[pg/etext93/badge10.txt]

THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE by STEVEN CRANE 
July, 1993  [Etext #73] 


Etext producer: Arthur Smith,
      Materials Science Division, Bldg 223,
      Argonne National Laboratory,
      Argonne, IL, 60439
      (708) 252-7715
      asmith@icose.msd.anl.gov



     The Red Badge of Courage



An Episode of the American Civil War



Chapter 1


The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring
fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.
As the landscape changed from brown to green, the army awakened,
and began to tremble with eagerness at the noise of rumors.
It cast its eyes upon the roads, which were growing from long
troughs of liquid mud to proper thoroughfares.  A river,
amber-tinted in the shadow of its banks, purled at the army's
feet; and at night, when the stream had become of a sorrowful
blackness, one could see across it the red, eyelike gleam of
hostile camp-fires set in the low brows of distant hills.

Once a certain tall soldier developed virtues and went resolutely
to wash a shirt.  He came flying back from a brook waving his
garment bannerlike.  He was swelled with a tale he had heard from
a reliable friend, who had heard it from a truthful cavalryman,
who had heard it from his trustworthy brother, one of the
orderlies at division headquarters.  He adopted the important air
of a herald in red and gold.

"We're goin' t' move t'morrah--sure," he said pompously to a
group in the company street.  "We're goin' 'way up the river,
cut across, an' come around in behint 'em."

To his attentive audience he drew a loud and elaborate plan of a
very brilliant campaign.  When he had finished, the blue-clothed
men scattered into small arguing groups between the rows of squat
brown huts.  A negro teamster who had been dancing upon a cracker
box with the hilarious encouragement of twoscore soldiers
was deserted.  He sat mournfully down.  Smoke drifted lazily from
a multitude of quaint chimneys.

"It's a lie!  that's all it is--a thunderin' lie!" said another
private loudly.  His smooth face was flushed, and his hands were
thrust sulkily into his trouser's pockets.  He took the matter as
an affront to him.  "I don't believe the derned old army's ever
going to move.  We're set.  I've got ready to move eight times
in the last two weeks, and we ain't moved yet."

The tall soldier felT called upon to defend the truth of a rumor
he himself had introduced.  He and the loud one came near to
fighting over it.

A corporal began to swear before the assemblage.  He had just put
a costly board floor in his house, he said.  During the early
spring he had refrained from adding extensively to the comfort
of his environment because he had felt that the army might start
on the march at any moment.  Of late, however, he had been
impressed that they were in a sort of eternal camp.

Many of the men engaged in a spirited debate.  One outlined in a
peculiarly lucid manner all the plans of the commanding general.
He was opposed by men who advocated that there were other plans
of campaign.  They clamored at each other, numbers making futile
bids for the popular attention.  Meanwhile, the soldier who had
fetched the rumor bustled about with much importance.  He was
continually assailed by questions.

"What's up, Jim?"

"Th'army's goin' t' move."

"Ah, what yeh talkin' about?  How yeh know it is?"

"Well, yeh kin b'lieve me er not, jest as yeh like.
I don't care a hang."

There was much food for thought in the manner in which he replied.
He came near to convincing them by disdaining to produce proofs.
They grew much excited over it.

There was a youthful private who listened with eager ears to the
words of the tall soldier and to the varied comments of his comrades.
After receiving a fill of discussions concerning marches and attacks,
he went to his hut and crawled through an intricate hole that served
it as a door.  He wished to be alone with some new thoughts that had
lately come to him.

He lay down on a wide bunk that stretched across the end of the room.
In the other end, cracker boxes were made to serve as furniture.
They were grouped about the fireplace.  A picture from an illustrated
weekly was upon the log walls, and three rifles were paralleled on pegs.
Equipments hung on handy projections, and some tin dishes lay upon
a small pile of firewood.  A folded tent was serving as a roof.
The sunlight, without, beating upon it, made it glow a light yellow shade.
A small window shot an oblique square of whiter light upon the cluttered
floor.  The smoke from the fire at times neglected the clay chimney and
wreathed into the room, and this flimsy chimney of clay and sticks
made endless threats to set ablaze the whole establishment.

The youth was in a little trance of astonishment.  So they were
at last going to fight.  On the morrow, perhaps, there would be a
battle, and he would be in it.  For a time he was obliged to
labor to make himself believe.  He could not accept with
assurance an omen that he was about to mingle in one of those
great affairs of the earth.

He had, of course, dreamed of battles all his life--of vague and
bloody conflicts that had thrilled him with their sweep and fire.
In visions he had seen himself in many struggles.  He had
imagined peoples secure in the shadow of his eagle-eyed prowess.
But awake he had regarded battles as crimson blotches on the
pages of the past.  He had put them as things of the bygone with
his thought-images of heavy crowns and high castles.  There was a
portion of the world's history which he had regarded as the time
of wars, but it, he thought, had been long gone over the horizon
and had disappeared forever.

From his home his youthful eyes had looked upon the war in his
own country with distrust.  It must be some sort of a play affair.
He had long despaired of witnessing a Greeklike struggle.  Such
would be no more, he had said.  Men were better, or more timid.
Secular and religious education had effaced the throat-grappling
instinct, or else firm finance held in check the passions.

