Immediately, as if the uplifting of the smoke had been prearranged, the discovered troops burst into a rasping yell, and a hundred flames jetted toward the retreating band. A rolling gray cloud again interposed as the regiment dog- gedly replied. The youth had to depend again upon his misused ears, which were trembling and buzzing from the melee of musketry and yells.
The way seemed eternal. In the clouded haze men became panicstricken with the thought that the regiment had lost its path, and was proceed- ing in a perilous direction. Once the men who headed the wild procession turned and came push- ing back against their comrades, screaming that they were being fired upon from points which they had considered to be toward their own lines. At this cry a hysterical fear and dismay beset the troops. A soldier, who heretofore had been am- bitious to make the regiment into a wise little band that would proceed calmly amid the huge- appearing difficulties, suddenly sank down and buried his face in his arms with an air of bowing to a doom. From another a shrill lamentation rang out filled with profane allusions to a general. Men ran hither and thither, seeking with their eyes roads of escape. With serene regularity, as if controlled by a schedule, bullets buffed into men.
The youth walked stolidly into the midst of the mob, and with his flag in his hands took a stand as if he expected an attempt to push him to the ground. He unconsciously assumed the atti- tude of the color bearer in the fight of the pre- ceding day. He passed over his brow a hand that trembled. His breath did not come freely. He was choking during this small wait for the crisis.
His friend came to him. “Well, Henry, I guess this is good-by–John.”
“Oh, shut up, you damned fool!” replied the youth, and he would not look at the other.
The officers labored like politicians to beat the mass into a proper circle to face the men- aces. The ground was uneven and torn. The men curled into depressions and fitted them- selves snugly behind whatever would frustrate a bullet.
The youth noted with vague surprise that the lieutenant was standing mutely with his legs far apart and his sword held in the manner of a cane. The youth wondered what had happened to his vocal organs that he no more cursed.
There was something curious in this little in- tent pause of the lieutenant. He was like a babe which, having wept its fill, raises its eyes and fixes upon a distant toy. He was engrossed in this contemplation, and the soft under lip quivered from self-whispered words.
Some lazy and ignorant smoke curled slowly. The men, hiding from the bullets, waited anx- iously for it to lift and disclose the plight of the regiment.
The silent ranks were suddenly thrilled by the eager voice of the youthful lieutenant bawling out: “Here they come! Right onto us,
b’Gawd!” His further words were lost in a roar of wicked thunder from the men’s rifles.
The youth’s eyes had instantly turned in the direction indicated by the awakened and agitated lieutenant, and he had seen the haze of treachery disclosing a body of soldiers of the enemy. They were so near that he could see their features. There was a recognition as he looked at the types of faces. Also he perceived with dim amazement that their uniforms were rather gay in effect, being light gray, accented with a brilliant-hued facing. Too, the clothes seemed new.
These troops had apparently been going for- ward with caution, their rifles held in readiness, when the youthful lieutenant had discovered them and their movement had been interrupted by the volley from the blue regiment. From the moment’s glimpse, it was derived that they had been unaware of the proximity of their dark- suited foes or had mistaken the direction. Al- most instantly they were shut utterly from the youth’s sight by the smoke from the energetic rifles of his companions. He strained his vision to learn the accomplishment of the volley, but the smoke hung before him.
The two bodies of troops exchanged blows in the manner of a pair of boxers. The fast angry firings went back and forth. The men in blue were intent with the despair of their circum- stances and they seized upon the revenge to be had at close range. Their thunder swelled loud and valiant. Their curving front bristled with flashes and the place resounded with the clangor of their ramrods. The youth ducked and dodged for a time and achieved a few unsatisfactory views of the enemy. There appeared to be many of them and they were replying swiftly. They seemed moving toward the blue regiment, step by step. He seated himself gloomily on the ground with his flag between his knees.
As he noted the vicious, wolflike temper of his comrades he had a sweet thought that if the enemy was about to swallow the regimental broom as a large prisoner, it could at least have the consolation of going down with bristles for- ward.
