little brass crosses pinned to them--tiny rifles, sabres,
cannon--crosses that were not symbols of religion, unless this was a
time when the Master's coming meant the sword. Under them were soldiers
with big pistols and belts of big, gleaming cartridges--soldiers, white
and black, everywhere--swaggering, ogling, and loud of voice, but all
good-natured, orderly.
Inside the hotel the lobby was full of officers in uniform, scanning the
yellow bulletin-boards, writing letters, chatting in groups; gray
veterans of horse, foot, and artillery; company officers in from Western
service--quiet young men with bronzed faces and keen eyes, like
Rivers's--renewing old friendships and swapping experiences on the
plains; subalterns down to the last graduating class from West Point
with slim waists, fresh faces, and nothing to swap yet but memories of
the old school on the Hudson. In there he saw Grafton again and
Lieutenant Sharpe, of the Tenth Colored Cavalry, whom he had seen in the
Bluegrass, and Rivers introduced him. He was surprised that Rivers,
though a Southerner, had so little feeling on the question of negro
soldiers; that many officers in the negro regiments were Southern; that
Southerners were preferred because they understood the black man, and,
for that reason, could better handle him. Sharpe presented both to his
father, Colonel Sharpe, of the infantry, who was taking credit to
himself, that, for the first time in his life, he allowed his band to
play "Dixie" in camp after the Southerners in Congress had risen up and
voted millions for the national defence. Colonel Sharpe spoke with some
bitterness and Crittenden wondered. He never dreamed that there was any
bitterness on the other side--why? How could a victor feel bitterness
for a fallen foe? It was the one word he heard or was to hear about the
old war from Federal or ex-Confederate. Indeed, he mistook a short,
stout, careless appointee, Major Billings, with his negro servant, his
Southern mustache and goatee and his pompous ways, for a genuine
Southerner, and the Major, though from Vermont, seemed pleased.
But it was to the soldier outside that Crittenden's heart had been
drawn, for it was his first stirring sight of the regular of his own
land, and the soldier in him answered at once with a thrill. Waiting for
Rivers, he stood in the door of the hotel, watching the strong men pass,
and by and by he saw three coming down the street, arm in arm. On the
edge of the light, the middle one, a low, thick-set, black-browed
fellow, pushed his comrades away, fell drunkenly, and slipped loosely to
the street, while the two stood above him in disgust. One of them was a
mere boy and the other was a giant, with a lean face, so like Lincoln's
that Crittenden started when the boy called impatiently:
"Pick him up, Abe."
The tall soldier stooped, and with one hand lifted the drunken man as
lightly as though he had been a sack of wool, and the two caught him
under the arms again. As they came on, both suddenly let go; the middle
one straightened sharply, and all three saluted. Crittenden heard
Rivers's voice at his ear:
"Report for this, Reynolds."
And the drunken soldier turned and rather sullenly saluted again.
"You'll come right out to camp with me," repeated Rivers.
And now out at the camp, next morning, a dozen trumpets were ringing
out an emphatic complaint into Crittenden's sleeping ears:
"I can't git 'em up,
I can't git 'em up,
I can't git 'em up in the mornin',
I can't git 'em up,
I can't git 'em up,
I can't git 'em up at all.
The corporal's worse than the sergeant,
The sergeant's worse than the lieutenant,
And the captain is worst of all."
This is as high up, apparently, as the private dares to go, unless he
considers the somnolent iniquity of the Colonel quite beyond the range
of the bugle. But the pathetic appeal was too much for Crittenden, and
he got up, stepping into a fragrant foot-bath of cold dew and out to a
dapple gray wash-basin that sat on three wooden stakes just outside.
Sousing his head, he sniffed in the chill air and, looking below him,
took in, with pure mathematical delight, the working unit of the army as
it came to life. The very camp was the symbol of order and system: a low
hill, rising from a tiny stream below him in a series of natural
terraces to the fringe of low pines behind him, and on these terraces
officers and men sitting, according to rank; the white tepees of the
privates and their tethered horses--camped in column of
troops--stretching up the hill toward him; on the first terrace above
and flanking the columns, the old-fashioned army tents of company
officer and subaltern and the guidons in line--each captain with his
lieutenants at the head of each company street; behind them and on the
next terrace, the majors three--each facing the centre of his squadron.
