There was something curious in this little intent pause of the lieutenant. He was like a babe which, having wept its fill, raises its eyes and fixes them upon a distant toy. He was engrossed in this contemplation, and the soft under lip quivered from self-whispered words.
Some lazy and ignorant smoke curled slowly. The men, hiding from the bullets, waited anxiously for it to lift and disclose the plight of the regiment.
The silent ranks were suddenly thrilled by the eager voice of the youthful lieutenant bawling out: ‘Here they come! Right onto us, b’Gawd!’ His further words were lost in a roar of wicked thunder from the men’s rifles.
The youth’s eyes had instantly turned in the direction indicated by the awakened and agitated lieutenant, and he had seen the haze of treachery disclosing a body of soldiers of the enemy. They were so near that he could see their features. There was a recognition as he looked at the types of faces. Also he perceived with dim amazement that their uniforms were rather gay in effect, being light gray, accented with a brilliant-hued facing. Too, the clothes seemed new.
These troops had apparently been going forward with caution, their rifles held in readiness, when the youthful lieutenant had discovered them and their movement had been interrupted by the volley from the blue regiment. From the moment’s glimpse, it was derived that they had been unaware of the proximity of their dark-suited foes or had mistaken the direction. Almost instantly they were shut utterly from the youth’s sight by the smoke from the energetic rifles of his companions. He strained his vision to learn the accomplishment of the volley, but the smoke hung before him.
The two bodies of troops exchanged blows in the manner of a pair of boxers. The fast angry firings went back and forth. The men in blue were intent with the despair of their circumstances and they seized upon the revenge to be had at close range. Their thunder swelled loud and valiant. Their curving front bristled with flashes and the place resounded with the clangor of their ramrods. The youth ducked and dodged for a time and achieved a few unsatisfactory views of the enemy. There appeared to be many of them and they were replying swiftly. They seemed moving toward the blue regiment, step by step. He seated himself gloomily on the ground with his flag between his knees.
As he noted the vicious, wolflike temper of his comrades he had a sweet thought that if the enemy was about to swallow the regimental broom as a large prisoner, it could at least have the consolation of going down with bristles forward.
But the blows of the antagonist began to grow more weak. Fewer bullets ripped the air, and finally, when the men slackened to learn of the fight, they could see only dark, floating smoke. The regiment lay still and gazed. Presently some chance whim came to the pestering blur, and it began to coil heavily away. The men saw a ground vacant of fighters. It would have been an empty stage if it were not for a few corpses that lay thrown and twisted into fantastic shapes upon the sward.
At sight of this tableau, many of the men in blue sprang from behind their covers and made an ungainly dance of joy. Their eyes burned and a hoarse cheer of elation broke from their dry lips.
It had begun to seem to them that events were trying to prove that they were impotent. These little battles had evidently endeavored to demonstrate that the men could not fight well. When on the verge of submission to these opinions, the small duel had showed them that the proportions were not impossible, and by it they had revenged themselves upon their misgivings and upon the foe.
The impetus of enthusiasm was theirs again. They gazed about them with looks of uplifted pride, feeling new trust in the grim, always confident weapons in their hands. And they were men.
21
Presently they knew that no firing threatened them. All ways seemed once more opened to them. The dusty blue lines of their friends were disclosed a short distance away. In the distance there were many colossal noises, but in all this part of the field there was a sudden stillness.
They perceived that they were free. The depleted band drew a long breath of relief and gathered itself into a bunch to complete its trip.
In this last length of journey the men began to show strange emotions. They hurried with nervous fear. Some who had been dark and unfaltering in the grimmest moments now could not conceal an anxiety that made them frantic. It was perhaps that they dreaded to be killed in insignificant ways after the times for proper military deaths had passed. Or, perhaps, they thought it would be too ironical to get killed at the portals of safety. With backward looks of perturbation, they hastened.
As they approached their own lines there was some sarcasm exhibited on the part of a gaunt and bronzed regiment that lay resting in the shade of trees. Questions were wafted to them.
‘Where th’ hell yeh been?’
‘What yeh comin’ back fer?’
‘Why didn’t yeh stay there?’
‘Was it warm out there, sonny?’
‘Goin’ home now, boys?’
