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The Red Badge of Courage by
Stephen Crane
Chapter 6
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 as 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 on 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 those 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
aide: "Here--you--Jons--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.
Chapter 7
The youth cringed as if discovered in a crime. By heavens, they had
won after all! The imbecile line had remained and become victors. He
could hear cheering.
He lifted himself upon his toes and looked in the direction of the
fight. A yellow fog lay wallowing on the treetops. From beneath it
came the clatter of musketry. Hoarse cries told of an advance.
He turned away amazed and angry. He felt that he had been wronged.
He had fled, he told himself, because annihilation approached. He had
done a good part in saving himself, who was a little piece of the army.
He had considered the time, he said, to be one in which it was the duty
of every little piece to rescue itself if possible. Later the officers
could fit the little pieces together again, and make a battle front.
If none of the little pieces were wise enough to save themselves from
the flurry of death at such a time, why, then, where would be the army?
It was all plain that he had proceeded according to very correct and
commendable rules. His actions had been sagacious things. They had
been full of strategy. They were the work of a master's legs.
Thoughts of his comrades came to him. The brittle blue line had
withstood the blows and won. He grew bitter over it. It seemed that
the blind ignorance and stupidity of those little pieces had betrayed
him. He had been overturned and crushed by their lack of sense in
holding the position, when intelligent deliberation would have
convinced them that it was impossible. He, the enlightened man who
looks afar in the dark, had fled because of his superior perceptions
and knowledge. He felt a great anger against his comrades. He knew it
could be proved that they had been fools.
He wondered what they would remark when later he appeared in camp. His
mind heard howls of derision. Their density would not enable them to
understand his sharper point of view.
He began to pity himself acutely. He was ill used. He was trodden
beneath the feet of an iron injustice. He had proceeded with wisdom
and from the most righteous motives under heaven's blue only to be
frustrated by hateful circumstances.
A dull, animal-like rebellion against his fellows, war in the abstract,
and fate grew within him. He shambled along with bowed head, his brain
in a tumult of agony and despair. When he looked loweringly up,
quivering at each sound, his eyes had the expression of those of a
criminal who thinks his guilt little and his punishment great, and
knows that he can find no words.
He went from the fields into a thick woods, as if resolved to bury
himself. He wished to get out of hearing of the crackling shots which
were to him like voices.
The ground was cluttered with vines and bushes, and the trees grew
close and spread out like bouquets. He was obliged to force his way
with much noise. The creepers, catching against his legs, cried out
harshly as their sprays were torn from the barks of trees. The
swishing saplings tried to make known his presence to the world. He
could not conciliate the forest. As he made his way, it was always
calling out protestations. When he separated embraces of trees and
vines the disturbed foliages waved their arms and turned their face
leaves toward him. He dreaded lest these noisy motions and cries
should bring men to look at him. So he went far, seeking dark and
intricate places.
After a time the sound of musketry grew faint and the cannon boomed in
the distance. The sun, suddenly apparent, blazed among the trees. The
insects were making rhythmical noises. They seemed to be grinding
their teeth in unison. A woodpecker stuck his impudent head around the
side of a tree. A bird flew on lighthearted wing.
Off was the rumble of death. It seemed now that Nature had no ears.
This landscape gave him assurance. A fair field holding life. It was
the religion of peace. It would die if its timid eyes were compelled
to see blood. He conceived Nature to be a woman with a deep aversion
to tragedy.
He threw a pine cone at a jovial squirrel, and he ran with chattering
fear. High in a treetop he stopped, and, poking his head cautiously
from behind a branch, looked down with an air of trepidation.
The youth felt triumphant at this exhibition. There was the law, he
said. Nature had given him a sign. The squirrel, immediately upon
recognizing danger, had taken to his legs without ado. He did not
stand stolidly baring his furry belly to the missile, and die with an
upward glance at the sympathetic heavens. On the contrary, he had fled
as fast as his legs could carry him; and he was but an ordinary
squirrel, too--doubtless no philosopher of his race. The youth wended,
feeling that Nature was of his mind. She re-enforced his argument with
proofs that lived where the sun shone.
