proper thoroughfares. A river, amber tinted
in the shadow of its banks, purled at the
army's feet; and at night, when the stream
had become of a sorrowful blackness, one
could see across it the red, eyelike gleam of
hostile camp fires set in the low brows of
distant hills.

Once a certain tall soldier developed virtues
and went resolutely to wash a shirt. He
came flying back from a brook waving his
garment bannerlike. He was swelled with a
tale he had heard from a reliable friend,
who had heard it from a truthful cavalryman,
who had heard it from his trustworthy
brother, one of the order lies at division
headquarters. He adopted the important air
of a herald in red and gold. "We're goin' t'
move t' morrah--sure," he said pompously
to a group in the company street. "We're
goin' 'way up the river, cut across, an'
come around in behint 'em."

To his attentive audience he drew a loud
and elaborate plan of a very brilliant
campaign. When he had finished, the blue-
clothed men scattered into small arguing
groups between the rows of squat brown
huts. A negro teamster who had been
dancing upon a cracker box with the
hilarious encouragement of twoscore
soldiers was deserted. He sat mournfully
down. Smoke drifted lazily from a multitude
of quaint chim neys.

-1-

like. I don't care a hang."

There was much food for thought in the man
ner in which he replied. He came near to
con vincing them by disdaining to produce
proofs. They grew excited over it.

There was a youthful private who listened
with eager ears to the words of the tall
soldier and to the varied comments of his
comrades. After receiving a fill of
discussions concerning marches and
attacks, he went to his hut and crawled
through an intricate hole that served it as a
door. He wished to be alone with some new
thoughts that had lately come to him.

He lay down on a wide bank that stretched
across the end of the room. In the other end,
cracker boxes were made to serve as
furniture. They were grouped about the
fireplace. A pic ture from an illustrated
weekly was upon the log walls, and three
rifles were paralleled on pegs. Equipments
hunt on handy projections, and some tin
dishes lay upon a small pile of firewood. A
folded tent was serving as a roof. The
sunlight, without, beating upon it, made it
glow a light yellow shade. A small window
shot an oblique square of whiter light upon
the cluttered floor. The smoke from the fire
at times neglected the clay chimney and
wreathed into the room, and this flimsy
chimney of clay and sticks made end less
threats to set ablaze the whole
establishment.

The youth was in a little trance of astonish
ment. So they were at last going to fight. On
the morrow, perhaps, there would be a
battle, and he would be in it. For a time he
was obliged to labor to make himself
believe. He could not accept with assurance
an omen that he was about to mingle in one
of those great affairs of the earth.

-2-

deep con viction. Moreover, on her side,
was his belief that her ethical motive in the
argument was impregnable.

At last, however, he had made firm
rebellion against this yellow light thrown
upon the color of his ambitions. The
newspapers, the gossip of the village, his
own picturings had aroused him to an
uncheckable degree. They were in truth
fighting finely down there. Almost every day
the newspapers printed accounts of a
decisive victory.

One night, as he lay in bed, the winds had
carried to him the clangoring of the church
bell as some enthusiast jerked the rope
frantically to tell the twisted news of a great
battle. This voice of the people rejoicing in
the night had made him shiver in a
prolonged ecstasy of ex citement. Later, he
had gone down to his mother's room and
had spoken thus: "Ma, I'm going to enlist."

"Henry, don't you be a fool," his mother had
replied. She had then covered her face with
the quilt. There was an end to the matter for
that night.

Nevertheless, the next morning he had gone
to a town that was near his mother's farm
and had enlisted in a company that was
forming there. When he had returned home
his mother was milking the brindle cow.
Four others stood waiting. "Ma, I've
enlisted," he had said to her diffidently.
There was a short silence. "The Lord's will
be done, Henry," she had finally replied,
and had then continued to milk the brindle
cow.

When he had stood in the doorway with his
soldier's clothes on his back, and with the
light of excitement and expectancy in his
eyes almost defeating the glow of regret for
the home bonds, he had seen two tears

-3-

cross oath.

"I don't know what else to tell yeh, Henry,
excepting that yeh must never do no
shirking, child, on my account. If so be a
time comes when yeh have to be kilt or do a
mean thing, why, Henry, don't think of
anything 'cept what's right, because there's
many a woman has to bear up 'ginst sech
things these times, and the Lord 'll take keer
of us all.

"Don't forgit about the socks and the shirts,
child; and I've put a cup of blackberry jam
with yer bundle, because I know yeh like it
above all things. Good-by, Henry. Watch
out, and be a good boy."

He had, of course, been impatient under the
ordeal of this speech. It had not been quite
what he expected, and he had borne it with
an air of irritation. He departed feeling
vague relief.

Still, when he had looked back from the
gate, he had seen his mother kneeling
among the po tato parings. Her brown face,
upraised, was stained with tears, and her
spare form was quiver ing. He bowed his
head and went on, feeling suddenly
ashamed of his purposes.

From his home he had gone to the seminary
to bid adieu to many schoolmates. They had
thronged about him with wonder and
admiration. He had felt the gulf now
between them and had swelled with calm
pride. He and some of his fellows who had
donned blue were quite over whelmed with
privileges for all of one afternoon, and it had
been a very delicious thing. They had
strutted.

A certain light-haired girl had made
vivacious fun at his martial spirit, but there
was another and darker girl whom he had

-4-

of the generals. Also, he was drilled and
drilled and reviewed, and drilled and drilled
and reviewed.

The only foes he had seen were some
pickets along the river bank. They were a
sun-tanned, philosophical lot, who
sometimes shot reflectively at the blue
pickets. When reproached for this
afterward, they usually expressed sorrow,
and swore by their gods that the guns had
exploded without their permission. The
youth, on guard duty one night, conversed
across the stream with one of them. He was
a slightly ragged man, who spat skillfully
between his shoes and possessed a great
fund of bland and infantile assurance. The
youth liked him personally.

"Yank," the other had informed him, "yer a
right dum good feller." This sentiment,
floating to him upon the still air, had made
him tempo rarily regret war.

Various veterans had told him tales. Some
talked of gray, bewhiskered hordes who
were advancing with relentless curses and
chewing tobacco with unspeakable valor;
tremendous bodies of fierce soldiery who
were sweeping along like the Huns. Others
spoke of tattered and eternally hungry men
who fired despondent powders. "They'll
charge through hell's fire an' brimstone t' git
a holt on a haversack, an' sech stomachs
ain't a-lastin' long," he was told. From the
stories, the youth imagined the red, live
bones sticking out through slits in the faded
uniforms.

Still, he could not put a whole faith in veter
ans' tales, for recruits were their prey. They
talked much of smoke, fire, and blood, but
he could not tell how much might be lies.
They persistently yelled "Fresh fish!" at him,
and were in no wise to be trusted.

-5-

himself, and meanwhile he re solved to
remain close upon his guard lest those
qualities of which he knew nothing should
ever lastingly disgrace him. "Good Lord!" he
re peated in dismay.

After a time the tall soldier slid dexterously
through the hole. The loud private followed.
They were wrangling.

"That's all right," said the tall soldier as he
entered. He waved his hand expressively.
"You can believe me or not, jest as you like.
All you got to do is to sit down and wait as
quiet as you can. Then pretty soon you'll find
out I was right."

His comrade grunted stubbornly. For a mo
ment he seemed to be searching for a
formidable reply. Finally he said: "Well, you
don't know everything in the world, do you?"

"Didn't say I knew everything in the world,"
retorted the other sharply. He began to stow
various articles snugly into his knapsack.

The youth, pausing in his nervous walk,
looked down at the busy figure. "Going to be
a battle, sure, is there, Jim?" he asked.

"Of course there is," replied the tall soldier.
"Of course there is. You jest wait 'til to-
morrow, and you'll see one of the biggest
battles ever was. You jest wait."

"Thunder!der!" said the youth.

"Oh, you'll see fighting this time, my boy,
what'll be regular out-and-out fighting,"
added the tall soldier, with the air of a man
who is about to exhibit a battle for the
benefit of his friends.

"Huh!" said the loud one from a corner.

"Well," remarked the youth, "like as not this

-6-

I think they'll fight better than some, if worse
than others. That's the way I figger. They call
the reg'ment 'Fresh fish' and everything;
but the boys come of good stock, and most
of 'em 'll fight like sin after they oncet git
shootin'," he added, with a mighty
emphasis on the last four words.

"Oh, you think you know--" began the loud
soldier with scorn.

The other turned savagely upon him. They
had a rapid altercation, in which they
fastened upon each other various strange
epithets.

The youth at last interrupted them. "Did you
ever think you might run yourself, Jim?" he
asked. On concluding the sentence he
laughed as if he had meant to aim a joke.
The loud sol dier also giggled.

The tall private waved his hand. "Well," said
he profoundly, "I've thought it might get too
hot for Jim Conklin in some of them
scrimmages, and if a whole lot of boys
started and run, why, I s'pose I'd start and
run. And if I once started to run, I'd run like
the devil, and no mistake. But if everybody
was a-standing and a-fighting, why, I'd
stand and fight. Be jiminey, I would. I'll bet
on it."

"Huh!" said the loud one.

The youth of this tale felt gratitude for these
words of his comrade. He had feared that
all of the untried men possessed a great
and correct confidence. He now was in a
measure reassured.

Chapter 2

THE next morning the youth discovered that
his tall comrade had been the fast-flying
messen ger of a mistake. There was much

-7-

ered another who suspected himself. A
sympa thetic comparison of mental notes
would have been a joy to him.

He occasionally tried to fathom a comrade
with seductive sentences. He looked about
to find men in the proper mood. All attempts
failed to bring forth any statement which
looked in any way like a confession to those
doubts which he privately acknowledged in
himself. He was afraid to make an open
declaration of his concern, because he
dreaded to place some unscrupulous
confidant upon the high plane of the
unconfessed from which elevation he could
be derided.

In regard to his companions his mind wa
vered between two opinions, according to
his mood. Sometimes he inclined to
believing them all heroes. In fact, he usually
admitted in secret the superior
development of the higher qualities in
others. He could conceive of men going
very insignificantly about the world bearing
a load of courage unseen, and although he
had known many of his comrades through
boyhood, he be gan to fear that his
judgment of them had been blind. Then, in
other moments, he flouted these theories,
and assured himself that his fellows were all
privately wondering and quaking.

His emotions made him feel strange in the
presence of men who talked excitedly of a
pro spective battle as of a drama they were
about to witness, with nothing but
eagerness and curiosity apparent in their
faces. It was often that he sus pected them
to be liars.

He did not pass such thoughts without
severe condemnation of himself. He dinned
reproaches at times. He was convicted by
himself of many shameful crimes against
the gods of traditions.

