Chapters 24
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1 Chapter - 01 22:33
The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills. Resting. As the landscape changed from brown to green, the army awakened, and began to tremble with eagerness at the noise of rumors. It cast its eyes upon the roads, which were growing from long troughs of liquid mud to proper thoroughfares. A river, amber-tinted in the shadow of its banks, purled at the army's feet. And at night, when the stream had become of a sorrowful blackness, one could see across it the red eyelike. gleam of hostile camp-fires set in the low brows of distant hills. Once a certain tall soldier developed virtues and went resolutely to wash his shirt. He came flying back from a brook, waving his garment banner-like.
He was swelled with a tale he had heard from a reliable friend, who had heard it from a truthful cavalryman, who had heard it from his trustworthy brother, one of the orderlies at Division headquarters. He adopted the important air of a herald in red and gold. "'We're goin to move to-morrow. Sure,' he said pompously to a group in the company street. "'We're goin way up the river, cut across, and come around behind em.' To his attentive audience he drew a loud and elaborate plan of a very brilliant campaign. When he had finished, the blue-clothed men scattered into small arguing groups between the rows of squat brown huts. A negro teamster who had been dancing upon a cracker-box with the hilarious encouragement of two-score soldiers was deserted.
He sat mournfully down. Smoke drifted lazily from a multitude of quaint chimneys. "'It's a lie. That's all it is. Thunderin' lie,' said another private loudly. His smooth face was flushed, and his hands were thrust sulkily into his trouser pockets. He took the matter as an affront to him. I don't believe the dernd old army's ever going to move. We're set. I got ready to move eight times in the last two weeks, and we ain't moved yet." The tall soldier felt called upon to defend the truth of a rumor he himself had introduced. He and the loud one came near to fighting over it. A corporal began to swear before the assemblage. He had just put a costly board floor in his house, he said. During the early spring, he had refrained from adding extensively to the comfort of his environment because he had felt that the army might start on the march at any moment.
Of late, however, he had been impressed that they were in a sort of eternal camp. Many of the men engaged in a spirited debate. One outlined in a peculiarly lucid manner all the plans of the commanding general. He was opposed by men who advocated that there were other plans of campaign. They clamored at each other, numbers making futile bids for the popular attention. Meanwhile, the soldier who had fetched the rumor bustled about with much importance. He was continually assailed by question. "'What's up, Jim? "'The arm is going to move. "'Ah, what are you talking about? "'How you know it is? "'Well, you can believe me, or not. "'Just as you like. "'I don't care a hang.' There was much food for thought in the manner in which he replied.
He came near to convincing them by disdaining to produce proofs. They grew much excited over it. There was a youthful private who listened with eager ears to the words of the tall soldier, and to the very comments of his comrades. After receiving a fill of discussions concerning marches and attacks, he went to his hut and crawled through an intricate hole that served as a door. He wished to be alone with some new thoughts that had lately come to him. He lay down on a wide bunk that stretched across the end of the room. In the other end, cracker-boxes were made to serve as furniture. They were grouped about the fireplace. A picture from an illustrated weekly was on the log walls, and three rifles were paralleled on pegs.
Equipment hung on handy projections, and some tin dishes lay upon a small pile of firewood. A folded tent was serving as a roof. The sunlight without beating upon it made it glow a light yellow shade. A small window shot an oblique square of white light upon the cluttered floor. The smoke from the fire at times neglected the clay chimney, and wreathed into the room, and this flimsy chimney of clay and sticks made endless threats to set ablaze the whole establishment. The youth was in a little trance of astonishment, so they were at last going to fight. On the morrow, perhaps, there would be a battle, and he would be in it. For a time he was obliged to labor to make himself believe. He could not accept with assurance an omen that he was about to mingle in one of those great affairs of the earth.
He had, of course, dreamed of battles all his life, of vague and bloody conflicts that had thrilled him with their sweep and fire. In visions he had seen himself in many struggles. He had imagined peoples secure in the shadow of his eagle-eyed prowess. But awake he had regarded battles as crimson blotches on the pages of the past. He had put them as things of the bygone, with his thought images of heavy crowns and high castles. There was a portion of the world's history which he had regarded as the time of wars, but it, he thought, had been long gone over the horizon and had disappeared forever. From his home his youthful eyes had looked upon the war in his own country with distrust. It must be some sort of a play affair.
He had long despaired of witnessing a Greek-like struggle. Such would be no more, he had said. Men were better and more timid. Secular and religious education had effaced the throat-grappling instinct, or else firm finance held in check the passions.
He had burned several times to enlist. Tales of great movements shook the land. They might not be distinctly homeric, but there seemed to be much glory in them. He had read of marches, sieges, conflicts, and he had longed to see it all. His busy mind had drawn him large pictures, extravagant in color, lurid with breathless deeds. But his mother had discouraged him. She had affected to look with some contempt on the quality of his war-ador and patriotism. She could calmly seat herself, and with no apparent difficulty give him many hundreds of reasons why he was of vastly more importance on the farm than on the field of battle. She had had certain ways of expression that told him that her statements on the subject came from a deep conviction.
Moreover, on her side was his belief that her ethical motive in the argument was impregnable. At last, however, he had made firm rebellion against this yellow light thrown upon the color of his ambitions. The newspaper, the gossips of the village, his own picturings, had aroused him to an uncheckable degree. They were, in truth, fighting finely down there. Almost every day, the newspapers printed accounts of a decisive victory. One night, as he lay in bed, the winds had carried to him clangering of the church bell as some enthusiasts jerked the rope frantically to tell the twisted news of a great battle. This voice of the people, rejoicing in the night, had made him shiver in a prolonged ecstasy of excitement.
Later he had gone down to his mother's room and had spoken thus. I'm going to enlist. "'Henry, don't you be a fool,' his mother had replied. She had then covered her face with the quilt. There was an end to that matter for the night. Nevertheless, the next morning he had gone to a town that was near his mother's farm and enlisted in a company that was forming there. When he had returned home, his mother was milking the brindle cow. Four others stood waiting. "'Huh? I've enlisted,' he had said to her diffidently. There was a short silence. Lord's will be done, Henry, she had finally replied, and then continued to milk the brindle cow. When he had stood in the doorway with his soldier's clothes on his back and with the light of excitement and expectancy in his eyes, almost defeating the glow of regret for the home-bounds, he had seen two tears leaving her trails on his mother's scarred sheiks.
Still, she had disappointed him by saying nothing whatever about returning with his shield or on it. He had privately primed himself for a beautiful scene. He had prepared certain sentences which he thought could be used with touching effect, but her words destroyed his plans. She had doggedly peeled potatoes and addressed him as follows. "'You watch out, Henry, and take good care of yourself in this here fighting business. You watch out and take good care of yourself. Don't go a-thinking you can lick the whole rebel army at the start, because you can't.' You're just one little feller amongst a whole lot of others, and you've got to keep quiet and do what they tell you. I know how you are, Henry.
I knit your eight pair of socks, Henry, and I put in all your best shirts, because I want my boy to be just as warm and comfortable as anybody in the Army. Whenever they get holes in them, I want you to send them right away back to me so as I can durn them. And always be careful and choose your company. There's lots of bad men in the army, Henry. The army makes them wild, and they like nothing better than the job of leading off a young feller like you, as they ain't never been away from home much, and as always had a mother, and a learning them to drink and swear. Keep clear of them folks, Henry. I don't want yer to ever do anything, Henry, that you wouldn't be shamed to let me know about. Just think as if I was a-watching you.
If you keep that in your mind, allus, I guess you'll come out about all right. You must allus remember your father, too, child, and remember he never drunk a drop of liquor in his life, and seldom swore a cross oath. I don't know what else to tell you, Henry, excepting that you must never do no shirking, child, on my account. If so be it, time comes when you have to be killed or do a mean thing. Why, Henry, don't think of anything except what's right. "'Because there's many a woman has to bear up against such things these times, and the Lord'll take care of us all. Don't forget about the socks and the shirts, child, and I've put a cup of blackberry jam with your bundle, because I know you like it above all things.
Good-bye, Henry. Watch out, and be a good boy." He had, of course, been impatient under the ordeal of this speech. It had not been quite what he expected, and he bore it. With an air of irritation, he departed feeling vague relief. Still, when he had looked back from the gate, he had seen his mother kneeling among the potato-peerings, her brown face upraised as stained with tears and her spare form quivering. He bowed his head and went on, feeling suddenly ashamed of his purposes. From his home he had gone to the seminary to bid adieu to his many schoolmates. They had thronged about him with wonder and admiration. He had felt a gulf now between them, and had swelled with calm pride. He and some of his fellows who had donned the blue were quite overwhelmed with privileges for all of one afternoon.
And it had been a very delicious thing. They had strutted. A certain light-haired girl had made vivacious fun at his martial spirit, but there was another and darker girl, Whom he gazed at steadfastly, and he thought she grew demure and sad at sight of his blue and brass. As he had walked down the path between the rows of oaks, he had turned his head and detected her window, watching his departure. As he perceived her, she had immediately begun to stare up through the high tree branches at the sky. He had seen a good deal of flurry and haste in her movements as she changed her attitude. He often thought of it. On the way to Washington, his spirit had soared, the regiment was fed and caressed at station after station, until the youth had believed that he must be a hero.
There was a lavish expenditure of bread and cold meats, coffee and pickles and cheese. As he basked in the smiles of the girls, and was patted and complimented by the old man, he had felt growing with him in the strength to do mighty deeds of arms. After complicated journeyings with many pauses, there had come months of monotonous life in a camp. He had had the belief that real war was a series of death struggles with small time in between for sleep and meals, but since his regiment had come to the field the army had done little but sit still and try to keep warm.
He was brought then gradually back to his old ideas. Greek-like struggles would be no more. Men were better or more timid. Secular and religious education had affected the throat-grappling instinct, or else firm finance held in check the passions. He had grown to regard himself merely as a part of a vast blue demonstration. His province was to look out as far as he could for his personal comfort. For recreation he could twiddle his thumbs and speculate on the thoughts which must agitate the minds of the generals. Also he was drilled and drilled and reviewed and drilled and drilled and reviewed. The only foes he had seen were some pickets along the river bank. They were a sun-tanned philosophical lot, who sometimes shot reflectively at the blue pickets.
When reproached for this, afterward they usually expressed sorrow and swore by their gods that the guns had exploded without their permission. The youth on guard duty one night conversed across the stream with one of them, He was a slightly ragged man who spat skilfully between his shoes and possessed a great fund of bland and infantile assurance. The youth liked him personally. "'Yank,' the other had informed him, "'yer a right damn good feller.' This sentiment floating to him upon the still air had made him temporarily regret war. Various veterans had told him tales. Some talked of grave, bewhiskered hordes who were advancing with relentless curses and chewing tobacco with unspeakable valor.
Tremendous bodies of fierce soldierly who were sweeping along like the Huns. Others spoke of tattered and eternally hungry men who fired despondent powders. They'll charge through hell's fire and brimstone to get a hold of a haverstack. And such stomachs ain't a lasting long, he was told. From the stories, the youth imagined the red, live bones sticking out through slits in the faded uniforms. Still, he could not put a whole faith in veterans' tales, for recruits were their prey. They talked much of smoke, fire, and blood. But he could not tell how much might be lies. They persistently yelled, Fresh Fish, at him, and were in no wise to be trusted.
However, he perceived now that it did not greatly matter what kind of soldiers he was going to fight, so long as they fought, which fact no one disputed. There was a more serious problem. He lay on his bunk pondering upon it. He tried to mathematically prove to himself that he would not run from a battle. Previously, he had never felt obliged to wrestle too seriously with this question. In his life, he had taken certain things for granted. Never challenging his belief in ultimate success, and bothering little about means and roads. But here he was, confronted with a thing of moment. It had suddenly appeared to him that perhaps in a battle he might run. He was forced to admit that as far as war was concerned he knew nothing of himself.
A sufficient time before he would have allowed the problem to kick its heels at the outer portals of his mind, But now he felt compelled to give serious attention to it. A little panic fear grew in his mind as his imagination went forward to a fight. He saw hideous possibilities. He contemplated the lurking menace of the future, and failed in an effort to see himself standing stoutly in the midst of them. He recalled his visions of broken, bladed glory, but in the shadow of the impending tumult, He suspected them to be impossible pictures. He sprang from the bunk and began to pace nervously to and fro. "'Good Lord! What's the matter with me?' he said aloud. He felt that in this crisis his laws of life were useless.
Whatever he had learned of himself was here of no avail. He was an unknown quantity. He saw that he would again be obliged to experiment as he had in early youth. He must accumulate information of himself, and meanwhile he resolved to remain close upon his guard, lest those qualities of which he knew nothing should everlastingly disgrace him. "'Good Lord!' he repeated in dismay. After a time the tall soldier slid dexterously through the hole. The loud private followed. They were wrangling. "'That's all right,' said the tall soldier. As he entered, he waved his hand expressively. "'You can believe me or not. Just as you like. All you got to do is sit down and wait as quiet as you can, and pretty soon you'll find out I was right.' His comrade grunted stubbornly.
For a moment he seemed to be searching for a formidable reply. Finally he said, "'Well, you don't know everything in the world, do you?' "'Didn't say I knew everything in the world,' retorted the other sharply. He began to stow various articles snugly into his knapsack. The youth, pausing in his nervous walk, looked down at the busy figure. "'Gong to be a battle, sure, is there, Jim?' he asked. "'Course there is,' replied the tall soldier. "'Course there is. You just wait till tomorrow, and you'll see one of the biggest battles ever was. Just wait.' "'Thunder,' said the youth. "'Oh, you'll see fighting this time, my boy. "'What'll be regular out-and-out fighting,' added the tall soldier, with the air of a man who was about to exhibit a Battle for the benefit of his friends.
"'Huh?' said the loud one in the corner. "'Well,' remarked the youth, "'like as not, this story'll turn out just like them others did.' "'Not much it won't,' replied the tall soldier, exasperated. "'Not much it won't.' "'Didn't the cavalry all start this morning?' he glared about him. No one denied his statement. "'The cavalry started this morning,' he continued. They say there are hardly any cavalry in the camp. They're going to Richmond, or some place while we fight all the Johnnies. It's some dodge like that. The regiment got orders, too. A feller what seen him go to headquarters told me a little while ago, and they're raising blazes all over the camp. Anybody can see that? Shucks, said the loud one.
The youth remained silent for a time. At last he spoke to the tall soldier. Jim? What? How do you think the regiment'll do? Ah, they'll fight all right. I guess after they once get into it, said the other one with cold judgment. He made a fine use of the third person. There'd been heaps of fun poked at them because they're new, of course, and all that, but they'll fight all right, I guess. Think any of the boys'll run? persisted the youth. Ah, there may be a few of them run, but there's them kind in every regiment. "'Especially when they first goes under fire," said the other, in a tolerant way. "'Course, it might happen that the whole kit and caboodle might start and run, if some big fightin' come first off, and then again they might stay and fight like fun.
But you can't bet on nothin.' "'But, of course, they ain't never been under fire yet, and it ain't likely they'll lick the whole rebel army all onct, first time.' But I think they'll fight better'n some, if worse'n others. That's the way I figure. They call the regiment fresh fish and everything, but the boys come of good stock, and most of them'll fight like saying after they wants to get shootin'. He added with a mighty emphasis on the last four words. "'You think you know,' began the loud soldier with scorn. The other turned savagely upon him. They had a rapid altercation in which they fastened upon each other various strange epithets. The youth at last interrupted them. "'Did you ever think you might run yourself, Jim?' He asked.
On concluding the sentence, he laughed as if he had meant to aim a joke. The loud soldier also giggled. The tall private waved his hand. "'Well,' he said profoundly, "'I thought it might get too hot for Jim Conklin in some of them scrimmages.' "'And if a whole lot of boys started to run away, I suppose I'd start and run. And if I once started to run, I'd run like the devil, and no mistake. But if everybody was a-standin' and a-fightin', why, I'd stand and fight. Be Jiminy, I would. I'll bet on it." "'Ha!' said the loud one. The youth of this tale felt gratitude for these words of his comrade. He had feared that all of the untried men possessed a great and correct confidence. He now was in a measure reassured.
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2 Chapter - 02 17:36
The next morning, the youth discovered that his tall comrade had been the fast-flying messenger of a mistake. There was much scoffing at the latter by those who had yesterday been firm adherents to his views. and there was even a little sneering by men who had never believed the rumor. The tall one fought with a man from Chatfield Corners and beat him severely. The youth felt, however, that his problem was in no wise lifted from him. There was, on the contrary, an irritating prolongation. The tale had created in him a great concern for himself. Now, with this newborn question in his mind, He was compelled to sink back into his old place as part of a blue demonstration. For days he made ceaseless calculations, but they were all wondrously unsatisfactory.
He found that he could establish nothing. He finally concluded that the only way to prove himself was to go into the blaze, and then figuratively to watch his legs to discover their merits and faults. He reluctantly admitted that he could not sit still and, with a metal slate and pencil, derive an answer. To gain it he must have blaze, blood, and danger, even as a chemist requires this, that, and the other. So he fretted for an opportunity. Meanwhile he continually tried to measure himself by his comrades. The tall soldier, for one, gave him some assurance. The man's serene unconcern dealt him a measure of confidence. For he had known him since childhood, and from his intimate knowledge he did not see how he could be capable of anything that was beyond him—the youth.
Still he thought that his comrade might be mistaken about himself, or, on the other hand, he might be a man heretofore doomed to peace and obscurity, but in reality made to shine in war. The youth would have liked to have discovered another who suspected himself—a sympathetic A comparison of mental notes would have been a joy to him. He occasionally tried to fathom a comrade with seductive sentences. He looked about to find men in the proper mood. All attempts failed to bring forth any statement which looked in any way like a confession to those doubts which he privately acknowledged in himself. He was afraid to make an open declaration of his concern, because he dreaded to place some unscrupulous confidant upon the high plane of the unconfessed from which elevation he could be derided.
In regard to his companions, his mind wavered between two opinions, according to his mood. Sometimes he inclined to believing them all heroes. In fact, he usually admitted in secret the superior development of the higher qualities in others. He could conceive of men going very insignificantly about the world, bearing a load of courage unseen. and although he had known many of his comrades through boyhood, he began to fear that his judgment of them had been blind. Then, in other moments, he flouted those theories, and assured himself that his fellows were all privately wondering and quaking. His emotions made him feel strange in the presence of men who talked excitedly of a prospective battle as of a drama they were about to witness.
With nothing but eagerness and curiosity, Appearance appeared in their faces. It was often that he suspected them to be liars. He did not pass such thoughts without severe condemnation of himself. He dinned reproaches at times. He was convicted by himself of many shameful crimes against the gods of traditions. In his great anxiety, his heart was continually clamoring at what he considered the intolerable slowness of the generals. They seemed content to perch tranquilly on the river-bank and leave him bowed down by the weight of a great problem. He wanted it settled forthwith. He could not long bear such a load, he said. Sometimes his anger at the commanders reached an acute stage, and he grumbled about the camp like a veteran.
One morning, however, he found himself in the ranks of his prepared regiment. The men were whispering speculations and recounting the old rumors. In the gloom before the break of the day, their uniforms glowed a deep purple hue. From across the river, the red eyes were still peering. In the eastern sky, there was a yellow patch, like a rug, laid for the feet of the coming sun. And against it, black and patternlike, loomed the gigantic figure of the colonel, a gigantic horse. From off in the darkness came the trampling of feet. The youth could occasionally see dark shadows that moved like monsters. The regiment stood at rest for what seemed a long time. The youth grew impatient. It was unendurable the way these affairs were managed.
He wondered how long they were going to be kept waiting. As he looked all about him and pondered upon the misty gloom, he began to believe that at any moment the ominous distance might be a flare. and the rolling crashes of an engagement come to his ears. Staring once at the red-eyes across the river, he conceived them to be growing larger, as the orbs of a row of dragons advancing. He turned toward the colonel and saw him lift his gigantic arm and calmly stroke his mustache. At last he heard from the foot of the road along the hill the clatter of a horse's galloping hoofs. It must be the coming of orders. He bent forward, scarce breathing. The exciting clickety-clack, as it grew louder and louder, seemed to be beating upon his soul.
Presently, a horseman with jangling equipment drew rein before the colonel of the regiment. The two held a short, sharp-worded conversation. The men in the foremost ranks craned their necks. As the horseman wheeled his animal and galloped away, he turned to shout over his shoulder, "'Don't forget that box of cigars!' the colonel mumbled in reply. The youth wondered what a box of cigars had to do with war. A moment later the regiment went swinging off into the darkness. It was now like one of those moving monsters, wending with many feet. The air was heavy and cold with dew. A mass of wet grass marched upon rustled like silk. There was an occasional flash and glimmer of steel from the backs of all those huge crawling reptiles.
From the road came creakings and grumblings as some surly guns were dragged away. The men stumbled along, still muttering speculations. There was a subdued debate. Once a man fell down, and as he reached for his rifle, a comrade, unseeing, trod upon his hand. He, of the injured fingers, swore bitterly and aloud. A low, tittering laugh went among his fellows. Presently they passed into a roadway and marched forward. With easy strides, a dark regiment moved before them. And from behind also came the tinkle of equipments on the bodies of marching men. The rushing yellow of the developing day went on behind their backs. When the sun-rays at last struck full and mellowingly upon the earth, the youth saw that the landscape was streaked with two long, thin black columns which disappeared on the brow of a hill in front, and rearward vanished into a wood.
They were like two serpents crawling from the cavern of the night. The river was not in view. The tall soldier burst into praises of what he thought to be his powers of perception. Some of the tall one's companions cried with emphasis that they, too, had evolved the same thing, and they congratulated themselves upon it. But there were others who said that the tall one's plan was not the true one at all. They persisted with other theories. There was a vigorous discussion. The youth took no part in them. As he walked along in careless line, he was engaged with his own eternal debate. He could not hinder himself from dwelling upon it. He was despondent and sullen, and threw shifting glances about him.
He looked ahead, often expecting to hear from the advance the rattle firing. But the long servants quarreled slowly from hill to hill without bluster of smoke. A dun-colored cloud of dust floated away to the right, The sky overhead was a fairy blue. The youth studied the faces of his companions. Ever on the watch to detect kindred emotions, he suffered disappointment. Some ardor of the air which was causing the veteran commands to move with glee, almost with song, had infected the new regiment. The men began to speak of victory as of a thing they knew. Also the tall soldier received his vindication. They were certainly going to come around and behind the enemy. They expressed commiseration for that part of the army which had been left upon the river-bank, felicitating themselves upon being a part of a blasting host.
The youth, considering himself as separated from the others, was saddened by the blithe and merry speeches that went from rank to rank. The company wags all made their best endeavors. The regiment tramped to the tune of laughter. The blatant soldier often convulsed whole files by his biting sarcasm aimed at the tall one. And it was not long before all the men seemed to forget their mission. Whole brigades grinned in unison, and regiments laughed. A rather fat soldier attempted to pilfer a horse from a door-yard. He planned to load his knapsack upon it. He was escaping with his prize when a young girl rushed from the house and grabbed the animal's mane. There followed a wrangle. The young girl, with pink cheeks and shining eyes, stood like a dauntless statue.
The observant regiment, standing at rest in the roadway, whooped at once and entered whole-souled upon the side of the maiden. The men became so engrossed with this affair that they entirely ceased to remember their own large war. They jeered the pirated private, and called attention to various defects in his personal appearance, And they were wildly enthusiastic in support of the young girl. To her from some distance came bold advice. Hit him with a stick! There were crows and catcalls showered upon him when he retreated without the horse. The regiment rejoiced at his downfall. Loud and vociferous, congratulations were showered upon the maiden, who stood panting and regarding the troops with defiance.
At nightfall the column broke into regimental pieces. And the fragments went into the fields to camp. Tents sprang up like strange plants, camp-fires like red, peculiar blossoms dotted to night. The youth kept from intercourse with his companions as much as circumstances would allow him. In the evening he wandered a few paces into the gloom. From this little distance the many fires, with the black forms of men passing to and fro before their crimson rays, made weird and satanic effects. He lay down in the grass, the blades pressed tenderly against his cheeks. The moon had been lighted and was hung in the tree-top. The liquid stillness of the night enveloping him made him feel a vast pity for himself.
There was a caress in the soft winds, and the whole mood of the darkness, he thought, was one of sympathy for himself in his distress. He wished without reserve that he was at home again, making the endless rounds from the house to the barn, from the barn to the fields, from the fields to the barn, from the barn to the house. He remembered he had often cursed the brindle cow and her mates, and had sometimes flung milking-stools, but from his present point of view there was a halo of happiness about each of their heads, and he would have sacrificed all the brass buttons on the continent. to have been enabled to return to them. He told himself that he was not formed for a soldier, and he mused seriously upon the radical differences between himself and those men who were dodging imp-like around the fires.
As he mused thus he heard the rustle of grass, and upon turning his head discovered the loud soldier. He called out, "'Well, Wilson!' The latter approached and looked down. "'Why, hello, Henry. It is you. What are you doing here?' No thinking," said the youth. The other sat down and carefully lighted his pipe. "'You're getting blue, my boy. You're looking thundering peaked. What to dickens is wrong with you?' "'Ah, nothing,' said the youth." The loud soldier launched then into the subject of the anticipated fight. "'Oh, we got him now!' As he spoke, his boyish face was wreathed in a gleeful smile, and his voice had an exultant ring. We got em now at last. By the eternal thunders, we'll lick em good.
