Chapter: The youth fell back in the procession until the tattered soldier was
not in sight.  Then he started to walk on with the others.

But he was amid wounds.  The mob of men was bleeding.  Because of the
tattered soldier's question he now felt that his shame could be viewed.
He was continually casting sidelong glances to see if the men were
contemplating the letters of guilt he felt burned into his brow.

At times he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way.  He
conceived persons with torn bodies to be peculiarly happy.  He wished
that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage.

The spectral soldier was at his side like a stalking reproach.  The
man's eyes were still fixed in a stare into the unknown.  His gray,
appalling face had attracted attention in the crowd, and men, slowing
to his dreary pace, were walking with him.  They were discussing his
plight, questioning him and giving him advice.

In a dogged way he repelled them, signing to them to go on and leave
him alone.  The shadows of his face were deepening and his tight lips
seemed holding in check the moan of great despair. There could be seen
a certain stiffness in the movements of his body, as if he were taking
infinite care not to arouse the passion of his wounds.  As he went on,
he seemed always looking for a place, like one who goes to choose a
grave.

Something in the gesture of the man as he waved the bloody and pitying
soldiers away made the youth start as if bitten.  He yelled in horror.
Tottering forward he laid a quivering hand upon the man's arm.  As the
latter slowly turned his waxlike features toward him, the youth
screamed:

"Gawd!  Jim Conklin!"

The tall soldier made a little commonplace smile.  "Hello, Henry," he
said.

The youth swayed on his legs and glared strangely.  He stuttered and
stammered.  "Oh, Jim--oh, Jim--oh, Jim--"

The tall soldier held out his gory hand.  There was a curious red and
black combination of new blood and old blood upon it.  "Where yeh been,
Henry?" he asked.  He continued in a monotonous voice, "I thought mebbe
yeh got keeled over.  There 's been thunder t' pay t'-day.  I was
worryin' about it a good deal."

The youth still lamented.  "Oh, Jim--oh, Jim--oh, Jim--"

"Yeh know," said the tall soldier, "I was out there."  He made a
careful gesture.  "An', Lord, what a circus!  An', b'jiminey, I got
shot--I got shot.  Yes, b'jiminey, I got shot."  He reiterated this
fact in a bewildered way, as if he did not know how it came about.

The youth put forth anxious arms to assist him, but the tall soldier
went firmly on as if propelled.  Since the youth's arrival as a
guardian for his friend, the other wounded men had ceased to display
much interest.  They occupied themselves again in dragging their own
tragedies toward the rear.

Suddenly, as the two friends marched on, the tall soldier seemed to be
overcome by a terror. His face turned to a semblance of gray paste. He
clutched the youth's arm and looked all about him, as if dreading to be
overheard.  Then he began to speak in a shaking whisper:

"I tell yeh what I'm 'fraid of, Henry--I 'll tell yeh what I 'm 'fraid
of.  I 'm 'fraid I 'll fall down--an' then yeh know--them damned
artillery wagons--they like as not 'll run over me.  That 's what I 'm
'fraid of--"

The youth cried out to him hysterically: "I 'll take care of yeh, Jim!
I'll take care of yeh!  I swear t' Gawd I will!"

"Sure--will yeh, Henry?" the tall soldier beseeched.

"Yes--yes--I tell yeh--I'll take care of yeh, Jim!" protested the
youth.  He could not speak accurately because of the gulpings in his
throat.

But the tall soldier continued to beg in a lowly way.  He now hung
babelike to the youth's arm.  His eyes rolled in the wildness of his
terror.  "I was allus a good friend t' yeh, wa'n't I, Henry?  I 've
allus been a pretty good feller, ain't I?  An' it ain't much t' ask, is
it?  Jest t' pull me along outer th' road?  I 'd do it fer you,
Wouldn't I, Henry?"

He paused in piteous anxiety to await his friend's reply.

The youth had reached an anguish where the sobs scorched him.  He
strove to express his loyalty, but he could only make fantastic
gestures.

However, the tall soldier seemed suddenly to forget all those fears. He
became again the grim, stalking specter of a soldier.  He went stonily
forward.  The youth wished his friend to lean upon him, but the other
always shook his head and strangely protested. "No--no--no--leave me
be--leave me be--"

His look was fixed again upon the unknown. He moved with mysterious
purpose, and all of the youth's offers he brushed aside. "No--no--leave
me be--leave me be--"

The youth had to follow.

Presently the latter heard a voice talking softly near his shoulders.
Turning he saw that it belonged to the tattered soldier.  "Ye 'd better
take 'im outa th' road, pardner.  There 's a batt'ry comin' helitywhoop
down th' road an' he 'll git runned over.  He 's a goner anyhow in
about five minutes--yeh kin see that.  Ye 'd better take 'im outa th'
road.  Where th' blazes does he git his stren'th from?"

