The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War
He uttered an exclamation and turned toward his comrade.
“Wilson!”
“What?”
His friend, at his side in the ranks, was thoughtfully staring down the
road. From some cause his expression was at that moment very meek. The
youth, regarding him with sidelong glances, felt impelled to change his
purpose. “Oh, nothing,” he said.
His friend turned his head in some surprise, “Why, what was yeh goin’
t’ say?”
“Oh, nothing,” repeated the youth.
He resolved not to deal the little blow. It was sufficient that the
fact made him glad. It was not necessary to knock his friend on the
head with the misguided packet.
He had been possessed of much fear of his friend, for he saw how easily
questionings could make holes in his feelings. Lately, he had assured
himself that the altered comrade would not tantalize him with a
persistent curiosity, but he felt certain that during the first period
of leisure his friend would ask him to relate his adventures of the
previous day.
He now rejoiced in the possession of a small weapon with which he could
prostrate his comrade at the first signs of a cross-examination. He was
master. It would now be he who could laugh and shoot the shafts of
derision.
The friend had, in a weak hour, spoken with sobs of his own death. He
had delivered a melancholy oration previous to his funeral, and had
doubtless in the packet of letters, presented various keepsakes to
relatives. But he had not died, and thus he had delivered himself into
the hands of the youth.
The latter felt immensely superior to his friend, but he inclined to
condescension. He adopted toward him an air of patronizing good humor.
His self-pride was now entirely restored. In the shade of its
flourishing growth he stood with braced and self-confident legs, and
since nothing could now be discovered he did not shrink from an
encounter with the eyes of judges, and allowed no thoughts of his own
to keep him from an attitude of manfulness. He had performed his
mistakes in the dark, so he was still a man.
Indeed, when he remembered his fortunes of yesterday, and looked at
them from a distance he began to see something fine there. He had
license to be pompous and veteranlike.
His panting agonies of the past he put out of his sight.
In the present, he declared to himself that it was only the doomed and
the damned who roared with sincerity at circumstance. Few but they ever
did it. A man with a full stomach and the respect of his fellows had no
business to scold about anything that he might think to be wrong in the
ways of the universe, or even with the ways of society. Let the
unfortunates rail; the others may play marbles.
He did not give a great deal of thought to these battles that lay
directly before him. It was not essential that he should plan his ways
in regard to them. He had been taught that many obligations of a life
were easily avoided. The lessons of yesterday had been that retribution
was a laggard and blind. With these facts before him he did not deem it
necessary that he should become feverish over the possibilities of the
ensuing twenty-four hours. He could leave much to chance. Besides, a
faith in himself had secretly blossomed. There was a little flower of
confidence growing within him. He was now a man of experience. He had
been out among the dragons, he said, and he assured himself that they
were not so hideous as he had imagined them. Also, they were
inaccurate; they did not sting with precision. A stout heart often
defied, and defying, escaped.
And, furthermore, how could they kill him who was the chosen of gods
and doomed to greatness?
He remembered how some of the men had run from the battle. As he
recalled their terror-struck faces he felt a scorn for them. They had
surely been more fleet and more wild than was absolutely necessary.
They were weak mortals. As for himself, he had fled with discretion and
dignity.
He was aroused from this reverie by his friend, who, having hitched
about nervously and blinked at the trees for a time, suddenly coughed
in an introductory way, and spoke.
“Fleming!”
“What?”
The friend put his hand up to his mouth and coughed again. He fidgeted
in his jacket.
“Well,” he gulped at last, “I guess yeh might as well give me back them
letters.” Dark, prickling blood had flushed into his cheeks and brow.
“All right, Wilson,” said the youth. He loosened two buttons of his
coat, thrust in his hand, and brought forth the packet. As he extended
it to his friend the latter’s face was turned from him.
He had been slow in the act of producing the packet because during it
he had been trying to invent a remarkable comment on the affair. He
could conjure up nothing of sufficient point. He was compelled to allow
his friend to escape unmolested with his packet. And for this he took
unto himself considerable credit. It was a generous thing.
His friend at his side seemed suffering great shame. As he contemplated
him, the youth felt his heart grow more strong and stout. He had never
been compelled to blush in such manner for his acts; he was an
individual of extraordinary virtues.
He reflected, with condescending pity: “Too bad! Too bad! The poor
devil, it makes him feel tough!”
After this incident, and as he reviewed the battle pictures he had
seen, he felt quite competent to return home and make the hearts of the
people glow with stories of war. He could see himself in a room of warm
tints telling tales to listeners. He could exhibit laurels. They were
insignificant; still, in a district where laurels were infrequent, they
might shine.
He saw his gaping audience picturing him as the central figure in
blazing scenes. And he imagined the consternation and the ejaculations
of his mother and the young lady at the seminary as they drank his
recitals. Their vague feminine formula for beloved ones doing brave
deeds on the field of battle without risk of life would be destroyed.
Chapter XVI.