-8-

At last he heard from along the road at the
foot of the hill the clatter of a horse's
galloping hoofs. It must be the coming of
orders. He bent forward, scarce breathing.
The exciting clickety-click, as it grew louder
and louder, seemed to be beating upon his
soul. Presently a horseman with jangling
equipment drew rein be fore the colonel of
the regiment. The two held a short, sharp-
worded conversation. The men in the
foremost ranks craned their necks.

As the horseman wheeled his animal and
gal loped away he turned to shout over his
shoulder, "Don't forget that box of cigars!"
The colonel mumbled in reply. The youth
wondered what a box of cigars had to do
with war.

A moment later the regiment went swinging
off into the darkness. It was now like one of
those moving monsters wending with many
feet. The air was heavy, and cold with dew.
A mass of wet grass, marched upon,
rustled like silk.

There was an occasional flash and glimmer
of steel from the backs of all these huge
crawl ing reptiles. From the road came
creakings and grumblings as some surly
guns were dragged away.

The men stumbled along still muttering
specu lations. There was a subdued
debate. Once a man fell down, and as he
reached for his rifle a comrade, unseeing,
trod upon his hand. He of the injured fingers
swore bitterly and aloud. A low, tittering
laugh went among his fellows.

Presently they passed into a roadway and
marched forward with easy strides. A dark
regiment moved before them, and from
behind also came the tinkle of equipments
on the bodies of marching men.

-9-

enemy. They expressed commisera tion for
that part of the army which had been left
upon the river bank, felicitating themselves
upon being a part of a blasting host.

The youth, considering himself as
separated from the others, was saddened
by the blithe and merry speeches that went
from rank to rank. The company wags all
made their best endeav ors. The regiment
tramped to the tune of laughter.

The blatant soldier often convulsed whole
files by his biting sarcasms aimed at the tall
one.

And it was not long before all the men
seemed to forget their mission. Whole
brigades grinned in unison, and regiments
laughed.

A rather fat soldier attempted to pilfer a
horse from a dooryard. He planned to load
his knap sack upon it. He was escaping
with his prize when a young girl rushed from
the house and grabbed the animal's mane.
There followed a wrangle. The young girl,
with pink cheeks and shining eyes, stood
like a dauntless statue.

The observant regiment, standing at rest in
the roadway, whooped at once, and
entered whole-souled upon the side of the
maiden. The men became so engrossed in
this affair that they entirely ceased to
remember their own large war. They jeered
the piratical private, and called attention to
various defects in his personal ap
pearance; and they were wildly enthusiastic
in support of the young girl.

To her, from some distance, came bold
advice. "Hit him with a stick."

There were crows and catcalls showered
upon him when he retreated without the

-10-

between himself and those men who were
dodging imp like around the fires.

As he mused thus he heard the rustle of
grass, and, upon turning his head,
discovered the loud soldier. He called out,
"Oh, Wilson!"

The latter approached and looked down.
"Why, hello, Henry; is it you? What you do ing
here?"

"Oh, thinking," said the youth.

The other sat down and carefully lighted his
pipe. "You're getting blue, my boy. You're
looking thundering peeked. What the
dickens is wrong with you?"

"Oh, nothing," said the youth.

The loud soldier launched then into the sub
ject of the anticipated fight. "Oh, we've got
'em now!" As he spoke his boyish face was
wreathed in a gleeful smile, and his voice
had an exultant ring. "We've got 'em now. At
last, by the eternal thunders, we'll lick 'em
good!"

"If the truth was known," he added, more
soberly, "THEY'VE licked US about every
clip up to now; but this time--this time--
we'll lick 'em good!"

"I thought you was objecting to this march a
little while ago," said the youth coldly.

"Oh, it wasn't that," explained the other. "I
don't mind marching, if there's going to be
fight ing at the end of it. What I hate is this
getting moved here and moved there, with
no good com ing of it, as far as I can see,
excepting sore feet and damned short
rations."

"Well, Jim Conklin says we'll get a plenty of

-11-

"No, I ain't," exclaimed the loud soldier in
dignantly; "and I didn't say I was the bravest
man in the world, neither. I said I was going
to do my share of fighting--that's what I
said. And I am, too. Who are you, anyhow.
You talk as if you thought you was Napoleon
Bonaparte." He glared at the youth for a
moment, and then strode away.

The youth called in a savage voice after his
comrade: "Well, you needn't git mad about
it!" But the other continued on his way and
made no reply.

He felt alone in space when his injured com
rade had disappeared. His failure to
discover any mite of resemblance in their
view points made him more miserable than
before. No one seemed to be wrestling with
such a terrific per sonal problem. He was a
mental outcast.

He went slowly to his tent and stretched him
self on a blanket by the side of the snoring
tall soldier. In the darkness he saw visions
of a thou sand-tongued fear that would
babble at his back and cause him to flee,
while others were going coolly about their
country's business. He admit ted that he
would not be able to cope with this monster.
He felt that every nerve in his body would be
an ear to hear the voices, while other men
would remain stolid and deaf.

And as he sweated with the pain of these
thoughts, he could hear low, serene
sentences. "I'll bid five." "Make it six."
"Seven." "Seven goes."

He stared at the red, shivering reflection of
a fire on the white wall of his tent until, ex
hausted and ill from the monotony of his suf
fering, he fell asleep.

Chapter 3

-12-

ponderous infantry of theory to the light and
speedy infantry of practice. The regiment,
relieved of a burden, received a new
impetus. But there was much loss of
valuable knapsacks, and, on the whole,
very good shirts.

But the regiment was not yet veteranlike in
appearance. Veteran regiments in the army
were likely to be very small aggregations of
men. Once, when the command had first
come to the field, some perambulating
veterans, noting the length of their column,
had accosted them thus: "Hey, fellers, what
brigade is that?" And when the men had
replied that they formed a regiment and not
a brigade, the older soldiers had laughed,
and said, "O Gawd!"

Also, there was too great a similarity in the
hats. The hats of a regiment should properly
represent the history of headgear for a
period of years. And, moreover, there were
no letters of faded gold speaking from the
colors. They were new and beautiful, and
the color bearer habitu ally oiled the pole.

Presently the army again sat down to think.
The odor of the peaceful pines was in the
men's nostrils. The sound of monotonous
axe blows rang through the forest, and the
insects, nodding upon their perches,
crooned like old women. The youth returned
to his theory of a blue dem onstration.

One gray dawn, however, he was kicked in
the leg by the tall soldier, and then, before
he was entirely awake, he found himself
running down a wood road in the midst of
men who were panting from the first effects
of speed. His can teen banged rhythmically
upon his thigh, and his haversack bobbed
softly. His musket bounced a trifle from his
shoulder at each stride and made his cap
feel uncertain upon his head.

-13-

the water, shaded black, some white
bubble eyes looked at the men.

As they climbed the hill on the farther side
artillery began to boom. Here the youth
forgot many things as he felt a sudden
impulse of curi osity. He scrambled up the
bank with a speed that could not be
exceeded by a bloodthirsty man.

He expected a battle scene.

There were some little fields girted and
squeezed by a forest. Spread over the
grass and in among the tree trunks, he could
see knots and waving lines of skirmishers
who were running hither and thither and
firing at the landscape. A dark battle line lay
upon a sunstruck clearing that gleamed
orange color. A flag fluttered.

Other regiments floundered up the bank.
The brigade was formed in line of battle,
and after a pause started slowly through the
woods in the rear of the receding
skirmishers, who were con tinually melting
into the scene to appear again farther on.
They were always busy as bees, deeply
absorbed in their little combats.

The youth tried to observe everything. He
did not use care to avoid trees and
branches, and his forgotten feet were
constantly knocking against stones or
getting entangled in briers. He was aware
that these battalions with their commotions
were woven red and startling into the gentle
fabric of softened greens and browns. It
looked to be a wrong place for a battle field.

The skirmishers in advance fascinated him.
Their shots into thickets and at distant and
prominent trees spoke to him of tragedies--
hid den, mysterious, solemn.

Once the line encountered the body of a

-14-

close forests would bristle with rifle barrels.
Ironlike brigades would ap pear in the rear.
They were all going to be sacrificed. The
generals were stupids. The enemy would
presently swallow the whole com mand. He
glared about him, expecting to see the
stealthy approach of his death.

He thought that he must break from the
ranks and harangue his comrades. They
must not all be killed like pigs; and he was
sure it would come to pass unless they were
informed of these dangers. The generals
were idiots to send them marching into a
regular pen. There was but one pair of eyes
in the corps. He would step forth and make
a speech. Shrill and passionate words
came to his lips.

The line, broken into moving fragments by
the ground, went calmly on through fields
and woods. The youth looked at the men
nearest him, and saw, for the most part,
expressions of deep inter est, as if they
were investigating something that had
fascinated them. One or two stepped with
overvaliant airs as if they were already
plunged into war. Others walked as upon
thin ice. The greater part of the untested
men appeared quiet and absorbed. They
were going to look at war, the red animal--
war, the blood-swollen god. And they were
deeply engrossed in this march.

As he looked the youth gripped his outcry at
his throat. He saw that even if the men were
tottering with fear they would laugh at his
warn ing. They would jeer him, and, if
practicable, pelt him with missiles.
Admitting that he might be wrong, a
frenzied declamation of the kind would turn
him into a worm.

He assumed, then, the demeanor of one
who knows that he is doomed alone to
unwritten re sponsibilities. He lagged, with

-15-

he had devoted much care and skill.

When the regiment was aligned in another
position each man's regard for his safety
caused another line of small intrenchments.
They ate their noon meal behind a third one.
They were moved from this one also. They
were marched from place to place with
apparent aimlessness.

The youth had been taught that a man be
came another thing in a battle. He saw his
sal vation in such a change. Hence this
waiting was an ordeal to him. He was in a
fever of im patience. He considered that
there was denoted a lack of purpose on the
part of the generals. He began to complain
to the tall soldier. "I can't stand this much
longer," he cried. "I don't see what good it
does to make us wear out our legs for
nothin'." He wished to return to camp,
knowing that this affair was a blue
demonstration; or else to go into a battle
and discover that he had been a fool in his
doubts, and was, in truth, a man of
traditional courage. The strain of present
circumstances he felt to be intolerable.

The philosophical tall soldier measured a
sand wich of cracker and pork and
swallowed it in a nonchalant manner. "Oh, I
suppose we must go reconnoitering around
the country jest to keep 'em from getting too
close, or to develop 'em, or something."

"Huh!" said the loud soldier.

"Well," cried the youth, still fidgeting, "I'd
rather do anything 'most than go tramping
'round the country all day doing no good to
nobody and jest tiring ourselves out."

"So would I," said the loud soldier. "It ain't
right. I tell you if anybody with any sense was
a-runnin' this army it--"

-16-

did not greatly matter.