If the truth was known, he added more soberly, they've licked us about every clip up to now. But this time, this time, we'll lick em good. I thought you was objecting to this marchin' a little while ago, said the youth coldly. Oh, that wasn't it, explained the other. I don't mind marchin', if there's goin' to be a fightin' at the end of it. What I hate? Is this getting moved here and there, with no good coming of it as far as I can see, excepting sore feet and damned short rations?
Well, Jim Conklin says we'll get plenty of fighting this time. He's right for once, I guess, though I can't see how it come.
This time we're in for a big battle, and we've got the best end of it, certain, sure. Gee, rod, how we will thump him. He arose and began to pace to and fro excitedly. The thrill of his enthusiasm made him walk with an elastic step. He was sprightly, vigorous, fiery in his belief in success. He looked into the future with clear, proud eye, and he swore with the air of an old soldier. The youth watched him for a moment in silence. When he finally spoke, his voice was as bitter as dregs. "'You're going to do great things, I suppose.' The louder soldier blew a thoughtful cloud of smoke from his pipe. "'Oh, I don't know,' he remarked with dignity. "'I don't know. I suppose I'll do as well as the rest.
I'm going to try like thunder.' He evidently complimented himself upon the modesty of his statement. "'How do you know you won't run when the time comes?' asked the youth. "'Run,' said the loud one. "'Run?' "'Of course not,' he laughed. "'Well,' continued Duluth, "'lots of good enough men have thought they was going to do great things before the fight. But when the time came, they skedaddled. "'Oh, that's all true, I suppose,' replied the other. "'But I'm not going to skedaddle. The man that bets on my running will lose his money. That's all.' He nodded confidently. "'Ah, shucks,' said the youth. "'You ain't the bravest man in the world, are you?' "'Nah, I ain't,' exclaimed the loud soldier indignantly.
"'And I didn't say I was the bravest man in the world, neither. "'I said I was going to do my share of the fighting. That's what I said. And I am, too. "'Who are you, anyhow? You talk as if you thought you was Napoleon Bonaparte.' He glared at the youth for a moment, and then strode away. The youth called in a savage voice after his comrade. "'Well, you needn't get mad about it.' But the other continued on his way and made no reply. He felt alone in space when his injured comrade had disappeared. His failure to discover any might of resemblance in their viewpoints made him more miserable than before. No one seemed to be wrestling with such a terrific personal problem. He was a mental outcast.
He went slowly to his tent and stretched himself on a blanket by the side of the snoring, tall soldier. In the darkness he saw visions of a thousand-tongued fear that would babble at his back and cause him to flee, while others were going coolly about their country's business. He admitted that he would not be able to cope with this monster. He felt that every nerve in his body would be an ear to hear the voices, while other men would remain stolid and deaf. And as he sweated with the pain of these thoughts, He could hear low, serene sentences. "'How about five? Make it six. Seven. Seven goes.' He stared at the red, shivering reflection of a fire on the white wall of his tent until, exhausted and ill from the monotony of his suffering, he fell asleep.
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3 Chapter - 03 18:07
When another night came, the calms changed to purple streaks. Filed across two pontoon-bridges, a glaring fire wine-tinted the waters of the river, its rays shining upon moving masses of troops, brought forth here and there, Sudden gleams of silver or gold. Upon the other shore, a dark and mysterious range of hills was curved against the sky. The insect voices of the night sang solemnly. After this crossing, the youth assured himself that at any moment they might be suddenly and fearfully assaulted from the caves of the lowering woods. He kept his eyes watchfully upon the darkness. But his regiment went unmolested to a camping-place. And the soldiers slept the brave sleep of worried men. In the morning they were routed out with early energy, and hustled along a narrow road that led deep into the forest.
It was during this rapid march that the regiment lost many of the marks of a new command. The men had begun to count the miles upon their fingers, and they grew tired. "'Sore feet and damn short rations, that's all,' said the loud soldier. There was perspiration and grumblings. After a time they began to shed their knapsacks. Some tossed them unconcernedly down, others hid them carefully, asserting their plans to return for them at some convenient time. Men extricated themselves from thick shirts. Presently, few carried anything but their necessary clothing—blankets, haversacks, canteens, and arms and ammunition. "'You can now eat and shoot,' said the tall soldier to the youth. That's all you want to do.
There was a sudden change from the ponderous infantry of theory to the light and speedy infantry of practice. The regiment, relieved of a burden, received a new impetus. But there was much loss of valuable knapsacks, and, on the whole, very good shirts. But the regiment was not yet veteran-like in appearance. Veteran regiments in the army were likely to be very small aggregations of men. Once, when the command had first come to the field, some perambulating veterans, noting the length of their columns, had accosted them thus, "'Hey, fellers, what brigade is that?' And when the men had replied that they formed a regiment and not a brigade, the older soldiers had laughed and said, "'Oh, God!' Also, there was too great a similarity in hats.
The hats of a regiment should Properly represent the history of headgear for a period of years, and moreover there were no letters of faded gold speaking from the colors. They were new and beautiful, and the color-bearer habitually oiled the pole. Presently the army sat down to think. The odor of the peaceful pines was in the men's nostrils. The sound of monotonous axe blows rang through the forest, and insects, nodding on their perches, crooned like old women. The youth returned to his theory of a blue demonstration. One gray dawn, however, he was kicked in the leg by the tall soldier, and then before he was entirely awake he found himself running down a wood road in the midst of men who were panting from the first effects of speed.
His canteen banged rhythmically upon his thigh. His musket bounced a trifle from his shoulder at each stride and made his cap feel uncertain upon his head. He could hear the men whisper jerky sentences. Say, what's this all about? What the thunder we skedaddling this way for? Billy, keep off my feet. Yeah, run like a cow. And the loud soldier's shrill voice could be heard. What the devil they in such a hurry for? The youth thought the damp fog of early morning moved from the rush of a great body of troops. From the distance came a sudden spatter of firing. He was bewildered. As he ran with his comrades he strenuously tried to think, but all he knew was that if he fell down those coming behind would tread upon him.
All his faculties seemed to be needed to guide him over in past obstructions he felt carried along by a mob. The sun spread disclosing rays, and one by one regiments burst into view like armed men just born of the earth. The youth perceived that the time had come. He was about to be measured. For a moment he felt in the face of his great trial like a babe, and the flesh over his heart seemed very thin. He seized time to look about him calculatingly, but he instantly saw that it would be impossible for him to escape from the regiment. It enclosed him, and there were iron laws of tradition and laws on four sides. He was in a moving box. As he perceived this fact, it occurred to him that he had never wished to come to war.
He had not enlisted of his free will. He had been dragged by the merciless government, and now they were taking him out to be slaughtered. The regiment slid down a bank and wallowed across a little stream. The mournful current moved slowly on, and from the water, shaded black, some white bubble eyes looked at the men. As they climbed the hill on the further side, artillery began to boom. Here the youth forgot many things as he felt a sudden impulse of curiosity. He scrambled up the bank with a speed that could not be exceeded by a bloodthirsty man. He expected a battle scene. There were some little fields girded and squeezed by a forest. Spread over the grass and among the tree trunks, he could see knots and waving lines of skirmishers who were running hither and thither and firing at the landscape.
A dark battle line lay upon a sunstruck clearing that gleamed orange color. A flag fluttered. Other regiments floundered up the bank. The brigade was formed in line of battle, and after a pause started slowly through the woods in the rear of the receding skirmishers, who were continually melting into the scene to appear again further on. They were always busy as bees, deeply absorbed in their little combats. The youth tried to observe everything, He did not use care to avoid trees and branches, and his forgotten feet were constantly knocking against stones or getting entangled in briars. He was aware that these battalions, with their commotions, were woven red and startling into the gentle fabric of softened greens and browns.
It looked to be a wrong place for a battlefield. The skirmishers in advance fascinated him. Their shots into thickets and at distant and prominent trees spoke to him of tragedies, hidden, mysterious, solemn. Once the line encountered the body of a dead soldier. He lay upon his back, staring at the sky. He was dressed in an awkward suit of yellowish-brown. The youth could see that the soles of his shoes had been worn to the thinness of writing paper, and from the rent in one a dead foot projected piteously, and it was as if fate had betrayed the soldier. And death had exposed to his enemies the poverty which in life he had perhaps concealed from his friends. The ranks opened covertly to avoid the corpse.
The invulnerable dead man forced a way for himself. The youth looked keenly at the ashen face. The wind raised the tawny beard. It moved as if a hand were stroking it. He vaguely desired to walk around and around the body and stare, the impulse of the living to try to read in dead eyes the answer to the question. During the march, the adore which the youth had acquired went out of view of the field, rapidly faded to nothing. His curiosity was quite easily satisfied. If an intense scene had caught him with its wild swing as he came to the top of the bank, he might have gone roaring on. This advance upon nature was too calm. He had opportunity to reflect. He had time in which to wonder upon himself and to attempt to probe the sensations.
Absurd ideas took hold upon him. He thought that he did not relish the landscape. It threatened him. A cold swept over his back. And it is true that his trousers felt to him that they were no fit for his legs at all. A house standing placidly in distant fields had to him an ominous look. The shadows of the woods were formidable. He was certain that in the vista there lurked fierce-eyed hosts. The swift thought came to him that the generals did not know what they were about. It was all a trap. Suddenly those close forests would bristle with rifle barrels, iron-like brigades would appear in the rear. They were all going to be sacrificed. The generals were stupids. The enemy would presently swallow the whole command.
He glared about him, expecting to see the stealthy approach of his death. He thought that he must break from the ranks and harangue his comrades. They must not all be killed like pigs, and he was sure it would come to pass unless they were informed of these dangers. The generals were idiots to send him marching into a regular pen. There was but one pair of eyes in the corps. He would step forth and make a speech. Shrill and passionate words came to his lips. The line, broken into moving fragments by the ground, went calmly on through the fields and woods. The youth looked at the men nearest him, and saw, for the most part, expressions of deep interest, as if they were investigating something that had fascinated them.
One or two stepped with overvalient airs, as if they were already plunged into war. Others walked as upon thin ice. The greater part of the untested men appeared quiet and absorbed. They were going to look at war, the red animal. War. The blood-swollen God. And they were deeply engrossed in this march. As he looked, the youth gripped his outcry at his throat. He saw that even if the men were tottering with fear, they would laugh at his warning. They would jeer him, if practicable, pelt him with missiles. Admitting that he might be wrong, a frenzied declamation of the kind would turn him into a worm. He assumed then the demeanor of one who knows that he is doomed. alone to unwritten responsibilities.
He lagged with tragic glances at the sky. He was surprised presently by the young lieutenant of his company, who began heartily to beat him with a sword, calling out in a loud and insolent voice, "'Come, young man, get up to that ranch. No sulking'll do here.' He mended his pace with suitable haste, and he hated the lieutenant, who had no appreciation of fine minds. He was a mere brute. After a time, the brigade was halted in the cathedral light of a forest. The bushy skirmishers were still popping. Through the aisles of the wood could be seen the floating smoke from the rifles. Sometimes it went up in little balls, white and compact. During this halt, many men in the regiment began erecting tiny hills in front of them.
They used stones, sticks, earth, and anything they thought might turn a bullet. Some built comparatively large ones, while others seemed content with little ones. This procedure caused a discussion among the men. Some wished to fight like duelists, believing it to be correct, to stand erect, and be, from their feet to their foreheads, a mark. They said they scorned the devices of the cautious. But the others scoffed in reply, and pointed to the veterans on the flanks who were digging at the ground like terriers. In a short time there was quite a barricade along the regimental fronts. Directly, however, they were ordered to withdraw from that place. This astounded the youth. He forgot his stewing over the advanced movement.
"'Well, then, what did they march us out here for?' he demanded of the tall soldier. The latter, with calm faith, began a heavy explanation, although he had been compelled to leave a little protection of stones and dirt, to which he had devoted much care and skill. When the regiment was aligned in another position, each man's regard for his safety caused another line of small entrenchments. They ate their noon meal behind a third one. They were moved from this one also. They were marched from place to place with apparent aimlessness. The youth had been taught that a man became another thing in battle. He saw his salvation in such a change. Hence his waiting was an ordeal to him. He was in a fervor of impatience.
He considered that there was denoted a lack of purpose on the part of the generals. He began to complain to the tall soldiers. "'I can't stand this much longer,' he cried. I don't see what good it does to make us wear out our legs for nothing. He wished to return to camp, knowing that this affair was a blue demonstration, or else to go into battle and discover that he had been a fool in his doubts, and was, in truth, a man of traditional courage. The strain of present circumstances he felt to be intolerable. The philosophical tall soldier measured a sandwich of cracker and pork, and swallowed it in a nonchalant manner. Oh, I suppose we must go reconnoiting around the country, just to keep them from getting too close, or to develop them, or something.
Huh? said the loud soldier. Well, cried the youth, still fidgeting. I'd rather do anything, most than go tramping around the country, all day, doing no good to nobody, and just tiring ourselves out. So would I, said the loud soldier. It ain't right, I tell you, if anybody with a sense was a-running this army, it—oh, shut up. roared the tall private. You little fool, and you damn little cuss, you ain't had that there coat or them pants on for six months, and yet you talk as if—'well, I want to do some fighting anyway," interrupted the other. "'I didn't come here to walk. Could have walked to home, round and around the barn, if I just wanted to walk." The tall one, red-faced, swallowed another sandwich, as if taking poison into despair.
But gradually, as he chewed, his face became again quiet and contented. He could not rage in fierce argument in the presence of such sandwiches. During his meal, he always wore an air of blissful contemplation of the food he had swallowed. His spirit, then, seemed to be communing with the viands. He accepted new environment and circumstances with great coolness, eating from his haversack at every opportunity. On the march, he went along with the strife of a hunter, objecting to neither gate nor distance, and he had not raised his voice when he had been ordered away from three little protective piles of earth and stone, each of which had been an engineering feat worthy of being made sacred to the name of his grandmother.
In the afternoon the regiment went out over the same ground it had taken in the morning. The landscape then ceased to threaten the youth. He had been close to it and had become familiar with it. When, however, they began to pass into a new region his old fears of stupidity and incompetence reassailed him, but this time he doggedly let them babble. He was occupied with his problem, and in his desperation he concluded that the stupidity did not greatly matter. Once he thought he had concluded that it would be better to get killed directly and end his troubles. Regarding death thus out of the corner of his eye, he conceived it to be nothing but rest, and he was filled with a momentarily astonishment.
that he should have made an extraordinary commotion over the mere matter of getting killed. He would die. He would go to some place where he would be understood. It was useless to expect appreciation of his profound and fine senses from such men as the lieutenant. He must look to the grave for comprehension.
The scourish fire increased to a long clatter of sound. With it was mingled a far-away cheering, a battery spoke. Directly the youth would see the skirmishers running. They were pursued by the sound of musketry fire. After a time, the hot, dangerous flashes of the rifles were visible. Smoke clouds went slowly and instantly across the fields like observant phantoms. The din became crescendo, like the roar of an oncoming train. A brigade ahead of them, and on the right, went into action with a rendering roar. It was as if they had exploded, and thereafter it lay stretched in the distance beyond a long gray wall that one was obliged to look twice at, to make sure it was smoke. The youth, forgetting his neat plan of getting killed, gazed spellbound.
His eyes grew wide and busy with the action of the scene. His mouth was a little ways open. Of a sudden he felt a heavy and sad hand laid upon his shoulder. Awakening from his trance of observation, he turned to behold the loud soldier. "'It's my first and last battle, old boy,' said the latter, with intense gloom. He was quite pale, and his girlish lip was trembling, murmured the youth, in great astonishment. "'It's my first and last battle, old boy,' continued the loud soldier. "'Something tells me—'what?' "'I'm a gone coon this first time.' "'And I want you to take these here things to my folks.' He ended up in a quavering sob of pity for himself. He handed the youth a little packet, done up in a yellow envelope.
"'What the devil?' began the youth again. But the other gave him a glance as from the depths of a tomb, and raised his limp hand in a prophetic manner, and turned away."
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4 Chapter - 04 6:56
By Stephen Crane, Chapter Four. Brigade was halted in the fringe of a grove. The men crouched among the trees and pointed their restless guns out at the fields. They tried to look beyond the smoke. Out of this haze, they could see running men. Some shouted information and gestured as they hurried. The men of the new regiment watched and listened eagerly, while their tongues ran on gossip of the battle. They mouthed rumors that had flown like birds out of the unknown. They say Perry has been driven in with a big loss. Yes, Carrot went to the hospital. He said he was sick. That smart lieutenant is commanding G Company. The boys say they won't be under Carrot no more if they all have to desert. They all's knew he was, uh, Hannes's battery is took.
It ain't either. I saw Hannes's battery off on the left, not more than fifteen minutes ago. Well, the gen'er he says he's going to take the whole command of the three-o-fourth when we go into the action. Then, he says, we'll do such fighting as never another one regiment done. They say we're catching it on the left. They say the enemy drug in our line into a devil of a swamp and took Hanus' battery. No such thing. Hanus' battery was long here about a minute ago. That young Hasbrook, he makes a good osfar, sir. He ain't afraid of nothing. I met one of the one-forty-eighth main boys, and he says his brigade fit the whole rebel army for four hours over the turnpike road, and killed about five thousand of them.
He says one more such fight as that, and the war'll be over. Bill ain't scared either. No, sir. He was just mad. That's what he was. When that feller trod on his hand and he up and said that he was willing to give his hand to his country, but he'd be dumbed if he was going to have every dumb bushwhacker in the country walking around on it. Sir, he went to the hospital, disregardless of the fight. Three fingers was crunched. The dern doctor wanted to amputate him. And Bill, he raised a hell of a row, I hear. He's a funny feller. The din in the front swelled to a tremendous chorus. The youth and his fellows were frozen into silence. They could see a flag that tossed in the smoke angrily. Near it were the blurred and agitated forms of troops.
There was a turbulent stream of men across the fields. A battery-changing position at a frantic gallop scattered the stragglers right and left. A shell screaming like a storm, a banshee went over the huddled heads of the reserves. It landed in the grove, and, exploding readily, flung the brown earth. There was a little shower of pine needles. Bullets began to whistle among the branches and nip at the trees. Twigs and leaves came sailing down. It was as if a thousand axes, we and invisible, were being wielded. Many of the men were constantly dodging and ducking their heads. The lieutenant of the youth's company was shot in the hand. He began to swear so wondrously. Then a nervous laugh went along the regimental line.
The officer's profanity sounded conventional. It relieved the tightened senses of the new men. It was as if he had hit his fingers with a tack-hammer at home. He held the wounded member carefully away from his side so that the blood would not drip upon his trousers. The captain of the company, tucking his sword under his arm, produced a handkerchief, and began to bind with it the lieutenant's wound, and they disputed as to how the binding should be done. The battle-flag in the distance jerked about madly. It seemed to be struggling to free itself from an agony. The billowing smoke was filled with horizontal flashes. Men, running swiftly, emerged from it. They grew in numbers until it was seen that the whole command was fleeing, The flag suddenly sank down as if dying.
Its motion, as it fell, was a gesture of despair. Wild yells came from behind the walls of smoke. A sketch in gray and red dissolved into a mob-like body of men who galloped like wild horses. The veteran regiments on the right and left of the three-o'-fourth immediately began to jeer. With the passionate song of the bullets and the banshee shrieks and shells were mingled loud catcalls and bits of— Facetious advice concerning places of safety, but the new regiment was breathless with horror. "'God, Sanders got crushed!' whispered the man at the youth's elbow. They shrank back and crouched as if compelled to await a flood. The youth shot a swift glance along the blue ranks of the regiment. The profiles were motionless, carven, and afterward he remembered that the color sergeant was standing with his legs apart, as if he expected to be pushed to the ground.
The following throng went whirling around the flank. Here and there were officers carried along on the stream like exasperated chips. They were striking about them with their swords and with their left fist, punching every head they could reach. They cursed like highwaymen. A mounted officer displayed the furious anger of a spoiled child. He raged with his head, his arms, and his legs. Another, the commander of the brigade, was galloping about bawling. His hat was gone, and his clothes were arrayed. He resembled a man who had come from bed to go to a fire. The hoofs of his horse often threatened the heads of the running men, but they scampered with singular fortune. In this rush they were apparently all deaf and blind.
They heeded not the largest and longest of the oaths that were thrown at them from all directions. Frequently, over this tumult, could be heard the grim jokes of the critical veterans. But the retreating men apparently were not even conscious of the presence of an audience. The battle reflection that shone for an instant in the faces on the mad current made the youth feel that forceful hands from heaven would not have been able to have held him in place if he could have got intelligent control of his legs. There was an appalling imprint on these faces. The struggle in the smoke had pictured an exaggeration of itself on the bleached cheeks and in the eyes wild. with one desire. The sight of the stampede exerted a flood-like force that seemed able to drag sticks and stones and men from the ground.
They of the reserves had to hold on. They grew pale and firm, and red and quaking. The youth achieved one little thought in the midst of this chaos. The composite monster which had caused the other troops to flee had not then appeared. He resolved to get a view of it, And then he thought he might very likely run better than the best of them.
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5 Chapter - 05 13:30
There were moments of waiting. The youth thought of the village street at home before the arrival of the circus parade on a day in the spring. He remembered how he had stood, small, thrillful boy. prepared to follow the dingy lady upon the white horse or the band in its faded chariot. He saw the yellow road, the lines of expectant people, and the sober houses. He particularly remembered an old fellow who used to sit upon a cracker-box in front of the store and feigned to despise such expositions. A thousand details of color and form surged in his mind. The old fellow upon the cracker-box appeared in middle prominence. Some one cried. Here they come! There was a rustling and muttering among the men.
They displayed a feverish desire to have every possible cartridge ready to their hands. The boxes were pulled around, into various positions, and adjusted with great care. It was as if seven hundred new bonnets were being tried on. The tall soldier, having prepared his rifle, produced a red handkerchief of some kind. He was engaging in knitting it about his throat, with exquisite attention to its position, When the cry was repeated up and down the line, in a muffled roar of sound, "'Here they come! Here they come!' Gunlocks clicked. Across a smoke-infested field came a brown swarm of running men who were giving shrill yells. They came on, swooping and swinging the rifles at all angles, a flag tilted forward, sped near the front.
As he caught sight of them, the youth was momentarily startled by a thought that perhaps his gun was not loaded. He stood trying to rally his faltering intellect so that he might reflect the moment when he had loaded it, but he could not. A hatless general pulled his dripping horse to a stand near the colonel of the three-o-fourth. He shook his fist in the other's face. "'You've got to hold him back!' He shouted savagely, "'You've got to hold him back!' In his agitation, the colonel began to stammer, "'All right, General. All right. I'm God. We'll do her. We'll do her our best. General.'" The general made a passionate gesture and galloped away. The colonel, perchance to relieve his feelings, began to scold like a wet parrot.
The youth, turning swiftly to make sure that the rear was unmolested, saw the commander regarding his men in a highly resentful manner, as if he regretted above everything his association with them. The man at the youth's elbow was muttering as if to himself, "'Oh, we're in for it now. Oh, we're in for it now.' The captain of the company had been pacing excitedly to and fro in the rear. He coaxed in schoolmistress fashion as to a congregation of boys with primers. His talk was an endless repetition. "'Reserve your fire, boys. Boys, don't shoot till I tell you. Save your fire till—wait till we get up close. Don't be damned fools!' Perspiration screamed on the youth's face. which was soiled like that of a weeping urchin.
He frequently, with a nervous movement, wiped his eyes with his coat sleeve. His mouth was still a little way open. He got the one glance of the foe's swarming field in front of him, and instantly ceased to debate the question of his piece being loaded. Before he was ready to begin, before he had announced to himself that he was about to fight, he threw the obedient, well-balanced rifle, into position and fired a first wild shot. Directly he was working at his weapon like an automatic affair. He suddenly lost concern for himself and forgot to look at a menacing fate. He became not a man, but a member. He felt that something of which he was a part, a regiment, an army, cause, or country, was in crisis.
He was welded into a common personality which was dominated by a single desire. For some moments he could not flee, no more than a little finger could commit a revolution from a hand. If he had thought the regiment was about to be annihilated, perhaps, he could have amputated himself from it. But its noise gave him assurance. The regiment was like a firework that once ignited, proceeds superior to circumstances until its blazing vitality fades. It wheezed and banged with a mighty power. He pictured the ground before it as strewn with the discomfitted. There was a consciousness always of the presence of his comrades about him. He felt a subtle battle brotherhood more potent even than the cause for which they were fighting.
It was a mysterious fraternity born of the smoke and danger of death. He was at a task. He was like a carpenter who had made many boxes, making still another box, Only there was furious haste in his movements. He, in his thought, was careening off other places, even as the carpenter who, as he works, whistles and thinks of his friend or his enemy, his home or a saloon. And these jolted dreams were never perfect to him afterward, but remained a mass of blurred shapes. Presently he began to feel the effects of the war atmosphere, Blistering sweat, a sensation that his eyeballs were about to crack like hot stones. A burning roar filled his ears. Following this came a red rage. He developed an acute exasperation of a pestered animal, a well-meaning cow worried by dogs.
He had a mad feeling against his rifle, which could only be used against one life at a time. He wished to rush forward and strangle with his fingers. He craved a power that would enable him to make a world-sweeping gesture and brush all back. His impotency appeared to him, and made his rage into that of a driven beast. Buried in the smoke of many rifles, his anger was directed not so much against the men whom he knew were rushing toward him as against the swirling battle-fantoms which were choking him, stuffing their smoke robes down his parched throat. He fought frantically for respite for his senses, for air, as a babe being smothered attacks the deadly blankets. There was a blare of heated rage, mingled with a certain expression of intentness, on all faces.
