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Variety is the spice of life

Zodijak Aquarius
Pol Muškarac
Poruke 17382
Zastava Srbija
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Windows XP
Browser
Opera 9.00
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SonyEricsson W610
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 pleas-ure 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 team-sters swore many
strange oaths.
The commands to make way had the ring of a great importance
in them. The men were going forward to the heart of the
din. They were to confront the eager rush of the enemy. They
felt the pride of their onward movement when the remainder
of the army seemed trying to dribble down this road. They
tumbled teams about with a fine feeling that it was no matter so
long as their column got to the front in time. This importance
made their faces grave and stern. And the backs of the officers
were very rigid.
As the youth looked at them the black weight of his woe
returned to him. He felt that he was regarding a procession of
chosen beings. The separation was as great to him as if they
had marched with weapons of flame and banners of sunlight.
He could never be like them. He could have wept in his longings.
He searched about in his mind for an ade-quate 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 some-thing 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 com-rades 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 ap-peared
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 imagina-tion 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 him-self
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 distinct-ness. 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 halfapologetic
manner to his conscience, he could not but know
that a defeat for the army this time might mean many favor
able 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 con-ceived that there
would be small trouble in con-vincing 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 writ-ing 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 demon-strate 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 him
self 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 glori-ous 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 hesi-tation. 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 en-counter 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.
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Variety is the spice of life

Zodijak Aquarius
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Zastava Srbija
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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
intermi-nable 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 com-ing with invincible
strides. The army, helpless in the matted thickets and blinded by
the over-hanging 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 strug-gling with his
balking tongue.
The man screamed: “Let go me! Let go me!” His face was
livid and his eyes were roll-ing uncontrolled. He was heaving
and panting. He still grasped his rifle, perhaps having for-gotten
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 light-ning flash before his vision. There was a
deaf-ening 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 scold-ing 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 con-ference.
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 remon-strance.
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, how-ever, 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
ter-rible fingers that clutched into his brain.
Amid it he began to reflect upon various incidents and conditions
of the past. He be-thought him of certain meals his
mother had cooked at home, in which those dishes of which
he was particularly fond had occupied prominent positions.
He saw the spread table. The pine walls of the kitchen were
glowing in the warm light from the stove. Too, he remembered
how he and his companions used to go from the school-house
to the bank of a shaded pool. He saw his clothes in disorderly
array upon the grass of the bank. He felt the swash of the
fragrant water upon his body. The leaves of the overhanging
maple rustled with melody in the wind of youth-ful 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 alookin’
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 con-ducted the youth without
mistakes, until at last he began to chuckle with glee and selfsatisfaction.
“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 oc-curred to
the youth that he had not once seen his face.
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Variety is the spice of life

Zodijak Aquarius
Pol Muškarac
Poruke 17382
Zastava Srbija
OS
Windows XP
Browser
Opera 9.00
mob
SonyEricsson W610
Chapter XIII


The youth went slowly toward the fire in-dicated 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 in-vent 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 pro-duce 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 hang-ing forward
upon his breast. His knees wobbled.
The corporal led him into the glare of the fire. “Now, Henry,”
he said, “let’s have look at yer ol’ head.”
The youth sat down obediently and the cor-poral, 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 ableedin’
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 re-mained 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 some-thing 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 brassmounted
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 posi-tion, 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 caress-ingly 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 grate-ful 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 black-smith 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 obe-dience, got carefully
down like a crone stoop-ing. 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 for-ward 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 com-rades.
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Variety is the spice of life

