A GUN-PIT CONFERENCE

FOR full half an hour after Arthur Brent came out of the covered way and greeted his friend, Kilgariff’s bombardment and the enemy’s vigorous response continued. Arthur Brent stood by his friend in the midst of it all quite as if “the scream of shot, the burst of shell, and the bellowing of the mortars” had been nothing more than a harmless exhibition of “pyrotechny for our neighbour moon,” as Bailey phrases it in Festus.

It did not occur to Kilgariff to invite Doctor Brent to take refuge in one of the bomb-proofs till the fierceness of the fire should be past. It never did occur to Owen Kilgariff that a gentleman of education and culture could think of shrinking from danger, even though, as in this case, he had nothing to do with the war business immediately in hand, but was, technically at least, a non-combatant. Indeed, that gallant corps of doctors who constituted the medical field-service in the Confederate army never did regard themselves as non-combatants, at least so far as going into or keeping out of danger was concerned. They fired no guns, indeed, but in all other ways they participated in the field-fighting on quite equal terms with officers of the line. Wherever their duty called them, wherever an errand of mercy demanded their presence, they went without hesitation and stayed without flinching. They performed the most delicate operations, where a moment’s unsteadiness of hand must have cost a human life, while shells were bursting about their heads and multitudinous bullets were whistling in their ears. Sometimes their patients were blown out of their hands by a cannon shot. Sometimes the doctors themselves went to their death while performing operations on the battlefield.

In one case a surgeon was shot unto death while holding an artery end. But while waiting for the death that he knew must come within the brief space of a few minutes, the gallant fellow held his forceps firmly and directed his assistant how to tie the blood vessel. Then he gave up the ghost, in the very act of thus saving a human life perhaps not worth a hundredth part of his own. The heroism of war does not lie altogether with those who make desperate charges or desperately receive them.

Arthur Brent was high in rank in that medical corps, the cool courage of whose members, if it could be adequately set forth, would constitute as heroic a story as any that has ever been related in illustration of daring and self-sacrifice, and he honoured his rank in his conduct. His duty lay sometimes in the field, whither he went to organise and direct the work of others, and sometimes in the laboratory, where no element of danger existed. In either case he did his duty with never a thought of self and never a question of the cost.

On this occasion he stood upon the exposed mound of the magazine, watching Kilgariff’s splendid work with the guns, until at last the bombardment ceased as suddenly and as meaninglessly as it had begun; for that was the way with bombardments on those lines.

When at last the fire sank to its ordinary dead level of ceaseless sharp-shooting, with only now and then a cannon shot to punctuate the irregular rattle of the rifles, Kilgariff gave the order, “Cease firing,” and the clamorous mortars were stilled. Then he turned to the officers who had come to him for instruction, and said:—

“Some of my men have been quick to learn and are now experts. If any of you gentlemen desire it, I will send some of the best of them to you now and then to help you instruct your cannoniers and your gunners. You will yourselves impress upon the magazine men the importance of not compressing the powder in measuring it. A very slight inattention at that point often makes a difference of twenty-five or fifty yards in the range, and so renders worthless and ineffective a shell which might otherwise do its work well. If you need the services of any of my men as tutors to your own, pray call upon me. Now good evening. I’m sorry I cannot invite you to sup with me, but I really haven’t so much as a hard-tack biscuit to offer you.”

When the officers had gone, Kilgariff and Brent seated themselves on top of the magazine mound and talked.

“First of all,” said Arthur Brent, “I want to hear about the things personal to yourself. You put them aside, in your letter, as of smaller consequence than the matters, whatever they were, which related to others. I do not so regard them. So tell me first of them.”

“Oh, those things have pretty well settled themselves,” answered Kilgariff, with a touch of disgust in his tone. “It was only that I very much wanted to decline this captain’s commission, under which I have been commanding sixty mortars and something like a battalion of men here. General Early fairly forced the rank upon me, after Captain Pollard lost his leg—”

“By the way,” interrupted Doctor Brent, “Pollard is at Wyanoke and convalescent. With his superb constitution and his lifelong wholesomeness of living, his recovery has been rapid. He very much wants to see you. He would like you to continue in command of his battery—or would have liked it if you had not been transferred to Petersburg. He is a major now, you know, promoted for gallantry and good service, and when he returns to duty (which will be within a day or two) he will have command of his battalion. Of course, your special qualification for the work you are doing here forbids you to go back to your battery. The chief of artillery would never permit that. But I’m interrupting. Tell me what you set out to say.”

