The Little Regiment, and Other Episodes of the American Civil War

by Stephen Crane

  V.

  The girl, waiting in the darkness, expected to hear the sudden crash anduproar of a fight as soon as the three creeping men should reach thebarn. She reflected in an agony upon the swift disaster that wouldbefall any enterprise so desperate. She had an impulse to beg them tocome away. The grass rustled in silken movements as she sped toward thebarn.

  When she arrived, however, she gazed about her bewildered. The men weregone. She searched with her eyes, trying to detect some moving thing,but she could see nothing.

  Left alone again, she began to be afraid of the night. The greatstretches of darkness could hide crawling dangers. From sheer desire tosee a human, she was obliged to peep again at the knothole. The sentryhad apparently wearied of talking. Instead, he was reflecting. Theprisoner still sat on the feed box, moodily staring at the floor. Thegirl felt in one way that she was looking at a ghastly group in wax. Shestarted when the old horse put down an echoing hoof. She wished the menwould speak; their silence re-enforced the strange aspect. They mighthave been two dead men.

  The girl felt impelled to look at the corner of the interior where werethe cow stalls. There was no light there save the appearance of peculiargray haze which marked the track of the dimming rays of the lantern. Allelse was sombre shadow. At last she saw something move there. It mighthave been as small as a rat, or it might have been a part of somethingas large as a man. At any rate, it proclaimed that something in thatspot was alive. At one time she saw it plainly and at other times itvanished, because her fixture of gaze caused her occasionally to greatlytangle and blur those peculiar shadows and faint lights. At last,however, she perceived a human head. It was monstrously dishevelled andwild. It moved slowly forward until its glance could fall upon theprisoner and then upon the sentry. The wandering rays caused the eyes toglitter like silver. The girl's heart pounded so that she put her handover it.

  The sentry and the prisoner remained immovably waxen, and over in thegloom the head thrust from the floor watched them with its silver eyes.

  Finally, the prisoner slipped from the feed box, and, raising his arms,yawned at great length. "Oh, well," he remarked, "you boys will get agood licking if you fool around here much longer. That's somesatisfaction, anyhow, even if you did bag me. You'll get a goodwalloping." He reflected for a moment, and decided: "I'm sort of willingto be captured if you fellows only get a d----d good licking for beingso smart."

  The sentry looked up and smiled a superior smile. "Licking, hey? Nixey!"He winked exasperatingly at the prisoner. "You fellows are not fastenough, my boy. Why didn't you lick us at ----? and at ----? and at----?" He named some of the great battles.

  To this the captive officer blurted in angry astonishment, "Why, wedid!"

  The sentry winked again in profound irony. "Yes--I know you did. Ofcourse. You whipped us, didn't you? Fine kind of whipping that was! Why,we----"

  He suddenly ceased, smitten mute by a sound that broke the stillness ofthe night. It was the sharp crack of a distant shot that made wildechoes among the hills. It was instantly followed by the hoarse cry of ahuman voice, a far-away yell of warning, singing of surprise, peril,fear of death. A moment later there was a distant, fierce spattering ofshots. The sentry and the prisoner stood facing each other, their lipsapart, listening.

  The orchard at that instant awoke to sudden tumult. There were the thudand scramble and scamper of feet, the mellow, swift clash of arms, men'svoices in question, oath, command, hurried and unhurried, resolute andfrantic. A horse sped along the road at a raging gallop. A loud voiceshouted, "What is it, Ferguson?" Another voice yelled somethingincoherent. There was a sharp, discordant chorus of command. Anuproarious volley suddenly rang from the orchard. The prisoner in graymoved from his intent, listening attitude. Instantly the eyes of thesentry blazed, and he said with a new and terrible sternness, "Standwhere you are!"

  The prisoner trembled in his excitement. Expressions of delight andtriumph bubbled to his lips. "A surprise, by Gawd! Now--now, you'llsee!"

  The sentry stolidly swung his carbine to his shoulder. He sightedcarefully along the barrel until it pointed at the prisoner's head,about at his nose. "Well, I've got you, anyhow. Remember that! Don'tmove!"

  The prisoner could not keep his arms from nervously gesturing. "I won't;but----"

  "And shut your mouth!"

  The three comrades of the sentry flung themselves into view."Pete--devil of a row!--can you----"

  "I've got him," said the sentry calmly and without moving. It was as ifthe barrel of the carbine rested on piers of stone. The three comradesturned and plunged into the darkness.

