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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 interminable 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 philosophy of
the retreated and rules for the guidance of the damned.
The fight was lost. The dragons were coming with invincible strides.
The army, helpless in the matted thickets and blinded by the
overhanging 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. Their blanched faces shone in the dusk. They seemed,
for the most part, to be very burly men. The youth turned from
one to another of them as they galloped along. His incoherent
questions were lost. They were heedless of his appeals.
They did not seem to see him.
They sometimes gabbled insanely. One huge man was asking of the sky:
"Say, where de plank road? Where de plank road!" It was as if he
had lost a child. He wept in his pain and dismay.
Presently, men were running hither and thither in all ways.
The artillery booming, forward, rearward, and on the flanks
made jumble of ideas of direction. Landmarks had vanished into
the gathered gloom. The youth began to imagine that he had got
into the center of the tremendous quarrel, and he could perceive
no way out of it. From the mouths of the fleeing men came a
thousand wild questions, but no one made answers.
The youth, after rushing about and throwing interrogations at the
heedless bands of retreating infantry, finally clutched a man by
the arm. They swung around face to face.
"Why--why--" stammered the youth struggling with his balking tongue.
- The man screamed
- "Let go me! Let go me!" His face was livid and
his eyes were rolling uncontrolled. He was heaving and panting.
He still grasped his rifle, perhaps having forgotten to release
his hold upon it. He tugged frantically, and the youth being
compelled to lean forward was dragged several paces.
"Let go me! Let go me!"
"Why--why--" stuttered the youth.
"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 lightning flash before his vision. There was a
deafening 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 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 teeth. His fingers were dabbled
with blood. He regarded them with a fixed stare.
Around him he could hear the grumble of jolted cannon as the
scurrying horses were lashed toward the front. Once, a young
officer on a besplashed charger nearly ran him down. He turned
and watched the mass of guns, men, and horses sweeping in a wide
curve toward a gap in a fence. The officer was making excited
motions with a gauntleted hand. The guns followed the teams with
an air of unwillingness, of being dragged by the heels.
Some officers of the scattered infantry were cursing and railing
like fishwives. Their scolding voices could be heard above the din.
Into the unspeakable jumble in the roadway rode a squadron of cavalry.
The faded yellow of their facings shone bravely. There was a mighty
altercation.
The artillery were assembling as if for a conference.
The blue haze of evening was upon the field. The lines of forest
were long purple shadows. One cloud lay along the western sky
partly smothering the red.
As the youth left the scene behind him, he heard the guns
suddenly roar out. He imagined them shaking in black rage.
They belched and howled like brass devils guarding a gate.
The soft air was filled with the tremendous remonstrance.
With it came the shattering peal of opposing infantry.
Turning to look behind him, he could see sheets of orange
light illumine the shadowy distance. There were subtle
and sudden lightnings in the far air. At times he thought
he could see heaving masses of men.
He hurried on in the dusk. The day had faded until he could barely
distinguish place 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, however, 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 he could measure his plight. But when they remained
ominously silent he became frightened and imagined terrible
fingers that clutched into his brain.
Amid it he began to reflect upon various incidents and conditions
of the past. He bethought him of certain meals his mother had
cooked at home, in which those dishes of which he was particularly
fond had occupied prominent positions. He saw the spread table.
The pine walls of the kitchen were glowing in the warm light
from the stove. Too, he remembered how he and his companions
used to go from the school-house to the bank of a shaded pool.
He saw his clothes in disorderly array upon the grass of the bank.
He felt the swash of the fragrant water upon his body. The leaves of
the overhanging maple rustled with melody in the wind of youthful summer.
He was overcome presently by a dragging weariness. His head hung
forward and his shoulders were stooped as if he were bearing a
great bundle. His feet shuffled along the ground.
He held continuous arguments as to whether he should lie down and
sleep at some near spot, or force himself on until he reached a
certain haven. He often tried to dismiss the question, but his
body persisted in rebellion and his senses nagged at him like
pampered babies.
At last he heard a cheery voice near his shoulder:
"Yeh seem t' be in a pretty bad way, boy?"
The youth did not look up, but he assented with thick tongue. "Uh!"
The owner of the cheery voice took him firmly by the arm.
"Well," he said, with a round laugh, "I'm goin' your way.
"Th' hull gang is goin' your way. An' I guess I kin give yeh
a lift." They began to walk like a drunken man and his friend.
As they went along, the man questioned the youth and assisted
him with the replies like one manipulating the mind of a child.
Sometimes he interjected anecdotes. "What reg'ment do yeh b'long
teh? Eh? What 's that? Th' 304th N' York? Why, what 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 was a sergeant, too. Them was his last words. Thunder,
I wish we was sure 'a findin' our reg'ments t'-night.
It 's goin' t' be long huntin'. But I guess we kin do it."
In the search which followed, the man of the cheery voice seemed
to the youth to possess a wand of a magic kind. He threaded the
mazes of the tangled forest with a strange fortune. In encounters
with guards and patrols he displayed the keenness of a detective
and the valor of a gamin. Obstacles fell before him and became
of assistance. The youth, with his chin still on his breast,
stood woodenly by while his companion beat ways and means out
of sullen things.
The forest seemed a vast hive of men buzzing about in frantic circles,
but the cheery man conducted the youth without mistakes, until at last
he began to chuckle with glee and self-satisfaction. "Ah, there yeh are!
See that fire?"
The youth nodded stupidly.
"Well, there 's where your reg'ment is. An' now, good-by, ol' boy,
good luck t' yeh."
A warm and strong hand clasped the youth's languid fingers for an instant,
and then he heard a cheerful and audacious whistling as the man strode away.
As he who had so befriended him was thus passing out of his life,
it suddenly occurred to the youth that he had not once seen his face.
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