textfiles/etext/FICTION/redbadge

                                      1895
                            THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE
                                by Stephen Crane
                          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 rumors. It cast its eyes upon the
roads, which were growing from long troughs of liquid mud to proper
thoroughfares. A river, amber-tinted in the shadow of its banks,
purled at the army's feet; and at night, when the stream had become of
a sorrowful blackness, one could see across it the red, eyelike
gleam of hostile campfires 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
bannerlike. He was swelled with a tale he had heard from a reliable
friend, who had heard it from a truthful cavalryman, who had heard
it from his trustworthy brother, one of the orderlies at division
headquarters. He adopted the important air of a herald in red and
gold.
   "We're goin' t' move t' morrah- sure," he said pompously to a group
in the company street. "We're goin' 'way up the 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 twoscore 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 the derned old army's ever going to move.
We're set. I've got ready to move eight times in the last two weeks,
and we ain't moved yet."
   The tall soldier felt called upon to defend the truth of a rumor he
himself had introduced. He and the loud one came near to fighting over
it.
   A corporal began to swear before the assemblage. He had just put
a costly board floor in his house, he said. During the early spring he
had refrained from adding extensively to the comfort of his
environment because he had felt that the army might start on the march
at any moment. Of late, however, he had been impressed that they
were in a sort of eternal camp.
   Many of the men engaged in a spirited debate. One outlined in a
peculiarly lucid manner all the plans of the commanding general. He
was opposed by men who advocated that there were other plans of
campaign. They clamored at each other, numbers making futile bids
for the popular attention. Meanwhile, the soldier who had fetched
the rumor bustled about with much importance. He was continually
assailed by questions.
   "What's up, Jim?"
   "Th' army's goin' t' move."
   "Ah, what yeh talkin' 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 bank that stretched across the end of the
room. In the other end, cracker boxes were made to serve as furniture.
They were grouped about the fireplace. A picture from an illustrated
weekly was upon the log walls, and three rifles were paralleled on
pegs. Equipments hung on handy projections, and some tin dishes lay
upon a small pile of firewood. A folded tent was serving as a roof.
The sunlight, without, beating upon it, made it glow a light yellow
shade. A small window shot an oblique square of whiter light upon
the cluttered floor. The smoke from the fire at times neglected the
clay chimney and wreathed into the room, and this flimsy chimney of
clay and sticks made endless threats to set ablaze the whole
establishment.
   The youth was in a little trance of astonishment. So they were at
last going to fight. On the morrow, perhaps, there would be a
battle, and he would be in it. For a time he was obliged to labor to
make himself believe. He could not accept with assurance an omen
that he was about to mingle in one of those great affairs of the
earth.
   He had, of course, dreamed of battles all his life- of vague and
bloody conflicts that had thrilled him with their sweep and fire. In
visions he had seen himself in many struggles. He had imagined peoples
secure in the shadow of his eagle-eyed prowess. But awake he had
regarded battles as crimson blotches on the pages of the past. He
had put them as things of the bygone with his thought-images of
heavy crowns and high castles. There was a portion of the world's
history which he had regarded as the time of wars, but it, he thought,
had been long gone over the horizon and had disappeared forever.
   From his home his youthful eyes had looked upon the war in his
own country with distrust. It must be some sort of a play affair. He
had long despaired of witnessing a Greeklike 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 color, lurid with breathless deeds.
   But his mother had discouraged him. She had affected to look with
some contempt upon the quality of his war ardor and patriotism. She
could calmly seat herself and with no apparent difficulty give him
many hundreds of reasons why he was of vastly more importance on the
farm than on the field of battle. She had had certain ways of
expression that told him that her statements on the subject came
from a deep conviction. Moreover, on her side, was his belief that her
ethical motive in the argument was impregnable.
   At last, however, he had made firm rebellion against this yellow
light thrown upon the color of his ambitions. The 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 doorway with his soldier's clothes on
his back, and with the light of excitement and expectancy in his
eyes almost defeating the glow of regret for the home 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-thinkin' 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 get 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, an'
a-learning 'em 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 keer
of us all.
   "Don't forgit 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-by, 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
overwhelmed with privileges for all of one afternoon, and it had
been a very delicious thing. They had strutted.
   A certain light-haired girl had made vivacious fun at his martial
spirit, but there was another and darker girl whom he 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. Greeklike
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
afterward, they usually expressed sorrow, and swore by their gods that
the guns had exploded without their permission. The youth, on guard
duty one night, conversed across the stream with one of them. He was a
slightly ragged man, who spat skillfully 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 gray,
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 powders.
"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 recalled his visions
of broken-bladed glory, but in the shadow of the impending tumult he
suspected them to be impossible pictures.
   He sprang from the bunk and began to pace nervously to and fro.
"Good Lord, what's th' matter with me?" he said aloud.
   He felt that in this crisis his laws of life were useless. Whatever
he had learned of himself was here of no avail. He was an unknown
quantity. He saw that he would again be obliged to experiment as he
had in early youth. He must accumulate information of himself, and
meanwhile he resolved to remain close upon his guard lest those
qualities of which he knew nothing should everlastingly disgrace
him. "Good Lord!" he repeated in dismay.
   After a time the tall soldier slid dexterously through the hole.
The loud private followed. They were wrangling.
   "That's all right," said the tall soldier as he entered. He waved
his hand expressively. "You can believe me or not, jest as you like.
All you got to do is to sit down and wait as quiet as you can. Then
pretty soon you'll find out I was right."
   His comrade grunted stubbornly. For a moment he seemed to be
searching for a formidable reply. Finally he said: "Well, you don't
know everything in the world, do you?"
   "Didn't say I knew everything in the world," retorted the other
sharply. He began to stow various articles snugly into his knapsack.
   The youth, pausing in his nervous walk, looked down at the busy
figure. "Going to be a battle, sure, is there, Jim?" he asked.
   "Of course there is," replied the tall soldier. "Of course there
is. You jest wait 'til to-morrow, and you'll see one of the biggest
battles ever was. You jest wait."
   "Thunder!" said the youth.
   "Oh, you'll see fighting this time, my boy, what'll be regular
out-and-out fighting," added the tall soldier, with the air of a man
who 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
jest like them others did."
   "Not much it won't," replied the tall soldier, exasperated. "Not
much it won't. Didn't the cavalry all start this morning?" He glared
about him. No one denied his statement. "The cavalry started this
morning," he continued. "They say there ain't hardly any cavalry
left in camp. They're going to Richmond, or some place, while we fight
all the Johnnies. It's some dodge like that. The regiment's got
orders, too. A feller what seen 'em go to headquarters told me a
little while ago. And they're raising blazes all over camp- anybody
can see that."
   "Shucks!" said the loud one.
   The youth remained silent for a time. At last he spoke to the
tall soldier. "Jim!"
   "What?"
   "How do you think the reg'ment 'll do?"
   "Oh, they'll fight all right, I guess, after they once get into
it," said the other with cold judgment. He made a fine use of the
third person. "There's been heaps of fun poked at 'em because
they're new, of course, and all that; but they'll fight all right, I
guess."
   "Think any of the boys 'll run?" persisted the youth.
   "Oh, there may be a few of 'em run, but there's them kind in
every regiment, 'specially when they first goes under fire," said
the other in a tolerant way. "Of course it might happen that the
hull kit-and-boodle might start and run, if some big fighting came
first-off, and then again they might stay and fight like fun. But
you can't bet on nothing. Of course they ain't never been under fire
yet, and it ain't likely they'll lick the hull rebel army all-to-oncet
the first time; but I think they'll fight better than some, if worse
than others. That's the way I figger. They call the reg'ment 'Fresh
fish' and everything; but the boys come of good stock, and most of 'em
'll fight like sin after they oncet git shootin'," he added, with a
mighty emphasis on the last four 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 get too hot for Jim Conklin in some of them
scrimmages, and if a whole lot of boys started and run, why, I
s'pose I'd start and run. And if I once started to run, I'd run like
the devil, and no mistake. But if everybody was a-standing and
a-fighting, why, I'd stand and fight. Be jiminey, 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 rumor. The tall one fought with a man from Chatfield
Corners and beat him severely.
   The youth felt, however, that his problem was in no wise lifted
from him. There was, on the contrary, an irritating prolongation.
The tale had created in him a great concern for himself. Now, with the
newborn question in his mind, he was compelled to sink back into his
old place as part of a blue demonstration.
   For days he made ceaseless calculations, but they were all
wondrously unsatisfactory. He found that he could establish nothing.
He finally concluded that the only way to prove himself was to go into
the blaze, and then figuratively to watch his legs to discover their
merits and faults. He reluctantly admitted that he could not sit still
and with a 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 mood. All attempts failed to
bring forth any statement which looked in any way like a confession to
those doubts which he privately acknowledged in himself. He was afraid
to make an open declaration of his concern, because he dreaded to
place some unscrupulous confidant upon the high plane of the
unconfessed from which elevation he could be derided.
   In regard to his companions his mind wavered between two
opinions, according to his mood. Sometimes he inclined to believing
them all heroes. In fact, he usually admitted in secret the superior
development of the higher qualities in others. He could conceive of
men going very insignificantly about the world bearing a load of
courage unseen, and although he had known many of his comrades through
boyhood, he began to fear that his judgment of them had been blind.
