An army lieutenant concentrates on rationing out his company's supply of coffee, meticulously dividing the brown squares before him, when a shot rings out. The enlisted men, startled by the noise, suddenly see blood saturating their lieutenant's sleeve. In pain, the wounded officer sways, winces in disbelief, mutely surveys the forest, and tries instinctively and clumsily to sheathe the sword that he has been using to count out the coffee packets. His mind swirls with mysterious revelations about existence and the meaning of life. 

Stephen Crane (November 1, 1871 – June 5, 1900) was an American novelist, poet and journalist. He was born in Newark, NJ.  Crane is noted for his early employment of naturalism, a literary style in which characters face realistically portrayed and often bleak circumstances, but Crane added impressionistic imagery and biblical symbolism to the austere realism.