Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage - Chapters 1 -6

The regiment was fed and caressed at station after station until the youth had believed that he must be a hero.

When the sunrays at last struck full and mellowingly upon the earth, the youth saw that the landscape was streaked with two long, thin, black columns which disappeared on the brow of a hill in front and rearward vanished in a wood.

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.

He could conceive of men going very insignificantly about the world bearing a load of courage unseen, and although he had known many of his comrades through boyhood, he began to fear that his judgment of them had been blind.

Farther up the line a man, standing behind a tree, had had his knee joint splintered by a ball.

Th' dern doctor wanted t' amputate 'm, an' Bill, he raised a heluva row, I hear.

They were new and beautiful, and the color bearer habitually oiled the pole.

Pretty soon, though, we 'll meet a-plenty of guards an' provost-guards, an' one thing an' another.

They were pursued by the sound of musketry fire.

"Well, yeh kin b'lieve me er not, jest as yeh like.

He dinned reproaches at times.

There were crows and catcalls showered upon him when he retreated without the horse.

One night, as he lay in bed, the winds had carried to him the clangoring of the church bell as some enthusiast jerked the rope frantically to tell the twisted news of a great battle.

Whole brigades grinned in unison, and regiments laughed.

In the darkness he saw visions of a thousand-tongued fear that would babble at his back and cause him to flee, while others were going coolly about their country's business.

"Ye'd better take 'im outa th' road, pardner.

Once, when the command had first come to the field, some perambulating veterans, noting the length of their column, had accosted them thus: "Hey, fellers, what brigade is that?"

One was marching with an air imitative of some sublime drum major.

For a time he was obliged to labor to make himself believe.

The skirmishers in advance fascinated him.

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.

At nightfall the column broke into regimental pieces, and the fragments went into the fields to camp.

He wished to get out of hearing of the crackling shots which were to him like voices.

For recreation he could twiddle his thumbs and speculate on the thoughts which must agitate the minds of the generals.

For recreation he could twiddle his thumbs and speculate on the thoughts which must agitate the minds of the generals.

They clamored at each other, numbers making futile bids for the popular attention.

He bellowed at the tottering crowd who blocked the quick march of his bearers.

A battery spoke.

The hoofs of his horse often threatened the heads of the running men, but they scampered with singular fortune.

A dark battle line lay upon a sunstruck clearing that gleamed orange color.

As he listened to the din from the hillside, to a deep pulsating thunder that came from afar to the left, and to the lesser clamors which came from many directions, it occurred to him that they were fighting, too, over there, and over there, and over there.

"Not much it won't," replied the tall soldier, exasperated.

His busy mind had drawn for him large pictures extravagant in color, lurid with breathless deeds.

He could conceive of men going very insignificantly about the world bearing a load of courage unseen, and although he had known many of his comrades through boyhood, he began to fear that his judgment of them had been blind.

The Red Badge of Courage Stephen Crane (1871-1900) An Episode of the American Civil War Chapter 1 The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.

In the darkness he saw visions of a thousand-tongued fear that would babble at his back and cause him to flee, while others were going coolly about their country's business.

As he perceived her, she had immediately begun to stare up through the high tree branches at the sky.

The men stumbled along still muttering speculations.

Some talked of gray, bewhiskered hordes who were advancing with relentless curses and chewing tobacco with unspeakable valor; tremendous bodies of fierce soldiery who were sweeping along like the Huns.

A mass of wet grass, marched upon, rustled like silk.

Sometimes he could see them gesticulating against the blue and somber sky.

His musket bounced a trifle from his shoulder at each stride and made his cap feel uncertain upon his head.

From across the river the red eyes were still peering.

As he perceived her, she had immediately begun to stare up through the high tree branches at the sky.

The babbling man was grazed by a shot that made the blood stream widely down his face.

His homely face was suffused with a light of love for the army which was to him all things beautiful and powerful.

The blatant soldier often convulsed whole files by his biting sarcasms aimed at the tall one.

They lay twisted in fantastic contortions.

His unguided feet, too, caught aggravatingly in brambles; and with it all he received a subtle suggestion to touch the corpse.

After complicated journeyings with many pauses, there had come months of monotonous life in a camp.

"Of course it might happen that the hull kit-and-boodle might start and run, if some big fighting came first-off, and then again they might stay and fight like fun.

This spectacle of gradual strangulation made the youth writhe, and once as his friend rolled his eyes, he saw something in them that made him sink wailing to the ground.

Various veterans had told him tales.

"Well, yeh kin b'lieve me er not, jest as yeh like.

They were wrangling.

Once one lit before him and the livid lightning of the explosion effectually barred the way in his chosen direction.

He saw that even if the men were tottering with fear they would laugh at his warning.

Individuals must have supposed that they were cutting the letters of their names deep into everlasting tablets of brass, or enshrining their reputations forever in the hearts of their countrymen, while, as to fact, the affair would appear in printed reports under a meek and immaterial title.

"Oh, I suppose we must go reconnoitering around the country jest to keep 'em from getting too close, or to develop 'em, or something."

In visions he had seen himself in many struggles.

Others spoke of tattered and eternally hungry men who fired despondent powders.

"Shucks!" said the loud one.

Secular and religious education had effaced the throat-grappling instinct, or else firm finance held in check the passions.

Other regiments floundered up the bank.

For a moment the tremor of his legs caused him to dance a sort of hideous hornpipe.

Heroes, he thought, could find excuses in that long seething lane.

The bed of the former torrent was choked with the bodies of horses and splintered parts of war machines.

After complicated journeyings with many pauses, there had come months of monotonous life in a camp.

The tall soldier weakly tried to wrench himself free.

There were some handshakings and deep speeches with men whose features were familiar, but with whom the youth now felt the bonds of tied hearts.

Once the line encountered the body of a dead soldier.

The shoulder of one of the tramping bearers knocked heavily against the spectral soldier who was staring into the unknown.

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.

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.

They had a rapid altercation, in which they fastened upon each other various strange epithets.

He gawked in the direction of th fight.

When the sunrays at last struck full and mellowingly upon the earth, the youth saw that the landscape was streaked with two long, thin, black columns which disappeared on the brow of a hill in front and rearward vanished in a wood.

A flag fluttered.

There was sudden change from the ponderous infantry of theory to the light and speedy infantry of practice.

Once a man fell down, and as he reached for his rifle a comrade, unseeing, trod upon his hand.

He wished to rush forward and strangle with his fingers.

There was much scoffing at the latter by those who had yesterday been firm adherents of his views, and there was even a little sneering by men who had never believed the rumor.

Many of the men were making low-toned noises with their mouths, and these subdued cheers, snarls, imprecations, prayers, made a wild, barbaric song that went as an undercurrent of sound, strange and chantlike with the resounding chords of the war march.