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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 unex-pected world. Gray mists were slowly shifting
before the first efforts of the sun rays. An im-pending splendor
could be seen in the eastern sky. An icy dew had chilled
his face, and im-mediately 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, thick-spread upon the ground,
pallid, and in strange postures. His disordered mind interpreted
the hall of the forest as a charnel place. He believed for an
instant that he was in the house of the dead, and he did not
dare to move lest these corpses start up, squalling and squawking.
In a second, however, he achieved his proper mind. He
swore a complicated oath at himself. He saw that this somber
picture was not a fact of the present, but a mere prophecy.
He heard then the noise of a fire crackling briskly in the cold
air, and, turning his head, he saw his friend pottering busily
about a small blaze. A few other figures moved in the fog, and
he heard the hard 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 un-pleasant 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 tender-ness and care. He was very busy
marshaling the little black vagabonds of tin cups and pour-ing
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 con-tinually 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 in-ward 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 inexpe
rience, thought-less, 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 wal-lop ‘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 sur-prising reception
of his remarks. “Oh, no, you wouldn’t either,” he said,
hastily trying to re-trace.
But the other made a deprecating gesture. “Oh, yeh needn’t
mind, Henry,” he said. “I be-lieve 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 yestir-day.”
“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 sur-rounded 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, mak-ing 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 de-sire to deal blows
seemed to pass, although they said much to each other. Finally
the friend re-turned 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, yeh
needn’t mind, Henry.”
There was another little pause.
“Th’ reg’ment lost over half th’ men yestir-day,” 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.
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Variety is the spice of life

Zodijak Aquarius
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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 lugu-brious 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 thought-fully 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, noth-ing,”
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 as-sured 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 com-rade 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 mel-ancholy oration previous to his
funeral, and had doubtless in the packet of letters, presented
vari-ous 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 circumstance.
Few but they ever did it. A man with a full stomach
and the respect of his fellows had no business to scold about
anything that he might think to be wrong in the ways of the
universe, or even with the ways of society. Let the unfortunates
rail; the others may play marbles.
He did not give a great deal of thought to these battles that
lay directly before him. It was not essential that he should plan
his ways in regard to them. He had been taught that many
obligations of a life were easily avoided. The lessons of yesterday
had been that retribution was a laggard and blind. With
these facts before him he did not deem it necessary that he
should become feverish over the possibilities of the ensuing
twenty-four hours. He could leave much to chance. Besides, a
faith in himself had secretly blossomed. There was a little flower
of confidence growing within him. He was now a man of experience.
He had been out among the dragons, he said, and he
assured himself that they were not so hideous as he had imagined
them. Also, they were inaccurate; they did not sting with
precision. A stout heart often defied, and defying, escaped.
And, furthermore, how could they kill him who was the chosen
of gods and doomed to greatness?
He remembered how some of the men had run from the
battle. As he 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, prick-ling 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
ex-tended 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 extraordi-nary 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 com-petent 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.
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Variety is the spice of life

