I
Twenty-five men were making a road out of a path up the hillside. The
light batteries in the rear were impatient to advance, but first must
be done all that digging and smoothing which gains no encrusted medals
from war. The men worked like gardeners, and a road was growing from
the old pack-animal trail.
Trees arched from a field of guinea-grass which resembled young wild
corn. The day was still and dry. The men working were dressed in the
consistent blue of United States regulars. They looked indifferent,
almost stolid, despite the heat and the labour. There was little
talking. From time to time a Government pack-train, led by a
sleek-sided tender bell-mare, came from one way or the other way, and
the men stood aside as the strong, hard, black-and-tan animals crowded
eagerly after their curious little feminine leader.
A volunteer staff-officer appeared, and, sitting on his horse in the
middle of the work, asked the sergeant in command some questions which
were apparently not relevant to any military business. Men straggling
along on various duties almost invariably spun some kind of a joke as
they passed.
A corporal and four men were guarding boxes of spare ammunition at the
top of the hill, and one of the number often went to the foot of the
hill swinging canteens.
The day wore down to the Cuban dusk, in which the shadows are all grim
and of ghostly shape. The men began to lift their eyes from the shovels
and picks, and glance in the direction of their camp. The sun threw his
last lance through the foliage. The steep mountain-range on the right
turned blue and as without detail as a curtain. The tiny ruby of light
ahead meant that the ammunition-guard were cooking their supper. From
somewhere in the world came a single rifle-shot.
Figures appeared, dim in the shadow of the trees. A murmur, a sigh of
quiet relief, arose from the working party. Later, they swung up the
hill in an unformed formation, being always like soldiers, and unable
even to carry a spade save like United States regular soldiers. As they
passed through some fields, the bland white light of the end of the day
feebly touched each hard bronze profile.
"Wonder if we'll git anythin' to eat," said Watkins, in a low voice.
"Should think so," said Nolan, in the same tone. They betrayed no
impatience; they seemed to feel a kind of awe of the situation.
The sergeant turned. One could see the cool grey eye flashing under the
brim of the campaign hat. "What in hell you fellers kickin' about?" he
asked. They made no reply, understanding that they were being
suppressed.
As they moved on, a murmur arose from the tall grass on either hand. It
was the noise from the bivouac of ten thousand men, although one saw
practically nothing from the low-cart roadway. The sergeant led his
party up a wet clay bank and into a trampled field. Here were scattered
tiny white shelter tents, and in the darkness they were luminous like
the rearing stones in a graveyard. A few fires burned blood-red, and
the shadowy figures of men moved with no more expression of detail than
there is in the swaying of foliage on a windy night.
The working party felt their way to where their tents were pitched. A
man suddenly cursed; he had mislaid something, and he knew he was not
going to find it that night. Watkins spoke again with the monotony of a
clock, "Wonder if we'll git anythin' to eat."
Martin, with eyes turned pensively to the stars, began a treatise.
"Them Spaniards----"
"Oh, quit it," cried Nolan. "What th' piper do you know about th'
Spaniards, you fat-headed Dutchman? Better think of your belly, you
blunderin' swine, an' what you're goin' to put in it, grass or dirt."
A laugh, a sort of a deep growl, arose from the prostrate men. In the
meantime the sergeant had reappeared and was standing over them. "No
rations to-night," he said gruffly, and turning on his heel, walked
away.
This announcement was received in silence. But Watkins had flung
himself face downward, and putting his lips close to a tuft of grass,
he formulated oaths. Martin arose and, going to his shelter, crawled in
sulkily. After a long interval Nolan said aloud, "Hell!" Grierson,
enlisted for the war, raised a querulous voice. "Well, I wonder when we
_will_ git fed?"
From the ground about him came a low chuckle, full of ironical comment
upon Grierson's lack of certain qualities which the other men felt
themselves to possess.