And all day long the storm beat upon the substantial buildings of the
old barracks and flooded the low ground about the sheds and stables.
Drills for the infantry were necessarily suspended, several sentries,
even, being taken off their posts. The men clustered in the squad-rooms
and listened with more or less credulity to the theories and
confirmatory statements of fact as related by the imaginative or
loquacious of their number. The majority of the officers gathered under
the flaring lamp-lights at the sutler's store and occupied themselves
pretty much as did their inferiors in grade, though poker and
punch--specialties of Mr. Finkbein, the sutler--lent additional color to
the stories in circulation.
From this congress the better element of the commissioned force was
absent, the names, nationalities, and idiomatic peculiarities of speech
of the individual members being identical in most instances with those
of their comrades in arms in the ranks. "Brax" had summoned Minor,
Lawrence, Kinsey, and Dryden to hear what the post surgeon had to say on
his return, but cautioned them to keep quiet. As a result of this
precaution, the mystery of the situation became redoubled by one
o'clock, and was intensified by two, when it was announced that Private
Dawson had attempted to break away out of the hospital after a visit
from the same doctor in his professional capacity. People were tempted
out on their galleries in the driving storm, and colored servants
flitted from kitchen to kitchen to gather or dispense new rumors, but
nobody knew what to make of it when, soon after two, an orderly rode in
from town dripping with mud and wet, delivered a note to the colonel,
and took one from him to Mr. Ferry, now sole representative of the
officers of Battery "X" present for duty. Ferry in return sent the
bedraggled horseman on to the battery quarters with an order to the
first sergeant, and in about fifteen minutes a sergeant and two men,
mounted and each leading a spare horse, appeared under Ferry's gallery,
and that officer proceeded to occupy one of the vacant saddles, and,
followed by his party, went clattering out of the sally-port and
splashing over to the levee. Stable-call sounded as usual at four
o'clock, and, for the first time in the record of that disciplined
organization since the devastating hand of Yellow Jack was laid upon it
the previous year, no officer appeared to supervise the grooming and
feeding. Two of them were at the post, however. Mr. Doyle, in arrest on
charge of absence without leave, was escorted to his quarters about
four-fifteen, and was promptly visited by sympathizing and inquisitive
comrades from the Hotel Finkbein, while Mr. Ferry, who had effected the
arrest, was detained making his report to the post commander. Night came
on apace, the wind began to die away with the going down of the sun, the
rain ceased to fall, a pallid moon began peering at odd intervals
through rifts in the cloudy veil, when Cram rode splashing into
barracks, worn with anxiety and care, at eleven o'clock, and, stopping
only for a moment to take his wife in his arms and kiss her anxious face
and shake his head in response to her eager query for news of Waring, he
hurried down-stairs again and over to Doyle's quarters. All was darkness
there, but he never hesitated. Tramping loudly over the gallery, he
banged at the door, then, turning the knob, intending to burst right in,
as was the way in the rough old days, was surprised to find the bolt
set.
"Doyle, open. I want to see you at once."
All silence within.
"Doyle, open, or, if you are too drunk to get up, I'll kick in the
door."
A groan, a whispered colloquy, then the rattle of bolt and chain. The
door opened about an inch, and an oily Irish voice inquired,--
"Hwat's wanted, capt'in?"
"You here?" exclaimed Cram, in disgust. "What business have you in this
garrison? If the colonel knew it, you'd be driven out at the point of
the bayonet."
"Sure where should wife be but at her husband's side whin he's sick and
sufferin'? Didn't they root him out of bed and comfort this day and ride
him down like a felon in all the storm? Sure it was the doughboys'
orders, sir. I told Doyle the capt'in niver would have----"
"Oh, be quiet: I must see Doyle, and at once."
"Sure he's not able, capt'in. You know how it is wid him: he's that
sinsitive he couldn't bear to talk of the disgrace he's bringin' on the
capt'in and the batthery, and I knowed he'd been dhrinkin', sir, and I
came back to look for him, but he'd got started, capt'in, and it's----"
"Stop this talk! He wasn't drinking at all until you came back here to
hound him. Open that door, or a file of the guard will."
"Och! thin wait till I'm dressed, fur dacency's sake, capt'in. Sure I'll
thry and wake him."
And then more whispering, the clink of glass, maudlin protestation in
Doyle's thick tones. Cram banged at the door and demanded instant
obedience. Admitted at last, he strode to the side of an ordinary
hospital cot, over which the mosquito-bar was now ostentatiously drawn,
and upon which was stretched the bulky frame of the big Irishman, his
red, blear-eyed, bloated face half covered in his arms. The close air
reeked with the fumes of whiskey. In her distress lest Jim should take
too much, the claimant of his name and protection had evidently been
sequestrating a large share for herself.
"How on earth did you get here? Your house was flooded all day," angrily
asked Cram.
"Sure we made a raft, sir,--'Louette and me,--and poled over to the
levee, and I walked every fut of the way down to follow me husband, as I
swore I would whin we was married. I'd 'a' come in Anatole's boat, sir,
but 'twas gone,--gone since last night. Did ye know that, capt'in?"
A groan and a feverish toss from the occupant of the narrow bed
interrupted her.
"Hush, Jim darlin'! Here's the capt'in to see you and tell you he's come
back to have you roighted. Sure how could a poor fellow be expected to
come home in all that awful storm this mornin', capt'in? 'Tis for not
comin' the colonel had him under arrest; but I tell him the capt'in 'll
see him through."
But Cram pushed her aside as she still interposed between him and the
bed.
"Doyle, look up and answer. Doyle, I say!"
Again vehement protestations, and now an outburst of tears and
pleadings, from the woman.
