And when the column reached this point the six guns, aimed by old and skilful gunners, at a given word swept road and mountain-side with a storm of leaden hail.It was a fire no mortal man could stand up against, and the practised gunners rammed their pieces full again, and before the smoke had cleared or the reverberation had died away among the mountains, had fired the guns again and yet again.
The road was cleared of living things when the draught setting down the river drew the smoke away; but it was no discredit to the other force;for no army that was ever uniformed could stand against that battery in that pass.Again and again the attempt was made to get a body of men up under cover of the woods and rocks on the mountain-side, while the guns below utilized their better ammunition from longer range; but it was useless.
Although one of the lieutenants and several men were killed in the skirmish, and a number more were wounded, though not severely, the old battery commanded the mountain-side, and its skilful gunners swept it at every point the foot of man could scale.The sun went down flinging his last flame on a victorious battery still crowning the mountain pass.
The dead were buried by night in a corner of the little plateau, borne to their last bivouac on the old gun-carriages which they had stood by so often -- which the men said would "sort of ease their minds."The next day the fight was renewed, and with the same result.
The old battery in its position was unconquerable.Only one fear now faced them; their ammunition was getting as low as their rations;another such day or half-day would exhaust it.A sergeant was sent back down the mountain to try to get more, or, if not, to get tidings.
The next day it was supposed the fight would be renewed; and the men waited, alert, eager, vigilant, their spirits high, their appetite for victory whetted by success.The men were at their breakfast, or what went for breakfast, scanty at all times, now doubly so, hardly deserving the title of a meal, so poor and small were the portions of cornmeal, cooked in their frying-pans, which went for their rations, when the sound of artillery below broke on the quiet air.They were on their feet in an instant and at the guns, crowding upon the breastwork to look or to listen; for the road, as far as could be seen down the mountain, was empty except for their own picket, and lay as quiet as if sleeping in the balmy air.And yet volley after volley of artillery came rolling up the mountain.What could it mean? That the rest of their force had come up and was engaged with that at the foot of the mountain?
The Colonel decided to be ready to go and help them; to fall on the enemy in the rear; perhaps they might capture the entire force.
It seemed the natural thing to do, and the guns were limbered up in an incredibly short time, and a roadway made through the intrenchment, the men working like beavers under the excitement.Before they had left the redoubt, however, the vedettes sent out returned and reported that there was no engagement going on, and the firing below seemed to be only practising.There was quite a stir in the camp below;but they had not even broken camp.This was mysterious.Perhaps it meant that they had received reinforcements, but it was a queer way of showing it.
The old Colonel sighed as he thought of the good ammunition they could throw away down there, and of his empty limber-chests.
It was necessary to be on the alert, however; the guns were run back into their old places, and the horses picketed once more back among the trees.
Meantime he sent another messenger back, this time a courier, for he had but one commissioned officer left, and the picket below was strengthened.
The morning passed and no one came; the day wore on and still no advance was made by the force below.It was suggested that the enemy had left;he had, at least, gotten enough of that battery.A reconnoissance, however, showed that he was still encamped at the foot of the mountain.
It was conjectured that he was trying to find a way around to take them in the rear, or to cross the ridge by the footpath.
Preparation was made to guard more closely the mountain-path across the spur, and a detachment was sent up to strengthen the picket there.
The waiting told on the men and they grew bored and restless.
They gathered about the guns in groups and talked; talked of each piece some, but not with the old spirit and vim; the loneliness of the mountain seemed to oppress them; the mountains stretching up so brown and gray on one side of them, and so brown and gray on the other, with their bare, dark forests soughing from time to time as the wind swept up the pass.
The minds of the men seemed to go back to the time when they were not so alone, but were part of a great and busy army, and some of them fell to talking of the past, and the battles they had figured in, and of the comrades they had lost.They told them off in a slow and colorless way, as if it were all part of the past as much as the dead they named.One hundred and nineteen times they had been in action.
Only seventeen men were left of the eighty odd who had first enlisted in the battery, and of these four were at home crippled for life.
Two of the oldest men had been among the half-dozen who had fallen in the skirmish just the day before.It looked tolerably hard to be killed that way after passing for four years through such battles as they had been in; and both had wives and children at home, too, and not a cent to leave them to their names.They agreed calmly that they'd have to "sort of look after them a little" if they ever got home.
