THE TEST
The sufferings of Noel and Dennis were increased by the feeling of
suspense which followed the departure of the chaplain. Rumor had been
busy in the camp and had reached even the men in the guard-house
concerning the execution of the deserters and the penalty which now
might be visited upon the men who were still under guard.
The feeling in the heart of Dennis was more one of anger than of alarm.
With Noel, however, uncertainty and fear combined to make the young
soldier much cast down. When Dennis occasionally tried to arouse his
spirits, the effort of the young Irishman was so manifest that the
effect sometimes was the exact reverse of what he had intended.
More and more Noel became alarmed as the hours passed. When the chaplain
returned, as he did a few hours later, not even his cheery words could
disguise the fact that as yet he had not received any information
concerning the two young sharpshooters which would justify the colonel
in making an exception of their cases.
When Noel awoke early the following morning he was surprised to find
Dennis already busily engaged in writing a letter. And such a letter!
When Noel drew near, he saw that Dennis had taken sheets of foolscap,
cutting them lengthwise and had pasted the half-sheets together so that
he had a continuous roll that must have been at least thirty feet in
length.
"What are you doing?" demanded Noel in surprise.
"Shure, lad, and I'm writin' a letter."
"But to whom are you writing such a letter as that? Do you write on both
sides of the paper? It would take more money than you have saved in a
month to pay the postage. What are you trying to do, anyway, Dennis?"
"Shure, lad," said Dennis quietly, "I had a letter from me sister in
which she says as how I have niglicted the family and niver write a
word, so I'm goin' to sind her one letter that she can't say is too
short. I'm gettin' near the end of it, though. If you'll wait a minute,
lad, I'll read to you the last sintence."
Before Noel could protest Dennis began glibly, "And now, me dear
Bridget, I can tell you that I am very happy because the assurance is
dawning upon me mind that I am gettin' near the end of my paper. I have
only to say that after I have been through the regular number of
pitched-battles and hair-breadth escapes and have walked a few hundred
miles and chased the Johnnies up and down the hills, perhaps by that
time I shall have come really to the ind of this letter and be able to
sign me name. If you still think that I'm not writin' long enough
letters to you and to mother and the girls, I'll come home just as soon
as our business at the front is finished, and from the appearances at
the prisent time somethin' is going to happen before I shall have a
chance to sign my name."
Dennis looked up from his paper and said, "There, lad, I'm not
explainin' to thim what it is that may happen. It'll be time enough for
thim to find out that when they have to. But what do you think of me
epistle, anyway?"
"Very good."
"What there is of it," replied Dennis, smiling in spite of the fears
which held him.
"It's a sort of last will I'm writin', too," added Dennis. "I niver have
written a will whin I was goin' into battle the way some o' th' boys
do, but whin I have to face the sintence of bein' shot as a desarter,
which I niver was, and if the Saints will presarve me, I niver shall
be--"
"I heard of a woman back here," broke in Noel, "who made a will and left
her shoestrings to her sister."
"Bedad," said Dennis, "I niver thought o' that. 'Tis a good suggestion!
I'm goin' to leave mine to Levi Kadoff. There ought to be enough of them
to hang him with. Faith, and if I had him here now--"
The conversation of the two young soldiers was interrupted once more by
the return of the chaplain. Still he had not received any information
and the messenger, who he assured the boys had been dispatched, had not
as yet returned.
In spite of the desire of the good man to encourage the boys, and his
apparently unshaken confidence that in the end all would be well, the
feeling of uncertainty and injustice still possessed both Noel and
Dennis. They had been forgotten, they assured themselves, by the men who
knew them best and at such a time as this could bring them aid. Of what
good was it that they had been selected for positions of danger and had
been among the sharpshooters, doing their part in holding back the
enemy around Williamsburg and at Malvern Hill?
Even if the desire had been in the minds of the young soldiers, the
opportunity to escape was gone. The guard was changed every hour now,
and there was no question that the muskets of the marching soldiers were
loaded. There was no blank cartridge here.
Noel's strong desire was to receive word from those who knew him. But
just where that division of the army now was located he did not know,
nor was he positive that there would be an opportunity in the presence
of threatening events for an investigation to be made which would
relieve him from the charge which was hanging over him.
A third visit from the chaplain still failed to bring the desired news.
The depression of the boys was so manifest that the chaplain apparently
made a special effort to cheer them.
"There was a little fellow back here near the colonel's tent who somehow
made me think of you two boys. You have told me about the little sutler.
Let me see, what did you say his name is?"
"Levi. Levi Kadoff," answered Noel.
"Well, this little fellow by the colonel's tent may be the same one. He
was a little Jew, who had been shot. A ball had just grazed the tips of
two of his fingers and he was howling so loudly that I think you might
have heard him here, if you had listened."