But the blows of the antagonist began to grow more weak. Fewer bullets ripped the air, and finally, when the men slackened to learn of the fight, they could see only dark, floating smoke. The regiment lay still and gazed. Pres- ently some chance whim came to the pestering blur, and it began to coil heavily away. The men saw a ground vacant of fighters. It would have been an empty stage if it were not for a few corpses that lay thrown and twisted into fantastic shapes upon the sward.
At sight of this tableau, many of the men in blue sprang from behind their covers and made an ungainly dance of joy. Their eyes burned and a hoarse cheer of elation broke from their dry lips.
It had begun to seem to them that events were trying to prove that they were impotent. These little battles had evidently endeavored to demon- strate that the men could not fight well. When on the verge of submission to these opinions, the small duel had showed them that the propor- tions were not impossible, and by it they had revenged themselves upon their misgivings and upon the foe.
The impetus of enthusiasm was theirs again. They gazed about them with looks of uplifted pride, feeling new trust in the grim, always confident weapons in their hands. And they were men.
CHAPTER XXI.
PRESENTLY they knew that no firing threat- ened them. All ways seemed once more opened to them. The dusty blue lines of their friends were disclosed a short distance away. In the distance there were many colossal noises, but in all this part of the field there was a sudden stillness.
They perceived that they were free. The depleted band drew a long breath of relief and gathered itself into a bunch to complete its trip.
In this last length of journey the men began to show strange emotions. They hurried with nervous fear. Some who had been dark and un- faltering in the grimmest moments now could not conceal an anxiety that made them frantic. It was perhaps that they dreaded to be killed in insignificant ways after the times for proper military deaths had passed. Or, perhaps, they thought it would be too ironical to get killed at
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the portals of safety. With backward looks of perturbation, they hastened.
As they approached their own lines there was some sarcasm exhibited on the part of a gaunt and bronzed regiment that lay resting in the shade of trees. Questions were wafted to them.
“Where th’ hell yeh been?”
“What yeh comin’ back fer?”
“Why didn’t yeh stay there?”
“Was it warm out there, sonny?”
“Goin’ home now, boys?”
One shouted in taunting mimicry: “Oh, mother, come quick an’ look at th’ sojers!”
There was no reply from the bruised and bat- tered regiment, save that one man made broad- cast challenges to fist fights and the red-bearded officer walked rather near and glared in great swashbuckler style at a tall captain in the other regiment. But the lieutenant suppressed the man who wished to fist fight, and the tall cap- tain, flushing at the little fanfare of the red- bearded one, was obliged to look intently at some trees.
The youth’s tender flesh was deeply stung by these remarks. From under his creased brows he glowered with hate at the mockers. He meditated upon a few revenges. Still, many in the regiment hung their heads in criminal fashion, so that it came to pass that the men trudged with sudden heaviness, as if they bore upon their bended shoulders the coffin of their honor. And the youthful lieutenant, recollecting himself, be- gan to mutter softly in black curses.
They turned when they arrived at their old position to regard the ground over which they had charged.
The youth in this contemplation was smitten with a large astonishment. He discovered that the distances, as compared with the brilliant measurings of his mind, were trivial and ridicu- lous. The stolid trees, where much had taken place, seemed incredibly near. The time, too, now that he reflected, he saw to have been short. He wondered at the number of emotions and events that had been crowded into such little spaces. Elfin thoughts must have exaggerated and enlarged everything, he said.
It seemed, then, that there was bitter justice in the speeches of the gaunt and bronzed vet- erans. He veiled a glance of disdain at his fel- lows who strewed the ground, choking with dust, red from perspiration, misty-eyed, disheveled.
They were gulping at their canteens, fierce to wring every mite of water from them, and they polished at their swollen and watery features with coat sleeves and bunches of grass.
However, to the youth there was a consider- able joy in musing upon his performances during the charge. He had had very little time pre- viously in which to appreciate himself, so that there was now much satisfaction in quietly think- ing of his actions. He recalled bits of color that in the flurry had stamped themselves unawares upon his engaged senses.
As the regiment lay heaving from its hot exer- tions the officer who had named them as mule drivers came galloping along the line. He had lost his cap. His tousled hair streamed wildly, and his face was dark with vexation and wrath. His temper was displayed with more clearness by the way in which he managed his horse. He jerked and wrenched savagely at his bridle, stop- ping the hard-breathing animal with a furious pull near the colonel of the regiment. He im- mediately exploded in reproaches which came unbidden to the ears of the men. They were suddenly alert, being always curious about black words between officers.