Once he found himself almost into a swamp. He was obliged to walk upon
bog tufts and watch his feet to keep from the oily mire. Pausing at
one time to look about him he saw, out at some black water, a small
animal pounce in and emerge directly with a gleaming fish.
The youth went again into the deep thickets. The brushed branches made
a noise that drowned the sounds of cannon. He walked on, going from
obscurity into promises of a greater obscurity.
At length he reached a place where the high, arching boughs made a
chapel. He softly pushed the green doors aside and entered. Pine
needles were a gentle brown carpet. There was a religious half light.
Near the threshold he stopped, horror-stricken at the sight of a thing.
He was being looked at by a dead man who was seated with his back
against a columnlike tree. The corpse was dressed in a uniform that
had once been blue, but was now faded to a melancholy shade of green.
The eyes, staring at the youth, had changed to the dull hue to be seen
on the side of a dead fish. The mouth was open. Its red had changed
to an appalling yellow. Over the gray skin of the face ran little
ants. One was trundling some sort of bundle along the upper lip.
The youth gave a shriek as he confronted the thing. He was for moments
turned to stone before it. He remained staring into the liquid-looking
eyes. The dead man and the living man exchanged a long look. Then the
youth cautiously put one hand behind him and brought it against a tree.
Leaning upon this he retreated, step by step, with his face still
toward the thing. He feared that if he turned his back the body might
spring up and stealthily pursue him.
The branches, pushing against him, threatened to throw him over upon
it. His unguided feet, too, caught aggravatingly in brambles; and with
it all he received a subtle suggestion to touch the corpse. As he
thought of his hand upon it he shuddered profoundly.
At last he burst the bonds which had fastened him to the spot and fled,
unheeding the underbrush. He was pursued by the sight of black ants
swarming greedily upon the gray face and venturing horribly near to the
eyes.
After a time he paused, and, breathless and panting, listened. He
imagined some strange voice would come from the dead throat and squawk
after him in horrible menaces.
The trees about the portal of the chapel moved soughingly in a soft
wind. A sad silence was upon the little guarding edifice.
Chapter 8
The trees began softly to sing a hymn of twilight. The sun sank until
slanted bronze rays struck the forest. There was a lull in the noises
of insects as if they had bowed their beaks and were making a
devotional pause. There was silence save for the chanted chorus of the
trees.
Then, upon this stillness, there suddenly broke a tremendous clangor of
sounds. A crimson roar came from the distance.
The youth stopped. He was transfixed by this terrific medley of all
noises. It was as if worlds were being rended. There was the ripping
sound of musketry and the breaking crash of the artillery.
His mind flew in all directions. He conceived the two armies to be at
each other panther fashion. He listened for a time. Then he began to
run in the direction of the battle. He saw that it was an ironical
thing for him to be running thus toward that which he had been at such
pains to avoid. But he said, in substance, to himself that if the
earth and the moon were about to clash, many persons would doubtless
plan to get upon the roofs to witness the collision.
As he ran, he became aware that the forest had stopped its music, as if
at last becoming capable of hearing the foreign sounds. The trees
hushed and stood motionless. Everything seemed to be listening to the
crackle and clatter and earthshaking thunder. The chorus peaked over
the still earth.
It suddenly occurred to the youth that the fight in which he had been
was, after all, but perfunctory popping. In the hearing of this
present din he was doubtful if he had seen real battle scenes. This
uproar explained a celestial battle; it was tumbling hordes a-struggle
in the air.
Reflecting, he saw a sort of a humor in the point of view of himself
and his fellows during the late encounter. They had taken themselves
and the enemy very seriously and had imagined that they were deciding
the war. Individuals must have supposed that they were cutting the
letters of their names deep into everlasting tablets of brass, or
enshrining their reputations forever in the hearts of their countrymen,
while, as to fact, the affair would appear in printed reports under a
meek and immaterial title. But he saw that it was good, else, he said,
in battle every one would surely run save forlorn hopes and their ilk.