Then, in other moments, he flouted 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 traditions.
   In his great anxiety his heart was continually clamoring at what he
considered the intolerable slowness of the generals. They seemed
content to perch tranquilly on the river bank, and leave him bowed
down by the weight of a great problem. He wanted it settled forthwith.
He could not long bear such a load, he said. Sometimes his anger at
the commanders reached an acute stage, and he grumbled about the
camp like a veteran.
   One morning, however, he found himself in the ranks of his prepared
regiment. The men were whispering speculations and recounting the
old rumors. In the gloom before the break of the day their uniforms
glowed a deep purple hue. From across the river the red eyes were
still peering. In the eastern sky there was a yellow patch like a
rug laid for the feet of the coming sun; and against it, black and
patternlike, loomed the gigantic figure of the colonel 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
aflare, and the rolling crashes of an engagement come to his ears.
Staring once at the red eyes across the river, he conceived them to be
growing larger, as the orbs of a row of dragons advancing. He turned
toward the colonel and saw him lift his gigantic arm and calmly stroke
his mustache.
   At last he heard from 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 bent 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 of 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 roadway and marched forward with
easy strides. A dark regiment moved before them, and from behind
also came the tinkle of equipments on the bodies of marching men.
   The rushing yellow of the developing day went on behind their
backs. When the sunrays 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.
   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-colored cloud of dust floated away to the
right. The sky overhead 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 ardor of the
air which was causing the veteran commands to move with glee- almost
with song- had infected the new regiment. The men began to speak of
victory as of a thing they knew. Also, the tall soldier received his
vindication. They were certainly going to come around 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 endeavors. The regiment tramped
to the tune of laughter.
   The blatant 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 dooryard.
He planned to load his knapsack upon it. He was escaping with his
prize when a young girl rushed from the house and grabbed the animal's
mane. There followed a wrangle. The young girl with pink cheeks and
shining eyes, stood like a dauntless statue.
   The observant regiment, standing at rest in the roadway, whooped at
once, and entered wholes-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 catcalls showered upon him when he retreated
without the horse. The regiment rejoiced at his downfall. Loud and
vociferous congratulations were showered upon the maiden, who stood
panting and regarding the troops with defiance.
   At nightfall the column broke into regimental pieces, and the
fragments went into the fields to camp. Tents sprang up like strange
plants. Camp fires, like red, peculiar blossoms, dotted 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 treetop. 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 you doing here?"
   "Oh, thinking," said the youth.
   The other sat down and carefully lighted his pipe. "You're
getting blue, my boy. You're looking thundering peeked. What the
dickens is wrong with you?"
   "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 the eternal thunders, we'll lick 'em
good!"
   "If the truth was known," he added, more soberly, "they've licked
us about every clip up to now.; but this time- this time- we'll lick
'em good!"
   "I thought you was objecting to this march a little while ago,"
said the youth coldly.
   "Oh, it wasn't that," explained the other. "I don't mind
marching, if there's going to be fighting at the end of it. What I
hate is this getting moved here and moved there, with no good coming
of it, as far as I can see, excepting sore feet and damned short
rations."
   "Well, Jim Conklin says we'll get a plenty of fighting this time."
   "He's right for once, I guess, though I can't see how it come. This
time we're in for a big battle, and we've got the best end of it,
certain sure. Gee rod! how we will thump '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 s'pose!"
   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 the rest. I'm going to 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-'nough 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
going to skedaddle. The man that bets on my running 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; "and I
didn't say I was the bravest man in the world, neither. I said I was
going to do my share of fighting- that's what I said. And I am, too.
Who are you, anyhow? You talk as if you thought you was Napoleon
Bonaparte." He glared at the youth for a moment, and then strode away.
   The youth called in a savage voice after his comrade: "Well, you
needn't git 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 outcast.
   He went slowly to his tent and stretched himself on a blanket by
the side of the snoring tall soldier. In the darkness he saw visions
of a thousand-tongued fear that would babble at his back and cause him
to flee, while others were going coolly about their country's
business. He admitted that he would not be able to cope with this
monster. He felt that every nerve in his body would be an ear to
hear the voices, while other men would remain stolid and deaf.
   And as he sweated with the pain of these thoughts, he could hear
low, serene sentences. "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 grumblings. After a time they
began to shed their knapsacks. Some tossed them unconcernedly down;
others hid them carefully, asserting their plans to return for them at
some convenient time. Men extricated themselves from thick shirts.
Presently few carried anything but their necessary clothing, blankets,
haversacks, canteens, and arms and ammunition. "You can now eat and
shoot," said the tall soldier to the youth. "That's all you want to
do."
   There was 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 veteranlike in appearance. Veteran
regiments in the army were likely to be very small aggregations of
men. Once, when the command had first come to the field, some
perambulating veterans, noting the length of their column, had
accosted them thus: "Hey, fellers, what brigade is that?" And when the
men had replied that they formed a regiment and not a brigade, the
older soldiers had laughed, and said, "O Gawd!"
   Also, there was too great a similarity in the hats. The hats of a
regiment should properly represent the history of headgear for a
period of years. And, moreover, there were no letters of faded gold
speaking from the colors. They were new and beautiful and the color
bearer habitually oiled the pole.
   Presently the army again sat down to think. The odor of the
peaceful pines was in the men's nostrils. The sound of monotonous
axe blows rang through the forest, and the insects, nodding upon their
perches, crooned like old women. The youth returned to his theory of a
blue demonstration.
   One gray dawn, however, he was kicked in the leg by the tall
soldier, and then, before he was entirely awake, he found himself
running down a wood road in the midst of men who were panting from the
first effects of speed. His canteen banged rhythmically upon his
thigh, 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 sich
a hurry for?"
   The youth thought the damp fog of early morning moved from the rush
of a great body of troops. From the distance came a sudden spatter
of firing.
   He was bewildered. As he ran with his comrades he strenuously tried
to think, but all he knew was that if he fell down those coming behind
would tread upon him. All his faculties seemed to be needed to guide
him over 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 inclosed 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 farther side artillery began to
boom. Here the youth forgot many things as he felt a sudden impulse of
curiosity. He scrambled up the bank with a speed that could not be
exceeded by a bloodthirsty man.
   He expected a battle scene.
   There were some little fields 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 sunstruck
clearing that gleamed orange color. A flag fluttered.
   Other regiments floundered up the bank. The brigade was formed in
line of battle, and after a pause started slowly through the woods
in the rear of the receding skirmishers, who were continually
melting into the scene to appear again farther 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 briers. 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 the march the ardor 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 overvaliant airs as if they were already plunged into
war. Others walked as upon thin ice. The greater part of the
untested men appeared quiet and absorbed. They were going to look at
war, the red animal- war, the blood-swollen god. And they were
deeply engrossed in this march.
   As he looked the youth gripped his outcry at his throat. He saw
that even if the men were tottering with fear they would laugh at
his warning. They would jeer him, 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 demeanor of one who knows that he is doomed
alone to unwritten responsibilities. He lagged, with tragic glances at
the sky.
   He was surprised presently by the young lieutenant of his
company, who began heartily to beat him with a sword, calling out in a
loud and insolent voice: "Come, young man, get up 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 duelists, believing it to be correct to stand erect and be,
from their feet to their foreheads, a mark. They said they scorned the
devices of the cautious. But the others scoffed in reply, and
pointed to the veterans on the flanks who were digging at the ground
like terriers. In a short time there was quite a barricade along the
regimental fronts. Directly, however, they were ordered to withdraw
from that place.
   This astounded the youth. He forgot his stewing over the 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 nothin'." 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 suppose we must
go reconnoitering around the country jest to keep 'em from getting too
close, or to 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 jest tiring ourselves out."
   "So would I," said the loud soldier. "It ain't right. I tell you if
anybody with any sense was a-runnin' this army it-"
   "Oh, shut up!" roared the tall private. "You little fool. You
little damn' cuss. You ain't had that there coat and them pants on for
six months, and yet you talk as if-"
   "Well, I wanta do some fighting anyway," interrupted the other.
"I didn't come here to walk. I could 'ave walked to home- 'round an'
'round the barn, if I jest wanted to 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 reassailed him, but this time he
doggedly let them babble. He was occupied with his problem, and in his
desperation he concluded that the stupidity did not greatly matter.
   Once he thought he had concluded that it would be better to get
killed directly and end his troubles. Regarding death thus out of
the corner of his eye, he conceived it to be nothing but rest, and
he was filled with a 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 far-away cheering. A battery spoke.
   Directly the youth would see the skirmishers running. They were
pursued by the sound of musketry fire. After a time the hot, dangerous
flashes of the rifles were visible. Smoke clouds went slowly and
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 gray 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 my first and last battle, old 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 my first and last battle, old boy," continued the loud
soldier. "Something tells me-"
   "What?"
   "I'm a gone coon this first time and- and I w-want you to take
these here things- to- 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 rumors 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
Carrot 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 cammand of th'
304th when we go inteh action, an' then he ses we'll do sech
fightin' 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 nothin'."
   "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 scared either. No, sir! It wasn'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. Se 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 gray
and red dissolved into a moblike 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 catcalls 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 afterward he remembered that
the color sergeant was standing with his legs apart, as if he expected
to be pushed to the ground.
