The Red Badge of Courage

T >> the December 31, 2001. >> The Red Badge of Courage

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They fretted and complained each to each. "Oh, say, this is too
much of a good thing! Why can't somebody send us supports?"

"We ain't never goin' to stand this second banging. I didn't
come here to fight the hull damn' rebel army."

There was one who raised a doleful cry. "I wish Bill Smithers
had trod on my hand, insteader me treddin' on his'n." The sore
joints of the regiment creaked as it painfully floundered into
position to repulse.

The youth stared. Surely, he thought, this impossible thing was
not about to happen. He waited as if he expected the enemy to
suddenly stop, apologize, and retire bowing. It was all a mistake.

But the firing began somewhere on the regimental line and ripped
along in both directions. The level sheets of flame developed
great clouds of smoke that tumbled and tossed in the mild wind
near the ground for a moment, and then rolled through the ranks
as through a gate. The clouds were tinged an earthlike yellow
in the sunrays and in the shadow were a sorry blue. The flag was
sometimes eaten and lost in this mass of vapor, but more often
it projected, sun-touched, resplendent.

Into the youth's eyes there came a look that one can see in the
orbs of a jaded horse. His neck was quivering with nervous
weakness and the muscles of his arms felt numb and bloodless.
His hands, too, seemed large and awkward as if he was wearing
invisible mittens. And there was a great uncertainty about his
knee joints.

The words that comrades had uttered previous to the firing began
to recur to him. "Oh, say, this is too much of a good thing!
What do they take us for--why don't they send supports?
I didn't come here to fight the hull damned rebel army."

He began to exaggerate the endurance, the skill, and the valor of
those who were coming. Himself reeling from exhaustion, he was
astonished beyond measure at such persistency. They must be
machines of steel. It was very gloomy struggling against such
affairs, wound up perhaps to fight until sundown.

He slowly lifted his rifle and catching a glimpse of the
thickspread field he blazed at a cantering cluster. He stopped
then and began to peer as best as he could through the smoke.
He caught changing views of the ground covered with men who
were all running like pursued imps, and yelling.

To the youth it was an onslaught of redoubtable dragons. He became like
the man who lost his legs at the approach of the red and green monster.
He waited in a sort of a horrified, listening attitude.
He seemed to shut his eyes and wait to be gobbled.

A man near him who up to this time had been working feverishly at
his rifle suddenly stopped and ran with howls. A lad whose face
had borne an expression of exalted courage, the majesty of he
who dares give his life, was, at an instant, smitten abject.
He blanched like one who has come to the edge of a cliff at
midnight and is suddenly made aware. There was a revelation.
He, too, threw down his gun and fled. There was no shame in his face.
He ran like a rabbit.

Others began to scamper away through the smoke. The youth turned
his head, shaken from his trance by this movement as if the
regiment was leaving him behind. He saw the few fleeting forms.

He yelled then with fright and swung about. For a moment, in the
great clamor, he was like a proverbial chicken. He lost the
direction of safety. Destruction threatened him from all points.

Directly he began to speed toward the rear in great leaps.
His rifle and cap were gone. His unbuttoned coat bulged in the wind.
The flap of his cartridge box bobbed wildly, and his canteen,
by its slender cord, swung out behind. On his face was all the
horror of those things which he imagined.

The lieutenant sprang forward bawling. The youth saw his
features wrathfully red, and saw him make a dab with his sword.
His one thought of the incident was that the lieutenant was
a peculiar creature to feel interested in such matters upon
this occasion.

He ran like a blind man. Two or three times he fell down. Once he
knocked his shoulder so heavily against a tree that he went headlong.

Since he had turned his back upon the fight his fears had been
wondrously magnified. Death about to thrust him between the
shoulder blades was far more dreadful than death about to smite him
between the eyes. When he thought of it later, he conceived the
impression that it is better to view the appalling than to be
merely within hearing. The noises of the battle were like stones;
he believed himself liable to be crushed.

As he ran on he mingled with others. He dimly saw men on
his right and on his left, and he heard footsteps behind him.
He thought that all the regiment was fleeing, pursued by those
ominous crashes.

In his flight the sound of these following footsteps gave him his
one meager relief. He felt vaguely that death must make a first
choice of the men who were nearest; the initial morsels for the
dragons would be then those who were following him. So he
displayed the zeal of an insane sprinter in his purpose to keep
them in the rear. There was a race.

