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Page 13
He was bewildered. As he ran with his comrades he strenuously
tried to think, but all he knew was that if he fell down those
coming behind would tread upon him. All his faculties seemed
to be needed to guide him over and past obstructions. He felt
carried along by a mob.
The sun spread disclosing rays, and, one by one, regiments burst
into view like armed men just born of the earth. The youth
perceived that the time had come. He was about to be measured.
For a moment he felt in the face of his great trial like a babe,
and the flesh over his heart seemed very thin. He seized time to
look about him calculatingly.
But he instantly saw that it would be impossible for him to
escape from the regiment. It inclosed him. And there were iron
laws of tradition and law on four sides. He was in a moving box.
As he perceived this fact it occurred to him that he had never
wished to come to the war. He had not enlisted of his free will.
He had been dragged by the merciless government. And now they
were taking him out to be slaughtered.
The regiment slid down a bank and wallowed across a little stream.
The mournful current moved slowly on, and from the water,
shaded black, some white bubble eyes looked at the men.
As they climbed the hill on the farther side artillery began to boom.
Here the youth forgot many things as he felt a sudden impulse of curiosity.
He scrambled up the bank with a speed that could not be exceeded by a
bloodthirsty man.
He expected a battle scene.
There were some little fields girted and squeezed by a forest.
Spread over the grass and in among the tree trunks, he could see
knots and waving lines of skirmishers who were running hither and
thither and firing at the landscape. A dark battle line lay upon
a sunstruck clearing that gleamed orange color. A flag fluttered.
Other regiments floundered up the bank. 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.
They were always busy as bees, deeply absorbed in their little combats.
The youth tried to observe everything. He did not use care to
avoid trees and branches, and his forgotten feet were constantly
knocking against stones or getting entangled in briers. He was
aware that these battalions with their commotions were woven red
and startling into the gentle fabric of softened greens and browns.
It looked to be a wrong place for a battle field.
The skirmishers in advance fascinated him. Their shots into
thickets and at distant and prominent trees spoke to him of
tragedies--hidden, mysterious, solemn.
Once the line encountered the body of a dead soldier. He lay
upon his back staring at the sky. He was dressed in an awkward
suit of yellowish brown. The youth could see that the soles of
his shoes had been worn to the thinness of writing paper, and
from a great rent in one the dead foot projected piteously. And
it was as if fate had betrayed the soldier. In death it exposed
to his enemies that poverty which in life he had perhaps concealed
from his friends.
The ranks opened covertly to avoid the corpse. The invulnerable
dead man forced a way for himself. The youth looked keenly at
the ashen face. The wind raised the tawny beard. It moved as if
a hand were stroking it. He vaguely desired to walk around and
around the body and stare; the impulse of the living to try to
read in dead eyes the answer to the Question.
During the march the ardor which the youth had acquired when out
of view of the field rapidly faded to nothing. His curiosity was
quite easily satisfied. If an intense scene had caught him with
its wild swing as he came to the top of the bank, he might have
gone gone roaring on. This advance upon Nature was too calm.
He had opportunity to reflect. He had time in which to wonder
about himself and to attempt to probe his sensations.
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