   The following throng went whirling around the flank. Here and there
were officers carried along on the stream like exasperated chips. They
were striking about them with their swords and with their left
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 floodlike 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 color and form
surged in his mind. The old fellow upon the cracker box appeared in
middle prominence.
   Some one cried, "Here they come!"
   There was 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 knitting it about his
throat with exquisite attention to its position, when the cry was
repeated up and down the line in a muffled roar of sound.
   "Here they come! Here they come!" 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 till I tell you- save your fire-
wait till 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
way 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 some moments he could
not flee no more than a little finger can commit a revolution from a
hand.
   If he had thought the regiment was about to be annihilated
perhaps he could have amputated himself from it. But its noise gave
him assurance. The regiment was like a firework that, once ignited,
proceeds superior to circumstances until its blazing vitality fades.
It wheezed and banged with a mighty power. He pictured the ground
before it as strewn with the 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 thought, 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 afterward, 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 eyeballs 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 which were choking him, stuffing their
smoke robes down his parched throat. He fought frantically for respite
for his senses, for air, as a babe being smothered attacks the
deadly blankets.
   There was a blare of heated rage mingled with a certain
expression of intentness on all faces. Many of the men were making
low-toned noises with their mouths, and these subdued cheers,
snarls, imprecations, prayers, made a wild, barbaric song that went as
an undercurrent of sound, strange and chantlike 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 ramrods clanked and clanged with incessant din as the men
pounded them furiously into the hot rifle barrels. The flaps of the
cartridge boxes were all unfastened, and bobbed idiotically with
each movement. The rifles, once loaded, were jerked to the shoulder
and fired without apparent aim into the smoke or at one of the blurred
and shifting forms which 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 sheeplike eyes at the lieutenant, who
had seized him by the collar and was pommeling him. He drove him
back into the ranks with many blows. The soldier went mechanically,
dully, with his animal-like eyes upon the officer. Perhaps there was
to him a divinity expressed in the voice of the other- stern, hard,
with no reflection of fear in it. He tried to reload his gun, but
his shaking hands prevented. The lieutenant was obliged to assist him.
   The men dropped here and there like bundles. The captain of the
youth's company had been killed in an early part of the action. His
body lay stretched out in the position of a tired man resting, but
upon his face there was an astonished and sorrowful look, as 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. Farther 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
laborer in a foundry. He grasped his canteen and took a long swallow
of the warmed water.
   A sentence with variations went up and down the line. "Well,
we've 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 bent and heads were turned
in incredible ways. It seemed that the dead men must have fallen
from some great height to get into such positions. They looked to be
dumped out upon the ground from the sky.
   From a position in the rear of the grove a battery was throwing
shells over it. The flash of the guns startled the youth at first.
He thought they were aimed directly at him. Through the trees he
watched the black figures of the gunners as they worked swiftly and
intently. Their labor seemed a complicated thing. He wondered how they
could remember its formula in the midst of confusion.
   The guns squatted in a row like savage chiefs. They argued with
abrupt violence. It was a grim pow-wow. Their busy servants ran hither
and thither.
   A small procession of wounded men were going drearily toward the
rear. 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 color upon the dark lines of troops.
   The youth felt the old thrill at the sight of the emblem. They were
like beautiful birds strangely undaunted in a storm.
   As he listened to the din from the hillside, to a deep pulsating
thunder that came from afar to the left, and to the 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
process 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 relaced 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 that 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 sleeves.
   "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 fightin' till a week from Monday."
   There were some handshakings and deep speeches with men whose
features were familiar, but with whom the youth now felt the bonds
of tied hearts. He helped a cursing comrade to bind up a wound of
the shin.
   But, of a sudden, cries of amazement broke out along the ranks of
the new regiment. "Here they come 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 luster faded from their eyes. Their smudged
countenances now expressed a profound dejection. They moved their
stiffened bodies slowly, and watched in sullen mood the frantic
approach of the enemy. The slaves toiling in the 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' to stand this second banging. I didn't come
here to fight the 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
gate. The clouds were tinged an earthlike yellow in the sunrays and in
the shadow were a sorry blue. The flag was sometimes eaten and lost in
this mass of vapor, but more often it projected, suntouched,
resplendent.
   Into the youth's eyes there came a look that one can see in the
orbs of a jaded horse. His neck was quivering with nervous weakness
and the muscles of his arms felt numb and bloodless. His hands, too,
seemed large and awkward as if he was wearing invisible mittens. And
there was a great uncertainty about his knee joints.
   The words that comrades had uttered previous to the firing began to
recur to him. "Oh, say, this is too much of a good thing! What do they
take us for- why don't they send supports? I didn't come here to fight
the hull damned 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 sundown.
   He slowly lifted his rifle and catching a glimpse of the
thickspread 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 stopped 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 clamor, he was like a proverbial chicken. He lost the
direction of safety. Destruction threatened him from all points.
   Directly he began to speed toward the rear in great leaps. His
rifle and cap were gone. His unbuttoned coat bulged in the wind. The
flap of his cartridge box bobbed wildly, and his canteen, by its
slender cord, swung out behind. On his face was all the horror of
those things which he imagined.
   The lieutenant sprang forward bawling. The youth saw his features
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 Right the sound of these following footsteps gave him his
one meager relief. He felt vaguely that death must make a first choice
of the men who were nearest; the initial morsels for the dragons would
be then those who were following him. So he displayed the zeal of an
insane sprinter in his purpose to keep them in the rear. There was a
race.
   As he, leading, went across a little field, he found himself in a
region of shells. They hurtled over his head with long wild screams.
As he listened he imagined them to have rows of cruel teeth that
grinned at him. Once one lit before him and the livid lightning of the
explosion effectually barred the way in his chosen direction. He
groveled 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 deeply 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 color, and the brilliant flags projected. Officers were
shouting.
   This sight also filled him with wonder. The brigade was hurrying
briskly to be gulped into the infernal mouths 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-colored upon such a splendid charger.
   A jingling staff was galloping hither and thither. Sometimes the
general was surrounded by horsemen and at other times he was quite
alone. He looked to be much harassed. He had the appearance of a
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 overhear words. Perhaps the general unable to
comprehend chaos, might call upon him for information. And he could
tell him. He knew all concerning it. Of a surety the force was in a
fix, and any fool could see that if they did not retreat while they
had opportunity- why-
   He felt that he would like to thrash the general or at least
approach and tell him in plain words exactly what he thought him to
be. It was criminal to stay calmly in one spot and make no effort to
stay destruction. He loitered in a fever of eagerness for the division
commander to apply to him.
   As he warily moved about, he heard the general call out
irritably: "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' center
'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 aflame with excitement. "Yes, by heavens, they've held 'im!
They've held 'im!"
   He began to blithely roar at his staff: "We'll wallop 'em now.
We'll wallop 'im now. We've got 'em sure." He turned suddenly upon
an aid: "Here- you- Jones- quick- ride after Tompkins- see Taylor-
tell him t' go in- everlasting- 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 IN 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 treetops. 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 overturned and crushed by their lack of
sense in holding the position, when intelligent deliberation would
have convinced them that it was impossible. He, the enlightened man
who looks afar in the dark, had fled because of his superior
perceptions and knowledge. He felt a great anger against his comrades.
He knew it could be proved that they had been fools.
   He wondered what they would remark when later he appeared in
camp. His mind heard howls of derision. Their density would not enable
them to understand his sharper point of view.
   He began to pity himself acutely. He was ill used. He was trodden
beneath the feet of an iron injustice. He had proceeded with wisdom
and from the most righteous motives under heaven's blue only to be
frustrated by hateful circumstances.
   A dull animal-like rebellion against his fellows, war in the
abstract, and fate grew within him. He shambled along with bowed head,
his brain in a tumult of agony and despair. When he looked
loweringly up, quivering at each sound, his eyes had the expression of
those of a criminal who thinks his guilt and his punishment great, and
knows that he can find no words.
   He went from the fields into a thick wood, as if resolved to bury
himself. He wished to get out of hearing of the crackling shots
which were to him like voices.
   The ground was cluttered with vines and bushes, and the trees
grew close and spread out like bouquets. He was obliged to force his
way with much noise. The creepers, catching against his 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 woodpecker stuck his impudent head
around the side of a tree. A bird flew on lighthearted wing.
   Off was the rumble of death. It seemed now that Nature had no ears.
   This landscape gave him assurance. 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 treetop he stopped, and, poking his head
cautiously from behind a branch, looked down with an air of
trepidation.
   The youth felt triumphant at this exhibition. There was the law, he
said. Nature had given him a sign. The squirrel, immediately upon
recognizing danger, had taken to his legs without ado. He did not
stand stolidly 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 re-enforced his argument 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 columnlike 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 open. Its red had
changed to an appalling yellow. Over the gray skin of the face ran
little ants. One was trundling some sort of a bundle along the upper
lip.
   The youth gave a shriek as he confronted the thing. He was for
moments turned to stone before it. He remained staring into the
liquid-looking eyes. The dead man and the living man exchanged a
long look. Then the youth cautiously put one hand behind him and
brought it against a tree. Leaning upon this he retreated, step by
step, with his face still toward the thing. He feared that if he
turned his back the body might spring up and stealthily pursue him.
