On Duty at Havilla
[Illustration]
When they woke they heard the noise of voices in the village and
hastened thither. The chiefs had already arrived and were exchanging
greetings with Carlos and the other residents. Breakfast was prepared
by the women on the same ground where they had dined, and by eight
o'clock the expedition started, composed of some thirty warriors,
several of whom were laden with presents in the shape of baskets and
native cloth. When they neared the headquarters of the little invading
army, the three white men went ahead and informed the sentinels that it
was a peaceful embassy which followed them.
"You must leave me to tell the story of our exploit," Cleary had said,
and his friends were so well satisfied with his record as a talker that
they assented.
"General," said Cleary, as they entered his hut in the village, "we are
bringing in all the chiefs of the Moritos. They are ready to lay down
their arms and accept any terms. We have sworn friendship to them."
"How on earth have you managed it?" said the general.
"It is chiefly due to Captain Jinks, or, I should say, Major Jinks.
They were about to kill us when, by the sheer force of his glance
and his powers of speech, he actually cowed them, and they submitted
to him."
"I have heard of taming wild beasts that way," said the general, "but
I never quite believed it."
When the chiefs arrived they embraced every soldier they saw and showed
every sign of joy. The general ordered a feast to be spread for them
and addressed them in English. They did not understand a word of this
harangue, but seemed much affected. When they heard that the great
general of all was at San Diego, only a day's march away, they insisted
on going thither, and the next day the brigade marched back again,
leaving a small garrison behind. The army at San Diego could hardly
believe its eyes when at sundown the expedition returned, having fully
accomplished its object without firing a shot and accompanied by a band
of Moritos. When Cleary's version of the exploit became known, Sam was
openly acclaimed as a hero and the favorite of the army. General
Laughter complimented him again, and again mentioned him in despatches.
A week later his promotion to be major of volunteers, for meritorious
conduct in the field of San Diego, was announced by cable, and again
after a few days he was made a colonel. Sam's cup was full.
"Sam," said Cleary one day, "I believe in your luck. You'll be
President some of these days. All the time we were up in the mountains
I knew it would come out all right because we had you along."
Meanwhile the chiefs had tendered their presents to General Laughter
and had drunk plentiful libations of whisky and soda with him. They
spent a week of festivity in the town and then returned, having agreed
to all that was asked of them by their "brothers."
The rainy season now set in, and operations in the field became
difficult. Furthermore, the general had decided that the war was at an
end, and officially it was so considered. Some troops were left at San
Diego, but the headquarters were removed again to Havilla, and Sam went
back with the staff. He found himself received as a great man. His two
exploits had made him the most famous officer in the army, even more so
than the general in command. Soon after his return to the city one of
the civil commissioners, who had been sent out by the Administration,
gave a large dinner in his honor at the palace. The chief officers and
civil officials were among the guests, as well as two or three native
merchants who had remained loyal to the invading army for financial and
commercial reasons and had not joined the rebels, who composed
nine-tenths of the population. These merchants were generally known in
the army as the "patriots," and were treated with much consideration by
the civil commissioners.
After dinner the host proposed a toast to Sam and accompanied it with a
patriotic speech which thrilled the hearts of his audience. He pointed
to the national flag which was festooned upon the wall.
"Look at Old Gory!" he cried. "What does she stand for? For the rights
of the oppressed all over the earth, for freedom and equal rights,
for----"
There was a sound of boisterous laughter in the next room. A young
officer ran forward and whispered to the orator, "Be careful; some of
those captured rebel officers are shut up in there, and perhaps they
can overhear you. Be careful what you say. Some of them speak English."
The commissioner hemmed and hawed and tried to recover himself.
"What does the dear old flag stand for?" he repeated. "For
liber--No--for-r-r----Well, 'pon my word, what does she stand for?"
"For the army and navy," whispered a neighbor.
"Yes," he thundered. "Yes, the flag stands for the army and navy, for
our officers and men, for our men-of-war and artillery, for our cavalry
and infantry, that's what she stands for!"
This was received with great applause, and the speaker smiled with
satisfaction. Then gradually his expression became sad.
"I am sorry to say," he said,--"I am ashamed as a citizen of our great
land to be obliged to admit, that there are at home a few
craven-hearted, mean-spirited men--shall I call them men? No, nor even
women--there are creatures, I say, who disapprove of our glorious
deeds, who spurn the flag and the noble principles for which it stands
and to which I have alluded, who say that we have no business to take
away land which belongs to other people, and that we have not the right
to slaughter rebels and traitors in our midst. I appeal to the
patriotic Cubapinos at this board, if we are not introducing a higher
and nobler civilization into these islands."
The native gentlemen bowed assent.