"There's been heaps of fun poked at 'em because they're new, of course, and all that; but they'll fight all right, I guess."

As he perceived her, she had immediately begun to stare up through the high tree branches at the sky.

An officer on a bounding horse made maniacal motions with his arms.

Thus, many men of courage, he considered, would be obliged to desert the colors and scurry like chickens.

His mouth was agape in yokel fashion.

Some shouted information and gestured as the hurried.

This spectacle of gradual strangulation made the youth writhe, and once as his friend rolled his eyes, he saw something in them that made him sink wailing to the ground.

During the early spring he had refrained from adding extensively to the comfort of his environment because he had felt that the army might start on the march at any moment.

A battery changing position at a frantic gallop scattered the stragglers right and left.

She had affected to look with some contempt upon the quality of his war ardor and patriotism.

He had seen a good deal of flurry and haste in her movement as she changed her attitude.

He ended in a quavering sob of pity for himself.

Her brown face, upraised, was stained with tears, and her spare form was quivering.

He glared about him.

After the fever had left his veins, the youth thought that at last he was going to suffocate.

The brigade was formed in line of battle, and after a pause started slowly through the woods in the rear of the receding skirmishers, who were continually melting into the scene to appear again farther on.

The Red Badge of Courage Stephen Crane (1871-1900) An Episode of the American Civil War Chapter 1 The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.

As the landscape changed from brown to green, the army awakened, and began to tremble with eagerness at the noise of rumors.

But, from his present point of view, there was a halo of happiness about each of their heads, and he would have sacrificed all the brass buttons on the continent to have been enabled to return to them.

Far in front he thought he could see lighter masses protruding in points from the forest.

The smoke from the fire at times neglected the clay chimney and wreathed into the room, and this flimsy chimney of clay and sticks made endless threats to set ablaze the whole establishment.

"Oh, there may be a few of 'em run, but there's them kind in every regiment, 'specially when they first goes under fire," said the other in a tolerant way.

He was despondent and sullen, and threw shifting glances about him.

His fingers were dabbled with blood.

Secular and religious education had effaced the throat-grappling instinct, or else firm finance held in check the passions.

He contemplated the lurking menaces of the future, and failed in an effort to see himself standing stoutly in the midst of them.

His mouth was agape in yokel fashion.

He saw a man climb to the top of the fence, straddle the rail, and fire a parting shot.

Many of the men engaged in a spirited debate.

They jeered the piratical private, and called attention to various defects in his personal appearance; and they were wildly enthusiastic in support of the young girl.

Death about to thrust him between the shoulder blades was far more dreadful than death about to smite him between the eyes.

The regiment slid down a bank and wallowed across a little stream.

They lifted their eyes every chance to the smoke-wreathed hillock from whence the hostile battery addressed them.

They hurtled over his head with long wild screams.

There was an appalling imprint upon these faces.

He tried to mathematically prove to himself that he would not run from a battle.

Through the trees he watched the black figures of the gunners as they worked swiftly and intently.

The billowing smoke was filled with horizontal flashes.

He coaxed in schoolmistress fashion, as to a congregation of boys with primers.

A sufficient time before he would have allowed the problem to kick its heels at the outer portals of his mind, but now he felt compelled to give serious attention to it.

The quiet man astride looked mouse-colored upon such a splendid charger.

It was now like one of those moving monsters wending with many feet.

The philosophical tall soldier measured a sandwich of cracker and pork and swallowed it in a nonchalant manner.

He was despondent and sullen, and threw shifting glances about him.

Whole brigades grinned in unison, and regiments laughed.

Chapter 7 The youth cringed as if discovered in a crime.

He felt that every nerve in his body would be an ear to hear the voices, while other men would remain stolid and deaf.

She could calmly seat herself and with no apparent difficulty give him many hundreds of reasons why he was of vastly more importance on the farm than on the field of battle.

You talk as if you thought you was Napoleon Bonaparte."

They heeded not the largest and longest of the oaths that were thrown at them from all directions.

As the smoke slowly eddied away, the youth saw that the charge had been repulsed.

He must accumulate information of himself, and meanwhile he resolved to remain close upon his guard lest those qualities of which he knew nothing should everlastingly disgrace him.

His unguided feet, too, caught aggravatingly in brambles; and with it all he received a subtle suggestion to touch the corpse.

But here he was confronted with a thing of moment.

He blanched like one who has come to the edge of a cliff at midnight and is suddenly made aware.

From this little distance the many fires, with the black forms of men passing to and fro before the crimson rays, made weird and satanic effects.

As he marched he sang a bit of doggerel in a high and quavering voice: "Sing a song 'a vic'try, A pocketful 'a bullets, Five an' twenty dead men Baked in a--pie."

In regard to his companions his mind wavered between two opinions, according to his mood.

He thought that he must break from the ranks and harangue his comrades.

The sound of monotonous axe blows rang through the forest, and the insects, nodding upon their perches, crooned like old women.

The observant regiment, standing at rest in the roadway, whooped at once, and entered whole-souled upon the side of the maiden.

They were pursued by the sound of musketry fire.

A mounted officer displayed the furious anger of a spoiled child.

After complicated journeyings with many pauses, there had come months of monotonous life in a camp.

Once he knocked his shoulder so heavily against a tree that he went headlong.

The youth achieved one little thought in the midst of this chaos.

He contemplated the lurking menaces of the future, and failed in an effort to see himself standing stoutly in the midst of them.

There was a tattered man, fouled with dust, blood and powder stain from hair to shoes, who trudged quietly at the youth's side.

A flag, tilted forward, sped near the front.

The only foes he had seen were some pickets along the river bank.

As he looked all about him and pondered upon the mystic gloom, he began to believe that at any moment the ominous distance might be aflare, and the rolling crashes of an engagement come to his ears.

He coaxed in schoolmistress fashion, as to a congregation of boys with primers.

For moments he had been scrutinizing his person in a dazed way as if he had never before seen himself.

His mind heard howls of derision.

The steel ramrods clanked and clanged with incessant din as the men pounded them furiously into the hot rifle barrels.

And they're raising blazes all over camp--anybody can see that."

It seemed to be struggling to free itself from an agony.

Many of the men engaged in a spirited debate.

He had long despaired of witnessing a Greeklike struggle.

One night, as he lay in bed, the winds had carried to him the clangoring of the church bell as some enthusiast jerked the rope frantically to tell the twisted news of a great battle.

He could not accept with assurance an omen that he was about to mingle in one of those great affairs of the earth.

The youth saw with surprise that the soldier had two wounds, one in the head, bound with a blood-soaked rag, and the other in the arm, making that member dangle like a broken bough.

