War

by Jack London

　　

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HE was a young man, not more than twenty-four or five, and hemight have sat his horse with the careless grace of his youthhad he not been so catlike and tense. His black eyes rovedeverywhere, catching the movements of twigs and branches wheresmall birds hopped, questing ever onward through the changingvistas of trees and brush, and returning always to the clumpsof undergrowth on either side. And as he watched, so did helisten, though he rode on in silence, save for the boom ofheavy guns from far to the west. This had been soundingmonotonously in his ears for hours, and only its cessationcould have aroused his notice. For he had business closer tohand. Across his saddle-bow was balanced a carbine.So tensely was he strung, that a bunch of quail, exploding intoflight from under his horse's nose, startled him to such anextent that automatically, instantly, he had reined in andfetched the carbine halfway to his shoulder. He grinnedsheepishly, recovered himself, and rode on. So tense was he, sobent upon the work he had to do, that the sweat stung his eyesunwiped, and unheeded rolled down his nose and spattered hissaddle pommel. The band of his cavalryman's hat wasfresh-stained with sweat. The roan horse under him was likewisewet. It was high noon of a breathless day of heat. Even thebirds and squirrels did not dare the sun, but sheltered inshady hiding places among the trees.Man and horse were littered with leaves and dusted with yellowpollen, for the open was ventured no more than was compulsory.They kept to the brush and trees, and invariably the man haltedand peered out before crossing a dry glade or naked stretch ofupland pasturage. He worked always to the north, though his waywas devious, and it was from the north that he seemed most toapprehend that for which he was looking. He was no coward, buthis courage was only that of the average civilized man, and hewas looking to live, not die.Up a small hillside he followed a cowpath through such densescrub that he was forced to dismount and lead his horse. Butwhen the path swung around to the west, he abandoned it andheaded to the north again along the oak-covered top of theridge.The ridge ended in a steep descent-so steep that he zigzaggedback and forth across the face of the slope, sliding andstumbling among the dead leaves and matted vines and keeping awatchful eye on the horse above that threatened to fall downupon him. The sweat ran from him, and the pollen-dust, settlingpungently in mouth and nostrils, increased his thirst. Try ashe would, nevertheless the descent was noisy, and frequently hestopped, panting in the dry heat an d listening for any warningfrom beneath.At the bottom he came out on a flat, so densely forested thathe could not make out its extent. Here the character of thewoods changed, and he was able to remount. Instead of thetwisted hillside oaks, tall straight trees, big-trunked andprosperous, rose from the damp fat soil. Only here and therewere thickets, easily avoided, while he encountered winding,park-like glades where the cattle had pastured in the daysbefore war had run them off.His progress was more rapid now, as he came down into thevalley, and at the end of half an hour he halted at an ancientrail fence on the edge of a clearing. He did not like theopenness of it, yet his path lay across to the fringe of treesthat marked the banks of the stream. It was a mere quarter of amile across that open, but the thought of venturing out in itwas repugnant. A rifle, a score of them, a thousand, might lurkin that fringe by the stream.Twice he essayed to start, and twice he paused. He was appalledby his own loneliness. The pulse of war that beat from the Westsuggested the companionship of battling thousands; here wasnaught but silence, and himself, and possible death-dealingbullets from a myriad ambushes. And yet his task was to findwhat he feared to find. He must on, and on, till somewhere,some time, he encountered another man, or other men, from theother side, scouting, as he was scouting, to make report, as hemust make report, of having come in touch.Changing his mind, he skirted inside the woods for a distance,and again peeped forth. This time, in the middle of theclearing, he saw a small farmhouse. There were no signs oflife. No smoke curled from the chimney, not a barnyard fowlclucked and strutted. The kitchen door stood open, and he gazedso long and hard into the black aperture that it seemed almostthat a farmer's wife must emerge at any moment.He licked the pollen and dust from his dry lips, stiffenedhimself, mind and body, and rode out into the blazing sunshine.Nothing stirred. He went on past the house, and approached thewall of trees and bushes by the river's bank. One thoughtpersisted maddeningly. It was of the crash into his body of ahigh-velocity bullet. It made him feel very fragile anddefenseless, and he crouched lower in the saddle.Tethering his horse in the edge of the wood, he continued ahundred yards on foot till he came to the stream. Twenty feetwide it was, without perceptible current, cool and inviting,and he was very thirsty. But he waited inside his screen ofleafage, his eyes fixed on the screen on the opposite side. Tomake the wait endurable, he sat down, his carbine resting onhis knees. The minutes passed, and slowly his tensenessrelaxed. At last he decided there was no danger; but just as heprepared to part the bushes and bend down to the water, amovement among the opposite bushes caught his eye.It might be a bird. But he waited. Again there was an agitationof the bushes, and then, so suddenly that it almost startled acry from him, the bushes parted and a face peered out. It was aface covered with several weeks' growth of ginger-coloredbeard. The eyes were blue