The Red Badge of Courage

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

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On the other side of the fire the youth observed an officer asleep,
seated bolt upright, with his back against a tree. There was
something perilous in his position. Badgered by dreams,
perhaps, he swayed with little bounces and starts, like an old,
toddy-stricken grandfather in a chimney corner. Dust and stains
were upon his face. His lower jaw hung down as if lacking strength
to assume its normal position. He was the picture of an exhausted
soldier after a feast of war.

He had evidently gone to sleep with his sword in his arms.
These two had slumbered in an embrace, but the weapon had been
allowed in time to fall unheeded to the ground. The brass-mounted
hilt lay in contact with some parts of the fire.

Within the gleam of rose and orange light from the burning
sticks were other soldiers, snoring and heaving, or lying
deathlike in slumber. A few pairs of legs were stuck forth,
rigid and straight. The shoes displayed the mud or dust of marches
and bits of rounded trousers, protruding from the blankets, showed
rents and tears from hurried pitchings through the dense brambles.

The fire cackled musically. From it swelled light smoke.
Overhead the foliage moved softly. The leaves, with their faces
turned toward the blaze, were colored shifting hues of silver,
often edged with red. Far off to the right, through a window
in the forest could be seen a handful of stars lying,
like glittering pebbles, on the black level of the night.

Occasionally, in this low-arched hall, a soldier would arouse and
turn his body to a new position, the experience of his sleep
having taught him of uneven and objectionable places upon the
ground under him. Or, perhaps, he would lift himself to a
sitting posture, blink at the fire for an unintelligent moment,
throw a swift glance at his prostrate companion, and then cuddle
down again with a grunt of sleepy content.

The youth sat in a forlorn heap until his friend the loud young
soldier came, swinging two canteens by their light strings.
"Well, now, Henry, ol' boy," said the latter, "we'll have yeh
fixed up in jest about a minnit."

He had the bustling ways of an amateur nurse. He fussed around
the fire and stirred the sticks to brilliant exertions. He made
his patient drink largely from the canteen that contained the coffee.
It was to the youth a delicious draught. He tilted his head afar
back and held the canteen long to his lips. The cool mixture went
caressingly down his blistered throat. Having finished, he sighed
with comfortable delight.

The loud young soldier watched his comrade with an air of
satisfaction. He later produced an extensive handkerchief from
his pocket. He folded it into a manner of bandage and soused
water from the other canteen upon the middle of it. This crude
arrangement he bound over the youth's head, tying the ends in a
queer knot at the back of the neck.

"There," he said, moving off and surveying his deed, "yeh look
like th' devil, but I bet yeh feel better."

The youth contemplated his friend with grateful eyes. Upon his aching
and swelling head the cold cloth was like a tender woman's hand.

"Yeh don't holler ner say nothin'," remarked his friend approvingly.
"I know I'm a blacksmith at takin' keer 'a sick folks, an' yeh
never squeaked. Yer a good un, Henry. Most 'a men would a' been
in th' hospital long ago. A shot in th' head ain't foolin' business."

The youth made no reply, but began to fumble with the buttons of
his jacket.

"Well, come, now," continued his friend, "come on. I must put
yeh t' bed an' see that yeh git a good night's rest."

The other got carefully erect, and the loud young soldier led him
among the sleeping forms lying in groups and rows. Presently he
stooped and picked up his blankets. He spread the rubber one upon
the ground and placed the woolen one about the youth's shoulders.

"There now," he said, "lie down an' git some sleep."

The youth, with his manner of doglike obedience, got carefully
down like a crone stooping. He stretched out with a murmur of
relief and comfort. The ground felt like the softest couch.

But of a sudden he ejaculated: "Hol' on a minnit! Where you
goin' t' sleep?"

His friend waved his hand impatiently. "Right down there by yeh."

"Well, but hol' on a minnit," continued the youth. "What yeh
goin' t' sleep in? I've got your--"

The loud young soldier snarled: "Shet up an' go on t' sleep.
Don't be makin' a damn' fool 'a yerself," he said severely.

After the reproof the youth said no more. An exquisite
drowsiness had spread through him. The warm comfort of the
blanket enveloped him and made a gentle langour. His head fell
forward on his crooked arm and his weighted lids went softly down
over his eyes. Hearing a splatter of musketry from the distance,
he wondered indifferently if those men sometimes slept. He gave
a long sigh, snuggled down into his blanket, and in a moment was
like his comrades.

