SOME LETTERS AND KETTLE'S ENLISTMENT
Anita, who could plan things quite as well as if she were forty instead
of eighteen, bided her time until the hour when Mrs. McGillicuddy was
putting the After-Clap to bed. Then the girl slipped away and took the
road to the long street of the married men's quarters. An icy fog
swept from the Arctic Circle, enveloped the world, hiding both moon and
stars, and made the great arc lamps look like little points of light in
the great ocean of white mist. Every step of the way Anita's heart and
will battled fiercely together. Broussard knew Mrs. Lawrence in some
mysterious way. Perhaps he had loved her once; Anita was all a woman,
and at seventeen was learned in the affairs of the heart.
This woman, however, between whom and Broussard some strong link was
forged, Anita knew not when, nor how, nor where, was ill and poor and
suffering, and Anita's natural inclinations were merciful. Besides,
she had been taught by her father and mother the great lessons of life
in kindness and tenderness. She had seen her father give up a party of
pleasure to walk behind the pine coffin of a private soldier, and her
mother had robbed her greenhouse of its choicest blossoms to lay a
wreath on a soldier's grave.
By instinct, rather than sight, Anita stopped in front of the right
door and met the chaplain coming out.
"Glad to see you, Anita," said the chaplain, who was muffled up to his
eyes. "Go in and talk to that poor lady. We all want to help her, but
we find it hard, for she will tell nothing of herself, of her family,
or anything, except that she knows Lawrence didn't mean to desert, and
will yet report himself."
In the plain little bedroom Mrs. Lawrence lay on her bed, the shaded
electric light by her bedside showing her thin face, made more pallid
by the great braids of lustrous black hair that fell about her. A look
of faint surprise came into her languid eyes as Anita drew a chair to
her bed and took her hand.
"My mother sent me," Anita said, gently, "to ask if I could do anything
for you."
Mrs. Lawrence murmured her thanks, and then hesitated for a moment, the
words trembling upon her lips.
"Yes," she said, "you can do something for me. Something I haven't
asked anybody to do. I tried to ask the chaplain just now--he is a
kind man, and tries to help me but for some reason my courage failed; I
don't know why, but I didn't ask him. It is, to write a letter for me."
"Certainly I will write a letter for you," said Anita.
"It is to Mr. Broussard," answered Mrs. Lawrence.
The thought of writing to Broussard startled and overwhelmed Anita.
She glanced about her nervously, fearing Mrs. Lawrence's words had been
overheard, and stammered and blushed. But the woman, lying wan and
weak in the bed, did not notice this.
"I am not strong enough to dictate it exactly as I want," said Mrs.
Lawrence, "and you will have to write it at your own home. But I am
very anxious for you to write to Mr. Broussard for me and tell him that
my husband is missing and will soon be posted as a deserter; that I
don't know where he is, but I am sure he will return. Don't tell Mr.
Broussard how ill I am, but just say that the Colonel has let me stay
on here, and the boy is well. Mr. Broussard is my husband's best
friend; they were playmates in boyhood."
A dead silence fell between the woman and the girl and lasted for some
minutes. Anita was already composing the letter in her mind.
"Perhaps before I go I can do something else for you," she said
presently.
"No, everything has been done for me, and Mrs. McGillicuddy brings the
boy over every night to tell me good-night. What you can do for me is
to write the letter, as I asked you, and post it to-night. It can't
reach Mr. Broussard in less than a month, perhaps two months. The last
letter I received from him he was in some wild place a long distance
from Guam, but he will get the letter eventually, if he lives."
Anita rose and walked back home through the icy mist. Mrs. Fortescue
was in the shaded drawing-room seated at her harp, playing soft chords
and arpeggios, with Colonel Fortescue leaning over her chair. If was a
picture Anita had often seen, and at those times, from her childhood
and from Beverley's, they were made to feel that they were secondary,
and even the After-Clap was superfluous. Nevertheless, Anita walked
into the room. The Colonel and Mrs. Fortescue started apart like young
lovers.
"I have been to see Mrs. Lawrence," said Anita, "and she asked me if I
would write a letter for her. She didn't, of course, tell me not to
say anything about it to you, mother and daddy, but I would rather not
tell you to whom the letter is to be written. You must trust me, my
own dear daddy. It is a very simple letter, just to say that Lawrence
has disappeared and Mrs. Lawrence and the little boy are in kind hands."