Many of the men were making low-toned noises with their mouths, and those subdued cheers, snarls, imprecations, prayers made a wild barbara. Beric's song that went as an undercurrent of sound, strange, and chant-light, with the resounding chords of the war march. The man at the youth's elbow was babbling. In it there was something soft and tender, like the monologue of a babe. The tall soldier was swearing in a loud voice. From his lips came a black procession of curious oaths. Of a sudden another broke out in a querulous way, like a man who has misled his hat. Well, why don't they support us? Why don't they send supports? Do they think? The youth in his battle sleep heard this as one who dozes hears.
There was a singular absence of heroic poses. The men bending and surging in their haste and rage were in every impossible attitude. The steel ramrods clanked and clanged with incessant din as the men pounded them furiously into the hot rifle-barrels. The flaps of the cartridge-boxes were all unfastened and bobbed idiotically with each movement. The rifles, once loaded, were jerked to the shoulder and fired without apparent aim into the smoke or at one of the blurred and shifting forms which on upon the field before the regiment had been growing larger and larger, like puppets under a magician's hand. The officers, at their intervals rearward, neglected to stand in picturesque attitudes. They were bobbing to and fro, roaring directions and encouragement.
The dimensions of their howls were extraordinary. They expanded their lungs with prodigal wills, and often they nearly stood upon their heads in their anxiety to observe the enemy on the other side of the tumbling smoke. The lieutenant of the youth's company had encountered a soldier who had fled, screaming at the first volley of his comrades. Behind the lines, these two were acting a little isolated scene. The man was blubbering and staring with sheeplike eyes at the lieutenant, who had seized him by the collar and was pommeling him. He drove him back into the ranks with many blows. The soldier went mechanically, dully, with his animal-like eyes upon the officer. Perhaps there was to him a divinity expressed in the voice of the other stern, hard, with no reflection of fear on it.
He tried to reload his gun, but his shaking hands prevented. The lieutenant was obliged to assist him. The men dropped here and there like bundles. The captain of the youth's company had been killed. In an early part of the action, his body lay stretched out in the position of a tired man, resting, but upon his face there was an astonished and sorrowful look, as though he thought some friend had done him an ill turn. The babbling man was grazed by a shot that made the blood stream wildly down his face. He clapped both hands to his head. Oh! he said and ran. Another grunted suddenly as he had been struck by a club in the stomach. He sat down and gazed ruefully. In his eyes there was a mute, indefinite reproach.
Further up the line, a man, standing behind a tree, had had his knee-joint splintered by a ball. Immediately he had dropped his rifle and gripped the tree with both arms, and there he remained, clinging desperately and crying for assistance that he might withdraw his hold upon the tree. At last, an exultant yell went up along the quivering line. The firing dwindled from an uproar to a Blast vindictive popping. As the smoke slowly eddied away, the youth saw that the charge had been repulsed. The enemy were scattered into reluctant groups. He saw a man climb to the top of a fence, straddle a rail, and fire a parting shot. The waves had receded, leaving bits of dark debris upon the ground. Some of the regiment began to whoop frantically.
Many were silent. Apparently, they were trying to contemplate themselves. After the fever had left his veins, the youth thought that at last he was going to suffocate. He became aware of the foul atmosphere in which he had been struggling. He was grimy and dripping like a laborer in a foundry. He grasped his canteen and took a long swallow of the warmed water. A sentence with variations went up and down the line. "'Well, we've held him back. We've held him back. Darn it we haven't!' The men said it blissfully. Leering at each other with dirty smiles. The youth turned to look behind him, and off to the right, and off to the left. He experienced the joy of a man who at last finds leisure in which to look upon him.
Underfoot there were a few ghastly forms, motionless. They twisted, in fantastic contortions. Arms were bent, and heads were turned in incredible ways. It seemed that the dead men must have fallen from some great height to get into such positions. They looked to be dumped out upon the ground from the sky. From a position in the rear of the grove, a battery was throwing shells over it. The flash of the guns startled the youth at first. He thought they were aimed directly at him. Through the trees he watched the black figures of the gunners as they worked swiftly and intently. Their labor seemed a complicated thing. He wondered how they could remember its formula in the midst of confusion. The guns squatted in a row like savage chiefs.
They argued with abrupt violence. It was a grim pow-wow. Their busy servants ran hither and thither. A small procession of wounded men were going drearily toward the rear. There was a flow of blood from the torn body of the brigade. To the right and to the left were the dark lines of other troops. Far in front, he thought, he could see lighter masses protruding in points from the forest. They were suggestive of unnumbered thousands. Once he saw a tiny battery go dashing along the line of the horizon. The tiny riders were beating their tiny horses. From a sloping hill came the sound of cheering and clashes. Smoke welled slowly through the leaves. Batteries were speaking with thunderous oratorical effect.
Here and there were flags, the red and the stripes dominating. They splashed bits of warm color upon the dark lines of troops. The youth felt the old thrill at the sight of the emblem. They were like beautiful birds, strangely undaunted in the storm. As he listened to the din from the hillside to a deep pulsating thunder that came from afar to the left, and to the lessen climbers which came from many directions, it occurred to him that they were fighting, to over there, and over there, and over there, and therefore he had supposed that all the battle was directly under his nose. As he gazed around him, the youth felt a flash of astonishment at the blue, pure sky and the sun gleaming on the trees and fields.
It was surprising that nature had gone tranquilly on with her golden process in the midst of so much devilment.
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6 Chapter - 06 13:34
The youth awakened slowly. He came gradually back to a position from which he could regard himself. For moments he had been scrutinizing his person in a dazed way as if he had never before seen himself. Then he picked up his cap from the ground. He wiggled in a jacket to make a more comfortable fit, and kneeling replaced his shoe. He thoughtfully mopped his reeking features. So it was over at last. The supreme trial had been passed. The red formidable difficulties of war had been vanquished. He went into an ecstasy of self-satisfaction. He had the most delightful sensations of his life. Standing, as if apart from himself, he viewed that last scene. He perceived that the man who had fought this was magnificent.
He felt that he was a fine fellow. He saw himself even with those ideals which he had considered as far beyond him. He smiled in deep gratification. Upon his fellows he beamed tenderness and goodwill. Gee, ain't it hot, eh? He said affidably to a man who was polishing his streaming face with his coat sleeve. You bet, said the other, grinning sociably. I never seen such dumb hotness. He sprawled out luxuriously on the ground. Gee, yes, and I hope we don't have no more fight until a week from Monday. There were some hand-shakings and deep speeches with men whose features were familiar. but with whom the youth now felt the bonds of tied hearts. He helped a cursing comrade to bind up a wound of the shin.
But of a sudden, cries of amazement broke out along the ranks of the new regiment. Here they come again! Here they come again! The man who had sprawled upon the ground started up and said, Gosh! The youth turned quick eyes upon the field. He discerned, Forums began to swell in masses out of a distant wood. He again saw the tilted flags beating forward. The shells, which had ceased to trouble the regiment for a time, came swirling again and exploded in the grass or among the leaves of the trees. They looked to be strange war-flowers, bursting into fierce bloom. The men groaned. The luster faded from their eyes. Their smudged countenances now expressed a profound dejection. They moved their stiffened bodies slowly and watched in sullen mood the frantic approach of the enemy.
The slaves toiling in the template of this god began to feel rebellion at his harsh tasks. They fretted and complained each to each. Oh, say, this is too much of a good thing. Why can't somebody send us supports? We ain't never going to stand this second banging. I didn't come here to fight the whole damn rebel army. There was one who raised a doleful cry. I wish Bill Smithers had trod on my hand instead of treading on his. The sore joints of the regiment creaked as it painfully floundered into position to repulse. The youth stared. Surely, he thought, this impossible thing was not about to happen. He waited as if he expected the enemy to suddenly stop, apologize, and retire bowing. It was all a mistake.
But the firing began somewhere on the regimental line and ripped along in both directions, The level sheets of flame developed great clouds of smoke that tumbled and tossed in the mild wind near the ground for a moment, and then rolled through the ranks as through a gate. The clouds were tinged an earthlike yellow in the sun rays, and in the shadow they were a sorry blue. The flag was sometimes eaten and lost in this mass of vapor, but more often it projected, sun-touched, resplendent. Into the youth's eyes there came a look that one can see in the orbs of a jaded horse. His neck was quivering with nervous weakness, and the muscles of his arms felt numb and bloodless. His hands, too, seemed large and awkward, as if he was wearing invisible mittens, and there was a great uncertainty about his knee-joints.
The words that the comrades had uttered previously to the firing had begun to recur to him. Oh, say, this is too much of a good thing. What do they take us for? Why don't they send supports? I didn't come here to fight the whole damned rebel army. He began to exaggerate the endurance, the skill, and the valor of those who were coming, himself reeling from exhaustion, as he was astonished beyond measure at such persistency. They must be machines of steel. It was very gloomy struggling against such affairs, wound up, perhaps, to fight until sundown. He slowly lifted his rifle, and catching a glimpse of a thick-spread field, he blazed at a cantering cluster. He stopped then and began to peer as best he could through the smoke.
He caught changing views of the ground, covered with men who were all running like pursued imps and yelling. To the youth it was an onslaught of redoubtable dragons. He became like a man who lost his legs at the approach of the red and green monster, He waited in a sort of horrified listening attitude. He seemed to shut his eyes and wait to be gobbled. A man near him, who up to this time had been working feverishly at his rifle, suddenly stopped and ran with howls. The lad whose face had borne an expression of exalted courage, the majesty of he who dares give his life, was at an instant smitten abject. He blanched like one who has come to the edge of a cliff at midnight and is suddenly made aware.
There was a revelation. He, too, threw down his gun and fled. There was no shame in his face. He ran like a rabbit. Others began to scamper away through the smoke. The youth turned his head, shaken from his trance by this movement. As if the regiment was leaving him behind, he saw the few fleeting forms. He yelled, then with fright, and swung about. For a moment, in the great clamor, he was like a proverbial chicken. He lost the direction of safety. Destruction threatened him from all points. Directly, He began to speed toward the rear in great leaps. His rifle and cap were gone, his unbuttoned coat bulged in the wind, the flap of his cartridge box bobbed wildly, and his canteen by its slender cord swung out behind.
On his face was all the horror of those things which he imagined. The lieutenant sprang forward bawling. The youth saw his features rapidly red, and saw him make a stab with his sword. His one thought of the incident was that the lieutenant was a peculiar creature to feel interested in such matters upon this occasion. He ran like a blind man. Two or three times he fell down. Once he knocked his shoulder so heavily against a tree that he went headlong. Since he had turned his back upon the fight, his fears had been wondrously magnified. Death about to thrust him between the shoulder blades was far more dreadful than death about to smite him between the eyes. When he thought of it later, He conceived the impression that it is better to view the appalling than to be merely within hearing.
The noises of the battle were like stones. He believed himself liable to be crushed. As he ran on, he mingled with others. He dimly saw one man on his right and on his left, and he heard footsteps behind him. He thought that all the regiment was fleeing, pursued by these ominous crashes. In his flight, the sound of these following footsteps gave him his one meager relief. He felt vaguely that death must make a first choice of the men who were nearest. The initial morsels for the dragons would be then those who were following him, so he displayed the zeal of an insane sprinter in his purpose to keep them in the rear. There was a race. As he, leading, went across a little field, he found himself in a region of shells.
They hurtled over his head with long, wild screams. As he listened, he imagined them to have rows of cruel teeth that grinned at him. Once, one lit before him, and the livid lightning of the explosion effectively barred the way in his chosen direction. He groveled on the ground, and then, springing up, went careening off through some bushes. He experienced a thrill of amazement when he came within view of a battery in action. The men there seemed to be in conventional moods, altogether unaware of the impending annihilation. The battery was disputing with a distant antagonist, and the gunners were wrapped in admiration of their shooting. They were continually bending in coasting postures over the guns.
They seemed to be patting them on the back and encouraging them with words. The guns, stolid and undaunted, spoke with dogged valor. The precise gunners were coolly enthusiastic. They lifted their eyes every chance to the smoke-wreathed hillock, From whence the hostile battery addressed them. The youth pitied them as he ran. Methodical idiots, machine-like fools! The refined joy of planting shells in the midst of the other battery's formation would appear a little thing when the infantry came swooping out of the woods. The face of a youthful rider, who was jerking his frantic horse with an abandon of temper he might display in a placid barnyard, was impressed deeply upon his mind. He knew that he looked upon a man who would presently be dead.
Too, he felt a pity for the gun standing six good comrades in a bold row. He saw a brigade going to the relief of its pestered fellows. He scrambled upon a wee hill and watched it sweeping finely, keeping information in difficult places. The blue of the line was crusted with steel color, and the brilliant flags projected. Officers were shouting. This sight also filled him with wonder. The brigade was hurrying briskly to be gulped into the infernal mouth of the war-god. What manner of men were they anyhow? Ah, it was some wondrous breed. Or else they didn't comprehend, the fools. A furious order caused commotion in the artillery. An officer on a bounding horse made maniacal motions with his arms, The teams went swinging up from the rear, the guns were whirled about and the battery scampered away, the cannon with their noses poked slantily at the ground, grunted and grumbled like stout men, brave but with objections to hurry.
The youth went on moderating his pace since he had left the place of noises. Later he came upon a general of division seated upon a horse that pricked its ears in an interested way at the battle. There was a great gleaming of yellow and patent leather about the saddle and bridle. The quiet man astride looked mouse-colored upon such a splendid charger. A jingling staff was galloping hither and thither. Sometimes the general was surrounded by horsemen, and at other times he was quite alone. He looked to be much harassed. He had the appearance of a businessman whose market is swinging up and down. The youth went slinking around this spot. He went as near as he dared, trying to overhear words. Perhaps the general, unable to comprehend chaos, might call upon him for information, and he could tell him.
He knew all concerning it. Of a surety, the force was in a fix, and any fool could see that if they did not retreat while they had opportunity... Why... He felt that he would like to thrash the general, or at least approach and tell him in plain words exactly what he thought him to be. It was... Criminal to stay calmly in one spot and make no effort to stay destruction. He loitered in a fever of eagerness for the division commander to apply to him. As he warily moved about, he heard the general call out irritably, "'Tomkins, go over and see Taylor, and tell him not to be in such an all-fire hurry. Tell him to halt his brigade in the edge of the woods. Tell him to detach a regiment. Say, I think the center'll break if we don't help out some.
Tell him to hurry up.' A slim youth on a fine chestnut horse caught those swift words from the mouth of his superior. He made his horse bound into a gallop, almost from a walk, in his haste to go upon his mission. There was a cloud of dust. A moment later, the youth saw the general bounce excitedly in his saddle. "'Yes, by heavens, they have!' The officer leaned forward. His face was aflame with excitement. "'Yes, by heavens, they've held him. They've held him!' He began to blithely roar at his staff. "'We'll wallop him now. We'll wallop him now. We've got him sure.' He turned suddenly to an aide. "'Here, you, Jones, quick, right after Tomkins. See, Taylor. Tell him to go in everlastingly like blazes, anything.' As another officer sped his horse after the first messenger.
The general beamed upon the earth like a sun. In his eyes was a desire to chant a pan. He kept repeating, "'They've held em' by heavens!' His excitement made his horse plunge, and he merrily kicked and swore at it. He held a little carnival of joy on horseback.
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7 Chapter - 07 8:28
The youth cringed as if discovered in a crime. By heavens, they had one, after all. The imbecile line had remained and become victors. He could hear cheering. He lifted himself upon his toes and looked in the direction of the fight. A yellow fog lay wallowing on the tree-tops. From beneath it came the clatter of musketry. Horace's cries told of an advance. He turned away, amazed and angry. He felt that he had been wronged. He had fled, he told himself, because annihilation approached. He had done a good part in saving himself, who was a little piece of the army. He had considered the time, he said, to be one in which it was the duty of every little piece to rescue itself, if possible. Later, the officers could fit the little pieces together again, and make a battle-front.
If none of the little pieces were wise enough to save themselves from the fury of death at such a time, why, then, where would be the army? It was all plain that he had proceeded according to very correct and commendable rules. His actions had been sagacious things. They had been full of strategy. They were the work of a master's legs. Thoughts of his comrades came to him. The brittle blue line had withstood the blows and won. He grew bitter over it. It seemed that the blind ignorance and stupidity of those little pieces had betrayed him. He had been overturned and crushed by their lack of sense in holding the position, when intelligent deliberation would have convinced them that it was impossible.
He, the enlightened man who looks afar in the dark, had fled because of his superior perceptions and knowledge. He felt a great anger against his comrades. He knew it could be proved that they had been fools. He wondered what they would remark when later he appeared in camp. His mind heard howls of derision. Their density would not enable them to understand his sharper point of view. He began to pity himself acutely. He was ill-used. He was trodden beneath the feet of an iron injustice. He had proceeded with wisdom, and from the most righteous motives under heaven's blue only to be frustrated by hateful circumstances. A dull animal-like rebellion against his fellows, war in the abstract, and fate grew within him.
He shambled along with bowed head, his brain in a tumult of agony and despair. When he looked loweringly up, Quivering at each sound, his eyes had the expression of those of a criminal who thinks his guilt and his punishment great, and knows that he can find no words. He went from the fields into a thick wood, as if resolved to bury himself. He wished to get out of hearing of the crackling shots, which were to him like voices. The ground was cluttered with vines and bushes, and the trees grew close and spread out like bouquets. He was obliged to force his way with much noise. The creepers catching against his leg cried out harshly as their sprays were torn from the barks of trees. The swishing saplings tried to make known his presence to the world.
He could not conciliate the forest. As he made his way, it was always calling out protestations. When he separated, embraces of trees and vines and disturbed foliages waved their arms. and turned their face-leaves toward him. He dreaded lest these noisy motions and cries should bring men to look at him. So he went far, seeking dark and intricate places. After a time, the sound of musketry grew faint, and the cannon boomed in the distance. The sun, suddenly apparent, blazed among the trees. The insects were making rhythmical noises. They seemed to be grinding their teeth in unison. A woodpecker stuck His impudent head around the side of a tree. A bird flew on, lighthearted wing. Off was the rumble of death.
It seemed now that nature had no ears. This landscape gave him assurance of fair field holding life. It was the religion of peace. It would die if its timid eyes were compelled to see blood. He conceived nature to be a woman with a deep aversion to tragedy. He threw a pine cone at a jovial squirrel, and he ran with chattering fear. High on a tree-top he stopped, and, poking his head cautiously from behind a branch, looked down with an air of trepidation. The youth felt triumphant at this exhibition. There was the law, he said. Nature had given him a sign. The squirrel, immediately upon recognizing danger, had taken to his legs without ado. He did not stand stolidly, bearing his furry belly to the missile, and dive with an upward glance at sympathetic heavens.
On the contrary, he had fled as fast as his legs could carry him, and he was but an ordinary squirrel, too, doubtless no philosopher of his race. The youth wended, feeling that nature was of his mind. She reinforced his argument with proofs that lived where the sun shone. Once he found himself almost into a swamp. He was obliged to walk upon blog tufts and watch his feet to keep from the oily mire. Pausing at one time to look about him, he saw out at some black water a small animal pounce in and emerge directly with a gleaming fish. The youth went again into the deep thickets. The brushed branches made a noise that drowned the sounds of cannon. He walked on, going from obscurity into promises of a greater obscurity.
At length he reached the place where the high arching boughs made a chapel. He slowly pushed the green doors aside and entered. Pine needles were a gentle brown carpet. There was a religious half-light. Near the threshold he stopped, horror-stricken at the sight of a thing. He was being looked at by a dead man, who was seated with his back against a column-like tree. The corpse was dressed in a uniform that once had been blue, But it was now faded to a melancholy shade of green. The eyes, staring at the youth, had changed to a dull hue to be seen on the side of a dead fish. The mouth was open. Its red had changed to an appalling yellow. Over the gray skin of the face ran little ants. One was trundling some sort of a bundle along the upper lip.
The youth gave a shriek as he confronted the thing. He was for moments turned to stone before it. He remained staring into the liquid-looking eyes. The dead man and the living man exchanged a long look. Then the youth cautiously put one hand behind him and brought it against a tree. Leaning upon this, he retreated, step by step, with his face still toward the thing. He feared that if he turned his back, the body might spring up and stealthily pursue him. The branches pushing against him threatened to throw him over upon it. His unguided feet, too, caught aggravatingly in brambles, and with it all he received a subtle suggestion. To touch the corpse! As he thought of his hand upon it, he shuddered profoundly.
At last he burst the bounds which had fastened him to the spot and fled, unheeding the underbrush. He was pursued by a sight of the black ants swarming greedily upon the gray face and venturing horribly near to the eyes. After a time he paused and, breathless and panting, listened. He imagined some strange voice would come from the dead throat and squawk after him in horrible menaces. The trees about the portal of the chapel moved slullingly in a soft wind. A sad silence was upon the little guarding edifice.
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8 Chapter - 08 11:10
The trees began softly to sing a hymn of twilight. The sun sank until slanted bronze rays struck the forest. There was a lull in the noises of insects, as if they had bowed their beaks and were making a devotional pause. There was silence, save for the chanted chorus of the trees. Then, upon this stillness, there suddenly broke a tremendous clangor of sounds. A crimson roar came from the distance. The youth stopped. He was transfixed by this terrific melody of all noises. It was as if worlds were being rendered. There was the ripping sound of musketry and the breaking crash of the artillery. His mind flew in all directions. He conceived the two armies to be at each other panther fashion. He listened for a time.
Then he began to run in the direction of the battle. He saw that it was an ironical thing for him to be running thus toward that which he had been at such pains to avoid. But he said in substance to himself, that if the earth and the moon were about to clash, many persons would doubtless plan to get upon the roofs to witness the collision. As he ran, he became aware that the forest had stopped its music, as if at last becoming capable of hearing the foreign sounds. The trees hushed and stood motionless. Everything seemed to be listening to the crackle and clatter, and ear-shaking thunder. The chorus pealed over the still earth. It suddenly occurred to the youth that the fight in which he had been was, after all, but perfunctory popping.
In the hearing of this present din, he was doubtful if he had seen real battle scenes. This uproar explained a celestial battle. It was tumbling hordes of struggle in the air. Reflecting, he saw a sort of humor in the point of view of himself and his fellows during the late encounter. They had taken themselves and the enemy very seriously, and had imagined that they were deciding the war. Individuals must have supposed that they were cutting the letters of their names deep into everlasting tablets of brass, or enshining their reputations forever in the hearts of their countrymen, while as to fact the fair would appear in printed reports under a meek and immaterial title. But he saw that it was good, else He said in battle every one would surely run save forlorn hopes and their ilk.
He went rapidly on. He wished to come to the edge of the forest that he might peer out. As he hastened, there passed through his mind pictures of stupendous conflicts. His accumulated thought upon such subjects was used to form scenes. The noise was as the voice of an eloquent being describing. Sometimes the brambles formed chains and tried to hold him back. Trees confronting him stretched out their arms and forbade him to pass. After its previous hostility, this new resistance of the forest filled him with a fine bitterness. It seemed that nature could not be quite ready to kill him. But he obstinately took roundabout ways, and presently he was where he could see long grain walls of vapor, where lay battle lines.
The voices of cannon shook him. The musketry sounded in long, irregular surges that played With his ears, he stood regarding for a moment. His eyes had an awestruck expression. He gawked in the direction of the fight. Presently he proceeded again on his forward way. The battle was like the grinding of an immense and terrible machine to him. Its complexities and powers, its grim processes, fascinated him. He must go close and see it produce corpses. He came to a fence and clambered over it. On the far side, the ground was littered with clothes and guns. A newspaper folded up lay in the dirt. A dead soldier was stretched with his face hidden in his arm. Further off, there was a group of four or five corpses, keeping mournful company.
A hot sun had blazed upon the spot. In this place, the youth felt that he was an invader. This forgotten part of the battleground was owned by the dead men. And he hurried in a vague apprehension that one of the swollen forms would rise and tell him to be gone. He came finally to a road from which he could see in the distance dark and agitated bodies of troops, smoke-fringed. In the lane was a blood-stained crowd streaming to the rear. The wounded men were cursing, groaning, and wailing. In the air always was a mighty swell of sound that seemed to sway the earth. With the courageous words of the artillery, And the spiteful sentences of the musketry mingled red cheers. And from this region of noises came the steady current of the maimed.
One of the wounded men had a shoe full of blood. He hopped like a schoolboy in a game. He was laughing hysterically. One was swearing that he had been shot in the arm through the commanding general's mismanagement of the army. One was marching with an air imitated of some sublime drum major, Upon his features was an unholy mixture of merriment and agony. As he marched, he sang a bit of dog-whirl in a high and quivering voice. Sing a song of victory, pocket full of bullets, five-and-twenty dead men, baked in a pie. Parts of the procession limped and staggered to this tune. Another had the gray seal of death already upon his face. His lips were curled in hard lines, and his teeth were clenched.
His hands were bloody. from where he had pressed them upon his wound. He seemed to be awaiting the moment when he should pitch headlong. He stalked like the specter of a soldier, his eyes burning with the power of a stare into the unknown. There were some who proceeded sullenly, full of anger at their wounds, and ready to turn upon anything as an obscure cause. An officer was carried along by two privates. He was peevish. "'Don't jiggle so, Johnson, you fool!' he cried. Think my leg is made of iron? If you can't carry me decent, put me down and let someone else do it. He bellowed at the tottering crowd who blocked the quick march of his bears. Say, make way there, can't you? Make way, Dickens, take it all.