"Was he yelling with pain?"
"Oh, no!" laughed the chaplain. "He was crying for a pension. In fact,
he was screaming for one. Yes, he wanted two pensions. When I saw him he
was holding up the two fingers that had been scratched, and was whining,
'Oh, Scheneral! Oh, Scheneral! how much pensions I gets for heem? I dink
I gets two pensions, maybe. One for each finger vat I lose.' A lot of
the boys had gathered around the little fellow and they were having a
good time as they listened to his complaints."
"Did he say where he was when he was shot?"
"No, I didn't hear anything about that."
"Maybe he is Levi. If he is, and you'll bring him here, Dennis and I
soon can tell. Did he have shining black eyes?"
"Yes."
"And curly black hair?"
"Yes."
"And did he weigh about ninety pounds?"
"Not more than that."
"Well, that's Levi; that's Levi, all right," broke in Dennis. "Just
bring him here to me, and I'll make him forgit his fingers and his
pinsions."
"You may make him forget his fingers, but you never can make him forget
his pensions," laughed the chaplain. "That seemed to be the chief thing
in his mind. I think I'll try to find out if his name is Levi Kadoff."
"If it is," suggested Noel, "bring the fellow here, but don't tell him
what you are bringing him for or that we are here."
"I'll see what I can do," said the chaplain, and a moment later he
departed from the tent.
The fact that the kind-hearted officer had made three visits that day to
the boys showed his interest in their welfare, but somehow Noel was
unable to shake off his conviction that their friend was powerless to
aid them. Accordingly he was surprised when an hour afterward the
chaplain returned.
"No word yet," he said quietly, as he smiled and shook his head, "but I
have some other good news for you. You understand there is nothing to
back up the statement which you have made that you were sharpshooters
in the Peninsula campaign. Personally, I believe what you tell me. I
have at last secured permission for you both to go with an orderly and
four men to a place outside the camp where you may show what skill you
possess."
"That's the way to talk," spoke up Dennis quickly. His hope had now
returned with full force. Indeed, as he afterward explained, he looked
upon their discharge as already having been accomplished.
To Noel, however, the privilege was not one which was unmixed with
anxiety. In his own skill, in his quiet way, he felt confident, but to
make such skill a test of the truth of what he had spoken was another
matter. A gun with which he was unfamiliar would be thrust into his
hands and the very excitement of the test of itself might be sufficient
to prevent him from doing himself full justice.
The chaplain, aware of what was passing in the mind of the young
soldier, smiled encouragingly and did not speak.
Dennis, whose joy rapidly increased, had now arrived at a point where
his enthusiasm seemed to pass all bounds.
"I'll tell you what to do, yer Riverence," he said to the chaplain.
"Just put Noel and me tin yards apart. Let one of us fire and then the
other and you'll find Noel's bullet lodged in the barrel of my gun and
my bullet in his. That is, if we don't fire at the same time. If we
should fire at the same minute the bullets would meet midway and you
wouldn't find anything but two flattened pieces of lead."
"Do you often have an experience like that?" inquired the chaplain with
a smile.
"Oh, yis, very oftin," answered Dennis solemnly. "Sometimes Noel says to
me,' Dennis, me boy, I'm a bit tired this mornin'. Just put a bullet in
my gun, please'; and it's easier to shoot one in than it is to have to
go through the whole process o' loadin'."
The chaplain said no more, but at once conducted the two young soldiers
to the guard which was waiting outside the tent.
No word was spoken as the little band fell in, and at the word of the
orderly started in the direction which to Noel's surprise led over the
way by which he had come when he had been brought to the camp. As yet he
had not been able to obtain from Dennis a connected story of the mishaps
of the young Irish soldier, nor of the way by which he had avoided his
enemies and at last had been taken as a deserter and confined in the
guard-tent.
Noel somehow believed that not even Dennis would have been able to
escape from the well in which he had been hidden unless he had received
help from outside. But to all inquiries Dennis made evasive replies, and
Noel was still unable to understand the mystery with which he had
shrouded his doings.
The little band now was on the borders of the place where the division
was encamped. The entire region was unfamiliar to Noel, but as he
glanced at a low house on the side of the road over which they were
passing he was startled when he beheld Levi standing by the little
cabin. The little sutler's fingers were bandaged, and as Noel recalled
the story which the chaplain related to him and the pleadings of the
little Jew for two pensions because he had received a wound in the tips
of two fingers, he smiled in spite of the seriousness of the errand upon
which he and his companion were going.
Suddenly Levi recognized the two young soldiers in the midst of the
little band, and with a scream of rage instantly started toward them.