When the two companies from the hills entrained that raw morning they
had no idea where they were going or what prospects lay ahead, but they
conceived days of action, and fell upon months of dull routine. The
mountaineer is restive under discipline and passionate in his insistence
on personal liberty. He bristles at a curt command. It irks his soul to
raise the right hand in salute when he passes another whose leggings are
of leather instead of canvas and whose shoulders are decorated with
certain insignia. To say "sir" in addressing a superior, or to admit any
form of superiority, is a harder thing than to march on short rations,
for a voice within is always making declaration, "I'm jest as good as
any man."
So, the mountain companies did not at once fall into ordered and
frictionless assimilation in the big military machine--did not at once
become anonymous units. Yet even in the feud, men acknowledged the
necessity, when need arose, of sinking the personal grievance in
obedience to the clan requirement. With officers who failed to
understand them and who had not been willing to make haste slowly, they
would have become a mob of constant mutineers. But they were a part of a
regiment whose peace-footing was two battalions, and whose colonel,
though a bluegrass Kentuckian, understood and loved highland and lowland
alike. The two Breathitt county companies with another that had marched
forty-five miles from over near the Virginia line to entrain, made up
one battalion, while the other was from the edge of the bluegrass. When
he joined his bearded barbarians at Chickamauga, Colonel Burford smiled
happily. To him they were big-boned children, but he nursed them along
and taught them that the swift, military obedience asked of them was not
a concession to individuals, but to abstract efficiency, and that this
efficiency was their own chief interest. So, they came with astounding
haste into a full acceptance of the necessity. They were still raw and
looked like half-barbaric allies from the hinterland--as they were. They
wore their shirt-tails out like Chinamen on the long and dusty hikes,
and their service hats tilted at a dozen disreputable angles. They still
bantered each other in quaint Elizabethan English drawled in nasal
tones, but also they watched with keen, unblinking eyes the machine-like
evenness of the regulars, which it became their care, with swift
absorption, to imitate. They were the Second battalion of the Fifth
Kentucky, but they were better known as the "Shirt-tail battalion," and
their far-seeing colonel seemed, on the whole, contented with them.
When other commands complained and sulked in the Georgia climate, and
crowded the hospitals, these mountaineers throve and said nothing. To
them the army ration was an improvement over their accustomed fare. On
kitchen detail they scowled, but served with stoicism--though "sich-like
was women's work"--and, when they went out as provost guardsmen to round
up the recalcitrant, they brought back their prisoners with
business-like despatch. Though they were seeing a new life, every detail
of which was wonderful to them, no sign or exclamation of surprise
escaped their bearded lips. The Kentucky mountaineer might walk through
the Champs Elysees of Paris, battered, threadbare and ignorant, but he
would carry his head high and gaze straight at every man, eye to eye,
giving no indication that any sight was new or unaccustomed.
Out on the target-range a detachment was at work one day mastering the
problems of long-range fire with sadly inefficient rifles. It was
shortly after their arrival at Chickamauga, and Newt Spooner had just
fallen back, his Springfield still smoking with the black powder of its
discharge. He had scored a "bull," and his thin lips were gravely
pleased. Over the sultry area of the mobilization camp went the roar and
activity of war-preparation. Newly commissioned staff officers galloped
importantly from headquarters to headquarters. Mule trains and
commissariat-wagons rumbled noisily under yellow clouds of following
dust. Lines upon lines of company streets stretched away in a spread of
canvas with the locales of commands marked by brigade and regimental
colors; brazen mingling of shouts and bugles set to it its accompaniment
of sound.
As Newt Spooner walked back, throwing open the breach of his piece, his
eyes fell on a new figure, which wore its uniform with as soldierly a
jauntiness as though it had never been accustomed to "cits." The face
was already bronzed, and the gauntleted hands rested on the saber-belt.
The man was Henry Falkins, and on his shoulder-straps and
collar-ornaments were not the twin bars of a captain, but the oak leaves
of a major.
Newt, falling back toward the little group of his fellows who sat
cross-legged in the meager shadow of a tent-flap, halted suddenly and
stood for a moment transfixed. Then his hand stole to his
ammunition-belt, and toyed there with a cartridge. His face paled and
hardened. So, after all, his enemy had not stayed at home.