He went rapidly on. He wished to come to the edge of the forest that
he might peer out.
As he hastened, there passed through his mind pictures of stupendous
conflicts. His accumulated thought upon such subjects was used to form
scenes. The noise was as the voice of an eloquent being, describing.
Sometimes the brambles formed chains and tried to hold him back.
Trees, confronting him, stretched out their arms and forbade him to
pass. After its previous hostility this new resistance of the forest
filled him with a fine bitterness. It seemed that Nature could not be
quite ready to kill him.
But he obstinately took roundabout ways, and presently he was where he
could see long gray walls of vapor where lay battle lines. The voices
of cannon shook him. The musketry sounded in long irregular surges
that played havoc with his ears. He stood regardant for a moment. His
eyes had an awestruck expression. He gawked in the direction of th
fight.
Presently he proceeded again on his forward way. The battle was like
the grinding of an immense and terrible machine to him. Its
complexities and powers, its grim processes, fascinated him. He must
go close and see it produce corpses.
He came to a fence and clambered over it. On the far side, the ground
was littered with clothes and guns. A newspaper, folded up, lay in the
dirt. A dead soldier was stretched with his face hidden in his arm.
Farther off there was a group of four or five corpses keeping mournful
company. A hot sun had blazed upon this spot.
In this place the youth felt that he was an invader. This forgotten
part of the battle ground was owned by the dead men, and he hurried, in
the vague apprehension that one of the swollen forms would rise and
tell him to begone.
He came finally to a road from which he could see in the distance dark
and agitated bodies of troops, smoke-fringed. In the lane was a
blood-stained crowd streaming to the rear. The wounded men were
cursing, groaning, and wailing. In the air, always, was a mighty swell
of sound that it seemed could sway the earth. With the courageous
words of the artillery and the spiteful sentences of the musketry
mingled red cheers. And from this region of noises came the steady
current of the maimed.
One of the wounded men had a shoeful of blood. He hopped like a
schoolboy in a game. He was laughing hysterically.
One was swearing that he had been shot in the arm through the
commanding general's mismanagement of the army. One was marching with
an air imitative of some sublime drum major. Upon his features was an
unholy mixture of merriment and agony. As he marched he sang a bit of
doggerel in a high and quavering voice:
"Sing a song 'a vic'try, A pocketful 'a bullets,
Five an' twenty dead men Baked in a--pie."
Parts of the procession limped and staggered to this tune.
Another had the gray seal of death already upon his face. His lips
were curled in hard lines and his teeth were clinched. His hands were
bloody from where he had pressed them upon his wound. He seemed to be
awaiting the moment when he should pitch headlong. He stalked like the
specter of a soldier, his eyes burning with the power of a stare into
the unknown.
There were some who proceeded sullenly, full of anger at their wounds,
and ready to turn upon anything as an obscure cause.
An officer was carried along by two privates. He was peevish. "Don't
joggle so, Johnson, yeh fool," he cried. "Think m' leg is made of
iron? If yeh can't carry me decent, put me down an' let some one else
do it."
He bellowed at the tottering crowd who blocked the quick march of his
bearers. "Say, make way there, can't yeh? Make way, dickens take it
all."
They sulkily parted and went to the roadsides. As he was carried past
they made pert remarks to him. When he raged in reply and threatened
them, they told him to be damned.
The shoulder of one of the tramping bearers knocked heavily against the
spectral soldier who was staring into the unknown.
The youth joined this crowd and marched along with it. The torn bodies
expressed the awful machinery in which the men had been entangled.
Orderlies and couriers occasionally broke through the throng in the
roadway, scattering wounded men right and left, galloping on followed
by howls. The melancholy march was continually disturbed by the
messengers, and sometimes by bustling batteries that came swinging and
thumping down upon them, the officers shouting orders to clear the way.
