Books: The Red Acorn
J >>
John McElroy >> The Red Acorn
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 | 5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19
He laughed heartily at his own sarcasm, but Abe was not to be moved
by such frivolity, and answered glumly:
"O, yes; laugh about it, if you choose. That's your way: giggle
over everything. But when I play background, I want it to be with
something worth while in the foreground. I don't hanker after
making myself a foil to show off such fellers as our officers are,
to good advantage."
"That don't bother me any more than it does a mountain to serve as
a background for a nanny goat and a pair of sore-eyed mules!"
"Yes, but the mountain sometimes has an opportunity to drop an
avalanche on 'em."
At this point of the discussion they arrived at the company grounds,
and had scarcely time to snatch up their guns and don their belts
before the company moved out to take its place in the regimental
line.
The occasion of Lieutenant Alspaugh's elaborate personal ornamentation
now manifested itself. By reason of Captain Bennett's absence,
he was in command of the company, and was about to make his first
appearance on parade in that capacity. Two or three young women,
of the hollyhock order of beauty, whom he was very anxious to
impress, had been brought to camp, to witness his apotheosis into
a commanding officer.
The moment, however, that he placed himself at the head of the company
and drew sword, the chill breath of distrust sent the mercury of
his self-confidence down to zero. It looked so easy to command
a company when some one else was doing it; it was hard when he
tried it himself. All the imps of confusion held high revel in
his mind when he attempted to give the orders which he had conned
until he supposed he had them "dead-letter perfect." he felt his
usually-unfailing assurance shrivel up under the gaze of hundreds
of mercilessly critical eyes. He managed to stammer out:
"ATTENTION, COMPANY! FORWARD, FILE RIGHT, MARCH!"
But as the company began to execute the order, it seemed to be
going just the opposite to what he had commanded, and he called
out excitedly:
"Not that way! Not that way! I said 'file right,' and you're
going left."
"We are filing right," answered some in the company. "You're turned
around; that's what's the matter with you."
So it was. He had forgotten that when standing facing the men, he
must give them orders in reverse from what the movement appeared to
him. This increased his confusion, until all his drill knowledge
seemed gone from him. The sight of his young lady friends, clad
in masses of primary colors, stimulated him to a strong effort to
recover his audacity, and bracing himself up, he began calling out
the guide and step, with a noisy confidence that made him heard
all over the parade ground:
"Left! left! left! Hep! hep! hep! Cast them head and eyes to the
right!"
Trouble loomed up mountainously as he approached the line.
Putting a company into its place on parade is one of the crucial
tests of tactical proficiency. To march a company to exactly the
right spot, with every man keeping his proper distance from his
file-leader--"twenty-eight inches from back to breast," clear down
the column, so that when the order "front" was given, every one
turns, as if on pivot, and touches elbows with those on each side
of him, in a straight, firm wall of men, without any shambling "closing
up," or "side-stepping" to the right or left,--to do all this at
word of command, looks very simple and easy to the non-military
spectator, as many other very difficult things look simple and easy
to the inexperienced. But really it is only possible to a thoroughly
drilled company, held well in hand by a competent commander. It
is something that, if done well, is simply done well, but if not
done well, is very bad. It is like an egg that is either good or
utterly worthless.
Alspaugh seemed fated to exhaust the category of possible mistakes.
Coming on the ground late he found that a gap had been left in the
line for his company which was only barely sufficient to receive
it when it was aligned and compactly "dressed."
In his nervousness he halted the company before it had reached the
right of the gap by ten paces, and so left about one-quarter of the
company lapping over on the one to his left. Even this was done
with an unsightly jumble. His confusion as to the reversal of right
and left still abode with him. He commanded "right face" instead
of "front," and was amazed to see the whole one hundred well-drilled
men whirl their backs around to the regiment and the commanding
officer. A laugh rippled down the ranks of the other companies;
even the spectators smiled, and something sounded like swearing by
the Adjutant and Sergeant-Major.
Alspaugh lifted his plumed hat, and wiped the beaded perspiration
from his brow with the back of one of the yellow gauntlets.
"Order an 'about face,'" whispered the Orderly-Sergeant, whose
face was burning with shame at the awkward position in which the
company found itself.
"ABOUT--FACE!" gasped Alspaugh.
The men turned on their heels.
"Side-step to the right," whispered the Orderly.