As he, leading, went across a little field, he found himself in a
region of shells. They hurtled over his head with long wild screams.
As he listened he imagined them to have rows of cruel teeth that
grinned at him. Once one lit before him and the livid lightning
of the explosion effectually barred the way in his chosen direction.
He groveled on the ground and then springing up went careering
off through some bushes.

He experienced a thrill of amazement when he came within view of a
battery in action. The men there seemed to be in conventional moods,
altogether unaware of the impending annihilation. The battery was
disputing with a distant antagonist and the gunners were wrapped
in admiration of their shooting. They were continually bending
in coaxing postures over the guns. They seemed to be patting
them on the back and encouraging them with words. The guns,
stolid and undaunted, spoke with dogged valor.

The precise gunners were coolly enthusiastic. They lifted their
eyes every chance to the smoke-wreathed hillock from whence the
hostile battery addressed them. The youth pitied them as he ran.
Methodical idiots! Machine-like fools! The refined joy of
planting shells in the midst of the other battery's formation
would appear a little thing when the infantry came swooping out
of the woods.

The face of a youthful rider, who was jerking his frantic horse
with an abandon of temper he might display in a placid barnyard,
was impressed deeply upon his mind. He knew that he looked upon
a man who would presently be dead.

Too, he felt a pity for the guns, standing, six good comrades,
in a bold row.

He saw a brigade going to the relief of its pestered fellows.
He scrambled upon a wee hill and watched it sweeping finely,
keeping formation in difficult places. The blue of the line
was crusted with steel color, and the brilliant flags projected.
Officers were shouting.

This sight also filled him with wonder. The brigade was hurrying
briskly to be gulped into the infernal mouths of the war god.
What manner of men were they, anyhow? Ah, it was some wondrous breed!
Or else they didn't comprehend--the fools.

A furious order caused commotion in the artillery. An officer on
a bounding horse made maniacal motions with his arms. The teams
went swinging up from the rear, the guns were whirled about, and
the battery scampered away. The cannon with their noses poked
slantingly at the ground grunted and grumbled like stout men,
brave but with objections to hurry.

The youth went on, moderating his pace since he had left the
place of noises.

Later he came upon a general of division seated upon a horse that
pricked its ears in an interested way at the battle. There was a
great gleaming of yellow and patent leather about the saddle and
bridle. The quiet man astride looked mouse-colored upon such a
splendid charger.

A jingling staff was galloping hither and thither. Sometimes the
general was surrounded by horsemen and at other times he was
quite alone. He looked to be much harassed. He had the appearance
of a business man whose market is swinging up and down.

The youth went slinking around this spot. He went as near as he
dared trying to overhear words. Perhaps the general, unable to
comprehend chaos, might call upon him for information. And he
could tell him. He knew all concerning it. Of a surety the
force was in a fix, and any fool could see that if they did not
retreat while they had opportunity--why--

He felt that he would like to thrash the general, or at least
approach and tell him in plain words exactly what he thought him
to be. It was criminal to stay calmly in one spot and make no
effort to stay destruction. He loitered in a fever of eagerness
for the division commander to apply to him.

As he warily moved about, he heard the general call out
irritably: "Tompkins, go over an' see Taylor, an' tell him not
t' be in such an all-fired hurry; tell him t' halt his brigade in
th' edge of th' woods; tell him t' detach a reg'ment--say I
think th' center 'll break if we don't help it out some; tell
him t' hurry up."

A slim youth on a fine chestnut horse caught these swift words
from the mouth of his superior. He made his horse bound into a
gallop almost from a walk in his haste to go upon his mission.
There was a cloud of dust.

A moment later the youth saw the general bounce excitedly in his saddle.

"Yes, by heavens, they have!" The officer leaned forward. His face
was aflame with excitement. "Yes, by heavens, they 've held 'im!
They 've held 'im!"

He began to blithely roar at his staff: "We 'll wallop 'im now.
We 'll wallop 'im now. We 've got 'em sure." He turned suddenly
upon an aide: "Here--you--Jons--quick--ride after Tompkins--see
Taylor--tell him t' go in--everlastingly--like blazes--anything."

