Ailsa Paige Part 55

"He's a good officer," said the latter indifferently.

"Do you like him?"

"He has-merit."

"Jerusalem!" laughed Wye, "if that isn't a kick in the seat of his pants!"

Berkley reddened. "You're mistaken, Arthur."

"Didn't you tell me at Alexandria that you hated him?"

"I said that-yes. I was disappointed because the Westchester Horse was not attached to John Ca.s.son's regiment... . I don't-dislike Colonel Arran."

Berkley was still red; he lay in the gra.s.s on his stomach, watching the big cloud pile on the horizon.

"You know," said Ca.s.son, "that part of our army stretches as far as that smoke. We're the rear-guard."

"Listen to the guns," said Wye, pretending technical familiarity even at that distance. "They're big fellows-those Dahlgrens and Columbiads--"

"Oh, bos.h.!.+" snapped Ca.s.son, "you can't tell a howitzer from a rocket!"

Wye sat up, thoroughly offended. "To prove your dense ignorance, you yellow-bellied dragoon, let me ask you a simple question: When a sh.e.l.l is fired toward you can you see it coming?"

"Certainly. Didn't we see the big sh.e.l.ls at Yorktown--"

"Wait! When a solid shot is fired, can you see it when it is coming toward you?"

"Certainly--"

"No you can't, you ignoramus! You can see a sh.e.l.l coming or going; you can see a solid shot going-never coming from the enemy's guns. Aw! go soak that bull head of yours and wear a lady-like havelock!"

The bickering discussion became general for a moment, then, still disputing, Ca.s.son and Wye walked off toward camp, and Stephen and Berkley followed.

"Have you heard from your mother?" asked the latter, as they sauntered along over the gra.s.s.

"Yes, twice. Father was worried half to death because she hadn't yet left Paigecourt. Isn't it strange, Phil, that after all we're so near mother's old home? And father was all against her going, I tell you, I'm worried."

"She has probably gone by this time," observed Berkley.

The boy nodded doubtfully; then: "I had a fine letter from Ailsa. She sent me twenty dollars," he added naively, "but our sutler has got it all."

"What did Ailsa say?" asked Berkley casually.

"Oh, she enquired about father and me-and you, too, I believe. Oh, yes; she wanted me to say to you that she was well--and so is that other girl-what's her name?"

"Letty Lynden?"

"Oh, yes-Letty Lynden. They're in a horrible kind of a temporary hospital down on the York River along with the Sisters of Charity; and she said she had just received orders to pack up and start west with the ambulances."

"West?"

"I believe so."

After a silence Berkley said:

"I heard from her yesterday."

"You did!"

"Yes. Unless your father already knows, it might be well to say to him that Ailsa's ambulance train is ordered to rendezvous in the rear of the 5th Provisional Corps head-quarters."

"Our corps!"

"That looks like it, doesn't it? The 5th Provisional Corps is Porter's." He turned and looked back, out across the country.

"She may be somewhere out yonder, at this very moment, Steve." He made a vague gesture toward the west, stood looking for a while, then turned and walked slowly on with head lowered.

"I wish my mother and Ailsa were back in New York," said the boy fretfully. "I don't see why the whole family should get into hot water at the same time."

"It wouldn't surprise me very much if Ailsa's ambulance landed beside your mother's door at Paigecourt," said Berkley. "The head-quarters of the 5th Corps cannot be very far from Paigecourt." At the cavalry lines he offered his hand to Stephen in farewell.

"Good-bye," said the boy. "I wish you the luck of the 6th Lancers. Since Hanover Court-House n.o.body calls 'em 'fresh fish'-just because they charged a few Johnnies with the lance and took a few prisoners and lost thirty horses."

Berkley laughed. "Thanks; and I wish you the luck of the 5th Zouaves. They're into everything, I hear, particularly hen-coops and pigpens. Ca.s.son says they live high in the 5th Zouaves...

Good-bye, old fellow ... will you remember me to your father?"

"I will when he lets me talk to him," grinned Stephen. "We're a disciplined regiment-I found that out right away-and there's nothing soft for me to expect just because my father is colonel and Josiah Lent happens to be major."

The regimental bands played the next day; the distant cannonade had ceased; suns.h.i.+ne fell from a cloudless sky, and the army watched a military balloon, the "Intrepid," high glistening above the river, its cables trailing in gracious curves earthward.

Porter's 5th Corps now formed the rear-guard of the army; entire regiments went on picket, even the two regiments of Lancers took their turn, though not armed for that duty. During the day there had been some unusually brisk firing along the river, near enough to cause regiments that had never been under fire to p.r.i.c.k up a thousand pairs of ears and listen. As the day lengthened toward evening, picket firing became incessant, and the occasional solid report of a cannon from the sh.o.r.e opposite disclosed the presence of Confederate batteries, the nearness of which surprised many an untried soldier.

Toward sundown Berkley saw a business-like cavalry officer ride into camp with an escort of the 5th Regulars. Men around him said that the officer was General Philip St. George Cooke, and that the chances were that the regiments of the reserve were going into action pretty soon.

About 3 o'clock the next morning boots and saddles sounded from the head-quarters of the Cavalry Reserve brigade and the 5th and 6th United States Cavalry, followed by Colonel Rush's Lancers, rode out of their camp grounds and were presently followed by the 1st United States and a squadron of Pennsylvania carbineers.

The troopers of the 8th Lancers watched them ride away in the dawn; but mo orders came to follow them, and, discontented, muttering, they went sullenly about their duties, wondering why they, also, had not been called on.

That n.o.body had caught the great Confederate cavalryman did not console them; they had to listen to the jeers of the infantry, blaming them for Stuart's great raid around the entire Union army; in sickening reiteration came the question: "Who ever saw a dead cavalryman?" And, besides, one morning in a road near camp, some of the 8th Lancers heard comments from a group of general officers which were not at all flattering to their own cavalry.

"You see," said a burly colonel of engineers, "that this army doesn't know what real cavalry looks like-except when it gets a glimpse of Jeb Stuart's command."

An infantry colonel coincided with him, profanely:

"That d.a.m.ned rebel cavalry chases ours with a regularity and persistence that makes me ill. Did the world ever see the like of it? You send out one of our mounted regiments to look for a mounted rebel regiment, and the moment it finds what it's lookin' for the rebs give a pleased sort of yell, and ours turn tail. Because it's become a habit: that's why our cavalry runs! And then the fun begins! Lord G.o.d Almighty! what's the matter with our cavalry?"

"You can't make cavalry in a few months," observed a colonel of heavy artillery, stretching his fat, scarlet-striped legs in his stirrups. "What do you expect? Every man, woman, and child south of Mason and Dixon's Line knows how to ride. The Southerners are born hors.e.m.e.n. We in the North are not. That's the difference. We've got to learn to be. Take a raw soldier and send him forth mounted on an animal with which he has only a most formal acquaintance, and his terrors are increased twofold. When you give him a sabre, pistol, and carbine, to take care of when he has all he can do to take care of himself, those terrors increase in proportion. Then show him the enemy and send him into battle-and what is the result? Skedaddle!

"Don't make any mistake; we haven't any cavalry yet. Some day we will, when our men learn to ride faster than a walk."

"G.o.d!" muttered a brigadier-general under his white moustache; "it's been a bitter pill to swallow-this raid around our entire army by fifteen hundred of Jeb Stuart's riders and two iron guns!"