Traveller by Richard Adams Page B

river. It all looked real peaceful.
    We stayed there most of the day, and the President came, riding Thunder, and a whole lot of other important-looking people, some of ‘em soldiers and some not. Mid-afternoon, when I was reckoning it must be ‘bout time we was going home, all of a sudden I got the shock of my life. It was so durned unexpected. The bangs began, over on t’other side of the river. It was fighting, like that other evening by the road in the woods. The whole valley, all round, was full of firing, echoing up and down. Everywhere bugles was blowing, men getting on their horses. The soldiers—hundreds of ‘em—who’d been lying down beside the road in the sunshine, all jumped up and got into lines. People was calling out orders, harness jingling, hooves thudding, messengers dashing here and there—you never seed such a commotion all in a minute. Far off, over the river, there was big guns firing, and I could see that there battle-smoke. Pretty soon I could smell it, too.
    What was happening was our soldiers was attacking, and that was the first time, Tom, that I actually seed the Blue men. There was crowds of ‘em on t’other side of the river, and all round that little village place—only they was all running away and our fellas was coming on acrost the fields, and shooting as they came.
    Anyways, that was how it looked like to begin with. But pretty soon the smoke seemed to cover everything. I reckoned it must have got to real bad fighting, and our men might likely be in as much trouble as the Blue men.
    That there President’s horse, Thunder, was hitched nearabouts. “What’s going on?” I asked him. “What are they doing?” I hadn’t been expecting none of it, you see.
    â€œKilling each other,” he said. “Best they can, I mean.”
    â€œKilling each other?” I says to him. “For goodness’ sake, why they doing that?”
    He kinda looked me over for a bit without answering. At last he said, “You really the General’s horse? You’re real green, ain’t you? Killing each other? That’s what men do. You didn’t know?”
    â€œBut why?” I said.
    â€œOh, for gosh sakes!” he snorted through his nose. “You might’s well ask me why the sun goes acrost the sky. It’s what they do, like flies bite. They always have and they always will.”
    I thought ‘bout this, best as I could for all the noise and confusion. And it struck me that Jim and Andy and all the fellas back home hadn’t gone in for killing each other. So there must be some sort of between-whiles now and then.
    â€œDon’t they sometimes stop?” I said. “Like flies in winter?”
    â€œThat’s so,” he answered. “But if’n I’ve understood it rightly, they won’t stop for good until either the Blue men or our men quit and say they’ve had ‘nuff. And that’s a long time off, I reckon. You can forget it. Flies don’t stop biting, do they?”
    I was going to ask him some more, but jest then the President’s man came up and took Thunder away. Next thing I knowed, the Little General was on his horse, too, and line after line of our soldiers was going down to the river. They throwed down some planks and got acrost, even without no bridge, and pretty soon I seed the President go acrost on his horse.
    Then Marse Robert called for me, and we went down and over the river, too, and straight up the road on t’other side—straight up to that little village place. And when we got there—oh, my! It was lots worse’n I can tell you, Tom. ‘Course, I seed plenty worse since, but that was the first time. There was dead men—dead horses, too—laying round everywhere, and worse’n that was the wounded and the dying, all crying and hollering out something terrible. And all the time the bangs kept on, right in ‘mongst