The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War
I’m ’fraid I’ll fall down—an’ then yeh know—them damned artillery
wagons—they like as not ’ll run over me. That’s what I’m ’fraid of—”
The youth cried out to him hysterically: “I’ll take care of yeh, Jim!
I’ll take care of yeh! I swear t’ Gawd I will!”
“Sure—will yeh, Henry?” the tall soldier beseeched.
“Yes—yes—I tell yeh—I’ll take care of yeh, Jim!” protested the youth.
He could not speak accurately because of the gulpings in his throat.
But the tall soldier continued to beg in a lowly way. He now hung
babelike to the youth’s arm. His eyes rolled in the wildness of his
terror. “I was allus a good friend t’ yeh, wa’n’t I, Henry? I’ve allus
been a pretty good feller, ain’t I? An’ it ain’t much t’ ask, is it?
Jest t’ pull me along outer th’ road? I’d do it fer you, wouldn’t I,
Henry?”
He paused in piteous anxiety to await his friend’s reply.
The youth had reached an anguish where the sobs scorched him. He strove
to express his loyalty, but he could only make fantastic gestures.
However, the tall soldier seemed suddenly to forget all those fears. He
became again the grim, stalking specter of a soldier. He went stonily
forward. The youth wished his friend to lean upon him, but the other
always shook his head and strangely protested. “No—no—no—leave me
be—leave me be—”
His look was fixed again upon the unknown. He moved with mysterious
purpose, and all of the youth’s offers he brushed aside. “No—no—leave
me be—leave me be—”
The youth had to follow.
Presently the latter heard a voice talking softly near his shoulder.
Turning he saw that it belonged to the tattered soldier. “Ye’d better
take ’im outa th’ road, pardner. There’s a batt’ry comin’ helitywhoop
down th’ road an’ he’ll git runned over. He’s a goner anyhow in about
five minutes—yeh kin see that. Ye’d better take ’im outa th’ road.
Where th’ blazes does hi git his stren’th from?”
“Lord knows!” cried the youth. He was shaking his hands helplessly.
He ran forward presently and grasped the tall soldier by the arm. “Jim!
Jim!” he coaxed, “come with me.”
The tall soldier weakly tried to wrench himself free. “Huh,” he said
vacantly. He stared at the youth for a moment. At last he spoke as if
dimly comprehending. “Oh! Inteh th’ fields? Oh!”
He started blindly through the grass.
The youth turned once to look at the lashing riders and jouncing guns
of the battery. He was startled from this view by a shrill outcry from
the tattered man.
“Gawd! He’s runnin’!”
Turning his head swiftly, the youth saw his friend running in a
staggering and stumbling way toward a little clump of bushes. His heart
seemed to wrench itself almost free from his body at this sight. He
made a noise of pain. He and the tattered man began a pursuit. There
was a singular race.
When he overtook the tall soldier he began to plead with all the words
he could find. “Jim—Jim—what are you doing—what makes you do this
way—you’ll hurt yerself.”
The same purpose was in the tall soldier’s face. He protested in a
dulled way, keeping his eyes fastened on the mystic place of his
intentions. “No—no—don’t tech me—leave me be—leave me be—”
The youth, aghast and filled with wonder at the tall soldier, began
quaveringly to question him. “Where yeh goin’, Jim? What you thinking
about? Where you going? Tell me, won’t you, Jim?”
The tall soldier faced about as upon relentless pursuers. In his eyes
there was a great appeal. “Leave me be, can’t yeh? Leave me be for a
minnit.”
The youth recoiled. “Why, Jim,” he said, in a dazed way, “what’s the
matter with you?”
The tall soldier turned and, lurching dangerously, went on. The youth
and the tattered soldier followed, sneaking as if whipped, feeling
unable to face the stricken man if he should again confront them. They
began to have thoughts of a solemn ceremony. There was something
rite-like in these movements of the doomed soldier. And there was a
resemblance in him to a devotee of a mad religion, blood-sucking,
muscle-wrenching, bone-crushing. They were awed and afraid. They hung
back lest he have at command a dreadful weapon.
At last, they saw him stop and stand motionless. Hastening up, they
perceived that his face wore an expression telling that he had at last
found the place for which he had struggled. His spare figure was erect;
his bloody hands were quietly at his side. He was waiting with patience
for something that he had come to meet. He was at the rendezvous. They
paused and stood, expectant.
There was a silence.
Finally, the chest of the doomed soldier began to heave with a strained
motion. It increased in violence until it was as if an animal was
within and was kicking and tumbling furiously to be free.
This spectacle of gradual strangulation made the youth writhe, and once
as his friend rolled his eyes, he saw something in them that made him
sink wailing to the ground. He raised his voice in a last supreme call.
“Jim—Jim—Jim—”
The tall soldier opened his lips and spoke. He made a gesture. “Leave
me be—don’t tech me—leave me be—”
There was another silence while he waited.
Suddenly his form stiffened and straightened. Then it was shaken by a
prolonged ague. He stared into space. To the two watchers there was a
curious and profound dignity in the firm lines of his awful face.
He was invaded by a creeping strangeness that slowly enveloped him. For
a moment the tremor of his legs caused him to dance a sort of hideous
hornpipe. His arms beat wildly about his head in expression of implike
enthusiasm.
His tall figure stretched itself to its full height. There was a slight
rending sound. Then it began to swing forward, slow and straight, in
the manner of a falling tree. A swift muscular contortion made the left
shoulder strike the ground first.
The body seemed to bounce a little way from the earth. “God!” said the
tattered soldier.
The youth had watched, spellbound, this ceremony at the place of
meeting. His face had been twisted into an expression of every agony he
had imagined for his friend.
He now sprang to his feet and, going closer, gazed upon the pastelike
face. The mouth was open and the teeth showed in a laugh.
