                             CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
     
          This advance of the enemy had seemed to the youth like a
     ruthless hunting. He began to fume with rage and exasperation. He
     beat his foot upon the ground, and scowled with hate at the
     swirling smoke that was approaching like a phantom flood. There was
     a maddening quality in this seeming resolution of the foe to give
     him no rest, to give him no time to sit down and think. Yesterday
     he had fought and had fled rapidly. There had been many adventures.
     For today he felt that he had earned opportunities for
     contemplative repose. He could have enjoyed portraying to
     uninitiated listeners various scenes at which he had been a witness
     or ably discussing the processes of war with other proved men. Too
     it was important that he should have time for physical
     recuperation. He was sore and stiff from his experiences. He had
     received his fill of all exertions, and he wished to rest.
          But those other men seemed never to grow weary; they were
     fighting with their old speed. He had a wild hate for the
     relentless foe. Yesterday, when he had imagined the universe to be
     against him, he had hated it, little gods and big gods; today he
     hated the army of the foe with the same great hatred. He was not
     going to be badgered of his life, like a kitten chased by boys, he
     said. It was not well to drive men into final corners; at those
     moments they could all develop teeth and claws.
          He leaned and spoke into his friend's ear. He menaced the
     woods with a gesture. "If they keep on chasing us, by God, they'd
     better watch out. Can't stand too much."
          The friend twisted his head and made a calm reply. "If they
     keep on a-chasing us they'll drive us all into the river."
          The youth cried out savagely at this statement. He crouched
     behind a little tree, with his eyes burning hatefully and his teeth
     set in a cur-like snarl. The awkward bandage was still about his
     head, and upon it, over his wound, there was a spot of dry blood.
     His hair was wondrously tousled, and some straggling, moving locks
     hung over the cloth of the bandage down toward his forehead. His
     jacket and shirt were open at the throat, and exposed his young
     bronzed neck. There could be seen spasmodic gulpings at his throat.
          His fingers twined nervously about his rifle. He wished that
     it was an engine of annihilating power. He felt that he and his
     companions were being taunted and derided from sincere convictions
     that they were poor and puny. His knowledge of his inability to
     take vengeance for it made his rage into a dark and stormy specter,
     that possessed him and made him dream of abominable cruelties. The
     tormentors were flies sucking insolently at his blood, and he
     thought that he would have given his life for a revenge of seeing
     their faces in pitiful plights.
          The winds of battle had swept all about the regiment, until
     the one rifle, instantly followed by others, flashed in its front.
     A moment later the regiment roared forth its sudden and valiant
     retort. A dense wall of smoke settled slowly down. It was furiously
     slit and slashed by the knife-like fire from the rifles.
          To the youth the fighters resembled animals tossed for a death
     struggle into a dark pit. There was a sensation that he and his
     fellows, at bay, were pushing back, always pushing fierce
     onslaughts of creatures who were slippery. Their beams of crimson
     seemed to get no purchase upon the bodies of their foes; the latter
     seemed to evade them with ease, and come through, between, around,
     and about with unopposed skill.
          When, in a dream, it occurred to the youth that his rifle was
     an impotent stick, he lost sense of everything but his hate, his
     desire to smash into pulp the glittering smile of victory which he
     could feel upon the faces of his enemies.
          The blue smoke-wallowed line curled and writhed like a snake
     stepped upon. It swung its ends to and fro in an agony of fear and
     rage.
          The youth was not conscious that he was erect upon his feet.
     He did not know the direction of the ground. Indeed, once he even
     lost the habit of balance and fell heavily. He was up again
     immediately. One thought went through the chaos of his brain at the
     time. He wondered if he had fallen because he had been shot. But
     the suspicion flew away at once. He did not think more of it.
          He had taken up a first position behind the little tree, with
     a direct determination to hold it against the world. He had not
     deemed it possible that his army could that day succeed, and from
     this he felt the ability to fight harder. But the throng had surged
