The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce — Volume 2: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians

HOW TO SAY WHAT IS WORTH HEARING

The enemy, defeated in two days of battle at Pittsburg Landing, had sullenly retired to Corinth, whence he had come.  For manifest incompetence Grant, whose beaten army had been saved from destruction and capture by Buell’s soldierly activity and skill, had been relieved of his command, which nevertheless had not been given to Buell, but to Halleck, a man of unproved powers, a theorist, sluggish, irresolute.  Foot by foot his troops, always deployed in line-of-battle to resist the enemy’s bickering skirmishers, always entrenching against the columns that never came, advanced across the thirty miles of forest and swamp toward an antagonist prepared to vanish at contact, like a ghost at cock-crow.  It was a campaign of “excursions and alarums,” of reconnoissances and counter-marches, of cross-purposes and countermanded orders.  For weeks the solemn farce held attention, luring distinguished civilians from fields of political ambition to see what they safely could of the horrors of war.  Among these was our friend the Governor.  At the headquarters of the army and in the camps of the troops from his State he was a familiar figure, attended by the several members of his personal staff, showily horsed, faultlessly betailored and bravely silk-hatted.  Things of charm they were, rich in suggestions of peaceful lands beyond a sea of strife.  The bedraggled soldier looked up from his trench as they passed, leaned upon his spade and audibly damned them to signify his sense of their ornamental irrelevance to the austerities of his trade.

“I think, Governor,” said General Masterson one day, going into informal session atop of his horse and throwing one leg across the pommel of his saddle, his favorite posture—­“I think I would not ride any farther in that direction if I were you.  We’ve nothing out there but a line of skirmishers.  That, I presume, is why I was directed to put these siege guns here:  if the skirmishers are driven in the enemy will die of dejection at being unable to haul them away—­they’re a trifle heavy.”

There is reason to fear that the unstrained quality of this military humor dropped not as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath the civilian’s silk hat.  Anyhow he abated none of his dignity in recognition.

“I understand,” he said, gravely, “that some of my men are out there—­a company of the Tenth, commanded by Captain Armisted.  I should like to meet him if you do not mind.”

“He is worth meeting.  But there’s a bad bit of jungle out there, and I should advise that you leave your horse and”—­with a look at the Governor’s retinue—­“your other impedimenta.”

The Governor went forward alone and on foot.  In a half-hour he had pushed through a tangled undergrowth covering a boggy soil and entered upon firm and more open ground.  Here he found a half-company of infantry lounging behind a line of stacked rifles.  The men wore their accoutrements—­their belts, cartridge-boxes, haversacks and canteens.  Some lying at full length on the dry leaves were fast asleep:  others in small groups gossiped idly of this and that; a few played at cards; none was far from the line of stacked arms.  To the civilian’s eye the scene was one of carelessness, confusion, indifference; a soldier would have observed expectancy and readiness.

At a little distance apart an officer in fatigue uniform, armed, sat on a fallen tree noting the approach of the visitor, to whom a sergeant, rising from one of the groups, now came forward.

“I wish to see Captain Armisted,” said the Governor.

The sergeant eyed him narrowly, saying nothing, pointed to the officer, and taking a rifle from one of the stacks, accompanied him.

“This man wants to see you, sir,” said the sergeant, saluting.  The officer rose.

It would have been a sharp eye that would have recognized him.  His hair, which but a few months before had been brown, was streaked with gray.  His face, tanned by exposure, was seamed as with age.  A long livid scar across the forehead marked the stroke of a sabre; one cheek was drawn and puckered by the work of a bullet.  Only a woman of the loyal North would have thought the man handsome.

“Armisted—­Captain,” said the Governor, extending his hand, “do you not know me?”

“I know you, sir, and I salute you—­as the Governor of my State.”

Lifting his right hand to the level of his eyes he threw it outward and downward.  In the code of military etiquette there is no provision for shaking hands.  That of the civilian was withdrawn.  If he felt either surprise or chagrin his face did not betray it.

“It is the hand that signed your commission,” he said.

“And it is the hand—­”

The sentence remains unfinished.  The sharp report of a rifle came from the front, followed by another and another.  A bullet hissed through the forest and struck a tree near by.  The men sprang from the ground and even before the captain’s high, clear voice was done intoning the command “At-ten-tion!” had fallen into line in rear of the stacked arms.  Again—­and now through the din of a crackling fusillade—­sounded the strong, deliberate sing-song of authority:  “Take… arms!” followed by the rattle of unlocking bayonets.

Bullets from the unseen enemy were now flying thick and fast, though mostly well spent and emitting the humming sound which signified interference by twigs and rotation in the plane of flight.  Two or three of the men in the line were already struck and down.  A few wounded men came limping awkwardly out of the undergrowth from the skirmish line in front; most of them did not pause, but held their way with white faces and set teeth to the rear.

Suddenly there was a deep, jarring report in front, followed by the startling rush of a shell, which passing overhead exploded in the edge of a thicket, setting afire the fallen leaves.  Penetrating the din—­ seeming to float above it like the melody of a soaring bird—­rang the slow, aspirated monotones of the captain’s several commands, without emphasis, without accent, musical and restful as an evensong under the harvest moon.  Familiar with this tranquilizing chant in moments of imminent peril, these raw soldiers of less than a year’s training yielded themselves to the spell, executing its mandates with the composure and precision of veterans.  Even the distinguished civilian behind his tree, hesitating between pride and terror, was accessible to its charm and suasion.  He was conscious of a fortified resolution and ran away only when the skirmishers, under orders to rally on the reserve, came out of the woods like hunted hares and formed on the left of the stiff little line, breathing hard and thankful for the boon of breath.