As the flap of the blue jacket fell away from the body, he could see
that the side looked as if it had been chewed by wolves.
The youth turned, with sudden, livid rage, toward the battlefield. He
shook his fist. He seemed about to deliver a philippic.
“Hell—”
The red sun was pasted in the sky like a wafer.
Chapter X.
The tattered man stood musing.
“Well, he was a reg’lar jim-dandy fer nerve, wa’n’t he,” said he
finally in a little awestruck voice. “A reg’lar jim-dandy.” He
thoughtfully poked one of the docile hands with his foot. “I wonner
where he got ’is stren’th from? I never seen a man do like that before.
It was a funny thing. Well, he was a reg’lar jim-dandy.”
The youth desired to screech out his grief. He was stabbed, but his
tongue lay dead in the tomb of his mouth. He threw himself again upon
the ground and began to brood.
The tattered man stood musing.
“Look-a-here, pardner,” he said, after a time. He regarded the corpse
as he spoke. “He’s up an’ gone, ain’t ’e, an’ we might as well begin t’
look out fer ol’ number one. This here thing is all over. He’s up an’
gone, ain’t ’e? An’ he’s all right here. Nobody won’t bother ’im. An’ I
must say I ain’t enjoying any great health m’self these days.”
The youth, awakened by the tattered soldier’s tone, looked quickly up.
He saw that he was swinging uncertainly on his legs and that his face
had turned to a shade of blue.
“Good Lord!” he cried, “you ain’t goin’ t’—not you, too.”
The tattered man waved his hand. “Nary die,” he said. “All I want is
some pea soup an’ a good bed. Some pea soup,” he repeated dreamfully.
The youth arose from the ground. “I wonder where he came from. I left
him over there.” He pointed. “And now I find ’im here. And he was
coming from over there, too.” He indicated a new direction. They both
turned toward the body as if to ask of it a question.
“Well,” at length spoke the tattered man, “there ain’t no use in our
stayin’ here an’ tryin’ t’ ask him anything.”
The youth nodded an assent wearily. They both turned to gaze for a
moment at the corpse.
The youth murmured something.
“Well, he was a jim-dandy, wa’n’t ’e?” said the tattered man as if in
response.
They turned their backs upon it and started away. For a time they stole
softly, treading with their toes. It remained laughing there in the
grass.
“I’m commencin’ t’ feel pretty bad,” said the tattered man, suddenly
breaking one of his little silences. “I’m commencin’ t’ feel pretty
damn’ bad.”
The youth groaned. “Oh Lord!” He wondered if he was to be the tortured
witness of another grim encounter.
But his companion waved his hand reassuringly. “Oh, I’m not goin’ t’
die yit! There too much dependin’ on me fer me t’ die yit. No, sir!
Nary die! I _can’t!_ Ye’d oughta see th’ swad a’ chil’ren I’ve got, an’
all like that.”
The youth glancing at his companion could see by the shadow of a smile
that he was making some kind of fun.
As they plodded on the tattered soldier continued to talk. “Besides, if
I died, I wouldn’t die th’ way that feller did. That was th’ funniest
thing. I’d jest flop down, I would. I never seen a feller die th’ way
that feller did.
“Yeh know Tom Jamison, he lives next door t’ me up home. He’s a nice
feller, he is, an’ we was allus good friends. Smart, too. Smart as a
steel trap. Well, when we was a-fightin’ this atternoon,
all-of-a-sudden he begin t’ rip up an’ cuss an’ beller at me. ‘Yer
shot, yeh blamed infernal!’—he swear horrible—he ses t’ me. I put up m’
hand t’ m’ head an’ when I looked at m’ fingers, I seen, sure ’nough, I
was shot. I give a holler an’ begin t’ run, but b’fore I could git away
another one hit me in th’ arm an’ whirl’ me clean ’round. I got skeared
when they was all a-shootin’ b’hind me an’ I run t’ beat all, but I
cotch it pretty bad. I’ve an idee I’d a’ been fightin’ yit, if t’wasn’t
fer Tom Jamison.”
Then he made a calm announcement: “There’s two of ’em—little ones—but
they’re beginnin’ t’ have fun with me now. I don’t b’lieve I kin walk
much furder.”
They went slowly on in silence. “Yeh look pretty peek’ed yerself,” said
the tattered man at last. “I bet yeh’ve got a worser one than yeh
think. Ye’d better take keer of yer hurt. It don’t do t’ let sech
things go. It might be inside mostly, an’ them plays thunder. Where is
it located?” But he continued his harangue without waiting for a reply.
“I see a feller git hit plum in th’ head when my reg’ment was
a-standin’ at ease onct. An’ everybody yelled to ’im: ‘Hurt, John? Are
yeh hurt much?’ ‘No,’ ses he. He looked kinder surprised, an’ he went
on tellin’ ’em how he felt. He sed he didn’t feel nothin’. But, by dad,
th’ first thing that feller knowed he was dead. Yes, he was dead—stone
dead. So, yeh wanta watch out. Yeh might have some queer kind ’a hurt
yerself. Yeh can’t never tell. Where is your’n located?”
The youth had been wriggling since the introduction of this topic. He
now gave a cry of exasperation and made a furious motion with his hand.
“Oh, don’t bother me!” he said. He was enraged against the tattered
man, and could have strangled him. His companions seemed ever to play
intolerable parts. They were ever upraising the ghost of shame on the
stick of their curiosity. He turned toward the tattered man as one at
bay. “Now, don’t bother me,” he repeated with desperate menace.
“Well, Lord knows I don’t wanta bother anybody,” said the other. There
was a little accent of despair in his voice as he replied, “Lord knows
I’ve gota ’nough m’ own t’ tend to.”
The youth, who had been holding a bitter debate with himself and