The Red Badge of Courage
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the December 31, 2001. >> The Red Badge of Courage
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In his reply, the friend's voice was stern. "'A course not,"
he said. "No man dare say we don't fight like th' devil.
No man will ever dare say it. Th' boys fight like hell-roosters.
But still--still, we don't have no luck."
"Well, then, if we fight like the devil an' don't ever whip, it
must be the general's fault," said the youth grandly and decisively.
"And I don't see any sense in fighting and fighting and fighting,
yet always losing through some derned old lunkhead of a general."
A sarcastic man who was tramping at the youth's side, then
spoke lazily. "Mebbe yeh think yeh fit th' hull battle yestirday,
Fleming," he remarked.
The speech pierced the youth. Inwardly he was reduced to an
abject pulp by these chance words. His legs quaked privately.
He cast a frightened glance at the sarcastic man.
"Why, no," he hastened to say in a conciliating voice
"I don't think I fought the whole battle yesterday."
But the other seemed innocent of any deeper meaning. Apparently,
he had no information. It was merely his habit. "Oh!" he replied
in the same tone of calm derision.
The youth, nevertheless, felt a threat. His mind shrank
from going near to the danger, and thereafter he was silent.
The significance of the sarcastic man's words took from
him all loud moods that would make him appear prominent.
He became suddenly a modest person.
There was low-toned talk among the troops. The officers were
impatient and snappy, their countenances clouded with the tales
of misfortune. The troops, sifting through the forest, were sullen.
In the youth's company once a man's laugh rang out. A dozen soldiers
turned their faces quickly toward him and frowned with vague displeasure.
The noise of firing dogged their footsteps. Sometimes, it seemed to be
driven a little way, but it always returned again with increased insolence.
The men muttered and cursed, throwing black looks in its direction.
In a clear space the troops were at last halted. Regiments and brigades,
broken and detached through their encounters with thickets, grew together
again and lines were faced toward the pursuing bark of the enemy's infantry.
This noise, following like the yelpings of eager, metallic hounds,
increased to a loud and joyous burst, and then, as the sun
went serenely up the sky, throwing illuminating rays into
the gloomy thickets, it broke forth into prolonged pealings.
The woods began to crackle as if afire.
"Whoop-a-dadee," said a man, "here we are! Everybody fightin'.
Blood an' destruction."
"I was willin' t' bet they'd attack as soon as th' sun got fairly up,"
savagely asserted the lieutenant who commanded the youth's company.
He jerked without mercy at his little mustache. He strode to and fro
with dark dignity in the rear of his men, who were lying down behind
whatever protection they had collected.
A battery had trundled into position in the rear and was thoughtfully
shelling the distance. The regiment, unmolested as yet, awaited the
moment when the gray shadows of the woods before them should be
slashed by the lines of flame. There was much growling and swearing.
"Good Gawd," the youth grumbled, "we're always being chased
around like rats! It makes me sick. Nobody seems to know where
we go or why we go. We just get fired around from pillar to post
and get licked here and get licked there, and nobody knows what
it's done for. It makes a man feel like a damn' kitten in a bag.
Now, I'd like to know what the eternal thunders we was marched
into these woods for anyhow, unless it was to give the rebs a
regular pot shot at us. We came in here and got our legs all
tangled up in these cussed briers, and then we begin to fight and
the rebs had an easy time of it. Don't tell me it's just luck!
I know better. It's this derned old--"
The friend seemed jaded, but he interrupted his comrade with a
voice of calm confidence. "It'll turn out all right in th' end,"
he said.
"Oh, the devil it will! You always talk like a dog-hanged parson.
Don't tell me! I know--"
At this time there was an interposition by the savage-minded lieutenant,
who was obliged to vent some of his inward dissatisfaction upon his men.
"You boys shut right up! There no need 'a your wastin' your breath in
long-winded arguments about this an' that an' th' other. You've been
jawin' like a lot 'a old hens. All you've got t' do is to fight,
an' you'll get plenty 'a that t' do in about ten minutes. Less talkin'
an' more fightin' is what's best for you boys. I never saw sech
gabbling jackasses."
He paused, ready to pounce upon any man who might have the temerity
to reply. No words being said, he resumed his dignified pacing.
"There's too much chin music an' too little fightin' in this war,
anyhow," he said to them, turning his head for a final remark.
