Mid October. The Queen of the Fleet, the finest transport of the Pacific
service, thronged with boys in blue at last ordered on to Manila, lay at
the wharf at Honolulu, awaiting her commander's orders to cast loose. In
strong force, and with stentorian voices, the Primeval Dudes joined in
rollicking chorus to the crashing accompaniment of their band and, when
they could take time to rest, the crowd ashore set up a cheer. The
Hawaiian National Band, in spotless white, forming a huge and melodious
circle on the wharf, vied with the musicians from the States in the
spirit and swing of their stirring airs. "_Aloha Oe! Aloha Oe!_" chorused
the surging throng, afloat and ashore, as wreaths and garlands--the
_leis_ of the islanders--were twined or hung about some favorite officer
or favored man. The troops still held to service in Hawaii shouted good
will and good-by to those ordered on to the Philippines. The Dudes of the
Queen, and the lads from the prairies and the mountains on other
transports anchored in the deep but narrow harbor, yelled soldierly
condolence to those condemned to stay. The steam of the 'scape pipe
roared loudly and belched dense white clouds on high, swelling the
uproar. Dusky little Kanaka boys, diving for nickels and paddling
tireless about the ship, added their shrill cries to the clamor. The
captain, in his natty uniform of blue and gold, stepped forth upon the
bridge to take command, and raised his banded cap in recognition of the
constant cheer from the host ashore and the throng of blue shirts on the
forecastle head. Then arose another shout, as a veteran officer, in the
undress uniform of a general, appeared upon that sacred bound, and,
bowing to the crowd, was escorted by the captain to the end overlooking
the animated scene below; and then the signal was given, the heavy lines
were cast off and hauled swiftly in, the massive screw began slowly to
churn the waters at the stern, and gently, almost imperceptibly at first,
the Queen slid noiselessly along the edge of the dock, to the
accompaniment of a little volley of flowers and garlands tossed from
eager hands, and a cheer of godspeed from the swarm of upturned faces.
And then there uprose another shout, a shout of mingled merriment,
surprise and applause; for all on a sudden there darted up the stairway
from the crowded promenade deck to the sacred perch above, defiant of the
lettered warning, "Passengers are not allowed upon the Bridge," a dainty
vision in filmy white, and all in the next moment there appeared at the
General's side, smiling, bowing, blowing kisses, waving adieux, all
sparkle, animation, radiance and rejoicing, a bewitching little figure in
the airiest, loveliest of summer toilets. The Red Cross nurses on the
deck below looked at one another and gasped. Two brave army girls, wives
of wounded officers in the Philippines, who, by special dispensation,
were making the voyage on the Queen, glanced quickly at each other and
said--nothing audible. The General, lifting his cap, but looking both
deprecation and embarrassment, fell back and gave his place at the white
rail to the new arrival, and colored high when she suddenly turned and
took his arm. The captain, trying not to see her or to appear conscious
of this infraction of a stringent rule and invasion of his dignity, grew
redder as he shouted rapid orders and swung his big, beautiful ship well
out into the stream. The guns of the Bennington boomed a deafening salute
as the Queen turned her sharp nose toward the open sea; and almost the
last thing Honolulu saw of her human freight was the tiny, dainty,
winsome little figure in white, waving a spotless kerchief as in fond
farewell. Once clear of the narrow entrance the big troop ship headed
westward toward the setting sun, shook free the reins, as it were, and,
followed by less favored craft, sped swiftly on her way, Witchie
Garrison, the latest addition to the passenger list, entirely at home, if
not actually in command.
