roops could be seen
through the smoke, hurrying down from the tall brown woods. The grey
line broke, then rallied and swept on. The breastwork was now but a few
hundred feet away. A flag waved upon it, the staff planted in the soft
earth. Billy, moving side by side with Allan Gold, clutched closer the
great red battle-flag with the blue cross. His young face was set, his
eyes alight. Iron-sinewed he ran easily, without panting. "I air
a-goin'," he announced, "I air a-goin' to put this here one in the place
of that thar one."

"'T isn't going to be easy work," said Allan soberly. "What's the use of
ducking, Steve Dagg? If a bullet's going to hit you it's going to hit
you, and if it isn't going to hit you it isn't--"

A minie ball cut the staff of the flag in two just above Billy's head.
He caught the colours as they came swaying down, Allan jerked a musket
from a dead man's grasp, and together he and Billy somehow fastened the
flag to the bayonet and lifted it high. The line halted under a
momentary cover, made by the rising side of a hollow rimmed by a few
young locust trees. Cleave came along it. "Close ranks!--Men, all of
you! that earthwork must be taken. The 2d, the 4th, and the 33d are
behind us looking to see us do it. General Jackson himself is looking.
_Attention! Fix bayonets! Forward! Charge!_"

Up out of the hollow, and over the field went the 65th in a wild charge.
The noise of a thousand seas was in the air, and the smoke of the
bottomless pit. The yellow flashes of the guns came through it, and a
blur of colour--the flag on the bank. On went their own great
battle-flag, slanting forward as Billy Maydew ran. The bank flamed and
roared. A bullet passed through the fleshy part of the boy's arm. He
looked sideways at the blood. "Those durned bees sure do sting! I air
a-goin' to plant this here flag on that thar bank, jest the same as if
't was a hop pole in Christianna's garden!"

Fulkerson fought on grimly by the stone wall; Garnett and the other
Stonewall regiments struggled with desperation to hold the centre, the
artillery thundered from every height. The 65th touched the earthwork.
Cleave mounted first; Allan followed, then Billy and the Thunder Run
men, the regiment pouring after. Hot was the welcome they got, and
fierce was their answering grip. In places men could load and fire, but
bayonet and musket butt did much of the work. There was a great clamour,
the acrid smell of powder, the indescribable