A Son of the Gods, and A Horseman in the Sky Read online

  A SON OF THE GODS

  A breezy day and a sunny landscape. An open country to right and leftand forward; behind, a wood. In the edge of this wood, facing the openbut not venturing into it, long lines of troops halted. The wood isalive with them, and full of confused noises: the occasional rattleof wheels as a battery of artillery goes into position to coverthe advance; the hum and murmur of the soldiers talking; a sound ofinnumerable feet in the dry leaves that strew the interspaces among thetrees; hoarse commands of officers. Detached groups of horsemen are wellin front--not altogether exposed--many of them intently regarding thecrest of a hill a mile away in the direction of the interrupted advance.For this powerful army, moving in battle order through a forest, has metwith a formidable obstacle--the open country. The crest of that gentlehill a mile away has a sinister look; it says, Beware! Along it runs astone wall extending to left and right a great distance. Behind thewall is a hedge; behind the hedge are seen the tops of trees in ratherstraggling order. Among the trees--what? It is necessary to know.

  Yesterday, and for many days and nights previously, we were fightingsomewhere; always there was cannonading, with occasional keen rattlingsof musketry, mingled with cheers, our own or the enemy's, we seldomknew, attesting some temporary advantage. This morning at daybreak theenemy was gone. We have moved forward across his earthworks, acrosswhich we have so often vainly attempted to move before, through thedebris of his abandoned camps, among the graves of his fallen, into thewoods beyond.

  How curiously we regarded everything! How odd it all seemed! Nothingappeared quite familiar; the most commonplace objects--an old saddle,a splintered wheel, a forgotten canteen everything related something ofthe mysterious personality of those strange men who had been killingus. The soldier never becomes wholly familiar with the conception of hisfoes as men like himself; he cannot divest himself of the feelingthat they are another order of beings, differently conditioned, in anenvironment not altogether of the earth. The smallest vestiges ofthem rivet his attention and engage his interest. He thinks of them asinaccessible; and, catching an unexpected glimpse of them, they appearfarther away, and therefore larger, than they really are--like objectsin a fog. He is somewhat in awe of them.

  From the edge of the wood leading up the acclivity are the tracks ofhorses and wheels--the wheels of cannon. The yellow grass is beaten downby the feet of infantry. Clearly they have passed this way in thousands;they have not withdrawn by the country roads. This is significant--it isthe difference between retiring and retreating.

  That group of horsemen is our commander, his staff, and escort. He isfacing the distant crest, holding his field-glass against his eyes withboth hands, his elbows needlessly elevated. It is a fashion; it seems todignify the act; we are all addicted to it. Suddenly he lowers theglass and says a few words to those about him. Two or three aides detachthemselves from the group and canter away into the woods, along thelines in each direction. We did not hear his words, but we knew them:"Tell General X. to send forward the skirmish line." Those of us whohave been out of place resume our positions; the men resting at easestraighten themselves, and the ranks are reformed without a command.Some of us staff officers dismount and look at our saddle-girths; thosealready on the ground remount.

  Galloping rapidly along in the edge of the open ground comes a youngofficer on a snow-white horse. His saddle-blanket is scarlet. What afool! No one who has ever been in battle but remembers how naturallyevery rifle turns toward the man on a white horse; no one but hasobserved how a bit of red enrages the bull of battle. That suchcolors are fashionable in military life must be accepted as the mostastonishing of all the phenomena of human vanity. They would seem tohave been devised to increase the death-rate.

  This young officer is in full uniform, as if on parade. He is all agleamwith bullion, a blue-and-gold edition of the Poetry of War. A waveof derisive laughter runs abreast of him all along the line. But howhandsome he is! With what careless grace he sits his horse!

  He reins up within a respectful distance of the corps commander andsalutes. The old soldier nods familiarly; he evidently knows him. Abrief colloquy between them is going on; the young man seems to bepreferring some request which the elder one is indisposed to grant. Letus ride a little nearer. Ah! too late--it is ended. The young officersalutes again, wheels his horse, and rides straight toward the crest ofthe hill. He is deadly pale.

