Chapter: The youth awakened slowly.  He came gradually back to a position from
which he could regard himself.  For moments he had been scrutinizing
his person in a dazed way as if he had never before seen himself.  Then
he picked up his cap from the ground.  He wriggled in his jacket to
make a more comfortable fit, and kneeling relaced his shoe.  He
thoughtfully mopped his reeking features.

So it was all over at last!  The supreme trial had been passed.  The
red, formidable difficulties of war had been vanquished.

He went into an ecstasy of self-satisfaction. He had the most
delightful sensations of his life. Standing as if apart from himself,
he viewed that last scene.  He perceived that the man who had fought
thus was magnificent.

He felt that he was a fine fellow.  He saw himself even with those
ideals which he had considered as far beyond him.  He smiled in deep
gratification.

Upon his fellows he beamed tenderness and good will.  "Gee! ain't it
hot, hey?" he said affably to a man who was polishing his streaming
face with his coat sleeves.

"You bet!" said the other, grinning sociably. "I never seen sech dumb
hotness."  He sprawled out luxuriously on the ground.  "Gee, yes!  An'
I hope we don't have no more fightin' till a week from Monday."

There were some handshakings and deep speeches with men whose features
were familiar, but with whom the youth now felt the bonds of tied
hearts.  He helped a cursing comrade to bind up a wound of the shin.

But, of a sudden, cries of amazement broke out along the ranks of the
new regiment.  "Here they come ag'in!  Here they come ag'in!"  The man
who had sprawled upon the ground started up and said, "Gosh!"

The youth turned quick eyes upon the field. He discerned forms begin to
swell in masses out of a distant wood.  He again saw the tilted flag
speeding forward.

The shells, which had ceased to trouble the regiment for a time, came
swirling again, and exploded in the grass or among the leaves of the
trees.  They looked to be strange war flowers bursting into fierce
bloom.

The men groaned.  The luster faded from their eyes.  Their smudged
countenances now expressed a profound dejection.  They moved their
stiffened bodies slowly, and watched in sullen mood the frantic
approach of the enemy.  The slaves toiling in the temple of this god
began to feel rebellion at his harsh tasks.

They fretted and complained each to each. "Oh, say, this is too much of
a good thing!  Why can't somebody send us supports?"

"We ain't never goin' to stand this second banging.  I didn't come here
to fight the hull damn' rebel army."

There was one who raised a doleful cry.  "I wish Bill Smithers had trod
on my hand, insteader me treddin' on his'n."  The sore joints of the
regiment creaked as it painfully floundered into position to repulse.

The youth stared.  Surely, he thought, this impossible thing was not
about to happen.  He waited as if he expected the enemy to suddenly
stop, apologize, and retire bowing.  It was all a mistake.

But the firing began somewhere on the regimental line and ripped along
in both directions. The level sheets of flame developed great clouds of
smoke that tumbled and tossed in the mild wind near the ground for a
moment, and then rolled through the ranks as through a gate.  The
clouds were tinged an earthlike yellow in the sunrays and in the shadow
were a sorry blue. The flag was sometimes eaten and lost in this mass
of vapor, but more often it projected, sun-touched, resplendent.

Into the youth's eyes there came a look that one can see in the orbs of
a jaded horse.  His neck was quivering with nervous weakness and the
muscles of his arms felt numb and bloodless. His hands, too, seemed
large and awkward as if he was wearing invisible mittens.  And there
was a great uncertainty about his knee joints.

The words that comrades had uttered previous to the firing began to
recur to him.  "Oh, say, this is too much of a good thing!  What do
they take us for--why don't they send supports?  I didn't come here to
fight the hull damned rebel army."

He began to exaggerate the endurance, the skill, and the valor of those
who were coming. Himself reeling from exhaustion, he was astonished
beyond measure at such persistency.  They must be machines of steel. It
was very gloomy struggling against such affairs, wound up perhaps to
fight until sundown.

He slowly lifted his rifle and catching a glimpse of the thickspread
field he blazed at a cantering cluster.  He stopped then and began to
peer as best he could through the smoke.  He caught changing views of
the ground covered with men who were all running like pursued imps, and
yelling.

To the youth it was an onslaught of redoubtable dragons.  He became
like the man who lost his legs at the approach of the red and green
monster.  He waited in a sort of a horrified, listening attitude.  He
seemed to shut his eyes and wait to be gobbled.

