When the gunboats entered Sandy River, Cleland’s regiment was ordered
to garrison and reconstruct the forts at the Landing, evacuated by the
Confederate troops as soon as the gunboats crossed the bar.
The gunboats tossed a few shells after the leisurely retreating
Confederates, then dropped anchor below the Landing, and waited for
something to turn up. A week later they steamed out of the river,
promptly stuck on the bar, churned and thrashed and whistled and
signalled, and finally slid out into blue water where a blockade runner
tempted them into a chase that contributed to the amusement of the
Southern Confederacy.
By Thanksgiving time, Cleland’s regiment had finished the forts at Sandy
Landing. Cleland did it because he was told to, not because either forts
or town were of the slightest military value to anybody. The Landing
itself was a skunk-haunted village, utterly unimportant as supply depot,
strategical pivot, or a menace to navigation. It was a key to nothing;
its single railway led nowhere, its whisky was illegal, illimitable, and
atrocious.
Cleland’s report embodied all of this. He was ordered to hold his ground,
establish semaphores, and plant torpedoes. So he built his semaphores as
directed, planted torpedoes, and reported. Twenty-four hours later orders
came to go into winter-quarters. Then he was notified that he was to be
reinforced, so he built barracks for two more regiments, as directed, and
wondered what on earth was coming. Nothing came except the two regiments;
one arrived on the first of December, by rail,—an Irish regiment;—the
other turned up a week later in two cattle trains, band playing madly
from the caboose. It was a German regiment full of strange oaths—and
aromas.
Now Cleland was enlightened; he understood that the Landing was to be
used as a species of cage for these two foreign regiments, raised, Heaven
knows where, and destined to prove a nuisance to any army that harboured
them. The Irish possessed an appalling record of pillage, bravery, and
insubordination. The German regiment, raised “to march mit Siegel,” had
an unbroken record of flight to its discredit. It had run at Grey’s
Ford, at Crystal Hill, at Yellow Bank, and at Cypress-Court-House. It
fled cheerfully, morning, noon and night; its band stampeded naively and
naturally; it always followed its band, adored by all; and the regiment
bore no rancour when scourged in general orders. Fallbach was its
colonel,—known to the sarcastic and uninstructed as Fallback,—a rosy,
short-winded, peaceful Teuton, who ran with his regiment every time, and
always accepted censure with jocular resignation.
“Poys will pe poys, ain’t it?” he would say with a shrug; “Der band iss
a fine band alretty. Dot trombone iss timid, und der poys dey follow der
trombone.”
When Cleland understood that the authorities had rid themselves of the
two regiments by interring them at Sandy Landing, he wrote a respectful
protest, was snubbed and ordered to begin housekeeping for the winter,
which meant that his regiment was now on police duty, stationed at the
Landing to keep the peace between the Germans and their Irish neighbours.
Trouble began promptly; Bannon, colonel of the 1st Irish, met Fallbach of
the 1st Jägers, and mispronounced his name with an emphasis unmistakable.
An hour later the two regiments knew the war was on and made preparations
accordingly. Hogan of the 10th company, crossing the street, hustled
Franz Bummel of the Jägers and called him a “dootch puddy-fud!”
Quinn, listening to the Jägers’ band concert that afternoon, whistled
“Doolan’s Wake,” and imitated Fritz Klein’s piccolo, aided and abetted by
Phelan and McCue. That night there were three scuffles and a fight, and
the provost-marshal had his work cut out for him.
Little by little the two regiments were installed in distant sections of
the town. Cleland dealt justice untempered with mercy, and the rival
regiments understood that their warfare would have to be carried on by
stealth.
When Phelan, Quinn, Hogan, and McCue were released from the guard-house,
they rejoiced with their comrades of the 10th company, and prepared
future calamity for the Jägers. But Fate was against them. Their
regimental fetish, a strong young goat, disappeared, and that night the
Jägers were reported to have revelled in a strangely suggestive stew.
A day or two later, Quinn, fishing for suckers in the Sandy River, was
assaulted by three Jägers, his fishpole and three fish confiscated, and
he himself ducked amid grunts of universal satisfaction.