Falkins looked up, and saw the soldier. He saw the attitude, and the
venomous hatred of the narrowed eyes, and the itching twitch of the
fingers at the cartridge-belt, and he knew then that his most dangerous
enemy would not be always at his front. But he nodded to the boy, and
said casually:
"Spooner, that last shot was a neat one."
The private did not answer. He did not salute, he did not move. He only
stood and glared. Henry Falkins turned his back on the potential
assassin, and strolled deliberately away. But the Deacon, now
"top-Sergeant" of B Company came over to the boy--who had taken one step
as if to follow Falkins--and stepped between.
"Son," he said in a low voice, while his eyes were very steady and
quieting in their hypnotic quality, "your year ain't up yet--not by
several months. I reckon until the fourth of next July, you'd better not
let your face give you away like that. It's bad business in the army."
The boy fell suddenly trembling with the reaction of his temptation. For
an instant, forgetful of his pledge, he had fully meant to shoot. Now,
he turned and walked back toward the group of seated comrades. After a
while, he inquired in a normal voice:
"What's Henry Falkins a-doin' with them major's leaves on his
shoulder-straps? He hain't nothin' but captain of A Company. I thought
he'd done stayed at home."
"He got here yesterday," enlightened the first sergeant. "He was sent
away about something, an' he wears a major's straps because he's
commandin' this battalion."
"Ye mean"--Newt leaned passionately forward, and, in his bared
fore-arms, the muscles stood out corded--"ye mean thet Henry Falkins is
a-bossin' _us_?"
The Deacon nodded. Then he added, in a carefully lowered voice:
"Bide your time, son. It'll keep, an' we've got Spain on our hands
first."
But the weeks passed, and the Shirt-tail battalion was no nearer Cuba,
though it was much nearer efficiency for the field. Other commands left
for Tampa and the front. Seemingly forgotten, regiments and brigades
drilled and waited and fretted at Chickamauga until disgust came in the
stead of ardor and hope of active service languished, and the
mountaineers alone remained patient.
The Deacon was cut out for handling men, and was winning the name of an
unusually efficient top-sergeant. With his experience in the outside
world, he seemed a wise and capable shepherd going in and out among his
sheep.
At last came orders. The command was to move, but instead of moving
toward Tampa and Cuba, where the fighting had been, it was to take train
across the continent, and join other waiting thousands at San Francisco,
remote from the theater of war. The bluegrass troops grumbled afresh,
but the men from the mountains kept their peace. They had not enlisted
for any particular type of service. The President of the United States
had called for men--and they had answered. It was up to the President.
That journey across the continent, across endless prairies and flat
plains and into strange surroundings was also a revelation to Newt and
his fellows, but they gazed out of the car windows with as little
outward evidence of interest as cattle being shipped in box-cars.
And from early June until late in October they sat down and waited at
Camp Meritt and the Presidio, drilling and being whipped into shape
until it seemed to them that military life was the only life they had
known. And between June and October falls the month of July, and in the
month of July comes the fourth.
Over Private Newt Spooner's cot in his tent hung a calendar. Each day he
carefully marked off a number, and, as he kept track of the time, a
strange sort of contentment appeared to descend upon his soul. He
studied his drill-manual, threw himself into the life of soldiering, and
presented to the world a face less grim and lowering. He was pointed out
as a smart, well set-up file.
But beside Private Job Wedgesley, his bunkie, another man in the company
had an eye on Private Spooner. At times, when the soldier did not know
of it, the top-sergeant of the outfit strolled in and noted the calendar
on which the passing of each day was so faithfully recorded, and the
brain of the top-sergeant dedicated itself to cogitation. On the night
of the third, Sergeant Peter Spooner asked and was given permission to
speak privately with his major.
The tall grave figure with the thoughtful eyes and the chevroned sleeve
was a picture of soldierly deportment, and, as he came into the tent of
Major Henry Falkins and stood respectfully at attention, the battalion
commander looked up, with a pleased smile.
"I have the captain's permission to speak to the major, sir," announced
the infantry-man.
Falkins nodded.
"To-morrow is the Fourth of July, sir."
