A Mystery Of Heroism

“As the eyes of half of the regiment swept in one machinelike movement there was an instant’s picture of a horse in a great convulsive leap of a death wound and a rider leaning back with a crooked arm and spread fingers before his face.” 

Much of the story takes place as a series of images, as the gaze of the infantry sweeps all around their surroundings. The gaze appears to be “machinelike,” as the eyes move, riveted by one explosion after another. “Machinelike” also recalls the fact that machines kill the men, causing the “convulsive leap.”The eyes, like a camera, capture the instant in mid-explosion, showing the moment of death for the horse and the imminent injury for the rider, who instinctively attempts to protect his face from what is coming. 

“Sometimes they of the infantry looked down a fair little meadow which spread at their feet. Its long, green grass was rippling gently in a breeze.”

Again, the infantry takes in the sights that surround them. The meadow with its “long green grass [...]rippling gently in a breeze” is incongruous in this land of violent, shocking death. Green, often a symbol for life, will soon be defeated by the “red hate of the shells,” which lies in wait (Paragraph 12). The personification of hate suggests that this battle is not so much between men but between nature and the weapons, making it seem as if the “hate of the shells” is to blame for war.

“In the midst of it all, Smith and Ferguson, two privates of A Company, were engaged in a heated discussion, which involved the greatest questions of the national existence.” 

This is the only mention of the larger context for this battle—the Civil War, which would determine the outcome of the United States’ “national existence.” The irony is that the men involved in this dialogue are mere privates who are mentioned only once. No one else, neither privates nor officers, ever mentions any larger meaning for their actions. In this world, the causes of the war become meaningless.

“A shell had smitten one of the pieces and after the flare, the smoke, the dust, the wrath of this blow was gone, it was possible to see white legs stretched horizontally upon the ground.”

Crane’s language separates bodies; soldiers are referred to as “legs,” emphasizing the violence that the shelling is capable of. But the explosion of the bomb is itself separated into individual moments: First the bomb explodes with fire, then smoke follows the fire, then the dust flies into the air, and finally the “wrath” of the shell is gone. This listing of scenes slows down the action, creating a pause before the inevitable revelation of legs on the ground.

“And at that interval to the rear, where it is the business of battery horses to stand with their noses to the fight awaiting the command to drag their guns out of the destruction or into it or wheresoever these incomprehensible humans demanded with whip and spur—in this life of passive and dumb spectators, whose fluttering hearts yet would not let them forget the iron laws of man’s control of them—in this rank of brute-soldiers there had been relentless and hideous carnage. From the ruck of bleeding and prostrate horses, the men of the infantry could see one animal raising its stricken body with its forelegs, and turning its nose with mystic and profound eloquence toward the sky.” 

The horses are helplessly in the grip of men’s “iron laws.” These laws are “incomprehensible” to the horses, yet the horses have no ability to question their situation. Although they live and die with “eloquence,” their enslavement to men’s violent desires ensures pitiable deaths. These “brute-soldiers,” too, are spectators, “awaiting the command” just like the other soldiers. But the author emphasizes their suffering in a battle they have no connection to.

“This man had encountered a shell apparently at a time when no one perceived him, and he could now be seen lying face downward with a stirruped foot stretched across the body of his dead horse. A leg of the charger extended slantingly upward precisely as a stake. Around this motionless pair the shells still howled.”

The story does not show the lieutenant get hit by a shell, as it does with the bugler. Instead the scene shows the aftermath of the hit, with the lieutenant and the horse prostrate on the ground (unlike the bugler and horse, who seem motionless in the air). Just as the infantry focus on the “white legs” of the soldiers, the story focuses on the foot of the lieutenant, which is still in place, as if the lieutenant were still riding his horse, which is dead on the ground. The dead horse and the dying lieutenant are still in the postures they held in life before they were suddenly transformed.

“Collins appeared as a man dreaming. In the midst of the questions, the advice, the warnings, all the excited talk of his company mates, he maintained a curious silence.” 

Collins is about to do what everyone believes to be impossible—risk his life for a drink of water. As the others help prepare him for this heroic yet foolish undertaking, Collins seems to be in a daze. There is no sense of conscious acceptance of his journey. Like many other Naturalist writers, Crane emphasizes the forces that are beyond the characters’ control. Collins is not driven by a personal sense of heroism. There is no will. He is “as a man dreaming,” unable to take action.

“They were busy in preparing him for his ordeal. When they inspected him carefully it was somewhat like the examination that grooms give a horse before a race; and they were amazed, staggered by the whole affair. Their astonishment found vent in strange repetitions.” 

In preparing Collins for his journey, the soldiers are compared to grooms preparing their horse “before a race.” This is a chilling comparison, since horses have just been described as being torn apart by shelling, hinting that Collins may share a similar destiny.

“He had blindly been led by quaint emotions, and laid himself under an obligation to walk squarely up to the face of death.” 

Again, the author emphasizes Collins’s lack of volition in attempting his journey. Instead of carefully thinking about what he is doing, Collins realizes that emotions like pride have led him to leave the relative safety of the group and enter on a seemingly impossible and dangerous quest. All eyes are on him, so he can’t turn around and change his mind. One alone, he is described as blind, in contrast to the eyes of the group that are always watching everything.

“He wondered at this, because human expression had said loudly for centuries that men should feel afraid of certain things, and that all men who did not feel this fear were phenomena—heroes.

“He was then a hero. He suffered that disappointment which we would all have if we discovered that we were ourselves capable of those deeds which we most admire in history and legend. This, then was a hero. After all, heroes were not much.” 

A time outside the story, “centuries” ago, has molded a certain idea of heroism that Collins believes in. Collins realizes that he fits the definition of hero, and rather than feeling proud, he is disappointed that heroes “were not much.” This realization not only deflates the concept of hero, but also deflates Collins’s understanding of history and legend. The stories that perhaps led him to join the war were false.

“He could see nothing but flying arrows, flaming red. He lurched from the shock of this explosion, but he made a mad rush for the house, which he viewed as a man submerged to the neck in a boiling surf might view the shore.”

Earlier, Collins is described as a man drowning in the sea. This recalls previous mention of the sea, where the soldiers are described as if they are standing at the shore staring out at the rough seas. This reversal of the shore-sea metaphor demonstrates the ease with which the war can make a spectator into a participant. Although the infantry soldiers are relatively sheltered by the clay bank, once they venture a little bit out, they will suddenly be trapped in the “boiling surf” of battle.

“And now as he lay with his face turned away he was suddenly smitten with the terror. It came upon his heart like the grasp of claws. All the power faded from his muscles. For an instant he was no more than a dead man.”

Collins finally gets what he wants: the water. But as soon as he reaches his goal, terror overtakes him. As he waits for the canteens to fill with water, an animalistic fear grips him and won’t let go. It’s as if he can finally see the danger that everyone else can plainly see all along. He no longer wishes to set himself apart; to separate from the group and become an individual is to become a marked man, a “dead man.” He is desperate to reach the safety of the group. 

“But Collins turned. He came dashing back. His face had now turned gray and in his eyes was all terror. ‘Here it is. Here it is!’

“The officer was a man gone in drink. His arm bent like a twig. His head drooped as if his neck was of willow. He was sinking to the ground, to lie face downward.” 

Collins rushes past the dying lieutenant only seconds before. Terrified, Collins cannot think of trying to aid the man with a sip of water. But then he turns around. The “mystery of heroism” suggests that no thinking precipitates this change. He has no idea that he is capable of such courage. It can come forth only in the pressure of the moment.

And yet such courage is a moment too late. The lieutenant is no longer able to receive the gift.