CHAPTER XXIII.
The colonel came running along back of the line. There were otherofficers following him. "We must charge'm!" they shouted. "We mustcharge'm!" they cried with resentful voices, as if anticipating arebellion against this plan by the men.
The youth, upon hearing the shouts, began to study the distance betweenhim and the enemy. He made vague calculations. He saw that to be firmsoldiers they must go forward. It would be death to stay in thepresent place, and with all the circumstances to go backward wouldexalt too many others. Their hope was to push the galling foes awayfrom the fence.
He expected that his companions, weary and stiffened, would have to bedriven to this assault, but as he turned toward them he perceived witha certain surprise that they were giving quick and unqualifiedexpressions of assent. There was an ominous, clanging overture to thecharge when the shafts of the bayonets rattled upon the rifle barrels.At the yelled words of command the soldiers sprang forward in eagerleaps. There was new and unexpected force in the movement of theregiment. A knowledge of its faded and jaded condition made the chargeappear like a paroxysm, a display of the strength that comes before afinal feebleness. The men scampered in insane fever of haste, racingas if to achieve a sudden success before an exhilarating fluid shouldleave them. It was a blind and despairing rush by the collection ofmen in dusty and tattered blue, over a green sward and under a sapphiresky, toward a fence, dimly outlined in smoke, from behind whichspluttered the fierce rifles of enemies.
The youth kept the bright colors to the front. He was waving his freearm in furious circles, the while shrieking mad calls and appeals,urging on those that did not need to be urged, for it seemed that themob of blue men hurling themselves on the dangerous group of rifleswere again grown suddenly wild with an enthusiasm of unselfishness.From the many firings starting toward them, it looked as if they wouldmerely succeed in making a great sprinkling of corpses on the grassbetween their former position and the fence. But they were in a stateof frenzy, perhaps because of forgotten vanities, and it made anexhibition of sublime recklessness. There was no obvious questioning,nor figurings, nor diagrams. There was, apparently, no consideredloopholes. It appeared that the swift wings of their desires wouldhave shattered against the iron gates of the impossible.
He himself felt the daring spirit of a savage religion mad. He wascapable of profound sacrifices, a tremendous death. He had no time fordissections, but he knew that he thought of the bullets only as thingsthat could prevent him from reaching the place of his endeavor. Therewere subtle flashings of joy within him that thus should be his mind.
He strained all his strength. His eyesight was shaken and dazzled bythe tension of thought and muscle. He did not see anything exceptingthe mist of smoke gashed by the little knives of fire, but he knew thatin it lay the aged fence of a vanished farmer protecting the snuggledbodies of the gray men.
As he ran a thought of the shock of contact gleamed in his mind. Heexpected a great concussion when the two bodies of troops crashedtogether. This became a part of his wild battle madness. He couldfeel the onward swing of the regiment about him and he conceived of athunderous, crushing blow that would prostrate the resistance andspread consternation and amazement for miles. The flying regiment wasgoing to have a catapultian effect. This dream made him run fasteramong his comrades, who were giving vent to hoarse and frantic cheers.
But presently he could see that many of the men in gray did not intendto abide the blow. The smoke, rolling, disclosed men who ran, theirfaces still turned. These grew to a crowd, who retired stubbornly.Individuals wheeled frequently to send a bullet at the blue wave.
But at one part of the line there was a grim and obdurate group thatmade no movement. They were settled firmly down behind posts and rails.A flag, ruffled and fierce, waved over them and their rifles dinnedfiercely.
The blue whirl of men got very near, until it seemed that in truththere would be a close and frightful scuffle. There was an expresseddisdain in the opposition of the little group, that changed the meaningof the cheers of the men in blue. They became yells of wrath,directed, personal. The cries of the two parties were now in sound aninterchange of scathing insults.
They in blue showed their teeth; their eyes shone all white. Theylaunched themselves as at the throats of those who stood resisting. Thespace between dwindled to an insignificant distance.
