There were moments of waiting. The youth thought of the village street at home before the arrival of the circus parade on a day in the spring. He remembered how he had stood, a small, thrillful boy, prepared to follow the lady upon the white horse, or the band in its faded chariot. He saw the yellow road, the lines of expectant people, and the sober houses. He particularly remembered an old fellow who used to sit upon a box in front of the store and to despise such exhibitions. A thousand details of color and form surged in his mind. The old fellow upon the cracker box appeared in middle .  
Some one cried, "Here they come!"
 
There was and muttering among the men. They displayed a desire to have every possible ready to their hands. The boxes were pulled around into various positions, and adjusted with great care. It was as if seven hundred new were being tried on.
 
The tall soldier, having prepared his rifle, produced a red handkerchief of some kind. He was engaged in knotting it about his throat with attention to its position, when the cry was repeated up and down the line in a roar of sound.
 
"Here they come! Here they come!" Gun locks clicked.
 
Across the smoke-infested fields came a brown of running men who were giving yells. They came on, stooping and swinging their rifles at all angles. A flag, forward, sped near the front.
 
As he caught sight of them the youth was momentarily startled by a thought that perhaps his gun was not loaded. He stood trying to rally his intellect so that he might the moment when he had loaded, but he could not.
 
A hatless general pulled his dripping horse to a stand near the colonel of the 304th. He shook his fist in the other's face. "You've got to hold 'em back!" he shouted, ; "you've got to hold 'em back!"
 
In his the colonel began to . "A-all r-right, General, all right, by Gawd! We-we 'll do our--we-we 'll d-d-do-do our best, General." The general made a gesture and away. The colonel, perchance to relieve his feelings, began to scold like a wet parrot. The youth, turning swiftly to make sure that the rear was unmolested, saw the commander regarding his men in a highly resentful manner, as if he regretted above everything his association with them.
 
The man at the youth's elbow was , as if to himself: "Oh, we 're in for it now! oh, we 're in for it now!"
 
The captain of the company had been pacing excitedly to and fro in the rear. He in schoolmistress fashion, as to a congregation of boys with primers. His talk was an endless repetition. "Reserve your fire, boys--don't shoot till I tell you--save your fire--wait till they get close up--don't be damned fools--"
 
streamed down the youth's face, which was soiled like that of a weeping . He frequently, with a nervous movement, wiped his eyes with his coat sleeve. His mouth was still a little ways open.
 
He got the one glance at the foe-swarming field in front of him, and instantly ceased to debate the question of his piece being loaded. Before he was ready to begin--before he had announced to himself that he was about to fight--he threw the obedient well-balanced rifle into position and fired a first wild shot. Directly he was working at his weapon like an automatic affair.
 
He suddenly lost concern for himself, and forgot to look at a menacing fate. He became not a man but a member. He felt that something of which he was a part--a , an army, a cause, or a country--was in crisis. He was welded into a common personality which was dominated by a single desire. For some moments he could not flee no more than a little finger can commit a revolution from a hand.
 
If he had thought the regiment was about to be perhaps he could have amputated himself from it. But its noise gave him assurance. The regiment was like a firework that, once ignited, proceeds superior to circumstances until its blazing fades. It and banged with a power. He pictured the ground before it as strewn with the .
 
There was a consciousness always of the presence of his comrades about him. He felt the subtle battle more even than the cause for which they were fighting. It was a mysterious fraternity born of the smoke and danger of death.
 
He was at a task. He was like a carpenter who has made many boxes, making still another box, only there was furious haste in his movements. He, in his thoughts, was careering off in other places, even as the carpenter who as he works whistles and thinks of his friend or his enemy, his home or a saloon. And these dreams were never perfect to him , but remained a mass of shapes.
 
Presently he began to feel the effects of the war atmosphere--a sweat, a sensation that his eyeballs were about to crack like hot stones. A burning roar filled his ears.
 
Following this came a red rage. He developed the acute of a animal, a well-meaning cow worried by dogs. He had a mad feeling against his rifle, which could only be used against one life at a time. He wished to rush forward and strangle with his fingers. He a power that would enable him to make a world-sweeping gesture and brush all back. His impotency appeared to him, and made his rage into that of a driven beast.
 
Buried in the smoke of many rifles his anger was directed not so much against the men whom he knew were rushing toward him as against the battle which were choking him, stuffing their smoke robes down his throat. He fought for for his senses, for air, as a babe being attacks the deadly blankets.
 
There was a blare of heated rage with a certain expression of intentness on all faces. Many of the men were making low-toned noises with their mouths, and these cheers, , imprecations, prayers, made a wild, barbaric song that went as an undercurrent of sound, strange and chantlike with the chords of the war march. The man at the youth's elbow was . In it there was something soft and tender like the of a babe. The tall soldier was swearing in a loud voice. From his lips came a black procession of curious oaths. Of a sudden another broke out in a querulous way like a man who has mislaid his hat. "Well, why don't they support us? Why don't they send supports? Do they think--"
 
The youth in his battle sleep heard this as one who hears.
 