He had burned several times to enlist.  Tales of great movements
shook the land.  They might not be distinctly Homeric, but there
seemed to be much glory in them.  He had read of marches, sieges,
conflicts, and he had longed to see it all.  His busy mind had
drawn for him large pictures extravagant in color, lurid with
breathless deeds.

But his mother had discouraged him.  She had affected to look
with some contempt upon the quality of his war ardor and patriotism.
She could calmly seat herself and with no apparent difficulty give
him many hundreds of reasons why he was of vastly more importance
on the farm than on the field of battle.  She had had certain ways
of expression that told him that her statements on the subject
came from a deep conviction.  Moreover, on her side, was his
belief that her ethical motive in the argument was impregnable.

At last, however, he had made firm rebellion against this yellow
light thrown upon the color of his ambitions.  The newspapers,
the gossip of the village, his own picturings, had aroused him
to an uncheckable degree.  They were in truth fighting finely
down there.  Almost every day the newspaper printed accounts of a
decisive victory.

One night, as he lay in bed, the winds had carried to him the
clangoring of the church bell as some enthusiast jerked the
rope frantically to tell the twisted news of a great battle.
This voice of the people rejoicing in the night had made him shiver
in a prolonged ecstasy of excitement.  Later, he had gone down to
his mother's room and had spoken thus:  "Ma, I'm going to enlist."

"Henry, don't you be a fool," his mother had replied.  She had
then covered her face with the quilt.  There was an end to the
matter for that night.

Nevertheless, the next morning he had gone to a town that was
near his mother's farm and had enlisted in a company that was
forming there.  When he had returned home his mother was milking
the brindle cow.  Four others stood waiting.  "Ma, I've enlisted,"
he had said to her diffidently.  There was a short silence.
"The Lord's will be done, Henry," she had finally replied,
and had then continued to milk the brindle cow.

When he had stood in the doorway with his soldier's clothes on
his back, and with the light of excitement and expectancy in his
eyes almost defeating the glow of regret for the home bonds, he had
seen two tears leaving their trails on his mother's scarred cheeks.

Still, she had disappointed him by saying nothing whatever about
returning with his shield or on it.  He had privately primed
himself for a beautiful scene.  He had prepared certain sentences
which he thought could be used with touching effect.  But her
words destroyed his plans.  She had doggedly peeled potatoes and
addressed him as follows:  "You watch out, Henry, an' take good
care of yerself in this here fighting business--you watch, an'
take good care of yerself.  Don't go a-thinkin' you can lick the
hull rebel army at the start, because yeh can't.  Yer jest one
little feller amongst a hull lot of others, and yeh've got to
keep quiet an' do what they tell yeh.  I know how you are, Henry.

"I've knet yeh eight pair of socks, Henry, and I've put in all
yer best shirts, because I want my boy to be jest as warm and
comf'able as anybody in the army.  Whenever they get holes in 'em,
I want yeh to send 'em right-away back to me, so's I kin dern 'em.

"An' allus be careful an' choose yer comp'ny.  There's lots of
bad men in the army, Henry.  The army makes 'em wild, and they
like nothing better than the job of leading off a young feller
like you, as ain't never been away from home much and has allus
had a mother, an' a-learning 'em to drink and swear.  Keep clear
of them folks, Henry.  I don't want yeh to ever do anything,
Henry, that yeh would be 'shamed to let me know about.  Jest
think as if I was a-watchin' yeh.  If yeh keep that in yer mind
allus, I guess yeh'll come out about right.

"Yeh must allus remember yer father, too, child, an' remember he never
drunk a drop of licker in his life, and seldom swore a cross oath.

"I don't know what else to tell yeh, Henry, excepting that yeh
must never do no shirking, child, on my account.  If so be a time
comes when yeh have to be kilt of do a mean thing, why, Henry,
don't think of anything 'cept what's right, because there's many
a woman has to bear up 'ginst sech things these times, and the
Lord 'll take keer of us all.

"Don't forgit about the socks and the shirts, child; and I've put
a cup of blackberry jam with yer bundle, because I know yeh like
it above all things.  Good-by, Henry.  Watch out, and be a good boy."

He had, of course, been impatient under the ordeal of this speech.
It had not been quite what he expected, and he had borne it with
an air of irritation.  He departed feeling vague relief.

Still, when he had looked back from the gate, he had
seen his mother kneeling among the potato parings.
Her brown face, upraised, was stained with tears,
and her spare form was quivering.  He bowed his head
and went on, feeling suddenly ashamed of his purposes.

From his home he had gone to the seminary to bid adieu to
many schoolmates.  They had thronged about him with wonder
and admiration.  He had felt the gulf now between them and
had swelled with calm pride.  He and some of his fellows who
had donned blue were quite overwhelmed with privileges for
all of one afternoon, and it had been a very delicious thing.
They had strutted.

A certain light-haired girl had made vivacious fun at his martial
spirit, but there was another and darker girl whom he had gazed
at steadfastly, and he thought she grew demure and sad at sight
of his blue and brass.  As he had walked down the path between
the rows of oaks, he had turned his head and detected her at a
window watching his departure.  As he perceived her, she had
immediately begun to stare up through the high tree branches at
the sky.  He had seen a good deal of flurry and haste in her
movement as she changed her attitude.  He often thought of it.

