Regarding his procession of memory he felt gleeful and unregretting, for in it his public deeds were paraded in great and shining prominence. Those performances which had been witnessed by his fellows marched now in wide purple and gold, having various deflections. They went gayly with music. It was pleasure to watch these things. He spent delightful minutes viewing the gilded images of memory.
He saw that he was good. He recalled with a thrill of joy the respectful comments of his fellows upon his conduct.
Nevertheless, the ghost of his flight from the first engagement appeared to him and danced. There were small shoutings in his brain about these matters. For a moment he blushed, and the light of his soul flickered with shame.
A specter of reproach came to him. There loomed the dogging memory of the tattered soldier – he who, gored by bullets and faint for blood, had fretted concerning an imagined wound in another; he who had loaned his last of strength and intellect for the tall soldier; he who, blind with weariness and pain, had been deserted in the field.
For an instant a wretched chill of sweat was upon him at the thought that he might be detected in the thing. As he stood persistently before his vision, he gave vent to a cry of sharp irritation and agony.
His friend turned. ‘What’s the matter, Henry?’ he demanded. The youth’s reply was an outburst of crimson oaths.
As he marched along the little branch-hung roadway among his prattling companions this vision of cruelty brooded over him. It clung near him always and darkened his view of these deeds in purple and gold. Whichever way his thoughts turned they were followed by the somber phantom of the desertion in the fields. He looked stealthily at his companions, feeling sure that they must discern in his face evidences of this pursuit. But they were plodding in ragged array, discussing with 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 good lickin’.’
‘Lickin’ – in yer eye! We ain’t licked, sonny. We’re goin’ down here aways, swing aroun’, an’ come in behint ’em.’
‘Oh, hush, with your comin’ in behint ’em. I’ve seen all ’a that I wanta. Don’t tell me about comin’ in behint –’
‘Bill Smithers, he ses he’d rather been in ten hundred battles than been in that heluva hospital. He ses they got shootin’ in th’ night-time, an’ shells dropped plum among ’em in th’ hospital. He ses sech hollerin’ he never see.’
‘Hasbrouck? He’s th’ best off’cer in this here reg’ment. He’s a whale.’
‘Didn’t I tell yeh we’d come aroun’ in behint ’em? Didn’t I tell yeh so? We –’
‘Oh, shet yeh mouth!’
For a time this pursuing recollection of the tattered man took all elation from the youth’s veins. He saw his vivid error, and he was afraid that it would stand before him all his life. He took no share in 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 thoughts and scrutinizing each detail of the scene with the tattered soldier.
Yet gradually he mustered force to put the sin at a distance. And at last his eyes seemed to open to some new ways. He found that he could look back upon the brass and bombast of his earlier gospels and see them truly. He was gleeful when he discovered that he now despised them.
With this conviction came a store of assurance. He felt a quiet manhood, nonassertive but a sturdy and strong blood. He knew that he would no more quail before his guides wherever they should point. He had been to touch the great death, and found that, after all, it was but the great death. He was a man.
So it came to pass that as he trudged from the place of blood and wrath his soul changed. He came from hot plowshares to prospects of clover tranquilly, and it was as if hot plowshares were not. Scars faded as flowers.
It rained. The procession of weary soldiers became a bedraggled train, despondent and muttering, marching with churning effort in a trough of liquid brown mud under a low, wretched sky. Yet the youth smiled, for he saw that the world was a world for him, though many discovered it to be made of oaths and walking sticks. He had rid himself of the red sickness of battle. The sultry nightmare was in the past. He had been an animal blistered and sweating in the heat and pain of war. He turned now with a lover’s thirst to images of tranquil skies, fresh meadows, cool brooks – an existence of soft and eternal peace.
Over the river a golden ray of sun came through the hosts of leaden rain clouds.
