Software Vault: The Gold Collection/Software Vault - The Gold Collection (American Databankers) (1993).ISO/cdr11/redbadge.zip/FILE19.TXT

Text File | 1993-06-14 | 12KB | 192 lines

                             CHAPTER NINETEEN

          The youth stared at the land in front of him. Its foliage 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 believed 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 tree-tops. One tumbled directly into the
     middle of a hurrying group and exploded in crimson fury. There was
     an instant's 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, mob-like 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 wind-like 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 of 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, you fools!" he bellowed. "Come on! You can't stay
     here. You 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 them 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 you lunkhead!"
     he roared. "Come on! We'll all get killed if we stay here. We've
     only got to go across that lot. And 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. Just across the 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 yourself, 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, bent 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 bent 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 bent 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.