"Have we not given them a better language than their own? Have we not
established our enlightened institutions? For instance, let me cite the
custom house. We have the collector here with us--and the post-office.
The postmaster is----"
"Sh-sh-sh!" whispered the prompter again. "He's in jail."
"I mean the assistant postmaster is also with us. And there are our
other institutions, the----"
"There's going to be a prize-fight to-night," cried a young lieutenant
who had taken too much wine, at the foot of the table. "Dandy Sullivan
against Joe Corker."
This interruption was too much for the commissioner, who was quite
unable to resume the thread of his remarks for several moments. The
guests in the mean time moved uneasily in their seats, for most of them
were anxious to be off to see the fight.
"Those who carp against us at home," continued the speaker, trying in
vain to find some graceful way of coming to a close, "those who
dishonor the flag are the men who pretend to be filled with humanity
and to desire the welfare of mankind. They pretend to object to
bloodshed. They are mere sentimentalists. They are not practical men.
They do not understand our destiny, nor the Constitution, nor progress,
nor civilization, nor glory, nor honor, nor the dear old flag, God
bless her. They are sentimentalists. They have no sense of humor."
Here the audience applauded loudly, altho the speaker had not intended
to have them applaud just there. It occurred to him that he might just
as well stop at this point, and he sat down, not altogether satisfied,
however, with his peroration and vexed to think that he had forgotten
Sam altogether. The party broke up without delay, and Sam walked off
with Cleary, who had been present, to see the prize-fight.
"The commissioner isn't much of a talker, is he?" said Cleary. "That
was a bad break about the postmaster. I hear they've arrested Captain
Jones for embezzlement too."
"Good heavens!" cried Sam, "what an outrage!" And he told Cleary of his
narrow escape from complicity in the matter, and how the military
operations had prevented him from calling on the contractors.
"Civilians don't understand these things," he added. "They oughtn't to
send them out here. They don't understand things."
"No. They haven't been brought up on tabasco sauce. What can you expect
of them?"
They soon arrived at the Alhambra Theater at which the fight was to
take place, and found it in progress. A large crowd was collected,
consisting of soldiers and natives in equal proportions. The last round
was just finishing, and Joe Corker was in the act of knocking his
opponent out. The audience was shouting with glee and excitement, the
cheers being mixed with hisses and cries of "Fake, fake!"
"I know Corker," said Cleary. "Come, I'll introduce you."
They pushed forward through the crowd, and were soon in a room behind
the stage, where Corker was being rubbed and washed down by his
assistants. Sam looked at the great man and felt rather small and
insignificant. "Here's a kind of civilian who is not inferior to army
men," he thought. "Perhaps he is even superior." He would not have said
this aloud, but he thought it.
"How de do, Joe?" said Cleary, shaking hands. "That was a great fight.
You knocked him out clean. Here's my friend, Colonel Jinks, the hero of
San Diego and the pacifier of the Moritos."
Corker nodded condescendingly.
"We enjoyed the fight very much," said Sam, not altogether at his ease.
"It reminded me of my own experience at East Point."
"It was a good fight," said Corker, "and a damned fair one too. I'd
like to punch the heads of those fellers who cried 'fake.' It was as
fair as fair could be, and Dandy and me was as evenly matched as two
peas. I always believe in takin' a feller of your size, and I did."
"That wasn't the way at East Point," said Cleary. "They didn't take
fellows of their size there."
"That's against our rules anyway," said Corker.
"It must be a civilian rule," said Sam, beginning to feel his
superiority again. "The military rule as we were taught it at East
Point was to take a smaller man if you could, and you see, the army
does just the same thing. We tackled Castalia and then the Cubapines,
and they weren't of our size. We don't fight the powerful countries."
"That's queer," said Corker, drinking a lemonade.
"It's perfectly right," said Sam. "When a man's in the right, and of
course we always are, if he fights a man of his size or one bigger than
he is, he gives the wrong a chance of winning, and that is clearly
immoral. If he takes a weaker man he makes the truth sure of success.
And it's just the same way with nations."
Corker did not seem to be much interested by this disquisition, and
Cleary dragged his friend away after they had respectfully bade the
pugilist good-night. A crowd of soldiers was waiting outside to see
Corker get into his carriage. They paid no attention whatever to Sam
and Cleary.
"When it comes to real glory a prize-fighter beats a colonel all
hollow," said Cleary, and they parted for the night.
Sam was retained on the general staff and assigned to the important
post of censor of the press. His duties were most engrossing, for not
only were the proofs of all the local newspapers submitted to him, but
also all other printed matter. One day a large number of handbills
were confiscated at a printer's and brought in for his inspection. He
was very busy and asked his native private secretary to look them over
for him. In a half-hour he came to him with a translation of the
document.
"What does it say?" cried Sam. "I have no time to read it through."