Once he thought he had concluded that it
would be better to get killed directly and end
his troubles. Regarding death thus out of the
corner of his eye, he conceived it to be noth
ing but rest, and he was filled with a momen
tary astonishment that he should have made
an extraordinary commotion over the mere
matter of getting killed. He would die; he
would go to some place where he would be
understood. It was useless to expect
appreciation of his pro found and fine
senses from such men as the lieu tenant. He
must look to the grave for compre hension.

The skirmish fire increased to a long chatter
ing sound. With it was mingled far-away
cheer ing. A battery spoke.

Directly the youth would see the skirmishers
running. They were pursued by the sound of
musketry fire. After a time the hot,
dangerous flashes of the rifles were visible.
Smoke clouds went slowly and insolently
across the fields like observant phantoms.
The din became crescendo, like the roar of
an oncoming train.

A brigade ahead of them and on the right
went into action with a rending roar. It was
as if it had exploded. And thereafter it lay
stretched in the distance behind a long gray
wall, that one was obliged to look twice at to
make sure that it was smoke.

The youth, forgetting his neat plan of getting
killed, gazed spell bound. His eyes grew
wide and busy with the action of the scene.
His mouth was a little ways open.

Of a sudden he felt a heavy and sad hand
laid upon his shoulder. Awakening from his
trance of observation he turned and beheld
the loud soldier.

-17-

"Yes, Carrott went t' th' hospital. He said he
was sick. That smart lieutenant is
commanding 'G' Company. Th' boys say
they won't be under Carrott no more if they
all have t' desert. They allus knew he was a-
-"

"Hannises' batt'ry is took."

"It ain't either. I saw Hannises' batt'ry off on
th' left not more'n fifteen minutes ago."

47

"Well--"

"Th' general, he ses he is goin' t' take th'
hull cammand of th' 304th when we go inteh
action, an' then he ses we'll do sech fightin'
as never another one reg'ment done."

"They say we're catchin' it over on th' left.
They say th' enemy driv' our line inteh a devil
of a swamp an' took Hannises' batt'ry."

"No sech thing. Hannises' batt'ry was 'long
here 'bout a minute ago."

"That young Hasbrouck, he makes a good
off'cer. He ain't afraid 'a nothin'."

"I met one of th' 148th Maine boys an' he ses
his brigade fit th' hull rebel army fer four
hours over on th' turnpike road an' killed
about five thousand of 'em. He ses one
more sech fight as that an' th' war 'll be
over."

"Bill wasn't scared either. No, sir! It wasn't
that. Bill ain't a-gittin' scared easy. He was
jest mad, that's what he was. When that
feller trod on his hand, he up an' sed that he
was willin' t' give his hand t' his country, but
he be dumbed if he was goin' t' have every
dumb bushwhacker in th' kentry walkin'
'round on it. Se he went t' th' hospital

-18-

The battle flag in the distance jerked about
madly. It seemed to be struggling to free
itself from an agony. The billowing smoke
was filled with horizontal flashes.

Men running swiftly emerged from it. They
grew in numbers until it was seen that the
whole command was fleeing. The flag
suddenly sank down as if dying. Its motion
as it fell was a gesture of despair.

Wild yells came from behind the walls of
smoke. A sketch in gray and red dissolved
into a moblike body of men who galloped
like wild horses.

The veteran regiments on the right and left
of the 304th immediately began to jeer. With
the passionate song of the bullets and the
banshee shrieks of shells were mingled
loud catcalls and bits of facetious advice
concerning places of safety.

But the new regiment was breathless with
hor ror. "Gawd! Saunders's got crushed!"
whis pered the man at the youth's elbow.
They shrank back and crouched as if
compelled to await a flood.

The youth shot a swift glance along the blue
ranks of the regiment. The profiles were
motion less, carven; and afterward he
remembered that the color sergeant was
standing with his legs apart, as if he
expected to be pushed to the ground.

The following throng went whirling around
the flank. Here and there were officers
carried along on the stream like
exasperated chips. They were striking
about them with their swords and with their
left fists, punching every head they could
reach. They cursed like highway men.

A mounted officer displayed the furious
anger of a spoiled child. He raged with his

-19-

THERE were moments of waiting. The
youth thought of the village street at home
before the arrival of the circus parade on a
day in the spring. He remembered how he
had stood, a small, thrillful boy, prepared to
follow the dingy lady upon the white horse,
or the band in its faded chariot. He saw the
yellow road, the lines of expectant people,
and the sober houses. He particularly
remembered an old fellow who used to sit
upon a cracker box in front of the store and
feign to despise such exhibitions. A
thousand details of color and form surged in
his mind. The old fellow upon the cracker
box ap peared in middle prominence.

Some one cried, "Here they come!"

There was rustling and muttering among the
men. They displayed a feverish desire to
have every possible cartridge ready to their
hands. The boxes were pulled around into
various posi tions, and adjusted with great
care. It was as if seven hundred new
bonnets were being tried on.

53

The tall soldier, having prepared his rifle,
pro duced a red handkerchief of some kind.
He was engaged in knitting it about his
throat with ex quisite attention to its
position, when the cry was repeated up and
down the line in a muffled roar of sound.

"Here they come! Here they come!" Gun
locks clicked.

Across the smoke-infested fields came a
brown swarm of running men who were
giving shrill yells. They came on, stooping
and swinging their rifles at all angles. A flag,
tilted forward, sped near the front.

As he caught sight of them the youth was
momentarily startled by a thought that

-20-

de bate the question of his piece being
loaded. Be fore he was ready to begin--
before he had an nounced to himself that he
was about to fight he threw the obedient,
well-balanced rifle into position and fired a
first wild shot. Directly he was working at his
weapon like an automatic affair.

He suddenly lost concern for himself, and
for got to look at a menacing fate. He
became not a man but a member. He felt
that something of which he was a part--a
regiment, an army, a cause, or a country--
was in a crisis. He was welded into a
common personality which was dominated
by a single desire. For some mo ments he
could not flee no more than a little finger can
commit a revolution from a hand.

If he had thought the regiment was about to
be annihilated perhaps he could have
amputated himself from it. But its noise
gave him assur ance. The regiment was like
a firework that, once ignited, proceeds
superior to circumstances until its blazing
vitality fades. It wheezed and banged with a
mighty power. He pictured the ground
before it as strewn with the discom fited.

There was a consciousness always of the
pres ence of his comrades about him. He
felt the subtle battle brotherhood more
potent even than the cause for which they
were fighting. It was a mysterious fraternity
born of the smoke and dan ger of death.

He was at a task. He was like a carpenter
who has made many boxes, making still
another box, only there was furious haste in
his move ments. He, in his thought, was
careering off in other places, even as the
carpenter who as he works whistles and
thinks of his friend or his enemy, his home
or a saloon. And these jolted dreams were
never perfect to him afterward, but
remained a mass of blurred shapes.

-21-

think--"

The youth in his battle sleep heard this as
one who dozes hears.

There was a singular absence of heroic
poses. The men bending and surging in
their haste and rage were in every
impossible attitude. The steel ramrods
clanked and clanged with incessant din as
the men pounded them furiously into the hot
rifle barrels. The flaps of the cartridge
boxes were all unfastened, and bobbed
idiotically with each movement. The rifles,
once loaded, were jerked to the shoulder
and fired without apparent aim into the
smoke or at one of the blurred and shift ing
forms which upon the field before the regi
ment had been growing larger and larger
like puppets under a magician's hand.

The officers, at their intervals, rearward,
neg lected to stand in picturesque attitudes.
They were bobbing to and fro roaring
directions and encouragements. The
dimensions of their howls were
extraordinary. They expended their lungs
with prodigal wills. And often they nearly
stood upon their heads in their anxiety to
observe the enemy on the other side of the
tumbling smoke.

The lieutenant of the youth's company had
en countered a soldier who had fled
screaming at the first volley of his
comrades. Behind the lines these two were
acting a little isolated scene. The man was
blubbering and staring with sheeplike eyes
at the lieutenant, who had seized him by the
collar and was pommeling him. He drove
him back into the ranks with many blows.
The sol dier went mechanically, dully, with
his animal like eyes upon the officer.
Perhaps there was to him a divinity
expressed in the voice of the other --stern,
hard, with no reflection of fear in it. He tried

-22-

struggling. He was grimy and dripping like a
laborer in a foundry. He grasped his
canteen and took a long swallow of the
warmed water.

A sentence with variations went up and
down the line. "Well, we 've helt 'em back.
We 've helt 'em back; derned if we haven't."
The men said it blissfully, leering at each
other with dirty smiles.

The youth turned to look behind him and off
to the right and off to the left. He
experienced the joy of a man who at last
finds leisure in which to look about him.

Under foot there were a few ghastly forms
motionless. They lay twisted in fantastic
contor tions. Arms were bent and heads
were turned in incredible ways. It seemed
that the dead men must have fallen from
some great height to get into such positions.
They looked to be dumped out upon the
ground from the sky.

From a position in the rear of the grove a bat
tery was throwing shells over it. The flash of
the guns startled the youth at first. He
thought they were aimed directly at him.
Through the trees he watched the black
figures of the gunners as they worked
swiftly and intently. Their labor seemed a
complicated thing. He wondered how they
could remember its formula in the midst of
confusion.

The guns squatted in a row like savage
chiefs. They argued with abrupt violence. It
was a grim pow-wow. Their busy servants
ran hither and thither.

A small procession of wounded men were
go ing drearily toward the rear. It was a flow
of blood from the torn body of the brigade.

To the right and to the left were the dark

-23-

picked up his cap from the ground. He
wriggled in his jacket to make a more
comfortable fit, and kneel ing 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
con sidered as far beyond him. He smiled in
deep gratification.

64

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
stream ing 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

-24-

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 aston ished 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 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 redoubt
able dragons. He became like the man who
lost his legs at the approach of the red and

-25-

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 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
these ominous crashes.

In his flight the sound of these following foot
steps 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 fol lowing 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 direc tion. 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 annihila tion. The battery was

-26-

artil lery. An officer on a bounding horse
made mani acal 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
splen did 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
compre hend 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 gen
eral, 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 gen

-27-

He lifted himself upon his toes and looked in
the direction of the fight. A yellow fog lay wal
lowing on the treetops. From beneath it
came the clatter of musketry. Hoarse cries
told of an advance.

He turned away amazed and angry. He felt
that he had been wronged.

He had fled, he told himself, because
annihila tion approached. He had done a
good part in saving himself, who was a little
piece of the army. He had considered the
time, he said, to be one in which it was the
duty of every little piece to res cue itself if
possible. Later the officers could fit the little
pieces together again, and make a battle
front. If none of the little pieces were wise
enough to save themselves from the flurry of
death at such

75 a time, why, then, where would be the
army? It was all plain that he had proceeded
according to very correct and
commendable rules. His ac tions had been
sagacious things. They had been full of
strategy. They were the work of a mas ter's
legs.

