第39章

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 concili-ating 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 sarcastic man's words took from him all loud moods that would make him appear prominent.

He became suddenly a modest person.

There was low-toned talk among the troops.

The officers were impatient and snappy, their countenances clouded with the tales of misfor-tune.The troops, sifting through the forest, were sullen.In the youth's company once a man's laugh rang out.A dozen soldiers turned their faces quickly toward him and frowned with vague displeasure.

The noise of firing dogged their footsteps.

Sometimes, it seemed to be driven a little way, but it always returned again with increased insolence.The men muttered and cursed, throwing black looks in its direction.

In a clear space the troops were at last halted.

Regiments and brigades, broken and detached through their encounters with thickets, grew together again and lines were faced toward the pursuing bark of the enemy's infantry.

This noise, following like the yellings of eager, metallic hounds, increased to a loud and joyous burst, and then, as the sun went serenely up the sky, throwing illuminating rays into the gloomy thickets, it broke forth into prolonged pealings.

The woods began to crackle as if afire.

"Whoop-a-dadee," said a man, "here we are!

Everybody fightin'.Blood an' destruction.""I was willin' t' bet they'd attack as soon as th' sun got fairly up," savagely asserted the lieutenant who commanded the youth's company.

He jerked without mercy at his little mustache.

He strode to and fro with dark dignity in the rear of his men, who were lying down behind whatever protection they had collected.

A battery had trundled into position in the rear and was thoughtfully shelling the distance.

The regiment, unmolested as yet, awaited the moment when the gray shadows of the woods before them should be slashed by the lines of flame.There was much growling and swearing.

"Good Gawd," the youth grumbled, "we're always being chased around like rats! It makes me sick.Nobody seems to know where we go or why we go.We just get fired around from pillar to post and get licked here and get licked there, and nobody knows what it's done for.It makes a man feel like a damn' kitten in a bag.

Now, I'd like to know what the eternal thunders we was marched into these woods for anyhow, THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE 161unless it was to give the rebs a regular pot shot at us.We came in here and got our legs all tangled up in these cussed briers, and then we begin to fight and the rebs had an easy time of it.

Don't tell me it's just luck! I know better.It's this derned old--"The friend seemed jaded, but he interrupted his comrade with a voice of calm confidence.

"It'll turn out all right in th' end," he said.

"Oh, the devil it will! You always talk like a dog-hanged parson.Don't tell me! I know--"At this time there was an interposition by the savage-minded lieutenant, who was obliged to vent some of his inward dissatisfaction upon his men."You boys shut right up! There no need 'a your wastin' your breath in long-winded arguments about this an' that an' th' other.

You've been jawin' like a lot 'a old hens.All you've got t' do is to fight, an' you'll get plenty 'a that t' do in about ten minutes.Less talkin' an'

more fightin' is what's best for you boys.I never saw sech gabbling jackasses."He paused, ready to pounce upon any man who might have the temerity to reply.No words being said, he resumed his dignified pacing.

"There's too much chin music an' too little fightin' in this war, anyhow," he said to them, turning his head for a final remark.

The day had grown more white, until the sun shed his full radiance upon the thronged forest.

A sort of a gust of battle came sweeping toward that part of the line where lay the youth's regi-ment.The front shifted a trifle to meet it square-ly.There was a wait.In this part of the field there passed slowly the intense moments that pre-cede the tempest.

A single rifle flashed in a thicket before the regiment.In an instant it was joined by many others.There was a mighty song of clashes and crashes that went sweeping through the woods.

The guns in the rear, aroused and enraged by shells that had been thrown burlike at them, suddenly involved themselves in a hideous alter-cation with another band of guns.The battle roar settled to a rolling thunder, which was a single, long explosion.

In the regiment there was a peculiar kind of hesitation denoted in the attitudes of the men.

They were worn, exhausted, having slept but lit-tle and labored much.They rolled their eyes toward the advancing battle as they stood await-ing the shock.Some shrank and flinched.They stood as men tied to stakes.