An Episode of War

by Stephen Crane

　　

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The lieutenant's rubber blanket lay on the ground, and upon it he hadpoured the company's supply of coffee. Corporals and otherrepresentatives of the grimy and hot-throated men who lined thebreastwork had come for each squad's portion.The lieutenant was frowning and serious at this task of division. Hislips pursed as he drew with his sword various crevices in the heap untilbrown squares of coffee, astoundingly equal in size, appeared on theblanket. He was on the verge of a great triumph in mathematics, and thecorporals were thronging forward, each to reap a little square, whensuddenly the lieutenant cried out and looked quickly at a man near himas if he suspected it was a case of personal assault. The others criedout also when they saw blood upon the lieutenant's sleeve.He had winced like a man stung, swayed dangerously, and thenstraightened. The sound of his hoarse breathing was plainly audible. Helooked sadly, mystically, over the breastwork at the green face of awood, where now were many little puffs of white smoke. During thismoment the men about him gazed statue-like and silent, astonished andawed by this catastrophe which happened when catastrophes were notexpected--when they had leisure to observe it.As the lieutenant stared at the wood, they too swung their heads, sothat for another instant all hands, still silent, contemplated thedistant forest as if their minds were fixed upon the mystery of abullet's journey.The officer had, of course, been compelled to take his sword into hisleft hand. He did not hold it by the hilt. He gripped it at the middleof the blade, awkwardly. Turning his eyes from the hostile wood, helooked at the sword as he held it there, and seemed puzzled as to whatto do with it, where to put it. In short, this weapon had of a suddenbecome a strange thing to him. He looked at it in a kind ofstupefaction, as if he had been endowed with a trident, a sceptre, or aspade.Finally he tried to sheath it. To sheath a sword held by the left hand,at the middle of the blade, in a scabbard hung at the left hip, is afeat worthy of a sawdust ring. This wounded officer engaged in adesperate struggle with the sword and the wobbling scabbard, and duringthe time of it he breathed like a wrestler.But at this instant the men, the spectators, awoke from their stone-likeposes and crowded forward sympathetically. The orderly-sergeant took thesword and tenderly placed it in the scabbard. At the time, he leanednervously backward, and did not allow even his finger to brush the bodyof the lieutenant. A wound gives strange dignity to him who bears it.Well men shy from this new and terrible majesty. It is as if the woundedman's hand is upon the curtain which hangs before the revelations of allexistence--the meaning of ants, potentates, wars, cities, sunshine,snow, a feather dropped from a bird's wing; and the power of it shedsradiance upon a bloody form, and makes the other men understandsometimes that they are little. His comrades look at him with large eyesthoughtfully. Moreover, they fear vaguely that the weight of a fingerupon him might send him headlong, precipitate the tragedy, hurl him atonce into the dim, grey unknown. And so the orderly-sergeant, whilesheathing the sword, leaned nervously backward.There were others who proffered assistance. One timidly presented hisshoulder and asked the lieutenant if he cared to lean upon it, but thelatter waved him away mournfully. He wore the look of one who knows heis the victim of a terrible disease and understands his helplessness. Heagain stared over the breastwork at the forest, and then turning wentslowly rearward. He held his right wrist tenderly in his left hand as ifthe wounded arm was made of very brittle glass.And the men in silence stared at the wood, then at the departinglieutenant--then at the wood, then at the lieutenant.As the wounded officer passed from the line of battle, he was enabled tosee many things which as a participant in the fight were unknown to him.He saw a general on a black horse gazing over the lines of blue infantryat the green woods which veiled his problems. An aide gallopedfuriously, dragged his horse suddenly to a halt, saluted, and presenteda paper. It was, for a wonder, precisely like an historical painting.To the rear of the general and his staff a group, composed of a bugler,two or three orderlies, and the bearer of the corps standard, all uponmaniacal horses, were