

                                 Stephen Crane

                            The Red Badge of Courage

                      An Episode of the American Civil War

                                   Chapter I

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 rumours. 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,
the red eye-like 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 a
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 trust-worthy brother, one of the
orderlies at division head-quarters. He adopted the important air of a herald in
red and gold.
    »We're goin' t' move t'morrah - sure,« he said pompously to a group in the
company street. »We're goin' 'way up th' river, cut across, an' come around in
behint '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. A thunderin' lie,« said another private
loudly. His smooth face was flushed and his hands were thrust sulkily into his
trousers' pockets. He took the matter as an affront to him. »I don't believe th'
derned ol' army's ever goin' t' move. We're sot. I've got ready t' move eight
times in th' last two weeks an' we ain't moved yit.«
    The tall soldier felt called upon to defend the truth of a rumour 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 out-lined 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 rumour bustled about with much importance. He was continually
assailed by questions.
    »What's up, Jim?«
    »Th' army's goin' t' move.«
    »Ah, what yeh talking' about? How yeh know it is?«
    »Well, yeh kin b'lieve me er not - jest as yeh 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 varied 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 it 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 fire-place. A picture from an illustrated weekly was upon the log wall
and three rifles were paralleled on pegs. Equipments hung on handy projections
and some tin dishes lay upon a small pile of fire-wood. A folded tent was
serving as a roof. The sun-light, without, beating upon it, made it glow a light
yellow shade. A small window shot an oblique square of whiter light upon the
cluttered floor. The smoke from the fire at times neglected the clay-chimney and
wreathed into the room. And, too, this flimsy chimney of clay and sticks made
endless threats to set a-blaze 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 labour 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 of 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, or 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 for him large pictures, extravagant in colour, lurid
with breathless deeds.
    But his mother had discouraged him. She had affected to look with some
contempt upon the quality of his war-ardour 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 that her statements on the subject came
from a deep conviction. Besides, 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 colour of his ambitions. The newspapers, the gossip 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 the clangoring of
the church-bell as some enthusiast 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: »Ma, 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 the matter for that night.
    Nevertheless, the next morning, he had gone to a town that was near his
mother's farm and had enlisted in a company that was forming there. When he had
returned home, his mother was milking the brindle-cow. Four others stood
waiting.
    »Ma, I've enlisted,« he had said to her diffidently.
    There was a short silence. »The Lord's will be done, Henry,« she had finally
replied and had then continued to milk the brindle-cow.
    When he had stood in the door-way 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 bonds, he had seen two tears leaving their trails on
his mother's scarred cheeks.
    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, an' take good care of yerself
in this here fighting business - you watch out an' take good care of yerself.
Don't go a-thinking' you can lick the hull rebel army at the start, because yeh
can't. Yer jest one little feller amongst a hull lot of others and yeh've got to
keep quiet an' do what they tell yeh. I know how you are, Henry.
    I've knet yeh eight pair of socks, Henry, and I've put in all yer best
shirts, because I want my boy to be jest as warm and comf'able as anybody in the
army. Whenever they git holes in 'em, I want yeh to send 'em right-away back to
me, so's I kin dern 'em.
    An' allus be careful an' choose yer comp'ny. There's lots of bad men in the
army, Henry. The army makes 'em wild and they like nothing better than the job
of leading off a young feller like you - as ain't never been away from home much
and has allus had a mother - and a-learning 'im to drink and swear. Keep clear
of them folks, Henry. I don't want yeh to ever do anything, Henry, that yeh
would be 'shamed to let me know about. Jest think as if I was a-watchin' yeh. If
yeh keep that in yer mind allus, I guess yeh'll come out about right.
    Yeh must allus remember yer father, too, child, an' remember he never drunk
a drop of licker in his life and seldom swore a cross oath.
    I don't know what else to tell yeh, Henry, excepting that yeh must never do
no shirking, child, on my account. If so be a time comes when yeh have to be
kilt or do a mean thing, why, Henry, don't think of anything 'cept what's right,
because there's many a woman has to bear up 'ginst sech things these times and
the Lord'll take care of us all.
    Don't fergit about the socks and the shirts, child, and I've put a cup of
blackberry jam with yer bundle because I know yeh 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 had borne 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-parings. Her brown face, upraised, was stained with
tears and her spare form was 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 many schoolmates.
They had thronged about him with wonder and admiration. He had felt the gulf now
between them and had swelled with calm pride. He and some of his fellows who had
donned blue were quite over-whelmed 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 had 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
at a 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 movement 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 men, he had felt growing within him 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 effaced 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, afterwards, 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 dum 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 grey, bewhiskered hordes
who were advancing with relentless curses and chewing tobacco with unspeakable
valor; tremendous bodies of fierce soldiery who were sweeping along like the
Huns. Others spoke of tattered and eternally-hungry men who fired despondent
powder. »They'll charge through hell's-fire an' brimstone t' git a holt on a
haversack, an' sech stomachs ain't a-lastin' 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 in 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 menaces of the
future and failed in an effort to see himself standing stoutly in the midst of
them. He re-called 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. »Yeh kin b'lieve me er not - jest as yeh like. All yeh got t' do
is t' sit down an' wait as quiet as yeh kin. Then pretty soon yeh'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, yeh don't know everythin' in th'
world, do yeh?«
    »Didn't say I knew everythin' in th' 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.
»Going to be a battle, sure, is there, Jim?« he asked.
    »Of course there is,« replied the tall soldier. »Of course there is. Yeh
jest wait 'til t'morrah an' yeh'll see one of th' bigges' battles ever was. Yeh
jest wait.«
    »Thunder,« said the youth.
    »Oh, yeh'll see fighting' this time, m' boy, what'll be reg'lar out-an'-out
fighting',« added the tall soldier with the air of a man who is about to exhibit
a battle for the benefit of his friends.
    »Huh,« said the loud one from a 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 th' cavalry all start this mornin'?« He glared about him. No one
denied his statement. »Th' cavalry started this mornin',« he continued. »They
say there ain't hardly any cavalry left in camp. They're goin' t' Richmond or
some place while we fight all th' Johnnies. It's some dodge like that. Th'
reg'ment's got orders, too. A feller what seen 'em go t' head-quarters told me a
little while ago. An' they're raisin' blazes all over camp - anybody kin 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?«
    »Oh, they'll fight all right, I guess, after they onct git inteh it,« said
the other with cold judgment. He made a fine use of the third person. »There's
been heaps 'a fun poked at 'em b'cause they're new, 'a course, an' all that, but
they'll fight all right, I guess.«
    »Think any of the boys'll run?« persisted the youth.
    »Oh, there may be a few of 'em run but there's them kind in every reg'ment,
'specially when they first goes under fire,« said the other in a tolerant way.
»'A course, it might happen that th' hull kit-an'-boodle might start an' run, if
some big fighting' come first-off, an' then ag'in, they might stay an' fight like
fun. But yeh can't bet on nothing'. 'A course they ain't never been under fire
yit an' it ain't likely they'll lick th' hull rebel army all-t'-onct th' first
time, but I think they'll fight better than some, if worser than others. That's
th' way I figger. They call th' reg'ment, Fresh fish, an' everythin', but th'
boys come 'a good stock an' most 'a 'em'll fight like sin
after-they-onct-git-shootin',« he added with a mighty emphasis on the four last
words.
    »Oh, 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,« said he profoundly, »I've thought
it might git too hot fer Jim Conklin in some 'a them scrimmages an' if a hull
lot 'a boys started an' run, why, I s'pose I'd start an' run. An' if I onct
started t' run, I'd run like th' devil an' no mistake. But if everybody was
a-standin' an' a-fighting', why, I'd stand an' fight. B'jiminy, I would. I'll bet
on it.«
    »Huh,« 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.
 