‘THE VETERAN’
Out of the low window could be seen three hickory trees placed irregularly in a meadow that was resplendent in springtime green. Farther away, the old, dismal belfry of the village church loomed over the pines. A horse meditating in the shade of one of the hickories lazily swished his tail. The warm sunshine made an oblong of vivid yellow on the floor of the grocery.
‘Could you see the whites of their eyes?’ said the man who was seated on a soap box.
‘Nothing of the kind,’ replied old Henry warmly. ‘Just a lot of flitting figures, and I let go at where they ’peared to be the thickest. Bang!’
‘Mr Fleming,’ said the grocer – his deferential voice expressed somehow the old man’s exact social weight – ‘Mr Fleming, you never was frightened much in them battles, was you?’
The veteran looked down and grinned. Observing his manner, the entire group tittered. ‘Well, I guess I was,’ he answered finally. ‘Pretty well scared, sometimes. Why, in my first battle I thought the sky was falling down. I thought the world was coming to an end. You bet I was scared.’
Every one laughed. Perhaps it seemed strange and rather wonderful to them that a man should admit the thing, and in the tone of their laughter there was probably more admiration than if old Fleming had declared that he had always been a lion. Moreover, they knew that he had ranked as an orderly sergeant, and so their opinion of his heroism was fixed. None, to be sure, knew how an orderly sergeant ranked, but then it was understood to be somewhere just shy of a major general’s stars. So, when old Henry admitted that he had been frightened, there was a laugh.
‘The trouble was,’ said the old man, ‘I thought they were all shooting at me. Yes, sir, I thought every man in the other army was aiming at me in particular, and only me. And it seemed so darned unreasonable, you know. I wanted to explain to ’em what an almighty good fellow I was, because I thought then they might quit all trying to hit me. But I couldn’t explain, and they kept on being unreasonable – blim! – blam! – bang! So I run!’
Two little triangles of wrinkles appeared at the corners of the eyes. Evidently he appreciated some comedy in this recital. Down near his feet, however, little Jim, his grandson, was visibly horror-stricken. His hands were clasped nervously, and his eyes were wide with astonishment at this terrible scandal, his most magnificent grandfather telling such a thing.
‘That was at Chancellorsville. Of course, afterward I got kind of used to it. A man does. Lots of men, though, seemed to feel all right from the start. I did, as soon as I “got on to it,” as they say now; but at first I was pretty well flustered. Now, there was young Jim Conklin, old Si Conklin’s son – that used to keep the tannery – you none of you recollect him – well, he went into it from the start just as if he was born to it. But with me it was different. I had to get used to it.’
When little Jim walked with his grandfather he was in the habit of skipping along on the stone pavement in front of the three stores and the hotel of the town and betting that he could avoid the cracks. But upon this day he walked soberly, with his hand gripping two of his grandfather’s fingers. Sometimes he kicked abstractedly at dandelions that curved over the walk. Any one could see that he was much troubled.
‘There’s Sickles’s colt over in the medder, Jimmie,’ said the old man. ‘Don’t you wish you owned one like him?’
‘Um,’ said the boy, with a strange lack of interest. He continued his reflections. Then finally he ventured, ‘Grandpa – now – was that
true what you was telling those men?’
‘What?’ asked the grandfather. ‘What was I telling them?’
‘Oh, about your running.’
‘Why, yes, that was true enough, Jimmie. It was my first fight, and there was an awful lot of noise, you know.’
Jimmie seemed dazed that this idol, of its own will, should so totter. His stout boyish idealism was injured.
Presently the grandfather said: ‘Sickles’s colt is going for a drink. Don’t you wish you owned Sickles’s colt, Jimmie?’
The boy merely answered, ‘He aint’s as nice as our’n.’ He lapsed then into another moody silence.
One of the hired men, a Swede, desired to drive to the county seat for purposes of his own. The old man loaned a horse and an unwashed buggy. It appeared later that one of the purposes of the Swede was to get drunk.
