The Red Badge of Courage
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the December 31, 2001. >> The Red Badge of Courage
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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 weight 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 god 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 stuck in an' ses it wasn't a lie--we did fight like thunder,
an' they give us quite a sendoff. But this is what I can't stand--
these everlastin' ol' soldiers, titterin' an' laughin', an then
that 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,' and 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. '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.
Chapter 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
apart 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 another 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 cups. 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.
Particular pieces of fence or secure positions behind collections
of trees were wrangled over, as gold thrones or pearl bedsteads.
There were desperate lunges at these chosen spots seemingly
every instant, and most of them were bandied like light toys
between the contending forces. The youth could not tell from the
battle flags flying like crimson foam in many directions which
color of cloth was winning.
His emaciated regiment bustled forth with undiminished fierceness
when its time came. When assaulted again by bullets, the men
burst out in a barbaric cry of rage and pain. They bent their
heads in aims of intent hatred behind the projected hammers of
their guns. Their ramrods clanged loud with fury as their eager
arms pounded the cartridges into the rifle barrels. The front of
the regiment was a smoke-wall penetrated by the flashing points
of yellow and red.
Wallowing in the fight, they were in an astonishingly short time resmudged.
They surpassed in stain and dirt all their previous appearances. Moving
to and fro with strained exertion, jabbering all the while, they were,
with their swaying bodies, black faces, and glowing eyes, like strange
and ugly fiends jigging heavily in the smoke.
The lieutenant, returning from a tour after a bandage, produced
from a hidden receptacle of his mind new and portentous oaths
suited to the emergency. Strings of expletives he swung lashlike
over the backs of his men, and it was evident that his previous
efforts had in nowise impaired his resources.
The youth, still the bearer of the colors, did not feel his idleness.
He was deeply absorbed as a spectator. The crash and swing of the
great drama made him lean forward, intent-eyed, his face working
in small contortions. Sometimes he prattled, words coming
unconsciously from him in grotesque exclamations. He did not
know that he breathed; that the flag hung silently over him,
so absorbed was he.
A formidable line of the enemy came within dangerous range.
They could be seen plainly--tall, gaunt men with excited faces
running with long strides toward a wandering fence.
At sight of this danger the men suddenly ceased their cursing
monotone. There was an instant of strained silence before they
threw up their rifles and fired a plumping volley at the foes.
There had been no order given; the men, upon recognizing the menace,
had immediately let drive their flock of bullets without waiting
for word of command.
But the enemy were quick to gain the protection of the wandering
line of fence. They slid down behind it with remarkable celerity,
and from this position they began briskly to slice up the blue men.
These latter braced their energies for a great struggle.
Often, white clinched teeth shone from the dusky faces.
Many heads surged to and fro, floating upon a pale sea of smoke.
Those behind the fence frequently shouted and yelped in taunts and
gibelike cries, but the regiment maintained a stressed silence.
Perhaps, at this new assault the men recalled the fact that they
had been named mud diggers, and it made their situation thrice bitter.
They were breathlessly intent upon keeping the ground and thrusting
away the rejoicing body of the enemy. They fought swiftly and with
a despairing savageness denoted in their expressions.
The youth had resolved not to budge whatever should happen.
Some arrows of scorn that had buried themselves in his heart had
generated strange and unspeakable hatred. It was clear to him
that his final and absolute revenge was to be achieved by his
dead body lying, torn and gluttering, upon the field. This was
to be a poignant retaliation upon the officer who had said
"mule drivers," and later "mud diggers," for in all the wild
graspings of his mind for a unit responsible for his sufferings and
commotions he always seized upon the man who had dubbed him wrongly.
And it was his idea, vaguely formulated, that his corpse would be
for those eyes a great and salt reproach.
The regiment bled extravagantly. Grunting bundles of blue began
to drop. The orderly sergeant of the youth's company was shot
through the cheeks. Its supports being injured, his jaw hung
afar down, disclosing in the wide cavern of his mouth a pulsing mass
of blood and teeth. And with it all he made attempts to cry out.
In his endeavor there was a dreadful earnestness, as if he
conceived that one great shriek would make him well.
