The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce — Volume 2: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians

by Ambrose Bierce

  AN OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE

  I

  A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking downinto the swift water twenty feet below. The man's hands were behind hisback, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck.It was attached to a stout cross-timber above his head and the slackfell to the level of his knees. Some loose boards laid upon the sleeperssupporting the metals of the railway supplied a footing for him and hisexecutioners--two private soldiers of the Federal army, directed by asergeant who in civil life may have been a deputy sheriff. At a shortremove upon the same temporary platform was an officer in the uniform ofhis rank, armed. He was a captain. A sentinel at each end of the bridgestood with his rifle in the position known as "support," that is to say,vertical in front of the left shoulder, the hammer resting on theforearm thrown straight across the chest--a formal and unnaturalposition, enforcing an erect carriage of the body. It did not appear tobe the duty of these two men to know what was occurring at the centre ofthe bridge; they merely blockaded the two ends of the foot planking thattraversed it.

  Beyond one of the sentinels nobody was in sight; the railroad ranstraight away into a forest for a hundred yards, then, curving, was lostto view. Doubtless there was an outpost farther along. The other bank ofthe stream was open ground--a gentle acclivity topped with a stockade ofvertical tree trunks, loop-holed for rifles, with a single embrasurethrough which protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon commanding thebridge. Mid-way of the slope between bridge and fort were thespectators--a single company of infantry in line, at "parade rest," thebutts of the rifles on the ground, the barrels inclining slightlybackward against the right shoulder, the hands crossed upon the stock. Alieutenant stood at the right of the line, the point of his sword uponthe ground, his left hand resting upon his right. Excepting the group offour at the centre of the bridge, not a man moved. The company faced thebridge, staring stonily, motionless. The sentinels, facing the banks ofthe stream, might have been statues to adorn the bridge. The captainstood with folded arms, silent, observing the work of his subordinates,but making no sign. Death is a dignitary who when he comes announced isto be received with formal manifestations of respect, even by those mostfamiliar with him. In the code of military etiquette silence and fixityare forms of deference.

  The man who was engaged in being hanged was apparently about thirty-fiveyears of age. He was a civilian, if one might judge from his habit,which was that of a planter. His features were good--a straight nose,firm mouth, broad forehead, from which his long, dark hair was combedstraight back, falling behind his ears to the collar of his well-fittingfrock-coat. He wore a mustache and pointed beard, but no whiskers; hiseyes were large and dark gray, and had a kindly expression which onewould hardly have expected in one whose neck was in the hemp. Evidentlythis was no vulgar assassin. The liberal military code makes provisionfor hanging many kinds of persons, and gentlemen are not excluded.

  The preparations being complete, the two private soldiers stepped asideand each drew away the plank upon which he had been standing. Thesergeant turned to the captain, saluted and placed himself immediatelybehind that officer, who in turn moved apart one pace. These movementsleft the condemned man and the sergeant standing on the two ends of thesame plank, which spanned three of the cross-ties of the bridge. The endupon which the civilian stood almost, but not quite, reached a fourth.This plank had been held in place by the weight of the captain; it wasnow held by that of the sergeant. At a signal from the former the latterwould step aside, the plank would tilt and the condemned man go downbetween two ties. The arrangement commended itself to his judgment assimple and effective. His face had not been covered nor his eyesbandaged. He looked a moment at his "unsteadfast footing," then let hisgaze wander to the swirling water of the stream racing madly beneath hisfeet. A piece of dancing driftwood caught his attention and his eyesfollowed it down the current. How slowly it appeared to move! What asluggish stream!

  He closed his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts upon his wife andchildren. The water, touched to gold by the early sun, the broodingmists under the banks at some distance down the stream, the fort, thesoldiers, the piece of drift--all had distracted him. And now he becameconscious of a new disturbance. Striking through the thought of his dearones was a sound which he could neither ignore nor understand, a sharp,distinct, metallic percussion like the stroke of a blacksmith's hammerupon the anvil; it had the same ringing quality. He wondered what itwas, and whether immeasurably distant or near by--it seemed both. Itsrecurrence was regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death knell. Heawaited each stroke with impatience and--he knew not why--apprehension.The intervals of silence grew progressively longer; the delays becamemaddening. With their greater infrequency the sounds increased instrength and sharpness. They hurt his ear like the thrust of a knife; hefeared he would shriek. What he heard was the ticking of his watch.

  He unclosed his eyes and saw again the water below him. "If I could freemy hands," he thought, "I might throw off the noose and spring into thestream. By diving I could evade the bullets and, swimming vigorously,reach the bank, take to the woods and get away home. My home, thank God,is as yet outside their lines; my wife and little ones are still beyondthe invader's farthest advance."

  As these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, were flashedinto the doomed man's brain rather than evolved from it the captainnodded to the sergeant. The sergeant stepped aside.

  II

  Peyton Farquhar was a well-to-do planter, of an old and highly respectedAlabama family. Being a slave owner and like other slave owners apolitician he was naturally an original secessionist and ardentlydevoted to the Southern cause. Circumstances of an imperious nature,which it is unnecessary to relate here, had prevented him from takingservice with the gallant army that had fought the disastrous campaignsending with the fall of Corinth, and he chafed under the ingloriousrestraint, longing for the release of his energies, the larger life ofthe soldier, the opportunity for distinction. That opportunity, he felt,would come, as it comes to all in war time. Meanwhile he did what hecould. No service was too humble for him to perform in aid of the South,no adventure too perilous for him to undertake if consistent with thecharacter of a civilian who was at heart a soldier, and who in goodfaith and without too much qualification assented to at least a part ofthe frankly villainous dictum that all is fair in love and war.

  One evening while Farquhar and his wife were sitting on a rustic benchnear the entrance to his grounds, a gray-clad soldier rode up to thegate and asked for a drink of water. Mrs. Farquhar was only too happy toserve him with her own white hands. While she was fetching the water herhusband approached the dusty horseman and inquired eagerly for news fromthe front.

  "The Yanks are repairing the railroads," said the man, "and are gettingready for another advance. They have reached the Owl Creek bridge, putit in order and built a stockade on the north bank. The commandant hasissued an order, which is posted everywhere, declaring that any civiliancaught interfering with the railroad, its bridges, tunnels or trainswill be summarily hanged. I saw the order."

  "How far is it to the Owl Creek bridge?" Farquhar asked.

  "About thirty miles."

  "Is there no force on this side the creek?"

  "Only a picket post half a mile out, on the railroad, and a singlesentinel at this end of the bridge."

  "Suppose a man--a civilian and student of hanging--should elude thepicket post and perhaps get the better of the sentinel," said Farquhar,smiling, "what could he accomplish?"

  The soldier reflected. "I was there a month ago," he replied. "Iobserved that the flood of last winter had lodged a great quantity ofdriftwood against the wooden pier at this end of the bridge. It is nowdry and would burn like tow."

  The lady had now brought the water, which the soldier drank. He thankedher ceremoniously, bowed to her husband and rode away. An hour later,after nightfall, he repassed the plantation, going northward in thedirection from which he had
come. He was a Federal scout.

  III

  As Peyton Farquhar fell straight downward through the bridge he lostconsciousness and was as one already dead. From this state he wasawakened--ages later, it seemed to him--by the pain of a sharp pressureupon his throat, followed by a sense of suffocation. Keen, poignantagonies seemed to shoot from his neck downward through every fibre ofhis body and limbs. These pains appeared to flash along well-definedlines of ramification and to beat with an inconceivably rapidperiodicity. They seemed like streams of pulsating fire heating him toan intolerable temperature. As to his head, he was conscious of nothingbut a feeling of fulness--of congestion. These sensations wereunaccompanied by thought. The intellectual part of his nature wasalready effaced; he had power only to feel, and feeling was torment. Hewas conscious of motion. Encompassed in a luminous cloud, of which hewas now merely the fiery heart, without material substance, he swungthrough unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a vast pendulum. Then allat once, with terrible suddenness, the light about him shot upward withthe noise of a loud plash; a frightful roaring was in his ears, and allwas cold and dark. The power of thought was restored; he knew that therope had broken and he had fallen into the stream. There was noadditional strangulation; the noose about his neck was alreadysuffocating him and kept the water from his lungs. To die of hanging atthe bottom of a river!--the idea seemed to him ludicrous. He opened hiseyes in the darkness and saw above him a gleam of light, but howdistant, how inaccessible! He was still sinking, for the light becamefainter and fainter until it was a mere glimmer. Then it began to growand brighten, and he knew that he was rising toward the surface--knew itwith reluctance, for he was now very comfortable. "To be hanged anddrowned," he thought, "that is not so bad; but I do not wish to be shot.No; I will not be shot; that is not fair."