   The branches, pushing against him, threatened to throw him over
upon it. His unguided feet, too, caught aggravatingly in brambles; and
with it all he received a subtle suggestion to touch the corpse. As he
thought of his hand upon it he shuddered profoundly.
   At last he burst the 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 gray face and venturing horribly
near to the eyes.
   After a time he paused, and, breathless and panting, listened. He
imagined some strange voice would come from the dead throat and squawk
after him in horrible menaces.
   The trees about the portal of the chapel moved soughingly 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 the roofs to witness the collision.
   As he ran, he became aware that the forest had stopped its music,
as if at last becoming capable of hearing the foreign sounds. The
trees hushed and stood motionless. Everything seemed to be listening
to the crackle and clatter and earshaking 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 humor in the point of view of
himself and his fellows during the late encounter. They had taken
themselves and the enemy very seriously and had imagined that they
were deciding the war. Individuals must have supposed that they were
cutting the letters of their names deep into everlasting tablets of
brass, or 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 every one would surely run
save forlorn hopes and their ilk.
   He went rapidly on. He wished to come to the edge of the forest
that he might peer out.
   As he hastened, there passed through his mind pictures of
stupendous conflicts. His accumulated thought upon such subjects was
used to form scenes. The noise was as the voice of an eloquent
being, describing.
   Sometimes the brambles formed chains and tried to hold him back.
Trees, confronting him, stretched out their arms and forbade him to
pass. After its previous hostility this new resistance of the forest
filled him with a fine bitterness. It seemed that Nature could not
be quite ready to kill him.
   But he obstinately took roundabout ways, and presently he was where
he could see long gray walls of vapor 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. Farther 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
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
schoolboy in a game. He was laughing hysterically.
   One was swearing that he had been shot in the arm through the
commanding general's mismanagement of the army. One was marching
with an air 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 gray seal of death already upon his face. His
lips were curled in hard lines and his teeth were clinched. His
hands were bloody from where he had pressed them upon his wound. He
seemed to be awaiting the moment when he should pitch headlong. He
stalked like the specter of a soldier, his eyes burning with the power
of a stare into the unknown.
   There were some who proceeded sullenly, full of anger at their
wounds, and ready to turn upon anything as an obscure cause.
   An officer was carried along by two privates. He was peevish.
"Don't 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
roadway, scattering wounded men right and left, galloping on
followed by howls. The melancholy march was continually disturbed by
the messengers, and sometimes by bustling batteries that came swinging
and thumping down upon them, the officers shouting orders to clear the
way.
   There was a tattered man, fouled with dust, blood and powder
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 agape
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
different 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 lamblike 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
fellers fight so. Laws, how they did fight! I knowed th' boys'd like
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 knowed 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 talkin' 'cross pickets with a boy from Georgie, onct, an'
that boy, he ses, 'Your fellers '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'jiminey,' I ses back t' 'um, 'mebbe your
fellers '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 bent his head and fastened his eyes studiously upon
the button as if it were a little problem.
   The tattered man looked after him in astonishment.
                          CHAPTER IX

   THE YOUTH FELL BACK IN THE PROCESSION until the tattered soldier
was not in sight. Then he started to walk on with the others.
   But he was amid wounds. The mob of men was bleeding. Because of the
tattered soldier's question he now felt that his shame could be
viewed. He was continually casting sidelong glances to see if the
men were contemplating the letters of guilt he felt burned into his
brow.
   At times he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way. He
conceived persons with torn bodies to be peculiarly happy. He wished
that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage.
   The spectral soldier was at his side like a stalking reproach.
The man's eyes were still fixed in a stare into the unknown. His gray,
appalling face had attracted attention in the crowd, and men,
slowing to his dreary pace, were walking with him. They were
discussing his plight, questioning him and giving him advice. In a
dogged way he repelled them, signing to them to go on 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 passion 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 waxlike features toward him,
the youth screamed:
   "Gawd! Jim Conklin!"
   The tall soldier made a little commonplace 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'jiminey, I got
shot- I got shot. Yes, b'jiminey, I got shot." He reiterated this fact
in a bewildered way, as if he did not know how it came about.
   The youth put forth anxious arms to assist him, but the tall
soldier went firmly on as if propelled. Since the youth's arrival as a
guardian for his friend, the other wounded men had ceased to display
much interest. They occupied themselves again in dragging their own
tragedies toward the rear.
   Suddenly, as the two friends marched on, the tall soldier seemed to
be overcome by a terror. His face turned to a semblance of gray paste.
He clutched the youth's arm and looked all about him, as if dreading
to be overheard. Then he began to speak in a shaking whisper:
   "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 yeh,
Jim! I'll take care of yeh! I swear t' Gawd I will!"
   "Sure- will yeh, Henry?" the tall soldier beseeched.
   "Yes- yes- I tell yeh- I'll take care of yeh, 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
babelike 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 a 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 specter 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
shoulders. 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'
helity-whoop 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 outcry
from the tattered man.
   "Gawd! He's runnin'!"
   Turning his head swiftly, the youth saw his friend running in a
staggering and stumbling way toward a little clump of bushes. His
heart seemed to wrench itself almost free from his body at this sight.
He made a noise of pain. He and the tattered man began a pursuit.
There was a singular race.
   When he overtook the tall soldier he began to plead with all the
words he could find. "Jim- Jim- what are you doing- what makes you
do this way- you'll hurt yerself."
   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 yeh goin', 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 minit."
   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 ritelike 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 side. He was waiting
with patience for something that he had come to meet. He was at the
rendezvous. They paused and stood, expectant.
   There was a silence.
   Finally, the chest of the doomed soldier began to heave with a
strained motion. It increased in violence until it was as if an animal
was within and was kicking and tumbling furiously to be free.
   This spectacle of gradual strangulation made the youth writhe,
and once as his friend rolled his eyes, he saw something in them
that made him 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 implike 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. "God!"
said the tattered soldier.
   The youth had watched, spellbound, 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
pastelike 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 awestruck 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 enjoying 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 goin' t'- 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 'im 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. "O Lord!" He wondered if he was to be the
tortured witness of another grim encounter.
   But his companion waved his hand reassuringly. "Oh, I'm not goin'
t' die yit! There 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-fightin' this afternoon,
all-of-a-sudden he begin t' rip up an' cuss an' beller at me. 'Yer
shot, yeh blamed infernal!'- 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 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
fightin' yit, if t'wasn'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 furder."
   They went slowly on in silence. "Yeh look pretty peek-ed
yerself," said the tattered man at last. "I bet yeh 've got a 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 to 'im:
Hurt, John? Are yeh hurt much? 'No,' ses he. He looked kinder
surprised, an' he went on tellin' 'em how he felt. He sed he didn't
feel nothin'. But, by dad, th' first thing that feller knowed 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 upraising 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 hatred and contempt at the tattered man, here spoke
in a hard voice. "Good-by," 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 field.
   He now thought that he wished he was dead. He believed that he
envied those men whose bodies lay strewn over the grass of the
fields and on the fallen leaves of the forest.
   The simple questions of the tattered man had been knife 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 roadway was now a
crying mass of wagons, teams, and men. From the heaving tangle
issued exhortations, commands, imprecations. Fear was sweeping it
all along. The cracking whips bit and horses plunged and tugged. The
white-topped wagons strained and stumbled in their 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 stem. 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 sunlight. 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 uplifted him. He felt the quiver of war desire. In
his ears, he heard the ring of victory. He knew the frenzy of a
rapid successful charge. The music of the trampling feet, the sharp
voices, the clanking arms of the column near him made him soar on
the red wings of war. For a few moments he was sublime.
   He thought that he was about to start for the front. Indeed, he saw
a picture of himself, dust-stained, haggard, panting, flying to the
front at the proper moment to seize and throttle the dark, leering
witch of calamity.
   Then the difficulties of the thing began to drag at him. He
hesitated, balancing awkwardly on one foot.
   He had no rifle; he could not fight with his hands, said he
resentfully to his plan. 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
labored through some lies.
   Eventually, his courage expended itself upon these objections.
The debates drained him of his fire.
   He was not cast down by 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 clamor. As he was at last
compelled to pay attention to them, his capacity for self-hate was
multiplied. In despair, he declared that he was not like those others.
He now conceded it to be impossible that he should ever become a hero.
He was a craven loon. Those pictures of glory were piteous things.
He groaned from his heart and went staggering off.
   A certain mothlike quality within him kept him in the vicinity of
the battle. He had a great desire to see, and to get news. He wished
to know who was winning.
   He told himself that, despite his unprecedented suffering, he had
never lost his greed for a victory, yet, he said, in a half-apologetic
manner to his conscience, he could not but know that a defeat for
the army this time might mean many favorable things for him. The blows
of the enemy would splinter regiments into fragments. Thus, many men
of courage, he considered, would be obliged to desert the colors 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 farther 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
center no direct sympathy upon him. The people were afar and he did
not conceive public opinion to be accurate at long range. It was quite
probable they would hit the wrong man who, after he had recovered from
his amazement would perhaps spend the rest of his days in writing
replies to the songs of his alleged failure. It would be very
unfortunate, no doubt, but in this case a general was of no
consequence to the youth.
   In a defeat there would be a roundabout vindication of himself.
He thought it would prove, in a manner, that he had fled early because
of his superior powers of perception. A serious prophet upon
predicting a flood should be the first man to climb a tree. This would
demonstrate that he was indeed a seer.