Leaning on the General's arm an hour later and deftly piloting that
bewildered veteran up and down the breezy deck, she came, just as she had
planned to come, face to face once more with Stanley Armstrong. Well she
knew that under the escort of that exalted rank she was safe from any
possibility of cross question or interference. Well she knew that had he
heard of her sudden determination to go to Honolulu she could not have
escaped stern interrogation, possibly something worse; and her heart
failed her when she realized that the man who had gauged her shallow
nature years before, now held a lash over her head in the shape of the
paper that mad vanity had prompted her to write and send to the officer
of the guard the day that Stewart sailed. What madness it was, indeed,
yet how could she have dreamed it would fall into the hands of the man of
all others she feared and respected--the one man who, had he but cared,
could years ago have had her love, the man who, because he cared not, had
won her hate! And, now that he held or had held this paper--nothing less
than a forged order in her husband's name as aide-de-camp to General
Drayton, she could have cowered at his feet in her terror of him, yet
braved him with smiles, sweetness and gayety, with arch merriment and
joyous words, quitting for the moment the General's arm that she might
extend to him both her little white-gloved hands. Gravely he took the
left in his left while with the right he raised his forage cap in
combined salute to the woman and to his superior officer. Gravely and
almost instantly he released it, and listened in helpless patience to her
torrent of playful words; but his eyes were on the General's face as
though he would ask could he, the General, know the true character of the
woman he had honored above all her sisterhood on board, in thus taking
her to the bridge whereon neither officer nor man nor nurse nor army wife
had presumed to set foot on all the six days' run from San Francisco, as
though he would ask if the General knew just what she was, this blithe,
dainty, winsome little thing that nestled so confidingly--indeed, so
snugly--close to his battered side, and who had virtually taken
possession of him in the face of an envious and not too silent circle of
her own sex. Truth to tell, the Chief would rather have escaped. He was
but an indifferent sailor, and the Queen's long, lazy roll over the ocean
surges was exciting in his inner consciousness a longing for cracked ice
and champagne. He had known her but the few days the Queen remained in
port, coaling and preparing for the onward voyage across the broad
Pacific; but a great functionary of the general government had told him a
pathetic tale the very day of his first peep at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel,
had given him a capital dinner at that famous hostelry, whereat she
appeared in charming attire, and in a flow of spirits simply
irresistible. Her sallies of wit had made him roar with delight; her
mimicry of one or two conscientious but acidulated dames who had come
over on the Queen, bound as nurses for Manila, had tickled him to the
verge of apoplexy; but when later she backed him into the coolest corner
of the "lanai" with the plash of fountain close at hand, and the sweet
music of Berger's famous band floating softly on the evening air, and
told him how her father had loved to talk of his, the General's, dash and
daring in the great days of the great war, and led him on to tell of his
campaigns in the Shenandoah and the West, listening with dilated eyes and
parted lips, the campaigner himself was captivated, and she had her will.
A great senator had told him how she had come thither to nurse a gallant
young officer in her husband's regiment, how she had pulled the boy
through the perils of brain fever until he was now convalescent and going
on to rejoin his comrades in Manila, and she, she was pining to reach her
husband now serving on General Drayton's staff. Other women were aboard
the Queen; could not General Crabb find room for her? It is hard for a
soldier to refuse a pretty woman--or a prominent member of the committee
on military affairs. There was not a vacant stateroom on the ship.
Officers were sleeping three or four in a room, so were the Red Cross
nurses; and the two army wives already aboard had been assigned a little
cubby-hole of a cabin in which only one could dress at a time. There were
only two apartments on the big craft that were not filled to their
capacity--the room occupied by that sea monarch, the captain, and that
which, from having been the "Ladies' Boudoir," had been fitted up for the
accommodation of the General. The piano had been wheeled out on deck, the
writing table stowed away, and a fine new wide brass bedstead, with
dainty white curtains and mosquito bar, a large bureau and a washstand
had been moved in, and these, with easy-chairs, electric fans, electric
lights and abundant air, made it the most desirable room on the ship.
Even Armstrong, colonel commanding the troops aboard, was compelled to
share his little cabin with his adjutant, and the General's aides were
bundled into a "skimpy" box between decks. There really seemed no place
for Mrs. Garrison aboard, especially when it was found that the passenger
list was to be increased by three, a surgeon and two officers going
forward from Honolulu; and one of these was our old friend and once
light-hearted Billy Gray, now nearly convalescent, but weak and, as all
could see, feverishly eager to get on to Manila.
All this was explained to the senator. It was even suggested that there
was room for Mrs. Garrison on the Louisiana, a safe old tub, if she was
slow; but Mrs. Frank looked so pathetic and resigned when this
arrangement was suggested that no one had the hardihood to actually dwell
upon it, and the senator said it was a shame to think of it. With whom of
her own sex could she associate on that long, hot voyage ahead of them?
Why not transfer some of the Red Cross nurses to the Louisiana? Mrs.
Garrison had no objections, but they had; and the surgeon in charge made
prompt and vigorous protest. He knew Mrs. Frank, and she knew him and did
not in the least despair. She still had a plan. There was a cozy dinner
one evening--just the evening before the departure of the Queen, and the
gallant captain of the ship, the veteran General, the quartermaster in
charge of transportation, the member of the senate military committee,
some charming girls,--but none so charming as Mrs. Garrison,--were of the
party. There was some sentiment and much champagne, as a result of which,
at one A.M., the big-hearted sea monarch aforementioned swore by the
bones of his ancestors in the slimy grasp of Davy Jones that that sweet
little woman shouldn't have to go a-begging for accommodations on his
ship. If the General would condescend to move into his room, by thunder,
he'd sleep up in his foul-weather den next the chart room, and Mrs.
