Author’s note: “Weekend Short” is a recurring column profiling short stories. Analysis from the readership is encouraged in the comments section.
Welcome to the weekend!
The wind is in the trees, and the library closes at 1 P.M. — unrelated observations unless one were to sail to the library aboard a wagon of fools.
Today’s short is Ambrose Bierce’s “One of the Missing” (in case you haven’t had your fill of accounts of young men mouldering on a mountainside in the South). Vibrantly realistic but tempered by the romantic touch of predestined munitions, Bierce’s tale is a reflection of man’s violent inclination towards his brother and, perhaps, himself, as well as a meditation on perceived allegiance’s malleability. From the dust we were raised, but there the honesty ends.
Bierce writes:
Jerome Searing, a private soldier of General Sherman’s army, then confronting the enemy at and about Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia, turned his back upon a small group of officers with whom he had been talking in low tones, stepped across a light line of earthworks, and disappeared in a forest. None of the men in line behind the works had said a word to him, nor had he so much as nodded to them in passing, but all who saw understood that this brave man had been intrusted with some perilous duty. Jerome Searing, though a private, did not serve in the ranks; he was detailed for service at division headquarters, being borne upon the rolls as an orderly. “Orderly” is a word covering a multitude of duties. An orderly may be a messenger, a clerk, an officer’s servant—anything. He may perform services for which no provision is made in orders and army regulations. Their nature may depend upon his aptitude, upon favor, upon accident. Private Searing, an incomparable marksman, young, hardy, intelligent and insensible to fear, was a scout. The general commanding his division was not content to obey orders blindly without knowing what was in his front, even when his command was not on detached service, but formed a fraction of the line of the army; nor was he satisfied to receive his knowledge of his vis-à-vis through the customary channels; he wanted to know more than he was apprised of by the corps commander and the collisions of pickets and skirmishers. Hence Jerome Searing, with his extraordinary daring, his woodcraft, his sharp eyes, and truthful tongue. On this occasion his instructions were simple: to get as near the enemy’s lines as possible and learn all that he could.
You can read the rest here or listen to it here.
Assuming we’ve all read the story, isn’t the line “a forest formidable with possibilities of battle” simply exquisite? While few of us have experienced arboreal combat personally, the recreation of such battles as Little Round Top, Chickamauga, and even smaller affairs at the Wade House ably communicate the tenuous relationship a soldier has with his lines. A scout’s existence is an uncertain prospect, flitting between the bayonets of opposing lines.
Bierce, describing the black hole of the musket and cannon, is uncompromisingly grim. Our protagonist, who only moments before was preparing to fire upon an enemy column with more than a small bit of glee, resolves to destroy himself once he’s turned upside-down and trapped among the ruins of a building. While his effort to kill himself with the rifle that looks into him is a momentary failure, the shifting required to suicidally activate the “hair-trigger” brings down the hovel. Illustrating the dehumanizing effects of war, an officer with whom Searing had only that day been talking fails to recognize his corpse — thinking him a long-dead Confederate, instead.
As I’ve written before, ostensibly anti-war fiction is a corrective to our eagerness for bloodshed, but shouldn’t dissuade us from righteous action. War is a necessary tool of the state; it’s delighting in death that is a besmirching act — something that even King David was called to account on.
Emily Dickinson calibrates in her Civil War poetry:
Inconceivably solemn!
Things go gay
Pierce—by the very Press
Of Imagery—Their far Parades—order on the eye
With a mute Pomp—
A pleading Pageantry—Flags, are a brave sight—
But no true Eye
Ever went by One—
Steadily—Music’s triumphant—
But the fine Ear
Winces with delight
Are Drums too near—
J582, F414 (1862)
Bierce and Dickinson grant us a visit to the crossroads of good and evil, of passion and its detached twin. What imagery! What a lesson.
Here’s Big Bill Morganfield’s “Devil at My Door”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik_Nt5baKjw
Thanks to Kevin for suggesting one of Bierce’s lesser-known shorts.
Author’s note: If there’s a short story you’d like to see discussed in the coming weeks, please send your suggestion to label@nationalreview.com.