Thoughts of his comrades came to him. The
brittle blue line had withstood the blows and
won. He grew bitter over it. It seemed that
the blind ignorance and stupidity of those
little pieces had betrayed him. He had been
overturned and crushed by their lack of
sense in holding the po sition, when
intelligent deliberation would have
convinced them that it was impossible. He,
the enlightened man who looks afar in the
dark, had fled because of his superior
perceptions and knowledge. He felt a great
anger against his comrades. He knew it
could be proved that they had been fools.

He wondered what they would remark when
later he appeared in camp. His mind heard

-28-

distance. The sun, suddenly apparent,
blazed among the trees. The insects were
making rhythmical noises. They seemed to
be grinding their teeth in unison. A
woodpecker stuck his impudent head
around the side of a tree. A bird flew on
lighthearted wing.

Off was the rumble of death. It seemed now
that Nature had no ears.

This landscape gave him assurance. A fair
field holding life. It was the religion of
peace. It would die if its timid eyes were
compelled to see blood. He conceived
Nature to be a woman with a deep aversion
to tragedy.

He threw a pine cone at a jovial squirrel,
and he ran with chattering fear. High in a
treetop he stopped, and, poking his head
cautiously from behind a branch, looked
down with an air of trepi dation.

The youth felt triumphant at this exhibition.
There was the law, he said. Nature had
given him a sign. The squirrel, immediately
upon rec ognizing danger, had taken to his
legs without ado. He did not stand stolidly
baring his furry belly to the missile, and die
with an upward glance at the sympathetic
heavens. On the con trary, he had fled as
fast as his legs could carry him; and he was
but an ordinary squirrel, too doubtless no
philosopher of his race. The youth wended,
feeling that Nature was of his mind. She re-
enforced his argument with proofs that lived
where the sun shone.

Once he found himself almost into a
swamp. He was obliged to walk upon bog
tufts and watch his feet to keep from the oily
mire. Paus ing at one time to look about him
he saw, out at some black water, a small
animal pounce in and emerge directly with a
gleaming fish.

-29-

profoundly.

At last he burst the bonds which had
fastened him to the spot and fled,
unheeding the under brush. He was pursued
by a sight of the black ants swarming
greedily upon the gray face and venturing
horribly near to the eyes.

After a time he paused, and, breathless and
panting, listened. He imagined some
strange voice would come from the dead
throat and squawk after him in horrible
menaces.

The trees about the portal of the chapel
moved soughingly in a soft wind. A sad
silence was upon the little guarding edifice.

Chapter 8

THE trees began softly to sing a hymn of twi
light. The sun sank until slanted bronze rays
struck the forest. There was a lull in the
noises of insects as if they had bowed their
beaks and were making a devotional
pause. There was silence save for the
chanted chorus of the trees.

Then, upon this stillness, there suddenly
broke a tremendous clangor of sounds. A
crimson roar came from the distance.

The youth stopped. He was transfixed by
this terrific medley of all noises. It was as if
worlds were being rended. There was the
rip ping sound of musketry and the breaking
crash of the artillery.

His mind flew in all directions. He conceived
the two armies to be at each other panther
fashion. He listened for a time. Then he
began to run in the direction of the battle. He
saw that it was an ironical thing for him to be
run ning thus toward that which he had been
at such

-30-

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
filled him with a fine bitterness. It seemed
that Nature could not be quite ready to kill
him.

But he obstinately took roundabout ways,
and presently he was where he could see
long gray walls of vapor where lay battle
lines. The voices of cannon shook him. The
musketry sounded in long irregular surges
that played havoc with his ears. He stood
regardant for a moment. His eyes had an
awestruck expression. He gawked in the
direction of the fight.

Presently he proceeded again on his
forward way. The battle was like the
grinding of an immense and terrible
machine to him. Its com plexities and
powers, its grim processes, fascinated
him. He must go close and see it produce
corpses.

He came to a fence and clambered over it.
On the far side, the ground was littered with
clothes and guns. A newspaper, folded up,
lay in the dirt. A dead soldier was stretched
with his face hidden in his arm. Farther off
there was a group of four or five corpses
keeping mournful company. A hot sun had
blazed upon the spot.

In this place the youth felt that he was an
invader. This forgotten part of the battle
ground was owned by the dead men, and
he hurried, in the vague apprehension that
one of the swollen forms would rise and tell
him to begone.

He came finally to a road from which he

-31-

An officer was carried along by two
privates. He was peevish. "Don't joggle so,
Johnson, yeh fool," he cried. "Think m' leg is
made of iron? If yeh can't carry me decent,
put me down an' let some one else do it."

He bellowed at the tottering crowd who
blocked the quick march of his bearers.
"Say, make way there, can't yeh? Make
way, dickens take it all."

They sulkily parted and went to the road
sides. As he was carried past they made
pert remarks to him. When he raged in reply
and threatened them, they told him to be
damned.

The shoulder of one of the tramping bearers
knocked heavily against the spectral soldier
who was staring into the unknown.

The youth joined this crowd and marched
along with it. The torn bodies expressed the
awful machinery in which the men had been
entangled.

Orderlies and couriers occasionally broke
through the throng in the roadway,
scattering wounded men right and left,
galloping on fol lowed by howls. The
melancholy march was continually disturbed
by the messengers, and sometimes by
bustling batteries that came swing ing and
thumping down upon them, the officers
shouting orders to clear the way.

There was a tattered man, fouled with dust,
blood and powder stain from hair to shoes,
who trudged quietly at the youth's side. He
was lis tening with eagerness and much
humility to the lurid descriptions of a
bearded sergeant. His lean features wore
an expression of awe and ad miration. He
was like a listener in a country store to
wondrous tales told among the sugar
barrels. He eyed the story-teller with

-32-

they was. I knowed it 'd turn out this way.
Yeh can't lick them boys. No, sir! They're
fighters, they be."

He breathed a deep breath of humble ad
miration. He had looked at the youth for en
couragement several times. He received
none, but gradually he seemed to get
absorbed in his subject.

"I was talkin' 'cross pickets with a boy from
Georgie, onct, an' that boy, he ses, 'Your
fellers 'll all run like hell when they onct hearn
a gun,' he ses. 'Mebbe they will,' I ses, 'but I
don't b'lieve none of it,' I ses; 'an'
b'jiminey,' I ses back t' 'um, 'mebbe your
fellers 'll all 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 which was to him all things
beautiful and powerful.

After a time he turned to the youth. "Where
yeh hit, ol' boy?" he asked in a brotherly
tone.

The youth felt instant panic at this question,
although at first its full 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 was heavily flushed,
and his fingers were picking nervously at
one of his buttons. He bent his head and
fastened his eyes studiously upon the button
as if it were a little problem.

-33-

made the youth start as if bitten. He yelled in
horror. Tottering forward he laid a quivering
hand upon the man's arm. As the latter
slowly turned his waxlike features toward
him, the youth screamed:

"Gawd! Jim Conklin!"

The tall soldier made a little commonplace
smile. "Hello, Henry," he said.

The youth swayed on his legs and glared
strangely. He stuttered and stammered.
"Oh, Jim--oh, Jim--oh, Jim--"

The tall soldier held out his gory hand. There
was a curious red and black combination of
new blood and old blood upon it. "Where yeh
been, Henry?" he asked. He continued in a
monoto nous voice, "I thought mebbe yeh
got keeled over. There 's been thunder t'
pay t'-day. I was worryin' about it a good
deal."

The youth still lamented. "Oh, Jim--oh, Jim -
-oh, Jim--"

"Yeh know," said the tall soldier, "I was out
there." He made a careful gesture. "An',
Lord, what a circus! An', b'jiminey, I got
shot I got shot. Yes, b'jiminey, I got shot."
He reiterated this fact in a bewildered way,
as if he did not know how it came about.

The youth put forth anxious arms to assist
him, but the tall soldier went firmly on as if
pro pelled. Since the youth's arrival as a
guardian for his friend, the other wounded
men had ceased to display much interest.
They occupied them selves again in
dragging their own tragedies toward the
rear.

Suddenly, as the two friends marched on,
the tall soldier seemed to be overcome by a
terror. His face turned to a semblance of

-34-

"No--no--no leave me be--leave me be--"

His look was fixed again upon the unknown.
He moved with mysterious purpose, and all
of the youth's offers he brushed aside. "No-
-no leave me be--leave me be--"

The youth had to follow.

Presently the latter heard a voice talking
softly near his shoulders. Turning he saw
that it belonged to the tattered soldier. "Ye 'd
better take 'im outa th' road, pardner. There
's a batt'ry comin' helitywhoop down th'
road an' he 'll git runned over. He 's a goner
anyhow in about five minutes--yeh kin see
that. Ye 'd better take 'im outa th' road.
Where th' blazes does he git his stren'th
from?"

"Lord knows!" cried the youth. He was
shaking his hands helplessly.

He ran forward presently and grasped the
tall soldier by the arm. "Jim! Jim!" he
coaxed, "come with me."

The tall soldier weakly tried to wrench
himself free. "Huh," he said vacantly. He
stared at the youth for a moment. At last he
spoke as if dimly comprehending. "Oh! Inteh
th' fields? Oh!"

He started blindly through the grass.

The youth turned once to look at the lashing
riders and jouncing guns of the battery. He
was startled from this view by a shrill outcry
from the tattered man.

"Gawd! He's runnin'!"

Turning his head swiftly, the youth saw his
friend running in a staggering and stumbling
way toward a little clump of bushes. His
heart seemed to wrench itself almost free

-35-

at last found the place for which he had
struggled. His spare figure was erect; his
bloody hands were quietly at his side. He
was waiting with patience for something
that he had come to meet. He was at the
rendezvous. They paused and stood, ex
pectant.

There was a silence.

Finally, the chest of the doomed soldier
began to heave with a strained motion. It
increased in violence until it was as if an
animal was within and was kicking and
tumbling furiously to be free.

This spectacle of gradual strangulation
made the youth writhe, and once as his
friend rolled his eyes, he saw something in
them that made him sink wailing to the
ground. He raised his voice in a last
supreme call.

"Jim--Jim--Jim--"

The tall soldier opened his lips and spoke.
He made a gesture. "Leave me be--don't
tech me--leave me be--"

There was another silence while he waited.

Suddenly, his form stiffened and
straightened. Then it was shaken by a
prolonged ague. He stared into space. To
the two watchers there was a curious and
profound dignity in the firm lines of his awful
face.

He was invaded by a creeping strangeness
that slowly enveloped him. For a moment
the tremor of his legs caused him to dance a
sort of hideous hornpipe. His arms beat
wildly about his head in expression of
implike enthusiasm.