"Yes, there is to be a parade in town. Have your men tuck their
shirt-tails in." The major smiled at his little pleasantry. The
mountaineers had long since abandoned their more exaggerated
idiosyncracies.
"It is concerning Private Newton Spooner, sir, that I want to speak."
"What about him?"
The Deacon told his story. He was shrewd enough to tell it with seeming
frankness, even to the point of admitting that on that other day, now a
year ago, he had bound Newt over for twelve months of truce. That period
ended to-morrow. He spoke of the calendar in the private's tent, and
Falkins' face darkened thoughtfully.
"Don't you imagine he has forgotten that grudge?" questioned the
officer. On the table before him lay an unfinished letter to a girl in
Winchester. He had boasted in a paragraph of which the ink was still
damp that his militia experiment had succeeded.
"He has not forgotten it, sir. He has not changed it." The Deacon shook
his head with conviction as he spoke. "You're a mountain man yourself,
sir. Did you ever know a mountain hatred to die while the man himself
lived to harbor it? Did you ever make a pet of a rattle-snake?"
The major was sitting at his camp table, littered with papers and
paraphernalia. A swinging lantern cast its yellow flare on the canvas
flies and his side arms, lying with his discarded blouse on his cot.
Just inside the opening stood the sergeant, seeming rather gigantic
against the black background of the night sky through the triangle of
the raised tent flap.
"I don't like to admit that." Falkins picked up the pen, and toyed with
it absently. "I'm rather eager to see this boy make good. You are a
mountain man, too. Your record for feud-hatred and homicide was once a
rather full one, yet you came back to the hills, declaring for peace.
Isn't the change in yourself permanent, sergeant?"
Falkins had made the personal application as an illustration and he made
it smilingly; but the Deacon's face wore for a moment an expression of
deep pain.
"I hope, sir," he replied respectfully, "that my record speaks for
itself. But I had been living in the outside world. He has known only
the mountains--and prison."
"And now he knows the army!" The officer spoke eagerly. "The service is
stronger than the individual. It will grip him. If we can arouse his
ambition--"
"It won't help to make mistakes, sir. To-morrow Private Newton Spooner
becomes a menace to your life. Until midnight to-night you are safe."
For a while there was silence, then Major Falkins took up his pen again.
"Sergeant," he said, "to-morrow morning after inspection send Private
Spooner to my tent."
"Yes, sir." The Deacon saluted, turned with the precision of an
automaton and left the place.
* * * * *
Immediately after inspection on the next morning, a private appeared at
the fly on Major Falkins' tent. The private was of course unarmed. His
top-sergeant had seen to that, even though the soldier had
surreptitiously sought to slip a revolver inside his army shirt.
As Newt Spooner presented himself, Henry Falkins was sitting on the edge
of his cot. He was already in dress-uniform for the parade, and wore
side arms. He glanced up, and nothing in the demeanor of the private
escaped him.
For Newt stood at the tent-opening, as white as a ghost, and, despite
his lately learned military bearing, there was the hint of a tremor
through his entire body. It was evident that last night had brought
little sleep to the eyes of this man. His hands were tight-clenched at
his trouser seams, and deep back in his eyes burned a fire that was
hardly sane. Yet Major Falkins was in part right. The sinew of the
service is stronger than its atoms, and, as Private Spooner of B Company
waited with clenched teeth, his hand rose automatically, though rigidly,
in the prescribed salute.
"The first sergeant ordered me to report to ye," he announced in a
queerly strained voice. At the "sir" he balked, but the officer was not
inclined to quarrel over such details. He knew that however insane and
morbid was the fixed idea in the soldier's mind, it was to himself a
thing of ghastly reality.
"Spooner," said the officer quietly, "for the next ten minutes I waive
all matter of rank. I sent for you to talk to you, not as Private
Spooner of B Company, but as Newt Spooner of Troublesome Creek. To-day
is the Fourth of July."
The boy took a step forward and his lips showed the teeth under them.
"I reckon I hain't a-forgettin' thet," he snarled in a half-whisper. "I
reckon thar hain't been a day I hain't a-counted."
Falkins nodded with disconcerting calmness.
