 Chapter 20 When the two youths turned with the flag, they saw that much of the regiment had crumbled away, and the dejected remnant was coming slowly back. The men, having hurled themselves in projectile fashion, had presently expended their forces. They slowly retreated, with their faces still toward the spluttering woods, and their hot rifles still replying to the din. Several officers were giving orders, their voices keyed to screams. Where the hell are you going? Lieutenant was asking in a sarcastic howl, and a red-bittered officer whose voice of triple brass could plainly be heard, was commanding, Shoot into him! Shoot into him! God damn their souls! There was a melee of screeches in which the men were ordered to do conflicting and impossible things. The youth and his friend had a small scuffle over the flag. Give it to me! No, let me keep it. Each felt satisfied with the others' possession of it, but each felt bound to declare by an offer to carry the emblem, his willingness to further risk himself. The youth roughly pushed his friend away. The regiment fell back to the stalled trees. They had halted for a moment, to blaze at some dark forms that had begun to steal upon its track. Finally it resumed its march again. Turbing among the tree-trunks, by the time the depleted regiment had again reached the first open space, they were receiving a fast and merciless fire. There seemed to be mobs all about them. The greater part of the men discouraged their spirits worn by the turmoil, acted as if stunned. They accepted the pelting of the bullets with bowed and weary heads. It was of no purpose to strive against walls. It was of no use to batter themselves against granite. And from this consciousness that they had attempted to conquer an uncockable thing, there seemed to arise a feeling that they had been betrayed. They glowered and bent brows, but dangerously, upon some of the officers, more particularly upon the red-bearded one, with the voice of triple brass. However, the rear of the regiment was fringed with men who continued to shoot at the advancing foes. They seemed resolved to make every trouble. The youthful lieutenant was perhaps the last man in the disordered mass. His forgotten back was toward the enemy. He had been shot in the arm. It hung straight and rigid. Occasionally he would cease to remember it and be about to emphasize an oath with a sweeping gesture. The multiplied pain caused him to swear with incredible power. The youth went along with slipping uncertain feet. He kept watchful eyes, rearward. A scowl of mortification and rage was upon his face. He had thought of a fine revenge upon the officer who had referred to him and his fellows as mule-drivers. But he saw that it could not come to pass. His dreams had collapsed when the mule-drivers, dwindling rapidly, had wavered and hesitated on the little clearing, and then had recoiled. And now the retreat of the mule-drivers was a march of shame to him. A dagger pointed gaze from without his blacken face was held toward the enemy. But his greater hatred was riveted upon the man who, not knowing him, had called him a mule-driver. When he knew that he and his comrades had failed to do anything in successful ways that might bring the little pangs of a kind of remorse upon the officer, the youth allowed the rage of the baffled to possess him. This cold officer, upon a monument who dropped epitathons considerably down, would be finer as a dead man, he thought. So grievous did he think it that he could never possess the secret right to taunt truly in answer. He had pictured red letters of curious revenge. We are mule-drivers, are we? And how he was compelled to throw them away. He presently wrapped his heart in the cloak of his pride and kept the flag erect. He harangued his fellows pushing against their chest with his free hand. To those he knew well, he made frantic appeals, beseeching them by name. Between him, the lieutenants golding, and near to losing his mind with rage, there was felt a subtle fellowship and equality. They supported each other in all manners of horse-howling protests. But the regiment was a machine rundown. The two men babbled at a forceless thing. The soldiers, who had heart to go slowly, were continually shaken in the resolves by a knowledge that comrades were slipping with speed back to the lines. It was difficult to think of reputation when others were thinking of skins. Wounded men were left crying on this black journey. The smoke fringes and flames blustered always. The youth peering once through a sudden rift in a cloud saw a brown mass of troops interwoven and magnified until they appeared to be thousands. A fierce, huge flag flashed before his vision. Immediately, as if the uplifting of the smoke had been pre-arranged, the discovered troops burst into a rasping yell and a hundred flames jetted toward the retreating band. A rolling gray cloud again interposed as the regiment doggedly replied. The youth had to depend again upon his misused ears, which were trembling and buzzing from the melee of musketry and yells. The way seemed eternal. In the clouded haze, men became panic-stricken with the thought that the regiment had lost its path and was proceeding in a perilous direction. Once the men, who headed the wild procession, turned and came pushing back against their comrades, screaming that they were being fired upon from points which they had considered to be toward their own lines, at this cry a hysterical fear and dismay beset the troops. A soldier who, heretofore, had been ambitious to make the regiment into a wise little band that would proceed calmly amid the huge appearing difficulties, suddenly sank down and buried his face in his arms with an air of bowing to a doom. From another a shrill lamination rang out filled with profane illusions to a general. Men ran hither and thither, seeking with their eyes roads of escape, with serene