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 fieldsbecame dotted.
As he rounded a hillock, he perceived that the roadway was now a cryingmass of wagons, teams, and men. From the heaving tangle issuedexhortations, commands, imprecations. Fear was sweeping it all along.The cracking whips bit and horses plunged and tugged. The white-toppedwagons strained and stumbled in their exertions like fat sheep.
The youth felt comforted in a measure by this sight. They were allretreating. Perhaps, then, he was not so bad after all. He seatedhimself and watched the terror-stricken wagons. They fled like soft,ungainly animals. All the roarers and lashers served to help him tomagnify the dangers and horrors of the engagement that he might try toprove to himself that the thing with which men could charge him was intruth a symmetrical act. There was an amount of pleasure to him inwatching the wild march of this vindication.
Presently the calm head of a forward-going column of infantry appearedin the road. It came swiftly on. Avoiding the obstructions gave itthe sinuous movement of a serpent. The men at the head butted muleswith their musket stocks. They prodded teamsters indifferent to allhowls. The men forced their way through parts of the dense mass bystrength. The blunt head of the column pushed. The raving teamstersswore 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 toconfront the eager rush of the enemy. They felt the pride of theironward movement when the remainder of the army seemed trying to dribbledown this road. They tumbled teams about with a fine feeling that itwas no matter so long as their column got to the front in time. Thisimportance made their faces grave and stern. And the backs of theofficers were very rigid.
As the youth looked at them the black weight of his woe returned tohim. He felt that he was regarding a procession of chosen beings. Theseparation was as great to him as if they had marched with weapons offlame and banners of sunlight. He could never be like them. He couldhave wept in his longings.
He searched about in his mind for an adequate malediction for theindefinite cause, the thing upon which men turn the words of finalblame. It--whatever it was--was responsible for him, he said. Therelay the fault.
The haste of the column to reach the battle seemed to the forlorn youngman to be something much finer than stout fighting. Heroes, hethought, could find excuses in that long seething lane. They couldretire with perfect self-respect and make excuses to the stars.
He wondered what those men had eaten that they could be in such hasteto force their way to grim chances of death. As he watched his envygrew 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 offhimself and become a better. Swift pictures of himself, apart, yet inhimself, came to him--a blue desperate figure leading lurid chargeswith one knee forward and a broken blade high--a blue, determinedfigure standing before a crimson and steel assault, getting calmlykilled on a high place before the eyes of all. He thought of themagnificent pathos of his dead body.
These thoughts uplifted him. He felt the quiver of war desire. In hisears, he heard the ring of victory. He knew the frenzy of a rapidsuccessful charge. The music of the trampling feet, the sharp voices,the clanking arms of the column near him made him soar on the red wingsof war. For a few moments he was sublime.
He thought that he was about to start for the front. Indeed, he saw apicture of himself, dust-stained, haggard, panting, flying to the frontat the proper moment to seize and throttle the dark, leering witch ofcalamity.
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 resentfullyto his plan. Well, rifles could be had for the picking. They wereextraordinarily 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 uponsome explosive thing. Doubts and he were struggling.
He would truly be a worm if any of his comrades should see himreturning thus, the marks of his flight upon him. There was a replythat the intent fighters did not care for what happened rearward savingthat no hostile bayonets appeared there. In the battle-blur his facewould, in a way be hidden, like the face of a cowled man.
But then he said that his tireless fate would bring forth, when thestrife lulled for a moment, a man to ask of him an explanation. Inimagination he felt the scrutiny of his companions as he painfullylabored through some lies.
Eventually, his courage expended itself upon these objections. Thedebates drained him of his fire.
He was not cast down by this defeat of his plan, for, upon studying theaffair carefully, he could not but admit that the objections were veryformidable.
Furthermore, various ailments had begun to cry out. In their presencehe could not persist in flying high with the wings of war; theyrendered it almost impossible for him to see himself in a heroic light.He tumbled headlong.
He discovered that he had a scorching thirst. His face was so dry andgrimy that he thought he could feel his skin crackle. Each bone of hisbody had an ache in it, and seemingly threatened to break with eachmovement. His feet were like two sores. Also, his body was callingfor 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, hishead swayed and he tottered. He could not see with distinctness. Smallpatches of green mist floated before his vision.