"Lord knows!" cried the youth.  He was shaking his hands helplessly.

He ran forward presently and grasped the tall soldier by the arm. "Jim!
Jim!" he coaxed, "come with me."

The tall soldier weakly tried to wrench himself free.  "Huh," he said
vacantly.  He stared at the youth for a moment.  At last he spoke as if
dimly comprehending.  "Oh!  Inteh th' fields?  Oh!"

He started blindly through the grass.

The youth turned once to look at the lashing riders and jouncing guns
of the battery.  He was startled from this view by a shrill outcry from
the tattered man.

"Gawd!  He's runnin'!"

Turning his head swiftly, the youth saw his friend running in a
staggering and stumbling way toward a little clump of bushes.  His
heart seemed to wrench itself almost free from his body at this sight.
He made a noise of pain. He and the tattered man began a pursuit. There
was a singular race.

When he overtook the tall soldier he began to plead with all the words
he could find. "Jim--Jim--what are you doing--what makes you do this
way--you 'll hurt yerself."

The same purpose was in the tall soldier's face. He protested in a
dulled way, keeping his eyes fastened on the mystic place of his
intentions. "No--no--don't tech me--leave me be--leave me be--"

The youth, aghast and filled with wonder at the tall soldier, began
quaveringly to question him. "Where yeh goin', Jim?  What you thinking
about?  Where you going?  Tell me, won't you, Jim?"

The tall soldier faced about as upon relentless pursuers.  In his eyes
there was a great appeal. "Leave me be, can't yeh?  Leave me be fer a
minnit."

The youth recoiled.  "Why, Jim," he said, in a dazed way, "what's the
matter with you?"

The tall soldier turned and, lurching dangerously, went on.  The youth
and the tattered soldier followed, sneaking as if whipped, feeling
unable to face the stricken man if he should again confront them.  They
began to have thoughts of a solemn ceremony.  There was something
rite-like in these movements of the doomed soldier. And there was a
resemblance in him to a devotee of a mad religion, blood-sucking,
muscle-wrenching, bone-crushing.  They were awed and afraid. They hung
back lest he have at command a dreadful weapon.

At last, they saw him stop and stand motionless.  Hastening up, they
perceived that his face wore an expression telling that he had at last
found the place for which he had struggled.  His spare figure was
erect; his bloody hands were quietly at his side.  He was waiting with
patience for something that he had come to meet.  He was at the
rendezvous.  They paused and stood, expectant.

There was a silence.

Finally, the chest of the doomed soldier began to heave with a strained
motion.  It increased in violence until it was as if an animal was
within and was kicking and tumbling furiously to be free.

This spectacle of gradual strangulation made the youth writhe, and once
as his friend rolled his eyes, he saw something in them that made him
sink wailing to the ground.  He raised his voice in a last supreme call.

"Jim--Jim--Jim--"

The tall soldier opened his lips and spoke. He made a gesture.  "Leave
me be--don't tech me--leave me be--"

There was another silence while he waited.

Suddenly, his form stiffened and straightened. Then it was shaken by a
prolonged ague.  He stared into space.  To the two watchers there was a
curious and profound dignity in the firm lines of his awful face.

He was invaded by a creeping strangeness that slowly enveloped him. For
a moment the tremor of his legs caused him to dance a sort of hideous
hornpipe.  His arms beat wildly about his head in expression of implike
enthusiasm.

His tall figure stretched itself to its full height. There was a slight
rending sound.  Then it began to swing forward, slow and straight, in
the manner of a falling tree.  A swift muscular contortion made the
left shoulder strike the ground first.

The body seemed to bounce a little way from the earth.  "God!" said the
tattered soldier.

The youth had watched, spellbound, this ceremony at the place of
meeting.  His face had been twisted into an expression of every agony
he had imagined for his friend.

He now sprang to his feet and, going closer, gazed upon the pastelike
face.  The mouth was open and the teeth showed in a laugh.

As the flap of the blue jacket fell away from the body, he could see
that the side looked as if it had been chewed by wolves.

The youth turned, with sudden, livid rage, toward the battlefield.  He
shook his fist.  He seemed about to deliver a philippic.

"Hell--"

The red sun was pasted in the sky like a wafer.

 Henry walks along with the wounded regiment, wishing he had a wound too - a "red badge of courage" of his very own. Henry feels that his chickenness is written on his forehead... which would be quite interesting, if it were possible. Henry sees the worst thing he's seen yet. It's his old friend Jim Conklin and it is apparent that Jim is in the process of dying. He's afraid of getting run over if he stays in the road and somehow runs to some bushes on the side of the path. As Henry and "the Tattered Soldier" watch, Jim dies a horrible, grisly, pitiful death in a scene like no other. Henry, angry at losing his friend, rages internally at the battle.

