But no foe appeared in front of them in the fields, and then with a rush they were at the foot of the ridge. Another rush and they had climbed it. Harry from its crest saw the wide field of combat and he knew that the greater battle had just begun.
CHAPTER VI. KERNSTOWN
The long winding lines of the two armies spread over a maze of fields, woods and thickets, with here and there a stone wall and scattered low hills, which could be used as points of strength. Jackson’s men, led by able officers, were pushing forward with all their might. The woods, the thickets and the mud nullified to some extent the superior power of the Northern artillery, but the rifles were pouring forth shattering volleys, many at close range.
Harry felt his horse stagger just after he reached the crest of the hill, but he took no notice of it until a few minutes later, when the animal began to shiver. He leaped clear just in time, for when the shiver ceased, the horse plunged forward, fell on his side and lay dead. As Harry straightened himself on his feet a bullet went through the brim of his cap, and another clipped his epaulet.
“Those must be western men shooting at you, Harry,” said a voice beside him. “But it could have been worse. You’re merely grazed, when you could have been hit and hit deep.”
It was Langdon, cool and imperturbable, who was speaking. He was regarding Harry rather quizzically, as the boy mechanically brushed the mud from his clothes.
“Force of habit,” said Langdon, and then he suddenly grasped Harry and pulled him to his knees. There was a tremendous crash in front of them, and a storm of bullets swept over their heads.
“I saw a Yankee officer give the word, and then a million riflemen rose from the bushes and fired straight at us!” shouted Langdon. “You stay here! See the Invincibles are all about you!”
Harry saw that he had in truth fallen among the Invincibles. There was St. Clair, immaculate, a blazing red spot in either cheek, gazing at the great swarms of riflemen in front. Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire, those veteran West Pointers, were stalking up and down in front of their lines, fiercely bidding their men to lie down. But Harry knew that his duty was elsewhere.
“I belong to the general!” he exclaimed. “I must join him!”
Casting one glance of regret at the fallen horse that had served him so well he rushed toward General Jackson, who with the rest of his staff had dismounted. The general, showing no emotion or anxiety, was watching the doubtful combat.
Along the whole line the battle was deepening. The able West Pointers on the Northern side were hurrying forward fresh troops. Shields himself was coming with new battalions. The men from Ohio and the states further west, expert like the Southerners in the use of the rifle, and confident of victory, were pouring a heavy and unbroken fire upon the thinner Southern lines. They, too, knew the value of cover and, cool enough to think about it, they used every thicket, and grove and ridge that they could reach.
The roar of the battle was heard plainly in Winchester, and the people of the town, although it was now held by the North, wished openly for the success of the South. The Northern troops, as it happened, nearly all through the war, were surrounded by people who were against them. The women at the windows and on the house tops looked eagerly for the red flare in the South which should betoken the victorious advance of Jackson, sweeping his enemies before him.
But Jackson was not advancing. All the valor and courage of the South so far had been in vain. Harry, standing near his commander, and awaiting any order that might be given him, saw new masses of the enemy advancing along every road and through the fields. The Union colors, held aloft in front of the regiments, snapped defiantly in the wind. And those western riflemen, from their cover, never ceased to pour showers of bullets upon the Southern lines. They had already cut a swath of dead, and many wounded were dragging themselves to the rear.