"It says that governments are made to preserve liberty, and that they
get their only authority from the free will of the people who are ruled
by them," answered the clerk.
"That's clearly seditious," said Sam. "There must be some plot at
the bottom of it. Have the whole edition burned and have the printer
locked up."
A few days later a newspaper was brought to him announcing that the
Moritos had massacred the garrison stationed among them, that the whole
province of San Diego was in revolt, and that the regiment there would
probably have to fall back on Havilla. Sam was much scandalized, and
sent at once for the native editor.
"What does this mean?" said he.
"Pardon, my colonel," said the little man apologetically, "this is a
newspaper and this is news. I am sure it is true."
"That is the civilian conception of news," said Sam, with disdain.
"Officially this is not true. We have instructions, as you have often
been told, not to allow anything to be printed that can injure the
Administration at Whoppington. Any one can see how this would injure
it, and news that can injure it is, from the military point of view,
untrue. General Notice is making a tour of the country at home,
receiving ovations everywhere on account of the complete subjugation of
the islands. What effect will such news have upon his reception? Is it
a proper way to treat a general who has deserved well of his country?"
"But," interposed the editor, "don't the people know that you are
continually sending out more troops?"
"The people do not mind a little thing like that," said Sam. "When an
officer and a gentleman says the war is over, they believe it, and
they show their gratitude by voting money to send new regiments. Your
action in printing this stuff is most disloyal. I will send one of my
assistants around to your office with you to see that this edition is
destroyed, and if you repeat the offense you will be deported."
The unfortunate man retired, shrugging his shoulders. As he went out
Cleary came running in with a copy of the paper.
"Oh! you've got a copy of that, have you?" said Sam. "It's an outrage
to print such things, isn't it?"
"I'm afraid it's true," said Cleary.
"What difference does that make?" exclaimed Sam. "It's the business of
an army to conquer a country. We've done it twice, and we can do it as
often as we like again."
"Hear, hear!" cried Cleary. "You're becoming more and more of a soldier
as you get promoted. You have the true military instinct, I see. Of
course it makes no difference who holds the country, but I'm a little
disappointed in the Moritos. As for San Diego, Colonel Booth of your
old regiment is in command, and I half think he didn't back up the
Morito garrison out of jealousy toward you. He wanted to have the
Morito country go back, so as to belittle our exploit. But we'll get
even with him. I've seen the cable-censor, and not a word about it will
go home. I have just sent a despatch saying that the whole island is
entirely in our hands and that the natives are swearing allegiance by
thousands."
"That's right," said Sam. "It's really a kindness to the people at
home, for if they think it's true it makes them just as happy as if it
were true, and I think it's positively cruel to worry them
unnecessarily."
"To be sure," said Cleary. "And if it does get out, we'll throw all the
blame on the Secretary of War and his embalmed beef. They say he's
writing a book to show that a diet of mummies is the best for fighting
men--and so the quarrels go on. By the way, I just stopped a piece of
news that might have interested you. Do you know that you have
suppressed the Declaration of Independence?"
"Nonsense. I haven't seen a copy of it in two years."
"Well, here's a despatch that I got away from the cable-office just in
time. It would have gone in another ten minutes. Here it is."
Sam took the paper and read an account of the printing by a native
committee of fifty thousand copies of the Declaration in Castalian, and
its immediate suppression by Colonel Jinks, the censor.
"It's a downright lie," cried Sam. "I'll call my native secretary and
inquire into this," and he rang his bell.
"See here, what does this mean?" he asked the clerk who hurried in.
The man thought a minute.
"I do not know the Declaration of Independence," he said, "but perhaps
that paper I translated for you the other day had something to do with
it. I have not a copy here."
"Were they burned?"
"Not yet, sir. They were seized, and are in our depot."
"Come," said Sam to Cleary, "let's go over there and look at it. It's a
half-mile walk and it will do me good."
"How are things at San Diego?" asked Sam, as they walked along
together. "You've been out there, haven't you?"
"Yes. We'll have to come in. The Cubapinos have got a force together at
a town farther down the river and are threatening us there. We got
pretty near them and mined under a convent they were in, and blew up a
lot of them, but it didn't do them much harm, for a lot of recruits
came in just afterward from the mountains. That convent was born to be
blown up, it seems, for some Castalian anarchists had a plot to blow it
up some years ago, and came near doing it, too. We made use of their
tunnels, which the monks were too lazy to have filled up. The anarchist
plot was found out, and they garroted a dozen of them."
"What inhuman brutes those anarchists are!" cried Sam. "Think of their
trying to blow up a whole houseful of people! I wish we could take
some one of the smaller islands and put all the anarchists of the world
there and let them live out their precious theories. Just think what a
hell it would be! What infernal engines of hatred and destruction they
would construct, if they were left to themselves--machines charged with
dynamite and bristling with all sorts of explosive contrivances!"
