Software Vault: The Gold Collection/Software Vault - The Gold Collection (American Databankers) (1993).ISO/cdr11/redbadge.zip/FILE6.TXT

Text File | 1993-06-14 | 14KB | 223 lines

                              CHAPTER SIX

          The youth awakened slowly. He came gradually back to a
     position from which he could regard himself. For moments he had
     been scrutinizing his person in a dazed way as if he had never
     before seen himself. Then he picked up his cap from the ground. He
     wriggled in his jacket to make a more comfortable fit, and kneeling
     relaced his shoe. He thoughtfully mopped his reeking features.
          So it was all over at last! The supreme trial had been passed.
     The red, formidable difficulties of war had been vanquished.
          He went into an ecstasy of self-satisfaction. He had the most
     delightful sensations of his life. Standing as if apart from
     himself, he viewed that last scene. He perceived that the man who
     had fought thus was magnificent.
          He felt that he was a fine fellow. He saw himself even with
     those ideals which he had considered as far beyond him. He smiled
     in deep gratification.
          Upon his fellows he beamed tenderness and good will. "Gee!
     Ain't it hot, hey?" he said affably to a man who was polishing his
     streaming face with his coat sleeves.
          "You bet!" said the other, grinning sociably. "I never seen
     such dumb hotness." He sprawled out luxuriously on the ground.
     "Gee, yes! And I hope we don't have no more fighting till a week
     from Monday."
          There were some handshakings and deep speeches with men whose
     features were familiar, but with whom the youth now felt the bonds
     of tied hearts. He helped a cursing comrade to bind up a wound of
     the shin.
          But, of a sudden, cries of amazement broke out along the ranks
     of the new regiment. "Here they come again! Here they come again!"
     The man who had sprawled upon the ground started up and said,
     "Gosh!"
          The youth turned quick eyes upon the field. He discerned forms
     begin to swell in masses out of a distant wood. He again saw the
     tilted flag speeding forward.
          The shells, which had ceased to trouble the regiment for a
     time, came swirling again, and exploded in the grass or among the
     leaves of the trees. They looked to be strange war flowers bursting
     into fierce bloom.
          The men groaned. The luster faded from their eyes. Their
     smudged countenances now expressed a profound dejection. They moved
     their stiffened bodies slowly, and watched in sullen mood the
     frantic approach of the enemy. The slaves toiling in the temple
     of this god began to feel rebellion at his harsh tasks.
          They fretted and complained each to each. "Oh, say, this is
     too much of a good thing! Why can't somebody send us supports?"
          "We ain't never going to stand this second banging. I didn't
     come here to fight the whole damned rebel army."
          There was one who raised a doleful cry. "I wish Bill Smithers
     had trod on my hand, instead of me treading on his." The sore
     joints of the regiment creaked as it painfully floundered into
     position to repulse.
          The youth stared. Surely, he thought, this impossible thing
     was not about to happen. He waited as if he expected the enemy to
     suddenly stop, apologize, and retire bowing. It was all a mistake.
          But the firing began somewhere on the regimental line and
     ripped along in both directions. The level sheets of flame
     developed great clouds of smoke that tumbled and tossed in the mild
     wind near the ground for a moment, and then rolled through the
     ranks as through a gate. The clouds were tinged an earthlike yellow
     in the sunrays and in the shadow were a sorry blue. The flag was
     sometimes eaten and lost in this mass of vapor, but more often it
     projected, sun-touched, resplendent.
          Into the youth's eyes there came a look that one can see in
     the orbs of a jaded horse. His neck was quivering with nervous
     weakness and the muscles of his arms felt numb and bloodless. His
     hands, too, seemed large and awkward as if he was wearing invisible
     mittens. And there was a great uncertainty about his knee joints.
          The words that comrades had uttered previous to the firing
     began to recur to him. "Oh, say, this is too much of a good thing!
     What do they take us for---why don't they send supports? I didn't
     come here to fight the whole damned rebel army."
          He began to exaggerate the endurance, the skill, and the valor
     of those who were coming. Himself reeling from exhaustion, he was
     astonished beyond measure at such persistency. They must be
     machines of steel. It was very gloomy struggling against such
     affairs, wound up perhaps to fight until sundown.
          He slowly lifted his rifle and catching a glimpse of the
     thick-spread field he blazed at a cantering cluster. He stopped
     then and began to peer as best he could through the smoke. He
     caught changing views of the ground covered with men who were all
     running like pursued imps, and yelling.
          To the youth it was an onslaught of redoubtable dragons. He
     became like the man who lost his legs at the approach of the red
     and green monster. He waited in a sort of a horrified, listening
     attitude. He seemed to shut his eyes and wait to be gobbled.
          A man near him who up to this time had been working feverishly
     at his rifle suddenly stopped and ran with howls. A lad whose face
     had borne an expression of exalted courage, the majesty of he who
     dares give his life, was, at an instant, smitten abject. He
     blanched like one who has come to the edge of a cliff at midnight
     and is suddenly made aware. There was a revelation. He, too, threw
     down his gun and fled. There was no shame in his face. He ran like
     a rabbit.
          Others began to scamper away through the smoke. The youth
     turned his head, shaken from his trance by this movement as if the
     regiment was leaving him behind. He saw the few fleeting forms.
          He yelled then with fright and swung about. For a moment, in
     the great clamor, he was like a proverbial chicken. He lost the
     direction of safety. Destruction threatened him from all points.
          Directly he began to speed toward the rear in great leaps. His
     rifle and cap were gone. His unbuttoned coat bulged in the wind.
     The flap of his cartridge box bobbed wildly, and his canteen, by
     its slender cord, swung out behind. On his face was the horror of
     those things which he imagined.
          The lieutenant sprang forward bawling. The youth saw his
     features wrathfully red, and saw him make a dab with his sword. His
