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Page 23
The lieutenant sprang forward bawling. The youth saw his
features wrathfully red, and saw him make a dab with his sword.
His one thought of the incident was that the lieutenant was
a peculiar creature to feel interested in such matters upon
this occasion.
He ran like a blind man. Two or three times he fell down. Once he
knocked his shoulder so heavily against a tree that he went headlong.
Since he had turned his back upon the fight his fears had been
wondrously magnified. Death about to thrust him between the
shoulder blades was far more dreadful than death about to smite him
between the eyes. When he thought of it later, he conceived the
impression that it is better to view the appalling than to be
merely within hearing. The noises of the battle were like stones;
he believed himself liable to be crushed.
As he ran on he mingled with others. He dimly saw men on
his right and on his left, and he heard footsteps behind him.
He thought that all the regiment was fleeing, pursued by those
ominous crashes.
In his flight the sound of these following footsteps gave him his
one meager relief. 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. So he
displayed the zeal of an insane sprinter in his purpose to keep
them in the rear. There was a race.
As he, leading, went across a little field, he found himself in a
region of shells. They hurtled over his head with long wild screams.
As he listened he imagined them to have rows of cruel teeth that
grinned at him. Once one lit before him and the livid lightning
of the explosion effectually barred the way in his chosen direction.
He groveled on the ground and then springing up went careering
off through some bushes.
He experienced a thrill of amazement when he came within view of a
battery in action. The men there seemed to be in conventional moods,
altogether unaware of the impending annihilation. The battery was
disputing with a distant antagonist and the gunners were wrapped
in admiration of their shooting. They were continually bending
in coaxing postures over the guns. They seemed to be patting
them on the back and encouraging them with words. The guns,
stolid and undaunted, spoke with dogged valor.
The precise gunners were coolly enthusiastic. They lifted their
eyes every chance to the smoke-wreathed hillock from whence the
hostile battery addressed them. The youth pitied them as he ran.
Methodical idiots! Machine-like fools! 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.
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. He knew that he looked upon
a man who would presently be dead.
Too, he felt a pity for the guns, standing, six good comrades,
in a bold row.
He saw a brigade going to the relief of its pestered fellows.
He scrambled upon a wee hill and watched it sweeping finely,
keeping formation in difficult places. The blue of the line
was crusted with steel color, and the brilliant flags projected.
Officers were shouting.
This sight also filled him with wonder. The brigade was hurrying
briskly to be gulped into the infernal mouths of the war god.
What manner of men were they, anyhow? Ah, it was some wondrous breed!
Or else they didn't comprehend--the fools.
A furious order caused commotion in the artillery. An officer on
a bounding horse made maniacal motions with his arms. The teams
went swinging up from the rear, the guns were whirled about, and
the battery scampered away. The cannon with their noses poked
slantingly at the ground grunted and grumbled like stout men,
brave but with objections to hurry.
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