Speaker 1: This is the NBC University Theater bringing you a full
hour dramatization of The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane,
starring John Agar as Henry Flemick. This is a war
story written by a boy who had never heard a
shot fired in anger. It is a classic of American literature,
psychologically sound, repertorially accurate, and poetically quite perfect. The Red
Badge of Courage the short masterpiece of Stephen Crane, whose
personal legend is as exciting as his literary accomplishment. Crane
was the son of a minister in Newark, New Jersey,
which background he departed early to become reporter, novelist, poet,
war correspondent, world traveler, and intimate friend of Joseph Conrad.
He died before he was thirty in the mountains of
the Black Forest of Germany. We bring you to day,
a new and exciting radio adaptation of The Red Badge
of Courage, written by Brainerd Duffield and Emerson Crocker and
starring in the role of Henry Fleming and voicing the
introspective thoughts of that young soldier, mister John Agar.
Speaker 2: The cold passed from the Earth and the retiring fogs
revealed an army stretched out on the hills resting. A
river lay at the army's feet, and across it one
could see the red eyelike gleam of hostile campfires. As
the landscape changed from brown to green, the army awakened
and began to tremble with eagerness at the noise of rumors,
rumors of war and battles some to come.
Speaker 3: Gosh, it's cold. You're lying on your bunk, Henry Fleming, watching, listening,
waiting for the words that's bound to come. You've been
marched and drilled and reviewed. Surely there will be a
battle soon. Look, here comes a soldier with news in
his eyes.
Speaker 4: Boys, I just heard something. I heard some fellers talking,
and we're going to move tomorrow.
Speaker 5: Shure, we're going way up the river, cut across and
come around in behind them.
Speaker 6: It's a lie, Jim Conklin, I don't believe the derned
old Army's ever gonna get ready to move.
Speaker 7: Eight times in.
Speaker 6: The last two weeks and we ain't moved yet.
Speaker 7: Is it true, Jim? Are we gonna move? Henry? Is
what I just told you?
Speaker 8: Oh?
Speaker 7: What you're talking about? You don't know everything in the world.
Speaker 8: Do you.
Speaker 4: I didn't say I knew everything in the world.
Speaker 7: Gonna be a battle? Sure is a jim of course.
Speaker 9: There is, of course there is.
Speaker 5: Now you just wait until tomorrow, Henry, and you'll see
one of the biggest battles ever was.
Speaker 3: Now you just wait, so we're gonna fight at last.
So at last you're going to fight, Henry Fleming. Tomorrow
there will be a battle, and you'll be honest. All
your life you've dreamed of battles. You've seen yourself and
visions performing deeds of glory. You've read of marches and campaigns.
Belong to be a part of it all your life.
Remember that day back home.
Speaker 7: H I want to enlist.
Speaker 10: We've been all over that son, I knee John the farm.
Speaker 3: Chh but ma, everyone's going, They're all going.
Speaker 10: Men are yes, you're just a boy. Time enough for
man's foolishness. Later on, Oh, but ma, I wanna go. Ah, Henry,
don't you be a fool.
Speaker 3: But every day you read the papers and heard the
gossip of the village, and every day the winds carried
you the clangering of the church bells telling the news
of some great victory.
Speaker 7: They were ringing.
Speaker 3: That day when you came home, your mother had been
milking the brindled cow. Remember you waited in the kitchen,
you heard her step. You'd planned a little speech, and
then the chance didn't come to use it. After all, Ma,
i've enlisted.
Speaker 8: Lords. Will be done, Henry.
Speaker 7: Seemed like like I had to do it.
Speaker 3: I'll go and pack your bundle for you, son, And
later in the dooryard it was time to say goodbye.
It wasn't quite the way you pictured it would be.
She didn't seem to understand what a glorious thing it
was to be a soldier and march away to war.
Speaker 10: Now you watch out, Henry, and take good care of yourself.
Don't go thinking that you can lick the whole rebel army,
because you can't. You're just one little feller amongst a
whole lot of others.
Speaker 7: I know that, Mare.
Speaker 10: Now I've knit you eate pair of socks, and I
put in all your best shirts because I want my
boy to be just as warm and comfortable as anybody
in the army. Whenever you get holes in them, I
want you to send them right away back.
Speaker 8: To me so I can dorn them.
Speaker 7: Yes, Ma, I.
Speaker 10: Will and I don't want you to ever do anything, Henry,
that you'd be ashamed to. Let me know. I just
think as if I was watching you, if you keep
that in your mind always, I guess you'll come out about.
Speaker 7: Right, MA, I guess I better get going.
Speaker 10: I don't know what else to say to your child,
something that you must never do. No shirking on my account.
If so be a time comes when when you have
to be killed or do a mean thing, Well, Henry,
don't think of anything setting what's right, because there's many
a woman has to bear up against such things these days.
Lawd'll take care of us all, all.
Speaker 7: Right, Ma, goodbye?
Speaker 10: Uh, put a cup of BlackBerry jam with your bundle, son,
because I know you like it above all things. Goodbye, Henry,
watch out and be a good boy.
Speaker 3: When you look back, you notice she was crying. Her
face was stained with tears, and it made you feel ashamed.
And now here you are the time has come at last,
and there will be a battle. And now you know
you're afraid, afraid that when the battle comes, you'll want
to run away.
Speaker 5: You fellas can believe me or not, Just as you like,
didn't the cavalry all start this morning. The regiment's got
orders too, fella. What was down to quarters told me
a little while ago, And raising blaze is all over?
Speaker 4: Can anybody can see that?
Speaker 8: Shucks?
Speaker 4: Jim, Huh what do you want, Henry?
Speaker 7: How do you think the regiment will?
Speaker 3: Do you think any of the boys will up and run?
I think they'll run away.
Speaker 5: Maybe a few of them run, especially when they first
goes under fire horse.
Speaker 4: Might happen that the old kitten kaboodle might start and run.
Speaker 5: If some big fighting come first off and again, they
might stay fight like fury.
Speaker 7: You think they will.
Speaker 5: They call the regiment green horns and fresh fish and everything.
