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$Pretitle{}
$Title{(A) Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court
Chapter 43}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{now
knights
england
time
clarence
dead
boys
cave
little
way}
$Date{1889}
$Log{}
Title:       (A) Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court
Author:      Twain, Mark
Date:        1889

Chapter 43

The Battle Of The Sand Belt

     In Merlin's Cave - Clarence and I and fifty-two fresh, bright,
well-educated, clean-minded young British boys.  At dawn I sent an order to
the factories and to all our great works to stop operations and remove all
life to a safe distance, as everything was going to be blown up by secret
mines, "and no telling at what moment - therefore, vacate at once."  These
people knew me,  and had confidence in my word.  They would clear out without
waiting to part their hair, and I could take my own time about dating the
explosion.  You couldn't hire one of them to go back during the century, if
the explosion was still impending.

     We had a week of waiting.  It was not dull for me, because I was writing
all the time.  During the first three days, I finished turning my old diary
into this narrative form; it only required a chapter or so to bring it down
to date.  The rest of the week I took up in writing letters to my wife.  It
was always my habit to write to Sandy everyday, whenever we were separate,
and now I kept up the habit for love of it, and of her, though I couldn't do
anything with the letters, of course, after I had written them.  But it put
in the time, you see, and was almost like talking; it was almost as if I was
saying, "Sandy, if you and Hello-Central were here in the cave, instead of
only your photographs, what good times we could have!"  And then, you know, I
could imagine the baby goo-gooing something out in reply, with its fist in
its mouth and itself stretched across its mother's lap on its back, and she
a-laughing and admiring and worshiping, and now and then tickling under the
baby's chin to set it cackling, and then maybe throwing in a word of answer
to me herself - and so on and so on - well, don't you know, I could sit there
in the cave with my pen, and keep it up, that way, by the hour with them.
Why, it was almost like having us all together again.

     I had spies out, every night, of course, to get news.  Every report made
things look more and more impressive.  The hosts were gathering, gathering;
down all the roads and paths of England the knights were riding, and priests
rode with them, to hearten these original Crusaders, this being the Church's
war.  All the nobilities, big and little, were on their way, and all the
gentry.  This was all as was expected.  We should thin out this sort of folk
to such a degree that the people would have nothing to do but just step to
the front with their republic and -

     Ah, what a donkey I was!  Toward the end of the week I began to get this
large and disenchanting fact through my head: that the mass of the nation had
swung their caps and shouted for the republic for about one day, and there an
end!  The Church, the nobles, and the gentry then turned one grand,
all-disapproving frown upon them and shriveled them into sheep!  From that
moment the sheep had begun to gather to the fold - that is to say, the camps
- and offer their valueless lives and their valuable wool to the "righteous
cause."  Why, even the very men who had lately been slaves were in the
"righteous cause," and glorifying it, praying for it, sentimentally
slabbering over it, just like all the other commoners.  Imagine such human
muck as this; conceive of this folly!

     Yes, it was now "Death to the Republic!" everywhere - not a dissenting
voice.  All England was marching against us!  Truly this was more than I had
bargained for.

     I watched my fifty-two boys narrowly; watched their faces, their walk,
their unconscious attitudes: for all these are a language - a language given
us purposely that it may betray us in times of emergency, when we have
secrets which we want to keep.  I knew that that thought would keep saying
itself over and over again in their minds and hearts, All England is marching
against us! and ever more strenuously imploring attention with each
repetition, ever more sharply realizing itself to their imaginations, until
even in their sleep they would find no rest from it, but hear the vague and
flitting creatures of their dreams say, All England - all England - is
marching against you!  I knew all this would happen; I knew that ultimately
the pressure would become so great that it would compel utterance; therefore,
I must be ready with an answer at that time - an answer well chosen and
tranquilizing.

     I was right.  The time came.  They had to speak.  Poor lads, it was
pitiful to see, they were so pale, so worn, so troubled.  At first their
spokesman could hardly find voice or words; but he presently got both.  This
is what he said - and he put it in the neat modern English taught him in my
schools:

     "We have tried to forget what we are - English boys!  We have tried to
put reason before sentiment, duty before love; our minds approve, but our
hearts reproach us.  While apparently it was only the nobility, only the
gentry, only the twenty-five or thirty thousand knights left alive out of the
late wars, we were of one mind, and undisturbed by any troubling doubt; each
and every one of these fifty-two lads who stand here before you, said, 'They
have chosen - it is their affair.'  But think - the matter is altered - all
England is marching against us!  Oh, sir, consider!  Reflect!  These people
are our people, they are bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, we love them -
do not ask us to destroy our nation!"