There was a tattered man, fouled with dust, blood and powder stain from
hair to shoes, who trudged quietly at the youth's side. He was
listening with eagerness and much humility to the lurid descriptions of
a bearded sergeant. His lean features wore an expression of awe and
admiration. He was like a listener in a country store to wondrous
tales told among the sugar barrels. He eyed the story-teller with
unspeakable wonder. His mouth was agape in yokel fashion.
The sergeant, taking note of this, gave pause to his elaborate history
while he administered a sardonic comment. "Be keerful, honey, you 'll
be a-ketchin' flies," he said.
The tattered man shrank back abashed.
After a time he began to sidle near to the youth, and in a diffident
way try to make him a friend. His voice was gentle as a girl's voice
and his eyes were pleading. The youth saw with surprise that the
soldier had two wounds, one in the head, bound with a blood-soaked rag,
and the other in the arm, making that member dangle like a broken bough.
After they had walked together for some time the tattered man mustered
sufficient courage to speak. "Was pretty good fight, wa'n't it?" he
timidly said. The youth, deep in thought, glanced up at the bloody and
grim figure with its lamblike eyes. "What?"
"Was pretty good fight, wa'n't it?"
"Yes," said the youth shortly. He quickened his pace.
But the other hobbled industriously after him. There was an air of
apology in his manner, but he evidently thought that he needed only to
talk for a time, and the youth would perceive that he was a good fellow.
"Was pretty good fight, wa'n't it?" he began in a small voice, and the
he achieved the fortitude to continue. "Dern me if I ever see fellers
fight so. Laws, how they did fight! I knowed th' boys 'd like it when
they onct got square at it. Th' boys ain't had no fair chanct up t'
now, but this time they showed what they was. I knowed it 'd turn out
this way. Yeh can't lick them boys. No, sir! They 're fighters, they
be."
He breathed a deep breath of humble admiration. He had looked at the
youth for encouragement several times. He received none, but gradually
he seemed to get absorbed in his subject.
"I was talkin' 'cross pickets with a boy from Georgie, onct, an' that
boy, he ses, 'Your fellers 'll all run like hell when they onct hearn a
gun,' he ses. 'Mebbe they will,' I ses, 'but I don't b'lieve none of
it,' I ses; 'an' b'jiminey,' I ses back t' 'um, 'mebbe your fellers 'll
all run like hell when they onct hearn a gun,' I ses. He larfed.
Well, they didn't run t' day, did they, hey? No, sir! They fit, an'
fit, an' fit."
His homely face was suffused with a light of love for the army which
was to him all things beautiful and powerful.
After a time he turned to the youth. "Where yeh hit, ol' boy?" he
asked in a brotherly tone.
The youth felt instant panic at this question, although at first its
full import was not borne in upon him.
"What?" he asked.
"Where yeh hit?" repeated the tattered man.
"Why," began the youth, "I--I--that is--why--I--"
He turned away suddenly and slid through the crowd. His brow was
heavily flushed, and his fingers were picking nervously at one of his
buttons. He bent his head and fastened his eyes studiously upon the
button as if it were a little problem.
The tattered man looked after him in astonishment.
Chapter 9
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 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 tremor. 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' them 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 shoulder.
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 hi 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 for 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.
Chapter 10
The tattered man stood musing.
"Well, he was a reg'lar jim-dandy fer nerve, wa'n't he," said he
finally in a little awestruck voice. "A reg'lar jim-dandy." He
thoughtfully poked one of the docile hands with his foot. "I wonner
where he got 'is stren'th from? I never seen a man do like that
before. It was a funny thing. Well, he was a reg'lar jim-dandy."
The youth desired to screech out his grief. He was stabbed, but his
tongue lay dead in the tomb of his mouth. He threw himself again upon
the ground and began to brood.
The tattered man stood musing.
"Look-a-here, pardner," he said, after a time. He regarded the corpse
as he spoke. "He 's up an' gone, ain't 'e, an' we might as well begin
t' look out fer ol' number one. This here thing is all over. He 's up
an' gone, ain't 'e? An' he 's all right here. Nobody won't bother
'im. An' I must say I ain't enjoying any great health m'self these
days."