Garrison--God bless her!--could take the General's room, and be queen of
the ship--queen of the Queen--queen of queens--by Jupiter! and here's her
health with all honor! A soldier, of course, could be no less gallant
than a sailor, especially as the captain's room was a bit better than the
"Boudoir," and had an ice chest and contents that the veteran campaigner
was bidden to consider his own. The agreement was clinched that very
night before the party broke up; and little Mrs. Frank shed tears of
gratitude upon the General's coat sleeve and threw kiss after kiss to the
handsome sailor as she hung over the balusters of the broad veranda and
waved them away in their swift-running cabs, and then danced off to her
room and threw herself on the bed after a mad pirouette about the
spacious apartment, and laughed and laughed until real tears trickled
from her eyes, and then gave orders to be called at seven o'clock. She
meant to be up and aboard that ship with all her luggage before sense and
repentance could come with the morning sun--before either soldier or
sailor could change his mind.
To the amaze of the women already aboard, to the grave annoyance of
Colonel Armstrong, to the joy of poor Billy Gray, and the mischievous
merriment of several youngsters on the commissioned list, Mrs. Frank
Garrison, the latest arrival, became sole occupant of the finest room on
the ship; and it was a bower of lilies and tropical fruit and flowers the
breezy day she sailed away from the bay of Honolulu.
No time need be wasted in telling the effect of this "assignment to
quarters." Prolific a source of squabble as is the custom ashore it
becomes intensified afloat, and, when coupled with it, came a shaking up
and rearrangement of seats at table, all hope of harmony vanished on the
instant. The two brave young army girls still retained their seats at the
captain's table; but two most estimable young women, Red Cross nurses,
were dropped therefrom and transferred to that of the second officer on
the port side, much to the comfort of a rather large percentage of their
sisterhood who had regarded their previous elevation with feelings of not
unmixed gratification. Then officers who had been seated with the
General's staff had to vacate in favor of Mrs. Frank and Dr. Prober and
Lieutenant Billy Gray, whose father and the chief were long-time chums,
and the Red Cross nurses who had been at the first officer's table fell
back to that of the third. It was every bit as good as the other, but it
didn't sound so, and they couldn't see it; and there were faces sour as
the product of the ship's baker when that evening all hands went down to
dinner, and the silence maintained, or the ominously subdued tone of the
talk, at the other tables, was in marked contrast with the hilarity that
prevailed where sat the gray-haired, ruddy-cheeked old chief and the
laughing coterie that listened to the fun that fell from the lips of
Witchie Garrison. Armstrong, silent and somber, at the captain's right,
looking forward from time to time, saw only one face at the General's
table that was not lighted up with merriment; it was the face of the boy
he envied, if envy of this kind ever entered into his heart, and he
wondered as he looked at Billy's curly head what could have come over
that glad young life to leave so deep a shadow on his handsome face.
One night, just one week later, Armstrong's eyes were opened. More than
once in the meanwhile he had invited the young officer's confidence, and
Billy, who three months earlier had been all gratitude and frankness,
protested there was nothing on his mind. He had been very ill, that was
all. As to Canker's charges they were simply rot. He hadn't the faintest
inkling what had become of the purloined letters any more than he had of
the whereabouts of his Delta Sig friend, young Morton, now officially
proclaimed a deserter. But Armstrong heard more tales of Witchie's
devotions to him in his illness, and the slow convalescence that ensued,
noted how the boy's eyes followed her about the deck, and how many a time
he would seek her side, even when other men were reading, walking or
chatting with her. Armstrong looked with wonderment that was close allied
to incredulity and pain. Was it possible that this blithe lad, who had
won such a warm interest in the heart of such a girl as Amy Lawrence,
could be forgetful of her, faithless to her, and fascinated now by this
selfish and shallow butterfly? It was incredible!
But was it? The days had grown hotter, the nights closer, and the air
between decks was stifling when the sea rolled high and closed the ports.
Officers had taken to snoozing up on deck in steamer chairs. By an
unwritten law the port side of the promenade deck was given up to them
after eleven at night; but the women folk had the run of the starboard
side at any hour when the crew were not washing down decks. Armstrong had
been far forward about two o'clock one breathless night to see for
himself the condition of things in the hospital under the forecastle. The
main deck was crowded with sleeping forms of soldiers who found it
impossible to stand the heat below; so on his return, instead of
continuing along the gangway, he decided to climb the iron ladder from
the main to the promenade deck. It would land him at the forward end on
the starboard side. There he could smoke a cigar in peace and quiet. It
was high time everybody was asleep.
But as his head and eyes reached the level of the deck he became suddenly
aware of a couple huddled close together in the shelter of a canvas
screen, and under the steps leading aloft to the bridge. He knew Gray's
voice at once, and Gray was pleading. He knew _her_ tones of old, and she
was imperative, and listening with obvious impatience, for, almost at the
instant of his arrival, she spoke, low, yet distinctly. "Do as I say; do
as I _beg_ you when we reach Manila, and then come--and see how I can
reward."