His tall figure stretched itself to its full height.

-36-

The youth desired to screech out his grief.
He was stabbed, but his tongue lay dead in
the tomb of his mouth. He threw himself
again upon the ground and began to brood.

The tattered man stood musing.

"Look-a-here, pardner," he said, after a
time. He regarded the corpse as he spoke.
"He 's up an' gone, ain't 'e, an' we might as
well begin t' look out fer ol' number one.
This here thing is all over. He 's up an' gone,
ain't 'e? An' he 's all right here. Nobody
won't bother 'im. An' I must say I ain't
enjoying any great health m'self these
days."

100

The youth, awakened by the tattered
soldier's tone, looked quickly up. He saw
that he was swinging uncertainly on his legs
and that his face had turned to a shade of
blue.

"Good Lord!" he cried, "you ain't goin' t' not
you, too."

The tattered man waved his hand. "Nary
die," he said. "All I want is some pea soup
an' a good bed. Some pea soup," he
repeated dreamfully.

The youth arose from the ground. "I wonder
where he came from. I left him over there."
He pointed. "And now I find 'im here. And he
was coming from over there, too." He in
dicated a new direction. They both turned
toward the body as if to ask of it a question.

"Well," at length spoke the tattered man,
"there ain't no use in our stayin' here an'
tryin' t' ask him anything."

The youth nodded an assent wearily. They
both turned to gaze for a moment at the

-37-

sure 'nough, I was shot. I give a holler an'
begin t' run, but b'fore I could git away
another one hit me in th' arm an' whirl' me
clean 'round. I got skeared when they was
all a-shootin' b'hind me an' I run t' beat all,
but I cotch it pretty bad. I've an idee I'd a'
been fightin' yit, if t'was n't fer Tom Jami
son."

Then he made a calm announcement:
"There's two of 'em--little ones--but they
're beginnin' t' have fun with me now. I don't
b'lieve I kin walk much furder."

They went slowly on in silence. "Yeh look
pretty peek-ed yerself," said the tattered
man at last. "I bet yeh 've got a worser one
than yeh think. Ye'd better take keer of yer
hurt. It don't do t' let sech things go. It might
be inside mostly, an' them plays thunder.
Where is it located?" But he continued his
harangue with out waiting for a reply. "I see
'a feller git hit plum in th' head when my
reg'ment was a-standin' at ease onct. An'
everybody yelled out to 'im: Hurt, John? Are
yeh hurt much? 'No," ses he. He looked
kinder surprised, an' he went on tellin' 'em
how he felt. He sed he didn't feel nothin'.
But, by dad, th' first thing that feller knowed
he was dead. Yes, he was dead--stone
dead. So, yeh wanta watch out. Yeh might
have some queer kind 'a hurt yerself. Yeh
can't never tell. Where is your'n located?"

The youth had been wriggling since the intro
duction of this topic. He now gave a cry of
ex asperation and made a furious motion
with his hand. "Oh, don't bother me!" he
said. He was enraged against the tattered
man, and could have strangled him. His
companions seemed ever to play
intolerable parts. They were ever uprais ing
the ghost of shame on the stick of their
curiosity. He turned toward the tattered man
as one at bay. "Now, don't bother me," he re
peated with desperate menace.

-38-

it ain't--"

The youth went on. Turning at a distance he
saw the tattered man wandering about
helplessly in the field.

He now thought that he wished he was
dead. He believed that he envied those men
whose bodies lay strewn over the grass of
the fields and on the fallen leaves of the
forest.

The simple questions of the tattered man
had been knife thrusts to him. They asserted
a society that probes pitilessly at secrets
until all is apparent. His late companion's
chance persist ency made him feel that he
could not keep his crime concealed in his
bosom. It was sure to be brought plain by
one of those arrows which cloud the air and
are constantly pricking, dis covering,
proclaiming those things which are willed to
be forever hidden. He admitted that he
could not defend himself against this
agency. It was not within the power of
vigilance.

Chapter 11

HE became aware that the furnace roar of
the battle was growing louder. Great brown
clouds had floated to the still heights of air
before him. The noise, too, was
approaching. The woods filtered men and
the fields became dotted.

As he rounded a hillock, he perceived that
the roadway was now a crying mass of
wagons, teams, and men. From the
heaving tangle issued exhortations,
commands, imprecations. Fear was
sweeping it all along. The cracking whips bit
and horses plunged and tugged. The white
topped wagons strained and stumbled in
their exertions like fat sheep.

-39-

weapons of flame and banners of sunlight.
He could never be like them. He could have
wept in his longings.

He searched about in his mind for an ade
quate malediction for the indefinite cause,
the thing upon which men turn the words of
final blame. It--whatever it was--was
responsible for him, he said. There lay the
fault.

The haste of the column to reach the battle
seemed to the forlorn young man to be
some thing much finer than stout fighting.
Heroes, he thought, could find excuses in
that long seething lane. They could retire
with perfect self-respect and make
excuses to the stars.

He wondered what those men had eaten
that they could be in such haste to force their
way to grim chances of death. As he
watched his envy grew until he thought that
he wished to change lives with one of them.
He would have liked to have used a
tremendous force, he said, throw off
himself and become a better. Swift pictures
of himself, apart, yet in himself, came to
him--a blue desperate figure leading lurid
charges with one knee forward and a
broken blade high--a blue, determined
figure standing before a crimson and steel
assault, getting calmly killed on a high place
before the eyes of all. He thought of the
magnificent pathos of his dead body.

These thoughts uplifted him. He felt the
quiver of war desire. In his ears, he heard
the ring of victory. He knew the frenzy of a
rapid successful charge. The music of the
trampling feet, the sharp voices, the
clanking arms of the column near him made
him soar on the red wings of war. For a few
moments he was sublime.

He thought that he was about to start for the

-40-

Furthermore, various ailments had begun to
cry out. In their presence he could not persist
in flying high with the wings of war; they
rendered it almost impossible for him to see
him self in a heroic light. He tumbled
headlong.

He discovered that he had a scorching
thirst. His face was so dry and grimy that he
thought he could feel his skin crackle. Each
bone of his body had an ache in it, and
seemingly threatened to break with each
movement. His feet were like two sores.
Also, his body was calling for food. It was
more powerful than a direct hunger. There
was a dull, weight like feeling in his stom
ach, and, when he tried to walk, his head
swayed and he tottered. He could not see
with distinct ness. Small patches of green
mist floated before his vision.

While he had been tossed by many
emotions, he had not been aware of
ailments. Now they beset him and made
clamor. As he was at last compelled to pay
attention to them, his capacity for self-hate
was multiplied. In despair, he declared that
he was not like those others. He now
conceded it to be impossible that he should
ever become a hero. He was a craven loon.
Those pictures of glory were piteous things.
He groaned from his heart and went
staggering off.

A certain mothlike quality within him kept
him in the vicinity of the battle. He had a
great desire to see, and to get news. He
wished to know who was winning.

He told himself that, despite his
unprecedented suffering, he had never lost
his greed for a victory, yet, he said, in a half-
apologetic manner to his conscience, he
could not but know that a defeat for the army
this time might mean many favor able things
for him. The blows of the enemy would

-41-

A moral vindication was regarded by the
youth as a very important thing. Without
salve, he could not, he thought, wear the
sore badge of his dishonor through life. With
his heart con tinually assuring him that he
was despicable, he could not exist without
making it, through his actions, apparent to
all men.

If the army had gone gloriously on he would
be lost. If the din meant that now his army's
flags were tilted forward he was a
condemned wretch. He would be
compelled to doom himself to isolation. If
the men were advancing, their indifferent
feet were trampling upon his chances for a
successful life.

As these thoughts went rapidly through his
mind, he turned upon them and tried to
thrust them away. He denounced himself as
a villain. He said that he was the most
unutterably selfish man in existence. His
mind pictured the soldiers who would place
their defiant bodies before the spear of the
yelling battle fiend, and as he saw their
dripping corpses on an imagined field, he
said that he was their murderer.

Again he thought that he wished he was
dead. He believed that he envied a corpse.
Thinking of the slain, he achieved a great
contempt for some of them, as if they were
guilty for thus becoming lifeless. They might
have been killed by lucky chances, he said,
before they had had opportunities to flee or
before they had been really tested. Yet they
would receive laurels from tradition. He
cried out bitterly that their crowns were
stolen and their robes of glori ous memories
were shams. However, he still said that it
was a great pity he was not as they.

A defeat of the army had suggested itself to
him as a means of escape from the
consequences of his fall. He considered,

-42-

a low tone. At it the others all crowed and
cackled. He was a slang phrase.

Chapter 12

THE column that had butted stoutly at the
obstacles in the roadway was barely out of
the youth's sight before he saw dark waves
of men come sweeping out of the woods
and down through the fields. He knew at
once that the steel fibers had been washed
from their hearts. They were bursting from
their coats and their equipments as from
entanglements. They charged down upon
him like terrified buffaloes.

Behind them blue smoke curled and
clouded above the treetops, and through the
thickets he could sometimes see a distant
pink glare. The voices of the cannon were
clamoring in intermi nable chorus.

The youth was horrorstricken. He stared in
agony and amazement. He forgot that he
was engaged in combating the universe. He
threw aside his mental pamphlets on the
philoso phy of the retreated and rules for the
guidance of the damned.

118

The fight was lost. The dragons were com
ing with invincible strides. The army,
helpless in the matted thickets and blinded
by the over hanging night, was going to be
swallowed. War, the red animal, war, the
blood-swollen god, would have bloated fill.

Within him something bade to cry out. He
had the impulse to make a rallying speech,
to sing a battle hymn, but he could only get
his tongue to call into the air: "Why--why--
what--what 's th' matter?"

Soon he was in the midst of them. They
were leaping and scampering all about him.

-43-

"Well, then!" bawled the man in a lurid rage.
He adroitly and fiercely swung his rifle. It
crushed upon the youth's head. The man ran
on.

The youth's fingers had turned to paste
upon the other's arm. The energy was
smitten from his muscles. He saw the
flaming wings of light ning flash before his
vision. There was a deaf ening rumble of
thunder within his head.

Suddenly his legs seemed to die. He sank
writhing to the ground. He tried to arise. In
his efforts against the numbing pain he was
like a man wrestling with a creature of the
air.

There was a sinister struggle.

Sometimes he would achieve a position
half erect, battle with the air for a moment,
and then fall again, grabbing at the grass.
His face was of a clammy pallor. Deep
groans were wrenched from him.

At last, with a twisting movement, he got
upon his hands and knees, and from
thence, like a babe trying to walk, to his
feet. Pressing his hands to his temples he
went lurching over the grass.