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Chapter XVI


A sputtering of musketry was always to be heard. Later,
the cannon had entered the dis-pute. 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 curv-ing 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 embank-ment and sat in
easy attitudes awaiting their turn. Many had their backs to the
firing. The youth’s friend lay down, buried his face in his arms,
and almost instantly, it seemed, he was in a deep sleep.
The youth leaned his breast against the brown dirt and peered
over at the woods and up and down the line. Curtains of trees
interfered with his ways of vision. He could see the low line of
trenches but for a short distance. A few idle flags were perched
on the dirt hills. Behind them were rows of dark bodies with a
few heads sticking curiously over the top.
Always the noise of skirmishers came from the woods on
the front and left, and the din on the right had grown to frightful
proportions. The guns were roaring without an instant’s pause
for breath. It seemed that the cannon had come from all parts
and were engaged in a stupendous wrangle. It became impossible
to make a sen-tence heard.
The youth wished to launch a joke—a quota-tion 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, grow-ing 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 compre-hend a defeat.
Before the gray mists had been totally ob-literated by the sun
rays, the regiment was march-ing 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 ex-ploded 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 re
strain 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 to-gether. 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 concili-ating 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 misfor-tune. 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
regi-ment. The front shifted a trifle to meet it square-ly. There
was a wait. In this part of the field there passed slowly the
intense moments that pre-cede 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 burlike at them, suddenly involved themselves in a
hideous alter-cation 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 lit-tle and labored much. They rolled their eyes
toward the advancing battle as they stood await-ing the shock.
Some shrank and flinched. They stood as men tied to stakes.
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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 phan-tom
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 contem-plative 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 ex-periences. He had received his fill of
all exer-tions, 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. Yester-day, 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 state-ment. He crouched
behind a little tree, with his eyes burning hatefully and his teeth
set in a cur-like snarl. The awkward bandage was still about
his head, and upon it, over his wound, there was a spot of dry
blood. His hair was wondrously tousled, and some straggling,
moving locks hung over the cloth of the bandage down toward
his forehead. His jacket and shirt were open at the throat,
and exposed his young bronzed neck. There could be seen
spasmodic gulpings at his throat.
His fingers twined nervously about his rifle. He wished that it
was an engine of annihilating power. He felt that he and his
companions were being taunted and derided from sincere
convic-tions that they were poor and puny. His knowl-edge of
his inability to take vengeance for it made his rage into a dark
and stormy specter, that pos-sessed 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 lit-tle tree, with a
direct determination to hold it against the world. He had not
deemed it possi-ble 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 ordi-narily he could not have borne
it upon his palms; but he kept on stuffing cartridges into it, and
pounding them with his clanking, bending ram-rod. If he aimed
at some changing form through the smoke, he pulled his trigger
with a fierce grunt, as if he were dealing a blow of the fist with
all his strength.
When the enemy seemed falling back before him and his
fellows, he went instantly forward, like a dog who, seeing his
foes lagging, turns and insists upon being pursued. And when
he was compelled to retire again, he did it slowly, sul-lenly,
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 sen-tence 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 specta-tors. 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 him-self upon the
ground. He sprawled like a man who had been thrashed. His
flesh seemed strange-ly 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 awestruck
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 de-fends 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 pro-cess. He had
slept and, awakening, found him-self a knight.
He lay and basked in the occasional stares of his comrades.
Their faces were varied in de-grees 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 ex-panses they peered at him.
“Hot work! Hot work!” cried the lieu-tenant 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.
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Chapter XVIII


The ragged line had respite for some min-utes, 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 atmos-phere. 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 woe-ful 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 hesita-tion
seemed to fill him with a tremendous, fantas-tic 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 to-ward the place of
the fighting, they could of course comprehend a greater amount
of the bat-tle 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 mak-ing gray clouds, which were filled with large flashes
of orange-colored flame. Over some foli-age they could see
the roof of a house. One win-dow, glowing a deep murder
red, shone squarely through the leaves. From the edifice a tall
lean-ing 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
dis-tant 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-flap-ping 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 scram-bled 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. An-other officer, riding with the
skillful abandon of a cowboy, galloped his horse to a position
directly before the general. The two unnoticed foot sol-diers
made a little show of going on, but they lingered near in the
desire to overhear the con-versation. Perhaps, they thought,
some great inner historical things would be said.
The general, whom the boys knew as the com-mander 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 compan-ion 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 sud-denly that he was very insignificant. The officer spoke
of the regiment as if he referred to a broom. Some part of the
woods needed sweep-ing, 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 lieu-tenant 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 com-pact 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 sol-diers were bended and stooped like sprinters
be-fore 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 nod-ded a mute and unprotesting assent when a shaggy
man near them said in a meek voice: “We’ll git swallowed.”
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Chapter XIX