But the boys come a good stock. Most of them
will fight like sin after they once get shooting.
Speaker 7: Do you ever think that you might run yourself? Jim?
Speaker 5: I thought it might get too hot for Jim Conklin,
some of them scrimmages. But if everybody was a standing
and fighting, well, I'd stand and fight.
Speaker 7: But Jim and I would.
Speaker 9: I'll bet on it.
Speaker 7: What's you, Jim?
Speaker 3: But you, Henry Fleming, you're not so sure. You lie
on your bunk wondering about it. A panic fear grows
in your mind in the blood and blaze of danger.
Those legs of yours could run away and disgrace you
everlasting me. You reproach and despise yourself because you're so afraid.
Speaker 7: You don't feel like a hero anymore. What's the matter
with me? What's the matter with me?
Speaker 2: In the gloom before the break of day, the uniforms
blowed deep purple. From off in the darkness came a
trampling your feet, and a moment later the regiment went
swinging off into the black. The air was heavy and
cold with you. The white grass marched upon, rustled like silk.
The men's tumb along, muttering, wondering, cursing, until at last
the sun struck full upon the earth. Two thin black
columns were climbing the brow of the hill like two
serpents crawling from the cavern.
Speaker 7: Of the night.
Speaker 11: Hey, fellas, what regiment is that?
Speaker 3: Where?
Speaker 11: That's the greenhorn? Ain't you hurt? That's the no regiment?
Speaker 12: Yish fish.
Speaker 2: They marched all day, and at nightfall the columns broke
into regimental pieces. Tents sprang up like strange plants, Campfires
like red peculiar blossoms, dotted the night.
Speaker 4: The lighted moon hung in a tree top.
Speaker 3: You have wandered a little distance from the others to
be alone, to lie down in the grass. The liquid
stillness of the night, the soft wind, the whole mood
is in sympathy with you. The night takes pity on you, Henry,
for the first time, you long to be home again.
Perhaps your mother was right, After all, you are different
from the others. They're just a boy. No wonder you're
afraid you weren't cut out to be a soldier.
Speaker 7: Hello, Henry, thus you what are you doing out here? Oh?
Just thinking?
Speaker 6: You're looking thundering? Picked boy? What's ailing you?
Speaker 7: Oh? Nothing, there's nothing to be getting blue about. We
got him now.
Speaker 6: They've been licking our sight up to now, but this
time this time we'll lick him. Good gee, Rod, We're
really gonna thump this time.
Speaker 7: How do you know you won't run when the time
comes me?
Speaker 8: You run? Ted? Likely?
Speaker 7: Shucks? He ain't the bravest man in the world, are you? No?
I ain't didn't say. I was said. I'm going to
do my share.
Speaker 3: That's what I s Who are you?
Speaker 7: Who?
Speaker 6: You talk like you was Napoleon Bonaparte. Heck, I'm going
back to camp. I don't know what's come over you,
Henry Fleming? Think you're so all fired smart?
Speaker 7: Gone back there? Then, I don't care.
Speaker 3: It didn't mean to make them mad. What's the matter?
How brave are you? What are you watching for? There
in the darkness? What are you listening for? Why should
you be trembling here in the thick darkness? You lie listening, shivering,
sick with fear.
Speaker 7: I'm scared, Gosh, I'm scared.
Speaker 2: In the gray dawn, the men were shaking to their feet,
still half asleep. They found themselves hustling, running, panting through
the woods.
Speaker 8: What dude, should you?
Speaker 11: Should you hurried for?
Speaker 7: Where are you here? I'm right with you, Wilson.
Speaker 6: You just stick close to me, and Jim has nothing
to be scared of.
Speaker 3: Listen for?
Speaker 11: What's that?
Speaker 4: It's muskets?
Speaker 7: What's muscus? All right?
Speaker 13: Man?
Speaker 11: Did you hear them? Muskets?
Speaker 7: Who are getting near? We're getting near to him? Why
do we have to run so fast? I gotta get my.
Speaker 3: Breath up there in the shadows. The fear sighted enemy
is working. You're gonna be sacrificed. It's all a trap.
Can't they see? Are you the only one who dies?
Speaker 7: Stop them? Tell him before it's too late.
Speaker 11: You there belong, can't you see? We'll all be killed
like pigs.
Speaker 14: Boys, Listen to me, I mean, get up in the
rank there, Yes, get back there, Yes.
Speaker 11: Sir, I am.
Speaker 3: Don't mind him. He doesn't understand. No one knows but you. You
didn't want to fight, and now they want to see
the slaughtered.
Speaker 11: Hear that artillery? Are right your mentally?
Speaker 7: Follow me?
Speaker 15: What are y'all jumping for? That battles most five miles away?
We gotta walk before we get there. Come on this way,
let's go.
Speaker 2: The regiment slid down a bank and wallowed through a stream.
They floundered up the other side and into a clump
of woods. The men dug in, and they were moved,
and they dug in again and again. They marched about
from place to place. But when they halted for their
noonday kneel, the guns seemed far away. There they rested,
while the men of the new regiment watched and listened
eagerly to the tongues of the veteran brigades, mouthing the
gossip of the army, rumors that had flown like birds
out of the blue.
Speaker 16: One of the one hundred and forty eighth mean boys,
and he's seen a big battle over in.
Speaker 7: The Turnpike Road, killed about five thousand. Says, one more
fight such as that and the world be over this year.
Hanners's battery is cool. It ain't either.
Speaker 3: I saw Hannah's battery off on the left not more
than fifteen minutes ago.
Speaker 11: Hey, you fellas here about Bill? Some fella trod in
his hand. Bill says, war, No war.
Speaker 14: He'd be dumbed if he was going to have every
bushwacker in the country walking round.
Speaker 11: On his hand.
Speaker 16: He went to the hospital disregardless of the fight this right,
and then Bill wasn't scared either. No shirt wasn't that
three fingers was crunched the dark duct.
Speaker 11: I wanted to have to you tate them and Bill? Sure,
race somehar.
Speaker 7: What are they laughing out over dinner? What can they find?
A left at? Death is everywhere? Henry, Henry, come here?