"Of course we trust you," answered Colonel Fortescue, smiling. "You
are a very trusty person, Anita."
"Like my father and mother," answered Anita, and ran out of the room.
As they heard her light step tripping up the stairs, the father and
mother looked at each other with troubled eyes.
"It is to Broussard," said the Colonel, remembering his last interview
with him. "I think Broussard steadily befriended Lawrence and his
wife."
Mrs. Fortescue's candid eyes grew clouded.
"It is a strange intimacy," she said.
"It's all right," unhesitatingly replied the Colonel.
"Oh, well," said Mrs. Fortescue, touching the harpstrings, "If you are
fomenting a love affair between Anita at Fort Blizzard and Broussard in
the tropics, it is your affair."
"Elizabeth," said the Colonel, "I am not a person to foment love
affairs, or any other private and personal affairs."
"I said _if_ you were fomenting a love affair, John," replied Mrs.
Fortescue; and then there was no more music from the harp, the Colonel
going into his office and Mrs. Fortescue to the After-Clap's nursery.
In her own little room Anita was already hard at work on her letter to
Broussard. It was a very short and simple letter, telling exactly, and
only, what Mrs. Lawrence had asked, and it was signed "Sincerely
Yours." But when it was to be sealed Anita's insurgent heart cried out
to be heard, and she added a little postscript, which read:
"Gamechick is very well and sends his love. I ride him nearly every
day."
Anita would not trust her precious letter to the mail orderly, or even
Sergeant McGillicuddy or Kettle, but throwing her crimson mantle around
her, she slipped out, in the cold mist, to the letter box. For one
moment she held the letter poised in her hand before it took its flight
toward the tropics; Anita's tender heart went with the letter.
A fortnight later, the March sun having come in place of the February
snows, Mrs. McGillicuddy succeeded in dragging Mrs. Lawrence out of
doors, one day about noon, and after placing her on a bench in the glow
of the light, went off to look after the eight McGillicuddys, the
little Lawrence boy, and the After-Clap, none of whom could have got on
without her. Colonel Fortescue, coming out of the headquarters
building, and going to his own house, passed Mrs. Lawrence, sitting on
the bench. The Colonel, who knew her well enough by sight, raised his
cap and, stopping a moment, asked courteously after her health.
"I am better," replied Mrs. Lawrence, "and I want to thank you for your
kindness in letting me stay in the quarters. I will not trespass any
longer than I can help."
"May I ask," said the Colonel, kindly, "if you have any friends with
whom I could help you to communicate?"
Mrs. Lawrence smiled as she answered:
"I have relatives, if that is what you mean. But I do not care to
communicate with them. Please understand me that I do not, for a
moment, admit that my husband is a deserter."
"I wish I could think he was not," said Colonel Fortescue, "but
unfortunately, his misconduct----"
Colonel Fortescue caught himself; he had done what he seldom did--used
the wrong word. Mrs. Lawrence struggled feebly to her feet, the divine
obstinacy of a loving woman shining in her melancholy eyes.
"Stop!" she cried, "I can't allow any one, even the Colonel of the
regiment, to disparage my husband before my face."
"I beg your pardon," said Colonel Fortescue, "I regret the word I used."
Mrs. Lawrence, inclining her head, sank, rather than sat, upon the
bench.
"Perhaps I should not have spoken so," she said, in a composed voice,
"as my husband was only a private, and you are the Colonel; but I think
you understand that I was neither born nor reared to this position."
"I do understand," replied Colonel Fortescue, "and some one has done
you a very great wrong in bringing you to this post; but you may depend
upon it that neither you nor your child shall suffer for the present,
and I hope you will soon be well."
[Illustration: "Neither you nor your child shall suffer for the
present."]
"It is my heart that is more ill than my body," replied Mrs. Lawrence,
and the Colonel passed on.