One shouted in taunting mimicry: ‘Oh, mother, come quick an’ look at th’ sojers!’
There was no reply from the bruised and battered regiment, save that one man made broadcast challenges to fist fights and the red-bearded officer walked rather near and glared in great swashbuckler style at a tall captain in the other regiment. But the lieutenant suppressed the man who wished to fist fight, and the tall captain, flushing at the little fanfare of the red-bearded one, was obliged to look intently at some trees.
The youth’s tender flesh was deeply stung by these remarks. From under his creased brows he glowered with hate at the mockers. He meditated upon a few revenges. Still, many in the regiment hung their heads in criminal fashion, so that it came to pass that the men trudged with sudden heaviness, as if they bore upon their bended shoulders the coffin of their honor. And the youthful lieutenant, recollecting himself, began to mutter softly in black curses.
They turned when they arrived at their old position to regard the ground over which they had charged.
The youth in this contemplation was smitten with a large astonishment. He discovered that the distances, as compared with the brilliant measurings of his mind, were trivial and ridiculous. The stolid trees, where much had taken place, seemed incredibly near. The time, too, now that he reflected, he saw to have been short. He wondered at the number of emotions and events that had been crowded into such little space. Elfin thoughts must have exaggerated and enlarged everything, he said.
It seemed, then, that there was bitter justice in the speeches of the gaunt and bronzed veterans. He veiled a glance of disdain at his fellows who strewed the ground, choking with dust, red from perspiration, misty-eyed, disheveled.
They were gulping at their canteens, fierce to wring every mite of water from them, and they polished at their swollen and watery features with coat sleeves and bunches of grass.
However, to the youth there was a considerable joy in musing upon his performances during the charge. He had had very little time previously in which to appreciate himself, so that there was now much satisfaction in quietly thinking of his actions. He recalled bits of color that in the flurry had stamped themselves unawares upon his engaged senses.
As the regiment lay heaving from its hot exertions the officer who had named them as mule drivers came galloping along the line. He had lost his cap. His tousled hair streamed wildly, and his face was dark with vexation and wrath. His temper was displayed with more clearness by the way in which he managed his horse. He jerked and wrenched savagely at his bridle, stopping the hard-breathing animal with a furious pull near the colonel of the regiment. He immediately exploded in reproaches which came unbidden to the ears of the men. They were suddenly alert, being always curious about black words between officers.
‘Oh, thunder, MacChesnay, what an awful bull you made of this thing!’ began the officer. He attempted low tones, but his indignation caused certain of the men to learn the sense of his words. ‘What an awful mess you made! Good Lord, man, you stopped about a hundred feet this side of a very pretty success! If y
our men had gone a hundred feet farther you would have made a great charge, but as it is – what a lot of mud diggers you’ve got anyway!’
The men, listening with bated breath, now turned their curious eyes upon the colonel. They had a ragamuffin interest in this affair.
The colonel was seen to straighten his form and put one hand forth in oratorical fashion. He wore an injured air; it was as if a deacon had been accused of stealing. The men were wiggling in an ecstasy of excitement.
But of a sudden the colonel’s manner changed from that of a deacon to that of a Frenchman. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Oh, well, general, we went as far as we could,’ he said calmly.
‘As far as you could? Did you, b’Gawd?’ snorted the other. ‘Well, that wasn’t very far, was it?’ he added, with a glance of cold contempt into the other’s eyes. ‘Not very far, I think. You were intended to make a diversion in favor of Whiterside. How well you succeeded your own ears can now tell you.’ He wheeled his horse and rode stiffly away.
The colonel, bidden to hear the jarring noises of an engagement in the woods to the left, broke out in vague damnations.
The lieutenant, who had listened with an air of impotent rage to the interview, spoke suddenly in firm and undaunted tones. ‘I don’t care what a man is – whether he is a general or what – if he says th’ boys didn’t put up a good fight out there he’s a damned fool.’
‘Lieutenant,’ began the colonel, severely, ‘this is my own affair, and I’ll trouble you –’
The lieutenant made an obedient gesture. ‘All right, colonel, all right,’ he said. He sat down with an air of being content with himself.