     in all ways, until he lost directions and locations, save that he
     knew where lay the enemy.
          The flames bit him, and the hot smoke broiled his skin. His
     rifle barrel grew so hot that ordinarily he could not have borne it
     upon his palms; but he kept on stuffing cartridges into it, and
     pounding them with his clanking, bending ramrod. If he aimed at
     some changing form through the smoke, he pulled his trigger with a
     fierce grunt, as if he were dealing a blow of the fist with all his
     strength.
          When the enemy seemed falling back before him and his fellows,
     he went instantly forward, like a dog who, seeing his foes lagging,
     turns and insists upon being pursued. And when he was compelled to
     retire again, he did it slowly, sullenly, taking steps of wrathful
     despair.
          Once he, in his intent hate, was almost alone, and was firing,
     when all those near him had ceased. He was so engrossed in his
     occupation that he was not aware of a lull.
          He was recalled by a hoarse laugh and a sentence that came to
     his ears in a voice of contempt and amazement. "You infernal fool,
     don't you know enough to quit when there ain't anything to shoot
     at? Good God!"
          He turned then and, pausing with his rifle thrown half into
     position, looked at the blue line of his comrades. During this
     moment of leisure they seemed all to be engaged in staring with
     astonishment at him. They had become spectators. Turning to the
     front again he saw, under the lifted smoke, a deserted ground.
          He looked bewildered for a moment. Then there appeared upon
     the glazed vacancy of his eyes a diamond point of intelligence.
     "Oh," he said, comprehending.
          He returned to his comrades and threw himself upon the ground.
     He sprawled like a man who had been thrashed. His flesh seemed
     strangely on fire, and the sounds of the battle continued in his
     ears. He groped blindly for his canteen.
          The lieutenant was crowing. He seemed drunk with fighting. He
     called out to the youth: "By heavens, if I had ten thousand wild
     cats like you I could tear the stomach out a this war in less than
     a week!" He puffed out his chest with large dignity as he said it.
          Some of the men muttered and looked at the youth in awe-struck
     ways. It was plain that as he had gone on loading and firing and
     cursing without the proper intermission, they had found time to
     regard him. And they now looked upon him as a war devil.
          The friend came staggering to him. There was some fright and
     dismay in his voice. "Are you all right, Fleming? Do you feel all
     right? There ain't nothing the matter with you, Henry, is there?"
          "No," said the youth with difficulty. His throat seemed full
     of knobs and burs.
          These incidents made the youth ponder. It was revealed to him
     that he had been a barbarian, a beast. He had fought like a pagan
     who defends his religion. Regarding it, he saw that it was fine,
     wild, and, in some ways, easy. He had been a tremendous figure, no
     doubt. By this struggle he had overcome obstacles which he had
     admitted to be mountains. They had fallen like paper peaks, and he
     was now what he called a hero. And he had not been aware of the
     process. He had slept and, awakening, found himself a knight.
          He lay and basked in the occasional stares of his comrades.
     Their faces were varied in degrees of blackness from the burned
     powder. Some were utterly smudged. They were reeking with
     perspiration, and their breaths came hard and wheezing. And from
     these soiled expanses they peered at him.
          "Hot work! Hot work!" cried the lieutenant deliriously. He
     walked up and down, restless and eager. Sometimes his voice could
     be heard in a wild, incomprehensible laugh.
          When he had a particularly profound thought upon the science
     of war he always unconsciously addressed himself to the youth.
          There was some grim rejoicing by the men. "'By thunder, I bet
     this army'll never see another new regiment like us!"
          "You bet!
     
               `A dog, a woman, and a walnut tree,
               The more you beat them, the better they be!'
     
     That's like us. "
          "Lost a pile a men, they did. If an old woman swept up the
     woods she'd get a dustpanful."
          "Yes, and if she'll come around again in about an hour she'll
     get a pile more."
          The forest still bore its burden of clamor. From off under the
     trees came the rolling clatter of the musketry. Each distant
     thicket seemed a strange porcupine with quills of flame. A cloud of
     dark smoke, as from smoldering ruins, went up toward the sun now
     bright and gay in the blue, enameled sky.
     
     
          
