Senator Cadogan paced to and fro in his private parlour and smoked
small, brown weak cigars. These little wisps seemed utterly inadequate
to console such a ponderous satrap.
It was the evening of the 1st of July, 1898, and the Senator was
immensely excited, as could be seen from the superlatively calm way in
which he called out to his private secretary, who was in an adjoining
room. The voice was serene, gentle, affectionate, low.
"Baker, I wish you'd go over again to the War Department and see if
they've heard anything about Caspar."
A very bright-eyed, hatchet-faced young man appeared in a doorway, pen
still in hand. He was hiding a nettle-like irritation behind all the
finished audacity of a smirk, sharp, lying, trustworthy young
politician. "I've just got back from there, sir," he suggested.
The Skowmulligan war-horse lifted his eyes and looked for a short
second into the eyes of his private secretary. It was not a glare or an
eagle glance; it was something beyond the practice of an actor; it was
simply meaning. The clever private secretary grabbed his hat and was at
once enthusiastically away. "All right, sir," he cried. "I'll find
out."
The War Department was ablaze with light, and messengers were running.
With the assurance of a retainer of an old house Baker made his way
through much small-calibre vociferation. There was rumour of a big
victory; there was rumour of a big defeat. In the corridors various
watchdogs arose from their armchairs and asked him of his business in
tones of uncertainty which in no wise compared with their previous
habitual deference to the private secretary of the war-horse of
Skowmulligan.
Ultimately Baker arrived in a room where some kind of head clerk sat
writing feverishly at a roll-top desk. Baker asked a question, and the
head clerk mumbled profanely without lifting his head. Apparently he
said: "How in the blankety-blank blazes do I know?"
The private secretary let his jaw fall. Surely some new spirit had come
suddenly upon the heart of Washington--a spirit which Baker understood
to be almost defiantly indifferent to the wishes of Senator Cadogan, a
spirit which was not courteously oily. What could it mean? Baker's
fox-like mind sprang wildly to a conception of overturned factions,
changed friends, new combinations. The assurance which had come from
experience of a broad political situation suddenly left him, and he
would not have been amazed if some one had told him that Senator
Cadogan now controlled only six votes in the State of Skowmulligan.
"Well," he stammered in his bewilderment, "well--there isn't any news
of the old man's son, hey?" Again the head clerk replied blasphemously.
Eventually Baker retreated in disorder from the presence of this head
clerk, having learned that the latter did not give a ---- if Caspar
Cadogan were sailing through Hades on an ice yacht.
Baker stormed other and more formidable officials. In fact, he struck
as high as he dared. They one and all flung him short, hard words, even
as men pelt an annoying cur with pebbles. He emerged from the brilliant
light, from the groups of men with anxious, puzzled faces, and as he
walked back to the hotel he did not know if his name were Baker or
Cholmondeley.
However, as he walked up the stairs to the Senator's rooms he contrived
to concentrate his intellect upon a manner of speaking.
The war-horse was still pacing his parlour and smoking. He paused at
Baker's entrance. "Well?"
"Mr. Cadogan," said the private secretary coolly, "they told me at the
Department that they did not give a cuss whether your son was alive or
dead."
The Senator looked at Baker and smiled gently. "What's that, my boy?"
he asked in a soft and considerate voice.
"They said----" gulped Baker, with a certain tenacity. "They said that
they didn't give a cuss whether your son was alive or dead."
There was a silence for the space of three seconds. Baker stood like an
image; he had no machinery for balancing the issues of this kind of a
situation, and he seemed to feel that if he stood as still as a stone
frog he would escape the ravages of a terrible Senatorial wrath which
was about to break forth in a hurricane speech which would snap off
trees and sweep away barns.
"Well," drawled the Senator lazily, "who did you see, Baker?"
The private secretary resumed a certain usual manner of breathing. He
told the names of the men whom he had seen.
"Ye--e--es," remarked the Senator. He took another little brown cigar
and held it with a thumb and first finger, staring at it with the calm
and steady scrutiny of a scientist investigating a new thing. "So they
don't care whether Caspar is alive or dead, eh? Well ... maybe they
don't.... That's all right.... However ... I think I'll just look in on
'em and state my views."
When the Senator had gone, the private secretary ran to the window and
leaned afar out. Pennsylvania Avenue was gleaming silver blue in the
light of many arc-lamps; the cable trains groaned along to the clangour
of gongs; from the window, the walks presented a hardly diversified
aspect of shirt-waists and straw hats. Sometimes a newsboy screeched.
Baker watched the tall, heavy figure of the Senator moving out to
intercept a cable train. "Great Scott!" cried the private secretary to
himself, "there'll be three distinct kinds of grand, plain practical
fireworks. The old man is going for 'em. I wouldn't be in Lascum's
boots. Ye gods, what a row there'll be."
In due time the Senator was closeted with some kind of deputy
third-assistant battery-horse in the offices of the War Department. The
official obviously had been told off to make a supreme effort to pacify
Cadogan, and he certainly was acting according to his instructions. He
was almost in tears; he spread out his hands in supplication, and his
voice whined and wheedled.
"Why, really, you know, Senator, we can only beg you to look at the
circumstances. Two scant divisions at the top of that hill; over a
thousand men killed and wounded; the line so thin that any strong
attack would smash our Army to flinders. The Spaniards have probably
received reenforcements under Pando; Shafter seems to be too ill to be
actively in command of our troops; Lawton can't get up with his
division before to-morrow. We are actually expecting ... no, I won't
say expecting ... but we would not be surprised ... nobody in the
department would be surprised if before daybreak we were compelled to
give to the country the news of a disaster which would be the worst
blow the National pride has ever suffered. Don't you see? Can't you see
our position, Senator?"
