The Drummer Boy Part 34

"Forgive me, Frank!"

"For what?" said Frank, cheerily.

"For writing home lies about you."

"They were not all lies, I'm sorry to say, Jack. But even if they were, I forgive you from my very soul."

Jack groaned, and said no more. a.s.sistants now came to meet them, and Frank, who was almost exhausted with the fatigue of bringing his comrade so far, was relieved of the burden. The road was near, and Jack was soon laid upon a stretcher.

"Frank!" he gasped, rolling his eyes again, "don't leave me! For G.o.d's sake, stay by me, Frank!"

So Frank kept by his side, while the men bore him along the road to a tree, where the surgeon had hung up his red flag, and established his hospital.

Ellis had just undergone the amputation of his mangled hand, without once flinching under the surgeon's knife, and he remained on the spot to encourage Winch.

"If I die," began Jack, stirring himself more than he had been observed to do before. "Frank, do you hear me?"

"What is it, Jack?" asked the sympathizing boy.

"If I die, don't let me be buried on this miserable island!"

"But you are not going to die," said the surgeon, kindly, cutting away the clothes from his neck.

Mr. Sinjin a.s.sisted, while Frank anxiously awaited the result of the examination. The surgeon looked puzzled. There was blood, but not any fresh blood--and no wound! Not so much as a scratch of the skin.

Jack in the mean time was groaning dismally.

"What are you making that noise for?" exclaimed the surgeon, sharply.

"There isn't a hurt about you!"

"Ain't I shot?" cried Jack, starting up, as much astonished as any body; for he had really believed he was a dead man. "I was. .h.i.t, I know! and I swooned away."

"You swooned from fright, then," declared the indignant surgeon. "Take the fellow away!"

Jack, however, gratified as he was to learn he was not killed, testily insisted that a bullet had pa.s.sed through him, adducing the blood on his face as a proof.

Thereupon Ellis broke into a laugh.

"It takes Jack to make capital out of a little borrowed blood. I know something about that. When my hand was ploughed through, I slapped it against his face; and down he went, fainting dead away." And, notwithstanding the ache of his wound and his weakness, and the scenes of horror thickening around, Ned leaned back against the tree, and laughed merrily at what he called Jack's "awful big scare."

Frank felt immensely relieved, at first, on learning that Jack was not killed; then immensely amused; and, lastly, immensely disgusted. He remembered the severe struggle it cost to bring him out of the swamp, the rolled-up eyes, the lugubrious groans, and the faintly murmured dying request to be forgiven. And in the revulsion of his feelings he could not help saying, "Yes, Jack, I forgive ye! and if you die, you shan't be buried on this miserable island."

He was excited when he uttered this taunt, and he was sorry for it afterwards. Seeing the craven slink away, conscious of the scorn of every body, he felt a touch of pity for him.

"Jack," said he, with friendly intent, "why don't you go back and wipe out this disgrace? _I_ would."

"Because," snarled Jack, goaded by his own shame and the general contempt, "I'm hurt, I tell ye! _internally_, I s'pose,"--for he had heard Mr. Sinjin use the word, and thought it a good one to suit his case. And he lay down wretchedly by the roadside, and counterfeited anguish, while the fresh troops marched by to the battle.

A fiery impulse seized the drummer boy. He glanced at his torn sleeve, from which the badge had been shot away, and thought there was something besides accident in what appeared so much like an omen. If it meant any thing, was it not that his place was elsewhere than in the ambulance corps?

He turned to Mr. Sinjin, and asked to be excused from going with the stretcher. And Mr. Sinjin, who prized the boy's safety too highly to wish to see him go again under fire, was only too glad to excuse him, never once suspecting what wild purpose was in his heart.