The youth, awakened by the tattered soldier's tone, looked quickly up.
He saw that he was swinging uncertainly on his legs and that his face
had turned to a shade of blue.
"Good Lord!" he cried, "you ain't goin' t'--not you, too."
The tattered man waved his hand. "Nary die," he said. "All I want is
some pea soup an' a good bed. Some pea soup," he repeated dreamfully.
The youth arose from the ground. "I wonder where he came from. I left
him over there." He pointed. "And now I find 'im here. And he was
coming from over there, too." He indicated a new direction. They both
turned toward the body as if to ask of it a question.
"Well," at length spoke the tattered man, "there ain't no use in our
stayin' here an' tryin' t' ask him anything."
The youth nodded an assent wearily. They both turned to gaze for a
moment at the corpse.
The youth murmured something.
"Well, he was a jim-dandy, wa'n't 'e?" said the tattered man as if in
response.
They turned their backs upon it and started away. For a time they
stole softly, treading with their toes. It remained laughing there in
the grass.
"I'm commencin' t' feel pretty bad," said the tattered man, suddenly
breaking one of his little silences. "I'm commencin' t' feel pretty
damn' bad."
The youth groaned. "Oh Lord!" He wondered if he was to be the
tortured witness of another grim encounter.
But his companion waved his hand reassuringly. "Oh, I'm not goin' t'
die yit! There too much dependin' on me fer me t' die yit. No, sir!
Nary die! I CAN'T! Ye'd oughta see th' swad a' chil'ren I've got, an'
all like that."
The youth glancing at his companion could see by the shadow of a smile
that he was making some kind of fun.
As the plodded on the tattered soldier continued to talk. "Besides, if
I died, I wouldn't die th' way that feller did. That was th' funniest
thing. I'd jest flop down, I would. I never seen a feller die th' way
that feller did.
"Yeh know Tom Jamison, he lives next door t' me up home. He's a nice
feller, he is, an' we was allus good friends. Smart, too. Smart as a
steel trap. Well, when we was a-fightin' this atternoon,
all-of-a-sudden he begin t' rip up an' cuss an' beller at me. 'Yer
shot, yeh blamed infernal!'--he swear horrible--he ses t' me. I put up
m' hand t' m' head an' when I looked at m' fingers, I seen, sure
'nough, I was shot. I give a holler an' begin t' run, but b'fore I
could git away another one hit me in th' arm an' whirl' me clean
'round. I got skeared when they was all a-shootin' b'hind me an' I run
t' beat all, but I cotch it pretty bad. I've an idee I'd a been
fightin' yit, if t'was n't fer Tom Jamison."
Then he made a calm announcement: "There's two of 'em--little
ones--but they 're beginnin' t' have fun with me now. I don't b'lieve
I kin walk much furder."
They went slowly on in silence. "Yeh look pretty peek'ed yerself,"
said the tattered man at last. "I bet yeh 've got a worser one than
yeh think. Ye'd better take keer of yer hurt. It don't do t' let sech
things go. It might be inside mostly, an' them plays thunder. Where
is it located?" But he continued his harangue without waiting for a
reply. "I see a feller git hit plum in th' head when my reg'ment was
a-standin' at ease onct. An' everybody yelled to 'im: 'Hurt, John?
Are yeh hurt much?' 'No,' ses he. He looked kinder surprised, an' he
went on tellin' 'em how he felt. He sed he didn't feel nothin'. But,
by dad, th' first thing that feller knowed he was dead. Yes, he was
dead--stone dead. So, yeh wanta watch out. Yeh might have some ***
kind 'a hurt yerself. Yeh can't never tell. Where is your'n located?"
The youth had been wriggling since the introduction of this topic. He
now gave a cry of exasperation and made a furious motion with his hand.
"Oh, don't bother me!" he said. He was enraged against the tattered
man, and could have strangled him. His companions seemed ever to play
intolerable parts. They were ever upraising the ghost of shame on the
stick of their curiosity. He turned toward the tattered man as one at
bay. "Now, don't bother me," he repeated with desperate menace.