The day had grown more white, until the sun shed his full
radiance upon the thronged forest. A sort of a gust of battle
came sweeping toward that part of the line where lay the youth's
regiment. The front shifted a trifle to meet it squarely.
There was a wait. In this part of the field there passed slowly
the intense moments that precede the tempest.
A single rifle flashed in a thicket before the regiment. In an
instant it was joined by many others. There was a mighty song
of clashes and crashes that went sweeping through the woods.
The guns in the rear, aroused and enraged by shells that had been
thrown burr-like at them, suddenly involved themselves in a hideous
altercation with another band of guns. The battle roar settled
to a rolling thunder, which was a single, long explosion.
In the regiment there was a peculiar kind of hesitation denoted in the
attitudes of the men. They were worn, exhausted, having slept but
little and labored much. They rolled their eyes toward the advancing
battle as they stood awaiting the shock. Some shrank and flinched.
They stood as men tied to stakes.
Chapter 17
This advance of the enemy had seemed to the youth like a
ruthless hunting. He began to fume with rage and exasperation.
He beat his foot upon the ground, and scowled with hate at
the swirling smoke that was approaching like a phantom flood.
There was a maddening quality in this seeming resolution of the
foe to give him no rest, to give him no time to sit down and think.
Yesterday he had fought and had fled rapidly. There had been many
adventures. For to-day he felt that he had earned opportunities
for contemplative repose. He could have enjoyed portraying to
uninitiated listeners various scenes at which he had been a witness
or ably discussing the processes of war with other proved men.
Too it was important that he should have time for physical recuperation.
He was sore and stiff from his experiences. He had received his fill of
all exertions, and he wished to rest.
But those other men seemed never to grow weary; they were fighting
with their old speed. He had a wild hate for the relentless foe.
Yesterday, when he had imagined the universe to be against him,
he had hated it, little gods and big gods; to-day he hated the
army of the foe with the same great hatred. He was not going
to be badgered of his life, like a kitten chased by boys, he said.
It was not well to drive men into final corners; at those moments
they could all develop teeth and claws.
He leaned and spoke into his friend's ear. He menaced the woods
with a gesture. "If they keep on chasing us, by Gawd, they'd better
watch out. Can't stand TOO much."
The friend twisted his head and made a calm reply. "If they keep
on a-chasin' us they'll drive us all inteh th' river."
The youth cried out savagely at this statement. He crouched
behind a little tree, with his eyes burning hatefully and his
teeth set in a curlike snarl. The awkward bandage was still
about his head, and upon it, over his wound, there was a spot of
dry blood. His hair was wondrously tousled, and some straggling,
moving locks hung over the cloth of the bandage down toward his
forehead. His jacket and shirt were open at the throat, and
exposed his young bronzed neck. There could be seen spasmodic
gulpings at his throat.
His fingers twined nervously about his rifle. He wished that it
was an engine of annihilating power. He felt that he and his
companions were being taunted and derided from sincere
convictions that they were poor and puny. His knowledge of his
inability to take vengeance for it made his rage into a dark and
stormy specter, that possessed him and made him dream of
abominable cruelties. The tormentors were flies sucking
insolently at his blood, and he thought that he would have given
his life for a revenge of seeing their faces in pitiful plights.
The winds of battle had swept all about the regiment, until the
one rifle, instantly followed by others, flashed in its front.
A moment later the regiment roared forth its sudden and valiant
retort. A dense wall of smoke settled down. It was furiously
slit and slashed by the knifelike fire from the rifles.
To the youth the fighters resembled animals tossed for a death
struggle into a dark pit. There was a sensation that he and
his fellows, at bay, were pushing back, always pushing fierce
onslaughts of creatures who were slippery. Their beams of crimson
seemed to get no purchase upon the bodies of their foes;
the latter seemed to evade them with ease, and come through,
between, around, and about with unopposed skill.
When, in a dream, it occurred to the youth that his rifle was
an impotent stick, he lost sense of everything but his hate,
his desire to smash into pulp the glittering smile of victory
which he could feel upon the faces of his enemies.
The blue smoke-swallowed line curled and writhed like a snake stepped upon.
It swung its ends to and fro in an agony of fear and rage.
The youth was not conscious that he was erect upon his feet.
He did not know the direction of the ground. Indeed, once he
even lost the habit of balance and fell heavily. He was up again
immediately. One thought went through the chaos of his brain at
the time. He wondered if he had fallen because he had been shot.