Chapter 14

When the youth awoke it seemed to him that he had been asleep for
a thousand years, and he felt sure that he opened his eyes upon an
unexpected world. Gray mists were slowly shifting before the
first efforts of the sun rays. An impending splendor could be
seen in the eastern sky. An icy dew had chilled his face,
and immediately upon arousing he curled farther down into
his blanket. He stared for a while at the leaves overhead,
moving in a heraldic wind of the day.

The distance was splintering and blaring with the noise of
fighting. There was in the sound an expression of a deadly
persistency, as if it had not began and was not to cease.

About him were the rows and groups of men that he had dimly seen
the previous night. They were getting a last draught of sleep
before the awakening. The gaunt, careworn features and dusty
figures were made plain by this quaint light at the dawning,
but it dressed the skin of the men in corpse-like hues and made
the tangled limbs appear pulseless and dead. The youth started up
with a little cry when his eyes first swept over this motionless
mass of men, thick-spread upon the ground, pallid, and in
strange postures. His disordered mind interpreted the hall of
the forest as a charnel place. He believed for an instant that
he was in the house of the dead, and he did not dare to move
lest these corpses start up, squalling and squawking. In a
second, however, he achieved his proper mind. He swore a
complicated oath at himself. He saw that this somber picture
was not a fact of the present, but a mere prophecy.

He heard then the noise of a fire crackling briskly in the cold air,
and, turning his head, he saw his friend pottering busily about
a small blaze. A few other figures moved in the fog, and he heard
the hard cracking of axe blows.

Suddenly there was a hollow rumble of drums. A distant bugle
sang faintly. Similar sounds, varying in strength, came from near
and far over the forest. The bugles called to each other like
brazen gamecocks. The near thunder of the regimental drums rolled.

The body of men in the woods rustled. There was a general
uplifting of heads. A murmuring of voices broke upon the air.
In it there was much bass of grumbling oaths. Strange gods were
addressed in condemnation of the early hours necessary to
correct war. An officer's peremptory tenor rang out and
quickened the stiffened movement of the men. The tangled
limbs unraveled. The corpse-hued faces were hidden behind
fists that twisted slowly in the eye sockets.

The youth sat up and gave vent to an enormous yawn. "Thunder!"
he remarked petulantly. He rubbed his eyes, and then putting up
his hand felt carefully the bandage over his wound. His friend,
perceiving him to be awake, came from the fire. "Well, Henry,
ol' man, how do yeh feel this mornin'?" he demanded.

The youth yawned again. Then he puckered his mouth to a
little pucker. His head, in truth, felt precisely like a melon,
and there was an unpleasant sensation at his stomach.

"Oh, Lord, I feel pretty bad," he said.

"Thunder!" exclaimed the other. "I hoped ye'd feel all right
this mornin'. Let's see th' bandage--I guess it's slipped."
He began to tinker at the wound in rather a clumsy way until
the youth exploded.

"Gosh-dern it!" he said in sharp irritation; "you're the hangdest
man I ever saw! You wear muffs on your hands. Why in good
thunderation can't you be more easy? I'd rather you'd stand off
an' throw guns at it. Now, go slow, an' don't act as if you was
nailing down carpet."

He glared with insolent command at his friend, but the latter
answered soothingly. "Well, well, come now, an' git some grub,"
he said. "Then, maybe, yeh'll feel better."

At the fireside the loud young soldier watched over his comrade's
wants with tenderness and care. He was very busy marshaling the
little black vagabonds of tin cups and pouring into them the
streaming iron colored mixture from a small and sooty tin pail.
He had some fresh meat, which he roasted hurriedly on a stick.
He sat down then and contemplated the youth's appetite with glee.

The youth took note of a remarkable change in his comrade since
those days of camp life upon the river bank. He seemed no more
to be continually regarding the proportions of his personal prowess.
He was not furious at small words that pricked his conceits.
He was no more a loud young soldier. There was about him now
a fine reliance. He showed a quiet belief in his purposes
and his abilities. And this inward confidence evidently enabled
him to be indifferent to little words of other men aimed at him.

The youth reflected. He had been used to regarding his comrade
as a blatant child with an audacity grown from his inexperience,
thoughtless, headstrong, jealous, and filled with a tinsel courage.
A swaggering babe accustomed to strut in his own dooryard.
The youth wondered where had been born these new eyes;
when his comrade had made the great discovery that there
were many men who would refuse to be subjected by him.
Apparently, the other had now climbed a peak of wisdom from which
he could perceive himself as a very wee thing. And the youth saw that
ever after it would be easier to live in his friend's neighborhood.

