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 | The Red Badge of Courage Ebook | |
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Ebook Title: The Red Badge of Courage
Author: Stephen Crane
Ebook Description: Chapter 1
The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring
fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.
As the landscape changed from brown to green, the army awakened,
and began to tremble with eagerness at the noise of rumors.
It cast its eyes upon the roads, which were growing from long
troughs of liquid mud to proper thoroughfares. A river,
amber-tinted in the shadow of its banks, purled at the army's
feet; and at night, when the stream had become of a sorrowful
blackness, one could see across it the red, eyelike gleam of
hostile camp-fires set in the low brows of distant hills.
Once a certain tall soldier developed virtues and went resolutely
to wash a shirt. He came flying back from a brook waving his
garment bannerlike. He was swelled with a tale he had heard from
a reliable friend, who had heard it from a truthful cavalryman,
who had heard it from his trustworthy brother, one of the
orderlies at division headquarters. He adopted the important air
of a herald in red and gold.
"We're goin' t' move t'morrah--sure," he said pompously to a
group in the company street. "We're goin' 'way up the river,
cut across, an' come around in behint 'em."
To his attentive audience he drew a loud and elaborate plan of a
very brilliant campaign. When he had finished, the blue-clothed
men scattered into small arguing groups between the rows of squat
brown huts. A negro teamster who had been dancing upon a cracker
box with the hilarious encouragement of twoscore soldiers
was deserted. He sat mournfully down. Smoke drifted lazily from
a multitude of quaint chimneys.
"It's a lie! that's all it is--a thunderin' lie!" said another
private loudly. His smooth face was flushed, and his hands were
thrust sulkily into his trouser's pockets. He took the matter as
an affront to him. "I don't believe the derned old army's ever
going to move. We're set. I've got ready to move eight times
in the last two weeks, and we ain't moved yet."
The tall soldier felT called upon to defend the truth of a rumor
he himself had introduced. He and the loud one came near to
fighting over it.
A corporal began to swear before the assemblage. He had just put
a costly board floor in his house, he said. During the early
spring he had refrained from adding extensively to the comfort
of his environment because he had felt that the army might start
on the march at any moment. Of late, however, he had been
impressed that they were in a sort of eternal camp.
Many of the men engaged in a spirited debate. One outlined in a
peculiarly lucid manner all the plans of the commanding general.
He was opposed by men who advocated that there were other plans
of campaign. They clamored at each other, numbers making futile
bids for the popular attention. Meanwhile, the soldier who had
fetched the rumor bustled about with much importance. He was
continually assailed by questions.
"What's up, Jim?"
"Th'army's goin' t' move."
"Ah, what yeh talkin' about? How yeh know it is?"
"Well, yeh kin b'lieve me er not, jest as yeh like.
I don't care a hang."More... | 
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