" He stopped and waited as a man who had delivered
his message. The old Colonel had risen and taken the paper,
and now held it with a firm grasp, as if it might blow away
with the rising wind. He did not say a word, but his hand shook a little
as he proceeded to fold it carefully, and there was a burning gleam
in his deep-set eyes, back under his bushy, gray brows.
"Will you sort of look over it, sir, if you think it's worth while?
We was in a sort of hurry and we had to put it down just as we come to it;
we didn't have time to pick our ammunition; and it ain't written the best
in the world, nohow." He waited again, and the Colonel opened the paper
and glanced down at it mechanically. It contained first a roster,
headed by the list of six guns, named by name: "Matthew", "Mark", "Luke",
and "John", "The Eagle", and "The Cat"; then of the men, beginning with
the heading:
"Those killed".
Then had followed "Those wounded", but this was marked out.
Then came a roster of the company when it first entered service;
then of those who had joined afterward; then of those who were present now.
At the end of all there was this statement, not very well written,
nor wholly accurately spelt:
"To Whom it may Concern: We, the above members of the old battery known,
etc.
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