The tragedy of a desertion is very great, and as Colonel Fortescue
said, tragedies grow more intense in the fierce cold of winter, and
Mrs. Lawrence and the beautiful little boy were, in themselves, living
tragedies. Sergeant McGillicuddy, too, had a tragic aspect. In spite
of all the Colonel could say, the Sergeant still accused himself of
being the cause of Lawrence's desertion. McGillicuddy's bronzed face,
like a hickory nut, grew so haggard, his self-reproaches so piteous,
that Colonel Fortescue thought it well to give him a positive order to
say nothing of the circumstances that led up to Lawrence's striking
him. The Sergeant begged to be allowed to tell the chaplain about it;
to this Colonel Fortescue consented, and McGillicuddy had a long
conversation with the chaplain.
"The Colonel says, sir," McGillicuddy declared mournfully to the
chaplain, "as it is the damned climate,--excuse me, sir,--that makes
everybody queer."
"I'll excuse you," replied the chaplain, who had the same opinion of
the Arctic cold as Colonel Fortescue. "I think the cold gets on men's
nerves and makes them queer."
However, the chaplain had the power to console, and McGillicuddy became
a trifle more resigned, and even had a faint hope of Lawrence's return,
caught from Mrs. McGillicuddy's report of Mrs. Lawrence's fixed belief
that Lawrence would come back and give himself up. One great
consolation to the Sergeant was, to spend a large part of his pay in
comforts for Mrs. Lawrence and clothes and books and toys for the
little Ronald. Mrs. McGillicuddy, who had reasoned out a very good
solution of McGillicuddy's troubles, encouraged him in his kindness to
Mrs. Lawrence and the boy, so that the old rule of God making the devil
work for Him was again illustrated; much good came to those whom
Lawrence had deserted.
The chaplain thought it a good time to preach a sermon on loyalty, and
on the very Sunday after Colonel Fortescue had talked with Mrs.
Lawrence, the congregation that crowded the chapel heard an exposition
of what loyalty meant, especially loyalty to one's country. Among the
most attentive listeners was Kettle, whose honest black face glowed
when the chaplain proclaimed that every man owed it to his country to
defend it, if required. When the congregation streamed out of the
chapel, Mrs. Fortescue stopped a moment to congratulate the chaplain on
his sermon. Behind her stood Kettle, who was never very far away from
Miss Betty.
"I listen to that sermon, suh," said Kettle, earnestly, to the
chaplain, "and it cert'ny wuz a corker, suh."
"That is high praise," answered the chaplain, "I would rather an
enlisted man should tell me that a sermon of mine was a corker, than
for the archbishop of the archdiocese to write me a personal letter of
praise."
Just then the chaplain, who was accused of having eyes in the back of
his head, saw something directly behind him. No less than four of the
seven McGillicuddy boys were altar boys, wearing little red cassocks
and white surplices in church. They were supposed to leave the
cassocks and surplices in the sacristy, but Ignatius McGillicuddy, aged
ten, had sneaked out of the sacristy, still wearing his red cassock,
and, seeing the chaplain passing out of the gate, thought it safe to
begin an elaborate skirt dance, in his cassock, and making many fancy
steps, with much high kicking, while the skirt of his cassock waved in
the air. In the midst of his final pirouette, he caught the chaplain's
stern glance fixed on him. Instantly Ignatius appeared to turn to
stone, and the vision of a switch, wielded by Mrs. McGillicuddy's
robust arm, passed before his eyes. He was immensely relieved when the
chaplain said, grimly:
"Ten pages of catechism next Sunday."
Kettle went home and was very solemn all day. Not even the
After-Clap's pranks could make him smile, nor were the After-Clap's
orders always orders to him that day. In the late afternoon Mrs.
Fortescue, seeing Kettle seated in a corner of the back hall, and
evidently in an introspective mood, asked him:
"What's been the matter with you all day, Kettle?"
"I'm a-seekin', Miss Betty," Kettle replied solemnly.
"What are you seeking?" Mrs. Fortescue inquired.
"Seekin' light, Miss Betty," answered Kettle. "I'm seekin' light on my
duty to my country, arter the chaplain done preached to-day."
"Glad to hear it," responded Mrs. Fortescue. "Your duty at present is
to look after the baby and me."
"Gord knows I does the bes' I kin," replied Kettle, raising his eyes,
full of faith and love and simplicity, to Mrs. Fortescue's. "But the
chaplain, he say we orter fight for our country; maybe at this heah
very minute I orter be a-settin' on a hoss, a-shootin' down the enemies
of my country."
"Well, Kettle," said Mrs. Fortescue, laughing, "as you can't ride and
you can't shoot, I don't think you will ever do much damage to the
enemies of your country."
