A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Mark Twain [little readers .TXT] 📗

Now ensued one of the dullest quarter-hours I had ever endured. We waited in a silent solitude enclosed by our circles of wire, and by a circle of heavy smoke outside of these.  We couldn’t see over the wall of smoke, and we couldn’t see through it.  But at last it began to shred away lazily, and by the end of another quarter-hour the land was clear and our curiosity was enabled to satisfy itself.  No living creature was in sight!  We now perceived that additions had been made to our defenses.  The dynamite had dug a ditch more than a hundred feet wide, all around us, and cast up an embankment some twenty-five feet high on both borders of it.  As to destruction of life, it was amazing.  Moreover, it was beyond estimate.  Of course, we could not count the dead, because they did not exist as individuals, but merely as homogeneous protoplasm, with alloys of iron and buttons.

No life was in sight, but necessarily there must have been some wounded in the rear ranks, who were carried off the field under cover of the wall of smoke; there would be sickness among the others—there always is, after an episode like that.  But there would be no reinforcements; this was the last stand of the chivalry of England; it was all that was left of the order, after the recent annihilating wars.  So I felt quite safe in believing that the utmost force that could for the future be brought against us would be but small; that is, of knights.  I therefore issued a congratulatory proclamation to my army in these words:

Your General congratulates you! In the pride of his
strength and the vanity of his renown, an arrogant
enemy came against you. You were ready. The conflict
was brief; on your side, glorious. This mighty
victory, having been achieved utterly without loss,
stands without example in history. So long as the
planets shall continue to move in their orbits, the
Battle Of The Sand-Belt will not perish out of the
memories of men.

THE BOSS.

I read it well, and the applause I got was very gratifying to me. I then wound up with these remarks:

“The war with the English nation, as a nation, is at an end. The nation has retired from the field and the war.  Before it can be persuaded to return, war will have ceased.  This campaign is the only one that is going to be fought.  It will be brief—the briefest in history.  Also the most destructive to life, considered from the standpoint of proportion of casualties to numbers engaged.  We are done with the nation; henceforth we deal only with the knights.  English knights can be killed, but they cannot be conquered.  We know what is before us.  While one of these men remains alive, our task is not finished, the war is not ended.  We will kill them all.”  [Loud and long continued applause.]

I picketed the great embankments thrown up around our lines by the dynamite explosion—merely a lookout of a couple of boys to announce the enemy when he should appear again.

Next, I sent an engineer and forty men to a point just beyond our lines on the south, to turn a mountain brook that was there, and bring it within our lines and under our command, arranging it in such a way that I could make instant use of it in an emergency. The forty men were divided into two shifts of twenty each, and were to relieve each other every two hours.  In ten hours the work was accomplished.

It was nightfall now, and I withdrew my pickets.  The one who had had the northern outlook reported a camp in sight, but visible with the glass only.  He also reported that a few knights had been feeling their way toward us, and had driven some cattle across our lines, but that the knights themselves had not come very near. That was what I had been expecting.  They were feeling us, you see; they wanted to know if we were going to play that red terror on them again.  They would grow bolder in the night, perhaps. I believed I knew what project they would attempt, because it was plainly the thing I would attempt myself if I were in their places and as ignorant as they were.  I mentioned it to Clarence.

“I think you are right,” said he; “it is the obvious thing for them to try.”

“Well, then,” I said, “if they do it they are doomed.”

“Certainly.”

“They won’t have the slightest show in the world.”

“Of course they won’t.”

“It’s dreadful, Clarence.  It seems an awful pity.”

The thing disturbed me so that I couldn’t get any peace of mind for thinking of it and worrying over it.  So, at last, to quiet my conscience, I framed this message to the knights:

TO THE HONORABLE THE COMMANDER OF THE INSURGENT
CHIVALRY OF ENGLAND: YOU fight in vain. We know
your strength—if one may call it by that name.
We know that at the utmost you cannot bring
against us above five and twenty thousand knights.
Therefore, you have no chance—none whatever.
Reflect: we are well equipped, well fortified, we
number 54. Fifty-four what? Men? No, minds—the
capablest in the world; a force against which
mere animal might may no more hope to prevail than
may the idle waves of the sea hope to prevail
against the granite barriers of England. Be advised.
We offer you your lives; for the sake of your
families, do not reject the gift. We offer you
this chance, and it is the last: throw down your
arms; surrender unconditionally to the Republic,
and all will be forgiven.

(Signed) THE BOSS.

I read it to Clarence, and said I proposed to send it by a flag of truce.  He laughed the sarcastic laugh he was born with, and said:

“Somehow it seems impossible for you to ever fully realize what these nobilities are.  Now let us save a little time and trouble. Consider me the commander of the knights yonder.  Now, then, you are the flag of truce; approach and deliver me your message, and I will give you your answer.”

I humored the idea.  I came forward under an imaginary guard of the enemy’s soldiers, produced my paper, and read it through. For answer, Clarence struck the paper out of my hand, pursed up a scornful lip and said with lofty disdain:

“Dismember me this animal, and return him in a basket to the base-born knave who sent him; other answer have I none!”

How empty is theory in presence of fact!  And this was just fact, and nothing else.  It was the thing that would have happened, there was no getting around that.  I tore up the paper and granted my mistimed sentimentalities a permanent rest.

Then, to