When the two youths turned with the flag they saw that much of the had away, and the dejected remnant was coming slowly back. The men, having themselves in fashion, had presently their forces. They slowly retreated, with their faces still toward the spluttering woods, and their hot rifles still replying to the . Several officers were giving orders, their voices keyed to screams.
"Where in hell yeh goin'?" the was asking in a howl. And a red-bearded officer, whose voice of triple could plainly be heard, was commanding: "Shoot into 'em! Shoot into 'em, Gawd damn their souls!" There was a of , in which the men were ordered to do conflicting and impossible things.
The youth and his friend had a small scuffle over the flag. "Give it t' me!" "No, let me keep it!" Each felt satisfied with the other's possession of it, but each felt bound to declare, by an offer to carry the , his willingness to further risk himself. The youth roughly pushed his friend away.
The regiment fell back to the trees. There it halted for a moment to blaze at some dark forms that had begun to steal upon its track. Presently it resumed its march again, curving among the tree trunks. By the time the regiment had again reached the first open space they were receiving a fast and merciless fire. There seemed to be mobs all about them.
The greater part of the men, discouraged, their spirits worn by the , acted as if . They accepted the of the bullets with bowed and weary heads. It was of no purpose to strive against walls. It was of no use to themselves against . And from this consciousness that they had attempted to conquer an unconquerable thing there seemed to arise a feeling that they had been betrayed. They with brows, but dangerously, upon some of the officers, more particularly upon the red-bearded one with the voice of triple brass.
However, the rear of the regiment was fringed with men, who continued to shoot at the advancing . They seemed resolved to make every trouble. The youthful lieutenant was perhaps the last man in the disordered mass. His forgotten back was toward the enemy. He had been shot in the arm. It hung straight and . Occasionally he would cease to remember it, and be about to emphasize an oath with a gesture. The multiplied pain caused him to swear with incredible power.
The youth went along with slipping uncertain feet. He kept eyes rearward. A of and rage was upon his face. He had thought of a fine revenge upon the officer who had referred to him and his fellows as drivers. But he saw that it could not come to pass. His dreams had when the mule drivers, rapidly, had wavered and hesitated on the little clearing, and then had . And now the retreat of the mule drivers was a march of shame to him.
A dagger-pointed gaze from without his blackened face was held toward the enemy, but his greater was upon the man, who, not knowing him, had called him a mule driver.
When he knew that he and his comrades had failed to do anything in successful ways that might bring the little of a kind of upon the officer, the youth allowed the rage of the baffled to possess him. This cold officer upon a monument, who dropped unconcernedly down, would be finer as a dead man, he thought. So grievous did he think it that he could never possess the secret right to truly in answer.
He had pictured red letters of curious revenge. "We ARE mule drivers, are we?" And now he was compelled to throw them away.
He presently wrapped his heart in the cloak of his pride and kept the flag . He his fellows, pushing against their chests with his free hand. To those he knew well he made appeals, them by name. Between him and the lieutenant, scolding and near to losing his mind with rage, there was felt a subtle fellowship and equality. They supported each other in all manner of , howling protests.
But the regiment was a machine run down. The two men at a forceless thing. The soldiers who had heart to go slowly were continually shaken in their resolves by a knowledge that comrades were slipping with speed back to the lines. It was difficult to think of reputation when others were thinking of skins. Wounded men were left crying on this black journey.
The smoke fringes and flames always. The youth, peering once through a sudden in a cloud, saw a brown mass of troops, interwoven and magnified until they appeared to be thousands. A fierce-hued flag flashed before his vision.
Immediately, as if the uplifting of the smoke had been prearranged, the discovered troops burst into a rasping yell, and a hundred flames jetted toward the retreating band. A rolling gray cloud again interposed as the regiment replied. The youth had to depend again upon his ears, which were trembling and buzzing from the melee of musketry and yells.
The way seemed eternal. In the clouded men became panic-stricken with the thought that the regiment had lost its path, and was in a direction. Once the men who headed the wild procession turned and came pushing back against their comrades, screaming that they were being fired upon from points which they had considered to ............