On the way to Washington his spirit had soared.  The regiment was
fed and caressed at station after station until the youth had
believed that he must be a hero.  There was a lavish expenditure
of bread and cold meats, coffee, and pickles and cheese.  As he
basked in the smiles of the girls and was patted and
complimented by the old men, he had felt growing within him the
strength to do mighty deeds of arms.

After complicated journeyings with many pauses, there had come
months of monotonous life in a camp.  He had had the belief that
real war was a series of death struggles with small time in between
for sleep and meals; but since his regiment had come to the field
the army had done little but sit still and try to keep warm.

He was brought then gradually back to his old ideas.  Greeklike
struggles would be no more.  Men were better, or more timid.
Secular and religious education had effaced the throat-grappling
instinct, or else firm finance held in check the passions.

He had grown to regard himself merely as a part of a vast blue
demonstration.  His province was to look out, as far as he could,
for his personal comfort.  For recreation he could twiddle his
thumbs and speculate on the thoughts which must agitate the
minds of the generals.  Also, he was drilled and drilled and
reviewed, and drilled and drilled and reviewed.

The only foes he had seen were some pickets along the river bank.
They were a sun-tanned, philosophical lot, who sometimes shot
reflectively at the blue pickets.  When reproached for this
afterward, they usually expressed sorrow, and swore by their
gods that the guns had exploded without their permission.  The
youth, on guard duty one night, conversed across the stream with
one of them.  He was a slightly ragged man, who spat skillfully
between his shoes and possessed a great fund of bland and
infantile assurance.  The youth liked him personally.

"Yank," the other had informed him, "yer a right dum good feller."
This sentiment, floating to him upon the still air, had made him
temporarily regret war.

Various veterans had told him tales.  Some talked of gray,
bewhiskered hordes who were advancing with relentless curses
and chewing tobacco with unspeakable valor; tremendous bodies of
fierce soldiery who were sweeping along like the Huns.  Others
spoke of tattered and eternally hungry men who fired despondent
powders.  "They'll charge through hell's fire an' brimstone t'
git a holt on a haversack, an' sech stomachs ain't a'lastin'
long," he was told.  From the stories, the youth imagined the
red, live bones sticking out through slits in the faded uniforms.

Still, he could not put a whole faith in veteran's tales, for
recruits were their prey.  They talked much of smoke, fire,
and blood, but he could not tell how much might be lies.
They persistently yelled "Fresh fish!" at him, and were
in no wise to be trusted.

However, he perceived now that it did not greatly matter what
kind of soldiers he was going to fight, so long as they fought,
which fact no one disputed.  There was a more serious problem.
He lay in his bunk pondering upon it.  He tried to mathematically
prove to himself that he would not run from a battle.

Previously he had never felt obliged to wrestle too seriously
with this question.  In his life he had taken certain things for
granted, never challenging his belief in ultimate success, and
bothering little about means and roads.  But here he was
confronted with a thing of moment.  It had suddenly appeared to
him that perhaps in a battle he might run.  He was forced to
admit that as far as war was concerned he knew nothing of himself.

A sufficient time before he would have allowed the problem to
kick its heels at the outer portals of his mind, but now he felt
compelled to give serious attention to it.

A little panic-fear grew in his mind.  As his imagination went
forward to a fight, he saw hideous possibilities.  He contemplated
the lurking menaces of the future, and failed in an effort to
see himself standing stoutly in the midst of them.  He recalled
his visions of broken-bladed glory, but in the shadow of the
impending tumult he suspected them to be impossible pictures.

He sprang from the bunk and began to pace nervously to and fro.
"Good Lord, what's th' matter with me?" he said aloud.

He felt that in this crisis his laws of life were useless.
Whatever he had learned of himself was here of no avail.
He was an unknown quantity.  He saw that he would again be
obliged to experiment as he had in early youth.  He must
accumulate information of himself, and meanwhile he resolved
to remain close upon his guard lest those qualities of which
he knew nothing should everlastingly disgrace him.  "Good Lord!"
he repeated in dismay.

After a time the tall soldier slid dexterously through the hole.
The loud private followed.  They were wrangling.

"That's all right," said the tall soldier as he entered. 
He waved his hand expressively.  "You can believe me or not,
jest as you like.  All you got to do is sit down and wait as
quiet as you can.  Then pretty soon you'll find out I was right."

His comrade grunted stubbornly.  For a moment he seemed to be
searching for a formidable reply.  Finally he said:  "Well, you
don't know everything in the world, do you?"

"Didn't say I knew everything in the world," retorted the other sharply.
He began to stow various articles snugly into his knapsack.

The youth, pausing in his nervous walk, looked down at the busy
figure.  "Going to be a battle, sure, is there, Jim?" he asked.

"Of course there is," replied the tall soldier.  "Of course there is.
You jest wait 'til to-morrow, and you'll see one of the biggest battles
ever was.  You jest wait."

"Thunder!" said the youth.

"Oh, you'll see fighting this time, my boy, what'll be regular
out-and-out fighting," added the tall soldier, with the air of a
man who is about to exhibit a battle for the benefit of his friends.

"Huh!" said the loud one from a corner.

"Well," remarked the youth, "like as not this story'll turn out
jest like them others did."