After quelling some boisterous frolic of the farm hands and boys in the garret, the old man had that night gone peacefully to sleep, when he was aroused by clamoring at the kitchen door. He grabbed his trousers, and they waved out behind as he dashed forward. He could hear the voice of the Swede, screaming and blubbering. He pushed the wooden button, and, as the door flew open, the Swede, a maniac, stumbled inward, chattering, weeping, still screaming: ‘De barn fire! Fire! Fire! De barn fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!’
There was a swift and indescribable change in the old man. His face ceased instantly to be a face; it became a mask, a gray thing, with horror written about the mouth and eyes. He hoarsely shouted at the foot of the little rickety stairs, and immediately, it seemed, there came down an avalanche of men. No one knew that during this time the old lady had been standing in her night clothes at the bedroom door, yelling: ‘What’s th’ matter? What’s th’ matter? What’s th’ matter?’
When they dashed toward the barn it presented to their eyes its usual appearance, solemn, rather mystic in the black night. The Swede’s lantern was overturned at a point some yards in front of the barn doors. It contained a wild little conflagration of its own, and even in their excitement some of those who ran felt a gentle secondary vibration of the thrifty part of their minds at sight of this overturned lantern. Under ordinary circumstances it would have been a calamity.
But the cattle in the barn were trampling, trampling, trampling, and above this noise could be heard a humming like the song of innumerable bees. The old man hurled aside the great doors, and a yellow flame leaped out at one corner and sped and wavered frantically up the old gray wall. It was glad, terrible, this single flame, like the wild banner of deadly and triumphant foes.
The motley crowd from the garret had come with all the pails of the farm. They flung themselves upon the well. It was a leisurely old machine, long dwelling in indolence. It was in the habit of giving out water with a sort of reluctance. The men stormed at it, cursed it; but it continued to allow the buckets to be filled only after the wheezy windlass had howled many protests at the mad-handed men.
With his opened knife in his hand old Fleming himself had gone headlong into the barn, where the stifling smoke swirled with the air currents, and where could be heard in its fulness the terrible chorus of the flames, laden with tones of hate and death, a hymn of wonderful ferocity.
He flung a blanket over an old mare’s head, cut the halter close to the manger, led the mare to the door, and fairly kicked her out to safety. He returned with the same blanket, and rescued one of the work horses. He took five horses out, and then came out himself, with his clothes bravely on fire. He had no whiskers, and very little hair on his head. They soused five pailfuls of water on him. His eldest son made a clean miss with the sixth pailful, because the old man had turned and was running down the decline and around to the basement of the barn, where were the stanchions of the cows. Some one noticed at the time that he ran very lamely, as if one of the frenzied horses had smashed his hip.
The cows, with their heads held in the heavy stanchions, had thrown themselves, strangled themselves, tangled themselves: done everything which the ingenuity of their exuberant fear could suggest to them.
Here, as at the well, the same thing happened to every man save one. Their hands went mad. They became incapable of everything save the power to rush into dangerous situations.
The old man released the cow nearest the door, and she, blind drunk with terror, crashed into the Swede. The Swede had been running to and fro babbling. He carried an empty milk pail, to which he clung with an unconscious, fierce enthusiasm. He shrieked like one lost as he went under the cow’s hoofs, and the milk pail, rolling across the floor, made a flash of silver in the gloom.
Old Fleming took a fork, beat off the cow, and dragged the paralyzed Swede to the open air. When they had rescued all the cows save one, which had so fastened herself that she could not be moved an inch, they returned to the front of the barn and stood sadly, breathing like men who had reached the final point of human effort.
Many people had come running. Some one had even gone to the church, and now, from the distance, rang the tocsin note of the old bell. There was a long flare of crimson on the sky, which made remote people speculate as to the whereabouts of the fire.
The long flames sang their drumming chorus in voices of the heaviest bass. The wind whirled clouds of smoke and cinders into the faces of the spectators. The form of the old barn was outlined in black amid these masses of orange-hued flames.