"Now, Newt," he said shortly, "I am told you have taken a blood-oath
against me. Is that true?"
"Ef thar's a God in heaven he knows hit's true, an' I warns ye"--the
boy's cheeks flamed with a wild rush of blood to the temples--"I warns
ye that I'm a-goin' ter keep hit. I've done been stopped three times.
Next time all hell hain't a-goin' ter stop me."
"What's the idea? What's the reason?"
"I reckon ye knows thet well enough."
"I know that I testified to facts--true facts, not perjury. I should
have had to do the same thing if it had been my own brother who was on
trial."
"Like hell ye would!" In the boy's exclamation was supreme scorn and
repudiation of a lying excuse.
"I'm not going to argue with you and I'm not going to have traitors in
my command. If you remain in my battalion from this point on, it's
because I permit you to do it. I can have you transferred or
bob-tailed. I don't want to do either. You have made a good soldier. I
don't want to ruin you for a personal reason."
"Do ye reckon," the private's voice broke out like an explosion, "thet
ye kin buy me off with fair talk thet-a-way? Ye couldn't do hit ef ye
made me a major-general."
Falkins smiled grimly.
"Why should I buy you off?" he inquired. "Do you imagine I am afraid of
you?"
He rose abruptly from the cot, and, as his enemy stood twitching
frenziedly in every feature and muscle, unbuckled his belt and tossed it
with its saber and revolver to the table half-way between them.
"There," curtly announced the commissioned officer, "you are as close to
that gun as I am. Why don't you pick it up?"
With a snarl like an unleashed wild-cat and a swift noiseless movement,
Private Newt Spooner leaped forward. His eyes were still burning into
the face of his superior and his right hand crept out slowly until its
fingers had caressingly touched and closed around the grip of the
service pistol.
Then, in a forward-leaning and strained attitude, he paused and stood
statuesquely holding the pose.
Falkins had put his arms at his back and stepped forward until the two
were directly across the table, then the officer suggested quietly,
"You'd better hurry. We'll be interrupted."
For a moment, neither moved nor spoke. The private's breath came and
went in gasps.
Slowly Newt Spooner shook his head and withdrew his hand from his
weapon. The joy had gone out of his enterprise. His victim had not
suffered any terror or sense of defeat. It was not as he had pictured
it. Whether he shot or did not shoot, Major Henry Falkins would be the
victor of that encounter. He straightened up again, and spoke slowly and
in bitterness:
"You penitentiaried me--an' ye thought ye had me thar fer life. Now,
when ye've got things fixed jest ter suit ye, ye makes a big play when
ye knows I hain't a-goin' ter take ye up. I hates ye wuss then
pizen--an' I'm a-goin' ter kill ye, but I'm a-goin' ter pick my own time
an' place. Damn ye ter hell! I hain't give up my notion. I'm goin' ter
git ye--but not now."
"All right." Falkins again buckled on his belt. "When this war is over,
we can settle our affairs. As long as you are in my command, your
military duties come first. Is that agreed?"
"I hain't makin' no promises. I may git ye in a year. I may git ye in a
month. I'd ruther hev ye jest study erbout thet."
"Spooner, you are a fool." The officer spoke rather contemptuously. "You
have sworn to two oaths. One is personal; the other is national. You
swore, when you were mustered in, to fight the battles of your country.
Now you are either going to keep that oath, or leave the service. Which
is it to be?"
"Hit 'pears like thar hain't a-goin' ter be no battles ter fight."
"All right. Give me your hand that until we are mustered out, or reach
the front, I need not watch you."
For a long while, the boy from Troublesome stood breathing heavily. To
have his regiment sail away without him, to lose both revenge and
participation in the service which had filled his life with a new
interest, were intolerable. Again he seemed thwarted.
"Henry Falkins, I'm a-goin' ter git ye. Ye kain't never make no peace
with me--but es long as we stays hyar in camp I gives ye my hand on a
truce. An' ef we gits fightin', maybe I'll wait tell ther war's over."
Into his tone crept the death-note of finality. "But some day I'm
a-goin' ter git ye."
"That's all," pronounced the major briefly. "Report to your sergeant."
The boy from Troublesome saluted stiffly and left the tent.