Mrs. Fortescue passed on, laughing. But some one else had heard
Kettle. This was Sergeant Halligan, a chum of Sergeant McGillicuddy,
who had stopped at the Commandant's house on an errand. Sergeant
Halligan, seeing no one around in that part of the house, winked to
himself, and went up to "the naygur," as he, like Sergeant McGillicuddy
called Kettle.
"I say," said the sergeant, in a whisper, "you're right about the
chaplain's sermon. It's the duty of every man who can carry a gun to
fight for his country. I saw the chaplain looking straight at you, and
he was as mad as fire. A white-livered coward stands a mighty poor
chanst of salvation, is what the chaplain thinks."
"Does you mean that?" anxiously asked Kettle.
"Don't I?" responded Sergeant Halligan, confidently. "Maybe you think
it's hard lines to have to drill all day and walk post all night, but
it's a merry jest compared with burning in hell fire. I'd ruther drill
and walk post all my life than find myself in the lake of brimstone and
sulphur that's a-waitin' for cowards."
"Tain't the drill and the walkin' post as skeers me," said Kettle, "but
I ain't noways fond of guns. If it wasn't for them devilish guns I'd
enlist, pertickler if they'd let me stay with Miss Betty and the baby."
"Sure they would," replied the artful Halligan with a wink. "The
Colonel wouldn't disoblige his lady. You'd be detailed to work around
the house here, and you'd look grand in uniform."
"You think so?" said Kettle, with a delighted grin, "I always did have
a kinder honin' after them yaller stripes down my legs."
"And a sabre and a sabretache," continued the Sergeant. Times were
sometimes dull at Fort Blizzard, and the men in the barracks could get
a good many laughs out of Kettle as a soldier.
The yellow stripes down his legs and the sabre and sabretache were
dazzling to Kettle, But an objection rose on the horizon.
"How 'bout them hosses?" he asked, "I ain't never been on no hoss sence
the time when I wuz a little shaver, and the Kun'l--he wasn't nothin'
but a lieutenant then--wuz courtin' Miss Betty, and he pick me up and
put me on a hoss he call Birdseye. Lord! It makes me feel creepy now,
to tink 'bout that hoss!"
"Oh, you needn't bother about horses," answered the Sergeant,
cheerfully. "The Colonel could manage that, and you can wear your
uniform just the same."
"I reckon I could ride a gentle hoss," ventured Kettle.
"'Course," replied the Sergeant confidently, "I think I can manage it
with the orficer in charge of mounts. I could get the milkman's hoss
for you. She is twenty-three years old and as quiet as an old maid of
seventy-five; she wouldn't run away or kick, not even if you was to
build a fire under her."
This seemed to dispose of the great difficulty in Kettle's mind, when
the Sergeant suggested that he would see the milkman that very evening,
and at nine o'clock the next morning, he would go to the officer in
charge of mounts, and by ten o'clock Kettle, as soon as he had finished
washing up the breakfast things and had taken the After-Clap for his
airing in the baby carriage, could step down to the recruiting office
and enlist.
Everything looked rosy to Kettle. That night, at dinner, Kettle was
radiant and informed Mrs. Fortescue, between the fish and the roast,
that he had "done found his duty and was a-goin' to do it."
Mrs. Fortescue had some curiosity to know what this new duty of
Kettle's was, but Kettle maintained a mysterious silence, only
admitting that it would not take him away from "Miss Betty and the
baby."
Next morning, however, in the cold light of day, the proposition had
lost something of its charms for Kettle. The yellow stripes down his
legs did not appear quite so overwhelmingly fascinating. He remembered
that Sergeant McGillicuddy was afraid to ride in the buggy behind the
milkman's horse. Sergeant Halligan did not give Kettle any time to
repent of his decision, and promptly appeared at ten o'clock and
escorted Kettle to the recruiting office. The recruiting sergeant was
on hand and Sergeant Halligan explained Kettle's martial enthusiasm.
Something like a wink passed between Sergeant Halligan and Gully, the
recruiting sergeant, who agreed to enlist Kettle, under the name of
Solomon Ezekiel Pickup, as a unit in the army of the United States.
