A MYSTERY OF HEROISM.
The dark uniforms of the men were so coated with dust from the incessantwrestling of the two armies that the regiment almost seemed a part ofthe clay bank which shielded them from the shells. On the top of thehill a battery was arguing in tremendous roars with some other guns, andto the eye of the infantry, the artillerymen, the guns, the caissons,the horses, were distinctly outlined upon the blue sky. When a piece wasfired, a red streak as round as a log flashed low in the heavens, like amonstrous bolt of lightning. The men of the battery wore white ducktrousers, which somehow emphasized their legs; and when they ran andcrowded in little groups at the bidding of the shouting officers, it wasmore impressive than usual to the infantry.
Fred Collins, of A Company, was saying: "Thunder! I wisht I had a drink.Ain't there any water round here?" Then somebody yelled, "There goes th'bugler!"
As the eyes of half the regiment swept in one machinelike movement therewas an instant's picture of a horse in a great convulsive leap of adeath wound and a rider leaning back with a crooked arm and spreadfingers before his face. On the ground was the crimson terror of anexploding shell, with fibres of flame that seemed like lances. Aglittering bugle swung clear of the rider's back as fell headlong thehorse and the man. In the air was an odour as from a conflagration.
Sometimes they of the infantry looked down at a fair little meadow whichspread at their feet. Its long, green grass was rippling gently in abreeze. Beyond it was the gray form of a house half torn to pieces byshells and by the busy axes of soldiers who had pursued firewood. Theline of an old fence was now dimly marked by long weeds and by anoccasional post. A shell had blown the well-house to fragments. Littlelines of gray smoke ribboning upward from some embers indicated theplace where had stood the barn.
From beyond a curtain of green woods there came the sound of somestupendous scuffle, as if two animals of the size of islands werefighting. At a distance there were occasional appearances ofswift-moving men, horses, batteries, flags, and, with the crashing ofinfantry volleys were heard, often, wild and frenzied cheers. In themidst of it all Smith and Ferguson, two privates of A Company, wereengaged in a heated discussion, which involved the greatest questions ofthe national existence.
The battery on the hill presently engaged in a frightful duel. The whitelegs of the gunners scampered this way and that way, and the officersredoubled their shouts. The guns, with their demeanours of stolidity andcourage, were typical of something infinitely self-possessed in thisclamour of death that swirled around the hill.
One of a "swing" team was suddenly smitten quivering to the ground, andhis maddened brethren dragged his torn body in their struggle to escapefrom this turmoil and danger. A young soldier astride one of the leadersswore and fumed in his saddle, and furiously jerked at the bridle. Anofficer screamed out an order so violently that his voice broke andended the sentence in a falsetto shriek.
The leading company of the infantry regiment was somewhat exposed, andthe colonel ordered it moved more fully under the shelter of the hill.There was the clank of steel against steel.
A lieutenant of the battery rode down and passed them, holding his rightarm carefully in his left hand. And it was as if this arm was not at alla part of him, but belonged to another man. His sober and reflectivecharger went slowly. The officer's face was grimy and perspiring, andhis uniform was tousled as if he had been in direct grapple with anenemy. He smiled grimly when the men stared at him. He turned his horsetoward the meadow.
Collins, of A Company, said: "I wisht I had a drink. I bet there's waterin that there ol' well yonder!"
"Yes; but how you goin' to git it?"
For the little meadow which intervened was now suffering a terribleonslaught of shells. Its green and beautiful calm had vanished utterly.Brown earth was being flung in monstrous handfuls. And there was amassacre of the young blades of grass. They were being torn, burned,obliterated. Some curious fortune of the battle had made this gentlelittle meadow the object of the red hate of the shells, and each one asit exploded seemed like an imprecation in the face of a maiden.
The wounded officer who was riding across this expanse said to himself,"Why, they couldn't shoot any harder if the whole army was massed here!"