Can I speak to you? Sure Wilson? What do you want?
Speaker 6: We'll be going into battle pretty soon. I got a feeling.
I just got a feeling. It'll be my first one
in my last.
Speaker 7: What do you mean?
Speaker 6: Something tells me I'm a goner the first time, And
I want you to take these here things to send
them my folks, it's letters and papers.
Speaker 7: On Wilson, You're just plumb crazy.
Speaker 6: I'm scared and I can't help it. I wouldn't tell
that to Jim or or everyone here. You just take them, Henry,
give them.
Speaker 3: Here if anything should happen, I promise, Thank you, Henry.
You're my friend, best friend I got, Henry Wilson. I
want to tell you I'm scared too.
Speaker 8: There.
Speaker 7: I'm glad I told you to see. You're not the
only one who's scared.
Speaker 6: All right, men, battle formation, all in, good luck, Henry,
good luck, and thank you Henry hard.
Speaker 2: The brigade formed in line of battle and advanced slowly
through the trees. Soon they came to some little fields,
girted and squeezed by the forest. They halted at the
fringe of the grove and saw the dark battle line
spread out along the sun struck clearing that gleamed orange color.
The grass and tree trunk swore a gentle fabric of
softened greens and browns. A flag flooded. It looked to
be the wrong place for a battlefield.
Speaker 3: The time has come, Henry Fleming. The landscape lies before
you like a threat. That house in the deserted field
looks evil to you. The shadows beyond the wood are frightening.
It's much too calm. I wish they'd get it over.
I wish they'd get it over.
Speaker 7: Now is the time for waiting. And what will you remember?
Speaker 3: The village streeted home and that circus parade that day
last spring. Remember how you stood there a thrillful boy
to see the dingy lady on the white horse and
the band in its faded sinseil chariot. Oh, it was
beautiful to see here. My god, you've got your holding back.
Speaker 13: We got to hold him back, by Harry, we'll do
our best, Colonel.
Speaker 4: I get ready, boys, stick close to Jim Conkling.
Speaker 11: We'll give him places. We're in frend Now we're in frind.
Speaker 15: Now hold up, man, don't shoot till I tell you,
wait till we get up close.
Speaker 7: Quick, quick, Oh lord, let it happen quick?
Speaker 11: Oh man? Why now where.
Speaker 7: We held him back? We held him back?
Speaker 3: Turned if we haven't.
Speaker 7: I thought I was going plumb, deaf and blind. I
couldn't see a thing for smoke, and the sweat was
getting in my life. I got so hot it burn
my fingers. Look, my hand's got the shake right, know it?
And then you hear drums like a crack wide open. Well,
we held him back, didn't we. Hey, where's Jim kurtle goun?
Speaker 11: Jim?
Speaker 7: Why he was standing right here when the fight begun.
I've seen him.
Speaker 3: You don't suppose he got hit to you, Henry.
Speaker 6: Oh, lots of boys got hit, somebody guests got chilled.
Speaker 3: I wonder if he got scared and run away him
after all the talking that he done.
Speaker 7: I bet you, I bet he run away.
Speaker 3: You didn't run, though, did you, Henry? You stood fast
and didn't run. Listen to the cannon from the hillside.
They're fighting over there and over there and over there.
Look at the sky. Just look at that blue, pure
sky and the sun gleaming on.
Speaker 7: The trees and fields.
Speaker 3: Doesn't it seem strange that all the world can turn
to gold in the midst of all this devilment. Well
it's over, Henry, and you're still alive. You're braver than
your thought.
Speaker 14: Again, No, no, he'll say this here is too much.
Speaker 11: So we ain't never gonna stand a second, chargem.
Speaker 1: Then come here and fight the whole dang rebel on
me here is mill smiths, and on my hands sit
of somebody treading on his not you out here?
Speaker 11: Why don't they take us work? Why don't they send support?
Funny boys? They're coming in again.
Speaker 3: Oh please God home.
Speaker 4: The firing ripped along the regimental line level.
Speaker 2: Sheets of flame burst up in clouds of smoke that
tossed and tumbled near the ground. And through the smoke
the enemy came running, howling, streaming like an onslaught of dragons.
This was the monster, the red animal war, the blood
swollen guards.
Speaker 3: Run, Henry, before it's too late. Throw down your right
when a run. No one's looking at you. No one
will stop you.
Speaker 7: Throw your gun or be destroyed. Yes, I will, I will,
I will. You're running now, don't be a shane.
Speaker 17: Run.
Speaker 7: Don't look back. Death is behind you. His knife is
at your shoulder.
Speaker 3: Planes run, your rifle's going, your cap is going, your
coat is bowling in the wind. Run like a blind man, plunging, falling,
beating your way deep deep into the wood. You're safe now, Henry.
The battle's far behind. You needn't run so fast. You're
all alone? Are you the only one that ran? Why
didn't the others run away? Fools, stupid machine like fools.
You're pity though A man's a fool who doesn't run
from danger.
Speaker 8: Stop.
Speaker 3: You are here alone in the cathedral, out of the forest.
You are the only coward, the only one who ran away.
And here you stand beneath the high arched branches. It's beautiful,
It's like a chapel.
Speaker 8: Here.
Speaker 7: Look out.
Speaker 3: You're being looked at by a dead man, sitting with
his back against a tree. His uniform, once blue, has
now faded to melancholy green. Those eyes staring at you
a turned fish, belly white.
Speaker 7: The mouth is open.
Speaker 3: The wind raises the tawny beard as if a hand
were stroking it. Why do you stare into those liquid eyes?
Speaker 7: He cannot answer your question. Don't look at me. I
couldn't help it. I never meant to run away.
Speaker 3: No voice will come from that dead throat to answer you.
Speaker 7: Go away. The thing will not pursue you.
Speaker 2: Softly, the trees began to sing a hymn of twilight.
The sun sank till slanting rays of bronze struck the forest.
There was silence save for the chanted chorus of the trees.
And yet now and again, upon this stillness, a crimson
roar came from the distance. The voice of cannon fire
shook the pines. The battle, like the grinding of some
terrible machine, went on, producing corpses.