"Something like a battle-ship," suggested Cleary.
"Don't talk nonsense!" exclaimed Sam. "Only Castalian fiends would try
to destroy law and order and upset the peaceable course of society in
such a way. Do you suppose that any of our people at home would do such
a thing?"
"None, outside of the artillery," answered Cleary. "Well, at any rate,
our blowing up of the convent didn't do much good. There was some talk
of putting poison in the river to dispose of them, but of course we
couldn't do that."
"Of course not," said Sam. "That would be barbarous and against all
military precedents. The rules of war don't allow it."
"They're rather queer, those rules," answered his friend. "I should
like my enemies to take notice that I prefer being poisoned to being
blown up with bombshells. In some respects they don't pay much
attention to the rules, either. They don't take prisoners much
nowadays. Most of my despatches now read, 'fifty natives killed,' but
they say nothing of wounded or prisoners."
"We're fighting savages, we must remember that," said Sam.
"Then we've got a way of trying our pistols and rifles on natives
working in the fields; it's rather novel, to say the least. I saw one
man in the 73d try his new revolver on a native rowing a boat on the
river, and over the fellow toppled and the boat drifted down-stream.
The men all applauded, and even the officers laughed."
"Boys will be boys," said Sam, smiling. "They're good shots, at
any rate."
"They are that. There were some darkies plowing up there just this
side of San Diego, and some of our fellows picked them off as neatly
as you please. It must have been eight hundred yards if it was a foot.
But somehow I don't quite like it."
"War is war," said Sam, using a phrase which presumably has a rational
meaning, as it is so often employed by reasonable people. "It doesn't
pay to be squeamish. The squeamish men don't make good soldiers. I've
seen enough to learn that. They hesitate to obey orders, if they don't
like them."
As he said this they passed a small crowd of boys in the street. They
were trying to make two dogs fight, but the dogs refused to do so, and
the boys were beating them and urging them on.
"What stupid brutes they are," said Sam. "They're badly trained."
"They haven't had a military education," responded Cleary. "But I
almost forgot to ask you, have you seen the papers from home this
morning? They're all full of you and your greatness. Here are two or
three," and he took them from his pocket.
Sam opened them and gazed at them entranced. There was page upon page
of his exploits, portraits of all kinds, biographies, anecdotes,
interviews, headlines, everything that his wildest dreams had imagined,
only grander and more glorious. There was nothing to be seen but the
words "Captain Jinks" from one end of the papers to the other.
"They've even got a song about you," said Cleary. "Here it is:
"'I'm Captain Jinks of the horse-marines.
I feed my horse on corn and beans.
Of course it's quite beyond my means,
Tho a captain in the army!'"
"I don't altogether like it," said Sam. "What are the horse-marines? I
don't believe there are any."
"Oh, that doesn't make any difference. It seems it's an old song that
was all the go long before our time, and your name has revived it. It
will advertise you splendidly. The whole thing is a grand piece of
work for _The Lyre_. Jonas has been congratulating me on it. He'd come
and tell you so, but he doesn't want to be seen with you. You've
censured out everything I've asked you to for him, and he doesn't want
people to know about his pull. That's the reason why he's never called
on you. But he says it's the best newspaper job he ever heard of. I
tell you we're a great combination, you and I. Perhaps I'll write a
book and call it, 'With Jinks at Havilla.' Rather an original title,
isn't it? But I'm afraid that all this talk at home will not make you
very popular with the officers here, who knew you when you were only a
captain. What would you say to being transferred to Porsslania? They
want new men for our army there, and I've half a mind to go too for a
change and act as the _Lyre's_ correspondent there. They'll do anything
I ask them now."
"I'd like it very much," said Sam. "I'm tired of this literary
business. But here we are. This is our depot."
The two men entered the long low building in which confiscated
property was stored. A soldier who was acting as watchman showed them
where the circulars were piled. Cleary took one and glanced over it.
[Illustration: CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED
"WHAT BUSINESS HAVE THESE PEOPLE TO TALK ABOUT EQUAL RIGHTS?"]
"As sure as fate, it's the Declaration of Independence!" he laughed.
Sam took up a copy and looked at it too.
"I believe it is," he said. "I didn't half look at it the other day.
I'm ever so much obliged to you for telling me and stopping the
telegram. But between you and me, the circular ought to be suppressed
anyway. What business have these people to talk about equal rights and
the consent of the governed? The men who wrote the
Declaration--Jeffries and the rest--were mere civilians and these ideas
are purely civilian. Come, let's have them burned at once," and he
called up two or three soldiers, and in a few minutes the circulars
formed a mass of glowing ashes in the courtyard.