It cast its eyes upon the roads, which were growing from long troughs of liquid mud to proper thoroughfares.

In his eyes was a desire to chant a paean.

They were heedless of his appeals.

The guns, stolid and undaunted, spoke with dogged valor.

Men rushing swiftly emerged from it.

Where is it located?"

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.

As he gazed around him the youth felt a flash of astonishment at the blue, pure sky and the sun gleamings on the trees and fields.

The regiment was like a firework that, once ignited, proceeds superior to circumstances until its blazing vitality fades.

The flaps of the cartridge boxes were all unfastened, and bobbed idiotically with each movement.

He came flying back from a brook waving his garment bannerlike.

The din became crescendo, like the roar of an oncoming train.

The tall soldier turned and, lurching dangerously, went on.

Veteran regiments in the army were likely to be very small aggregations of men.

The insect voices of the night sang solemnly.

He was swelled with a tale he had heard from a reliable friend, who had heard it from a truthful cavalryman, who had heard it from his trustworthy brother, one of the orderlies at division headquarters.

He was afraid to make an open declaration of his concern, because he dreaded to place some unscrupulous confidant upon the high plane of the unconfessed from which elevation he could be derided.

The Red Badge of Courage Stephen Crane (1871-1900) An Episode of the American Civil War Chapter 1 The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.

Many of the men were making low-toned noises with their mouths, and these subdued cheers, snarls, imprecations, prayers, made a wild, barbaric song that went as an undercurrent of sound, strange and chantlike with the resounding chords of the war march.

The invulnerable dead man forced a way for himself.

And he mused seriously upon the radical differences between himself and those men who were dodging implike around the fires.

There was much scoffing at the latter by those who had yesterday been firm adherents of his views, and there was even a little sneering by men who had never believed the rumor.

Suddenly, as the two friends marched on, the tall soldier seemed to be overcome by a tremor.

A rather fat soldier attempted to pilfer a horse from a dooryard.

He had prepared certain sentences which he thought could be used with touching effect.

The purple darkness was filled with men who lectured and jabbered.

"Oh, Jim--oh, Jim--oh, Jim--" The tall soldier held out his gory hand.

In the air, always, was a mighty swell of sound that it seemed could sway the earth.

A river, amber-tinted in the shadow of its banks, purled at the army's feet; and at night, when the stream had become of a sorrowful blackness, one could see across it the red, eyelike gleam of hostile camp-fires set in the low brows of distant hills.

On concluding the sentence he laughed as if he had meant to aim a joke.

He searched about in his mind for an adequate malediction for the indefinite cause, the thing upon which men turn the words of final blame.

He had grown to regard himself merely as a part of a vast blue demonstration.

Presently he began to feel the effects of the war atmosphere--a blistering sweat, a sensation that his eyeballs were about to crack like hot stones.

As they went along, the man questioned the youth and assisted him with the replies like one manipulating the mind of a child.

There was a subdued debate.

Avoiding the obstructions gave it the sinuous movement of a serpent.

A mounted officer displayed the furious anger of a spoiled child.

I 'm 'fraid I 'll fall down--an' them yeh know--them damned artillery wagons--they like as not 'll run over me.

The men became so engrossed in this affair that they entirely ceased to remember their own large war.

A sketch in gray and red dissolved into a moblike body of men who galloped like wild horses.

All his faculties seemed to be needed to guide him over and past obstructions.

His face was of a clammy pallor.

From the heaving tangle issued exhortations, commands, imprecations.

A certain light-haired girl had made vivacious fun at his martial spirit, but there was another and darker girl whom he had gazed at steadfastly, and he thought she grew demure and sad at sight of his blue and brass.

Loud and vociferous congratulations were showered upon the maiden, who stood panting and regarding the troops with defiance.

For a moment he seemed to be searching for a formidable reply.

He recalled his visions of broken-bladed glory, but in the shadow of the impending tumult he suspected them to be impossible pictures.

The din in front swelled to a tremendous chorus.

"Think any of the boys 'll run?" persisted the youth.

The Red Badge of Courage Stephen Crane (1871-1900) An Episode of the American Civil War Chapter 1 The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.

One was marching with an air imitative of some sublime drum major.

The firing dwindled from an uproar to a last vindictive popping.

One or two stepped with overvaliant airs as if they were already plunged into war.

The youth looked keenly at the ashen face.

The army makes 'em wild, and they like nothing better than the job of leading off a young feller like you, as ain't never been away from home much and has allus had a mother, an' a-learning 'em to drink and swear.

The flag was sometimes eaten and lost in this mass of vapor, but more often it projected, sun-touched, resplendent.

He was welded into a common personality which was dominated by a single desire.

The luster faded from their eyes.

The refined joy of planting shells in the midst of the other battery's formation would appear a little thing when the infantry came swooping out of the woods.

Don't go a-thinkin' you can lick the hull rebel army at the start, because yeh can't.

A sufficient time before he would have allowed the problem to kick its heels at the outer portals of his mind, but now he felt compelled to give serious attention to it.

The odor of the peaceful pines was in the men's nostrils.

One or two stepped with overvaliant airs as if they were already plunged into war.

Of a sudden another broke out in a querulous way like a man who has mislaid his hat.

The blatant soldier often convulsed whole files by his biting sarcasms aimed at the tall one.

"They'll charge through hell's fire an' brimstone t' git a holt on a haversack, an' sech stomachs ain't a'lastin' long," he was told.

A shell screaming like a storm banshee went over the huddled heads of the reserves.

In his eyes there was mute, indefinite reproach.

Pausing at one time to look about him he saw, out at some black water, a small animal pounce in and emerge directly with a gleaming fish.

But, from his present point of view, there was a halo of happiness about each of their heads, and he would have sacrificed all the brass buttons on the continent to have been enabled to return to them.

Some talked of gray, bewhiskered hordes who were advancing with relentless curses and chewing tobacco with unspeakable valor; tremendous bodies of fierce soldiery who were sweeping along like the Huns.

Meanwhile, the soldier who had fetched the rumor bustled about with much importance.

Chapter 3 When another night came, the columns, changed to purple streaks, filed across two pontoon bridges.

In the eastern sky there was a yellow patch like a rug laid for the feet of the coming sun; and against it, black and patternlike, loomed the gigantic figure of the colonel on a gigantic horse.

He was aware that these battalions with their commotions were woven red and startling into the gentle fabric of softened greens and browns.

After a time he began to sidle near to the youth, and in a diffident way try to make him a friend.

From his home he had gone to the seminary to bid adieu to many schoolmates.

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.

He looked about to find men in the proper mood.

The men became so engrossed in this affair that they entirely ceased to remember their own large war.

