The Red Badge of Courage. Stephen Crane
and speculate on the thoughts which must agitate the minds of the generals. Also, he was drilled and drilled and reviewed, and drilled and drilled and reviewed.
The only foes he had seen were some pickets along the river bank. They were a sun-tanned, philosophical lot, who sometimes shot reflectively at the blue pickets. When reproached for this afterwards, they usually expressed sorrow, and swore by their gods that the guns had exploded without their permission. The youth, on guard duty one night, conversed across the stream with one of them. He was a slightly ragged man, who spat skilfully between his shoes, and possessed a great fund of bland and infantile assurance. The youth liked him personally.
“Yank,” the other had informed him, “yer, a right dum good feller.” This sentiment, floating to him upon the still air, had made him temporarily regret war.
Various veterans had told him tales. Some talked of grey, bewhiskered hordes who were advancing with relentless curses, and chewing tobacco with unspeakable valour—tremendous bodies of fierce soldiery who were sweeping along like the Huns. Others spoke of tattered and eternally hungry men who fired despondent powders. “They’ll charge through hell’s fire an’ brimstone t’ git a holt on a haversack, an’ sech stomachs ain’t a-lastin’ long,” he was told. From the stories, the youth imagined the red, live bones sticking out through slits in the faded uniforms.
Still, he could not put a whole faith in veterans’ tales, for recruits were their prey. They talked much of smoke, fire and blood, but he could not tell how much might be lies. They persistenly yelled “Fresh fish!” at him, and were in no wise to be trusted.
However, he perceived now that it did not greatly matter what kind of soldiers he was going to fight, so long as they fought, which fact no one disputed. There was a more serious problem. He lay in his bunk pondering upon it. He tried to mathematically prove to himself that he would not run from a battle.
Previously, he had never felt obliged to wrestle too seriously with this question. In his life he had taken certain things for granted, never challenging his belief in ultimate success, and bothering little about means and roads. But here he was confronted with a thing of moment. It had suddenly appeared to him that perhaps in a battle he might run. He was forced to admit that as far as war was concerned he knew nothing of himself.
A sufficient time before he would have allowed the problem to kick its heels at the outer portals of his mind, but now he felt compelled to give serious attention to it.
A little panic-fear grew in his mind. As his imagination went forward to a fight, he saw hideous possibilities. He contemplated the lurking menaces of the future, and failed in an effort to see himself standing stoutly in the midst of them. He recalled his visions of broken-bladed glory, but in the shadow of the impending tumult he suspected them to be impossible pictures.
He sprang from the bunk and began to pace nervously to and fro. “Good Lord, what’s th’ matter with me?” he said aloud.
He felt that in this crisis his laws of life were useless. Whatever he had learned of himself was here of no avail. He was an unknown quantity. He saw that he would again be obliged to experiment as he had in early youth. He must accumulate information of himself, and meanwhile he resolved to remain close upon his guard lest those qualities of which he knew nothing should everlastingly disgrace him. “Good Lord!” he repeated in dismay.
After a time the tall soldier slid dexterously through the hole. The loud private followed. They were wrangling.
“That’s all right,” said the tall soldier as he entered. He waved his hand expressively. “You can believe me or not, jest as you like. All you’ve got to do is to sit down and wait as quiet as you can. Then pretty soon you’ll find out I was right.”
His comrade grunted stubbornly. For a moment he seemed to be searching for a formidable reply. Finally he said, “Well, you don’t know everything in the world, do you?”
“Didn’t say I knew everything in the world,” retorted the other sharply. He began to stow various articles snugly into his knapsack.
The youth, pausing in his nervous walk, looked down at the busy figure. “Going to be a battle, sure, is there, Jim?” he asked.
“Of course there is,” replied the tall soldier.
“Of course there is. You jest wait ’til tomorrow and you’ll see one of the biggest battles ever was. You just wait.”
“Thunder!” said the youth.
“Oh, you’ll see fighting this time, my boy, what’ll be regular out-and-out fighting,” added the tall soldier, with the air of a man who is about to exhibit a battle for the benefit of his friends.
“Huh!” said the loud one from a corner.
“Well,” remarked the youth, “like as not this story’ll turn out jest like them others did.”
“Not much it won’t,” replied the tall soldier, exasperated. “Not much it won’t. Didn’t the cavalry all start this morning?” He glared about him. No one denied his statement. “The cavalry started this morning,” he continued. “They say there ain’t hardly any cavalry left in camp. They’re going to Richmond, or some place, while we fight all the Johnnies. It’s some dodge like that. The regiment’s got orders, too. A feller what seen ’em go to headquarters told me a little while ago. And they’re raising blazes all over camp—anybody can see that.”
“Shucks!” said the loud one.
The youth remained silent for a time. At last he spoke to the tall soldier. “Jim!”
“What?”
“How do you think the reg’ment’ll do?”
“Oh, they’ll fight all right, I guess, after they once get into it,” said the other, with cold judgment. He made a fine use of the third person. “There’s been heaps of fun poked at ’em because they’re new, of course, and all that; but they’ll fight all right, I guess.”
“Think any of the boys’ll run?” persisted the youth.
“Oh, there may be a few of ’em run, but there’s them kind in every regiment, ’specially when they first goes under fire,” said the other in a tolerant way. “Of course, it might happen that the hull kit-and-boodle might start and run, if some big fighting came first-off, and then again they might stay and fight like fun. But you can’t bet on nothing. Of course, they ain’t never been under fire yet, and it ain’t likely they’ll lick the hull rebel army all-to-oncet the first time; but I think they’ll fight better than some, if worse than others. That’s the way I figger. They call the reg’ment ‘Fresh fish’ and everything; but the boys come of good stock, and most of ’em’ll fight like sin after they oncet git shootin’,” he added, with a mighty emphasis on the last four words.
“Oh, you think you know—” began the loud soldier with scorn.
The other turned savagely upon him. They had a rapid altercation, in which they fastened upon each other various strange epithets.
The youth at last interrupted them. “Did you ever think you might run yourself, Jim?” he asked. On concluding the sentence he laughed as if he had meant to aim a joke. The loud soldier also giggled.
The tall private waved his hand. “Well,” said he profoundly, “I’ve thought it might get too hot for Jim Conklin in some of them scrimmages, and if a whole lot of the boys started and run, why, I s’pose I’d start and run. And if I once started to run, I’d run like the devil, and no mistake. But if everybody was a-standing and a-fighting, why, I’d stand and fight. Be jiminey, I would. I’ll bet on it.”
“Huh!” said the loud one.
The youth of this tale felt gratitude for these words of his comrade. He had feared that all of the untried men possessed a great and correct confidence. He now was in a measure reassured.