But the suspicion flew away at once. He did not think more of it.
He had taken up a first position behind the little tree, with a
direct determination to hold it against the world. He had not
deemed it possible that his army could that day succeed, and
from this he felt the ability to fight harder. But the throng
had surged in all ways, until he lost directions and locations,
save that he knew where lay the enemy.
The flames bit him, and the hot smoke broiled his skin. His rifle
barrel grew so hot that ordinarily he could not have borne
it upon his palms; but he kept on stuffing cartridges into it,
and pounding them with his clanking, bending ramrod. If he aimed
at some changing form through the smoke, he pulled the trigger
with a fierce grunt, as if he were dealing a blow of the fist
with all his strength.
When the enemy seemed falling back before him and his fellows, he
went instantly forward, like a dog who, seeing his foes lagging,
turns and insists upon being pursued. And when he was compelled
to retire again, he did it slowly, sullenly, taking steps of
wrathful despair.
Once he, in his intent hate, was almost alone, and was firing,
when all those near him had ceased. He was so engrossed in his
occupation that he was not aware of a lull.
He was recalled by a hoarse laugh and a sentence that came to his
ears in a voice of contempt and amazement. "Yeh infernal fool,
don't yeh know enough t' quit when there ain't anything t' shoot at?
Good Gawd!"
He turned then and, pausing with his rifle thrown half into
position, looked at the blue line of his comrades. During this
moment of leisure they seemed all to be engaged in staring with
astonishment at him. They had become spectators. Turning to the
front again he saw, under the lifted smoke, a deserted ground.
He looked bewildered for a moment. Then there appeared upon the
glazed vacancy of his eyes a diamond point of intelligence.
"Oh," he said, comprehending.
He returned to his comrades and threw himself upon the ground.
He sprawled like a man who had been thrashed. His flesh seemed
strangely on fire, and the sounds of the battle continued in his ears.
He groped blindly for his canteen.
The lieutenant was crowing. He seemed drunk with fighting. He called
out to the youth: "By heavens, if I had ten thousand wild cats
like you I could tear th' stomach outa this war in less'n a week!"
He puffed out his chest with large dignity as he said it.
Some of the men muttered and looked at the youth in awestruck ways.
It was plain that as he had gone on loading and firing and cursing
without proper intermission, they had found time to regard him.
And they now looked upon him as a war devil.
The friend came staggering to him. There was some fright and dismay
in his voice. "Are yeh all right, Fleming? Do yeh feel all right?
There ain't nothin' th' matter with yeh, Henry, is there?"
"No," said the youth with difficulty. His throat seemed full of
knobs and burrs.
These incidents made the youth ponder. It was revealed to him
that he had been a barbarian, a beast. He had fought like a
pagan who defends his religion. Regarding it, he saw that it was
fine, wild, and, in some ways, easy. He had been a tremendous
figure, no doubt. By this struggle he had overcome obstacles
which he had admitted to be mountains. They had fallen like
paper peaks, and he was now what he called a hero. And he had
not been aware of the process. He had slept, and, awakening,
found himself a knight.
He lay and basked in the occasional stares of his comrades.
Their faces were varied in degrees of blackness from the
burned powder. Some were utterly smudged. They were reeking
with perspiration, and their breaths came hard and wheezing.
And from these soiled expanses they peered at him.
"Hot work! Hot work!" cried the lieutenant deliriously.
He walked up and down, restless and eager. Sometimes his
voice could be heard in a wild, incomprehensible laugh.
When he had a particularly profound thought upon the science of
war he always unconsciously addressed himself to the youth.
There was some grim rejoicing by the men. "By thunder,
I bet this army'll never see another new reg'ment like us!"
"You bet!"
"A dog, a woman, an' a walnut tree
Th' more yeh beat 'em, th' better they be!
That's like us."
"Lost a piler men, they did. If an ol' woman swep' up th' woods
she'd git a dustpanful."
"Yes, an' if she'll come around ag'in in 'bout an hour she'll get
a pile more."
The forest still bore its burden of clamor. From off under the
trees came the rolling clatter of the musketry. Each distant
thicket seemed a strange porcupine with quills of flame. A cloud
of dark smoke, as from smoldering ruins, went up toward the sun
now bright and gay in the blue, enameled sky.