A sudden illumination came to Kettle. "Yon c'yarn' enlist me in no
white regiment," cried Kettle to Sergeant Halligan, "I'm a nigger and
you have to put me in a nigger regiment."
"Oh, that's all right," responded Sergeant Halligan, airily, "we can
get you in all right, and we'll be proud to have you. Won't we, Gully?"
"Certainly," replied Sergeant Gully, "we can fix that up. It's fixed
up already."
The rapidity of the proceedings rather startled Kettle.
"But doan' the doctor have to thump me, and pound me, and count my
teeth?" he asked. Kettle had not spent twenty years at army posts
without finding out something.
"No, indeed," answered Sergeant Gully, who was a chum of Sergeant
Halligan, "not with such a husky feller as you. I can thump and pound
and count your teeth."
With that Gully made a physical examination of Kettle, and declared
that no surgeon who ever lived would turn down such a magnificent
specimen of robust manhood as Kettle.
All this was very disheartening to Kettle but seemed of great interest
to Sergeant Halligan and his side partner, Sergeant Gully, and also to
the orderly, who grinned sympathetically with the two sergeants.
"I say," said Sergeant Gully, "there's nothing doing here this morning
and I'll just leave the orderly in charge and step in with you and
introduce Private Pickup to the drill sergeant. The sergeant is a
honey, but the bees don't know it."
Then, with Sergeant Halligan on one side of him and Sergeant Gully on
the other, Kettle started across the plaza in the clear morning light
for the great riding hall. By this time Kettle was thoroughly alarmed.
The sight of the class in riding, smart young privates, marching gaily
into the drill hall, made Kettle feel very uneasy about the riding.
"How 'bout the milkman's hoss?" asked Kettle anxiously.
"The milkman's horse? The milkman's horse?" sniffed Sergeant Halligan,
"D'ye think I'm an infernal fool to put such a proposition up to the
orficer in charge of mounts? He'd kick me full of holes if I did."
"But I say," replied Kettle, spurred by fear, "you is a deceiver,
suh--a deceiver, and I'm a'goin to tell the Kun'l on you and he'll do
for you--that he will."
"Look-a-here, Solomon Ezekiel Pickup," shouted Sergeant Halligan
savagely, "it's against the regulations to talk to your superior
orficers so damned impudent, and I'm a going to prefer charges against
you, and you can face three months in the military prison for it. And
I'm a-thinkin' that Briggs, the drill sergeant, will put you on the
kickingest horse in the regimental stables. Sergeant Gully here says
the drill sergeant is a honey, but he's awful mistaken. I've known
Briggs ever since we was rookies together, and he's a cruel man, and
has caused the death of several rookies by his murderin' ways."
Just then the three came face to face with Sergeant McGillicuddy. In
those days McGillicuddy's honest face was gloomy and he had not much
spirit for jokes, but he laughed when Sergeant Halligan explained to
him that Sergeant Gully had enlisted Kettle and had passed him both
mentally and physically, and that he was then on his way to take his
first lesson in riding.
Sergeant McGillicuddy went his way, laughing, for once in a blue moon,
and Kettle, marching between the two sergeants, felt like a prisoner on
his way to execution.
Arrived at the great drill hall, now dim and silent except for a batch
of recruits, and Briggs, the drill sergeant, a trooper brought in
Corporal, a handsome sorrel, and the model of a trained cavalry
charger. The trooper at the same time handed the Sergeant a long whip.
Corporal, the charger, understood as well as any trooper in the
regiment what the crack of the whip meant, from walk, trot, to gallop.
As Kettle appeared, almost dragged in by the two sergeants, a grin went
around among the young recruits, ruddy-skinned and clear-eyed
youngsters, well set up and worthy to wear the uniform of their country.
A whispered conversation followed among the three sergeants and
although Kettle was not in uniform as the other recruits were, Sergeant
Briggs, for a reason imparted to him by Sergeant Halligan, called out
to Kettle:
"Here, Pickup, you get up, and you stay up, and if you don't you'll get
a whack up!"
This passed for a witticism to the recruits, who made it a point to
laugh at all the drill sergeant's jokes. Kettle, with much difficulty,
managed to climb on Corporal's back and crouched there in a heap.
Corporal turned his mild intelligent eyes toward Sergeant Briggs, as
much as to say:
"What kind of a fool have I got on my back now?"