A man near him who up to this time had been working feverishly at his
rifle suddenly stopped and ran with howls.  A lad whose face had borne
an expression of exalted courage, the majesty of he who dares give his
life, was, at an instant, smitten abject.  He blanched like one who has
come to the edge of a cliff at midnight and is suddenly made aware.
There was a revelation.  He, too, threw down his gun and fled.  There
was no shame in his face.  He ran like a rabbit.

Others began to scamper away through the smoke.  The youth turned his
head, shaken from his trance by this movement as if the regiment was
leaving him behind.  He saw the few fleeting forms.

He yelled then with fright and swung about. For a moment, in the great
clamor, he was like a proverbial chicken.  He lost the direction of
safety.  Destruction threatened him from all points.

Directly he began to speed toward the rear in great leaps.  His rifle
and cap were gone.  His unbuttoned coat bulged in the wind.  The flap
of his cartridge box bobbed wildly, and his canteen, by its slender
cord, swung out behind.  On his face was all the horror of those things
which he imagined.

The lieutenant sprang forward bawling.  The youth saw his features
wrathfully red, and saw him make a dab with his sword.  His one thought
of the incident was that the lieutenant was a peculiar creature to feel
interested in such matters upon this occasion.

He ran like a blind man.  Two or three times he fell down.  Once he
knocked his shoulder so heavily against a tree that he went headlong.

Since he had turned his back upon the fight his fears had been
wondrously magnified.  Death about to thrust him between the shoulder
blades was far more dreadful than death about to smite him between the
eyes.  When he thought of it later, he conceived the impression that it
is better to view the appalling than to be merely within hearing.  The
noises of the battle were like stones; he believed himself liable to be
crushed.

As he ran he mingled with others.  He dimly saw men on his right and on
his left, and he heard footsteps behind him.  He thought that all the
regiment was fleeing, pursued by these ominous crashes.

In his flight the sound of these following footsteps gave him his one
meager relief.  He felt vaguely that death must make a first choice of
the men who were nearest; the initial morsels for the dragons would be
then those who were following him.  So he displayed the zeal of an
insane sprinter in his purpose to keep them in the rear. There was a
race.

As he, leading, went across a little field, he found himself in a
region of shells.  They hurtled over his head with long wild screams.
As he listened he imagined them to have rows of cruel teeth that
grinned at him.  Once one lit before him and the livid lightning of the
explosion effectually barred the way in his chosen direction.  He
groveled on the ground and then springing up went careering off through
some bushes.

He experienced a thrill of amazement when he came within view of a
battery in action.  The men there seemed to be in conventional moods,
altogether unaware of the impending annihilation.  The battery was
disputing with a distant antagonist and the gunners were wrapped in
admiration of their shooting.  They were continually bending in coaxing
postures over the guns.  They seemed to be patting them on the back and
encouraging them with words.  The guns, stolid and undaunted, spoke
with dogged valor.

The precise gunners were coolly enthusiastic. They lifted their eyes
every chance to the smoke-wreathed hillock from whence the hostile
battery addressed them.  The youth pitied them as he ran.  Methodical
idiots!  Machine-like fools!  The refined joy of planting shells in the
midst of the other battery's formation would appear a little thing when
the infantry came swooping out of the woods.

The face of a youthful rider, who was jerking his frantic horse with an
abandon of temper he might display in a placid barnyard, was impressed
deeply upon his mind.  He knew that he looked upon a man who would
presently be dead.

Too, he felt a pity for the guns, standing, six good comrades, in a
bold row.

He saw a brigade going to the relief of its pestered fellows.  He
scrambled upon a wee hill and watched it sweeping finely, keeping
formation in difficult places.  The blue of the line was crusted with
steel color, and the brilliant flags projected. Officers were shouting.

This sight also filled him with wonder.  The brigade was hurrying
briskly to be gulped into the infernal mouths of the war god.  What
manner of men were they, anyhow?  Ah, it was some wondrous breed!  Or
else they didn't comprehend--the fools.

A furious order caused commotion in the artillery.  An officer on a
bounding horse made maniacal motions with his arms.  The teams went
swinging up from the rear, the guns were whirled about, and the battery
scampered away.  The cannon with their noses poked slantingly at the
ground grunted and grumbled like stout men, brave but with objections
to hurry.

The youth went on, moderating his pace since he had left the place of
noises.

