<000005>WHAT an ineffably imposing spectacle of military power was presented to the May sun, shining on the picturesque mountains and lovely valleys around Chattanooga in the busy days of the Spring of 1864.
RE: Your memo May 15"No," Cadnan said earnestly, still puzzled. "Masters are good. It is true. Masters are always good."
ONE:"I don't like the looks of that hill to the left," said Gid Mackall, nervously. "An awful lot o' them went behind it, and I didn't see any come out."Billings hurriedly glanced at the papers, and saw that instead of some unpleasant order from the General, which he had feared, they were merely some routine matters. His bullying instinct at once reasserted itself:
TWO:"Where in time do you s'pose the 200th Injianny is in all this freshet of men and mules and bosses?" said Si, with an anxious brow. The look made the boys almost terror-stricken. They huddled together and turned their glances toward Shorty for hope. But Shorty looked as puzzled as Si.
THREE:"Sir," said the Surgeon stiffly, "you forget that you are speaking to your superior officer."
TWO:"No," answered Shorty; "that's that Ohio rijimint, made up o' rollin' mill men and molders. They all wear red flannel shirts. There's the 200th Injianny just down there to the left, with all them men on extra duty on the parade ground. I know just the gang. Same old crowd; I kin almost tell their faces. They've bin runnin' guard, as usual, and comin' back full o' apple-jack and bad language and desire to give the camp a heavy coat o' red paint. Old McBiddle has tried to convince 'em that he was still runnin' the rijimint, and his idees wuz better 'n theirs, and there they are. There's Jim Monaghan handlin' that pick as if he was in the last stages o' consumption. There's Barney' Maguire, pickin' up three twigs 'bout as big as lead pencils, and solemnly carryin' 'em off the parade ground as if they wuz fence-rails. I'll just bet a month's pay that's Denny Murphy marchin' up and down there with his knapsack filled with Tennessee dornicks. Denny's done that feather-weight knapsack trick so often that his shoulders have corns and windgalls on 'em, and they always keep a knapsack packed for him at the guard-house ready for one of his Donnybrook fair songs and dances. Mighty good boy, Denny, but he kin git up a red-hotter riot on his share of a canteen of apple-jack than any three men in the rijimint. That feller tied to a tree is Tony Wilson. He's refused to dig trenches agin. O, I tell you, they're a daisy lot.""Great Jehosephat, Si," remonstrated Shorty; "it'll take 'em a month to learn all that."
TWO:All the same, "dreary" was the word for it. (An image of Dr. Haenlingen's frozen face floated into his mind. He pushed it away. It was morning. It was time for work.)Then the time came.
Somewhere, he told himself, there would be someone.... "And there lay the rider, distorted and pale."Some o' them," said the Englishman earnestly. "Hevery bloomin' one o' them 'as got to go. They've got to volunteer. Hif Hi find hany cowardly bloke that'd rather be a beastly bridge-builder than a gentleman and a sojer, I'll pound 'is 'ead offen 'im. They'll all volunteer, I tell ye, w'en Hi speak to 'em."Similarly, the Sergeants stood behind their sections, except that one after another they stepped forward to the guns to take the places of men who had fallen and could not be replaced. At the guns the men were working with the swiftness of light flashes, and the unerring certainty of machines. To the watchers at the base of the slope they seemed to weave back and forth like some gigantic, demoniac loom, as they sprang at their guns, loaded them, "broke away" as they fired, leaped back again, caught the gun in its recoil, hurled it forward, again reloaded, "broke away" and fired, all quicker than thought. A shell took off a sponger's head, but the sponge-staff was caught by another before it fell, and the gun fired again without a pause. A shrapnel swept away every man about one gun. The Lieutenant looked inquiringly at the Sergeant, and in an instant another squad seemed to spring up from the ground to continue the firing without missing a note in the battery's rhythm.IT DID not seem that so many dangers beset the possession of a cow as of a horse, yet the Deacon prudently rose while it was yet dark to look after the animal.
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THREE:Cadnan shouted: "Wait for the masters," and went on, pushing his way through the noise, through the babbling crowd of Alberts. There were no masters visible anywhere: that was a new thing and a strange one, but too many new things were happening. Cadnan barely noticed one more.
THREE:He came back to her. "Ithe alarm tripped off. This time they must have tried it through the front door, or a window. The last one must have tunnelled through" Korprils. ive jest time 2 ketch the nekst traine, & ime