The battle was now fairly begun. The rebel battery had opened. The continual rattle of musketry and the thunder of heavy cannon shook the island. The regiments in line in front of the cleared s.p.a.ce before the battery, returned the fire with energy, and the marine howitzers also responded. Soon a sh.e.l.l from the enemy's work came flying through the woods with a hum, which increased to a howl, and burst with a startling explosion within a few rods of the hospital. n.o.body was hurt; but the incident had a very marked effect on Jack Winch. He got better at once, and moved to the rear with an alacrity surprisingly in contrast with his recent helplessness.

XXIX.

HOW FRANK GOT NEWS OF HIS BROTHER.

Frank was already moving off quite as rapidly, but in the opposite direction. He plunged once more into the swamp, and returned to the spot where Jack had fallen. The battle was raging beyond; the troops had pa.s.sed on; the ground was deserted. But there lay Winch's gun; with his cartridge-box beside it. Near by was Ellis's piece, abandoned where it had fallen. There, too, lay the red badge which had been shot from Frank's arm. He picked it up, thinking his mother would like to have him preserve it.

Then he slipped on the cartridge-box, and took up Winch's gun; for this was the resolution which inspired him--to a.s.sume the poltroon's place in the company, and by his own conduct to atone for the disgrace he had brought upon it.

But the gun-stock was, as has been said, shattered; and Frank could not have the satisfaction of revenging himself and his comrades for Winch's cowardice with Winch's own gun. So he threw it down, and took up Ellis's, which he found ready loaded and primed.

While he was examining the piece, he remembered the shots which he had taken for spent b.a.l.l.s, and bethought him to look around the woods in the direction from which they had come. Raising his eyes above the undergrowth, he beheld a singular phenomenon.

At first, he thought it was a wild animal--a c.o.o.n, or a wildcat, coming down a tree. Then there were two wildcats, descending together, or preparing to descend. Then the wildcats became two human legs clasped around the trunk, and two human arms appeared enjoying an equally close hug above them. The body to which these visible members appertained was itself invisible, being on the farther side of the trunk.

"That's the chap that was shooting at us!" was Frank's instantaneous conviction.

And now he could plainly discern an object slung across the man's back, as his movements swung it around a little to one side. It was the sharpshooter's rifle.

Frank was so excited that he felt himself trembling--not with fear, but with the very ardor of his ambition.

"Since he has had two shots at me, why shouldn't I have as much as one at him?"

To disable and bring in the rebel who had shot the badge from his arm--what a triumph!

But he was not in a good position for an effective shot, even if he could have made up his mind to fire at a person who, though without doubt an enemy, was not at the moment defending himself. It seemed, after all, too dreadful a thing deliberately to kill a man.

Frank's excitement did not embarra.s.s his faculties in the least, but only rendered them all the more keenly alive and vigilant. It took him but a moment to decide what to do. Through the swamp he ran with a lightness and ability of which in calmer moments he would have been scarcely capable. The exigency of the occasion inspired him. Such leaps he took over miry places! so safely and swiftly be ran the length of an old mossy log! so nimbly he avoided the undergrowth! and so suddenly he arrived at last at the tree the rebel was descending!

For he was a rebel indeed. Frank knew that by his gray uniform and short jacket. He had been perched in the thick top of a tall pine to pick off our men during the skirmish. It was he who had taken the bark from the tree near Captain Edney's head. It was he who had basely thought to a.s.sa.s.sinate those who were carrying away the wounded. And now, the advancing troops having pa.s.sed him, he was taking advantage of the solitary situation to slip down the trunk and make his escape through the woods.

Unfortunately for him, he could not go up and down trees like a squirrel.

He proceeded _hugging_ his way so slowly and laboriously that Frank reached the spot when he was still within a dozen feet of the ground.

Hearing a noise, and looking down over his arm, and seeing Frank, he would have jumped the remainder of the distance. But Frank was prepared for that.

"Stop, or I'll fire!"

Shrill and menacing rang the boy's determined tones through the soul of the treed rebel. He saw the gun pointed up at him; so he stopped.

"What's wanting?" said he, gruffly.