CAROLINE MITFORD WRITES A DESPATCH
The War Department Telegraph Office had once been a handsome apartment,
one of those old-fashioned, heavily corniced, marble-manteled,
low-windowed, double-doored rooms in a public building. It was now in a
state of extreme dilapidation, the neglected and forlorn condition
somehow being significant of the moribund Confederacy in which
practically everything was either dead or dying but the men and women.
A large double door in one corner gave entrance to a corridor. The doors
were of handsome mahogany, but they had been kicked and battered until
varnish and polish had both disappeared and they looked as dilapidated
as the cob-webbed corners and the broken mouldings. On the other side of
the room, three long French windows gave entrance to a shallow balcony
of cast iron fantastically moulded, which hung against the outer wall.
Beyond this the observer peering through the dusty panes could discern
the large white pillars of the huge porch which overhung the front of
the building. Further away beyond the shadow of the porch were visible
the lights of the sleeping town, seen dimly in the bright moonlight.
The handsome furniture which the room had probably once contained, had
been long since displaced by the rude telegraph equipment and the heavy
plaster cornices and mouldings were sadly marred by telegraph wires
which ran down the walls to the tables, rough pine affairs, which
carried the instruments. There were two of these tables, each with a
telegraph key at either end. One of them stood near the centre of the
room, and the other some distance away was backed up against the fine
old marble mantel, chipped, battered, ruined like the rest of the room.
For the rest, the apartment contained a desk, shelves with the batteries
on them, and half a dozen chairs of the commonest and cheapest variety.
The floor was bare, dusty, and tobacco stained. The sole remnant of the
ancient glory of the room was a large handsome old clock on the wall
above the mantel, the hands of which pointed to the hour of ten.
But if the room itself was in a dingy and even dirty condition, the
occupants were very much alive. One young man, Lieutenant Allison, sat
at the table under the clock, and another, Lieutenant Foray, at the
table in the centre of the room. Both were busy sending or receiving
messages. The instruments kept up a continuous clicking, heard
distinctly above the buzz of conversation which came from half a dozen
youngsters, scarcely more than boys, grouped together at the opposite
side of the room, waiting to take to the various offices of the
Department, or to the several officials of the government, the messages
which were constantly being handed out to them by the two military
operators.
In the midst of this busy activity there came the noise of drums,
faintly at first, but presently growing clearer and louder, while the
tramp of many feet sounded in the street below.
“What’s that?” asked one messenger of the other.
“I don’t know,” was the answer, “troops of some kind. I’ll look out and
see.”
He stepped to one of the long windows, opened it, and went out on the
balcony. The other young fellows clustered at his back or peered through
the other windows.
“It’s the Richmond Greys,” said the observer outside.
There was an outburst of exclamations from the room, except from the
operators, who had no time to spare from their work.
“Yes, that’s what they are. You can see their uniforms. They must be
sending them down to the lines at Petersburg,” said another.
“Well, I don’t believe they would send the Greys out unless there was
something going on to-night,” observed a third.
“To-night, why, good heavens, it’s as quiet as a tomb,” broke in a
fourth. “I don’t hear a sound from the front.”
“That’s probably what’s worrying them. It is so damn unusual,” returned
the first messenger.
“Things have come to a pretty pass if the Grandfathers of the Home Guard
have got to go to the front,” remarked another.
“Following in the footsteps of their grandsons,” said the first. “I wish
I could go. I hate this business of carrying telegrams and——”
“Messenger here!” cried Lieutenant Foray, folding up a message and
inserting it in its envelope.
The nearest youngster detached himself from the group while all of them
turned away from the windows, stepped to the side of the officer, and
saluted.
“War Department,” said Foray tersely. “Tell the Secretary it’s from
General Lee, and here’s a duplicate which you are to give to the
President.”
“Very good, sir,” said the messenger, taking the message and turning
away.
As he passed out of the door, an orderly entered the room, stepped to
the side of Lieutenant Foray, the senior of the two officers on duty,
clicked his heels together, and saluted.
“Secretary’s compliments, sir, and he wants to know if there is anything
from General Lee,” he said.
“My compliments to the Secretary,” returned the Lieutenant. “I have just
sent a message to his office with a duplicate for the President.”
“The President’s with the Cabinet yet, sir,” returned the orderly. “He
didn’t go home. The Secretary’s there, too. They want an operator right
quick to take down some cipher telegrams.”
Lieutenant Foray looked over to his subordinate.
“Got anything on, Charlie?” he called out.
“Not right now,” answered Lieutenant Allison.
“Well, go over with the orderly to the Cabinet room and take down their
ciphers. Hurry back though,” said Foray as Allison slipped on his
coat—both officers had been working in their shirt sleeves—“we need
you here. We are so short-handed in the office now that I don’t know how
we are going to get through to-night. I can’t handle four instruments,
and——”
“I will do my best,” said Allison, turning away rapidly.
He bowed as he did so to a little party which at that moment entered the
room through the door, obstructing his passage. There were two very
spick and span young officers with Miss Caroline Mitford between them,
while just behind loomed the ponderous figure of old Martha.
“You wait in the hall right here, Martha; I won’t be long,” said
Caroline, pausing a moment to let the others precede her.
The two young men stopped on either side of the door and waited for her.
“Miss Mitford,” said the elder, “this is the Department Telegraph
Office.”
“Thank you,” said Caroline, entering the room with only the briefest of
acknowledgments of the profound bows of her escorts.
She was evidently very much agitated and troubled over what she was
about to attempt. The two young men followed her as she stepped down the
long room.