The youth saw him presently go rearward. His strength seemed in
nowise impaired. He ran swiftly, casting wild glances for succor.
Others fell down about the feet of their companions. Some of the
wounded crawled out and away, but many lay still, their bodies
twisted into impossible shapes.
The youth looked once for his friend. He saw a vehement young man,
powder-smeared and frowzled, whom he knew to be him. The lieutenant,
also, was unscathed in his position at the rear. He had continued
to curse, but it was now with the air of a man who was using his
last box of oaths.
For the fire of the regiment had begun to wane and drip.
The robust voice, that had come strangely from the thin ranks,
was growing rapidly weak.
Chapter 23
The colonel came running along the back of the line. There were
other officers following him. "We must charge'm!" they shouted.
"We must charge'm!" they cried with resentful voices, as if
anticipating a rebellion against this plan by the men.
The youth, upon hearing the shouts, began to study the distance
between him and the enemy. He made vague calculations. He saw
that to be firm soldiers they must go forward. It would be death
to stay in the present place, and with all the circumstances to
go backward would exalt too many others. Their hope was to push
the galling foes away from the fence.
He expected that his companions, weary and stiffened, would have
to be driven to this assault, but as he turned toward them he
perceived with a certain surprise that they were giving quick
and unqualified expressions of assent. There was an ominous,
clanging overture to the charge when the shafts of the bayonets
rattled upon the rifle barrels. At the yelled words of command
the soldiers sprang forward in eager leaps. There was new and
unexpected force in the movement of the regiment. A knowledge of
its faded and jaded condition made the charge appear like a paroxysm,
a display of the strength that comes before a final feebleness.
The men scampered in insane fever of haste, racing as if to achieve
a sudden success before an exhilarating fluid should leave them.
It was a blind and despairing rush by the collection of men in
dusty and tattered blue, over a green sward and under a sapphire sky,
toward a fence, dimly outlined in smoke, from behind which sputtered
the fierce rifles of enemies.
The youth kept the bright colors to the front. He was waving his
free arm in furious circles, the while shrieking mad calls and appeals,
urging on those that did not need to be urged, for it seemed that the
mob of blue men hurling themselves on the dangerous group of rifles
were again grown suddenly wild with an enthusiasm of unselfishness.
From the many firings starting toward them, it looked as if they
would merely succeed in making a great sprinkling of corpses
on the grass between their former position and the fence.
But they were in a state of frenzy, perhaps because of forgotten
vanities, and it made an exhibition of sublime recklessness.
There was no obvious questioning, nor figurings, nor diagrams.
There was, apparently, no considered loopholes. It appeared that
the swift wings of their desires would have shattered against
the iron gates of the impossible.
He himself felt the daring spirit of a savage, religion-mad.
He was capable of profound sacrifices, a tremendous death.
He had no time for dissections, but he knew that he thought of
the bullets only as things that could prevent him from reaching the
place of his endeavor. There were subtle flashings of joy within
him that thus should be his mind.
He strained all his strength. His eyesight was shaken and
dazzled by the tension of thought and muscle. He did not see
anything excepting the mist of smoke gashed by the little knives
of fire, but he knew that in it lay the aged fence of a vanished
farmer protecting the snuggled bodies of the gray men.
As he ran a thought of the shock of contact gleamed in his mind.
He expected a great concussion when the two bodies of troops
crashed together. This became a part of his wild battle madness.
He could feel the onward swing of the regiment about him and he
conceived of a thunderous, crushing blow that would prostrate
the resistance and spread consternation and amazement for miles.
The flying regiment was going to have a catapultian effect.
This dream made him run faster among his comrades, who were
giving vent to hoarse and frantic cheers.
But presently he could see that many of the men in gray did not
intend to abide the blow. The smoke, rolling, disclosed men
who ran, their faces still turned. These grew to a crowd, who
retired stubbornly. Individuals wheeled frequently to send a
bullet at the blue wave.
But at one part of the line there was a grim and obdurate group
that made no movement. They were settled firmly down behind
posts and rails. A flag, ruffled and fierce, waved over them
and their rifles dinned fiercely.