The youth stared at the land in front of him. Its foliages now
seemed to veil powers and hor-rors. He was unaware of the
machinery of orders that started the charge, although from the
cor-ners 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 move-ment at all, but directly he lunged ahead and
began to run.
He fixed his eye upon a distant and promi-nent 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 unpleas-ant 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 be-fore it awakened. Yellow
flames leaped toward it from many directions. The forest made
a tre-mendous 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 wedgeshaped
mass, but an instant later the opposition of the bushes,
trees, and uneven places on the ground split the command and
scattered it into detached clusters.
The youth, light-footed, was unconsciously in advance. His
eyes still kept note of the clump of trees. From all places near
it the clannish yell of the enemy could be heard. The little flames
of rifles leaped from it. The song of the bullets was in the air
and shells snarled among the tree-tops. One tumbled directly
into the middle of a hurrying group and exploded in crimson
fury. There was an instant’s spectacle of a man, almost over it,
throwing up his hands to shield his eyes.
Other men, punched by bullets, fell in gro-tesque 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 work-ing 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 every-thing. 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 sur-faces. And the men of the regiment,
with their starting eyes and sweating faces, running madly,
or falling, as if thrown headlong, to queer, heaped-up corpses—
all were comprehended. His mind took a mechanical but firm
impression, so that afterward everything was pictured and explained
to him, save why he himself was there.
But there was a frenzy made from this furious rush. The men,
pitching forward insanely, had burst into 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 deli-rium 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 ener-gies of the men.
As if by agreement, the leaders began to slacken their speed.
The volleys di-rected 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 dis-close to them the scene. Since much of their strength
and their breath had vanished, they re-turned 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 commo-tion, 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 under-stood.
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 be-think them of
their weapons, and at once com-menced 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 for-ward ways were barred by the thin
leaping tongues, and off to the right an ominous demon-stration
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 be-hind 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
mo-ments the forceful causes of various superficial qualities.
The whole affair seemed incompre-hensible to many of them.
As they halted thus the lieutenant again be-gan to bellow
profanely. Regardless of the vin-dictive 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 ban-daged hand. “Come on!” Presently he grap-pled 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 indig-nation against
his officer. He wrenched fiercely and shook him off.
“Come on herself, 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 gy-rated
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 yel-low 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 en-dowed 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 motion-less, 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 obsti-nately 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 for-ward with bowed head. One arm swung
high, and the curved hand fell with heavy protest on the friend’s
unheeding shoulder.
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Chapter XX


When the two youths turned with the flag they saw that
much of the regiment had crum-bled 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 pos-session 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 bul-lets 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 danger-ously, upon some of the officers,
more particu-larly 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 per-haps 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 hes-itated 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 black-ened 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 baf-fled 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 ha-rangued 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 pro-tests.
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 con-tinually 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 al-ways. The youth,
peering once through a sud-den 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 dog-gedly 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 proceed-ing in a perilous direction. Once the
men who headed the wild procession turned and came pushing
back against their comrades, screaming that they were being
fired upon from points which they had considered to be toward
their own lines. At this cry a hysterical fear and dismay
beset the troops. A soldier, who heretofore had been ambitious
to make the regiment into a wise little band that would
proceed calmly amid the huge-appearing difficulties, suddenly
sank down and buried his face in his arms with an air of bowing
to a doom. From another a shrill lamentation rang out filled
with profane allusions to a general. Men ran hither and thither,
seeking with their eyes roads of escape. With serene regularity,
as if controlled by a schedule, bullets buffed into men.
The youth walked stolidly into the midst of the mob, and
with his flag in his hands took a stand as if he expected an
attempt to push him to the ground. He unconsciously assumed
the atti-tude of the color bearer in the fight of the pre-ceding
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 goodby—
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 men-aces. 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 in-tent pause of the
lieutenant. He was like a babe which, having wept its fill, raises
its eyes and fixes upon a distant toy. He was engrossed in this
contemplation, and the soft under lip quivered from self-whispered
words.
Some lazy and ignorant smoke curled slowly. The men, hiding
from the bullets, waited anx-iously 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 brillianthued
facing. Too, the clothes seemed new.
These troops had apparently been going for-ward 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.
Al-most 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 for-ward.
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. Pres-ently 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 demon-strate that the men could not
fight well. When on the verge of submission to these opinions,
the small duel had showed them that the propor-tions were
not impossible, and by it they had revenged themselves upon
their misgivings and upon the foe.
The impetus of enthusiasm was theirs again. They gazed about
them with looks of uplifted pride, feeling new trust in the grim,
always confident weapons in their hands. And they were men.
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