     Well, it shows the value of looking ahead, and being ready for a thing
when it happens.  If I hadn't foreseen this thing and been fixed, that boy
would have had me - I couldn't have said a word.  But I was fixed.  I said:

     "My boys, your hearts are in the right place, you have thought the
worthy thought, you have done the worthy thing.  You are English boys, you
will remain English boys, and you will keep that name unsmirched.  Give
yourselves no further concern, let your minds be at peace.  Consider this:
while all England is marching against us, who is in the van?  Who, by the
commonest rules of war, will march in the front?  Answer me."

     "The mounted host of mailed knights."

     "True.  They are 30,000 strong.  Acres deep, they will march.  Now,
observe: none but they will ever strike the sand belt!  Then there will be an
episode!  Immediately after, the civilian multitude in the rear will retire,
to meet business engagements elsewhere.  None but nobles and gentry are
knights, and none but these will remain to dance to our music after that
episode.  It is absolutely true that we shall have to fight nobody but these
thirty thousand knights.  Now speak, and it shall be as you decide.  Shall we
avoid the battle, retire from the field?"

     "No!!!"

     The shout was unanimous and hearty.

     "Are you - are you - well, afraid of these thirty thousand knights?"

     That joke brought out a good laugh, the boys' troubles vanished away,
and they went gaily to their posts.  Ah, they were a darling fifty-two!  As
pretty as girls, too.

     I was ready for the enemy, now.  Let the approaching big day come along
- it would find us on deck.

     The big day arrived on time.  At dawn the sentry on watch in the corral
came into the cave and reported a moving black mass under the horizon, and a
faint sound which he thought to be military music.  Breakfast was just ready;
we sat down and ate it.

     This over, I made the boys a little speech, and then sent out a detail
to man the battery, with Clarence in command of it.

     The sun rose presently and sent its unobstructed splendors over the
land, and we saw a prodigious host moving slowly toward us, with the steady
drift and aligned front of a wave of the sea.  Nearer and nearer it came, and
more and more sublimely imposing became its aspect; yes, all England were
there, apparently.  Soon we could see the innumerable banners fluttering, and
then the sun struck the sea of armor and set it all a-flash.  Yes, it was a
fine sight; I hadn't ever seen anything to beat it.

     At last we could make out details.  All the front ranks, no telling how
many acres deep, were horsemen - plumed knights in armor.  Suddenly we heard
the blare of trumpets; the slow walk burst into a gallop, and then - well, it
was wonderful to see!  Down swept that vast horseshoe wave - it approached
the sand belt - my breath stood still; nearer, nearer - the strip of green
turf beyond the yellow belt grew narrow - narrower still - became a mere
ribbon in front of the horses - then disappeared under their hoofs.  Great
Scott!  Why, the whole front of that host shot into the sky with a
thundercrash, and became a whirling tempest of rags and fragments; and along
the ground lay a thick wall of smoke that hid what was left of the multitude
from our sight.

     Time for the second step in the plan of campaign!  I touched a button,
and shook the bones of England loose from her spine!

     In that explosion all our noble civilization - factories went up in the
air and disappeared from the earth.  It was a pity, but it was necessary.  We
could not afford to let the enemy turn our own weapons against us.

     Now ensued one of the dullest quarter hours I had ever endured.  We
waited in a silent solitude enclosed by our circles of wire, and by a circle
of heavy smoke outside of these.  We couldn't see over the wall of smoke, and
we couldn't see through it.  But at last it began to shred away lazily, and
by the end of another quarter hour the land was clear and our curiosity was
enabled to satisfy itself.  No living creature was in sight!  We now
perceived that additions had been made to our defenses.  The dynamite had dug
a ditch more than a hundred feet wide, all around us, and cast up an
embankment some twenty-five feet high on both borders of it.  As to
destruction of life, it was amazing.  Moreover, it was beyond estimate.  Of
course we could not count the dead, because they did not exist as
individuals, but merely as homogeneous protoplasm, with alloys of iron and
buttons.