"Side-step to the right," repeated Alspaugh, mechanically.
The men took short side-steps, and following the orders which
Alspaugh repeated from the whispered suggestions of the Orderly,
the company came clumsily forward into its place, "dressed," and
"opened ranks to the rear." When at the command of "parade-rest,"
Alspaugh dropped his saber's point to the ground, he did it with
the crushed feeling of a strutting cock which has been flung into
the pond and emerges with dripping feathers.
He raised his heart in sincere thanksgiving that he was at last
through, for there was nothing more for him to do during the parade,
except to stand still, and at its conclusion the Orderly would have
to march the company back to its quarters.
But his woes had still another chapter. The Inspector-General had
come to camp to inspect the regiment, and he was on the ground.
Forty years of service in the regular army, with promotion averaging
one grade every ten years, making him an old man and a grandfather
before he was a Lieutenant-Colonel, had so surcharged Col. Murbank's
nature with bitterness as to make even the very air in his vicinity
seem roughly astringent. The wicked young Lieutenants who served
with him on the Plains used to say that his bark was worse than
his bite, because no reasonable bite could ever be so bad as his
bark. They even suggested calling him "Peruvian Bark," because a
visit to his quarters was worse than a strong does of quinia.
"Yeth, that'th good," said the lisping wit of the crowd. "Evely
bite ith a bit, ain't it? And the wortht mutht be a bitter, ath
he ith."
The Colonel believed tha the whole duty of man consisted in loving
the army regulations, and in keeping their commandments. The best
part of all virtue was to observe them to the letter; the most
abhorrent form of vice, to violate or disregard even their minor
precepts.
His feelings were continually lacerated by contact with volunteers,
who cared next to nothing for the FORM of war-making, but everything
for its spirit, and the martinet heart within him was bruised and
sore when he came upon the ground to inspect the regiment.
Alspaugh's blundering in bringing the company into line awakened
this ire from a passivity to activity.
"I'll have that dunderhead's shoulder-straps off inside of a
fortnight," he muttered between his teeth.
The unhappy Lietenant's inability to even stand properly during the
parade, or repeat an order intensified his rage. When the parade
was dismissed the officers, as usual, sheathed their swords, and
forming a line with the Adjutant in the center, marched forward
to teh commanding and inspecting officers, and saluted. Then the
wrath of the old Inspector became vocable.
"What in God's name," he roared, fixing his glance upon Alspaugh
so unmistakably that enve the latter's rainbow-clad girls, who had
crowded up closely, could not make a mistake as to the victim of
the expletives. "What in God's name, sir," repeated the old fellow
with purpling face, "do you mean by bringing your company on to the
ground in that absurd way, sir? Did you think, sir, that it was a
hod of brick--with which I have no doubt you are most familiar--that
you could dump down any place and any how, sir? Such misconduct
is simply disgraceful, sir, I'd have you know. Simply disgraceful,
sir."
He paused for breath, but Alspaugh had no word of defense to offer.
"And what do you mean, sir," resumed the Inspector, after inflating
his lungs for another gust, "what in the name of all the piebald
circus clowns that ever jiggered around on sawdust, do you mean
by coming on parade dressed like the ringmaster of a traveling
monkey-show, sir? Haven't you any more idea of the honor of wearing
a United States sword--the noblest weapon on earth, sir--than to
make yourself look like the drum-major of a band of nigger minstrels,
sir! A United States officer ought to be ashamed to make a damned
harlequin of himself, sir. I'd have you to understand that most
distinctly, sir!"
The Inspector's stock of breath, alas, was not so ample as in the
far-off days when his sturdy shoulders bore the modest single-bar,
instead of the proud spread eagle of the present. Even had it been,
the explosive energy of his speech would have speedily exhausted
it. Compelled to stop to pump in a fresh supply, the Colonel of
the regiment took advantage of the pause to whisper in his ear:
"Don't be too rough on him, please. He's a good man but green.
Promoted from the ranks for courage in action. First appearance
on parade. He'll do better if given a chance."
The Inspector's anger was mollified. Addressing himself to all
the officers, he continued in a milder tone:
"Gentlemen, you seem to be making progress in acquiring a knowledge
of your duties, though you have a world of things yet to learn.
I shall say so in my report to the General. You can go to your
quarters."