   A moral vindication was regarded by the youth as a very important
thing. Without salve, he could not, he thought, wear the sore badge of
his dishonor through life. With his heart continually assuring him
that he was despicable, he could not exist without making it,
through his actions, apparent to all men.
   If the army had gone gloriously on he would be lost. If the din
meant that now his army's flags were tilted forward he was a condemned
wretch. He would be compelled to doom himself to isolation. If the men
were advancing, their indifferent feet were trampling upon his chances
for a successful life.
   As these thoughts went rapidly through his mind, he turned upon
them and tried to thrust them away. He denounced himself as a villain.
He said that he was the most 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
roadway was barely out of the youth's sight before he saw dark waves
of men come sweeping out of the woods and down through the fields.
He knew at once that the steel fibers had been washed from their
hearts. They were bursting from their coats and their equipments as
from entanglements. They charged down upon him like terrified
buffaloes.
   Behind them blue smoke curled and clouded above the treetops, and
through the thickets he could sometimes see a distant pink glare.
The voices of the cannon were clamoring in interminable chorus.
   The youth was horrorstricken. 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 hymn, but he could only get his
tongue to call into the air: "Why- why- what- what's th' 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 got into the center 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: "Let go me! Let go me!" His face was livid and
his eyes were rolling uncontrolled. He was heaving and panting. He
still grasped his rifle, perhaps having forgotten to release his
hold upon it. He tugged frantically, and the youth being compelled
to lean forward was dragged several paces.
   "Let go me! Let go 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 clinched 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 besplashed 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 fishwives. Their scolding voices could be heard above the din.
Into the unspeakable jumble in the roadway rode a squadron of cavalry.
The faded yellow of their 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 field. The lines of forest
were long purple shadows. One cloud lay along the western sky partly
smothering the red.
   As the youth left the scene behind him, he heard the guns
suddenly roar out. He imagined them shaking in black rage. They
belched and howled like brass devils guarding a gate. The soft air was
filled with 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 somber sky. There seemed to be a
great ruck of men and munitions spread about in the forest and in
the fields.
   The little narrow roadway now lay lifeless. There were overturned
wagons like sun-dried bowlders. 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.
   Amid it he began to reflect upon various incidents and conditions
of the past. He bethought him of certain meals his mother had cooked
at home, in which those dishes of which he was particularly fond had
occupied prominent positions. He saw the spread table. The pine
walls of the kitchen were glowing in the warm light from the stove.
Too, he remembered how he and his companions used to go from the
schoolhouse to the bank of a shaded pool. He saw his clothes in
disorderly array upon the grass of the bank. He felt the swash of
the fragrant water upon his body. The leaves of the overhanging
maple rustled with melody in the wind of youthful summer.
   He was overcome presently by a dragging weariness. His head hung
forward and his shoulders were stooped as if he were bearing a great
bundle. His feet shuffled along the ground.
   He held continuous arguments as to whether he should lie down and
sleep at some near spot, or force himself on until he reached a
certain haven. He often tried to dismiss the question, but his body
persisted in rebellion and his senses nagged 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 engaged t'-day- they're 'way over in
th' center. Oh, they was, eh? Well, pretty nearly everybody got
their share 'a fightin' 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
talkin' 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' sayin': 'Say, where's th' road t'
th' river?' Jack was a-lookin' 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-by, 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 strode away. As he who had so befriended 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, clamoring, forced him to seek the place
of food and rest, at whatever cost.
   He swung unsteadily toward the fire. He could see the forms of
men throwing black shadows in the red light, and as he went nearer
it became known to him in some way that the ground was strewn with
sleeping men.
   Of a sudden he confronted a black and monstrous figure. A rifle
barrel caught some glinting beams. "Halt! halt!" He was dismayed for a
moment, but he presently thought that he recognized 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 comrades. 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 th' right. Ter'ble fightin' over there. I
had an awful time. I got separated from th' reg'ment. Over on th'
right, I got shot. In th' head. I never see sech fightin'. Awful time.
I don't see how I could a' got separated from th' reg'ment. 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
doin'. I'll call Simpson."
   Another figure at that moment loomed in the gloom. They could see
that it was the corporal. "Who yeh talkin' to, Wilson?" he demanded.
His voice was anger-toned. "Who yeh talkin' to? Yeh 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 th' 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 a 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' nothin' 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 upright, with his back against a tree. There was something
perilous in his position. Badgered by dreams, perhaps, he swayed
with little bounces and starts, like an old, toddy-stricken
grandfather in a chimney corner. Dust and stains were upon his face.
His lower jaw hung down as if lacking strength to assume its normal
position. He was the picture of an exhausted soldier after a feast
of war.
   He had evidently gone to sleep with his sword in his arms. These
two had slumbered in an embrace, but the weapon had been allowed in
time to fall unheeded to the ground. The brass-mounted hilt lay in
contact with some parts of the fire.
   Within the gleam of rose and orange light from the burning sticks
were other soldiers, snoring and heaving, or lying deathlike in
slumber. A few pairs of legs were stuck forth, rigid and straight. The
shoes displayed the mud or dust of marches and bits of rounded
trousers, protruding from the blankets, showed rents and tears from
hurried pitchings through the dense brambles.
   The fire crackled musically. From it swelled light smoke.
Overhead the foliage moved softly. The leaves, with their faces turned
toward the blaze, were colored shifting hues of silver, often edged
with red. Far off to the right, through a window in the forest could
be seen a handful of stars lying, like glittering pebbles, on the
black level of the night.
   Occasionally, in this low-arched hall a soldier would arouse and
turn his body to a new position, the experience of his sleep having
taught him of uneven and objectionable places upon the ground under
him. Or, perhaps, he would lift himself to a sitting posture, 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 nothin'," remarked his friend
approvingly. "I know I'm a blacksmith at takin' 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 doglike 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: "Hol' on a minnit! Where you goin'
t' sleep?"
   His friend waved his hand impatiently. "Right down there by yeh."
   "Well, but hol' on a minnit," continued the youth. "What yeh
goin' t' sleep in? I've got your-"
   The loud young soldier snarled: "Shet up an' go on t' sleep.
Don't be makin' a damn' fool 'a yerself," he said severely.
   After the reproof the youth said no more. An exquisite drowsiness
had spread through him. The warm comfort of the blanket enveloped
him and made a gentle languor. His head fell forward on his crooked
arm and his weighted lids went softly down over his eyes. Hearing a
splatter of musketry from the distance, he wondered indifferently 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. Gray mists were slowly shifting before the first
efforts of the sun rays. An impending splendor could be seen in the
eastern sky. An icy dew had chilled his face, and immediately upon
arousing he curled farther down into his blanket. He stared for a
while at the leaves overhead, moving in a heraldic wind of the day.
   The distance was splintering and blaring with the noise of
fighting. There was in the sound an expression of a deadly
persistency, as if it had not begun and was not to cease.
   About him were the rows and groups of men that he had dimly seen
the previous night. They were getting a last draught of sleep before
the awakening. The gaunt, careworn features and dusty figures were
made plain by this quaint light at the dawning, but it dressed the
skin of the men in corpselike 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, thickspread upon
the ground, pallid, and in strange postures. His disordered mind
interpreted the hall of the forest as a charnel place. He believed for
an instant that he was in the house of the dead, and he did not dare
to move lest these corpses start up, squalling and squawking. In a
second, however, he achieved his proper mind. He swore a complicated
oath at himself. He saw that this somber picture was not a fact of the
present, but a mere prophecy.
   He heard then the noise of a fire crackling briskly in the cold
air, and, turning his head, he saw his friend pottering busily about a
small blaze. A few other figures moved in the fog, and he heard the
hard 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
gamecocks. The near thunder of the regimental drums rolled.
   The body of men in the woods rustled. There was a general uplifting
of heads. A murmuring of voices broke upon the air. In it there was
much bass of grumbling oaths. Strange gods were addressed in
condemnation of the early hours necessary to correct war. An officer's
peremptory tenor rang out and quickened the stiffened movement of
the men. The tangled limbs unraveled. The corpse-hued faces were
hidden behind fists that twisted slowly in the eye sockets.
   The youth sat up and gave vent to an enormous yawn. "Thunder!" he
remarked petulantly. He rubbed his eyes, and then putting up his
hand felt carefully of the bandage over his wound. His friend,
perceiving him to be awake, came from the fire. "Well, 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 an' throw guns at
it. Now, go slow, an' 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 fireside the loud young soldier watched over his comrade's
wants with tenderness and care. He was very busy marshaling the little
black vagabonds of tin cups and pouring into them the streaming,
iron colored 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, headstrong, jealous, and filled with a tinsel courage.
A swaggering babe accustomed to strut in his own dooryard. The youth
wondered where had been born these new eyes; when his comrade had made
the great discovery that there were many men who would refuse to be
subjected by him. Apparently, the other had now climbed a peak of
wisdom from which he could perceive himself as a very wee thing. And
the youth saw that ever after it would be easier to live in his
friend's neighborhood.
   His comrade balanced his ebony coffee-cup on his knee. "Well,
Henry," he said, "what d'yeh think th' chances are? D'yeh think
we'll wallop 'em?"