     No life was in sight, but necessarily there must have been some wounded
in the rear ranks, who were carried off the field under cover of the wall of
smoke; there would be sickness among the others - there always is, after an
episode like that.  But there would be no reinforcements; this was the last
stand of the chivalry of England; it was all that was left of the order,
after the recent annihilating wars.  So I felt quite safe in believing that
the utmost force that could for the future be brought against us would be but
small; that is, of knights.  I therefore issued a congratulatory proclamation
to my army in these words:

          Soldiers, Champions of Human Liberty and Equality: Your General
     congratulates you!  In the pride of his strength and the vanity of his
     renown, an arrogant enemy came against you.  You were ready.  The
     conflict was brief; on your side, glorious.  This mighty victory having
     been achieved utterly without loss, stands without example in history.
     So long as the planets shall continue to move in their orbits, the
     Battle of the Sand Belt will not perish out of the memories of men.

                                        The Boss.

     I read it well, and the applause I got was very gratifying to me.  I
then wound up with these remarks:

     "The war with the English nation, as a nation, is at an end.  The nation
has retired from the field and the war.  Before it can be persuaded to
return, war will have ceased.  This campaign is the only one that is going to
be fought.  It will be brief - the briefest in history.  Also the most
destructive to life, considered from the standpoint of proportion of
casualties to numbers engaged.  We are done with the nation; henceforth we
deal only with the knights.  English knights can be killed, but they cannot
be conquered.  We know what is before us.  While one of these men remains
alive, our task is not finished, the war is not ended.  We will kill them
all."  [Loud and long continued applause.]

     I picketed the great embankments thrown up around our lines by the
dynamite explosion - merely a lookout of a couple of boys to announce the
enemy when he should appear again.

     Next, I sent an engineer and forty men to a point just beyond our lines
on the south, to turn a mountain brook that was there, and bring it within
our lines and under our command, arranging it in such a way that I could make
instant use of it in an emergency.  The forty men were divided into two
shifts of twenty each, and were to relieve each other every two hours.  In
ten hours the work was accomplished.

     It was nightfall, now, and I withdrew my pickets.  The one who had had
the northern outlook reported a camp in sight, but visible with the glass
only.  He also reported that a few knights had been feeling their way toward
us, and had driven some cattle across our lines, but that the knights
themselves had not come very near.  That was what I had been expecting.  They
were feeling us, you see; they wanted to know if we were going to play that
red terror on them again.  They would grow bolder in the night, perhaps.  I
believed I knew what project they would attempt, because it was plainly the
thing I would attempt myself if I were in their places and as ignorant as
they were.  I mentioned it to Clarence.

     "I think you are right," said he; "it is the obvious thing for them to
try."

     "Well, then," I said, "if they do it they are doomed."

     "Certainly."

     "They won't have the slightest show in the world."

     "Of course they won't."

     "It's dreadful, Clarence.  It seems an awful pity."

     The thing disturbed me so, that I couldn't get any peace of mind for
thinking of it and worrying over it.  So, at last, to quiet my conscience, I
framed this message to the knights:


          To the Honorable the Commander of the Insurgent
     Chivalry of England: You fight in vain.  We know your
     strength - if one may call it by that name.  We know
     that at the utmost you cannot bring against us above five
     and twenty thousand knights.  Therefore, you have no
     chance - none whatever.  Reflect: we are well equipped,
     well fortified, we number fifty-four.  Fifth-four what?  Men?
     No, minds - the capablest in the world; a force against
     which mere animal might may no more hope to prevail than
     may the idle waves of the sea hope to prevail against the
     granite barriers of England.  Be advised.  We offer you your
     lives; for the sake of your families, do not reject the gift.
     We offer you this chance, and it is the last: throw down
     your arms; surrender unconditionally to the Republic, and
     all will be forgiven.
     (Signed)     The Boss.

     I read it to Clarence, and said I proposed to send it by a flag of
truce.  He laughed the sarcastic laugh he was born with, and said:

     "Somehow it seems impossible for you to ever fully realize what these
nobilities are.  Now let us save a little time and trouble.  Consider me the
commander of the knights yonder.  Now then, you are the flag of truce;
approach and deliver me your message, and I will give you your answer."

     I humored the idea.  I came forward under an imaginary guard of the
enemy's soldiers, produced my paper, and read it through.  For answer,
Clarence struck the paper out of my hand, pursed up a scornful lip and said
with lofty disdain -

     "Dismember me this animal, and return him in a basket to the baseborn
knave who sent him; other answer have I none!"

     How empty is theory in presence of fact!  And this was just fact, and
nothing else.  It was the thing that would have happened, there was no
getting around that.  I tore up the paper and granted my mistimed
sentimentalities a permanent rest.

