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Chapter 9
The youth fell back in the procession until the tattered soldier
was not in sight. Then he started to walk on with the others.
But he was amid wounds. The mob of men was bleeding. Because of
the tattered soldier's question he now felt that his shame could
be viewed. He was continually casting sidelong glances to see if
the men were contemplating the letters of guilt he felt burned
into his brow.
At times he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way.
He conceived persons with torn bodies to be peculiarly happy.
He wished that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage.
The spectral soldier was at his side like a stalking reproach.
The man's eyes were still fixed in a stare into the unknown.
His gray, appalling face had attracted attention in the crowd,
and men, slowing to his dreary pace, were walking with him.
They were discussing his plight, questioning him and giving
him advice. In a dogged way he repelled them, signing to them
to go on and leave him alone. The shadows of his face were
deepening and his tight lips seemed holding in check the moan
of great despair. There could be seen a certain stiffness in
the movements of his body, as if he were taking infinite care
not to arouse the passion of his wounds. As he went on, he seemed
always looking for a place, like one who goes to choose a grave.
Something in the gesture of the man as he waved the bloody
and pitying soldiers away 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 monotonous 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 as if propelled. Since the youth's arrival
as a guardian for his friend, the other wounded men had ceased
to display much interest. They occupied themselves 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 tremor. His face turned to a semblance of gray paste.
He clutched the youth's arm and looked all about him, as if dreading
to be overheard. Then he began to speak in a shaking whisper:
"I tell yeh what I'm 'fraid of, Henry--I'll tell yeh what I'm
'fraid of. I 'm 'fraid I 'll fall down--an' them yeh know -
them damned artillery wagons--they like as not 'll run over me.
That 's what I 'm 'fraid of--"
The youth cried out to him hysterically: "I 'll take care of
yeh, Jim! I 'll take care of yeh! I swear t' Gawd I will!"
"Sure--will yeh, Henry?" the tall soldier beseeched.
"Yes--yes--I tell yeh--I'll take care of yeh, Jim!" protested
the youth. He could not speak accurately because of the gulpings
in his throat.
But the tall soldier continued to beg in a lowly way. He now hung
babelike to the youth's arm. His eyes rolled in the wildness of
his terror. "I was allus a good friend t' yeh, wa'n't I, Henry?
I 've allus been a pretty good feller, ain't I? An' it ain't
much t' ask, is it? Jest t' pull me along outer th' road?
I'd do it fer you, wouldn't I, Henry?"
He paused in piteous anxiety to await his friend's reply.
The youth had reached an anguish where the sobs scorched him.
He strove to express his loyalty, but he could only make
fantastic gestures.
However, the tall soldier seemed suddenly to forget all those
fears. He became again the grim, stalking specter of a soldier.
He went stonily forward. The youth wished his friend to lean
upon him, but the other always shook his head and strangely
protested. "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 shoulder.
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 hi 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 from his body at
this sight. He made a noise of pain. He and the tattered man
began a pursuit. There was a singular race.
When he overtook the tall soldier he began to plead with all the
words he could find. "Jim--Jim--what are you doing--what
makes you do this way--you'll hurt yerself."
The same purpose was in the tall soldier's face. He protested in
a dulled way, keeping his eyes fastened on the mystic place of
his intentions. "No--no--don't tech me--leave me be--leave me be--"
The youth, aghast and filled with wonder at the tall soldier,
began quaveringly to question him. "Where yeh goin', Jim? What
you thinking about? Where you going? Tell me, won't you, Jim?"
The tall soldier faced about as upon relentless pursuers. In his
eyes there was a great appeal. "Leave me be, can't yeh? Leave me
be for a minnit."
The youth recoiled. "Why, Jim," he said, in a dazed way, "what
's the matter with you?"
The tall soldier turned and, lurching dangerously, went on. The
youth and the tattered soldier followed, sneaking as if whipped,
feeling unable to face the stricken man if he should again
confront them. They began to have thoughts of a solemn ceremony.
There was something rite-like in these movements of the doomed
soldier. And there was a resemblance in him to a devotee of a
mad religion, blood-sucking, muscle-wrenching, bone-crushing.
They were awed and afraid. They hung back lest he have at
command a dreadful weapon.
At last, they saw him stop and stand motionless. Hastening up,
they perceived that his face wore an expression telling that
he had 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,
expectant.
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. There was a
slight rending sound. Then it began to swing forward, slow and
straight, in the manner of a falling tree. A swift muscular
contortion made the left shoulder strike the ground first.
The body seemed to bounce a little way from the earth. "God!"
said the tattered soldier.
The youth had watched, spellbound, this ceremony at the place of
meeting. His face had been twisted into an expression of every
agony he had imagined for his friend.
He now sprang to his feet and, going closer, gazed upon the
pastelike face. The mouth was open and the teeth showed in a laugh.
As the flap of the blue jacket fell away from the body, he could
see that the side looked as if it had been chewed by wolves.
The youth turned, with sudden, livid rage, toward the battlefield.
He shook his fist. He seemed about to deliver a philippic.
"Hell--"
The red sun was pasted in the sky like a wafer.
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