A sputtering of musketry was always to be heard. Later, the cannon had
entered the dispute. In the fog-filled air their voices made a thudding
sound. The reverberations were continual. This part of the world led a
strange, battleful existence.
The youth’s regiment was marched to relieve a command that had lain
long in some damp trenches. The men took positions behind a curving
line of rifle pits that had been turned up, like a large furrow, along
the line of woods. Before them was a level stretch, peopled with short,
deformed stumps. From the woods beyond came the dull popping of the
skirmishers and pickets, firing in the fog. From the right came the
noise of a terrific fracas.
The men cuddled behind the small embankment and sat in easy attitudes
awaiting their turn. Many had their backs to the firing. The youth’s
friend lay down, buried his face in his arms, and almost instantly, it
seemed, he was in a deep sleep.
The youth leaned his breast against the brown dirt and peered over at
the woods and up and down the line. Curtains of trees interfered with
his ways of vision. He could see the low line of trenches but for a
short distance. A few idle flags were perched on the dirt hills. Behind
them were rows of dark bodies with a few heads sticking curiously over
the top.
Always the noise of skirmishers came from the woods on the front and
left, and the din on the right had grown to frightful proportions. The
guns were roaring without an instant’s pause for breath. It seemed that
the cannon had come from all parts and were engaged in a stupendous
wrangle. It became impossible to make a sentence heard.
The youth wished to launch a joke—a quotation from newspapers. He
desired to say, “All quiet on the Rappahannock,” but the guns refused
to permit even a comment upon their uproar. He never successfully
concluded the sentence. But at last the guns stopped, and among the men
in the rifle pits rumors again flew, like birds, but they were now for
the most part black creatures who flapped their wings drearily near to
the ground and refused to rise on any wings of hope. The men’s faces
grew doleful from the interpreting of omens. Tales of hesitation and
uncertainty on the part of those high in place and responsibility came
to their ears. Stories of disaster were borne into their minds with
many proofs. This din of musketry on the right, growing like a released
genie of sound, expressed and emphasized the army’s plight.
The men were disheartened and began to mutter. They made gestures
expressive of the sentence: “Ah, what more can we do?” And it could
always be seen that they were bewildered by the alleged news and could
not fully comprehend a defeat.
Before the gray mists had been totally obliterated by the sun rays, the
regiment was marching in a spread column that was retiring carefully
through the woods. The disordered, hurrying lines of the enemy could
sometimes be seen down through the groves and little fields. They were
yelling, shrill and exultant.
At this sight the youth forgot many personal matters and became greatly
enraged. He exploded in loud sentences. “B’jiminey, we’re generaled by
a lot ’a lunkheads.”
“More than one feller has said that t’-day,” observed a man.
His friend, recently aroused, was still very drowsy. He looked behind
him until his mind took in the meaning of the movement. Then he sighed.
“Oh, well, I s’pose we got licked,” he remarked sadly.
The youth had a thought that it would not be handsome for him to freely
condemn other men. He made an attempt to restrain himself, but the
words upon his tongue were too bitter. He presently began a long and
intricate denunciation of the commander of the forces.
“Mebbe, it wa’n’t all his fault—not all together. He did th’ best he
knowed. It’s our luck t’ git licked often,” said his friend in a weary
tone. He was trudging along with stooped shoulders and shifting eyes
like a man who has been caned and kicked.
“Well, don’t we fight like the devil? Don’t we do all that men can?”
demanded the youth loudly.
He was secretly dumfounded at this sentiment when it came from his
lips. For a moment his face lost its valor and he looked guiltily about
him. But no one questioned his right to deal in such words, and
presently he recovered his air of courage. He went on to repeat a
statement he had heard going from group to group at the camp that
morning. “The brigadier said he never saw a new reg’ment fight the way
we fought yestirday, didn’t he? And we didn’t do better than many
another reg’ment, did we? Well, then, you can’t say it’s th’ army’s
fault, can you?”
In his reply, the friend’s voice was stern. “’A course not,” he said.
“No man dare say we don’t fight like th’ devil. No man will ever dare
say it. Th’ boys fight like hell-roosters. But still—still, we don’t
have no luck.”
“Well, then, if we fight like the devil an’ don’t ever whip, it must be
the general’s fault,” said the youth grandly and decisively. “And I
don’t see any sense in fighting and fighting and fighting, yet always
losing through some derned old lunkhead of a general.”
A sarcastic man who was tramping at the youth’s side, then spoke
lazily. “Mebbe yeh think yeh fit th’ hull battle yestirday, Fleming,”
he remarked.
The speech pierced the youth. Inwardly he was reduced to an abject pulp
by these chance words. His legs quaked privately. He cast a frightened
glance at the sarcastic man.
“Why, no,” he hastened to say in a conciliating voice “I don’t think I
fought the whole battle yesterday.”
But the other seemed innocent of any deeper meaning. Apparently, he had
no information. It was merely his habit. “Oh!” he replied in the same
tone of calm derision.
The youth, nevertheless, felt a threat. His mind shrank from going near
to the danger, and thereafter he was silent. The significance of the