Harry thought, while this comparative lull in close fighting was going on, that Dalton and he should get back to General Lee with news of what was occurring, although he had no doubt the commander-in-chief was now advancing as fast as he could with the full strength of the army. Still, duty was duty. They had been sent forward that they might carry back reports, and they must carry them.
“It’s time for us to go,” he said to Dalton.
“I was just about to say that myself.”
“We can safely report to the general that the vanguards have met at Gettysburg and that there are signs of a battle.”
Dalton took a long, comprehensive look over the valley in which thirty or forty thousand men were merely drawing a fresh breath before plunging anew into the struggle, and said:
“Yes, Harry, all the signs do point that way. I think we can be sure of our news.”
They had not been able to catch any of the riderless horses galloping about the field, and they started on foot, taking the road which they knew would lead them to Lee. They emerged from some bushes in which they had been lying for shelter, and two or three bullets whistled between them. Others knocked up the dust in the path and a shell shrieked a terrible warning over their heads. They dived back into the bushes.
“Didn’t you see that sign out there in the road?” asked Harry.
“Sign! Sign! I saw no sign,” said Dalton.
“I did. It was a big sign, and it read, in big letters: ‘No Thoroughfare.'”
“You must be right. I suppose I didn’t notice it, because I came back in such a hurry.”
They had become so hardened to the dangers of war that, like thousands of others, they could jest in the face of death.
“We must make another try for it,” said Dalton. “We’ve got to cross that road. I imagine our greatest danger is from sharpshooters at the head of it.”
“Stoop low and make a dash. Here goes!”
Bent almost double, they made a hop, skip and jump and were in the bushes on the other side, where they lay still for a few moments, panting, while the hair on their heads, which had risen up, lay down again. Quick as had been their passage, fully a dozen ferocious bullets whined over their heads.
“I hate skirmishers,” said Harry. “It’s one thing to fire at the mass of the enemy, and it’s another to pick out a man and draw a bead on him.”
“I hate ’em, too, especially when they’re firing at me!” said Dalton. “But, Harry, we’re doing no good lying here in the bushes, trying to press ourselves into the earth so the bullets will pass over our heads. Heavens! What was that?”
“Only the biggest shell that was ever made bursting near us. You know those Yankee artillerymen were always good, but I think they’ve improved since they first saw us trying to cross the road.”
“To think of an entire army turning away from its business to shoot at two fellows like ourselves, who ask nothing but to get away!”
“And it’s time we were going. The bushes rise over our heads here. We must make another dash.”
They rose and ran on, but to their alarm the bushes soon ended and they emerged into a field. Here they came directly into the line of fire again, and the bullets sang and whistled around them. Once more they read in invisible but significant letters the sign, “No Thoroughfare,” and darted back into the wood from which they had just come, while shells, not aimed at them, but at the armies, shrieked over their heads.
“It’s not the plan of fate that we should reach General Lee just yet,” said Harry.
“The shells and bullets say it isn’t. What do you think we ought to do?”
Harry rose up cautiously and began to survey their position. Then he uttered a cry of joy.
“More of our men are coming,” he exclaimed, “and they are coming in heavy columns! I see their gray jackets and their tanned faces, and there, too, are the Invincibles. Look, you can see the two colonels, riding side by side, and just behind them are St. Clair and Langdon!”