“Well, it’s all simple enough. You know my reasons for wishing to be an enlisted man rather than a commissioned officer. When I wrote to you, I was acting as captain under General Early’s peremptory orders, but the commission he had asked the authorities at Richmond to send me had not yet come. I knew that if it should come while I was with Early, he would never let me decline it. He would have refused even to forward my declination through the regular channels. It was my hope to get myself ordered to Petersburg before the commission could come.

“In that case, I thought, I could decline it and take service in my own non-commissioned rank as sergeant-major and special drill-master for the mortar batteries. But the commission came, through Early, on the day before I left the valley, and when I reported here for duty, asking to have it cancelled, the chief of artillery peremptorily refused. He took me to General Lee’s headquarters and there explained the situation. General Lee settled the matter by saying that I could render much better service with a commission than without one, and that he ‘desired’ me to act in the capacity to which I had been commissioned. I had no choice but to yield to his wish, of course, so I took command here as captain, and immediately all the fragments of batteries that had been disintegrated during the campaign, and especially those whose officers had been killed or captured, were turned over to me to be converted into mortar men.

“They number about two hundred and fifty men, some of whom are non-commissioned officers, ranking all the way from corporal to sergeant-major, so that it is impossible to handle the command effectively under a single company organisation. I made a report on the matter two days ago suggesting that the body be organised into a number of small, compact companies, and that some major of artillery already holding his commission be ordered to assume control of the whole. To-day came my reply—about two hours ago. It was to the effect that by recommendation of the chief of artillery, approved by General Lee, I had been appointed lieutenant-colonel, in command of all the mortars on this part of the line. I am instructed to organise this service with a view to effectiveness, and to report only through the chief of artillery, without the intervention of any colonel or brigadier or major-general. I cannot refuse to obey such orders, given in aid of effective service. I cannot even ask to be excused without offering an affront to my superiors and seeming, at least, to shirk that service in which they think I can make the best use of my capacities in behalf of our cause.

“So that matter has settled itself. I shall have two stars sewed upon my collar to-night, and to-morrow morning I shall begin the work of reorganising the mortar service. I shall encounter very black looks in the countenances of some of the courteous captains whom you saw here half an hour ago. They are men who care for military rank, as I do not, and they will not be pleased to find themselves overslaughed by my promotion. They will never believe that I wish, even more heartily than they can, that some one of them had been set to do this duty, and that I might have returned to the ranks. But a soldier must take what comes. I must accept their black looks, and their jealousies, and perhaps even the lasting enmity of some of them, precisely as I accept the fact of the shells flung at me by the enemy.”

At that moment a sergeant approached, and, saluting, said:—

“Captain Kilgariff”—for Kilgariff had not yet announced his promotion even to his men—“one of the men is hurt by a fragment of the shell that burst over us half a minute ago. He seems badly wounded.”

Instantly Kilgariff and Arthur Brent hurried to the pit where the wounded man lay, and Doctor Brent dressed his wound, which was serious. At his suggestion, Kilgariff ordered two of the men to carry the stricken one to the rear through the covered way, and deliver him to the surgeons of the nearest field-hospital.

Just as the party started, a huge fifteen-inch mortar shell descended from a great height, struck the apex of the earth mound that covered the magazine, where ten minutes before the two friends had been sitting in converse, and there instantly exploded with great violence.

Kilgariff hastened to inspect. He found the magazine intact, so far, at least, as its contents were concerned. There were more than a thousand pounds of Dupont rifle powder there, secured in wooden boxes called “monkeys,” and there were two thousand mortar shells there also, each weighing twenty-four pounds, each terribly destructive, potentially at least, and each loaded with a heavy charge of gunpowder. Fortunately the explosion of the gigantic shell had not ignited the magazine. Had it done so, neither a man nor a gun nor any trace of either would have remained in all that circle of mortar pits, to tell the tale of their occupancy.