“Oh, thunder, MacChesnay, what an awful bull you made of this thing!” began the officer. He attempted low tones, but his indignation caused certain of the men to learn the sense of his words. “What an awful mess you made! Good Lord, man, you stopped about a hun- dred feet this side of a very pretty success! If your men had gone a hundred feet farther you would have made a great charge, but as it is –what a lot of mud diggers you’ve got any- way!”
The men, listening with bated breath, now turned their curious eyes upon the colonel. They had a ragamuffin interest in this affair.
The colonel was seen to straighten his form and put one hand forth in oratorical fashion. He wore an injured air; it was as if a deacon had been accused of stealing. The men were wiggling in an ecstasy of excitement.
But of a sudden the colonel’s manner changed from that of a deacon to that of a Frenchman. He shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, well, general, we went as far as we could,” he said calmly.
“As far as you could? Did you, b’Gawd?” snorted the other. “Well, that wasn’t very far, was it?” he added, with a glance of cold con- tempt into the other’s eyes. “Not very far, I think. You were intended to make a diversion in favor of Whiterside. How well you succeeded your own ears can now tell you.” He wheeled his horse and rode stiffly away.
The colonel, bidden to hear the jarring noises of an engagement in the woods to the left, broke out in vague damnations.
The lieutenant, who had listened with an air of impotent rage to the interview, spoke suddenly in firm and undaunted tones. “I don’t care what a man is–whether he is a general or what–if he says th’ boys didn’t put up a good fight out there he’s a damned fool.”
“Lieutenant,” began the colonel, severely, “this is my own affair, and I’ll trouble you–“
The lieutenant made an obedient gesture. “All right, colonel, all right,” he said. He sat down with an air of being content with him- self.
The news that the regiment had been re- proached went along the line. For a time the men were bewildered by it. “Good thunder!” they ejaculated, staring at the vanishing form of the general. They conceived it to be a huge mistake.
Presently, however, they began to believe that in truth their efforts had been called light. The youth could see this conviction weigh upon the entire regiment until the men were like cuffed and cursed animals, but withal rebellious.
The friend, with a grievance in his eye, went to the youth. “I wonder what he does want,” he said. “He must think we went out there an’ played marbles! I never see sech a man!”
The youth developed a tranquil philosophy for these moments of irritation. “Oh, well,” he rejoined, “he probably didn’t see nothing of it at all and got mad as blazes, and concluded we were a lot of sheep, just because we didn’t do what he wanted done. It’s a pity old Grandpa Hender- son got killed yestirday–he’d have known that we did our best and fought good. It’s just our awful luck, that’s what.”
“I should say so,” replied the friend. He seemed to be deeply wounded at an injustice. “I should say we did have awful luck! There’s no fun in fightin’ fer people when everything yeh do–no matter what–ain’t done right. I have a notion t’ stay behind next time an’ let ’em take their ol’ charge an’ go t’ th’ devil with it.”
The youth spoke soothingly to his comrade. “Well, we both did good. I’d like to see the fool what’d say we both didn’t do as good as we could!”
“Of course we did,” declared the friend stoutly. “An’ I’d break th’ feller’s neck if he was as big as a church. But we’re all right, anyhow, for I heard one feller say that we two fit th’ best in th’ reg’ment, an’ they had a great argument ’bout it. Another feller, ‘a course, he had t’ up an’ say it was a lie–he seen all what was goin’ on an’ he never seen us from th’ beginnin’ t’ th’ end. An’ a lot more struck in an’ ses it wasn’t a lie–we did fight like thunder, an’ they give us quite a send-off. But this is what I can’t stand–these everlastin’ ol’ soldiers, titterin’ an’ laughin’, an’ then that general, he’s crazy.”
The youth exclaimed with sudden exaspera- tion: “He’s a lunkhead! He makes me mad. I wish he’d come along next time. We’d show ‘im what–“
He ceased because several men had come hurrying up. Their faces expressed a bringing of great news.
“O Flem, yeh jest oughta heard!” cried one, eagerly.