  In the orchard it seemed as if two gigantic animals were engaged in amad, floundering encounter, snarling, howling in a whirling chaos ofnoise and motion. In the barn the prisoner and his guard faced eachother in silence.

  As for the girl at the knothole, the sky had fallen at the beginning ofthis clamour. She would not have been astonished to see the starsswinging from their abodes, and the vegetation, the barn, all blow away.It was the end of everything, the grand universal murder. When two ofthe three miraculous soldiers who formed the original feed-box corpsemerged in detail from the hole under the beam and slid away into thedarkness, she did no more than glance at them.

  Suddenly she recollected the head with silver eyes. She started forwardand again applied her eyes to the knothole. Even with the din resoundingfrom the orchard, from up the road and down the road, from the heavensand from the deep earth, the central fascination was this mystic head.There, to her, was the dark god of the tragedy.

  The prisoner in gray at this moment burst into a laugh that was no morethan a hysterical gurgle. "Well, you can't hold that gun out forever!Pretty soon you'll have to lower it."

  The sentry's voice sounded slightly muffled, for his cheek was pressedagainst the weapon. "I won't be tired for some time yet."

  The girl saw the head slowly rise, the eyes fixed upon the sentry'sface. A tall, black figure slunk across the cow stalls and vanished backof old Santo's quarters. She knew what was to come to pass. She knewthis grim thing was upon a terrible mission, and that it would reappearagain at the head of the little passage between Santo's stall and thewall, almost at the sentry's elbow; and yet when she saw a faintindication as of a form crouching there, a scream from an utterly newalarm almost escaped her.

  The sentry's arms, after all, were not of granite. He moved restively.At last he spoke in his even, unchanging tone: "Well, I guess you'llhave to climb into that feed box. Step back and lift the lid."

  "Why, you don't mean----"

  "Step back!"

  The girl felt a cry of warning arising to her lips as she gazed at thissentry. She noted every detail of his facial expression. She saw,moreover, his mass of brown hair bunching disgracefully about his ears,his clear eyes lit now with a hard, cold light, his forehead puckered ina mighty scowl, the ring upon the third finger of the left hand. "Oh,they won't kill him! Surely they won't kill him!" The noise of the fightin the orchard was the loud music, the thunder and lightning, therioting of the tempest which people love during the critical scene of atragedy.

  When the prisoner moved back in reluctant obedience, he faced for aninstant the entrance of the little passage, and what he saw there musthave been written swiftly, graphically in his eyes. And the sentry readit and knew then that he was upon the threshold of his death. In afraction of time, certain information went from the grim thing in thepassage to the prisoner, and from the prisoner to the sentry. But atthat instant the black formidable figure arose, towered, and made itsleap. A new shadow flashed across the floor when the blow was struck.

  As for the girl at the knothole, when she returned to sense she foundherself standing with clinched hands and screaming with her might.

  As if her reason had again departed from her, she ran around the barn,in at the door, and flung herself sobbing beside the body of the soldierin blue.

  The uproar of the fight became at last coherent, inasmuch as one partywas giving shouts
of supreme exultation. The firing no longer sounded incrashes; it was now expressed in spiteful crackles, the last words ofthe combat, spoken with feminine vindictiveness.

  Presently there was a thud of flying feet. A grimy panting, red-facedmob of troopers in blue plunged into the barn, became instantly frozento attitudes of amazement and rage, and then roared in one great chorus,"He's gone!"

  The girl who knelt beside the body upon the floor turned toward them herlamenting eyes and cried: "He's not dead, is he? He can't be dead?"

  They thronged forward. The sharp lieutenant who had been so particularabout the feed box knelt by the side of the girl and laid his headagainst the chest of the prostrate soldier. "Why, no," he said, risingand looking at the man. "He's all right. Some of you boys throw somewater on him."

  "Are you sure?" demanded the girl, feverishly.

  "Of course! He'll be better after awhile."

  "Oh!" said she softly, and then looked down at the sentry. She startedto arise, and the lieutenant reached down and hoisted rather awkwardlyat her arm.

  "Don't you worry about him. He's all right."

  She turned her face with its curving lips and shining eyes once moretoward the unconscious soldier upon the floor. The troopers made a laneto the door, the lieutenant bowed, the girl vanished.

  "Queer," said a young officer. "Girl very clearly worst kind of rebel,and yet she falls to weeping and wailing like mad over one of herenemies. Be around in the morning with all sorts of doctoring--you seeif she ain't. Queer."

  The sharp lieutenant shrugged his shoulders. After reflection heshrugged his shoulders again. He said: "War changes many things; but itdoesn't change everything, thank God!"