The line of officers dissolved, and the spectators began to melt
away. Alspaugh's assurance rose buoyantly the moment that the
pressure was removed. He raised his eyes from the ground, and
looked for the young ladies. They had turned their backs and were
leaving the ground. He hastened after them, fabricating as he
walked an explanation, based on personal jealousy, of the Inspector's
treatment of him. He was within a step of overtaking them when he
heard one say, with toss of flaunting ribbons, and hoidenish giggle:
"Did you EVER see ANY-body wilt as Alspaugh did when old
Bite-Your-Head-Off-In-a-Minute was jawing him? It was so awfully
FUNNY that I just thought I SHOULD DIE."
The sentence ended with the picturesque rapid CRESCENDO employed
by maidens of her type in describing a convulsive experience.
"Just didn't he," joined in another. "I never saw ANY-thing so
funny in all my BORN DAYS. I was AFRAID to look at either one of
YOU; I knew if I DID I would BURST RIGHT OUT laughing. I couldn't've
HELPED it--I know I COULDN'T, if I'd'a knowed I'd'a DIED the next
MINUTE."
"This would seem to be a pretty good time to drop the fellow,"
added the third girl, reflectively.
Alspaugh turned and went in another direction. At the 9 o'clock
roll-call he informed the company that the Inspector was well
pleased with its appearance on parade.
Chapter VIII. The Tedium of Camp.
And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding. --Henry V.
To really enjoy life in a Camp of Instruction requires a peculiar
cast of mind. It requires a genuine liking for a tread-mill round
of merely mechanical duties; it requiers a taste for rising in the
chill and cheerless dawn, at the unwelcome summons of "reveille,"
to a long day filled with a tiresome routine of laborious drills
alternating with tedious roll-calls, and wearisome parades and
inspections; it requires pleased contentment with walks continually
cut short by the camp-guard, and with amusements limited to rough
horse-play on the parade-ground, and dull games of cards by sputtering
candles in the tent.
As these be tastes and preferences notably absent from the mind of
the average young man, our volunteers usually regard their experience
in Camp of Instruction as among the most unpleasant of their war
memories.
These were the trials that tested Harry Glen's resolution sorely.
When he enlisted with the intention of redeeming himself, he
naturally expected that the opportunity he desired would be given
by a prompt march to the field, and a speedy entrance into an
engagement. He nerved himself strenuously for the dredful ordeal of
battle, but this became a continually receding point. The bitter
defeat at Bull Run was bearing fruit in months of painstaking
preparation before venturing upon another collision.
Day by day he saw the chance of retrieving his reputation
apparently more remote. Meanwhile discouragements and annoyances
grew continually more plentiful and irksome. He painfully learned
that the most disagreeable part of war is not the trial of battle,
but the daily sacrifices of personal liberty, tastes, feelings and
conveniences involved in camp-life, and in the reduction of one's
cherished individuality to the dead-level of a passive, obedient,
will-less private soldier.
"I do wish the regiment would get orders to move!" said almost hourly
each one of a half-million impatient youths fretting in Camps of
Instruction through the long Summer of 1861.
"I do wish the regiment would get orders to move!" said Harry Glen
angrily one evening, on coming into the Surgeon's tent to have his
blistered hands dressed. he had been on fatigue duty during the
day, and the Fatigue-Squad had had an obstinate struggle with an
old oak stump, which disfigured the parade-ground, and resisted
removal like an Irish tenant.
"I am willing--yes, I can say I am anxious, even--to go into battle,"
he continued, while Dr. Paul Denslow laid plasters of simple cerate
on the abraded palms, and then swathed them in bandages. "Anything
is preferable to this chopping tough stumps with a dull ax, and
drilling six hours a day while the thermometer hangs around the
nineties."
"I admit that there are things which would seem pleasanter to a young
man of your temperament and previous habits," said the Surgeon,
kindly. "Shift over into that arm-stool, which you will find easier,
and reat a little while. Julius, bring in that box of cigars."
While Julius, who resembled his illustrious namesake as little
in celerity of movement as he did in complexion, was coming, the
Surgeon prepared a paper, which he presented to Harry, saying:
"There, that'll keep you off duty to-morrow. After that, we'll
see what can be done."
Julius arrived with the cigars as tardily as if he had had to cross
a Rubicon in the back room. Two were lighted, and the Surgeon
settled himself for a chat.
"Have you become tired of soldier-life?" asked he, studying Harry's
face for the effect of the question.