regularity as if controlled by a schedule, bullets buffed into men. The youth walked stolidly into the midst of the mob, and with his flag in his hands took a stand as if he expected an attempt to push him to the ground. He unconsciously assumed the attitude of the colour-bearer in the fight of the preceding day. He passed over his brow a hand that trembled. His breath did not come freely. He was choking during this small wait for the crisis. His friend came to him. Well, Henry, I guess this is good-bye. John. Oh, shut up, you damn fool! replied the youth, and he would not look at the other. The officers laboured like politicians to beat the mass into a proper circle to face the memnuses. The ground was uneven and torn. The men curled into depressions and fitted themselves snugly behind whatever would frustrate a bullet. The youth noted with vague surprise that the lieutenant was standing mutely with his legs far apart, and his sword held in the manner of a cane. The youth wondered what had happened to his vocal organs, that he no more cursed. There was something curious in this little intent pause of the lieutenant. He was like a babe which, having wept its fill, raises its eyes and fixes them upon a distant toy. He was engrossed in this contemplation and the soft upper lip quivered from self-whispered words. Some lazy and ignorant smoke curled slowly. The men hiding from the bloods waited anxiously for it to lift and to disclose the plight of the regiment. The silent ranks were suddenly thrilled by the eager voice of the youthful lieutenant, falling out, Here they come! Right onto us! My God! His further words were lost in a roar of wicked thunder from the men's rifles. The youth's eyes had instantly turned in the direction indicated by the awkward and agitated lieutenant, and he had seen the haze of treachery disclosing a body of soldiers of the enemy. They were so near that he could see their features. There was a recognition as he looked at the types of faces. Also he perceived with dim amazement that their uniforms were rather gray in effect, being light gray, accented with a brilliant hued facing. Moreover, the clothes theme knew. These troops had apparently been going forward with caution. The rifles held in readiness. When the youthful lieutenant had discovered them and their movement had been interrupted by the volley from their blue regiment. From the moment's glimpse it was derived that they had been unaware of the proximity of their dark-suited foes and had mistaken the direction. Almost instantly they were shut utterly from the youth site by the smoke from the energetic rifles of his companions. He strained his vision to learn the accomplishment of the volley, but the smoke hung before him. The two bodies of troops exchanged blows in the manner of a pair of boxers. The fast angry firings went back and forth. The men in blue were intent with the despair of their circumstances and they seized upon the revenge to be had at close range. Their thunder swelled loud and valiant. Their curving front bristled with flashes and the place resounded with the clanger of the ramrods. The youth ducked and dodged for a time and achieved a few unsatisfactory views of the enemy. There appeared to be many of them and they were replying swiftly. They seemed moving toward the blue regiment, step by step. He seated himself gloomily on the ground with his flank between his knees. As he noted the vicious, wolf-like temper of his comrades, he had a sweet thought that if the enemy was about to swallow the regimental broom as a large prisoner, it could at least have the consolation of going down with the bristles forward. But the blows of the antagonist began to grow more weak. Fewer bullets ripped the air. And finally, when the men slackened to learn of the fight, they could see only dark floating smoke. The regiment lay still engaged. Presently some chance whim came to the pestering blur, and it began to coil heavily away. The men saw a round vacant fighters. It would have been an empty stage if it were not for a few corpses that lay thrown and twisted into fantastic shapes upon this ward. At sight of this tableau, many of the men in blue sprang from behind their covers and made an ungainly dance of joy. Their eyes burnt, and a hoarse cheer of revelation broke from their dry lips. It had begun to seem to them that events were trying to prove that they were impotent. These little battles have evidently endeavored to and demonstrate that the men could not fight well. When on the verge of submission to these opinions, the small duel had showed them that the proportions were not impossible, and by it they had revenged themselves upon their misgivings and upon the foe. The impetus of enthusiasm was theirs again. They gazed about them with looks of uplifted pride, feeling new trust in the grim, always confident weapons in their hands. And they were men. CHAPTER XXI Presently they knew that no firing threatened them. Always seemed once more open to them. The dusty blue lines of their friends were disclosed a short distance away. In a distance there were many colossal noises, but in all this part of the field there was a sudden stillness. They perceived that they were free. The depleted band drew a long breath of relief and gathered itself into a bunch to complete its trip. In this last length of journey the men began to show strange emotions. They hurried with nervous fear. Some who had been dark and unfaltering in the grimest moments now could not conceal an anxiety that made them frantic. It was perhaps that they dreaded to be killed in insignificant ways after the times for proper military deaths had passed, or perhaps they thought it would be too ironical to get killed at the portals of safety, with backward looks of protrusion. They hastened. As they approached their own lines there was some sarcasm exhibited on the part of a gaunt and bronze