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Page 60
Presently they knew that no firing threatened them. All ways
seemed once more opened to them. The dusty blue lines of their
friends were disclosed a short distance away. In the distance
there were many colossal noises, but in all this part of the
field there was a sudden stillness.
They perceived that they were free. The depleted band drew a long
breath of relief and gathered itself into a bunch to complete its trip.
In this last length of journey the men began to show strange
emotions. They hurried with nervous fear. Some who had been
dark and unfaltering in the grimmest moments now could not
conceal an anxiety that made them frantic. It was perhaps that
they dreaded to be killed in insignificant ways after the times
for proper military deaths had passed. Or, perhaps, they thought
it would be too ironical to get killed at the portals of safety.
With backward looks of perturbation, they hastened.
As they approached their own lines there was some sarcasm exhibited
on the part of a gaunt and bronzed regiment that lay resting in the
shade of the trees. Questions were wafted to them.
"Where th' hell yeh been?"
"What yeh comin' back fer?"
"Why didn't yeh stay there?"
"Was it warm out there, sonny?"
"Goin' home now, boys?"
One shouted in taunting mimicry: "Oh, mother, come quick an'
look at th' sojers!"
There was no reply from the bruised and battered regiment,
save that one man made broadcast challenges to fist fights and
the red-bearded officer walked rather near and glared in great
swashbuckler style at a tall captain in the other regiment.
But the lieutenant suppressed the man who wished to fist fight,
and the tall captain, flushing at the little fanfare of the
red-bearded one, was obliged to look intently at some trees.
The youth's tender flesh was deeply stung by these remarks.
From under his creased brows he glowered with hate at the mockers.
He meditated upon a few revenges. Still, many in the regiment
hung their heads in criminal fashion, so that it came to pass
that the men trudged with sudden heaviness, as if they
bore upon their bended shoulders the coffin of their honor.
And the youthful lieutenant, recollecting himself, began to
mutter softly in black curses.
They turned when they arrived at their old position to regard
the ground over which they had charged.
The youth in this contemplation was smitten with a large astonishment.
He discovered that the distances, as compared with the brilliant
measurings of his mind, were trivial and ridiculous. The stolid trees,
where much had taken place, seemed incredibly near. The time, too,
now that he reflected, he saw to have been short. He wondered
at the number of emotions and events that had been crowded into
such little spaces. Elfin thoughts must have exaggerated and
enlarged everything, he said.
It seemed, then, that there was bitter justice in the speeches
of the gaunt and bronzed veterans. He veiled a glance of disdain
at his fellows who strewed the ground, choking with dust, red from
perspiration, misty-eyed, disheveled.
They were gulping at their canteens, fierce to wring every mite
of water from them, and they polished at their swollen and
watery features with coat sleeves and bunches of grass.
However, to the youth there was a considerable joy in musing
upon his performances during the charge. He had had very little
time previously in which to appreciate himself, so that there
was now much satisfaction in quietly thinking of his actions.
He recalled bits of color that in the flurry had stamped
themselves unawares upon his engaged senses.
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