"Not much it won't," replied the tall soldier, exasperated.
"Not much it won't.  Didn't the cavalry all start this morning?"
He glared about him.  No one denied his statement.  "The cavalry
started this morning," he continued.  "They say there ain't
hardly any cavalry left in camp.  They're going to Richmond,
or some place, while we fight all the Johnnies.  It's some dodge
like that.  The regiment's got orders, too.  A feller what seen
'em go to headquarters told me a little while ago.  And they're
raising blazes all over camp--anybody can see that."

"Shucks!" said the loud one.

The youth remained silent for a time.  At last he spoke to the
tall soldier.  "Jim!"

"What?"

"How do you think the reg'ment 'll do?"

"Oh, they'll fight all right, I guess, after they once get into
it," said the other with cold judgment.  He made a fine use of
the third person.  "There's been heaps of fun poked at 'em
because they're new, of course, and all that; but they'll fight
all right, I guess."

"Think any of the boys 'll run?" persisted the youth.

"Oh, there may be a few of 'em run, but there's them kind in
every regiment, 'specially when they first goes under fire,"
said the other in a tolerant way.  "Of course it might happen
that the hull kit-and-boodle might start and run, if some big
fighting came first-off, and then again they might stay and fight
like fun.  But you can't bet on nothing.  Of course they ain't
never been under fire yet, and it ain't likely they'll lick the
hull rebel army all-to-oncet the first time; but I think they'll
fight better than some, if worse than others.  That's the way I
figger.  They call the reg'ment 'Fresh fish' and everything; but
the boys come of good stock, and most of 'em 'll fight like sin
after they oncet git shootin'," he added, with a mighty emphasis
on the last four words.

"Oh, you think you know--" began the loud soldier with scorn.

The other turned savagely upon him.  They had a rapid
altercation, in which they fastened upon each other various
strange epithets.

The youth at last interrupted them.  "Did you ever think you
might run yourself, Jim?" he asked.  On concluding the sentence
he laughed as if he had meant to aim a joke.  The loud soldier
also giggled.

The tall private waved his hand.  "Well", said he profoundly,
"I've thought it might get too hot for Jim Conklin in some of
them scrimmages, and if a whole lot of boys started and run,
why, I s'pose I'd start and run.  And if I once started to run,
I'd run like the devil, and no mistake.  But if everybody was
a-standing and a-fighting, why, I'd stand and fight.  Be jiminey,
I would.  I'll bet on it."

"Huh!" said the loud one.

The youth of this tale felt gratitude for these words of his
comrade.  He had feared that all of the untried men possessed
great and correct confidence.  He now was in a measure reassured.




Chapter 2



The next morning the youth discovered that his tall comrade had
been the fast-flying messenger of a mistake.  There was much
scoffing at the latter by those who had yesterday been firm
adherents of his views, and there was even a little sneering by
men who had never believed the rumor.  The tall one fought with a
man from Chatfield Corners and beat him severely.

The youth felt, however, that his problem was in no wise lifted
from him.  There was, on the contrary, an irritating prolongation.
The tale had created in him a great concern for himself.  Now, with
the newborn question in his mind, he was compelled to sink back
into his old place as part of a blue demonstration.

For days he made ceaseless calculations, but they were all
wondrously unsatisfactory.  He found that he could establish
nothing.  He finally concluded that the only way to prove himself
was to go into the blaze, and then figuratively to watch his
legs to discover their merits and faults.  He reluctantly
admitted that he could not sit still and with a mental slate and
pencil derive an answer.  To gain it, he must have blaze, blood,
and danger, even as a chemist requires this, that, and the
other.  So he fretted for an opportunity.

Meanwhile, he continually tried to measure himself by his
comrades.  The tall soldier, for one, gave him some assurance.
This man's serene unconcern dealt him a measure of confidence,
for he had known him since childhood, and from his intimate
knowledge he did not see how he could be capable of anything
that was beyond him, the youth.  Still, he thought that his
comrade might be mistaken about himself.  Or, on the other hand,
he might be a man heretofore doomed to peace and obscurity, but,
in reality, made to shine in war.

The youth would have liked to have discovered another who
suspected himself.  A sympathetic comparison of mental notes
would have been a joy to him.

He occasionally tried to fathom a comrade with seductive
sentences.  He looked about to find men in the proper mood.
All attempts failed to bring forth any statement which looked in
any way like a confession to those doubts which he privately
acknowledged in himself.  He was afraid to make an open
declaration of his concern, because he dreaded to place some
unscrupulous confidant upon the high plane of the unconfessed
from which elevation he could be derided.

In regard to his companions his mind wavered between two opinions,
according to his mood.  Sometimes he inclined to believing them
all heroes.  In fact, he usually admired in secret the superior
development of the higher qualities in others.  He could conceive
of men going very insignificantly about the world bearing a load
of courage unseen, and although he had known many of his comrades
through boyhood, he began to fear that his judgment of them had
been blind.  Then, in other moments, he flouted these theories, and
assured him that his fellows were all privately wondering and quaking.

His emotions made him feel strange in the presence of men who talked
excitedly of a prospective battle as of a drama they were about
to witness, with nothing but eagerness and curiosity apparent
in their faces.  It was often that he suspected them to be liars.

He did not pass such thoughts without severe condemnation of himself.
He dinned reproaches at times.  He was convicted by himself of many
shameful crimes against the gods of traditions.