They so clearly parted and went to the roadsides. As he was carried past, they made pert remarks to him. When he raged in reply and threatened them, they told him to be damned. The soldier of one of the tramping bearers knocked heavily into this spectral soldier, who was staring into the unknown. The youth joined this crowd and marched along with it. The torn bodies expressed the awful machinery in which the men had been entangled. Orderlies and couriers occasionally broke through the throng in the roadway, scattering wounded men right and left, galloping on, followed by howls. The melancholy march was continually disturbed by the messengers, and sometimes by bustling batteries, that came swinging and thumping down upon them, the officers shouting orders to clear the way.
There was a tattered man, fouled with dust, blood and powder stained from hair to shoes, who trudged quietly at the youth's side. He was listening with eagerness and much humility to the lurid descriptions of a bearded sergeant. His lean features wore an expression of awe and admiration. He was like a listener in a country store. to wondrous tales told among the sugar barrels. He eyed the story-teller with unspeakable wonder. His mouth was agape in yokel fashion. The sergeant taking note of this gave pause to his elaborate history while he administered a sardonic comment. "'Be careful, honey. You'll be a-catchin' flies,' he said. The tattered man shrank back, abashed. After a time he began to sidle nearer to the youth, and in a different way tried to make him—' A friend.
His voice was gentle as a girl's voice, and his eyes were pleading. The youth saw with surprise that the soldier had two wounds, one in the head, bound with a blood-soaked rag, and the other in the arm, making that member dangle like a broken bow. After they had walked together for some time, the tattered man mustered sufficient courage to speak. "'It was a pretty good fight, wasn't it?' he timidly said. The youth, deep in thought, glanced up at the bloody and grim figure with its lamb-like eyes. What? Was it a pretty good fight, wasn't it? Yes, said the youth shortly. He quickened his pace. But the other hobbled industrially after him. There was an air of apology in his manner, but he evidently thought that he needed only to talk for a time and the youth would perceive that he was a good fellow.
Was it a pretty good fight, wasn't it? He began in a small voice, and then he achieved the fortitude to continue. Dern me. If I ever see fellows fight so, love's how they did fight. I know the boys like when they once got square at it. The boys ain't had no fair chance to come in now, but this time they showed what they was. I know did it turn out this way. You can't lick them boys. No, sir, they're fighters, they be. He breathed a deep breath of humble admiration. He had looked at the youth for encouragement several times. He received none. But gradually he seemed to get absorbed in his subject. I was talkin' across pickets with a boy from Georgie onst, and that boy he says, "'Your fellows, they'll all run like hell when they wants to hear a gun,' he says.
"'Maybe they will,' I says. "'But I don't believe none of it,' I says. "'And, but, Jimmy, I says back to them, maybe your fellows, they'll all run like hell when once they heard a gun,' I says. He larved. Well, they didn't run day, did they? No, sir, they fit and fit and fit. His homely face was suffused with the light of love for the army, which was to him all things beautiful and powerful. After a time he turned to the youth. "'Were you hit, old boy?' he asked in a brotherly tone. The youth felt instant panic at this question, although at first its full import was not borne upon him. "'What?' he asked. "'Were you hit?' repeated the tattered man. Why, began the youth, I—I—that is why I—he turned away suddenly and slid through the crowd.
His brow was heavily flushed, and his fingers were picking nervously at one of his buttons. He bent his head and fastened his eyes studiously upon the button as if it were a little problem. The tattered man looked after him in astonishment.
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9 Chapter - 09 11:27
The youth fell back in the procession until the tattered soldier was not in sight. Then he started to walk on with the others. But he was amid wounds. The mob of men was bleeding. Because of the tattered soldier's question, he now felt that his shame could be viewed. He was continually casting sidelong glances to see if the men were contemplating the letters of guilt he felt burned into his brow. At times he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way. He conceived persons with torn bodies to be peculiarly happy. He wished that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage. The spectral soldier was at his side like a stalking reproach. The man's eyes were still fixed in a stare into the unknown.
His gray, appalling face had attracted attention in the crowd, and men, slowing to his dreary pace, were walking with him. They were discussing his plight, questioning him, and giving him advice. In a dogged way he repelled them, signing to them to go on, leave him alone. The shadows of his face were deepening, and his tight lips seemed holding in check the moan of great despair. There could be seen a certain stiffness in the movements of his body, as if he were taking infinite care not to arouse the passion of his wounds. As he went on, he seemed always looking for a place, like one goes to choose a grave. Something in the gesture of the man, as he waved the bloody and pitying soldiers away, made the youth start as if bitten.
He yelled in horror. Tottering forward, he laid a quivering hand upon the man's arm. As the latter slowly turned his wax-like features toward him, the youth screamed, God! Jim Conklin! The tall soldier made a little commonplace smile. "'Hullo, Henry,' he said. The youth swayed on his legs and glared strangely. He stuttered and stammered, "'Jim! Jim!' Oh, Jim! Tall soldier held out his gory hand. There was a curious red and black combination of new blood and old blood upon it. Where you been, Henry? He asked. He continued in a monotonous voice. I thought I may get killed over. There been thunder to pay today. I was worrying about it. A good deal. The youth still lamented. Oh, Jim! Jim! Oh, Jim!
Oh, Jim! Oh, Jim! You know, said the tall soldier. I was out there. He made a careful gesture. Lord, what a circus. By Jiminy, I got shot. I got shot. Yes, by Jiminy, I got shot. He reiterated this fact in a bewildered way, as if he did not know how it came about. The youth put forth anxious arms to assist him, but the tall soldier went firmly on as if propelled. Since the youth's arrival as a guardian for his friend, the other wounded men had ceased to display much interest. They occupied themselves again in dragging their own tragedies toward the rear. Suddenly, as the two friends marched on, the tall soldier seemed to be overcome by a terror. His face turned to a semblance of gray paste. He clutched the youth's arm and looked all about him.
as if dreading to be overheard. Then he began to speak in a shaking whisper. "'Tell you what I'm afraid of, Henry. I'll tell you what I'm afraid of. I'm afraid I'll fall down. And then you know them damned artillery wagons, they'd like as not to run over me. That's what I'm afraid of.' The youth cried out at him hysterically. "'I'll take care of you, Jim. I'll take care of you. I swear to God I will.' "'Sure will you, Henry?' tall soldier beseeched. "'Yes, yes, I tell you, I'll take care of you, Jim,' protested the youth. He could not speak accurately because of the gulpings in his throat. But the tall soldier continued to beg in a lowly way. He now hung babe-like to the youth's arm, his eyes rolled in the wilderness of his terror.
"'I was always a good friend to you, wasn't I, Henry? I always been a pretty good feller, ain't I?' It ain't much to ask, is it, just to pull me along out there on the road? I'd do it for you, wouldn't I, Henry? He paused in a piteous anxiety to await his friend's reply. The youth had reached an anguish, where the sobs scorched him. He strove to express his loyalty, but he could only make fantastic gestures. However, the tall soldier seemed suddenly to forget all those fears. He became again the grim, stalking specter of a soldier. He went stonily forward. The youth wished his friend to lean upon him, but the others always shook his head and strangely protested. No, no, no. Leave me be. Leave me be.
His look was fixed again upon the unknown. He moved with mysterious purpose, and all of the youth's offers he brushed aside. No, no. Leave me be. Leave me be. The youth had to follow. Presently the latter heard a voice talking softly near his shoulders. Turning, he saw that it belonged to the tattered soldier. "'You'd better take him out of the road, partner. There's a battery coming, belly-whoop, down the road, and he'll get runned over. He's a goner anyhow in about five minutes. You can see that. You'd better take him out of the road. Where the blazes does he get his strength from?' "'Lord knows,' cried the youth. He was shaking his hands hopelessly. He ran forward presently and grasped the tall soldier by the arm.
"'Jim, Jim,' he coaxed. "'Come with me.' The tall soldier weakly tried to wrench himself free. "'Huh?' he said vacantly. He stared at the youth for a moment. At last he spoke as if dimly comprehending. "'Oh, in the fields? Oh!' He started blindly through the grass. The youth turned once to look at the lashing riders and jouncing guns of the battery. He was startled from this view by a shrill outcry from the tattered man. "'Gawd, he's runnin!' Turning his head swiftly, the youth saw his friend running in a staggering and stumbling way toward a little clump of bushes. His heart seemed to wrench itself almost free from his body at this sight. He made a noise of pain. He and the tattered man began a pursuit.
There was a singular race. When he overtook the tall soldier, he began to plead with all the words he could find. Jim, Jim, what are you doing? What makes you do this way? You hurt yourself. The same purpose was in the tall soldier's face. He protested in a dull way, keeping his eyes fastened on the mystic place of his intentions. No, no, don't tetch me. Leave me be. Leave me be. The youth aghast and filled with wonder at the tall soldier, began quaveringly to question him. "'Where you goin, Jim? What are you thinking about? Where you goin? Tell me won't you, Jim?' The tall soldier faced about as upon relentless pursuers. In his eyes there was a great appeal. "'Leave me be, can't you? Leave me be for a minute.' The youth recoiled.
"'Why, Jim,' he said in a dazed way, What's the matter with you? The tall soldier turned, and, lurching dangerously, went on. The youth and tattered soldier followed, sneaking as if whipped, feeling unable to face the stricken man if he should again confront them. They began to have thoughts of a solemn ceremony. There was something right-like in these movements of the doomed soldier, and there was a resemblance in him to a devotee of a mad religion, blood-sucking, muscle-wrenching, bone-crushing, They were awed and afraid. They hung back, lest he have at command a dreadful weapon. At last they saw him stop and stand motionless. Hastening up, they perceived that his face wore an expression, telling that he had at last found the place for which he had struggled.
His spare figure was erect, his bloody hands worked quietly at his side. He was waiting with patience for something that he had come to meet. He was at the rendezvous. They paused and stood expectant. There was a silence. Finally, the chest of the doomed soldier began to heave with a strained motion. It increased in violence until it was as if an animal was within, and was kicking and tumbling furiously to be free. This spectacle of gradual strangulation made the youth writhe, and once, as his friend rolled his eyes, he saw something in them that made him think. Wailing to the ground, He raised his voice in a last supreme call. Jim, Jim, Jim! The tall soldier opened his lips and spoke. He made a gesture.
Leave me be. Don't touch me. Leave me be. There was another silence while he waited. Suddenly his form stiffened and straightened. Then it was shaken by a prolonged hog. He stared into space.
To the two watchers there was a curious and profound dignity in the firm lines of his awful face. He was invaded by a creeping strangeness that slowly enveloped him. For a moment the tremor of his legs caused him to dance a sort of hideous hornpipe. His arms beat wildly about his head in an expression of impalicent enthusiasm. His tall figure stretched itself to its full height. There was a slight rendering sound. Then it began to swing forward, slow, straight, in the manner of a falling tree. A swift, muscular concorsion made the left shoulder strike the ground first. The body seemed to bounce a little away from the earth. God, said the tattered soldier. The youth had watched Bellbound, this ceremony at the place of meeting.
His face had been twisted into an expression of every agony he had imagined for his friend. He now sprang to his feet, and going closer, gazed upon the paste-like face. The mouth was open, and the teeth showed in a laugh. As the flap of the blue jacket fell away from the body, he could see that the side looked as if it had been chewed by wolves. The youth turned with sudden livid rage toward the battlefield. He shook at his fist. He seemed about to deliver a philipic. Hell! The red sun was pasted in the sky like a wafer.
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10 Chapter - 10 9:21
An Episode of The American Civil War, by Stephen Crane, Chapter 10. The tattered man stood musing. Well, he was regular Jim Dandy for nerve, wasn't he? Said he finally in a little aw-stuck voice. Regular Jim Dandy. He thoughtfully poked one of the docile hands with his foot. I wonder where he's got his strength from. I never seen a man do like that before. It was a funny thing. Well, he was a regular Jim Dandy. The youth desired to stretch out his grief. He was stabbed, but his tongue lay dead in the tomb of his mouth. He threw himself again upon the ground and began to brood. The tattered man stood musing. "'Who here, partner?' he said. After a time, he regarded the corpse as he spoke. "'He's up and gone, ain't he, and we might as well begin to look out for old number one.
This here thing is all over. He's up and gone, ain't he? And he's all right here. Nobody won't bother him. And I must say I ain't enjoyed any great health myself these days.' The youth, awakened by the tattered soldier's tone, looked quickly up. He saw that he was swinging uncertainly on his legs, that his face had turned to a shade of blue. "'Good Lord,' he cried. "'You ain't goin to—not you too?' the tattered man waved his hand. "'Nere he die,' he said. "'All I want is some pea-soup and a good bed—some pea-soup,' he repeated dreamily. The youth arose from the ground. I wonder where he came from. "'I left him over there,' he pointed. "'And now I find him—' Here. And he was coming from over there, too, he indicated a new direction.
They both turned toward the body as if to ask of it a question. "'Well,' at length spoke the tattered man, "'there ain't no use in our staying here and trying to ask him anything.' The youth nodded an assent warily. They both turned to gaze for a moment at the corpse. Youth murmured something.
"'Well, he was a Jim Danny, wasn't he?' said the tattered man, as if in response. They turned their backs upon it and started away. For a time they stole softly, treading with their toes. It remained laughing there in the grass.
"'I'm commencing to feel pretty bad,' said the tattered man, suddenly breaking one of his little silences. I'm commencing to feel pretty damned bad. The youth groaned, Oh, Lord. He wondered if he was to be the tortured witness of another grim encounter. But his companion waved his hand reassuringly. Oh, I'm not going to die yet. There's too much dependent on me for me to die yet. Oh, sir, near you die. I can't. You ought to seize what the children I got, and all like that. The youth, glancing at his companion, could see by the shadow of a smile that he was making some kind of fun. As they plodded on, the tattered soldier continued to talk. Besides, if I died, I wouldn't die the way that feller did.
That was the funniest thing. I'd just flop down, I would. I'd never seen a feller die the way that feller did. You know, Tom Jameson, he lives next door to me at home. He was a nice feller. And he's and we's always good friends. Smart, too. Smart as a steel trap. Well, when we was fighting this afternoon, all of a sudden, he began to rip up and cuss and bellerin' me. You shot, you blamed infernal. He swore horrible. He says to me, I put up my hand to my head, and when I looked at it, my fingers I seen sure enough I was shot. I gave a holler and began to run, but before I could Get away, another one hit me in the arm. Whirl me clean around. I got scared when they was all shooting behind me, and I run to beat all, but I touched it pretty bad.
I've an idea I'd have been fighting yet if it weren't for Tom Jameson. Then he made a calm announcement. There's two of them, little ones, but they're beginning to have fun with me now. I don't believe I can walk much further. They went slowly on in silence.
"'You look pretty piqued yourself,' said the tattered man at last. "'I bet you're a gunner worse'n one than you think. You'd better take care of your hurt. You don't do to let such things go. It might be inside, mostly, and then plays thunder. Where is it located?' But he continued to harangue, without waiting for a reply. "'I see a feller He'd hit plumb in the head when my regiment was standing at ease once, and everybody yelled out to him, "'Hurt, John?' "'Are you hurt much?' "'No,' says he. "'He looked kinder surprised, and he went on telling him how he felt. He said he didn't feel nothing. But by dead the first thing that feller knowed, he was dead. Yes, he was dead, stone dead.' "'So you want to watch out.
You might have some queer kind of hurt yourself. You can't never tell. Where is your unlocated?' The youth had been wiggling since the introduction of this topic. He now gave a cry of exasperation, and made a furious motion with his hand. "'Oh, don't bother me,' he said. He was enraged against the tattered man, and could have strangled him. His companions seemed ever to play in tolerable parts. They were ever uprising the ghost of shame on the stick of their curiosity. He turned toward the tattered man as one at bay. "'Don't bother me,' he repeated with desperate menace.
"'Well, Lord knows I don't want to bother anybody,' said the other. There was a little accent of despair in his voice as he replied, "'Lord knows,' "'I've got enough moan to tend to.'" The youth, who had been holding a bitter debate with himself and casting glances of hatred and contempt at the tattered man, here spoke in a hard voice. "'Good-bye,' he said. The tattered man looked at him in gaping amazement. "'Hi, my partner. Where you going?' he asked unsteadily. The youth, looking at him, could see that he, too, like the other one, was beginning to act Dumb and animal-like, his thoughts seemed to be floundering about in his head. "'Now, now, look here. You Tom Jameson? Now, I won't have this.
This here won't do. Where you going?' The youth pointed vaguely. Over there, he replied. "'Well, now, look here now,' said the tattered man, rambling in an idiot fashion. His head was hanging forward, and the words were slurred. First thing won't do now, Tom Jameson. It won't do. I know you. I know you pig-headed devil. You want to go tromping off with a bad hurt? It ain't right now, Tom Jameson. It ain't. You want to leave me here to take care of you, Tom Jameson? It ain't right. It ain't. For you to go tromping off with a bad hurt, it ain't. It ain't. It ain't. It ain't. In reply, the youth climbed a fence and started away. He could hear the tattered man bleeding plaintively. Once he faced about angry.
What? Look here now, Tom Jameson. No, it ain't. It ain't. The youth went on. Turning at a distance, he saw the tattered man wandering about helplessly in the field. He now thought that he wished he was dead. He believed that he envied those men whose bodies lay strewn over the grass of the fields and on the fallen leaves of the forest. The simple questions of the tattered man had been knife-thrust to him. They asserted a society that probes piteously at secrets until all is apparent. His late companion's chance persistence made him feel that he could not keep his crime concealed in his bosom. It was sure to be brought Playing by one of those arrows which cloud the air and are constantly pricking, discovering, proclaiming those things which are willed to be forever hidden.
He admitted that he could not defend himself against this agency. It was not within the power of vigilance.
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11 Chapter - 11 13:50
He became aware that the furnace roar of the battle was growing louder. Great brown clouds had floated to the still heights of air before him. The noise, too, was approaching. The woods filtered men, and the fields became dotted. As he rounded the hillock, he perceived that the roadway was now a crying mass of wagons, teams, and men. From the heaving tangle issued exhortations, commands, imprecations. Fear was sweeping it all along. The cracking whips bit, and horses plunged and tugged. The white-topped wagons strained and stumbled in their exhortations like fat sheep. The youth felt comforted in amazement by this sight. They were all retreating. Perhaps then he was not so bad after all. He seated himself and watched the terror-stricken wagons.
They fled like soft, ungainly animals. All the roars and lashers served to help him to magnify the dangers and horrors of the engagement that he might try to prove to himself that the thing with which men could charge him was in truth a symmetrical act. There was an amount of pleasure to him in watching the wild march of this vindication. Presently the calm head of a forward-going column of infantry appeared in the road. It came swiftly on. Avoiding the obstructions gave it the sinuous movement of a serpent. The men at the head butted mules with their musket-tocks. They prodded teamsters indifferent to all howls. The men forced their way through parts of the dense mass by strength. The blunt head of the column pushed.
The raving teamsters swore many strange oaths. The commands to make way had the ring of a great importance to them. The men were going forward to the heart of the din. They were to confront the eager rush of the enemy. They felt the pride of their onward movement. When the remainder of the army seemed trying to dribble down this road, they tumbled teams about with a fine feeling that it was no matter so long as their column got to the front in time. This importance made their faces grave and stern. And the backs of the officers were very rigid. As the youth looked at them, the black weight of his woe returned to him. He felt he was regarding a procession of chosen beings. The separation was as great to him as if they had marched with weapons of flame and banners of sunlight.
He could never be like them. He could have wept in his longings. He searched about in his mind for an adequate maldication For the indefinite cause, the thing upon which men turn the words of final blame. It, whatever it was, was responsible for him, he said. There lay the fault. The haste of the column to reach the battle seemed to the forlorn young man to be something much finer than stout fighting. Heroes, he thought, could find excuses in that long, seething lane. They could retire with perfect self-respect, and make excuses to the stars. He wondered what those men had eaten, that they could be in such great haste to force their way to grim chances of death. As he watched, his envy grew until he thought that he wished to change lives with one of them.
He would have liked to have used a tremendous force. He said, Throw off himself and become a better. Swift pictures of himself apart, yet in himself, came to him. A blue, desperate figure, leading lurid charges with one knee forward and a broken blade, aye, a blue, determined figure, standing before a crimson and steel assault, getting calmly killed, on a high place before the eyes of all. He thought of the magnificent pathos of his dead body. These thoughts uplifted him. He felt the quiver of war desire. In his ears he heard the ring of victory, He knew the frenzy of a rapid, successful charge. The music of the trampling feet, the sharp voices, the clanking arms of the column near him made him soar on the red wings of war.
For a few moments he was sublime. He thought that he was about to start for the front. Indeed, he saw a picture of himself, dust-stained, haggard, panting, flying to the front at the proper moment to seize and throttle the dark, leering witch of calamity. Then the difficulties of the thing began to drag at him. He hesitated, balancing awkwardly on one foot. He had no rifle. He could not fight with his hands, said he resentfully to his plan. While rifles could be had for the picking, they were extraordinarily profuse. Also, he continued, it would be a miracle if he found his regiment. Well, he could fight with any regiment. He started forward slowly. He stepped as if he expected to tread upon some explosive thing.
Doubts and he were struggling. He would truly be a worm if any of his comrades should see him returning thus. The marks of his flight upon him. There was a reply that the intent fighters did not care for what happened, rearward saving that no hostile bayonets appeared there. In the battle blur his face would in a way be hidden, like the face of a cowled man. But then he said that his tireless fate would bring forth, when the strife lulled for a moment, a man to ask of him an explanation. In imagination he felt the scrutiny of his companions as he painfully labored through some lies. Eventually his courage expended itself upon these objections. The debates drained him of his fire. He was not cast down by his defeat of his plan, for upon studying the affair carefully, He could not but admit that the objections were very formidable.
Furthermore, various ailments had begun to cry out. In their presence, he could not persist in flying high with the wings of war. They rendered it almost impossible for him to see himself in a heroic light. He tumbled headlong. He discovered that he had a scorching thirst. His face was so dry and grimy that he thought he could feel his skin crackle. Each bone of his body had an ache in it, and seemingly threatened to break with each movement. His feet were like two sores. Also, his body was calling for food. It was more powerful than a direct hunger. There was a dull, weightlike feeling in his stomach, and when he tried to walk, his head swayed, and he tottered. He could not see with distinctness.
Small patches of green mist floated before his vision. While he had been tossed by many emotions, he had not been aware of ailments. Now they beset him and made clamor. As he was at last compelled to pay attention to them, his capacity for self-hate was multiplied. In despair, he declared that he was not like those others. He now conceded it to be impossible that he should ever become a hero. He was a craven loon. Those pictures of glory were piteous things. He groaned from his heart and went staggering off. A certain mothlike quality within him kept him in the vicinity of the battle. He had a great desire to see and to get news. He wished to know who was winning. He told himself that despite his unprecedented suffering, he had never lost his greed for a victory.
Yet he said, in a half-apologetic manner to his conscience, he could not but know that a defeat For the army this time might mean many favorable things for him. The blows of the enemy would split the regiments into fragments. Thus many men of courage, he considered, would be obliged to desert the colors and scurry like chickens. He would appear to be one of them. They would be sullen brothers in distress, and he could then easily believe he had not run any further or faster than they. And if he himself could believe in his virtuous perfection, he conceived that there would be small trouble in convincing all others. He said, as if in excuse for this hope, that previously the army had encountered great defeats, and in a few months then shaken off all blood and tradition of them emerging as bright and valiant as a new one, thrusting out of sight the memory of disaster, and appearing with the valor and confidence of unconquered legions.
The shrilling voices of the people at home would pipe dismally for a time, but various generals were usually compelled to listen to these ditties. He, of course, felt no compunction for proposing a general as a sacrifice. He could not tell who the chosen for the barbs might be, so he could center no direct sympathy upon him. The people were afar, and he did not conceive public opinion to be accurate at long range. It was quite probable they would hit the wrong man who, after he had recovered from his amazement, would perhaps spend the rest of his days in writing replies to the songs of his alleged failure. It would be very unfortunate, no doubt, but in this case a general was of no consequence to the youth.
In a defeat there would be a roundabout vindication of himself. He thought it would prove in a manner that he had fled early because of his superior powers of perception. A serious prophet upon predicting a flood should be the first man to climb a tree. This would demonstrate that he was indeed a seer. A moral vindication was regarded by the youth as a very important thing. Without salve, he could not, he thought, wear the sore badge of his dishonor through life. With his heart continually assuring him that he was despicable, he could not exist without making it, through his actions apparent to all men. If the army had gone gloriously on, he would be lost. If the din meant that now his army's flags were tilted forward, he was a condemned wretch.
He would be compelled to doom himself to isolation. If the men were advancing, Their indifferent feet were trampling upon his chances for a successful life. As these thoughts went rapidly through his mind, he turned upon them and tried to thrust them away. He denounced himself as a villain. He said that he was the most utterly selfish man in existence. His mind pictured the soldiers who would place their defiant bodies before the spear of the yelling battle-fiend, and as he saw their dripping corpses on an imagined field, He said that he was their murderer. Again he thought that he wished he was dead. He believed that he envied a corpse. Thinking of the slain, he achieved a great contempt for some of them, as if they were guilty for this becoming lifeless.
They might not have been killed by lucky chance, he said, before they had opportunities to flee or before they had been really tested. Yet they would receive laurels from tradition. He cried out bitterly that their crowns were stolen and their robes of glorious memories were shams. However, he still said that it was a great pity. He was not as they. A defeat of the army had suggested itself to him as a means of escape from the consequences of his fall. He considered now, however, that it was useless to think of such a possibility. His education had been that success for that mighty blue machine was certain. that it would make victories as a contrivance turns out buttons. He presently discarded all his speculations in the other direction.
