Stephen Crane

“ The inky square suddenly became a long racing line. The howitzers joined their little bark to the thunder of the guns on the hill, and the three regiments of infantry came on. The Twelfth sat still.
Of a sudden a bugle rang its warning, and the officers shouted. Some used the old cry, "Attention! Kim up the Kickers!" and the Twelfth knew that it had been told to go in. The majority of the men expected to see great things as soon as they rounded the shoulder of the hill, but there was nothing to be seen save a complicated plain and the gray knolls occupied by the enemy. ”

“ The Twelfth reached a knoll which the officers easily recognized as the place described by the cavalry as suitable for the Spitzenberg guns. The men swarmed up it in a peculiar formation. They resembled a crowd coming off a race-track, but, nevertheless, there were no stray sheep. It is simply that the ground on which actual battles are fought is not like a chessboard. And after them came swinging a six-gun battery, the guns wagging from side to side as the long line turned out of the road, and the drivers using their whips as the leading guns scrambled at the hill. ”

“ When it was announced that an expeditionary force was to be sent to Rostina to chastise an impudent people, a hundred barrack squares filled with excited men and a hundred sergeant-majors hurried silently through the groups and succeeded in looking as if they were the repositories of the secrets of empire. Officers on leave sped joyfully back to their harness, and recruits were abused with unflagging devotion by every man from colonels to privates of experience. ”

“ It appeared that small black groups of men were walking meditatively toward the Rostina entrenchments.
There would have been orders given sooner to the Twelfth, but unfortunately Colonel Sponge arrived on top of the hill without a breath of wind in his body. He could not have given an order to save the regiment from being wiped off the earth. Finally he was able to gasp out something and point at the enemy. Timothy Lean ran along the line yelling to the men to sight at 800 yards, and like a slow and ponderous machine, the regiment again went to work. ”

“ The Twelfth came down on a corner of the trenches, and as soon as the enemy had ascertained that the Twelfth was certain to arrive, they scuttled out, running close to the earth and spending no time in glances backward. In these days it is not discreet to wait for a charge to come home. You observe the charge, you attempt to stop it, and if you find that you can't, it is better to retire immediately to some other place. The Rostina soldiers were not heroes, perhaps, but they were men of sense. ”

“ If a man can put in long service with a mule battery, and come out of it with an amiable disposition, he should be presented with a medal weighing many ounces. After the mule battery came a long, black, winding thing which was three regiments of Spitzenberg infantry, and back of them and to the right was an inky square, which was the remaining Spitzenberg guns. General Richie and his staff clattered up to the hill. ”

“ Men glanced continually at their officers in a plain desire to be quick to understand the very first order that would be given, and officers looked gravely at their men, measuring them, feeling their temper, worrying about them. ”

“ That's history."
"Oh, we can take care of ourselves," said the cavalry, with good-natured understanding of his mood.
But the next day even Lean blessed the cavalry, for excited troopers came whirling back from the front, bending over their speeding horses and shouting wildly and hoarsely for the infantry to clear the way. Men yelled at them from the roadside as courier followed courier, and from the distance ahead sounded in quick succession six booms from field guns. The information possessed by the couriers was no longer precious. Everybody knew what a battery meant when it spoke. ”

“ He was not extremely anxious to kill somebody, but he was very fond of soldiering -- it had been the career of his father and of his grandfather -- and he understood that the profession of arms lost much of its point unless a man shot at people, and had people shoot at him. ”

“ Curiously original privates try to find new and easier ways for themselves instead of following the men in front of them. Officers had short fits of fury over these people. The more originality they possessed the more likely they were to become separated from their companies. Colonel Sponge was making an exciting progress on a big charger. ”