"Well, Lord knows I don't wanta bother anybody," said the other. There
was a little accent of despair in his voice as he replied, "Lord knows
I 've gota 'nough m' own t' tend to."
The youth, who had been holding a bitter debate with himself and
casting glances of hatred and contempt at the tattered man, here spoke
in a hard voice. "Good-by," he said.
The tattered man looked at him in gaping amazement. "Why--why,
pardner, where yeh goin'?" he asked unsteadily. The youth looking at
him, could see that he, too, like that other one, was beginning to act
dumb and animal-like. His thoughts seemed to be floundering about in
his head. "Now--now--look--a--here, you Tom Jamison--now--I won't have
this--this here won't do. Where--where yeh goin'?"
The youth pointed vaguely. "Over there," he replied.
"Well, now look--a--here--now," said the tattered man, rambling on in
idiot fashion. His head was hanging forward and his words were
slurred. "This thing won't do, now, Tom Jamison. It won't do. I know
yeh, yeh pig-headed devil. Yeh wanta go trompin' off with a bad hurt.
It ain't right--now--Tom Jamison--it ain't. Yeh wanta leave me take
keer of yeh, Tom Jamison. It ain't--right--it ain't--fer yeh t'
go--trompin' off--with a bad hurt--it ain't--ain't--ain't right--it
ain't."
In reply the youth climbed a fence and started away. He could hear the
tattered man bleating plaintively.
Once he faced about angrily. "What?"
"Look--a--here, now, Tom Jamison--now--it ain't--"
The youth went on. Turning at a distance he saw the tattered man
wandering about helplessly in the field.
He now thought that he wished he was dead. He believed he envied those
men whose bodies lay strewn over the grass of the fields and on the
fallen leaves of the forest.
The simple questions of the tattered man had been knife thrusts to him.
They asserted a society that probes pitilessly at secrets until all is
apparent. His late companion's chance persistency made him feel that
he could not keep his crime concealed in his ***. It was sure to be
brought plain by one of those arrows which cloud the air and are
constantly pricking, discovering, proclaiming those things which are
willed to be forever hidden. He admitted that he could not defend
himself against this agency. It was not within the power of vigilance.
Chapter 11
He became aware that the furnace roar of the battle was growing louder.
Great blown clouds had floated to the still heights of air before him.
The noise, too, was approaching. The woods filtered men and the fields
became dotted.
As he rounded a hillock, he perceived that the roadway was now a crying
mass of wagons, teams, and men. From the heaving tangle issued
exhortations, commands, imprecations. Fear was sweeping it all along.
The cracking whips bit and horses plunged and tugged. The white-topped
wagons strained and stumbled in their exertions like fat sheep.
The youth felt comforted in a measure by this sight. They were all
retreating. Perhaps, then, he was not so bad after all. He seated
himself and watched the terror-stricken wagons. They fled like soft,
ungainly animals. All the roarers and lashers served to help him to
magnify the dangers and horrors of the engagement that he might try to
prove to himself that the thing with which men could charge him was in
truth a symmetrical act. There was an amount of pleasure to him in
watching the wild march of this vindication.
Presently the calm head of a forward-going column of infantry appeared
in the road. It came swiftly on. Avoiding the obstructions gave it
the sinuous movement of a serpent. The men at the head butted mules
with their musket stocks. They prodded teamsters indifferent to all
howls. The men forced their way through parts of the dense mass by
strength. The blunt head of the column pushed. The raving teamsters
swore many strange oaths.
The commands to make way had the ring of a great importance in them.
The men were going forward to the heart of the din. They were to
confront the eager rush of the enemy. They felt the pride of their
onward movement when the remainder of the army seemed trying to dribble
down this road. They tumbled teams about with a fine feeling that it
was no matter so long as their column got to the front in time. This
importance made their faces grave and stern. And the backs of the
officers were very rigid.
As the youth looked at them the black weight of his woe returned to
him. He felt that he was regarding a procession of chosen beings. The
separation was as great to him as if they had marched with weapons of
flame and banners of sunlight. He could never be like them. He could
have wept in his longings.
