CHAPTER XX.
When the two youths turned with the flag they saw that much of theregiment had crumbled away, and the dejected remnant was coming slowlyback. The men, having hurled themselves in projectile fashion, hadpresently expended their forces. They slowly retreated, with theirfaces still toward the spluttering woods, and their hot rifles stillreplying to the din. Several officers were giving orders, their voiceskeyed to screams.
"Where in hell yeh goin'?" the lieutenant was asking in a sarcastichowl. And a red-bearded officer, whose voice of triple brass couldplainly be heard, was commanding: "Shoot into 'em! Shoot into 'em, Gawddamn their souls!" There was a melee of screeches, in which the menwere ordered to do conflicting and impossible things.
The youth and his friend had a small scuffle over the flag. "Give itt' me!" "No, let me keep it!" Each felt satisfied with the other'spossession of it, but each felt bound to declare, by an offer to carrythe emblem, his willingness to further risk himself. The youth roughlypushed his friend away.
The regiment fell back to the stolid trees. There it halted for amoment to blaze at some dark forms that had begun to steal upon itstrack. Presently it resumed its march again, curving among the treetrunks. By the time the depleted regiment had again reached the firstopen space they were receiving a fast and merciless fire. There seemedto be mobs all about them.
The greater part of the men, discouraged, their spirits worn by theturmoil, acted as if stunned. They accepted the pelting of the bulletswith bowed and weary heads. It was of no purpose to strive againstwalls. It was of no use to batter themselves against granite. Andfrom this consciousness that they had attempted to conquer anunconquerable thing there seemed to arise a feeling that they had beenbetrayed. They glowered with bent brows, but dangerously, upon some ofthe officers, more particularly upon the red-bearded one with the voiceof triple brass.
However, the rear of the regiment was fringed with men, who continuedto shoot irritably at the advancing foes. They seemed resolved to makeevery trouble. The youthful lieutenant was perhaps the last man in thedisordered mass. His forgotten back was toward the enemy. He had beenshot in the arm. It hung straight and rigid. Occasionally he wouldcease to remember it, and be about to emphasize an oath with a sweepinggesture. The multiplied pain caused him to swear with incredible power.
The youth went along with slipping, uncertain feet. He kept watchfuleyes rearward. A scowl of mortification and rage was upon his face. Hehad thought of a fine revenge upon the officer who had referred to himand his fellows as mule drivers. But he saw that it could not come topass. His dreams had collapsed when the mule drivers, dwindlingrapidly, had wavered and hesitated on the little clearing, and then hadrecoiled. And now the retreat of the mule drivers was a march of shameto him.
A dagger-pointed gaze from without his blackened face was held towardthe enemy, but his greater hatred was riveted upon the man, who, notknowing him, had called him a mule driver.
When he knew that he and his comrades had failed to do anything insuccessful ways that might bring the little pangs of a kind of remorseupon the officer, the youth allowed the rage of the baffled to possesshim. This cold officer upon a monument, who dropped epithetsunconcernedly down, would be finer as a dead man, he thought. Sogrievous did he think it that he could never possess the secret rightto taunt truly in answer.
He had pictured red letters of curious revenge. "We ARE mule drivers,are we?" And now he was compelled to throw them away.
He presently wrapped his heart in the cloak of his pride and kept theflag erect. He harangued his fellows, pushing against their chestswith his free hand. To those he knew well he made frantic appeals,beseeching them by name. Between him and the lieutenant, scolding andnear to losing his mind with rage, there was felt a subtle fellowshipand equality. They supported each other in all manner of hoarse,howling protests.
But the regiment was a machine run down. The two men babbled at aforceless thing. The soldiers who had heart to go slowly werecontinually shaken in their resolves by a knowledge that comrades wereslipping with speed back to the lines. It was difficult to think ofreputation when others were thinking of skins. Wounded men were leftcrying on this black journey.
The smoke fringes and flames blustered always. The youth, peering oncethrough a sudden rift in a cloud, saw a brown mass of troops,interwoven and magnified until they appeared to be thousands. Afierce-hued flag flashed before his vision.
Immediately, as if the uplifting of the smoke had been prearranged, thediscovered troops burst into a rasping yell, and a hundred flamesjetted toward the retreating band. A rolling gray cloud againinterposed as the regiment doggedly replied. The youth had to dependagain upon his misused ears, which were trembling and buzzing from themelee of musketry and yells.