They fled like soft, ungainly animals.

When reproached for this afterward, they usually expressed sorrow, and swore by their gods that the guns had exploded without their permission.

After receiving a fill of discussions concerning marches and attacks, he went to his hut and crawled through an intricate hole that served it as a door.

A river, amber-tinted in the shadow of its banks, purled at the army's feet; and at night, when the stream had become of a sorrowful blackness, one could see across it the red, eyelike gleam of hostile camp-fires set in the low brows of distant hills.

Behind the lines these two were acting a little isolated scene.

It suddenly occurred to the youth that the fight in which he had been was, after all, but perfunctory popping.

He was a craven loon.

He stalked like the specter of a soldier, his eyes burning with the power of a stare into the unknown.

He coaxed in schoolmistress fashion, as to a congregation of boys with primers.

Equipments hung on handy projections, and some tin dishes lay upon a small pile of firewood.

The brigade was formed in line of battle, and after a pause started slowly through the woods in the rear of the receding skirmishers, who were continually melting into the scene to appear again farther on.

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 came near to convincing them by disdaining to produce proofs.

His neck was quivering with nervous weakness and the muscles of his arms felt numb and bloodless.

A low, tittering laugh went among his fellows.

The newspapers, the gossip of the village, his own picturings, had aroused him to an uncheckable degree.

He had proceeded with wisdom and from the most righteous motives under heaven's blue only to be frustrated by hateful circumstances.

To the youth it was an onslaught of redoubtable dragons.

He had, of course, dreamed of battles all his life--of vague and bloody conflicts that had thrilled him with their sweep and fire.

When he had finished, the blue-clothed men scattered into small arguing groups between the rows of squat brown huts.

They might not be distinctly Homeric, but there seemed to be much glory in them.

A dull, animal-like rebellion against his fellows, war in the abstract, and fate grew within him.

He recalled his visions of broken-bladed glory, but in the shadow of the impending tumult he suspected them to be impossible pictures.

There was an occasional flash and glimmer of steel from the backs of all these huge crawling reptiles.

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.

This sentiment, floating to him upon the still air, had made him temporarily regret war.

Bullets began to whistle among the branches and nip at the trees.

A woodpecker stuck his impudent head around the side of a tree.

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.

A river, amber-tinted in the shadow of its banks, purled at the army's feet; and at night, when the stream had become of a sorrowful blackness, one could see across it the red, eyelike gleam of hostile camp-fires set in the low brows of distant hills.

The swift thought came to him that the generals did not know what they were about.

He tried to reload his gun, but his shaking hands prevented.

He now was in a measure reassured.

There was a lull in the noises of insects as if they had bowed their beaks and were making a devotional pause.

The youth had reached an anguish where the sobs scorched him.

The tall soldier burst into praises of what he thought to be his powers of perception.

When he had finished, the blue-clothed men scattered into small arguing groups between the rows of squat brown huts.

Its motion as it fell was a gesture of despair.

In his great anxiety his heart was continually clamoring at what he considered the intolerable slowness of the generals.

His hat was gone and his clothes were awry.

He must accumulate information of himself, and meanwhile he resolved to remain close upon his guard lest those qualities of which he knew nothing should everlastingly disgrace him.

He had prepared certain sentences which he thought could be used with touching effect.

The brigade was hurrying briskly to be gulped into the infernal mouths of the war god.

The sound of monotonous axe blows rang through the forest, and the insects, nodding upon their perches, crooned like old women.

The regiment, relieved of a burden, received a new impetus.

He assumed, then, the demeanor of one who knows that he is doomed alone to unwritten responsibilities.

His head was hanging forward and his words were slurred.

The officer's profanity sounded conventional.

Then, in other moments, he flouted these theories, and assured him that his fellows were all privately wondering and quaking.

High in a treetop he stopped, and, poking his head cautiously from behind a branch, looked down with an air of trepidation.

He was opposed by men who advocated that there were other plans of campaign.

He clutched the youth's arm and looked all about him, as if dreading to be overheard.

Across the smoke-infested fields came a brown swarm of running men who were giving shrill yells.

The loud soldier also giggled.

At last he burst the bonds which had fastened him to the spot and fled, unheeding the underbrush.

He was a slightly ragged man, who spat skillfully between his shoes and possessed a great fund of bland and infantile assurance.

He had, of course, been impatient under the ordeal of this speech.

Smoke drifted lazily from a multitude of quaint chimneys.

His spirit seemed then to be communing with the viands.

There was a lull in the noises of insects as if they had bowed their beaks and were making a devotional pause.

He had time in which to wonder about himself and to attempt to probe his sensations.

But he saw that it was good, else, he said, in battle every one would surely run save forlorn hopes and their ilk.

When he finally spoke his voice was as bitter as dregs.

He of the injured fingers swore bitterly, and aloud.

He turned away amazed and angry.

He groveled on the ground and then springing up went careering off through some bushes.

As he was carried past they made pert remarks to him.

All the roarers and lashers served to help him to magnify the dangers and horrors of the engagement that he might try to prove to himself that the thing with which men could charge him was in truth a symmetrical act.

In the eastern sky there was a yellow patch like a rug laid for the feet of the coming sun; and against it, black and patternlike, loomed the gigantic figure of the colonel on a gigantic horse.

Secular and religious education had effaced the throat-grappling instinct, or else firm finance held in check the passions.

Didn't the cavalry all start this morning?"

They had thronged about him with wonder and admiration.

"We ain't never goin' to stand this second banging.

Then it was shaken by a prolonged ague.

They cursed like highwaymen.

War, the red animal, war, the blood-swollen god, would have bloated fill.

"Don't forgit about the socks and the shirts, child; and I've put a cup of blackberry jam with yer bundle, because I know yeh like it above all things.

He felt the subtle battle brotherhood more potent even than the cause for which they were fighting.

He came near to convincing them by disdaining to produce proofs.

"Yeh must allus remember yer father, too, child, an' remember he never drunk a drop of licker in his life, and seldom swore a cross oath.

A certain light-haired girl had made vivacious fun at his martial spirit, but there was another and darker girl whom he had gazed at steadfastly, and he thought she grew demure and sad at sight of his blue and brass.

The following throng went whirling around the flank.

Without salve, he could not, he though, were the sore badge of his dishonor through life.

In fact, he usually admired in secret the superior development of the higher qualities in others.

No skulking 'll do here."

He thoughtfully mopped his reeking features.

They were bursting from their coats and their equipments as from entanglements.

Chapter 4 The brigade was halted in the fringe of a grove.

"He 's up an' gone, ain't 'e, an' we might as well begin t' look out fer ol' number one.

The shrilling voices of the people at home would pipe dismally for a time, but various general were usually compelled to listen to these ditties.