He searched about in his mind for an adequate malediction for the
indefinite cause, the thing upon which men turn the words of final
blame. It--whatever it was--was responsible for him, he said. There
lay the fault.
The haste of the column to reach the battle seemed to the forlorn young
man to be something much finer than stout fighting. Heroes, he
thought, could find excuses in that long seething lane. They could
retire with perfect self-respect and make excuses to the stars.
He wondered what those men had eaten that they could be in such haste
to force their way to grim chances of death. As he watched his envy
grew until he thought that he wished to change lives with one of them.
He would have liked to have used a tremendous force, he said, throw off
himself and become a better. Swift pictures of himself, apart, yet in
himself, came to him--a blue desperate figure leading lurid charges
with one knee forward and a broken blade high--a blue, determined
figure standing before a crimson and steel assault, getting calmly
killed on a high place before the eyes of all. He thought of the
magnificent pathos of his dead body.
These thoughts uplifted him. He felt the quiver of war desire. In his
ears, he heard the ring of victory. He knew the frenzy of a rapid
successful charge. The music of the trampling feet, the sharp voices,
the clanking arms of the column near him made him soar on the red wings
of war. For a few moments he was sublime.
He thought that he was about to start for the front. Indeed, he saw a
picture of himself, dust-stained, haggard, panting, flying to the front
at the proper moment to seize and throttle the dark, leering witch of
calamity.
Then the difficulties of the thing began to drag at him. He hesitated,
balancing awkwardly on one foot.
He had no rifle; he could not fight with his hands, said he resentfully
to his plan. Well, rifles could be had for the picking. They were
extraordinarily profuse.
Also, he continued, it would be a miracle if he found his regiment.
Well, he could fight with any regiment.
He started forward slowly. He stepped as if he expected to tread upon
some explosive thing. Doubts and he were struggling.
He would truly be a worm if any of his comrades should see him
returning thus, the marks of his flight upon him. There was a reply
that the intent fighters did not care for what happened rearward saving
that no hostile bayonets appeared there. In the battle-blur his face
would, in a way, be hidden, like the face of a cowled man.
But then he said that his tireless fate would bring forth, when the
strife lulled for a moment, a man to ask of him an explanation. In
imagination he felt the scrutiny of his companions as he painfully
labored through some lies.
Eventually, his courage expended itself upon these objections. The
debates drained him of his fire.
He was not cast down by this defeat of his plan, for, upon studying the
affair carefully, he could not but admit that the objections were very
formidable.
Furthermore, various ailments had begun to cry out. In their presence
he could not persist in flying high with the wings of war; they
rendered it almost impossible for him to see himself in a heroic light.
He tumbled headlong.
He discovered that he had a scorching thirst. His face was so dry and
grimy that he thought he could feel his skin crackle. Each bone of his
body had an ache in it, and seemingly threatened to break with each
movement. His feet were like two sores. Also, his body was calling
for food. It was more powerful than a direct hunger. There was a
dull, weight-like feeling in his stomach, and, when he tried to walk,
his head swayed and he tottered. He could not see with distinctness.
Small patches of green mist floated before his vision.
While he had been tossed by many emotions, he had not been aware of
ailments. Now the beset him and made clamor. As he was at last
compelled to pay attention to them, his capacity for self-hate was
multiplied. In despair, he declared that he was not like those others.
He now conceded it to be impossible that he should ever become a hero.
He was a craven loon. Those pictures of glory were piteous things. He
groaned from his heart and went staggering off.
A certain mothlike quality within him kept him in the vicinity of the
battle. He had a great desire to see, and to get news. He wished to
know who was winning.
He told himself that, despite his unprecedented suffering, he had never
lost his greed for a victory, yet, he said, in a half-apologetic manner
to his conscience, he could not but know that a defeat for the army
this time might mean many favorable things for him. The blows of the
enemy would splinter regiments into fragments. Thus, many men of
courage, he considered, would be obliged to desert the colors and
scurry like chickens. He would appear as one of them. They would be
sullen brothers in distress, and he could then easily believe he had
not run any farther or faster than they. And if he himself could
believe in his virtuous perfection, he conceived that there would be
small trouble in convincing all others.