   The youth considered for a moment. "Day-b'fore-yesterday," he
finally replied, with boldness, "you would 'a' bet you'd lick the hull
kit-an'-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 deprecating 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' officers say we've got th' rebs in a pretty tight box,"
said the friend, clearing his throat in a commonplace 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 seen over
on th' right makes me think it was th' other way about. From where I
was, it looked as if we was gettin' a good poundin' yestirday."
   "D'yeh think so?" inquired 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 th' 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 fightin' '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 fightin' 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 forefingers.
   The huge soldier was quite purple with rage. He pointed at the
two soldiers with his great hand, extended clawlike. "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
fightin' 'mong themselves."
   The youth laughed. "Yer changed a good bit. Yeh ain't at all like
yeh was. I remember when you an' that Irish feller-" He stopped and
laughed again.
   "No, I didn't use 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, yer 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 kep' 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, fightin' 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 intrusted 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
keepsakes to relatives. But he had not died, and thus he had delivered
himself into the hands of the youth.
   The latter felt immensely superior to his friend, but he inclined
to condescension. He adopted toward him an air of patronizing good
humor.
   His self-pride was now entirely restored. In the shade of its
flourishing growth he stood with braced and self-confident legs, and
since nothing could now be discovered he did not shrink from an
encounter with the eyes of judges, and allowed no thoughts of his
own to keep him from an attitude of manfulness. He had performed his
mistakes in the dark, so he was still a man.
   Indeed, when he remembered his fortunes of yesterday, and looked at
them from a distance he began to see something fine there. He had
license to be pompous and veteranlike.
   His panting agonies of the past he put out of his sight.
   In the present, he declared to himself that it was only the
doomed and the damned who roared with sincerity at circumstances.
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
recalled their terror-struck faces he felt a scorn for them. They
had surely been more fleet and more wild than was absolutely
necessary. They were weak mortals. As for himself, he had fled with
discretion and dignity.
   He was aroused from 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 SPUTTERING OF MUSKETRY WAS ALWAYS TO be heard. Later, the
cannon had entered the dispute. In the fog-filled air their voices
made a thudding sound. The reverberations were continued. This part of
the world led a strange, battleful existence.
   The youth'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 lines 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 rumors 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 gray 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 sentences. "B'jiminey, we're
generaled by a lot 'a 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 knowed. 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 dumfounded 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 reg'ment
fight the way we fought yestirday, didn't he? And we didn't do
better than many another reg'ment, did we? Well, then, you can't say
it's th' 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 an' don't ever whip, it
must be the general's fault," said the youth grandly and decisively.
"And I don't see any sense in fighting and fighting and fighting,
yet always losing through some derned old 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. Inwardly he was reduced to an
abject pulp by these chance words. His legs quaked privately. He
cast a frightened glance at the sarcastic man.
   "Why, no," he hastened to say in a conciliating voice, "I don't
think I fought the whole battle yesterday."
   But the other seemed innocent of any deeper meaning. Apparently, he
had no information. It was merely his habit. "Oh!" he replied in the
same tone of calm derision.
   The youth, nevertheless, felt a threat. His mind shrank from
going near to the danger, and thereafter he was silent. The
significance of the sarcastic man's words took from him all loud moods
that would make him appear prominent. He became suddenly a modest
person.
   There was low-toned talk among the troops. The officers were
impatient and snappy, their countenances clouded with the tales of
misfortune. The troops, sifting through the forest, were sullen. In
the youth's company once a man's laugh rang out. A dozen soldiers
turned their faces quickly toward him and frowned with vague
displeasure.
   The noise of firing dogged their footsteps. Sometimes, it seemed to
be driven a little way, but it always returned again with increased
insolence. The men muttered and cursed, throwing black looks in its
direction.
   In a clear space the troops were at last halted. Regiments and
brigades, broken and detached through their encounters with
thickets, grew together again and lines were faced toward the pursuing
bark of the enemy's infantry.
   This noise, following like the yellings of eager, metallic
hounds, increased to a loud and joyous burst, and then, as the sun
went serenely up the sky, throwing illuminating rays into the gloomy
thickets, it broke forth into prolonged pealings. The woods began to
crackle as if afire.
   "Whoop-a-dadee," said a man, "here we are! Everybody fightin'.
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 mustache. He strode
to and fro with dark dignity in the rear of his men, who were lying
down behind whatever protection they had collected.
   A battery had trundled into position in the rear and was
thoughtfully shelling the distance. The regiment, unmolested as yet,
awaited the moment when the gray shadows of the woods before them
should be slashed by the lines of flame. There was much growling and
swearing.
   "Good 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 briers,
and then we begin 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 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 to fight, an' you'll get plenty 'a that t' do in about ten minutes.
Less talkin' an' more fightin' is what's best for you boys. I never
saw sech gabbling jackasses."
   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 fightin' in this war,
anyhow," he said to them, turning his head for a final remark.
   The day had grown more white, until the sun shed 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 labored much. They rolled their eyes toward the
advancing battle as they stood awaiting the shock. Some shrank and
flinched. They stood as men tied to stakes.
                         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 proved 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 curl-like snarl. The awkward bandage was still about his
head, and upon it, over his wound, there was a spot of dry blood.
His hair was wondrously tousled, and some straggling, moving locks
hung over the cloth of the bandage down toward his forehead. His
jacket and shirt were open at the throat, and exposed his young
bronzed neck. There could be seen spasmodic gulpings at his throat.
   His fingers twined nervously about his rifle. He wished that it was
an engine of annihilating power. He felt that he and his companions
were being taunted and derided from sincere convictions that they were
poor and puny. His knowledge of his inability to take vengeance for it
made his rage into a dark and stormy specter, 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 knifelike 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 ramrod. 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 recalled 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 had been thrashed. His flesh seemed
strangely on fire, and the sounds of the battle continued in his ears.
He groped blindly for his canteen.
   The lieutenant was crowing. He seemed drunk with fighting. He
called out to the youth: "By heavens, if I had ten thousand wild
cats like you I could tear 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 nothin' th' matter with yeh, Henry, is there?"
   "No," said the youth with difficulty. His throat seemed full of
knobs and burs.
   These incidents made the youth ponder. It was revealed to him
that he had been a barbarian, a beast. He had fought like a pagan
who defends his religion. Regarding it, he saw that it was fine, wild,
and, in some ways, easy. He had been a tremendous figure, no doubt. By
this struggle he had overcome obstacles which he had admitted to be
mountains. They had fallen like paper peaks, and he was now what he
called a hero. And he had not been aware of the process. He had
slept and, awakening, found himself a knight.
   He lay and basked in the occasional stares of his comrades. Their
faces were varied in degrees of blackness from the burned powder. Some
were utterly smudged. They were reeking with perspiration, and their
breaths came hard and wheezing. And from these soiled expanses they
peered at him.
   "Hot work! Hot work!" cried the lieutenant deliriously. He walked
up and down, 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 dustpanful."
   "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 clamor. From off under the
trees came the rolling clatter of the musketry. Each distant thicket
seemed a strange porcupine with quills of flame. A cloud of dark
smoke, as from smoldering ruins, went up toward the sun now bright and
gay in the blue, enameled sky.
                         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
rushing of the men. The voices of the cannon were mingled in a long
and interminable row. It seemed difficult to live in such an
atmosphere. The chests of the men strained for a bit of freshness, and
their throats craved water.
   There was one shot through the body, who raised a cry of bitter
lamentation when came 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 onto 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 hurling smoke
of the line. They could see dark stretches winding along the land, and
on one cleared space there was a row of guns making gray clouds, which
were filled with large flashes of orange-colored flame. Over some
foliage they could see the roof of a house. One window, glowing a deep
murder red, shone squarely through the leaves. From the edifice a tall
leaning tower of smoke went far into the sky.
   Looking over their own troops, they saw mixed masses slowly getting
into regular form. The sunlight made twinkling points of the bright
steel. To the rear there was a glimpse of a distant roadway as it
curved over a slope. It was crowded with retreating infantry. From all
the interwoven forest arose the smoke and bluster of the battle. The
air was always occupied by a blaring.
   Near where they stood shells were flip-flapping and hooting.
Occasional bullets buzzed in the air and spanged into tree trunks.
Wounded men and other stragglers were slinking through the woods.
   Looking down an aisle of the grove, the youth and his 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 skillful
abandon of a cowboy, galloped his horse to a position directly
before the general. The two unnoticed foot soldiers made a little show
of going on, but they lingered near in the desire to overhear the
conversation. Perhaps, they thought, some great inner historical
things would be said.
   The general, whom the boys knew as the commander of their division,
looked at the other officer and spoke coolly, as if he were
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 cowboy 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
developments 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 to git water, anyhow- where yeh been to."
   But his oration ceased as he saw their eyes, which were large
with great tales. "We're goin' t' charge- we're goin' t' charge!"
cried the youth's friend, hastening with his news.
   "Charge?" said the lieutenant. "Charge? Well, b' Gawd! Now, this is
real fightin'." 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? Wilson,
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 re-enforcement. "Not by a blame sight, he
ain't lyin'. We heard 'em talkin'."
   They caught sight of two mounted figures a short distance from
them. One was the colonel of the regiment and the other was the
officer who had received orders from the commander of the division.
They were gesticulating at each other. The soldier, pointing at
them, interpreted the scene.
   One man had a final objection: "How could yeh hear 'em talkin'?"