The youth had centered the gaze of his soul upon that other flag. Itspossession would be high pride. It would express bloody minglings,near blows. He had a gigantic hatred for those who made greatdifficulties and complications. They caused it to be as a cravedtreasure of mythology, hung amid tasks and contrivances of danger.
He plunged like a mad horse at it. He was resolved it should notescape if wild blows and darings of blows could seize it. His ownemblem, quivering and aflare, was winging toward the other. It seemedthere would shortly be an encounter of strange beaks and claws, as ofeagles.
The swirling body of blue men came to a sudden halt at close anddisastrous range and roared a swift volley. The group in gray wassplit and broken by this fire, but its riddled body still fought. Themen in blue yelled again and rushed in upon it.
The youth, in his leapings, saw, as through a mist, a picture of fouror five men stretched upon the ground or writhing upon their knees withbowed heads as if they had been stricken by bolts from the sky.Tottering among them was the rival color bearer, whom the youth saw hadbeen bitten vitally by the bullets of the last formidable volley. Heperceived this man fighting a last struggle, the struggle of one whoselegs are grasped by demons. It was a ghastly battle. Over his face wasthe bleach of death, but set upon it was the dark and hard lines ofdesperate purpose. With this terrible grin of resolution he hugged hisprecious flag to him and was stumbling and staggering in his design togo the way that led to safety for it.
But his wounds always made it seem that his feet were retarded, held,and he fought a grim fight, as with invisible ghouls fastened greedilyupon his limbs. Those in advance of the scampering blue men, howlingcheers, leaped at the fence. The despair of the lost was in his eyesas he glanced back at them.
The youth's friend went over the obstruction in a tumbling heap andsprang at the flag as a panther at prey. He pulled at it and,wrenching it free, swung up its red brilliancy with a mad cry ofexultation even as the color bearer, gasping, lurched over in a finalthroe and, stiffening convulsively, turned his dead face to the ground.There was much blood upon the grass blades.
At the place of success there began more wild clamorings of cheers. Themen gesticulated and bellowed in an ecstasy. When they spoke it was asif they considered their listener to be a mile away. What hats andcaps were left to them they often slung high in the air.
At one part of the line four men had been swooped upon, and they nowsat as prisoners. Some blue men were about them in an eager and curiouscircle. The soldiers had trapped strange birds, and there was anexamination. A flurry of fast questions was in the air.
One of the prisoners was nursing a superficial wound in the foot. Hecuddled it, baby-wise, but he looked up from it often to curse with anastonishing utter abandon straight at the noses of his captors. Heconsigned them to red regions; he called upon the pestilential wrath ofstrange gods. And with it all he was singularly free from recognitionof the finer points of the conduct of prisoners of war. It was as if aclumsy clod had trod upon his toe and he conceived it to be hisprivilege, his duty, to use deep, resentful oaths.
Another, who was a boy in years, took his plight with great calmnessand apparent good nature. He conversed with the men in blue, studyingtheir faces with his bright and keen eyes. They spoke of battles andconditions. There was an acute interest in all their faces during thisexchange of view points. It seemed a great satisfaction to hear voicesfrom where all had been darkness and speculation.
The third captive sat with a morose countenance. He preserved astoical and cold attitude. To all advances he made one reply wi
thoutvariation, "Ah, go t' hell!"
The last of the four was always silent and, for the most part, kept hisface turned in unmolested directions. From the views the youthreceived he seemed to be in a state of absolute dejection. Shame wasupon him, and with it profound regret that he was, perhaps, no more tobe counted in the ranks of his fellows. The youth could detect noexpression that would allow him to believe that the other was giving athought to his narrowed future, the pictured dungeons, perhaps, andstarvations and brutalities, liable to the imagination. All to be seenwas shame for captivity and regret for the right to antagonize.
After the men had celebrated sufficiently they settled down behind theold rail fence, on the opposite side to the one from which their foeshad been driven. A few shot perfunctorily at distant marks.
There was some long grass. The youth nestled in it and rested, makinga convenient rail support the flag. His friend, jubilant andglorified, holding his treasure with vanity, came to him there. Theysat side by side and congratulated each other.
CHAPTER XXIV.
The roarings that had stretched in a long line of sound across the faceof the forest began to grow intermittent and weaker. The stentorianspeeches of the artillery continued in some distant encounter, but thecrashes of the musketry had almost ceased. The youth and his friend ofa sudden looked up, feeling a deadened form of distress at the waningof these noises, which had become a part of life. They could seechanges going on among the troops. There were marchings this way andthat way. A battery wheeled leisurely. On the crest of a small hillwas the thick gleam of many departing muskets.
The youth arose. "Well, what now, I wonder?" he said. By his tone heseemed to be preparing to resent some new monstrosity in the way ofdins and smashes. He shaded his eyes with his grimy hand and gazedover the field.
His friend also arose and stared. "I bet we're goin' t' git along outof this an' back over th' river," said he.
"Well, I swan!" said the youth.
They waited, watching. Within a little while the regiment receivedorders to retrace its way. The men got up grunting from the grass,regretting the soft repose. They jerked their stiffened legs, andstretched their arms over their heads. One man swore as he rubbed hiseyes. They all groaned "O Lord!" They had as many objections to thischange as they would have had to a proposal for a new battle.
They trampled slowly back over the field across which they had run in amad scamper.
The regiment marched until it had joined its fellows. The reformedbrigade, in column, aimed through a wood at the road. Directly theywere in a mass of dust-covered troops, and were trudging along in a wayparallel to the enemy's lines as these had been defined by the previousturmoil.
They passed within view of a stolid white house, and saw in front of itgroups of their comrades lying in wait behind a neat breastwork. A rowof guns were booming at a distant enemy. Shells thrown in reply wereraising clouds of dust and splinters. Horsemen dashed along the lineof intrenchments.
At this point of its march the division curved away from the field andwent winding off in the direction of the river. When the significanceof this movement had impressed itself upon the youth he turned his headand looked over his shoulder toward the trampled and debris-strewedground. He breathed a breath of new satisfaction. He finally nudgedhis friend. "Well, it's all over," he said to him.
His friend gazed backward. "B'Gawd, it is," he assented. They mused.
For a time the youth was obliged to reflect in a puzzled and uncertainway. His mind was undergoing a subtle change. It took moments for itto cast off its battleful ways and resume its accustomed course ofthought. Gradually his brain emerged from the clogged clouds, and atlast he was enabled to more closely comprehend himself and circumstance.
He understood then that the existence of shot and counter-shot was inthe past. He had dwelt in a land of strange, squalling upheavals andhad come forth. He had been where there was red of blood and black ofpassion, and he was escaped. His first thoughts were given torejoicings at this fact.
Later he began to study his deeds, his failures, and his achievements.Thus, fresh from scenes where many of his usual machines of reflectionhad been idle, from where he had proceeded sheeplike, he struggled tomarshal all his acts.
At last they marched before him clearly. From this present view pointhe was enabled to look upon them in spectator fashion and to criticisethem with some correctness, for his new condition had already defeatedcertain sympathies.
Regarding his procession of memory he felt gleeful and unregretting,for in it his public deeds were paraded in great and shiningprominence. Those performances which had been witnessed by his fellowsmarched now in wide purple and gold, having various deflections. Theywent gayly with music. It was pleasure to watch these things. Hespent delightful minutes viewing the gilded images of memory.
He saw that he was good. He recalled with a thrill of joy therespectful comments of his fellows upon his conduct.
Nevertheless, the ghost of his flight from the first engagementappeared to him and danced. There were small shoutings in his brainabout these matters. For a moment he blushed, and the light of hissoul flickered with shame.
