The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane [ebook reader macos TXT] 📗

The youth contemplated his friend with grateful eyes. Upon his aching and swelling head the cold cloth was like a tender woman’s hand.

“Yeh don’t holler ner say nothin’,” remarked his friend approvingly. “I know I’m a blacksmith at takin’ keer ’a sick folks, an’ yeh never squeaked. Yer a good un, Henry. Most ’a men would a’ been in th’ hospital long ago. A shot in th’ head ain’t foolin’ business.”

The youth made no reply, but began to fumble with the buttons of his jacket.

“Well, come, now,” continued his friend, “come on. I must put yeh t’ bed an’ see that yeh git a good night’s rest.”

The other got carefully erect, and the loud young soldier led him among the sleeping forms lying in groups and rows. Presently he stooped and picked up his blankets. He spread the rubber one upon the ground and placed the woolen one about the youth’s shoulders.

“There now,” he said, “lie down an’ git some sleep.”

The youth, with his manner of doglike obedience, got carefully down like a crone stooping. He stretched out with a murmur of relief and comfort. The ground felt like the softest couch.

But of a sudden he ejaculated: “Hol’ on a minnit! Where you goin’ t’ sleep?”

His friend waved his hand impatiently. “Right down there by yeh.”

“Well, but hol’ on a minnit,” continued the youth. “What yeh goin’ t’ sleep in? I’ve got your⁠—”

The loud young soldier snarled: “Shet up an’ go on t’ sleep. Don’t be makin’ a damn’ fool ’a yerself,” he said severely.

After the reproof the youth said no more. An exquisite drowsiness had spread through him. The warm comfort of the blanket enveloped him and made a gentle languor. His head fell forward on his crooked arm and his weighted lids went softly down over his eyes. Hearing a splatter of musketry from the distance, he wondered indifferently if those men sometimes slept. He gave a long sigh, snuggled down into his blanket, and in a moment was like his comrades.

When the youth awoke it seemed to him that he had been asleep for a thousand years, and he felt sure that he opened his eyes upon an unexpected world. Gray mists were slowly shifting before the first efforts of the sun rays. An impending splendor could be seen in the eastern sky. An icy dew had chilled his face, and immediately upon arousing he curled farther down into his blanket. He stared for a while at the leaves overhead, moving in a heraldic wind of the day.

The distance was splintering and blaring with the noise of fighting. There was in the sound an expression of a deadly persistency, as if it had not began and was not to cease.

About him were the rows and groups of men that he had dimly seen the previous night. They were getting a last draught of sleep before the awakening. The gaunt, careworn features and dusty figures were made plain by this quaint light at the dawning, but it dressed the skin of the men in corpse-like hues and made the tangled limbs appear pulseless and dead. The youth started up with a little cry when his eyes first swept over this motionless mass of men, thick-spread upon the ground, pallid, and in strange postures. His disordered mind interpreted the hall of the forest as a charnel place. He believed for an instant that he was in the house of the dead, and he did not dare to move lest these corpses start up, squalling and squawking. In a second, however, he achieved his proper mind. He swore a complicated oath at himself. He saw that this somber picture was not a fact of the present, but a mere prophecy.

He heard then the noise of a fire crackling briskly in the cold air, and, turning his head, he saw his friend pottering busily about a small blaze. A few other figures moved in the fog, and he heard the hard cracking of axe blows.

Suddenly there was a hollow rumble of drums. A distant bugle sang faintly. Similar sounds, varying in strength, came from near and far over the forest. The bugles called to each other like brazen gamecocks. The near thunder of the regimental drums rolled.

The body of men in the woods rustled. There was a general uplifting of heads. A murmuring of voices broke upon the air. In it there was much bass of grumbling oaths. Strange gods were addressed in condemnation of the early hours necessary to correct war. An officer’s peremptory tenor rang out and quickened the stiffened movement of the men. The tangled limbs unraveled. The corpse-hued faces were hidden behind fists that twisted slowly in the eye sockets.

The youth sat up and gave vent to an enormous yawn. “Thunder!” he remarked petulantly. He rubbed his eyes, and then putting up his hand felt carefully the bandage over his wound. His friend, perceiving him to be awake, came from the fire. “Well, Henry, ol’ man, how do yeh feel this mornin’?” he demanded.

The youth yawned again. Then he puckered his mouth to a little pucker. His head, in truth, felt precisely like a melon, and there was an unpleasant sensation at his stomach.

“Oh, Lord, I feel pretty bad,” he said.

“Thunder!” exclaimed the other. “I hoped ye’d feel all right this mornin’. Let’s see th’ bandage⁠—I guess it’s slipped.” He began to tinker at the wound in rather a clumsy way until the youth exploded.

“Gosh-dern it!” he said in sharp irritation; “you’re the hangdest man I ever saw! You wear muffs on your hands. Why in good thunderation can’t you be more easy? I’d rather you’d stand off an’ throw guns at it. Now, go slow, an’ don’t act as if you was nailing down carpet.”

He glared with insolent command at his friend, but the latter answered soothingly. “Well, well, come now, an’ git some grub,” he said. “Then, maybe, yeh’ll feel better.”

At the fireside