                                   Chapter II

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 of his views, and there was, even, a
little sneering by men who had never believed the rumour. 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 the new-born 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 mental 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. This 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 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 moods. 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 developement 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 boy-hood, he began to fear that his judgment of them had
been blind. Then, in other moments, he flouted these 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 apparent 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 tradition.
    In his great anxiety, his heart was continually clamouring at what he
considered to be 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 rumours. 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 pattern-like, loomed the gigantic figure of the colonel on 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 to be kept
waiting.
    As he looked all about him and pondered upon the mystic 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 moustache.
    At last, he heard from along the road at the foot of the hill the clatter of
a horse's galloping hoofs. It must be the coming of orders. He bended forward
scarce breathing. The exciting clickety-click 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
these 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 road-way 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 in 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. »I told yeh so, didn't I?«
    »Huh,« said the loud soldier.
    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 of firing.
    But the long serpents crawled slowly from hill to hill without bluster of
smoke. A dun-coloured cloud of dust floated away to the right. The sky over-head
was of a fairy blue.
    The youth studied the faces of his companions, ever on the watch to detect
kindred emotions. He suffered disappointment. Some ardour 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 in 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 endeavours. The regiment tramped to the tune of laughter.
    The loud soldier often convulsed whole files by his biting sarcasms 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 road-way, whooped at once
and entered whole-souled upon the side of the maiden. The men became so
engrossed in this affair that they entirely ceased to remember their own large
war. They jeered the piratical 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 cat-calls 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 night-fall, 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 the 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 the crimson rays made weird and satanic effects.
    He lay down in the grass. The blades pressed tenderly against his cheek. The
moon had been lighted and was hung in a tree-top. The liquid stillness of the
night, enveloping him, made him feel 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. »Oh, Wilson.«
    The latter approached and looked down. »Why, hello, Henry, is it you? What
yeh doing' here?«
    »Oh - thinking,« said the youth.
    The other sat down and carefully lighted his pipe. »Yeh're gittin' blue, m'
boy. Yeh're looking' thunderin' peek-ed. What th' dickens is wrong with yeh?«
    »Oh - nothing,« said the youth.
    The loud soldier launched then into the subject of the anticipated fight.
»Oh, we've got 'em, now.« As he spoke his boyish face was wreathed in a gleeful
smile and his voice had an exultant ring. »We've got 'em, now. At last by th'
eternal thunders, we'll lick 'em good.
    If th' truth was known,« he added more soberly, »they've licked us about
every clip up t' now, but this time - this time, we'll lick 'em good.«
    »I thought you was objecting to this march a little while ago,« said the
youth coldly.
    »Oh, it wasn't't that,« explained the other. »I don't mind marchin' if there's
goin' t' be fighting' at th' end of it. What I hate is this gittin' moved here
an' moved there with no good comin' of it, as far as I kin see, exceptin' sore
feet an' damn' short rations.«
    »Well, Jim Conklin says we'll get a-plenty of fighting this time.«
    »He's right fer once, I guess, 'though I can't see how it come. This time
we're in fer a big battle an' we've got th' best end of it certain-sure.
Gee-rod, how we will thump 'em.«
    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. »Oh, you're going to do great things, I suppose.«
    The loud soldier blew a thoughtful cloud of smoke from his pipe. »Oh, I
don't know,« he remarked with dignity. »I don't know. I s'pose I'll do as well
as th' rest. I'm goin' t' try like thunder.« He evidently complimented himself
upon the modesty of this 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 the youth, »lots of good-a- men have thought they was
going to do great things before the fight but when the time come, they
skedaddled.«
    »Oh, that's all true, I s'pose,« replied the other; »but I'm not goin' t'
skedaddle. Th' man that bets on my runnin', will lose his money, that's all.« He
nodded confidently.
    »Oh, shucks,« said the youth. »You ain't the bravest man in the world, are
you?«
    »No, I ain't,« exclaimed the loud soldier indignantly. »An' I didn't say I
was th' bravest man in th' world, neither. I said I was goin' t' do my share of
fighting' - that's what I said. An' I am, too. Who are yeh, anyhow? Yeh talk as
if yeh thought yeh was Napolyon Bonypart.« 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 mite of resemblance in their view-points made him more miserable
than before. No one seemed to be wrestling with such a terrific personal
problem. He was a mental out-cast.
    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 could remain stolid and deaf.
    And as he sweated with the pain of these thoughts, he could hear low, serene
sentences. »I'll bid 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.
 

                                  Chapter III

When another night came, the columns changed to purple streaks, filed across two
pontoon bridges. A glaring fire wine-tinted the waters of the river. Its rays,
shining upon the 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 its soldiers slept
the brave sleep of wearied 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 an' damned short rations, that's all,« said the loud soldier.
There was perspiration and grumbling. 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.
»Yeh kin now eat, drink, sleep an' shoot,« said the tall soldier to the youth.
»That's all yeh need. What d' yeh want t' do - carry a hotel?«
    There was 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 this 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 column, had accosted them thus: »Hey, fellows, 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, Gawd!«
    Also, there was too great a similarity in the hats. The hats of a regiment
should properly represent the history of head-gear for a period of years.
    And, moreover, there were no letters of faded gold speaking from the colours.
They were new and beautiful, and the colour-bearer habitually oiled the pole.
    Presently, the army again sat down to think. The odour of the peaceful pines
was in the men's nostrils. The sound of monotonous axe-blows rang through the
forest and the insects, nodding upon their perches, crooned like old women. The
youth returned to his theory of a blue demonstration.
    One grey 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 and his haversack bobbed softly. 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 all this -
about?« »What th' thunder - we - skedaddlin' this way fer?« »Billie - keep off
m' feet. Yeh run - like a cow.« And the loud soldier's shrill voice could be
heard: »What th' devil they in sech a hurry fer?«
    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 and 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 law 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 the 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 blood-thirsty
man.
    He expected a battle-scene.
    There were some little fields girted and squeezed by a forest. Spread over
the grass and in 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 sun-struck clearing that gleamed orange-colour. 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 battle-field.
    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 a great rent in one, the dead foot projected piteously.
And it was as if fate had betrayed the soldier. In death, it exposed to his
enemies that 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 this march, the ardour which the youth had acquired when 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 about himself and
to attempt to probe his sensations.
    Absurd ideas took hold upon him. He thought that he did not relish the
landscape. It threatened him. A coldness 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 this 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 them
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
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 over-valiant 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 out-cry at his throat. He saw that even
if the men were tottering with fear, they would laugh at his warning. They would
jeer him and 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 demeanour 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 into ranks there. No skulking'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
busy skirmishers were still popping. Through the aisles of the wood could be
seen the floating smoke from their 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
duellists, believing it to be correct to stand erect and be, from their feet to
their fore-heads, 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 front. Directly however they were ordered to
withdraw from that place.
    This astounded the youth. He forgot his stewing over the advance 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 intrenchments. 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 a battle. He
saw his salvation in such a change. Hence this waiting was an ordeal to him. He
was in a fever 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 soldier.
»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 a 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 s'pose we must go reconnoiterin'
around th' kentry jest t' keep 'em from gittin' too clost, or t' develop 'em,
or something'.«
    »Huh,« said the loud soldier.
    »Well,« cried the youth, still fidgeting, »I'd rather do anything 'most than
go tramping 'round 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 yeh if anybody
with any sense was a-runnin' this army, it -«
    »Oh, shut up,« roared the tall private. »Yeh little fool. Yeh little
damn'-cuss. Yeh ain't had that there coat an' them pants on fer six months yit
an' yit yeh talk as if -«
    »Well, I wanta do some fighting' anyway,« interrupted the other; »I didn't
come here t' walk. I could a' walked t' home, 'round an' 'round th' barn, if I
jest wanted t' walk.«
    The tall one, red-faced, swallowed another sandwich as if taking poison in
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
meals, he always wore an air of blissful contemplation of the food he had
swallowed. His spirit seemed then to be communing with the viands.
    He accepted new environment and circumstance with great coolness, eating
from his haversack at every opportunity. On the march he went along with the
stride of a hunter, objecting to neither gait 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 become familiar with it.
    When, however, they began to pass into a new region, his old fears of
stupidity and incompetence re-assailed 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 momentary
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 skirmish-fire increased to a long clattering sound. With it was mingled
faraway cheering. A battery spoke.
    Directly, the youth could 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 insolently 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 rending
roar. It was as if it had exploded. And, thereafter, it lay stretched in the
distance behind a long grey wall that one was obliged to look twice at to make
sure that it was smoke.
    The youth, forgetting his neat plan of getting killed, gazed spell-bound.
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 and beheld the loud soldier.
    »It's m' first an' last battle, ol' boy,« said the latter, with intense
gloom. He was quite pale and his girlish lip was trembling.
    »Eh?« murmured the youth in great astonishment.
    »It's m' first an' last battle, ol' boy,« continued the loud soldier.
»Somethin' tells me -«
    »What?«
    »I'm a gone coon this first time an' - an' I w-want yeh t' take these here
things - t'- my - folks.« He ended in a quavering sob of pity for himself. He
handed the youth a little packet done up in a yellow envelope.
    »Why, 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.
 

                                   Chapter IV

The 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 in gossip of the battle. They mouthed rumours that had flown like birds
out of the unknown.
    »They say Perry has been driven in with big loss.«
    »Yes, Carrott went t' th' hospital. He said he was sick. That smart
lieutenant is commanding G Company. Th' boys say they won't be under Carrott no
more if they all have t' desert. They allus knew he was a -«
    »Hannises' batt'ry is took.«
    »It ain't either. I saw Hannises' batt'ry off on th' left not more'n fifteen
minutes ago.«
    »Well -«
    »Th' general, he ses he is goin' t' take th' hull command of th' 304th when
we go inteh action an' then he ses we'll do sech fighting' as never another one
reg'ment done.«
    »They say we're catchin' it over on th' left. They say th' enemy driv' our
line inteh a devil of a swamp an' took Hannises' batt'ry.«
    »No sech thing. Hannises' batt'ry was 'long here 'bout a minute ago.«
    »That young Hasbrouck, he makes a good off'cer. He ain't afraid 'a nothing'.«
    »I met one of th' 148th Maine boys an' he ses his brigade fit th' hull rebel
army fer four hours over on th' turnpike-road an' killed about five thousand of
'em. He ses one more sech fight as that an' th' war'll be over.«
    »Bill wasn't't scared either. No, sir. It wasn't't that. Bill ain't a-gittin'
scared easy. He was jest mad, that's what he was. When that feller trod on his
hand, he up an' sed that he was willin' t' give his hand t' his country but he
be dumbed if he was goin' t' have every dumb bushwhacker in th' kentry walkin'
'round on it. So he went t' th' hospital disregardless of th' fight. Three
fingers was crunched. Th' dern doctor wanted t' amputate'm an' Bill, he raised a
heluva row, I hear. He's a funny feller.«
    The din in front swelled to a tremendous chorus. The youth and his fellows
were frozen to silence. They could see a flag that tossed in the smoke angrily.
Near it were the blurred and agitated forms of troops. There came 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-banshee went over the huddled heads of the
reserves. It landed in the grove and, exploding redly, 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, wee 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 that 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 grey 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 304th immediately began
to jeer. With the passionate song of the bullets and the banshee shrieks of
shells were mingled loud cat-calls and bits of facetious advice concerning
places of safety.
    But the new regiment was breathless with horror. »Gawd, Saunders's 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 afterwards he remembered that the colour
sergeant was standing with his legs apart as if he expected to be pushed to the
ground.
    The bellowing 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 fists, 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 awry. He resembled a man who has 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 upon 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 this 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.
 