The blue whirl of men got very near, until it seemed that in
truth there would be a close and frightful scuffle. There was
an expressed disdain in the opposition of the little group,
that changed the meaning of the cheers of the men in blue.
They became yells of wrath, directed, personal. The cries of the
two parties were now in sound an interchange of scathing insults.
They in blue showed their teeth; their eyes shone all white.
They launched themselves as at the throats of those who stood
resisting. The space between dwindled to an insignificant distance.
The youth had centered the gaze of his soul upon that other flag.
Its possession would be high pride. It would express bloody
minglings, near blows. He had a gigantic hatred for those who
made great difficulties and complications. They caused it to be
as a craved treasure of mythology, hung amid tasks and contrivances
of danger.
He plunged like a mad horse at it. He was resolved it should
not escape if wild blows and darings of blows could seize it.
His own emblem, quivering and aflare, was winging toward the other.
It seemed there would shortly be an encounter of strange beaks
and claws, as of eagles.
The swirling body of blue men came to a sudden halt at close and
disastrous range and roared a swift volley. The group in gray was
split and broken by this fire, but its riddled body still fought.
The men in blue yelled again and rushed in upon it.
The youth, in his leapings, saw, as through a mist, a picture
of four or five men stretched upon the ground or writhing upon
their knees with bowed heads as if they had been stricken
by bolts from the sky. Tottering among them was the rival
color bearer, whom the youth saw had been bitten vitally by
the bullets of the last formidable volley. He perceived this man
fighting a last struggle, the struggle of one whose legs are
grasped by demons. It was a ghastly battle. Over his face was
the bleach of death, but set upon it was the dark and hard lines
of desperate purpose. With this terrible grin of resolution he
hugged his precious flag to him and was stumbling and staggering
in his design to go the way that led to safety for it.
But his wounds always made it seem that his feet were retarded,
held, and he fought a grim fight, as with invisible ghouls
fastened greedily upon his limbs. Those in advance of the
scampering blue men, howling cheers, leaped at the fence.
The despair of the lost was in his eyes as he glanced back
at them.
The youth's friend went over the obstruction in a tumbling heap
and sprang at the flag as a panther at prey. He pulled at it
and, wrenching it free, swung up its red brilliancy with a mad
cry of exultation even as the color bearer, gasping, lurched over
in a final throe and, stiffening convulsively, turned his dead
face to the ground. There was much blood upon the grass blades.
At the place of success there began more wild clamorings of cheers.
The men gesticulated and bellowed in an ecstasy. When they spoke
it was as if they considered their listener to be a mile away.
What hats and caps were left to them they often slung high in the air.
At one part of the line four men had been swooped upon, and they
now sat as prisoners. Some blue men were about them in an eager
and curious circle. The soldiers had trapped strange birds, and
there was an examination. A flurry of fast questions was in the air.
One of the prisoners was nursing a superficial wound in the foot.
He cuddled it, baby-wise, but he looked up from it often to
curse with an astonishing utter abandon straight at the noses
of his captors. He consigned them to red regions; he called upon
the pestilential wrath of strange gods. And with it all he was
singularly free from recognition of the finer points of the
conduct of prisoners of war. It was as if a clumsy clod had trod
upon his toe and he conceived it to be his privilege, his duty,
to use deep, resentful oaths.
Another, who was a boy in years, took his plight with great
calmness and apparent good nature. He conversed with the men
in blue, studying their faces with his bright and keen eyes.
They spoke of battles and conditions. There was an acute
interest in all their faces during this exchange of view points.
It seemed a great satisfaction to hear voices from where all had
been darkness and speculation.
The third captive sat with a morose countenance. He preserved a
stoical and cold attitude. To all advances he made one reply
without variation, "Ah, go t' hell!"
The last of the four was always silent and, for the most part,
kept his face turned in unmolested directions. From the views
the youth received he seemed to be in a state of absolute dejection.
Shame was upon him, and with it profound regret that he was, perhaps,
no more to be counted in the ranks of his fellows. The youth could
detect no expression that would allow him to believe that the other
was giving a thought to his narrowed future, the pictured dungeons,
perhaps, and starvations and brutalities, liable to the imagination.
All to be seen was shame for captivity and regret for the right
to antagonize.
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