He fought an intense battle with his body.
His dulled senses wished him to swoon and
he opposed them stubbornly, his mind
portraying unknown dangers and
mutilations if he should fall upon the field.
He went tall soldier fashion. He imagined
secluded spots where he could fall and be
unmolested. To search for one he strove
against the tide of his pain.

Once he put his hand to the top of his head
and timidly touched the wound. The
scratching pain of the contact made him
draw a long breath through his clinched

-44-

for his feet. The purple darkness was filled
with men who lectured and jabbered.
Sometimes he could see them gesticulating
against the blue and somber sky. There
seemed to be a great ruck of men and
munitions spread about in the forest and in
the fields.

The little narrow roadway now lay lifeless.
There were overturned wagons like sun-
dried bowlders. The bed of the former
torrent was choked with the bodies of
horses and splintered parts of war
machines.

It had come to pass that his wound pained
him but little. He was afraid to move rapidly,
how ever, for a dread of disturbing it. He
held his head very still and took many
precautions against stumbling. He was
filled with anxiety, and his face was pinched
and drawn in anticipation of the pain of any
sudden mistake of his feet in the gloom.

His thoughts, as he walked, fixed intently
upon his hurt. There was a cool, liquid
feeling about it and he imagined blood
moving slowly down under his hair. His
head seemed swollen to a size that made
him think his neck to be inadequate.

The new silence of his wound made much
worriment. The little blistering voices of pain
that had called out from his scalp were, he
thought, definite in their expression of
danger. By them he believed that he could
measure his plight. But when they remained
ominously silent he became frightened and
imagined ter rible fingers that clutched into
his brain.

Amid it he began to reflect upon various
incidents and conditions of the past. He be
thought him of certain meals his mother had
cooked at home, in which those dishes of
which he was particularly fond had

-45-

corps is that in? Oh, it is? Why, I thought they
wasn't engaged t'-day they 're 'way over in
th' center. Oh, they was, eh? Well, pretty
nearly everybody got their share 'a fightin'
t'-day. By dad, I give myself up fer dead any
number 'a times. There was shootin' here
an' shootin' there, an' hollerin' here an'
hollerin' there, in th' damn' darkness, until I
couldn't tell t' save m' soul which side I was
on. Sometimes I thought I was sure 'nough
from Ohier, an' other times I could 'a swore I
was from th' bitter end of Florida. It was th'
most mixed up dern thing I ever see. An'
these here hull woods is a reg'lar mess. It'll
be a miracle if we find our reg'ments t'-
night. Pretty soon, though, we 'll meet a-
plenty of guards an' provost guards, an' one
thing an' another. Ho! there they go with an
off'cer, I guess. Look at his hand a-
draggin'. He 's got all th' war he wants, I bet.
He won't be talkin' so big about his
reputation an' all when they go t' sawin' off
his leg. Poor feller! My brother 's got
whiskers jest like that. How did yeh git 'way
over here, anyhow? Your reg'ment is a long
way from here, ain't it? Well, I guess we can
find it. Yeh know there was a boy killed in my
comp'ny t'-day that I thought th' world an' all
of. Jack was a nice feller. By ginger, it hurt
like thunder t' see ol' Jack jest git knocked
flat. We was a-standin' purty peaceable fer
a spell, 'though there was men runnin' ev'ry
way all 'round us, an' while we was a-
standin' like that, 'long come a big fat feller.
He began t' peck at Jack's elbow, an' he
ses: 'Say, where 's th' road t' th' river?' An'
Jack, he never paid no attention, an' th'
feller kept on a-peckin' at his elbow an'
sayin': 'Say, where 's th' road t' th' river?'
Jack was a-lookin' ahead all th' time tryin' t'
see th' Johnnies comin' through th' woods,
an' he never paid no attention t' this big fat
feller fer a long time, but at last he turned
'round an' he ses: 'Ah, go t' hell an' find th'
road t' th' river!' An' jest then a shot
slapped him bang on th' side th' head. He

-46-

sore heart the barbed missiles of ridicule.
He had no strength to in vent a tale; he
would be a soft target.

He made vague plans to go off into the
deeper darkness and hide, but they were all
destroyed by the voices of exhaustion and
pain from his body. His ailments, clamoring,
forced him to seek the place of food and
rest, at whatever cost.

He swung unsteadily toward the fire. He
could see the forms of men throwing black
shadows in the red light, and as he went
nearer it became known to him in some way
that the ground was strewn with sleeping
men.

Of a sudden he confronted a black and
monstrous figure. A rifle barrel caught some
glinting beams. "Halt! halt!" He was dis

129 mayed for a moment, but he presently
thought that he recognized the nervous
voice. As he stood tottering before the rifle
barrel, he called out: "Why, hello, Wilson,
you--you here?"

The rifle was lowered to a position of
caution and the loud soldier came slowly
forward. He peered into the youth's face.
"That you, Henry?"

"Yes, it's--it's me."

"Well, well, ol' boy," said the other, "by
ginger, I'm glad t' see yeh! I give yeh up fer
a goner. I thought yeh was dead sure
enough." There was husky emotion in his
voice.

The youth found that now he could barely
stand upon his feet. There was a sudden
sinking of his forces. He thought he must
hasten to pro duce his tale to protect him
from the missiles already at the lips of his

-47-

As they went on together the loud private
called out after them: "Put 'im t' sleep in my
blanket, Simpson. An'--hol' on a minnit--
here's my canteen. It's full 'a coffee. Look at
his head by th' fire an' see how it looks.
Maybe it's a pretty bad un. When I git
relieved in a couple 'a minnits, I'll be over
an' see t' him."

The youth's senses were so deadened that
his friend's voice sounded from afar and he
could scarcely feel the pressure of the
corporal's arm. He submitted passively to
the latter's directing strength. His head was
in the old manner hang ing forward upon his
breast. His knees wobbled.

The corporal led him into the glare of the
fire. "Now, Henry," he said, "let's have look
at yer ol' head."

The youth sat down obediently and the cor
poral, laying aside his rifle, began to fumble
in the bushy hair of his comrade. He was
obliged to turn the other's head so that the
full flush of the fire light would beam upon it.
He puckered his mouth with a critical air. He
drew back his lips and whistled through his
teeth when his fingers came in contact with
the splashed blood and the rare wound.

"Ah, here we are!" he said. He awkwardly
made further investigations. "Jest as I
thought," he added, presently. "Yeh've been
grazed by a ball. It's raised a queer lump
jest as if some feller had lammed yeh on th'
head with a club. It stopped a-bleedin' long
time ago. Th' most about it is that in th'
mornin' yeh'll feel that a number ten hat
wouldn't fit yeh. An' your head'll be all het up
an' feel as dry as burnt pork. An' yeh may git
a lot 'a other sicknesses, too, by mornin'.
Yeh can't never tell. Still, I don't much think
so. It's jest a damn' good belt on th' head,
an' nothin' more. Now, you jest sit here an'
don't move, while I go rout out th' relief.

-48-

forth, rigid and straight. The shoes
displayed the mud or dust of marches and
bits of rounded trousers, protruding from
the blankets, showed rents and tears from
hurried pitchings through the dense
brambles.

The fire crackled musically. From it swelled
light smoke. Overhead the foliage moved
softly. The leaves, with their faces turned
toward the blaze, were colored shifting
hues of silver, often edged with red. Far off
to the right, through a window in the forest
could be seen a handful of stars lying, like
glittering pebbles, on the black level of the
night.

Occasionally, in this low-arched hall, a
soldier would arouse and turn his body to a
new posi tion, the experience of his sleep
having taught him of uneven and
objectionable places upon the ground
under him. Or, perhaps, he would lift himself
to a sitting posture, blink at the fire for an
unintelligent moment, throw a swift glance
at his prostrate companion, and then cuddle
down again with a grunt of sleepy content.

The youth sat in a forlorn heap until his friend
the loud young soldier came, swinging two
canteens by their light strings. "Well, now,
Henry, ol' boy," said the latter, "we'll have
yeh fixed up in jest about a minnit."

He had the bustling ways of an amateur
nurse. He fussed around the fire and stirred
the sticks to brilliant exertions. He made his
patient drink largely from the canteen that
contained the coffee. It was to the youth a
delicious draught. He tilted his head afar
back and held the canteen long to his lips.
The cool mixture went caress ingly down his
blistered throat. Having finished, he sighed
with comfortable delight.

The loud young soldier watched his

-49-

stoop ing. He stretched out with a murmur of
relief and comfort. The ground felt like the
softest couch.

But of a sudden he ejaculated: "Hol' on a
minnit! Where you goin' t' sleep?"

His friend waved his hand impatiently.
"Right down there by yeh."

"Well, but hol' on a minnit," continued the
youth. "What yeh goin' t' sleep in? I've got
your--"

The loud young soldier snarled: "Shet up an'
go on t' sleep. Don't be makin' a damn' fool
'a yerself," he said severely.

After the reproof the youth said no more. An
exquisite drowsiness had spread through
him. The warm comfort of the blanket
enveloped him and made a gentle languor.
His head fell for ward on his crooked arm
and his weighted lids went softly down over
his eyes. Hearing a splatter of musketry
from the distance, he wondered
indifferently if those men sometimes slept.
He gave a long sigh, snuggled down into his
blanket, and in a moment was like his com
rades.

Chapter 14

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 unex pected world. Gray mists
were slowly shifting before the first efforts
of the sun rays. An im pending splendor
could be seen in the eastern sky. An icy dew
had chilled his face, and im mediately 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.

-50-

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 of 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 un pleasant 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,"

-51-

"what d'yeh think th' chances are? D'yeh
think we'll wal lop '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 sur
prising reception of his remarks. "Oh, no,
you wouldn't either," he said, hastily trying to
re trace.

But the other made a deprecating gesture.
"Oh, yeh needn't mind, Henry," he said. "I be
lieve 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 yestir
day."

"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."

-52-

rage. He pointed at the two soldiers with his
great hand, extended clawlike. "Well, they--
"

But during this argumentative time the de
sire to deal blows seemed to pass,
although they said much to each other.
Finally the friend re turned 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 yestir
day," 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.

Chapter 15

-53-

examination. He was master. It would now
be he who could laugh and shoot the shafts
of derision.

The friend had, in a weak hour, spoken with
sobs of his own death. He had delivered a
mel ancholy oration previous to his funeral,
and had doubtless in the packet of letters,
presented vari ous keepsakes to relatives.
But he had not died, and thus he had
delivered himself into the hands of the
youth.

The latter felt immensely superior to his
friend, but he inclined to condescension. He
adopted toward him an air of patronizing
good humor.

