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There were no exciting scenes on the way over, except when some wild and woolly Canadian tried to jump overboard because of seasickness. We were a long time crossing, because the fastest transport had to cut her speed down to that of the slowest, and the voyage was anything but a pleasant one. When we finally steamed into Plymouth, the gray-backs outnumbered the soldiers by many thousands.
Kershaw, Cash, and Hampton pressed them hard towards Stone Bridge. A retreat at first now became a panic, then a rout. Men threw away their baggage, then their guns, all in a mad rush to put the stream between themselves and the dreaded "gray-backs."
"Whale's fouled it. . . . Dip Harve! Here they come!" The sea round them clouded and darkened, and then frizzed up in showers of tiny silver fish, and over a space of five or six acres the cod began to leap like trout in May; while behind the cod three or four broad gray-backs broke the water into boils.
It was our repeatin' rifles thet drove 'em back." "You suffered to some extent?" "Two killed, sir, and three or four wounded. It wus hot 'nough fer a while, I tell you; as lively a little jig as I've ever bin in. McNeal, there, got a lump of lead in his arm. Would you mind explainin' 'bout you fellows comin' in here to help us, sir? It seems kinder odd to be fightin' longside of gray-backs."
It's goin' to be the trees and the gray-backs and the trout we catched, and everywhere I look and every place I go to it's goin' to be the same thing. And it ain't never goin' to be no better never never long as I live. She said so. Them was her very words I ain't never goin' to forgit 'em." And he leaned his head in a baffled, tired way against the planking of the mill. "Who said so, Jim?"
The contrast in the looks and appearances of these gray-backs and our poor boys, was painfully apparent. They were in robust health, full of life and vitality, and fit to at once take the field again, while our boys were scarcely able, many of them, to climb up the bank at the landing, without assistance.
Either the citizens kept to their closed-up houses or, having run away at the coming of the enemy, they had not yet dared to return, although so far as I might tell there was no danger of their being mistreated by the gray-backs. Reaching the plain which is below the city we streaked westward, our destination being the field wireless station.
Even with all our watchfulness and the vigilance of the enemy on the James, that indefatigable and tireless Jew, with an eye to business, would get into Richmond with loads of delicacies, and this the soldier managed to buy with his "Confederate gray-backs."
The broad hallway ran from the front of the house to the kitchen ell, and I could see its entire length. Several men were clustered at the other end, peering out through the narrow panes of glass either side the front door, and one came running toward me. It was the Irish sergeant. "They're a-coomin', sorr a bunch o' gray-backs. Shud Oi hay' the byes let drive?"
"They're a-comin', sorr," his voice hoarse with excitement, and waving one hand toward the front of the house, "an' thar's goin' ter be hell ter pay this toime" "You mean the gray-backs? From the front? What force?" "Domn'd if Oi know; Oi wasn't seein' out thar the sergeant told me." I could not leave Billie down there alone, nor the door open.
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