     Then, to business.  I tested the electric signals from the gatling
platform to the cave, and made sure that they were all right; I tested and
retested those which commanded the fences - these were signals whereby I
could break and renew the electric current in each fence independently of the
others, at will.  I placed the brook connection under the guard and authority
of three of my best boys, who would alternate in two-hour watches all night
and promptly obey my signal, if I should have occasion to give it - three
revolver-shots in quick succession.  Sentry duty was discarded for the night,
and the corral left empty of life; I ordered that quiet be maintained in the
cave, and the electric lights turned down to a glimmer.

     As soon as it was good and dark, I shut off the current from all of the
fences, and then groped my way out to the embankment bordering our side of
the great dynamite ditch.  I crept to the top of it and lay there on the
slant of the muck to watch.  But it was too dark to see anything.  As for
sounds, there were none.  The stillness was deathlike.  True, there were the
usual nightsounds of the country - the whir of night birds, the buzzing of
insects, the barking of distant dogs, the mellow lowing of far-off kine - but
these didn't seem to break the stillness, they only intensified it, and added
a gruesome melancholy to it into the bargain.

     I presently gave up looking, the night shut down so black, but I kept my
ears strained to catch the least suspicious sound, for I judged I had only to
wait and I shouldn't be disappointed.  However, I had to wait a long time.
At last I caught what you may call indistinct glimpses of sound - dulled
metallic sound.  I pricked up my ears, then, and held my breath, for this was
the sort of thing I had been waiting for.  This sound thickened, and
approached - from toward the north.  Presently I heard it at my own level -
the ridgetop of the opposite embankment, a hundred feet or more away.  Then I
seemed to see a row of black dots appear along that ridge - human heads?  I
couldn't tell; it mightn't be anything at all; you can't depend on your eyes
when your imagination is out of focus.  However, the question was soon
settled.  I heard that metallic noise descending into the great ditch.  It
augmented fast, it spread all along, and it unmistakably furnished me this
fact: an armed host was taking up its quarters in the ditch.  Yes, these
people were arranging a little  surprise party for us.  We could expect
entertainment about dawn, possibly earlier.

     I groped my way back to the corral, now; I had seen enough.  I went to
the platform and signaled to turn the current onto the two inner fences.
Then I went into the cave, and found everything satisfactory there - nobody
awake but the working watch.  I woke Clarence and told him the great ditch
was filling up with men, and that I believed all the knights were coming for
us in a body.  It was my notion that as soon as dawn approached we could
expect the ditch's ambuscaded thousands to swarm up over the embankment and
make an assault, and be followed immediately by the rest of their army.

     Clarence said:

     "They will be wanting to send a scout or two in the dark to make
preliminary observations.  Why not take the lightning off the outer fences,
and give them a chance?"

     "I've already done it, Clarence.  Did you ever know me to be
inhospitable?"

     "No, you are a good heart.  I want to go and -"

     "Be a reception committee?  I will go, too."

     We crossed the corral and lay down together between the two inside
fences.  Even the dim light of the cave had disordered our eyesight somewhat,
but the focus straightway began to regulate itself and soon it was adjusted
for present circumstances.  We had had to feel our way before, but we could
make out to see the fence posts now.  We started a whispered conversation,
but suddenly Clarence broke off and said:

     "What is that?"

     "What is what?"

     "That thing yonder?"

     "What thing - where?"

     "There beyond you a little piece - a dark something - a dull shape of
some kind - against the second fence."

     I gazed and he gazed.  I said:

     "Could it be a man, Clarence?"

     "No, I think not.  If you notice, it looks a lit - why, it is a man -
leaning on the fence!"

     "I certainly believe it is; let's us go and see."

     We crept along on our hands and knees until we were pretty close, and
then looked up.  Yes, it was a man - a dim great figure in armor, standing
erect, with both hands on the upper wire - and of course there was a smell of
burning flesh.  Poor fellow, dead as a doornail, and never knew what hurt
him.  He stood there like a statue - no motion about him, except that his
plumes swished about a little in the night wind.  We rose up and looked in
through the bars of his visor, but couldn't make out whether we knew him or
not - features too dim and shadowed.