His self-pride was now entirely restored. In
the shade of its flourishing growth he stood
with braced and self-confident legs, and
since nothing could now be discovered he
did not shrink from an encounter with the
eyes of judges, and allowed no thoughts of
his own to keep him from an attitude of
manfulness. He had performed his
mistakes in the dark, so he was still a man.

Indeed, when he remembered his fortunes
of yesterday, and looked at them from a
distance he began to see something fine
there. He had license to be pompous and
veteranlike.

His panting agonies of the past he put out of
his sight.

In the present, he declared to himself that it
was only the doomed and the damned who
roared with sincerity at circumstance. Few
but they ever did it. A man with a full
stomach and the respect of his fellows had
no business to scold about anything that he
might think to be wrong in the ways of the
universe, or even with the ways of society.
Let the unfortunates rail; the others may play

-54-

coughed again. He fidgeted in his jacket.

"Well," he gulped, at last, "I guess yeh might
as well give me back them letters." Dark,
prick ling blood had flushed into his cheeks
and brow.

"All right, Wilson," said the youth. He
loosened two buttons of his coat, thrust in
his hand, and brought forth the packet. As
he ex tended it to his friend the latter's face
was turned from him.

He had been slow in the act of producing
the packet because during it he had been
trying to invent a remarkable comment upon
the affair. He could conjure nothing of
sufficient point. He was compelled to allow
his friend to escape unmolested with his
packet. And for this he took unto himself
considerable credit. It was a generous
thing.

His friend at his side seemed suffering
great shame. As he contemplated him, the
youth felt his heart grow more strong and
stout. He had never been compelled to
blush in such manner for his acts; he was an
individual of extraordi nary virtues.

He reflected, with condescending pity: "Too
bad! Too bad! The poor devil, it makes him
feel tough!"

After this incident, and as he reviewed the
battle pictures he had seen, he felt quite
com petent to return home and make the
hearts of the people glow with stories of
war. He could see himself in a room of
warm tints telling tales to listeners. He could
exhibit laurels. They were insignificant; still,
in a district where laurels were infrequent,
they might shine.

He saw his gaping audience picturing him
as the central figure in blazing scenes. And

-55-

over the top.

Always the noise of skirmishers came from
the woods on the front and left, and the din
on the right had grown to frightful
proportions. The guns were roaring without
an instant's pause for breath. It seemed that
the cannon had come from all parts and
were engaged in a stupendous wrangle. It
became impossible to make a sen tence
heard.

The youth wished to launch a joke--a quota
tion from newspapers. He desired to say,
"All quiet on the Rappahannock," but the
guns refused to permit even a comment
upon their uproar. He never successfully
concluded the sentence. But at last the guns
stopped, and among the men in the rifle pits
rumors again flew, like birds, but they were
now for the most part black creatures who
flapped their wings drearily near to the
ground and refused to rise on any wings of
hope. The men's faces grew doleful from
the interpreting of omens. Tales of
hesitation and uncertainty on the part of
those high in place and responsibility came
to their ears. Stories of disaster were borne
into their minds with many proofs. This din
of musketry on the right, grow ing like a
released genie of sound, expressed and
emphasized the army's plight.

The men were disheartened and began to
mutter. They made gestures expressive of
the sentence: "Ah, what more can we do?"
And it could always be seen that they were
bewildered by the alleged news and could
not fully compre hend a defeat.

Before the gray mists had been totally ob
literated by the sun rays, the regiment was
march ing in a spread column that was
retiring carefully through the woods. The
disordered, hurrying lines of the enemy
could sometimes be seen down through the

-56-

didn't he? And we didn't do better than
many another reg'ment, did we? Well, then,
you can't say it's th' army's fault, can you?"

In his reply, the friend's voice was stern. "'A
course not," he said. "No man dare say we
don't fight like th' devil. No man will ever
dare say it. Th' boys fight like hell-roosters.
But still--still, we don't have no luck."

"Well, then, if we fight like the devil an' don't
ever whip, it must be the general's fault,"
said the youth grandly and decisively. "And I
don't see any sense in fighting and fighting
and fighting, yet always losing through
some derned old lunkhead of a general."

A sarcastic man who was tramping at the
youth's side, then spoke lazily. "Mebbe yeh
think yeh fit th' hull battle yestirday,
Fleming," he remarked.

The speech pierced the youth. Inwardly he
was reduced to an abject pulp by these
chance words. His legs quaked privately.
He cast a frightened glance at the sarcastic
man.

"Why, no," he hastened to say in a concili
ating voice, "I don't think I fought the whole
battle yesterday."

But the other seemed innocent of any
deeper meaning. Apparently, he had no
information. It was merely his habit. "Oh!" he
replied in the same tone of calm derision.

The youth, nevertheless, felt a threat. His
mind shrank from going near to the danger,
and thereafter he was silent. The
significance of the sarcastic man's words
took from him all loud moods that would
make him appear prominent. He became
suddenly a modest person.

There was low-toned talk among the

-57-

awaited the moment when the gray
shadows of the woods before them should
be slashed by the lines of flame. There was
much growling and swearing.

"Good Gawd," the youth grumbled, "we're
always being chased around like rats! It
makes me sick. Nobody seems to know
where we go or why we go. We just get fired
around from pillar to post and get licked
here and get licked there, and nobody
knows what it's done for. It makes a man
feel like a damn' kitten in a bag. Now, I'd
like to know what the eternal thunders we
was marched into these woods for anyhow,
unless it was to give the rebs a regular pot
shot at us. We came in here and got our legs
all tangled up in these cussed briers, and
then we begin to fight and the rebs had an
easy time of it. Don't tell me it's just luck! I
know better. It's this derned old--"

The friend seemed jaded, but he
interrupted his comrade with a voice of
calm confidence. "It'll turn out all right in th'
end," he said.

"Oh, the devil it will! You always talk like a
dog-hanged parson. Don't tell me! I know--
"

At this time there was an interposition by the
savage-minded lieutenant, who was
obliged to vent some of his inward
dissatisfaction upon his men. "You boys
shut right up! There no need 'a your wastin'
your breath in long-winded arguments
about this an' that an' th' other. You've been
jawin' like a lot 'a old hens. All you've got t'
do is to fight, an' you'll get plenty 'a that t' do
in about ten minutes. Less talkin' an' more
fightin' is what's best for you boys. I never
saw sech gabbling jackasses."

He paused, ready to pounce upon any man
who might have the temerity to reply. No

-58-

was a maddening quality in this seeming
resolution of the foe to give him no rest, to
give him no time to sit down and think.
Yesterday he had fought and had fled
rapidly. There had been many adventures.
For to-day he felt that he had earned
opportunities for contem plative repose. He
could have enjoyed portraying to uninitiated
listeners various scenes at which he had
been a witness or ably discussing the pro
cesses of war with other proved men. Too it
was important that he should have time for
physical recuperation. He was sore and stiff
from his ex periences. He had received his
fill of all exer tions, and he wished to rest.

But those other men seemed never to grow
weary; they were fighting with their old
speed.

163 He had a wild hate for the relentless foe.
Yester day, when he had imagined the
universe to be against him, he had hated it,
little gods and big gods; to-day he hated the
army of the foe with the same great hatred.
He was not going to be badgered of his life,
like a kitten chased by boys, he said. It was
not well to drive men into final corners; at
those moments they could all develop teeth
and claws.

He leaned and spoke into his friend's ear.
He menaced the woods with a gesture. "If
they keep on chasing us, by Gawd, they'd
better watch out. Can't stand TOO much."

The friend twisted his head and made a
calm reply. "If they keep on a-chasin' us
they'll drive us all inteh th' river."

The youth cried out savagely at this state
ment. He crouched behind a little tree, with
his eyes burning hatefully and his teeth set in
a cur like snarl. The awkward bandage was
still about his head, and upon it, over his
wound, there was a spot of dry blood. His

-59-

sense of everything but his hate, his desire
to smash into pulp the glittering smile of
victory which he could feel upon the faces of
his enemies.

The blue smoke-swallowed line curled and
writhed like a snake stepped upon. It swung
its ends to and fro in an agony of fear and
rage.

The youth was not conscious that he was
erect upon his feet. He did not know the
direction of the ground. Indeed, once he
even lost the habit of balance and fell
heavily. He was up again immediately. One
thought went through the chaos of his brain
at the time. He wondered if he had fallen
because he had been shot. But the
suspicion flew away at once. He did not
think more of it.

He had taken up a first position behind the lit
tle tree, with a direct determination to hold it
against the world. He had not deemed it
possi ble that his army could that day
succeed, and from this he felt the ability to
fight harder. But the throng had surged in all
ways, until he lost directions and locations,
save that he knew where lay the enemy.

The flames bit him, and the hot smoke
broiled his skin. His rifle barrel grew so hot
that ordi narily he could not have borne it
upon his palms; but he kept on stuffing
cartridges into it, and pounding them with
his clanking, bending ram rod. If he aimed
at some changing form through the smoke,
he pulled his trigger with a fierce grunt, as if
he were dealing a blow of the fist with all his
strength.

When the enemy seemed falling back
before him and his fellows, he went instantly
forward, like a dog who, seeing his foes
lagging, turns and insists upon being
pursued. And when he was compelled to

-60-

that as he had gone on loading and firing
and cursing without the proper intermission,
they had found time to regard him. And they
now looked upon him as a war devil.

The friend came staggering to him. There
was some fright and dismay in his voice.
"Are yeh all right, Fleming? Do yeh feel all
right? There ain't nothin' th' matter with yeh,
Henry, is there?"

"No," said the youth with difficulty. His throat
seemed full of knobs and burs.

These incidents made the youth ponder. It
was revealed to him that he had been a
barbarian, a beast. He had fought like a
pagan who de fends his religion. Regarding
it, he saw that it was fine, wild, and, in some
ways, easy. He had been a tremendous
figure, no doubt. By this struggle he had
overcome obstacles which he had admitted
to be mountains. They had fallen like paper
peaks, and he was now what he called a
hero. And he had not been aware of the pro
cess. He had slept and, awakening, found
him self a knight.

He lay and basked in the occasional stares
of his comrades. Their faces were varied in
de grees of blackness from the burned
powder. Some were utterly smudged. They
were reek ing with perspiration, and their
breaths came hard and wheezing. And from
these soiled ex panses they peered at him.

"Hot work! Hot work!" cried the lieu tenant
deliriously. He walked up and down,
restless and eager. Sometimes his voice
could be heard in a wild, incomprehensible
laugh.

When he had a particularly profound thought
upon the science of war he always
unconsciously addressed himself to the
youth.

-61-

"Who is it? Who is it?"

"It's Jimmie Rogers. Jimmie Rogers."

When their eyes first encountered him there
was a sudden halt, as if they feared to go
near. He was thrashing about in the grass,
twisting his

171 shuddering body into many strange
postures. He was screaming loudly. This
instant's hesita tion seemed to fill him with a
tremendous, fantas tic contempt, and he
damned them in shrieked sentences.

