flash on his sleeve as he waves to the western shore to cease firing. I still watch the boat, but I listen behind me. I hear voices of command, the Federal sergeants25 hurrying the troop out of the jungle and back to their horses. Then there comes a single voice, the commander's evidently; but before it can cease it is swallowed up in a low thunder of hoofs26 and then in a burst of cries and cheers which themselves the next moment are drowned in a rattle27 of carbine and pistol shots--Ferry is down on them out of hiding. Thick and silent above the din6 rises the dust of the turmoil28, and out of all the hubbub29 under it I can single out the voice of the Federal captain yelling curses and orders at his panic-stricken men. And now the mêlée rolls southward, the crackle of shots grows less and then more again, and then all at once comes the crash of Quinn's platoon out of ambush11, their cheer, their charge, the crackle of pistols again, and then another cheer and charge--what is that! Ferry re-formed and down on them afresh? No, it was the hard-used but gallant30 foe31 cutting their way out and getting off after all.
The skiff was touching32 the farther shore and the three oarsmen lifting their stricken comrade out and bearing him to the top of the levee, when Kendall came to recall me. On our way back he told me of the fight, beginning with the results: none of our own men killed outright33, but four badly wounded and already started eastward34 in the ambulance left us by the Major's brother; some others more slightly hurt. My questions were headlong and his answers quiet; he was a slow-spoken daredevil; I wish he came more than he does into this story.
Not slow-spoken did we find the command when we reached the road where they were falling into line. After a brief but vain pursuit, here were almost the haste and tumult35 of the onset36; the sweat of it still reeked37 on everyone; the ground was strewn with its wreckage38 and its brute39 and human dead, and the pools of their blood were still warm. Squarely across the middle of the road, begrimed with dust, and with a dead Federal under him and another on top, lay the big white-footed pacer. At one side the enemy's fallen wounded were being laid in the shade to be left behind. In our ranks, here was a man with an arm in a bloody40 handkerchief, there one with his head so bound, and yonder a young fellow jesting wildly while he let his garments be cut and a flesh-wound in his side be rudely stanched41. Here there was laughter at one who had been saved by his belt-buckle, and here at one who had dropped like dead from his horse, but had caught another horse and charged on. But these details imply a delay where in fact there was none; the moment Ferry spied me he asked "Did he get across?" and while I answered he motioned me into the line. Then he changed it into a column, commanded silence, and led us across country eastward. For those few wounded who would not give up their places in the ranks it was a weary ten miles that brought us swiftly back to a point within five miles of that Clifton which we had left in the morning. And yet a lovely ten miles it was, withal. You would hardly have known this tousled crowd for the same dandy crew that had smiled so flippantly upon me at sunrise, though they smiled as flippantly now with faces powder-blackened, hair and eyelashes matted and gummed with sweat and dust, and shoulders and thighs42 caked with grime. Yet to Ned Ferry as well as to me--I saw it in his eye every time he looked at them--these grimy fellows did more to beautify those ten miles than did June woods beflowered and perfumed with magnolia, bay and muscadine, or than slant43 sunlight in glade44 or grove45.
In a stretch of timber where we broke ranks for a short rest, unbitting but not unsaddling, a lot of fellows pressed me to tell them about the boat on the river. "You heard what was in it, didn't you?" asked one nearly as young as I.
"Besides the men? No. Same that was in the ambulance, I suppose; what was it?"
"Don't you know? Oh, I remember, you were asleep when Quinn told us. Well, sir,"--he tried to speak calmly but he had to speak somehow or explode--"it was soldiers' pay--for Dick Taylor's army, over in the Trans-Mississippi; a million and a half dollars!" He was as proud to tell the news as he would have been to own the money.
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1
stifling
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| a.令人窒息的 | |
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thicket
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| n.灌木丛，树林 | |
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lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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gliding
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| v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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din
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| n.喧闹声，嘈杂声 | |
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foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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tawny
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| adj.茶色的，黄褐色的；n.黄褐色 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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ambush
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| n.埋伏(地点)；伏兵；v.埋伏；伏击 | |
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ambushed
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| v.埋伏( ambush的过去式和过去分词 )；埋伏着 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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obliquely
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| adv.斜； 倾斜； 间接； 不光明正大 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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galloping
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| adj. 飞驰的, 急性的 动词gallop的现在分词形式 | |
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puff
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| n.一口(气)；一阵(风)；v.喷气，喘气 | |
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oar
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| n.桨，橹，划手；v.划行 | |
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rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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mangled
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| vt.乱砍（mangle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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gnawed
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| 咬( gnaw的过去式和过去分词 )； （长时间） 折磨某人； （使）苦恼； （长时间）危害某事物 | |
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frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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bugle
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| n.军号，号角，喇叭；v.吹号，吹号召集 | |
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sergeants
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| 警官( sergeant的名词复数 )； （美国警察）警佐； （英国警察）巡佐； 陆军（或空军）中士 | |
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hoofs
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| n.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 ) | |
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rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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turmoil
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| n.骚乱，混乱，动乱 | |
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hubbub
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| n.嘈杂；骚乱 | |
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gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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foe
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| n.敌人，仇敌 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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outright
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| adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的 | |
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eastward
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| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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onset
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| n.进攻，袭击，开始，突然开始 | |
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reeked
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| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的过去式和过去分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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wreckage
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| n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏 | |
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brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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40
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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41
stanched
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| v.使（伤口）止血( stanch的过去式 )；止（血）；使不漏；使不流失 | |
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42
thighs
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| n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿 | |
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43
slant
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| v.倾斜，倾向性地编写或报道；n.斜面，倾向 | |
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44
glade
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| n.林间空地，一片表面有草的沼泽低地 | |
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grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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