CHAPTER NINE   
     
          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 wax-like features toward
     him, the youth screamed:
          "God! 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 you been, Henry?" he asked. He continued in a monotonous
     voice, "I thought maybe you got keeled over. There's been thunder
     to pay today. I was worrying about it a good deal."
          The youth still lamented. "Oh Jim---oh Jim---oh Jim---"
          "You know," said the tall soldier, "I was out there." He made
     a careful gesture. "And Lord, what a circus! And by jiminey, I got
     shot---got shot. Yes, by jiminey, l 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 on 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 terror. 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 you what I'm afraid of, Henry---I'll tell you what I'm
     afraid of. I'm afraid I'll fall down---and then you know---them
     damned artillery wagons---they like as not will run over me. That's
     what I'm afraid of---"
          The youth cried out to him hysterically: "I'll take care of
     you, Jim! I'll take care of you! I swear to God I will!"
          "Sure---will you, Henry?" the tall soldier beseeched.
          "Yes---yes---I tell you---I'll take care of you, 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 babe-like to the youth's arm. His eyes rolled in the wildness
     of his terror. "I was always a good friend to you, wasn't I, Henry?
     I've always been a pretty good fellow, ain't I? And it ain't much
     to ask, is it? Just to pull me along out of the road? I'd do it for
     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
     shoulders. Turning he saw that it belonged to the tattered soldier.
     "You'd better take him out of the road, partner. There's a battery
     coming helitywhoop down the road and he'll get runned over. He's a
     goner anyhow in about five minutes---I can see that. You'd better
     take him out of the road. Where the blazes does he get his strength
     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! Into the 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.
          "God! He's running!"
          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 yourself."
          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 touch me---leave me be---leave me
     be---"
          The youth, aghast and filled with wonder at the tall soldier,
     began quaveringly to question him. "Where you going, 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 you? Leave
     me be for a minute."
          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 touch 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 imp-like 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
     paste-like 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.