This voice of the people rejoicing in the night had made him shiver in a prolonged ecstasy of excitement.

The man was blubbering and staring with sheeplike eyes at the lieutenant, who had seized him by the collar and was pommeling him.

The liquid stillness of the night enveloping him made him feel vast pity for himself.

Into the youth's eyes there came a look that one can see in the orbs of a jaded horse.

He of course felt no compunctions for proposing a general as a sacrifice.

He pictured the ground before it as strewn with the discomfited.

A jingling staff was galloping hither and thither.

Some of the tall one's companions cried with emphasis that they, too, had evolved the same thing, and they congratulated themselves upon it.

A certain light-haired girl had made vivacious fun at his martial spirit, but there was another and darker girl whom he had gazed at steadfastly, and he thought she grew demure and sad at sight of his blue and brass.

Presently he began to feel the effects of the war atmosphere--a blistering sweat, a sensation that his eyeballs were about to crack like hot stones.

They expended their lungs with prodigal wills.

It was quite probable they would hit the wrong man who, after he had recovered from his amazement would perhaps spend the rest of his days in writing replies to the songs of his alleged failure.

They were discussing his plight, questioning him and giving him advice.

If he had thought the regiment was about to be annihilated perhaps he could have amputated himself from it.

The youth, pausing in his nervous walk, looked down at the busy figure.

The youth, considering himself as separated from the others, was saddened by the blithe and merry speeches that went from rank to rank.

He was despondent and sullen, and threw shifting glances about him.

In it there was something soft and tender like the monologue of a babe.

"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.

The young girl, with pink cheeks and shining eyes, stood like a dauntless statue.

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.

As he perceived her, she had immediately begun to stare up through the high tree branches at the sky.

They clamored at each other, numbers making futile bids for the popular attention.

Furthermore, various ailments had begun to cry out.

The swishing saplings tried to make known his presence to the world.

In visions he had seen himself in many struggles.

During this halt many men in the regiment began erecting tiny hills in front of them.

The Red Badge of Courage Stephen Crane (1871-1900) An Episode of the American Civil War Chapter 1 The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.

A negro teamster who had been dancing upon a cracker box with the hilarious encouragement of twoscore soldiers was deserted.

There was, on the contrary, an irritating prolongation.

So he fretted for an opportunity.

Individuals must have supposed that they were cutting the letters of their names deep into everlasting tablets of brass, or enshrining their reputations forever in the hearts of their countrymen, while, as to fact, the affair would appear in printed reports under a meek and immaterial title.

The sight of this stampede exerted a floodlike force that seemed able to drag sticks and stones and men from the ground.

He was transfixed by this terrific medley of all noises.

Or else they didn't comprehend--the fools.

The Red Badge of Courage Stephen Crane (1871-1900) An Episode of the American Civil War Chapter 1 The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.

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.

The youth achieved one little thought in the midst of this chaos.

He seized time to look about him calculatingly.

During the early spring he had refrained from adding extensively to the comfort of his environment because he had felt that the army might start on the march at any moment.

Men extricated themselves from thick shirts.

Chapter 4 The brigade was halted in the fringe of a grove.

The brittle blue line had withstood the blows and won.

A certain light-haired girl had made vivacious fun at his martial spirit, but there was another and darker girl whom he had gazed at steadfastly, and he thought she grew demure and sad at sight of his blue and brass.

Indeed, he saw a picture of himself, dust-stained, haggard, panting, flying to the front at the proper moment to seize and throttle the dark, leering witch of calamity.

The sergeant, taking note of this, gave pause to his elaborate history while he administered a sardonic comment.

But, from his present point of view, there was a halo of happiness about each of their heads, and he would have sacrificed all the brass buttons on the continent to have been enabled to return to them.

Methodical idiots!

Upon his features was an unholy mixture of merriment and agony.

In his flight the sound of these following footsteps gave him his one meager relief.

With his heart continually assuring him that he was despicable, he could not exist without making it, through his actions, apparent to all men.

Of a surety the force was in a fix, and any fool could see that if they did not retreat while they had opportunity--why-- He felt that he would like to thrash the general, or at least approach and tell him in plain words exactly what he thought him to be.

He made a fine use of the third person.

He wished, without reserve, that he was at home again making the endless rounds from the house to the barn, from the barn to the fields, from the fields to the barn, from the barn to the house.

This man's serene unconcern dealt him a measure of confidence, for he had known him since childhood, and from his intimate knowledge he did not see how he could be capable of anything that was beyond him, the youth.

What I hate is this getting moved here and moved there, with no good coming of it, as far as I can see, excepting sore feet and damned short rations."

There was one who raised a doleful cry.

I give a holler an' begin t' run, but b'fore I could git away another one hit me in th' arm an' whirl' me clean 'round.

After receiving a fill of discussions concerning marches and attacks, he went to his hut and crawled through an intricate hole that served it as a door.

Here and there were flags, the red in the stripes dominating.

Some talked of gray, bewhiskered hordes who were advancing with relentless curses and chewing tobacco with unspeakable valor; tremendous bodies of fierce soldiery who were sweeping along like the Huns.

Admitting that he might be wrong, a frenzied declamation of the kind would turn him into a worm.

He pictured the ground before it as strewn with the discomfited.

The tall soldier burst into praises of what he thought to be his powers of perception.

The youth, pausing in his nervous walk, looked down at the busy figure.

He contemplated the lurking menaces of the future, and failed in an effort to see himself standing stoutly in the midst of them.

For some moments he could not flee no more than a little finger can commit a revolution from a hand.

His incoherent questions were lost.

A river, amber-tinted in the shadow of its banks, purled at the army's feet; and at night, when the stream had become of a sorrowful blackness, one could see across it the red, eyelike gleam of hostile camp-fires set in the low brows of distant hills.

There was a blare of heated rage mingled with a certain expression of intentness on all faces.

"I don't know what else to tell yeh, Henry, excepting that yeh must never do no shirking, child, on my account.

"Good Lord!" he repeated in dismay.

Suddenly those close forests would bristle with rifle barrels.

He thoughtfully poked one of the docile hands with his foot.

His musket bounced a trifle from his shoulder at each stride and made his cap feel uncertain upon his head.

The latter approached and looked down.

A small window shot an oblique square of whiter light upon the cluttered floor.

At last he heard from along the road at the foot of the hill the clatter of a horse's galloping hoofs.

He reluctantly admitted that he could not sit still and with a mental slate and pencil derive an answer.

They must be machines of steel.

Where is it located?"

The tiny riders were beating the tiny horses.

He was convicted by himself of many shameful crimes against the gods of traditions.