Speaker 3: You have come to a narrow road, and through the
glimmering dust you see the bud stained crowd of wounded
men streaming to the rear. One of them has a
shoe full of blood and hops like a schoolboy in
a game. Another man is being carried, full of anger
at his wound.
Speaker 15: Don't juggle so, you fools, you think my legs made
of iron, Lord John, If you can't carry me decent,
put me down, Let somebody else do it.
Speaker 3: Another is a tattered man, dusty and powder stain. His
head is bound up with a blood soaked rag. His
arm is bleeding too, dangles like a broken bow. Fall
in and marched beside this man. Hear what he has
to say, showing the crowd, and march among the wound.
Speaker 9: To the Pretty good fight, wasn't it?
Speaker 18: Boy?
Speaker 7: What you say?
Speaker 8: Was there?
Speaker 9: Pretty good fight? Wasn't it?
Speaker 7: Yes?
Speaker 19: Learn me if I ever see fellas fight so laws,
how they did fight?
Speaker 9: I knowed the boys do it. Once they got square
at it. They're fighters.
Speaker 13: They didn't let them fellas fight out of them by.
Speaker 9: Like to run us wounded down them fellows?
Speaker 7: We with, boy, what regiment three hundred and fourth New York.
Speaker 9: I'm with one hundred and forty eighth main myself. But
we was all there together. Went We We showed them,
didn't we?
Speaker 7: Sure show we did?
Speaker 9: I was talking cross pickets with a boy from Georgia.
Once that boy says, your fellows will all run like
tovid on once they hear the gun.
Speaker 19: He said, maybe the will, I says, but I don't
believe none of it.
Speaker 9: I says, Well, they didn't run today, did they?
Speaker 20: Hey, boy, I reckon not, no, sir, They fit and
fit and fit?
Speaker 9: Were you wounded?
Speaker 4: Boy?
Speaker 9: What where'd they wound?
Speaker 7: Your?
Speaker 14: Boy?
Speaker 9: He did very bad?
Speaker 7: He walk by yourself. I don't want to talk to you.
You'll let me be, that's right. Get away from him.
Speaker 3: He mustn't know. You have no place in this mob
of bleeding men.
Speaker 7: You envy them.
Speaker 3: You wish you too had a wound, a red badge
of courage like the rest. Who's this besides you?
Speaker 8: Now?
Speaker 3: There stalks a man already the gray seal of death
is on his face.
Speaker 7: He stalks like the specter of a.
Speaker 3: Soldier, his eyes burning into the unknown. Now now look again,
Something in the in the gesture of the man, the
wax like face, makes you start.
Speaker 8: You know it?
Speaker 7: Jim?
Speaker 3: Is it you?
Speaker 7: Jim Conklin? Hello, Henry? Oh, Jim, I hardly knew you.
Speaker 9: Where have you been, Henry? I thought maybe it got
keeled over?
Speaker 7: I was worrying him about you. A good deal, Jim here,
let me help you walk along? Yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 9: I was back there, Henry.
Speaker 7: Oh what a circus?
Speaker 4: Jimminy got shot? Yep, Jimmy got shot back there?
Speaker 7: What're you gonna do? I'm gonna do to help you them?
Is there anything?
Speaker 9: I'll tell you what I'm afraid of, Henry. I'm afraid
I'll fall down.
Speaker 17: And you know, them horses gallop them dumb artry wagons
they like?
Speaker 4: Is not a run right over me.
Speaker 7: I'll take carr of you, Jim.
Speaker 9: I swear, will you, Henry, because that's what I'm afraid.
Speaker 7: Oh, yes, I tell you.
Speaker 17: I'll tell I was always a good friend, Jim, wasn't
I Henry always been a pretty good following him.
Speaker 4: Ain't much task?
Speaker 10: Is it?
Speaker 4: Just to pull me out?
Speaker 11: Of the road so I won't get troubled. I'd do
it for you, wouldn't I Handry.
Speaker 7: Sure you would. Jim here here, hang on to me.
Speaker 11: Give me wrong, No, no, I can wrap on myself.
Speaker 3: Don't touch me.
Speaker 7: Re me be, Jim, where are you going to?
Speaker 11: Where you're going?
Speaker 9: You'd better take your friend out in the way. Boy,
there's a battery coming hell and he whoop down the
road and you'll get runned over.
Speaker 19: He's a gone ann about five minutes, poor fellow.
Speaker 9: You can see that from his face.
Speaker 7: Jim. Don't go so fast, but he walking fast for me.
Speaker 9: Be let me be. I tell you where the Blazers dies.
He get history from Jim.
Speaker 7: Jim, Wait for me.
Speaker 11: What are you saying, Henry, there's a battery coming through.
Speaker 7: Let's get over into the head op into the fields.
Speaker 11: Oh father, he's run autre.
Speaker 3: Come back, Jim, Jim, what are you doing? What makes
you do this way? You hurt yourself?
Speaker 7: Wait up?
Speaker 17: No, no, no, don't touch me. You two fellas stand
away from me.
Speaker 7: Just don't come dear me no more.
Speaker 9: Leave him son, leave him, stand by himself.
Speaker 7: Boy, Jim, I'm sorry for what's happening.
Speaker 9: Just don't no one touch me.
Speaker 4: I'm where I got to be.
Speaker 3: You watch him, standing there, motionless in this open field.
Speaker 7: He holds himself erect.
Speaker 3: His hands cake red and black with blood, hang at
his side.
Speaker 7: He is waiting with patience for something he's come to meet.
He's at the rendezvous. This is the place.
Speaker 11: Leave him be, Jim.
Speaker 7: He stiffens. He stares into the sky.
Speaker 3: His tall figure stretches to its fullest height and swings forward,
slow and straight. He twists his shoulders, strikes the ground.
Speaker 7: Oh no, no, no, go closer.
Speaker 3: Gaze at that pacelike face. The teeth shone a laugh.
The flap of the jacket falls away, and so it's
as though his side were chewed by wolves. Jim turn
out with a sudden, livid rage.