                                   Chapter V

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, a 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 feign to
despise such exhibitions. A thousand details of colour 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 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 engaged in knotting 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!« Gun-locks clicked.
    Across the smoke-infested fields came a brown swarm of running men who were
giving shrill yells. They came on stooping and swinging their 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 recollect the moment when he had loaded. But he could
not.
    A hatless general pulled his dripping horse to a stand near the colonel of
the 304th. He shook his fist in the other's face. »You've got to hold 'em back,«
he shouted savagely. »You've got to hold 'em back.«
    In his agitation, the colonel began to stammer. »A-all r-right, general, all
right, by Gawd. We-we'll do our - we-we'll d-d-do - do 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 mumbling 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 school-mistress fashion as to a congregation of boys with primers.
His talk was an endless repetition. »Reserve your fire, boys - don't shoot 'til
I tell you - save your fire - wait 'til they get close up - don't be damned
fools -«
    Perspiration streamed down 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 ways open.
    He got the one glance at the foe-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, a cause, or a country - was in a crisis. He was welded
into a common personality which was dominated by a single desire. For moments,
he could not flee no more than a little finger can commit a revolution from a
hand.
    If he had thought the regiment about to be annihilated perhaps he could have
amputated himself from it. But its noise gave him assurance. The regiment was
like a fire-work 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 discomfited.
    There was a consciousness always of the presence of his comrades about him.
He felt the 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 has made many boxes, making
still another box, only there was furious haste in his movements. He, in his
thoughts, was careering off in 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 afterwards but remained a mass of
blurred shapes.
    Presently he began to feel the effects of the war-atmosphere - a blistering
sweat, a sensation that his eye-balls were about to crack like hot stones. A
burning roar filled his ears.
    Following this came a red rage. He developed the 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-phantoms who 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 these subdued cheers, snarls, imprecations, prayers, made a wild,
barbaric song that went as an under-current of sound, strange and chant-like,
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 mislaid 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 ram-rods
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 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
encouragements. The dimensions of their howls were extraordinary. They expended
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
sheep-like eyes at the lieutenant who had seized him by the collar and was
pummeling 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 in it. He tried to re-load 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 if he thought some friend had done him an ill
turn. The babbling man was grazed by a shot that made the blood stream widely
down his face. He clapped both hands to his head. »Oh,« he said and ran. Another
grunted suddenly as if he had been struck by a club in the stomach. He sat down
and gazed ruefully. In his eyes there was 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 along the quivering line. The firing dwindled
from an uproar to a last 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 the fence, straddle the rail
and fire a parting shot. The waves had receded, leaving bits of dark debris upon
the ground.
    Some in the regiment began to whoop frenziedly. 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 labourer 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 helt 'em
back. We've helt 'em back - derned if 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
about him.
    Under foot, there were a few ghastly forms, motionless. They lay twisted in
fantastic contortions. Arms were bended 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 labour 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. It
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 the tiny horses.
    From a sloping hill came the sound of cheerings and clashes. Smoke welled
slowly through the leaves.
    Batteries were speaking with thunderous oratorical effort. Here and there
were flags, the red in the stripes dominating. They splashed bits of warm colour
upon the dark lines of troops.
    The youth felt the old thrill at the sight of the emblems. They were like
beautiful birds strangely undaunted in a storm.
    As he listened to the din from the hill side, to a deep, pulsating thunder
that came from afar to the left, and to the lesser clamors which came from many
directions, it occurred to him that they were fighting too, over there and over
there and over there. Heretofore, 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-gleamings on the trees and fields. It was surprising that
nature had gone tranquilly on with her golden processes in the midst of so much
devilment.
 

                                   Chapter VI

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 wriggled in his jacket to make a more comfortable fit and,
kneeling, re-laced his shoe. He thoughtfully mopped his reeking features.
    So it was all 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 the last
scene. He perceived that the man who had fought thus 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 good-will. »Gee, ain't it hot,
hey?« he said affably to a man who was polishing his streaming face with his
coat-sleeve.
    »You bet,« said the other, grinning sociably. »I never seen sech dumb
hotness.« He sprawled out luxuriously on the ground. »Gee, yes! An' I hope we
don't have no more fighting' 'til - 'til a week from Monday.«
    There were some hand-shakings and deep speeches with men whose features only
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 ag'in! Here they come ag'in!« The man who had sprawled
upon the ground, started up and said: »Gosh!«
    The youth turned quick eyes upon the field. He discerned forms begin to
swell in masses out of a distant wood. He again saw the tilted flag, speeding
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 lustre 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 temple 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 goin' t' stand this second bangin'. I didn't come here t'
fight th' hull damn' rebel army.«
    There was one who raised a doleful cry. »I wish Bill Smithers had trod on my
hand insteader me treddin' on his'n.« 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 grate. The clouds were tinged an earth-like
yellow in the sun-rays and, in the shadow, were a sorry blue. The flag was
sometimes eaten and lost in this mass of vapour 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 back 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 comrades had uttered previous to the firing began to appear
to him. »Oh, say, this is too much of a good thing.« »What do they take us fer -
why don't they send supports.« »I didn't come here t' fight th' hull damn' rebel
army.«
    He began to exaggerate the endurance, the skill, and the valor of those who
were coming. Himself reeling from exhaustion, 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 sun-down.
    He slowly lifted his rifle and catching a glimpse of the 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 the
man who lost his legs at the approach of the red and green monster. He waited in
a sort of a 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 dropped it and ran with howls. A 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
clamour, 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,
wrathfully red, and saw him make a dab 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 men 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
meagre 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 heard them, 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 effectually barred his way
in his chosen direction. He grovelled on the ground and then springing up went
careering 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 coaxing 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 deep upon
his mind. He knew that he looked upon a man who would presently be dead.
    Too, he felt a pity for the guns, 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 formation in difficult
places. The blue of the line was crusted with steel-colour 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 slantingly 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-coloured 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 business man whose market is swinging
up and down.
    The youth went slinking around this spot. He went as near as he dared,
trying to over-hear 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.
»Tompkins, go over an' see Taylor an' tell him not t' be in such an all-fired
hurry - tell him t' halt his brigade in th' edge of th' woods - tell him t'
detach a reg'ment - say I think th' centre'll break if we don't help it out some
- tell him t' hurry up.«
    A slim youth on a fine chestnut horse caught these 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
a-flame with excitement. »Yes, by heavens, they've held 'em! They've held 'em!«
    He began to blithely roar at his staff. »We'll wallop 'em now. We'll wallop
'em now. We've got 'em sure.« He turned suddenly upon an aide. »Here - you -
Jones - quick - ride after Tompkins - see Taylor - tell him t' 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 paean. 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.
 

                                  Chapter VII

The youth cringed as if discovered at a crime. By heavens, they had won 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. Hoarse 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 flurry 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 over-turned
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 proven 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 little and
his punishment great and knows that he can find no words.
    He went from the fields into a thick woods 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 legs, 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,
the 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
wood-pecker stuck his impudent head around the side of a tree. A bird flew on
light-hearted wing.
    Off, was the rumble of death. It seemed now that nature had no ears.
    This landscape gave him assurance. A 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 in 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 a danger,
had taken to his legs, without ado. He did not stand stolidly, baring his furry
belly to the missile, and die with an upward glance at the 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
arguments with proofs that lived where the sun shone.
    Once he found himself almost into a swamp. He was obliged to walk upon
bog-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 a place where the high, arching boughs made a chapel.
He softly 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 was now faded to a melancholy shade of green. The eyes, staring at the
youth, had changed to the dull hue to be seen on the side of a dead fish. The
mouth was opened. Its red had changed to an appalling yellow. Over the grey 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 bonds 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 grey 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 sighingly in a soft wind. A
sad silence was upon the little, guarding edifice.
 

                                  Chapter VIII

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 medley of all noises.
It was as if worlds were being rended. 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 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 a-struggle in the air.
    Reflecting, he saw a sort of a humour 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 enshrining their reputations forever in the
hearts of their countrymen, while, as to fact, the affair would appear in
printed reports under a meek and immaterial title. But he saw that it was good,
else, he said, in battle everyone 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 grey walls of vapour, where lay battle-lines. The voices of cannon shook
him. The musketry sounded in long irregular surges that played havoc with his
ears. He stood, regardant, for a moment. His eyes had an awe-struck 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 battle-ground was owned by the dead men, and he hurried, in the vague
apprehension that one of the swollen forms would rise and tell him to begone.
    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 it seemed could sway the
earth. With the courageous words of the artillery and the spiteful sentences of
the musketry was mingled red cheers. And from this region of noises came the
steady current of the maimed.
    One of the wounded men had a shoeful of blood. He hopped like a school-boy
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 imitative of
some sublime drum-major. Upon his features was an unholy mixture of merriment
and agony. As he marched he sang a bit of doggerel in a high and quavering
voice.
 