While he had been tossed by many emotions, he had not been aware ofailments. Now they beset him and made clamor. As he was at lastcompelled to pay attention to them, his capacity for self-hate wasmultiplied. 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. Hegroaned from his heart and went staggering off.
A certain mothlike quality within him kept him in the vicinity of thebattle. He had a great desire to see, and to get news. He wished toknow who was winning.
He told himself that, despite his unprecedented suffering, he had neverlost his greed for a victory, yet, he said, in a half-apologetic mannerto his conscience, he could not but know that a defeat for the armythis time might mean many favorable things for him. The blows of theenemy would splinter regiments into fragments. Thus, many men ofcourage, he considered, would be obliged to desert the colors andscurry like chickens. He would appear as one of them. They would besullen brothers in distress, and he could then easily believe he hadnot run any farther or faster than they. And if he himself couldbelieve in his virtuous perfection, he conceived that there would besmall trouble in convincing all others.
He said, as if in excuse for this hope, that previously the army hadencountered great defeats and in a few months had shaken off all bloodand tradition of them, emerging as bright and valiant as a new one;thrusting out of sight the memory of disaster, and appearing with thevalor and confidence of unconquered legions. The shrilling voices ofthe people at home would pipe dismally for a time, but various generalswere usually compelled to listen to these ditties. He of course felt nocompunctions for proposing a general as a sacrifice. He could not tellwho the chosen for the barbs might be, so he could center no directsympathy upon him. The people were afar and he did not conceive publicopinion to be accurate at long range. It was quite probable they wouldhit the wrong man who, after he had recovered from his amazement wouldperhaps spend the rest of his days in writing replies to the songs ofhis alleged failure. It would be very unfortunate, no doubt, but inthis case a general was of no consequence to the youth.
In a defeat there would be a roundabout vindication
of himself. Hethought it would prove, in a manner, that he had fled early because ofhis superior powers of perception. A serious prophet upon predicting aflood should be the first man to climb a tree. This would demonstratethat he was indeed a seer.
A moral vindication was regarded by the youth as a very importantthing. Without salve, he could not, he thought, wear the sore badge ofhis dishonor through life. With his heart continually assuring himthat he was despicable, he could not exist without making it, throughhis actions, apparent to all men.
If the army had gone gloriously on he would be lost. If the din meantthat now his army's flags were tilted forward he was a condemnedwretch. He would be compelled to doom himself to isolation. If themen were advancing, their indifferent feet were trampling upon hischances for a successful life.
As these thoughts went rapidly through his mind, he turned upon themand tried to thrust them away. He denounced himself as a villain. Hesaid that he was the most unutterably selfish man in existence. Hismind pictured the soldiers who would place their defiant bodies beforethe spear of the yelling battle fiend, and as he saw their drippingcorpses on an imagined field, he said that he was their murderer.
Again he thought that he wished he was dead. He believed that he envieda corpse. Thinking of the slain, he achieved a great contempt for someof them, as if they were guilty for thus becoming lifeless. They mighthave been killed by lucky chances, he said, before they had hadopportunities to flee or before they had been really tested. Yet theywould receive laurels from tradition. He cried out bitterly that theircrowns were stolen and their robes of glorious memories were shams.However, he still said that it was a great pity he was not as they.
A defeat of the army had suggested itself to him as a means of escapefrom the consequences of his fall. He considered, now, however, thatit was useless to think of such a possibility. His education had beenthat success for that mighty blue machine was certain; that it wouldmake victories as a contrivance turns out buttons. He presentlydiscarded all his speculations in the other direction. He returned tothe creed of soldiers.
When he perceived again that it was not possible for the army to bedefeated, he tried to bethink him of a fine tale which he could takeback to his regiment, and with it turn the expected shafts of derision.
But, as he mortally feared these shafts, it became impossible for himto invent a tale he felt he could trust. He experimented with manyschemes, but threw them aside one by one as flimsy. He was quick tosee vulnerable places in them all.
Furthermore, he was much afraid that some arrow of scorn might lay himmentally 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 quitesure to leave him no peace about it. They would doubtless question himwith sneers, and laugh at his stammering hesitation. In the nextengagement they would try to keep watch of him to discover when hewould run.
Wherever he went in camp, he would encounter insolent and lingeringlycruel 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 wereturned toward him with wide, derisive grins. He seemed to hear someone make a humorous remark in a low tone. At it the others all crowedand cackled. He was a slang phrase.