Chapter XIV.

When the youth awoke it seemed to him that he had been asleep for a

thousand years, and he felt sure that he opened his eyes upon an

unexpected world. Gray mists were slowly shifting before the first

efforts of the sun rays. An impending splendor could be seen in the

eastern sky. An icy dew had chilled his face, and immediately upon

arousing he curled farther down into his blanket. He stared for a while

at the leaves overhead, moving in a heraldic wind of the day.

The distance was splintering and blaring with the noise of fighting.

There was in the sound an expression of a deadly persistency, as if it

had not began and was not to cease.

About him were the rows and groups of men that he had dimly seen the

previous night. They were getting a last draught of sleep before the

awakening. The gaunt, careworn features and dusty figures were made

plain by this quaint light at the dawning, but it dressed the skin of

the men in corpse-like hues and made the tangled limbs appear pulseless

and dead. The youth started up with a little cry when his eyes first

swept over this motionless mass of men, thick-spread upon the ground,

pallid, and in strange postures. His disordered mind interpreted the

hall of the forest as a charnel place. He believed for an instant that

he was in the house of the dead, and he did not dare to move lest these

corpses start up, squalling and squawking. In a second, however, he

achieved his proper mind. He swore a complicated oath at himself. He

saw that this somber picture was not a fact of the present, but a mere

prophecy.

He heard then the noise of a fire crackling briskly in the cold air,

and, turning his head, he saw his friend pottering busily about a small

blaze. A few other figures moved in the fog, and he heard the hard

cracking of axe blows.

Suddenly there was a hollow rumble of drums. A distant bugle sang

faintly. Similar sounds, varying in strength, came from near and far

over the forest. The bugles called to each other like brazen gamecocks.

The near thunder of the regimental drums rolled.

The body of men in the woods rustled. There was a general uplifting of

heads. A murmuring of voices broke upon the air. In it there was much

bass of grumbling oaths. Strange gods were addressed in condemnation of

the early hours necessary to correct war. An officer’s peremptory tenor

rang out and quickened the stiffened movement of the men. The tangled

limbs unraveled. The corpse-hued faces were hidden behind fists that

twisted slowly in the eye sockets.

The youth sat up and gave vent to an enormous yawn. “Thunder!” he

remarked petulantly. He rubbed his eyes, and then putting up his hand

felt carefully the bandage over his wound. His friend, perceiving him

to be awake, came from the fire. “Well, Henry, ol’ man, how do yeh feel

this mornin’?” he demanded.

The youth yawned again. Then he puckered his mouth to a little pucker.

His head, in truth, felt precisely like a melon, and there was an

unpleasant sensation at his stomach.

“Oh, Lord, I feel pretty bad,” he said.

“Thunder!” exclaimed the other. “I hoped ye’d feel all right this

mornin’. Let’s see th’ bandage—I guess it’s slipped.” He began to

tinker at the wound in rather a clumsy way until the youth exploded.

“Gosh-dern it!” he said in sharp irritation; “you’re the hangdest man I

ever saw! You wear muffs on your hands. Why in good thunderation can’t

you be more easy? I’d rather you’d stand off an’ throw guns at it. Now,

go slow, an’ don’t act as if you was nailing down carpet.”

He glared with insolent command at his friend, but the latter answered

soothingly. “Well, well, come now, an’ git some grub,” he said. “Then,

maybe, yeh’ll feel better.”

At the fireside the loud young soldier watched over his comrade’s wants

with tenderness and care. He was very busy marshaling the little black

vagabonds of tin cups and pouring into them the streaming iron colored

mixture from a small and sooty tin pail. He had some fresh meat, which

he roasted hurriedly on a stick. He sat down then and contemplated the

youth’s appetite with glee.

The youth took note of a remarkable change in his comrade since those

days of camp life upon the river bank. He seemed no more to be

continually regarding the proportions of his personal prowess. He was

not furious at small words that pricked his conceits. He was no more a

loud young soldier. There was about him now a fine reliance. He showed

a quiet belief in his purposes and his abilities. And this inward

confidence evidently enabled him to be indifferent to little words of

other men aimed at him.

The youth reflected. He had been used to regarding his comrade as a

blatant child with an audacity grown from his inexperience,

thoughtless, headstrong, jealous, and filled with a tinsel courage. A

swaggering babe accustomed to strut in his own dooryard. The youth

wondered where had been born these new eyes; when his comrade had made

the great discovery that there were many men who would refuse to be

subjected by him. Apparently, the other had now climbed a peak of

wisdom from which he could perceive himself as a very wee thing. And

the youth saw that ever after it would be easier to live in his

friend’s neighborhood.