regiment that lay resting in the shade of trees. Questions were waved to them. Where the hell you been? When didn't you stay there? Was it warm out there, sonny? Going home now, boys? One shouted in taunting mimicry. Oh, mother, come quick and look at the soldiers! There was no reply from the bruised and battered regiment, save that one man made broadcast challenges to fistfights and the red-bearded officer walk rather near and glared in great swashbuckler style at a tall captain in the other regiment. But the lieutenants suppressed the man who wished to fistfight, and the tall captain, flushing at the little fanfare of the red-bearded one, was obliged to look intently at some trees. The youth tender flesh was deeply stung by these remarks, from under his creased brows he glowered with hate at the mockers. He meditated upon a few revenges. Still many in the regiment hung their heads in criminal fashion. So then it came to pass that the men trudged with sudden heaviness, as if they bore upon their bended shoulders the coffin of their honor, and the youthful lieutenant, recollecting himself, began to mutter softly in black curses. They turned when they arrived at their old position to regard the ground over which they had charged. The youth in his contemplation was smitten with a large astonishment. He discovered that the distances as compared with the brilliant measureings of his mind were trivial and ridiculous. The stalled trees were much a-tick in place, seemed incredibly near. The time, too, now that he reflected, he saw to have been short. He wondered at the number of emotions and events that had been crowded into such little spaces. Elphin thoughts must have exaggerated and enlarged everything, he said. It seemed, then, that there was bitter justice in the speeches of the gaunt and bronzed veterans. He veiled a glance of disdain at his fellows who strewed the ground, choking with dust, red from perspiration, misty-eyed, dishevelled. They were gulping at their canteens, fierce to wring every might of water from them, and they polished after swollen and watery features with coat sleeves and bunches of grass. However, to the youth there was a considerable joy in music upon his performances during the charge. He had had very little time previously in which to appreciate himself, so that there was much satisfaction in quietly thinking of his actions. He recalled bits of color that in the fury had stamped themselves unawares upon his engaged senses. As the regiment lay heaving from its hot exertions, the officer who had named them as mule-drivers came galloping along the line. He had lost his cap. The tousled hair streamed wildly and his face was dark with dexation and wrath. His temper was displayed with more clearness by the way in which he managed his horse. He jerked and wretched savagely at the bridle, stopping the hard breathing animal with a furious pull near the kernel of the regiment. He immediately exploded in reproaches which came unbidden to the ears of the men. They were suddenly alert, being always curious about black words between officers. Thundermachancy! What an awful bull you made of this thing! began the officer. He attempted low tones, but his aid-dignation caused certain of the men to learn the sense of his words. What an awful mess you made, good Lord man! You stopped about a hundred feet this side of a very pretty success. If your men had gone a hundred feet further, you would have made a great charge, but as it is, what a lot of mud-diggers you've got anyway! The men listening with bated breath now turned their curious eyes upon the kernel. They had a regum of an interest in this affair. The kernel 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 wriggling in an ecstasy of excitement. But of a sudden the kernel's manner changed from that of a deacon to that of a Frenchman. He shrugged his shoulders. Well, gentlemen, we went as far as we could, he said calmly. As far as you could, did you by God, 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 witter side. How will you succeed it? Your own ears can tell you. He wheeled his horse and rode stiffly away. The kernel, 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 the boys didn't put up a good fight out there, he's a damn fool. Lieutenant, began the kernel severely, this is my own affair and I'll trouble you. The lieutenant made an obedient gesture. All right, Colonel, all right, he said. He sat down with an air of being content with himself. The news that the regiment had been reproached went along the line. For a time the men were bewildered by it. Good thunder, they ejaculated, staring at the vanishing form of the general. They conceived it to be a huge mistake. Presently, however, they began to believe that in truth their efforts had been called light. The youth could see this conviction weigh upon the entire regiment until the men were like cuffed and cursed animals, but with all 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 and played marbles. I never see such a man. The youth developed a tranquil philosophy for these moments of irritation. Oh, well, he rejoined. He probably didn't see nothing of it at all. And got mad at his blazes and concluded we were a lot of sheep, just because we didn't do what he wanted done. It's a pity Grandpa Henderson got killed yesterday. He didn't know 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 fighting for people when everything you do. No matter what, ain't done right. I have a notion to stay behind next time and let him take the old charge and go to the devil with it. The youth spoke soothingly to his comrade. Well, we both did good. I'd like to see the fool what it's say we both didn't do as good as we could. Of course we did, declared the friends doubly, and I'd break the fellers neck if he were as big as a church. But we're all right, anyhow, for I heard one fellow say that we two fit the