Chapter 18
The ragged line had respite for some minutes, but during its
pause the struggle in the forest became magnified until the
trees seemed to quiver from the firing and the ground to shake
from the rushing of men. The voices of the cannon were mingled
in a long and interminable row. It seemed difficult to live in
such an atmosphere. The chests of the men strained for a bit
of freshness, and their throats craved water.
There was one shot through the body, who raised a cry of bitter
lamentation when came this lull. Perhaps he had been calling out
during the fighting also, but at that time no one had heard him.
But now the men turned at the woeful complaints of him upon the ground.
"Who is it? Who is it?"
"Its Jimmie Rogers. Jimmie Rogers."
When their eyes first encountered him there was a sudden halt,
as if they feared to go near. He was thrashing about in the grass,
twisting his shuddering body into many strange postures. He was
screaming loudly. This instant's hesitation seemed to fill him
with a tremendous, fantastic contempt, and he damned them in
shrieked sentences.
The youth's friend had a geographical illusion concerning a stream,
and he obtained permission to go for some water. Immediately canteens
were showered upon him. "Fill mine, will yeh?" "Bring me some, too."
"And me, too." He departed, ladened. The youth went with his friend,
feeling a desire to throw his heated body into the stream and,
soaking there, drink quarts.
They made a hurried search for the supposed stream, but did not find it.
"No water here," said the youth. They turned without delay and began
to retrace their steps.
From their position as they again faced toward the place of the fighting,
they could of comprehend a greater amount of the battle than when their
visions had been blurred by the hurling smoke of the line. They could see
dark stretches winding along the land, and on one cleared space there was
a row of guns making gray clouds, which were filled with large flashes of
orange-colored flame. Over some foliage they could see the roof of a house.
One window, glowing a deep murder red, shone squarely through the leaves.
From the edifice a tall leaning tower of smoke went far into the sky.
Looking over their own troops, they saw mixed masses slowly getting
into regular form. The sunlight made twinkling points of the
bright steel. To the rear there was a glimpse of a distant
roadway as it curved over a slope. It was crowded with
retreating infantry. From all the interwoven forest arose the smoke
and bluster of the battle. The air was always occupied by a blaring.
Near where they stood shells were flip-flapping and hooting.
Occasional bullets buzzed in the air and spanged into tree trunks.
Wounded men and other stragglers were slinking through the woods.
Looking down an aisle of the grove, the youth and his companion
saw a jangling general and his staff almost ride upon a wounded man,
who was crawling on his hands and knees. The general reined
strongly at his charger's opened and foamy mouth and guided it
with dexterous horsemanship past the man. The latter scrambled
in wild and torturing haste. His strength evidently failed him
as he reached a place of safety. One of his arms suddenly
weakened, and he fell, sliding over upon his back. He lay
stretched out, breathing gently.
A moment later the small, creaking cavalcade was directly in
front of the two soldiers. Another officer, riding with the
skillful abandon of a cowboy, galloped his horse to a position
directly before the general. The two unnoticed foot soldiers
made a little show of going on, but they lingered near in the
desire to overhear the conversation. Perhaps, they thought,
some great inner historical things would be said.
The general, whom the boys knew as the commander of their division,
looked at the other officer and spoke coolly, as if he were
criticising his clothes. "Th' enemy's formin' over there
for another charge," he said. "It'll be directed against
Whiterside, an' I fear they'll break through unless we work
like thunder t' stop them."
The other swore at his restive horse, and then cleared his throat.
He made a gesture toward his cap. "It'll be hell t' pay stoppin' them,"
he said shortly.
"I presume so," remarked the general. Then he began to talk
rapidly and in a lower tone. He frequently illustrated his words
with a pointing finger. The two infantrymen could hear nothing
until finally he asked: "What troops can you spare?"
The officer who rode like a cowboy reflected for an instant.
"Well," he said, "I had to order in th' 12th to help th' 76th,
an' I haven't really got any. But there's th' 304th. They fight
like a lot 'a mule drivers. I can spare them best of any."
The youth and his friend exchanged glances of astonishment.
The general spoke sharply. "Get 'em ready, then. I'll watch
developments from here, an' send you word when t' start them.
It'll happen in five minutes."
As the other officer tossed his fingers toward his cap and
wheeling his horse, started away, the general called out to him
in a sober voice: "I don't believe many of your mule drivers
will get back."