A shell struck the gray ruins of the house, and as, after the roar, theshattered wall fell in fragments, there was a noise which resembled theflapping of shutters during a wild gale of winter. Indeed, the infantrypaused in the shelter of the bank appeared as men standing upon a shorecontemplating a madness of the sea. The angel of calamity had under itsglance the battery upon the hill. Fewer white-legged men laboured aboutthe guns. A shell had smitten one of the pieces, and after the flare,the smoke, the dust, the wrath of this blow were gone, it was possibleto see white legs stretched horizontally upon the ground. And at thatinterval to the rear, where it is the business of battery horses tostand with their noses to the fight awaiting the command to drag theirguns out of the destruction or into it or wheresoever theseincomprehensible humans demanded with whip and spur--in this line ofpassive and dumb spectators, whose fluttering hearts yet would not letthem forget the iron laws of man's control of them--in this rank ofbrute-soldiers there had been relentless and hideous carnage. From theruck of bleeding and prostrate horses, the men of the infantry could seeone animal raising its stricken body with its fore legs, and turning itsnose with mystic and profound eloquence toward the sky.
Some comrades joked Collins about his thirst. "Well, if yeh want a drinkso bad, why don't yeh go git it!"
"Well, I will in a minnet, if yeh don't shut up!"
A lieutenant of artillery floundered his horse straight down the hillwith as great concern as if it were level ground. As he galloped pastthe colonel of the infantry, he threw up his hand in swift salute."We've got to get out of that," he roared angrily. He was ablack-bearded officer, and his eyes, which resembled beads, sparkledlike those of an insane man. His jumping horse sped along the column ofinfantry.
The fat major, standing carelessly with his sword held horizontallybehind him and with his legs far apart, looked after the recedinghorseman and laughed. "He wants to get back with orders pretty quick, orthere'll be no batt'ry left," he observed.
The wise young captain of the second company hazarded to the lieutenantcolonel that the enemy's infantry would probably soon attack the hill,and the lieutenant colonel snubbed him.
A private in one of the rear companies looked out over the meadow, andthen turned to a companion and said, "Look there, Jim!" It was thewounded officer from the battery, who some time before had started toride across the meadow, supporting his right arm carefully with his lefthand. This man had encountered a shell apparently at a time when no oneperceived him, and he could now be seen lying face downward with astirruped foot stretched across the body of his dead horse. A leg of thecharger extended slantingly upward precisely as stiff as a stake. Aroundthis motionless pair the shells still howled.
There was a quarrel in A Company. Collins was shaking his fist in thefaces of some laughing comrades. "Dern yeh! I ain't afraid t' go. If yehsay much, I will go!"
"Of course, yeh will! You'll run through that there medder, won't yeh?"
Collins said, in a terrible voice, "You see now!" At this ominous threathis comrades broke into renewed jeers.
Collins gave them a dark scowl and went to find his captain. The latterwas conversing with the colonel of the regiment.
"Captain," said Collins, saluting and standing at attention--in thosedays all trousers bagged at the knees--"captain, I want t' getpermission to go git some water from that there well over yonder!"
The colonel and the captain swung about simultaneously and stared acrossthe meadow. The captain laughed. "You must be pretty thirsty, Collins?"
"Yes, sir, I am."
"Well--ah," said the captain. After a moment, he asked, "Can't youwait?"
"No, sir."
The colonel was watching Collins's face. "Look here, my lad," he said,in a pious sort of a voice--"l
ook here, my lad"--Collins was not alad--"don't you think that's taking pretty big risks for a little drinkof water?"
"I dunno," said Collins uncomfortably. Some of the resentment toward hiscompanions, which perhaps had forced him into this affair, was beginningto fade. "I dunno wether 'tis."
The colonel and the captain contemplated him for a time.
"Well," said the captain finally.
"Well," said the colonel, "if you want to go, why, go."
Collins saluted. "Much obliged t' yeh."
As he moved away the colonel called after him. "Take some of the otherboys' canteens with you an' hurry back now."
"Yes, sir, I will."
The colonel and the captain looked at each other then, for it hadsuddenly occurred that they could not for the life of them tell whetherCollins wanted to go or whether he did not.
They turned to regard Collins, and as they perceived him surrounded bygesticulating comrades, the colonel said: "Well, by thunder! I guesshe's going."