The Senator, with a pale but composed face, contemplated the official
with eyes that gleamed in a way not usual with the big, self-controlled
politician.
"I'll tell you frankly, sir," continued the other. "I'll tell you
frankly, that at this moment we don't know whether we are a-foot or
a-horseback. Everything is in the air. We don't know whether we have
won a glorious victory or simply got ourselves in a deuce of a fix."
The Senator coughed. "I suppose my boy is with the two divisions at the
top of that hill? He's with Reilly."
"Yes; Reilly's brigade is up there."
"And when do you suppose the War Department can tell me if he is all
right. I want to know."
"My dear Senator, frankly, I don't know. Again I beg you to think of
our position. The Army is in a muddle; it's a General thinking that he
must fall back, and yet not sure that he _can_ fall back without losing
the Army. Why, we're worrying about the lives of sixteen thousand men
and the self-respect of the nation, Senator."
"I see," observed the Senator, nodding his head slowly. "And naturally
the welfare of one man's son doesn't--how do they say it--doesn't cut
any ice."
V
And in Cuba it rained. In a few days Reilly's brigade discovered that
by their successful charge they had gained the inestimable privilege of
sitting in a wet trench and slowly but surely starving to death. Men's
tempers crumbled like dry bread. The soldiers who so cheerfully,
quietly and decently had captured positions which the foreign experts
had said were impregnable, now in turn underwent an attack which was
furious as well as insidious. The heat of the sun alternated with rains
which boomed and roared in their falling like mountain cataracts. It
seemed as if men took the fever through sheer lack of other occupation.
During the days of battle none had had time to get even a tropic
headache, but no sooner was that brisk period over than men began to
shiver and shudder by squads and platoons. Rations were scarce enough
to make a little fat strip of bacon seem of the size of a corner lot,
and coffee grains were pearls. There would have been godless quarreling
over fragments if it were not that with these fevers came a great
listlessness, so that men were almost content to die, if death required
no exertion.
It was an occasion which distinctly separated the sheep from the goats.
The goats were few enough, but their qualities glared out like crimson
spots.
One morning Jameson and Ripley, two Captains in the Forty-fourth Foot,
lay under a flimsy shelter of sticks and palm branches. Their dreamy,
dull eyes contemplated the men in the trench which went to left and
right. To them came Caspar Cadogan, moaning. "By Jove," he said, as he
flung himself wearily on the ground, "I can't stand much more of this,
you know. It's killing me." A bristly beard sprouted through the grime
on his face; his eyelids were crimson; an indescribably dirty shirt
fell away from his roughened neck; and at the same time various lines
of evil and greed were deepened on his face, until he practically stood
forth as a revelation, a confession. "I can't stand it. By Jove, I
can't."
Stanford, a Lieutenant under Jameson, came stumbling along toward them.
He was a lad of the class of '98 at West Point. It could be seen that
he was flaming with fever. He rolled a calm eye at them. "Have you any
water, sir?" he said to his Captain. Jameson got upon his feet and
helped Stanford to lay his shaking length under the shelter. "No, boy,"
he answered gloomily. "Not a drop. You got any, Rip?"
"No," answered Ripley, looking with anxiety upon the young officer.
"Not a drop."
"You, Cadogan?"
Here Caspar hesitated oddly for a second, and then in a tone of deep
regret made answer, "No, Captain; not a mouthful."
Jameson moved off weakly. "You lay quietly, Stanford, and I'll see what
I can rustle."
Presently Caspar felt that Ripley was steadily regarding him. He
returned the look with one of half-guilty questioning.
"God forgive you, Cadogan," said Ripley, "but you are a damned beast.
Your canteen is full of water."
Even then the apathy in their veins prevented the scene from becoming
as sharp as the words sounded. Caspar sputtered like a child, and at
length merely said: "No, it isn't." Stanford lifted his head to shoot a
keen, proud glance at Caspar, and then turned away his face.
"You lie," said Ripley. "I can tell the sound of a full canteen as far
as I can hear it."
"Well, if it is, I--I must have forgotten it."
"You lie; no man in this Army just now forgets whether his canteen is
full or empty. Hand it over."
Fever is the physical counterpart of shame, and when a man has the one
he accepts the other with an ease which would revolt his healthy self.
However, Caspar made a desperate struggle to preserve the forms. He
arose and taking the string from his shoulder, passed the canteen to
Ripley. But after all there was a whine in his voice, and the
assumption of dignity was really a farce. "I think I had better go,
Captain. You can have the water if you want it, I'm sure. But--but I
fail to see--I fail to see what reason you have for insulting me."
"Do you?" said Ripley stolidly. "That's all right."
Caspar stood for a terrible moment. He simply did not have the strength
to turn his back on this--this affair. It seemed to him that he must
stand forever and face it. But when he found the audacity to look again
at Ripley he saw the latter was not at all concerned with the
situation. Ripley, too, had the fever. The fever changes all laws of
proportion. Caspar went away.
"Here, youngster; here is your drink."
Stanford made a weak gesture. "I wouldn't touch a drop from his blamed
canteen if it was the last water in the world," he murmured in his
high, boyish voice.
"Don't you be a young jackass," quoth Ripley tenderly.
The boy stole a glance at the canteen. He felt the propriety of arising
and hurling it after Caspar, but--he, too, had the fever.
"Don't you be a young jackass," said Ripley again.