Speaker 7: Flinch your fist and shake it. At the battlefield war.
Speaker 4: The red sun was pasted in the sky like a wafer.
Speaker 7: From Hollywood.
Speaker 1: The NBC University Theater is bringing you, John Agar in
a radio version of The Red Badge of Courage by
Stephen Crane. This play is part of a series devoted
to the classic novels of Anglo American literature. If you
are interested in supplementing your enjoyment of these productions with
home study under college supervision. Be sure to listen to
the announcement at the close of this program. And may
we say at this point that the NBC staff which
prepares and produces these dramas, deals deep thanks and gratification
at the first Place award in the category of Literature
and Arts, presented to the NBC University Theater by the
nineteenth Annual Institute.
Speaker 7: For Education by Radio.
Speaker 1: And may we say at this point that the NBC
staff which prepares and produces these dramas, deals deep thanks
and grati v occasion at the first Place award in
the category of Literature and Arts, presented to the NBC
University Theater by the nineteenth Annual Institute for Education by
Radio at Ohio State University. And now our intermission commentator,
mister Mark van Doren, the noted author and critic speaking
from New York. Here is Mark van Doren.
Speaker 21: The Red Badge of Courage is a modern novel in
that it has no plot and no characters. It has action,
for it deals with the battle, and by the same token,
it is full of men, a few of whom we
see it painfully close range, but as hero, Henry Fleming,
never becomes known to us as more than an obscure
northern boy who has been caught, like thousands of his kind,
in the storm of Civil war. We are not told
where he came from or what his past had been,
just as we are given no vision of his future
after war is done. So with his good friend Wilson,
whose first name we never hear, and so with Jim Conklin,
the tall soldier who takes more time to die that
than any man in his condition should. His side, says
the author, looked as if it had been chewed by wolves.
The author, Stephen Crane, published this book in eighteen ninety five,
when he was twenty four. It had been written still
earlier than that, by a brilliant young man who himself
was to die at thirty. It was the product of
no direct experience with war. Crane had merely heard old
soldiers talk, had read all he could find about the
great battles of thirty years ago, and had studied Tolstoy,
the first novelist whoever presented war entirely in terms of
its confused effect in the minds of individuals. Crane's only
interest is in the successive states of Henry Fleming's consciousness,
his fear that he will be afraid, his being afraid
when the time comes, and all the later forms of
his real or imagined courage. The battle that fills the
book is present to the reader only as it is
present to the hero, in a series of thoughts and impressions,
some of which are like photographs, and some of which
are like modern paintings broken in line and color. The
Red Badge of Courage, then, is not so much a
novel as it is a study of one emotion, terror
in a being neither individualized nor distinguished. Henry Fleming is
a member of the mass, seen with miraculous clarity in
the midst of the only experience modern humanity has in common.
If it was not so clear in eighteen ninety five
that this would be the case, fifty years have proved
Stephen Kraine a prophet. In his masterpiece, he anticipated all
subsequent wars and all subsequent treatments of them. Their true
terror lies in what they do to unknown soldiers like
Henry Fleming. Yet Henry Fleming is not unknown, thanks to
the genius of his creator. Neither, in consequence, are the
Las Lives and deaths of millions like him. They live
and die again in the brilliant, pathetic pages of this
bloodstained book.
Speaker 7: Thank you, mister Van Doren.
Speaker 2: Our radio version of The Red Badge of Courage, starring
John Agar, will continue from Hollywood after a brief pause
for a station identification.
Speaker 4: The red sun was pasted in the sky like a wafer.
Speaker 3: You stand there in the empty battlefields, you and the
tattered soldier, And look where Jim Cockman lies.
Speaker 7: I never saw a handful dead before.
Speaker 9: He was a dandy for nerve. Now wanted a regular
dandy for nerve.
Speaker 7: Yes he was, he was.
Speaker 9: I would look here, boy, he's up and gone, and
we might as well look out for number one. He's
all right here. Nobody won't bother him, I know.
Speaker 19: Besides, I ain't enjoying any.
Speaker 9: Too great help myself right now.
Speaker 7: Oh no, it won't happen, not again, Not to you too, boy.
Speaker 9: Just hold my arm. I'm commencing to feel pretty bad.
Speaker 7: Oh you mustn't.
Speaker 19: I ain't gonna die, no, sir, I can't. Too many
folks depending.
Speaker 9: You ought to see the swaged children that I got
in all like that.
Speaker 7: We better get away. I don't much like it here.
Speaker 9: Help me along, then, young fellow.
Speaker 7: Yeah, come on, we gotta hurry catch you stup along
though fast.
Speaker 9: Don't know who's a kin.
Speaker 19: I'll try, though you you're looking put him peekd yourself,
young fella. I bet you've got a worse one than
you think. Whered They wound your boy?
Speaker 11: Where'd you hurt?
Speaker 7: He ain't know your gol dang business? When I'm hurt,
you just keep moving.
Speaker 19: Oh, don't mean no harm in asking boys, just you
would want to take care of your hat. Don't do
to let such things go might be inside mostly in
them kind place thunder?
Speaker 9: Does it hurt you bad?
Speaker 7: I said? Don't bother me?
Speaker 8: Oh?
Speaker 19: Lord knows, I don't want to bother nobody.
Speaker 9: Got enough hurts some moan to tend to. Was it
your first fight today, boy?
Speaker 8: Yes?
Speaker 7: Come on?
Speaker 9: Was you scared out there in the battle?
Speaker 7: Scared? Of course I wasn't. Why should I be scared?
Speaker 19: And I guess I was in my first battle pretty
well scared. Sometimes there was an awful lot of noise,
you know, I thought the whull sky was falling down.
Speaker 9: You bet I was scared.
Speaker 7: What do you have to tell me that the trouble
was I.
Speaker 9: Thought they was all shooting at me.
Speaker 19: Yes, sir, I thought every man in the other army
was aiming at.
Speaker 9: Me in particular. Of course I got used to it, but.
Speaker 19: First time off I was pretty well scared.
Speaker 3: I ain't got no time to listen to all your
foolishness talking about.