And highest on top of the hill, and facing the centre of the regiment,
the slate-coloured tent of the Colonel, commanding every foot of the
camp.
"Yes," said a voice behind him, "and you'll find it just that way
throughout the army."
Crittenden turned in surprise, and the ubiquitous Grafton went on as
though the little trick of thought-reading were too unimportant for
notice.
"Let's go down and take a look at things. This is my last day," Grafton
went on, "and I'm out early. I go to Tampa to-morrow."
All the day before, as he travelled, Crittenden had seen the station
thronged with eager countrymen--that must have been the way it was in
the old war, he thought--and swarmed the thicker the farther he went
south. And now, as the two started down the hill, he could see in the
dusty road that ran through the old battlefield Southern interest and
sympathy taking visible shape. For a hundred miles around, the human
swarm had risen from the earth and was moving toward him on wagon,
bicycle, horseback, foot; in omnibus, carriage, cart; in barges on
wheels, with projecting additions, and other land-craft beyond
classification or description. And the people--the American Southerners;
rich whites, whites well-to-do, poor white trash; good country folks,
valley farmers; mountaineers--darkies, and the motley feminine horde
that the soldier draws the world over--all moving along the road as far
as he could see, and interspersed here and there in the long, low cloud
of dust with a clanking troop of horse or a red rumbling battery--all
coming to see the soldiers--the soldiers!
And the darkies! How they flocked and stared at their soldier-brethren
with pathetic worship, dumb admiration, and, here and there, with a look
of contemptuous resentment that was most curious. And how those dusky
sons of Mars were drinking deep into their broad nostrils the incense
wafted to them from hedge and highway.
For a moment Grafton stopped still, looking.
"Great!"
Below the Majors' terrace stood an old sergeant, with a gray mustache
and a kind, blue eye. Each horse had his nose in a mouth-bag and was
contentedly munching corn, while a trooper affectionately curried him
from tip of ear to tip of tail.
"Horse ever first and man ever afterward is the trooper's law," said
Grafton.
"I suppose you've got the best colonel in the army," he added to the
soldier and with a wink at Crittenden.
"Yes, sir," said the guileless old Sergeant, quickly, and with perfect
seriousness. "We have, sir, and I'm not sayin' a wor-rd against the
rest, sir."
The Sergeant's voice was as kind as his face, and Grafton soon learned
that he was called "the Governor" throughout the regiment--that he was a
Kentuckian and a sharpshooter. He had seen twenty-seven years of
service, and his ambition had been to become a sergeant of ordnance. He
passed his examination finally, but he was then a little too old. That
almost broke the Sergeant's heart, but the hope of a fight, now, was
fast healing it.
"I'm from Kentucky, too," said Crittenden. The old soldier turned
quickly.
"I knew you were, sir."
This was too much for Grafton. "Now-how-on-earth--" and then he checked
himself--it was not his business.
"You're a Crittenden."
"That's right," laughed the Kentuckian. The Sergeant turned. A soldier
came up and asked some trifling question, with a searching look, Grafton
observed, at Crittenden. Everyone looked at that man twice, thought
Grafton, and he looked again himself. It was his manner, his bearing,
the way his head was set on his shoulders, the plastic force of his
striking face. But Crittenden saw only that the Sergeant answered the
soldier as though he were talking to a superior. He had been watching
the men closely--they might be his comrades some day--and, already, had
noticed, with increasing surprise, the character of the men whom he saw
as common soldiers--young, quiet, and above the average countryman in
address and intelligence--and this man's face surprised him still more,
as did his bearing. His face was dark, his eye was dark and penetrating
and passionate; his mouth was reckless and weak, his build was graceful,
and his voice was low and even--the voice of a gentleman; he was the
refined type of the Western gentleman-desperado, as Crittenden had
imagined it from fiction and hearsay. As the soldier turned away, the
old Sergeant saved him the question he was about to ask.
"He used to be an officer."
"Who--how's that?" asked Grafton, scenting "a story."
The old Sergeant checked himself at once, and added cautiously:
"He was a lieutenant in this regiment and he resigned. He just got back
to-day, and he has enlisted as a private rather than risk not getting to
Cuba at all. But, of course, he'll get his commission back again." The
Sergeant's manner fooled neither Grafton nor Crittenden; both respected
the old Sergeant's unwillingness to gossip about a man who had been his
superior, and Grafton asked no more questions.
There was no idleness in that camp. Each man was busy within and without
the conical-walled tents in which the troopers lie like the spokes of a
wheel, with heads out like a covey of partridges. Before one tent sat
the tall soldier--Abe--and the boy, his comrade, whom Crittenden had
seen the night before.
"Where's Reynolds?" asked Crittenden, smiling.
"Guard-house," said the Sergeant, shaking his head.
Not a scrap of waste matter was to be seen anywhere--not a piece of
paper--not the faintest odour was perceptible; the camp was as clean as
a Dutch kitchen.
"And this is a camp of cavalry, mind you," said Grafton. "Ten minutes
after they have broken camp, you won't be able to tell that there has
been a man or horse on the ground, except for the fact that it will be
packed down hard in places. And I bet you that in a month they won't
have three men in the hospital." The old Sergeant nearly blushed with
pleasure.
"An' I've got the best captain, too, sir," he said, as they turned away,
and Grafton laughed.
"That's the way you'll find it all through the army. Each colonel and
each captain is always the best to the soldier, and, by the way," he
went on, "do you happen to know about this little United States regular
army?"
"Not much."
"I thought so. Germany knows a good deal--England, France, Prussia,
Russia--everybody knows but the American and the Spaniard. Just look at
these men. They're young, strong, intelligent--bully, good Americans.
It's an army of picked men--picked for heart, body, and brain. Almost
each man is an athlete. It is the finest body of men on God Almighty's
earth to-day, and everybody on earth but the American and the Spaniard
knows it. And how this nation has treated them. Think of that miserable
Congress--" Grafton waved his hands in impotent rage and ceased--Rivers
was calling them from the top of the hill.
So all morning Crittenden watched the regimental unit at work. He took a
sabre lesson from the old Sergeant. He visited camps of infantry and
artillery and, late that afternoon, he sat on a little wooded hill,
where stood four draped, ghost-like statues--watching these units paint
pictures on a bigger canvas below him, of the army at work as a whole.
Every green interspace below was thickly dotted with tents and rising
spirals of faint smoke; every little plain was filled with soldiers, at
drill. Behind him wheeled cannon and caisson and men and horses,
splashed with prophetic drops of red, wheeling at a gallop, halting,
unlimbering, loading, and firing imaginary shells at imaginary
Spaniards--limbering and off with a flash of metal, wheel-spoke and
crimson trappings at a gallop again; in the plain below were regiments
of infantry, deploying in skirmish-line, advancing by rushes; beyond
them sharpshooters were at target practice, and little bands of recruits
and awkward squads were everywhere. In front, rose cloud after cloud of
dust, and, under them, surged cloud after cloud of troopers at mounted
drill, all making ready for the soldier's work--to kill with mercy and
die without complaint. What a picture--what a picture! And what a rich
earnest of the sleeping might of the nation behind it all. Just under
him was going an "escort of the standard," which he could plainly see.
Across the long drill-ground the regiment--it was Rivers's
regiment--stood, a solid mass of silent, living statues, and it was a
brave sight that came now--that flash of sabres along the long length of
the drill-field, like one leaping horizontal flame. It was a regimental
acknowledgment of the honour of presentation to the standard, and
Crittenden raised his hat gravely in recognition of the same honour,
little dreaming that he was soon to follow that standard up a certain
Cuban hill.
What a picture!
There the nation was concentrating its power. Behind him that nation was
patching up its one great quarrel, and now a gray phantom stalked out of
the past to the music of drum and fife, and Crittenden turned sharply to
see a little body of men, in queer uniforms, marching through a camp of
regulars toward him. They were old boys, and they went rather slowly,
but they stepped jauntily and, in their natty old-fashioned caps and old
gray jackets pointed into a V-shape behind, they looked jaunty in spite
of their years. Not a soldier but paused to look at these men in gray,
who marched thus proudly through such a stronghold of blue, and were not
ashamed. Not a man joked or laughed or smiled, for all knew that they
were old Confederates in butter-nut, and once fighting-men indeed. All
knew that these men had fought battles that made scouts and Indian
skirmishes and city riots and, perhaps, any battles in store for them
with Spain but play by contrast for the tin soldier, upon whom the
regular smiles with such mild contempt; that this thin column had seen
twice the full muster of the seven thousand strong encamped there melt
away upon that very battlefield in a single day. And so the little
remnant of gray marched through an atmosphere of profound respect, and
on through a mist of memories to the rocky little point where the
Federal Virginian Thomas--"The Rock of Chickamauga"--stood against
seventeen fierce assaults of hill-swarming demons in butter-nut, whose
desperate valour has hardly a parallel on earth, unless it then and
there found its counterpart in the desperate courage of the brothers in
name and race whose lives they sought that day. They were bound to a
patriotic love-feast with their old enemies in blue--these men in
gray--to hold it on the hill around the four bronze statues that
Crittenden's State was putting up to her sons who fought on one or the
other side on that one battlefield, and Crittenden felt a clutch at his
heart and his eyes filled when the tattered old flag of the stars and
bars trembled toward him. Under its folds rode the spirit of gallant
fraternity--a little, old man with a grizzled beard and with stars on
his shoulders, his hands folded on the pommel of his saddle, his eyes
lifted dreamily upward--they called him the "bee-hunter," from that
habit of his in the old war--his father's old comrade, little Jerry
Carter. That was the man Crittenden had come South to see. Behind came a
carriage, in which sat a woman in widow's weeds and a tall girl in gray.
He did not need to look again to see that it was Judith, and,
motionless, he stood where he was throughout the ceremony, until he saw
the girl lift her hand and the veil fall away from the bronze symbols of
the soldier that was in her fathers and in his--stood resolutely still
until the gray figure disappeared and the veterans, blue and gray
intermingled, marched away. The little General was the last to leave,
and he rode slowly, as if overcome with memories. Crittenden took off
his hat and, while he hesitated, hardly knowing whether to make himself
known or not, the little man caught sight of him and stopped short.
"Why--why, bless my soul, aren't you Tom Crittenden's son?"
"Yes, sir," said Crittenden.
"I knew it. Bless me, I was thinking of him just that moment--naturally
enough--and you startled me. I thought it was Tom himself." He grasped
the Kentuckian's hand warmly.
"Yes," he said, studying his face. "You look just as he did when we
courted and camped and fought together." The tone of his voice moved
Crittenden deeply. "And you are going to the war--good--good! Your
father would be with me right now if he were alive. Come to see me right
away. I may go to Tampa any day." And, as he rode away, he stopped
again.
"Of course you have a commission in the Legion."
"No, sir. I didn't ask for one. I was afraid the Legion might not get to
Cuba." The General smiled.
"Well, come to see me"--he smiled again--"we'll see--we'll see!" and he
rode on with his hands still folded on the pommel of his saddle and his
eyes still lifted, dreamily, upward.
It was guard-mount and sunset when Crittenden, with a leaping heart,
reached Rivers's camp. The band was just marching out with a corps of
trumpeters, when a crash of martial music came across the hollow from
the camp on the next low hill, followed by cheers, which ran along the
road and were swollen into a mighty shouting when taken up by the camp
at the foot of the hill. Through the smoke and faint haze of the early
evening, moved a column of infantry into sight, headed by a band.
"Tramp, tramp, tramp,
The boys are marching!"
Along the brow of the hill, and but faintly seen through the smoky haze,
came the pendulum-like swing of rank after rank of sturdy legs, with
guidons fluttering along the columns and big, ghostly army wagons
rumbling behind. Up started the band at the foot of the hill with a
rousing march, and up started every band along the line, and through
madly cheering soldiers swung the regiment on its way to Tampa--magic
word, hope of every chafing soldier left behind--Tampa, the point of
embarkation for the little island where waited death or glory.
Rivers was deeply dejected.
"Don't you join any regiment yet," he said to Crittenden; "you may get
hung up here all summer till the war is over. If you want to get into
the fun for sure--wait. Go to Tampa and wait. You might come here, or go
there, and drill and watch for your chance." Which was the conclusion
Crittenden had already reached for himself.
The sun sank rapidly now. Dusk fell swiftly, and the pines began their
nightly dirge for the many dead who died under them five and thirty
years ago. They had a new and ominous chant now to Crittenden--a chant
of premonition for the strong men about him who were soon to follow
them. Camp-fires began to glow out of the darkness far and near over
the old battlefield.
Around a little fire on top of the hill, and in front of the Colonel's
tent, sat the Colonel, with kind Irish face, Irish eye, and Irish wit of
tongue. Near him the old Indian-fighter, Chaffee, with strong brow, deep
eyes, long jaw, firm mouth, strong chin--the long, lean face of a
thirteenth century monk who was quick to doff cowl for helmet. While
they told war-stories, Crittenden sat in silence with the majors three,
and Willings, the surgeon (whom he was to know better in Cuba), and
listened. Every now and then a horse would loom from the darkness, and a
visiting officer would swing into the light, and everybody would say:
"How!"
There is no humour in that monosyllable of good cheer throughout the
United States Army, and with Indian-like solemnity they said it, tin cup
in hand:
"How!"
Once it was Lawton, tall, bronzed, commanding, taciturn--but fluent when
he did speak--or Kent, or Sumner, or little Jerry Carter himself. And
once, a soldier stepped into the circle of firelight, his heels clicking
sharply together; and Crittenden thought an uneasy movement ran around
the group, and that the younger men looked furtively up as though to
take their cue from the Colonel. It was the soldier who had been an
officer once. The Colonel showed not a hint of consciousness, nor did
the impassive soldier to anybody but Crittenden, and with him it may
have been imagination that made him think that once, when the soldier
let his eye flash quite around the group, he flushed slightly when he
met Crittenden's gaze. Rivers shrugged his shoulders when Crittenden
asked about him later.
"Black sheep, ... well-educated, brave, well-born most likely, came up
from the ranks, ... won a commission as sergeant fighting Indians, but
always in trouble--gambling, fighting, and so forth. Somebody in
Washington got him a lieutenancy, and while the commission was on its
way to him out West he got into a bar-room brawl. He resigned then, and
left the army. He was gentleman enough to do that. Now he's back. The
type is common in the army, and they often come back. I expect he has
decency enough to want to get killed. If he has, maybe he'll come out a
captain yet."
By and by came "tattoo," and finally far away a trumpet sounded "taps";
then another and another and another still. At last, when all were
through, "taps" rose once more out of the darkness to the left. This
last trumpeter had waited--he knew his theme and knew his power. The
rest had simply given the command:
"Lights out!"
Lights out of the soldier's camp, they said. Lights out of the soldier's
life, said this one, sadly; and out of Crittenden's life just now
something that once was dearer than life itself.
"Love, good-night."
Such the trumpet meant to one poet, and such it meant to many another
than Crittenden, doubtless, when he stretched himself on his
cot--thinking of Judith there that afternoon, and seeing her hand lift
to pull away the veil from the statues again. So it had always been with
him. One touch of her hand and the veil that hid his better self parted,
and that self stepped forth victorious. It had been thickening, fold on
fold, a long while now; and now, he thought sternly, the rending must be
done, and should be done with his own hands. And then he would go back
to thinking of her as he saw her last in the Bluegrass. And he wondered
what that last look and smile of hers could mean. Later, he moved in his
sleep--dreaming of that brave column marching for Tampa--with his mind's
eye on the flag at the head of the regiment, and a thrill about his
heart that waked him. And he remembered that it was the first time he
had ever had any sensation about the flag of his own land. But it had
come to him--awake and asleep--and it was genuine.
VI
It was mid-May now, and the leaves were full and their points were
drooping toward the earth. The woods were musical with the cries of
blackbirds as Crittenden drove toward the pike-gate, and the meadow was
sweet with the love-calls of larks. The sun was fast nearing the zenith,
and air and earth were lusty with life. Already the lane, lined with
locust-trees, brambles, wild rose-bushes, and young elders, was fragrant
with the promise of unborn flowers, and the turnpike, when he neared
town, was soft with the dust of many a hoof and wheel that had passed
over it toward the haze of smoke which rose over the first recruiting
camp in the State for the Spanish war. There was a big crowd in the
lovely woodland over which hung the haze, and the music of horn and drum
came forth to Crittenden's ears even that far away, and Raincrow raised
head and tail and quickened his pace proudly.