ground was littered with clothes and guns. A newspaper, folded up,
lay in the dirt. A dead soldier was stretched with his face hidden
in his arm. Farther off there was a group of four or five corpses
keeping mournful company. A hot sun had blazed upon this spot.

In this place the youth felt that he was an invader. This
forgotten part of the battle ground was owned by the dead men,
and he hurried, in the vague apprehension that one of the
swollen forms would rise and tell him to begone.

He came finally to a road from which he could see in the distance
dark and agitated bodies of troops, smoke-fringed. In the lane
was a blood-stained crowd streaming to the rear. The wounded men
were cursing, groaning, and wailing. In the air, always, was a
mighty swell of sound that it seemed could sway the earth. With
the courageous words of the artillery and the spiteful sentences
of the musketry mingled red cheers. And from this region of
noises came the steady current of the maimed.

One of the wounded men had a shoeful of blood. He hopped like a
schoolboy in a game. He was laughing hysterically.

One was swearing that he had been shot in the arm through the
commanding general's mismanagement of the army. One was marching
with an air imitative of some sublime drum major. Upon his
features was an unholy mixture of merriment and agony. As he
marched he sang a bit of doggerel in a high and quavering voice:


"Sing a song 'a vic'try,