This advance of the enemy had seemed to the youth like a ruthless
hunting. He began to fume with rage and exasperation. He beat his foot
upon the ground, and scowled with hate at the swirling smoke that was
approaching like a phantom flood. There was a maddening quality in this
seeming resolution of the foe to give him no rest, to give him no time
to sit down and think. Yesterday he had fought and had fled rapidly.
There had been many adventures. For to-day he felt that he had earned
opportunities for contemplative repose. He could have enjoyed
portraying to uninitiated listeners various scenes at which he had been
a witness or ably discussing the processes of war with other proved
men. Too it was important that he should have time for physical
recuperation. He was sore and stiff from his experiences. He had
received his fill of all exertions, and he wished to rest.
But those other men seemed never to grow weary; they were fighting with
their old speed. He had a wild hate for the relentless foe. Yesterday,
when he had imagined the universe to be against him, he had hated it,
little gods and big gods; to-day he hated the army of the foe with the
same great hatred. He was not going to be badgered of his life, like a
kitten chased by boys, he said. It was not well to drive men into final
corners; at those moments they could all develop teeth and claws.
He leaned and spoke into his friend’s ear. He menaced the woods with a
gesture. “If they keep on chasing us, by Gawd, they’d better watch out.
Can’t stand _too_ much.”
The friend twisted his head and made a calm reply. “If they keep on
a-chasin’ us they’ll drive us all inteh th’ river.”
The youth cried out savagely at this statement. He crouched behind
a little tree, with his eyes burning hatefully and his teeth set in
a cur-like snarl. The awkward bandage was still about his head, and
upon it, over his wound, there was a spot of dry blood. His hair was
wondrously tousled, and some straggling, moving locks hung over the
cloth of the bandage down toward his forehead. His jacket and shirt
were open at the throat, and exposed his young bronzed neck. There
could be seen spasmodic gulpings at his throat.
His fingers twined nervously about his rifle. He wished that it was an
engine of annihilating power. He felt that he and his companions were
being taunted and derided from sincere convictions that they were poor
and puny. His knowledge of his inability to take vengeance for it made
his rage into a dark and stormy specter, that possessed him and made
him dream of abominable cruelties. The tormentors were flies sucking
insolently at his blood, and he thought that he would have given his
life for a revenge of seeing their faces in pitiful plights.
The winds of battle had swept all about the regiment, until the one
rifle, instantly followed by others, flashed in its front. A moment
later the regiment roared forth its sudden and valiant retort. A dense
wall of smoke settled down. It was furiously slit and slashed by the
knifelike fire from the rifles.
To the youth the fighters resembled animals tossed for a death struggle
into a dark pit. There was a sensation that he and his fellows, at bay,
were pushing back, always pushing fierce onslaughts of creatures who
were slippery. Their beams of crimson seemed to get no purchase upon
the bodies of their foes; the latter seemed to evade them with ease,
and come through, between, around, and about with unopposed skill.
When, in a dream, it occurred to the youth that his rifle was an
impotent stick, he lost sense of everything but his hate, his desire to
smash into pulp the glittering smile of victory which he could feel
upon the faces of his enemies.
The blue smoke-swallowed line curled and writhed like a snake stepped
upon. It swung its ends to and fro in an agony of fear and rage.
The youth was not conscious that he was erect upon his feet. He did not
know the direction of the ground. Indeed, once he even lost the habit
of balance and fell heavily. He was up again immediately. One thought
went through the chaos of his brain at the time. He wondered if he had
fallen because he had been shot. But the suspicion flew away at once.
He did not think more of it.
He had taken up a first position behind the little tree, with a direct
determination to hold it against the world. He had not deemed it
possible that his army could that day succeed, and from this he felt
the ability to fight harder. But the throng had surged in all ways,
until he lost directions and locations, save that he knew where lay the
enemy.