But practically all of the earth that had constituted the mound had been blown completely away, and some of the timbers that had supported it had been crushed till they had broken and fallen in. The man who had been in charge of the magazine was found crushed to a pulp by the falling of the timbers.

When Kilgariff had fully explored, and discovered the extent of the disaster, he swore. Pointing to the mangled body of the man who had been caught in the ruin, he said to Arthur Brent:—

“There was never a better man than Johnny Garrett. He had a wife and four children up in Fauquier County. The wife is a widow now, and the children are orphans, and Johnny Garrett is a shapeless mass of inert human flesh, all because of the incapacity of an engineer, damn him! I know the fellow—” But before continuing, Kilgariff turned to a sergeant and said:—

“Go at once to General Gracie’s headquarters, and say that Lieutenant-colonel Kilgariff—be sure to say Lieutenant-colonel Kilgariff—commanding the mortars, asks the instant attendance of a capable engineer and at least twenty-five sappers and miners to repair damages and guard against an imminent danger at Fort Lamkin. If General Gracie cannot furnish the assistance needed, go to General Bushrod Johnson’s headquarters and prefer a like request. Take a look first, and you’ll understand how imperative it is to get help at once. There lie a thousand pounds of rifle powder exposed to every spark that a shell may fling into it; and there are two thousand loaded shells to explode. Go quickly, and don’t return without the assistance required.”

Ten minutes later came the sappers and miners, armed with picks, shovels, axes, and the other tools of their trade. At their head was the engineer officer, Captain Harbach, who had constructed the magazine in the first place.

Kilgariff was a cool, self-possessed person, who very rarely lost his temper in any obvious fashion. But when he saw Harbach in command, he had difficulty in controlling himself. Pointing to the ruined magazine, he said:—

“See one result of your carelessness and gross ignorance.”

Then, pointing to the crushed and mangled body of Johnny Garrett, he added:—

“Look upon another result of your criminality in seeking a commission in the engineers when you perfectly knew you had no adequate knowledge of engineering. When you were constructing that magazine, I warned you that your single tier of timbers under the earth was insufficient. I reminded you of the importance of adequately protecting the vast amount of powder that must be stored there. I begged you to use longer timbers for the sake of greater elasticity, and to use three tiers of them instead of one. Your rank at that time was older than my own, and I could only give you advice, which you disregarded. You now have before you abundant evidence of your own criminal ignorance, your own criminal neglect of plain duty, your own criminal folly. For these I shall prefer charges against you before this night ends, and I shall press those charges with vigour enough to offset even the personal and political influence that secured a commission for an incapable like you.”

Kilgariff was in a towering rage, and with the mangled body of Johnny Garrett lying there before him for his text, he found it impossible to restrain his speech; but to the very end, that speech was so far under control that its tones, at least, gave no indication of the excitement that inspired it. If the man speaking had been delivering a university lecture, his voice and manner could scarcely have been under better control.

When he paused, Harbach broke in:—

“Be careful of your words, Captain Kilgariff—”

“Lieutenant-colonel Kilgariff, if you please; that is my present rank, and I’ll trouble you to recognise it.”

“Oh, well, Lieutenant-colonel Kilgariff, if that pleases you better. Be careful of your words. You have already spoken some for which I shall hold you responsible.”

“Quite right,” answered Kilgariff. “I hold myself responsible, and I’ll answer for my words in any way and at any time and to any extent that you may desire. But meanwhile, and as your superior officer, I now order you to set to work to render that magazine safe. As your superior officer, I shall assume authority to direct your work and to insist that it shall be done as I command. Let your men shovel away all that remains of the earth mound and send your axe-men into the timber there to cut seventy or eighty sticks, each twenty-three feet long and eight inches in diameter.”

