The boy
burst into tears. The new color-bearer had scarcely lifted the flag
above his head when he fell. The disgraced soldier snatched the
tottering flagstaff and, lifting it on high, dashed up the hill ahead of
his line of battle.
The men were ducking their heads low beneath the fierce hail of lead and
staggering blindly.
John saw this boy waving his flag and shaking his fist back at the
halting line. He was not a hundred feet from the Confederate trenches.
"Come on there!" he shouted. "Damn it, what's the matter with you?"
Ned Vaughan and his grey men behind the little mound of red dirt were
watching this drama with flashing eyes. Beside him crouched a boy whose
early piety had marked him for the ministry. But he had wandered from
the fold in the stress of army life. Ned heard his voice now in low,
eager prayer:
"O Lord, drive 'em back! Drive 'em back, O Lord!"
He fired his musket down the hill and prayed harder:
"Lord, drive 'em back! I've sinned and come short, but drive 'em, O
Lord!"
He paused and whispered to Ned as he reached for another cartridge:
"Are they comin' or goin'?"
"Coming!"
Again he prayed with fervor:
"Drive 'em back, Lord Goddermighty, we're weak and you're strong--help
us now! Drive 'em--just this time, O Lord, and you can have me--I'll be
good!"
He paused for breath and turned to Ned:
"Now look!--Comin' or goin'?"
"That follow with the flag cussin' the men has dropped----"
"Thank God!"
"Another's lifted it----"
"Lord, save us!"
"Why don't you lie down, ye damn fool," Tom shouted.
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