After this episode the men renamed their command.
They called it the Little Regiment.
“I seen Dan shoot a feller yesterday. Yes,
sir. I’m sure it was him that done it.
And maybe he thinks about that feller now, and wonders
if he tumbled down just about the same way. Them
things come up in a man’s mind.”
Bivouac fires upon the sidewalks, in the streets,
in the yards, threw high their wavering reflections,
which examined, like slim, red fingers, the dingy,
scarred walls and the piles of tumbled brick.
The droning of voices again arose from great blue
crowds.
The odour of frying bacon, the fragrance from countless
little coffee-pails floated among the ruins.
The rifles, stacked in the shadows, emitted flashes
of steely light. Wherever a flag lay horizontally
from one stack to another was the bed of an eagle
which had led men into the mystic smoke.
The men about a particular fire were engaged in holding
in check their jovial spirits. They moved whispering
around the blaze, although they looked at it with
a certain fine contentment, like labourers after a
day’s hard work.
There was one who sat apart. They did not address
him save in tones suddenly changed. They did
not regard him directly, but always in little sidelong
glances.
At last a soldier from a distant fire came into this
circle of light. He studied for a time the man
who sat apart. Then he hesitatingly stepped closer,
and said: “Got any news, Dan?”
“No,” said Dan.
The new-comer shifted his feet. He looked at
the fire, at the sky, at the other men, at Dan.
His face expressed a curious despair; his tongue was
plainly in rebellion. Finally, however, he contrived
to say: “Well, there’s some chance
yet, Dan. Lots of the wounded are still lying
out there, you know. There’s some chance
yet.”
“Yes,” said Dan.
The soldier shifted his feet again, and looked miserably
into the air. After another struggle he said:
“Well, there’s some chance yet, Dan.”
He moved hastily away.
One of the men of the squad, perhaps encouraged by
this example, now approached the still figure.
“No news yet, hey?” he said, after coughing
behind his hand.
“No,” said Dan.
“Well,” said the man, “I’ve
been thinking of how he was fretting about you the
night you went on special duty. You recollect?
Well, sir, I was surprised. He couldn’t
say enough about it. I swan, I don’t believe
he slep’ a wink after you left, but just lay
awake cussing special duty and worrying. I was
surprised. But there he lay cussing. He——”
Dan made a curious sound, as if a stone had wedged
in his throat. He said: “Shut up,
will you?”
Afterward the men would not allow this moody contemplation
of the fire to be interrupted.
“Oh, let him alone, can’t you?”
“Come away from there, Casey!”