He began to exaggerate the endurance, the skill, and the valor of those who were coming.

The composite monster which had caused the other troops to flee had not then appeared.

Once a man fell down, and as he reached for his rifle a comrade, unseeing, trod upon his hand.

"Reserve your fire, boys--don't shoot till I tell you--save your fire--wait till they get close up--don't be damned fools--" Perspiration streamed down the youth's face, which was soiled like that of a weeping urchin.

Their blanched faces shone in the dusk.

"Good Lord!" he repeated in dismay.

Sometimes he could see them gesticulating against the blue and somber sky.

He had not enlisted of his free will.

The officer leaned forward.

"Good Lord!" he repeated in dismay.

One outlined in a peculiarly lucid manner all the plans of the commanding general.

As he basked in the smiles of the girls and was patted and complimented by the old men, he had felt growing within him the strength to do mighty deeds of arms.

They lay twisted in fantastic contortions.

Almost every day the newspaper printed accounts of a decisive victory.

Pretty soon, though, we 'll meet a-plenty of guards an' provost-guards, an' one thing an' another.

They were a sun-tanned, philosophical lot, who sometimes shot reflectively at the blue pickets.

But the long serpents crawled slowly from hill to hill without bluster of smoke.

Admitting that he might be wrong, a frenzied declamation of the kind would turn him into a worm.

He helped a cursing comrade to bind up a wound of the shin.

After receiving a fill of discussions concerning marches and attacks, he went to his hut and crawled through an intricate hole that served it as a door.

The regiment was fed and caressed at station after station until the youth had believed that he must be a hero.

Their density would not enable them to understand his sharper point of view.

It was useless to expect appreciation of his profound and fine sense from such men as the lieutenant.

He lay in his bunk pondering upon it.

As he looked all about him and pondered upon the mystic gloom, he began to believe that at any moment the ominous distance might be aflare, and the rolling crashes of an engagement come to his ears.

Moreover, on her side, was his belief that her ethical motive in the argument was impregnable.

He now was in a measure reassured.

She had affected to look with some contempt upon the quality of his war ardor and patriotism.

He slowly lifted his rifle and catching a glimpse of the thickspread field he blazed at a cantering cluster.

The struggle in the smoke had pictured an exaggeration of itself on the bleached cheeks and in the eyes wild with one desire.

Sometimes his anger at the commanders reached an acute stage, and he grumbled about the camp like a veteran.

The tattered man shrank back abashed.

But, from his present point of view, there was a halo of happiness about each of their heads, and he would have sacrificed all the brass buttons on the continent to have been enabled to return to them.

He had seen a good deal of flurry and haste in her movement as she changed her attitude.

This voice of the people rejoicing in the night had made him shiver in a prolonged ecstasy of excitement.

Once a certain tall soldier developed virtues and went resolutely to wash a shirt.

But, from his present point of view, there was a halo of happiness about each of their heads, and he would have sacrificed all the brass buttons on the continent to have been enabled to return to them.

Their shots into thickets and at distant and prominent trees spoke to him of tragedies--hidden, mysterious, solemn.

"Oh, there may be a few of 'em run, but there's them kind in every regiment, 'specially when they first goes under fire," said the other in a tolerant way.

And from this region of noises came the steady current of the maimed.

From across the river the red eyes were still peering.

He felt that in this crisis his laws of life were useless.

There was much scoffing at the latter by those who had yesterday been firm adherents of his views, and there was even a little sneering by men who had never believed the rumor.

The regiment, relieved of a burden, received a new impetus.

The wounded men were cursing, groaning, and wailing.

His actions had been sagacious things.

And he hated the lieutenant, who had no appreciation of fine minds.

He was afraid to make an open declaration of his concern, because he dreaded to place some unscrupulous confidant upon the high plane of the unconfessed from which elevation he could be derided.

The artillery were assembling as if for a conference.

At length he reached a place where the high, arching boughs made a chapel.

He had time in which to wonder about himself and to attempt to probe his sensations.

He assumed, then, the demeanor of one who knows that he is doomed alone to unwritten responsibilities.

From the road came creakings and grumblings as some surly guns were dragged away.

His failure to discover any mite of resemblance in their viewpoints made him more miserable than before.

He bent forward, scarce breathing.

They were always busy as bees, deeply absorbed in their little combats.

If an intense scene had caught him with its wild swing as he came to the top of the bank, he might have gone gone roaring on.

The firing dwindled from an uproar to a last vindictive popping.

To the youth it was an onslaught of redoubtable dragons.

And it was as if fate had betrayed the soldier.

They prodded teamsters indifferent to all howls.

"Well, now look--a--here--now," said the tattered man, rambling on in idiot fashion.

However, he perceived now that it did not greatly matter what kind of soldiers he was going to fight, so long as they fought, which fact no one disputed.

For recreation he could twiddle his thumbs and speculate on the thoughts which must agitate the minds of the generals.

And there was a resemblance in him to a devotee of a mad religion, blood-sucking, muscle-wrenching, bone-crushing.

A brigade ahead of them and on the right went into action with a rending roar.

On the way to Washington his spirit had soared.

In the lane was a blood-stained crowd streaming to the rear.

Now, with the newborn question in his mind, he was compelled to sink back into his old place as part of a blue demonstration.

Some talked of gray, bewhiskered hordes who were advancing with relentless curses and chewing tobacco with unspeakable valor; tremendous bodies of fierce soldiery who were sweeping along like the Huns.

As the smoke slowly eddied away, the youth saw that the charge had been repulsed.

But the others scoffed in reply, and pointed to the veterans on the flanks who were digging at the ground like terriers.

He was a slightly ragged man, who spat skillfully between his shoes and possessed a great fund of bland and infantile assurance.

The hoofs of his horse often threatened the heads of the running men, but they scampered with singular fortune.

They call the reg'ment 'Fresh fish' and everything; but the boys come of good stock, and most of 'em 'll fight like sin after they oncet git shootin'," he added, with a mighty emphasis on the last four words.

They say th' enemy driv' our line inteh a devil of a swamp an' took Hannises' batt'ry."

He was dressed in an awkward suit of yellowish brown.

Farther up the line a man, standing behind a tree, had had his knee joint splintered by a ball.

"Why--why--" stammered the youth struggling with his balking tongue.

The forest seemed a vast hive of men buzzing about in frantic circles, but the cheery man conducted the youth without mistakes, until at last he began to chuckle with glee and self-satisfaction.

Upon the other shore a dark and mysterious range of hills was curved against the sky.

One was marching with an air imitative of some sublime drum major.

Sometimes his anger at the commanders reached an acute stage, and he grumbled about the camp like a veteran.

The flag was sometimes eaten and lost in this mass of vapor, but more often it projected, sun-touched, resplendent.

