第48章

PRESENTLY they knew that no firing threat-ened 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 un-faltering 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 199the 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 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 bat-tered regiment, save that one man made broad-cast 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 cap-tain, 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, be-gan 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 ridicu-lous.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 vet-erans.He veiled a glance of disdain at his fel-lows 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 consider-able joy in musing upon his performances during the charge.He had had very little time pre-viously in which to appreciate himself, so that there was now much satisfaction in quietly think-ing of his actions.He recalled bits of color that in the flurry had stamped themselves unawares upon his engaged senses.

As the regiment lay heaving from its hot exer-tions the officer who had named them as mule drivers came galloping along the line.He had lost his cap.His tousled hair streamed wildly, and his face was dark with vexation and wrath.

His temper was displayed with more clearness by the way in which he managed his horse.He jerked and wrenched savagely at his bridle, stop-ping the hard-breathing animal with a furious pull near the colonel of the regiment.He im-mediately exploded in reproaches which came unbidden to the ears of the men.They were suddenly alert, being always curious about black words between officers.

"Oh, thunder, MacChesnay, what an awful bull you made of this thing!" began the officer.

He attempted low tones, but his indignation caused certain of the men to learn the sense of his words."What an awful mess you made!

Good Lord, man, you stopped about a hun-

dred feet this side of a very pretty success! If your men had gone a hundred feet farther you would have made a great charge, but as it is --what a lot of mud diggers you've got any-way!"

The men, listening with bated breath, now turned their curious eyes upon the colonel.

They had a ragamuffin interest in this affair.

The colonel was seen to straighten his form and put one hand forth in oratorical fashion.

He wore an injured air; it was as if a deacon had been accused of stealing.The men were wiggling in an ecstasy of excitement.

But of a sudden the colonel's manner changed from that of a deacon to that of a Frenchman.

He shrugged his shoulders."Oh, well, general, we went as far as we could," he said calmly.

"As far as you could? Did you, b'Gawd?"