He returned to the creed of soldiers. When he perceived again that it was not possible for the army to be defeated, he tried to think him of a fine tail which he could take back to his regiment, and with it turned the expected shafts of derision. But as he morally feared these shafts, It became impossible for him to invent a tale he felt he could trust. He experimented with many schemes, but threw them aside one by one as flimsy. He was quick to see vulnerable places in them all. Furthermore, he was much afraid that some arrow of scorn might lay him mentally low before he could raise his protracting tail. He imagined the whole regiment saying, "'Where's Henry Fleming?' "'He run, didn't he?' "'Oh, my!' He recalled various persons who would be quite sure to leave him no peace about it.
They would doubtless question him with sneers and laugh at his stammering hesitation. In the next engagement, they would try to keep watch on him to discover when he would run. Wherever he went in camp, he would encounter insolent and lingeringly cruel stares. As he imagined himself passing near a crowd of comrades, he could hear someone say, "'There he goes.' Then, as if the heads were moved by one muscle, all the faces were turned toward him with wide, derisive grins. He seemed to hear someone make a humorous remark in a low tone. At it, the others cowed and cackled. He was a slang phrase.
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12 Chapter - 12 13:11
The column that had butted stoutly at the obstacles in the roadway was barely out of the youth's sight before he saw dark waves of men come sweeping out of the woods and down through the fields. He knew at once that the steel fibers had been washed from their hearts, they were bursting from their coats, and their equipments as from entanglements. They charged down upon him like terrified buffaloes. Behind them, blue smoke curled and clouded above the tree-tops, and through the thickets he could sometimes see a distant pink glare. The voices of the cannon were clamoring in interminable chorus. The youth was horror-stricken. He stared in agony and amazement. He forgot that he was engaged in combating the universe.
He threw aside his metal pamphlets on the philosophy of the retreated, and rules of the guidance of the damned. The fight was lost. The dragons were coming with invincible strides. The army, helpless in the matted thickets and blinded by the overhanging night, was going to be swallowed. War, the red animal, war, the blood-swollen God, would have bloated Phil. Within him something bade to cry out. He had the impulse to make a rallying speech, to sing a battle hymn, but he could only get his tongue to call into the air, Why, why, what, what, what's the matter? Soon he was in the midst of them. They were leaping and scampering all about him. Their blanched faces shone in the dusk. They seemed, for the most part, to be very burly men.
The youth turned from one to another of them as they galloped along, His inner coherent questions were lost. They were heedless of his appeals. They did not seem to see him. They sometimes grabbed insanely. One huge man was asking of the sky, Say, where de Plank Road? Where de Plank Road? It was as if he had lost a child. He wept in his pain and dismay. Presently, men were running hither and thither in all ways, the artillery booming forward, rearward, and on the flanks made jumble of ideas of direction. Landmarks had vanished into the gathered gloom. The youth began to imagine that he had got into the center of a tremendous quarrel, and he could perceive no way out of it. From the mouths of the fleeing men came a thousand wild questions, but no one made answers.
The youth, after rushing about and throwing interrogations at the heedless bands of retreating infantry, finally clutched a man by the arm. They swung around face to face. "'Why, why?' stammered the youth, struggling with his balking tongue. The man screamed, "'Let go of me! Let go of me!' His face was livid, and his eyes were rolling uncontrolled. He was heaving and panting. He still grasped his rifle, perhaps having forgotten to release his hold upon it. He tugged frantically, and the youth, being compelled to lean forward, was dragged several paces. "'Let go of me! Let go of me! Why! Why!' started the youth. Well, then bawled the man in a lurid rage. He adroitly and fiercely swung his rifle.
It crushed upon the youth's head. The man ran on. The youth's fingers had turned to paste upon the other's arm. The energy was smitten from his muscles. He saw the flaming wings of lightning flash before his vision. There was a deafening rumble of thunder within his head. Suddenly his legs seemed to die. He sank writhing to the ground. He tried to arise. In his efforts against the numbing pain, he was like a man wrestling with the creature of the air. There was a sinister struggle. Sometimes he would achieve a position half-erect, battle with the air for a moment, and then fall again, grabbing at the grass. His face was of clammy pallor. Deep groans were wrenched from him. At last, with a twisting movement, he got upon his hands and knees, and from thence, like a babe trying to walk to his feet, pressing his hands to his temples, he went lurching over the grass.
He fought an intense battle with his body. His dull senses wished him to swoon, and he opposed them stubbornly, his mind portraying unknown dangers and mutilations if he should fall upon the field. He went tall soldier-fashion. He imagined secluded spots where he could fall and be unmolested. To search for one, he strove against the tide of his pain. Once he put his hand to the top of his head and timidly touched the wound. The scratching pain of the contact made him draw a long breath through his clenched teeth. His fingers were dabbed with blood. He regarded them with a fixed stare. Around him he could hear the grumble of jolted cannon as the scurrying horses were lashed toward the front. Once a young officer on a basplade charger nearly ran him down.
He turned and watched the mass of guns, men, and horses sweeping in a wide curve toward a gap in the fence. The officer was making excited motions with a gauntlet hand. The guns followed the teams with an error of unwillingness. of being dragged by the heels. Some officers of the scattered infantry were cursing and railing like fishwives. Their scolding voices could be heard above the din. Into the unspeakable jumble in the roadway rode a squadron of cavalry. The faded yellow of their facing shone bravely. There was a mighty altercation. The artillery was assembling as if for a conference. The blue haze of evening was upon the field. The lines of forest were long purple shadows. One cloud lay along the western sky, partly smothering the red.
As the youth left the scene behind him, he heard the guns suddenly roar out. He imagined them shaking in black rage. They belched and howled like brass devils guarding a gate. The soft air was filled with their tremendous remonstrance. With it came the shattering peal of opposing infantry. Turning to look behind him, He could see sheets of orange light illumining the shadowy distance. There were subtle and sudden lightnings in the far air. At times he thought he could see heaving masses of men. He hurried on in the dusk. The day had faded until he could barely distinguish place for his feet. The purple darkness was filled with men who lectured and jabbered. Sometimes he could see them gesticulating against the blue and somber sky.
There seemed to be a great ruck of men and munitions spread about in the forest and in the fields. The little narrow roadway now lay lifeless. There were overturned wagons like sun-dried boulders. The bed of the former torrent was choked with the bodies of horses and splintered parts of war machines. It had come to pass that his wound pained him but little. He was afraid to move rapidly, however. for a dread of disturbing it. He held his head very still, and took many precautions against stumbling. He was filled with anxiety, and his face was pinched and drawn in anticipation of the pain of any sudden mistake of his feet in the gloom. His thoughts as he walked fixed intently upon his hurt. There was a cool, liquid feeling about it, and he imagined blood moving slowly down under his hair.
His head seemed swollen to the size that made him think his neck to be inadequate. The new silence of his wound made much worriment. The little blistering voices of pain that had called out from his scalp were, he thought, definite in their expression of danger. By them he believed that he could measure his plight. But when they remained ominously silent, he became frightened and imagined terrible fingers that clutched into his brain. Amid it, he began to reflect upon various incidents and conditions of the past. He bethought him of certain meals his mother had cooked at home, in which those dishes of which he was particularly fond had occupied prominent positions. He saw the spread table. The pine walls of the kitchen were glowing in the warm light from the stove.
Too, he remembered how he and his companions used to go from the schoolhouse to the bank of a shaded pool. He saw his clothes in disorderly array upon the grass of the bank. He felt a swash of the fragrant water upon his body. The leaves of the overhanging maple rustled with melody in the wind of youthful summer. He was overcome presently by a dragging weariness. His head hung forward, and his shoulders were stooped as if he were bearing a great bundle. His feet shuffled along the ground. He held continuous arguments as to whether he should lie down and sleep at some near spot, or force himself on until he reached a certain haven. He often tried to dismiss the question, but his body persisted in rebellion, and his senses nagged him like pampered babies.
At last he heard a cheery voice near his shoulder. "'You seem to be in a pretty bad way, boy.' The youth did not look up, but he assented with a thick tongue. "'Ah!' The owner of the cheery voice took him firmly by the arm. "'Well,' He said with a round laugh, "'I'm goin' yer way. The whole gang is goin' yer way, and I guess we can give you a lift.' They began to walk like a drunken man and his friend. As they went along, the man questioned the youth and assisted him with the replies like one manipulating the mind of a child. Sometimes he interjected anecdotes, "'What regiment do you belong to? Eh? What's that? Three-O-Fourth, New York. What core is that in?' Oh, it is. Why, I thought they wasn't engaged to-day.
They're way down on the center. Oh, they was, eh? Well, pretty nearly everybody got their share of fighting to-day. By dead, I'd give myself up for dead many number of times. They was shooting here and hollering there and hollering here and there and hollering there in the damned darkness until I couldn't tell save my soul which side I was on. Sometimes I thought I was sure enough from Ohio or other times I could have swore I was from the bitter end of Florida. It was the most mixed-up darned thing I ever see, and these here hull-woods is a regular mess. It'll be a miracle if we ever find our regiments tonight. Pretty soon, though, we'll meet plenty of guards and provost guards and one thing or another.
Oh, there they go with an officer, I guess. Look at his hand a-dragging. He's got all the war he wants, I bet. He won't be talkin' so big about his reputation and all when they go to sawin' off his leg. Poor feller, my brother's got whiskers just like that. How did you get your way over here anyhow? Your regiment is a long way from here, ain't it? Well, I guess we can find it. You know, there was a boy killed in my company to-day that I thought the world of all of. Jack was a nice feller. By ginger, it hurt like thunder to see old Jack just get knocked flat. We was a standin' pretty peaceable, first pal, though there was men runnin' every way all around us, and while we was a standin' like that, long comes a big fat feller.
He began to peck at Jack's elbow and says, "'Say, where's the road to the river?' And Jack, he never paid no attention, and that feller kept on a peckin' at his elbow and saying, "'Say, where's the road to the river?' Jack was a-looking head all the time, trying to see the Johnnies coming through the woods, and he never paid no attention to this big fat fellow for a long time. But at last he turned around and he says, "'Ah, go to hell and find the road to the river.' And just then a shot slapped him bang on the side of the head. He was a sergeant, too. Them was his last words. "'Thunder, I wish we was sure of finding our regiments tonight. It's going to be a long hunting, but I guess we can do it.' In the search which followed, the man of the cheery voice seemed to the youth to possess a wand of a magic kind.
He threaded the mazes of the tangled forest with a strange fortune. In encounters with guards and patrols, he displayed the keenness of a detective and the valor of a gammon. Obstacles fell before him and became of assistance. The youth, with his chin still on his breast, stood woodenly by while his companion beat ways and means out of sullen things. The forest seemed a vast hive of men buzzing about in frantic circles, but the cheery man conducted the youth without mistakes until at last he began to chuckle with glee and self-satisfaction. "'Ha, ha! There you are! See that fire?' The youth nodded stupidly. "'Well, there's where your regiment is. And now, good-bye, old boy. Good luck to you.' A warm and strong ham.
Clasped the youth's languid fingers for an instant, and then he heard a cheerful and audacious whistling as the man strode away, as he who had so befriended him was thus passing on of his life. It suddenly occurred to the youth that he had not once seen his face.
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13 Chapter - 13 11:47
As he reeled, he bethought him of the welcome his comrades would give him. He had a conviction that he would soon feel in his sore heart The barbed missiles of ridicule. He had no strength to invent a tale. He would be a soft target. He made vague plans to go off into the deeper darkness and hide, but they were all destroyed by the voices of exhaustion and pain from his body. His ailments clamoring forced him to seek the place of food and rest, at whatever cost. He swung unsteadily toward the fire. He could see the forms of men throwing black shadows in the red light. And as he went nearer, it became known to him, in some way, that the ground was strewn with sleeping men. Of a sudden, he confronted a black and monstrous figure.
A rifle barrel caught some glinting beams. Halt! Halt! He was dismayed for a moment, but he presently thought that he recognized a nervous voice. As he stood tottering before the rifle barrel, he called out, "'Why, hello, Wilson. You—you here?' The rifle was lowered to a position of caution, and the loud soldier came slowly forward. He peered into the youth's face. "'That you, Henry?' "'Yes, it is. It's me.' "'Well, well, old boy,' said the other. "'By, Ginger, I'm glad to see you. "'I give you up for a goner. "'I thought you was dead, sure enough.' There was a husky emotion in his voice. The youth found that now he could barely stand upon his feet. There was a sudden sinking of his forces. He thought he must hasten to produce his tail to protect him from the missiles already at the lips of his redoubtable comrades.
So, staggering before the loud soldier, he began, "'Yes, yes, I've had an awful time. I've been all over. Why, over on the right? Terrible fightin' over there. Had an awful time. I got separated from the regiment. Over on the right. Got shot in the head. I never see such fightin. Awful time. I don't see how I could have got separated from the regiment. Got shot, too. His friend had stepped forward quickly. What? Got shot? Why didn't you say so first, poor old boy? We must a hold on a minute. What am I doing? I'll call Simpson. Another figure at that moment loomed in the gloom. They could see that it was the corporal. "'Who you talkin' to, Wilson?' he demanded. His voice was anger-toned. "'Who you talkin' to?
You'd a damnedest sentin'le why—hello, Henry. You here? Why, I thought you was dead four hours ago. Great Jerusalem! They keep turnin' up every ten minutes or so. We thought we'd lost forty-two men by straight count, but if they keep a comin' in this way, we'll get the company all back By morning, yet. Where was you? Over on the right. I got separated, began the youth with considerable glibness. But his friend had interrupted hastily. Yes, and he got shot in the head, and he's in a fix, and we must see to him right away. He rested his rifle in the hollow of his left arm and his right around the youth's shoulder. Gee, it must hurt like thunder, he said. The youth leaned heavily upon his friend.
Yes, it hurts. Hurts a good deal. He replied. There was a faltering in his voice. "'Ho!' said the corporal. He linked his arm in the youth and drew him forward. "'Come on, Henry. I'll take care of you.' As they went on together, the loud private called out after them. "'Put him to sleep in my blanket, Simpson. And hold on a minute. Here's my canteen. It's full of coffee. Look at his head by the fire, and see how it looks. Maybe it's a pretty bad un. When I get relieved in a couple of minutes, I'll be over and see to him. The youth's senses were so deadened that his friend's voice sounded from afar, and he could scarcely feel the pressure of the corporal's arm. He submitted passively to the latter's directing strength.
His head was in the old manner hanging forward upon his breast. His knees wobbled. The corporal led him into the glare of the fire. "'Now, Henry,' he said, "'let's have a look at your old head.' The youth sat down obediently, and the corporal, lying aside his rifle, began to fumble in the bushy hair of his comrade. He was obliged to turn the other's head so that the full flush of the firelight would beam upon it. He puckered his mouth with a critical air. He drew back his lips and whistled through his teeth, when his fingers came in contact with the splash blood and the rare wound. "'Ah, here we are,' he said. He awkwardly made further investigations. "'Just as I thought,' He added presently, "'You've been grazed by ball.
"'It's raised a queer lump, "'just as if some feller "'had slammed you on the head with a club. "'It stopped a bleedin' a long time ago. "'The most about it is that in the morning "'you'll feel that a number-ten hat wouldn't fit you, "'and your head'll be all head up "'and feel as dry as burnt pork. "'And you may get a lot "'of other sicknesses, too, by morning. "'You can't never tell. Still, I don't much think so. It's just a damn good belt on the head and nothing more. Now you just sit here and don't move while I go right out the relief. Then I'll send Wilson to take care of you. The corporal went away. The youth remained on the ground like a parcel. He stared with a vacant look into the fire.
After a time, he aroused for some part, and the things about him began to take form. He saw that the ground in the deep shadows was cluttered with men sprawling in every conceivable posture. Glancing narrowly into the more distant darkness, he caught occasional glimpses of visages that loomed pallid and ghostly, lit with a phosphorescent glow. These faces expressed in their lines the deep stupor of the tired soldiers. They made them appear like men drunk with wine. This bit of forest might have appeared to an eternal wanderer, as a scene of the result of some frightful debauch. On the other side of the fire the youth observed an officer asleep, seated bolt upright, with his back against a tree.
There was something perilous in his position. Badgered by dreams, perhaps, he swayed with little bounces and starts like an old toddy-stricken grandfather in a chimney-corner. Dust and stains were upon his face. His lower jaw hung down, as if lacking strength to assume its normal position. He was the picture of an exhausted soldier after a feast of war. He had evidently gone to sleep with his sword in his arms. These two had slumbered in an embrace, but the weapon had been allowed in time to fall unheeded to the ground. The brass-mounted hilt lay in contact with some parts of the fire. Within the gleam of rose and orange light, From the burning sticks were other soldiers snoring and heaving, or lying deathlike in slumber.
A few pairs of legs were stuck forth, rigid and straight. The shoes displayed the mud or dust of marches, and bits of rounded trousers protruding from the blankets showed rents and tears from hurried pitchings through the dense brambles. The fire cracked musically. From it swelled light smoke. Overhead the foliage moved softly. The leaves with their faces turned toward the blaze were colored, shifting hues of silver, often edged with red. Far off to the right, through a window in the forest, could be seen a handful of stars lying like glittering pebbles on the black level of the night. Occasionally, in this low-arched hall, a soldier would arouse and turn his body to a new position, the experience of his sleep having taught him of uneven and objectionable places upon the ground under him.
Or, perhaps, He would lift himself to a sitting posture, blanket the fire for an unintelligent moment, throw a swift glance at his prostrate companion, and then cuddle down again with a grunt of sleepy content. The youth sat in a forlorn heap until his friend, the loud young soldier, came swinging to canteens by their light strings. "'Well, now, Henry, old boy,' said the latter, "'we'll have you fixed in just about a minute.' He had the bustling ways of an amateur nurse. He fussed around the fire and stirred the sticks to brilliant exertions. He made his patient drink largely from the canteen that contained the coffee. It was to the youth a delicious draught. He tilted his head afar back and held the canteen long to his lips.
The cool mixture went caressingly down his blistered throat. Having finished, he sighed with comfortable delight. The loud young soldier watched his comrade with an air of satisfaction. He later produced an extensive handkerchief from his pocket. He folded it into a manner of bandage, and soused water from the other canteen upon the middle of it. This crude arrangement he bound over the youth's head, tying the ends in a queer knot at the back of the neck. There, he said, moving off and surveying his deed. You look like the devil, but I bet you feel better. The youth contemplated his friend with grateful eyes. Upon his aching and swelling head, the cold cloth was like a tender woman's hand. "'Ear don't holler nor say nothin,' remarked his friend approvingly.
"'I know I'm a blacksmith at takin' care of sick folk, and you never squeaked.' "'You're a good one, Henry. Most of men would have been in the hospital long ago. A shot in the head ain't foolin' business.' The youth made no reply, but began to fumble with the buttons on his jacket. "'Well, come now.' continued his friend. Come on. I must put you to bed and see that you're... get a good night's rest. The other got carefully erect, and the loud young soldier led him among the sleeping forms, lying in groups and rows. Presently he stopped and picked up his blankets. He spread the rubber one upon the ground and placed the woolen one about the youth's shoulders. "'There now,' he said. "'Lie down and get some sleep.' The youth, with his manner of dog-like obedience, got carefully down like a crone stooping.
He stretched out with a murmur of relief and comfort. The ground felt like the softest couch. But of a sudden he ejaculated, "'Hold on a minute. Where you going to sleep?' His friend waved his hand impatiently, "'Right down here by you.' "'Well, but hold on a minute,' continued the youth. "'Where you going to sleep in? I've got your—' The loud young soldier snarled, "'Shut up and go to sleep!' "'Don't be making a damn fool of yourself,' he said severely." After the reproof, the youth said no more. An exquisite drowsiness had spread through him. The warm comfort of the blanket enveloped him, and made a gentle languor. His head fell forward on his crooked arm, and his weighted lids went softly down over his eyes.
Hearing a splatter of musketry from the distance, he wondered indifferently Those men sometimes slept. He gave a long sigh, snuggled down into his blanket, and in a moment was like his comrades.
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14 Chapter - 14 10:53
When the youth awoke, it seemed to him that he had been asleep for a thousand years, and he felt sure that he opened his eyes upon an unexpected world. Gray mists were slowly shifting before the first efforts of the sun rays. An impending splendor could be seen in the eastern sky. An icy dew had chilled his face, and immediately upon arousing he curled further down into his blanket. He stared for a while at the leaves overhead, moving in a heraldic wind of the day. The distance was splintering and blaring with the noise of fighting. There was in the sound an expression of a deadly Persistency, as if it had not begun and was not to cease. About him were the rows and groups of men that he had dimly seen the previous night.
They were getting a last draught of sleep before the awakening. The gaunt, careworn features and dusty figures were made plain by this quaint light at the dawning, but it dressed the skin of the men in corpse-like hues and made the tangled limbs appear pulseless and dead. The youth started up with a little cry when his eyes first swept over the motionless mass of men, thick-spread upon the ground, pallid, and in strange postures. His disordered mind interpreted the hall of the forest as a charnel place. He believed for an instant that he was in the house of the dead, and he did not dare to move lest these corpses start up, squalling and squawking. In a second, however, he achieved his proper mind.
He swore a complicated oath at himself. He saw that this somber picture was not a fact of the present, but a mere prophecy. He heard then the noise of a fire crackling briskly in the cold air, and turning his head, he saw his friend pottering busily about a small blaze. A few other figures moved in the fog, and he heard the hard crackling of axe blows. Suddenly there was a hollow rumble of drums. A distant bugle sang faintly. Similar sounds, varying in strength, came from near and far over the forest. The bugles called to each other like brazen gamecocks. The near thunder of the regimental drums rolled. The body of men in the woods rustled. There was a general uplifting of heads. A murmuring of voices broke upon the air.
In it there was much bass of grumbling oaths. Strange gods were addressed in condemnation. of the early hours necessary to correct war, and officers peremptured tenor rang out and quickened the stiffened movement of the men. The tangled limbs unraveled. The corpse-hued faces were hidden behind fists that twisted slowly in the eye sockets. The youth sat up and gave vent to an enormous yawn. "'Thunder!' he remarked petulantly. He rubbed his eyes and then, putting up his hand, felt carefully of the bandage over his wound. His friend, perceiving him to be awake, came from the fire. "'Well, hairy old man, how do you feel this morning?' he demanded. The youth yawned again. Then he puckered his mouth to a little pucker.
His head, in truth, felt precisely like a melon, and there was an unpleasant sensation at his stomach. "'Oh, Lord, I feel pretty bad,' he said. "'Thunder!' exclaimed the other. "'I hoped you'd feel all right this morning. Let's see the bandage.' I guess it slipped. He began to tinker at the wound in rather a clumsy way until the youth exploded. "'Gosh, darn it,' he said in a sharp irritation. "'You're the hanginest man I ever saw. "'You wear muffs on your hands. "'Why, in good thunderation can't you be more easy? "'I'd rather you'd stand off and throw guns at it. "'Now go slow, and don't act as if you was nailing down a carpet.' He glared with insolent command at his friend. But the latter answered soothingly, "'Well, well, come now and get some grub,' he said.
"'Then maybe you'll feel better.' At the fireside, the loud young soldier watched over his comrade's wants with tenderness and care. He was very busy marshalling the little black vagabonds of tin cups and pouring into them the steamy iron-coloured mixture from a small and sooty tin pail. He had some fresh meat, which he roasted hurriedly upon a stick. He sat down then and contemplated the youth's appetite with glee. The youth took note of a remarkable change in his comrades since those days of camp life upon the river bank. He seemed no more to be continually regarding the proportions of his personal prowess. He was not furious at small words that pricked his conceits. He was no more a loud young soldier.
There was about him now a fine reliance. He showed a quiet belief in his purposes and his abilities, And this inward confidence evidently enabled him to be indifferent to the little words of other men aimed at him. The youth reflected. He had been used to regarding his comrade as a blatant child with an audacity grown from his inexperienced, thoughtless, headstrong, jealous, and filled with a tinsel courage, a swaggering babe accustomed to strut in his own door-yard. The youth wondered where had been born these new eyes, when his comrade had made the great discovery that there were many men who would refuse to be subjected by him. Apparently, the other had now climbed a peak of wisdom from which he could perceive himself as a very wee thing, and the youth saw that ever after it would be easier to live in his friend's neighborhood.
His comrade balanced his ebony coffee-cup on his knee. "'Well, Henry,' he said, "'what do you think the chances are?' Do you think we'll wallop em?" The youth considered for a moment. The day before yesterday, he finally replied with boldness, "'You would have bet you'd lick the whole kit'n caboodle all by yourself." His friend looked a trifle amazed. "'Would I?' he asked. He pondered. "'Well, perhaps I would,' he decided at last. He stared humbly at the fire. The youth was quite disconcerned. At this surprising reception of his remarks, "'Oh, no, you wouldn't either,' he said, hastily, trying to retrace. But the other made a depreciating gesture. "'Ah, you needn't mind, Henry,' he said. "'I believe I was a pretty big fool in those days.' He spoke as after a lapse of years.
There was a little pause. "'All the officers say we got the rubs in a pretty tight box.' said his friend, clearing his throat in a commonplace way. They all seem to think we've got em just where we want em. I don't know about that, the youth replied. What I seen over on the right makes me think it was the other way about. From where I was, it looked as if we was getting a good pounding yesterday. You think so? inquired the friend. I thought we handled em pretty rough yesterday. Not a bit, said the youth. Why, Lord, man, You didn't see nothin' of the fight. Why? Then a sudden thought came to him. Oh, Jim Conklin's dead. His friend started. What? Is he—Jim Conklin?
