CHAPTER XIX.
The youth stared at the land in front of him. Its foliages now seemedto veil powers and horrors. He was unaware of the machinery of ordersthat started the charge, although from the corners of his eyes he sawan officer, who looked like a boy a-horseback, come galloping, wavinghis hat. Suddenly he felt a straining and heaving among the men. Theline fell slowly forward like a toppling wall, and, with a convulsivegasp that was intended for a cheer, the regiment began its journey. Theyouth was pushed and jostled for a moment before he understood themovement at all, but directly he lunged ahead and began to run.
He fixed his eye upon a distant and prominent clump of trees where hehad concluded the enemy were to be met, and he ran toward it as towarda goal. He had believed throughout that it was a mere question ofgetting over an unpleasant matter as quickly as possible, and he randesperately, as if pursued for a murder. His face was drawn hard andtight with the stress of his endeavor. His eyes were fixed in a luridglare. And with his soiled and disordered dress, his red and inflamedfeatures surmounted by the dingy rag with its spot of blood, his wildlyswinging rifle and banging accouterments, he looked to be an insanesoldier.
As the regiment swung from its position out into a cleared space thewoods and thickets before it awakened. Yellow flames leaped toward itfrom many directions. The forest made a tremendous objection.
The line lurched straight for a moment. Then the right wing swungforward; it in turn was surpassed by the left. Afterward the centercareered to the front until the regiment was a wedge-shaped mass, butan instant later the opposition of the bushes, trees, and uneven placeson the ground split the command and scattered it into detached clusters.
The youth, light-footed, was unconsciously in advance. His eyes stillkept note of the clump of trees. From all places near it the clannishyell of the enemy could be heard. The little flames of rifles leapedfrom it. The song of the bullets was in the air and shells snarledamong the tree-tops. One tumbled directly into the middle of ahurrying group and exploded in crimson fury. There was an instant'sspectacle of a man, almost over it, throwing up his hands to shield hiseyes.
Other men, punched by bullets, fell in grotesque agonies. The regimentleft a coherent trail of bodies.
They had passed into a clearer atmosphere. There was an effect like arevelation in the new appearance of the landscape. Some men workingmadly at a battery were plain to them, and the opposing infantry'slines were defined by the gray walls and fringes of smoke.
It seemed to the youth that he saw everything. Each blade of the greengrass was bold and clear. He thought that he was aware of every changein the thin, transparent vapor that floated idly in sheets. The brownor gray trunks of the trees showed each roughness of their surfaces.And the men of the regiment, with their starting eyes and sweatingfaces, running madly, or falling, as if thrown headlong, to queer,heaped-up corpses--all were comprehended. His mind took a mechanicalbut firm impression, so that afterward everything was pictured andexplained to him, save why he himself was there.
But there was a frenzy made from this furious rush. The men, pitchingforward insanely, had burst into cheerings, moblike and barbaric, buttuned in strange keys that can arouse the dullard and the stoic. Itmade a mad enthusiasm that, it seemed, would be incapable of checkingitself before granite and brass. There was the delirium thatencounters despair and death, and is heedless and blind to the odds. Itis a temporary but sublime absence of selfishness. And because it wasof this order was the reason, perhaps, why the youth wondered,afterward, what reasons he could have had for being there.
Presently the straining pace ate up the energies of the men. As if byagreement, the leaders began to slacken their speed. The volleysdirected against them had had a seeming windlike effect. The regimentsnorted and blew. Among some stolid trees it began to falter andhesitate. The men, staring intently, began to wait for some of thedistant walls of smoke to move and disclose to them the scene. Sincemuch of their strength and their breath had vanished, they returned tocaution. They were become men again.
The youth had a vague belief that he had run miles, and he thought, ina way, that he was now in some new and unknown land.
The moment the regiment ceased its advance the protesting splutter ofmusketry became a steadied roar. Long and accurate fringes of smokespread out. From the top of a small hill came level belchings ofyellow flame that caused an inhuman whistling in the air.
The men, halted, had opportunity to see some of their comrades droppingwith moans and shrieks. A few lay under foot, still or wailing. Andnow for an instant the men stood, their rifles slack in their hands,and watched the regiment dwindle. They appeared dazed and stupid. Thisspectacle seemed to paralyze them, overcome them with a fatalfascination. They stared woodenly at the sights, and, lowering theireyes, looked from face to face. It was a strange pause, and a strangesilence.
Then, above the sounds of the outside commotion, arose the roar of thelieutenant. He strode suddenly forth, his infantile features blackwith rage.
"Come on, yeh fools!" he bellowed. "Come on! Yeh can't stay here. Yehmust come on." He said more, but much of it could not be understood.
