CHAPTER VIII.
The trees began softly to sing a hymn of twilight. The sun sank untilslanted bronze rays struck the forest. There was a lull in the noisesof insects as if they had bowed their beaks and were making adevotional pause. There was silence save for the chanted chorus of thetrees.
Then, upon this stillness, there suddenly broke a tremendous clangor ofsounds. A crimson roar came from the distance.
The youth stopped. He was transfixed by this terrific medley of allnoises. It was as if worlds were being rended. There was the rippingsound of musketry and the breaking crash of the artillery.
His mind flew in all directions. He conceived the two armies to be ateach other panther fashion. He listened for a time. Then he began torun in the direction of the battle. He saw that it was an ironicalthing for him to be running thus toward that which he had been at suchpains to avoid. But he said, in substance, to himself that if theearth and the moon were about to clash, many persons would doubtlessplan to get upon the roofs to witness the collision.
As he ran, he became aware that the forest had stopped its music, as ifat last becoming capable of hearing the foreign sounds. The treeshushed and stood motionless. Everything seemed to be listening to thecrackle and clatter and earshaking thunder. The chorus pealed over thestill earth.
It suddenly occurred to the youth that the fight in which he had beenwas, after all, but perfunctory popping. In the hearing of thispresent din he was doubtful if he had seen real battle scenes. Thisuproar explained a celestial battle; it was tumbling hordes a-strugglein the air.
Reflecting, he saw a sort of a humor in the point of view of himselfand his fellows during the late encounter. They had taken themselvesand the enemy very seriously and had imagined that they were decidingthe war. Individuals must have supposed that they were cutting theletters of their names deep into everlasting tablets of brass, orenshrining their reputations forever in the hearts of their countrymen,while, as to fact, the affair would appear in printed reports under ameek and immaterial title. But he saw that it was good, else, he said,in battle every one would surely run save forlorn hopes and their ilk.
He went rapidly on. He wished to come to the edge of the forest thathe might peer out.
As he hastened, there passed through his mind pictures of stupendousconflicts. His accumulated thought upon such subjects was used to formscenes. The noise was as the voice of an eloquent being, describing.
Sometimes the brambles formed chains and tried to hold him back. Trees,confronting him, stretched out their arms and forbade him to pass.After its previous hostility this new resistance of the forest filledhim with a fine bitterness. It seemed that Nature could not be quiteready to kill him.
But he obstinately took roundabout ways, and presently he was where hecould see long gray walls of vapor where lay battle lines. The voicesof cannon shook him. The musketry sounded in long irregular surgesthat played havoc with his ears. He stood regardant for a moment. Hiseyes had an awestruck expression. He gawked in the direction of thefight.
Presently he proceeded again on his forward way. The battle was likethe grinding of an immense and terrible machine to him. Itscomplexities and powers, its grim processes, fascinated him. He mustgo close and see it produce corpses.
He came to a fence and clambered over it. On the far side, the groundwas littered with clothes and guns. A newspaper, folded up, lay in thedirt. A dead soldier was stretched with his face hidden in his arm.Farther off there was a group of four or five corpses keeping mournfulcompany. A hot sun had blazed upon the spot.
In this place the youth felt that he was an invader. This forgottenpart of the battle ground was owned by the dead men, and he hurried, inthe vague apprehension that one of the swollen forms would rise andtell him to begone.
He came finally to a road from which he could see in the distance darkand agitated bodies of troops, smoke-fringed. In the lane was ablood-stained crowd streaming to the rear. The wounded men werecursing, groaning, and wailing. In the air, always, was a mighty swellof sound that it seemed could sway the earth. With the courageous wordsof the artillery and the spiteful sentences of the musketry mingled redcheers. And from this region of noises came the steady current of themaimed.
One of the wounded men had a shoeful of blood. He hopped like aschoolboy in a game. He was laughing hysterically.
One was swearing that he had been shot in the arm through thecommanding general's mismanagement of the army. One was marching withan air imitative of some sublime drum major. Upon his features was anunholy mixture of merriment and agony. As he marched he sang a bit ofdoggerel in a high and quavering voice:
"Sing a song 'a vic'try, A pocketful 'a bullets, Five an' twenty dead men Baked in a--pie."
Parts of the procession limped and staggered to this tune.
