The Red Badge of Courage | Page 6

cold
meats, coffee, and pickles and cheese. As he basked in the smiles of the
girls and was patted and complimented by the old men, he had felt
growing within him the strength to do mighty deeds of arms.
After complicated journeyings with many pauses, there had come
months of monotonous life in a camp. He had had the belief that real
war was a series of death struggles with small time in between for sleep
and meals; but since his regiment had come to the field the army had
done little but sit still and try to keep warm.

He was brought then gradually back to his old ideas. Greeklike
struggles would be no more. Men were better, or more timid. Secular
and religious education had effaced the throat-grap- pling instinct, or
else firm finance held in check the passions.
He had grown to regard himself merely as a part of a vast blue
demonstration. His province was to look out, as far as he could, for his
per- sonal comfort. For recreation he could twiddle his thumbs 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 afterward,
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 skillfully 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 tempo- rarily
regret war.
Various veterans had told him tales. Some talked of gray, bewhiskered
hordes who were advancing with relentless curses and chewing tobacco
with unspeakable valor; 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 veter- ans' 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 persistently 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
challeng- ing his belief in ultimate success, and bothering little about
means and roads. But here he was confronted with a thing of moment.
It had sud- denly 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 hide- ous 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 experi- ment as he had in
early youth. He must accumu- late information of himself, and
meanwhile he re- solved to remain close upon his guard lest those
qualities of which he knew nothing should ever- lastingly disgrace him.
"Good Lord!" he re-