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Page 51
The youth was not conscious that he was erect upon his feet.
He did not know the direction of the ground. Indeed, once he
even lost the habit of balance and fell heavily. He was up again
immediately. One thought went through the chaos of his brain at
the time. He wondered if he had fallen because he had been shot.
But the suspicion flew away at once. He did not think more of it.
He had taken up a first position behind the little tree, with a
direct determination to hold it against the world. He had not
deemed it possible that his army could that day succeed, and
from this he felt the ability to fight harder. But the throng
had surged in all ways, until he lost directions and locations,
save that he knew where lay the enemy.
The flames bit him, and the hot smoke broiled his skin. His rifle
barrel grew so hot that ordinarily he could not have borne
it upon his palms; but he kept on stuffing cartridges into it,
and pounding them with his clanking, bending ramrod. If he aimed
at some changing form through the smoke, he pulled the trigger
with a fierce grunt, as if he were dealing a blow of the fist
with all his strength.
When the enemy seemed falling back before him and his fellows, he
went instantly forward, like a dog who, seeing his foes lagging,
turns and insists upon being pursued. And when he was compelled
to retire again, he did it slowly, sullenly, taking steps of
wrathful despair.
Once he, in his intent hate, was almost alone, and was firing,
when all those near him had ceased. He was so engrossed in his
occupation that he was not aware of a lull.
He was recalled by a hoarse laugh and a sentence that came to his
ears in a voice of contempt and amazement. "Yeh infernal fool,
don't yeh know enough t' quit when there ain't anything t' shoot at?
Good Gawd!"
He turned then and, pausing with his rifle thrown half into
position, looked at the blue line of his comrades. During this
moment of leisure they seemed all to be engaged in staring with
astonishment at him. They had become spectators. Turning to the
front again he saw, under the lifted smoke, a deserted ground.
He looked bewildered for a moment. Then there appeared upon the
glazed vacancy of his eyes a diamond point of intelligence.
"Oh," he said, comprehending.
He returned to his comrades and threw himself upon the ground.
He sprawled like a man who had been thrashed. His flesh seemed
strangely on fire, and the sounds of the battle continued in his ears.
He groped blindly for his canteen.
The lieutenant was crowing. He seemed drunk with fighting. He called
out to the youth: "By heavens, if I had ten thousand wild cats
like you I could tear th' stomach outa this war in less'n a week!"
He puffed out his chest with large dignity as he said it.
Some of the men muttered and looked at the youth in awestruck ways.
It was plain that as he had gone on loading and firing and cursing
without proper intermission, they had found time to regard him.
And they now looked upon him as a war devil.
The friend came staggering to him. There was some fright and dismay
in his voice. "Are yeh all right, Fleming? Do yeh feel all right?
There ain't nothin' th' matter with yeh, Henry, is there?"
"No," said the youth with difficulty. His throat seemed full of
knobs and burrs.
These incidents made the youth ponder. It was revealed to him
that he had been a barbarian, a beast. He had fought like a
pagan who defends his religion. Regarding it, he saw that it was
fine, wild, and, in some ways, easy. He had been a tremendous
figure, no doubt. By this struggle he had overcome obstacles
which he had admitted to be mountains. They had fallen like
paper peaks, and he was now what he called a hero. And he had
not been aware of the process. He had slept, and, awakening,
found himself a knight.
He lay and basked in the occasional stares of his comrades.
Their faces were varied in degrees of blackness from the
burned powder. Some were utterly smudged. They were reeking
with perspiration, and their breaths came hard and wheezing.
And from these soiled expanses they peered at him.
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