His comrade balanced his ebony coffee-cup on his knee.
"Well, Henry," he said, "what d'yeh think th' chances are?
D'yeh think we'll wallop 'em?"

The youth considered for a moment. "Day-b'fore-yesterday,"
he finally replied, with boldness, "you would 'a' bet you'd
lick the hull kit-an'-boodle all by yourself."

His friend looked a trifle amazed. "Would I?" he asked.
He pondered. "Well, perhaps I would," he decided at last.
He stared humbly at the fire.

The youth was quite disconcerted at this surprising reception
of his remarks. "Oh, no, you wouldn't either," he said, hastily
trying to retrace.

But the other made a deprecating gesture. "Oh, yeh needn't mind,
Henry," he said. "I believe I was a pretty big fool in those days."
He spoke as after a lapse of years.

There was a little pause.

"All th' officers say we've got th' rebs in a pretty tight box,"
said the friend, clearing his throat in a commonplace way.
"They all seem t' think we've got 'em jest where we want 'em."

"I don't know about that," the youth replied. "What I seen over on
th' right makes me think it was th' other way about. From where
I was, it looked as if we was gettin' a good poundin' yestirday."

"D'yeh think so?" inquired the friend. "I thought we handled 'em
pretty rough yestirday."

"Not a bit," said the youth. "Why, lord, man, you didn't see
nothing of the fight. Why!" Then a sudden thought came to him.
"Oh! Jim Conklin's dead."

His friend started. "What? Is he? Jim Conklin?"

The youth spoke slowly. "Yes. He's dead. Shot in th' side."

"Yeh don't say so. Jim Conklin. . .poor cuss!"

All about them were other small fires surrounded by men with
their little black utensils. From one of these near came sudden
sharp voices in a row. It appeared that two light-footed
soldiers had been teasing a huge, bearded man, causing him to
spill coffee upon his blue knees. The man had gone into a
rage and had sworn comprehensively. Stung by his language,
his tormentors had immediately bristled at him with a great show
of resenting unjust oaths. Possibly there was going to be a fight.

The friend arose and went over to them, making pacific motions
with his arms. "Oh, here, now, boys, what's th' use?" he said.
"We'll be at th' rebs in less'n an hour. What's th' good
fightin' 'mong ourselves?"

One of the light-footed soldiers turned upon him red-faced and violent.
"Yeh needn't come around here with yer preachin'. I s'pose yeh don't
approve 'a fightin' since Charley Morgan licked yeh; but I don't see
what business this here is 'a yours or anybody else."

"Well, it ain't," said the friend mildly. "Still I hate t' see--"

There was a tangled argument.

"Well, he--," said the two, indicating their opponent with
accusative forefingers.

The huge soldier was quite purple with rage. He pointed at the
two soldiers with his great hand, extended clawlike. "Well, they--"

But during this argumentative time the desire to deal blows
seemed to pass, although they said much to each other. Finally
the friend returned to his old seat. In a short while the three
antagonists could be seen together in an amiable bunch.

"Jimmie Rogers ses I'll have t' fight him after th' battle t'-day,"
announced the friend as he again seated himself. "He ses he don't
allow no interferin' in his business. I hate t' see th' boys
fightin' 'mong themselves."

The youth laughed. "Yer changed a good bit. Yeh ain't at all
like yeh was. I remember when you an' that Irish feller--" He
stopped and laughed again.

"No, I didn't use t' be that way," said his friend thoughtfully.
"That's true 'nough."

"Well, I didn't mean--" began the youth.

The friend made another deprecatory gesture.
"Oh, yeh needn't mind, Henry."

There was another little pause.

"Th' reg'ment lost over half th' men yestirday," remarked the
friend eventually. "I thought 'a course they was all dead,
but, laws, they kep' a-comin' back last night until it seems,
after all, we didn't lose but a few. They'd been scattered all over,
wanderin' around in th' woods, fightin' with other reg'ments,
an' everything. Jest like you done."

"So?" said the youth.

Chapter 15

The regiment was standing at order arms at the side of a lane,
waiting for the command to march, when suddenly the youth
remembered the little packet enwrapped in a faded yellow
envelope which the loud young soldier with lugubrious words
had intrusted to him. It made him start. He uttered an
exclamation and turned toward his comrade.