"Oh, he can't understand you, capt'in. Ah, don't be hard on him. Only
this mornin' he was sayin' how the capt'in reminded him of the ould
foine days whin the officers was all gintlemen and soldiers. He's truer
to ye than all the rest of thim, sir. D'ye moind that, capt'in? Ye
wouldn't belave it, mabby, but there's them that can tell ye Loot'nant
Waring was no friend of yours, sir, and worse than that, if ould
Lascelles could spake now--but there's thim left that can, glory be to
God!"
"Oh, for God's sake shut up!" spoke Cram, roughly, goaded beyond all
patience. "Doyle, answer me!" And he shook him hard. "You were at the
Pelican last night, and you saw Mr. Waring and spoke with him. What did
he want of you? Where did he go? Who were with him? Was there any
quarrel? Answer, I say! Do you know?" But maudlin moaning and
incoherencies were all that Cram could extract from the prostrate man.
Again the woman interposed, eager, tearful.
"Sure he was there, capt'in, he _was_ there; he told me of it whin I
fetched him home last night to git him out of the storm and away from
that place; but he's too dhrunk now to talk. Sure there was no gittin'
down here to barx for anybody. The cabman, sir, said no carriage could
make it."
"What cabman? That's one thing I want to know. Who is he? What became of
him?"
"Sure and how do I know, sir? He was a quiet, dacent man, sir; the same
that Mr. Waring bate so cruel and made Jeffers kick and bate him too. I
saw it all."
"And was he at the Pelican last night? I must know."
"Sure he was indade, sir. Doyle said so whin I fetched him home, and
though he can't tell you now, sir, he told me thin. They all came down
to the Pelican, sir, Waring and Lascelles and the other gintleman, and
they had dhrink, and there was trouble between the Frenchman and
Waring,--sure you can't blame him, wid his wife goin' on so wid the
loot'nant all the last month,--and blows was struck, and Doyle
interposed to stop it, sir, loike the gintleman that he is, and the
cab-driver took a hand and pitched him out into the mud. Sure he'd been
dhrinkin' a little, sir, and was aisy upset, but that's all he knows.
The carriage drove away, and there was three of thim, and poor Doyle got
caught out there in the mud and in the storm, and 'twas me wint out wid
Dawson and another of the byes and fetched him in. And we niver heerd of
the murther at all at all, sir, until I came down here to-day, that's
God's troot', and he'll tell ye so whin he's sober," she ended,
breathless, reckless of her descriptive confusion of Doyle and Divinity.
And still the Irishman lay there, limp, soggy, senseless, and at last,
dismayed and disheartened, the captain turned away.
"Promise to sober him up by reveille, and you may stay. But hear this:
if he cannot answer for himself by that time, out you go in the battery
cart with a policeman to take you to the calaboose." And then he left.
No sooner had his footsteps died away than the woman turned on her
patient, now struggling to a sitting posture.
"Lie still, you thafe and cur, and swear you to every word I say, unless
you'd hang in his place. Dhrink this, now, and go to slape, and be riddy
to tell the story I give ye in the mornin', or may the knife ye drove in
that poor mummy's throat come back to cut your coward heart out."
And Doyle, shivering, sobbing, crazed with drink and fear, covered his
eyes with his hands and threw himself back on his hot and steaming
pillow.
The morning sun rose brilliant and cloudless as the horses of the
battery came forth from the dark interior of the stable and, after
watering at the long wooden trough on the platform, were led away by
their white-frocked grooms, each section to its own picket-line. Ferry,
supervising the duty, presently caught sight of the tall muscular form
of his captain coming briskly around the corner, little Pierce tripping
along by his side. Cram acknowledged the salute of the battery officer
of the day in hurried fashion.
"Good-morning, Ferry," he said. "Tell me, who were there when you got
Doyle away from that woman yesterday?"
"Only the three, sir,--Mr. and Mrs. Doyle and the negro girl."
"No sign of anybody else?"
"None, sir. I didn't go in the house at all. I rode in the gate and
called for Doyle to come out. The woman tried to parley, but I refused
to recognize her at all, and presently Doyle obeyed without any trouble
whatever, though she kept up a tirade all the time and said he was too
sick to ride, and all that, but he wasn't. He seemed dazed, but not
drunk,--certainly not sick. He rode all right, only he shivered and
crossed himself and moaned when he passed the Lascelles place, for that
hound pup set up a howl just as we were opposite the gate. He was all
trembling when we reached the post, and took a big drink the moment he
got to his room."
"Ye-es, he's been drinking ever since. I've just sent the doctor to see
him. Let the corporal and one man of the guard go with the ambulance to
escort Mrs. Doyle out of the garrison and take her home. She shall not
stay."
"Why, she's gone, sir," said Ferry. "The guard told me she went out of
the back gate and up the track towards Anatole's--going for all she was
worth--just after dawn."
"The mischief she has! What can have started her? Did you see her
yourself, Sergeant Bennett?" asked the captain of a stocky little Irish
soldier standing at the moment with drawn sabre awaiting opportunity to
speak to his commander.
"Yes, sir," and the sabre came flashing up to the present. "She'd wint
over to the hospital to get some medicine for the lieutenant just after
our bugle sounded first call, and she came runnin' out as I wint to call
the officer of the day, sir. She ran back to the lieutenant's quarters
ahead of me, and was up only a minute or two whin down she came again
wid some bundles, and away she wint to the north gate, runnin'
wild-like. The steward told me a moment after of Dawson's escape."
"Dawson! escaped from hospital?"
"Yes, sir. They thought he was all right last evening when he was
sleeping, and took the sentry off, and at four this morning he was
gone."