Speaker 7: Your wounds and hurts and being scared.
Speaker 3: You can't walk up faster. I'm going on and leave you.
I'm going by myself.
Speaker 9: No, now, look here, boy, don't do that, young fella.
I can't keep up to you. What ails you, young fellow?
Speaker 7: You ain't going to wait leave me.
Speaker 4: I won't have it.
Speaker 9: You mustn't, you must.
Speaker 7: I'm going you get on better by your nose, stay
with me.
Speaker 9: Stay please, I'm all alone.
Speaker 7: Stop grabbing them asleep yours. I'm getting away in there.
Speaker 11: Please don't go way.
Speaker 18: Come back.
Speaker 3: He's gonna die the way the other day. Better get
away from him. You can't stand to see that happening again.
Speaker 13: Boy, come back, Come by the furnace.
Speaker 2: Roar of battle, whoever louder the roads were crying. Massive wagons,
teams and men here were sweeping them along, cracking whips,
bitten deep, the horses plunged and tongued. The flight was lost,
the army blinded by the overhanging night, stunned and helpless,
back to lick its wools.
Speaker 7: Now you're in the midst of them, in the heedless
throng of the walking, the riding, the running, the limping.
Were you running?
Speaker 8: Why? Why?
Speaker 1: There ain't no reason, kid, The line's broke, field gone crazy?
Speaker 11: Stop?
Speaker 7: Wait, tell me what's happened?
Speaker 11: To get on my way? Boy, don't stand in my way.
Let gold of me.
Speaker 7: Oh, tell me what's happened?
Speaker 14: Tell me, boy, if you don't want me to crack
it with this musket, stand inside it.
Speaker 7: Where's the line? Break?
Speaker 11: Tell me you? Let gold me turn you pouring.
Speaker 3: You're on the ground. Your head is thundering with pain.
It lurks along in the grass, in your hands and knees.
You feel the wet blood on your brow.
Speaker 5: Seemed to be in a bad way, boy, Let me
have your arm.
Speaker 9: Yeah, that's the way on your feet now?
Speaker 7: Yeah, oh I see, ain't wounded?
Speaker 8: Bad?
Speaker 22: Looks like the bullet only graved you, just like somebody
hit you with a club.
Speaker 7: Wounded. Sure, you're a wounded boy.
Speaker 22: Now I'll just get your arm around my neck and
we'll be hicked. Looks like the armies left us way behind.
What regiment you with?
Speaker 7: Fourth New York?
Speaker 23: What's they three hundred and fourth New York? If I
if they got their sheriff fighting too? By dad, I
give myself up for dead. A dozen times they was
just shooting here and a hollering there. Couldn't tell which
side was which. The most mixed up darned thing I
ever seen.
Speaker 7: Easy there, I'm all right. I just slept. How'd you
get way over here?
Speaker 9: Your regiment was fighting in the center. Don't worry, though,
I'll get you back.
Speaker 7: To I don't want to go back. I can't go back.
Speaker 8: You can't go back.
Speaker 7: Why I lost my rifle?
Speaker 4: I lost shucks, boy, they'll get you another.
Speaker 7: You can start all over. No, don't.
Speaker 18: I don't worry, boy, I'll get you back. It takes
me half the night. Hell, there you are, boy, here's
your regiment. See that fire over in the holler. You
think you can make it on your own from here?
Speaker 7: Yeah? I said, sure, I can make it. Yeah, I'll
be heading back.
Speaker 9: I want to find my crowd for midnight.
Speaker 7: If a kin good luck to be a boy. Thanks.
I want to tell you thanks. Goodbye. There's no turning
back now.
Speaker 3: How they will laugh at you, how they will jeer
the runaways come home. Here's Henry Fleming, the celebrated conumd
fired one shot and then ran away.
Speaker 11: Oh oh, who goes there?
Speaker 7: Henry Fleming? Is this the three hundred and fourth Fleming?
Speaker 8: That's you, Henry?
Speaker 3: Hello, Wilson, you won't pick it guard. Yes, it's me, Henry.
Speaker 6: Oh, by Ginger, I'm glad to see you. I give
you up for a gunner. I thought you was dead
for sure.
Speaker 3: I've been all over way over Yonder, terrible fighting over there.
Speaker 8: And you was in it, Henry.
Speaker 7: I got separated from the regiment, but I was fighting.
I've never seen such fighting.
Speaker 3: Gosh, Henry, let me see your head.
Speaker 8: They wounded you.
Speaker 6: Well, there's blood all over you. Why don't you tell
me first? Hold on a minute, we gotta get.
Speaker 7: You tended to. It's Fleming, sir. He's come back and
he's been wounded too.
Speaker 11: Lem Me, I give you up for dead.
Speaker 7: Two hours ago?
Speaker 4: Where was you?
Speaker 7: Way over Yonder? I got separated.
Speaker 15: Half the feller's coming back just skid out on when
they heard the guns. But I can see you've been
fighting fleming.
Speaker 7: Does it hurt like thunder?
Speaker 8: Henry?
Speaker 7: Sure it hurts, hurts the plenty Wilson. You're relieved.
Speaker 15: You take him back and see his wound is dressed
and put him to sleep in a blanket. I'm glad
to see we got one fighter in the outfit.
Speaker 7: Here, Henry.
Speaker 6: Let me straightened that bandage. The ball just grazed you
raised a queer lump. But it must have stopped late
a long time ago.
Speaker 7: It did. Sure does hurt, though. How's the bandage now?
Feel good?
Speaker 6: Sure in the morning you'll most likely feel that a
number ten hat won't fit you.
Speaker 3: Eh.
Speaker 7: Sure, good to be back with my own regiment again.
You just rest easy now, Henry.
Speaker 6: You've been as brave as anyone, and you need to
get some rest.
Speaker 7: Thank you, Wilson, forget it.
Speaker 6: I know I'm clumsy like a blacksmith when it comes
to taking care of sick folks, and you never squeaked once.
Speaker 7: You're plenty brave, Henry.
Speaker 6: Most soldiers would have went to the hospital and never
come back at all.
Speaker 7: Not me. I brought you my canteen full of coffee.