working like slaves to hold their ground,preserve, their respectful interval, while the shells boomed in the airabout them, and caused their chargers to make furious quivering leaps.A battery, a tumultuous and shining mass, was swirling toward the right.The wild thud of hoofs, the cries of the riders shouting blame andpraise, menace and encouragement, and, last the roar of the wheels, theslant of the glistening guns, brought the lieutenant to an intent pause.The battery swept in curves that stirred the heart; it made halts asdramatic as the crash of a wave on the rocks, and when it fled onward,this aggregation of wheels, levers, motors, had a beautiful unity, as ifit were a missile. The sound of it was a war-chorus that reached intothe depths of man's emotion.The lieutenant, still holding his arm as if it were of glass, stoodwatching this battery until all detail of it was lost, save the figuresof the riders, which rose and fell and waved lashes over the black mass.Later, he turned his eyes toward the battle where the shooting sometimescrackled like bush-fires, sometimes sputtered with exasperatingirregularity, and sometimes reverberated like the thunder. He saw thesmoke rolling upward and saw crowds of men who ran and cheered, or stoodand blazed away at the inscrutable distance.He came upon some stragglers, and they told him how to find the fieldhospital. They described its exact location. In fact, these men, nolonger having part in the battle, knew more of it than others. They toldthe performance of every corps, every division, the opinion of everygeneral. The lieutenant, carrying his wounded arm rearward, looked uponthem with wonder.At the roadside a brigade was making coffee and buzzing with talk like agirls' boarding-school. Several officers came out to him and inquiredconcerning things of which he knew nothing. One, seeing his arm, beganto scold. "Why, man, that's no way to do. You want to fix that thing."He appropriated the lieutenant and the lieutenant's wound. He cut thesleeve and laid bare the arm, every nerve of which softly flutteredunder his touch. He bound his handkerchief over the wound, scolding awayin the meantime. His tone allowed one to think that he was in the habitof being wounded every day. The lieutenant hung his head, feeling, inthis presence, that he did not know how to be correctly wounded.The low white tents of the hospital were grouped around an old school-house. There was here a singular commotion. In the foreground twoambulances interlocked wheels in the deep mud. The drivers were tossingthe blame of it back and forth, gesticulating and berating, while fromthe ambulances, both crammed with wounded, there came an occasionalgroan. An interminable crowd of bandaged men were coming and going.Great numbers sat under the trees nursing heads or arms or legs. Therewas a dispute of some kind raging on the steps of the school-house.Sitting with his back against a tree a man with a face as grey as a newarmy blanket was serenely smoking a corn-cob pipe. The lieutenant wishedto rush forward and inform him that he was dying.A busy surgeon was passing near the lieutenant. "Good-morning," he said,with a friendly smile. Then he caught sight of the lieutenant's arm andhis face at once changed. "Well, let's have a look at it." He seemedpossessed suddenly of a great contempt for the lieutenant. This woundevidently placed the latter on a very low social plane. The doctor criedout impatiently, "What mutton-head had tied it up that way anyhow?" Thelieutenant answered, "Oh, a man."When the wound was disclosed the doctor fingered it disdainfully."Humph," he said. "You come along with me and I'll 'tend to you." Hisvoice contained the same scorn as if he were saying, "You will have togo to jail."The lieutenant had been very meek, but now his face flushed, and helooked into the doctor's eyes. "I guess I won't have it amputated," hesaid."Nonsense, man! Nonsense! Nonsense!" cried the doctor. "Come along, now.I won't amputate it. Come along. Don't be a baby.""Let go of me," said the lieutenant, holding back wrathfully, his glancefixed upon the door of the old school-house, as sinister to him as theportals of death.And this is the story of how the lieutenant lost his arm. When hereached home, his sisters, his mother, his wife sobbed for a long timeat the sight of the flat sleeve. "Oh, well," he said, standingshamefaced amid these tears, "I don't suppose it matters so much as allthat."

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