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Chapter 5
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 appeared 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 positions, and adjusted
with great care. It was as if seven hundred new bonnets were
being tried on.
The tall soldier, having prepared his rifle, produced a red
handkerchief of some kind. He was engaged in knotting it about
his throat with exquisite 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 perhaps his gun was not loaded. He stood trying
to rally his faltering intellect so that he might recollect the
moment when he had loaded, but he could not.
A hatless general pulled his dripping horse to a stand near the
colonel of the 304th. He shook his fist in the other's face.
"You've got to hold 'em back!" he shouted, savagely; "you've got
to hold 'em back!"
In his agitation the colonel began to stammer. "A-all r-right,
General, all right, by Gawd! We-we 'll do our--we-we 'll d-d-do-do
our best, General." The general made a passionate gesture and
galloped away. The colonel, perchance to relieve his feelings,
began to scold like a wet parrot. The youth, turning swiftly
to make sure that the rear was unmolested, saw the commander
regarding his men in a highly resentful manner, as if he
regretted above everything his association with them.
The man at the youth's elbow was mumbling, as if to himself:
"Oh, we 're in for it now! oh, we 're in for it now!"
The captain of the company had been pacing excitedly to and fro
in the rear. He coaxed in schoolmistress fashion, as to a
congregation of boys with primers. His talk was an endless
repetition. "Reserve your fire, boys--don't shoot till I tell
you--save your fire--wait till they get close up--don't be
damned fools--"
Perspiration streamed down the youth's face, which was soiled like
that of a weeping urchin. He frequently, with a nervous movement,
wiped his eyes with his coat sleeve. His mouth was still a
little ways ope.
He got the one glance at the foe-swarming field in front of him,
and instantly ceased to debate the question of his piece being loaded.
Before he was ready to begin--before he had announced
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 forgot 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 crisis. He was welded into a common
personality which was dominated by a single desire.
For some moments 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 assurance. 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 discomfited.
There was a consciousness always of the presence 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 danger 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 movements. He, in his thoughts, 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.
Presently he began to feel the effects of the war atmosphere--a
blistering sweat, a sensation that his eyeballs were about to
crack like hot stones. A burning roar filled his ears.
Following this came a red rage. He developed the acute exasperation
of a pestered animal, a well-meaning cow worried by dogs. He had a
mad feeling against his rifle, which could only be used against one
life at a time. He wished to rush forward and strangle with his fingers.
He craved a power that would enable him to make a world-sweeping gesture
and brush all back. His impotency appeared to him, and made his rage
into that of a driven beast.
Buried in the smoke of many rifles his anger was directed not
so much against the men whom he knew were rushing toward him as
against the swirling battle phantoms which were choking him,
stuffing their smoke robes down his parched throat. He fought
frantically for respite for his senses, for air, as a babe being
smothered attacks the deadly blankets.
There was a blare of heated rage mingled with a certain
expression of intentness on all faces. Many of the men were
making low-toned noises with their mouths, and these subdued
cheers, snarls, imprecations, prayers, made a wild, barbaric
these subdued cheers, snarls, imprecations, prayers, made a wild,
barbaric these subdued cheers, snarls, imprecations, prayers,
made a wild, barbaric these subdued cheers, snarls, imprecations,
prayers, made a wild, barbaric song that went as an undercurrent
of sound, strange and chantlike with the resounding chords of the
war march. The man at the youth's elbow was babbling. In it
there was something soft and tender like the monologue of a babe.
The tall soldier was swearing in a loud voice. From his lips
came a black procession of curious oaths. Of a sudden another
broke out in a querulous way like a man who has mislaid his hat.
"Well, why don't they support us? Why don't they send supports?
Do they 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
shifting forms which upon the field before the regiment
had been growing larger and larger like puppets under a
magician's hand.
The officers, at their intervals, rearward, neglected 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 encountered 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 soldier 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 to reload his gun, but his shaking hands prevented.
The lieutenant was obliged to assist him.
The men dropped here and there like bundles. The captain of the
youth's company had been killed in an early part of the action.
His body lay stretched out in the position of a tired man resting,
but upon his face there was an astonished and sorrowful look,
as if he thought some friend had done him an ill turn.
The babbling man was grazed by a shot that made the blood
stream widely down his face. He clapped both hand to his head.
"Oh!" he said, and ran. Another grunted suddenly as if he had been
struck by a club in the stomach. He sat down and gazed ruefully.
In his eyes there was mute, indefinite reproach. Farther up the
line a man, standing behind a tree, had had his knee joint
splintered by a ball. Immediately he had dropped his rifle and
gripped the tree with both arms. And there he remained, clinging
desperately and crying for assistance that he might withdraw his
hold upon the tree.
At last an exultant yell went along the quivering line. The firing
dwindled from an uproar to a last vindictive popping. As the smoke
slowly eddied away, the youth saw that the charge had been repulsed.
The enemy were scattered into reluctant groups. He saw a man climb
to the top of the fence, straddle the rail, and fire a parting shot.
The waves had receded, leaving bits of dark "debris" upon the ground.
Some in the regiment began to whoop frenziedly. Many were silent.
Apparently they were trying to contemplate themselves.
After the fever had left his veins, the youth thought that at
last he was going to suffocate. He became aware of the foul
atmosphere in which he had been 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 contortions. 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 battery 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 going 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 lines of other troops.
Far in front he thought he could see lighter masses protruding in
points from the forest. They were suggestive of unnumbered thousands.
Once he saw a tiny battery go dashing along the line of the horizon.
The tiny riders were beating the tiny horses.
From a sloping hill came the sound of cheerings and clashes.
Smoke welled slowly through the leaves.
Batteries were speaking with thunderous oratorical effort.
Here and there were flags, the red in the stripes dominating.
They splashed bits of warm color upon the dark lines of troops.
The youth felt the old thrill at the sight of the emblems.
They were like beautiful birds strangely undaunted in a storm.
As he listened to the din from the hillside, to a deep pulsating
thunder that came from afar to the left, and to the lesser
clamors which came from many directions, it occurred to him that
they were fighting, too, over there, and over there, and over
there. Heretofore he had supposed that all the battle was
directly under his nose.
As he gazed around him the youth felt a flash of astonishment at
the blue, pure sky and the sun gleamings on the trees and fields.
It was surprising that Nature had gone tranquilly on with her
golden process in the midst of so much devilment.
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