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

Early on the morning after these events the two men, captor and captive, sat in the tent of the former.  A table was between them on which lay, among a number of letters, official and private, which the captain had written during the night, the incriminating papers found upon the spy.  That gentleman had slept through the night in an adjoining tent, unguarded.  Both, having breakfasted, were now smoking.

“Mr. Brune,” said Captain Hartroy, “you probably do not understand why I recognized you in your disguise, nor how I was aware of your name.”

“I have not sought to learn, Captain,” the prisoner said with quiet dignity.

“Nevertheless I should like you to know—­if the story will not offend.  You will perceive that my knowledge of you goes back to the autumn of 1861.  At that time you were a private in an Ohio regiment—­a brave and trusted soldier.  To the surprise and grief of your officers and comrades you deserted and went over to the enemy.  Soon afterward you were captured in a skirmish, recognized, tried by court-martial and sentenced to be shot.  Awaiting the execution of the sentence you were confined, unfettered, in a freight car standing on a side track of a railway.”

“At Grafton, Virginia,” said Brune, pushing the ashes from his cigar with the little finger of the hand holding it, and without looking up.

“At Grafton, Virginia,” the captain repeated.  “One dark and stormy night a soldier who had just returned from a long, fatiguing march was put on guard over you.  He sat on a cracker box inside the car, near the door, his rifle loaded and the bayonet fixed.  You sat in a corner and his orders were to kill you if you attempted to rise.”

“But if I asked to rise he might call the corporal of the guard.”

“Yes.  As the long silent hours wore away the soldier yielded to the demands of nature:  he himself incurred the death penalty by sleeping at his post of duty.”

“You did.”

“What! you recognize me? you have known me all along?”

The captain had risen and was walking the floor of his tent, visibly excited.  His face was flushed, the gray eyes had lost the cold, pitiless look which they had shown when Brune had seen them over the pistol barrel; they had softened wonderfully.

“I knew you,” said the spy, with his customary tranquillity, “the moment you faced me, demanding my surrender.  In the circumstances it would have been hardly becoming in me to recall these matters.  I am perhaps a traitor, certainly a spy; but I should not wish to seem a suppliant.”

The captain had paused in his walk and was facing his prisoner.  There was a singular huskiness in his voice as he spoke again.

“Mr. Brune, whatever your conscience may permit you to be, you saved my life at what you must have believed the cost of your own.  Until I saw you yesterday when halted by my sentinel I believed you dead—­thought that you had suffered the fate which through my own crime you might easily have escaped.  You had only to step from the car and leave me to take your place before the firing-squad.  You had a divine compassion.  You pitied my fatigue.  You let me sleep, watched over me, and as the time drew near for the relief-guard to come and detect me in my crime, you gently waked me.  Ah, Brune, Brune, that was well done—­that was great—­that—­”

The captain’s voice failed him; the tears were running down his face and sparkled upon his beard and his breast.  Resuming his seat at the table, he buried his face in his arms and sobbed.  All else was silence.

Suddenly the clear warble of a bugle was heard sounding the “assembly.”  The captain started and raised his wet face from his arms; it had turned ghastly pale.  Outside, in the sunlight, were heard the stir of the men falling into line; the voices of the sergeants calling the roll; the tapping of the drummers as they braced their drums.  The captain spoke again: 

“I ought to have confessed my fault in order to relate the story of your magnanimity; it might have procured you a pardon.  A hundred times I resolved to do so, but shame prevented.  Besides, your sentence was just and righteous.  Well, Heaven forgive me!  I said nothing, and my regiment was soon afterward ordered to Tennessee and I never heard about you.”

“It was all right, sir,” said Brune, without visible emotion; “I escaped and returned to my colors—­the Confederate colors.  I should like to add that before deserting from the Federal service I had earnestly asked a discharge, on the ground of altered convictions.  I was answered by punishment.”

“Ah, but if I had suffered the penalty of my crime—­if you had not generously given me the life that I accepted without gratitude you would not be again in the shadow and imminence of death.”

The prisoner started slightly and a look of anxiety came into his face.  One would have said, too, that he was surprised.  At that moment a lieutenant, the adjutant, appeared at the opening of the tent and saluted.  “Captain,” he said, “the battalion is formed.”

Captain Hartroy had recovered his composure.  He turned to the officer and said:  “Lieutenant, go to Captain Graham and say that I direct him to assume command of the battalion and parade it outside the parapet.  This gentleman is a deserter and a spy; he is to be shot to death in the presence of the troops.  He will accompany you, unbound and unguarded.”

While the adjutant waited at the door the two men inside the tent rose and exchanged ceremonious bows, Brune immediately retiring.

Half an hour later an old negro cook, the only person left in camp except the commander, was so startled by the sound of a volley of musketry that he dropped the kettle that he was lifting from a fire.  But for his consternation and the hissing which the contents of the kettle made among the embers, he might also have heard, nearer at hand, the single pistol shot with which Captain Hartroy renounced the life which in conscience he could no longer keep.

In compliance with the terms of a note that he left for the officer who succeeded him in command, he was buried, like the deserter and spy, without military honors; and in the solemn shadow of the mountain which knows no more of war the two sleep well in long-forgotten graves.