He started rapidly forward, with his head turned toward the men. "Comeon," he was shouting. The men stared with blank and yokel-like eyes athim. He was obliged to halt and retrace his steps. He stood then withhis back to the enemy and delivered gigantic curses into the faces ofthe men. His body vibrated from the weight and force of hisimprecations. And he could string oaths with the facility of a maidenwho strings beads.
The friend of the youth aroused. Lurching suddenly forward anddropping to his knees, he fired an angry shot at the persistent woods.This action awakened the men. They huddled no more like sheep. Theyseemed suddenly to bethink them of their weapons, and at once commencedfiring. Belabored by their officers, they began to move forward. Theregiment, involved like a cart involved in mud and muddle, startedunevenly with many jolts and jerks. The men stopped now every fewpaces to fire and load, and in this manner moved slowly on from treesto trees.
The flaming opposition in their front grew with their advance until itseemed that all forward ways were barred by the thin leaping tongues,and off to the right an ominous demonstration could sometimes be dimlydiscerned. The smoke lately generated was in confusing clouds that madeit difficult for the regiment to proceed with intelligence. As hepassed through each curling mass the youth wondered what would confronthim on the farther side.
The command went painfully forward until an open space interposedbetween them and the lurid lines. Here, crouching and cowering behindsome trees, the men clung with desperation, as if threatened by a wave.They looked wild-eyed, and as if amazed at this furious disturbancethey had stirred. In the storm there was an ironical expression oftheir importance. The faces of the men, too, showed a lack of acertain feeling of responsibility for being there. It was as if theyhad been driven. It was the dominant animal failing to remember in thesupreme moments the forceful causes of various superficial qualities.The whole affair seemed incomprehensible to many of them.
As they halted thus the lieutenant again began to bellow profanely.Regardless of the vindictive threats of the bullets, he went aboutcoaxing, berating, and bedamning. His lips, that were habitually in asoft and childlike curve, were now writhed into unholy contortions. Heswore by all possible deities.
Once he grabbed the youth by the arm. "Come on, yeh lunkhead!" heroared. "Come on! We'll all git killed if we stay here. We've on'ygot t' go across that lot. An' then"--the remainder of his ideadisappeared in a blue haze of curses.
The youth stretched forth his arm. "Cross there?" His mouth waspuckered in doubt and awe.
"Certainly. Jest 'cross th' lot! We can't stay here," screamed thelieutenant. He poked his face close to the youth and waved hisbandaged hand. "Come on!" Presently he grappled with him as if for awrestling bout. It was as if he planned to drag the youth by the earon to the assault.
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The private felt a sudden unspeakable indignation against his officer.He wrenched fiercely and shook him off.
"Come on yerself, then," he yelled. There was a bitter challenge inhis voice.
They galloped together down the regimental front. The friend scrambledafter them. In front of the colors the three men began to bawl: "Comeon! come on!" They danced and gyrated like tortured savages.
The flag, obedient to these appeals, bended its glittering form andswept toward them. The men wavered in indecision for a moment, andthen with a long, wailful cry the dilapidated regiment surged forwardand began its new journey.
Over the field went the scurrying mass. It was a handful of mensplattered into the faces of the enemy. Toward it instantly sprang theyellow tongues. A vast quantity of blue smoke hung before them. Amighty banging made ears valueless.
The youth ran like a madman to reach the woods before a bullet coulddiscover him. He ducked his head low, like a football player. In hishaste his eyes almost closed, and the scene was a wild blur. Pulsatingsaliva stood at the corners of his mouth.
Within him, as he hurled himself forward, was born a love, a despairingfondness for this flag which was near him. It was a creation of beautyand invulnerability. It was a goddess, radiant, that bended its formwith an imperious gesture to him. It was a woman, red and white,hating and loving, that called him with the voice of his hopes. Becauseno harm could come to it he endowed it with power. He kept near, as ifit 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 flinchedsuddenly, as if struck by a bludgeon. He faltered, and then becamemotionless, save for his quivering knees.
He made a spring and a clutch at the pole. At the same instant hisfriend grabbed it from the other side. They jerked at it, stout andfurious, but the color sergeant was dead, and the corpse would notrelinquish its trust. For a moment there was a grim encounter. Thedead man, swinging with bended back, seemed to be obstinately tugging,in ludicrous and awful ways, for the possession of the flag.
It was past in an instant of time. They wrenched the flag furiouslyfrom the dead man, and, as they turned again, the corpse swayed forwardwith bowed head. One arm swung high, and the curved hand fell withheavy protest on the friend's unheeding shoulder.