"I can not say that I have become tired of it," said Harry, frankly,
"because I must admit that I never had the slightest inclination
to it. I had less fancy for becoming a soldier than for any other
honorable pursuit that you could mention."
"Then you only joined the army--"
"From a sense of duty merely," said Harry, knocking the ashes from
his cigar.
"And the physical and other discomforts now begin to weight nearly
as much as that sense of duty?"
"Not at all. It only seems to me that there are more of them than
are absolutely essential to the performance of that duty. I want
to be of service to the country, but I would prefer that that
service be not made unnecessarily onerous."
"Quite natural; quite natural."
"For example, how have the fatigues and pains of my afternoon's
chopping contributed a particle toward the suppression of the
rebellion? What have my blistered hands to do with the hurts of
actual conflict?"
"Let us admit that the connection is somewhat obscure," said Doctor
Denslow, philosophically.
"It is easier for you, than for me, to view the matter calmly. Your
hands are unhurt. I am the galled jade whose withers are wrung."
"Body and spirit both bruised?" said the Surgeon, half reflectively.
Harry colored. "Yes," he said, rather defiantly. "In addition to
desiring to serve my country, I want to vindicate my manhood from
some aspersions which have been cast upon it."
"Quite a fair showing of motives. Better, perhaps, than usual,
when a careful weighing of the relative proportions of self-esteem,
self-interest and higher impulses is made."
"I am free to say that the discouragements I have met with are very
different, and perhaps much greater than I contemplated. Nor can
I bring myself to belived tha they are necessary. I am trying to
be entirely willing to peril life and limb on the field of battle,
but instead of placing me where I can do this, and allowing me to
concentrate all my energies upon that object, I am kept for months
chafing under the petty tyrannies of a bullying officer, and
deprived of most of the comforts that I have heretofore regarded
as necessary to my existence. What good can be accomplished by
diverting forces which should be devoted to the main struggle into
this ignoble channel? That's what puzzles and irritates me."
"It seems to be one of the inseperable conditions of the higher
forms of achievement that they require vastly more preparation for
them than the labor of doing them."
"That's no doubt very philosophical, but it's not satisfactory,
for all that."
"My dear boy, learn this grand truth now: That philosophy is never
satisfactory; it is only mitigatory. It consists mainly in saying
with many fine words: 'What can't be cured must be endured.'"
"I presume that is so. I wish, though, that by the mere syaing
so, I could make the endurance easier."
"I can make your lot in the service easier."
"Indeed! how so?"
"By having you appointed my Hospital Steward. I have not secured
one yet, and the man who is acting as such is so intemperate that
I feel a fresh sense of escape with every day that passes without
his mistaking the oxalic axid for Epsom salts, to the destruction
of some earnest but constipated young patriot's whole digestive
viscera.
"If you accept this position," continued the Surgeon, flinging away
his refractory cigar in disgust, and rising to get a fresh one,
"you will have the best rank and pay of any non-commissioned officer
in the regiment; better, ineed, than that of a Second Lieutenant.
You will have your quarters here with me, and be compelled
to associate with no one but me, thus reducing your disagreeable
companions at a single stroke, to one. And you will escape finally
from all subserviency to Lieutenant Alspaugh, or indeed to any
other officer in the regiment, except your humble servant. As to
food, you will mess with me."
"Those are certainly very strong inducements," said Harry, meditating
upon the delightfulness of relief from the myriad of rasping little
annoyances which rendered every day of camp-life an infliction.
"Yes, and still farther, you will never need to go under fire, or
expose yourself to danger of any kind, unless you choose to."
Harry's face crimsoned to the hue of the western sky where the sun
was just going down. He started to answer hotly, but an understanding
of the Surgeon's evident kindness and sincerity interposed to deter
him. He knew there was no shaft of sarcasm hidden below this plain
speech, and after a moment's consideration he replied:
"I am very grateful, I assure you, for your kindness in this
matter. I am strongly tempted to accept your offer, bu there are
still stronger reasons why I should decline it."
"May I ask your reasons?"
"My reasons for not accepting the appointment?"
"Yes, the reasons which impel you to prefer a dinner of bitter
herbs, under Mr. Alspaugh's usually soiled thumb, to a stalled ox
and my profitable society," said the Surgeon, gayly.
