They dug the grave with their bayonets, tenderly
wrapped the body in the battle flag of the South and covered it with
their hands. One of them recited a beautiful Psalm from memory, and not
a word was spoken as they drew the damp earth up into a mound. A
whip-poor-will began his song in the edge of the woods as he passed on.
A few yards further a man in grey was cutting a forked limb into a
crutch. Something dark lay huddled on the brown straw. It was a wounded
man in blue. The Southerner lifted his enemy, and placed the crutch
under him.
"Now, partner," he said cheerfully, "you're all right. You'll find the
hospital down there by them lights. They'll look out for ye."
Ned wondered vaguely how he would really feel under his first baptism of
fire. He was only a private soldier in this company which had been
ordered East. He had resigned from the first he had helped to raise--the
ambitions and intrigues of its officers had aroused his disgust and he
had taken a place in the ranks of the first company sent to Virginia. He
had made up his mind he would wear no signs of rank that were not fairly
won on the field of battle.
To-morrow he was going to face it at short range. Everywhere were strewn
canteens, knapsacks, broken guns and blankets. He came suddenly on a
trench behind which the men in blue had fought from dark to dark.
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