Chapter VI.

The youth awakened slowly. He came gradually back to a position from

which he could regard himself. For moments he had been scrutinizing his

person in a dazed way as if he had never before seen himself. Then he

picked up his cap from the ground. He wriggled in his jacket to make a

more comfortable fit, and kneeling relaced his shoe. He thoughtfully

mopped his reeking features.

So it was all over at last! The supreme trial had been passed. The red,

formidable difficulties of war had been vanquished.

He went into an ecstasy of self-satisfaction. He had the most

delightful sensations of his life. Standing as if apart from himself,

he viewed that last scene. He perceived that the man who had fought

thus was magnificent.

He felt that he was a fine fellow. He saw himself even with those

ideals which he had considered as far beyond him. He smiled in deep

gratification.

Upon his fellows he beamed tenderness and good will. “Gee! ain’t it

hot, hey?” he said affably to a man who was polishing his streaming

face with his coat sleeves.

“You bet!” said the other, grinning sociably. “I never seen sech dumb

hotness.” He sprawled out luxuriously on the ground. “Gee, yes! An’ I

hope we don’t have no more fightin’ till a week from Monday.”

There were some handshakings and deep speeches with men whose features

were familiar, but with whom the youth now felt the bonds of tied

hearts. He helped a cursing comrade to bind up a wound of the shin.

But, of a sudden, cries of amazement broke out along the ranks of the

new regiment. “Here they come ag’in! Here they come ag’in!” The man who

had sprawled upon the ground started up and said, “Gosh!”

The youth turned quick eyes upon the field. He discerned forms begin to

swell in masses out of a distant wood. He again saw the tilted flag

speeding forward.

The shells, which had ceased to trouble the regiment for a time, came

swirling again, and exploded in the grass or among the leaves of the

trees. They looked to be strange war flowers bursting into fierce

bloom.

The men groaned. The luster faded from their eyes. Their smudged

countenances now expressed a profound dejection. They moved their

stiffened bodies slowly, and watched in sullen mood the frantic

approach of the enemy. The slaves toiling in the temple of this god

began to feel rebellion at his harsh tasks.

They fretted and complained each to each. “Oh, say, this is too much of

a good thing! Why can’t somebody send us supports?”

“We ain’t never goin’ to stand this second banging. I didn’t come here

to fight the hull damn’ rebel army.”

There was one who raised a doleful cry. “I wish Bill Smithers had trod

on my hand, insteader me treddin’ on his’n.” The sore joints of the

regiment creaked as it painfully floundered into position to repulse.

The youth stared. Surely, he thought, this impossible thing was not

about to happen. He waited as if he expected the enemy to suddenly

stop, apologize, and retire bowing. It was all a mistake.

But the firing began somewhere on the regimental line and ripped along

in both directions. The level sheets of flame developed great clouds of

smoke that tumbled and tossed in the mild wind near the ground for a

moment, and then rolled through the ranks as through a gate. The clouds

were tinged an earthlike yellow in the sunrays and in the shadow were a

sorry blue. The flag was sometimes eaten and lost in this mass of

vapor, but more often it projected, sun-touched, resplendent.

Into the youth’s eyes there came a look that one can see in the orbs of

a jaded horse. His neck was quivering with nervous weakness and the

muscles of his arms felt numb and bloodless. His hands, too, seemed

large and awkward as if he was wearing invisible mittens. And there was

a great uncertainty about his knee joints.

The words that comrades had uttered previous to the firing began to

recur to him. “Oh, say, this is too much of a good thing! What do they

take us for—why don’t they send supports? I didn’t come here to fight

the hull damned rebel army.”

He began to exaggerate the endurance, the skill, and the valor of those

who were coming. Himself reeling from exhaustion, he was astonished

beyond measure at such persistency. They must be machines of steel. It

was very gloomy struggling against such affairs, wound up perhaps to

fight until sundown.

He slowly lifted his rifle and catching a glimpse of the thickspread

field he blazed at a cantering cluster. He stopped then and began to

peer as best as he could through the smoke. He caught changing views of

the ground covered with men who were all running like pursued imps, and

yelling.

To the youth it was an onslaught of redoubtable dragons. He became like

the man who lost his legs at the approach of the red and green monster.

He waited in a sort of a horrified, listening attitude. He seemed to

shut his eyes and wait to be gobbled.

A man near him who up to this time had been working feverishly at his

rifle suddenly stopped and ran with howls. A lad whose face had borne

an expression of exalted courage, the majesty of he who dares give his

life, was, at an instant, smitten abject. He blanched like one who has

come to the edge of a cliff at midnight and is suddenly made aware.

There was a revelation. He, too, threw down his gun and fled. There was

no shame in his face. He ran like a rabbit.

Others began to scamper away through the smoke. The youth turned his

head, shaken from his trance by this movement as if the regiment was

leaving him behind. He saw the few fleeting forms.

He yelled then with fright and swung about. For a moment, in the great

clamor, he was like a proverbial chicken. He lost the direction of

safety. Destruction threatened him from all points.

Directly he began to speed toward the rear in great leaps. His rifle

and cap were gone. His unbuttoned coat bulged in the wind. The flap of

his cartridge box bobbed wildly, and his canteen, by its slender cord,

swung out behind. On his face was all the horror of those things which

he imagined.

The lieutenant sprang forward bawling. The youth saw his features

wrathfully red, and saw him make a dab with his sword. His one thought

of the incident was that the lieutenant was a peculiar creature to feel

interested in such matters upon this occasion.