best in the regiment, and they had a great argument about it. Another fellow, of course, he said to up and say it was a lie. He's seen all what was going on, and he never seen us from the beginning to the end. And a lot more struck in and says it wasn't a lie. We did fight like thunder, and they gave us quite a send-off. But this is one I can't stand. These ever-lastin' old soldiers titterin' and laughin', and then that general. He's crazy. The youth exclaimed with sudden exasperation. He'd lunk her head. Makes me mad. I wish he'd come along next time. We'd show him what. He ceased because several men had come hurrying up. Their faces expressed a bringing of great news. Oh, flam! You just oughta heard, cried one eagerly. Heard what? Said the youth. You just oughta heard, repeated the other. And he arranged himself to tell his tidings. The others made an excited circle. Oh, sir, the colonel met your lieutenant right by us. It was damnedest thing ever heard, and he says, he says. Mr. Hornbrook, he says. By the way, who was that lad that carried the flag, he says? There, Flemin, what do you think of that? Who was the lad that carried the flag, he says, and the lieutenant? He speaks up right away. That's Flemin. And he's a Jim Hickey. He said, right away. What? I say he did. A Jim Hickey. He says, those are his words. He did, too. I say he did. And you can tell this story better than I can. Go ahead and tell it. Well, then, keep your mouth shut. Lieutenant, he says, he's a Jim Hickey, and the colonel, he says, he is indeed a very good man. He kept the flag way to the front. I saw him. He's a good one, says the colonel. You bet, says the lieutenant. He and a filler name Wilson was up at the head of the charge and howlin' like Indians all the time, he says. Headin' to the charge all the time, he says. A filler name Wilson, he says. There, Wilson, my boy. Put that in her letter and send it home to your mother. A filler name Wilson, he says. And the colonel, he says. Where they indeed? My sakes, he says. At the head, at the regiment, he says. They were, says the lieutenant. My sakes, says the colonel. He says, well, well, well. He says, those two babies. They were, says the lieutenant. Well, well, says the colonel. They deserve it. Be major generals, he says. They deserve it. Be major generals. The youth and his friend had said, Well, you're lyin', Thompson. I'll go to blazes. He never said it. Oh, what a lyin', huh? But despite these youthful coughing and embarrassment, 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. 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 Mindaj and Duck at the long screeching of shells that were thrown in giant handfuls over them. He stood erect and tranquil, watching the attack begin against a part of the line that made a blue curve along the side of an adjacent hill. His vision being unwellested 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 attention 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 eerily out again with its fine formation and no wise 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 downed through the woods were forming for another attack in the perilous 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. Their chance 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 their 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 church-like, 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 sputtering sound had begun in the woods. It swelled with amazing speed to a profound clamor that involved the earth-end noises. The splitting clashes swept along the lines until an interminable roar was developed. To those in the midst of it it became a din, fitted to the universe. It was the whirring and thumping of gigantic machinery, complications among the smaller stars. The youth's ears were filled up. They were incapable of hearing more. On an incline over which a road wound, he saw wild and desperate rushes of men, perpetually backward and forward, in riotous surges. These parts of the opposing armies were too long waves that pitched upon each other. Madly at dictated points, too unfurl 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 hound-like 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. Dache was 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 burst 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 clang 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 flashing points of yellow and red. Wallowing in the fight they were in an astonishingly short time, re-smudged. They surpassed in stain and dirt all their previous appearances. Moving to and fro with strained exertion, jabbering the while, they were with their swaying bodies, black faces and glowing eyes, like strange and ugly friends, jiggling heavily in the smoke. The lieutenant returning from a tour after a bandage, produced from a hidden receptacle of his mind new and pretentious oaths suited to the emergency. Strings of expletives he swung lash-like over the backs of his men, and it was evident that his previous efforts had in no eyes 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, got 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 strange 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 bloods 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-clenched teeth shone from the dusky faces, many had surged toot and fro, floating upon a pale sea of smoke. Those behind the fence frequently shouted and yelped, in taunts and gib-like 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 an absolute revenge was to be achieved by his dead body lying torn and gluttering upon the field. This was to be a pregnant retaliation upon the officer who had said mule drivers, and later mud-diggers. For in all the wild grasping 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 sultry porch. The regiment bled extravagantly, grunting bundles of blue began to drop. The early sergeant of the youth company was shot through the cheeks. Its supports being injured his jaw hung far 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's thymes presently go rearward. His strength seemed in no wise impaired. He ran swiftly, casting wild glances for sucker. 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 frazzled, 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 XXIII The colonel came running along the back of the line. There were other officers following him. We must charge him! they shouted. We must charge him! They cried with resentful voices, as if anticipating 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 forces 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 onomous 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 forces in the movement of the regiment. A knowledge of its faded and jaded condition made the charge appear to be 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 suard and under a sapphire sky towards a fence, dimply 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 towards 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 strengths. His eyesight was shaken and dazed 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 catapult in effect. This dream made him run faster among his comrades who were giving vent to horse 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 abduate group that made no movement. They were settled firmly down behind posts and rails, a flag ruffled in fierce, waved over them and their rifles dinned fiercely. The blue whirl of men got very nearer until it seemed that in truth there would be a close and frightful scuffle. There was an express 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 and interchange of scathing insults. They in blue showed their teeth, their eyes shown all white. They launched themselves 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 the 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 derrings of blows could cease it. His own emblem, quivering and a flare, was wrinkling 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 leaping 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 virtually 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 disparate 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 scrambling blue man, howling cheers, leaped at defense. 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 leap and sprang at the flag as a panther at prey. He pulled at it and wretching it free swung up its red brilliancy with a mad cry of exultation, even as the color-bearer, gasping, lurched over in a final throw 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 potential 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 viewpoints. It seemed a great satisfaction to hear voices from where all had been darkness and speculation. The third captive sat with the morose countenance. He preserved historical and cold attitude. To all advances he made one reply without variation. Ah, go to hell! The last of the four was always silent, and for the most part kept his face turned in unwell-usted 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 in starvations and brutalities libel to the imagination. All to be seen was shamed for captivity and regret for the right to antagonize. After the men had celebrated sufficiently they settled down behind the old rail fence, on the opposite side to the one from which their foes had been driven. A few shot functionally at distant marks. There was some long grass. The youth nestled in it, rested, making a convenient rail support the flag. His friend, jubilant and glorified, holding his treasure with vanity, came to him there. They sat side by side and congratulated each other. CHAPTER XXIV The row-rings that had stretched in a long line of sound across the face of the forest began to grow intermittent and weaker. The distantorian speeches of the artillery continued in some distant encounter, but the crashes of the musketry had almost ceased. The youth and his friend of a sudden looked up, feeling a deadened form of distress at the waning of these noises which had become a part of life. They could see changes going on among the troops. There were marchings this way and that way, a battery wheeled leisurely, on the crest of a small hill was the thick gleam of many departing muskets. The youth arose. Well, one now, I wonder, he said. By his tone he seemed to be preparing to resent some new monstrosity in the way of dens and smashes. He shaded his eyes with his grimy hand and gazed over the field. His friend also arose and stared. I bet we're going to get along out of this and back over the river, he said. Well, I'll ask from, said the youth. They waited, watching. Within a little while the regiment received orders to retrace its way. The men got up, grunting from the grass, regretting the soft repose. They jerked their stiffened legs and stretched their arms over their heads. One man swore as he rubbed his eyes. They all groaned. Oh, Lord! They had as many objections to this change as they would have had to a proposal for a new battle. They trapped slowly back over the field across which they had run in a mad scamper. The regiment marched until it had joined its fellows. The reform brigade and column aimed through a wood at the road. Directly they were in a mass of dust-covered troops and were trudging along in the way parallel to the enemy's lines as those had been defined by the previous turmoil. They passed within view of a stalled white house and saw in front of it groups of the comrades lying in wait behind a neat breastwork. A row of guns were booming at a distant enemy, shells thrown in reply, were rising clouds of dust and splitters. Horsemen dashed along the line of entrenchments. At this point of its march the division curved away from the field and went winding off in the direction of the river. When the significance of this movement