His comrade balanced his ebony coffee-cup on his knee. “Well, Henry,”

he said, “what d’yeh think th’ chances are? D’yeh think we’ll wallop

’em?”

The youth considered for a moment. “Day-b’fore-yesterday,” he finally

replied, with boldness, “you would ’a’ bet you’d lick the hull

kit-an’-boodle all by yourself.”

His friend looked a trifle amazed. “Would I?” he asked. He pondered.

“Well, perhaps I would,” he decided at last. He stared humbly at the

fire.

The youth was quite disconcerted at this surprising reception of his

remarks. “Oh, no, you wouldn’t either,” he said, hastily trying to

retrace.

But the other made a deprecating gesture. “Oh, yeh needn’t mind,

Henry,” he said. “I believe I was a pretty big fool in those days.” He

spoke as after a lapse of years.

There was a little pause.

“All th’ officers say we’ve got th’ rebs in a pretty tight box,” said

the friend, clearing his throat in a commonplace way. “They all seem t’

think we’ve got ’em jest where we want ’em.”

“I don’t know about that,” the youth replied. “What I seen over on th’

right makes me think it was th’ other way about. From where I was, it

looked as if we was gettin’ a good poundin’ yestirday.”

“D’yeh think so?” inquired the friend. “I thought we handled ’em pretty

rough yestirday.”

“Not a bit,” said the youth. “Why, lord, man, you didn’t see nothing of

the fight. Why!” Then a sudden thought came to him. “Oh! Jim Conklin’s

dead.”

His friend started. “What? Is he? Jim Conklin?”

The youth spoke slowly. “Yes. He’s dead. Shot in th’ side.”

“Yeh don’t say so. Jim Conklin. . .poor cuss!”

All about them were other small fires surrounded by men with their

little black utensils. From one of these near came sudden sharp voices

in a row. It appeared that two light-footed soldiers had been teasing a

huge, bearded man, causing him to spill coffee upon his blue knees. The

man had gone into a rage and had sworn comprehensively. Stung by his

language, his tormentors had immediately bristled at him with a great

show of resenting unjust oaths. Possibly there was going to be a fight.

The friend arose and went over to them, making pacific motions with his

arms. “Oh, here, now, boys, what’s th’ use?” he said. “We’ll be at th’

rebs in less’n an hour. What’s th’ good fightin’ ’mong ourselves?”

One of the light-footed soldiers turned upon him red-faced and violent.

“Yeh needn’t come around here with yer preachin’. I s’pose yeh don’t

approve ’a fightin’ since Charley Morgan licked yeh; but I don’t see

what business this here is ’a yours or anybody else.”

“Well, it ain’t,” said the friend mildly. “Still I hate t’ see—”

There was a tangled argument.

“Well, he—,” said the two, indicating their opponent with accusative

forefingers.

The huge soldier was quite purple with rage. He pointed at the two

soldiers with his great hand, extended clawlike. “Well, they—”

But during this argumentative time the desire to deal blows seemed to

pass, although they said much to each other. Finally the friend

returned to his old seat. In a short while the three antagonists could

be seen together in an amiable bunch.

“Jimmie Rogers ses I’ll have t’ fight him after th’ battle t’-day,”

announced the friend as he again seated himself. “He ses he don’t allow

no interferin’ in his business. I hate t’ see th’ boys fightin’ ’mong

themselves.”

The youth laughed. “Yer changed a good bit. Yeh ain’t at all like yeh

was. I remember when you an’ that Irish feller—” He stopped and laughed

again.

“No, I didn’t use t’ be that way,” said his friend thoughtfully.

“That’s true ’nough.”

“Well, I didn’t mean—” began the youth.

The friend made another deprecatory gesture. “Oh, yeh needn’t mind,

Henry.”

There was another little pause.

“Th’ reg’ment lost over half th’ men yestirday,” remarked the friend

eventually. “I thought ’a course they was all dead, but, laws, they

kep’ a-comin’ back last night until it seems, after all, we didn’t lose

but a few. They’d been scattered all over, wanderin’ around in th’

woods, fightin’ with other reg’ments, an’ everything. Jest like you

done.”

“So?” said the youth.