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Page 43
Chapter 14
When the youth awoke it seemed to him that he had been asleep for
a thousand years, and he felt sure that he opened his eyes upon an
unexpected world. Gray mists were slowly shifting before the
first efforts of the sun rays. An impending splendor could be
seen in the eastern sky. An icy dew had chilled his face,
and immediately upon arousing he curled farther down into
his blanket. He stared for a while at the leaves overhead,
moving in a heraldic wind of the day.
The distance was splintering and blaring with the noise of
fighting. There was in the sound an expression of a deadly
persistency, as if it had not began and was not to cease.
About him were the rows and groups of men that he had dimly seen
the previous night. They were getting a last draught of sleep
before the awakening. The gaunt, careworn features and dusty
figures were made plain by this quaint light at the dawning,
but it dressed the skin of the men in corpse-like hues and made
the tangled limbs appear pulseless and dead. The youth started up
with a little cry when his eyes first swept over this motionless
mass of men, thick-spread upon the ground, pallid, and in
strange postures. His disordered mind interpreted the hall of
the forest as a charnel place. He believed for an instant that
he was in the house of the dead, and he did not dare to move
lest these corpses start up, squalling and squawking. In a
second, however, he achieved his proper mind. He swore a
complicated oath at himself. He saw that this somber picture
was not a fact of the present, but a mere prophecy.
He heard then the noise of a fire crackling briskly in the cold air,
and, turning his head, he saw his friend pottering busily about
a small blaze. A few other figures moved in the fog, and he heard
the hard cracking of axe blows.
Suddenly there was a hollow rumble of drums. A distant bugle
sang faintly. Similar sounds, varying in strength, came from near
and far over the forest. The bugles called to each other like
brazen gamecocks. The near thunder of the regimental drums rolled.
The body of men in the woods rustled. There was a general
uplifting of heads. A murmuring of voices broke upon the air.
In it there was much bass of grumbling oaths. Strange gods were
addressed in condemnation of the early hours necessary to
correct war. An officer's peremptory tenor rang out and
quickened the stiffened movement of the men. The tangled
limbs unraveled. The corpse-hued faces were hidden behind
fists that twisted slowly in the eye sockets.
The youth sat up and gave vent to an enormous yawn. "Thunder!"
he remarked petulantly. He rubbed his eyes, and then putting up
his hand felt carefully the bandage over his wound. His friend,
perceiving him to be awake, came from the fire. "Well, Henry,
ol' man, how do yeh feel this mornin'?" he demanded.
The youth yawned again. Then he puckered his mouth to a
little pucker. His head, in truth, felt precisely like a melon,
and there was an unpleasant sensation at his stomach.
"Oh, Lord, I feel pretty bad," he said.
"Thunder!" exclaimed the other. "I hoped ye'd feel all right
this mornin'. Let's see th' bandage--I guess it's slipped."
He began to tinker at the wound in rather a clumsy way until
the youth exploded.
"Gosh-dern it!" he said in sharp irritation; "you're the hangdest
man I ever saw! You wear muffs on your hands. Why in good
thunderation can't you be more easy? I'd rather you'd stand off
an' throw guns at it. Now, go slow, an' don't act as if you was
nailing down carpet."
He glared with insolent command at his friend, but the latter
answered soothingly. "Well, well, come now, an' git some grub,"
he said. "Then, maybe, yeh'll feel better."
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