Later he came upon a general of division seated upon a horse that
pricked its ears in an interested way at the battle.  There was a great
gleaming of yellow and patent leather about the saddle and bridle.  The
quiet man astride looked mouse-colored upon such a splendid charger.

A jingling staff was galloping hither and thither.  Sometimes the
general was surrounded by horsemen and at other times he was quite
alone.  He looked to be much harassed.  He had the appearance of a
business man whose market is swinging up and down.

The youth went slinking around this spot. He went as near as he dared
trying to overhear words.  Perhaps the general, unable to comprehend
chaos, might call upon him for information. And he could tell him.  He
knew all concerning it.  Of a surety the force was in a fix, and any
fool could see that if they did not retreat while they had
opportunity--why--

He felt that he would like to thrash the general, or at least approach
and tell him in plain words exactly what he thought him to be.  It was
criminal to stay calmly in one spot and make no effort to stay
destruction.  He loitered in a fever of eagerness for the division
commander to apply to him.

As he warily moved about, he heard the general call out irritably:
"Tompkins, go over an' see Taylor, an' tell him not t' be in such an
all-fired hurry; tell him t' halt his brigade in th' edge of th' woods;
tell him t' detach a reg'ment--say I think th' center 'll break if we
don't help it out some; tell him t' hurry up."

A slim youth on a fine chestnut horse caught these swift words from the
mouth of his superior. He made his horse bound into a gallop almost
from a walk in his haste to go upon his mission. There was a cloud of
dust.

A moment later the youth saw the general bounce excitedly in his saddle.

"Yes, by heavens, they have!"  The officer leaned forward.  His face
was aflame with excitement.  "Yes, by heavens, they 've held 'im! They
've held 'im!"

He began to blithely roar at his staff: "We 'll wallop 'im now.  We 'll
wallop 'im now.  We 've got 'em sure."  He turned suddenly upon an aid:
"Here--you--Jones--quick--ride after Tompkins--see Taylor--tell him t'
go in--everlastingly--like blazes--anything."

As another officer sped his horse after the first messenger, the
general beamed upon the earth like a sun.  In his eyes was a desire to
chant a paean.  He kept repeating, "They 've held 'em, by heavens!"

His excitement made his horse plunge, and he merrily kicked and swore
at it.  He held a little carnival of joy on horseback.

 As Henry becomes more and more aware, he is relieved. The trial has been passed and the difficulties of war have been vanquished. He feels good about himself. He and the other men exchange pleasantries about the weather and shake hands. But this good feeling does not last for long - the enemy attacks again. Masses of troops begin to swell out of the grove on the opposite side of the field. Shells from enemy cannons begin to explode in the grass and trees. The glow fades from the men's eyes. They complain about not having replacements; they groan about aching joints. Henry is convinced that this is a mistake, and the advancing troops will stop, apologize, and turn around. He is wrong. The battle starts again as the Union troops open fire on the field. Henry begins to quiver. He feels numb and is convinced that his foes are machines of steel. He stops firing to peer through the smoke. All he can see is faint views of the ground, covered with men running like imps and yelling. He waits horrified, feeling as if he could shut his eyes and be eaten. A man near him, who had been working on his rifle, suddenly stops and runs screaming. Others begin to run as well. Henry then yells with fright, swings about, and charges for the rear. He loses his rifle and cap, and his open coat sways in the breeze as he runs. He loses all direction of safety. The lieutenant suddenly jumps, red-faced, in front of Henry, attempting to keep him there. He swings with his sword. Henry simply continues to run blindly. He falls a few times. As he runs, he sees others running alongside him and hears more fleeing footsteps behind him. He is convinced the regiment is fleeing, chased by the crashing shells. He continues to run up to the Union battery. Cannon shots go overhead as he speeds through them. The men working the guns seem calm and collected, unaware of their impending doom. They stand on a smoke-ringed hill. Henry feels pity for the poor, unaware fools as he runs. He sees other troops running into battle. Henry is filled with wonder at these fools, speeding to feed the war god. He runs so far he comes up to a hill where the general and his staff are standing on their horses. Henry considers telling him of the carnage and terror. He also considers thrashing him for his poor judgment and behavior. How could he stay still while such destruction was going on. The general then calls on an assistant to direct a brigade to send a regiment to the center, where Henry was, for it is in danger of breaking. The assistant returns in a moment with news that the regiment has held. Henry's feeling that doom was imminent turned out not to be true. The general jostles excitedly on his horse

