The lieutenant’s rubber blanket lay on the ground, and upon it he had
\npoured the company’s supply of coffee. Corporals and other
\nrepresentatives of the grimy and hot-throated men who lined the
\nbreastwork had come for each squad’s portion.<\/p>\n
The lieutenant was frowning and serious at this task of division. His
\nlips pursed as he drew with his sword various crevices in the heap until
\nbrown squares of coffee, astoundingly equal in size, appeared on the
\nblanket. He was on the verge of a great triumph in mathematics, and the
\ncorporals were thronging forward, each to reap a little square, when
\nsuddenly the lieutenant cried out and looked quickly at a man near him
\nas if he suspected it was a case of personal assault. The others cried
\nout also when they saw blood upon the lieutenant’s sleeve.<\/p>\n
He had winced like a man stung, swayed dangerously, and then
\nstraightened. The sound of his hoarse breathing was plainly audible. He
\nlooked sadly, mystically, over the breastwork at the green face of a
\nwood, where now were many little puffs of white smoke. During this
\nmoment the men about him gazed statue-like and silent, astonished and
\nawed by this catastrophe which happened when catastrophes were not
\nexpected–when they had leisure to observe it.<\/p>\n
As the lieutenant stared at the wood, they too swung their heads, so
\nthat for another instant all hands, still silent, contemplated the
\ndistant forest as if their minds were fixed upon the mystery of a
\nbullet’s journey.<\/p>\n
The officer had, of course, been compelled to take his sword into his
\nleft hand. He did not hold it by the hilt. He gripped it at the middle
\nof the blade, awkwardly. Turning his eyes from the hostile wood, he
\nlooked at the sword as he held it there, and seemed puzzled as to what
\nto do with it, where to put it. In short, this weapon had of a sudden
\nbecome a strange thing to him. He looked at it in a kind of
\nstupefaction, as if he had been endowed with a trident, a sceptre, or a
\nspade.<\/p>\n
Finally he tried to sheath it. To sheath a sword held by the left hand,
\nat the middle of the blade, in a scabbard hung at the left hip, is a
\nfeat worthy of a sawdust ring. This wounded officer engaged in a
\ndesperate struggle with the sword and the wobbling scabbard, and during
\nthe time of it he breathed like a wrestler.<\/p>\n
But at this instant the men, the spectators, awoke from their stone-like
\nposes and crowded forward sympathetically. The orderly-sergeant took the
\nsword and tenderly placed it in the scabbard. At the time, he leaned
\nnervously backward, and did not allow even his finger to brush the body
\nof the lieutenant. A wound gives strange dignity to him who bears it.
\nWell men shy from this new and terrible majesty. It is as if the wounded
\nman’s hand is upon the curtain which hangs before the revelations of all
\nexistence–the meaning of ants, potentates, wars, cities, sunshine,
\nsnow, a feather dropped from a bird’s wing; and the power of it sheds
\nradiance upon a bloody form, and makes the other men understand
\nsometimes that they are little. His comrades look at him with large eyes
\nthoughtfully. Moreover, they fear vaguely that the weight of a finger
\nupon him might send him headlong, precipitate the tragedy, hurl him at
\nonce into the dim, grey unknown. And so the orderly-sergeant, while
\nsheathing the sword, leaned nervously backward.<\/p>\n
There were others who proffered assistance. One timidly presented his
\nshoulder and asked the lieutenant if he cared to lean upon it, but the
\nlatter waved him away mournfully. He wore the look of one who knows he
\nis the victim of a terrible disease and understands his helplessness. He
\nagain stared over the breastwork at the forest, and then turning went
\nslowly rearward. He held his right wrist tenderly in his left hand as if
\nthe wounded arm was made of very brittle glass.<\/p>\n
And the men in silence stared at the wood, then at the departing
\nlieutenant–then at the wood, then at the lieutenant.<\/p>\n
As the wounded officer passed from the line of battle, he was enabled to
\nsee many things which as a participant in the fight were unknown to him.
\nHe saw a general on a black horse gazing over the lines of blue infantry
\nat the green woods which veiled his problems. An aide galloped
\nfuriously, dragged his horse suddenly to a halt, saluted, and presented
\na paper. It was, for a wonder, precisely like an historical painting.<\/p>\n
To the rear of the general and his staff a group, composed of a bugler,
\ntwo or three orderlies, and the bearer of the corps standard, all upon
\nmaniacal horses, were working like slaves to hold their ground,
\npreserve, their respectful interval, while the shells boomed in the air
\nabout them, and caused their chargers to make furious quivering leaps.<\/p>\n
A battery, a tumultuous and shining mass, was swirling toward the right.