But the men, for a large part, nodded, admitting that previously the
two friends had spoken truth.
   They settled back into reposeful attitudes with airs of having
accepted the matter. And they mused upon it, with a hundred
varieties of expression. It was an engrossing thing to think about.
Many tightened their belts carefully and hitched at their trousers.
   A moment later the officers began to bustle among the men,
pushing them into a more compact mass and into a better alignment.
They chased those that straggled and fumed at a few men who seemed
to show by their attitudes that they had decided to remain at that
spot. They were like critical shepherds struggling with sheep.
   Presently, the regiment seemed to draw itself up and heave a deep
breath. None of the men's faces were mirrors of large thoughts. The
soldiers were bended and stooped like sprinters before a signal.
Many pairs of glinting eyes peered from the grimy faces toward the
curtains of the deeper woods. They seemed to be engaged in deep
calculations of time and distance.
   They were surrounded by the noises of the monstrous altercation
between the two armies. The world was fully interested in other
matters. Apparently, the regiment had its small affair to itself.
   The youth, turning, shot a quick, inquiring glance at his friend.
The latter returned to him the same manner of look. They were the only
ones who possessed an inner knowledge. "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 swallowed."
                         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 endeavor. 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 accouterments, 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 center
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 treetops. 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 gray 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 vapor that floated idly in
sheets. The brown or gray 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
head-long, to queer, heaped-up corpses- all were comprehended. His
mind took a mechanical but firm impression, so that afterward
everything was pictured and explained to him, save why he himself
was there.
   But there was frenzy made from this furious rush. The men, pitching
forward insanely, had burst into cheerings, moblike 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, afterward, what reasons he could have had for being there.
   Presently the straining pace ate up the energies of the men. As
if by agreement, the leaders began to slacken their speed. The volleys
directed against them had had a seeming windlike 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, overcome them with a
fatal fascination. They stared woodenly at the sights, and, lowering
their eyes, looked from face to face. It was a strange pause, and a
strange silence.
   Then, above the sounds of the outside commotion, arose the roar
of the lieutenant. He strode suddenly forth, his infantile features
black with rage.
   "Come on, 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 farther 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 childlike 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.
   "Certainly. 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 yerself, 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 colors the three men began to
bawl: "Come on! come on!" They danced and gyrated like tortured
savages.
   The flag, obedient to these appeals, bended its glittering form and
swept toward them. The men wavered in indecision for a moment, and
then with a long, wailful cry the 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 color sergeant flinched
suddenly, as if struck by a bludgeon. He faltered, and then became
motionless, save for his quivering knees.
   He made a spring and a clutch at the pole. At the same instant
his friend grabbed it from the other side. They jerked at it, stout
and furious, but the color sergeant was dead, and the corpse would not
relinquish its trust. For a moment there was a grim encounter. The
dead man, swinging with bended back, seemed to be obstinately tugging,
in ludicrous and awful ways, for the possession of the flag.
   It was 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 screeches, in which the
men were ordered to do conflicting and impossible things.
   The youth and his friend had a small scuffle over the flag. "Give
it 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 youthful lieutenant was perhaps
the last man in the disordered mass. His forgotten back was toward the
enemy. He had been shot in the arm. It hung straight and rigid.
Occasionally he would cease to remember it, and be about to
emphasize an oath with a sweeping gesture. The multiplied pain
caused him to swear with incredible power.
   The youth went along with slipping, uncertain feet. He kept
watchful eyes rearward. A scowl of mortification and rage was upon his
face. He had thought of a fine revenge upon the officer who had
referred to him and his fellows as mule drivers. But he saw that it
could not come to pass. His dreams had collapsed when the mule
drivers, dwindling rapidly, had wavered and hesitated on the little
clearing, and then had recoiled. And now the retreat of the mule
drivers was a march of shame to him.
   A dagger-pointed gaze from without his blackened face was held
toward the enemy, but his greater hatred was riveted upon the man,
who, not knowing him, had called him a mule driver.
   When he knew that he and his comrades had failed to do anything
in successful ways that might bring the little pangs of a kind of
remorse upon the officer, the youth allowed the rage of the baffled to
possess him. This cold officer upon a monument, who dropped 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 uplifting of the smoke had been prearranged,
the discovered troops burst into a rasping yell, and a hundred
flames jetted toward the retreating band. A rolling gray cloud again
interposed as the regiment doggedly replied. The youth had to depend
again upon his misused ears, which were trembling and buzzing from the
melee of musketry and yells.
   The way seemed eternal. In the clouded haze men became
panicstricken 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 illusions to a general. Men ran hither
and thither, seeking with their eyes roads of escape. With serene
regularity, as if controlled by a schedule, bullets buffed into men.
   The youth walked stolidly into the midst of the mob, and with his
flag in his hands took a stand as if he expected an attempt to push
him to the ground. He unconsciously assumed the attitude of the
color bearer in the fight of the preceding day. He passed over his
brow a hand that trembled. His breath did not come freely. He was
choking during this small wait for the crisis.
   His friend came to him. "Well, Henry, I guess this is good-by-
John."
   "Oh, shut up, you damned fool!" replied the youth, and he would not
look at the other.
   The officers labored like politicians to beat the mass into a
proper circle to face the menaces. The ground was uneven and torn. The
men curled into depressions and fitted themselves snugly behind
whatever would frustrate a bullet.
   The youth noted with vague surprise that the lieutenant was
standing mutely with his legs far apart and his sword held in the
manner of a cane. The youth wondered what had happened to his vocal
organs that he no more cursed.
   There was something curious in this little intent pause of the
lieutenant. He was like a babe which, having wept its fill raises
its eyes and fixes them 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
youthful 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. Also he perceived with dim amazement
that their uniforms were rather gay in effect, being light gray,
accented with a brilliant-hued facing. Moreover, the clothes seemed
new.
   These troops had apparently been going forward with caution,
their rifles held in readiness, when the youthful lieutenant had
discovered them and their movement had been interrupted by the
volley from the blue regiment. From the moment's glimpse, it was
derived that they had been unaware of the proximity of their
dark-suited foes 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 ramrods. The youth ducked
and dodged for a time and achieved a few unsatisfactory views of the
enemy. There appeared to be many of them and they were replying
swiftly. They seemed moving toward the blue regiment, step by step. He
seated himself gloomily on the ground with his flag between his knees.
   As he noted the vicious, wolflike 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 endeavored
to demonstrate that the men could not fight well. When on the verge of
submission to these opinions, the small duel had showed them that
the proportions were not impossible, and by it they had revenged
themselves upon their misgivings and upon the foe.
   The impetus of enthusiasm was theirs again. They gazed about them
with looks of uplifted pride, feeling new trust in the grim, always
confident weapons in their hands. And they were men.
                         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 broadcast 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 honor. And the youthful lieutenant,
recollecting himself, began to mutter softly in black curses.
   They turned when they arrived at their old position to regard the
ground over which they had charged.
   The youth in 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, disheveled.
   They were gulping at their canteens, fierce to wring every mite
of water from them, and they polished at their swollen and watery
features with coat sleeves and bunches of grass.
   However, to the youth there was a considerable joy in 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 recalled bits
of color 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 tousled hair streamed wildly, and his face was
dark with vexation and wrath. His temper was displayed with more
clearness by the way in which he managed his horse. He jerked and
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 farther 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 very far, was it?" he added, with a glance of cold
contempt into the other's eyes. "Not very far, I think. You were
intended to make a diversion in favor of 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 yestirday- he'd have known that we
did our best and fought good. It's just our awful luck, that's what."
   "I should say so," replied the friend. He seemed to be deeply
wounded at an injustice. "I should say we did have awful luck! There's
no fun in fightin' 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!"
   "Of 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, for I heard one feller say that we two fit th' best in th'
reg'ment, an' they had a great argument '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 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 'im
what-"
   He ceased because several men had come hurrying up. Their faces
expressed a bringing of great news.
   "O 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 damnedest
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 jimhickey,' he ses, right away.
What? I say he did. 'A jimhickey,' 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 jimhickey,' an' th' colonel, he ses: 'Ahem! ahem! he
is, indeed, a very good man t' have, ahem! He kep' 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, hay? '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 the lieutenant. 'Well, well, ses the 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 youthful
lieutenant.
                         CHAPTER XXII

   WHEN THE WOODS AGAIN BEGAN TO POUR forth the dark-hued masses of
the enemy the youth felt serene self-confidence. He smiled briefly
when he saw men dodge and duck at the long 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 nowise disturbed. There were no traces of speed in its
movements. The brigade was jaunty and seemed to point a proud thumb at
the yelling wood.
   On a slope to the left there was a long row of guns, gruff and
maddened, denouncing the enemy, who, down through the woods, were
forming for another attack in the pitiless monotony of conflicts.
The round red discharges from the guns made a crimson flare and a
high, thick smoke. Occasional glimpses could be caught of groups of
the toiling artillerymen In the rear of this row of guns stood a
house, calm and white, amid bursting shells. A congregation of horses,
tied to a long railing, were tugging frenziedly at their bridles.
Men were running hither and thither.
   The detached battle between the four regiments lasted for some
time. There chanced to be no interference, and they settled their
dispute by themselves. They struck savagely and powerfully at each
other for a period of minutes, and then the lighter-hued regiments
faltered and drew back, leaving the dark-blue lines shouting. The
youth could see the two flags shaking with laughter amid the smoke
remnants.
