Chapter: The youth cringed as if discovered in a crime. By heavens, they had won
after all!  The imbecile line had remained and become victors. He could
hear cheering.

He lifted himself upon his toes and looked in the direction of the
fight.  A yellow fog lay wallowing on the treetops.  From beneath it
came the clatter of musketry.  Hoarse cries told of an advance.

He turned away amazed and angry.  He felt that he had been wronged.

He had fled, he told himself, because annihilation approached.  He had
done a good part in saving himself, who was a little piece of the army.
He had considered the time, he said, to be one in which it was the duty
of every little piece to rescue itself if possible.  Later the officers
could fit the little pieces together again, and make a battle front. If
none of the little pieces were wise enough to save themselves from the
flurry of death at such a time, why, then, where would be the army? It
was all plain that he had proceeded according to very correct and
commendable rules.  His actions had been sagacious things.  They had
been full of strategy.  They were the work of a master's legs.

Thoughts of his comrades came to him.  The brittle blue line had
withstood the blows and won. He grew bitter over it.  It seemed that
the blind ignorance and stupidity of those little pieces had betrayed
him.  He had been overturned and crushed by their lack of sense in
holding the position, when intelligent deliberation would have
convinced them that it was impossible.  He, the enlightened man who
looks afar in the dark, had fled because of his superior perceptions
and knowledge.  He felt a great anger against his comrades.  He knew it
could be proved that they had been fools.

He wondered what they would remark when later he appeared in camp.  His
mind heard howls of derision.  Their density would not enable them to
understand his sharper point of view.

He began to pity himself acutely.  He was ill used.  He was trodden
beneath the feet of an iron injustice.  He had proceeded with wisdom
and from the most righteous motives under heaven's blue only to be
frustrated by hateful circumstances.

A dull, animal-like rebellion against his fellows, war in the abstract,
and fate grew within him.  He shambled along with bowed head, his brain
in a tumult of agony and despair.  When he looked loweringly up,
quivering at each sound, his eyes had the expression of those of a
criminal who thinks his guilt and his punishment great, and knows that
he can find no words.

He went from the fields into a thick woods, as if resolved to bury
himself.  He wished to get out of hearing of the crackling shots which
were to him like voices.

The ground was cluttered with vines and bushes, and the trees grew
close and spread out like bouquets.  He was obliged to force his way
with much noise.  The creepers, catching against his legs, cried out
harshly as their sprays were torn from the barks of trees.  The
swishing saplings tried to make known his presence to the world.  He
could not conciliate the forest.  As he made his way, it was always
calling out protestations.  When he separated embraces of trees and
vines the disturbed foliages waved their arms and turned their face
leaves toward him.  He dreaded lest these noisy motions and cries
should bring men to look at him.  So he went far, seeking dark and
intricate places.

After a time the sound of musketry grew faint and the cannon boomed in
the distance.  The sun, suddenly apparent, blazed among the trees.  The
insects were making rhythmical noises.  They seemed to be grinding
their teeth in unison.  A woodpecker stuck his impudent head around the
side of a tree.  A bird flew on lighthearted wing.

Off was the rumble of death.  It seemed now that Nature had no ears.

This landscape gave him assurance.  A fair field holding life.  It was
the religion of peace. It would die if its timid eyes were compelled to
see blood.  He conceived Nature to be a woman with a deep aversion to
tragedy.

He threw a pine cone at a jovial squirrel, and he ran with chattering
fear.  High in a treetop he stopped, and, poking his head cautiously
from behind a branch, looked down with an air of trepidation.

The youth felt triumphant at this exhibition. There was the law, he
said.  Nature had given him a sign.  The squirrel, immediately upon
recognizing danger, had taken to his legs without ado.  He did not
stand stolidly baring his furry belly to the missile, and die with an
upward glance at the sympathetic heavens.  On the contrary, he had fled
as fast as his legs could carry him; and he was but an ordinary
squirrel, too--doubtless no philosopher of his race.  The youth wended,
feeling that Nature was of his mind. She re-enforced his argument with
proofs that lived where the sun shone.

Once he found himself almost into a swamp. He was obliged to walk upon
bog tufts and watch his feet to keep from the oily mire.  Pausing at
one time to look about him he saw, out at some black water, a small
animal pounce in and emerge directly with a gleaming fish.

The youth went again into the deep thickets. The brushed branches made
a noise that drowned the sounds of cannon.  He walked on, going from
obscurity into promises of a greater obscurity.

At length he reached a place where the high, arching boughs made a
chapel.  He softly pushed the green doors aside and entered.  Pine
needles were a gentle brown carpet.  There was a religious half light.

Near the threshold he stopped, horror-stricken at the sight of a thing.

He was being looked at by a dead man who was seated with his back
against a columnlike tree.  The corpse was dressed in a uniform that
once had been blue, but was now faded to a melancholy shade of green.
The eyes, staring at the youth, had changed to the dull hue to be seen
on the side of a dead fish.  The mouth was open. Its red had changed to
an appalling yellow. Over the gray skin of the face ran little ants.
One was trundling some sort of a bundle along the upper lip.

The youth gave a shriek as he confronted the thing.  He was for moments
turned to stone before it.  He remained staring into the liquid-looking
eyes.  The dead man and the living man exchanged a long look.  Then the
youth cautiously put one hand behind him and brought it against a tree.
Leaning upon this he retreated, step by step, with his face still
toward the thing.  He feared that if he turned his back the body might
spring up and stealthily pursue him.

The branches, pushing against him, threatened to throw him over upon
it.  His unguided feet, too, caught aggravatingly in brambles; and with
it all he received a subtle suggestion to touch the corpse.  As he
thought of his hand upon it he shuddered profoundly.

At last he burst the bonds which had fastened him to the spot and fled,
unheeding the underbrush.  He was pursued by a sight of the black ants
swarming greedily upon the gray face and venturing horribly near to the
eyes.

After a time he paused, and, breathless and panting, listened.  He
imagined some strange voice would come from the dead throat and squawk
after him in horrible menaces.

The trees about the portal of the chapel moved soughingly in a soft
wind.  A sad silence was upon the little guarding edifice.

 Henry feels a sudden resentment toward those in his regiment who did not run but, rather, defeated the enemy without him; he feels betrayed by their stupidity. To assuage his own feelings of guilt and incompetence, he assures himself that any thinking man would have realized that the best interest of the army lay in each soldier's own self-preservation. Consumed by these rationalizations, he plunges into the woods. Now far from the battle, Henry feels comforted by nature. He tosses a pinecone at a squirrel, and the squirrel scampers into a tree. Henry considers this sequence proof that fleeing from danger is a natural, universal tendency. He stumbles into a forest grove whose high ceiling of leaves makes it resemble a chapel. There he discovers the dead body of a soldier in a tattered blue uniform much like Henry's. Ants swarm over the corpse's face. Henry stares in shock for a moment and then runs from the glade, half expecting the corpse to cry out after him