     We heard muffled sounds approaching, and we sank down to the ground
where we were.  We made out another knight vaguely; he was coming very
stealthily, and feeling his way.  He was near enough, now, for us to see him
put out a hand, find an upper wire, then bend and step under it and over the
lower one.  Now he arrived at the first knight - and started slightly when he
discovered him.  He stood a moment - no doubt wondering why the other one
didn't move on; then he said, in a low voice, "Why dreamest thou here, good
Sir Mar -" then he laid his hand on the corpse's shoulder - and just uttered
a little soft moan and sunk down dead.  Killed by a dead man, you see -
killed by a dead friend, in fact.  There was something awful about it.

     These early birds came scattering along after each other, about one
every five minutes in our vicinity, during half an hour.  They brought no
armor of offense but their swords; as a rule they carried the sword ready in
the hand and put it forward and found the wires with it.  We would now and
then see a blue spark when the knight that caused it was so far away as to be
invisible to us; but we knew what had happened, all the same, poor fellow; he
had touched a charged wire with his sword and been elected.  We had brief
intervals of grim stillness, interrupted with piteous regularity by the clash
made by the falling of an ironclad; and this sort of thing was going on,
right along, and was very creepy, there in the dark and lonesomeness.

     We concluded to make a tour between the inner fences.  We elected to
walk upright, for convenience sake; we argued that if discerned, we should be
taken for friends rather than enemies, and in any case we should be out of
reach of swords, and these gentry did not seem to have any spears along.
Well, it was a curious trip.  Everywhere dead men were lying outside the
second fence - not plainly visible, but still visible; and we counted fifteen
of those pathetic statues - dead knights standing with their hands on the
upper wire.

     One thing seemed to be sufficiently demonstrated: our current was so
tremendous that it killed before the victim could cry out.  Pretty soon we
detected a muffled and heavy sound, and next moment we guessed what it was.
It was a surprise in force coming!  I whispered Clarence to go and wake the
army, and notify it to wait in silence in the cave for further orders.  He
was soon back, and we stood by the inner fence and watched the silent
lightning do its awful work upon that swarming host.  One could make out but
little of detail; but he could note that a black mass was piling itself up
beyond the second fence.  That swelling bulk was dead men!  Our camp was
enclosed with a solid wall of the dead - a bulwark, a breastwork, of
corpses, you may say.  One terrible thing about this thing was the absence of
human voices; there were no cheers, no war cries: being intent upon a
surprise, these men moved as noiselessly as they could; and always when the
front rank was near enough to their goal to make it proper for them to begin
to get a shout ready, of course they struck the fatal line and went down
without testifying.

     I sent a current through the third fence, now; and almost immediately
through the fourth and fifth, so quickly were the gaps filled up.  I believed
the time was come, now, for my climax; I believed that that whole army was in
our trap.  Anyway, it was high time to find out.  So I touched a button and
set fifty electric suns aflame on the top of our precipice.

     Land, what a sight!  We were enclosed in three walls of dead men!  All
the other fences were pretty nearly filled with the living, who were
stealthily working their way forward through the wires.  The sudden glare
paralyzed this host, petrified them, you may say, with astonishment; there
was just one instant for me to utilize their immobility in, and I didn't lose
the chance.  You see, in another instant they would have recovered their
faculties, then they'd have burst into a cheer and made a rush, and my wires
would have gone down before it; but that lost instant lost them their
opportunity forever; while even that slight fragment of time was still
unspent, I shot the current through all the fences and struck the whole host
dead in their tracks!  There was a groan you could hear!  It voiced the death
pang of eleven thousand men.  It swelled out on the night with awful pathos.

     A glance showed that the rest of the enemy - perhaps ten thousand strong
- were between us and the encircling ditch, and pressing forward to the
assault.  Consequently we had them all! and had them past help.  Time for the
last act of the tragedy.  I fired the three appointed revolver shots - which
meant:

     "Turn on the water!"

     There was a sudden rush and roar, and in a minute the mountain brook was
raging through the big ditch and creating a river a hundred feet wide and
twenty-five deep.

     "Stand to your guns, men!  Open fire!"

     The thirteen gatlings began to vomit death into the fated ten thousand.
They halted, they stood their ground a moment against that withering deluge
of fire, then they broke, faced about and swept toward the ditch like chaff
before a gale.  A full fourth part of their force never reached the top of
the lofty embankment; the three-fourths reached it and plunged over - to
death by drowning.

     Within ten short minutes after we had opened fire, armed resistance was
totally annihilated, the campaign was ended, we fifty-four were masters of
England!  Twenty-five thousand men lay dead around us.

     But how treacherous is fortune!  In a little while - say an hour -
happened a thing, by my own fault, which - but I have no heart to write that.
Let the record end here.