The captain showed signs of standing on his dignity by refusing, but Kilgariff promptly brought him to terms by saying:—

“Whenever you want to call me to account, I shall respond—I’ll do it in an hour hence, if you choose. But for the sake of the lives of some hundreds of men, I am going to have this magazine securely constructed within the briefest possible time. After that, I shall be very much at your service. You may either set your men at work in the way I have suggested, or you may return to your quarters, in which case I shall assume command of your men and do the work myself. If you elect to return to your quarters, I pledge you my honour as an officer that I shall not make your desertion of duty at a critical moment the subject of an additional charge in the court-martial proceedings that I shall surely institute against you to-morrow morning.”

Thus permitted, Captain Harbach retired through the covered way, and Owen Kilgariff assumed command of the men he had left behind him.

Within two hours, the magazine was reconstructed, and so strongly that no danger remained of the kind that had threatened the lives of Owen Kilgariff’s men.

When all was done, Kilgariff turned again to Arthur Brent and said:—

“Now let us resume our conversation.”

“But what about this quarrel with Captain Harbach? He will surely challenge you.”

“Of course, and I shall accept. Never mind that. He may possibly shoot me through the head or heart or lungs. The chance of that renders it only the more imperative that you and I shall talk out our talk. I have much to say to you that must be said before morning. Besides, I must prepare my charges against Captain Harbach. It is a duty that I owe to the service to expose the arrogant incapacity of such men as he. Such incapacity imperils the lives of better men, by scores and hundreds, every day. If I can do anything to purge the service of such incapables—men whose fathers’ or friends’ influence has secured commissions for them to assume duties which they are utterly incapable of discharging properly or even with tolerable safety to the lives of other men—it will be a greatly good achievement. Let us talk now of something else.”

Then he told Arthur about the papers that the man who called himself Campbell had intrusted to his keeping.

“The matter sorely embarrasses me,” he explained. “I don’t know what I ought to do. Of course I am in no way bound by that fellow’s half-spoken, half-suggested injunction not to give the papers to Evelyn till she attains the age of twenty-one. I completely disregard that. But there are other things to be thought of. My command here on the lines is losing from twenty to thirty per cent of its personnel each month. Nothing is more likely than that I shall turn up among the ‘killed in action’ some morning. If I keep the papers with me, they are liable to fall into other and perhaps unfriendly hands at any moment. As I have not the remotest notion of what is recorded in them, of course I cannot even conjecture how much of harm that might work to Evelyn. You perfectly understand that her welfare, her comfort, her feelings, constitute the controlling consideration with me.”

“Oh, yes, I understand that,” said Arthur.

“Don’t jest, if you please,” broke in Kilgariff, with a note of offence in his voice.

“My dear fellow,” answered Arthur, with profound seriousness, “nothing could be farther from my thought than jesting on a subject so serious. I beg you to believe—”

“I do. I believe you implicitly. But somehow this explosion, and poor Johnny Garrett’s needless death, and my quarrel with that reckless incapable, Harbach, have set my nerves on edge, so that I am querulous. Forgive me, and let me go on. As to these papers, I want to do that which is best for Evelyn; but I don’t know what is best, and I can’t find out by questioning my own mind. You see, I not only do not know what is in the papers, but I do not even know what circumstances gave them birth, or what purpose of good or evil lies behind them, or what distressing revelations they may make for her affliction. The cold-blooded gambler, swindler, adventurer, cheat, who gave the papers to me is—or was, for I don’t know whether he is now dead or alive—capable of any atrocity. He admitted to me that he had cruelly persecuted the girl, his daughter. It would not be inconsistent with his character, I think, for him to send her from his deathbed a bundle of papers that should needlessly afflict and torture her. He cherished quite enough of enmity to me, I think, to make him happy in the conviction that he had made me his unwilling and unwitting agent in inflicting such wounds upon her spirit.

“Thus I dare not give her the papers, nor dare I withhold them, lest thereby I do her a wrong. Counsel me, my friend. Tell me what I should do!”

“Consult Dorothy,” answered Arthur. “Her judgment in such a case will be immeasurably wiser than yours or mine, or both combined.”