"Wilson!"

"What?"

His friend, at his side in the ranks, was thoughtfully staring
down the road. From some cause his expression was at that moment
very meek. The youth, regarding him with sidelong glances,
felt impelled to change his purpose. "Oh, nothing," he said.

His friend turned his head in some surprise, "Why, what was
yeh goin' t' say?"

"Oh, nothing," repeated the youth.

He resolved not to deal the little blow. It was sufficient that
the fact made him glad. It was not necessary to knock his friend
on the head with the misguided packet.

He had been possessed of much fear of his friend, for he saw how
easily questionings could make holes in his feelings. Lately, he
had assured himself that the altered comrade would not tantalize
him with a persistent curiousity, but he felt certain that
during the first period of leisure his friend would ask him to
relate his adventures of the previous day.

He now rejoiced in the possession of a small weapon with which he
could prostrate his comrade at the first signs of a cross-examination.
He was master. It would now be he who could laugh and shoot the
shafts of derision.

The friend had, in a weak hour, spoken with sobs of his own death.
He had delivered a melancholy oration previous to his funeral,
and had doubtless in the packet of letters, presented various
keepsakes to relatives. But he had not died, and thus he had
delivered himself into the hands of the youth.

The latter felt immensely superior to his friend, but he inclined
to condescension. He adopted toward him an air of patronizing good humor.

His self-pride was now entirely restored. In the shade of its
flourishing growth he stood with braced and self-confident legs,
and since nothing could now be discovered he did not shrink from
an encounter with the eyes of judges, and allowed no thoughts
of his own to keep him from an attitude of manfulness. He had
performed his mistakes in the dark, so he was still a man.

Indeed, when he remembered his fortunes of yesterday, and looked
at them from a distance he began to see something fine there.
He had license to be pompous and veteranlike.

His panting agonies of the past he put out of his sight.

In the present, he declared to himself that it was only the
doomed and the damned who roared with sincerity at circumstance.
Few but they ever did it. A man with a full stomach and the
respect of his fellows had no business to scold about anything
that he might think to be wrong in the ways of the universe,
or even with the ways of society. Let the unfortunates rail;
the others may play marbles.

He did not give a great deal of thought to these battles that lay
directly before him. It was not essential that he should plan
his ways in regard to them. He had been taught that many
obligations of a life were easily avoided. The lessons of
yesterday had been that retribution was a laggard and blind.
With these facts before him he did not deem it necessary that
he should become feverish over the possibilities of the ensuing
twenty-four hours. He could leave much to chance. Besides,
a faith in himself had secretly blossomed. There was a little
flower of confidence growing within him. He was now a man of
experience. He had been out among the dragons, he said,
and he assured himself that they were not so hideous as he had
imagined them. Also, they were inaccurate; they did not sting
with precision. A stout heart often defied, and defying, escaped.

And, furthermore, how could they kill him who was the chosen of
gods and doomed to greatness?

He remembered how some of the men had run from the battle.
As he recalled their terror-struck faces he felt a scorn for them.
They had surely been more fleet and more wild than was
absolutely necessary. They were weak mortals. As for himself,
he had fled with discretion and dignity.

He was aroused from this reverie by his friend, who, having
hitched about nervously and blinked at the trees for a time,
suddenly coughed in an introductory way, and spoke.

"Fleming!"

"What?"

The friend put his hand up to his mouth and coughed again.
He fidgeted in his jacket.

"Well," he gulped at last, "I guess yeh might as well give me
back them letters." Dark, prickling blood had flushed into his
cheeks and brow.

"All right, Wilson," said the youth. He loosened two buttons
of his coat, thrust in his hand, and brought forth the packet.
As he extended it to his friend the latter's face was turned from him.

He had been slow in the act of producing the packet because
during it he had been trying to invent a remarkable comment on
the affair. He could conjure up nothing of sufficient point.
He was compelled to allow his friend to escape unmolested with
his packet. And for this he took unto himself considerable credit.
It was a generous thing.

His friend at his side seemed suffering great shame. As he
contemplated him, the youth felt his heart grow more strong
and stout. He had never been compelled to blush in such manner
for his acts; he was an individual of extraordinary virtues.

He reflected, with condescending pity: "Too bad! Too bad!
The poor devil, it makes him feel tough!"