Collins appeared as a man dreaming. In the midst of the questions, theadvice, the warnings, all the excited talk of his company mates, hemaintained a curious silence.
They were very busy in preparing him for his ordeal. When they inspectedhim carefully it was somewhat like the examination that grooms give ahorse before a race; and they were amazed, staggered by the wholeaffair. Their astonishment found vent in strange repetitions.
"Are yeh sure a-goin'?" they demanded again and again.
"Certainly I am," cried Collins, at last furiously.
He strode sullenly away from them. He was swinging five or six canteensby their cords. It seemed that his cap would not remain firmly on hishead, and often he reached and pulled it down over his brow.
There was a general movement in the compact column. The long animal-likething moved slightly. Its four hundred eyes were turned upon the figureof Collins.
"Well, sir, if that ain't th' derndest thing! I never thought FredCollins had the blood in him for that kind of business."
"What's he goin' to do, anyhow?"
"He's goin' to that well there after water."
"We ain't dyin' of thirst, are we? That's foolishness."
"Well, somebody put him up to it, an' he's doin' it."
"Say, he must be a desperate cuss."
When Collins faced the meadow and walked away from the regiment, he wasvaguely conscious that a chasm, the deep valley of all prides, wassuddenly between him and his comrades. It was provisional, but theprovision was that he return as a victor. He had blindly been led byquaint emotions, and laid himself under an obligation to walk squarelyup to the face of death.
But he was not sure that he wished to make a retraction, even if hecould do so without shame. As a matter of truth, he was sure of verylittle. He was mainly surprised.
It seemed to him supernaturally strange that he had allowed his mind toman[oe]uvre his body into such a situation. He understood that it mightbe called dramatically great.
However, he had no full appreciation of anything, excepting that he wasactually conscious of being dazed. He could feel his dulled mind gropingafter the form and colour of this incident. He wondered why he did notfeel some keen agony of fear cutting his sense like a knife. He wonderedat this, because human expression had said loudly for centuries that menshould feel afraid of certain things, and that all men who did not feelthis fear were phenomena--heroes.
He was, then, a hero. He suffered that disappointment which we would allhave if we discovered that we were ourselves capable of those deedswhich we most admire in history and legend. This, then, was a hero.After all, heroes were not much.
No, it could not be true. He was not a hero. Heroes had no shames intheir lives, and, as for him, he remembered borrowing fifteen dollarsfrom a friend and promising to pay it back the next day, and thenavoiding that friend for ten months. When at home his mother had arousedhim for the early labour of his life on the farm, it had often been hisfashion to be irritable, childish, diabolical; and his mother had diedsince he had come to the war.
He saw that, in this matter of the well, the canteens, the shells, hewas an intruder in the land of fine deeds.
He was now about thirty paces from his comrades. The regiment had justturned its many faces toward him.
From the forest of terrific noises there suddenly emerged a littleuneven line of men. They fired fiercely and rapidly at distant foliageon which appeared little puffs of white smoke. The spatter of skirmishfiring was added to the thunder of the guns on the hill. The little lineof men ran forward. A colour sergeant fell flat with his flag as if hehad slipped on ice. There was hoarse cheering from this distant field.
Collins suddenly felt that two demon fingers were pressed into his ears.He could see nothing but flying arrows, flaming red. He lurched from theshock of this explosion, but he made a mad rush for the house, which heviewed as a man submerged to the neck in a boiling surf might view theshore. In the air, little pieces of shell howled and the earthquakeexplosions drove him insane with the menace of their roar. As he ran thecanteens knocked together with a rhythmical tinkling.
As he neared the house, each detail of the scene became vivid to him. Hewas aware of some bricks of the vanished chimney lying on the sod. Therewas a door which hung by one hinge.
Rifle bullets called forth by the insistent skirmishers came from thefar-off bank of foliage. They mingled with the shells and the pieces ofshells until the air was torn in all directions by hootings, yells,howls. The sky was full of fiends who directed all their wild rage athis head.