  A thin line of skirmishers, the men deployed at six paces or so apart,now pushes from the wood into the open. The commander speaks to hisbugler, who claps his instrument to his lips. Tra-la-la! Tra-la-la! Theskirmishers halt in their tracks.

  Meantime the young horseman has advanced a hundred yards. He is ridingat a walk, straight up the long slope, with never a turn of the head.How glorious! Gods! what would we not give to be in his place--with hissoul! He does not draw his sabre; his right hand hangs easily at hisside. The breeze catches the plume in his hat and flutters it smartly.The sunshine rests upon his shoulder-straps, lovingly, like a visiblebenediction. Straight on he rides. Ten thousand pairs of eyes are fixedupon him with an intensity that he can hardly fail to feel; ten thousandhearts keep quick time to the inaudible hoof-beats of his snowy steed.He is not alone--he draws all souls after him; we are but "dead menall." But we remember that we laughed! On and on, straight for thehedge-lined wall, he rides. Not a look backward. Oh, if he would butturn--if he could but see the love, the adoration, the atonement!

  Not a word is spoken; the populous depths of the forest still murmurwith their unseen and unseeing swarm, but all along the fringe thereis silence absolute. The burly commander is an equestrian statueof himself. The mounted staff officers, their field-glasses up, aremotionless all. The line of battle in the edge of the wood stands at anew kind of "attention," each man in the attitude in which he wascaught by the consciousness of what is going on. All these hardened andimpenitent man-killers, to whom death in its awfulest forms is a factfamiliar to their every-day observation; who sleep on hills tremblingwith the thunder of great guns, dine in the midst of streaming missiles,and play at cards among the dead faces of their dearest friends,--allare watching with suspended breath and beating hearts the outcome of anact involving the life of one man. Such is the magnetism of courage anddevotion.

  If now you should turn your head you would see a simultaneous movementamong the spectators a start, as if they had received an electricshock--and looking forward again to the now distant horseman you wouldsee that he has in that instant altered his direction and is ridingat an angle to his former course. The spectators suppose the suddendeflection to be caused by a shot, perhaps a wound; but take thisfield-glass and you will observe that he is riding toward a break in thewall and hedge. He means, if not killed, to ride through and overlookthe country beyond.

  You are not to forget the nature of this man's act; it is not permittedto you to think of it as an instance of bravado, nor, on the other hand,a needless sacrifice of self. If the enemy has not retreated, he is inforce on that ridge. The investigator will encounter nothing less thana line of battle; there is no need of pickets, videttes, skirmishers,to give warning of our approach; our attacking lines will be visible,conspicuous, exposed to an artillery fire that will shave the ground themoment they break from cover, and for half the distance to a sheetof rifle bullets in which nothing can live. In short, if the enemy isthere, it would be madness to attack him in front; he must be maneuveredout by the immemorial plan of threatening his line of communication, asnecessary to his existence as to the diver at the bottom of the sea hisair-tube. But how ascertain if the enemy is there? There is but one way:somebody must go and see. The natural and customary thing to do is tosend forward a line of skirmishers. But in this case they will answerin the affirmative with all their lives; the enemy, crouching in doubleranks behind the stone wall and in cover of the hedge, will wait untilit is possible to count each assailant's teeth. At the first volley ahalf of the questioning line will fall, the other half before it canaccomplish the predestined retreat. Wh
at a price to pay for gratifiedcuriosity! At what a dear rate an army must sometimes purchaseknowledge! "Let me pay all," says this gallant man--this militaryChrist!

  There is no hope except the hope against hope that the crest is clear.True, he might prefer capture to death. So long as he advances, the linewill not fire,--why should it? He can safely ride into the hostile ranksand become a prisoner of war. But this would defeat his object. It wouldnot answer our question; it is necessary either that he return unharmedor be shot to death before our eyes. Only so shall we know how to act.If captured--why, that might have been done by a half-dozen stragglers.