     one thought of the incident was that the lieutenant was a peculiar
     creature to feel interested in such matters upon this occasion.
          He ran like a blind man. Two or three times he fell down. Once
     he knocked his shoulder so heavily against a tree that he went
     headlong.
          Since he had turned his back upon the fight his fears had been
     wondrously magnified. Death about to thrust him between the
     shoulder blades was far more dreadful than death about to smite him
     between the eyes. When he thought of it later, he conceived the
     impression that it is better to view the appalling than to be
     merely within hearing. The noises of the battle were like stones;
     he believed himself liable to be crushed.
          As he ran on he mingled with others. He dimly saw men on his
     right and on his left, and he heard footsteps behind him. He
     thought that all the regiment was fleeing, pursued by these ominous
     crashes.
          In his flight the sound of these following footsteps gave him
     his one meager relief. He felt vaguely that death must make a first
     choice of the men who were nearest; the initial morsels for the
     dragons would be then those who were following him. So he displayed
     the zeal of an insane sprinter in his purpose to keep them in the
     rear. There was a race.
          As he, leading, went across a little field, he found himself
     in a region of shells. They hurtled over his head with long wild
     screams. As he listened he imagined them to have rows of cruel
     teeth that grinned at him. Once one lit before him and the livid
     lightning of the explosion effectually barred the way in his chosen
     direction. He groveled on the ground and then springing up went
     careering off through some bushes.
          He experienced a thrill of amazement when he came within view
     of a battery in action. The men there seemed to be in conventional
     moods, altogether unaware of the impending annihilation. The
     battery was disputing with a distant antagonist and the gunners
     were wrapped in admiration of their shooting. They were continually
     bending in coaxing postures over the guns. They seemed to be
     patting them an the back and encouraging them with words. The guns,
     stolid and undaunted, spoke with dogged valor.
          The precise gunners were coolly enthusiastic. They lifted
     their eyes every chance to the smoke-wreathed hillock from whence
     the hostile battery addressed them. The youth pitied them as he
     ran. Methodical idiots! Machine-like fools! The refined joy of
     planting shells in the midst of the other battery's formation would
     appear a little thing when the infantry came swooping out of the
     woods.
          The face of a youthful rider, who was jerking his frantic
     horse with an abandon of temper he might display in a placid
     barnyard, was impressed deeply upon his mind. He knew that he
     looked upon a man who would presently be dead.
          Too, he felt a pity for the guns, standing, six good comrades,
     in a bold row.
          He saw a brigade going to the relief of its pestered fellows.
     He scrambled upon a wee hill and watched it sweeping finely,
     keeping formation in difficult places. The blue of the line was
     crusted with steel color, and the brilliant flags projected.
     Officers were shouting.
          This sight also filled him with wonder. The brigade was
     hurrying briskly to be gulped into the infernal mouths of the war
     god. What manner of men were they, anyhow? Ah, it was some wondrous
     breed! Or else they didn't comprehend---the fools.
          A furious order caused commotion in the artillery. An officer
     on a bounding horse made maniacal motions with his arms. The teams
     went swinging up from the rear, the guns were whirled about, and
     the battery scampered away. The cannon with their noses poked
     slantingly at the ground grunted and grumbled like stout men, brave
     but with objections to hurry.
          The youth went on, moderating his pace since he had left the
     place of noises.
          Later he came upon a general of division seated upon a horse
     that pricked its ears in an interested way at the battle. There was
     a great gleaming of yellow and patent leather about the saddle and
     bridle. The quiet man astride looked mouse-colored upon such a
     splendid charger.
          A jingling staff was galloping hither and thither. Sometimes
     the general was surrounded by horsemen and at other times he was
     quite alone. He looked to be much harassed. He had the appearance
     of a business man whose market is swinging up and down.
          The youth went slinking around this spot. He went as near as
     he dared trying to overhear words. Perhaps the general, unable to
     comprehend chaos, might call upon him for information. And he could
     tell him. He knew all concerning it. Of a surety the force was in
     a fix, and any fool could see that if they did not retreat while
     they had opportunity---why---
          He felt that he would like to thrash the general, or at least
     approach and tell him in plain words exactly what he thought him to
     be. It was criminal to stay calmly in one spot and make no effort
     to stay destruction. He loitered in a fever of eagerness for the
     division commander to apply to him.
          As he warily moved about, he heard the general call out
     irritably: "Tompkins, go over and see Taylor, and tell him not to
     be in such an all-fired hurry; tell him to halt his brigade in the
     edge of the woods; tell him to detach a regiment---say I think the
     center will break if we don't help it out some; tell him to hurry
     up."
          A slim youth on a fine chestnut horse caught these swift words
     from the mouth of his superior. He made his horse bound into a
     gallop almost from a walk in his haste to go upon his mission.
     There was a cloud of dust.
          A moment later the youth saw the general bounce excitedly in
     his saddle.
          "Yes, by heavens, they have!" The officer leaned forward. His
     face was aflame with excitement. "Yes, by heavens, they've held
     them! They've held them!"
          He began to blithely roar at his staff: "We'll wallop them
     now. We'll wallop them now. We've got them sure." He turned
     suddenly upon an aid: "Here---you---Jones---quick---ride after
     Tompkins---see Taylor---tell him to go in---everlastingly---like
     blazes---anything."
          As another officer sped his horse after the first messenger,
     the general beamed upon the earth like a sun. In his eyes was a
     desire to chant a paean. He kept repeating, "They've held them, by
     heavens!"
          His excitement made his horse plunge, and he merrily kicked
     and swore at it. He held a little carnival of joy on horseback.