Another had the gray seal of death already upon his face. His lipswere curled in hard lines and his teeth were clinched. His hands werebloody from where he had pressed them upon his wound. He seemed to beawaiting the moment when he should pitch headlong. He stalked like thespecter of a soldier, his eyes burning with the power of a stare intothe unknown.
There were some who proceeded sullenly, full of anger at their wounds,and ready to turn upon anything as an obscure cause.
An officer was carried along by two privates. He was peevish. "Don'tjoggle so, Johnson, yeh fool," he cried. "Think m' leg is made ofiron? If yeh can't carry me decent, put me down an' let some one elsedo it."
He bellowed at the tottering crowd who blocked the quick march of hisbearers. "Say, make way there, can't yeh? Make way, dickens take itall."
They sulkily parted and went to the roadsides. As he was carried pastthey made pert remarks to him. When he raged in reply and threatenedthem, they told him to be damned.
The shoulder of one of the tramping bearers knocked heavily against thespectral soldier who was staring into the unknown.
The youth joined this crowd and marched along with it. The torn bodiesexpressed the awful machinery in which the men had been entangled.
Orderlies and couriers occasionally broke through the throng in theroadway, scattering wounded men right and left, galloping on followedby howls. The melancholy march was continually disturbed by themessengers, and sometimes by bustling batteries that came swinging andthumping down upon them, the officers shouting orders to clear the way.
There was a tattered man, fouled with dust, blood and powder stain fromhair to shoes, who trudged quietly at the youth's side. He waslistening with eagerness and much humility to the lurid descriptions ofa bearded sergeant. His lean features wore an expression of awe andadmiration. He was like a listener in a country store to wondroustales told among the sugar barrels. He eyed the story-teller withunspeakable wonder. His mouth was agape in yokel fashion.
The sergeant, taking note of this, gave pause to his elaborate historywhile he administered a sardonic comment. "Be keerful, honey, you 'llbe a-ketchin' flies," he said.
The tattered man shrank back abashed.
After a time he began to sidle near to the youth, and in a differentway try to make him a friend. His voice was gentle as a girl's voiceand his eyes were pleading. The youth saw with surprise that thesoldier had two wounds, one in the head, bound with a blood-soaked rag,and the other in the arm, making that member dangle like a broken bough.
After they had walked together for some time the tattered man musteredsufficient courage to speak. "Was pretty good fight, wa'n't it?" hetimidly said. The youth, deep in thought, glanced up at the bloody andgrim figure with its lamblike eyes. "What?"
"Was pretty good fight, wa'n't it?
"Yes," said the youth shortly. He quickened his pace.
But the other hobbled industriously after him. There was an air ofapology in his manner, but he evidently thought that he needed only totalk for a time, and the youth would perceive that he was a good fellow.
"Was pretty good fight, wa'n't it?" he be
gan in a small voice, and thenhe achieved the fortitude to continue. "Dern me if I ever see fellersfight so. Laws, how they did fight! I knowed th' boys 'd like whenthey onct got square at it. Th' boys ain't had no fair chanct up t'now, but this time they showed what they was. I knowed it 'd turn outthis way. Yeh can't lick them boys. No, sir! They're fighters, theybe."
He breathed a deep breath of humble admiration. He had looked at theyouth for encouragement several times. He received none, but graduallyhe seemed to get absorbed in his subject.
"I was talkin' 'cross pickets with a boy from Georgie, onct, an' thatboy, he ses, 'Your fellers 'll all run like hell when they onct hearn agun,' he ses. 'Mebbe they will,' I ses, 'but I don't b'lieve none ofit,' I ses; 'an' b'jiminey,' I ses back t' 'um, 'mebbe your fellers 'llall run like hell when they onct hearn a gun,' I ses. He larfed. Well,they didn't run t' day, did they, hey? No, sir! They fit, an' fit,an' fit."
His homely face was suffused with a light of love for the army whichwas to him all things beautiful and powerful.
After a time he turned to the youth. "Where yeh hit, ol' boy?" heasked in a brotherly tone.
The youth felt instant panic at this question, although at first itsfull import was not borne in upon him.
"What?" he asked.
"Where yeh hit?" repeated the tattered man.
"Why," began the youth, "I--I--that is--why--I--"
He turned away suddenly and slid through the crowd. His brow washeavily flushed, and his fingers were picking nervously at one of hisbuttons. He bent his head and fastened his eyes studiously upon thebutton as if it were a little problem.
The tattered man looked after him in astonishment.