»Sing a song 'a vic'try,
A pocketful 'a bullets,
Five an' twenty dead men
Baked in a - pie.«
 
Parts of the procession limped and staggered to this tune.
    Another had the grey 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 spectre 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 joggle
so, Johnson, yeh fool,« he cried. »Think m' leg is made of iron? If yeh can't
carry me decent, put me down an' let some one else do it.«
    He bellowed at the tottering crowd who blocked the quick march of his
bearers. »Say, make way there, can't yeh? Make way, dickens take it all.«
    They sulkily 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 shoulder of one of the tramping bearers knocked heavily against the
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
road-way, 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-stain 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 a-gape in yokel fashion.
    The sergeant, taking note of this, gave pause to his elaborate history while
he administered a sardonic comment. »Be keerful, honey, you'll be a-ketchin'
flies,« he said.
    The tattered man shrank back, abashed.
    After a time, he began to sidle near to the youth and in a diffident way,
try 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 bough.
    After they had walked together for some time, the tattered man mustered
sufficient courage to speak. »Was pretty good fight, wa'n'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 pretty good fight, wa'n't it?«
    »Yes,« said the youth shortly. He quickened his pace.
    But the other hobbled industriously 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 pretty good fight, wa'n'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.
Laws, how they did fight. I knew th' boys'd lick when they onct got square at
it. Th' boys ain't had no fair chanct up t' now, but, this time, they showed
what they was. I knew it'd turn out this way. Yeh 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 talking' 'cross pickets with a boy from Georgie, onct, an' that boy,
he ses: Your fellows'll all run like hell when they onct hearn a gun, he ses.
Mebbe they will, I ses, but I don't b'lieve none of it, I ses, an b'jiminy, I
ses back t'um, mebbe your fellows'll all run like hell when they onct hearn a
gun, I ses. He larfed. Well, they didn't run t'-day, did they, hey? No, sir.
They fit an' fit an' fit.«
    His homely face was suffused with a light of love for the army which was to
him all things beautiful and powerful.
    After a time, he turned to the youth. »Where yeh hit, ol' boy?« he asked in
a brotherly tone.
    The youth felt instant panic at this question although at first its full
import was not borne in upon him.
    »What?« he asked.
    »Where yeh 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 bended
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.
 

                                   Chapter IX

The youth fell back in the procession until the tattered soldier was not in
sight. Then he started to walk on with 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 grey, 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 and
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 passions of his wounds. As he went on, he seemed always looking for a
place, like one who 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.
    »Gawd! Jim Conklin!«
    The tall soldier made a little common-place smile. »Hello, Henry,« he said.
    The youth swayed on his legs and glared strangely. He stuttered and
stammered. »Oh, Jim - oh, Jim - oh, Jim -«
    The tall soldier held out his gory hand. There was a curious red and black
combination of new blood and old blood upon it. »Where yeh been, Henry?« he
asked. He continued in a monotonous voice. »I thought mebbe yeh got keeled over.
There's been thunder t' pay t'-day. I was worryin' about it a good deal.«
    The youth still lamented. »Oh, Jim - oh, Jim - oh, Jim -«
    »Yeh know,« said the tall soldier, »I was out there.« He made a careful
gesture. »An', Lord, what a circus. An', b'jiminy, I got shot - I got shot. Yes,
b'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 tragedies toward the rear.
    Suddenly, as the two friends marched on, the tall soldier seemed to be
over-come by a terror. His face turned to a semblance of grey paste. He clutched
the youth's arm and looked all about him, as if dreading to be over-heard. Then
he began to speak in a shaking whisper.
    »I tell yeh what I'm 'fraid of, Henry - I'll tell yeh what I'm 'fraid of.
I'm 'fraid I'll fall down - an' then yeh know - them damned artillery wagons -
they like as not'll run over me. That's what I'm 'fraid of -«
    The youth cried out to him hysterically. »I'll take care of you, Jim! I'll
take care of you! I swear to Gawd I will.«
    »Sure - will yeh, Henry?« the 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 wildness of his terror. »I was allus
a good friend t' yeh, wa'n't I, Henry? I've allus been pretty good feller, ain't
I? An' it ain't much t' ask, is it? Jest t' pull me along outer th' road? I'd do
it fer you, wouldn't I, Henry?«
    He paused in 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 spectre of a soldier. He went stonily forward.
The youth wished his friend to lean upon him but the other 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 shoulder.
Turning, he saw that it belonged to the tattered soldier. »Ye'd better take 'im
outa th' road, pardner. There's a batt'ry comin' helitywhoop down th' road an'
he'll git runned over. He's a goner anyhow in about five minutes - yeh kin see
that. Ye'd better take 'im outa th' road. Where th' blazes does he git his
stren'th from?«
    »Lord knows,« cried the youth. He was shaking his hands helplessly.
    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! Inteh th' 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 out-cry 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 over-took 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'll hurt yourself.«
    The same purpose was in the tall soldier's face. He protested in a dulled
way, keeping his eyes fastened on the mystic place of his intentions. »No - no -
don't tech 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 going, Jim? What you thinking about?
Where you going? 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 yeh? Leave me be fer a minnit.«
    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
the 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 rite-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
were quietly at his sides. 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 sink 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 tech me - leave me be -«
    There was another silence, while he waited.
    Suddenly, his form stiffened and straightened. Then it was shaken by a
prolonged ague. 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 horn-pipe.
His arms beat wildly about his head in expression of imp-like enthusiasm.
    His tall figure stretched itself to its full height. There was a slight
rending sound. Then it began to swing forward, slow and straight, in the manner
of a falling tree. A swift muscular contortion made the left shoulder strike the
ground first.
    The body seemed to bounce a little way from the earth. »Gawd,« said the
tattered soldier.
    The youth had watched, spell-bound, 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
his fist. He seemed about to deliver a philippic.
    »Hell -«
    The red sun was pasted in the sky like a wafer.
 

                                   Chapter X

The tattered man stood musing.
    »Well, he was reg'lar jim-dandy fer nerve, wa'n't he,« said he finally in a
little awe-struck voice. »A reg'lar jim-dandy.« He thoughtfully poked one of the
docile hands with his foot. »I wonner where he got 'is stren'th from? I never
seen a man do like that before. It was a funny thing. Well, he was a reg'lar
jim-dandy.«
    The youth desired to screech 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.
    »Look-a-here, pardner,« he said, after a time. He regarded the corpse as he
spoke. »He's up an' gone, ain't 'e, an' we might as well begin t' look out fer
ol' number one. This here thing is all over. He's up an' gone, ain't 'e? An'
he's all right here. Nobody won't bother 'im. An' I must say I ain't enjoyin'
any great health m'self these days.«
    The youth, awakened by the tattered soldier's tone, looked quickly up. He
saw that he was swinging uncertainly on his legs and that his face had turned to
a shade of blue.
    »Good Lord,« he cried, »you ain't going to - not you, too.«
    The tattered man waved his hand. »Nary die,« he said. »All I want is some
pea-soup an' a good bed. Some pea-soup,« he repeated dreamfully.
    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 stayin'
here an' tryin' t' ask him anything.«
    The youth nodded an assent, wearily. They both turned to gaze for a moment
at the corpse.
    The youth murmured something.
    »Well, he was a jim-dandy, wa'n't 'e?« 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 commencin' t' feel pretty bad,« said the tattered man, suddenly
breaking one of his little silences. »I'm commencin' t' feel pretty damn' 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 re-assuringly. »Oh, I'm not goin' t' die
yit. There's too much dependin' on me fer me t' die yit. No, sir! Nary die! I
can't! Ye'd oughta see th' swad 'a chil'ren I've got, an' 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 th' way that feller did. That was th' funniest thing. I'd
jest flop down, I would. I never seen a feller die th' way that feller did.
    Yeh know, Tom Jamison, he lives next door t' me up home. He's a nice feller,
he is, an' we was allus good friends. Smart, too. Smart as a steel trap. Well,
when we was a-fighting' this atternoon, all-of-a-sudden he begin t' rip up an'
cuss an' beller at me. Yer shot, yeh blamed, infernal, tooty-tooty-tooty-too,
(he swear horrible) he ses t' me. I put up m' hand t' m' head an' when I looked
at m' fingers, I seen, sure-'nough, I was shot. I give a holler an' begin t' run
but b'fore I could git away, another one hit me in th' arm an' whirl' me clean
'round. I got dumb skeared when they was all a-shootin' b'hind me an' I run t'
beat all, but I cotch it pretty bad. I've an idee I'd a' been fighting' yit, if
t'wa'n't fer Tom Jamison.«
    Then he made a calm announcement. »There's two of 'em - little ones - but
they're beginnin' t' have fun with me now. I don't b'lieve I kin walk much
further.«
    They went slowly on in silence. »Yeh look pretty peek-ed yerself,« said the
tattered man at last. »I bet yeh've gota worser one than yeh think. Ye'd better
take keer of yer hurt. It don't do t' let sech things go. It might be inside
mostly, an' them plays thunder. Where is it located?« But he continued his
harangue without waiting for a reply. »I see a feller git hit plum in th' head
when my reg'ment was a-standin' at ease onct. An' everybody yelled out t' 'im:
Hurt, John? Are yeh hurt much? No, ses he. He looked kinder surprised an' he
went on telling' 'em how he felt. He sed he didn't feel nothing'. But, by dad, th'
first thing that feller knew he was dead. Yes, he was. Dead - stone dead. So,
yeh wanta watch out. Yeh might have some queer kind 'a hurt yerself. Yeh can't
never tell. Where is your'n located?«
    The youth had been wriggling 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 intolerable parts. They were
ever up-raising the ghost of shame on the stick of their curiosity. He turned
toward the tattered man as one at bay. »Now, don't bother me,« he repeated with
desperate menace.
    »Well, Lord knows I don't wanta bother anybody,« said the other. There was a
little accent of despair in his voice as he replied. »Lord knows I've gota
'nough m' own t' 'tend to.«
    The youth, who had been holding a bitter debate with himself and casting
glances of hate 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. »Why - why, pardner,
where yeh goin',« he asked unsteadily. The youth, looking at him, could see that
he, too, like that other one, was beginning to act dumb and animal-like. His
thoughts seemed to be floundering about in his head. »Now - now - look - a -
here you Tom Jamison - now - I won't have this - this here won't do. Where -
where yeh goin'?«
    The youth pointed vaguely. »Over there,« he replied.
    »Well, now, look - a - here - now -« said the tattered man, rambling on in
idiot-fashion. His head was hanging forward and his words were slurred. »This
thing won't do, now, Tom Jamison. It won't do. I know yeh, yeh pig-headed devil.
Yeh wanta go trompin' off with a bad hurt. It ain't right - now - Tom Jamison -
it ain't. Yeh wanta leave me take keer of yeh, Tom Jamison. It ain't - right -
it ain't - fer yeh t' go - trompin' off - with a bad hurt - it ain't - ain't -
ain't right - it ain't.«
    In reply, the youth climbed a fence and started away. He could hear the
tattered man bleating plaintively.
    Once, he faced about angrily. »What?«
    »Look - a - here, now, Tom Jamison - now - it ain't -«
    The youth went on. Turning at a distance he saw the tattered man wandering
about helplessly in the fields.
    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-thrusts to him. They
asserted a society that probes pitilessly at secrets until all is apparent. His
late companion's chance persistency made him feel that he could not keep his
crime concealed in his bosom. It was sure to be brought plain 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.
 