"Take the reins and let her go, Gallagher!" said the sergeant with a
crack of his whip.
Corporal, seeing his duty, did it. He started off in a brisk walk
around the tanbark, and in twenty seconds he heard another crack, and
still another, which sent him into a hard gallop. As the horse
quickened his pace, Kettle dropped the reins, and grasping Corporal
around the neck, hung on desperately as the horse sped around the great
ellipse. At a word from Sergeant Briggs, the horse stopped and walked
sedately to the middle of the hall. Kettle slipped off and staggered
to his feet.
[Illustration: Kettle dropped the reins, and grasping Corporal around
the neck, hung on desperately.]
"Good Gord A'mighty," he groaned, to Sergeant Briggs, "I k'yarn' ride
that air hoss, Mr. Briggs, and I ain't a goin' to, neither. Miss
Betty, she tole me the way to surve my country wuz to look after the
baby and her, so I'm jes' goin' to resign from the army and go home,
'cause it's scrub day."
"You go to the orficer of the day, and report yourself under arrest,"
promptly replied Briggs. "His office is in the headquarters building
and he'll straighten you out, I'm thinkin'."
Kettle started off cheerfully enough, but instead of going to the
headquarters building he made a bee line for the C. O.'s house, where
he at once took off his coat and went down on his knees to scrub the
pantry. Two hours afterward, when the drill sergeant's work was done
in the riding hall and he discovered that Kettle had not reported
himself to the officer of the day, the sergeant walked over to the C.
O.'s house and sent in a respectful request to see the commanding
officer.
"Come in, Sergeant," called out Colonel Fortescue, sitting at his desk.
"Beg your pardon, sir," said the Sergeant, once inside, "but I have
come to you privately, to tell you about your man, known as Kettle. He
came into the riding hall this morning, and Sergeant Gully and Sergeant
Halligan said he enlisted. Of course, I know, sir, they couldn't
enlist him, but I'm afraid I helped 'em on with the joke. Anyhow, I
made him get on a horse, and it would have broke your heart, sir, to
see such riding! Then he got sassy, and I told him, just to get rid of
him, to report himself under arrest, but nobody hasn't seen him since."
At that moment, the new recruit was seen passing the window, and
wearing blue over-alls, in which he did scrubbing. The Colonel tapped
on the window and Kettle came in by the office entrance.
"What's this, Solomon, about your being saucy to Sergeant Briggs?"
asked Colonel Fortescue, sternly.
"Well, suh, I enlisted," answered Kettle, promptly, "an' I done
resigned. I tole that there Briggs man so, and lef' the drill hall and
come home, 'cause it was scrub day."
"Three days in the guardhouse," thundered the Colonel, in a voice
terrible to Kettle.
Sergeant Briggs, touching his cap, walked out, Kettle following him.
At the door stood Mrs. McGillicuddy holding in her arms the After-Clap,
in all his morning freshness, his little white fur cap and coat showing
off his eyes and hair, so dark, like his mother's. The After-Clap gave
a spring which he meant to land him in Kettle's arms, but Kettle,
bursting into tears, would not take him.
"I k'yarn' take you now, honey," cried Kettle, wiping his eyes, "I'm a
goin' to the guardhouse, my lamb, for three days and maybe I never see
you no mo'."
The baby seemed to think this might be true, and set up a series of
loud shrieks.
"Do you mean to say as you've tried to enlist?" cried Mrs.
McGillicuddy, struggling with the baby and her astonishment and
indignation all at once. "The idea of you being a soldier! It beats
the band, it does!"
Sergeant Briggs, without giving Kettle time to explain further, marched
him off, and Mrs. McGillicuddy went to report to Mrs. Fortescue, while
Sergeant McGillicuddy appeared to report to Colonel Fortescue.
"I believe, sir," said the Sergeant confidentially, "as it's a crooked
business about the naygur's wantin' to enlist. Gully and Sergeant
Halligan was jokin', but it's mighty risky jokin' with the regulations."
So thought Sergeant Halligan and Sergeant Gully, when confronted with
the Colonel. As they were two of the best sergeants in the regiment,
the Colonel satisfied himself with a stern reprimand, which was not
entered against them. But having sentenced Kettle to three days in the
guardhouse for insolence to Sergeant Briggs, Colonel Fortescue thought
it well to let the sentence stand.