There was a singular absence of heroic poses. The men bending and surging in their haste and rage were in every impossible attitude. The steel ramrods clanked and clanged with as the men pounded them furiously into the hot rifle barrels. The flaps of the cartridge boxes were all unfastened, and bobbed idiotically with each movement. The rifles, once loaded, were jerked to the shoulder and fired without apparent aim into the smoke or at one of the blurred and shifting forms which upon the field before the regiment had been growing larger and larger like puppets under a magician's hand.
 
The officers, at their , rearward, neglected to stand in attitudes. They were bobbing to and fro roaring directions and encouragements. The dimensions of their howls were extraordinary. They their lungs with wills. And often they nearly stood upon their heads in their anxiety to observe the enemy on the other side of the tumbling smoke.
 
The of the youth's company had encountered a soldier who had fled screaming at the first volley of his comrades. Behind the lines these two were a little scene. The man was blubbering and staring with sheeplike eyes at the lieutenant, who had seized him by the collar and was pommeling him. He drove him back into the ranks with many blows. The soldier went mechanically, dully, with his animal-like eyes upon the officer. Perhaps there was to him a divinity expressed in the voice of the other--stern, hard, with no reflection of fear in it. He tried to reload his gun, but his shaking hands prevented. The lieutenant was obliged to assist him.
 
The men dropped here and there like bundles. The captain of the youth's company had been killed in an early part of the action. His body lay stretched out in the position of a tired man resting, but upon his face there was an astonished and sorrowful look, as if he thought some friend had done him an ill turn. The babbling man was grazed by a shot that made the blood stream widely down his face. He clapped both hands to his head. "Oh!" he said, and ran. Another suddenly as if he had been struck by a club in the stomach. He sat down and gazed ruefully. In his eyes there was mute, indefinite reproach. Farther up the line a man, behind a tree, had had his knee splintered by a ball. Immediately he had dropped his rifle and gripped the tree with both arms. And there he remained, clinging and crying for assistance that he might withdraw his hold upon the tree.
 
At last an yell went along the quivering line. The firing from an to a last popping. As the smoke slowly away, the youth saw that the charge had been . The enemy were into reluctant groups. He saw a man climb to the top of the fence, straddle the rail, and fire a parting shot. The waves had , leaving bits of dark "" upon the ground.
 
Some in the regiment began to frenziedly. Many were silent. they were trying to themselves.
 
After the fever had left his , the youth thought that at last he was going to . He became aware of the atmosphere in which he had been struggling. He was grimy and dripping like a in a foundry. He grasped his canteen and took a long swallow of the warmed water.
 
A sentence with variations went up and down the line. "Well, we 've helt 'em back. We 've helt 'em back; derned if we haven't." The men said it blissfully, leering at each other with dirty smiles.
 
The youth turned to look behind him and off to the right and off to the left. He experienced the joy of a man who at last finds leisure in which to look about him.
 
Under foot there were a few ghastly forms motionless. They lay twisted in fantastic . Arms were and heads were turned in incredible ways. It seemed that the dead men must have fallen from some great height to get into such positions. They looked to be dumped out upon the ground from the sky.
 
From a position in the rear of the a battery was throwing shells over it. The flash of the guns startled the youth at first. He thought they were aimed directly at him. Through the trees he watched the black figures of the gunners as they worked swiftly and intently. Their seemed a complicated thing. He wondered how they could remember its formula in the midst of confusion.
 
The guns in a row like chiefs. They argued with violence. It was a grim pow-wow. Their busy servants ran hither and .
 
A small procession of wounded men were going toward the rear. It was a flow of blood from the torn body of the brigade.
 
To the right and to the left were the dark lines of other troops. Far in front he thought he could see masses in points from the forest. They were suggestive of unnumbered thousands.
 
Once he saw a tiny battery go dashing along the line of the horizon. The tiny riders were beating the tiny horses.
 
From a sloping hill came the sound of cheerings and clashes. Smoke welled slowly through the leaves.
 
Batteries were speaking with thunderous effort. Here and there were flags, the red in the stripes dominating. They splashed bits of warm color upon the dark lines of troops.
 
The youth felt the old thrill at the sight of the . They were like beautiful birds strangely undaunted in a storm.
 
As he listened to the din from the hillside, to a deep thunder that came from afar to the left, and to the clamors which came from many directions, it occurred to him that they were fighting, too, over there, and over there, and over there. Heretofore he had supposed that all the battle was directly under his nose.
 
As he gazed around him the youth felt a flash of at the blue, pure sky and the sun gleamings on the trees and fields. It was surprising that Nature had gone on with her golden process in the midst of so much devilment.