The flames bit him, and the hot smoke broiled his skin. His rifle
barrel grew so hot that ordinarily he could not have borne it upon his
palms; but he kept on stuffing cartridges into it, and pounding them
with his clanking, bending ramrod. If he aimed at some changing form
through the smoke, he pulled the trigger with a fierce grunt, as if he
were dealing a blow of the fist with all his strength.
When the enemy seemed falling back before him and his fellows, he went
instantly forward, like a dog who, seeing his foes lagging, turns and
insists upon being pursued. And when he was compelled to retire again,
he did it slowly, sullenly, taking steps of wrathful despair.
Once he, in his intent hate, was almost alone, and was firing, when all
those near him had ceased. He was so engrossed in his occupation that
he was not aware of a lull.
He was recalled by a hoarse laugh and a sentence that came to his ears
in a voice of contempt and amazement. “Yeh infernal fool, don’t yeh
know enough t’ quit when there ain’t anything t’ shoot at? Good Gawd!”
He turned then and, pausing with his rifle thrown half into position,
looked at the blue line of his comrades. During this moment of leisure
they seemed all to be engaged in staring with astonishment at him. They
had become spectators. Turning to the front again he saw, under the
lifted smoke, a deserted ground.
He looked bewildered for a moment. Then there appeared upon the glazed
vacancy of his eyes a diamond point of intelligence. “Oh,” he said,
comprehending.
He returned to his comrades and threw himself upon the ground. He
sprawled like a man who had been thrashed. His flesh seemed strangely
on fire, and the sounds of the battle continued in his ears. He groped
blindly for his canteen.
The lieutenant was crowing. He seemed drunk with fighting. He called
out to the youth: “By heavens, if I had ten thousand wild cats like you
I could tear th’ stomach outa this war in less’n a week!” He puffed out
his chest with large dignity as he said it.
Some of the men muttered and looked at the youth in awestruck ways. It
was plain that as he had gone on loading and firing and cursing without
proper intermission, they had found time to regard him. And they now
looked upon him as a war devil.
The friend came staggering to him. There was some fright and dismay in
his voice. “Are yeh all right, Fleming? Do yeh feel all right? There
ain’t nothin’ th’ matter with yeh, Henry, is there?”
“No,” said the youth with difficulty. His throat seemed full of knobs
and burrs.
These incidents made the youth ponder. It was revealed to him that he
had been a barbarian, a beast. He had fought like a pagan who defends
his religion. Regarding it, he saw that it was fine, wild, and, in some
ways, easy. He had been a tremendous figure, no doubt. By this struggle
he had overcome obstacles which he had admitted to be mountains. They
had fallen like paper peaks, and he was now what he called a hero. And
he had not been aware of the process. He had slept, and, awakening,
found himself a knight.
He lay and basked in the occasional stares of his comrades. Their faces
were varied in degrees of blackness from the burned powder. Some were
utterly smudged. They were reeking with perspiration, and their breaths
came hard and wheezing. And from these soiled expanses they peered at
him.
“Hot work! Hot work!” cried the lieutenant deliriously. He walked up
and down, restless and eager. Sometimes his voice could be heard in a
wild, incomprehensible laugh.
When he had a particularly profound thought upon the science of war he
always unconsciously addressed himself to the youth.
There was some grim rejoicing by the men. “By thunder, I bet this
army’ll never see another new reg’ment like us!”
“You bet!”
“A dog, a woman, an’ a walnut tree
Th’ more yeh beat ’em, th’ better they be!
That’s like us.”
“Lost a piler men, they did. If an ol’ woman swep’ up th’ woods she’d
git a dustpanful.”
“Yes, an’ if she’ll come around ag’in in ’bout an hour she’ll get a
pile more.”
The forest still bore its burden of clamor. From off under the trees
came the rolling clatter of the musketry. Each distant thicket seemed a
strange porcupine with quills of flame. A cloud of dark smoke, as from
smoldering ruins, went up toward the sun now bright and gay in the
blue, enameled sky.