                                   Chapter XI

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 a hillock, he perceived that the road-way 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 exertions like fat sheep.
    The youth felt comforted in a measure 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 roarers 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-stocks. 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 in 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 that 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
sun-light. He could never be like them. He could have wept in his longings.
    He searched about in his mind for an adequate malediction 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 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 high - 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 up-lifted 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. Well, 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 laboured through some lies.
    Eventually, his courage expended itself upon these objections. The debates
drained him of his fire.
    He was not cast-down by this 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, weight-like 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 clamour. 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 moth-like 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 favourable things for him. The blows of the enemy would splinter
regiments into fragments. Thus, many men of courage, he considered, would be
obliged to desert the colours and scurry like chickens. He would appear as 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 had 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 compunctions for proposing a general as a
sacrifice. He could not tell who the chosen for the barbs might be, so he could
centre 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 dishonour
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 unutterably 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 thus becoming lifeless. They might have been killed by
lucky chances, he said, before they had 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 bethink him of a fine tale which he could take back to his
regiment and with it turn the expected shafts of derision.
    But, as he mortally 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 protecting tale.
    He imagined the whole regiment saying: »Where's Henry Fleming? He run,
didn't 'e? 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 of 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
some one 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 some one make a humorous
remark in a low tone. At it, the others all crowed and cackled. He was a
slang-phrase.
 

                                  Chapter XII

The column that had butted stoutly at the obstacles in the road-way 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 fibres 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 clamouring 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 mental
pamphlets on the philosophy of the retreated and rules for 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 fill.
    Within him, something bade to cry out. He had the impulse to make a rallying
speech, to sing a battle- but he could only get his tongue to call into the air:
»Why - why - 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 incoherent questions were lost. They were heedless of his appeals.
They did not seem to see him.
    They sometimes gabbled 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 gotten into the centre of the 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. »Letgo me! Letgo 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.
    »Letgo me! Letgo me!«
    »Why - why -« stuttered 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
a 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 a 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 dulled 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 dabbled 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 be-splashed
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 a fence. The officer was making
excited motions with a gauntleted hand. The guns followed the teams with an air
of unwillingness - of being dragged by the heels.
    Some officers of the scattered infantry were cursing and railing like
fish-wives. Their scolding voices could be heard above the din. Into the
unspeakable jumble in the road-way, rode a squadron of cavalry. The faded yellow
of their facings shone bravely. There was a mighty altercation.
    The artillery were assembling as if for a conference.
    The blue haze of evening was upon the fields. 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 the tremendous
remonstrance. With it came the shattering peal of opposing infantry. Turning to
look behind him, he could see sheets of orange light illumine 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 sombre sky. There seemed to be a great ruck of men and munitions spread
about in the forest and in the fields. The little narrow road-way now lay
lifeless. There were over-turned 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 a 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.
    Amidst 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 school-house to the bank of a shaded pool. He saw his clothes in
disorderly array upon the grass of the bank. He felt the swash of the fragrant
water upon his body. The leaves of the over-hanging maple rustled with melody in
the wind of youthful summer.
    He was over-come 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 at him like pampered babies.
    At last, he heard a cheery voice near his shoulder. »Yeh seem t' be in a
pretty bad way, boy?«
    The youth did not look up but he assented with thick tongue. »Uh.«
    The owner of the cheery voice took him firmly by the arm. »Well,« he said,
with a round laugh, »I'm goin' your way. Th' hull gang is goin' your way. An' I
guess I kin give yeh 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 reg'ment do yeh b'long teh? Eh? What's that? Th' 304th N' York?
Why, what corps is that in? Oh, it is? Why, I thought they wasn't't engaged t'-day
- they're 'way over in th' centre. Oh, they was, eh? Well, pretty nearly
everybody got their share 'a fighting' t'-day. By dad, I give myself up fer dead
any number 'a times. There was shootin' here an' shootin' there, an' hollerin'
here an' hollerin' there, in th' damn' darkness, until I couldn't tell t' save
m' soul which side I was on. Sometimes I thought I was sure-'nough from Ohier
an' other times I could 'a swore I was from th' bitter end of Florida. It was
th' most mixed up dern thing I ever see. An' these here hull woods is a reg'lar
mess. It'll be a miracle if we find our reg'ments t'-night. Pretty soon, though,
we'll meet a-plenty of guards an' provost-guards an' one thing an' another. Ho,
there they go with an off'cer, I guess. Look at his hand a-draggin'. He's got
all th' war he wants, I bet. He won't be talking' so big about his reputation an'
all, when they go t' sawin' off his leg. Poor feller. My brother's got whiskers
jest like that. How did yeh git 'way over here anyhow? Your reg'ment is a long
way from here, ain't it? Well, I guess we can find it. Yeh know, there was a boy
killed in my comp'ny t'-day that I thought th' world an' all of. Jack was a nice
feller. By ginger, it hurt like thunder t' see ol' Jack jest git knocked flat.
We was a-standin' purty peaceable fer a spell, 'though there was men runnin'
ev'ry way all 'round us, an' while we was a-standin' like that, 'long come a big
fat feller. He began t' peck at Jack's elbow an' he ses: Say, where's th road t'
th' river? An' Jack, he never paid no attention an' th' feller kept on a-peckin'
at his elbow an' saying': Say, where's th road t' th' river? Jack was a-looking'
ahead all th' time tryin' t' see th' Johnnies comin' through th' woods an' he
never paid no attention t' this big fat feller fer a long time but at last he
turned 'round an' he ses: Ah, go t' hell an' find th' road t' th' river. An'
jest then a shot slapped him bang on th' side th' head. He was a sergeant, too.
Them was his last words. Thunder, I wish we was sure 'a findin' our reg'ments
t'-night. It's goin' t' be long huntin'. But I guess we kin 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 gamin. 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. »Ah, there yeh are! See that fire?«
    The youth nodded stupidly.
    »Well, there's where your reg'ment is. An', now, good-bye, ol' boy, good
luck t' yeh.«
    A warm and strong hand clasped the youth's languid fingers for an instant,
and then he heard a cheerful and audacious whistling, as the man strided away.
As he who so be-friended him was thus passing out of his life, it suddenly
occurred to the youth that he had not once seen his face.
 