The news that the regiment had been reproached went along the line. For a time the men were bewildered by it. ‘Good thunder!’ they ejaculated, staring at the vanishing form of the general. They conceived it to be a huge mistake.
Presently, however, they began to believe that in truth their efforts had been called light. The youth could see this conviction weigh upon the entire regiment until the men were like cuffed and cursed animals, but withal rebellious.
The friend, with a grievance in his eye, went to the youth. ‘I wonder what he does want,’ he said. ‘He must think we went out there an’ played marbles! I never see sech a man!’
The youth developed a tranquil philosophy for these moments of irritation. ‘Oh, well,’ he rejoined, ‘he probably didn’t see nothing of it at all and got mad as blazes, and concluded we were a lot of sheep, just because we didn’t do what he wanted done. It’s a pity old Grandpa Henderson got killed yestirday – he’d have known that we did our best and fought good. It’s just our awful luck, that’s what.’
‘I should say so,’ replied the friend. He seemed to be deeply wounded at an injustice. ‘I should say we did have awful luck! There’s no fun in fightin’ fer people when everything yeh do – no matter what – ain’t done right. I have a notion t’ stay behind next time an’ let ’em take their ol’ charge an’ go t’ th’ devil with it.’
The youth spoke soothingly to his comrade. ‘Well, we both did good. I’d like to see the fool what’d say we both didn’t do as good as we could!’
‘Of course we did,’ declared the friend stoutly. ‘An’ I’d break th’ feller’s neck if he was as big as a church. But we’re all right, anyhow, for I heard one feller say that we two fit th’ best in th’ reg’ment, an’ they had a great argument ’bout it. Another feller, ’a course, he had t’ up an’ say it was a lie – he seen all what was goin’ on an’ he never seen us from th’ beginnin’ t’ th’ end. An’ a lot more struck in an’ ses it wasn’t a lie – we did fight like thunder, an’ they give us quite a send-off. But this is what I can’t stand – these ever-lastin’ ol’ soldiers, titterin’ an’ laughin’, an’ then the general, he’s crazy.’
The youth exclaimed with sudden exasperation: ‘He’s a lunkhead! He makes me mad. I wish he’d come along next time. We’d show ’im what –’
He ceased because several men had come hurrying up. Their faces expressed a bringing of great news.
‘O Flem, yeh jest oughta heard!’ cried one, eagerly.
‘Heard what?’ said the youth.
‘Yeh jest oughta heard!’ repeated the other, and he arranged himself to tell his tidings. The others made an excited circle. ‘Well, sir, th’ colonel met your lieutenant right by us – it was damnedest thing I ever heard – an’ he ses: “Ahem! ahem!” he ses. “Mr Hasbrouck!” he ses, “by th’ way, who was that lad what carried th’ flag?” he ses. There, Flemin’, what d’ yeh think ’a that? “Who was th’ lad what carried th’ flag?” he ses, an’ th’ lieutenant, he speaks up right away: “That’s Flemin’, an’ he’s a jimhickey,” he ses, right away. What? I say he did. “A jimhickey,” he ses – those ’r his words. He did, too. I say he did. If you kin tell this story better than I kin, go ahead an’ tell it. Well, then, keep yer mouth shet. Th’ lieutenant, he ses: “He’s a jimhickey,” an’ th’ colonel, he ses: “Ahem! ahem! he is, indeed, a very good man t’ have, ahem! He kep’ th’ flag ’way t’ th’ front. I saw ’im. He’s a good un,” ses th’ colonel. “You bet,” ses th’ lieutenant, “he an’ a feller named Wilson was at th’ head ’a th’ charge, an’ howlin’ like Indians all th’ time,” he ses. “Head ’a th’ charge all th’ time,” he ses. “A feller named Wilson,” he ses. There, Wilson, m’boy, put that in a letter an’ send it hum t’ yer mother, hay? “A feller named Wilson,” he ses. An’ th’ colonel, he ses: “Were they, indeed? Ahem! Ahem! My sakes!” he ses. “At th’ head ’a th’ reg’ment?” he ses. “They were,” ses th’ lieutenant. “My sakes!” ses th’ colonel. He ses: “Well, well, well,” he ses, “those two babies?” “They were,” ses th’ lieutenant. “Well, well,” ses th’ colonel, “they deserve t’ be major generals,” he ses. “They deserve t’ be major generals.”’