And then came this Swede again, crying as one who is the weapon of the sinister fates. ‘De colts! De colts! You have forgot de colts!’
Old Fleming staggered. It was true; they had forgotten the two colts in the box stalls at the back of the barn. ‘Boys,’ he said, ‘I must try to get ’em out.’ They clamored about him then, afraid for him, afraid of what they should see. Then they talked wildly each to each. ‘Why, it’s sure death!’ ‘He would never get out!’ ‘Why, it’s suicide for a man to go in there!’ Old Fleming stared absentmindedly at the open doors. ‘The poor little things!’ he said. He rushed into the barn.
When the roof fell in, a great funnel of smoke swarmed toward the sky, as if the old man’s mighty spirit, released from its body – a little bottle – had swelled like the genie of fable. The smoke was tinted rose-hue from the flames, and perhaps the unutterable midnights of the universe will have no power to daunt the color of this soul.
PUFFIN CLASSICS
THE RED BADGE
OF COURAGE
With Puffin Classics, the adventure isn’t
over when you reach the final page.
Want to discover more about your favourite
characters, their creators and their worlds?
Read on…
CONTENTS
AUTHOR FILE
DID YOU KNOW…?
WHO’S WHO IN THE RED BADGE OF
COURAGE
SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT…
SOME THINGS TO DO…
GLOSSARY
AUTHOR FILE
NAME: Stephen Crane
BORN: 1 November 1871 in Newark, New Jersey, USA
DIED: 5 June 1900 in Badenweiler, Germany (buried in Hillside, New Jersey)
NATIONALITY: American
LIVED: America and England
MARRIED: no
CHILDREN: none
What was he like?
Stephen Crane was the youngest of fourteen children, only eight of whom survived into adulthood. His father was a Methodist minister who died in 1880, leaving his mother and his older brothers to raise him. As a small child, Crane dreamed of being a soldier and as he grew up became increasingly interested in war. He didn’t particularly enjoy studying and he was a bit of a rebel. He started out at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania to pursue a mining and engineering degree, transferred to Syracuse University after only one semester, and then dropped out after taking only one class. But he always loved literature and writing and by the age of sixteen he was writing articles for the New York Tribune, whilst living with one of his brothers in Paterson, New Jersey.
; Where did he grow up?
Stephen Crane grew up in New Jersey. He was often ill as a child and when he contracted scarlet fever the family moved to Port Jervis, New York – a place where Stephen had previously recovered from severe colds. Stephen and his sister Helen later moved to a house in Asbury Park, New Jersey, to be with their brother Townley and his wife. (The house is now a museum: the Stephen Crane House.) When he was grown up he went to England with his companion, Cora Taylor, and lived in the town of Oxted in Surrey, near London.
What did he do apart from writing books?
After the success of The Red Badge of Courage in 1895, Stephen wrote a series on Civil War battlefields, worked as a newspaper journalist for several different publications and became a war correspondent, first in Greece during the Greco–Turkish conflict, then during the Spanish–American War. On his way to report on a rebellion on the island of Cuba in 1896 his ship sank off the coast of Florida, leaving him stuck in a small dinghy for several days, narrowly escaping death. This experience directly led to his most famous short story, ‘The Open Boat’ (1898).
Where did Stephen Crane get the idea for The Red Badge of Courage?
Stephen Crane had always been fascinated by the subject of war and, it has been reported, by the game of baseball. It was actually on the pitch where Crane put into practice certain moves and stratagem to beat his opponents, and he used what he had learned to create The Red Badge of Courage – one of the most famous war stories ever written.
What did people think of The Red Badge of Courage when it was first published?
Published in 1895, The Red Badge of Courage brought Crane instant worldwide fame and fortune. Many readers were impressed by its brutally honest portrayal of war and he was highly praised for capturing the sights and sounds of actual combat. ‘They all insist I am a veteran of the Civil War,’ Crane noted. But in fact at the time of writing the novel he had never even seen a battle.