Colonel Fortescue, in spite of being the commanding officer at one of
the finest cavalry posts in the world, and whose word was law, could
yet be made to feel domestic displeasure. The family at once divided
itself into two camps, one on the Colonel's side and one on Kettle's.
Anita, of course, sided with her father, and declared he had done
perfectly right about Kettle, as he did about everything. Sergeant
McGillicuddy was also a faithful adherent of the Colonel's in the
wordless warfare that prevailed in the commanding officer's house for
the three days in which Kettle enjoyed the hospitality of the
guardhouse.
"Served the naygur right for sassing a sergeant," was Sergeant
McGillicuddy's view. On the other side was arrayed, of course, Mrs.
Fortescue, who outwardly observed an armed neutrality, but who called
the Colonel "John" during the entire three days of Kettle's
imprisonment. Colonel Fortescue retaliated by calling Mrs. Fortescue
"Elizabeth."
There were frequent references, in the Colonel's hearing, to "Poor
Kettle," and the After-Clap was not rebuked in his insistent demand for
"my Kettle, I want my Kettle! Where is my Kettle?"
At intervals, from the time he waked in the morning until Mrs.
McGillicuddy put him in his crib at night, the After-Clap was screaming
for Kettle, and as the baby was extremely robust, his shrieks and wails
for Kettle were clearly audible to the Colonel, sitting grimly in his
private office, or at luncheon, or having his tea in the drawing-room.
Colonel Fortescue, however, spent most of his time during those three
days at the headquarters building or the officers' club. As for Mrs.
McGillicuddy, she was openly on the side of Kettle and against the
Colonel, and shrewdly surmised exactly what had happened about the
enlistment, and also that Sergeant McGillicuddy was implicated with the
other two sergeants in the outrage. Mrs. McGillicuddy boldly
propounded this theory to Mrs. Fortescue while the latter was dressing
for dinner on the first evening of Kettle's incarceration. The
Colonel, in the next room, going through the same process of dressing,
could hear every word through the open door.
"It's Patrick McGillicuddy that had a hand in it, mum," said Mrs.
McGillicuddy wrathfully. "He's been takin' rises out of the naygur, as
he calls Kettle, for twenty years, and he seen Sergeant Gully and
Sergeant Halligan draggin' poor Kettle along to the riding hall. I
seen Kettle when he run out, and McGillicuddy was a standin' off,
a-laffin' fit to kill himself, and I know that Gully and Halligan has
been jokin' Kettle and makin' him believe he has enlisted in the
aviation corps and will have to go flyin', and Kettle's scared stiff."
"Poor Kettle," said Mrs. Fortescue softly, clasping her pearls about
her white throat. "It's been a sad day to all of us, except the
Colonel. Of course, I never attempt to criticise Colonel Fortescue's
professional conduct, but I do feel lost without Kettle."
"Well, mum," replied Mrs. McGillicuddy, "I haven't been a sergeant's
wife for twenty years without findin' out that nobody can't say a word
about the orficers, but I do think, mum, as three days in the
guardhouse for poor Kettle, who was bamboozled by Tim Gully and Mike
Halligan, is one of the cruelest things a commandin' orficer ever done.
Not that I'm a-criticisin' the Colonel, mum--I wouldn't do such a thing
for the world."
"Nor would I," replied Mrs. Fortescue meekly, and fully conscious of
the Colonel's presence in the next room, shaving himself savagely, "but
three days for such a little thing does seem hard."
Colonel Fortescue ground his teeth and gave himself such a jab with his
razor that the blood came.
This subtle persecution of the Colonel went on, with variations, for
three whole days.
On the Friday when Kettle's time was up he was released and his return
was hailed with open delight by his partisans, Mrs. Fortescue, Mrs.
McGillicuddy and the After-Clap, and with secret relief by the Colonel,
Anita and Sergeant McGillicuddy.
Kettle, on reporting to the Colonel, said solemnly, "Kun'l, I ain't
never goin' ter try an' enlist no mo', so help me Gord A'mighty. An' I
ain't a'goin' to pay no more 'tention to the chaplain's sermons, 'cause
'twuz that there chaplain as fust got me in this here mess, cuss him!"
This last was under Kettle's breath, and the Colonel pretended not to
hear.