“I am afraid you have gone back on the Army, Miss Mitford,” said one of
them pleasantly.
“Gone back on the Army, why?” asked Caroline mystified.
“Seems like we should have a salute as you went by.”
“Oh, yes,” said the girl.
She raised her hand and saluted in a perfunctory and absent-minded
manner, then turned away from them. She nodded to the messengers, some
of whom she knew. One of them, who knew her best, stepped forward.
“Good-evening, Miss Mitford, could we do anything in the office for you
to-night?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,—you can. I want to send a—a telegram.”
The other of the young officers who had escorted her, who had remained
silent, now entered the conversation.
“Have you been receiving some bad news, Miss Mitford?” he asked
sympathetically.
“Oh, no.”
“Maybe some friend of yours has gone to the front, and——” interposed
the first officer.
“Well, supposing he had,” said Caroline, “would you call that bad news?”
“I don’t know as you would exactly like to——”
“Let me tell you,” said Caroline, “as you don’t seem to know, that all
my friends have gone to the front.”
There was an emphasis on the pronoun which should have warned the young
soldier what was about to occur, but he rushed blindly to his doom.
“I hope not all, Miss Mitford,” he replied.
“Yes, all,” rejoined Caroline, making the “all” very emphatic, “for if
they did not they wouldn’t be my friends.”
“But some of us are obliged to stay here to take care of you, you know,”
contributed the other young man.
“Well, there are altogether too many of you trying to take care of me,”
said Caroline saucily, with some return of her usual lightness, “and you
are all discharged.”
“Do you mean that, Miss Mitford?”
“I certainly do.”
“Well, I suppose if we are really discharged, we will have to go,”
returned the other.
“Yes,” said his companion regretfully, “but we are mighty sorry to see
you in such low spirits.”
“Would you like to put me in real good spirits, you two?” asked
Caroline, resolved to read these young dandies who were staying at home
a lesson.
“Wouldn’t we!” they both cried together. “There’s nothing we would like
better.”
“Well, I will tell you just what to do then,” returned the girl gravely
and with deep meaning.
Everybody in the room, with the exception of Lieutenant Foray, was now
listening intently.
“Start right out this very night,” said the girl, “and don’t stop till
you get to where my real friends are, lying in trenches and ditches and
earth-works between us and the Yankee guns.”
“But really, Miss Mitford,” began one, his face flushing at her severe
rebuke, “you don’t absolutely mean that.”
“So far as we are concerned,” said one of the messengers, including his
companions with a sweep of his hand, “we’d like nothing better, but they
won’t let us go, and——”
“I know they won’t,” said Caroline, “but so far as you two gentlemen are
concerned, I really mean it. Go and fight the Yankees a few days and lie
in ditches a few nights until those uniforms you’ve got on look as if
they might have been of some use to somebody. If you are so mighty
anxious to do something for me, that is what you can do. It is the only
thing I want, it is the only thing anybody wants.”
“Messenger here!” cried Lieutenant Foray as the two young officers,
humiliated beyond expression by the taunts of the impudent young maiden,
backed away and finally managed to make an ungraceful exit through the
open door, followed by the titters of the messengers, who took advantage
of the presence of the young girl to indulge in this grave breach of
discipline.
“Messenger!” cried Foray impatiently.
“Here, sir,” came the answer.
“Commissary General’s office!” was the injunction with which Foray
handed the man the telegram.
He looked up at the same time, and with a great start of surprise caught
sight of Caroline at the far end of the long room.
“Lieutenant Foray,” began the girl.
“I beg your pardon, Miss Mitford,” said the operator, scrambling to his
feet and making a frantic effort to get into his coat. “I heard some one
come in, but I was busy with an important message and didn’t appreciate
that——”
“No, never mind, don’t put on your coat,” said Caroline. “I came on
business, and——”
“You want to send a telegram?” asked the Lieutenant.
“Yes.”
“I am afraid we can’t do anything for you here, Miss Mitford, this is
the War Department Official Telegraph Office, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” said Caroline, “but it is the only way to send it where I
want it to go, and I——”
At that moment the clicking of a key called Lieutenant Foray away.
“Excuse me,” he said, stepping quickly to his table.
Miss Mitford, who had never before been in a telegraph office, was very
much mystified by the peremptory manner in which the officer had cut her
short, but she had nothing to do but wait. Presently the message was
transcribed, another messenger was called.
“Over to the Department, quick as you can go. They are waiting for it,”
said Foray. “Now, what was it you wanted me to do, Miss Mitford?”
“Just to—to send a telegram,” faltered Caroline.
“It’s private business, is it not?” said Foray.
“Yes, it is strictly private.”
“Then you will have to get an order from——”
“That is what I thought,” said Caroline, “so here it is.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before,” returned Foray, taking the paper.
“Oh,—Major Selwin——”
“Yes, he—he’s one of my friends.”
“It’s all right then,” interposed the Lieutenant, who was naturally very
businesslike and peremptory.
He pushed a chair to the other side of the table, placed a small sheet
of paper on the table in front of her, and shoved the pen and ink
conveniently to hand.
“You can write there, Miss Mitford,” he said.
“Thank you,” said Caroline, looking rather ruefully at the tiny piece of
paper which had been provided for her.
Paper was a scarce article then, and every scrap was precious. She
decided that such a piece was not sufficient for her purposes, and when
Lieutenant Foray’s back was turned she took a larger piece of paper of
sufficient capacity to contain her important message, to the composition
of which she proceeded with much difficulty and many pauses and sighs.