   Presently there was a stillness, pregnant with meaning. The blue
lines shifted and changed a trifle and stared expectantly at the
silent woods and fields before them. The hush was solemn and
churchlike, save for a distant battery that, evidently unable to
remain quiet, sent a faint rolling thunder over the ground. It
irritated, like the noises of unimpressed boys. The men imagined
that it would prevent their perched ears from hearing the first
words of the new battle.
   Of a sudden the guns on the slope roared out a message of
warning. A spluttering sound had begun in the woods. It swelled with
amazing speed to a profound clamor 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 up. They were incapable of hearing more.
   On an incline over which a road wound he saw wild and desperate
rushes of men perpetually backward and forward in riotous surges.
These parts of the opposing armies were two long waves that pitched
upon each other madly at dictated points. To and fro they swelled.
Sometimes, one side by its yells and cheers would proclaim decisive
blows, but a moment later the other side would be all yells and
cheers. Once the youth saw a spray of light forms go in houndlike
leaps toward the waving blue lines. There was much howling, and
presently it went away with a vast mouthful of prisoners. Again, he
saw a blue wave dash with such thunderous force against a gray
obstruction that it seemed to clear the earth of it and leave
nothing but trampled sod. And always in their swift and deadly
rushes to and fro the men screamed and yelled like maniacs.
   Particular pieces of fence or secure positions behind collections
of trees were wrangled over, as gold thrones or pearl 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 color 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 bent their heads in aims of
intent hatred behind the projected hammers of their guns. Their
ramrods clanged loud with fury as their eager arms pounded the
cartridges into the rifle barrels. The front of the regiment was a
smoke-wall penetrated by the flashing points of yellow and red.
   Wallowing in the fight, they were in an astonishingly short time
resmudged. They surpassed in stain and dirt all their previous
appearances. Moving to and fro with strained exertion, jabbering the
while, they were, with their swaying bodies, black faces, and
glowing eyes, like strange and ugly friends 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 lashlike over the
backs of his men, and it was evident that his previous efforts had
in nowise impaired his resources.
   The youth, still the bearer of the colors, did not feel his
idleness. He was deeply absorbed as a spectator. The crash and swing
of the great drama made him lean forward, intent-eyed, his face
working in small contortions. Sometimes he prattled, words coming
unconsciously from him in grotesque exclamations. He did not know that
he breathed; that the flag hung silently over him, so absorbed was he.
   A formidable line of the enemy came within dangerous range. They
could be seen plainly- tall, gaunt men with excited faces running with
long strides toward a wandering fence.
   At sight of this danger the men suddenly ceased their cursing
monotone. There was an instant of 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 clinched 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 gibelike cries,
but the regiment maintained a stressed silence. Perhaps, at this new
assault the men recalled 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 hatred. It was clear to him that his
final and absolute revenge was to be achieved by his dead body
lying, torn and gluttering, upon the field. This was to be a
poignant retaliation upon the officer who had said "mule drivers," and
later "mud diggers," for in all the wild graspings of his mind for a
unit responsible for his sufferings and commotions he always seized
upon the man who had dubbed him wrongly. And it was his idea,
vaguely formulated, that his corpse would be for those eyes a great
and salt reproach.
   The regiment bled extravagantly. Grunting bundles of blue began
to drop. The orderly sergeant of the youth'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
endeavor there was a dreadful earnestness, as if he conceived that one
great shriek would make him well.
   The youth saw him presently go rearward. His strength seemed in
nowise 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 frowzled, 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 colors to the front. He was waving his
free arm in furious circles, the while shrieking mad calls and
appeals, urging on those that did not need to be urged, for it
seemed that the mob of blue men hurling themselves on the dangerous
group of rifles were again grown suddenly wild with an enthusiasm of
unselfishness. From the many 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 questioning, nor figurings, nor diagrams. There was,
apparently, no considered loopholes. It appeared that the swift
wings of their desires would have shattered against the iron gates
of the impossible.
   He himself felt the daring spirit of a savage religion-mad. He
was capable of profound sacrifices, a tremendous death. He had no time
for dissections, but he knew that he thought of the bullets only as
things that could prevent him from reaching the place of his endeavor.
There were subtle flashings of joy within him that thus should be
his mind.
   He strained all his strength. His eyesight was shaken and 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 gray men.
   As he ran a thought of the shock of contact gleamed in his mind. He
expected a great concussion when the two bodies of troops crashed
together. This became a part of his wild battle madness. He could feel
the onward swing of the regiment about him and he conceived of a
thunderous, crushing blow that would prostrate the resistance and
spread consternation and amazement for miles. The flying regiment
was going to have a 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 gray did not
intend to abide the blow. The smoke, rolling, disclosed men who ran,
their faces still turned. These grew to a crowd, who retired
stubbornly. Individuals wheeled frequently to send a bullet at the
blue wave.
   But at one part of the line there was a grim and obdurate group
that made no movement. They were settled firmly down behind posts
and rails. A flag, ruffled and fierce, waved over them and their
rifles dinned fiercely.
   The blue whirl of men got very near, until it seemed that in
truth there would be a close and frightful scuffle. There was an
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 centered 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 aflare, 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 gray was
split and broken by this fire, but its riddled body still fought.
The men in blue yelled again and rushed in upon it.
   The youth, in his 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 color 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 color 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
out of 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 "O Lord!" They had as many
objections to this change as they would have had to a proposal for a
new battle.
   They trampled slowly back over the field across which they had
run in a mad scamper.
   The regiment marched until it had joined its fellows. The
reformed brigade, in column, aimed through a wood at the road.
Directly they were in a mass of dust-covered troops, and were trudging
along in a way parallel to the enemy's lines as these had been defined
by the previous turmoil.
   They passed within view of a stolid white house, and saw in front
of it groups of their comrades lying in wait behind a neat breastwork.
A row of guns were booming at a distant enemy. Shells thrown in
reply were raising clouds of dust and splinters. Horsemen dashed along
the line of intrenchments.
   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 undergoing 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
upheavals and had come forth. He had been where there was red of blood
and black of passion, and he was escaped. His first thoughts were
given to 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 sheeplike, 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, having various
deflections. They went gayly with music. It was pleasure to watch
these things. He spent delightful minutes viewing the gilded images of
memory.
   He saw that he was good. He recalled with a thrill of joy the
respectful comments of his fellows upon his conduct.
   Nevertheless, the ghost of his flight from the first engagement
appeared to him and danced. There were small shoutings in his brain
about these matters. For a moment he blushed, and the light of his
soul flickered with shame.
   A specter of reproach came to him. There loomed the dogging
memory of the tattered soldier- he who, gored by bullets and faint for
blood, had fretted concerning an imagined wound in another; he who had
loaned his last of strength and intellect for the tall soldier; he
who, blind with weariness and pain, had been deserted in the field.
   For an instant a wretched chill of sweat was upon him at the
thought that he might be detected in the thing. As he stood
persistently before his vision, he gave vent to a cry of sharp
irritation and agony.
   His friend turned. "What's the matter, Henry?" he demanded. The
youth's reply was an outburst of crimson oaths.
   As he marched along the little branch-hung roadway among his
prattling companions this vision of cruelty brooded over him. It clung
near him always and darkened his view of these deeds in purple and
gold. Whichever way his thoughts turned they were followed by the
somber phantom of the desertion in the fields. He looked stealthily at
his companions, feeling sure that they must discern in his face
evidences of this pursuit. But they were plodding in ragged array,
discussing with quick tongues the accomplishments of the late battle.
   "Oh, if a man should come up 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 your 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 hundred battles than
been in that heluva hospital. He ses they got shootin' in th'
nighttime, 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 yeh 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 his life. He took no share
in the chatter of his comrades, nor did he look at them or know
them, save when he felt sudden suspicion that they were seeing his
thoughts and scrutinizing each detail of the scene with the tattered
soldier.
   Yet gradually he mustered force to put the sin at a distance. And
at last his eyes seemed to open to some new ways. He found that he
could look back upon the brass and bombast of his earlier gospels
and see them truly. He was gleeful when he discovered that he now
despised them.
   With this conviction came a store of assurance. He felt a quiet
manhood, nonassertive but of sturdy and strong blood. He knew that
he would no more quail before his guides wherever they should point.
He had been to touch the great death, and found that, after all, it
was but the great death. He was a man.
   So it came to pass that as he trudged from the place of blood and
wrath his soul changed. He came from hot plowshares to prospects of
clover tranquilly, and it was as if hot plowshares were not. Scars
faded as flowers.
   It rained. The procession of weary soldiers became a bedraggled
train, despondent and muttering, marching with churning effort in a
trough of liquid brown mud under a low, wretched sky. Yet the youth
smiled, for he saw that the world was a world for him, though many
discovered it to be made of oaths and walking sticks. He had rid
himself of the red sickness of battle. The sultry nightmare was in the
past. He had been an animal blistered and sweating in the heat and
pain of war. He turned now with a lover's thirst to images of tranquil
skies, fresh meadows, cool brooks- an existence of soft and eternal
peace.
   Over the river a golden ray of sun came through the hosts of leaden
rain clouds.


                          THE END