He threw a pine cone at a jovial squirrel, and he ran with chattering fear.

From the stories, the youth imagined the red, live bones sticking out through slits in the faded uniforms.

His lean features wore an expression of awe and admiration.

He thoughtfully mopped his reeking features.

"No--no--don't tech me--leave me be--leave me be--" The youth, aghast and filled with wonder at the tall soldier, began quaveringly to question him.

In the gloom before the break of the day their uniforms glowed a deep purple hue.

He craved a power that would enable him to make a world-sweeping gesture and brush all back.

He came finally to a road from which he could see in the distance dark and agitated bodies of troops, smoke-fringed.

They expended their lungs with prodigal wills.

Bullets began to whistle among the branches and nip at the trees.

He stood trying to rally his faltering intellect so that he might recollect the moment when he had loaded, but he could not.

He loitered in a fever of eagerness for the division commander to apply to him.

He held a little carnival of joy on horseback.

He was a craven loon.

He fought frantically for respite for his senses, for air, as a babe being smothered attacks the deadly blankets.

He must accumulate information of himself, and meanwhile he resolved to remain close upon his guard lest those qualities of which he knew nothing should everlastingly disgrace him.

They had strutted.

The officer's profanity sounded conventional.

So he fretted for an opportunity.

When he had stood in the doorway with his soldier's clothes on his back, and with the light of excitement and expectancy in his eyes almost defeating the glow of regret for the home bonds, he had seen two tears leaving their trails on his mother's scarred cheeks.

He was obliged to walk upon bog tufts and watch his feet to keep from the oily mire.

"You ain't the bravest man in the world, are you?"

Once, when the command had first come to the field, some perambulating veterans, noting the length of their column, had accosted them thus: "Hey, fellers, what brigade is that?"

Then, in other moments, he flouted these theories, and assured him that his fellows were all privately wondering and quaking.

He was a slang phrase.

He stared at the red, shivering reflection of a fire on the white wall of his tent until, exhausted and ill from the monotony of his suffering, he fell asleep.

The voices of the cannon were clamoring in interminable chorus.

They persistently yelled "Fresh fish!" at him, and were in no wise to be trusted.

As he warily moved about, he heard the general call out irritably: "Tompkins, go over an' see Taylor, an' tell him not t' be in such an all-fired hurry; tell him t' halt his brigade in th' edge of th' woods; tell him t' detach a reg'ment--say I think th' center 'll break if we don't help it out some; tell him t' hurry up."

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.

A bird flew on lighthearted wing.

Buried in the smoke of many rifles his anger was directed not so much against the men whom he knew were rushing toward him as against the swirling battle phantoms which were choking him, stuffing their smoke robes down his parched throat.

For days he made ceaseless calculations, but they were all wondrously unsatisfactory.

In his life he had taken certain things for granted, never challenging his belief in ultimate success, and bothering little about means and roads.

The musketry sounded in long irregular surges that played havoc with his ears.

To his attentive audience he drew a loud and elaborate plan of a very brilliant campaign.

This voice of the people rejoicing in the night had made him shiver in a prolonged ecstasy of excitement.

He became aware of the foul atmosphere in which he had been struggling.

They seemed, for the most part, to be very burly men.

It cast its eyes upon the roads, which were growing from long troughs of liquid mud to proper thoroughfares.

During the early spring he had refrained from adding extensively to the comfort of his environment because he had felt that the army might start on the march at any moment.

The teams went swinging up from the rear, the guns were whirled about, and the battery scampered away.

But his mother had discouraged him.

A lad whose face had borne an expression of exalted courage, the majesty of he who dares give his life, was, at an instant, smitten abject.

As he hastened, there passed through his mind pictures of stupendous conflicts.

A warm and strong hand clasped the youth's languid fingers for an instant, and then he heard a cheerful and audacious whistling as the man strode away.

There was sudden change from the ponderous infantry of theory to the light and speedy infantry of practice.

The youth put forth anxious arms to assist him, but the tall soldier went firmly as if propelled.

The forest seemed a vast hive of men buzzing about in frantic circles, but the cheery man conducted the youth without mistakes, until at last he began to chuckle with glee and self-satisfaction.

Across the smoke-infested fields came a brown swarm of running men who were giving shrill yells.

He had, of course, dreamed of battles all his life--of vague and bloody conflicts that had thrilled him with their sweep and fire.

He denounced himself as a villain.

Its complexities and powers, its grim processes, fascinated him.

It was as if a thousand axes, wee and invisible, were being wielded.

For days he made ceaseless calculations, but they were all wondrously unsatisfactory.

There seemed to be a great ruck of men and munitions spread about in the forest and in the fields.

They had a rapid altercation, in which they fastened upon each other various strange epithets.

He had, of course, dreamed of battles all his life--of vague and bloody conflicts that had thrilled him with their sweep and fire.

Equipments hung on handy projections, and some tin dishes lay upon a small pile of firewood.

The waves had receded, leaving bits of dark "debris" upon the ground.

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.

He grasped his canteen and took a long swallow of the warmed water.

A river, amber-tinted in the shadow of its banks, purled at the army's feet; and at night, when the stream had become of a sorrowful blackness, one could see across it the red, eyelike gleam of hostile camp-fires set in the low brows of distant hills.

The youth nodded an assent wearily.

He felt vaguely that death must make a first choice of the men who were nearest; the initial morsels for the dragons would be then those who were following him.

The regiment was like a firework that, once ignited, proceeds superior to circumstances until its blazing vitality fades.

Buried in the smoke of many rifles his anger was directed not so much against the men whom he knew were rushing toward him as against the swirling battle phantoms which were choking him, stuffing their smoke robes down his parched throat.

The thrill of his enthusiasm made him walk with an elastic step.

He could not tell who the chosen for the barbs might be, so he could center no direct sympathy upon him.

When he perceived again that it was not possible for the army to be defeated, he tried to bethink him of a fine tale which he could take back to his regiment, and with it turn the expected shafts of derision.

They prodded teamsters indifferent to all howls.

A warm and strong hand clasped the youth's languid fingers for an instant, and then he heard a cheerful and audacious whistling as the man strode away.

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.

"Well," remarked the youth, "like as not this story'll turn out jest like them others did."

His emotions made him feel strange in the presence of men who talked excitedly of a prospective battle as of a drama they were about to witness, with nothing but eagerness and curiosity apparent in their faces.

The lieutenant was obliged to assist him.

The blatant soldier often convulsed whole files by his biting sarcasms aimed at the tall one.

There was a singular absence of heroic poses.

A corporal began to swear before the assemblage.

There was a lull in the noises of insects as if they had bowed their beaks and were making a devotional pause.