“Heard what?” said the youth.
“Yeh jest oughta heard!” repeated the other, and he arranged himself to tell his tidings. The others made an excited circle. “Well, sir, th’ colonel met your lieutenant right by us–it was damnedest thing I ever heard–an’ he ses: ‘Ahem! ahem!’ he ses. ‘Mr. Hasbrouck!’ he ses, ‘by th’ way, who was that lad what carried th’ flag?’ he ses. There, Flemin’, what d’ yeh think ‘a that? ‘Who was th’ lad what carried th’ flag?’ he ses, an’ th’ lieutenant, he speaks up right away: ‘That’s Flemin’, an’ he’s a jimhickey,’ he ses, right away. What? I say he did. ‘A jim- hickey,’ he ses–those ‘r his words. He did, too. I say he did. If you kin tell this story better than I kin, go ahead an’ tell it. Well, then, keep yer mouth shet. Th’ lieutenant, he ses: ‘He’s a jimhickey,’ an’ th’ colonel, he ses: ‘Ahem! ahem! he is, indeed, a very good man t’ have, ahem! He kep’ th’ flag ‘way t’ th’ front. I saw ‘im. He’s a good un,’ ses th’ colonel. ‘You bet,’ ses th’ lieu- tenant, ‘he an’ a feller named Wilson was at th’ head ‘a th’ charge, an’ howlin’ like Indians all th’ time,’ he ses. ‘Head ‘a th’ charge all th’ time,’ he ses. ‘A feller named Wilson,’ he ses. There, Wilson, m’boy, put that in a letter an’ send it hum t’ yer mother, hay? ‘A feller named Wil- son,’ he ses. An’ th’ colonel, he ses: ‘Were they, indeed? Ahem! ahem! My sakes!’ he ses. ‘At th’ head ‘a th’ reg’ment?’ he ses. ‘They were,’ ses th’ lieutenant. ‘My sakes!’ ses th’ colonel. He ses: ‘Well, well, well,’ he ses, ‘those two babies?’ ‘They were,’ ses th’ lieutenant. ‘Well, well,’ ses th’ colonel, ‘they deserve t’ be major generals,’ he ses. ‘They deserve t’ be major-generals.’
The youth and his friend had said: “Huh!” “Yer lyin’, Thompson.” “Oh, go t’ blazes!” “He never sed it.” “Oh, what a lie!” “Huh!” But despite these youthful scoffings and embar- rassments, they knew that their faces were deeply flushing from thrills of pleasure. They ex- changed a secret glance of joy and congratula- tion.
They speedily forgot many things. The past held no pictures of error and disappointment. They were very happy, and their hearts swelled with grateful affection for the colonel and the youthful lieutenant.
CHAPTER XXII.
WHEN the woods again began to pour forth the dark-hued masses of the enemy the youth felt serene self-confidence. He smiled briefly when he saw men dodge and duck at the long screech- ings of shells that were thrown in giant handfuls over them. He stood, erect and tranquil, watch- ing the attack begin against a part of the line that made a blue curve along the side of an adja- cent hill. His vision being unmolested by smoke from the rifles of his companions, he had oppor- tunities to see parts of the hard fight. It was a relief to perceive at last from whence came some of these noises which had been roared into his ears.
Off a short way he saw two regiments fight- ing a little separate battle with two other regi- ments. It was in a cleared space, wearing a set- apart look. They were blazing as if upon a wager, giving and taking tremendous blows. The firings were incredibly fierce and rapid.
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These intent regiments apparently were oblivious of all larger purposes of war, and were slugging each other as if at a matched game.
In another direction he saw a magnificent brigade going with the evident intention of driv- ing the enemy from a wood. They passed in out of sight and presently there was a most awe-in- spiring racket in the wood. The noise was un- speakable. Having stirred this prodigious up- roar, and, apparently, finding it too prodigious, the brigade, after a little time, came marching airily out again with its fine formation in nowise disturbed. There were no traces of speed in its movements. The brigade was jaunty and seemed to point a proud thumb at the yelling wood.