After this incident, and as he reviewed the battle pictures he
had seen, he felt quite competent to return home and make the
hearts of the people glow with stories of war. He could see
himself in a room of warm tints telling tales to listener.
He could exhibit laurels. They were insignificant; still,
in a district where laurels were infrequent, they might shine.

He saw his gaping audience picturing him as the central figure
in blazing scenes. And he imagined the consternation and the
ejaculations of his mother and the young lady at the seminary
as they drank his recitals. Their vague feminine formula for
beloved ones doing brave deeds on the field of battle without
risk of life would be destroyed.

Chapter 16

A sputtering of musketry was always to be heard. Later, the
cannon had entered the dispute. In the fog-filled air their
voices made a thudding sound. The reverberations were continual.
This part of the world led a strange, battleful existence.

The youth's regiment was marched to relieve a command that had
lain long in some damp trenches. The men took positions behind a
curving line of rifle pits that had been turned up, like a large
furrow, along the line of woods. Before them was a level stretch,
peopled with short, deformed stumps. From the woods beyond came
the dull popping of the skirmishers and pickets, firing in the fog.
From the right came the noise of a terrific fracas.

The men cuddled behind the small embankment and sat in easy attitudes
awaiting their turn. Many had their backs to the firing. The youth's
friend lay down, buried his face in his arms, and almost instantly,
it seemed, he was in a deep sleep.

The youth leaned his breast against the brown dirt and peered
over at the woods and up and down the line. Curtains of trees
interfered with his ways of vision. He could see the low line of
trenches but for a short distance. A few idle flags were perched
on the dirt hills. Behind them were rows of dark bodies with a
few heads sticking curiously over the top.

Always the noise of skirmishers came from the woods on the
front and left, and the din on the right had grown to
frightful proportions. The guns were roaring without an
instant's pause for breath. It seemed that the cannon had
come from all parts and were engaged in a stupendous wrangle.
It became impossible to make a sentence heard.

The youth wished to launch a joke--a quotation from newspapers.
He desired to say, "All quiet on the Rappahannock," but the guns
refused to permit even a comment upon their uproar. He never
successfully concluded the sentence. But at last the guns
stopped, and among the men in the rifle pits rumors again flew,
like birds, but they were now for the most part black creatures
who flapped their wings drearily near to the ground and refused
to rise on any wings of hope. The men's faces grew doleful from
the interpreting of omens. Tales of hesitation and uncertainty
on the part of those high in place and responsibility came to
their ears. Stories of disaster were borne into their minds with
many proofs. This din of musketry on the right, growing like a
released genie of sound, expressed and emphasized the army's plight.

The men were disheartened and began to mutter. They made
gestures expressive of the sentence: "Ah, what more can we do?"
And it could always be seen that they were bewildered by the
alleged news and could not fully comprehend a defeat.

Before the gray mists had been totally obliterated by the sun
rays, the regiment was marching in a spread column that was
retiring carefully through the woods. The disordered, hurrying
lines of the enemy could sometimes be seen down through the groves
and little fields. They were yelling, shrill and exultant.

At this sight the youth forgot many personal matters and became
greatly enraged. He exploded in loud sentences. "B'jiminey,
we're generaled by a lot 'a lunkheads."

"More than one feller has said that t'-day," observed a man.

His friend, recently aroused, was still very drowsy. He looked
behind him until his mind took in the meaning of the movement.
Then he sighed. "Oh, well, I s'pose we got licked," he remarked sadly.

The youth had a thought that it would not be handsome for him to
freely condemn other men. He made an attempt to restrain himself,
but the words upon his tongue were too bitter. He presently began
a long and intricate denunciation of the commander of the forces.

"Mebbe, it wa'n't all his fault--not all together. He did th' best
he knowed. It's our luck t' git licked often," said his friend
in a weary tone. He was trudging along with stooped shoulders
and shifting eyes like a man who has been caned and kicked.

"Well, don't we fight like the devil? Don't we do all that men can?"
demanded the youth loudly.

He was secretly dumfounded at this sentiment when it came from
his lips. For a moment his face lost its valor and he looked
guiltily about him. But no one questioned his right to deal
in such words, and presently he recovered his air of courage.
He went on to repeat a statement he had heard going from group
to group at the camp that morning. "The brigadier said he never
saw a new reg'ment fight the way we fought yestirday, didn't he?
And we didn't do better than many another reg'ment, did we?
Well, then, you can't say it's th' army's fault, can you?"

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