The youth spoke slowly. Yes, he's dead, shot in the side. You don't say so, Jim Conklin. Poor cuss. All about them were other small fires surrounded by men, with their little black utensils. From one of these ne'er came sudden sharp voices in a row. It appeared that two light-footed soldiers had been teasing a huge bearded man, causing him to spill coffee upon his blue knees. The man had gone into a rage and had sworn comprehensively. Stung by his language, his tormentors had immediately bristled at him with a great show of resenting of just oath. Possibly, There was going to be a fight. The friends arose and went over to them, making pacific motions with his arms. "'Ah, here now, boys. What's the use?' he said.
"'We'll be at the Rebs in less than an hour. What's a good fightin' among ourselves?' One of the light-footed soldiers turned upon him, red-faced and violent. "'You needn't come around here with your preachin. I suppose you don't approve of fightin' since Charlie Morgan licked you, eh?' But I didn't see what business this here is yours, or anybody else. "'Well, it ain't,' said the friend mildly. "'Still, I hate to see.' There was a tangled argument. "'Well, he,' said the two, indicating their opponent with accusative forefingers. The huge soldier was quite purple with rage. He pointed at the two soldiers with his great hand extended claw-like. "'Well, eh,' but during this argumentive time, Their desire to deal blows seemed to pass.
Although they said much to each other, finally the friend returned to his old seat. In a short while, the three antagonists could be seen together in an amiable bunch. Jimmy Rogers says I'll have to fight him after the battle today, announced the friend, as he again seated himself. He says he don't allow no interferin' in his business. I hate to see the boys fightin' among themselves. The youth laughed. "'He're changed a good bit. He ain't all like he was. I remember when you and that Irish feller—'," he stopped and laughed again. "'No, I didn't used to be that way,' said his friend thoughtfully. "'That's true enough.' "'Well, I didn't mean,' began the youth. The friend made another depreciatory gesture.
"'Oh, yeah, needn't mind, Henry.' There was another little pause. The regiment lost over half the men yesterday, remarked the friend eventually. I thought, of course, they was all dead, but laws, they kept a-coming back last night until, it seems, after all, we didn't lose but a few. They'd been scattered all over, wandering around the woods, fighting with other regiments and everything, just like you done. So, said the youth.
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15 Chapter - 15 7:08
The regiment was standing at Order Arms at the side of a lane, waiting for the command to march, when suddenly the youth remembered the little packet, enwrapped in a faded yellow envelope, which the loud young soldier, with lugubrious words, had entrusted to him. It made him start. He uttered an exclamation and turned toward his comrade. Wilson! What? His friend at his side in the ranks was thoughtfully staring down the road. From some cause his expression was at that moment very meek. The youth regarding him with sidelong glances felt impelled to change his purpose. Oh, nothing, he said. His friend turned his head in some surprise. Why, what was you goin' to say? Oh, nothing, repeated the youth.
He resolved not to deal the little blow. It was sufficient that the fact made him glad. It was not necessary to knock his friend on the head with the misguided packet. He had been possessed of much fear of his friend, for he saw how easily questionings could make holes in his feelings. Lately he had assured himself that the altered comrade would not tantalize him, with a persistent curiosity, but he felt certain that during the first period of leisure his friend would ask him to relate his adventures of the previous day. He now rejoiced in the possession of a small weapon, with which he could prostrate his comrade at the first sign of a cross-examination he was master. It would now be he who could laugh and shoot the shafts of derision.
The friend had, in a week hour, spoken with sobs of his own death. He had delivered a melancholy oration previous to his funeral, and had doubtless in the packet of letters presented various keepsakes to relatives. But he had not died, and thus he had delivered himself into the hands of the youth. The latter felt immensely superior to his friend, but he inclined to condensation. He adopted towards him an air of patronizing good humor. His self-pride was now entirely restored, In the shade of its flourishing growth, he stood with braced and self-confident legs, and since nothing could now be discovered, he did not shrink from an encounter with the eyes of judges, and allowed no thoughts of his own to keep him from an attitude of manfulness.
He had performed his mistakes in the dark, so he was still a man. Indeed, when he remembered his fortunes of yesterday, and looked at them from a distance, he began to see something fine there. He had license to be pompous and veteranlike. His panting agonies of the past he put out of his sight. In the present he declared to himself that it was only the doomed and the damned who roared with sincerity at circumstance. Few but they ever did. A man with a full stomach and the respect of his fellows had no business to scold about anything that he might think to be wrong in the ways of the universe. Or even with the ways of society. Let the unfortunate rail. The others may play marbles. He did not give a great deal of thought to these battles that lay directly before him.
It was not essential that he should plan his ways in regard to them. He had been taught that many obligations of a life were easily avoided. The lessons of yesterday had been that retribution was a laggard and blind. With these facts before him, He did not deem it necessary that he should become feverish over the possibilities of the ensuing twenty-four hours. He could leave much to chance. Besides, a faith in himself had secretly blossomed. There was a little flower of confidence growing within him. He was now a man of experience. He had been out among the dragons. He said, and assured himself that they were not so hideous as he had imagined them. Also, they were inaccurate. They did not sting with precision.
A stout heart, often defied, and defying escaped. And furthermore, how could they kill him, who was the chosen of gods and doomed to greatness? He remembered how some of the men had run from the battle. As he recalled their terror-struck faces, he felt a scorn for them. They had surely been more fleet and more wild than was absolutely necessary. They were weak mortals. As for himself, He had fled with discretion and dignity. He was aroused from his reverie by his friend, who, having hitched about nervously, blinked at the trees for a time, suddenly coughed in an introductory way, and spoke, Fleming? What? The friend put his hand up to his mouth and coughed again. He fidgeted in his jacket. "'Well,' he gulped at last, "'I guess you might as well give me back them letters.' Prickling blood had rushed into his cheeks and brow.
"'All right, Wilson,' said the youth. He loosened two buttons of his coat, thrust in his hand, and brought forth the packet. As he extended it to his friend, the latter's face was turned from him. He had been slow in the act of producing the packet, because during it he had been trying to invent a remarkable comment upon the affair. He could conjure nothing of sufficient point. He was compelled to allow his friend to escape unmolested with his packet, and, for this, he took unto himself considerable credit. It was a generous thing. His friend at his side seemed suffering great shame. As he contemplated him, the youth felt his heart grow more strong and stout. He had never been compelled to blush in such manner for his acts.
He was an individual of extraordinary virtues. He reflected with condescending pity. Too bad, too bad. Poor devil. It makes him feel tough. After this incident, and as he reviewed the battle pictures he had seen, he felt quite competent to return home and make the hearts of the people glow with stories of war. He could see himself in a room of warm tents, telling tales to listeners. He could exhibit laurels. They were insignificant, though in a district where laurels were infrequent, They might shine. He saw his gaping audience picturing him as the central figure in blazing scenes, and he imagined the consternation and ejaculations of his mother and the young lady at the seminary as they drank his recitals.
Their vague feminine formula for beloved ones, doing brave deeds on the field of battle without risk of life, would be destroyed.
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16 Chapter - 16 11:33
A sputtering of musketry was always to be heard. Later the cannon had entered the dispute. In the fog-filled air, their voices made a thudding sound. The reverberations were continued. This part of the world led a strange, battleful existence. The youth regiment was marched to relieve a command that had lain long in some damp trenches. The men took positions behind a curving line of rifle-pits that had been turned up like a large furrow along the line of woods. Before them was a level stretch, peopled with short, deformed stumps. From the woods beyond came the dull popping of the skirmishers and pickets firing in the fog. From the right came the noise of a terrific fracas. The men cuddled behind the small embankment, and sat in easy attitudes awaiting their turn.
Many had their backs to the firing. The youth friend lay down, buried his face in his arms, and almost instantly, it seemed, he was in a deep sleep. The youth leaned his breast against the brown dirt and peered over it at the woods, and up and down the line. Curtains of trees interfered with his ways of vision. He could see the low line of trenches, but for a short distance. A few idle flags were perched on the dirt hills. Behind them were rows of dark bodies, with a few heads sticking curiously over the top. Always the noise of skirmishers came from the woods on the front and left, and the din on the right had grown to frightful proportions. The guns were roaring without an instant's pause for breath.
It seemed that the cannon had come from all parts and were engaged in a stupendous wrangle. It became impossible to make a sentence heard. The youth wished to launch a joke, a quotation from newspapers. He desired to say, "'All quiet on a Rappahannock!' But the guns refused to permit even a comment from their uproar. He never successfully concluded the sentence. But at last the guns stopped, and among the men in the rifle-pits rumors began to flow. Like birds, but they were now for the most part black creatures who flapped their wings drearily near to the ground and refused to rise on any wings of hope. The men's faces grew doleful from the interpreting of omens. Tales of hesitation and uncertainty on the part of those high in place and responsibility came to their ears.
Stories of disaster were borne into their minds with many proofs. The din of musketry on the right, growing like a released genie of sound, expressed and emphasized the army's plight. The men were disheartened and began to mutter. They made gestures expressive of the sentence, Ah, what more can we do? And it could always be seen that they were bewildered by the alleged news and could not fully comprehend a defeat. Before the gray mists had been totally obliterated by the sun's rays, the regiment was marching in a spread column that was retiring carefully through the woods. The disordered hurrying lines of the enemy could sometimes be seen down through the groves and little fields. They were yelling shrill and exultant.
At this sight the youth forgot many personal matters and became greatly enraged. He exploded in loud sentences. "'By Jiminy, we're generaled by a lot of lunkerheads.' "'More than one feller has said that to-day,' observed a man." His friend, recently aroused, was still very drowsy. He looked behind him until his mind took in the meaning of the movement. Then he sighed, "'Oh, well, I suppose we got licked,' he remarked sadly. The youth had a thought that it would not be handsome for him to freely condemn other men. He made an attempt to restrain himself, but the words upon his tongue were too bitter. He presently began a long and intricate denunciation of the commander of the forces. Maybe— It weren't all his fault, not altogether.
He did the best he knowed. It's our luck to get licked often, said his friend in a weary tone. He was trudging along with stooped shoulders and shifting eyes like a man who has been caned and kicked. "'Well, don't we fight like the devil? Don't we do all that men can?' demanded the youth loudly. He was secretly dumbfounded at this sentiment when it came from his lips. For a moment— His face lost its valor, and he looked guiltily about him. No one questioned his right to deal in such words, and presently he recovered his air of courage. He went on to repeat a statement he had heard going from group to group at the camp that morning. Brigadier said he never saw a new regiment fight the way we fought yesterday, didn't he?
And we didn't do better than many other regiment, did we? Well, then, you can't say it's the Army's fault, can you? In his reply, the friend's voice was stern. "'Of course not,' he said. "'No man dares say we don't fight like the devil. No man will ever dare say it. The boys fight like hell roosters. But still, still—we don't have no luck.' "'Well, then, if we fight like the devil and don't ever whip, it must be the general's fault,' said the youth grandly and decisively. "'And I don't see any sense in fighting and fighting and fighting, yet always losing through some derned old lunkerhead of a general.' A sarcastic man, who was tramping at the youth's side, then spoke lazily. "'Maybe you think you're fit to the whole battle yesterday, Fleming?' he remarked.
The speech pierced the youth. Inwardly, he was reduced to an abject pulp by these chance words. His legs quaked privately. He cast a frightened glance at the sarcastic man. "'Why, no,' he hastened to say in a conciliating voice. "'I don't think I fought the whole battle yesterday.' But the other seemed innocent of any deeper meaning. Apparently he had no information. It was merely his habit. Oh, he replied in the same tone of calm derision. The youth, nevertheless, felt a threat. His mind shrank from going near to the danger, and thereafter he was silent. The significance of the sarcastic man's words took from him all loud moods that would make him appear prominent. He became suddenly a modest person.
There was low-toned talk among the troops. The officers were impatient and snappy. Their countenances clouded with the tales of misfortune. The troops sifting through the forest were sullen. In the youth's company, once a man's laugh rang out. A dozen soldiers turned their faces quickly toward him and frowned with vague displeasure. The noise of firing dogged their footsteps. Sometimes it seemed to be driven a little way, but it always returned again with increased insolence. The men muttered and cursed, drawing black looks in its direction. In a clear space, the troops were at last halted. Regiments and brigades, broken and detached through their encounters with thickets, grew together again, and lines were faced toward the pursuing bark of the enemy's infantry.
This noise, following like the yellings of eager metallic hounds, increased to a loud and joyous burst, and then, as the sun went serenely up the sky, Throwing illuminating rays into the gloomy thickets, it broke forth into prolonged peelings. The woods began to crackle as if a fire. "'Opa-dee!' said a man. "'There we are. Everybody's fighting. Blood and destruction. "'I was willing to bet they'd attack as soon as the sun got fairly up,' savagely asserted the lieutenant, who commanded the youth's company. He jerked. Without mercy at his little mustache, he strode to and fro with dark dignity in the rear of his men, who were lying down behind whatever protection they had collected. A battery had trundled into position in the rear, and was thoughtfully shelling the distance.
The regiment, unmolested as yet, awaited the moment when the gray shadows of the woods before them should be slashed by the lines of flame. There was much growling and swearing. "'Good God!' the youth grumbled. We're always being chased around like rats. It makes me sick. Nobody seems to know where we go or why we go. We just get fired around from pillar to post and get licked here and get licked there, and nobody knows what it's done for. It makes a man feel like a damn kitten in a bag. Now I'd like to know what the eternal thunders we was marched into these woods for anyhow. Unless it was to give the rebs a regular potshot at us. We came in here and got our legs all tangled up in these cussed briars, and then we began to fight, and the rebs had that easy time of it.
Don't tell me it's just luck. I know better. It's as darned old—the friend seemed jaded, but he interrupted his comrade with a voice of calm confidence. "'It'll turn all right, in the end,' he said. "'Oh, the devil it will.' He always talk like a dog-hang person. Don't tell me I know. At this time, there was an interposition by this savage-minded lieutenant, who was obliged to vent some of his inward dissatisfaction upon his men. You boys shut right up. There's no need. You're wasting your breath in long-winded arguments about this and that and the other. You've been jawing like a lot of old hens. All you got to do is to fight, and you'll get plenty of tot to do. In about ten minutes. Less talkin' and more fightin' is what best for you boys.
I never saw such gobblin' jackasses. He paused, ready to pounce upon any man who might have the intermittedly to reply. No words being said, he resumed his dignified pacing. "'There's too much chin music and too little fightin' in this war anyhow,' he said to them, turning his head for a final remark. The day had grown more white until the sun shed its full radiance upon the thronged forest. A sort of a gust of battle came sweeping toward that part of the line where lay the youth's regiment. The front shifted a trifle to meet it squarely. There was a wait. In this part of the field there passed slowly the intense moments that precede the tempest. A single rifle flashed in a thicket before the regiment.
In an instant it was joined by many others. There was a mighty song of clashes and crashes that went sweeping through the woods, the guns in the rear aroused and enraged by shells that had been thrown burr-like at them, suddenly involved themselves in a hideous altercation with another band of guns. The battle roar settled to a rolling thunder, which was a single long explosion. In the regiment there was a peculiar kind of hesitation, denoted in the attitudes of the men. They were worn, exhausted, having slept but little, and labored much. They rolled their eyes toward the advancing battle as they stood, awaiting the shock. Some shrank and flinched. They stood as men, tied to stakes.
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17 Chapter - 17 9:39
He began to fume with rage and exasperation. He beat his foot upon the ground and scowled. With hate at the swirling smoke that was approaching like a phantom flood. There was a maddening quality in this seeming resolution of the foe. To give him no rest, it gave him no time to sit down and think. Yesterday he had fought and had fled rapidly. There had been many adventures, for today he felt that he had earned opportunities for contemplative repose. He could have enjoyed portraying to uninitiated listeners various scenes at which he had been a witness, or ably discussing the processes of war with other proved men. To it was important that he should have time for physical recuperation. He was sore and stiff from his experiences.
He had received his fill of exertions and wished to rest, but those other men seemed never to grow weary. They were fighting with their old speed, He had a wild hate for the relentless foe. Yesterday, when he had imagined the universe to be against him, he had hated it, little gods and big gods. Today he hated the army of the foe with the same great hatred. He was not going to be badgered of his life like a kitten chased by boys, he said. It was not well to drive men into final corners. At those moments they could all develop teeth and claws. He leaned and spoke into his friend's ear. He menaced the woods with a gesture. "'If they keep on chasing us, by God, they'd better watch out. Can't stand too much.' The friend twisted his head and made a calm reply.
"'If they keep a chasing us, they'll drive us—all into the river.' Youth cried out savagely at this statement. He crouched behind a little tree, with his eyes burning hatefully, and his teeth set in a cur-like snarl. The awkward bandage was still about his head, and upon it over his wound there was a spot of dry blood. His hair was wondrously tousled, and some straggling moving locks hung over the cloth of the bandage down toward his forehead. His jacket and shirt were open at the throat, and exposed his young, bronzed neck. There could be seen spasmodic gulpings at his throat. His fingers twined nervously about his rifle. He wished that it was an engine of annihilating power. He felt that he and his companions were being taunted and derided from sincere convictions that they were poor and puny.
His knowledge of his inability to take vengeance for it made his rage into a dark and stormy spectre that possessed him and made him dream of abominable cruelties. The tormentors were flies sucking insolently at his blood, and he thought that he would have given his life for a revenge of seeing their faces in pitiful plights. The winds of battle had swept all about the regiment until the one rifle, instantly followed by others, flashed in its front. A moment later, its sudden and valiant retort, a dense wall of smoke, settled slowly down. It was furiously slit and slashed by the knife-like fire from the rifles. To the youth, the fighters resembled animals tossed for a death struggle into a dark pit.
There was a sensation that he and his fellows at bay were pushing back, always pushing fierce onslaughts of creatures who were slippery. Their beams and crimson seemed to get no purchase upon the bodies of their foes. The latter seemed to evade them with ease and come through between, around, and about with unopposed skill. When in a dream it occurred to the youth that his rifle was an important stick, he lost sense of everything but his hate, his desire to smash into pulp the glittering smile of victory which he could feel upon the faces of his enemies. The blue smoke swallowed, lying curled, and wreathed like a snake stepped upon. It swung its ends to and fro in an agony of fear and rage. The youth was not conscious that he was erect upon his feet.
He did not know the direction of the ground. Indeed, once he even lost the habit of balance and fell heavily. He was up again. Immediately. One thought went through the chaos of his brain at the time. He wondered if he had fallen because he had been shot. But the suspicion flew away at once. He did not think more of it. He had taken up a first position behind the little tree, with a direct determination to hold it against the world. He had not deemed it possible that his army that day could succeed, and from this he felt the ability to fight harder. But the throng had searched in all ways until he lost directions and locations, save that he knew where lay the enemy. The flames bit him, and the hot smoke broiled his skin.
His rifle barrel grew so hot that ordinarily he could not have borne it upon his palms, but he kept on stuffing cartridges into it and pounding them with his clanking, bending ramrod. If he aimed at some charging through the smoke, he pulled his trigger with a fierce grunt, as if he were dealing a blow of the fist with all his strength. When the enemy seemed falling back before him and his fellows, he went instantly forward like a dog who, seeing his foes lagging, turns and insists upon being pursued. And when he was compelled to retire again, he did it slowly, sullenly, taking steps of wrathful despair. Once he, in his intent hate, was almost alone and was firing. When all those near him had ceased, he was so engrossed in his occupation that he was not aware of a lull.
He was recalled by a hoarse laugh and a sentence that came to his ears in a voice of contempt and amazement. "'Eternal fool! Don't you know enough to quit when there ain't anything to shoot at? Good God!' He turned then, and, pausing, with his rifle thrown half into position, looked at the blue line of his comrades. During this moment of leisure, they seemed all to be engaged in staring with astonishment at him. They had become spectators. Turning to the front again, he saw under the lifted smoke a deserted ground. He looked bewildered for a moment, then there appeared upon the glazed vacancy of his eyes a diamond point of intelligence. Oh, he said, comprehending. He returned to his comrades and threw himself upon the ground.
He sprawled like a man who had been thrashed. His flesh seemed strangely on fire, and the sounds of the battle continued in his ears. He groped blindly for his canteen. The lieutenant was crowing. He seemed drunk with fighting. He called out to the youth, "'By heavens, if I had ten thousand wild cats like you, I could tear the stomach out of this war in less than a week.' He puffed out his chest with large dignity as he said it. Some of the men muttered and looked at the youth in awestruck ways. It was plain that as he had gone on loathing and firing and cursing without the proper intermission, they had found time to regard him. And they now looked upon him as a war-devil. The friend came staggering to him.
There was some fright and dismay in his voice. Are you all right, Fleming? Do you feel right? There ain't nothing the matter with you, Henry, is there? No, said the youth with difficulty. His throat seemed full of knobs and burrs. These incidents made the youth ponder. It was revealed to him that he had been a barbarian, a beast. He had fought like a pagan. who defends his religion. Regarding it, he saw that it was fine, wild, and in some ways, easy. He had been a tremendous figure, no doubt. By this struggle he had overcome obstacles, which he had admitted to be mountains. They had fallen like paper peaks, and he was now what he called a hero. And he had not been aware of the process. He had slept, and, awakening, found himself a knight.
He lay and basked in the occasional stares of his comrades. Their faces were varied in degrees of blackness from the burned powder. Some were utterly smudged. They were reeking with perspiration, and their breaths came hard and wheezing. And from these soiled expanses they peered at him. Hot work, hot work! cried the lieutenant deliriously. He walked up and down, relentless and eager. Sometimes his voice could be heard in a wild, incomprehensible laugh. When he had a particularly profound thought upon the science of war, he always unconsciously addressed himself to the youth. There was some grim rejoicing by the men. By thunder, I bet this army'll never see another new regiment like us. You bet.
A dog, a woman, and a walnut tree. The more you beat em, the better they be. That's like us. Lost to parliament they did, and if an old woman swept up the woods, she'd get a dustpanful. Yes, "'And if she come around again in about an hour, she'll get a pile more.' The forest still bore its burden of clamor. From off under the trees came the rolling clatter of the musketry. Each distant thicket seemed a strange porcupine with quills of flame. A cloud of dark smoke, as from smoldering ruins, went up toward the sun now bright and gay in the blue enameled sky.
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18 Chapter - 18 9:14
The Ragged Line had respite for some minutes, but during its pause the struggle in the forest seemed magnified until the trees seemed to quiver from the firing and the ground to shake from the rushing of the men. The voices of the cannon were mingled in a long and interminable row. It seemed difficult to live in such an atmosphere. The chests of the men strained for a bit of freshness, and their throats craved water. There was one shot through the body, who raised a cry of bitter lamentation when came upon this lull. Perhaps he had been calling out during the fighting also, but at that time no one had heard him. But now the men turned at the woeful complaints of him upon the ground. Who is it?
Who is it? It's Jimmy Rogers. Jimmy Rogers. When their eyes first encountered him, there was a sudden halt, as if they feared to go near. He was thrashing about in the grass, twisting his shuddering body into many strange postures. He was screaming loudly. This instant's hesitation seemed to fill him with a tremendous, fantastic contempt, and he damned them in shrieked sentences. The youth's friend had a geographical illusion concerning a stream, and he obtained permission to go for some water. Immediately canteens were showered upon him. "'Vill mine, will you? Bring me some, too. And me, too.' He departed Leiden. The youth went with his friend, feeling a desire to throw his heated body into the stream, and soaking their drink-quartz.
They made a hurried search for the supposed stream, but did not find it. "'No water here,' said the youth. They turned without delay and began to retrace their steps. From their position, as they again faced toward the place of the fighting, they could of course comprehend a greater amount of the battle than when their visions had been blurred by the hurling smoke of the line. They could see dark stretches winding along the land, and on one cleared space there was a row of guns, making gray clouds, which were filled with large flashes of orange-colored flame. Over some foliage they could see the roof of a house. One window glowing a deep murder red shone squarely through the leaves. From the edifice, a tall, leaning tower of smoke went far into the sky.
Looking over their own troops, they saw mixed masses slowly getting into regular form. The sunlight made twinkling points of the bright steel. To the rear, there was a glimpse of a distant roadway as it curved over a slope. It was crowded with retreating infantry. From all the interwoven forest arose the smoke and bluster of the battle. The air was always occupied by a blaring. Near where they stood, shells were flip-flapping and hooting. Occasional bullets buzzed in the air and spanged into tree-trunks. Wounded men and other stragglers were slinking through the woods. Looking down an aisle of the grove, the youth and his companions saw a jangling general and his staff almost right upon a wounded man who was crawling on his hands and knees.
The general reigned strongly at his chargers opened in foamy mouth. and guided it with dexterous horsemanship past the man. The latter scrambled in wild and torturing haste. His strength evidently failed him as he reached the place of safety. One of his arms suddenly weakened, and he fell, sliding over upon his back. He lay stretched out, breathing gently. A moment later a small creaking cavalcade was directly in front of the two soldiers, another officer riding with the skillful abandon of a cowboy, galloped his horse to a position directly before the general. The two unnoticed foot-soldiers made a little show of going on, but they lingered near in the desire to overhear the conversation. Perhaps they thought some great inner historical things would be said.
The general, whom the boys knew as the commander of their division, looked at the other officer and spoke coolly as if he were criticizing his clothes. "'The enemy's foreman over there for another charge,' he said. "'It'll be directed against Whiter's side.' "'An' I fear they'll break through there unless we work like thunder to stop em.' The other swore at his resistive horse, and then cleared his throat. He made a gesture toward his cap. "'It'll be hell to pay stoppin' them,' he said shortly. "'I presume so,' remarked the general. Then he began to talk rapidly, and in a lower tone he frequently illustrated his words with a pointing finger. The two infantrymen could hear nothing until finally he asked—' What troops can you spare?