  He was not conscious of an effort, but a sharp pain in his wristapprised him that he was trying to free his hands. He gave the strugglehis attention, as an idler might observe the feat of a juggler, withoutinterest in the outcome. What splendid effort!--what magnificent, whatsuperhuman strength! Ah, that was a fine endeavor! Bravo! The cord fellaway; his arms parted and floated upward, the hands dimly seen on eachside in the growing light. He watched them with a new interest as firstone and then the other pounced upon the noose at his neck. They tore itaway and thrust it fiercely aside, its undulations resembling those of awater-snake. "Put it back, put it back!" He thought he shouted thesewords to his hands, for the undoing of the noose had been succeeded bythe direst pang that he had yet experienced. His neck ached horribly;his brain was on fire; his heart, which had been fluttering faintly,gave a great leap, trying to force itself out at his mouth. His wholebody was racked and wrenched with an insupportable anguish! But hisdisobedient hands gave no heed to the command. They beat the watervigorously with quick, downward strokes, forcing him to the surface. Hefelt his head emerge; his eyes were blinded by the sunlight; his chestexpanded convulsively, and with a supreme and crowning agony his lungsengulfed a great draught of air, which instantly he expelled in ashriek!

  He was now in full possession of his physical senses. They were, indeed,preternaturally keen and alert. Something in the awful disturbance ofhis organic system had so exalted and refined them that they made recordof things never before perceived. He felt the ripples upon his face andheard their separate sounds as they struck. He looked at the forest onthe bank of the stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves and theveining of each leaf--saw the very insects upon them: the locusts, thebrilliant-bodied flies, the gray spiders stretching their webs from twigto twig. He noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon amillion blades of grass. The humming of the gnats that danced above theeddies of the stream, the beating of the dragon-flies' wings, thestrokes of the water-spiders' legs, like oars which had lifted theirboat--all these made audible music. A fish slid along beneath his eyesand he heard the rush of its body parting the water.

  He had come to the surface facing down the stream; in a moment thevisible world seemed to wheel slowly round, himself the pivotal point,and he saw the bridge, the fort, the soldiers upon the bridge, thecaptain, the sergeant, the two privates, his executioners. They were insilhouette against the blue sky. They shouted and gesticulated, pointingat him. The captain had drawn his pistol, but did not fire; the otherswere unarmed. Their movements were grotesque and horrible, their formsgigantic.

  Suddenly he heard a sharp report and something struck the water smartlywithin a few inches of his head, spattering his face with spray. Heheard a second report, and saw one of the sentinels with his rifle athis shoulder, a light cloud of blue smoke rising from the muzzle. Theman in the water saw the eye of the man on the bridge gazing into hisown through the sights of the rifle. He observed that it was a gray eyeand remembered having read that gray eyes were keenest, and that allfamous markmen had them. Nevertheless, this one had missed.

  A counter-swirl had caught Farquhar and turned him half round; he wasagain looking into the forest on the bank opposite the fort. The soundof a clear, high voice in a monotonous singsong now rang out behind himand came across the water with a distinctness that pierced and subduedall other sounds, even the beating of the ripples in his ears. Althoughno soldier, he had frequented camps enough to know the dreadsignificance of that deliberate, drawling, aspirated chant; thelieutenant on shore was taking a part in the morning's work. How coldlyand pitilessly--with what an even, calm intonation, presaging, andenforcing tranquillity in the men--with what accurately measuredintervals fell those cruel words:

  "Attention, company!... Shoulder arms!... Ready!... Aim!... Fire!"

  Farquhar dived--dived as deeply as he could. The water roared in hisears like the voice of Niagara, yet he heard the dulled thunder of thevolley and, rising again toward the surface, met shining bits of metal,singularly flattened, oscillating slowly downward. Some of them touchedhim on the face and hands, then fell away, continuing their descent. Onelodged between his collar and neck; it was uncomfortably warm and hesnatched it out.

  As he rose to the surface, gasping for breath, he saw that he had been along time under water; he was perceptibly farther down stream--nearer tosafety. The soldiers had almost finished reloading; the metal ramrodsflashed all at once in the sunshine as they were drawn from the barrels,turned in the air, and thrust into their sockets. The two sentinelsfired again, independently and ineffectually.

  The hunted man saw all this over his shoulder; he was now swimmingvigorously with the current. His brain was as energetic as his arms andlegs; he thought with the rapidity of lightning.

  "The officer," he reasoned, "will not make that martinet's error asecond time. It is as easy to dodge a volley as a single shot. He hasprobably already given the command to fire at will. God help me, Icannot dodge them all!"

  An appalling plash within two yards of him was followed by a loud,rushing sound, _diminuendo_, which seemed to travel back through the airto the fort and died in an explosion which stirred the very river to itsdeeps! A rising sheet of water curved over him, fell down upon him,blinded him, strangled him! The cannon had taken a hand in the game. Ashe shook his head free from the commotion of the smitten water he heardthe deflected shot humming through the air ahead, and in an instant itwas cracking and smashing the branches in the forest beyond.

  "They will not do that again," he thought; "the next time they will usea charge of grape. I must keep my eye upon the gun; the smoke willapprise me--the report arrives too late; it lags behind the missile.That is a good gun."

  Suddenly he felt himself whirled round and round--spinning like a top.The water, the banks, the forests, the now distant bridge, fort and men--all were commingled and blurred. Objects were represented by theircolors only; circular horizontal streaks of color--that was all he saw.He had been caught in a vortex and was being whirled on with a velocityof advance and gyration that made him giddy and sick. In a few momentshe was flung upon the gravel at the foot of the left bank of the stream--the southern bank--and behind a projecting point
which concealed himfrom his enemies. The sudden arrest of his motion, the abrasion of oneof his hands on the gravel, restored him, and he wept with delight. Hedug his fingers into the sand, threw it over himself in handfuls andaudibly blessed it. It looked like diamonds, rubies, emeralds; he couldthink of nothing beautiful which it did not resemble. The trees upon thebank were giant garden plants; he noted a definite order in theirarrangement, inhaled the fragrance of their blooms. A strange, roseatelight shone through the spaces among their trunks and the wind made intheir branches the music of aeolian harps. He had no wish to perfect hisescape--was content to remain in that enchanting spot until retaken.

  A whiz and rattle of grapeshot among the branches high above his headroused him from his dream. The baffled cannoneer had fired him a randomfarewell. He sprang to his feet, rushed up the sloping bank, and plungedinto the forest.

  All that day he traveled, laying his course by the rounding sun. Theforest seemed interminable; nowhere did he discover a break in it, noteven a woodman's road. He had not known that he lived in so wild aregion. There was something uncanny in the revelation.

  By nightfall he was fatigued, footsore, famishing. The thought of hiswife and children urged him on. At last he found a road which led him inwhat he knew to be the right direction. It was as wide and straight as acity street, yet it seemed untraveled. No fields bordered it, nodwelling anywhere. Not so much as the barking of a dog suggested humanhabitation. The black bodies of the trees formed a straight wall on bothsides, terminating on the horizon in a point, like a diagram in a lessonin perspective. Over-head, as he looked up through this rift in thewood, shone great golden stars looking unfamiliar and grouped in strangeconstellations. He was sure they were arranged in some order which had asecret and malign significance. The wood on either side was full ofsingular noises, among which--once, twice, and again--he distinctlyheard whispers in an unknown tongue.

  His neck was in pain and lifting his hand to it he found it horriblyswollen. He knew that it had a circle of black where the rope hadbruised it. His eyes felt congested; he could no longer close them. Histongue was swollen with thirst; he relieved its fever by thrusting itforward from between his teeth into the cold air. How softly the turfhad carpeted the untraveled avenue--he could no longer feel the roadwaybeneath his feet!

  Doubtless, despite his suffering, he had fallen asleep while walking,for now he sees another scene--perhaps he has merely recovered from adelirium. He stands at the gate of his own home. All is as he left it,and all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine. He must havetraveled the entire night. As he pushes open the gate and passes up thewide white walk, he sees a flutter of female garments; his wife, lookingfresh and cool and sweet, steps down from the veranda to meet him. Atthe bottom of the steps she stands waiting, with a smile of ineffablejoy, an attitude of matchless grace and dignity. Ah, how beautiful sheis! He springs forward with extended arms. As he is about to clasp herhe feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding whitelight blazes all about him with a sound like the shock of a cannon--thenall is darkness and silence!

  Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gentlyfrom side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge.