In the centre the tragedy was repeated with results even more terrible. As the charging lines fell back, staggering, bleeding and cut to pieces, fresh brigades threw down their knapsacks, fixed their bayonets and charged through their own melting ranks into the jaws of Death to fall back in their turn. With a mighty shout the blue line swept across the railroad, took the ditches at the point of the bayonet and captured two hundred grey prisoners. But only for a moment. From the supporting line rang the rebel yell and they were hurled back, shattered and cut to pieces. These retreats were veritable shambles of slaughter. The curved lines on the hills raking them with their deadly accurate cross-fire. John Vaughan's regiment leaped to the support of the falling blue waves. A wounded soldier had propped himself against a stone and smiled as the cheering men swept by. He could rest a while now. A battery of artillery suddenly blazed from the hill-crest and his Colonel threw his command flat on their stomachs until the storm should slacken. John heard the shrill deadly swish of the big shots passing two feet above. He lifted his eyes to the hill and a frightened pigeon suddenly swooped straight down toward his head. He ducked quickly, sure he had escaped a cannon ball until the laugh of the man at his side told of his mistake. They rose to charge. The knapsack of the man who had laughed was struck by a ball and a deck of cards sent flying ten feet in the air. "Deal me a winning hand!" John shouted. A shot cut the sword belt of the first lieutenant, left him uninjured, glanced and killed the captain. The lieutenant picked up his sword, took his captain's place and led the charge. Men were falling on the right and left and John Vaughan loaded and fired with steady, dogged nerve without a scratch. Four times the blue billows had dashed against the hills only to fall back in red confusion. The din and roar were indescribable. The color-bearer of the regiment confused by conflicting orders paused and asked for instructions. The Colonel, mistaking his act for retreat, tore the colors from his hand and gave them to another man. The boy burst into tears. The new color-bearer had scarcely lifted the flag above his head when he fell. The disgraced soldier snatched the tottering flagstaff and, lifting it on high, dashed up the hill ahead of his line of battle. The men were ducking their heads low beneath the fierce hail of lead and staggering blindly. John saw this boy waving his flag and shaking his fist back at the halting line. He was not a hundred feet from the Confederate trenches. "Come on there!" he shouted. "Damn it, what's the matter with you?" Ned Vaughan and his grey men behind the little mound of red dirt were watching this drama with flashing eyes. Beside him crouched a boy whose early piety had marked him for the ministry. But he had wandered from the fold in the stress of army life. Ned heard his voice now in low, eager prayer: