Complete Works of Stephen Crane

by Stephen Crane

  The youth tried to observe everything. He did not use care to avoid trees and branches, and his forgotten feet were constantly knocking against stones or getting entangled in briers. He was aware that these battalions with their commotions were woven red and startling into the gentle fabric of softened greens and browns. It looked to be a wrong place for a battle field.

  The skirmishers in advance fascinated him. Their shots into thickets and at distant and prominent trees spoke to him of tragedies — hidden, mysterious, solemn.

  Once the line encountered the body of a dead soldier. He lay upon his back staring at the sky. He was dressed in an awkward suit of yellowish brown. The youth could see that the soles of his shoes had been worn to the thinness of writing paper, and from a great rent in one the dead foot projected piteously. And it was as if fate had betrayed the soldier. In death it exposed to his enemies that poverty which in life he had perhaps concealed from his friends.

  The ranks opened covertly to avoid the corpse. The invulnerable dead man forced a way for himself. The youth looked keenly at the ashen face. The wind raised the tawny beard. It moved as if a hand were stroking it. He vaguely desired to walk around and around the body and stare; the impulse of the living to try to read in dead eyes the answer to the Question.

  During the march the ardor which the youth had acquired when out of view of the field rapidly faded to nothing. His curiosity was quite easily satisfied. If an intense scene had caught him with its wild swing as he came to the top of the bank, he might have gone roaring on. This advance upon Nature was too calm. He had opportunity to reflect. He had time in which to wonder about himself and to attempt to probe his sensations.

  Absurd ideas took hold upon him. He thought that he did not relish the landscape. It threatened him. A coldness swept over his back, and it is true that his trousers felt to him that they were no fit for his legs at all.

  A house standing placidly in distant fields had to him an ominous look. The shadows of the woods were formidable. He was certain that in this vista there lurked fierce-eyed hosts. The swift thought came to him that the generals did not know what they were about. It was all a trap. Suddenly those close forests would bristle with rifle barrels. Ironlike brigades would appear in the rear. They were all going to be sacrificed. The generals were stupids. The enemy would presently swallow the whole command. He glared about him, expecting to see the stealthy approach of his death.

  He thought that he must break from the ranks and harangue his comrades. They must not all be killed like pigs; and he was sure it would come to pass unless they were informed of these dangers. The generals were idiots to send them marching into a regular pen. There was but one pair of eyes in the corps. He would step forth and make a speech. Shrill and passionate words came to his lips.

  The line, broken into moving fragments by the ground, went calmly on through fields and woods. The youth looked at the men nearest him, and saw, for the most part, expressions of deep interest, as if they were investigating something that had fascinated them. One or two stepped with overvaliant airs as if they were already plunged into war. Others walked as upon thin ice. The greater part of the untested men appeared quiet and absorbed. They were going to look at war, the red animal — war, the blood-swollen god. And they were deeply engrossed in this march.

  As he looked the youth gripped his outcry at his throat. He saw that even if the men were tottering with fear they would laugh at his warning. They would jeer him, and, if practicable, pelt him with missiles. Admitting that he might be wrong, a frenzied declamation of the kind would turn him into a worm.

  He assumed, then, the demeanor of one who knows that he is doomed alone to unwritten responsibilities. He lagged, with tragic glances at the sky.

  He was surprised presently by the young lieutenant of his company, who began heartily to beat him with a sword, calling out in a loud and insolent voice: “Come, young man, get up into ranks there. No skulking’ll do here.” He mended his pace with suitable haste. And he hated the lieutenant, who had no appreciation of fine minds. He was a mere brute.

  After a time the brigade was halted in the cathedral light of a forest. The busy skirmishers were still popping. Through the aisles of the wood could be seen the floating smoke from their rifles. Sometimes it went up in little balls, white and compact.

  During this halt many men in the regiment began erecting tiny hills in front of them. They used stones, sticks, earth, and anything they thought might turn a bullet. Some built comparatively large ones, while others seemed content with little ones.

  This procedure caused a discussion among the men. Some wished to fight like duelists, believing it to be correct to stand erect and be, from their feet to their foreheads, a mark. They said they scorned the devices of the cautious. But the others scoffed in reply, and pointed to the veterans on the flanks who were digging at the ground like terriers. In a short time there was quite a barricade along the regimental fronts. Directly, however, they were ordered to withdraw from that place.

  This astounded the youth. He forgot his stewing over the advance movement. “Well, then, what did they march us out here for?” he demanded of the tall soldier. The latter with calm faith began a heavy explanation, although he had been compelled to leave a little protection of stones and dirt to which he had devoted much care and skill.

  When the regiment was aligned in another position each man’s regard for his safety caused another line of small intrenchments. They ate their noon meal behind a third one. They were moved from this one also. They were marched from place to place with apparent aimlessness.

  The youth had been taught that a man became another thing in a battle. He saw his salvation in such a change. Hence this waiting was an ordeal to him. He was in a fever of impatience. He considered that there was denoted a lack of purpose on the part of the generals. He began to complain to the tall soldier. “I can’t stand this much longer,” he cried. “I don’t see what good it does to make us wear out our legs for nothin’.” He wished to return to camp, knowing that this affair was a blue demonstration; or else to go into a battle and discover that he had been a fool in his doubts, and was, in truth, a man of traditional courage. The strain of present circumstances he felt to be intolerable.

  The philosophical tall soldier measured a sandwich of cracker and pork and swallowed it in a nonchalant manner. “Oh, I suppose we must go reconnoitering around the country jest to keep ’em from getting too close, or to develop ‘em, or something.”

  “Huh!” said the loud soldier.

  “Well,” cried the youth, still fidgeting, “I’d rather do anything ‘most than go tramping ‘round the country all day doing no good to nobody and jest tiring ourselves out.”

  “So would I,” said the loud soldier. “It ain’t right. I tell you if anybody with any sense was a-runnin’ this army it—”

  “Oh, shut up!” roared the tall private. “You little fool. You little damn’ cuss. You ain’t had that there coat and them pants on for six months, and yet you talk as if—”

  “Well, I wanta do some fighting anyway,” interrupted the other. “I didn’t come here to walk. I could ‘ave walked to home—’round an’ ‘round the barn, if I jest wanted to walk.”

  The tall one, red-faced, swallowed another sandwich as if taking poison in despair.

  But gradually, as he chewed, his face became again quiet and contented. He could not rage in fierce argument in the presence of such sandwiches. During his meals he always wore an air of blissful contemplation of the food he had swallowed. His spirit seemed then to be communing with the viands.

  He accepted new environment and circumstance with great coolness, eating from his haversack at every opportunity. On the march he went along with the stride of a hunter, objecting to neither gait nor distance. And he had not raised his voice when he had been ordered away from three little protective piles of earth and stone, each of which had been an engineering feat worthy of being made sacred to the name of his grandmother.
r />   In the afternoon the regiment went out over the same ground it had taken in the morning. The landscape then ceased to threaten the youth. He had been close to it and become familiar with it.

  When, however, they began to pass into a new region, his old fears of stupidity and incompetence reassailed him, but this time he doggedly let them babble. He was occupied with his problem, and in his desperation he concluded that the stupidity did not greatly matter.

  Once he thought he had concluded that it would be better to get killed directly and end his troubles. Regarding death thus out of the corner of his eye, he conceived it to be nothing but rest, and he was filled with a momentary astonishment that he should have made an extraordinary commotion over the mere matter of getting killed. He would die; he would go to some place where he would be understood. It was useless to expect appreciation of his profound and fine senses from such men as the lieutenant. He must look to the grave for comprehension.

  The skirmish fire increased to a long chattering sound. With it was mingled far-away cheering. A battery spoke.

  Directly the youth would see the skirmishers running. They were pursued by the sound of musketry fire. After a time the hot, dangerous flashes of the rifles were visible. Smoke clouds went slowly and insolently across the fields like observant phantoms. The din became crescendo, like the roar of an oncoming train.

  A brigade ahead of them and on the right went into action with a rending roar. It was as if it had exploded. And thereafter it lay stretched in the distance behind a long gray wall, that one was obliged to look twice at to make sure that it was smoke.

  The youth, forgetting his neat plan of getting killed, gazed spell bound. His eyes grew wide and busy with the action of the scene. His mouth was a little ways open.

  Of a sudden he felt a heavy and sad hand laid upon his shoulder. Awakening from his trance of observation he turned and beheld the loud soldier.

  “It’s my first and last battle, old boy,” said the latter, with intense gloom. He was quite pale and his girlish lip was trembling.

  “Eh?” murmured the youth in great astonishment.

  “It’s my first and last battle, old boy,” continued the loud soldier. “Something tells me—”

  “What?”

  “I’m a gone coon this first time and — and I w-want you to take these here things — to — my — folks.” He ended in a quavering sob of pity for himself. He handed the youth a little packet done up in a yellow envelope.

  “Why, what the devil—” began the youth again.

  But the other gave him a glance as from the depths of a tomb, and raised his limp hand in a prophetic manner and turned away.

  CHAPTER IV.

  The brigade was halted in the fringe of a grove. The men crouched among the trees and pointed their restless guns out at the fields. They tried to look beyond the smoke.

  Out of this haze they could see running men. Some shouted information and gestured as they hurried.

  The men of the new regiment watched and listened eagerly, while their tongues ran on in gossip of the battle. They mouthed rumors that had flown like birds out of the unknown.

  “They say Perry has been driven in with big loss.”

  “Yes, Carrott went t’ th’ hospital. He said he was sick. That smart lieutenant is commanding ‘G’ Company. Th’ boys say they won’t be under Carrott no more if they all have t’ desert. They allus knew he was a—”

  “Hannises’ batt’ry is took.”

  “It ain’t either. I saw Hannises’ batt’ry off on th’ left not more’n fifteen minutes ago.”

  “Well—”

  “Th’ general, he ses he is goin’ t’ take th’ hull cammand of th’ 304th when we go inteh action, an’ then he ses we’ll do sech fightin’ as never another one reg’ment done.”

  “They say we’re catchin’ it over on th’ left. They say th’ enemy driv’ our line inteh a devil of a swamp an’ took Hannises’ batt’ry.”

  “No sech thing. Hannises’ batt’ry was ‘long here ‘bout a minute ago.”

  “That young Hasbrouck, he makes a good off’cer. He ain’t afraid ‘a nothin’.”

  “I met one of th’ 148th Maine boys an’ he ses his brigade fit th’ hull rebel army fer four hours over on th’ turnpike road an’ killed about five thousand of ‘em. He ses one more sech fight as that an’ th’ war ‘ll be over.”

  “Bill wasn’t scared either. No, sir! It wasn’t that. Bill ain’t a-gittin’ scared easy. He was jest mad, that’s what he was. When that feller trod on his hand, he up an’ sed that he was willin’ t’ give his hand t’ his country, but he be dumbed if he was goin’ t’ have every dumb bushwhacker in th’ kentry walkin’ ‘round on it. Se he went t’ th’ hospital disregardless of th’ fight. Three fingers was crunched. Th’ dern doctor wanted t’ amputate ‘m, an’ Bill, he raised a heluva row, I hear. He’s a funny feller.”

  The din in front swelled to a tremendous chorus. The youth and his fellows were frozen to silence. They could see a flag that tossed in the smoke angrily. Near it were the blurred and agitated forms of troops. There came a turbulent stream of men across the fields. A battery changing position at a frantic gallop scattered the stragglers right and left.

  A shell screaming like a storm banshee went over the huddled heads of the reserves. It landed in the grove, and exploding redly flung the brown earth. There was a little shower of pine needles.

  Bullets began to whistle among the branches and nip at the trees. Twigs and leaves came sailing down. It was as if a thousand axes, wee and invisible, were being wielded. Many of the men were constantly dodging and ducking their heads.

  The lieutenant of the youth’s company was shot in the hand. He began to swear so wondrously that a nervous laugh went along the regimental line. The officer’s profanity sounded conventional. It relieved the tightened senses of the new men. It was as if he had hit his fingers with a tack hammer at home.

  He held the wounded member carefully away from his side so that the blood would not drip upon his trousers.

  The captain of the company, tucking his sword under his arm, produced a handkerchief and began to bind with it the lieutenant’s wound. And they disputed as to how the binding should be done.

  The battle flag in the distance jerked about madly. It seemed to be struggling to free itself from an agony. The billowing smoke was filled with horizontal flashes.

  Men running swiftly emerged from it. They grew in numbers until it was seen that the whole command was fleeing. The flag suddenly sank down as if dying. Its motion as it fell was a gesture of despair.

  Wild yells came from behind the walls of smoke. A sketch in gray and red dissolved into a moblike body of men who galloped like wild horses.

  The veteran regiments on the right and left of the 304th immediately began to jeer. With the passionate song of the bullets and the banshee shrieks of shells were mingled loud catcalls and bits of facetious advice concerning places of safety.

  But the new regiment was breathless with horror. “Gawd! Saunders’s got crushed!” whispered the man at the youth’s elbow. They shrank back and crouched as if compelled to await a flood.

  The youth shot a swift glance along the blue ranks of the regiment. The profiles were motionless, carven; and afterward he remembered that the color sergeant was standing with his legs apart, as if he expected to be pushed to the ground.

  The following throng went whirling around the flank. Here and there were officers carried along on the stream like exasperated chips. They were striking about them with their swords and with their left fists, punching every head they could reach. They cursed like highwaymen.

  A mounted officer displayed the furious anger of a spoiled child. He raged with his head, his arms, and his legs.

  Another, the commander of the brigade, was galloping about bawling. His hat was gone and his clothes were awry. He resembled a man who has come from bed to go to a fire. The hoofs of his horse often threatened the heads of the running men, but the
y scampered with singular fortune. In this rush they were apparently all deaf and blind. They heeded not the largest and longest of the oaths that were thrown at them from all directions.

  Frequently over this tumult could be heard the grim jokes of the critical veterans; but the retreating men apparently were not even conscious of the presence of an audience.

  The battle reflection that shone for an instant in the faces on the mad current made the youth feel that forceful hands from heaven would not have been able to have held him in place if he could have got intelligent control of his legs.

  There was an appalling imprint upon these faces. The struggle in the smoke had pictured an exaggeration of itself on the bleached cheeks and in the eyes wild with one desire.

  The sight of this stampede exerted a floodlike force that seemed able to drag sticks and stones and men from the ground. They of the reserves had to hold on. They grew pale and firm, and red and quaking.

  The youth achieved one little thought in the midst of this chaos. The composite monster which had caused the other troops to flee had not then appeared. He resolved to get a view of it, and then, he thought he might very likely run better than the best of them.

  CHAPTER V.

  There were moments of waiting. The youth thought of the village street at home before the arrival of the circus parade on a day in the spring. He remembered how he had stood, a small, thrillful boy, prepared to follow the dingy lady upon the white horse, or the band in its faded chariot. He saw the yellow road, the lines of expectant people, and the sober houses. He particularly remembered an old fellow who used to sit upon a cracker box in front of the store and feign to despise such exhibitions. A thousand details of color and form surged in his mind. The old fellow upon the cracker box appeared in middle prominence.

  Some one cried, “Here they come!”

  There was rustling and muttering among the men. They displayed a feverish desire to have every possible cartridge ready to their hands. The boxes were pulled around into various positions, and adjusted with great care. It was as if seven hundred new bonnets were being tried on.