Harry hesitated a moment, and then decided to speak frankly. "Yes,"
he said, "your kindness gives you the right to know. To not tell
you would show a lack of gratitude. I made a painful blunder before
in not staying unflinchingly with my company. The more I think of
it, the more I regret it, and the more I am decided not to repeat
it, but abide with my comrades and share their fate in all things.
I feel that I no longer have a choice in the matter; I must do it.
But there goes the drum for roll-call. I must go. Good evening,
and very many thanks."
"The young fellow's no callow milksop, after all," said the Surgeon
Denslow, as his eyes followed Harry's retreating form. "His gristle
is hardening into something like his stern old father's backbone."
Chapter IX. On the March.
"He smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the Captains and the shouting."
-- Job.
The weary weeks in Camp of Instruction ended with the Summer.
September had come, and Nature was hanging out crimson battle-flags
every-where--on the swaying poppy and the heavy-odored geranium.
The sumach and the sassafras wore crimson signals of defiance, and
the maples blazed with the gaudy red, yellow and orange of warlike
pomp.
The regiment made its first step on Kentucky soil with a little bit
of pardonable ostentation. Every one looked upon it as the real
beginning of its military career. When the transport was securely
tied up at the wharf, the Colonel mounted his horse, drew his sword,
placed himself at the head of the regiment, and gave the command
"Forward." Eleven hundred superb young fellows, marching four
abrest, with bayonets fixed, and muskets at "right shoulder shift,"
strode up the bank after him and went into line of battle at the
top, where he made a short soldierly speech, the drums rolled, the
colors dipped, the men cheered, and the band played "Star-spangled
Banner" and "Dixie."
Three years later the two hundred survivors of this number
returning from their "Veteran furlough," without a band and with
their tattered colors carefully cased, came off a transport at the
same place, without uttering a word other than a little grumbling
at the trouble of disposing of some baggage, marched swiftly and
silently up the bank, and disappeared before any one fairly realized
that they were there. So much had Time and War taught them.
"Now our work may be said to be fairly begun." said the Colonel,
turning from the contemplation of his regiment, and scanning
anxiously the tops of the distant line of encircling hills, as if
he expected to see there signs of the Rebels in strong force. All
the rest imitated his example, and studied the horizon solicitously.
"And I expect we shall have plenty of it!" continued the Colonel.
"No doubt of that," answered the Major. "They say the Rebels are
filling Kentucky with troops, and gonig to fight for every foot of
the Old Dark and Bloody Ground. I think we will have to earn all
we get of it."
"To-day's papers report," joined in Surgeon Denslow, "that General
sherman says it will take two hundred thousand troops to redeem
Kentucky."
"Yes," broke in the Colonel testily, "and the same papers agree in
pronouncing Sherman crazy. But no matter how many or how few it
takes, that's none of our affair. We've got eleven hundred good
men in ranks, and we're going to do all that eleven hundred good
men can do. God Almighty and Abe Lincoln have got to take care of
the rest."
It will be seen that the Colonel was a very practical soldier.
"First think we know, the Colonel will be trying to make us 'leven
hundred clean out 'leven thousand Rebs," growled Abe Bolton.
"Suppose the Colonel should imagine himself another Leonidas,
and us his Spartan band, and want us to die around him, and start
another Thermopylae down her in the mountains, some place," suggested
Kent Edwards, "you would cheerfully pass in your checks along with
the rest, so as to make the thing an entire success, wouldn't you?"
"The day I'm sent below, I'll take a pile of Rebs along to keep me
company," answered Abe, surlily.
Glen, standing in the rear of his company in his place as file-closer,
listened to these words, and saw in the dim distance and on the
darkling heights the throngs of fierce enemies and avalanches of
impeding dangers as are likely to oppress the imagination of a young
soldier at such unfavorable moments. The conflict and carnage seemed
so imminent that he half expected it to begin that very night, and
he stiffened his sinews for the shock.
Lieutenant Alspaugh also heard, studied over the unwelcome
possibilities shrouded in the gathering gloom of the distance, and
regretted that he had not, before crossing the Ohio, called the
Surgeon's attention to some premonitory symptoms of rheumatism,
which he felt he might desire to develop into an acute attack in
the event of danger assuming an unpleasant proximity.
But as no Rebels appeared on the sweeping semi-circle of hills that
shut in Convington on the south, he concluded to hold his disability
in abeyance, by a strong effort of the will, until the regiment
had penetrated farther into the enemy's country.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 | 5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19