My lady of the South. Randall Parrish

      Left Wounded on the Field

      CHAPTER I

       Table of Contents

      LEFT WOUNDED ON THE FIELD

      I now recall our part in the battle merely in a series of detached pictures, having dull, blank spaces between. Nevertheless, how vividly bright with color each separate scene photographed itself upon the retina of the eye. I remember our battery first going into action along the western edge of the old cemetery, among the billowy graves, the cracked overturned stones; I recall the mass of green leaves, checkered by red blossoms, where the vine clambered over the large monument at one rear and how I entangled my foot in the creepers and nearly fell. I shall never forget the ghastly white face of Rosecran's side, his long brown beard blown backward by force of the wind, as he came furiously spurring up the road, his head bare, his hand pointing forward, screaming out his orders; I remember the wild clang and turmoil as our startled horses plunged to the left, dragging after them the black guns, with muzzles still smoking grimly, on a mad, reckless gallop down into the shelter of a shallow ravine splashing through the running water, and dashing in headlong impetuosity up the sharp incline of the ​opposite bank. I heard the wild yells of the excited drivers, the blows, the crunching of heavy wheels over the stones; I saw the leap of the caissons, the rush of the men. Panting for breath, stumbling over the rough ground, I raced beside Number Two for the crest, vaguely wondering why Wyatt was lashing his leaders so like a demon. I saw Somers go tumbling forward in a shapeless heap, and one of the straining wheelers on Number One drop dead in the traces, dragged remorselessly onward by his team-mates. Yet I was there, my hands hard on the spokes, sluing the heavy guns into position, the very instant the released caissons were trotted to the rear down the protecting slope. Then it instantly became all clockwork, mechanism, discipline. I could scarcely distinguish faces or even forms; all was rush, riot, seeming confusion; yet I knew it must be Keane to right of me and Parkhurst at left. A sharp order hurtled into my numbed brain, and I echoed it automatically even as I heaved, the hot perspiration blinding my eyes, the mad lust of the fight throbbing through my veins. With one bound backwards I was at the breech, the slim muzzle deflected downward into the valley. I marked the vague figure of a man, unrecognizable, spring hastily back from the mouth of the gun, crouching down, rammer in hand; over that deadly smooth barrel I caught one glimpse of low tangled bushes, of drifting smoke clouds, of a solid gray mass breaking through, of sunlight shimmering along a front of levelled steel—then I jerked the lanyard, and mingled smoke and flame burst forth. All that followed was pandemonium, rush, roar, leaping, shapeless figures. I could ​perceive nothing clearly; all I remember was that we were firing canister, the deflected guns leaping madly back with the recoil, growing hot to the hand. I trod on bodies as I toiled; I heard through the