\nThe wild thud of hoofs, the cries of the riders shouting blame and
\npraise, menace and encouragement, and, last the roar of the wheels, the
\nslant of the glistening guns, brought the lieutenant to an intent pause.
\nThe battery swept in curves that stirred the heart; it made halts as
\ndramatic as the crash of a wave on the rocks, and when it fled onward,
\nthis aggregation of wheels, levers, motors, had a beautiful unity, as if
\nit were a missile. The sound of it was a war-chorus that reached into
\nthe depths of man’s emotion.<\/p>\n
The lieutenant, still holding his arm as if it were of glass, stood
\nwatching this battery until all detail of it was lost, save the figures
\nof the riders, which rose and fell and waved lashes over the black mass.<\/p>\n
Later, he turned his eyes toward the battle where the shooting sometimes
\ncrackled like bush-fires, sometimes sputtered with exasperating
\nirregularity, and sometimes reverberated like the thunder. He saw the
\nsmoke rolling upward and saw crowds of men who ran and cheered, or stood
\nand blazed away at the inscrutable distance.<\/p>\n
He came upon some stragglers, and they told him how to find the field
\nhospital. They described its exact location. In fact, these men, no
\nlonger having part in the battle, knew more of it than others. They told
\nthe performance of every corps, every division, the opinion of every
\ngeneral. The lieutenant, carrying his wounded arm rearward, looked upon
\nthem with wonder.<\/p>\n
At the roadside a brigade was making coffee and buzzing with talk like a
\ngirls’ boarding-school. Several officers came out to him and inquired
\nconcerning things of which he knew nothing. One, seeing his arm, began
\nto scold. “Why, man, that’s no way to do. You want to fix that thing.”
\nHe appropriated the lieutenant and the lieutenant’s wound. He cut the
\nsleeve and laid bare the arm, every nerve of which softly fluttered
\nunder his touch. He bound his handkerchief over the wound, scolding away
\nin the meantime. His tone allowed one to think that he was in the habit
\nof being wounded every day. The lieutenant hung his head, feeling, in
\nthis presence, that he did not know how to be correctly wounded.<\/p>\n
The low white tents of the hospital were grouped around an old school-
\nhouse. There was here a singular commotion. In the foreground two
\nambulances interlocked wheels in the deep mud. The drivers were tossing
\nthe blame of it back and forth, gesticulating and berating, while from
\nthe ambulances, both crammed with wounded, there came an occasional
\ngroan. An interminable crowd of bandaged men were coming and going.
\nGreat numbers sat under the trees nursing heads or arms or legs. There
\nwas a dispute of some kind raging on the steps of the school-house.
\nSitting with his back against a tree a man with a face as grey as a new
\narmy blanket was serenely smoking a corn-cob pipe. The lieutenant wished
\nto rush forward and inform him that he was dying.<\/p>\n
A busy surgeon was passing near the lieutenant. “Good-morning,” he said,
\nwith a friendly smile. Then he caught sight of the lieutenant’s arm and
\nhis face at once changed. “Well, let’s have a look at it.” He seemed
\npossessed suddenly of a great contempt for the lieutenant. This wound
\nevidently placed the latter on a very low social plane. The doctor cried
\nout impatiently, “What mutton-head had tied it up that way anyhow?” The
\nlieutenant answered, “Oh, a man.”<\/p>\n
When the wound was disclosed the doctor fingered it disdainfully.
\n“Humph,” he said. “You come along with me and I’ll ‘tend to you.” His
\nvoice contained the same scorn as if he were saying, “You will have to
\ngo to jail.”<\/p>\n
The lieutenant had been very meek, but now his face flushed, and he
\nlooked into the doctor’s eyes. “I guess I won’t have it amputated,” he
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
“Nonsense, man! Nonsense! Nonsense!” cried the doctor. “Come along, now.
\nI won’t amputate it. Come along. Don’t be a baby.”<\/p>\n
“Let go of me,” said the lieutenant, holding back wrathfully, his glance
\nfixed upon the door of the old school-house, as sinister to him as the
\nportals of death.<\/p>\n
And this is the story of how the lieutenant lost his arm. When he
\nreached home, his sisters, his mother, his wife sobbed for a long time
\nat the sight of the flat sleeve. “Oh, well,” he said, standing
\nshamefaced amid these tears, “I don’t suppose it matters so much as all
\nthat.”<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t