Member-only story
A Son of the Gods
by Ambrose Bierce (1888)
Reading “A Son of the Gods” becomes especially poignant if you know that its author, Abrose Bierce, was himself a teenage soldier in the American Civil War.
A breezy day and a sunny landscape. An open country to right and left and forward; behind, a forest.
In the edge of this forest, facing the open but not venturing into it, long lines of troops halted. The forest is alive with them, and full of confused noises: the occasional rattle of wheels as a battery of artillery goes into position to cover the advance; the hum and murmur of the soldiers talking; a sound of innumerable feet in the dry leaves that strew the interspaces among the trees; hoarse commands of officers.
Detached groups of horsemen are up in front — not altogether exposed — many of them intently observing the crest of a hill a mile away in the direction of the halted advance; because this powerful army moving in battle-order through the woods has met with a formidable obstacle — the open country. The crest of that gentle hill a mile away has a sinister look; it says, Watch out!
A stone wall cuts across it, extending to the left and right a great distance. Behind the wall is a hedge; behind the hedge are seen the ragged tops of trees. Among the trees — what? It is necessary to know.