The youth's friend had a geographical
illusion concerning a stream, and he
obtained permission to go for some water.
Immediately canteens were showered upon
him. "Fill mine, will yeh?" "Bring me some,
too." "And me, too." He departed, ladened.
The youth went with his friend, feeling a
desire to throw his heated body onto the
stream and, soaking there, drink quarts.

They made a hurried search for the
supposed stream, but did not find it. "No
water here," said the youth. They turned
without delay and began to retrace their
steps.

From their position as they again faced to
ward the place of the fighting, they could of
course comprehend a greater amount of the
bat tle than when their visions had been
blurred by the hurling smoke of the line. They
could see dark stretches winding along the
land, and on one cleared space there was a
row of guns mak ing gray clouds, which
were filled with large flashes of orange-
colored flame. Over some foli age they
could see the roof of a house. One win dow,
glowing a deep murder red, shone squarely
through the leaves. From the edifice a tall
lean ing tower of smoke went far into the
sky.

-62-

be directed against Whiterside, an' I fear
they'll break through there unless we work
like thunder t' stop them."

The other swore at his restive horse, and
then cleared his throat. He made a gesture
toward his cap. "It'll be hell t' pay stoppin'
them," he said shortly.

"I presume so," remarked the general. Then
he began to talk rapidly and in a lower tone.
He frequently illustrated his words with a
pointing finger. The two infantrymen could
hear nothing until finally he asked: "What
troops can you spare?"

The officer who rode like a cowboy
reflected for an instant. "Well," he said, "I had
to order in th' 12th to help th' 76th, an' I haven't
really got any. But there's th' 304th. They fight
like a lot 'a mule drivers. I can spare them
best of any."

The youth and his friend exchanged glances
of astonishment.

The general spoke sharply. "Get 'em ready,
then. I'll watch developments from here, an'
send you word when t' start them. It'll
happen in five minutes."

As the other officer tossed his fingers
toward his cap and wheeling his horse,
started away, the general called out to him
in a sober voice: "I don't believe many of
your mule drivers will get back."

The other shouted something in reply. He
smiled.

With scared faces, the youth and his
compan ion hurried back to the line.

These happenings had occupied an
incredibly short time, yet the youth felt that in
them he had been made aged. New eyes

-63-

One man had a final objection: "How could
yeh hear 'em talkin'?" But the men, for a
large part, nodded, admitting that
previously the two friends had spoken truth.

They settled back into reposeful attitudes
with airs of having accepted the matter. And
they mused upon it, with a hundred varieties
of expression. It was an engrossing thing to
think about. Many tightened their belts
carefully and hitched at their trousers.

A moment later the officers began to bustle
among the men, pushing them into a more
com pact mass and into a better alignment.
They chased those that straggled and
fumed at a few men who seemed to show
by their attitudes that they had decided to
remain at that spot. They were like critical
shepherds struggling with sheep.

Presently, the regiment seemed to draw
itself up and heave a deep breath. None of
the men's faces were mirrors of large
thoughts. The sol diers were bended and
stooped like sprinters be fore a signal.
Many pairs of glinting eyes peered from the
grimy faces toward the curtains of the
deeper woods. They seemed to be
engaged in deep calculations of time and
distance.

They were surrounded by the noises of the
monstrous altercation between the two
armies. The world was fully interested in
other matters. Apparently, the regiment had
its small affair to itself.

The youth, turning, shot a quick, inquiring
glance at his friend. The latter returned to
him the same manner of look. They were the
only ones who possessed an inner
knowledge. "Mule drivers--hell t' pay--
don't believe many will get back." It was an
ironical secret. Still, they saw no hesitation
in each other's faces, and they nod ded a

-64-

The line lurched straight for a moment. Then
the right wing swung forward; it in turn was
surpassed by the left. Afterward the center
careered to the front until the regiment was
a wedge-shaped mass, but an instant later
the opposition of the bushes, trees, and
uneven places on the ground split the
command and scattered it into detached
clusters.

The youth, light-footed, was unconsciously
in advance. His eyes still kept note of the
clump of trees. From all places near it the
clannish yell of the enemy could be heard.
The little flames of rifles leaped from it. The
song of the bullets was in the air and shells
snarled among the tree tops. One tumbled
directly into the middle of a hurrying group
and exploded in crimson fury. There was an
instant's spectacle of a man, almost over it,
throwing up his hands to shield his eyes.

Other men, punched by bullets, fell in gro
tesque agonies. The regiment left a
coherent trail of bodies.

They had passed into a clearer
atmosphere. There was an effect like a
revelation in the new appearance of the
landscape. Some men work ing madly at a
battery were plain to them, and the
opposing infantry's lines were defined by
the gray walls and fringes of smoke.

It seemed to the youth that he saw every
thing. Each blade of the green grass was
bold and clear. He thought that he was
aware of every change in the thin,
transparent vapor that floated idly in sheets.
The brown or gray trunks of the trees
showed each roughness of their sur faces.
And the men of the regiment, with their
starting eyes and sweating faces, running
madly, or falling, as if thrown headlong, to
queer, heaped-up corpses--all were
comprehended. His mind took a

-65-

The men, halted, had opportunity to see
some of their comrades dropping with
moans and shrieks. A few lay under foot,
still or wailing. And now for an instant the
men stood, their rifles slack in their hands,
and watched the regiment dwindle. They
appeared dazed and stupid. This spectacle
seemed to paralyze them, overcome them
with a fatal fascination. They stared wood
enly at the sights, and, lowering their eyes,
looked from face to face. It was a strange
pause, and a strange silence.

Then, above the sounds of the outside
commo tion, arose the roar of the lieutenant.
He strode suddenly forth, his infantile
features black with rage.

"Come on, yeh fools!" he bellowed. "Come
on! Yeh can't stay here. Yeh must come on."
He said more, but much of it could not be
under stood.

He started rapidly forward, with his head
turned toward the men. "Come on," he was
shouting. The men stared with blank and
yokel like eyes at him. He was obliged to
halt and retrace his steps. He stood then
with his back to the enemy and delivered
gigantic curses into the faces of the men.
His body vibrated from the weight and force
of his imprecations. And he could string
oaths with the facility of a maiden who
strings beads.

The friend of the youth aroused. Lurching
suddenly forward and dropping to his
knees, he fired an angry shot at the
persistent woods. This action awakened
the men. They huddled no more like sheep.
They seemed suddenly to be think them of
their weapons, and at once com menced
firing. Belabored by their officers, they
began to move forward. The regiment,
involved like a cart involved in mud and
muddle, started unevenly with many jolts

-66-

We've on'y got t' go across that lot. An'
then"--the remainder of his idea
disappeared in a blue haze of curses.

The youth stretched forth his arm. "Cross
there?" His mouth was puckered in doubt
and awe.

"Certainly. Jest 'cross th' lot! We can't stay
here," screamed the lieutenant. He poked
his face close to the youth and waved his
ban daged hand. "Come on!" Presently he
grap pled with him as if for a wrestling bout.
It was as if he planned to drag the youth by
the ear on to the assault.

The private felt a sudden unspeakable indig
nation against his officer. He wrenched
fiercely and shook him off.

"Come on herself, then," he yelled. There
was a bitter challenge in his voice.

They galloped together down the regimental
front. The friend scrambled after them. In
front of the colors the three men began to
bawl: "Come on! come on!" They danced
and gy rated like tortured savages.

The flag, obedient to these appeals,
bended its glittering form and swept toward
them. The men wavered in indecision for a
moment, and then with a long, wailful cry the
dilapidated regiment surged forward and
began its new journey.

Over the field went the scurrying mass. It
was a handful of men splattered into the
faces of the enemy. Toward it instantly
sprang the yel low tongues. A vast quantity
of blue smoke hung before them. A mighty
banging made ears valueless.

The youth ran like a madman to reach the
woods before a bullet could discover him.
He ducked his head low, like a football

-67-

crum bled away, and the dejected remnant
was coming slowly back. The men, having
hurled themselves in projectile fashion, had
presently expended their forces. They
slowly retreated, with their faces still toward
the spluttering woods, and their hot rifles
still replying to the din. Several officers were
giving orders, their voices keyed to
screams.

"Where in hell yeh goin'?" the lieutenant was
asking in a sarcastic howl. And a red-
bearded officer, whose voice of triple brass
could plainly be heard, was commanding:
"Shoot into 'em! Shoot into 'em, Gawd
damn their souls!" There was a melee of
screeches, in which the men were ordered
to do conflicting and impossible things.

The youth and his friend had a small scuffle
over the flag. "Give it t' me!" "No, let me
keep it!" Each felt satisfied with the other's
pos session of it, but each felt bound to
declare, by

189 an offer to carry the emblem, his
willingness to further risk himself. The youth
roughly pushed his friend away.

The regiment fell back to the stolid trees.
There it halted for a moment to blaze at
some dark forms that had begun to steal
upon its track. Presently it resumed its
march again, curving among the tree trunks.
By the time the depleted regiment had
again reached the first open space they
were receiving a fast and merciless fire.
There seemed to be mobs all about them.

The greater part of the men, discouraged,
their spirits worn by the turmoil, acted as if
stunned. They accepted the pelting of the
bul lets with bowed and weary heads. It was
of no purpose to strive against walls. It was
of no use to batter themselves against
granite. And from this consciousness that

-68-

dropped epithets unconcernedly down,
would be finer as a dead man, he thought.
So grievous did he think it that he could
never possess the secret right to taunt truly
in answer.

He had pictured red letters of curious
revenge. "We ARE mule drivers, are we?"
And now he was compelled to throw them
away.

He presently wrapped his heart in the cloak
of his pride and kept the flag erect. He ha
rangued his fellows, pushing against their
chests with his free hand. To those he knew
well he made frantic appeals, beseeching
them by name. Between him and the
lieutenant, scolding and near to losing his
mind with rage, there was felt a subtle
fellowship and equality. They supported
each other in all manner of hoarse, howling
pro tests.

But the regiment was a machine run down.
The two men babbled at a forceless thing.
The soldiers who had heart to go slowly
were con tinually shaken in their resolves by
a knowledge that comrades were slipping
with speed back to the lines. It was difficult
to think of reputation when others were
thinking of skins. Wounded men were left
crying on this black journey.

The smoke fringes and flames blustered al
ways. The youth, peering once through a
sud den rift in a cloud, saw a brown mass of
troops, interwoven and magnified until they
appeared to be thousands. A fierce-hued
flag flashed before his vision.

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

-69-

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

-70-

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 21

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

-71-

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

-72-

"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.

-73-

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,'

-74-

and rapid.

209 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

-75-

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

-76-

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