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

by Ambrose Bierce

  THE MOCKING-BIRD

  The time, a pleasant Sunday afternoon in the early autumn of 1861. Theplace, a forest's heart in the mountain region of southwestern Virginia.Private Grayrock of the Federal Army is discovered seated comfortably atthe root of a great pine tree, against which he leans, his legs extendedstraight along the ground, his rifle lying across his thighs, his hands(clasped in order that they may not fall away to his sides) resting uponthe barrel of the weapon. The contact of the back of his head with thetree has pushed his cap downward over his eyes, almost concealing them;one seeing him would say that he slept.

  Private Grayrock did not sleep; to have done so would have imperiled theinterests of the United States, for he was a long way outside the linesand subject to capture or death at the hands of the enemy. Moreover, hewas in a frame of mind unfavorable to repose. The cause of hisperturbation of spirit was this: during the previous night he had servedon the picket-guard, and had been posted as a sentinel in this veryforest. The night was clear, though moonless, but in the gloom of thewood the darkness was deep. Grayrock's post was at a considerabledistance from those to right and left, for the pickets had been thrownout a needless distance from the camp, making the line too long for theforce detailed to occupy it. The war was young, and military campsentertained the error that while sleeping they were better protected bythin lines a long way out toward the enemy than by thicker ones closein. And surely they needed as long notice as possible of an enemy'sapproach, for they were at that time addicted to the practice ofundressing--than which nothing could be more unsoldierly. On the morningof the memorable 6th of April, at Shiloh, many of Grant's men whenspitted on Confederate bayonets were as naked as civilians; but itshould be allowed that this was not because of any defect in theirpicket line. Their error was of another sort: they had no pickets. Thisis perhaps a vain digression. I should not care to undertake to interestthe reader in the fate of an army; what we have here to consider is thatof Private Grayrock.

  For two hours after he had been left at his lonely post that Saturdaynight he stood stock-still, leaning against the trunk of a large tree,staring into the darkness in his front and trying to recognize knownobjects; for he had been posted at the same spot during the day. But allwas now different; he saw nothing in detail, but only groups of things,whose shapes, not observed when there was something more of them toobserve, were now unfamiliar. They seemed not to have been there before.A landscape that is all trees and undergrowth, moreover, lacksdefinition, is confused and without accentuated points upon whichattention can gain a foothold. Add the gloom of a moonless night, andsomething more than great natural intelligence and a city education isrequired to preserve one's knowledge of direction. And that is how itoccurred that Private Grayrock, after vigilantly watching the spaces inhis front and then imprudently executing a circumspection of his wholedimly visible environment (silently walking around his tree toaccomplish it) lost his bearings and seriously impaired his usefulnessas a sentinel. Lost at his post--unable to say in which direction tolook for an enemy's approach, and in which lay the sleeping camp forwhose security he was accountable with his life--conscious, too, of manyanother awkward feature of the situation and of considerations affectinghis own safety, Private Grayrock was profoundly disquieted. Nor was hegiven time to recover his tranquillity, for almost at the moment that herealized his awkward predicament he heard a stir of leaves and a snap offallen twigs, and turning with a stilled heart in the direction whenceit came, saw in the gloom the indistinct outlines of a human figure.

  "Halt!" shouted Private Grayrock, peremptorily as in duty bound, backingup the command with the sharp metallic snap of his cocking rifle--"whogoes there?"

  There was no answer; at least there was an instant's hesitation, and theanswer, if it came, was lost in the report of the sentinel's rifle. Inthe silence of the night and the forest the sound was deafening, andhardly had it died away when it was repeated by the pieces of thepickets to right and left, a sympathetic fusillade. For two hours everyunconverted civilian of them had been evolving enemies from hisimagination, and peopling the woods in his front with them, andGrayrock's shot had started the whole encroaching host into visibleexistence. Having fired, all retreated, breathless, to the reserves--allbut Grayrock, who did not know in what direction to retreat. When, noenemy appearing, the roused camp two miles away had undressed and gotitself into bed again, and the picket line was cautiouslyre-established, he was discovered bravely holding his ground, and wascomplimented by the officer of the guard as the one soldier of thatdevoted band who could rightly be considered the moral equivalent ofthat uncommon unit of value, "a whoop in hell."

  In the mean time, however, Grayrock had made a close but unavailingsearch for the mortal part of the intruder at whom he had fired, andwhom he had a marksman's intuitive sense of having hit; for he was oneof those born experts who shoot without aim by an instinctive sense ofdirection, and are nearly as dangerous by night as by day. During a fullhalf of his twenty-four years he had been a terror to the targets of allthe shooting-galleries in three cities. Unable now to produce his deadgame he had the discretion to hold his tongue, and was glad to observein his officer and comrades the natural assumption that not having runaway he had seen nothing hostile. His "honorable mention" had beenearned by not running away anyhow.

  Nevertheless, Private Grayrock was far from satisfied with the night'sadventure, and when the next day he made some fair enough pretext toapply for a pass to go outside the lines, and the general commandingpromptly granted it in recognition of his bravery the night before, hepassed out at the point where that had been displayed. Telling thesentinel then on duty there that he had lost something,--which was trueenough--he renewed the search for the person whom he supposed himself tohave shot, and whom if only wounded he hoped to trail by the blood. Hewas no more successful by daylight than he had been in the darkness, andafter covering a wide area and boldly penetrating a long distance into"the Confederacy" he gave up the search, somewhat fatigued, seatedhimself at the root of the great pine tree, where we have seen him, andindulged his disappointment.

  It is not to be inferred that Grayrock's was the chagrin of a cruelnature balked of its bloody deed. In the clear large eyes, finelywrought lips, and broad forehead of that young man one could read quiteanother story, and in point of fact his character was a singularlyfelicitous compound of boldness and sensibility, courage and conscience.

  "I find myself disappointed," he said to himself, sitting there at thebottom of the golden haze submerging the forest like a subtler sea--"disappointed in failing to discover a fellow-man dead by my hand! Do Ithen really wish that I had taken life in the performance of a duty aswell performed without? What more could I wish? If any dangerthreatened, my shot averted it; that is what I was there to do. No, I amglad indeed if no human life was needlessly extinguished by me. But I amin a false position. I have suffered myself to be complimented by myofficers and envied by my comrades. The camp is ringing with praise ofmy courage. That is not just; I know myself courageous, but this praiseis for specific acts which I did not perform, or performed--otherwise.It is believed that I remained at my post bravely, without firing,whereas it was I who began the fusillade, and I did not retreat in thegeneral alarm because bewildered. What, then, shall I do? Explain that Isaw an enemy and fired? They have all said that of themselves, yet nonebelieves it. Shall I tell a truth which, discrediting my courage, willhave the effect of a lie? Ugh! it is an ugly business altogether. I wishto God I could find my man!"

  And so wishing, Private Grayrock, overcome at last by the languor of theafternoon and lulled by the stilly sounds of insects droning and prosingin certain fragrant shrubs, so far forgot the interests of the UnitedStates as to fall asleep and expose himself to capture. And sleeping hedreamed.

  He thought himself a boy, living in a far, fair land by the border of agreat river upon which the tall steamboats moved grandly up and downbeneath their towering evolutions of black smoke, which announced themlong before they h
ad rounded the bends and marked their movements whenmiles out of sight. With him always, at his side as he watched them, wasone to whom he gave his heart and soul in love--a twin brother. Togetherthey strolled along the banks of the stream; together explored thefields lying farther away from it, and gathered pungent mints and sticksof fragrant sassafras in the hills overlooking all--beyond which lay theRealm of Conjecture, and from which, looking southward across the greatriver, they caught glimpses of the Enchanted Land. Hand in hand andheart in heart they two, the only children of a widowed mother, walkedin paths of light through valleys of peace, seeing new things under anew sun. And through all the golden days floated one unceasing sound--the rich, thrilling melody of a mocking-bird in a cage by the cottagedoor. It pervaded and possessed all the spiritual intervals of thedream, like a musical benediction. The joyous bird was always in song;its infinitely various notes seemed to flow from its throat, effortless,in bubbles and rills at each heart-beat, like the waters of a pulsingspring. That fresh, clear melody seemed, indeed, the spirit of thescene, the meaning and interpretation to sense of the mysteries of lifeand love.

  But there came a time when the days of the dream grew dark with sorrowin a rain of tears. The good mother was dead, the meadowside home by thegreat river was broken up, and the brothers were parted between two oftheir kinsmen. William (the dreamer) went to live in a populous city inthe Realm of Conjecture, and John, crossing the river into the EnchantedLand, was taken to a distant region whose people in their lives and wayswere said to be strange and wicked. To him, in the distribution of thedead mother's estate, had fallen all that they deemed of value--themocking-bird. They could be divided, but it could not, so it was carriedaway into the strange country, and the world of William knew it no moreforever. Yet still through the aftertime of his loneliness its songfilled all the dream, and seemed always sounding in his ear and in hisheart.

  The kinsmen who had adopted the boys were enemies, holding nocommunication. For a time letters full of boyish bravado and boastfulnarratives of the new and larger experience--grotesque descriptions oftheir widening lives and the new worlds they had conquered--passedbetween them; but these gradually became less frequent, and withWilliam's removal to another and greater city ceased altogether. Butever through it all ran the song of the mocking-bird, and when thedreamer opened his eyes and stared through the vistas of the pine forestthe cessation of its music first apprised him that he was awake.

  The sun was low and red in the west; the level rays projected from thetrunk of each giant pine a wall of shadow traversing the golden haze toeastward until light and shade were blended in undistinguishable blue.

  Private Grayrock rose to his feet, looked cautiously about him,shouldered his rifle and set off toward camp. He had gone perhaps ahalf-mile, and was passing a thicket of laurel, when a bird rose fromthe midst of it and perching on the branch of a tree above, poured fromits joyous breast so inexhaustible floods of song as but one of allGod's creatures can utter in His praise. There was little in that--itwas only to open the bill and breathe; yet the man stopped as if struck--stopped and let fall his rifle, looked upward at the bird, covered hiseyes with his hands and wept like a child! For the moment he was,indeed, a child, in spirit and in memory, dwelling again by the greatriver, over-against the Enchanted Land! Then with an effort of the willhe pulled himself together, picked up his weapon and audibly damninghimself for an idiot strode on. Passing an opening that reached into theheart of the little thicket he looked in, and there, supine upon theearth, its arms all abroad, its gray uniform stained with a single spotof blood upon the breast, its white face turned sharply upward andbackward, lay the image of himself!--the body of John Grayrock, dead ofa gunshot wound, and still warm! He had found his man.

  As the unfortunate soldier knelt beside that masterwork of civil war theshrilling bird upon the bough overhead stilled her song and, flushedwith sunset's crimson glory, glided silently away through the solemnspaces of the wood. At roll-call that evening in the Federal camp thename William Grayrock brought no response, nor ever again there-after.

  CIVILIANS