As another officer sped his horse after the first messenger,
the general beamed upon the earth like a sun. In his eyes was a
desire to chant a paean. He kept repeating, "They 've held 'em,
by heavens!"

His excitement made his horse plunge, and he merrily kicked and
swore at it. He held a little carnival of joy on horseback.

Chapter 7

The youth cringed as if discovered in a crime. By heavens,
they had won after all! The imbecile line had remained and
become victors. He could hear cheering.

He lifted himself upon his toes and looked in the direction of the fight.
A yellow fog lay wallowing on the treetops. From beneath it came the
clatter of musketry. Hoarse cries told of an advance.

He turned away amazed and angry. He felt that he had been wronged.

He had fled, he told himself, because annihilation approached.
He had done a good part in saving himself, who was a little piece
of the army. He had considered the time, he said, to be one in
which it was the duty of every little piece to rescue itself if
possible. Later the officers could fit the little pieces
together again, and make a battle front. If none of the little
pieces were wise enough to save themselves from the flurry of
death at such a time, why, then, where would be the army? It was
all plain that he had proceeded according to very correct and
commendable rules. His actions had been sagacious things. They
had been full of strategy. They were the work of a master's legs.

Thoughts of his comrades came to him. The brittle blue line had
withstood the blows and won. He grew bitter over it. It seemed
that the blind ignorance and stupidity of those little pieces
had betrayed him. He had been overturned and crushed by their
lack of sense in holding the position, when intelligent
deliberation would have convinced them that it was impossible.
He, the enlightened man who looks afar in the dark, had fled
because of his superior perceptions and knowledge. He felt a
great anger against his comrades. He knew it could be proved
that they had been fools.

He wondered what they would remark when later he appeared in camp.
His mind heard howls of derision. Their density would not enable
them to understand his sharper point of view.

He began to pity himself acutely. He was ill used. He was
trodden beneath the feet of an iron injustice. He had proceeded
with wisdom and from the most righteous motives under heaven's
blue only to be frustrated by hateful circumstances.

A dull, animal-like rebellion against his fellows, war in the
abstract, and fate grew within him. He shambled along with bowed
head, his brain in a tumult of agony and despair. When he looked
loweringly up, quivering at each sound, his eyes had the
expression of those of a criminal who thinks his guilt little
and his punishment great, and knows that he can find no words.

He went from the fields into a thick woods, as if resolved to
bury himself. He wished to get out of hearing of the crackling
shots which were to him like voices.

The ground was cluttered with vines and bushes, and the trees
grew close and spread out like bouquets. He was obliged to force
his way with much noise. The creepers, catching against his legs,
cried out harshly as their sprays were torn from the barks
of trees. The swishing saplings tried to make known his presence
to the world. He could not conciliate the forest. As he made
his way, it was always calling out protestations. When he
separated embraces of trees and vines the disturbed foliages
waved their arms and turned their face leaves toward him.
He dreaded lest these noisy motions and cries should bring men
to look at him. So he went far, seeking dark and intricate places.

After a time the sound of musketry grew faint and the cannon
boomed in the distance. The sun, suddenly apparent, blazed among
the trees. The insects were making rhythmical noises. They seemed
to be grinding their teeth in unison. A woodpecker stuck
his impudent head around the side of a tree. A bird flew on
lighthearted wing.

Off was the rumble of death. It seemed now that Nature had no ears.

This landscape gave him assurance. A fair field holding life.
It was the religion of peace. It would die if its timid eyes
were compelled to see blood. He conceived Nature to be a woman
with a deep aversion to tragedy.

He threw a pine cone at a jovial squirrel, and he ran with
chattering fear. High in a treetop he stopped, and, poking
his head cautiously from behind a branch, looked down with
an air of trepidation.

The youth felt triumphant at this exhibition. There was the law,
he said. Nature had given him a sign. The squirrel, immediately
upon recognizing danger, had taken to his legs without ado.
He did not stand stolidly baring his furry belly to the missile,
and die with an upward glance at the sympathetic heavens. On the
contrary, he had fled as fast as his legs could carry him; and
he was but an ordinary squirrel, too--doubtless no philosopher of
his race. The youth wended, feeling that Nature was of his mind.
She re-enforced his argument with proofs that lived where the sun shone.

Once he found himself almost into a swamp. He was obliged to
walk upon bog tufts and watch his feet to keep from the oily mire.
Pausing at one time to look about him he saw, out at some black water,
a small animal pounce in and emerge directly with a gleaming fish.

The youth went again into the deep thickets. The brushed
branches made a noise that drowned the sounds of cannon.
He walked on, going from obscurity into promises of a
greater obscurity.

At length he reached a place where the high, arching boughs
made a chapel. He softly pushed the green doors aside and entered.
Pine needles were a gentle brown carpet. There was a religious
half light.

Near the threshold he stopped, horror-stricken at the sight of a thing.

He was being looked at by a dead man who was seated with his back
against a columnlike tree. The corpse was dressed in a uniform
that had once been blue, but was now faded to a melancholy shade
of green. The eyes, staring at the youth, had changed to the dull
hue to be seen on the side of a dead fish. The mouth was open.
Its red had changed to an appalling yellow. Over the gray skin of
the face ran little ants. One was trundling some sort of bundle
along the upper lip.

The youth gave a shriek as he confronted the thing. He was for
moments turned to stone before it. He remained staring into the
liquid-looking eyes. The dead man and the living man exchanged a
long look. Then the youth cautiously put one hand behind him and
brought it against a tree. Leaning upon this he retreated, step by
step, with his face still toward the thing. He feared that if he
turned his back the body might spring up and stealthily pursue him.

The branches, pushing against him, threatened to throw him over
upon it. His unguided feet, too, caught aggravatingly in brambles;
and with it all he received a subtle suggestion to touch the corpse.
As he thought of his hand upon it he shuddered profoundly.

At last he burst the bonds which had fastened him to the spot and fled,
unheeding the underbrush. He was pursued by the sight of black ants
swarming greedily upon the gray face and venturing horribly near to
the eyes.

After a time he paused, and, breathless and panting, listened.
He imagined some strange voice would come from the dead throat
and squawk after him in horrible menaces.

The trees about the portal of the chapel moved soughingly in a
soft wind. A sad silence was upon the little guarding edifice.

Chapter 8

The trees began softly to sing a hymn of twilight. The sun sank
until slanted bronze rays struck the forest. There was a lull in
the noises of insects as if they had bowed their beaks and were
making a devotional pause. There was silence save for the
chanted chorus of the trees.

Then, upon this stillness, there suddenly broke a tremendous
clangor of sounds. A crimson roar came from the distance.

The youth stopped. He was transfixed by this terrific medley of
all noises. It was as if worlds were being rended. There was the
ripping sound of musketry and the breaking crash of the artillery.

His mind flew in all directions. He conceived the two armies
to be at each other panther fashion. He listened for a time.
Then he began to run in the direction of the battle. He saw
that it was an ironical thing for him to be running thus
toward that which he had been at such pains to avoid. But he said,
in substance, to himself that if the earth and the moon were about
to clash, many persons would doubtless plan to get upon the roofs
to witness the collision.

As he ran, he became aware that the forest had stopped its music,
as if at last becoming capable of hearing the foreign sounds.
The trees hushed and stood motionless. Everything seemed to be
listening to the crackle and clatter and earthshaking thunder.
The chorus peaked over the still earth.

It suddenly occurred to the youth that the fight in which he had
been was, after all, but perfunctory popping. In the hearing of
this present din he was doubtful if he had seen real battle scenes.
This uproar explained a celestial battle; it was tumbling hordes
a-struggle in the air.

Reflecting, he saw a sort of a humor in the point of view of
himself and his fellows during the late encounter. They had
taken themselves and the enemy very seriously and had imagined
that they were deciding the war. Individuals must have supposed
that they were cutting the letters of their names deep into
everlasting tablets of brass, or enshrining their reputations
forever in the hearts of their countrymen, while, as to fact,
the affair would appear in printed reports under a meek and
immaterial title. But he saw that it was good, else, he said, in
battle every one would surely run save forlorn hopes and their ilk.

He went rapidly on. He wished to come to the edge of the forest
that he might peer out.

As he hastened, there passed through his mind pictures of
stupendous conflicts. His accumulated thought upon such
subjects was used to form scenes. The noise was as the
voice of an eloquent being, describing.

Sometimes the brambles formed chains and tried to hold him back.
Trees, confronting him, stretched out their arms and forbade him
to pass. After its previous hostility this new resistance of the
forest filled him with a fine bitterness. It seemed that Nature
could not be quite ready to kill him.

But he obstinately took roundabout ways, and presently he was
where he could see long gray walls of vapor where lay battle
lines. The voices of cannon shook him. The musketry sounded
in long irregular surges that played havoc with his ears. He stood
regardant for a moment. His eyes had an awestruck expression.
He gawked in the direction of th fight.

Presently he proceeded again on his forward way. The battle
was like the grinding of an immense and terrible machine to him.
Its complexities and powers, its grim processes, fascinated him.
He must go close and see it produce corpses.

He came to a fence and clambered over it. On the far side, the
ground was littered with clothes and guns. A newspaper, folded up,
lay in the dirt. A dead soldier was stretched with his face hidden
in his arm. Farther off there was a group of four or five corpses
keeping mournful company. A hot sun had blazed upon this spot.

In this place the youth felt that he was an invader. This
forgotten part of the battle ground was owned by the dead men,
and he hurried, in the vague apprehension that one of the
swollen forms would rise and tell him to begone.

He came finally to a road from which he could see in the distance
dark and agitated bodies of troops, smoke-fringed. In the lane
was a blood-stained crowd streaming to the rear. The wounded men
were cursing, groaning, and wailing. In the air, always, was a
mighty swell of sound that it seemed could sway the earth. With
the courageous words of the artillery and the spiteful sentences
of the musketry mingled red cheers. And from this region of
noises came the steady current of the maimed.

One of the wounded men had a shoeful of blood. He hopped like a
schoolboy in a game. He was laughing hysterically.

One was swearing that he had been shot in the arm through the
commanding general's mismanagement of the army. One was marching
with an air imitative of some sublime drum major. Upon his
features was an unholy mixture of merriment and agony. As he
marched he sang a bit of doggerel in a high and quavering voice:

"Sing a song 'a vic'try,
A pocketful 'a bullets,
Five an' twenty dead men
Baked in a--pie."

Parts of the procession limped and staggered to this tune.

Another had the gray seal of death already upon his face.
His lips were curled in hard lines and his teeth were clinched.
His hands were bloody from where he had pressed them upon his wound.
He seemed to be awaiting the moment when he should pitch headlong.
He stalked like the specter of a soldier, his eyes burning with
the power of a stare into the unknown.

There were some who proceeded sullenly, full of anger at their wounds,
and ready to turn upon anything as an obscure cause.

An officer was carried along by two privates. He was peevish.
"Don't joggle so, Johnson, yeh fool," he cried. "Think m' leg is
made of iron? If yeh can't carry me decent, put me down an' let
some one else do it."

He bellowed at the tottering crowd who blocked the quick march of
his bearers. "Say, make way there, can't yeh? Make way, dickens
take it all."

They sulkily parted and went to the roadsides. As he was carried
past they made pert remarks to him. When he raged in reply and
threatened them, they told him to be damned.

The shoulder of one of the tramping bearers knocked heavily
against the spectral soldier who was staring into the unknown.

The youth joined this crowd and marched along with it. The torn
bodies expressed the awful machinery in which the men had been entangled.

Orderlies and couriers occasionally broke through the throng in
the roadway, scattering wounded men right and left, galloping on
followed by howls. The melancholy march was continually
disturbed by the messengers, and sometimes by bustling batteries
that came swinging and thumping down upon them, the officers
shouting orders to clear the way.

There was a tattered man, fouled with dust, blood and powder
stain from hair to shoes, who trudged quietly at the youth's side.
He was listening with eagerness and much humility to the lurid
descriptions of a bearded sergeant. His lean features wore
an expression of awe and admiration. He was like a listener
in a country store to wondrous tales told among the sugar barrels.
He eyed the story-teller with unspeakable wonder. His mouth was
agape in yokel fashion.

The sergeant, taking note of this, gave pause to his elaborate
history while he administered a sardonic comment. "Be keerful,
honey, you 'll be a-ketchin' flies," he said.

The tattered man shrank back abashed.

After a time he began to sidle near to the youth, and in a
diffident way try to make him a friend. His voice was gentle as
a girl's voice and his eyes were pleading. The youth saw with
surprise that the soldier had two wounds, one in the head, bound
with a blood-soaked rag, and the other in the arm, making that
member dangle like a broken bough.

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