even, and if the Yankees limber
up and leave at the end of an hour, how many shells will have been
thrown?"--"If it is a hundred and ten miles from Harrisonburg to the
Potomac, and if Old Jack's foot cavalry advances twenty-two miles a day,
and if we lay off a day for a battle, and if we have three skirmishes
each occupying two hours, and if Banks makes a stand of half a day at
Winchester, and if Fremont executes a flank movement and delays us six
hours, just how long will it be before Old Jack pushes Banks into the
Potomac?"--"If Company A had ninety men when it started ('thar war a
full hundred') and five men died of measles and pneumonia (''t were
six'), and if we recruited three at Falling Springs, and six were killed
at Manassas and sixteen wounded, half of whom never came back, and we
got twelve recruits at Centreville and seven more at Winchester, and if
five straggled on the Bath and Romney trip and were never heard of more,
and if five were killed at Kernstown and a dozen are still in the
hospital, and if ten more recruits came in at Rude's Hill and if we left
four sick at Magaheysville, and if we lost none at McDowell, not being
engaged, but two in a skirmish since, and if Steve Dagg straggled three
times but was brought back and tried to desert twice but never got any
further than the guardhouse--how many men are in Company A?"--"If"--this
was Billy's--"if I have any luck in the next battle, and if I air found
to have a speaking acquaintance with every damned thousand-legged word
the captain asks me about, and I get to be a sergeant, and I air swapped
into the artillery, and thar's a big fight, and my battery and Company A
are near, and Sergeant Mathew Coffin gets into trouble right next door
to me, and he cried out a hundred times (lying right thar in the zone of
fire), 'Boys, come take me out of hell!' and the company all was forced
back, and all the gunners, and I was left thar serving my gun, just as
pretty and straight, and he cried out anoth'r hundred times, 'Billy
Maydew, come pick me up and carry me out of hell'--and I just served on
a hundred times, only looking at him every time the gun thundered and I
straightened up--"

"For shame!" cried Allan. "I've heard Steve Dagg say something like that
about Richard Cleave." Billy sat up indignant. "It air not like that at
all! The major air what he is, and Steve Dagg air what he is! Sergeant
Mathew Coffin air what somebody or other called somebody else in th