Speaker 8: Just drink it all up if you like. Here. Now
get over by the fire blanket. It'll keep out the cold.
Speaker 7: I reckon, hold on, where are you going to sleep?
I got your blanket? What are you gonna use?
Speaker 6: I'll be right here. I shut up and go to sleep.
I'll be making a fool of yourself. You need it
more than I do.
Speaker 3: The campfires gleam rose and orange life, and all about you,
the soldiers lying deathlike slowly. The fire crackles like music,
and you feel warm and good. The last sound that
you can hear is the far off calling of a dog,
a lonely sound. You lie there, half asleep, half dreaming.
Speaker 10: I don't want you to ever do anything, Henry that
you'd be ashamed to tell me.
Speaker 8: Just think as if I was a watching you.
Speaker 10: If you keep that in your mind always, I guess
you'll come out about right.
Speaker 9: I don't know what else to say to you.
Speaker 7: Sound whole lot of the boys started to run.
Speaker 5: I suppose i'd run, and once I started, I'd run
like the devil. But if everybody was a standing and
a fighting, I'd stand and fight.
Speaker 7: I'd bet I would scared, and.
Speaker 6: I can't help it. I wouldn't tell that to him everyone,
but I'm scared.
Speaker 9: My first battle there was an awful lot of noise.
You know, I thought the sky was falling down. I
thought the whole world was coming to an end. Oh,
I was scared.
Speaker 8: All right.
Speaker 10: Don't do a thing you'd ever be ashamed of.
Speaker 3: Son.
Speaker 8: Don't come near me. Don't touch me.
Speaker 9: I don't want you to touch me. Where you wounded?
Speaker 15: Boy?
Speaker 9: Does it hurt you bad? Where are you wounded?
Speaker 11: Come Bart, come bear?
Speaker 7: Oh please, I didn't mean to run away.
Speaker 6: No, no, no, Henry, Henry, wake up. Oh you've been
having bad dreams.
Speaker 8: Boy.
Speaker 7: Just take it easy, Just get some rest.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you, Wilson. You're a good fellow. You're a dandy.
Oh I didn't tell you, did I Jim Conklin's dead.
I seen him die? I forgot to say. Is he
Jim Conklin? I see him shot in the side. He
was you don't say, Jim poor cuss? Yeah? Uh, Henry, Yeah, I.
Speaker 6: Guess you might as well give me back the packet
and letters and things I gave you to keep for me.
Speaker 3: To send my folks. Oh, well, sure they're here in
my pocket.
Speaker 8: Here.
Speaker 7: Thanks, Henny. That's all right.
Speaker 8: Wow, good night, Well and the old man.
Speaker 7: How you feel it's morning? Pretty bad? My head feels
like swoll up like a melon. I was hoping you'd
feel better. Oh, I feel better, all right.
Speaker 3: Thanks for everything you did for me, Willis, I want
nothing here.
Speaker 7: I brought you some breakfast. Thanks, say thanks. There's a
battle going on.
Speaker 6: I guess m over beyond the hill. He'll probably send
us up there soon enough. What do you think our
chances are, Henry? I think we can wallop him, don't you.
Speaker 7: I don't know. I hope so, Henry.
Speaker 3: She'd assure have changed. You know, a week ago, you'd
have been bragging it. You could have licked him by yourself.
I guess I was a pretty big fool.
Speaker 8: Back in them days.
Speaker 7: It was just last week.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Henry, I've changed since then.
Speaker 7: I guess you'd have offered to take on the whole
kitten ker buddle. The war can teach him on a
lot of things.
Speaker 8: Here.
Speaker 6: Let me fix that bandage. It's slipped down all around
your ears. Yep, I was a pretty big fool.
Speaker 7: Hey, God, start it go slow. He acted like you
was nailing down a carpet.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm sorry, Henry, look good. Don't don't mind my hollering.
You're you're a real good friend.
Speaker 6: We'll show him today, won't we, Henry. We'll give them blazes.
Let's go fill up our canteens down to the brook,
all right, they say we got them rebels in a
pretty tight box. We got them just about where we
want them, that's what they say.
Speaker 7: Well we handled them rough enough yesterday, and that's for sure. Oh,
we'll give them blazes. Wait and see water, sure taste good.
M Fill up your canteen, henry'd be your last chance.
Speaker 11: Today, can't bridget Yes, sir?
Speaker 9: Who's that?
Speaker 7: It's the old general itself? Can't see you, skinny reckon?
Speaker 5: Not Yes, General, The enemy have taken up positions in
the river grove.
Speaker 7: I've got to drive them out of here. What troops
can you spare?
Speaker 16: I've had to order in the twelfth I really haven't any,
but there's a.
Speaker 11: Three hundred and fourth.
Speaker 8: Hey, that's us.
Speaker 16: They're the green Horn Regiment forest off that I got.
Fight like a bunch of mule drivers. But I'll send
them in if you say.
Speaker 7: So, sir, get ready, then i'll give you word when
the start.
Speaker 11: Yes, sir, Colonel, I don't.
Speaker 5: Believe many of your mule drivers will get back alive,
but we'll do what we can to support them.
Speaker 7: Mule drivers?
Speaker 11: Are we.
Speaker 14: I mean, Wilson, We're the w bent Do you kept
the whole regiment? Wait, we're gonna charge. We're gonna charge,
sure shooting, I can't at lyon. We heard him give
the order? Who the old general is?
Speaker 11: Such right?
Speaker 7: Your Russell?
Speaker 3: And the colonel says, we was a bunch of mule
The general, he says, send them.
Speaker 11: Lordy, we'll all be swallowing out. Come on, man, all in,
we're gonna march.
Speaker 2: The regiment marched to a line of rifle pits along
the line of woods. Before them was a level of
spent your field, And from the woods beyond they heard
the popping of the skirmishes. The day had grown wall
white until now the sun shed its radiance upon the trees.
The men waited and rolled their eyes toward the impending battle.
Speaker 7: When the signal comes, my ball, You're gonna charge this time.
You'll show them you mean business. You'll show them.
Speaker 3: You're not afraid. Don't run, don't flinch. Whatever happens. This
is a war. A patch of grass no bigger than
your yard at home, A little clump of trees where
men are hiding a flag that flutters in the wind.
That is the object of the game. To get that flag.
Tear it down and you'll be a hero.
Speaker 11: Now ready.
Speaker 2: The trees quivered with the firing. The ground shook from
the rushing of the men. Sunlight made bright twinklings of
a steel. Bullets buzzed and spanged into the tree trunks.
Speaker 22: With your knock here up the.
Speaker 11: Open, you all get killed.
Speaker 22: Cod with them.
Speaker 11: We gotta get a quick patch of grass.
Speaker 6: All the way pod Let.
Speaker 11: Me go lagging there, Flenny, what's the matter with you?
Speaker 9: Help me? Coward?
Speaker 11: Boys? Come on yourself.
Speaker 3: There their head flashing through the drift of smoke. You
see there flying the banner of the enemy. Seize it, Henry,
you'll almost rip it down.
Speaker 7: It's mine, it's mine.
Speaker 8: I'll get it.
Speaker 3: Plunge forward, clutch it, fling it, wretch it free.
Speaker 7: The color sergeant falls and turns this dead face to
the ground.
Speaker 6: I got it.
Speaker 9: Hi got it?
Speaker 11: Boys. Look, we licked a man. Don't you know enough
to quit? But there ain't nothing to shoot at. I'm
here's a fighter writing out all right.
Speaker 7: Henry, Oh, I feel fine. Nothing the matter is they
shooting in the air like that?
Speaker 11: By heaven?
Speaker 15: If I had a dozen wildcats like young Fleming here,
I could try to stomach out of this war in
less than a week.
Speaker 7: By thunder. I bet this army'll never see another regiment
like us. You bet.
Speaker 11: Hey, Look who's there. It's the Colonel Feller. Look good work,
mister Hasbrook Thank you, sir. I never thought you could
do it, that's sir.
Speaker 15: Anybody that says my boys ain't good fighters, it's just
a plain fool.
Speaker 7: That's true.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 11: By the way, who is the lad that got their flag?
That's Flumming, sir. And he's at Jim Hickey.
Speaker 8: You're that, Henry.
Speaker 7: You're a Jim Hickey o coy.
Speaker 16: Yes, mister Hesbrookie is indeed the very good man to have.
I saw him take that flag, Yes, sir, you.
Speaker 15: Bet he and a fellow named Wilson was at the
head of the charge and howling like Indians all the time.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's Wilson.
Speaker 11: Were they indeed at the head of the regiment.
Speaker 1: Eh?
Speaker 16: Well, those two babies they deserve to be major general, Yes, sir, Yes,
they deserved to be major general.
Speaker 3: H Henry, you can write that to your mah coy.
Speaker 7: Get along, you fellas.
Speaker 2: The enemy had fallen back. The battle was all over now.
The orders came for the Blue Coats to retrace their
steps the way they'd come that afternoon, and it rained,
and the procession of victorious soldiers soon became a draggle train,
despondent and muttering, marching with churning effort through thick black
MUDs beneath an ugly sky.
Speaker 7: What are they marching us over this way?
Speaker 8: First?
Speaker 7: If you ask me, I'd say, what's going down here?
Speaker 11: Aways? Swing around? Is coming to hand?
Speaker 13: Oh?
Speaker 8: What do you know about it?
Speaker 7: Telling me we're coming around in behind him? Well, it's over,
ain't it, Henry?
Speaker 8: For a while?
Speaker 7: Yep, it's over. You're being mighty quiet boy? What are
you thinking about it?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 20: Oh nothing, God, dang it. I could have to rain
today for anyhow, rain sheep. But you don't mind the rain,
do you, Henry Fleming? Your shame is gone and your fear,
and that's the thing that counts. You feel a sense
of quiet manhood, of strong and sturdy blood that's flowing
in your veins. You know that you won't flinch again, however,
run from danger.
Speaker 3: You've been out to touch the great death and found that,
after all, it is but death.
Speaker 7: You were a boy, you have become a man.
Speaker 2: Over the river, a splash of yellow sun came through
the leaden clouds.
Speaker 1: You have been listening to The Red Badge of Courage.
An NBC University Theater production of the Stephen Crane novel
starring John Agar as Henry Fleming next week. At the
same time, we will bring you another classic of Nglo
American literature, The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. The
present semester of the NBC University Theater is devoted to
the classics of Anglo American literature from the time of
Henry Fielding to that of Henry James. If you wish,
you may learn more about these authors and their works
by enrolling in the college supervised courses now being offered
in connection with the NBC University Theater. The University of
Tulsa in Oklahoma, Washington State College, and Kansas State Teachers
College have now completed their plans for offering such a
course in the coming months, thus joining the University of Louisville,
whose established home study plan is already serving listeners in
another area of the nation. For information, then as to
how you may enhance your knowledge through these courses right
to NBC University Theater in care of the University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky,
Washington State College, Pullman, Washington, the University of Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma,
or Kansas State Teachers College, Pittsburgh, Kansas. The Red Badge
of Courage was adapted for radio by Brainerd Duffield and
Emerson Crocker. Our intermission commentator was Mark van Doren, starred
as Henry Fleming was John Agar, who appeared to the
courtesy of David o' selznick, producer of Portrait of Jenny,
starring Jennifer Jones and Joseph Cotton. Our cast included Ted
vonn Els, narrator, John Dayner, William Lally, Nourene Gamill, Lee Millar, Jack,
Lloyd Frank Gersta, Tom Charlesworth, Harley Bear You're announcer Don Stanley.
The original musical score was composed and conducted by doctor
Albert Harris.
Speaker 7: The director of the NBC University Theater is Andrew C.
Speaker 20: Love.
Speaker 7: Next Week Be with Us Again the NBC.
Speaker 1: University Theater dramatization of Joseph Conrad's in Throwing short story
The Heart of Darkness starring Brian Heard. This program came
to you from Hollywood. This is NBC, the National broadcasting Company.
Speaker 3: Oh