The roarings that had stretched in a long line of sound across the face
of the forest began to grow intermittent and weaker. The stentorian
speeches of the artillery continued in some distant encounter, but the
crashes of the musketry had almost ceased. The youth and his friend of
a sudden looked up, feeling a deadened form of distress at the waning
of these noises, which had become a part of life. They could see
changes going on among the troops. There were marchings this way and
that way. A battery wheeled leisurely. On the crest of a small hill
was the thick gleam of many departing muskets.
The youth arose. "Well, what now, I wonder?" he said. By his tone he
seemed to be preparing to resent some new monstrosity in the way of
dins and smashes. He shaded his eyes with his grimy hand and gazed
over the field.
His friend also arose and stared. "I bet we're goin' t' git along out
of this an' back over th' river," said he.
"Well, I swan!" said the youth.
They waited, watching. Within a little while the regiment received
orders to retrace its way. The men got up grunting from the grass,
regretting the soft repose. They jerked their stiffened legs, and
stretched their arms over their heads. One man swore as he rubbed his
eyes. They all groaned "O Lord!" They had as many objections to this
change as they would have had to a proposal for a new battle.
They trampled slowly back over the field across which they had run in a
mad scamper.
The regiment marched until it had joined its fellows. The reformed
brigade, in column, aimed through a wood at the road. Directly they
were in a mass of dust-covered troops, and were trudging along in a way
parallel to the enemy's lines as these had been defined by the previous
turmoil.
They passed within view of a stolid white house, and saw in front of it
groups of their comrades lying in wait behind a neat breastwork. A row
of guns were booming at a distant enemy. Shells thrown in reply were
raising clouds of dust and splinters. Horsemen dashed along the line
of intrenchments.
At this point of its march the division curved away from the field and
went winding off in the direction of the river. When the significance
of this movement had impressed itself upon the youth he turned his head
and looked over his shoulder toward the trampled and _débris_-strewed
ground. He breathed a breath of new satisfaction. He finally nudged
his friend. "Well, it's all over," he said to him.
His friend gazed backward. "B'Gawd, it is," he assented. They mused.
For a time the youth was obliged to reflect in a puzzled and uncertain
way. His mind was undergoing a subtle change. It took moments for it
to cast off its battleful ways and resume its accustomed course of
thought. Gradually his brain emerged from the clogged clouds, and at
last he was enabled to more closely comprehend himself and circumstance.
He understood then that the existence of shot and counter-shot was in
the past. He had dwelt in a land of strange, squalling upheavals and
had come forth. He had been where there was red of blood and black of
passion, and he was escaped. His first thoughts were given to
rejoicings at this fact.
Later he began to study his deeds, his failures, and his achievements.
Thus, fresh from scenes where many of his usual machines of reflection
had been idle, from where he had proceeded sheeplike, he struggled to
marshal all his acts.
At last they marched before him clearly. From this present view point
he was enabled to look upon them in spectator fashion and to criticise
them with some correctness, for his new condition had already defeated
certain sympathies.
Regarding his procession of memory he felt gleeful and unregretting,
for in it his public deeds were paraded in great and shining
prominence. Those performances which had been witnessed by his fellows
marched now in wide purple and gold, having various deflections. They
went gayly with music. It was pleasure to watch these things. He
spent delightful minutes viewing the gilded images of memory.
He saw that he was good. He recalled with a thrill of joy the
respectful comments of his fellows upon his conduct.
Nevertheless, the ghost of his flight from the first engagement
appeared to him and danced. There were small shoutings in his brain
about these matters. For a moment he blushed, and the light of his
soul flickered with shame.
A specter of reproach came to him. There loomed the dogging memory of
the tattered soldier--he who, gored by bullets and faint for blood, had
fretted concerning an imagined wound in another; he who had loaned his
last of strength and intellect for the tall soldier; he who, blind with
weariness and pain, had been deserted in the field.
For an instant a wretched chill of sweat was upon him at the thought
that he might be detected in the thing. As he stood persistently
before his vision, he gave vent to a cry of sharp irritation and agony.
His friend turned. "What's the matter, Henry?" he demanded. The
youth's reply was an outburst of crimson oaths.
As he marched along the little branch-hung roadway among his prattling
companions this vision of cruelty brooded over him. It clung near him
always and darkened his view of these deeds in purple and gold.
Whichever way his thoughts turned they were followed by the somber
phantom of the desertion in the fields. He looked stealthily at his
companions, feeling sure that they must discern in his face evidences
of this pursuit. But they were plodding in ragged array, discussing
with quick tongues the accomplishments of the late battle.
"Oh, if a man should come up an' ask me, I'd say we got a dum good
lickin'."
"Lickin'--in yer eye! We ain't licked, sonny. We're goin' down here
aways, swing aroun', an' come in behint 'em."
"Oh, hush, with your comin' in behint 'em. I've seen all 'a that I
wanta. Don't tell me about comin' in behint--"
"Bill Smithers, he ses he'd rather been in ten hundred battles than
been in that heluva hospital. He ses they got shootin' in th'
night-time, an' shells dropped plum among 'em in th' hospital. He ses
sech hollerin' he never see."
"Hasbrouck? He's th' best off'cer in this here reg'ment. He's a
whale."
"Didn't I tell yeh we'd come aroun' in behint 'em? Didn't I tell yeh
so? We--"
"Oh, shet yeh mouth!"
For a time this pursuing recollection of the tattered man took all
elation from the youth's veins. He saw his vivid error, and he was
afraid that it would stand before him all his life. He took no share
in the chatter of his comrades, nor did he look at them or know them,
save when he felt sudden suspicion that they were seeing his thoughts
and scrutinizing each detail of the scene with the tattered soldier.
Yet gradually he mustered force to put the sin at a distance. And at
last his eyes seemed to open to some new ways. He found that he could
look back upon the brass and bombast of his earlier gospels and see
them truly. He was gleeful when he discovered that he now despised
them.
With this conviction came a store of assurance. He felt a quiet
manhood, nonassertive but of sturdy and strong blood. He knew that he
would no more quail before his guides wherever they should point. He
had been to touch the great death, and found that, after all, it was
but the great death. He was a man.
So it came to pass that as he trudged from the place of blood and wrath
his soul changed. He came from hot plowshares to prospects of clover
tranquilly, and it was as if hot plowshares were not. Scars faded as
flowers.
It rained. The procession of weary soldiers became a bedraggled train,
despondent and muttering, marching with churning effort in a trough of
liquid brown mud under a low, wretched sky. Yet the youth smiled, for
he saw that the world was a world for him, though many discovered it to
be made of oaths and walking sticks. He had rid himself of the red
sickness of battle. The sultry nightmare was in the past. He had been
an animal blistered and sweating in the heat and pain of war. He
turned now with a lover's thirst to images of tranquil skies, fresh
meadows, cool brooks--an existence of soft and eternal peace.
Over the river a golden ray of sun came through the hosts of leaden
rain clouds.
[Transcriber's Note: I have tried to retain the inconsistent renderings
of contractions as joined or separate, e.g., "we 'll" or "we'll."
I have made the following changes to the text:
PAGE PARA. LINE ORIGINAL CHANGED TO
18 3 3 estabiish establish
40 3 2 skirmish skirmish-
78 4 4 a air an air
130 2 recognzied recognized
130 4 12 could a' could 'a
139 2 4 not began not begun
193 2 16 illusions to allusions to]
End of Project Gutenberg's The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane