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