A specter of reproach came to him. There loomed the dogging memory ofthe tattered soldier--he who, gored by bullets and faint for blood, hadfretted concerning an imagined wound in another; he who had loaned hislast of strength and intellect for the tall soldier; he who, blind withweariness and pain, had been deserted in the field.
For an instant a wretched chill of sweat was upon him at the thoughtthat he might be detected in the thing. As he stood persistentlybefore his vision, he gave vent to a cry of sharp irritation and agony.
His friend turned. "What's the matter, Henry?" he demanded. Theyouth's reply was an outburst of crimson oaths.
As he marched along the little branch-hung roadway among his prattlingcompanions this vision of cruelty brooded over him. It clung near himalways and darkened his view of these deeds in purple and gold.Whichever way his thoughts turned they were followed by the somberphantom of the desertion in the fields. He looked stealthily at hiscompanions, feeling sure that they must discern in his face evidencesof this pursuit. But they were plodding in ragged array, discussingwith quick tongues the accomplishments of the late battle.
"Oh, if a man should come up an' ask me, I'd say we got a dum goodlickin'."
"Lickin'--in yer eye! We ain't licked, sonny. We're goin' down hereaways, swing aroun', an' come in behint 'em."
"Oh, hush, with your comin' in behint 'em. I've seen all 'a that Iwanta. Don't tell me about comin' in behint--"
"Bill Smithers, he ses he'd rather been in ten hundred battles thanbeen in that heluva hospital. He ses they got shootin' in th'night-time, an' shells dropped plum among 'em in th' hospital. He sessech hollerin' he never see."
"Hasbrouck? He's th' best off'cer in this here reg'ment. He's awhale."
"Didn't I tell yeh we'd come aroun' in behint 'em? Didn't I tell yehso? We--"
"Oh, shet yeh mouth!"
For a time this pursuing recollection of the tattered man took allelation from the youth's veins. He saw his vivid error, and he wasafraid that it would stand before him all his life. He took no sharein the chatter of his comrades, nor did he look at them or know them,save when he felt sudden suspicion that they were seeing his thoughtsand scrutinizing each detail of the scene with the tattered soldier.
Yet gradually he mustered force to put the sin at a distance. And atlast his eyes seemed to open to some new ways. He found that he couldlook back upon the brass and bombast of his earlier gospels and seethem truly. He was gleeful when he discovered that he now despisedthem.
With this conviction came a store of assurance. He felt a quietmanhood, nonassertive but of sturdy and strong blood. He knew that hewould no more quail before his guides wherever they should point. Hehad been to touch the great death, and found that, after all, it wasbut the great death. He was a man.
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So it came to pass that as he trudged from the place of blood and wrathhis soul changed. He came from hot plowshares to prospects of clovertranquilly, and it was as if hot plowshares were not. Scars faded asflowers.
It rained. The procession of weary soldiers became a bedraggled train,despondent and muttering, marching with churning effort in a trough ofliquid brown mud under a low, wretched sky. Yet the youth smiled, forhe saw that the world was a world for him, though many discovered it tobe made of oaths and walking sticks. He had rid himself of the redsickness of battle. The sultry nightmare was in the past. He had beenan animal blistered and sweating in the heat and pain of war. Heturned now with a lover's thirst to images of tranquil skies, freshmeadows, cool brooks--an existence of soft and eternal peace.
Over the river a golden ray of sun came through the hosts of leadenrain clouds.
[Transcriber's Note: I have tried to retain the inconsistent renderingsof contractions as joined or separate, e.g., "we 'll" or "we'll."
I have made the following changes to the text:
PAGE PARA. LINE ORIGINAL CHANGED TO 18 3 3 estabiish establish 40 3 2 skirmish skirmish- 78 4 4 a air an air 130 2 recognzied recognized 130 4 12 could a' could 'a 139 2 4 not began not begun 193 2 16 illusions to allusions to]
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