The officer who rode like a cowboy reflected for an instant. "'Well,' he said, "'I had to order in the twelfth to help the seventy-sixth, and I haven't really got any. But there's the three-o-fourth. They fight like a lot of mule-drivers. I can spare them best of any.' The youth and his friend exchanged glances of astonishment. The general spoke sharply. "'Get him ready, then. I'll watch developments from here, and—' Send you word when to start of them. It'll happen in five minutes. As the other officer tossed his fingers toward his cap, and wheeling his horse started away, the general called out to him in a sober voice. "'I don't believe many of your mule-drivers will get back.' The other shouted something in reply.
He smiled. With scared faces, the youth and his companion hurried back to the line. These happenings had occupied an incredibly short time. Yet the youth felt that in them he had been made aged. New eyes were given to him, and the most startling thing was to learn suddenly that he was very insignificant. The officer spoke of the regiment as if he referred to a broom. Some part of the woods needed sweeping, perhaps, and he merely indicated a broom in a tone properly indifferent to its fate. It was war, no doubt, but it appeared strange. As the two boys approached the line, the lieutenant perceived them and swelled with wrath. "'Fleming! Wilson! How long does it take you to get water anyhow? Where have you been to?' But his orations ceased as he saw their eyes, which were large with great tails.
"'We're going to charge! We're going to charge!' cried the youth friend, hastening with his news. "'Charge!' said the lieutenant. "'Charge!' "'Well, by God, now this is real fightin!' Over his soiled countenance, there went a boastful smile. "'Charge!' By God!" A little group of soldiers surrounded the two youths. "'Are we sure enough? Well, I'll be darned charge. What fer? What at? Wilson, you're lyin.' "'I hope to die,' said the youth, pitching his tone to the key of angry remonstrance. "'Sure as shootin, I tell you.' And his friend spoke in reinforcement. "'Not by a blame side, he ain't lyin.' "'We heard him talkin.' They caught sight of two mounted figures a short distance from them. One was the colonel of the regiment, and the other was the officer who had received orders from the commander of the division.
They were gesticulating at each other. The soldier pointing at them interrupted the scene. One man had a final objection. "'How could you hear him talkin?' But the men, for a large part, nodded, admitting that previously the two friends had spoken truth. They settled back into reposeful attitudes, with airs of having accepted the matter, and they mused upon it with a hundred varieties of expression. It was an engrossing thing to think about. Many tightened their belts carefully and hitched at their trousers. A moment later, the officers began to bustle among the men, pushing them into a more compact mass and into a better alignment. They chased those that straggled and fumed at a few men, who seemed to show by their attitudes that they had decided to remain at that spot.
They were like critical shepherds struggling with sheep. Presently, the regiment seemed to draw itself up and heave a deep breath. None of the men's faces were mirrors of large thoughts. The soldiers were bended and stooped, like sprinters before a signal. Many pairs of glinting eyes peered from the grimy faces toward the curtains of the deeper woods. They seemed to be engaged in deep calculations of time and distance. They were surrounded by the noises of the monstrous altercation between the two armies. The world was fully interested in other matters. Apparently, the regiment had its small affair to itself. The youth, turning, shot a quick, inquiring glance at his friend. The latter returned to him the same manner of look.
They were the only ones who possessed an inner knowledge. Me old drivers, hell to pay. Don't believe many will get back. It was an ironical secret. Still they saw no hesitation in each other's faces, and they nodded a mute and unprotesting assent when that shaggy man near them said in a meek voice,
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19 Chapter - 19 11:24
Its foliages now seemed to veil powers and horrors. He was unaware of the machinery of orders that started to charge, although from the corners of his eyes. He saw an officer who looked like a boy on horseback, come galloping, waving his hat. Suddenly he felt a straining and heaving among the men. The line fell slowly forward, like a toppling wall, and in a convulsive gasp that was intended for a cheer, the regiment began its journey. The youth was pushed and jostled for a moment before he understood the movement at all, but directly he lunged ahead and began to run. He fixed his eye upon a distant and prominent clump of trees where he had concluded the enemy were to be met, and he ran toward it as though a goal.
He had believed throughout that it was a mere question of getting over an unpleasant matter as quickly as possible, and he ran desperately, as if pursued for a murder, His face was drawn hard and tight with the stress of his endeavor. His eyes were mixed in a lurid glare, and with his soiled and distorted dress, his red and inflamed features, surmounted by the dingy rag, with its spot of blood, his wildly swinging rifle and banging accoutrements, he looked to be an insane soldier. As the regiment swung from its position out into a cleared space, the woods and thickets beeped for it. awakened. Yellow flames leaped toward it from many directions. The forest made a tremendous objection. The line lurched straight for a moment.
Then the right wing swung forward. It, in turn, was surpassed by the left, afterward the center, careened to the front until the regiment was a wedge-shaped mass. But an instant later, the opposition of the bushes' trees and uneven places on the ground split the command and scattered it into detached clusters. The youth, light-footed, was unconsciously in advance. His eye still kept note of the clump of trees. From all places near it, the clannish yell of the enemy could be heard. The little flames of Rifle's lipped from it. The song of the bullets was in the air. Shells snarled among the tree-tops. One tumbled directly into the middle of a hurrying group and exploded in crimson fury. There was an instant spectacle of a man almost over it, throwing up his hands to shield his eyes.
Other men, punched by bullets, fell in grotesque agonies. The regiment left a coherent trail of bodies. They had passed into a clearer atmosphere. There was an effect, like a revelation, in the new appearance of the landscape. Some men working madly at a battery were plain to them, and the opposing infantry lines were defined by the gray walls and fringes of smoke. It seemed to the youth that he saw everything. Each blade of green grass was bold and clear. He thought that he was aware of every change in the thin, transparent vapor that floated idly in sheets. The brown or gray trunks of trees showed each roughness of their surfaces. The men of the regiment, with their startling eyes and sweating faces, running madly or falling as if thrown headlong into queer, heaped-up corpses, all were comprehended.
His mind took a mechanical but firm impression, so that afterward everything was pictured and explained to him save why he himself was there. But there was a frenzy made from this furious rush. The men pitching forward insanely had burst into cheering's mob-like and barbaric, but tuned in strange keys that can arouse the dullard and the stiotic. It made a mad enthusiasm that it seemed would be incapable of checking itself before granite and brass. There was the delirium that encounters despair and death, and it's heedless and blind to the odds. It is a temporary but sublime absence of selfishness, and because it was of this order was the reason, perhaps why the youth wondered afterward what reasons he could have had for being there.
Presently, the straining pace ate up the energies of the men. As if by agreement, the leaders began to slacken their speed. The volleys directed against them had a seeming wind-like effect. The regiment snorted and blew. Among some stolid trees began to falter and hesitate. The men, staring intently, began to wait for some of the distant walls of smoke to move and disclose to them the scene. Since much of their strength and their breath had vanished, they returned to caution. They were become men again. The youth had a vague belief that he had run miles, and he thought in a way that he was now in some new and unknown land. The moment the regiment ceased its advance, the protesting sputter of musketry became a steadied roar.
Long and accurate fringes of smoke spread out. From the top of a small hill came level bleachings of yellow flame that caused an inhuman whistling in the air. The men halted, had opportunity to see some of their comrades dropping with moans and shrieks, a few laying underfoot, still or wailing. And now, for an instant, the men stood, their rifles slack in their hands, and watched the regiment dwindle. They appeared dazed and stupid. This spectacle seemed to paralyze them, overcome them with a fatal fascination. They stared woodenly at the sights, and, lowering their eyes, looked from face to face. It was a strange pause and a strange silence. Then, above the sounds of the outside commotion, arose the roar of the lieutenant.
He strode suddenly forth, his infantile features black with rage. "'Come on, you fools,' he bellowed. "'Come on!' "'Yay, can't stay here. You must. Come on,' he said more, but much of it could not be understood. He started rapidly forward, with his head turned toward the men. "'Come on!' he was shouting. The men stared with blank and yokel-like eyes at him. He was obliged to halt and retrace his steps. He stood then with his back to the enemy and delivered gigantic curses into the faces of the men. His body vibrated. From the weight and force of his imprecations, and he could string hosts with the facility of a maiden who strings beads. The friend of the youth aroused. Lurching suddenly forward and dropping to his knees, he fired an angry shot at the persistent woods.
This action awakened the men. They huddled no more like sheep. They seemed suddenly to bethink them of their weapons, and at once commenced firing. Relabored by their officers, they began to move forward, the regiment involved like a cart involved in mud and muddle. Started unevenly with many jolts and jerks, the men now stopped every few paces to fire and load, and in this manner moved on slowly from trees to trees. The flaming opposition in their front grew with their advance until it seemed that all forward ways were barred by the thin, leaping tongues, and off to the right an ominous demonstration could sometimes be dimly discerned. The smoke lately generated was in confusing clouds that made it difficult for the regiment to proceed with intelligence, As he passed through each curling-mast, the youth wondered what would confront him on the further side.
The command went painfully forward, until an open space interposed between them and the lurid lines. Here, crouching and cowering behind some trees, the men clung with desperation, as if threatened by a wave. They looked wild-eyed, and as if amazed at the furious disturbance they had stirred. In the storm, there was an ironical expression of their importance. The faces of the men, too, showed a lack of certain feeling of responsibility for being there. It was as if they had been driven. It was the dominant animal, failing to remember in the supreme moments the forceful causes of various superficial qualities. The whole affair seemed incomprehensible to many of them. As they halted thus, the lieutenant again began to bellow profanely.
Regardless of the vindictive threats of the bullets, he went about coaxing, berating, and bedamning. His lips, that were habitually in a soft and childlike curve, were now writhed into unholy contortions. He swore by all possible deities. Once he grabbed the youth by the arm. "'Come on, Lunkerhead,' he roared. "'Come on, we'll get killed if we stay here. We've only got to go across that lot.' And then the remainder of his idea disappeared in a blue haze of curses. The youth stretched forth his arm. "'Cross there?' His mouth was puckered in doubt and awe. Certainly. Just crossed the lot. "'We can't stay here,' screamed the lieutenant. He poked his face close to the youth and waved his bandaged hand.
"'Come on.' Presently grappled with him as if for a wrestling bout. It was as if he planned to drag the youth by the ear onto the assault. The private felt a sudden, unspeakable indignation against his officer. He wretched fiercely and shook him off. "'Come on yourself, then,' he yelled. There was a bitter challenge in his voice. They galloped together down the regimental front. The friends scrambled after them. In front of the colors, the three men began to bawl. Come on! Come on! They danced and gyrated like tortured savages. The flag, obedient to these appeals, bended its glittering form and swept toward them. The men wavered in indecision for a moment, and then, with a long, wailful cry, the dissipated regiment surged forward and began its new journey.
Over the field went the scurrying mass. It was a handful of men splattered into the faces of the enemy. Toward it instantly sprang the yellow tongues. A vast quantity of blue smoke hung before them, a mighty banging made ears valueless. The youth ran like a madman to reach the woods before a bullet could discover him. He ducked his head low, like a football player. In his haste, his eyes almost closed, and the scene was a wild blur. Pulsating saliva stood at the corner of his mouth. Within him, as he hurled himself forward, was born love, a despiring fondness for his flag which was near him. It was a creation of beauty and invulnerability. It was a goddess, radiant, that blended its form with an imperious gesture to him.
It was a woman, red and white, hating and loving, that called him with the voice of his hopes. Because no harm could come to it, he endowed it with power. He kept near, as if it could be a savor of lives, and an imploring cry went from his mind. In the mad scramble, he was aware that the color sergeant flinched suddenly as if struck by a bludgeon. He faltered and then became motionless, save for his quivering knees. He made a spring and a clutch at the pole. At the same instant, his friend grabbed it from the other side. They jerked it, stout and furious, but the color sergeant was dead, and the corpse would not relinquish its trust. For a moment, there was a grim encounter, the dead man swinging with bended back, Seemed to be obstinately tugging, in ludicrous and awful ways, for the possession of the flag.
It was passed in an instant of time. They wrenched the flag furiously from the dead man, and as they turned again, the corpse swayed forward with bowed head. One arm swung high, and the curved hand fell with heavy protest on the friend's unheeding shoulder.
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20 Chapter - 20 11:22
When the two youths turned with the flag, they saw that much of the regiment had crumbled away, and the dejected remnant was coming slowly back. The men, having hurled themselves in projectile fashion, had presently expended their forces, They slowly retreated, with their faces still toward the spluttering woods, and their hot rifles still replying to the din. Several officers were giving orders, their voices keyed to screams. "'Where the hell are you going?' the lieutenant was asking in a sarcastic howl, and a red-bittered officer, whose voice of triple brass could plainly be heard, was commanding, "'Shoot into them! Shoot into them! God damn their souls!' There was a melee of screeches, in which the men were ordered to do conflicting and impossible things.
The youth and his friend had a small scuffle over the flag. Give it to me. Now, let me keep it. Each felt satisfied with the other's possession of it, but each felt bound to declare by an offer to carry the emblem his willingness to further risk himself. The youth roughly pushed his friend away. The regiment fell back to the stolid trees, There it halted for a moment to blaze at some dark forms that had begun to steal upon its track. Presently it resumed its march again. Turbing among the tree-trunks, by the time the depleted regiment had again reached the first open space, they were receiving a fast and merciless fire. There seemed to be mobs all about them. The greater part of the men, discouraged their spirits, worn by the turmoil, acted as if stunned.
They accepted the pelting of the bullets with bowed and weary heads. It was of no purpose to strive against walls. It was of no use to batter themselves against granite. And from this consciousness that they had attempted to conquer an unconquerable thing, there seemed to arise a feeling that they had been betrayed. They glowered and bent brows, but dangerously upon some of the officers, more particularly upon the red-bearded one, with the voice of triple brass. However, the rear of the regiment was fringed with men who continued to shoot irritably at the advancing foes. They seemed resolved to make every trouble. The youthful lieutenant was perhaps the last man in the disordered mass. His forgotten back was toward the enemy.
He had been shot in the arm. It hung straight and rigid. Occasionally he would cease to remember it, and be about to emphasize an oath with a sweeping gesture. The multiplied pain caused him to swear with incredible power. The youth went along with slipping uncertain feet. He kept watchful eyes rearward. A scowl of mortification and rage was upon his face. He had thought of a fine revenge upon the officer who had referred to him and his fellows as mule-drivers. But he saw that it could not come to pass. His dreams had collapsed when the mule-drivers, dwindling rapidly, had wavered and hesitated on the little clearing, and then had recoiled. And now the retreat of the mule-drivers. was a march of shame to him.
A dagger-pointed gaze from without his blackened face was held toward the enemy, but his greater hatred was riveted upon the man who, not knowing him, had called him a mule-driver. When he knew that he and his comrades had failed to do anything in successful ways that might bring the little pangs of a kind of remorse upon the officer, the youth allowed the rage of the baffled to possess him. This cold officer upon a monument who dropped epitaph unconscionably down would be finer as a dead man, he thought. So grievous did he think that he could never possess the secret right to taunt truly in answer. He had pictured red letters of curious revenge. We are mule-drivers, are we? And how he was compelled to throw them away.
He presently wrapped his heart in the cloak of his pride and kept the flag erect. He harangued his fellows, pushing against their chest with his free hand. To those he knew well he made frantic appeals, beseeching them by name. Between him, the lieutenant, scolding, and near to losing his mind with rage, there was felt a subtle fellowship and equality. They supported each other in all manner of hoarse howling protests. But the regiment was a machine run down. The two men babbled at a forceless thing. The soldiers, who had heart to go slowly, were continually shaken in their resolves by a knowledge that comrades were slipping with speed back to the lines. It was difficult to think of reputation when others were thinking of skins.
Wounded men were left crying on this black journey. The smoke fringes and flames blustered always. The youth, peering once through a sudden rift in a cloud, saw a brown mass of troops interwoven and magnified until they appeared to be thousands. A fierce-hued flag flashed before his vision. Immediately, as if the uplifting of the smoke had been prearranged, the discovered troops burst into a rasping yell, and a hundred flames jetted toward the retreating band. A rolling gray cloud again interposed as the regiment doggedly replied. The youth had to depend again upon his misused ears, which were trembling and buzzing from the melee of musketry and yells. The way seemed eternal. In the clouded haze, men became panic-stricken with the thought that the regiment had lost its path, and was proceeding in a perilous direction.
Once the men who headed the wild procession turned and came pushing back against their comrades, screaming that they were being fired upon from points which they had considered to be toward their own lines, At this cry, a hysterical fear and dismay beset the troops. A soldier, who heretofore had been ambitious to make the regiment into a wise little band that would proceed calmly amid the huge appearing difficulties, suddenly sank down and buried his face in his arms with an air of bowing to a doom. From another, a shrill lamination rang out, filled with profane allusions to a general. Men ran hither and thither, seeking with their eyes roads of escape. With serene regularity, as if controlled by a schedule, bullets buffed into men.
The youth walked stolidly into the midst of the mob, and with his flag in his hands, took a stand as if he expected an attempt to push him to the ground. He unconsciously assumed the attitude of the color-bearer in the fight of the preceding day. He passed over his brow, a hand that trembled. His breath did not come freely. He was choking during this small wait for the crisis. His friend came to him. "'Well, Henry, I guess this is good-bye. John.' "'Oh, shut up, you damn fool,' replied the youth, and he would not look at the other. The officers labored like politicians to beat the mass into a proper circle to face the menaces. The ground was uneven and torn. The men curled into depressions and fitted themselves snugly behind whatever would frustrate a bullet.
The youth noted with vague surprise that the lieutenant was standing mutely with his legs far apart and his sword held in the manner of a cane. The youth wondered what had happened to his vocal organs that he no more cursed. There was something curious in this little intent pause of the lieutenant. He was like a babe which, having wept his fill, raises its eyes and fixes them upon a distant toy. He was engrossed in this contemplation, and the soft upper lip quivered, from self-whispered words. Some lazy and ignorant smoke curled slowly. The men, hiding from the bullets, waited anxiously for it to lift and to disclose the plight of the regiment. The silent ranks were suddenly thrilled by the eager voice of the youthful lieutenant, bawling out, "'Here they come!
Right on to us! By God!' His further words were lost in a roar of wicked thunder from the men's rifles. The youth's eyes had instantly turned in the direction indicated by the awkward and agitated lieutenant, and he had seen the haze of treachery disclosing a body of soldiers of the enemy. They were so near that he could see their features. There was a recognition as he looked at the types of faces. Also he perceived with dim amazement that their uniforms were rather gray, in effect, being light gray, accented with a brilliant-hued facing. Moreover, the clothes seemed new. These troops had apparently been going forward with caution, their rifles held in readiness, when the youthful lieutenant had discovered them and their movement had been interrupted by the volley from the Blue Regiment.
From the moment's glimpse, it was derived that they had been unaware of the proximity of their dark-suited foes and had mistaken the direction. Almost instantly, they were shot utterly from the youth's sight by the smoke from the energetic rifles of his companions. He strained his vision to learn the accomplishment of the volley. But the smoke hung before him. The two bodies of troops exchanged blows in the manner of a pair of boxers. The fast, angry firings went back and forth. The men in blue were intent with the despair of their circumstances, and they seized upon the revenge to be had at close range. Their thunder swelled loud and valiant. Their curving front bristled with flashes, and the place resounded with the clangor of the ramrods.
The youth ducked and dodged for a time and achieved a few unsatisfactory views of the enemy. There appeared to be many of them, and they were replying swiftly. They seemed moving toward the Blue Regiment. Step by step, he seated himself gloomily on the ground, with his flag between his knees. As he noted the vicious, wolf-like temper of his comrades, he had a sweet thought that if the enemy was about to swallow the regimental broom as a large prisoner, It could at least have the consolation of going down with the bristles forward. But the blows of the antagonist began to grow more weak. Fewer bullets ripped the air, and finally, when the men slackened to learn of the fight, they could see only dark, floating smoke.
The regiment lay still and gazed. Presently, some chance wind came to the pestering blur, and it began to coil heavily away. The men saw a ground vacant fighters. It would have been an empty stage if it were not for a few corpses that lay thrown and twisted into fantastic shapes upon this ward. At sight of this tableau, many of the men in blue sprang from behind their covers and made an ungainly dance of joy. Their eyes burned, and a hoarse cheer of elation broke from their dry lips. It had begun to seem to them that events were trying to prove that they were impotent. These little battles have evidently endeavored to demonstrate that the men could not fight well, when on the verge of submission to these opinions the small duel had showed them that the proportions were not impossible, and by it they had revenged themselves upon their misgivings and upon the foe.
The impetus of enthusiasm was theirs again. They gazed about them with looks of uplifted pride, feeling new trust in the grim, always confident weapons in their hands. And they were men.
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21 Chapter - 21 11:59
Presently they knew that no firing threatened them. All ways seemed once more open to them. The dusty blue lines of their friends were disclosed a short distance away. In the distance there were many colossal noises, but in all this part of the field there was a sudden stillness. They perceived that they were free. The depleted band drew a long breath of relief and gathered itself into a bunch to complete its trip. In this last length of journey the men began to show strange emotions. They hurried with nervous fear. Some, who had been dark and unfaltering in the grimmest moments, Now could not conceal an anxiety that made them frantic. It was perhaps that they dreaded to be killed in insignificant ways after the times for proper military deaths had passed, or perhaps they thought it would be too ironical to get killed at the portals of safety.
With backward looks of perturbution, they hastened. As they approached their own lines, there was some sarcasm exhibited on the part of a gaunt and broad regiment that lay resting in the shade of trees. Questions were waved to them. "'Where the hell you been? Why didn't you stay there?' "'Was it warm out there, Sonny?' "'Goin' home now, boys,' one shouted in taunting mimicry. "'Oh, mother, come quick and look at the soldiers.' There was no reply from the bruised and battered regiment, save that one man made broadcast challenges to fistfights, and the red-bearded officer walked rather near and glared in great swashbuckler style at a tall captain in the other regiment. But the lieutenant suppressed the man who wished to fistfight, and the tall captain, flushing at the little fanfare of the red-bearded one, was obliged to look intently at some trees.
The youth's tender flesh was deeply stung by these remarks. From under his creased brows he glowered with hate at the mockers. He meditated upon a few revenges. Still many in the regiment hung their heads in criminal fashion. So that it came to pass that the men trudged with sudden heaviness, as if they bore upon their bended shoulders the coffin of their honor, and the youthful lieutenant, recollecting himself, began to mutter softly in black curses. They turned when they arrived at their old position to regard the ground over which they had charged. The youth in his contemplation was smitten with a large astonishment. He discovered that the distances, as compared with the brilliant measureings of his mind, were trivial and ridiculous.
The stolid trees where much had taken place seemed incredibly near. The time, too, now that he reflected, he saw to have been short. He wondered at the number of emotions and events that had been crowded into such little spaces. Elfin thoughts must have exaggerated and enlarged everything, he said. It seemed, then, that there was bitter justice in the speeches of the gaunt and bronzed veterans. He veiled a glance of disdain at his fellows who strewed the ground, choking with dust, red from perspiration, misty-eyed, disheveled. They were gulping at their canteens, fierce to wring every mite of water from them, and they polished at their swollen and watery features with coat sleeves and bunches of grass.
However, to the youth there was a considerable joy in music upon his performances during the charge. He had had very little time previously in which to appreciate himself, so that there was much satisfaction in quietly thinking of his actions. He recalled bits of color that in the fury had stamped themselves unawares upon his engaged senses. As the regiment lay heaving from its hot exertions, the officer who had named them as mule-drivers came galloping along the line. He had lost his cap. With tousled hair streamed wildly, and his face was dark with vexation and wrath. His temper was displayed with more clearness by the way in which he managed his horse. He jerked and retched savagely at the bridle, stopping the hard-breathing animal with a furious pull near the colonel of the regiment.
He immediately exploded in reproaches which came unbidden to the ears of the men. They were suddenly alert, being always curious about black words between officers. "'No thunder, Machancy! What an awful bull you made of this thing!' began the officer. He attempted low tones, but his indignation caused certain of the men to learn the sense of his words. "'What a—' Awful mess you made, good lord, man. You stopped about a hundred feet this side of a very pretty success. If your men had gone a hundred feet further, you would have made a great charge, but as it is, what a lot of muddiggers you've got anyway. The men listening with bated breath now turned their curious eyes upon the colonel. They had a ragamuffin interest in this affair.
The colonel was seen to straighten his form and put one hand forth in oratorical fashion. He wore an injured air. It was as if a deacon had been accused of stealing. The men were wriggling in an ecstasy of excitement. But of a sudden the colonel's manner changed from that of a deacon to that of a Frenchman. He shrugged his shoulders. "'Well, gentlemen, we went as far as we could,' he said calmly. "'As far as you could, did you, by God,' snorted the other. "'Well, that wasn't very far, was it?' he added with a glance of cold contempt into the other's eyes. Not very far, I think. You were intended to make a diversion in favor of Whittorside. How well you succeeded. Your own ears can tell you. He wheeled his horse and rode stiffly away.
The colonel, bidden to hear the jarring noises of an engagement in the woods to the left, broke out in vague damnations. The lieutenant, who had listened with an air of impotent rage to the interview, spoke suddenly, in firm and undaunted tones. "'I don't care what a man is, whether he is a general or what. If he says the boys didn't put up a good fight out there, he's a damn fool.' "'Lieutenant,' began the colonel severely, "'this is my own affair, and I'll trouble you.' The lieutenant made an obedient gesture. "'All right, Colonel. All right,' he said. He sat down with an air of being content with himself. The news that the regiment had been reproached went along the line. For a time the men were bewildered by it.