Do they think--" The youth in his battle sleep heard this as one who dozes hears.

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.

Chapter 12 The column that had butted stoutly at the obstacles in the roadway was barely out of the youth's sight before he saw dark waves of men come sweeping out of the woods and down through the fields.

As he had walked down the path between the rows of oaks, he had turned his head and detected her at a window watching his departure.

When he had stood in the doorway with his soldier's clothes on his back, and with the light of excitement and expectancy in his eyes almost defeating the glow of regret for the home bonds, he had seen two tears leaving their trails on his mother's scarred cheeks.

His face turned to a semblance of gray paste.

He took the matter as an affront to him.

They would jeer him, and, if practicable, pelt him with missiles.

Landmarks had vanished into the gathered gloom.

He of the injured fingers swore bitterly, and aloud.

The men were whispering speculations and recounting the old rumors.

Indeed, he saw a picture of himself, dust-stained, haggard, panting, flying to the front at the proper moment to seize and throttle the dark, leering witch of calamity.

It was a mysterious fraternity born of the smoke and danger of death.

There was a vigorous discussion.

There came a turbulent stream of men across the fields.

He stared at the red, shivering reflection of a fire on the white wall of his tent until, exhausted and ill from the monotony of his suffering, he fell asleep.

He came to a fence and clambered over it.

He hopped like a schoolboy in a game.

The men there seemed to be in conventional moods, altogether unaware of the impending annihilation.

His spirit seemed then to be communing with the viands.

The sergeant, taking note of this, gave pause to his elaborate history while he administered a sardonic comment.

Also, there was too great a similarity in the hats.

With his heart continually assuring him that he was despicable, he could not exist without making it, through his actions, apparent to all men.

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.

On the march he went along with the stride of a hunter, objecting to neither gait nor distance.

He was quick to see vulnerable places in them all.

"Was pretty good fight, wa'n't it?" he began in a small voice, and the he achieved the fortitude to continue.

He was at the rendezvous.

He was invaded by a creeping strangeness that slowly enveloped him.

He cried out bitterly that their crowns were stolen and their robes of glorious memories were shams.

Their shots into thickets and at distant and prominent trees spoke to him of tragedies--hidden, mysterious, solemn.

There was an occasional flash and glimmer of steel from the backs of all these huge crawling reptiles.

He knew at once that the steel fibers had been washed from their hearts.

The youth kept from intercourse with his companions as much as circumstances would allow him.

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.

The sun spread disclosing rays, and, one by one, regiments burst into view like armed men just born of the earth.

Secular and religious education had effaced the throat-grappling instinct, or else firm finance held in check the passions.

Individuals must have supposed that they were cutting the letters of their names deep into everlasting tablets of brass, or enshrining their reputations forever in the hearts of their countrymen, while, as to fact, the affair would appear in printed reports under a meek and immaterial title.

The cannon with their noses poked slantingly at the ground grunted and grumbled like stout men, brave but with objections to hurry.

For a moment he seemed to be searching for a formidable reply.

He bent forward, scarce breathing.

The dragons were coming with invincible strides.

Tell me, won't you, Jim?" The tall soldier faced about as upon relentless pursuers.

He had opportunity to reflect.

A sketch in gray and red dissolved into a moblike body of men who galloped like wild horses.

He was aware that these battalions with their commotions were woven red and startling into the gentle fabric of softened greens and browns.

A glaring fire wine-tinted the waters of the river.

He threw a pine cone at a jovial squirrel, and he ran with chattering fear.

The raving teamsters swore many strange oaths.

The regiment, relieved of a burden, received a new impetus.

In imagination he felt the scrutiny of his companions as he painfully labored through some lies.

They had a rapid altercation, in which they fastened upon each other various strange epithets.

There was a portion of the world's history which he had regarded as the time of wars, but it, he thought, had been long gone over the horizon and had disappeared forever.

As he perceived this fact it occurred to him that he had never wished to come to the war.

In the eastern sky there was a yellow patch like a rug laid for the feet of the coming sun; and against it, black and patternlike, loomed the gigantic figure of the colonel on a gigantic horse.

On concluding the sentence he laughed as if he had meant to aim a joke.

He was a slightly ragged man, who spat skillfully between his shoes and possessed a great fund of bland and infantile assurance.

Some ardor of the air which was causing the veteran commands to move with glee--almost with song--had infected the new regiment.

Sometimes he inclined to believing them all heroes.

Moreover, on her side, was his belief that her ethical motive in the argument was impregnable.

He now conceded it to be impossible that he should ever become a hero.

To her, from some distance, came bold advice.

He thought of the magnificent pathos of his dead body.

He ended in a quavering sob of pity for himself.

The face of a youthful rider, who was jerking his frantic horse with an abandon of temper he might display in a placid barnyard, was impressed deeply upon his mind.

But, from his present point of view, there was a halo of happiness about each of their heads, and he would have sacrificed all the brass buttons on the continent to have been enabled to return to them.

Many of the men were making low-toned noises with their mouths, and these subdued cheers, snarls, imprecations, prayers, made a wild, barbaric song that went as an undercurrent of sound, strange and chantlike with the resounding chords of the war march.

They jeered the piratical private, and called attention to various defects in his personal appearance; and they were wildly enthusiastic in support of the young girl.

He considered that there was denoted a lack of purpose on the part of the generals.

For recreation he could twiddle his thumbs and speculate on the thoughts which must agitate the minds of the generals.

The tattered man looked at him in gaping amazement.

He must look to the grave for comprehension.

Some of the tall one's companions cried with emphasis that they, too, had evolved the same thing, and they congratulated themselves upon it.

The loud soldier launched then into the subject of the anticipated fight.

They would jeer him, and, if practicable, pelt him with missiles.

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.

The level sheets of flame developed great clouds of smoke that tumbled and tossed in the mild wind near the ground for a moment, and then rolled through the ranks as through a gate.

He conceived Nature to be a woman with a deep aversion to tragedy.

He said, as if in excuse for this hope, that previously the army had encountered great defeats and in a few months had shaken off all blood and tradition of them, emerging as bright and valiant as a new one; thrusting out of sight the memory of disaster, and appearing with the valor and confidence of unconquered legions.

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.

He threaded the mazes of the tangled forest with a strange fortune.

He was swelled with a tale he had heard from a reliable friend, who had heard it from a truthful cavalryman, who had heard it from his trustworthy brother, one of the orderlies at division headquarters.

He recalled his visions of broken-bladed glory, but in the shadow of the impending tumult he suspected them to be impossible pictures.

The regiment tramped to the tune of laughter.

Himself reeling from exhaustion, he was astonished beyond measure at such persistency.

Directly he was working at his weapon like an automatic affair.