The way seemed eternal. In the clouded haze men became panicstrickenwith the thought that the regiment had lost its path, and wasproceeding in a perilous direction. Once the men who headed the wildprocession turned and came pushing back against their comrades,screaming that they were being fired upon from points which they hadconsidered to be toward their own lines. At this cry a hysterical fearand dismay beset the troops. A soldier, who heretofore had beenambitious to make the regiment into a wise little band that wouldproceed calmly amid the huge-appearing difficulties, suddenly sank downand buried his face in his arms with an air of bowing to a doom. Fromanother a shrill lamentation rang out filled with profane allusions toa general. Men ran hither and thither, seeking with their eyes roads ofescape. With serene regularity, as if controlled by a schedule,bullets buffed into men.
The youth walked stolidly into the midst of the mob, and with his flagin his hands took a stand as if he expected an attempt to push him tothe ground. He unconsciously assumed the attitude of the color bearerin the fight of the preceding day. He passed over his brow a hand thattrembled. His breath did not come freely. He was choking during thissmall wait for the crisis.
His friend came to him. "Well, Henry, I guess this is good-by--John."
"Oh, shut up, you damned fool!" replied the youth, and he would notlook at the other.
The officers labored like politicians to beat the mass into a propercircle to face the menaces. The ground was uneven and torn. The mencurled into depressions and fitted themselves snugly behind whateverwould frustrate a bullet.
The youth noted with vague surprise that the lieutenant was standingmutely with his legs far apart and his sword held in the manner of acane. The youth wondered what had happened to his vocal organs that heno more cursed.
There was something curious in this little intent pause of thelieutenant. He was like a babe which, having wept its fill, raises itseyes and fixes upon a distant toy. He was engrossed in thiscontemplation, and the soft under lip quivered from self-whisperedwords.
Some lazy and ignorant smoke curled slowly. The men, hiding from thebullets, waited anxiously for it to lift and disclose the plight of theregiment.
The silent ranks were suddenly thrilled by the eager voice of theyouthful lieutenant bawling out: "Here they come! Right onto us,b'Gawd!" His further words were lost in a roar of wicked thunder fromthe men's rifles.
The youth's eyes had instantly turned in the direction indicated by theawakened and agitated lieutenant, and he had seen the haze of treacherydisclosing a body of soldiers of the enemy. They were so near that hecould see their features. There was a recognition as he looked at thetypes of faces. Also he perceived with dim amazement that theiruniforms were rather gay in effect, being light gray, accented with abrilliant-hued facing. Too, the clothes seemed new.
These troops had apparently been going forward with caution, theirrifles held in readiness, when the youthful lieutenant had discoveredthem and their movement had been interrupted by the volley from theblue regiment. From the moment's glimpse, it was derived that they hadbeen unaware of the proximity of their dark-suited foes or had mistakenthe direction. Almost instantly they were shut utterly from the youth'
ssight by the smoke from the energetic rifles of his companions. Hestrained his vision to learn the accomplishment of the volley, but thesmoke hung before him.
The two bodies of troops exchanged blows in the manner of a pair ofboxers. The fast angry firings went back and forth. The men in bluewere intent with the despair of their circumstances and they seizedupon the revenge to be had at close range. Their thunder swelled loudand valiant. Their curving front bristled with flashes and the placeresounded with the clangor of their ramrods. The youth ducked anddodged for a time and achieved a few unsatisfactory views of the enemy.There appeared to be many of them and they were replying swiftly. Theyseemed moving toward the blue regiment, step by step. He seatedhimself gloomily on the ground with his flag between his knees.
As he noted the vicious, wolflike temper of his comrades he had a sweetthought that if the enemy was about to swallow the regimental broom asa large prisoner, it could at least have the consolation of going downwith bristles forward.
But the blows of the antagonist began to grow more weak. Fewer bulletsripped the air, and finally, when the men slackened to learn of thefight, they could see only dark, floating smoke. The regiment laystill and gazed. Presently some chance whim came to the pesteringblur, and it began to coil heavily away. The men saw a ground vacantof fighters. It would have been an empty stage if it were not for afew corpses that lay thrown and twisted into fantastic shapes upon thesward.
At sight of this tableau, many of the men in blue sprang from behindtheir covers and made an ungainly dance of joy. Their eyes burned anda hoarse cheer of elation broke from their dry lips.
It had begun to seem to them that events were trying to prove that theywere impotent. These little battles had evidently endeavored todemonstrate that the men could not fight well. When on the verge ofsubmission to these opinions, the small duel had showed them that theproportions were not impossible, and by it they had revenged themselvesupon their misgivings and upon the foe.
The impetus of enthusiasm was theirs again. They gazed about them withlooks of uplifted pride, feeling new trust in the grim, alwaysconfident weapons in their hands. And they were men.