Good thunder! they ejaculated, staring at the vanishing form of the general. They conceived it to be a huge mistake. Presently, however, they began to believe that in truth their efforts had been called light. The youth could see this conviction weigh upon the entire regiment until the men were like cuffed and cursed animals, but withal rebellious. The friend, with a grievance in his eye, went to the youth. "'I wonder what he does want,' he said. "'He must think we went out there and played marbles. I never see such a man.' The youth developed a tranquil philosophy for these moments of irritation. "'Oh, well,' he rejoined. "'He probably didn't see nothing of it at all, and got mad in his blazes, and concluded we were a lot of sheep.' "'Just because we didn't do what he wanted done.
It's a pity Grandpa Henderson got killed yesterday. He'd have known that we did our best and fought good. It's just our awful luck, that's what.' "'I should say so,' replied the friend. He seemed to be deeply wounded at an injustice. "'I should say we did have awful luck. There's no fun in fighting for people when everything you do. No matter what, ain't done right.' "'I have a notion to stay behind next time, and let em take their old charge and go, to the devil with it." Hugh spoke soothingly to his comrade. "'Well, we both did good. I'd like to see the fool what'd say we both didn't do as good as we could.' "'Course we did,' declared the friend stoutly. "'And I'd break the feller's neck if he was as big as a church.
But we're all right anyhow.' For I heard one fellow say that we two fit the best in the regiment, and they had a great argument about it. Another fellow, of course, he said to up and say it was a lie. He seen all what was going on, and he never seen us from the beginning to the end. And a lot more struck in and says it wasn't a lie. We did fight like thunder, and they gave us quite a send-off. But this is one I can't stand. These everlastin' old soldiers titterin' and laughin' and then that general. He's crazy." The youth exclaimed with sudden exasperation, "'He's a lunkerhead. Makes me mad. I wish he'd come along next time. We'd show him what?' He ceased because several men had come hurrying up.
Their faces expressed a bringing of great news. "'A phlegm! You just ought to heard,' cried one eagerly. "'Heard what?' said the youth. "'You just ought to heard,' repeated the other, and he arranged himself to tell his tidings. The others made an excited circle. "'Oh, sir, the colonel met your lieutenant right by us. It was damnedest thing I ever heard, and he says—'Hem, hem, he says. "'Mr. Hornbrook,' he says. "'By the way, who was that lad that carried the flag,' he says. "'There, Flemin, what do you think of that?' "'Who was the lad that carried the flag,' he says. "'And the lieutenant, he speaks up right away. That's Flemin.' And he's a jim hickey, he says right away. What? I say he did.
A jim hickey, he says. Those are his words. He did, too. I say he did. And you can tell this story better than I can. Go ahead and tell it. Well, then, keep your mouths hot. Lieutenant, he says, he's a jim hickey. And the colonel, he says, ahem, ahem. He is indeed a very good man.
He kept the flag way to the front. I saw him. He's a good un, says the colonel. You bet, says the lieutenant. He and a feller named Wilson was up at the head of the charge and howling like Indians all the time, he says. Head of the charge all the time, he says. A feller named Wilson, he says. There, Wilson, my boy. Put that in a letter and send it home to your mother. Eh? A feller named Wilson, he says. And the colonel, he says. Were they indeed? My sakes, he says, at the head, at the regiment, he says. They were, says the lieutenant. My sakes, says the colonel. He says, well, well, well, he says. Those two babies, they were, says the lieutenant. Well, well, says the colonel. They deserve it.
Be major generals, he says. They deserve it. Be major generals. The youth and his friend had said, Huh, you're lying, Thompson. I'll go to blazes. He never said it. Oh, what a lie! Huh? But despite these youthful scoffing and embarrassment, they knew that their faces were deeply flushing from thrills of pleasure. They exchanged a secret glance of joy and congratulation. They speedily forgot many things. The past held no pictures of error and disappointment. They were very happy, and their hearts swelled with grateful affection for the colonel and the youthful lieutenant.
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22 Chapter - 22 10:32
badge of courage and episode of the american civil war by stephen crane chapter twenty two when the woods again began to pour forth the dark-hued masses of the enemy the youth felt serene self-confidence he smiled briefly when he saw men dodge and duck at the long screeching of shells that were thrown in giant handfuls over them. He stood erect and tranquil, watching the attack begin against a part of the line that made a blue curve along the side of an adjacent hill. His vision being unmolested by smoke from the rifles of his companions, he had opportunities to see parts of the hard fight. It was a relief to perceive at last from whence came Some of these noises which had been roared into his ears.
Off a short way he saw two regiments fighting a little separate battle with two other regiments. It was in a cleared space wearing a set-apart look. They were blazing as if upon a wager, giving and taking tremendous blows. The firings were incredibly fierce and rapid. These intent regiments apparently were oblivious of all larger purposes of war, and were slugging each other as if at a matched game. In another direction he saw a magnificent brigade going with the evident intention of driving the enemy from a wood. They passed in out of sight, and presently there was a most awe-inspiring racket in the wood. The noise was unspeakable. Having stirred this prodigious uproar, and apparently finding it too prodigious, the brigade after a little time came marching airily out again, with its fine formation in nowise disturbed.
There were no traces of speed in its movements. The brigade was jaunty and seemed to point a proud thumb at the yelling wood. On a slope to the left there was a long row of guns, gruff and maddened, denouncing the enemy who, down through the woods, were forming for another attack in the pitiless monotony of conflicts. The round red discharges from the guns made a crimson flare and a high thick smoke. Occasional glimpses could be caught of groups of the toiling artillerymen. In the rear of this row of guns stood a house, calm and white, amid bursting shells. A congregation of horses, tied to a long railing, were tugging frenziedly at their bridles. Men were running hither and thither. The detached battle between the four regiments lasted for some time.
There chanced to be no interference, and they settled their dispute by themselves. They struck savagely and powerfully at each other for a period of minutes, and then the lighter-hued regiments faltered, and drew back, leaving the dark blue lines, shouting. The youth could see the two flags shaking with laughter amid the smoke remnants. Presently there was a stillness, pregnant with meaning. The blue line shifted and changed a trifle, and stared expectantly at the silent woods and fields before them. The hush was solemn and churchlike. Save for a distant battery that, evidently unable to remain quiet, sent a faint rolling thunder over the ground. It irritated like the noises of unimpressed boys.
The men imagined that it would prevent their perched ears from hearing the first words of the new battle. Of a sudden, the guns on the slope roared out a message of warning. A sputtering sound had begun in the woods. It swelled with amazing speed to a profound clamor that involved the earth in noises. The splitting clashes swept along the lines until an interminable roar was developed. To those in the midst of it, it became a din fitted to the universe. It was the whirring and thumping of gigantic machinery, complications among the smaller stars. The youth's ears were filled up. They were incapable of hearing more. On an incline over which a road wound, he saw wild and desperate rushes of men, perpetually backward and forward, in riotous surges.
These parts of the opposing armies were two long waves that pitched upon each other, madly at dictated points. To and fro they swelled. Sometimes one side, by its yells and cheers, would proclaim decisive blows, but a moment later the other side would be all yells and cheers. Once the youth saw a spray of light forms go in houndlike leaps toward the waving blue lines. There was much howling, and presently it went away with a vast mouthful of prisoners. Again he saw a blue wave dash with such thunderous force against a gray obstruction that it seemed to clear the earth of it and leave nothing but trampled sod. And always, in their swift and deadly rushes to and fro, the men screamed and yelled like maniacs.
Particular pieces of fence or secure positions behind collections of trees were wrangled over, as gold thrones or pearl-bed steds. There were desperate lunges at these chosen spots, seemingly every instant, and most of them were bandied like light toys between the contending forces. The youth could not tell from the battle-flags flying like crimson foam in many directions which color of cloth was winning. His emaciated regiment burst forth with undiminished fierceness when its time came. When assaulted again by bullets, the men burst out in a barbaric cry of rage and pain. They bent their heads in aims of intent, hatred behind the projected hammers of their guns. Their ramrods clanged loud with fury as their eager arms pounded the cartridges into the rifle barrels.
The front of the regiment was a smoke wall, penetrated by flashing points of yellow and red. Wallowing in the fight, they were in an astonishingly short time, resmudged. They surpassed in stain and dirt all their previous appearances, moving to and fro with strained exertion, jabbering the while, they were, with their swaying bodies, black faces and glowing eyes, like strange and ugly friends, jiggling heavily in the smoke. The lieutenant, returning from a tour after a bandage, produced from a hidden receptacle of his mind, knew and potentious oaths suited to the emergency. Strings of expletives he swung lash-like over the backs of his men, and it was evident that his previous efforts had in nowise impaired his resources.
The youth, still the bearer of the colors, did not feel his idleness. He was deeply absorbed as a spectator. The crash and swing of the great drama made him lean forward, intent-eyed, his face working in small contortions. Sometimes he prattled words, coming unconsciously from him in grotesque exclamations. He did not know that he breathed, that the flag hung silently over him. So absorbed was he. A formidable line of the enemy came within dangerous range. They could be seen plainly tall, gaunt men, with excited faces running with long strides toward a wandering fence. At sight of this danger, the men suddenly ceased their cursing monotone, There was an instant of strange silence before they threw up their rifles and fired a plumping volley at the foes.
There had been no order given. The men, upon recognizing the menace, had immediately let drive their flock of bullets without waiting for word of command. But the enemy were quick to gain the protection of the wandering line of fence. They slid down behind it with remarkable celerity, and from this position they began briskly to slice up the blue men. These latter braced their energies for a great struggle. Often white clenched teeth shone from the dusky faces. Many heads surged to and fro, floating upon a pale sea of smoke. Those behind the fence frequently shouted and yelped in taunts and gib-like cries, but the regiment maintained a stressed silence. Perhaps at this new assault, the men recalled the fact that they had been named muddiggers, and it made their situation thrice bitter.
They were breathlessly intent upon keeping the ground and thrusting away the rejoicing body of the enemy. They fought swiftly, and with a despairing savageness denoted in their expressions. The youth had resolved not to budge whatever should happen. Some arrows of scorn that had buried themselves in his heart had generated strange and unspeakable hatred. It was clear to him that his final and absolute revenge was to be achieved, by his dead body lying torn and gluttering upon the field. This was to be a poignant retaliation upon the officer who had said mule-drivers, and later mud-diggers. For in all the wild graspings of his mind for a unit responsible for his sufferings and commotions, he always seized upon the man who had dubbed him wrongly.
And it was his idea, vaguely formulated, that his corpse would be for those eyes a great and salt reproach. The regiment bled extravagantly. Grunting bundles of blue began to drop. The orderly sergeant of the youth company was shot through the cheeks. Its supports being injured, his jaw hung far down, disclosing in the wide cavern of his mouth a pulsing mass of blood and teeth, and with it all he made attempts to cry out. In his endeavor, There was a dreadful earnestness, as if he conceived that one great shriek would make him well. The youth saw him presently go rearward. His strength seemed in no wise impaired. He ran swiftly, casting wild glances for succor. Others fell down about the feet of their companions.
Some of the wounded crawled out and away, but many lay still, their bodies twisted into impossible shapes. The youth looked once for his friend. He saw a vehement young man, powder-smeared and frazzled, whom he knew to be him. The lieutenant also was unscathed in his position at the rear. He had continued to curse, but it was now with the air of a man who was using his last box of oaths. For the fire of the regiment had begun to wane and drip. The robust voice that had come strangely from the thin ranks was growing rapidly weak.
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23 Chapter - 23 10:41
The Red Badge of Courage, an episode of the American Civil War by Stephen Crane. Chapter Twenty Three.
The colonel came running along the back of the line. There were other officers following him. "'We must charge him!' they shouted. "'We must charge him!' They cried with resentful voices, as if anticipating rebellion against this plan by the men. The youth, upon hearing the shouts, began to study the distance between him and the enemy. He made vague calculations. He saw that to be firm soldiers they must go forward. It would be death to stay in the present place, and with all the circumstances to go backward would exalt too many others. Their hope was to push the galling forces away from the fence. He expected that his companions, weary and stiffened, would have to be driven to this assault, but as he turned toward them he perceived with a certain surprise that they were giving quick and unqualified expressions of assent.
There was an ominous, clanging overture to the charge when the shafts of the bayonets rattled upon the rifle-barrels. At the yelled words of command, the soldiers sprang forward in eager leaps. There was new and an Unexpected forces in the movement of the regiment, a knowledge of its faded and jaded condition made the charge appear to be a paroxysm. A display of the strength that comes before a final feebleness. The men scampered in insane fever of haste, racing as if to achieve a sudden success before an exhilarating fluid should leave them. There was a blind and despairing rush by the collection of men in dusty and tattered blue, Over a green sward, and under a sapphire sky, towards a fence dimply outlined in smoke, from behind which sputtered the fierce rifles of enemies.
The youth kept the bright colors to the front. He was waving his free arm in furious circles, the while shrieking mad calls and appeals, urging on those that did not need to be urged, for it seemed that the mob of blue men, Hurling themselves on the dangerous group of rifles were again grown suddenly wild with an enthusiasm of unselfishness. From the many firing starting toward them, it looked as if they would merely succeed in making a great sprinkling of corpses on the grass between their former position and the fence. But they were in a state of frenzy, perhaps because of forgotten vanities, and it made an exhibition of sublime recklessness. There was no obvious questioning, Nor figurings, nor diagrams.
There was apparently no considered loopholes. It appeared that the swift wings of their desires would have shattered against the iron gates of the impossible. He himself felt the daring spirit of a savage religion-mad, He was capable of profound sacrifices, a tremendous death. He had no time for dissections, but he knew that he thought of the bullets only as things that could prevent him from reaching the place of his endeavor. There were subtle flashings of joy within him that thus should be his mind. He strained all his strength. His eyesight was shaken and dazed by the tension of thought and muscle. He did not see anything. Excepting the mist of smoke gashed by the little knives of fire, but he knew that in it lay the aged fence of a vanished farmer, protecting the snuggled bodies of the gray men.
As he ran, a thought of the shock of contact gleamed in his mind. He expected a great concussion when the two bodies of troops crashed together. This became a part of his wild battle madness. He could feel the onward swing of the regiment about him, and he conceived of a thunderous, crushing blow. That would prostrate the resistance and spread consternation and amazement for miles. The flying regiment was going to have a catapult in effect. This dream made him run faster among his comrades, who were giving vent to hoarse and frantic cheers. But presently he could see that many of the men in gray did not intend to abide the blow. The smoke rolling disclosed men who ran, their faces still turned.
These grew to a crowd who retired stubbornly. Individuals wheeled frequently to send a bullet at the blue wave. But at one part of the line there was a grim and obdurate group that made no movement. They were settled firmly down behind posts and rails. A flag ruffled and fierce waved over them, and their rifles dinned fiercely. The blue whirl of men got very near until it seemed that, in truth, there would be a close and frightful scuffle. There was an express disdain in the opposition of the little group that changed the meaning of the cheers of the men in blue. They became yells of wrath, directed, personal. The cries of the two parties were now in sound and interchange of scathing insults.
They in blue showed their teeth, their eyes shone all white. They launched themselves at the throats of those who stood resisting. The space between dwindled to an insignificant distance. The youth had centered the gaze of his soul upon the other flag. Its possession would be high pride. It would express Bloody minglings near blows. He had a gigantic hatred for those who made great difficulties and complications. They caused it to be as a grave treasure of mythology, hung amid tasks and contrivances of danger. He plunged like a mad horse at it. He was resolved it should not escape if wild blows and daring of blows could seize it. His own emblem quivering and a flare was wrangling toward the other.
It seemed there would shortly be an encounter of strange beaks and claws as of eagles. The swirling body of blue men came to a sudden halt at close and disastrous range and roared a swift volley. The group in gray was split and broken by this fire, but its riddled body still fought. The men in blue yelled again and rushed in upon it. The youth in his leaping saw as through a mist a picture of four or five men stretched upon the ground or writhing upon their knees, with bowed heads as if they had been stricken by bolts from the sky. Tottering among them was the rival color-bearer, whom the youth saw had been bitten virtually by the bullets of the last formidable volley. He perceived this man fighting a last struggle, the struggle of one whose legs are grasped by demons.
It was a ghastly battle. Over his face was the bleach of death, but set upon it was the dark and hard lines of desperate purpose. With this terrible grin of resolution he hugged his precious flag to him, and was stumbling and staggering in his design to go the way that led to safety for it. But his wounds always made it seem that his feet were retarded, held, and he fought a grim fight, as with invisible ghouls fastened greedily upon his limbs. Those in advance of the scrambling blue men, howling cheers, leaped at the fence. The despair of the lost was in his eyes as he glanced back at them. The youth's friend went over the obstruction in a tumbling heap, and sprang at the flag as a panther at prey.
He pulled at it, and wrenching it free, swung up its red brilliancy with a mad cry of exultation, even as the color-bearer, gasping, lurched over in a final throw, and stiffening Convulsively turned his dead face to the ground. There was much blood upon the grass blades. At the place of success there began more wild clamberings of cheers. The men gesticulated and bellowed in an ecstasy. When they spoke it was as if they considered their listener to be a mile away. What hats and caps were left to them they often slung high in the air. At one part of the line, four men had been swooped upon, and they now sat as prisoners. Some blue men were about them in an eager and curious circle. The soldiers had trapped strange birds, and there was an examination.
A flurry of vast questions was in the air. One of the prisoners was nursing a superficial wound in the foot. He cuddled it baby-wise, but he looked up from it often to curse with an astonishing utter abandon straight at the noses of his captors. He consigned them to red regions, he called upon the potential wrath of strange gods, and with it all he was singularly free from recognition of the finer points of the conduct of prisoners of war. It was as if a clumsy clod had trod upon his toe, and he conceived it to be his privilege, his duty, to use deep, resentful oaths. Another, who was a boy in years, took his plight with great calmness and apparent good nature. He conversed with the men in blue, studying their faces with his bright and keen eyes.
They spoke of battles and conditions. There was an acute interest in all their faces during this exchange of viewpoints. It seemed a great satisfaction to hear voices from where all had been darkness and speculation. The third captive sat with a morose countenance. He preserved a stoatical and cold attitude. To all advances he made one reply without variation. "'Ah, go to hell!' The last of the four was always silent, and for the most part kept his face turned in unmolested directions. From the views the youth received he seemed to be in a state of absolute dejection. Shame was upon him, and with it profound regret that he was, perhaps, no more to be counted in the ranks of his fellows. The youth could detect no expression that would allow him to believe that the other was giving a thought to his narrowed future, The pictured dungeons, perhaps, and starvations and brutalities liable to the imagination.
All to be seen was shame for captivity and regret for the right to antagonize. After the men had celebrated sufficiently, they settled down behind the old rail fence, on the opposite side to the one from which their foes had been driven. A few shot profunctionally at distant marks. There was some long grass, the youth nestled in it, Rested, making a convenient rail support the flag. His friend, jubilant and glorified, holding his treasure with vanity, came to him there. They sat side by side and congratulated each other.
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24 Chapter - 24 9:56
The roarings that had stretched in a long line of sound across the face of the forest began to grow intermittent and weaker. The stentorian speeches of the artillery continued in some distant encounter, but the crashes of the musketry had almost ceased. The youth and his friend of a sudden looked up, feeling a deadened form of distress at the waning of these noises which had become a part of life. They could see changes going on among the troops. There were marchings this way and that way, a battery wheeled leisurely, on the crest of a small hill. was the thick gleam of many departing muskets. The youth arose. Well, what now, I wonder? He said. By his tone, he seemed to be preparing to resent some new monstrosity in the way of dins and smashes.
He shaded his eyes with his grimy hand and gazed over the field. His friend also arose and stared. I bet we're goin to git along out of this and back over the river, he said. "'Well, I swam,' said the youth." They waited, watching. Within a little while, the regiment received orders to retrace its way. The men got up, grunting from the grass, regretting the soft repose. They jerked their stiffened legs and stretched their arms over their heads. One man swore as he rubbed his eyes. They all groaned. "'Oh, Lord!' They had as many objections to this change as they would have had to a proposal for a new battle. They tramped slowly back over the field, across which they had run in a mad scamper. The regiment marched until it had joined its fellows.
The reformed brigade, in column, aimed through a wood at the road, directly They were in a mass of dust-covered troops, and were trudging along in a way parallel to the enemy's lines as those had been defined by the previous turmoil. They passed within view of a stolid white house, and saw in front of it groups of their comrades lying in wait behind a neat breastwork. A row of guns were booming at a distant enemy. Shells thrown in reply were rising clouds of dust and splinters. Horsemen dashed along the line of entrenchments. At this point of its march, the division curved away from the field and went winding off in the direction of the river. When the significance of this movement had impressed itself upon the youth, he turned his head and looked over his shoulder toward the trampled and debris-strewed ground.
He breathed a breath of new satisfaction. He finally nudged his friend. "'Well, it's all over,' he said to him. His friend gazed backward. "'By God, it is,' he assented. They mused. For a time, the youth was obliged to reflect in a puzzled and uncertain way. His mind was undergoing a subtle change. It took moments for it to cast off its battlefield ways and resume its accustomed course of thought. Gradually, his brain emerged from the clogged clouds, and at last he was enabled to more closely comprehend himself and circumstance. He understood, then, that this experience of shot and counter-shot was in the past. He had dwelt in a land of strange, squalling upheavals, and had come forth. He had been where there was red of blood and black of passion, and he was escaped.
His first thoughts were given to rejoicing at this fact. Later he began to study his deeds, his failures, and his achievements. Thus, fresh from scenes where many of his usual machines of reflection had been idle, From where he had proceeded sheeplike, he struggled to marshal all his acts. At last they marched before him clearly. From this present viewpoint he was enabled to look upon them in spectacular fashion, and to criticize them with some correctness, for his new condition had already defeated certain sympathies. Regarding his procession of memory, he felt gleeful and unregretting. For in it his public deeds were paraded in great and shining prominence. Those performances which had been witnessed by his fellows marched now in white, purple, and gold, having various deflections.
They went gaily with music. It was pleasure to watch these things. He spent delightful minutes viewing the gilded images of memory. He saw that he was good. He recalled with a thrill of joy the respectful comments of his fellows upon his conduct. Nevertheless, the ghost of his flight from the first engagement appeared to him and danced. There were small shoutings in his brain about these matters. For a moment he blushed, and the light of his soul flickered with shame. A specter of reproach came to him. There loomed the dogging memory of the tattered soldier, he who, gored by bullets and faint for blood, had fretted concerning an imagined wound in another. He who had loaned his last of strength and intellect for the tall soldier, he who, blind with weariness and pain, had been deserted in the field.
For an instant a wretched chill of sweat was upon him at the thought that he might be detected in the thing. As he stood persistently before his vision, he gave vent to a cry of sharp irritation and agony. His friend turned. "'What's the matter, Henry?' he demanded. The youth's reply was an outburst of crimson oaths. As he marched along the little branch-hung roadway among these prattling companions, this vision of cruelty brooded over him. It clung near him always and darkened his view of these deeds in purple and gold. Whichever way his thoughts turned, they were followed by the somber phantom of the desertion in the fields. He looked stealthily at his companions, feeling sure that they must discern in his face evidences of this pursuit.
But they were plodding in ragged array, discussing with quick tongues the accomplishments of the late battle. Oh, if a man should come up and ask me, I'd say we got a dumb good lickin. Lick in your eye? We ain't licked, Sonny. We're goin down here a ways swingin' around and come in behind him. Oh, hush with your comin' in behind him. I seen all of that I want to. Don't tell me about comin' in behind. Bill Smithers says he'd rather been in ten hundred battles than been in that hell of a hospital. He says they got shootin' in the nighttime and shells dropped plumb among them in the hospital. He says such hollerin' he never see. Ask Ruck. He's the best officer in this here regiment. He's a whale.
"'Didn't I tell you we'd come around in behind him? Didn't I tell you so? We—' Ah, shut your mouth!' For a time this pursuing recollection of the tattered man took all elation from the youth's veins. He saw his vivid air, and he was afraid that it would stand before him all his life. He took no share in the chatter of his comrades, nor did he look at them or know them. Save when he felt sudden suspicion that they were seeing his thoughts and scrutinizing each detail of the scene with the tattered soldier. Yet gradually he mustered force to put the sin at a distance, and at last his eyes seemed to open to some new ways. He found that he could look back upon the brass and bombast of his earlier gospels and see them truly.
He was gleeful when he discovered that he now despised them. With this conviction came a store of assurance. He felt a quiet manhood, nonassertive, but of sturdy and strong blood. He knew that he would no more quail before his guides, wherever they should point. He had been to touch the Great Death, and found that, after all, it was but the Great Death. He was a man. So it came to pass that as he trudged from the place of blood and wrath his soul changed. He came from hot plowshares to prospects of clover tranquility, and it was as if hot plowshares were not, scars faded as flowers. It rained. The procession of weary soldiers became a bedraggled train, despondent and muttering, marching with churning effort in a trough of liquid brown and mud under a low, wretched sky.
Yet the youth smiled, for he saw that the world was a world for him. Though many discovered it to be made of oaths and walking sticks, he had rid himself of the red sickness of battle. The sultry nightmare was in the past. He had been an animal, blistered and sweating in the heat and pain of war. He turned now, with a lover's thirst, to images of tranquil skies, fresh meadows, cool brooks, an existence of soft and eternal peace. Over the river, a golden ray of sun came through the host of leaden rain-clouds. The End End of The Red Badge of Courage, an episode of The American Civil War by Stephen Crane. Recording by Mike Venditti, Canyon City, Colorado. MikeVenditti.com