The youth and his friend had said: ‘Huh!’ ‘Yer lyin’, Thompson.’ ‘Oh, go t’ blazes!’ ‘He never sed it.’ ‘Oh, what a lie!’ ‘Huh!’ But despite these youthful scoffings and embarrassments, they knew that their faces were deeply flushing from thrills of pleasure. They exchanged a secret glance of joy and congratulation.
They speedily forgot many things. The past held no pictures of error and disappointment. They were very happy, and their hearts swelled with grateful affection for the colonel and the youthful lieutenant.
22
When the woods again began to pour forth the dark-hued masses of the enemy the youth felt serene self-confidence. He smiled briefly when he saw men dodge and duck at the long screechings of shells that were thrown in giant handfuls over them. He stood, erect and tranquil, watching the attack begin against a part of the line that made a blue curve along the side of an adjacent hill. His vision being unmolested by smoke from the rifles of his companions, he had opportunities to see parts of the hard fight. It was a relief to perceive at last from whence came some of these noises which had been roared into his ears.
Off a short way he saw two regiments fighting a little separate battle with two other regiments. It was in a cleared space, wearing a set-apart look. They were blazing as if upon a wager, giving and taking tremendous blows. The firings were incredibly fierce and rapid. These intent regiments apparently were oblivious of all larger purposes of war, and were slugging each other as if at a matched game.
In another direction he saw a magnificent brigade going with the evident intention of driving the enemy from a wood. They passed in out of sight and presently there was a most awe-inspiring racket in the wood. The noise was unspeakable. Having stirred this prodigious uproar, and, apparently, finding it too prodigious, the brigade, after a little time, came marching airily out again with its fine formation in nowise disturbed. There were no traces of speed in its movements. The brigade was jaunty and seemed to point a proud thumb at the yelling wood.
On a slope to the left there was a long row of guns, gruff and maddened, denouncing the enemy, who, down through the woods, were forming for anothe
r attack in the pitiless monotony of conflicts. The round red discharges from the guns made a crimson flare and a high, thick smoke. Occasional glimpses could be caught of groups of the toiling artillerymen. In the rear of this row of guns stood a house, calm and white, amid bursting shells. A congregation of horses, tied to a long railing, were tugging frenziedly at their bridles. Men were running hither and thither.
The detached battle between the four regiments lasted for some time. There chanced to be no interference, and they settled their dispute by themselves. They struck savagely and powerfully at each other for a period of minutes, and then the lighter-hued regiments faltered and drew back, leaving the dark-blue lines shouting. The youth could see the two flags shaking with laughter amid the smoke remnants.
Presently there was a stillness, pregnant with meaning. The blue lines shifted and changed a trifle and stared expectantly at the silent woods and fields before them. The hush was solemn and churchlike, save for a distant battery that, evidently unable to remain quiet, sent a faint rolling thunder over the ground. It irritated, like the noises of unimpressed boys. The men imagined that it would prevent their perched ears from hearing the first words of the new battle.
Of a sudden the guns on the slope roared out a message of warning. A spluttering sound had begun in the woods. It swelled with amazing speed to a profound clamor that involved the earth in noises. The splitting crashes swept along the lines until an interminable roar was developed. To those in the midst of it it became a din fitted to the universe. It was the whirring and thumping of gigantic machinery, complications among the smaller stars. The youth’s ears were filled up. They were incapable of hearing more.
On an incline over which a road wound he saw wild and desperate rushes of men perpetually backward and forward in riotous surges. These parts of the opposing armies were two long waves that pitched upon each other madly at dictated points. To and fro they swelled. Sometimes, one side by its yells and cheers would proclaim decisive blows, but a moment later the other side would be all yells and cheers. Once the youth saw a spray of light forms go in houndlike leaps toward the waving blue lines. There was much howling, and presently it went away with a vast mouthful of prisoners. Again, he saw a blue wave dash with such thunderous force against a gray obstruction that it seemed to clear the earth of it and leave nothing but trampled sod. And always in their swift and deadly rushes to and fro the men screamed and yelled like maniacs.
Red Badge of Courage (Puffin Classics Relaunch) Page 13