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Page 28
There were some who proceeded sullenly, full of anger at their wounds,
and ready to turn upon anything as an obscure cause.
An officer was carried along by two privates. He was peevish.
"Don't joggle so, Johnson, yeh fool," he cried. "Think m' leg is
made of iron? If yeh can't carry me decent, put me down an' let
some one else do it."
He bellowed at the tottering crowd who blocked the quick march of
his bearers. "Say, make way there, can't yeh? Make way, dickens
take it all."
They sulkily parted and went to the roadsides. As he was carried
past they made pert remarks to him. When he raged in reply and
threatened them, they told him to be damned.
The shoulder of one of the tramping bearers knocked heavily
against the spectral soldier who was staring into the unknown.
The youth joined this crowd and marched along with it. The torn
bodies expressed the awful machinery in which the men had been entangled.
Orderlies and couriers occasionally broke through the throng in
the roadway, scattering wounded men right and left, galloping on
followed by howls. The melancholy march was continually
disturbed by the messengers, and sometimes by bustling batteries
that came swinging and thumping down upon them, the officers
shouting orders to clear the way.
There was a tattered man, fouled with dust, blood and powder
stain from hair to shoes, who trudged quietly at the youth's side.
He was listening with eagerness and much humility to the lurid
descriptions of a bearded sergeant. His lean features wore
an expression of awe and admiration. He was like a listener
in a country store to wondrous tales told among the sugar barrels.
He eyed the story-teller with unspeakable wonder. His mouth was
agape in yokel fashion.
The sergeant, taking note of this, gave pause to his elaborate
history while he administered a sardonic comment. "Be keerful,
honey, you 'll be a-ketchin' flies," he said.
The tattered man shrank back abashed.
After a time he began to sidle near to the youth, and in a
diffident way try to make him a friend. His voice was gentle as
a girl's voice and his eyes were pleading. 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.
After they had walked together for some time the tattered man
mustered sufficient courage to speak. "Was pretty good fight,
wa'n't it?" he timidly said. The youth, deep in thought, glanced
up at the bloody and grim figure with its lamblike eyes. "What?"
"Was pretty good fight, wa'n't it?"
"Yes," said the youth shortly. He quickened his pace.
But the other hobbled industriously after him. There was an
air of apology in his manner, but he evidently thought that he
needed only to talk for a time, and the youth would perceive
that he was a good fellow.
"Was pretty good fight, wa'n't it?" he began in a small voice,
and the he achieved the fortitude to continue. "Dern me if I
ever see fellers fight so. Laws, how they did fight! I knowed th'
boys 'd like it when they onct got square at it. Th' boys ain't
had no fair chanct up t' now, but this time they showed what they was.
I knowed it 'd turn out this way. Yeh can't lick them boys. No, sir!
They 're fighters, they be."
He breathed a deep breath of humble admiration. He had looked
at the youth for encouragement several times. He received none,
but gradually he seemed to get absorbed in his subject.
"I was talkin' 'cross pickets with a boy from Georgie, onct, an'
that boy, he ses, 'Your fellers 'll all run like hell when they
onct hearn a gun,' he ses. 'Mebbe they will,' I ses, 'but I
don't b'lieve none of it,' I ses; 'an' b'jiminey,' I ses back t'
'um, 'mebbe your fellers 'll all run like hell when they onct
hearn a gun,' I ses. He larfed. Well, they didn't run t' day,
did they, hey? No, sir! They fit, an' fit, an' fit."
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