On a slope to the left there was a long row of guns, gruff and maddened, denouncing the enemy, who, down through the woods, were forming for another attack in the pitiless mo- notony of conflicts. The round red discharges from the guns made a crimson flare and a high, thick smoke. Occasional glimpses could be caught of groups of the toiling artillerymen. In the rear of this row of guns stood a house, calm and white, amid bursting shells. A congregation of horses, tied to a long railing, were tugging frenziedly at their bridles. Men were running hither and thither.
The detached battle between the four regi- ments lasted for some time. There chanced to be no interference, and they settled their dispute by themselves. They struck savagely and pow- erfully at each other for a period of minutes, and then the lighter-hued regiments faltered and drew back, leaving the dark-blue lines shouting. The youth could see the two flags shaking with laughter amid the smoke remnants.
Presently there was a stillness, pregnant with meaning. The blue lines shifted and changed a trifle and stared expectantly at the silent woods and fields before them. The hush was solemn and churchlike, save for a distant battery that, evidently unable to remain quiet, sent a faint rolling thunder over the ground. It irritated, like the noises of unimpressed boys. The men imagined that it would prevent their perched ears from hearing the first words of the new battle.
Of a sudden the guns on the slope roared out a message of warning. A spluttering sound had begun in the woods. It swelled with amazing speed to a profound clamor that involved the earth in noises. The splitting crashes swept along the lines until an interminable roar was developed. To those in the midst of it it became a din fitted to the universe. It was the whirring and thumping of gigantic machinery, complica- tions among the smaller stars. The youth’s ears were filled up. They were incapable of hearing more.
On an incline over which a road wound he saw wild and desperate rushes of men perpet- ually backward and forward in riotous surges. These parts of the opposing armies were two long waves that pitched upon each other madly at dictated points. To and fro they swelled. Sometimes, one side by its yells and cheers would proclaim decisive blows, but a moment later the other side would be all yells and cheers. Once the youth saw a spray of light forms go in houndlike leaps toward the waving blue lines. There was much howling, and presently it went away with a vast mouthful of prisoners. Again, he saw a blue wave dash with such thunderous force against a gray obstruction that it seemed to clear the earth of it and leave nothing but trampled sod. And always in their swift and deadly rushes to and fro the men screamed and yelled like maniacs.
Particular pieces of fence or secure positions behind collections of trees were wrangled over, as gold thrones or pearl bedsteads. There were desperate lunges at these chosen spots seemingly every instant, and most of them were bandied like light toys between the contending forces. The youth could not tell from the battle flags flying like crimson foam in many directions which color of cloth was winning.
His emaciated regiment bustled forth with undiminished fierceness when its time came. When assaulted again by bullets, the men burst out in a barbaric cry of rage and pain. They bent their heads in aims of intent hatred behind the projected hammers of their guns. Their ramrods clanged loud with fury as their eager arms pounded the cartridges into the rifle barrels. The front of the regiment was a smoke- wall penetrated by the flashing points of yellow and red.
Wallowing in the fight, they were in an astonishingly short time resmudged. They surpassed in stain and dirt all their previous ap- pearances. Moving to and fro with strained exertion, jabbering the while, they were, with their swaying bodies, black faces, and glowing eyes, like strange and ugly friends jigging heavily in the smoke.
The lieutenant, returning from a tour after a bandage, produced from a hidden receptacle of his mind new and portentous oaths suited to the emergency. Strings of expletives he swung lashlike over the backs of his men, and it was evident that his previous efforts had in nowise impaired his resources.
The youth, still the bearer of the colors, did not feel his idleness. He was deeply absorbed as a spectator. The crash and swing of the great drama made him lean forward, intent-eyed, his face working in small contortions. Sometimes he prattled, words coming unconsciously from him in grotesque exclamations. He did not know that he breathed; that the flag hung silently over him, so absorbed was he.
A formidable line of the enemy came within dangerous range. They could be seen plainly– tall, gaunt men with excited faces running with long strides toward a wandering fence.
At sight of this danger the men suddenly ceased their cursing monotone. There was an instant of strained silence before they threw up their rifles and fired a plumping volley at the foes. There had been no order given; the men, upon recognizing the menace, had immedi- ately let drive their flock of bullets without wait- ing for word of command.
