THE OATH OF ENLISTMENT.
It was while stationed at old Fort Sanders that Waller's enthusiastic
devotion to his new captain and his captain's family began. The former
troop commander was ordered to the retired list, broken down by wounds,
and the senior lieutenant stepped into his place. Waller bade farewell
to his old captain with tear-dimmed eyes--they had served together for
over fifteen years--and with much inward misgiving, but not the
faintest outward show thereof, saluted the new arrival, a young officer
but a soldier through and through; it was not a week before the sergeant
had fully satisfied himself as to that. Presently the new captain's
family reached the fort and took up their abode; a fair-haired,
blue-eyed young mother with two children, a boy and a girl, the eldest
being three years younger than Fred; and then began another and strong
interest.
That very winter scarlet fever devastated the fort. Few children escaped
the scourge. There were a dozen little graves in the cemetery out on the
prairie when the long winter came to an end. There were two or three
larger graves, and one of these held all that was mortal of Fred's
loving mother; he and his stern, sad-faced father were now alone in the
world.
And Captain Charlton's little household had not been spared. It was
among the officers' quarters that the pestilence had first appeared.
Frank and Florence Charlton were among the children earliest stricken.
The servants fled the house, as frontier servants will, and their place
was promptly supplied by Mrs. Waller. She and her husband would listen
to no remonstrance, and Mrs. Charlton, overwhelmed with care and dread,
was only too glad to have the strong, cheery army woman's help. Over the
little brown cottage the shadow of death hovered for days before it was
lifted and borne away, and when at last all danger was over and all was
again all hope and peace the sergeant's wife went back to her own humble
roof across the parade, and there suddenly sickened and died. When the
scourge was finally swept from the garrison and the soft winds began to
blow from the South, the stricken old soldier was glad of the chance to
go with his troop into the field-service, and was almost happy in one
thing. Mrs. Charlton had taken his boy as one of her own, and each day
she was teaching him faithfully and well. When the troop rode away from
Sanders Fred was left behind to occupy a little room under the
captain's roof. "Remember, sir, you are sergeant of the guard, and that
house and that household are your special charge for all summer long,"
were Waller's parting words to his boy.
Regularly as the mail reached the troop during its summer scouting
Captain Charlton's home missives had their messages for Sergeant Waller;
and soon, to his unspeakable joy, letters all his own, addressed in a
round boyish hand that grew firmer every week, began to come as his
share of the welcome package. Never would he presume to ask for news,
yet the captain was not slow to notice how old Waller was sure to be
busy close at hand when the home letters came, and prompt to answer,
and with soldierly salute to stand erect before his young commander and
strive not to show the pride and delight that tingled in every vein at
the glowing words in which Mrs. Charlton told of his boy's rapid
progress and his devotion to her and the children. His lip would quiver
uncontrollably and his eyes fill; his hand might tremble as it touched
the brim of his scouting hat, but the salute was precise as ever.
[Illustration: ADDRESSED IN A ROUND BOYISH HAND.]
"I thank the captain, and beg to thank the captain's kind lady," was his
invariable formula on such occasions. "I hope the boy will always do his
duty."
And then he would face about and stride away with his head very high in
the air and his eyes blinking hard, and almost immediately his voice
would be heard sternly berating some trooper whose horse had tangled
himself in his lariat, or whose "kit" was not stowed in proper shape
about the saddle. It was his way of striving to hide the joy those
messages brought him, and the men were quick to see through it all, and
little "Reddy" Mulligan, reprimanded for the third time within a
fort-night, started a laugh all through the bivouac by his whimsical
protest:
"It's more good news you've been getting from Fred, sergeant, dear;
isn't it now? Faith, I wish he'd play ye a thrick wanst in a while, like
other byes. Maybe thin I'd be mintioned to the captain for a
corporalship." And for once the veteran turned his back on the laughing
troop conscious of defeat.
In '74 old Waller changed the yellow stripes and diamond of the first
sergeantcy for the crimson and the star of the ordnance, and the
troopers, one and all, said good-by to him with infinite regret. Perhaps
Dawson, who was next in rank, may be excepted. He confidently expected
to be promoted in Waller's place. But though a dashing soldier and a
smart non-commissioned officer, he was not the stanch, reliable man the
captain needed, and proved it by celebrating Waller's promotion in a
very boisterous and unseemly manner. It was plain that he had been
drinking heavily, and though Captain Charlton saved him from arrest and
court-martial he would not promote him, and plainly, though privately,
told him why. The troop knew it was for this reason, but Dawson swore it
was all on account of Waller's influence against him when Sergeant
Graham was named in regimental orders as the old veteran's successor.
That same summer, with firm hand and glistening eyes, Waller signed his
consent to the enlistment of his son as trumpeter in the old troop. How
he watched the boy's glowing face as the oath of enlistment, so often
lightly spoken, was solemnly repeated, and Fred was bound to the
service of his country. How he trembled from head to foot when, but a
few weeks afterward and in the dead of night, Charlton and his men
hurried forth to intercept a band of Indians who had swooped down upon
the herders south of Laramie Peak. Waller could hardly buckle the
cantle-straps of Fred's saddle as the little fellow, all eagerness, was
bustling about his horse in the dim light of the stable lanterns. Yet
when the captain and Lieutenant Rayburn came trotting briskly down the
roadway and the men were silently "leading into line," it was the old
sergeant's hand that grasped the boy's left foot and swung him lightly
into his seat.
"Whatever happens, sir, mind you keep close to the captain," was his
parting injunction to his boy. Then his heels came together with the old
cavalry "click" and his twitching fingers were stiffened as they went
suddenly up in salute to Mr. Rayburn, who bent down from his saddle to
say that they would try and take good care of Fred. But Waller answered:
"I thank the lieutenant. The boy is a soldier now, sir. He must take his
chances with the rest." Then with one lingering clasp of the trumpeter's
hand, "Join your captain," he ordered, and turned away into the
darkness.
But the sentry on No. 6 bore witness to the fact that the ordnance
sergeant never went to bed again all that night, and the men sent to
unload and store the ammunition that came next day from Rock Island
Arsenal declared that old Waller was gruffer than ever. All the next
night too, he was awake, waiting, watching for tidings from the North.
Nothing came until sunset of the second day, just as the whole command
was turning out for retreat parade, and then Corporal Rock rode in with
dispatches and trotted straight to where the commanding officer was
standing in front of the adjutant's office. All eyes were upon him as he
threw himself from the saddle and handed the packet to the colonel. Half
a dozen officers hastened to join their commander as he tore it open.
The piazzas of the officers' quarters were quickly alive with ladies and
children, breathlessly eager to hear the news. The colonel's orderly was
seen hastening to the surgeon's house--that looked ominous--then Rock
remounted; trotted to Captain Charlton's gate, where Mrs. Charlton was
tremblingly awaiting him. "It's all right, ma'am," he hastened to say.
"Leastwise the captain's safe, but Mulligan is shot--and Ryan and
Sergeant Frazer." She hurried in the house with the precious letter he
placed in her hands, and while several ladies hastened to join her, the
messenger returned to the office.
All this while Sergeant Waller had stood like a statue under the tall
white flag-staff where the non-commissioned staff assembled at retreat,
watching every move with dry, aching eyes, and a face gray as his
mustache.