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Chapter 6
The youth awakened slowly. He came gradually back to a position
from which he could regard himself. For moments he had been
scrutinizing his person in a dazed way as if he had never
before seen himself. Then he picked up his cap from the ground.
He wriggled in his jacket to make a more comfortable fit,
and kneeling relaced his shoe. He thoughtfully mopped his
reeking features.
So it was all over at last! The supreme trial had been passed.
The red, formidable difficulties of war had been vanquished.
He went into an ecstasy of self-satisfaction. He had the most
delightful sensations of his life. Standing as if apart from
himself, he viewed that last scene. He perceived that the man
who had fought thus was magnificent.
He felt that he was a fine fellow. He saw himself even
with those ideals which he had considered as far beyond him.
He smiled in deep gratification.
Upon his fellows he beamed tenderness and good will.
"Gee! ain't it hot, hey?" he said affably to a man who
was polishing his streaming face with his coat sleeves.
"You bet!" said the other, grinning sociably. "I never seen
sech dumb hotness." He sprawled out luxuriously on the ground.
"Gee, yes! An' I hope we don't have no more fightin' till a
week from Monday."
There were some handshakings and deep speeches with men whose
features were familiar, but with whom the youth now felt the
bonds of tied hearts. He helped a cursing comrade to bind up
a wound of the shin.
But, of a sudden, cries of amazement broke out along the ranks of
the new regiment. "Here they come ag'in! Here they come ag'in!"
The man who had sprawled upon the ground started up and said,
"Gosh!"
The youth turned quick eyes upon the field. He discerned forms
begin to swell in masses out of a distant wood. He again saw the
tilted flag speeding forward.
The shells, which had ceased to trouble the regiment for a time,
came swirling again, and exploded in the grass or among the
leaves of the trees. They looked to be strange war flowers
bursting into fierce bloom.
The men groaned. The luster faded from their eyes.
Their smudged countenances now expressed a profound dejection.
They moved their stiffened bodies slowly, and watched in sullen
mood the frantic approach of the enemy. The slaves toiling in
the temple of this god began to feel rebellion at his harsh tasks.
They fretted and complained each to each. "Oh, say, this is too
much of a good thing! Why can't somebody send us supports?"
"We ain't never goin' to stand this second banging. I didn't
come here to fight the hull damn' rebel army."
There was one who raised a doleful cry. "I wish Bill Smithers
had trod on my hand, insteader me treddin' on his'n." The sore
joints of the regiment creaked as it painfully floundered into
position to repulse.
The youth stared. Surely, he thought, this impossible thing was
not about to happen. He waited as if he expected the enemy to
suddenly stop, apologize, and retire bowing. It was all a mistake.
But the firing began somewhere on the regimental line and ripped
along in both directions. The level sheets of flame developed
great clouds of smoke that tumbled and tossed in the mild wind
near the ground for a moment, and then rolled through the ranks
as through a gate. The clouds were tinged an earthlike yellow
in the sunrays and in the shadow were a sorry blue. The flag was
sometimes eaten and lost in this mass of vapor, but more often
it projected, sun-touched, resplendent.
Into the youth's eyes there came a look that one can see in the
orbs of a jaded horse. His neck was quivering with nervous
weakness and the muscles of his arms felt numb and bloodless.
His hands, too, seemed large and awkward as if he was wearing
invisible mittens. And there was a great uncertainty about his
knee joints.
The words that comrades had uttered previous to the firing began
to recur to him. "Oh, say, this is too much of a good thing!
What do they take us for--why don't they send supports?
I didn't come here to fight the hull damned rebel army."
He began to exaggerate the endurance, the skill, and the valor of
those who were coming. Himself reeling from exhaustion, he was
astonished beyond measure at such persistency. They must be
machines of steel. It was very gloomy struggling against such
affairs, wound up perhaps to fight until sundown.
He slowly lifted his rifle and catching a glimpse of the
thickspread field he blazed at a cantering cluster. He stopped
then and began to peer as best as he could through the smoke.
He caught changing views of the ground covered with men who
were all running like pursued imps, and yelling.
To the youth it was an onslaught of redoubtable dragons. He became like
the man who lost his legs at the approach of the red and green monster.
He waited in a sort of a horrified, listening attitude.
He seemed to shut his eyes and wait to be gobbled.
A man near him who up to this time had been working feverishly at
his rifle suddenly stopped and ran with howls. A lad whose face
had borne an expression of exalted courage, the majesty of he
who dares give his life, was, at an instant, smitten abject.
He blanched like one who has come to the edge of a cliff at
midnight and is suddenly made aware. There was a revelation.
He, too, threw down his gun and fled. There was no shame in his face.
He ran like a rabbit.
Others began to scamper away through the smoke. The youth turned
his head, shaken from his trance by this movement as if the
regiment was leaving him behind. He saw the few fleeting forms.
He yelled then with fright and swung about. For a moment, in the
great clamor, he was like a proverbial chicken. He lost the
direction of safety. Destruction threatened him from all points.
Directly he began to speed toward the rear in great leaps.
His rifle and cap were gone. His unbuttoned coat bulged in the wind.
The flap of his cartridge box bobbed wildly, and his canteen,
by its slender cord, swung out behind. On his face was all the
horror of those things which he imagined.
The lieutenant sprang forward bawling. The youth saw his
features wrathfully red, and saw him make a dab with his sword.