But the enemy were quick to gain the protec- tion of the wandering line of fence. They slid down behind it with remarkable celerity, and from this position they began briskly to slice up the blue men.
These latter braced their energies for a great struggle. Often, white clinched teeth shone from the dusky faces. Many heads surged to and fro, floating upon a pale sea of smoke. Those behind the fence frequently shouted and yelped in taunts and gibelike cries, but the regi- ment maintained a stressed silence. Perhaps, at this new assault the men recalled the fact that they had been named mud diggers, and it made their situation thrice bitter. They were breath- lessly intent upon keeping the ground and thrust- ing away the rejoicing body of the enemy. They fought swiftly and with a despairing savageness denoted in their expressions.
The youth had resolved not to budge what- ever should happen. Some arrows of scorn that had buried themselves in his heart had generated strange and unspeakable hatred. It was clear to him that his final and absolute revenge was to be achieved by his dead body lying, torn and gluttering, upon the field. This was to be a poignant retaliation upon the officer who had said “mule drivers,” and later “mud diggers,” for in all the wild graspings of his mind for a unit responsible for his sufferings and commo- tions he always seized upon the man who had dubbed him wrongly. And it was his idea, vaguely formulated, that his corpse would be for those eyes a great and salt reproach.
The regiment bled extravagantly. Grunting bundles of blue began to drop. The orderly sergeant of the youth’s company was shot through the cheeks. Its supports being injured, his jaw hung afar down, disclosing in the wide cavern of his mouth a pulsing mass of blood and teeth. And with it all he made attempts to cry out. In his endeavor there was a dreadful earnestness, as if he conceived that one great shriek would make him well.
The youth saw him presently go rearward. His strength seemed in nowise impaired. He ran swiftly, casting wild glances for succor.
Others fell down about the feet of their com- panions. Some of the wounded crawled out and away, but many lay still, their bodies twisted into impossible shapes.
The youth looked once for his friend. He saw a vehement young man, powder-smeared and frowzled, whom he knew to be him. The lieu- tenant, also, was unscathed in his position at the rear. He had continued to curse, but it was now with the air of a man who was using his last box of oaths.
For the fire of the regiment had begun to wane and drip. The robust voice, that had come strangely from the thin ranks, was growing rapidly weak.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE colonel came running along back of the line. There were other officers following him. “We must charge’m!” they shouted. “We must charge’m!” they cried with resentful voices, as if anticipating a rebellion against this plan by the men.
The youth, upon hearing the shouts, began to study the distance between him and the enemy. He made vague calculations. He saw that to be firm soldiers they must go forward. It would be death to stay in the present place, and with all the circumstances to go backward would exalt too many others. Their hope was to push the galling foes away from the fence.
He expected that his companions, weary and stiffened, would have to be driven to this assault, but as he turned toward them he perceived with a certain surprise that they were giving quick and unqualified expressions of assent. There was an ominous, clanging overture to the charge
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when the shafts of the bayonets rattled upon the rifle barrels. At the yelled words of command the soldiers sprang forward in eager leaps. There was new and unexpected force in the movement of the regiment. A knowledge of its faded and jaded condition made the charge ap- pear like a paroxysm, a display of the strength that comes before a final feebleness. The men scampered in insane fever of haste, racing as if to achieve a sudden success before an exhilarating fluid should leave them. It was a blind and de- spairing rush by the collection of men in dusty and tattered blue, over a green sward and under a sapphire sky, toward a fence, dimly outlined in smoke, from behind which spluttered the fierce rifles of enemies.
The youth kept the bright colors to the front. He was waving his free arm in furious circles, the while shrieking mad calls and appeals, urging on those that did not need to be urged, for it seemed that the mob of blue men hurling them- selves on the dangerous group of rifles were again grown suddenly wild with an enthusiasm of unselfishness. From the many firings starting toward them, it looked as if they would merely succeed in making a great sprinkling of corpses on the grass between their former position and the fence. But they were in a state of frenzy, perhaps because of forgotten vanities, and it made an exhibition of sublime recklessness. There was no obvious questioning, nor figurings, nor dia- grams. There was, apparently, no considered loopholes. It appeared that the swift wings of their desires would have shattered against the iron gates of the impossible.
