“In what respect, Colonel?”

“You have been absent from your company.”  His voice was gruff, but his eye and mouth belied his voice.

“Here,” said he; “take this and read it.”

I read the following:  “Private Jones Berwick, Company D, Eleventh Massachusetts Volunteers, is relieved, until further orders, from duty with his company, and will hold himself ready for special service when ordered.”

This order was signed by Colonel Blaisdell, and approved by General
Grover.

XIII

JONES ON THE BLACK HORSE

“Take all the swift advantage of the hours.”—­SHAKESPEARE.

At about three o’clock in the afternoon of this 6th of May, I was again aroused from sleep, this time by an order to report to the adjutant of the Eleventh.  He informed me that he was aware of General Grover’s order relieving me from regular duty—­in fact had himself written the order by command of Colonel Blaisdell, who had been asked to issue it by our brigade commander.  The adjutant also told me that I should still get rations through Company D, but that I was free to go and come when not on special duty, and that I was expected to keep him advised of my goings, so that I could be found when wanted.  “For the rest,” said he, “you will do much as you wish, especially when the brigade is in reserve, as it is to-day, and as it is likely to be for a good many days to come.  Your services to be required at long intervals will make up, it is hoped, for your exemption from regular duty.”

I thanked him and retired.  I had learned that Dr. Khayme was on the right, and at once set out to find him, traversing much of the battlefield of the preceding day.  When I reached the ground over which Hancock’s troops had fought, it became evident that the rebels had here suffered severely; their dead were yet numerous in places, although details of men had long been busy in burying the slain of both armies.

At last I found Dr. Khayme’s tent, after having been directed wrong more than once.  No one was there except a white servant; he told me that the Doctor, who was now at the field hospital, had been busy the whole of the preceding day and night in relieving the wounded; that he had taken no sleep at all.  “I don’t see how the Doctor stands what he goes through,” said the man.  “Yesterday the whole day long he was in the thick of it; he was in as great danger as the troops were; lots more than some of ’em.  He said that the rebels wouldn’t try to hit him; but for my part I wouldn’t trust one of ’em as far as I could fling a bull by the tail; and him a tendin’ to ’em just like they was our own men.”

This was not the first I had heard of the Doctor’s disregard of danger.  At Bull Run he was known to follow a charge and assist the wounded as they fell.  I supposed that there was no use expostulating with a man who so firmly believed in the peculiar doctrines of his philosophy.