On the green slope of a hill, a mile or more ahead, a score of little puffs of white smoke were seen, then a sharp report, and, in some places near by, the ground was broken as if by a thrust of a spear, and little scraps of clay scattered over the greensward.  Then the bugle sounded a halt.  A few minutes later the horsemen spread in a chain across the line of march, rode swiftly to a common center, formed in a solid group, turned to the rear and rode back of the skirmishers to the main body.  Company K watched them as they galloped back, and as they reached the group at the head of the long line, a half-mile or so distant, a body of men hastened forward laden with stretchers and hospital appliances.  Ah! at last!  It is now real war.  The bugle sounds Forward! and with an elastic spring the groups of four push dauntlessly ahead.  Their eyes are fixed on the brow of the hill, separated from them by a narrow depression.

The whole line—­perhaps three miles wide—­but, of course, not at all regular, conforming largely to the difficulties encountered, moves down the sloping bank on a run.  Before they reach the bottom they are an excellent target, and for the first time that most blood curdling of sounds—­the half-singing, half-hissing z-z-z-ip of the minie-ball—­numbs the ardor of the bravest.  It is such a malignant, direct, devilish admonition of murder; it comes so unexpectedly, no matter how well you are prepared, that Achilles himself would feel a spasm of fear.  And when it strikes it does its work with such a venomous, exultant splutter, that there seems something animate, demoniac in it.  The volley, as I said, came as the men were hurried down the hill by their own momentum and by the sharp fall in the ground.  The balls passed too high or too low, but they impressed the fact on enthusiasts, who had longed for battle, that one might die for one’s country and not die gloriously.  It seemed such an ignoble, such a dastardly, outrageous thing, that death could come to them from unseen hands, for as yet they had not seen a soul.  But now they are at the foot of the hill—­though it is not correct to so call it, for it was a long, winding valley, through which ran a dancing streamlet, very welcome to the thirsty warriors when they had succeeded in breaking through the vicious natural chevaux de frise of blackberry-briers and nettles.  But now there wasn’t much time to slake thirst.  The bullets had begun to come regularly; and suddenly, as Jack conducted his squad across the stream, he was startled by the exclamation, uttered rather in reverence, it seemed to him, than surprise or pain: 

“My God, I’m hit!”

Yes, a fair-haired lad—­one of his class—­tottered a second in a limp, helpless way, and fell headlong, pitching into the little stream.  Jack ran and lifted him out; but even before the hospital corps came the boy was dead.  The bullet had gone quite through his heart.