“Thank you. That is the best solution. I wonder I didn’t think of it before. I will act upon it at once. I’ll send the papers to Dorothy by your hand, and I’ll ask you also to bear her a letter in which I shall beg for her judgment. That’s the end of one of my perplexities, for the time being at least. Now let us talk of another thing that concerns me very deeply. I am a pretty rich man, as you know. I own some real estate in New York City. That will probably be confiscated when this war comes to an end, as you and I clearly see that it must do very soon. I own a good many stocks and bonds and other securities, which cannot be so easily confiscated, inasmuch as they are in possession of my bankers, who are like drums for tightness, and are besides my very good friends. In addition to these things, the bulk of my fortune is invested in Europe, where it cannot be confiscated at all. The securities are held by the Liverpool branch of Frazer, Trenholm, and Company, of Charleston, for my account, so that they are perfectly safe.

“Now the only relatives I have in the world, so far as I know, are my brother and his family. I have every reason for desiring that none of them shall ever get a single cent from my estate. So much on the negative side. Affirmatively, I very earnestly desire that every dollar I have in the world shall go at my death to the one woman I ever loved—Evelyn Byrd.

“It may seem to you a simple and easy thing to arrange that, but it is not so. Any will that I might make cutting off my relatives from the inheritance of my property would be obstinately contested in the courts.”

“But upon what grounds?”

“Oh, the lawyers can be trusted to find reasons ‘as plenty as blackberries.’ For one thing, they could insist that I was a dead man long before the date of my will.”

“How do you mean?”

“Why, when I escaped from Sing Sing, there were two other men with me. As we swam out into the Hudson, the guards opened a vigorous fire upon us. One of my companions was killed outright, his face being badly mutilated by the bullets. The other was wounded and recaptured. He positively identified the dead man’s body as mine. It was buried in my name, and my death was officially recorded as a fact. So, you see, I am officially a dead man, if ever my relatives have occasion to prove me so. But apart from that, my estate, when I die, will be a sufficiently large carcass to induce a great gathering of the buzzards about it. With half a million dollars or more to fight over, the lawyers may be trusted to find ample grounds for fighting.”

“It seems a difficult problem to solve,” said Arthur, meditatively. “I don’t see how you can manage it.”

“Such matters are easy enough when one has friends, as I have, who may be trusted implicitly. I have thought this matter out, and I think I know how to handle the situation.”

“Tell me your plan, if you wish.”

“Of course I wish. My first thought was to give everything I have in the world to Evelyn now, giving her deeds for the real estate and absolute bills of sale for the securities. But of course I could not do that. I could never gain her consent to such an arrangement without first winning her love and making her my affianced bride.”

“Do you think that would be impossible?”

“I do not know—perhaps so. At any rate, it is out of the question.”

“I confess I do not see why.”

“I am a convicted criminal, you know—a fugitive from justice.”

“No. You are officially dead. The courts of New York will not hold a dead man to be a fugitive from justice. And morally you are nothing of the kind. It was not justice, but infamous injustice, that condemned you.”

“However that may be, I can never ask Evelyn Byrd to be my wife, to share the life of a man who might even possibly be sent back to Sing Sing. I can never ask her to make of her children the sons and daughters of a convicted criminal. I will not do that. So I have thought out another plan. My second thought was to turn over all I have to you in trust for Evelyn. When I am dead, she need not refuse the gift. But there again is a difficulty. When this war ends in the complete conquest of the South, as it soon must, political passion at the North is well-nigh certain to find expression in acts of wholesale confiscation, directed against men of wealth at the South, and men who have served as officers in our army. They may, indeed, include all who have served at all, even as privates. At any rate, you are an officer of high rank, and between you and Dorothy you are one of the greatest plantation owners in Virginia. You are pretty sure to be included in whatever is done in this way.

“It will not do, therefore, to make you my trustee for Evelyn. I must have some non-combatant to serve in that capacity, and, with your permission, I am going to ask Dorothy to accept the duty.”

“You have my permission, certainly. But I see another danger. Suppose anything should happen to Dorothy?—God forbid it! Suppose she should die?”

“I have thought of all that,” answered Kilgariff, “and I think I see a way out. I shall ask Dorothy to select some friend, some woman whom she can absolutely trust, to serve with her as a joint trustee, giving full power to the survivor to carry out the trust in case of the death of either of the two. I haven’t a doubt she knows such a woman.”

