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Chapter 19
The youth stared at the land in front of him. Its foliages now
seemed to veil powers and horrors. He was unaware of the
machinery of orders that started the charge, although from the
corners of his eyes he saw an officer, who looked like a boy
a-horseback, come galloping, waving his hat. Suddenly he felt
a straining and heaving among the men. The line fell slowly
forward like a toppling wall, and, with a convulsive gasp that
was intended for a cheer, the regiment began its journey.
The youth was pushed and jostled for a moment before he understood
the movement at all, but directly he lunged ahead and began to run.
He fixed his eye upon a distant and prominent clump of trees
where he had concluded the enemy were to be met, and he ran
toward it as toward a goal. He had believe throughout that it
was a mere question of getting over an unpleasant matter as quickly
as possible, and he ran desperately, as if pursued for a murder.
His face was drawn hard and tight with the stress of his endeavor.
His eyes were fixed in a lurid glare. And with his soiled and
disordered dress, his red and inflamed features surmounted by the
dingy rag with its spot of blood, his wildly swinging rifle,
and banging accouterments, he looked to be an insane soldier.
As the regiment swung from its position out into a cleared space the
woods and thickets before it awakened. Yellow flames leaped toward
it from many directions. The forest made a tremendous objection.
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 treetops. One tumbled directly into
the middle of a hurrying group and exploded in crimson fury.
There was an instant spectacle of a man, almost over it,
throwing up his hands to shield his eyes.
Other men, punched by bullets, fell in grotesque 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 working 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 everything. 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 surfaces. 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 mechanical but firm
impression, so that afterward everything was pictured and
explained to him, save why he himself was there.
But there was a frenzy made from this furious rush. The men,
pitching forward insanely, had burst into cheerings, moblike and
barbaric, but tuned in strange keys that can arouse the dullard
and the stoic. It made a mad enthusiasm that, it seemed, would be
incapable of checking itself before granite and brass. There was
the delirium that encounters despair and death, and is heedless
and blind to the odds. It is a temporary but sublime absence
of selfishness. And because it was of this order was the reason,
perhaps, why the youth wondered, afterward, what reasons he could
have had for being there.
Presently the straining pace ate up the energies of the men.
As if by agreement, the leaders began to slacken their speed.
The volleys directed against them had had a seeming windlike effect.
The regiment snorted and blew. Among some stolid trees it began
to falter and hesitate. The men, staring intently, began to
wait for some of the distant walls fo smoke to move and disclose
to them the scene. Since much of their strength and their breath
had vanished, they returned to caution. They were become men again.
The youth had a vague belief that he had run miles, and he thought,
in a way, that he was now in some new and unknown land.
The moment the regiment ceased its advance the protesting splutter
of musketry became a steadied roar. Long and accurate fringes of
smoke spread out. From the top of a small hill came level belchings
of yellow flame that caused an inhuman whistling in the air.
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
woodenly 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 commotion, 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 understood.
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 bethink themselves of their weapons,
and at once commenced 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 and jerks. The men stopped now every few paces to fire
and load, and in this manner moved slowly on from trees to trees.
The flaming opposition in their front grew with their advance
until it seemed that all forward ways were barred by the thin
leaping tongues, and off to the right an ominous demonstration
could sometimes be dimly discerned. The smoke lately generated
was in confusing clouds that made it difficult for the regiment
to proceed with intelligence. As he passed through each curling
mass the youth wondered what would confront him on the farther side.
The command went painfully forward until an open space interposed
between them and the lurid lines. Here, crouching and cowering
behind some trees, the men clung with desperation, as if threatened
by a wave. They looked wild-eyed, and as if amazed at this furious
disturbance they had stirred. In the storm there was an ironical
expression of their importance. The faces of the men, too, showed
a lack of a certain feeling of responsibility for being there.
It was as if they had been driven. It was the dominant animal
failing to remember in the supreme moments the forceful causes
of various superficial qualities. The whole affair seemed
incomprehensible to many of them.
As they halted thus the lieutenant again began to bellow profanely.
Regardless of the vindictive threats of the bullets, he went about
coaxing, berating, and bedamning. His lips, that were habitually
in a soft and childlike curve, were now writhed into unholy contortions.
He swore by all possible deities.
Once he grabbed the youth by the arm. "Come on, yeh lunkhead!"
he roared. "Come one! We'll all git killed if we stay here.
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 bandaged hand. "Come on!" Presently he grappled 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 indignation against his officer.
He wrenched fiercely and shook him off.
"Come on yerself, 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 gyrated
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 yellow 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 player.
In his haste his eyes almost closed, and the scene was a wild blur.
Pulsating saliva stood at the corners of his mouth.
Within him, as he hurled himself forward, was born a love, a
despairing fondness for this flag which was near him. It was
a creation of beauty and invulnerability. It was a goddess,
radiant, that bended its form with an imperious gesture to him.
It was a woman, red and white, hating and loving, that called
him with the voice of his hopes. Because no harm could come to
it he endowed it with power. He kept near, as if it could be a
saver of lives, and an imploring cry went from his mind.
In the mad scramble he was aware that the color sergeant
flinched suddenly, as if struck by a bludgeon. He faltered,
and then became motionless, save for his quivering knees.
He made a spring and a clutch at the pole. At the same instant
his friend grabbed it from the other side. They jerked at it,
stout and furious, but the color sergeant was dead, and the
corpse would not relinquish its trust. For a moment there was
a grim encounter. The dead man, swinging with bended back,
seemed to be obstinately tugging, in ludicrous and awful ways,
for the possession of the flag.
It was past in an instant of time. They wrenched the flag
furiously from the dead man, and, as they turned again,
the corpse swayed forward with bowed head. One arm swung high,
and the curved hand fell with heavy protest on the friend's
unheeding shoulder.
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