                                  Chapter XIII

The youth went slowly toward the fire indicated by his departed friend. 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, clamouring, 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 the 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's - it's me.«
    »Well, well, ol' boy,« said the other, »by ginger, I'm glad t' see yeh. I
give yeh up fer a goner. I thought yeh was dead sure-enough.« There was 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 tale to
protect him from the missiles already at the lips of his redoubtable comrade. So
staggering before the loud soldier he began. »Yes, yes. I've - I've had an awful
time. I've been all over. 'Way over on the right. Terrible fighting over there.
I had an awful time. I got separated from the regiment. Over on the right, I got
shot. In the head. I never saw such fighting. Awful time. I don't see how I
could've got separated from the regiment. I got shot, too.«
    His friend had stepped forward quickly. »What? Got shot? Why didn't yeh say
so first? Poor ol' boy, we must - hol' on a minnit; 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 yeh talking' to, Wilson?« he demanded. His voice was
anger-toned. »Who yeh talking' to? Yer th' derndest sentinel - 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 on a-comin' this way, we'll git th' comp'ny
all back by mornin' yit - where was yeh?«
    »Over on the right. I got separated -« began the youth with considerable
glibness.
    But his friend had interrupted hastily. »Yes, an' he got shot in th' head
an' he's in a fix an' we must see t' 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.
    »Oh,« said the corporal. He linked his arm in the youth's and drew him
forward. »Come on, Henry. I'll take keer 'a yeh.«
    As they went on together, the loud private called out after them. »Put 'im
t' sleep in my blanket, Simpson. An' - hol' on a minnit - here's my canteen.
It's full 'a coffee. Look at his head by th' fire an' see how it looks. Maybe
it's a pretty bad un. When I git relieved in a couple 'a minnits, I'll be over
an' see t' 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 look at yer ol' head.«
    The youth sat down obediently and the corporal, laying 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 fire-light 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 splashed blood and
the rare wound.
    »Ah, here we are,« he said. He awkwardly made further investigations. »Jest
as I thought,« he added, presently. »Yeh've been grazed by a ball. It's raised a
queer lump jest as if some feller had lammed yeh on th' head with a club. It
stopped a-bleedin' long time ago. Th' most about it is that in th' mornin',
yeh'll feel that a number-ten hat wouldn't fit yeh. An' your head'll be all het
up an' feel as dry as burnt pork. An' yeh may git a lot 'a other sicknesses,
too, by mornin'. Yeh can't never tell. Still, I don't much think so. It's jest a
damn' good belt on th' head an' nothing' more. Now, you jest sit here an' don't
move, while I go rout out th' relief. Then I'll send Wilson t' take keer 'a
yeh.«
    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 ethereal 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 up-right 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 death-like 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 crackled musically. From it swelled light smoke. Over-head, the
foliage moved softly. The leaves with their faces turned toward the blaze, were
coloured 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, blink at 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 two canteens by their light strings. »Well, now, Henry, ol' boy,«
said the latter, »we'll have yeh fixed up in jest about a minnit.«
    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, »yeh look like th'
devil but I bet yeh 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.
    »Yeh don't holler ner say nothing',« remarked his friend, approvingly. »I
know I'm a blacksmith at taken' keer 'a sick folks an' yeh never squeaked. Yer a
good un, Henry. Most 'a men would a' been in th' hospital long ago. A shot in
th' head ain't foolin' business.«
    The youth made no reply but began to fumble with the buttons of his jacket.
    »Well, come, now,« continued his friend, »come on. I must put yeh t' bed an'
see that yeh git 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 stooped 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 an' git 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 there by yeh.«
    »Well, but hold on a minute,« continued the youth. »What you going to sleep
in? I've got your -«
    The loud young soldier snarled. »Shet up an' go on t' sleep. Don't be making'
a damn' fool 'a yerself,« he said, severely.
    After this 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 if those men sometimes slept. He gave a long
sigh, snuggled down into his blanket and in a moment, was like his comrades.
 

                                  Chapter XIV

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. Grey
mists were slowly shifting before the first efforts of the sun-rays. An
impending splendour 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 over-head, 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, care-worn 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 this 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 sombre 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 cracking 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 game-cocks. The near thunder of the
regimental drums rolled.
    The body of men in the woods rustled. There was a general up-lifting 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. An officer's peremptory tenor rang out and quickened
the stiffened movement of the men. The tangled limbs unravelled. The corpse-hued
faces were hidden behind fists that twisted slowly in 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, Henry, ol' man, how do yeh feel this mornin',« 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 ye'd feel all right this mornin'.
Let's see th' bandage - I guess it's slipped.« He began to tinker at the wound
in rather a clumsy way until the youth exploded.
    »Gosh-dern it,« he said in sharp irritation, »you're the hangdest 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 carpet.«
    He glared with insolent command at his friend but the latter answered
soothingly. »Well, well, come now, an' git some grub,« he said. »Then, maybe,
yeh'll feel better.«
    At the fire-side, 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 steaming, 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 comrade 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 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 inexperience, thoughtless, head-strong,
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 neighbourhood.
    His comrade balanced his ebony coffee-cup on his knee. »Well, Henry,« he
said, »what d'yeh think th' chances are? D'yeh think we'll wallop 'em?«
    The youth considered for a moment. »Day-before-yesterday,« he finally
replied with boldness, »you would've bet you'd lick the whole kit-and-boodle 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 disconcerted at this surprising reception of his
remarks. »Oh, no, you wouldn't either,« he said, hastily trying to retrace.
    But the other made a deprecatory gesture. »Oh, yeh 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 th' off'cers say we've got th' rebs in a pretty tight box,« said the
friend, clearing his throat in a common-place way. »They all seem t' think we've
got 'em jest where we want 'em.«
    »I don't know about that,« the youth replied. »What I saw 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.«
    »D'yeh think so?« enquired the friend. »I thought we handled 'em pretty
rough yestirday.«
    »Not a bit,« said the youth. »Why, lord, man, you didn't see nothing 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.«
    »Yeh 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, near, 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 unjust oaths.
Possibly there was going to be a fight.
    The friend arose and went over to them, making pacific motions with his
arms. »Oh, here, now, boys, what's th' use?« he said. »We'll be at th' rebs in
less'n an hour. What's th' good 'a fighting' 'mong ourselves.«
    One of the light-footed soldiers turned upon him red-faced and violent. »Yeh
needn't come around here with yer preachin'. I s'pose yeh don't approve 'a
fighting' since Charley Morgan licked yeh but I don't see what business this here
is 'a yours or anybody else.«
    »Well, it ain't,« said the friend mildly. »Still I hate t' see -«
    There was a tangled argument.
    »Well, he -« said the two, indicating their opponent with accusative
fore-fingers.
    The huge soldier was quite purple with rage. He pointed at the two soldiers
with his great hand, extended claw-like. »Well - they -«
    But during this argumentative time, the 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.
    »Jimmie Rogers ses I'll have t' fight him after th' battle t'-day,«
announced the friend as he again seated himself. »He ses he don't allow no
interferin' in his business. I hate t' see th' boys fighting' 'mong themselves.«
    The youth laughed. »You've changed a good bit. You ain't at all like you
was. I remember when you and that Irish fellow -« He stopped and laughed again.
    »No, I didn't used t' be that way,« said his friend, thoughtfully. »That's
true 'nough.«
    »Well, I didn't mean -« began the youth.
    The friend made another deprecatory gesture. »Oh, yeh needn't mind, Henry.«
    There was another little pause.
    »Th' reg'ment lost over half th' men yestirday,« remarked the friend,
eventually. »I thought 'a course they was all dead but, laws, they kept' a-comin'
back last night until it seems, after all, we didn't lose but a few. They'd been
scattered all over, wanderin' around in th' woods, fighting' with other reg'ments
an' everything. Jest like you done.«
    »So?« said the youth.
 

                                   Chapter XV

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 yeh goin' t'
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 signs 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 weak 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 keep-sakes 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
condescension. He adopted toward him an air of patronizing good-humour.
    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 veteran-like.
    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 it. 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 unfortunates 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 he 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 re-called
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 this reverie by his friend who having hitched about
nervously and 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 yeh might as well give me back them
letters.« Dark, prickling blood had flushed 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! The 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 tints telling tales to
listeners. He could exhibit laurels. They were insignificant; still, 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 the 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.
 

                                  Chapter XVI

A spluttering 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 continual. This part of the world led a strange, battleful
existence.
    The youth's 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's 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 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 the Rappahannock,« but the guns refused to permit even a
comment upon their uproar. He never successfully concluded the sentence.
    But at last, the guns stopped and among the men in the rifle-pits, rumours
again flew, 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. This 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 grey mists had been totally obliterated by the sun-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 sentence. »B'jiminy, we're generaled by a lot of
lunkheads.«
    »More than one feller has said that t'-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
s'pose 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.
    »Mebbe, it wa'n't all his fault - not all together. He did th' best he
knew. It's our luck t' git 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 dumb-founded at this sentiment when it came from his lips.
For a moment his face lost its valor and he looked guiltily about him. But 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. »The 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 another 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. »'A course not,« he said. »No
man dare say we don't fight like th' devil. No man will ever dare say it. Th'
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
generals' 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 lunkhead of a general.«
    A sarcastic man who was tramping at the youth's side, then spoke lazily.
»Mebbe yeh think yeh fit th' hull battle yestirday, Fleming,« he remarked.
    The speech pierced the youth. Inward, 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 conciliatory 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 foot-steps. Sometimes, it seemed to be
driven a little way but it always returned again with increased insolence. The
men muttered and cursed, throwing black looks in its direction.
    In a cleared 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 yelpings 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 pealings. The woods began to crackle as if a-fire.
    »Whoop-a-dadee,« said a man, »here we are. Everybody fighting'. Blood an'
destruction.«
    »I was willin' t' bet they'd attack as soon as th' sun got fairly up,«
savagely asserted the lieutenant who commanded the youth's company. He jerked
without mercy at his little moustache. 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 grey shadows of the woods before them should be slashed by the lines of
flame. There was much growling and swearing.
    »Good Gawd,« 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 pot-shot 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 an easy time of it. Don't tell Me it's just
luck. I know better. It's this derned old -«
    The friend seemed jaded but he interrupted his comrade with a voice of calm
confidence. »It'll turn out all right in th' end,« he said.
    »Oh, the devil it will. You always talk like a dog-hanged parson. Don't tell
Me. I know -«
    At this time, there was an interposition by the 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 'a your wastin' your breath in long-winded
arguments about this an' that an' th' other. You've been jawin' like a lot 'a
old hens. All you've got t' do is t' fight an' you'll get plenty 'a that t' do
in about ten minutes. Less talking' an' more fighting' is what's best fer you
boys. I never saw sech gabbling jack-asses.«
    He paused, ready to pounce upon any man who might have the temerity to
reply. No words being said, he resumed his dignified pacing.
    »There's too much chin-music an' too little fighting' 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 his 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
laboured 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.
 