He said, as if in excuse for this hope, that previously the army had
encountered great defeats and in a few months had shaken off all blood
and tradition of them, emerging as bright and valiant as a new one;
thrusting out of sight the memory of disaster, and appearing with the
valor and confidence of unconquered legions. The shrilling voices of
the people at home would pipe dismally for a time, but various general
were usually compelled to listen to these ditties. He of course felt
no compunctions for proposing a general as a sacrifice. He could not
tell who the chosen for the barbs might be, so he could center no
direct sympathy upon him. The people were afar and he did not conceive
public opinion to be accurate at long range. It was quite probable
they would hit the wrong man who, after he had recovered from his
amazement would perhaps spend the rest of his days in writing replies
to the songs of his alleged failure. It would be very unfortunate, no
doubt, but in this case a general was of no consequence to the youth.
In a defeat there would be a roundabout vindication of himself. He
thought it would prove, in a manner, that he had fled early because of
his superior powers of perception. A serious prophet upon predicting a
flood should be the first man to climb a tree. This would demonstrate
that he was indeed a seer.
A moral vindication was regarded by the youth as a very important
thing. Without salve, he could not, he though, were the sore badge of
his dishonor through life. With his heart continually assuring him
that he was despicable, he could not exist without making it, through
his actions, apparent to all men.
If the army had gone gloriously on he would be lost. If the din meant
that now his army's flags were tilted forward he was a condemned
wretch. He would be compelled to doom himself to isolation. If the
men were advancing, their indifferent feet were trampling upon his
chances for a successful life.
As these thoughts went rapidly through his mind, he turned upon them
and tried to thrust them away. He denounced himself as a villain. He
said that he was the most unutterably selfish man in existence. His
mind pictured the soldiers who would place their defiant bodies before
the spear of the yelling battle fiend, and as he saw their dripping
corpses on an imagined field, he said that he was their murderer.
Again he thought that he wished he was dead. He believed that he
envied a corpse. Thinking of the slain, he achieved a great contempt
for some of them, as if they were guilty for thus becoming lifeless.
They might have been killed by lucky chances, he said, before they had
had opportunities to flee or before they had been really tested. Yet
they would receive laurels from tradition. He cried out bitterly that
their crowns were stolen and their robes of glorious memories were
shams. However, he still said that it was a great pity he was not as
they.
A defeat of the army had suggested itself to him as a means of escape
from the consequences of his fall. He considered, now, however, that
it was useless to think of such a possibility. His education had been
that success for that might blue machine was certain; that it would
make victories as a contrivance turns out buttons. He presently
discarded all his speculations in the other direction. He returned to
the creed of soldiers.
When he perceived again that it was not possible for the army to be
defeated, he tried to bethink him of a fine tale which he could take
back to his regiment, and with it turn the expected shafts of derision.
But, as he mortally feared these shafts, it became impossible for him
to invent a tale he felt he could trust. He experimented with many
schemes, but threw them aside one by one as flimsy. He was quick to
see vulnerable places in them all.
Furthermore, he was much afraid that some arrow of scorn might lay him
mentally low before he could raise his protecting tale.
He imagined the whole regiment saying: "Where's Henry Fleming? He
run, didn't 'e? Oh, my!" He recalled various persons who would be
quite sure to leave him no peace about it. They would doubtless
question him with sneers, and laugh at his stammering hesitation. In
the next engagement they would try to keep watch of him to discover
when he would run.
Wherever he went in camp, he would encounter insolent and lingeringly
cruel stares. As he imagined himself passing near a crowd of comrades,
he could hear one say, "There he goes!"
Then, as if the heads were moved by one muscle, all the faces were
turned toward him with wide, derisive grins. He seemed to hear some
one make a humorous remark in a low tone. At it the others all crowed
and cackled. He was a slang phrase.