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Page 50
Chapter 17
This advance of the enemy had seemed to the youth like a
ruthless hunting. He began to fume with rage and exasperation.
He beat his foot upon the ground, and scowled with hate at
the swirling smoke that was approaching like a phantom flood.
There was a maddening quality in this seeming resolution of the
foe to give him no rest, to give him no time to sit down and think.
Yesterday he had fought and had fled rapidly. There had been many
adventures. For to-day he felt that he had earned opportunities
for contemplative repose. He could have enjoyed portraying to
uninitiated listeners various scenes at which he had been a witness
or ably discussing the processes of war with other proved men.
Too it was important that he should have time for physical recuperation.
He was sore and stiff from his experiences. He had received his fill of
all exertions, and he wished to rest.
But those other men seemed never to grow weary; they were fighting
with their old speed. He had a wild hate for the relentless foe.
Yesterday, when he had imagined the universe to be against him,
he had hated it, little gods and big gods; to-day he hated the
army of the foe with the same great hatred. He was not going
to be badgered of his life, like a kitten chased by boys, he said.
It was not well to drive men into final corners; at those moments
they could all develop teeth and claws.
He leaned and spoke into his friend's ear. He menaced the woods
with a gesture. "If they keep on chasing us, by Gawd, they'd better
watch out. Can't stand TOO much."
The friend twisted his head and made a calm reply. "If they keep
on a-chasin' us they'll drive us all inteh th' river."
The youth cried out savagely at this statement. He crouched
behind a little tree, with his eyes burning hatefully and his
teeth set in a curlike snarl. The awkward bandage was still
about his head, and upon it, over his wound, there was a spot of
dry blood. His hair was wondrously tousled, and some straggling,
moving locks hung over the cloth of the bandage down toward his
forehead. His jacket and shirt were open at the throat, and
exposed his young bronzed neck. There could be seen spasmodic
gulpings at his throat.
His fingers twined nervously about his rifle. He wished that it
was an engine of annihilating power. He felt that he and his
companions were being taunted and derided from sincere
convictions that they were poor and puny. His knowledge of his
inability to take vengeance for it made his rage into a dark and
stormy specter, that possessed him and made him dream of
abominable cruelties. The tormentors were flies sucking
insolently at his blood, and he thought that he would have given
his life for a revenge of seeing their faces in pitiful plights.
The winds of battle had swept all about the regiment, until the
one rifle, instantly followed by others, flashed in its front.
A moment later the regiment roared forth its sudden and valiant
retort. A dense wall of smoke settled down. It was furiously
slit and slashed by the knifelike fire from the rifles.
To the youth the fighters resembled animals tossed for a death
struggle into a dark pit. There was a sensation that he and
his fellows, at bay, were pushing back, always pushing fierce
onslaughts of creatures who were slippery. Their beams of crimson
seemed to get no purchase upon the bodies of their foes;
the latter seemed to evade them with ease, and come through,
between, around, and about with unopposed skill.
When, in a dream, it occurred to the youth that his rifle was
an impotent stick, he lost sense of everything but his hate,
his desire to smash into pulp the glittering smile of victory
which he could feel upon the faces of his enemies.
The blue smoke-swallowed line curled and writhed like a snake stepped upon.
It swung its ends to and fro in an agony of fear and rage.
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