His one thought of the incident was that the lieutenant was
a peculiar creature to feel interested in such matters upon
this occasion.
He ran like a blind man. Two or three times he fell down. Once he
knocked his shoulder so heavily against a tree that he went headlong.
Since he had turned his back upon the fight his fears had been
wondrously magnified. Death about to thrust him between the
shoulder blades was far more dreadful than death about to smite him
between the eyes. When he thought of it later, he conceived the
impression that it is better to view the appalling than to be
merely within hearing. The noises of the battle were like stones;
he believed himself liable to be crushed.
As he ran on he mingled with others. He dimly saw men on
his right and on his left, and he heard footsteps behind him.
He thought that all the regiment was fleeing, pursued by those
ominous crashes.
In his flight the sound of these following footsteps gave him his
one meager relief. He felt vaguely that death must make a first
choice of the men who were nearest; the initial morsels for the
dragons would be then those who were following him. So he
displayed the zeal of an insane sprinter in his purpose to keep
them in the rear. There was a race.
As he, leading, went across a little field, he found himself in a
region of shells. They hurtled over his head with long wild screams.
As he listened he imagined them to have rows of cruel teeth that
grinned at him. Once one lit before him and the livid lightning
of the explosion effectually barred the way in his chosen direction.
He groveled on the ground and then springing up went careering
off through some bushes.
He experienced a thrill of amazement when he came within view of a
battery in action. The men there seemed to be in conventional moods,
altogether unaware of the impending annihilation. The battery was
disputing with a distant antagonist and the gunners were wrapped
in admiration of their shooting. They were continually bending
in coaxing postures over the guns. They seemed to be patting
them on the back and encouraging them with words. The guns,
stolid and undaunted, spoke with dogged valor.
The precise gunners were coolly enthusiastic. They lifted their
eyes every chance to the smoke-wreathed hillock from whence the
hostile battery addressed them. The youth pitied them as he ran.
Methodical idiots! Machine-like fools! The refined joy of
planting shells in the midst of the other battery's formation
would appear a little thing when the infantry came swooping out
of the woods.
The face of a youthful rider, who was jerking his frantic horse
with an abandon of temper he might display in a placid barnyard,
was impressed deeply upon his mind. He knew that he looked upon
a man who would presently be dead.
Too, he felt a pity for the guns, standing, six good comrades,
in a bold row.
He saw a brigade going to the relief of its pestered fellows.
He scrambled upon a wee hill and watched it sweeping finely,
keeping formation in difficult places. The blue of the line
was crusted with steel color, and the brilliant flags projected.
Officers were shouting.
This sight also filled him with wonder. The brigade was hurrying
briskly to be gulped into the infernal mouths of the war god.
What manner of men were they, anyhow? Ah, it was some wondrous breed!
Or else they didn't comprehend--the fools.
A furious order caused commotion in the artillery. An officer on
a bounding horse made maniacal motions with his arms. The teams
went swinging up from the rear, the guns were whirled about, and
the battery scampered away. The cannon with their noses poked
slantingly at the ground grunted and grumbled like stout men,
brave but with objections to hurry.
The youth went on, moderating his pace since he had left the
place of noises.
Later he came upon a general of division seated upon a horse that
pricked its ears in an interested way at the battle. There was a
great gleaming of yellow and patent leather about the saddle and
bridle. The quiet man astride looked mouse-colored upon such a
splendid charger.
A jingling staff was galloping hither and thither. Sometimes the
general was surrounded by horsemen and at other times he was
quite alone. He looked to be much harassed. He had the appearance
of a business man whose market is swinging up and down.
The youth went slinking around this spot. He went as near as he
dared trying to overhear words. Perhaps the general, unable to
comprehend chaos, might call upon him for information. And he
could tell him. He knew all concerning it. Of a surety the
force was in a fix, and any fool could see that if they did not
retreat while they had opportunity--why--
He felt that he would like to thrash the general, or at least
approach and tell him in plain words exactly what he thought him
to be. It was criminal to stay calmly in one spot and make no
effort to stay destruction. He loitered in a fever of eagerness
for the division commander to apply to him.
As he warily moved about, he heard the general call out
irritably: "Tompkins, go over an' see Taylor, an' tell him not
t' be in such an all-fired hurry; tell him t' halt his brigade in
th' edge of th' woods; tell him t' detach a reg'ment--say I
think th' center 'll break if we don't help it out some; tell
him t' hurry up."
A slim youth on a fine chestnut horse caught these swift words
from the mouth of his superior. He made his horse bound into a
gallop almost from a walk in his haste to go upon his mission.
There was a cloud of dust.
A moment later the youth saw the general bounce excitedly in his saddle.
"Yes, by heavens, they have!" The officer leaned forward. His face
was aflame with excitement. "Yes, by heavens, they 've held 'im!
They 've held 'im!"
He began to blithely roar at his staff: "We 'll wallop 'im now.
We 'll wallop 'im now. We 've got 'em sure." He turned suddenly
upon an aide: "Here--you--Jons--quick--ride after Tompkins--see
Taylor--tell him t' go in--everlastingly--like blazes--anything."
As another officer sped his horse after the first messenger,
the general beamed upon the earth like a sun. In his eyes was a
desire to chant a paean. He kept repeating, "They 've held 'em,
by heavens!"
His excitement made his horse plunge, and he merrily kicked and
swore at it. He held a little carnival of joy on horseback.
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