He ran like a blind man. Two or three times he fell down. Once he

knocked his shoulder so heavily against a tree that he went headlong.

Since he had turned his back upon the fight his fears had been

wondrously magnified. Death about to thrust him between the shoulder

blades was far more dreadful than death about to smite him between the

eyes. When he thought of it later, he conceived the impression that it

is better to view the appalling than to be merely within hearing. The

noises of the battle were like stones; he believed himself liable to be

crushed.

As he ran on he mingled with others. He dimly saw men on his right and

on his left, and he heard footsteps behind him. He thought that all the

regiment was fleeing, pursued by those ominous crashes.

In his flight the sound of these following footsteps gave him his one

meager relief. He felt vaguely that death must make a first choice of

the men who were nearest; the initial morsels for the dragons would be

then those who were following him. So he displayed the zeal of an

insane sprinter in his purpose to keep them in the rear. There was a

race.

As he, leading, went across a little field, he found himself in a

region of shells. They hurtled over his head with long wild screams. As

he listened he imagined them to have rows of cruel teeth that grinned

at him. Once one lit before him and the livid lightning of the

explosion effectually barred the way in his chosen direction. He

groveled on the ground and then springing up went careering off through

some bushes.

He experienced a thrill of amazement when he came within view of a

battery in action. The men there seemed to be in conventional moods,

altogether unaware of the impending annihilation. The battery was

disputing with a distant antagonist and the gunners were wrapped in

admiration of their shooting. They were continually bending in coaxing

postures over the guns. They seemed to be patting them on the back and

encouraging them with words. The guns, stolid and undaunted, spoke with

dogged valor.

The precise gunners were coolly enthusiastic. They lifted their eyes

every chance to the smoke-wreathed hillock from whence the hostile

battery addressed them. The youth pitied them as he ran. Methodical

idiots! Machine-like fools! The refined joy of planting shells in the

midst of the other battery’s formation would appear a little thing when

the infantry came swooping out of the woods.

The face of a youthful rider, who was jerking his frantic horse with an

abandon of temper he might display in a placid barnyard, was impressed

deeply upon his mind. He knew that he looked upon a man who would

presently be dead.

Too, he felt a pity for the guns, standing, six good comrades, in a

bold row.

He saw a brigade going to the relief of its pestered fellows. He

scrambled upon a wee hill and watched it sweeping finely, keeping

formation in difficult places. The blue of the line was crusted with

steel color, and the brilliant flags projected. Officers were shouting.

This sight also filled him with wonder. The brigade was hurrying

briskly to be gulped into the infernal mouths of the war god. What

manner of men were they, anyhow? Ah, it was some wondrous breed! Or

else they didn’t comprehend—the fools.

A furious order caused commotion in the artillery. An officer on a

bounding horse made maniacal motions with his arms. The teams went

swinging up from the rear, the guns were whirled about, and the battery

scampered away. The cannon with their noses poked slantingly at the

ground grunted and grumbled like stout men, brave but with objections

to hurry.

The youth went on, moderating his pace since he had left the place of

noises.

Later he came upon a general of division seated upon a horse that

pricked its ears in an interested way at the battle. There was a great

gleaming of yellow and patent leather about the saddle and bridle. The

quiet man astride looked mouse-colored upon such a splendid charger.

A jingling staff was galloping hither and thither. Sometimes the

general was surrounded by horsemen and at other times he was quite

alone. He looked to be much harassed. He had the appearance of a

business man whose market is swinging up and down.

The youth went slinking around this spot. He went as near as he dared

trying to overhear words. Perhaps the general, unable to comprehend

chaos, might call upon him for information. And he could tell him. He

knew all concerning it. Of a surety the force was in a fix, and any

fool could see that if they did not retreat while they had

opportunity—why—

He felt that he would like to thrash the general, or at least approach

and tell him in plain words exactly what he thought him to be. It was

criminal to stay calmly in one spot and make no effort to stay

destruction. He loitered in a fever of eagerness for the division

commander to apply to him.

As he warily moved about, he heard the general call out irritably:

“Tompkins, go over an’ see Taylor, an’ tell him not t’ be in such an

all-fired hurry; tell him t’ halt his brigade in th’ edge of th’ woods;

tell him t’ detach a reg’ment—say I think th’ center ’ll break if we

don’t help it out some; tell him t’ hurry up.”

A slim youth on a fine chestnut horse caught these swift words from the

mouth of his superior. He made his horse bound into a gallop almost

from a walk in his haste to go upon his mission. There was a cloud of

dust.

A moment later the youth saw the general bounce excitedly in his

saddle.

“Yes, by heavens, they have!” The officer leaned forward. His face was

aflame with excitement. “Yes, by heavens, they’ve held ’im! They’ve

held ’im!”

He began to blithely roar at his staff: “We’ll wallop ’im now. We’ll

wallop ’im now. We’ve got ’em sure.” He turned suddenly upon an aide:

“Here—you—Jones—quick—ride after Tompkins—see Taylor—tell him t’ go

in—everlastingly—like blazes—anything.”

As another officer sped his horse after the first messenger, the

general beamed upon the earth like a sun. In his eyes was a desire to

chant a paean. He kept repeating, “They’ve held ’em, by heavens!”

His excitement made his horse plunge, and he merrily kicked and swore

at it. He held a little carnival of joy on horseback.