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The Drummer Boy - Chapter XXIX - How Frank Got News Of His Brother

Posted January 13th, 2009 by admin

XXIX.

HOW FRANK GOT NEWS OF HIS BROTHER.

Frank was already moving off quite as rapidly, but in the opposite
direction. He plunged once more into the swamp, and returned to the spot
where Jack had fallen. The battle was raging beyond; the troops had
passed on; the ground was deserted. But there lay Winch’s gun; with his
cartridge-box beside it. Near by was Ellis’s piece, abandoned where it
had fallen. There, too, lay the red badge which had been shot from
Frank’s arm. He picked it up, thinking his mother would like to have him
preserve it.

Then he slipped on the cartridge-box, and took up Winch’s gun; for this
was the resolution which inspired him–to assume the poltroon’s place in
the company, and by his own conduct to atone for the disgrace he had
brought upon it.

But the gun-stock was, as has been said, shattered; and Frank could not
have the satisfaction of revenging himself and his comrades for Winch’s
cowardice with Winch’s own gun. So he threw it down, and took up Ellis’s,
which he found ready loaded and primed.

While he was examining the piece, he remembered the shots which he had
taken for spent balls, and bethought him to look around the woods in the
direction from which they had come. Raising his eyes above the
undergrowth, he beheld a singular phenomenon.

At first, he thought it was a wild animal–a coon, or a wildcat, coming
down a tree. Then there were two wildcats, descending together, or
preparing to descend. Then the wildcats became two human legs clasped
around the trunk, and two human arms appeared enjoying an equally close
hug above them. The body to which these visible members appertained was
itself invisible, being on the farther side of the trunk.

“That’s the chap that was shooting at us!” was Frank’s instantaneous
conviction.

And now he could plainly discern an object slung across the man’s back,
as his movements swung it around a little to one side. It was the
sharpshooter’s rifle.

Frank was so excited that he felt himself trembling–not with fear, but
with the very ardor of his ambition.

“Since he has had two shots at me, why shouldn’t I have as much as one at
him?”

To disable and bring in the rebel who had shot the badge from his
arm–what a triumph!

But he was not in a good position for an effective shot, even if he could
have made up his mind to fire at a person who, though without doubt an
enemy, was not at the moment defending himself. It seemed, after all, too
dreadful a thing deliberately to kill a man.

Frank’s excitement did not embarrass his faculties in the least, but only
rendered them all the more keenly alive and vigilant. It took him but a
moment to decide what to do. Through the swamp he ran with a lightness
and ability of which in calmer moments he would have been scarcely
capable. The exigency of the occasion inspired him. Such leaps he took
over miry places! so safely and swiftly be ran the length of an old mossy
log! so nimbly he avoided the undergrowth! and so suddenly he arrived at
last at the tree the rebel was descending!

For he was a rebel indeed. Frank knew that by his gray uniform and short
jacket. He had been perched in the thick top of a tall pine to pick off
our men during the skirmish. It was he who had taken the bark from the
tree near Captain Edney’s head. It was he who had basely thought to
assassinate those who were carrying away the wounded. And now, the
advancing troops having passed him, he was taking advantage of the
solitary situation to slip down the trunk and make his escape through the
woods.

Unfortunately for him, he could not go up and down trees like a squirrel.
He proceeded _hugging_ his way so slowly and laboriously that Frank
reached the spot when he was still within a dozen feet of the ground.
Hearing a noise, and looking down over his arm, and seeing Frank, he
would have jumped the remainder of the distance. But Frank was prepared
for that.

“Stop, or I’ll fire!”

Shrill and menacing rang the boy’s determined tones through the soul of
the treed rebel. He saw the gun pointed up at him; so he stopped.

“What’s wanting?” said he, gruffly.

“I want you to throw down that rifle as quick as ever you can!” cried
Frank.

“What do you want of my rifle?”

“I’ve a curiosity to see what sort of a piece you use to shoot at men
carrying off the wounded.”

And the “grayback” (as the boys termed the rebels) could hear the ominous
click of the gun lock in Frank’s hands.

“Was it you I fired at?”

“Yes, it was; and I’m bound to put lead into you now, if you don’t do as
I tell you pretty quick!”

“I can’t throw my gun down; I can’t get it off,” remonstrated the man.

“You never will come down from that tree alive, unless you do!” said
Frank.

“Well, take the d—-d thing then!” growled the man. And unclasping one
arm from the tree, while he held on with the other and his two legs, he
slipped the belt over his head, and dropped the gun to the ground. “If it
had been good for any thing, I reckon you wouldn’t be here now, bothering
me!” he added, significantly.

“No doubt!” said Frank. “You are brave fellows, to shoot out of trees at
men carrying off the wounded. Wait! I’m not quite ready for you yet.”

And he stood under the tree, with his musket pointed upwards, ready
cocked, and with the point of the bayonet in rather ticklish proximity to
the most exposed and prominent part of the rebel’s person.

“Ye think I’m going to stick here all day?” growled the desperate
climber.

“You’ll stick there till you throw me down your revolver,” Frank
resolutely informed him.

“How do you know I’ve got a revolver?”

“I saw your hand make a motion at your pocket. You thought you’d try a
shot at me. But you saw at the very next motion you’d be a dead man!”

“You mean to say you’d blow my brains out?”

“Yes, if your brains are where my gun is aimed, as I think the brains of
rebels must be, or they never would have seceded.”

Frank’s gun, by the way, was aimed at the above mentioned very exposed
and prominent part.

“Grayback” grinned and growled.

“Come, my young joker, I can’t stand this!”

“You’ll have to stand it till you throw down that revolver!”