“She does—two of them. There is Edmonia Bannister, one of God’s elect in character, and there is Mrs. Baillie Pegram—she who was Agatha Ronald. Either of them would serve the purpose perfectly.”

“I’ll get Dorothy to ask both of them,” responded Kilgariff. “Then all possible contingencies will be fully met and provided for.

“Now for present concerns. If I can make a Confederate taper burn for an hour, I’ll write my letter to Dorothy, to accompany the papers, and to ask her to serve me in this matter of the trusteeship. I have a very capable young lawyer under my command here as a sergeant. Early in the morning I shall set him to work preparing the trust conveyances. He is a rapid worker, and will have the documents ready by nightfall. Then I’ll send them to Wyanoke by a courier. In the meanwhile I have Captain Harbach on my hands. I’m afraid I must ask you to act for me in that matter. While we have been talking, it has occurred to me that when I prefer my charges against Captain Harbach, he will be placed under arrest. In that position he would not be permitted to send me the hostile message he threatened to-night. It would be extremely unfair to him to place him in such a position. I want you to write to him, if you will, as my friend. Say to him that in view of his expressed desire to hold me responsible for words spoken to-night, and in order to give him opportunity to do so without embarrassment, I shall postpone for twenty-four hours, or for a longer time, if for any reason he cannot conveniently act within twenty-four hours, the preferring of my official charges against him. Ask him, please, to advise you of his wishes in the matter in order that I may comply with them.”

“You are a very cool hand, Kilgariff,” said Arthur, “and your courtesy to an enemy is extreme.”

“Oh, courtesy in such a case is a matter of course. Let me say to you, now, that when I meet Captain Harbach on the field, I shall fire high in the air. I have no desire to kill him or to inflict the smallest hurt upon him. I am merely giving him the opportunity he desires to kill me, by way of avenging himself upon me for the severe criticisms I have made upon his character, his conduct, and his assumption of functions that he is incapable of discharging with tolerable safety to other men. Let me make this matter plainer to your mind, Arthur. I do not at all believe in the duello. I think it barbarous in intent and usually ridiculous in its conduct. But I had the best of good reasons for saying what I did to Captain Harbach, and so I said it. What I said was exceedingly offensive to him, and the only way he knows of ‘vindicating’ himself is by challenging me to a duel. It would be a gross injustice on my part to refuse to meet him, and to do an injustice is to commit an immorality. So, of course, I shall meet him. As I have no desire to do him other harm than to get him removed from a position which he is incapable of filling with safety to others and benefit to the service, I shall not think of shooting at him. But I shall give him the privilege he craves of shooting at me. I really don’t mind, you know, under the circumstances, except that in any case I shall postpone his shooting at me till I can execute the documents relating to my property.”

“In view of your explanation,” answered Arthur, “I must decline to act as your friend in this matter.”

“But why?”

“Because I will have no part nor lot in a murder. I detest duelling, as you do; I regard it as a relic of feudalism which ought to give place to something better in our enlightened and law-governed time. But while it lasts, I am forced to consent to it, however unwillingly. I recognise the fact that the right of the individual to make private war on his own account is the only basis on which nations can logically or even sanely claim the right to make public war. Nations are only aggregations of individuals, and their rights are only the sum of the rights previously possessed by the individuals composing them. But while I feel in that way about duelling, I can have no part in a contest in which I know in advance that one of the contestants is going to shoot to kill, while the other is merely standing up to be shot at and does not himself intend to make war at all.”

“Very well,” answered Kilgariff. “I’ll get some one else to send the letter.”

He summoned an orderly and directed him to go to a neighbouring camp and ask an officer there to call upon Lieutenant-colonel Kilgariff, “concerning a purely personal matter, and not at all with reference to any matter of service.”

The officer, a fiery little fellow, responded at once to the summons, and he promptly wrote—spelling it very badly—the message which Kilgariff had asked Arthur to send.

Half an hour later, the messenger who had borne the note returned with it unopened. For explanation, he said:—

“Captain Harbach had his head blown off in the trenches just before daylight this morning.”