The other shouted something in reply. He smiled.
With scared faces, the youth and his companion hurried back to the line.
These happenings had occupied an incredibly short time, yet the
youth felt that in them he had been made aged. New eyes were
given to him. And the most startling thing was to learn suddenly
that he was very insignificant. The officer spoke of the
regiment as if he referred to a broom. Some part of the woods
needed sweeping, perhaps, and he merely indicated a broom in a
tone properly indifferent to its fate. It was war, no doubt,
but it appeared strange.
As the two boys approached the line, the lieutenant perceived
them and swelled with wrath. "Fleming--Wilson--how long does
it take yeh to git water, anyhow--where yeh been to."
But his oration ceased as he saw their eyes, which were large
with great tales. "We're goin' t' charge--we're goin' t' charge!"
cried the youth's friend, hastening with his news.
"Charge?" said the lieutenant. "Charge? Well, b'Gawd! Now, this
is real fightin'." Over his soiled countenance there went a
boastful smile. "Charge? Well, b'Gawd!"
A little group of soldiers surrounded the two youths. "Are we,
sure 'nough? Well, I'll be derned! Charge? What fer? What at?
Wilson, you're lyin'."
"I hope to die," said the youth, pitching his tones to the key of
angry remonstrance. "Sure as shooting, I tell you."
And his friend spoke in re-enforcement. "Not by a blame sight,
he ain't lyin'. We heard 'em talkin'."
They caught sight of two mounted figures a short distance from them.
One was the colonel of the regiment and the other was the officer
who had received orders from the commander of the division.
They were gesticulating at each other. The soldier, pointing at them,
interpreted the scene.
One man had a final objection: "How could yeh hear 'em talkin'?"
But the men, for a large part, nodded, admitting that previously
the two friends had spoken truth.
They settled back into reposeful attitudes with airs of having
accepted the matter. And they mused upon it, with a hundred
varieties of expression. It was an engrossing thing to think about.
Many tightened their belts carefully and hitched at their trousers.
A moment later the officers began to bustle among the men,
pushing them into a more compact mass and into a better
alignment. They chased those that straggled and fumed at a few
men who seemed to show by their attitudes that they had decided
to remain at that spot. They were like critical shepherds,
struggling with sheep.
Presently, the regiment seemed to draw itself up and heave a deep breath.
None of the men's faces were mirrors of large thoughts. The soldiers
were bended and stooped like sprinters before a signal. Many pairs of
glinting eyes peered from the grimy faces toward the curtains of the
deeper woods. They seemed to be engaged in deep calculations of
time and distance.
They were surrounded by the noises of the monstrous altercation between
the two armies. The world was fully interested in other matters.
Apparently, the regiment had its small affair to itself.
The youth, turning, shot a quick, inquiring glance at his friend.
The latter returned to him the same manner of look. They were
the only ones who possessed an inner knowledge. "Mule drivers--
hell t' pay--don't believe many will get back." It was an
ironical secret. Still, they saw no hesitation in each
other's faces, and they nodded a mute and unprotesting assent when a
shaggy man near them said in a meek voice: "We'll git swallowed."
Chapter 19
The youth stared at the land in front of him. Its foliages now
seemed to veil powers and horrors. He was unaware of the
machinery of orders that started the charge, although from the
corners of his eyes he saw an officer, who looked like a boy
a-horseback, come galloping, waving his hat. Suddenly he felt
a straining and heaving among the men. The line fell slowly
forward like a toppling wall, and, with a convulsive gasp that
was intended for a cheer, the regiment began its journey.
The youth was pushed and jostled for a moment before he understood
the movement at all, but directly he lunged ahead and began to run.
He fixed his eye upon a distant and prominent clump of trees
where he had concluded the enemy were to be met, and he ran
toward it as toward a goal. He had believed throughout that it
was a mere question of getting over an unpleasant matter as quickly
as possible, and he ran desperately, as if pursued for a murder.
His face was drawn hard and tight with the stress of his endeavor.
His eyes were fixed in a lurid glare. And with his soiled and
disordered dress, his red and inflamed features surmounted by the
dingy rag with its spot of blood, his wildly swinging rifle,
and banging accouterments, he looked to be an insane soldier.
As the regiment swung from its position out into a cleared space the
woods and thickets before it awakened. Yellow flames leaped toward
it from many directions. The forest made a tremendous objection.
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