had impressed itself upon the youth he turned his head and looked over his shoulder toward the trampled and debris strewn ground. He breathed the breath of new satisfaction. He finally nudged his friend. Well, it's all over, said to him. His friend gazed backward. By God it is. He ascended. They mused. For a time the youth was obliged to reflect in a puzzled and uncertain way. His mind was undergoing a subtle change. It took moments for it to cast off its battlefield ways and resume its accustomed course of thought. Gradually his brain emerged from the clogged clouds and at last he was enabled to more closely comprehend himself and circumstance. He understood then that this experience of shot and countershot was in the past. He had dwelt in a land of strange, squalling up evils and had come forth. He had been where there was red of blood and black of passion and he was escaped. His first thoughts were given to rejoicing at this fact. Later he began to study his deeds, his failures and his achievements. Thus fresh from scenes where many of his usual machines of reflection had been idle. From where he had preceded sheep-like he struggled to marshal all his acts. At last they marched before him clearly. From this present viewpoint he was enabled to look upon them in spectacular fashion and to criticize them with some correctness, for his new condition had already defeated certain sympathies. Regarding his procession of memory he felt gleeful and unrecretting, for in it his public deeds were paraded in great and shining prominence. Those performances which had been witnessed by his fellows marched now in wide purple and gold, having various deflections. They went gaily with music. It was pleasure to watch these things. He spent delightful minutes viewing the gilded images of memory. He saw that he was good. He recalled with a thrilled joy the respectful comments of his fellows upon his conduct. Nevertheless the ghost of his flight from the first engagement appeared to him and danced. There were small shoutings in his brain about these matters. For a moment he plushed. In the light of his soul flickered with shame. A specter of reproach came to him. There loomed the dogging memory of the tattered soldier. He who gored by bullets and faint for blood had fretted concerning an imagined wound in another. He who had loaned his last of strength and intellect for the tall soldier, he who blind with weariness and pain had been deserted in the field. For an instant a wretched chill of sweat was upon him at the thought that he might be detected in the thing. As he stood persistently before his vision he gave vent to a cry of sharp irritation and agony. His friend turned. What's the matter, Henry? He demanded. The youth's reply was an outburst of crimson oaths. As he marched along the little branch-hung roadway among these prattling companions, this vision of cruelty brooded over him. It clung near him always and darkened his view of these deeds in purple and gold. Whichever way his thoughts turned they were followed by the somber phantom of the desertion in the fields. He looked stealthily at his companions, feeling sure that they must discern in his face evidences of this pursuit. But they were plotting in ragged array discussing with quick tongues the accomplishments of the late battle. Oh, if a man should come up and ask me I'd say we got a dumb good looking. Looking your eye? We ain't licked, sonny. We're going down here always swinging round and coming behind him. Oh, hush with your coming in behind him. I've seen all that I want to. Don't tell me about coming in behind. Bill Smithers, it says he'd rather been in ten hundred battles than been in that hell of a hospital. He says they got shootin' in the night time and shells dropped plumb among them in the hospital. He says such horror he never see. Asruck, he's the best officer in this here regiment. He's a whale. Didn't I tell you we'd come round in behind him? Didn't I tell you so? We, ah, shut your mouth. For a time this pursuing recollection of the tattered man took all elation from the youth's veins. He saw his vivid air, and he was afraid that it would stand before him all his life. He took no share in the chatter of his comrades, nor did he look at them or know them, save when he felt sudden suspicion that they were seeing his thoughts and scrutinizing each detail of the scene with the tattered soldier. Yet gradually he mustered forced to put the sin at a distance. And at last his eyes seemed to open to some new ways. He found that he could look back upon the brass and bombast of his earlier Gospels and see them truly. He was gleeful when he discovered that he now despised them. With this conviction came a store of assurance. He felt a quiet manhood, not assertive but of sturdy and strong blood. He knew that he would no more quail before his guides, wherever they should point. He had been to touch the great death and found that after all it was but the great death. He was a man. So it came to pass that as he trudged from the place of blood and wrath his soul changed. He came from hot plowshares to prospects of clover tranquillity. And it was as if hot plowshares were not. Scars faded as flowers. It rained. The procession of weary soldiers became a bedraggled train despondent and muttering, marching with churning effort in a trough of liquid brown and mud under a low, wretched sky. Yet the youth smiled, for he saw that the world was a world for him. Though many discovered it to be made of oaths and walking sticks, he had rid himself of the red sickness of battle. The sultry nightmare was in the past. He had been an animal blistered in sweating and the heat and pain of war. He turned now with a lover's thirst to images of tranquil skies, fresh meadows, cool brooks, and existence of soft and eternal peace. Over the river a golden ray of sun came through the hosts of blood and rain clouds.