In his great anxiety his heart was continually clamoring at
what he considered the intolerable slowness of the generals.
They seemed content to perch tranquilly on the river bank,
and leave him bowed down by the weight of a great problem.
He wanted it settled forthwith.  He could not long bear such
a load, he said. Sometimes his anger at the commanders reached
an acute stage, and he grumbled about the camp like a veteran.

One morning, however, he found himself in the ranks of his
prepared regiment.  The men were whispering speculations and
recounting the old rumors.  In the gloom before the break of the
day their uniforms glowed a deep purple hue.  From across the
river the red eyes were still peering.  In the eastern sky there
was a yellow patch like a rug laid for the feet of the coming
sun; and against it, black and patternlike, loomed the gigantic
figure of the colonel on a gigantic horse.

From off in the darkness came the trampling of feet.  The youth
could occasionally see dark shadows that moved like monsters.
The regiment stood at rest for what seemed a long time.  The youth
grew impatient.  It was unendurable the way these affairs were managed.
He wondered how long they were to be kept waiting.

As he looked all about him and pondered upon the mystic gloom,
he began to believe that at any moment the ominous distance might
be aflare, and the rolling crashes of an engagement come to his ears.
Staring once at the red eyes across the river, he conceived them
to be growing larger, as the orbs of a row of dragons advancing.
He turned toward the colonel and saw him lift his gigantic arm
and calmly stroke his mustache.

At last he heard from along the road at the foot of the hill the
clatter of a horse's galloping hoofs.  It must be the coming of orders.
He bent forward, scarce breathing.  The exciting clickety-click,
as it grew louder and louder, seemed to be beating upon his soul.
Presently a horseman with jangling equipment drew rein before the
colonel of the regiment.  The two held a short, sharp-worded conversation.
The men in the foremost ranks craned their necks.

As the horseman wheeled his animal and galloped away he turned to
shout over his shoulder, "Don't forget that box of cigars!"
The colonel mumbled in reply.  The youth wondered what a box
of cigars had to do with war.

A moment later the regiment went swinging off into the darkness.
It was now like one of those moving monsters wending with many feet.
The air was heavy, and cold with dew.  A mass of wet grass,
marched upon, rustled like silk.

There was an occasional flash and glimmer of steel from the
backs of all these huge crawling reptiles.  From the road came
creakings and grumblings as some surly guns were dragged away.

The men stumbled along still muttering speculations.  There was a
subdued debate.  Once a man fell down, and as he reached for his
rifle a comrade, unseeing, trod upon his hand.  He of the injured
fingers swore bitterly, and aloud.  A low, tittering laugh went
among his fellows.

Presently they passed into a roadway and marched forward with
easy strides.  A dark regiment moved before them, and from behind
also came the tinkle of equipments on the bodies of marching men.

The rushing yellow of the developing day went on behind their backs.
When the sunrays at last struck full and mellowingly upon the earth,
the youth saw that the landscape was streaked with two long, thin,
black columns which disappeared on the brow of a hill in front and
rearward vanished in a wood.  They were like two serpents crawling
from the cavern of the night.

The river was not in view.  The tall soldier burst into praises
of what he thought to be his powers of perception.

Some of the tall one's companions cried with emphasis that they, too,
had evolved the same thing, and they congratulated themselves upon it.
But there were others who said that the tall one's plan was not the
true one at all.  They persisted  with other theories.  There was a
vigorous discussion.

The youth took no part in them.  As he walked along in careless
line he was engaged with his own eternal debate.  He could not
hinder himself from dwelling upon it.  He was despondent and
sullen, and threw shifting glances about him.  He looked ahead,
often expecting to hear from the advance the rattle of firing.

But the long serpents crawled slowly from hill to hill without
bluster of smoke.  A dun-colored cloud of dust floated away to
the right.  The sky overhead was of a fairy blue.

The youth studied the faces of his companions, ever on the watch
to detect kindred emotions.  He suffered disappointment.
Some ardor of the air which was causing the veteran commands to
move with glee--almost with song--had infected the new regiment.
The men began to speak of victory as of a thing they knew.
Also, the tall soldier received his vindication.  They were
certainly going to come around in behind the enemy.  They expressed
commiseration for that part of the army which had been left upon the
river bank, felicitating themselves upon being a part of a blasting host.

The youth, considering himself as separated from the others,
was saddened by the blithe and merry speeches that went from
rank to rank.  The company wags all made their best endeavors.
The regiment tramped to the tune of laughter.

The blatant soldier often convulsed whole files by his biting
sarcasms aimed at the tall one.

And it was not long before all the men seemed to forget their mission.
Whole brigades grinned in unison, and regiments laughed.

A rather fat soldier attempted to pilfer a horse from a dooryard.
He planned to load his knapsack upon it.  He was escaping with
his prize when a young girl rushed from the house and grabbed
the animal's mane.  There followed a wrangle.  The young girl,
with pink cheeks and shining eyes, stood like a dauntless statue.

The observant regiment, standing at rest in the roadway, whooped
at once, and entered whole-souled upon the side of the maiden.
The men became so engrossed in this affair that they entirely
ceased to remember their own large war.  They jeered the
piratical private, and called attention to various defects in his
personal appearance; and they were wildly enthusiastic in support
of the young girl.

To her, from some distance, came bold advice.  "Hit him with a stick."

There were crows and catcalls showered upon him when he retreated
without the horse.  The regiment rejoiced at his downfall.  Loud and
vociferous congratulations were showered upon the maiden,
who stood panting and regarding the troops with defiance.

At nightfall the column broke into regimental pieces, and the fragments
went into the fields to camp.  Tents sprang up like strange plants.
Camp fires, like red, peculiar blossoms, dotted the night.

The youth kept from intercourse with his companions as much as
circumstances would allow him.  In the evening he wandered a few
paces into the gloom.  From this little distance the many fires,
with the black forms of men passing to and fro before the
crimson rays, made weird and satanic effects.

He lay down in the grass.  The blades pressed tenderly against
his cheek.  The moon had been lighted and was hung in a treetop.
The liquid stillness of the night enveloping him made him feel
vast pity for himself.  There was a caress in the soft winds;
and the whole mood of the darkness, he thought, was one of
sympathy for himself in his distress.

He wished, without reserve, that he was at home again making the
endless rounds from the house to the barn, from the barn to the
fields, from the fields to the barn, from the barn to the house.
He remembered he had so often cursed the brindle cow and her
mates, and had sometimes flung milking stools.  But, from his
present point of view, there was a halo of happiness about each
of their heads, and he would have sacrificed all the brass
buttons on the continent to have been enabled to return to them.
He told himself that he was not formed for a soldier.  And he
mused seriously upon the radical differences between himself and
those men who were dodging implike around the fires.

As he mused thus he heard the rustle of grass, and, upon turning
his head, discovered the loud soldier.  He called out, "Oh, Wilson!"

The latter approached and looked down.  "Why, hello, Henry; is it you?
What are you doing here?"

"Oh, thinking," said the youth.

The other sat down and carefully lighted his pipe.  "You're getting
blue my boy.  You're looking thundering peek-ed.  What the dickens
is wrong with you?"

"Oh, nothing," said the youth.

The loud soldier launched then into the subject of the
anticipated fight.  "Oh, we've got 'em now!"  As he spoke
his boyish face was wreathed in a gleeful smile, and his
voice had an exultant ring.  "We've got 'em now.  At last,
by the eternal thunders, we'll like 'em good!"

"If the truth was known," he added, more soberly,
"they've licked US about every clip up to now;
but this time--this time--we'll lick 'em good!"

"I thought you was objecting to this march a little while ago,"
said the youth coldly.

"Oh, it wasn't that," explained the other.  "I don't mind
marching, if there's going to be fighting at the end of it.
What I hate is this getting moved here and moved there, with
no good coming of it, as far as I can see, excepting sore feet
and damned short rations."

"Well, Jim Conklin says we'll get plenty of fighting this time."

"He's right for once, I guess, though I can't see how it come.
This time we're in for a big battle, and we've got the best end
of it, certain sure.  Gee rod! how we will thump 'em!"

He arose and began to pace to and fro excitedly.  The thrill
of his enthusiasm made him walk with an elastic step.  He was
sprightly, vigorous, fiery in his belief in success.  He looked
into the future with clear proud eye, and he swore with the air
of an old soldier.

The youth watched him for a moment in silence.  When he finally
spoke his voice was as bitter as dregs.  "Oh, you're going to do
great things, I s'pose!"

The loud soldier blew a thoughtful cloud of smoke from his pipe.
"Oh, I don't know," he remarked with dignity; "I don't know.
I s'pose I'll do as well as the rest.  I'm going to try
like thunder."  He evidently complimented himself upon
the modesty of this statement.

"How do you know you won't run when the time comes?" asked the youth.

"Run?" said the loud one; "run?--of course not!"  He laughed.

"Well," continued the youth, "lots of good-a-'nough men have
thought they was going to do great things before th fight,
but when the time come they skedaddled."

"Oh, that's all true, I s'pose," replied the other; "but I'm not
going to skedaddle.  The man that bets on my running will lose
his money, that's all."  He nodded confidently.

"Oh, shucks!" said the youth.  "You ain't the bravest man in
the world, are you?"

"No, I ain't," exclaimed the loud soldier indignantly;
"and I didn't say I was the bravest man in the world, neither.
I said I was going to do my share of fighting--that's what I said.
And I am, too.  Who are you, anyhow?  You talk as if you thought
you was Napoleon Bonaparte."  He glared at the youth for a moment,
and then strode away.

The youth called in a savage voice after his comrade:  "Well, you
needn't git mad about it!"  But the other continued on his way
and made no reply.

He felt alone in space when his injured comrade had disappeared.
His failure to discover any mite of resemblance in their viewpoints
made him more miserable than before.  No one seemed to be wrestling
with such a terrific personal problem.  He was a mental outcast.

He went slowly to his tent and stretched himself on a blanket by
the side of the snoring tall soldier.  In the darkness he saw
visions of a thousand-tongued fear that would babble at his back
and cause him to flee, while others were going coolly about
their country's business.  He admitted that he would not be able
to cope with this monster.  He felt that every nerve in his body
would be an ear to hear the voices, while other men would remain
stolid and deaf.

And as he sweated with the pain of these thoughts, he could hear
low, serene sentences.  "I'll bid five."  "Make it six."  "Seven."
"Seven goes."

He stared at the red, shivering reflection of a fire on the white
wall of his tent until, exhausted and ill from the monotony of
his suffering, he fell asleep.




Chapter 3



When another night came, the columns, changed to purple streaks,
filed across two pontoon bridges.  A glaring fire wine-tinted the
waters of the river.  Its rays, shining upon the moving masses of troops,
brought forth here and there sudden gleams of silver or gold.
Upon the other shore a dark and mysterious range of hills was curved
against the sky.  The insect voices of the night sang solemnly.

After this crossing the youth assured himself that at any moment
they might be suddenly and fearfully assaulted from the caves of
the lowering woods.  He kept his eyes watchfully upon the darkness.

But his regiment went unmolested to a camping place, and its
soldiers slept the brave sleep of wearied men.  In the morning
they were routed out with early energy, and hustled along a
narrow road that led deep into the forest.

It was during this rapid march that the regiment lost many of the
marks of a new command.

The men had begun to count the miles upon their fingers, and
they grew tired.  "Sore feet an' damned short rations, that's all,"
said the loud soldier.  There was perspiration and grumblings.
After a time they began to shed their knapsacks.  Some tossed
them unconcernedly down; others hid them carefully, asserting
their plans to return for them at some convenient time.
Men extricated themselves from thick shirts.  Presently few carried
anything but their necessary clothing, blankets, haversacks,
canteens, and arms and ammunition.  "You can now eat and shoot,"
said the tall soldier to the youth.  "That's all you want to do."

There was sudden change from the ponderous infantry of theory
to the light and speedy infantry of practice.  The regiment,
relieved of a burden, received a new impetus.  But there was much
loss of valuable knapsacks, and, on the whole, very good shirts.

But the regiment was not yet veteranlike in appearance.  Veteran
regiments in the army were likely to be very small aggregations
of men.  Once, when the command had first come to the field,
some perambulating veterans, noting the length of their column,
had accosted them thus:  "Hey, fellers, what brigade is that?"
And when the men had replied that they formed a regiment and not
a brigade, the older soldiers had laughed, and said, "O Gawd!"

Also, there was too great a similarity in the hats.  The hats of
a regiment should properly represent the history of headgear for
a period of years.  And, moreover, there were no letters of faded
gold speaking from the colors.  They were new and beautiful, and
the color bearer habitually oiled the pole.

Presently the army again sat down to think.  The odor of the
peaceful pines was in the men's nostrils.  The sound of
monotonous axe blows rang through the forest, and the insects,
nodding upon their perches, crooned like old women.  The youth
returned to his theory of a blue demonstration.

One gray dawn, however, he was kicked in the leg by the
tall soldier, and then, before he was entirely awake, he found
himself running down a wood road in the midst of men who were
panting from the first effects of speed.  His canteen banged
rythmically upon his thigh, and his haversack bobbed softly.
His musket bounced a trifle from his shoulder at each stride
and made his cap feel uncertain upon his head.

He could hear the men whisper jerky sentences:  "Say--what's all
this--about?"  "What th' thunder--we--skedaddlin' this way fer?"
"Billie--keep off m' feet.  Yeh run--like a cow."  And the loud
soldier's shrill voice could be heard:  "What th'devil they in
sich a hurry for?"

The youth thought the damp fog of early morning moved from
the rush of a great body of troops.  From the distance came
a sudden spatter of firing.

He was bewildered.  As he ran with his comrades he strenuously
tried to think, but all he knew was that if he fell down those
coming behind would tread upon him.  All his faculties seemed
to be needed to guide him over and past obstructions.  He felt
carried along by a mob.

The sun spread disclosing rays, and, one by one, regiments burst
into view like armed men just born of the earth.  The youth
perceived that the time had come.  He was about to be measured.
For a moment he felt in the face of his great trial like a babe,
and the flesh over his heart seemed very thin.  He seized time to
look about him calculatingly.

But he instantly saw that it would be impossible for him to
escape from the regiment.  It inclosed him.  And there were iron
laws of tradition and law on four sides.  He was in a moving box.

As he perceived this fact it occurred to him that he had never
wished to come to the war.  He had not enlisted of his free will.
He had been dragged by the merciless government.  And now they
were taking him out to be slaughtered.

The regiment slid down a bank and wallowed across a little stream.
The mournful current moved slowly on, and from the water,
shaded black, some white bubble eyes looked at the men.

As they climbed the hill on the farther side artillery began to boom.
Here the youth forgot many things as he felt a sudden impulse of curiosity.
He scrambled up the bank with a speed that could not be exceeded by a
bloodthirsty man.

He expected a battle scene.

There were some little fields girted and squeezed by a forest.
Spread over the grass and in among the tree trunks, he could see
knots and waving lines of skirmishers who were running hither and
thither and firing at the landscape.  A dark battle line lay upon
a sunstruck clearing that gleamed orange color.  A flag fluttered.

Other regiments floundered up the bank.  The brigade was formed
in line of battle, and after a pause started slowly through
the woods in the rear of the receding skirmishers, who were
continually melting into the scene to appear again farther on.
They were always busy as bees, deeply absorbed in their little combats.

The youth tried to observe everything.  He did not use care to
avoid trees and branches, and his forgotten feet were constantly
knocking against stones or getting entangled in briers.  He was
aware that these battalions with their commotions were woven red
and startling into the gentle fabric of softened greens and browns.
It looked to be a wrong place for a battle field.

The skirmishers in advance fascinated him.  Their shots into
thickets and at distant and prominent trees spoke to him of
tragedies--hidden, mysterious, solemn.

Once the line encountered the body of a dead soldier.  He lay
upon his back staring at the sky.  He was dressed in an awkward
suit of yellowish brown.  The youth could see that the soles of
his shoes had been worn to the thinness of writing paper, and
from a great rent in one the dead foot projected piteously.  And
it was as if fate had betrayed the soldier.  In death it exposed
to his enemies that poverty which in life he had perhaps concealed
from his friends.

The ranks opened covertly to avoid the corpse.  The invulnerable
dead man forced a way for himself.  The youth looked keenly at
the ashen face.  The wind raised the tawny beard.  It moved as if
a hand were stroking it.  He vaguely desired to walk around and
around the body and stare; the impulse of the living to try to
read in dead eyes the answer to the Question.

During the march the ardor which the youth had acquired when out
of view of the field rapidly faded to nothing.  His curiosity was
quite easily satisfied.  If an intense scene had caught him with
its wild swing as he came to the top of the bank, he might have
gone gone roaring on.  This advance upon Nature was too calm.
He had opportunity to reflect.  He had time in which to wonder
about himself and to attempt to probe his sensations.

Absurd ideas took hold upon him.  He thought that he did not
relish the landscape.  It threatened him.  A coldness swept over
his back, and it is true that his trousers felt to him that they
were no fit for his legs at all.

A house standing placidly in distant fields had to him an ominous look.
The shadows of the woods were formidable.  He was certain that in this
vista there lurked fierce-eyed hosts.  The swift thought came to him
that the generals did not know what they were about.  It was all a trap.
Suddenly those close forests would bristle with rifle barrels.
Ironlike brigades would appear in the rear.  They were all going
to be sacrificed.  The generals were stupids.  The enemy would
presently swallow the whole command.  He glared about him,
expecting to see the stealthy approach of his death.

He thought that he must break from the ranks and harangue his comrades.
They must not all be killed like pigs; and he was sure it would come to
pass unless they were informed of these dangers.  The generals were
idiots to send them marching into a regular pen.  There was but one
pair of eyes in the corps.  He would step forth and make a speech.
Shrill and passionate words came to his lips.

The line, broken into moving fragments by the ground, went calmly on
through fields and woods.  The youth looked at the men nearest him,
and saw, for the most part, expressions of deep interest, as if
they were investigating something that had fascinated them.
One or two stepped with overvaliant airs as if they were
already plunged into war.  Others walked as upon thin ice.
The greater part of the untested men appeared quiet and absorbed.
They were going to look at war, the red animal--war, the blood-swollen god.
And they were deeply engrossed in this march.

As he looked the youth gripped his outcry at his throat.
He saw that even if the men were tottering with fear they would
laugh at his warning.  They would jeer him, and, if practicable,
pelt him with missiles.  Admitting that he might be wrong,
a frenzied declamation of the kind would turn him into a worm.

He assumed, then, the demeanor of one who knows that he is doomed
alone to unwritten responsibilities.  He lagged, with tragic
glances at the sky.

He was surprised presently by the young lieutenant of his company,
who began heartily to beat him with a sword, calling out in a loud
and insolent voice:  "Come, young man, get up into ranks there.
No skulking 'll do here."  He mended his pace with suitable haste.
And he hated the lieutenant, who had no appreciation of fine minds.
He was a mere brute.

After a time the brigade was halted in the cathedral light of a forest.
The busy skirmishers were still popping.  Through the aisles of the
wood could be seen the floating smoke from their rifles.
Sometimes it went up in little balls, white and compact.

During this halt many men in the regiment began erecting tiny hills
in front of them.  They used stones sticks, earth, and anything
they thought might turn a bullet.  Some built comparatively
large ones, while others seems content with little ones.

This procedure caused a discussion among the men.  Some wished to
fight like duelists, believing it to be correct to stand erect and be,
from their feet to their foreheads, a mark.  They said they scorned
the devices of the cautious.  But the others scoffed in reply,
and pointed to the veterans on the flanks who were digging at the
ground like terriers.  In a short time there was quite a barricade
along the regimental fronts.  Directly, however, they were ordered
to withdraw from that place.

This astounded the youth.  He forgot his stewing over the
advance movement.  "Well, then, what did they march us out here for?"
he demanded of the tall soldier.  The latter with calm faith began
a heavy explanation, although he had been compelled to leave a
little protection of stones and dirt to which he had devoted
much care and skill.

When the regiment was aligned in another position each man's
regard for his safety caused another line of small intrenchments.
They ate their noon meal behind a third one.  They were moved from
this one also.  They were marched from place to place with apparent
aimlessness.

The youth had been taught that a man became another thing in
battle.  He saw his salvation in such a change.  Hence this
waiting was an ordeal to him.  He was in a fever of impatience.
He considered that there was denoted a lack of purpose on the
part of the generals.  He began to complain to the tall soldier.
"I can't stand this much longer," he cried.  "I don't see what
good it does to make us wear out our legs for nothin'."  He wished
to ret