                                  Chapter XVII

This advance of the enemy had seemed to the youth like a ruthless hunting. 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, to give him no time to sit down and think. Yesterday, he had
fought and had fled rapidly. There had been many adventures. For to-day 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 proven men. Too, 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 all exertions and he
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; to-day 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 Gawd, they'd better watch out. Can't
stand too much.«
    The friend twisted his head and made a calm reply. »If they keep on
a-chasin' us, they'll drive us all inteh th' river.«
    The 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 towsled 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, the regiment
roared forth 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 of 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 impotent
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 line curled and writhed 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 could that day succeed and, from this, he felt the ability to fight
harder. But the throng had surged 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
ram-rod. If he aimed at some changing form 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 re-called by a hoarse laugh and a sentence that came to his ears in a
voice of contempt and amazement. »Yeh infernal fool, don't yeh know enough t'
quit when there ain't anything t' shoot at? Good Gawd!«
    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 has 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
th' stomach outa this war in less'n 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 awe-struck ways. It was
plain that as he had gone on loading 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 yeh all right, Fleming? Do yeh feel all right? There ain't nothing'
th' matter with yeh, 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 over-come 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 degree 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, restless 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 reg'ment like us.«
    »You bet!
 
A dog, a woman, an a walnut tree,
Th' more yeh beat 'em, th' better they be.
 
That's like us.«
    »Lost a piler men, they did. If an ol' woman swep' up th' woods, she'd git a
dust-pan full.«
    »Yes, an' if she'll come around ag'in in 'bout an hour she'll git a pile
more.«
    The forest still bore its burden of clamour. 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 smouldering ruins
went up toward the sun now bright and gay in the blue, enamelled sky.
 

                                 Chapter XVIII

The ragged line had respite for some minutes but during its pause, the struggle
in the forest became magnified until the trees seemed to quiver from the firing
and the ground to shake from the rushings 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 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 Jimmie Rogers. Jimmie 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. »Fill mine, will yeh?« »Bring me some, too.« »And me, too.« He
departed, ladened. The youth went with his friend, feeling a desire to throw his
heated body into the stream and, soaking there, drink quarts.
    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 hurlying 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 grey clouds which were filled with large flashes of orange-coloured
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 sun-light made twinkling points of the bright steel. To the
rear, there was a glimpse of a distant road-way 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 companion saw a
jangling general and his staff almost ride upon a wounded man who was crawling
on his hands and knees. The general reined strongly at his charger's opened and
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 a 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, the small, creaking cavalcade was directly in front of the
two soldiers. Another officer, riding with the skilful abandon of a cow-boy,
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 criticising his clothes.
»Th' enemy's formin' over there for another charge,« he said. »It'll be directed
against Whiterside, an' I fear they'll break through there unless we work like
thunder t' stop them.«
    The other swore at his restive horse and then cleared his throat. He made a
gesture toward his cap. »It'll be hell t' 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 cow-boy reflected for an instant. »Well,« he
said, »I had to order in th' 12th to help th' 76th an' I haven't really got any.
But there's th' 304th. They fight like a lot 'a mule-drivers. I can spare them
best of any.«
    The youth and his friend exchanged glances of astonishment.
    The general spoke sharply. »Get 'em ready then. I'll watch developements
from here an' send you word when t' start 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 yeh t' git water,
anyhow - where yeh been -«
    But his oration ceased as he saw their eyes which were large with great
tales. »We're going to charge - we're going to charge,« cried the youth,
hastening with his news.
    »Charge?« said the lieutenant. »Charge? Well, b'Gawd! Now, this is real
fighting'.« Over his soiled countenance there went a boastful smile. »Charge?
Well, b'Gawd!«
    A little group of soldiers surrounded the two youths. »Are we, sure-'nough?
Well, I'll be derned. Charge? What fer? What at? Fleming, you're lyin'.«
    »I hope to die,« said the youth, pitching his tones to the key of angry
remonstrance. »Sure as shooting, I tell you.«
    And his friend spoke in reinforcement. »Not by a blame sight, he ain't
lyin'. We heard 'em talking'.«
    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, interpreted the scene.
    One soldier had a final objection: »How could yeh hear 'em talking',« 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, enquiring glance at his friend. The latter
returned to him the same manner of look. They were the only ones who possessed
an inner knowledge. »Mule-drivers - hell t' 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 a shaggy man near them
said in a meek voice: »We'll git swallered.«
 

                                  Chapter XIX

The youth stared at the land in front of him. Its foliages now seemed to veil
powers and horrors. He was unaware of the machinery of orders that started the
charge, although from the corners of his eyes, he saw an officer, who looked
like a boy a-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 with 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 toward 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 endeavour.
His eyes were fixed in a lurid glare. And with his soiled and disordered 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 before 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 centre careered 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 eyes 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 rifles leaped from it. The song of
the bullets was in the air and 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's 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's lines were defined by the
grey walls and fringes of smoke.
    It seemed to the youth that he saw everything. Each blade of the green grass
was bold and clear. He thought that he was aware of every change in the thin,
transparent vapour that floated idly in sheets. The brown or grey trunks of the
trees showed each roughness of their surfaces. And the men of the regiment, with
their starting eyes and sweating faces, running madly, or falling, as if thrown
headlong, to queer, heaped-up corpses, all were comprehended. His mind took
mechanical but firm impressions, so that, afterwards, 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 cheerings, mob-like and barbaric, but tuned in
strange keys that can arouse the dullard and the stoic. 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 is 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,
afterwards, 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 had a seeming wind-like effect. The regiment snorted and blew.
Among some stolid trees it 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 splutter of
musketry became a steadied roar. Long and accurate fringes of smoke spread out.
From the top of a small hill, came level belchings 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 lay under foot, 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, over-come 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, yeh fools,« he bellowed. »Come on! Yeh can't stay here. Yeh 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 oaths 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. Belabored 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 stopped, now, every
few paces to fire and load, and in this manner moved slowly on 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 mass,
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 this 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 a 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 child-like
curve, were now writhed into unholy contortions. He swore by all possible
deities.
    Once, he grabbed the youth by the arm. »Come on, yeh lunkhead,« he roared.
»Come on. We'll all git killed if we stay here. We've on'y got t' go across that
lot. An' 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.
    »Cer'ly! Jest 'cross th' 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, he grappled with him as if for a wrestling bout. It was as if he
planned to drag the youth by the ear on to the assault.
    The private felt a sudden unspeakable indignation against his officer. He
wrenched 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 friend scrambled after
them. In front of the colours, 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 dilapidated 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
corners of his mouth.
    Within him, as he hurled himself forward, was born a love, a despairing
fondness for this flag which was near him. It was a creation of beauty and
invulnerability. It was a goddess, radiant, that bended 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 saver of lives and an
imploring cry went from his mind.
    In the mad scramble, he was aware that the colour-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 at it, stout and furious, but the
colour-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 past 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.
 

                                   Chapter XX

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 in hell yeh goin'?« the lieutenant was asking in a sarcastic howl.
And a red-bearded officer, whose voice of triple brass could plainly be heard,
was commanding: »Shoot into 'em! Shoot into 'em, Gawd damn their souls.« There
was a melee of speeches 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 t' me.«
»No - 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, curving 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 with 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 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 epithets unconcernedly down,
would be finer as a dead man, he thought. So grievous did he think it 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 now 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 chests with his free
hand. To those he knew well, he made frantic appeals, beseeching them by name.
Between him and 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 up-lifting of the smoke had been pre-arranged, the
discovered troops burst into a rasping yell and a hundred flames jetted toward
the retreating band. A rolling, grey 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 lamentation
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 colour-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 damned fool,« replied the youth and he would not look at
the other.
    The officers laboured 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 its fill, raises its eyes and fixes upon a
distant toy. He was engrossed in this contemplation, and the soft under-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 disclose the plight of the
regiment.
    The silent ranks were suddenly thrilled by the eager voice of the lieutenant
bawling out: »Here they come! Right onto us, b'Gawd.« 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
awakened 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. He
perceived with dim amazement that their uniforms were rather gay in effect,
being light grey accented with a brilliant-hued facing. Too, the clothes seemed
new.
    These troops had apparently been going forward with caution, their rifles
held in readiness, when the 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, or, had mistaken the direction. Almost instantly, they were
shut 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 their
ram-rods. 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 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 whim came to the pestering blur and it began to coil
heavily away. The men saw a ground vacant of 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 the sward.
    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 had evidently endeavoured 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.
 