When he came to the well, he flung himself face downward and peered intoits darkness. There were furtive silver glintings some feet from thesurface. He grabbed one of the canteens and, unfastening its cap, swungit down by the cord. The water flowed slowly in with an indolent gurgle.
And now as he lay with his face turned away he was suddenly smitten withthe terror. It came upon his heart like the grasp of claws. All thepower faded from his muscles. For an instant he was no more than a deadman.
The canteen filled with a maddening slowness, in the manner of allbottles. Presently he recovered his strength and addressed a screamingoath to it. He leaned over until it seemed as if he intended to try topush water into it with his hands. His eyes as he gazed down into thewell shone like two pieces of metal and in their expression was a greatappeal and a great curse. The stupid water derided him.
There was the blaring thunder of a shell. Crimson light shone throughthe swift-boiling smoke and made a pink reflection on part of the wallof the well. Collins jerked out his arm and canteen with the same motionthat a man would use in withdrawing his head from a furnace.
He scrambled erect and glared and hesitated. On the ground near him laythe old well bucket, with a length of rusty chain. He lowered it swiftlyinto the well. The bucket struck the water and then, turning lazilyover, sank. When, with hand reaching tremblingly over hand, he hauled itout, it knocked often against the walls of the well and spilled some ofits contents.
In running with a filled bucket, a man can adopt but one kind of gait.So through this terrible field over which screamed practical angels ofdeath Collins ran in the manner of a farmer chased out of a dairy by abull.
His face went staring white with anticipation--anticipation of a blowthat would whirl him around and down. He would fall as he had seen othermen fall, the life knocked out of them so suddenly that their knees wereno more quick to touch the ground than their heads. He saw the long blueline of the regiment, but his comrades were standing looking at him fromthe edge of an impossible star. He was aware of some deep wheel ruts andhoofprints in the sod beneath his feet.
The artillery officer who had fallen in this meadow had been makinggroans in the teeth of the tempest of sound. These futile cries,wrenched from him by his agony, were heard only by shells, bullets. Whenwild-eyed Collins came running, this officer raised himself. His facecontorted and blanched from pain, he was about to utter some greatbeseeching cry. But suddenly his fa
ce straightened and he called: "Say,young man, give me a drink of water, will you?"
Collins had no room amid his emotions for surprise. He was mad from thethreats of destruction.
"I can't!" he screamed, and in his reply was a full description of hisquaking apprehension. His cap was gone and his hair was riotous. Hisclothes made it appear that he had been dragged over the ground by theheels. He ran on.
The officer's head sank down and one elbow crooked. His foot in itsbrass-bound stirrup still stretched over the body of his horse and theother leg was under the steed.
But Collins turned. He came dashing back. His face had now turned grayand in his eyes was all terror. "Here it is! here it is!"
The officer was as a man gone in drink. His arm bent like a twig. Hishead drooped as if his neck were of willow. He was sinking to theground, to lie face downward.
Collins grabbed him by the shoulder. "Here it is. Here's your drink.Turn over. Turn over, man, for God's sake!"
With Collins hauling at his shoulder, the officer twisted his body andfell with his face turned toward that region where lived the unspeakablenoises of the swirling missiles. There was the faintest shadow of asmile on his lips as he looked at Collins. He gave a sigh, a littleprimitive breath like that from a child.
Collins tried to hold the bucket steadily, but his shaking hands causedthe water to splash all over the face of the dying man. Then he jerkedit away and ran on.
The regiment gave him a welcoming roar. The grimed faces were wrinkledin laughter.
His captain waved the bucket away. "Give it to the men!"
The two genial, skylarking young lieutenants were the first to gainpossession of it. They played over it in their fashion.
When one tried to drink the other teasingly knocked his elbow. "Don't,Billie! You'll make me spill it," said the one. The other laughed.
Suddenly there was an oath, the thud of wood on the ground, and a swiftmurmur of astonishment among the ranks. The two lieutenants glared ateach other. The bucket lay on the ground empty.
AN INDIANA CAMPAIGN.
The Little Regiment, and Other Episodes of the American Civil War Page 14