  Now begins an extraordinary contest of intellect between a man andan army. Our horseman, now within a quarter of a mile of the crest,suddenly wheels to the left and gallops in a direction parallel toit. He has caught sight of his antagonist; he knows all. Some slightadvantage of ground has enabled him to overlook a part of the line. Ifhe were here, he could tell us in words. But that is now hopeless; hemust make the best use of the few minutes of life remaining to him,by compelling the enemy himself to tell us as much and as plainly aspossible--which, naturally, that discreet power is reluctant to do. Nota rifleman in those crouching ranks, not a cannoneer at those masked andshotted guns, but knows the needs of the situation, the imperative dutyof forbearance. Besides, there has been time enough to forbid themall to fire. True, a single rifle-shot might drop him and be no greatdisclosure. But firing is infectious--and see how rapidly he moves,with never a pause except as he whirls his horse about to take a newdirection, never directly backward toward us, never directly forwardtoward his executioners. All this is visible through the glass; it seemsoccurring within pistol-shot; we see all but the enemy, whose presence,whose thoughts, whose motives we infer. To the unaided eye there isnothing but a black figure on a white horse, tracing slow zigzagsagainst the slope of a distant hill--so slowly they seem almost tocreep.

  Now--the glass again--he has tired of his failure, or sees his error, orhas gone mad; he is dashing directly forward at the wall, as if to takeit at a leap, hedge and all! One moment only and he wheels right aboutand is speeding like the wind straight down the slope--toward hisfriends, toward his death! Instantly the wall is topped with a fierceroll of smoke for a distance of hundreds of yards to, right and left.This is as instantly dissipated by the wind, and before the rattle ofthe rifles reaches us, he is down. No, he recovers his seat; he has butpulled his horse upon its haunches. They are up and away! A tremendouscheer bursts from our ranks, relieving the insupportable tension of ourfeelings. And the horse and its rider? Yes, they are up and away.Away, indeed--they are making directly to our left, parallel to thenow steadily blazing and smoking wall. The rattle of the musketry iscontinuous, and every bullet's target is that courageous heart.

  Suddenly a great bank of white smoke pushes upward from behind thewall. Another and another--a dozen roll up before the thunder of theexplosions and the humming of the missiles reach our ears, and themissiles themselves come bounding through clouds of dust into ourcovert, knocking over here and there a man and causing a temporarydistraction, a passing thought of self.

  The dust drifts away. Incredible!--that enchanted horse and riderhave passed a ravine and are climbing another slope to unveil anotherconspiracy of silence, to thwart the will of another armed host. Anothermoment and that crest too is in eruption. The horse rears and strikesthe air with its forefeet. They are down at last. But look again--theman has detached himself from the dead animal. He stands erect,motionless, holding his sabre in his right hand straight above his head.His face is toward us. Now he lowers his hand to a level with his faceand moves it outward, the blade of the sabre describing a downwardcurve. It is a sign to us, to the world, to posterity. It is a hero'ssalute to death and history.

  Again the spell is broken; our men attempt to cheer; they are chokingwith emotion; they utter hoarse, discordant cries; they clutch theirweapons and press tumultuously forward into the open. The skirmishers,without orders, against orders, are going forward at a keen run, likehounds unleashed. Our cannon speak and the enemy's now open in fullchorus; to right and left as far as we can see, the distant crest,seeming now so near, erects its towers of cloud, and the great shotpitch roaring down among our moving masses. Flag after flag of oursemerges from the wood, line after line sweeps forth, catching thesunlight on its burnished arms. The rear battalions alone are inobedience; they preserve their proper distance from the insurgent front.

  The commander has not moved. He now removes his field-glass from hiseyes and glances to the right and left. He sees the human currentflowing on either side of him and his huddled escort, like tide wavesparted by a rock. Not a sign of feeling in his face; he is thinking.Again he directs his eyes forward; they slowly traverse that malignand awful crest. He addresses a calm word to his bugler. Tra-la-la!Tra-la-la! The injunction has an imperiousness which enforces it. It isrepeated by all the bugles of all the subordinate commanders; the sharpmetallic notes assert themselves above the hum of the advance, andpenetrate the sound of the cannon. To halt is to withdraw. The colorsmove slowly back, the lines face about and sullenly follow, bearingtheir wounded; the skirmishers return, gathering up the dead.

  Ah, those many, many needless dead! That great soul whose beautiful bodyis lying over yonder, so conspicuous against the sere hillside--could itnot have been spared the bitter consciousness of a vain devotion?Would one exception have marred too much the pitiless perfection of thedivine, eternal plan?