“I’m slipping!”

“Then I’ll give you something sharp to slip on!”

The man felt that he had really betrayed himself by making the
involuntary movement towards his breast-pocket, which Frank had been too
shrewd not to notice. The cocked gun, and bayonet, and resolute young
face below, were inexorable. So he yielded.

“Don’t throw it towards me! Drop it the other side!” cried the wary
Frank.

The revolver was tossed down. Then Frank stepped back, and let the man
descend from his uncomfortable position.

“Boy!” said the man, as soon as his feet were safe on the ground, and he
could turn to look at his captor, “I reckon you’re a cute ‘un! A Yankee,
ain’t ye?”

“Yes, and proud to own it!” said Frank. “Keep your distance!”–as the man
made a move to come nearer–”and don’t you stoop to touch that gun!”

“Look here,” said the man, coaxingly, “you’d better let me go! I’m out
of ammunition, and can’t hurt any body. I’ll give ye ten dollars if you
will.”

“In confederate shinplasters?”

The rebel laughed. “No, in Uncle Sam’s gold.”

“You don’t place a very high value on yourself,” said Frank. “You are too
modest.”

“Twenty dollars!”–jingling the money in his pocket. “Come, I’m a
gentleman at home, and I don’t want to go north. Well, say thirty
dollars.”

“If you hadn’t said you were a gentleman, I might trade,” said Frank.
“But a gentleman is worth more than you bid. You wouldn’t insult a negro
by offering that for him!”

“Fifty dollars, then! I see you are sharp at a bargain. And you shall
keep that revolver.”

“I intend to keep this, any way,” said Frank, picking it up. “And the gun
that shot at me, too,” slinging it on his back.

The rebel, seeing his determination, rose in his bids at once to a
hundred dollars.

“Not for a hundred thousand!” said Frank, who was now ready to move his
prisoner. “You are going the way my bayonet points, and no other. March!”

The rebel marched accordingly.

Frank followed at a distance of two or three paces, prepared at any
moment to use prompt measures in case his prisoner should attempt to turn
upon him or make his escape.

“How many of you fellows are hid around in these trees?” said Frank.

“Not many just around here–lucky for you!” muttered the disconsolate
rebel.

“Is that your favorite way of fighting?”

“People fight any way they can when their soil is invaded.”

“What are holes cut in the pine trees for,–foot-holds for climbing?”

“Holes? them’s turpentine boxes!” said the man, in some surprise at
Frank’s ignorance. “Didn’t you ever see turpentine boxes before?”

“Never till last evening. Is that the way you get turpentine?”

“That’s the way we get turpentine. The sap begins to run and fill the
boxes along in March, and when they are full we dip it out with ladles
made on purpose, and put it into barrels.”

“O, you needn’t stop to explain!” cried Frank. “Push ahead!”

And the rebel pushed ahead.

It was a moment of unspeakable satisfaction to the drummer boy when he
had brought his prisoner through all the difficulties of the way to the
road. There he had him safe.

He was now in the midst of shocking and terrible scenes, but he heeded
them not as much as he would have heeded the smallest accident to a
fellow-creature a few hours before. Already he seemed familiar with
battles and all their horrors. Men were hurrying by with medical stores.
The wounded were passing, on stretchers, or in the arms of their friends,
or limping painfully, ghastly, bleeding, but heroic still. They smiled as
they showed their frightful hurts. One poor fellow had had his arm torn
off by a cannon ball: the flesh hung in strings. Some lay by the
roadside, faint from the loss of blood. And all the time the deadly,
deafening tumult of the battle went on.

To guard his prisoner securely was Frank’s first thought. But greater,
more absorbing even than that, was the wild wish to see the enemies of
his country defeated, and to share in the glorious victory.

“Frank Manly! what sort of a beast have you got there?” cried a soldier,
returning from the action with a slight wound.

Frank recognized a member of another company in the same regiment to
which he belonged.

“I’ve got a sharpshooter that I’ve taken prisoner.” And he briefly
related his adventure, every word of which the rebel, who rather admired
his youthful captor, voluntarily confirmed.

“It’s just as he tells you,” he said, assuming a candid, reckless air. “I
am well enough satisfied. If your men are equal to your boys, I shall
have plenty of company before night.”

“You think we shall have you all prisoners?” inquired Frank, eagerly.

“This island,” replied the rebel, “is a perfect trap. I’ve known it from
the beginning. You outnumber us two to one, and if the fight goes against
us, we’ve no possible chance of escape. We’ve five thousand men on the
island, and if we’re whipped you’ll make a pretty respectable bag. But
you never can conquer us,”–he hastened to add, fearing lest he was
conceding too much.

“Can’t, eh?” laughed Frank. “Where’s the last ditch?”

“Never mind about that,” said the prisoner, with a peculiar grin.

By this time several other stragglers had gathered around them, eager to
hear the story of the drummer boy’s exploit.

The rebel had looked curiously at his youthful captor ever since he had
heard him called by name. At length he said:–

“Have you got a brother in the confederate army?”

Frank changed color. “Why do you ask that?”

“Because we have a Captain Manly, from the north somewhere, who looks
enough like you to be a pretty near relation.”

Frank trembled with interest as he inquired, “What is his given name?”

“Captain–Captain _George_ Manly, I’m pretty sure.”

“Yes, sir,”–and sorry tears came into Frank’s eyes as he spoke,–”I
suppose I must own he is my brother.”

“Well, you’ve a smart chance of meeting him, I reckon,–if, as I said,
your men are equal to your boys. For he’s fighting against you to-day,
and he’s one of the pluckiest, and he won’t run.”