and wide apart, withlaughter-wrinkles in the comers that showed despite the tiredand anxious expression of the whole face.All this he could see with microscopic clearness, for thedistance was no more than twenty feet. And all this he saw insuch brief time, that he saw it as he lifted his carbine to hisshoulder. He glanced along the sights, and knew that he wasgazing upon a man who was as good as dead. It was impossible tomiss at such point blank range.But he did not shoot. Slowly he lowered the carbine andwatched. A hand, clutching a water-bottle, became visible andthe ginger beard bent downward to fill the bottle. He couldhear the gurgle of the water. Then arm and bottle and gingerbeard disappeared behind the closing bushes. A long time hewaited, when, with thirst unslaked, he crept back to his horse,rode slowly across the sun-washed clearing, and passed into theshelter of the woods beyond.IIAnother day, hot and breathless. A deserted farmhouse, large,with many outbuildings and an orchard, standing in a clearing.From the Woods, on a roan horse, carbine across pommel, rodethe young man with the quick black eyes. He breathed withrelief as he gained the house. That a fight had taken placehere earlier in the season was evident. Clips and emptycartridges, tarnished with verdigris, lay on the ground, which,while wet, had been torn up by the hoofs of horses. Hard by thekitchen garden were graves, tagged and numbered. From the oaktree by the kitchen door, in tattered, weatherbeaten garments,hung the bodies of two men. The faces, shriveled and defaced,bore no likeness to the faces of men. The roan horse snortedbeneath them, and the rider caressed and soothed it and tied itfarther away.Entering the house, he found the interior a wreck. He trod onempty cartridges as he walked from room to room to reconnoiterfrom the windows. Men had camped and slept everywhere, and onthe floor of one room he came upon stains unmistakable wherethe wounded had been laid down.Again outside, he led the horse around behind the barn andinvaded the orchard. A dozen trees were burdened with ripeapples. He filled his pockets, eating while he picked. Then athought came to him, and he glanced at the sun, calculating thetime of his return to camp. He pulled off his shirt, tying thesleeves and making a bag. This he proceeded to fill withapples.As he was about to mount his horse, the animal suddenly prickedup its ears. The man, too, listened, and heard, faintly, thethud of hoofs on soft earth. He crept to the corner of the barnand peered out. A dozen mounted men, strung out loosely,approaching from the opposite side of the clearing, were only amatter of a hundred yards or so away. They rode on to thehouse. Some dismounted, while others remained in the saddle asan earnest that their stay would be short. They seemed to beholding a council, for he could hear them talking excitedly inthe detested tongue of the alien invader. The time passed, butthey seemed unable to reach a decision. He put the carbine awayin its boot, mounted, and waited impatiently, balancing theshirt of apples on the pommel.He heard footsteps approaching, and drove his spurs so fiercelyinto the roan as to force a surprised groan from the animal asit leaped forward. At the comer of the barn he saw theintruder, a mere boy of nineteen or twenty for all of hisuniform jump back to escape being run down. At the same momentthe roan swerved and its rider caught a glimpse of the arousedmen by the house. Some were springing from their horses, and hecould see the rifles going to their shoulders. He passed thekitchen door and the dried corpses swinging in the shade,compelling his foes to run around the front of the house. Arifle cracked, and a second, but he was going fast, leaningforward, low in the saddle, one hand clutching the shirt ofapples, the other guiding the horse.The top bar of the fence was four feet high, but he knew hisroan and leaped it at full career to the accompaniment ofseveral scattered shots. Eight hundred yards straight away werethe woods, and the roan was covering the distance with mightystrides. Every man was now firing. pumping their guns sorapidly that he no longer heard individual shots. A bullet wentthrough his hat, but he was unaware, though he did know whenanother tore through the apples on the pommel. And he wincedand ducked even lower when a third bullet, fired low, struck astone between his horse's legs and ricochetted off through theair, buzzing and humming like some incredible insect.The shots died down as the magazines were emptied, until,quickly, there was no more shooting. The young man was elated.Through that astonishing fusillade he had come unscathed. Heglanced back. Yes, they had emptied their magazines. He couldsee several reloading. Others were running back behind thehouse for their horses. As he looked, two already mounted, cameback into view around the comer, riding hard. And at the samemoment, he saw the man with the unmistakable ginger beard kneeldown on the ground, level his gun, and coolly take his time forthe long shot.The young man threw his spurs into the horse, crouched verylow, and swerved in his flight in order to distract the other'saim. And still the shot did not come. With each jump of thehorse, the woods sprang nearer. They were only two hundredyards away and still the shot was delayed.And then he heard it, the last thing he was to hear, for he wasdead ere he hit the ground in the long crashing fall from thesaddle. And they, watching at the house, saw him fall, saw hisbody bounce when it struck the earth, and saw the burst ofred-cheeked apples that rolled about him. They laughed at theunexpected eruption of apples, and clapped their hands inapplause of the long shot by the man with the ginger beard.

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