He himself felt the daring spirit of a savage religion mad. He was capable of profound sacri- fices, a tremendous death. He had no time for dissections, but he knew that he thought of the bullets only as things that could prevent him from reaching the place of his endeavor. There were subtle flashings of joy within him that thus should be his mind.
He strained all his strength. His eyesight was shaken and dazzled by the tension of thought and muscle. He did not see anything excepting the mist of smoke gashed by the little knives of fire, but he knew that in it lay the aged fence of a vanished farmer protecting the snuggled bodies of the gray men.
As he ran a thought of the shock of contact gleamed in his mind. He expected a great con- cussion when the two bodies of troops crashed together. This became a part of his wild battle madness. He could feel the onward swing of the regiment about him and he conceived of a thun- derous, crushing blow that would prostrate the resistance and spread consternation and amaze- ment for miles. The flying regiment was going to have a catapultian effect. This dream made him run faster among 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 intend to abide the blow. The smoke, rolling, disclosed men who ran, their faces still turned. These grew to a crowd, who retired stubbornly. Individuals wheeled fre- quently to send a bullet at the blue wave.
But at one part of the line there was a grim and obdurate group that made no movement. They were settled firmly down behind posts and rails. A flag, ruffled and fierce, waved over them and their rifles dinned fiercely.
The blue whirl of men got very near, until it seemed that in truth there would be a close and frightful scuffle. There was an expressed disdain in the opposition of the little group, that changed the meaning of the cheers of the men in blue. They became yells of wrath, directed, personal. The cries of the two parties were now in sound an interchange of scathing insults.
They in blue showed their teeth; their eyes shone all white. They launched themselves as at the throats of those who stood resisting. The space between dwindled to an insignificant dis- tance.
The youth had centered the gaze of his soul upon that other flag. Its possession would be high pride. It would express bloody minglings, near blows. He had a gigantic hatred for those who made great difficulties and complications. They caused it to be as a craved treasure of my- thology, hung amid tasks and contrivances of danger.
He plunged like a mad horse at it. He was resolved it should not escape if wild blows and darings of blows could seize it. His own em- blem, quivering and aflare, was winging toward the other. It seemed there would shortly be an encounter of strange beaks and claws, as of eagles.
The swirling body of blue men came to a sudden halt at close and disastrous range and roared a swift volley. The group in gray was split and broken by this fire, but its riddled body still fought. The men in blue yelled again and rushed in upon it.
The youth, in his leapings, saw, as through a mist, a picture of four or five men stretched upon the ground or writhing upon their knees with bowed heads as if they had been stricken by bolts from the sky. Tottering among them was the rival color bearer, whom the youth saw had been bitten vitally by the bullets of the last formidable volley. He perceived this man fighting a last struggle, the struggle of one whose legs are grasped by demons. It was a ghastly battle. Over his face was the bleach of death, but set upon it was the dark and hard lines of desperate purpose. With this terrible grin of resolution he hugged his precious flag to him and was stum- bling and staggering in his design to go 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 greedily upon his limbs. Those in advance of the scam- pering blue men, howling cheers, leaped at the fence. The despair of the lost was in his eyes as he glanced back at them.
The youth’s friend went over the obstruction in a tumbling heap and sprang at the flag as a panther at prey. He pulled at it and, wrench- ing it free, swung up its red brilliancy with a mad cry of exultation even as the color bearer, gasping, lurched over in a final throe and, stiff- ening 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. The men gesticulated and bellowed in an ecstasy. When they spoke it was as if they considered their listener to be a mile away. What hats and caps 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 now sat as prisoners. Some blue men were about them in an eager and curious circle. The soldiers had trapped strange birds, and there was an examination. A flurry of fast questions was in the air.
One of the prisoners was nursing a superficial wound in the foot. He cuddled it, baby-wise, but he looked up from it often to curse with an astonishing utter abandon straight at the noses of his captors. He consigned them to red regions; he called upon the pestilential wrath of strange gods. And with it all he was singularly free from recognition of the finer points of the con- duct of prisoners of war. It was as if a clumsy clod had trod upon his toe and he conceived it to be his privilege, his duty, to use deep, resentful oaths.
Another, who was a boy in years, took his plight with great calmness and apparent good nature. He conversed with the men in blue, studying their faces with his bright and keen eyes. They spoke of battles and conditions. There was an acute interest in all their faces dur- ing this exchange of view points. It seemed a great satisfaction to hear voices from where all had been darkness and speculation.
The third captive sat with a morose counte- nance. He preserved a stoical and cold attitude. To all advances he made one reply without varia- tion, “Ah, go t’ hell!”
The last of the four was always silent and, for the most part, kept his face turned in un- molested directions. From the views the youth received he seemed to be in a state of absolute dejection. Shame was upon him, and with it profound regret that he was, perhaps, no more to be counted in the ranks of his fellows. The youth could detect no expression that would allow him to believe that the other was giving a thought to his narrowed future, the pictured dungeons, perhaps, and starvations and brutali- ties, liable to the imagination. All to be seen was shame for captivity and regret for the right to antagonize.
After the men had celebrated sufficiently they settled down behind the old rail fence, on the opposite side to the one from which their foes had been driven. A few shot perfunctorily at distant marks.
There was some long grass. The youth
nestled in it and rested, making a convenient rail support the flag. His friend, jubilant and glori- fied, holding his treasure with vanity, came to him there. They sat side by side and congratu- lated each other.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE roarings that had stretched in a long line of sound across the face of the forest began to grow intermittent and weaker. The stentorian speeches of the artillery continued in some dis- tant encounter, but the crashes of the musketry had almost ceased. The youth and his friend of a sudden looked up, feeling a deadened form of distress at the waning of these noises, which had become a part of life. They could see changes going on among the troops. There were march- ings this way and that way. A battery wheeled leisurely. On the crest of a small hill was the thick gleam of many departing muskets.
The youth arose. “Well, what now, I won- der?” he said. By his tone he seemed to be preparing to resent some new monstrosity in the way of dins and smashes. He shaded his eyes with his grimy hand and gazed over the field.
His friend also arose and stared. “I bet
226
we’re goin’ t’ git along out of this an’ back over th’ river,” said he.
“Well, I swan!” said the youth.
They waited, watching. Within a little while the regiment received orders to retrace its way. The men got up grunting from the grass, regret- ting the soft repose. They jerked their stiffened legs, and stretched their arms over their heads. One man swore as he rubbed his eyes. They all groaned “O Lord!” They had as many objec- tions to this change 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 a mad scamper.
The regiment marched until it had joined its fellows. The reformed brigade, in column, aimed through a wood at the road. Directly they were in a mass of dust-covered troops, and were trudging along in a way parallel to the enemy’s lines as these had been defined by the previous turmoil.
They passed within view of a stolid white house, and saw in front of it groups of their com- rades lying in wait behind a neat breastwork. A row of guns were booming at a distant enemy. Shells thrown in reply were raising clouds of dust and splinters. Horsemen dashed along the line of intrenchments.
At this point of its march the division curved away from the field and went winding off in the direction of the river. When the significance of this movement had impressed itself upon the youth he turned his head and looked over his shoulder toward the trampled and debris-strewed ground. He breathed a breath of new satisfac- tion. He finally nudged his 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 uncertain way. His mind was undergoing a subtle change. It took moments for it to cast off its battleful ways and resume its accustomed course of thought. Gradually his brain emerged from the clogged clouds, and at last he was enabled to more closely compre- hend himself and circumstance.
He understood then that the existence of shot and counter-shot was in the past. He had dwelt in a land of strange, squalling upheavals and had come forth. He had been where there was red of blood and black of passion, and he was es- caped. His first thoughts were given to rejoic- ings at this fact.
Later he began to study his deeds, his fail- ures, and his achievements. Thus, fresh from scenes where many of his usual machines of re- flection had been idle, from where he had pro- ceeded sheeplike, he struggled to marshal all his acts.
At last they marched before him clearly. From this present view point he was enabled to look upon them in spectator fashion and to criticise them with some correctness, for his new condition had already defeated certain sym- pathies.
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 fel- lows 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 assur- ance. He felt a quiet manhood, nonassertive but of sturdy and strong blood. He knew that he would no more quail before his guides wher- ever 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.