                                  Chapter XXI

Presently they knew that no firing threatened them. All ways seemed once more
opened 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
perturbation, they hastened.
    As they approached their own lines, there was some sarcasm exhibited on the
part of a gaunt and bronzed regiment that lay resting in the shade of trees.
Questions were wafted to them.
    »Where th' hell yeh been?«
    »What yeh comin' back fer?«
    »Why didn't yeh stay there?«
    »Was it warm out there, sonny?«
    »Goin' home now, boys?«
    One shouted in taunting mimicry. »Oh, mother, come quick an' look at th'
sojers.«
    There was no reply from the bruised and battered regiment save that one man
made broad-cast challenges to fist-fights 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 fist-fight,
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 honour. And the 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 this contemplation, was smitten with a large astonishment. He
discovered that the distances, as compared with the brilliant measurings 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, dishevelled.
    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 musing upon his
performances during the charge. He had had very little time, previously, in
which to appreciate himself, so that there was now much satisfaction in quietly
thinking of his actions. He re-called bits of colour that in the flurry, 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.
His towsled 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 wrenched savagely at his 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.
    »Oh, thunder, MacChesnay, 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 an 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 mud-diggers 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 wiggling 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. »Oh, well, general, we went as far as
we could,« he said calmly.
    »As far as you could? Did you, b'Gawd?« snorted the other. »Well, that
wasn't'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
favour of Whiterside. How well you succeeded, your own ears can now 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 th' boys didn't put up a good
fight out there, he's a damned 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 an' played marbles. I
never see sech 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 as blazes and concluded we were a lot of sheep, just because we didn't do
what he wanted done. It's a pity old Grandpa Henderson got killed yesterday - he
would 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' fer
people when everything yeh do - no matter what - ain't done right. I have a
notion t' stay behind next time an' let 'em take their ol' charge an' go t' th'
devil with it.«
    The youth 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.«
    »'A course, we did,« declared the friend stoutly. »An' I'd break th'
feller's neck if he was as big as a church. But we're all right, anyhow, fer I
heared one feller say that we two fit th' best in th' reg'ment an' they had a
great argyment 'bout it. Another feller, 'a course, he had t' up an' say it was
a lie - he seen all what was goin' on an' he never seen us from th' beginnin' t'
th' end. An' a lot more struck in an' ses it wasn't't a lie - we did fight like
thunder, an' they give us quite a send-off. But this is what I can't stand -
these everlastin' ol' soldiers, titterin' an' laughin', an' then that general,
he's crazy.«
    The youth exclaimed with sudden exasperation. »He's a lunkhead. He 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.
    »Oh, Flem, yeh jest oughta heard,« cried one, eagerly.
    »Heard what?« said the youth.
    »Yeh jest oughta heard,« repeated the other and he arranged himself to tell
his tidings. The others made an excited circle. »Well, sir, th' colonel met your
lieutenant right by us - it was damn'dest thing I ever heard - an' he ses, Ahem,
ahem, he ses, Mr. Hasbrouck, he ses, by th way, who was that lad what carried
th' flag? he ses. There, Flemin', what d' yeh think 'a that? Who was th' lad
what carried th' flag? he ses, an' th' lieutenant, he speaks up right away:
That's Flemin , an' he's a jim-hickey, he ses, right away. What? I say he did. A
jim-hickey, he ses - those'r his words. He did, too. I say, he did. If you kin
tell this story better than I kin, go ahead an' tell it. Well, then, keep yer
mouth shet. Th' lieutenant, he ses: He's a jim-hickey, an' th' colonel, he ses:
Ahem, ahem, he is indeed a very good man t have, ahem. He kept' th' flag 'way t'
th' front. I saw 'im. He's a good un, ses th colonel. You bet, ses th'
lieutenant, he an a feller named Wilson was at th' head 'a th' charge, an'
howlin' like Indians, all th' time, he ses. Head 'a th charge all th' time, he
ses. A feller named Wilson, he ses. There, Wilson, m' boy, put that in a letter
an' send it hum t' yer mother, hey? A feller named Wilson, he ses. An' th'
colonel, he ses: Were they, indeed? Ahem, ahem. My sakes, he ses. At th head 'a
th' reg'ment? he ses. They were, ses th' lieutenant. My sakes, ses th' colonel.
He ses: Well, well, well, he ses, those two babies? They were! ses th'
lieutenant. Well, well, ses th' colonel, they deserve t be major-generals, he
ses. They deserve t be major-generals.«
    The youth and his friend had said: »Huh!« »Yer lyin', Thompson.« »Oh, go t'
blazes.« »He never sed it.« »Oh, what a lie.« »Huh.« But despite these youthful
scoffings and embarrassments, 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 lieutenant.
 

                                  Chapter XXII

When the woods again began to pour forth the darkhued masses of the enemy, the
youth felt serene self-confidence. He smiled briefly when he saw men dodge and
duck at the long screechings 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 no wise 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 and laughing amid the
smoke-remnants.
    Presently, there was a stillness, pregnant with meaning. The blue lines
shifted and changed a trifle and stared expectantly at the silent woods and
fields before them. The hush was solemn and church-like, 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
spluttering sound had begun in the woods. It swelled with amazing speed to a
profound clamour that involved the earth in noises. The splitting crashes 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 cups. They were incapable of hearing more.
    On an incline over which a road wound, he saw wild and desperate rushes of
men. It was 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
hound-like 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 grey obstruction that it seemed
to clear the earth of it and leave nothing but trampled sod. And, always, in
these 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 bedsteads. 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 colour
of cloth was winning.
    His emaciated regiment bustled 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 bended their heads in aims of intent hatred behind the
projected hammers of their guns. Their ram-rods 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 the flashing points of yellow and red.
    Wallowing in the fight, they were in an astonishingly short time,
re-smudged. 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 fiends
jigging heavily in the smoke.
    The lieutenant, returning from a tour after a bandage, produced from a
hidden receptacle of his mind, new and portentous 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 no wise impaired his resources.
    The youth, still the bearer of the colours, 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 in 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 strained 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 gibe-like cries but the regiment maintained a stressed
silence. Perhaps, at this new assault, the men re-called the fact that they had
been named mud-diggers 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 hatreds. It was clear to him that his final and absolute revenge was
to be achieved by his dead body lying, torn and guttering, upon the field. This
was to be a poignant retaliation upon the officer who had said mule-driver, and,
later, mud-digger. 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's company was shot through the cheeks. Its
supports being injured, his jaw hung afar 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 endeavour 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 frowsled, 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.
 

                                 Chapter XXIII

The colonel came running along back of the line. There were other officers
following him. »We must charge 'm,« they shouted. »We must charge 'm.« They
cried with resentful voices, as if anticipating a 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 foes 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 unexpected force in
the movement of the regiment. A knowledge of its faded and jaded condition made
the charge appear like 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. It 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, toward a fence, dimly outlined in
smoke, from behind which spluttered the fierce rifles of enemies.
    The youth kept the bright colours 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 firings 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 questionings, nor
figurings, nor diagrams. There was, apparently, no considered loop-holes. 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 endeavour. There were subtle flashings
of joy within him, that thus should be his mind.
    He strained all his strength. His eye-sight was shaken and dazzled 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 grey 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 catapultian 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 grey 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 semed that in truth there would
be a close and frightful scuffle. There was an expressed 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 an interchange of scathing insults.
    They in blue showed their teeth; their eyes shone all white. They launched
themselves as at the throats of those who stood resisting. The space between
dwindled to an insignificant distance.
    The youth had centred the gaze of his soul upon that 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 craved 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 darings of blows could seize it. His own emblem, quivering and
a-flare, was winging 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 grey 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 leapings, 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 colour-bearer whom the youth saw had been bitten vitally 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 scampering 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 colour-bearer,
gasping, lurched over in a final throe 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 clamorings 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
fast 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 pestilential 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 view-points. 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 stoical and
cold attitude. To all advances, he made one reply, without variation. »Ah, go t'
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 perfunctorily at distant marks.
    There was some long grass. The youth nestled in it and 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.
 

                                  Chapter XXIV

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' t' git along outa this
an' back over th' river,« said he.
    »Well, I swan,« 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 re-formed 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 these had been defined by the previous turmoil.
    They passed within view of the 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 raising 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. »B'Gawd, it is,« he assented. They mused.
    For a time, the youth was obliged to reflect in a puzzled and uncertain way.
His mind was under-going a subtle change. It took moments for it to cast off its
battleful 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 the existence of shot and counter-shot was in the
past. He had dwelt in a land of strange, squalling up-heavals 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 rejoicings 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 sheep-like, he struggled to marshal all his acts.
    At last, they marched before him clearly. From this present view-point, he
was enabled to look upon them in spectator fashion and to criticise 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 wide purple
and gold, hiding 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 re-called 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 spectre 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 it stood persistently before his vision,
he gave vent to a cry of sharp irritation and agony.
    His friend turned. »What's th' matter, Henry?« he demanded. The youth's
reply was an outburst of crimson oaths.
    As he marched along the little branch-hung road-way among his prattling
companions, this vision of cruelty brooded over him. It clung near him always
and darkened his view of the deeds in purple and gold. Whichever way his
thoughts turned, they were followed by the sombre 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 an' ask me, I'd say we got a dum good lickin'.«
    »Lickin' - in yer eye. We ain't licked, sonny. We're goin' down here aways,
swing aroun', an' come in behint 'em.«
    »Oh, hush, with yer comin' in behint 'em. I've seen all 'a that I wanta.
Don't tell me about comin' in behint -«
    »Bill Smithers, he ses he'd rather been in ten hunderd battles than been in
that heluva hospital. He ses they got shootin' in th' night-time an' shells
dropped plum among 'em in th' hospital. He ses sech hollerin' he never see.«
    »Hasbrouck? He's th' best off'cer in this here reg'ment. He's a Whale.«
    »Didn't I tell yeh we'd come aroun' in behint 'em? Didn't I tell yeh so? We
-«
    »Oh, shet yer mouth.«
    For a time, this pursuing recollection of the tattered man took all elation
from the youth's veins. He saw his vivid error and he was afraid that it would
stand before him all of 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 man-hood,
non-assertive 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-ploughshares to prospects of clover tranquillity
and it was as if hot-ploughshares 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 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
night-mare 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 hosts of leaden rain
clouds.