The fury of the 10th company passed all bounds when Quinn was relegated
to the guard-house for conduct unbecoming a soldier; but the Teutons
never strayed from their barracks except in force, and, as night leave
was forbidden both regiments, the 10th company hesitated to inaugurate
riot by daylight.
Quinn, squatting in the guard-house, found plenty of leisure to hatch
revenge. He did not waste thought on mere individual schemes for assault
and battery; he meditated a master stroke, a blow at the entire regiment
calculated to tear every Teuton bosom. The two objects most cherished
by the Jägers were their cat and a disreputable negro who cooked
for the colonel. How to combine damage to these centres of Teutonic
affection occupied Quinn’s waking hours. To kidnap the cat; that was
not enough,—the Teutons must be beguiled into eating their cat—and
liking it too. How? Quinn sucked at an empty pipe and brooded. Bribe the
negro Cassius, first to kidnap the cat, then to cook it? Quinn writhed
maliciously at the prospect; he hated Tom, the black and white cat who
sang every night on the Jägers’ barrack roof—sang to each individual star
in the firmament to the indignation of every Irishman in Sandy Landing.
When Quinn emerged from the guard-house he took council with Phelan
and McCue; and that evening Hogan was despatched to tempt Cassius with
promises and a little cash.
The affair was easier than Hogan had dared hope; Cassius took the cash
and promised to betray, and Hogan, lips compressed, to stifle all outward
mirthful symptoms, went back to the barracks where Quinn, Phelan, and
McCue sat waiting in pessimistic silence.
“He’ll not kill the cat,” said Hogan, “he’ll fetch ut in a bag to the
shanty foreninst the hill,—d’ye mind the hut, McCue?”
“I do,” said McCue impressively.
“Thin be aisy,” continued Hogan; “we’ll skin ut an’ co-ook ut an’ the
naygur can take the stew to thot Dootch runaway sodger, Fallback, bad
cess to him an’ his! Pass th’ potheen, McCue.”
“Sure there’s not stew in wan cat for all!” objected Phelan.
“There is! There is,” said Quinn; “there’s cats in town to be had for
the askin’, an’ nary a Dootchman will starve! Usha! but they’ll be crazy,
th’ omadhouns!”
“’Twill choke them,” said Phelan.
“Did they choke wid the goat they shtole?” demanded McCue angrily.
“I met Bummel an’ Klein,” continued Quinn: “‘Sure,’ I sez, ‘’tis
dhirty thricks ye play on the Irish.’ ‘Phwat’s that?’ sez Klein. ‘Ye
ate our goat,’ sez I. Wid that they grinned an’ me phist hurrt wid the
timptayshun of Bummel’s nose.”
“‘Sure,’ sez I, ‘’tis frinds we should be!’ ‘Sorra th’ day!’ sez Klein;
‘Phwy not?’ sez I. ‘Ye hate us an’ bate us,’ sez Klein; ‘I’ll not thrust
ye, Mike Quinn.’ ‘Take me hand,’ sez I, extindin’ me fingers; ‘wan touch
of nature, me lad! ’Tis a crool war entirely, an’ it’s frinds we’ll be,
an’ no favor!’ ‘Prove ut,’ sez he. ‘I wull,’ sez I, ‘an’ be th’ same
token ’tis huntin’ we go this day week, so look fur a Christmas dinner to
shame the Pope’s cook.’ ‘A dinner,’ sez he, ‘wid th’ town betchune us!’
‘Ye’ll dine wid us, yet,’ sez I. ‘An’ how,’ sez he, a lickin’ the chops
av him. ‘Whin ye dine wid the Irish ye should have a long spoon,’ sez I,
laughin’ friendly like. ‘We’ll sind ye a shtew, me b’y, if God sinds us
the rabbits.’ Thin,” continued Quinn, “we parrted genteel; an’ they’ll
hear we have lave to hunt on Christmas day—musha, bad luck to th’ Dootch
scuts!—’tis cats they’ll be eatin’ this blessed hour come Christmas, an’
may the howly saints sind them the black cramp of Drumgoole!”